Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  Men ran to and fro. A serving wench lowered the bucket into the well, on her head a coif sewn with gold lace.

  Only Corwin noticed Rose. He stood a whole head taller than she -surely it had only been a half head difference, once? He glanced at her, away, and then back again, puzzlement on his fresh, handsome face. His eyes, she saw, were gray.

  “Do I know you, good dame?”

  “No,” Rose said.

  “Did you come, then, with the visitors?”

  “No, lad.”

  He studied her neat black dress, cropped hair, wrinkled face. Her eyes. “I thought I knew everyone who lived in the castle.”

  She didn’t answer. A slow flush started in his smooth brown cheeks. “Where do you live, mistress?”

  She said, “I live nowhere you have ever been, lad. Nor could go.” His puzzlement only deepened, but she turned and hobbled away. There was no way she could explain.

  There was shouting now, in the high tower, drifted down on the warm summer air. Through the open windows of the Long Gallery, Rose saw the queen rush past, her long velvet skirts swept over her arm. A nearly bald woman in a lace nightdress rushed from the north bedchamber, screaming. Soon they would start to search, to ask questions, to close the drawbridge.

  She hobbled over it, through the place where the Hedge had been, now a bare circle like a second, drier moat. And they were waiting for her just beyond, half concealed in a grove of trees, seven of them. Old women like her, power in their glances, voices like the spinning wind.

  Rose said, “Is this all there is, then, for the life I have lost? This magic?”

  “Yes,” one of them said.

  “It is no little thing,” another said quietly. “You have brought a prince back to life. You have clothed a fiefdom. You have seen, as few do, what and who you are.”

  Rose thought about that. The woman who had spoken, her spine curved like a bow, gazed steadily back.

  The first old woman repeated sharply, “It is no little thing you have gained, sister.”

  Rose said, “I would rather have had my lost life.”

  And to that there was no answer. The women shrugged, and linked arms with Rose, and the eight set out into the world that hardly, as yet, recognized how badly it needed them.

  And perhaps never would.

  1996

  SEX EDUCATION

  WHEN THE PEOPLE CAME, MOLLIE WAS PLAYING IN THE BACK YARD with Emily Gowan. They’d made an excellent fort out of the picnic table turned on its side and backed up to the wooden fence. From behind the table they could throw kooshballs, which were too soft and floppy to hurt, at Brandy. He wagged his tail and peered around in this funny way that sent Mollie and Emily into giggles. Mariah Carey played on Emily’s boombox. Mollie threw another kooshball, orange and yellow. She didn’t realize then that these weren’t actually the first people; that there had been others.

  “Mollie, dear, turn off the music and say hello to some friends of mine,” Mommy said. She balanced on the grass in high heels, which sank into the dirt a half inch. It was weird that Mommy was dressed in her receptionist clothes in the middle of a Saturday morning. Usually she just wore jeans. Mollie came out from her fort.

  “Hi.”

  “Hello, there,” the man said heartily. He wasn’t dressed up like Mommy, but he wore a big ring on his right hand. “I’m Mr. Berringer, and this is Mrs. Berringer.”

  “Call me Susie,” the woman said to Mollie. She had long fluffy blonde hair and lines on her neck. Mollie wasn’t supposed to call adults by their first names, which she thought was a stupid rule. She smiled at Mommy: See?

  “Hi, Susie.”

  “My, you’re a pretty little thing. Look at those eyes, Tom. And those gorgeous curls! Her hair is almost exactly the same color as mine!”

  “Yeah,” Mr. Berringer said. “Mollie, I’d like to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer truthfully, like a good girl. Mrs. Carter, I’d rather talk to Mollie alone, please.”

  Mollie looked at Mommy. Why should she have to answer this man’s questions? But Mommy just nodded and went back into the house, her heels making a line of little holes in the grass. Brandy bounced up with a kooshball in his mouth.

  “This is Brandy,” Mollie said. “And my friend Emily Gowan.”

  The Berringers didn’t say hi to Emily. Susie said, “Tom, don’t let that dog drool on my dress!”

  “Chill, Sue. Your damn dress is fine. Now, Mollie, are you ever sick?”

  “Sick?” Mollie said. “You mean, like with a cold?”

  “With anything.”

  “I had the chicken pox when I was little.” She glanced at Emily. What business was it of his if she was ever sick? Emily looked down at her Reeboks. Brandy thrust the drippy kooshball into Mollie’s hand.

  “Did you miss any school last year because you got sick?” Mr. Berringer asked.

  “No.”

  “The year before that?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a lot of friends?”

  “Yes.” Mollie scanned the house. Mommy stood in the kitchen window, watching.

  “Who are your best friends?”

  “Emily. Jennifer Sawicki. Sarah Romano.”

  “Do you ever get mad at your friends?”

  Mollie glanced sideways at Emily. “Sometimes.”

  “Really, really mad? Enough to hit them?”

  “No.”

  “Do you ever get really, really mad at your parents?”

  “No.”

  “Not ever?”

  “No,” Mollie said. She looked again to make sure Mommy was still in the window.

  “Are you strong? Can you run fast?”

  “I won the Third Grade Field Day race at school.”

  “Did you!” Mr. Berringer said. “Hear that, Suze?”

  “I hear it.” Susie smiled at Mollie, who didn’t smile back.

  Mr. Berringer said, “Do you like school?”

  “Yes,” Mollie said.

  “Who was your teacher last year? Did you like her?”

  “Mrs. Stallman. She was okay.”

  “What’s your favorite subject?”

  “Science.” Mollie threw the kooshball for Brandy. He bounded after it.

  “Tell me one thing you learned last year in science.”

  Mollie wanted to say “Why?” but she wasn’t supposed to be rude to adults. Even when they were. She said, “We learned about the sun. We learned it stays hot because atoms smash together so hard they get joined up, and you get a new kind of atom and a lot of heat and light. It’s called fusion.” Brandy bought her back the kooshball, wetter than ever.

  “Good!” Mr. Berringer said. “Fine! What was the lowest mark on your last report card, Mollie?”

  “I got a B in Social Studies. All the rest were As.”

  The Berringers went on smiling at her. Mollie threw the ball again so she wouldn’t have to look at them.

  “Well, it’s been good meeting you, Mollie,” Mr. Berringer said. “Come on, Sue.”

  “Such incredibly blue eyes,” Susie murmured.

  When they’d gone, Emily said, “Who were those creepy people?”

  “I don’t know. Friends of my mother’s, I guess. Let’s go play Nintendo.” She wanted to go inside and close the door of her room.

  Emily said, “Did you see his diamond ring? They must be really rich.”

  Mollie didn’t answer. Mommy wasn’t in the kitchen; she’d walked the Berringers to their car. On the table lay all Mollie’s report cards, along with a bunch of other papers. The third-grade report lay open on the top of the pile. Her B in social studies was printed clearly in Mrs. Stallman’s purple ink.

  Just after Christmas, when Mollie was halfway through the fourth grade, her mother knocked on Mollie’s bedroom door. Mommy looked serious. Had she found out about the paint that Mollie and Emily had spilled in the garage? They’d cleaned it all up with some stuff from Emily’s basement. Almost all up.

  “Mollie,
there are some people coming this afternoon to talk to you.

  To ask you some questions,” Mommy said. She had a piece of paper in her hand.

  “People? What for?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just answer all their questions politely. And wear your blue dress. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. I got a letter from your school.”

  So it wasn’t the paint. Mollie tried to think what had happened at school before Christmas vacation. She couldn’t remember anything bad. Mommy sat on the bed and patted the bedspread beside her. Mollie sat down.

  “Mollie—” Mommy started, then stopped. She breathed deep and looked around the room, like she didn’t know what to say next. Scared now, Mollie looked around, too. Her bedroom was pretty, with a new canopy bed and a white dresser with a big mirror and her own CD player. The whole house had been redecorated at the end of last summer, the same time Daddy bought the big new car.

  “Mollie, this letter says your class will start sex education next semester. And before you do, I want to explain to you myself how babies get born. It’s my responsibility to explain to you, not the school’s.” Mollie clasped her hands in her lap and studied her fingers. She already knew about sex. Alexandra McCandless, who was in the fifth grade, told her and Emily and Jennifer Sawicki, in Jennifer’s tree house. But not Sarah Romano. Alexandra made them all say “Fuck the holy ghost” before she’d tell them anything, and Sarah wouldn’t say it, so she had to leave. But Mollie wasn’t going to tell any of that to Mommy.

  “When a man and a woman are married,” Mommy said, “they lie in bed very close together and the man puts his penis in the woman’s vagina. Little seeds go from him into her, and sometimes one of his seeds joins up with a little egg that’s already in her body.”

  “Oh,” Mollie said, because Mommy seemed to expect her to say something. “Like fusion.”

  “Like what?”

  “Fusion. You know, in the sun. Two atoms smash together into each other, and they make a new kind of atom and a lot of energy.”

  Mommy smiled. “Well, I don’t know as a sperm and egg ‘smash together’ exactly, but I guess it’s sort of the same.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “In a minute. The egg grows inside the woman until the baby’s ready to be born.”

  Mollie blurted, “Does it hurt?”

  “Does sex hurt?”

  “No,” Mollie said. She already knew that sex hurt, but only the first time. Alexandra McCandless said so. There was blood and crying and burning like you were on fire. After that it felt better than anything in the world and you would do anything to have it every night. “Does the baby getting born hurt?”

  Mommy hesitated, which meant yes. “No, not really. There’s some discomfort, but it’s all worth it when you see your perfect little baby.”

  “Okay. Now can I go?”

  “Mollie, don’t be so impatient! I’m trying to explain something important here!”

  “You explained it already.”

  “Well, there’s more.” Mommy pushed her hair back from her face and looked at her fingernails. “Sometimes a woman’s egg and a man’s sperm can’t seem to join by themselves, for different reasons. So scientists help. They join a sperm from the father to an egg from the mother in a test tube, and when they’re sure the two are really joined, they put the egg back in the mother.”

  “Oh,” Mollie said. Alexandra hadn’t said anything about this. How did they put the egg back in? Did they have to cut the woman open? Suddenly Mollie didn’t want to know. “Is that all? Emily’s waiting for me.”

  “If you’d just sit still and listen for even five minutes—”

  So there was more. Mollie said, “I’m sorry, Mommy. But Emily’s waiting.”

  “Oh, Mollie, why do you make it so hard lately for me to talk to you?”

  “I don’t!”

  “Yes, you do. And this is important. Your daddy and I have been saving money for your college education, you know we want you to be able to go—”

  “Yes, yes,” Mollie said, because she didn’t want to hear yet again about how Mommy and Daddy couldn’t go to college but Mollie must and so it was her responsibility to work hard at school. And make something of her life. And be the best Mollie she could be.

  “It’s so complicated,” Mommy said. “We do the best we can.”

  “I know you do,” Mollie said. If she’d used that tone, Mommy would have called it whining.

  “Mommy looked at her helplessly, and Mollie smiled, kissed her mother, and escaped.

  She’d have to get Jennifer to ask Alexandra McCandless back to the treehouse. But Jennifer didn’t like Alexandra since they had a fight over Luke Perry, so maybe Jennifer wouldn’t do it.

  Maybe Mollie wouldn’t have to know any more just yet.

  In February she turned ten. In March she got a new bike, a ten-speed, and an A on her project on the solar system. In April Alexandra’s period started and she demonstrated to Mollie and Jennifer and Emily how to put in a Tampax; Mollie thought the whole thing was gross. In May, a truck pulled up beside Mollie when she and Emily were walking home from the library, and two people jumped out.

  “There she is! Hey, Mollie, look this way!”

  A camera flashed. A man in a suit shoved a microphone at her while a woman wearing jeans and carrying a camcorder walked backward in front of Mollie and Emily.

  “Mollie, have you heard about the lawsuit the Berringers have filed about your embryonic clone?”

  Mollie stared. What was an embryonic clone? She remembered the Berringers, from last summer. Susie said Mollie’s hair was the same color as hers. Beside her, Emily clutched Mollie’s hand.

  The man said, “Clones were made of your embryo, Mollie. Before you were born. Twelve of them. Five have been sold and implanted so far—”

  “Roger,” the woman with the camcorder said, “maybe we shouldn’t . . . You’re scaring her.”

  “I’m not scared!” Mollie said, although she was. She squeezed Emily’s hand.

  “Good girl,” the man said. “The babies born are just like you, Mollie, they’re made of your genes. Didn’t your parents tell you this? No? Except, the last baby was born with something wrong with it—Kelly, keep filming!”

  “No,” the woman said. “I didn’t expect . . . Mollie, you go on home, honey.”

  “Damn it, Kelly, keep filming! We can edit it to her reaction!”

  “Look at her! Mollie, go on home!”

  Mollie bolted, dragging Emily with her. More people with microphones and cameras waited outside the house. “There she is!”

  Mollie let go of Emily’s hand. “Run, Emily!” Emily rushed to her own house. Then Mollie’s father was there, lifting Mollie in his arms like she was still a little girl. He fought his way through the people, who shouted at him.

  “Mr. Carter, what legal liability do you think you have for—”

  “Is the rumor that something went wrong at Veritech going to affect your defense in—”

  “Is Mollie aware of—”

  Daddy carried Mollie through the front door and slammed it. “Irresponsible assholes! They should all be shot!”

  Mollie wriggled free. “What’s going on? Why are these people here!”

  “Mollie, sweetheart—”

  “Why, Mommy? What’s an embryonic clone? Tell me!”

  Her mother knelt on the floor beside Mollie. “I tried to tell you, Mollie. More than once. Remember, we had the first talk in your bedroom, and you didn’t want—”

  “This isn’t your responsibility, Mollie,” her father broke in. “And not ours, either. We just wanted to give you the best life we could. And the Berringers couldn’t have a baby of their own, so we were helping them to have one just as perfect as you are. And for that good deed they’re blaming us!”

  “You’re upsetting her, Paul.”

  “The situation is upsetting her! Those jackals outside, those assholes—”

  “But what’s an embry
onic clone?” Mollie cried.

  Her mother said, “It’s when a sperm and an egg are joined in a scientist’s laboratory, like I told you. Only instead of putting the embryo in the mommy right away, the scientists make it divide first, to get more just like it. Like . . . like making Xerox copies. Do you understand, Mollie?”

  Mollie nodded. She felt calmer now, listening. This made sense. Mommy stayed kneeling next to her. “Your extra embryos helped other people have babies just as wonderful as you. Only with the Berringers’ baby, something went wrong while it was growing inside Mrs. Berringer. We never realized . . . never dreamed . . .”

  Mollie said, “I see.” Outside, more cars pulled up. “Only—”

  “Only what, honey?” Mommy stood up, pushing her dark hair off her face.

  “Only how will we get out with all those cars in the driveway?”

  “Get out? Get out where?”

  “Out of the garage!” Mollie said.

  Daddy looked puzzled. “Why would we want to get out of the garage?”

  “To go get the baby. The one the Berringers don’t want.”

  Mommy and Daddy stared at her.

  “The baby that’s me,” Mollie said.

  They went on staring at her.

  “Oh,” Mollie said. “Oh . . .”

  “Mollie. Honey . . .”

  Mollie ran to her room and locked the door.

  “You come back here!” Daddy called.

  Her curtains were closed, but she could hear the reporters out on the sidewalk, talking and shouting questions. Mommy knocked but didn’t try to force the door open.

  Later, when Brandy scratched at her door, Mollie let him in. She sat on the bed hugging him hard, her ear pressed against his soft red fur.

  Mommy and Daddy kept trying to talk to her about it. They kept explaining how they weren’t responsible. Mollie had to listen, but she didn’t have to say anything back, and she didn’t.

  After a few weeks, Mommy said they were taking Mollie to a therapist.

  The reporters had gone away from the house. Mollie didn’t go to school. She played with Brandy, and with Emily and Jennifer after school. Mollie could see they didn’t want to talk about all this weird stuff, so she didn’t. They just played Nintendo and Barbies and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on Emily’s father’s computer.