The Boy I Am

by K. L. Kettle

  “Let’s see how tonight pans out, shall we?” She winks.

  I catch my breath, feel my heart fall through every single storey of the Tower.

  She knows.

  I should have guessed the moment she mentioned Walker. “I presume he sent you to try to kill me, like the other one?” she says, so soft.

  “O-other one?” I say, before my mouth gets under control. I swallow the warm air, bite my cheeks hard.

  “You know anyone would think Wally didn’t love me any more. It’s things like that that can offend a lady.” She gives a half-suppressed laugh. “He’s getting unoriginal in his old age. What was the name?” She clicks her fingers in the air as if trying to spark a thought. “Viktor … something.”

  My eyes widen. There’s a pressure building behind my ears like in the elevator, and I want to clap my hands over them and curl up and scream.

  “I mean, he was fun. I promised not to break him,” she says. “At least not straight away.”

  The shaking in my knees has reached my throat.

  “No, I wanted to see him run a bit first. Always fun when they run.”

  That’s how you got your shoes? The Chancellor gave them to you so you could run. This is it. This is the moment that fight in me comes out. Let it out, Walker said, and I can feel it bubbling.

  “I take bets with Madam Vor on how far they’ll get.”

  Madam Vor, Romali Vor’s mother, is the most brutal, most faithful member of the Chancellor’s Council. Always at her elbow. Unleashing the Lice.

  She moves right in front of me. I can smell the vinegar fumes on her breath. “Do you know how many men vie for my favour, all looking to replace Wally? Too many. But it’s no fun when they’re willing. A girl wants something to tame.”

  The Chancellor rubs my shoulders in circles as she leans in close. I’m waiting for her hands to wander, like the officer’s did. Instead, she whispers, “You realize you haven’t denied it yet, sugar?”

  Focus.

  One little push, that’s what Walker said.

  I could still do it.

  “I … I need air,” I say.

  Finally she’s stopped smiling. Her face is so different when she drops her mask. Her bared teeth are longer than I expected. Her mouth reminds me of those ancient creatures the House Fathers showed us pictures of in history classes. Tight-lipped, too many teeth – sharks.

  When she pulls me close, wraps her arms round me, I think maybe she’ll take a bite out of me.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. I won’t let you go,” she whispers softly, as if she cares.

  I can feel her heartbeat steady as she pulls her armoured fingers through my hair.

  “So now we’ve agreed that trying to kill me is a really silly idea and you’re a good boy, I can tell. This way, let’s talk about what you’re going to do instead.”

  “Now,” whispers the Chancellor from behind me. She pulls her soft palms from my eyes. Her elevator doors are open and the world is too bright. I didn’t think the elevators could go any higher.

  With her hand pressed between my shoulder blades, pushing me to step beyond the metallic edges into the world. Just one push.

  “Enjoy it.” Her soft voice makes it sound like a suggestion, but it’s an order.

  And good boys don’t say no.

  I’m used to concrete walls, bottled perfumes, light that the House Fathers say is better than Outside and will keep us from going mad.

  Kicking off my slippers, I roll my toes through the prickling, uneven green carpet. Except it’s not carpet, not like I’ve known before. It’s alive.

  The air tastes rich. Drinking down breath after hot breath, my head spins and I have to steady myself but there’s nothing within reach except me. So I fold my arms across my chest and squeeze to stop my lungs from filling up too much, my body from floating away.

  “Now this is beauty!” the Chancellor hums. “Right?”

  Under vast swirling bulbs that plink and sparkle like they’re dancing, she leads me, light-headed, into a garden beneath a huge glass dome. The artificial glare almost blinds me from chinks of darkness beyond. The sky? Real and endless and black.

  The ladies call their dark-hours the ‘night’. In the kitchens, the dorms, our appointments, the dark-hours are when the House Fathers flip a switch. I wonder who turns off the sky. Maybe no one.

  My whole life I’ve felt small – didn’t imagine I could ever feel smaller.

  For the first time, there’s hardly anything between me and all that Outside. All that endless black and space. Thinking about it too long makes my heart hurt.

  “If you’re really good, I’ll show you the balcony.” She winks.

  One little push, you say.

  “You can see right down to the clouds from there.”

  Hundreds of birds cackle. I recognize ‘birdsong’ because the house pipes it into the dorms, except this sound makes my head hum. Another me, long ago, would have danced to the sound. Birds, like in pictures, swoop and twitter. Insects crawl through the strange green carpet, over my toes. If I could just touch everything, smell everything, spin and fall and fly, but it’d split me apart, make dust of me. So I keep my arms wrapped round my chest to stop myself from spilling out.

  “It’s called grass.” The Chancellor laughs, like I’m a fool, as if I had never been taught about the green things in the world. “And that there’s called a tree, sugar. These are the last of their kind.”

  She goes on about how she does love special things, rare things. The rarer the better, she can look after them the best. “On a good day, if you squint, you can see the tops of the skeletal towers outside. All that’s left of the Saints, the people of the old city. Eaten by the sand and the fog, of course.” She glides past and I follow, open-mouthed, as we pass large glass doors that must open on to the world. Not that we linger.

  One little push.

  My fingers itch under my elbows as she pushes through arches of dripping greenery, going on about all the things she’s protected us from. Everything she’s done for High House and how hard she works, so hard, the hardest, you’d think she’d be recognized for that. Saints, if it wasn’t for her, the rabid Hysterics would loot the Tower piece by piece, stealing every last mouthful; kidnap and corrupt and rape our precious men, my brothers, and then feed what’s left to their animals. They’d replace us, she insists; we’re the last hope for civility.

  I’d bet even the men in the mines have heard the stories about how our way of life, our safety, our decency are under attack from the Hysterics. It’s almost all the women in my appointments talk about. Then there’s the stories we tell, designed to scare, about mad, banished women in the fog pulling pieces from the outside of the Tower, gnawing through cables, stealing power… But the boys out of maintenance say that our building is too old, that the Chancellor diverted half their budget to the House of Peace to ‘maintain law and order’. That any day now everything will just stop working.

  I’m never sure of the truth of it. Never sure of the truth of anything. Because there’s certainly less and less food, but then there are tales from boys back in the dorm, the ones that come from the Agro – the tunnels the House of Agriculture manage, way below the kitchens. They tell stories all the time about how the Hysterics are to blame, but no one’s ever really seen an attack. They have seen crops rot with blight and animals die from disease or hunger because there were too many of them to feed…

  Am I imagining it? Can I hear barking?

  You want to die today? It’s kill or be killed, that was what you said. It was the light-hours and the cooks sent us to the dogs, you and me. I thought we’d die that day.

  Coward.

  Our mouths to feed or theirs, that was what the cooks said.

  I swear I can hear barking.

  “It’s my job to protect life. To protect our Tower,” the Chancellor purrs “I do what has to be done.”

  She doesn’t mean protecting boys. She means protecting women who can
vote, who can merit her for saving them from the terrors beyond our walls, who don’t need to worry about where they’ll sleep, about what they look like, about the failures of their namesakes like weights on their ankles, or whether they’ll be disappeared if they misbehave.

  I try and listen, because somewhere in her speech might be a clue to what she wants from me, but still she goes on about how much she cares, that no one cares more. No one has sacrificed so much.

  There’s another voice inside my head. Not your voice, not Walker’s. It says what if all she wants is someone to look after, someone to see the garden, someone to protect?

  Other Chancellors, she tells me, had statues made of them. Glorious celebrations, there was so much love, but what have the people ever done for her? They should be grateful. They’re ashamed of where she came from and I must understand that. “Do you know how much it hurts, Jude? To be so misunderstood?”

  Did she grow up down in the tunnels like we did? There were history lessons the cooks gave us, all about Madam Hyde, the Chancellor’s mother, who ran the Surrogacy beneath the Tower. Madam Hyde was the House Chief who brought in the Mind Absolution Act, pinheading the women sent to her Surrogacy out of ‘kindness’ they claimed. Our mothers.

  “I want someone who understands me, who trusts me without question. Loyalty. That’s all I’ve ever asked for.” She shark-smiles again, showing all her teeth, and cups my cheek in her hand. Her skin is so soft, so cold, it feels slippery.

  She wants me to show loyalty? Did she ask the same of you? Did you refuse before you ran?

  For a moment, I can see myself as the Chancellor’s ward. In charge of the House of Boys. Could I make things better? There wouldn’t be any more boys dreaming of running. No boys would be disappeared. And we’d never be hungry or desperate or lonely again. If she buys me at auction, if I’m a good boy… If I do everything she wants.

  “This way.” She turns.

  The trickle of water is falling somewhere beyond the towering trees, rustling grass, the crowding flowers and drapes of living green we push through. Things I’ve only ever seen in picture books, real and here and only a touch away. As we pass through another cluster of leaves into a clearing, she points to the tree with the largest trunk.

  “Here we are.”

  The clearing is small and it’s beautiful, except for the bruised and beaten woman kneeling at the roots of the tree. A woman with blood-red hair.

  She’s not Romali Vor – her hair is shorter, laced with grey. Her multicoloured dress is torn.

  My knees collapse on the strange, soft green ground, smack into sweet soil. I’ve seen boys beaten but not as badly as this. Did the Chancellor do it? Did she have someone do it for her?

  She pulls me up, introduces me as if I’ve come for dinner. “This is Lorri; Lorri, be nice to my guest.” She seems excited.

  The woman’s face is a mask of bruises; one swollen eye looks at me as if pleading for help. I can’t help. I don’t know how.

  I pull back but the Chancellor draws me closer, laughing to herself as a large white shape guarding the woman bounds towards her, its pink tongue lolling, its barking eager, hungry to be at her side.

  I wasn’t imagining it! I thought all the dogs were dead. Killed during the first food shortages when we were kids, when the crops got sick and there were too many mouths to feed.

  I want to run but I’m frozen; memories of snarls and scratching paws glue me to the spot. I’m eleven again. And it’s you and me, and nowhere to run to, and I know I’m going to die.

  Is this why you didn’t kill the Chancellor? Did you see the dog? Did the memories get the better of you too?

  “Lorri has been sororitizing with my enemies – making friends with ladies, even men, that she shouldn’t have. Isn’t that right?” the Chancellor says as she rubs the ears of the creature that’s eyeing me up like food.

  The Chancellor said she likes rare things. Special things. The dog licks at her face and she laughs as the beaten woman tries to talk.

  “No, no, Lorri. I told you, I’ve heard all the excuses I need to.” The Chancellor’s voice is still soft, gentle. “I asked you nicely to help.”

  Help with what?

  The dog barks at the woman who scrambles towards the tree, gripping it as if it will help her. Why has the Chancellor brought me here? “One vote my way was all I asked.”

  “Madam, Madam Chancellor…” I say hurriedly. “You have to get a doctor.”

  “I don’t have to do anything of the sort,” the Chancellor says.

  The balcony. Walker said I had to get her to the balcony, but I can’t. I’m not brave enough. The balcony beyond the garden dome is behind me. How could I even get her there?

  “And you have to do what I want, sugar. That’s how this works,” adds the Chancellor. “It’s what I paid for.”

  One merit. She paid one merit just to show me she’s capable of hurting women too? There’s a brick in my stomach weighing me down and if I lose control I might sink through the floor, and all the floors below that, until I’m swallowed up by the earth.

  “It’s clear you’re not going to kill me and we don’t want to let all that training go to waste like the last time. I’ve been thinking I was a little – what’s the word?” She bites her lip. “Rash? With the other one?” My fists clench whenever she mentions you. “I mean, yes, he was an assassin, but with a little discipline, and a little work, skills like that could really be worth something.”

  She laughs. “Right, Dee-dee?” Her dog growls protectively, while the Chancellor lifts the hem of her dress and removes something metal that was strapped to her ankle. It’s a gun, silvery and beautiful. They’re rare too. Only the Lice have them. Walker tried but couldn’t get hold of one. I can’t take my eyes off it.

  “I thought Lorri here was a friend. But she’s been voting against me for years while pretending to be my ally. Working with the Hysterics!”

  The woman tries to protest but can’t get the words out. She’s missing a few teeth, her lips swollen.

  No one would do what the Chancellor was accusing her of, would they? It’s just another lie, right?

  “She’s meant to protect life but she’s been feeding our precious children to madwomen, helping them kidnap boys. Men too, from the mines. I don’t know about you, Jude, but I think a few bruises aren’t enough.”

  If the woman was afraid before, there’s terror in her eyes now.

  The Chancellor continues. “There’s this law in our constitution about the women in High House; it says because we can make life we don’t deserve death, blah-blah. Based on that, some people would say Lorri here is above the law. I mean, please!”

  The Chancellor glides towards me, gun in hand.

  Just one push, Walker said. Maybe he wasn’t talking about the balcony, but what I needed, to take her life. Except he was wrong. I’m not strong enough, never was.

  “When women do terrible things, we simply take their minds and use them to surrogate our boys.”

  What are you waiting for?

  “The lot of you, all birthed by lobotomized murderers and thieves and traitors.” She turns and winks as the struggling woman begs for her life.

  “I prefer the word the kids use: ‘pinhead’. More poetic. But you see –” the birds in the rafters scramble as she clicks open the barrel of the gun – “we’d still have to have a trial and that’d be pretty embarrassing. Not to mention deadly boring. Death is a mercy. I presume Wally showed you how to use one of these?” she asks, holding out the gun. Somehow I have the mind to shake my head. “Oh, it’s easy.” She closes it up, shows me the trigger and puts it in my hand. So heavy.

  Do it, you say but I can’t.

  The Chancellor lifts my shaking arm until the beaten woman is within aim.

  Kill or be killed!

  “So I’m going to give you a choice, because I think that’s fair. You can shoot Lorri for me, or I’ll let you run.”

  Always fun when they run, she said. Yo
u ran.

  And now the woman is begging me too. Pulling herself up, dizzy, falling. I think her leg is broken. Her coloured dress is dark with blood.

  “What about … Walker?” I manage to say, stalling.

  Coward, you say.

  “Oh, I’ll have Vor arrest him soon enough. His games have been a distraction. Can’t blame a lady for getting bored, though, can you? I’ll probably have Romali arrested too, for good measure,” she says. “Lorri, you should have seen her performance this evening. What a riot. She actually—”

  But before the Chancellor finishes the woman has launched herself at her, coughing up swear words, protests and shouts.

  “Saints, you’re disgusting, Loz,” the Chancellor complains as she pushes the woman away with ease. She lands near my feet.

  Do it, you say.

  My arm isn’t shaking any more. I’m pointing the gun at the Chancellor.

  “Really?” she laughs. “You know Walker lied to you.”

  The woman is trying to say something, reaching up, grasping my trousers with broken, bloody hands, trying to pull me away. “You don’t have to do this,” I think she croaks. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Your friend’s alive,” the Chancellor says.

  Her words punch my knotted gut but I manage not to drop the gun. “What?”

  “Viktor, right? He was your friend?”

  How does she know?

  Every word, no matter how softly she speaks, cuts through me like a buzz saw. Did you talk about me? My hand shaking, I step back. Could I run? Should I run?

  Go on, you say. Kill or be killed. “You’re lying!” The words burst out of me, that pressure in my head breaking out.

  “He won’t live if I’m dead, of course,” the Chancellor grins. “Shoot or run, go on.”

  But there’s another choice.

  Good boys say yes. Good boys also don’t plot to murder people.

  I drop the gun.

  “No,” I say.

  My name is Jude Grant. And I am a dead man.

  The steam and stink of the underground kitchens. The hiss and clank of pipes. My bare feet kicking at the rotten food we hoarded to feed pet mice. Scrubbing and starving. That was life before the House of Boys.