Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  He circles me, and I move with him. We walk silently through the field, hands reaching to brush the scratchy edges around us.

  He draws closer and circles me again. Watching me, always watching me. It feels like a dance. I look up at the moon. Feel his breath on the back of my neck as he passes close behind.

  I imagine a bird flying over the moon and my heart leaps with a fantasy of delight. I know they are dead, all of them. But the one in my mind’s eye is so real, and its dark shape holds within it the impossible pursuit of freedom. It is wistful and melancholy, and I go with it.

  When finally I come back down, down to the earth and to my body, there is a gaze on my skin. Under the gaze I can feel my body, really feel it, for the first time.

  Slowly I look at Luke.

  “Maybe you’re the kind of creature everyone wants to have,” he says, so softly, “But no one ever can.”

  Chapter 18

  March 3rd, 2066

  Luke

  Dad and I have worked our fingers to the bone, cutting, sawing, sanding, drilling, joining, gluing, painting. I’ve spent all evening negotiating with Rina – she plays the violin but hasn’t been particularly forthcoming about giving up her strings. For the bow, I’ve accumulated a whole bunch of hair from the ladies willing to help out. And it’s nearly done. The only problem is varnishing, which will take at least a month, but I figure I can do that after today and it won’t matter too much.

  Building something over these last few weeks has been a surprising pleasure; building it with my father an incomparable sweetness.

  The sun is rising as we finish and stand back to look at our creation. Morning light strikes it through the window, and dust dances through the beam above it.

  “I’m proud of you,” Dad tells me. “And not just for this.”

  “I’m proud of you too,” I reply, voice rough.

  “What on earth for?”

  “For still being you even though you’ve had pieces stolen. For coming here.”

  He claps me on the shoulder. “I gotta say. It’s really something, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I agree, looking at the beautiful cello we have just built.

  *

  Josephine

  Today is a dreamless nightmare. Today is worse than I imagined a day could be. Today is my twenty-first birthday, but that’s beside the point.

  Yesterday was strange. I was delirious with exhaustion after the night of testing, delirious with heartache and worry for Luke. The moment in the field with him seems like a dream, and to be honest I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t.

  We came up with a plan to talk to Eric, who was close enough to Batch that he might be the only who knows about the affair. I haven’t told Luke about Hal and Eric, because it isn’t my secret to tell, and there’s no reason yet to suspect it has anything to do with the case.

  That’s the plan, anyway. To keep going with the hunt for clues, hoping against all better judgment that we stumble upon a miracle, something that means we have not stepped back in time to the days of the blood moon and its deadly clutches.

  But before I can find Luke and head over to Eric’s house, Quinn calls a public announcement. We all go to the main stretch of road, which leads to the gate beyond the wall. People have been called off work duty and training, which means that something serious is happening.

  I stand with Pace and Will. Hal was on watch duty with Shadow this morning, so he’ll probably still be on the wall.

  Raven stands with Quinn before the gate. They both look grim. Behind them the disturbing sounds of the Furies drift in, unruly and desperate as ever.

  “A dark day, friends,” Quinn says to us. “The murderer among us has been found.”

  A quicksilver rustle goes through us.

  What?

  I look desperately for Luke. But I can’t see him anywhere. My pulse explodes in terror. Where is he where is he where is he –

  “Indisputable proof and a confession seal it. The culprit is to be exiled today. All who wish to witness may climb the wall. We are not a dictatorship, though. You are permitted to leave and not think of this ugliness again. We, your leaders, are here to ensure your protection, your prosperity, and most of all your freedom.”

  There is a general rush to the wall. Everyone wants to know who it is. But I think it’s more than that. I think there’s a sense that, for something of this nature, there must be witnesses.

  I feel queasy, my mind rushing to work out how I can stop it. This can’t happen. It can’t. I’ll die first.

  The gate opens and shuts below us, and a figure stumbles out into the beyond, straight towards the waiting crowd of monsters.

  But it is not Luke.

  It is Hal.

  I feel everything in my body go numb with a different kind of horror, and to my shame, a deep measure of relief.

  Beside me Pace goes rigid and a strangled, almost inhuman sound tears from her mouth. I catch her as she falls and hold her upright. Her legs have utterly given out and her breathing is ragged like a dying person’s.

  “Oh god,” she whispers. “Oh no.”

  Hal is desperately hammering on the gate as the Furies move in. “I didn’t do it!” he screams. “It wasn’t me, I swear!”

  “He didn’t do it!” I shout to Raven and Quinn, but they are stony-faced and they don’t even glance at me. I don’t understand what’s going on. Luke and I haven’t found any indication that Hal had anything to do with the murder.

  There are dozens of the ferocious creatures descending on Hal as he sobs to be let back in. But the gates don’t open, and he is forced to face them.

  “Let him back in!” I scream desperately. My mind knows there will be no letting him in, but my heart can’t stop shouting. “Please, Quinn – he’s innocent!”

  “Hal!” Pace shouts suddenly. “Hal! Hal!” And she keeps shouting his name, over and over again, her throat hoarse.

  Below, Hal is fighting for his life with a horrible urgency, an image I will carry with me to my grave.

  I motion for Will to take hold of Pace as she is catatonic with shock, and then I sprint to the nearest guard and wrench his bow from him. I don’t know how to shoot a bow. I can’t even get to his arrows. But I try anyway, try to at least kill one of the beasts attacking Hal, pointless as it may be.

  The guard shoves me away, reclaiming his bow.

  “Help him,” I implore.

  The man is as full of despair as I am, but he doesn’t fire any arrows.

  We watch as Hal is overcome by Furies who tear at him, devouring him alive. The sick tear and rip of flesh reaches us, along with Hal’s screams that seem to go on for so much longer than they should.

  “Hal! Hal! Hal!” Pace keeps shouting, over and over.

  And then a shot does fire. A single arrow.

  It sinks straight into Hal’s head, killing him instantly and cutting off his horrible shrieks.

  I look to my right and see Luke lowering his bow. His hands tremble. But his expression is cold, brutally cold.

  There is a woozy horror in my head, but also an overwhelming gratitude for what he did. The Furies keep eating Hal’s dead body. It’s so gruesome I don’t know how any of us can witness this and still remain human.

  I stumble back to Pace, who is frozen like a corpse herself. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help her.

  Will is curled into a ball, sobbing violently. I don’t have enough arms to try to hold them both. Luke comes to us, lifting Pace and carrying her down the steps. She curls into him, burying her face in his neck. I try to support Will beneath the arms, and several people reach to help me before Shadow pushes through them and lifts the small boy, carrying him after Luke.

  I stop a moment. Everyone is flooding down the wall to the ground. They have seen enough, witnessed enough. Some cry, most are silent. But I turn, dazed, to see that several yards along the wall stands Eric.

  He is so straight it’s as though there is iron around his spine. I
go to his side and stand with him, and he doesn’t look at me once. He simply gazes at the mess on the ground, something completely empty in his face.

  The monsters keep at it for hours. And we stay for hours, the two of us alone on the wall except for the guards, who have all turned their backs on the horror.

  We’re very good at caring for each other, too.

  Oh, god, the waste of it. He was such a gentle, kind young man.

  I need to be with Pace and Will now. But I can’t leave Eric. And I can’t leave Hal. Some twisted part of me can’t leave him.

  Eric moves at long last, sees me as though only just realizing I’m here. “Dual,” he says.

  “Eric.” My voice aches.

  He walks, dazed, from the wall.

  I stand alone now, and don’t know what to do. The sun sets and through the dead trees it looks golden. Someone moves behind me and I see Raven appear from the steps. She stares expressionlessly down at the macabre execution.

  “How could you do this?” I manage to whisper. “You know he didn’t do it.”

  “I don’t know any such thing.”

  “But even a quick death,” I sigh, tears spilling down my face. I never used to cry. Never. Now I have more tears than I can fit in my body.

  “He was not sentenced to death,” she tells me. “But exile.”

  “Exile?” I exclaim. “Exile into the arms of dozens of waiting Furies?”

  “We gave him a chance at survival,” she says, and that’s when I hear it. The abrupt vulnerability in her voice. She’s upset.

  “There was never a chance,” I tell her. “Don’t lie to yourself.”

  “Do you know who did it?” she asks softly.

  I turn to look at her dark, dark eyes. The red of her hair is glinting in the sunset. I can’t speak, I am so angry.

  “He would have died, no matter what.”

  “Why?”

  “He slept with Pace.”

  It makes me stop. “So?”

  “So it’s forbidden, unless we sanction it. I made sure he took with him the fear that permeates this settlement.”

  I am too dazed to understand it. It is too absurd. I feel as though I am back in the city, abuse of power and invasion of privacy running rampant. There is so much space here. Infinite space. We need more people. We should be growing our numbers, not murdering them. But I can’t speak, can’t argue. I am too shell-shocked, too weary by far.

  “You could have stopped it from happening like this, though,” Raven tells me. “It could have been quick and silent and private. An overdose of something in his sleep. If only you had been honest about who really murdered Batch.”

  Then she leaves me to anxiously worry that she knows the truth.

  What if I did kill him?

  Then we will make sure no one ever knows.

  Yes, I could have changed this. I could have stopped it, if I had spoken out. But I wouldn’t have. And I wouldn’t speak now, given the chance.

  I would stay quiet through the nightmare, over and over again, no matter how many times I had to witness it. Because to speak meant condemning Luke, who I know deep down is the real killer, and I will never be capable of such words. I woner if this makes me as corrupt as Raven. I wonder if it makes me as dishonest.

  Chapter 19

  March 3rd, 2066

  Raven

  I leave Dual and walk around the wall until I am on the opposite side of the compound, staring out at the sea beyond. The Furies have all gone to Hal, so the sand of the beach is empty.

  My skin feels unclean.

  I thought this would feel the opposite. That it would be like tying up loose ends, like a baptism of fire for The Inferno. A way to move forward with a scorched-clear slate. But actually it feels like dirtying my very soul.

  I come here most nights. To watch the ocean.

  It is the only thing, without exception, that gives me peace. The counterweight to the hatred, which is what sustains me.

  I decided many years ago that I would like to drown. One day, when I am ready.

  *

  Luke

  Pace and Will have become mad creatures. She is raging around the house breaking things, while Will is curled on the couch sobbing like a maniac. Shadow is sitting on a chair, watching. Meanwhile I say stupid things designed to comfort that don’t.

  “Where the fuck is Josi?” I hiss, panicked.

  I am not equipped to handle this. I don’t understand grief. I am not good with it. I couldn’t deal with my mother’s grief, or my father’s, so I left them and didn’t go back. I cannot deal with my own, so I put it in a very small, locked box. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to make it stop.

  The pain in the room feels magnificent and throbbing. It feels too big to fit within the walls.

  Will eventually cries himself to sleep but Pace keeps moving. She breaks more stuff, and cries and kicks the couch. She even punches through a window, and I can’t make her stop for long enough to bandage her hand. It seems so strange to me that her feelings should be so … overt. I have only ever known dark things to exist within, in tight little corners, but this is like a pantomime. I think it’s her unselfconscious expression of her grief that is making me so uncomfortable.

  As night falls, Josephine finally comes. She takes one look at the absolute chaos that Shadow and I have been unable to prevent, and she deals with it. She crosses to Pace and grabs her, shoving her against the wall to get her to pause long enough to look into Josi’s eyes. She takes Pace’s face and says, “You will survive this. Soon it will ease, and you’ll come out the other side of it, and you’ll still be alive, and you’ll still be you. You’re strong enough to bear it. You just have to make space in yourself for it.”

  “I can’t,” Pace sobs.

  “You can. You can.”

  “It hurts.”

  “I know.” Josi moves her gently into the bedroom and lays her down, holding her tightly. “Sleep. When you wake it will feel a little better. I promise.”

  In the living room I feel sick to my stomach.

  “I tried to get there in time,” I tell Shadow. It feels pathetic to speak, but I can’t stop myself. He is silent as always, but he’s listening to me. “I didn’t know it was happening. I was in the lab. I ran. I fucking ran, when I heard. But he was already being eaten.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped it.”

  But I could have. I could have, and would have. That boy died for me. And I’ll carry it always.

  *

  We wait. I sit with my hand on Will’s back, rubbing it gently while he sleeps. I can feel his heartbeat and it calms me. Shadow doesn’t say anything, but he leaves briefly and returns with a flask of home-brew whisky, which we make our way through. When Josephine finally emerges, looking ghostly, I pour her a glass and she drinks the whole thing before reaching for a refill.

  “She’s asleep.” She stands behind the couch, looking down at Will. I don’t tell her happy birthday. Of course I don’t. It would be like a nasty joke.

  “You should sleep too, love,” Shadow tells her.

  Josi nods. Looks at him for a long moment. “Did you know this was what it was like here?”

  Shadow nods.

  “It’s not right.” And it’s such a helpless, obvious statement that somehow it manages to fill the room with an aching kind of innocence, a certain awareness – long since forgotten – of what life is meant to be like.

  There are so many meants and shoulds and if onlys that they take up all the air and I can hardly breathe.

  All I know to say is, “We can’t take it back, but we’ll make sure it never happens again.”

  If I have to take control of this entire settlement to do it, I will. I will do it so that no more innocent people are slaughtered like beasts. So that a life that is meant to be lived in freedom is, truly, lived in freedom.

  *

  Josephine

  They leave and I sit in the living room with Will for a long time. Hour
s pass. I feel wrung out to dry. Every inch of me has been squeezed of its hope.

  But now I am filled with something else.

  Certainty.

  I am not a good enough person to just exist. Too much violence lies in my past. I have to earn my life. Earn the beats of my heart, and be worthy of them.

  To do that, I will give my life new purpose.

  I will find a way to change the rules of The Inferno so that Quinn’s power is not absolute and people cannot be wrongly condemned for crimes they didn’t commit.

  I will find a way to stop the sadness cures and save the poor, destitute drones from a fate they had no choice in.

  I will make sure that Luke is rid of the virus I caused him to contract.

  And I will make sure that Raven is punished for what she’s done, even if I have to do it myself.

  Chapter 20

  March 4th, 2066

  Josephine

  As I make these decisions the moon in the sky reaches its apex and a new kind of power comes into my veins. Something entirely other. Something undeniable. I am twenty-one years old and I feel a thousand.

  I rise from the couch and I walk from the house, through the dark, dusty street to another house, and I knock on its door.

  Quinn answers, looking surprised to see me. He rubs his eyes as though he has been peacefully sleeping. How nice for him. “Dual. What brings you here at this hour – ”

  “I have something to say. Where’s Raven? She should hear this too.”

  He blinks, but Raven appears behind him in a long t-shirt, her legs bare. “I’m here.”

  I look at them both in turn. I say, “My name is Josephine Luquet. I was injected with a drug that would later evolve into what we know as the cure. It has made me immune to most other drugs, including the immunization against anger. I was given an antidote, which means I may have in my veins the answer to stopping the sadness cures. I may even have the answer to reversing the anger cure. I tell you this freely, but the study and research of my blood will be entirely dictated by me. Neither of you will have any say in it, because I am a free person. You can disagree with this, but you should know that there’s enough blood on my hands to drown the ocean. And after what I saw today – after the appalling misuse of power you displayed – you’ve woken a creature inside me that I thought was dead, and she’s hungry for the two of you.”