Promised

by O'Brien, Caragh M.

  “Watch your step there,” Rita said, as they descended into a second room that was even more tightly packed.

  Little wisps of colored paper poked out between the books like flags, and Gaia inadvertently brushed her cheek against one.

  “Have you been friends with Leon a long time?” Gaia asked.

  “We were in the same class as kids,” Rita said. “He and Jack Bartlett and I ran together. Didn’t he ever say anything about me?”

  “He mentioned Jack.”

  Rita laughed. “Perfect. He is so clueless. I only had a crush on him for four years in a row.” She glanced back, her eyes bright. “Don’t worry. I’m over it. Sort of. Here we are.” They reached the end where an old, narrow door was fitted with clamps for a heavy beam. The beam was leaning against the wall. “Normally, we don’t want any surprise intruders, but I’ve been leaving it open in case Leon comes back. Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  Gaia replayed their progress through the house, remembering the turns, and pointed to her left. “I go that way toward the Bastion.”

  “Correct,” Rita said.

  “Thank you,” Gaia said. “I mean it.”

  “I’ll feel really stupid if you don’t come back. So come back.”

  “I will.”

  Gaia lit a candle and then, with a last nod to Rita, she stepped through the door. She followed the dusty tunnel downward into air that had a different, fetid staleness. She held her candle high to illuminate the tunnel. To her right was darkness. To her left, far ahead, she could see daylight filtering down. A shallow gully cut down the center of the passage, with bits of rotting detritus that she surmised had been washed there by the last rain. She left her first glowing chalk mark at the base of the ramp: an arrow that pointed the way she was going.

  Silence settled into her ears, nudged only by her own soft footfalls. The passage was nothing like the old mine routes she’d traveled with Leon, but she hoped those were ahead. As she came to the patch of daylight, she looked up several meters through a storm grid to a square of early morning sky. Faint voices and a rumbling of cartwheels sifted down.

  Another patch of light shone farther along the tunnel, and when she looked up through that opening, the top of the obelisk was just visible. A pile of incongruously fresh-looking wooden boxes blocked much of the passage, as if someone had recently stored something there, but she was able to squeeze past to where the darkness was complete again. She lifted her candle to see glimmering spiderwebs, and pushed on.

  When a scurrying passed over her shoe, she jumped. The hairless tale of a rat disappeared before her. The tunnel branched, and Gaia made another arrow mark at eye level on a stone that bulged out into the tunnel. She went only a little farther before she realized that finding Leon was going to be nearly impossible.

  She didn’t know which way he’d gone.

  Or the tunnels themselves.

  She should go back.

  Gaia knew this, but when she thought of returning to the Jacksons’ and doing nothing while he could be down here somewhere, hurt and needing her, she couldn’t give up.

  “Leon?” she said. Her voice sounded muffled and foreign.

  A new passage on her right narrowed and descended into black granite, but the walls ahead were cut into a creamier stone, more like sandstone, so on instinct she went straight, hoping to find the tunnels she’d once traveled with Leon. Every time she came to a turn, she marked an arrow at eye level, and lifted the candle toward it to check that it glowed. She lost her inner sense of direction, and she couldn’t help thinking again that this might be a mistake. But the tunnels had to lead somewhere, and she kept hoping she’d recognize some landmark from her earlier time there, like the fort area where Leon and his sisters had played as children.

  She stopped often to call Leon’s name and listen. A mine shaft opened up, wide and low-ceilinged, with cooler air, and she followed that. When she came to another fork and began to write her arrow, she saw a glimmering of pale green light on the adjacent wall.

  She stepped nearer, staring.

  It was one of her own marks.

  It could mean only one thing: she’d gone in a circle.

  CHAPTER 14

  circles

  SHE STOPPED, FEELING THE sweat along her neck, while her mind rapidly grappled with the significance of the circling.

  “Stupid,” she said.

  Before she could get confused, she deliberately made another mark with a 2 under it in the place where she’d just discovered the doubling.

  Her heart kicked in hard. Just how much danger she truly was in became suddenly, painfully obvious. This was no longer about Leon. If she lost track of her back trail, if she became lost, there’d be no way to get out. She needed to head back directly.

  She realized suddenly how thirsty she was, but because she’d arrogantly assumed she would only be down for an hour or so, she hadn’t thought to bring anything to drink. Unbelievable, she thought. How stupid could she get? Had she learned nothing about preparation or caution being Matrarc?

  She struck back along the path she’d taken, crossing off each mark as she retraced her steps. She went carefully, deliberately taking the time at each intersection to check each tunnel for faint green marks to be certain she wasn’t missing any.

  When the 2 appeared before her again, she became seriously scared. She did not understand, logically, how she could be making loops back to the same mark. She had to be missing some faint trace that was supposed to guide her to the original path, but she’d checked carefully at each branching of tunnels and didn’t understand how she could have missed it.

  “How am I supposed to get out?” she said.

  She forced herself to stop and rest, trying to clear her mind of panic. She listened to the complete stillness until it became an oppressive presence in her ears, and she had to rub her fingers together just to hear anything and know she hadn’t gone deaf. She lifted the candle, her second of five, to watch the flame. If the flame would waver even the least bit, she would know some movement of the air existed, promising an exit.

  It did not flicker. The steady yellow flame cast echoing images of blindness on the walls when she blinked away from it.

  She checked her locket watch, dismayed to find that more than four hours had passed. It must be close to noon outside. Leon could have traveled back through the tunnels and left by now.

  Smugglers have died down there, Mace had said.

  It could happen to her. She was seriously lost now. She closed her eyes and touched a hand to her cheek, finding tear tracks.

  The prospect of death brought biting clarity: she wanted to marry Leon, raise little Maya, have kids of her own someday, and deliver babies. Period. The rest of it, all the managing and diplomacy and frustration of being Matrarc was completely secondary. Her secret pride and her power meant nothing. And yet she needed a just, fair society in order to have her ideal life with Leon, which brought her back to her responsibilities.

  Gaia gazed wearily at the candle flame again. Like it or not, she was Matrarc. She had to get herself out of here and do her job as long as it was hers. Despair was a luxury she could not afford. She set her hand on her knee and hauled herself up again. If she couldn’t find her old way out, she would find a new one.

  * * *

  Many hours later, Gaia stopped at of the opening of another passage, checking the flame of her fourth and last candle to see it flicker slightly. She turned her face, concentrating, and thought she felt the faintest hint of moving air trace the scar on her left cheek.

  The passage aimed downward, defying her instinct to go upward, but she tried it anyway and eventually the tunnel leveled out and began to rise, lifting her hopes with it. Please, she thought. Let this be a way out. In the silence, she heard a distant cough, then nothing. She headed onward, her ears aching for another sign of life, until the tunnel turned a sharp bend.

  Diffused sunlight dropped down a deep shaft from high above. Gaia gave a who
op of happiness, and then a sob of gratitude.

  A naturally hollow, open space, five meters high and twice as long, had been outfitted as a shelter. A basket of knitting rested beside a rocker, and an unlit globe lamp was centered on a small table. Blankets were heaped on a cot, and Gaia was wondering how anyone could have brought a bed this far through the tunnels when the blankets moved. A teenage girl gave a snuffly snore and opened sleepy eyes.

  “Hey,” she said, perching herself up on an elbow. “Wait. I know you.” She frowned, crinkling her nose. “Aren’t you supposed to be rotting somewhere in the wasteland by now?”

  Gaia was so happy to see another human all she could do was laugh. “I’m alive. Go figure.”

  She took a step nearer, taking in the deep circles that underscored the girl’s eyes, her spindly, pale wrists, and her swollen belly. Blonde braids fell around the petite, pert face, and Gaia finally put the details all together.

  “Sasha?” Gaia asked.

  The girl sat up completely and rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand. “Who else?”

  Gaia was speechless with amazement. Sasha, Emily, and Gaia had been inseparable as little girls in Wharfton, but due to a falling out, years had passed since Gaia and Sasha had been close. Meeting her anywhere would have been awkward, but this was bizarre. “What are you doing here?”

  “I left. I quit the Vessel Institute,” Sasha said.

  “So I heard, but why are you here? Where are we?” Gaia asked, looking up the long shaft toward the natural light. They had to be a dozen meters underground.

  “We’re under Summit Park,” Sasha said. “Didn’t Mabrother Cho send you?”

  Gaia didn’t recognize the name. “I found you by chance. I’ve been lost down here for hours. I was looking for Leon Vlatir, the Protectorat’s son. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

  “I think I’d have noticed him. The answer’s ‘no.’”

  Gaia swallowed thickly. “Could I have some of your water, please?” She’d eaten Mace’s two rolls but nothing else all day.

  “Sure,” Sasha said, pointing to a jug on the shelf. “Help yourself. Have you seen my grandpa? How long have you been back?”

  “Just a few days,” she said, and drank a long swallow of the cool water. “I haven’t seen your grandfather. Why haven’t you gone out to Wharfton?”

  Sasha snorted. “Because I’m not stupid. They said we could leave whenever we wanted, but that was a crock. Rhodeski doesn’t want any failures, not with his precious pilot program.”

  Gaia focused on Sasha’s wrist, which bore no bracelet. She pulled a stool over nearer to the bed. “I don’t understand. Emily said anyone could leave,” Gaia asked.

  “Yeah, well, she lied,” Sasha said. “When I told Emily I wanted to quit, she got all upset. She told me, as a friend, I had to reconsider. And I was like, what? They can’t make me stay, and she said there’s a room in one of the towers where they’ll put anyone who tries to quit. She said I’d be stealing the promised baby, so they’d have the right to imprison me.”

  “Then how did you leave?”

  “I snuck out.” Sasha shifted around on the cot so her feet came over the edge, and Gaia could see the worn soles of her droopy socks. Her ankles looked swollen with edema. “I couldn’t stand it anymore. I don’t want to give up my baby. So what if it’s not mine, biologically? It could be half mine. And even if it isn’t, it feels like it’s mine. All mine.” She spoke as if she’d been just waiting for a chance to explain her reasoning. “It wouldn’t be alive without me. I’m not just some vessel. It knows my voice and it travels with me everywhere. I even know when it hiccups. It’s the sweetest thing, Gaia. It’s changed me into a mother. I’m not going to let that go.”

  Gaia’s heart went out to her. What Sasha was saying matched what Gaia believed, and she’d vicariously felt the same conviction countless times while she’d attended childbirths. But she’d only ever known mothers carrying their own children. Now she couldn’t help trying to see it from the other side, imagining the dreams of the biological parents.

  “Have you thought about the other parents, though?” Gaia asked. “They might be ready to love the baby just as much as you do.”

  Sasha leaned forward and her sharp eyes glittered. “I don’t care if this baby was promised a hundred times over. This baby is part of me. It is mine. Forever.”

  Gaia brushed some of the cobwebs off her skirt. “I understand. But you can’t stay down here.”

  “I can for another month,” Sasha said. “Then I’ll have the baby and I’ll sneak it outside the wall somehow.”

  “It’s not safe. You can’t deliver down here alone.”

  “I’ll get some help. I have a friend who brings me food. He can help. Besides, it’s a natural thing, right? My body will know what to do.” Sasha poked a pillow behind her back. “You probably don’t want to hear this, but there were plenty of mothers outside the wall who had babies on their own when they were afraid you midwives would take them away.”

  Gaia could hardly think how to reply. “Plenty of those babies and mothers died, too,” Gaia said. “Childbirth is not something you play around with.”

  “Okay, listen. If you’re just going to bug me, why don’t you leave?” Sasha said. “You never liked me anyway, so don’t pretend you want to help.”

  “Excuse me?” Gaia said.

  “Ever since we were kids,” Sasha continued. “Remember? One minute you and me and Emily were best friends, going to the Tvaltar and whatnot. I used to laugh so hard I peed my pants. The next minute you wouldn’t even talk to me. You were off playing your little fancy word games with Emily.”

  Gaia was shocked. Hurtful memories raced back. “You were the one. You didn’t go to Emily’s birthday party because I was there. You said I was too weird and ugly.”

  Sasha scrunched up her nose. “So? I’m sorry. I was stupid. You didn’t have to hold it against me forever. Emily finally was nice to me again, but you never gave me another chance.”

  Gaia looked at the petite, pregnant girl with her droopy socks and felt the old sting dissolving. At this moment, there wasn’t one thing about Sasha’s situation that Gaia envied.

  Sasha leaned back and shook a finger at her. “You’re still weird looking, come to think of it.”

  Gaia let out a laugh. “I don’t know what we’re going to do for you.”

  “There’s nothing to do. I have to stay hidden. If they find me, they’ll keep me until I deliver, and then they’ll take the baby and say I died in childbirth.”

  “They wouldn’t.”

  “Want to bet? They can’t leave me alive,” Sasha said. “A sorry dead girl is better than a rebel in the Vessel Institute, isn’t it?” She picked up a hand mirror and turned it in the soft glow of dropping sunlight, sending an oval of reflected light around the stone walls.

  “Are there other women in the program who feel the way you do?” Gaia asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “How many?”

  “Six that I’ve spoken to,” Sasha said. “They’re all terrified. They don’t see any solution except to play along.”

  “They should all speak up,” Gaia said. “The pilot program should be stopped.”

  “Clue in, Gaia,” Sasha said. “Rich Enclave couples are paying huge amounts for our babies, a hundred times what we earn for our stipends. When the Vessel Institute reports one hundred percent success, they can expand like crazy. They’ve already picked out the next girls to invite in. Soon they’ll have dozens of us in their baby factory.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Because I’ve got ears,” Sasha said, sarcastic. “I’m not smart the way you and Emily are. I’m not educated, but I listened enough to know what was really going on before I cut off my bracelet and came underground.”

  Gaia didn’t want to believe it, but she knew in her heart that it was possible. People desperate for babies could easily be indifferent to the women who bore them, especial
ly if the eager parents were paying a steep price and the breeders were removed out of sight.

  “I can’t believe Emily is part of this,” Gaia said.

  “She doesn’t care jack about anything since Kyle died, except her boys.”

  Gaia thought back. “She blames me for Kyle’s death.”

  “Well, yeah,” Sasha said broadly. “That was easy to do when you weren’t even here. Easier than blaming herself or Kyle for choosing to do stuff that got him killed, that’s for sure.” Sasha brought the mirror before her face.

  Gaia noted the circles under her eyes again. “When’s the last time you had a checkup?”

  “Don’t get any ideas.”

  Gaia smiled. “Come on, Sasha. You know I do this all the time.”

  “Nuh uh. Not happening.”

  “At least come out with me,” Gaia said. “I have friends you could hide with in the Enclave. The Jacksons. I know they’d help you. Don’t be stubborn about this.”

  “I’m not stubborn. I just don’t trust anybody.”

  Gaia wished she could simply tell Sasha what to do, but she wasn’t one of the people of Sylum. “I have to get back to the tunnel under the library, by the Square of the Bastion. Do you know the way?”

  Sasha’s eyebrows lifted, and then she pushed to her feet. “That’s far from here. I’ll walk you back. You’d never find it.”

  Sasha carried a lantern and with unerring footsteps, led Gaia back to the tunnel below the square. Sasha refused Gaia’s repeated offers of help, and stopped at the bottom of the ramp to the library. “I’ll be fine,” Sasha said.

  “I don’t even know how to find you again,” Gaia said.

  “Mabrother Cho does. He cooks for the Bastion. If you really need to find me, he can lead you.”

  “Promise me you’ll get help when you go into labor,” Gaia said.