by P. S. Lurie
“I don’t want any part of that.”
President Callister pulls out a gun. I tense because I think that she is going to kill me but she lifts the gun to her temple.
“No,” I cry, but there’s nothing I can do.
With her eyes closed, and a subtle smile on her face that suggests she has won despite initially thinking she had lost, she pulls the trigger.
The blast echoes across the garden and she collapses to the ground.
I stand alone in the garden, in my house in the Middlelands, knowing that I will need time to digest what President Callister has said to me. I want to feel ecstatic that I have saved Ronan and Leda and they can now have full and healthy lives, but I’m numb from watching this woman kill herself.
“They’re your responsibility now,” I hear from all around me, yet it is no longer Ronan and Leda that my mother references but everyone in the world.
If President Callister was correct about anything it is that I am determined.
“I will do this better.”
I turn to face my house. I could leave through the front door and past the gate that creaks but, for old time’s sake, I jump the fence, only this time into Melissa’s house where I might find Selene. I hope I do. We might not have to talk about anything and I have already decided not to tell her about President Callister’s words just yet. We can just... be.
In fact, the idea of playful banter with Selene causes me to smile.
For now, I want to walk down the dark streets with Selene, reminisce about Henry and tell her stories about her mother’s integrity in the Upperlands. In time we’ll meet up with the others in Ruskin’s house where I can finally come together with Ronan and Leda. It’s the greatest present I could receive on my birthday. Eventually we will all fall asleep when exhaustion kicks in. I don’t know whether our slumber will be heavy or disturbed and full of nightmares but I can wake knowing that the world is safe. There’s no rush. This night belongs to us.
The rest of the world can wait until sunrise.
ONE YEAR LATER
Jack
I wake to the sound of scratching and am taken back to a time when a similar noise was my way of keeping order for me and one other boy in a prison.
“What are you doing up so early?” I ask Ruskin, who has his back to me.
“I’m excited. Couldn’t sleep.” The scratching continues but is softer than in the past. The ritualistic scrape of metal against concrete was my job in the cell, tallying our days together. We were forced together but now we not only have the freedom to come and go as we please but we continue to share a room. We’re not in prison, I remind myself, but it still doesn’t explain the noise he’s making.
I rub my eyes and see Ruskin hunched over, hard at work. I sit up in the double bed, stretch my back out before standing up and stagger over to him. He’s writing on a makeshift card, a piece of folded paper that he’s decorated. “What’s that?”
“Theia’s birthday. The big one. Did you forget?”
My mind is still half-asleep. It’s been a year since our final push to end President Callister’s regime and it takes time for me to process what’s real and no longer real in my mind. Scary visions are few and far between, trapped only to the night. I like the mornings, when I can wake to the reminder that the world is a better place than it used to be. I nod, dozily. “Just needed a moment. I’ll make us breakfast.”
I dress, deciding not to bother showering considering where we’re off to and enter the kitchen. It’s only recently completed and I’m still not used to the layout so I fumble through cupboards for bowls and cutlery.
Ruskin enters in a fit of hyperactivity, sweeping through and pulling pre-made food out of the refrigerator before packing it into a wicker hamper. Finally, sealed well, he places a cake on top of the other food and then closes the lid before throwing me a huge smile.
As he hurries out again he stops and picks up something from the counter. Candles and a box of matches. “Almost forgot these.”
Today is Theia’s eighteenth birthday but it’s also a day the two of us have been waiting for, for what seems like an impossible length of time. We haven’t said aloud how momentous it is although we both know it. Today will see in the event that we fantasised about during our time in the prison and kept us going ever since.
“Jack,” Ruskin calls from the hallway.
“Yeah?”
He doesn’t reply. Instead, I find him upstairs pacing back and forth in the bedroom, throwing a shirt onto the bed and then trying on yet another.
“Did you speak to Selene?” Ruskin starts speaking in garbled sentences, unable to slow down.
“Ruskin.” I go over and hold him. “Stop. Take a breath. What’s going on?”
“I want it all to be perfect.”
“It will be. Relax and have fun. You deserve this. We all do.” Today has been in the works for a long time. There’s a lot of activity going on around us of disputes being settled between Middlelanders who survived the culls and who they refer to as their oppressors, the remaining Upperlanders, but we have elected a decent judiciary system and it was almost unanimously agreed that everyone should be pardoned. I say almost unanimously because the nature of society is that not everyone agreed. President Callister thought that brainwashed individuals working towards a common goal was the only way to establish peace. We hoped that there’s another way, the first of which was to allow for everyone to have a say and debate the past events, calmly and rationally. We have all come together in the last year.
The notable exception is the three men who worked with President Callister, organising the brainwashing of the children and planning the culls. One, when he was surrounded, jumped from the fortress to his death. We never learnt his name. The other two, John Bison and Terrence March, will serve out their days in a prison.
We call the education and adjustment of the child soldiers Reintegration, which will be an arduous process for some of the more troubled former guards but there are relatively few incidents when they become unsettled. For now, everyone is trying to make this new society function, which includes building infrastructure and resources, as well as plenty of secure houses near the coast where the climate is better for agriculture and our physical health.
We made sure the animals were also taken to suitable environments where they can repopulate.
There is much to do but today we will celebrate and enjoy. Ruskin needs to remember this. I kiss him. “You look great. I said that we’d meet Theia and the others there.”
“Travis and Claire?”
I smile at their mention. It didn’t take a genius to work out that if they survived the attacks they would couple up. Now they live with her children in a house not far away. They have another on the way. In the not so distant past, children were regretted, broken promises of not having more because the world stood no chance. Now, pregnancies are celebrated. Claire’s due soon; one more thing to add to the list of things to enjoy about our reunion today. “They said they might join us later if Travis is back from his salvage mission.”
“We’re still going back tomorrow?”
“Yes. But promise me we don’t think about that today?” It’s hard not to stress about our trips to our former homes. We decided long ago to preserve the land all the way from the Lowerlands and upwards as a reminder of the atrocities of humankind. The flooded Lowerlands. The Middlelands, where some houses will be protected as scenes of horrific killings, including Theia’s with her approval, which is also where President Callister ended her life. The Fence, in all its abhorrent glory, dividing societies in the most brutal of ways and determining luck based on purely where we were born. Then the Upperlands, notably the arena and the place where genocide was approved: the wreckage of the Utopia. And lastly, the fortress. It was decreed that all students would visit on a school trip to learn about their past. For now, we salvage anything we can from these areas because the technology is needed and the Upperlanders did store crops and other pr
otected objects: books in their stocked library, cooking utensils and ingredients, and all sorts of materials for industries that will need to be reignited, including manufacturing, textiles and entertainment. Ruskin and I agreed to drive the ten hour return journey and lead groups, knowing our way around the areas. It helps that the Fence doors were opened otherwise the tunnel would have made for difficult missions.
Ruskin hasn’t answered my question as he is deep in thought. “Promise me you won’t think about it today.”
“I promise. I’ll finish getting ready.”
“Not so fast.” I grab him by the shirt, pull him into me and kiss him hard. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Jack.” I’m excited about the boat but, in this moment, it’s all I need to hear and I couldn’t be any happier.
Ruskin
“Uncle Ruskin!”
I look up from my book and barely manage to stand as Leda bounds across the golden sand and leaps into my arms. I spin around with her in the air and she gleefully laughs.
“Hey monkey.” I blow a raspberry on her stomach and then put her down.
She moves onto Jack, who is still sitting and she gives him a hug around his neck. He picks her up and flips her into his lap before tickling her. She playfully struggles to break free.
“Hey,” Theia says, catching up and no longer worried about Leda gaining distance on her, although that wasn’t the case until recently; even when Leda started attending nursery school, Theia would loiter outside the classroom all day.
I kiss Theia on the cheek. “Hey Ronan,” I say, but he doesn’t respond.
Theia shakes her head at me, informing me that I shouldn’t bother. He has good and bad days so I’ll leave him and see if he loosens up later. He sits a bit of a distance from Jack without spreading out a towel and digs his hands through the sand.
“It’s beautiful,” Theia says, facing the sea.
“It really is.” There’s nothing but water up to the horizon, the sun’s reflection glimmering on the calm waves that roll in and cover the already damp sandbank. I check the groins out to sea that are still prominent above the surface; the water hasn’t surmounted them since the coastline settled here. Once we determined that the water had returned to its rightful place, we began to build a new city. It’s in its early days but coming along nicely.
We still see everyone almost every day but there are few times we can just relax as there’s so much to be done.
“You’re still going tomorrow?” Theia asks.
I nod and see Jack glance in my direction. “Anything you want me to bring back?
“No,” she replies, after a deliberated pause. “There’s nothing I want from there. That’s a huge hamper,” she says, changing the subject.
“I know. Any other day I would have held back but today we don’t worry about waste.”
I catch sight of Selene, Maddie and Tess walking along the promenade towards us. Selene waves, as Tess coos over the pram she is pushing in front of her. She takes the baby from the seat and they cross the warm sand to us. Jack stands and everyone greets one another, especially giving lots of attention to Tess’s baby.
“Happy birthday Theia,” Maddie says.
“Will you cringe if we sing?” Selene asks.
Theia laughs.
“Later,” I mouth to the others, directing their gaze towards the hamper with the cake in it.
“She’s grown so much,” Theia says to Tess. “Hey Melissa.”
It was an obvious choice for Tess to name her baby after our friend, the person who ended up saving all of us but dying in the process. None of us knew at the time that Tess was pregnant except Melissa – and Selene, who swears she did – who tended to her on top of everything else she did. Samuel died too but Tess seems to have managed the bereavement well and has found happiness in her baby.
Theia discovered a book a few months ago listing the meaning of baby names in a push to salvage the tomes in the fortress library, and found out by chance that the name Melissa means honey bee but was also a nymph that nursed an old world god to health. Maddie suggested Erica as an alternative but I guess it’ll be saved for future children.
“Anyone want to swim?” Selene asks.
“Later,” Maddie says.
“Join you in a bit,” Jack says. “I need to borrow Ruskin for a moment.”
The rest of us decline and Tess and Maddie sit with Melissa and tend to her.
“Ronan?” Selene asks.
“I’m ok thanks.” Leda joins her brother and he can’t help but start to build a sandcastle with her, the tension draining out of his shoulders as he pats damp sand into mounds to Leda’s pleasure.
The sun is overhead, a perfect temperature and not a cloud in sight. We’ll eat soon and then present Theia with the cake. I had to scramble around to find enough ingredients to make it but it ended up near enough replicating the one from my fantasies all the way back in the prison with Jack.
Jack rubs my shoulders. “We’re going to take the boat out.”
“Ok. Want to come Theia?” Our dream of rowing a boat expanded to include Theia in it, which despite the odds can now come true.
“You two go, but thanks,” she says. “Have fun.”
Jack jogs to the shore to push the rowboat towards the water, leaving Theia and me together. I might not get another chance and I want to give her this present privately. I reach into the bag. “This is from us.”
I hand her a bracelet and necklace, a matching set.
Her expression turns from surprise to shock. “My mother’s necklace.”
It’s my turn to be surprised. “It is?”
“Where did you find it?”
“In the market. It looked identical to this so I thought it might be a nice addition.”
Theia stumbles over her words. “I don’t understand. What’s the... where did the bracelet come from?”
“I wasn’t sure but I think he would’ve wanted you to have it.”
“Henry?”
“I found it on him. It was in his pocket when he died. I guess he was planning to give it to you after the Surge, not realising what was going to happen next.”
I help Theia with the necklace and then she puts the bracelet over her wrist, takes a moment, and then hugs me. “Thank you. They’re more than perfect.”
“There’s one more thing,” I say, awkwardly. I take a large envelope from the hamper. “I’ve been working on it for some time. I hope you find comfort in it.”
Theia opens the flap and begins to take out the wad of paper.
“Maybe open it later. When you’re on your own. I mean, if you want to read it at all.”
“What is it?”
“Something else I found in Henry’s house. He spent a lot of that night writing about what was happening, documenting the events. You were mentioned a lot. He loved you so much.”
Theia chokes on air.
“I expanded it, until... the end, imagining his final moments, because he didn’t have a chance to write about that.”
She doesn’t respond.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, it’s just... wow... thank you Ruskin. I’ll treasure it.”
“Let me know what you think. Or...”
“I will. Jack’s waiting for you.”
I look over to him, managing to drag two-thirds of the boat in the water and waving me over. “Happy birthday,” I say to Theia, before I trot over to Jack.
He climbs into the rower’s seat and takes the oars as I give the boat a final push so that it’s bobbing on the sea. I climb in and turn to face him. He circles around and paddles us farther out. There’s no need for words, just the two of us beaming at one another in unfathomable disbelief that it’s really happening. I lean forward and kiss him.
“What happens now?” he asks, securing the oars into place and looking around at the world that’s at our fingertips.
I meet his eyes, full of love, optimism and, more than all else, hope. “Anyt
hing we want.”
Selene
I wade into the sea with only my bikini on, my other clothes on the shore. There’s nothing but the sound of laughter and friendly conversation behind me and only sea and sky in front of me.
The water is warm, like a tepid bath rather than my previous forays into the shallows.
There’s nothing to fear, no shadows hanging over me, not in the dazzling sunshine and not last night or tonight when the sun goes down either. I look at my injuries that remain, minor scars dotted around my body and the large rough line that is blotted along my hip where the Utopia penetrated my skin and almost killed me. I only limp if I’ve been walking all day but that doesn’t stop me and I’m planning on joining a mission back to the Upperlands soon. Nothing gets in my way now.
Sometimes the nightmares return but it’s easy to tell myself that it’s all over when I wake, quicker each morning. I’ve learnt tricks to ground myself into the present rather than hurtling back into the past; mostly I do something I couldn’t have done before: I walk out of my house.
I’m not a prisoner and I’m not in danger by roaming. I’m free to come and go as I please.
No one watches me or follows me or torments me.
Nathaniel is dead. I know because I buried his body; not to give him an honourable death but to prove beyond all doubt that he’s no longer my concern.
On terrible days when the rain is heavy and I don’t want to leave the house, my mind betrays me by playing over the events that brought us together. I’ll never know exactly his links to me but I’m fine with that. I believe he loved me in and out of being brainwashed but he didn’t deserve my love. I killed people. That brings me guilt even if others justified it but I’ll never forget that Nathaniel took pleasure in his violence.
Jack and Ruskin row past and then carry on to some distance but a few of the waves that their oars spurn roll into my body, cooling me down. I wade out farther.