I breathe in, breathe out. The entire floor is drenched in womb water, the scar is ruptured, and the only heartbeat I feel is my own. I find myself wishing it would stop too.
I pull the remaining cold dead tendrils out of my nostrils, my mouth, and pluck them from the corners of my eyes. I take one last look at the dead baby beast, too stunned to cry.
I think this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but then Wheytt points to a rivulet of blood dripping from the wall.
Walls weeping blood. My fathers had tried to shield me from it on our last beast, talking loudly and excitedly to distract me from looking around too much on our way to the stasis pods, but I do remember it clearly.
Extinction has already begun.
Adalla
Of Secret Sisterhood and Public Apologies
I see another distended fruit, but I ignore it, carefully setting it in my bag so it doesn’t split open. Parton’s ghost, however, has become more curious, and she works beside me for part of my shift. Something in my mind is broken, that’s all. I know better than to try to talk to her—Laisze’s already too worried about me—but I acknowledge Parton with a nod of the head and a promise in my heart that her death will be avenged.
Parton smiles, then dissipates as Laisze and Kaieda walk right through her, Malika dragging behind them.
“Kaieda and Malika have agreed to come drinking with us tonight,” Laisze says.
I startle, about to tell her that we’ve got other plans, but then I remember drinking is our code word for meeting. But still. We hadn’t agreed upon letting others into our fold just yet.
In the fields, we can’t stand close enough to touch or to whisper, so we’re left to our voices. We all pick fruit within earshot of one another and certainly within earshot of the lash counters.
“Wonderful,” I say, our affirmative that means the opposite. It’s not wonderful at all, but with Kaieda and Malika standing so close, I have to use our coded language. “But I thought it’d be just you and me drinking tonight.”
Laisze raises a brow. “You said it was okay to invite them. Last night, you were quite enthused.”
Last night. I remember the enthusiasm, for sure. Her thumb had slid across the peak of my pelvis bone—our sign for invite—and hit me just right, I guess, because a chill ran through me and my humble bits seized up, and my mind wandered as her hands wandered, and I’d lost track of the whole conversation. It seems our ingenious communication scheme has a big flaw.
“Of course,” I say, saving face. “I am excited to have them.” And I am. Mostly. Glad this rabid idea of mine is taking root in others. But then I imagine Laisze giving them directions to our first meet-up, her tongue swirling in each of their mouths, and waves of jealousy and nausea hit me at the same time. My knees buckle and I stumble backward and land upon a cluster of fruit. Pulpy juice and spiked leaves press into my bare back. I blink a couple times, looking up. Both Laisze and Parton are staring down at me, worry on each of their faces. They both reach down to help me up, but luckily, I choose the hand that won’t dematerialize on me.
I look around, and Kaieda and Malika have both moved on, picking fruit farther down their lanes. A lash counter is on her way, brow creased, dark goggles aimed right at me. She sees all the fruit I’ve ruined. She cusses me and types a note into her ledger. My payment will be short this afternoon. I bite my lip, apologize profusely, and try not to stare at Parton, looking right over her shoulder.
Five of us meet in our secret meeting spot. Well, four of us who count ourselves among the living. We don’t have long. Curfew is in an hour, and we need to stagger our traveling so we don’t draw suspicion. All eyes are on Laisze, waiting for her to command us, but she smiles and pushes me front and center.
“This is your cause, ’Dalla,” she whispers into my ear. “You need to own it.”
I gulp. Who am I to lead anything? But I must try to channel something within me: Seske’s freethinking. My bapa’s tenderness. Sonovan’s know-it-all-ness. Even my ama’s stubbornness. I pull on all those parts of me, which will always be parts of me no matter how hard I try to forget about them.
“This system, the one we’ve held on to for so long, it’s killing us,” I say defiantly, readying myself to present my case. “All the bad choices we’ve made, all the apathy we’ve cultivated, is coming back to haunt us.” I crack open a distended fruit, showing the others the contents. Two finger bones, fused into a curl. “These are the artifacts of our sins. These are the artifacts that we can see. Who knows what else is there, damaging our hearts, our minds.” I sneak a glance at Parton. She nods back at me, listening as intently as the others.
“It’s true,” Kaieda says. “I heard the river has gone rancid. Nearly all the bathers on block sixty got sick.”
“Word from the doldrums is that the air’s gone bad on block thirty-three and it had to be evacuated,” says Malika.
“We’ve been upon this beast not even a year, but already the signs of extinction are upon us,” I say, thinking about how bad of shape the heart had been in when I’d left. Thinking of the quakes we’ve had. We were all so busy, working our way through expansion, that no one stopped to compare notes.
“We need to demand answers!” Malika says. “We need to go straight to the top!”
“Matris! We need to hear it from her mouth . . . an account of all that’s wrong and what we can do to fix it,” Laisze says, clasping my hand in hers. “’Dalla, here, will take us there.”
“Wait, what?” I say. I thought we’d just complain to the lash counters, get them on our side, maybe have them look into things.
“You’ve got connections us boneworkers don’t have. It’s time to use them.” At first I think she knows about Seske, but then Laisze pounds her chest, right over her heart. Our little secret, but maybe it’s time it comes out.
“Aye,” I say. “Maybe they won’t listen to boneworkers, but maybe they’ll listen to heartworkers.”
“Who on Daidi’s hairy bells do we know with that kind of clout?” asks Malika.
I clear my throat. “Me,” I say. “At least I used to have it.”
There’s a collective gasp. “You?” They look me over, faces caught in between being disgusted and impressed.
“Yes. And Laisze is right. I can get us through if we don’t look like this. If we wear shirts, fix our hair. Look presentable.” The tension in the room doubles. I’ve said the wrong thing.
Boneworkers are proud, if nothing else. I’d just degraded them, even though I hadn’t meant it that way. Or maybe I had, and it’s my old ways of thinking shining through. “Shits,” I say. “I’m sorry. It’s not your way that’s the problem. It’s theirs. They see your bare breasts, your bone-studded hair, and don’t bother to look past it. We shouldn’t have to bend our ways to be seen as equals. It is we who must make them bend and see that we are one united front.”
They nod, and I know we have their support. But we’re still missing something. We need a symbol. A name.
I am far from anything resembling an artist, but I scrape Parton’s face into the bone column of our meeting place and, under it, write Sisters of Lost Lines. Provocative, with the word Sisters in there, the mere mention enough to cause questions to our way of life. And Lost Lines for all of those forgotten through history, whom I intend to give a voice.
By the time we’ve drafted our demands, there’s standing room only in our little hideout. We’ve recruited people from the gills and their branchial hearts, from both the front and back bladders, from gall harvesting and musculature. Our web of trust is fragile, but from the testimonies we’ve vetted over the past few days, people have been feeling this way for a long time. We all want this change and realize what we are risking to get it. If we are successful, we will have a chance at healing our entire civilization. But just like a badly set bone, things will need to be broken before they can begin to heal properly.
“Point one,” I read from our list: “The Matriarchy will recogn
ize its complicities in the willful destruction of life.”
Everyone nods. They have all witnessed it, either directly or indirectly.
“Point two: All Lost Lives will be documented in the Texts and bestowed proper given names and matrilines to the best of the matriarch’s knowledge.
“Point three: Any and all remains discovered will be taken to the spirit wall for proper burial.”
We have a case full of pieces and parts already—bones, teeth, fingernails, hair—all carefully plucked from harvested fruits. Plus we’ve got two allies in processing now who catch what we don’t.
“Point four: On the division of labor and the redistribution of wealth . . .”
Eyes perk up. The depressing, but necessary, parts out of the way, we get to the real reason so many people are here supporting the cause. Still, confronting the blatantly unfair class system had taken many discussions. We all agreed it needed to be done away with, but the suggestions on how to best carry that out were as varied as our members. Some wanted baby steps, thinking the Matriarchy would be more open to small changes. Others wanted to bring the whole system down to its knees, scrapping everything and starting from scratch. Me, I wanted the Matriarchy to feel like it was being brought to its knees with a series of manageable and strategically placed steps.
“All citizens, regardless of status, will be assigned to beastwork upon future excavations. Training and lots will be drawn prior to exodus. Citizens who have not as yet participated in said labor shall be taxed upon their assets and inheritances, eighteen thousand chits per beast cycle, accounting for the past seven beast cycles. Half the total received monies will be divided upon citizens who have labored, based on the number of beast cycles they’ve worked. Half the total received monies will be allotted to development of infrastructure in beastworker territory, to bring it up to the same standards as Contour class accommodations, and services for those unable to perform beastwork.”
There are hushed cheers at this.
“We are asking for what we are owed and not a chit more. This beast belongs to all of us, and we should all have a hand in its growth. No longer will fields be flooded with the blood of the downtrodden.”
Laisze wheels a bone sculpture into the center of the room, elbowing her way forward. It is Parton’s image, sure is sure is sure, carrying two tablets in her arms, our demands chiseled into each. “Sisters of Lost Lines, may I present our matron.”
I’ve never been so proud of anything, not even my feats as a heartworker. Tonight, right before curfew, we’ll deliver the statue to a public area and wait for the Matriarchy to make its move. An apology will come. If not, we’ve got friends all over who will start making things miserable until our words are taken seriously.
Seske
Of Lively Puppetry and Deadly Lace
A great cross section of people stands in line, waiting for me to hear their concerns. Farmers with tainted crops. Store owners with flooded shops. Beastworkers with tallies of tumors and fissures and open wounds growing upon our beast.
“Send three more auditors to assess flood damages,” I shout at my tactician. “Raise the dams a foot higher in block forty-two!” I shriek at an accountancy chief. “And place all beast surgeons on triage duty until further notice! Extinction is not happening. It can’t happen.” Papers fall from my desk. Books too. I pat down piles, looking for a pen to sign my latest proclamations.
Wheytt steps up next to me and, without a word, plucks a pen from my hair and lays it into my hand. I take a moment, my eyes meeting his, then I sigh, exasperated. “Please have all available accountancy guards perform resource audits for each block,” I say to my tactician. “All quota breakers should be reprimanded and sent to—”
“And what about the demands we received?” Chief Abacca says, elbowing her way through my attendants and aides. She’s been like a fly in my ear, but I haven’t a swatter big enough to slap her away. Khasina all but shoved her mother onto my staff, and Matris agreed it was a sensible move.
Sensible for whom is the question.
“It’s been days already,” Chief Abacca continues, “and it’s imperative that our decision be swift and just. The Sisters of Lost Lines! How despicable!”
“Yes, yes . . .” I say, turning my attention toward the chief, but then my seamstress barges in, demands another gown fitting. With the wedding moved up, everything is happening so fast. There’s no time for me to breathe.
I excuse myself from the agitated crowd and step back into the privacy of the throne room. I step behind a partition, but even as I’m being twisted and pinned, I continue to brainstorm ways to avert the impending crisis as layer upon layer of silks are hefted upon me. Water rations. Food rations. Curfews. Favors to the ancestors, it won’t have to come to that, but it might.
“I’m going to have to take this in. Again,” the seamstress says, annoyed. Then to Wheytt she says, “Please make sure she eats. She’s already lost too much weight.”
“The sculptor is here,” my tactician announces.
Frustration crawls up my throat and lashes out before I can stop it. “I’ve seen the sculpture already! You showed it to me this morning!”
“Matriling Kaleigh, that filthy thing was created by beastworkers!” my tactician says. “The Sisters of Lost Lines, are you not even trying? How could you even think it was your wedding sculpture?”
“How am I possibly supposed to keep up with all of this?” I scream.
“We can call in Khasina if you’re in need of assistance,” Chief Abacca offers. She’d like that, wouldn’t she?
“No!” I say, feeling my heart strain, muscles tense. Sweat runs down my brow. It’s too much. Many of Matris’s duties have gone untended during her illness, and people are starting to get suspicious. So she’d pawned a lot of it onto me, under the guise of a proving ground for my fitness as future matriarch. Or perhaps she’s trying to prove the opposite, trying to prove how awful I’ll be so Sisterkin can swoop in again and take what’s rightfully mine. I’m trying to keep it all together, but if I keep going at this rate, my health will suffer.
“Out! Everyone out!” Wheytt says with the same fierceness he had the last time I’d had a panic attack. My audience stops and stares at him.
“You heard him,” I cry. “Leave, please. I need a moment.” They file out of the throne room, leaving me standing there in my wedding gown. My right sleeve keeps sliding down.
“Sorry. You just look like you’d had enough,” Wheytt tells me. I’ve kept him by my side since the incident with the baby beast. We don’t talk about it. I don’t even have words to describe what had happened, so I couldn’t if I wanted to. But having him close feels right.
“Thank you,” I say, slowly gathering papers from the floor and placing them into neat stacks.
“Would you like me to leave too? I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
“No. Stay. Help me with this. Where do I even start? I can do this. I know I can, but I can’t have people yelling at me from all directions.”
“Here. This pile. Start at the top and sort everything into three stacks: urgent, important, urgent and important. The rest you can probably just ignore and wait for Matris to tend to once she’s back on her feet.”
“You’re too logical sometimes, Patriline Housley,” I say.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, Matriling Kaleigh,” he teases back. “Your dress is stunning, by the way. But the seamstress is right. You need to eat more.”
“I love how everyone loves to tell me what I should be doing. ‘Seske, you’re too thin.’ ‘Seske, I can see your ribs.’”
“I didn’t mean it like that. You just need fuel for your body, is all I’m saying. You’re running on fumes.”
“Fine, you want me to eat. I’ll eat.” I take a big bowl of steak cutlets drenched in red sauce, then lower it. “Let me guess. Now you’re going to tell me I shouldn’t be eating in my wedding dress. That I’m going to stain it and the wedding will have to be postpon
ed, and then I’ll have to deal with Doka’s disappointment and my mothers’ . . . Uh, sorry, I forgot. He’s your friend.”
“Yes, but you’re my friend too. At least I think of you that way. If you don’t want to get married to him, don’t.”
“Are you kidding? Do you know how much money Matris has already spent on this wedding? How much of our future she has tied up in it? There’s no getting out of it. I’ll just put up with Doka for the rest of my life. He’s not awful.” I look over the top sheet on my pile. “Flood in block seventeen. Sounds urgent. I’ll have the auditors get on that right away.” I set the sheet onto the urgent pile. “Two farmers reporting crops wilting in their fields. Seems important, but it can wait a few days.” I file that in the important pile. “I think this is working! Next, several demands have been made against the Matriarchy, a new group called the Sisters of Lost Lines. This must be what Chief Abacca was screaming about. Said I need to ‘take action.’”
“What kind of action?”
“I don’t know. What’s the going punishment for putting up awful statues in the middle of the market square? We hire artists to construct the very same thing. Maybe they just saved us some chit.” I smile. “Doesn’t seem too important or urgent, is all I’m saying. I’ll leave it to Matris.”
“You’re sure? What are their demands?”
I flip the page over, then back. “Doesn’t say. See, if it was important, they would have been more specific.” I let the paper fall in a newly created fourth stack. Unimportant. Not urgent. It grows faster than all the others. I can tell Wheytt wants to say something to me about it, but my panic has subsided and I’m actually getting stuff done. After a long while, I’ve got three manageable, actionable piles in front of me. “See, I knew I could do it. All I needed was a little help. And now that I’ve done some grueling, agonizing work in my gown, I’ll be used to it when the wedding rolls around.”
Escaping Exodus Page 18
