by L. L. Crane
In about a week I was declared fit enough to start walking around, but I had to stay in the back room. I would walk from the bedroom to the bathroom, determined to gather my strength. At first I could only make about three rounds before I was huffing and puffing, falling into my couch-bed, exhausted.
In a few days, though, I became stronger. I could make about twenty laps before needing to rest. I would eat and get back to exercising. “Walking is good for the baby,” Pan had told me as I was plopping onto the couch after one of my self-imposed sessions. There wasn’t much else I could do in the back room, and I had already taken over some of Sergio’s duties, like folding and laundering washcloths and towels for the customers.
“The color is back in my little butterfly’s cheeks!” Garment gushed at me one day. “Are you ready to start training?”
“Training?”
“Daaaarling, if you’re going to the Asters, you’ll have to be trained.”
“Oh, ah, yeah, I guess so.”
Just then Pan entered, carrying a big satchel, and I could tell that it wasn’t his medical bag. “You ready?” he asked. He was wearing a black vinyl jumpsuit this time, and I popped my head up, scrutinizing him. I had never seen him wear anything but white.
I tipped my head up at him. “For what?”
“To be a Rebel Fighter?”
“A Rebel Fighter?” My jaw dropped and my eyes must have popped wide open.
He laughed heartily. “You don’t seem too excited about it.”
I bit my lower lip, thinking. “Well, I’m pregnant. And I don’t want to hurt the baby.”
“That a girl,” he cackled, throwing me a jumble of clothes. “There’s a body shield in there. It will protect the baby. Now, get changed and get rid of that god-awful uniform. It reminds me of when I had to wear one of the damn things.” He twirled around like an acrobat and then bounced out the door. “I’ll be back.”
I stripped out of my boring school uniform and studied the clothes and body shield. The jumpsuit matched the one Pan wore, so that would be easy enough to put on. But the body shield was made of some kind of heavy material with belts and gadgets. I struggled to wrap it around my waist.
“You done in there?” Pan called out to me.
“No. I can’t figure this thing out.”
Without a fuss, or even acting like he noticed I was standing in my underwear, Pan just walked in, took one look at me, and then busted up laughing. “Butterfly, you have it on backward.” He twisted the shield around and showed me how to put it on properly.
“Do you wear one?” I asked him.
“Do I look pregnant to you?”
“No,” I laughed. I slipped into the jumpsuit and zipped it up, the leathery vinyl already making me sweat.
I turned my head to Pan, wondering what was next, when out of the blue, he shot his hand out and smacked me in the chest. I reeled backward and fell hard onto the ground.
My breath was knocked out of me, and I struggled to keep back tears. Pain jolted through my back and chest, and I worried about the baby.
“Rule one,” Pan calmly explained. “Always be on your guard.”
“But we hadn’t even started yet,” I argued.
He kicked me in the side of my leg, pain exploding through it. “Do you really think you’re going to get a warning from those assholes in the Asters?”
I gulped, staring at this crazy man before me. I jumped up as fast as I could and watched him closely. We were civilized in Province A. Any fights that broke out were quickly extinguished with harsh punishments. I had no idea how to fight, how to take on this crazed being in front of me.
Pan continued to bat at me, punch me, and batter me. In short order, I learned quickly how to avoid an oncoming punch, not so much to protect me, but the baby.
He was ruthless, and hate burned in my belly for him again. Every punch, every kick, every assault scorched inside of me, a volcano of feelings that I tamped down.
But I watched. I watched very closely.
Because I was determined to get to the Asters, and from what Garment said, I apparently needed to be a Rebel Fighter.
Whatever that was.
Chapter 15
Practice
Pan came every day, and we worked out for eight or nine hours straight. I would fall into my couch-bed and instantly fall asleep as soon as he left. Blush and Garment made sure that Sergio brought me a lot of food, and I became stronger every day.
I learned to dodge his hits and kicks. I learned to punch the proper way. Part of the day was spent practicing ballet moves. My mom had forced me to take ballet lessons as a child, so that part was easy. The hard part was getting hit and kicked. My body was a bruised mess, a battered arrangement of blues and purples that quickly turned to a yellow color on my light skin. Images of Orion’s scars and wounds, the ones his father ruthlessly inflicted onto his back and chest, would flash into my mind. I wondered for the millionth time where he was. I didn’t get any answers.
The next time Pan came, I was ready for him. I hid on the left side of the door, and when he entered, I tripped him with my foot, and inflicted a downward kick straight onto his belly. He bounced back up and swung around, fire searing from his grey eyes. “Nice, butterfly,” he encouraged. “You’re learning.” Then he threw something at me. I caught it easily.
“What’s this for?” I asked him, fondling a small cage apparatus with leather straps and buckles on it.
“For practice,” he answered with a huff, swirling quickly on his feet. “To protect your face.” He showed me how to put it on, and I felt ridiculous with the body shield and the face mask, like a turtle who was playing baseball or some bizarre sport.
The days passed and Pan added another exercise to my ritual. He had me carry a heavy backpack and walk on a treadmill for long periods of time. First at a walk. Then at a run.
I watched as my muscles begin to show definition for the first time in my life. I was even developing biceps, and when I looked at them, I couldn’t help but think about Orion’s biceps, how they were the first thing I noticed about him that day he strolled into my Geography class. Glancing at my newly defined arms, sadness washed over me, thinking that those innocent days of friends and school were sweet like candy that didn’t seem to stay in your mouth long enough. All too soon it disappeared, left you wanting more. I sighed wistfully, missing my friends, my family. Orion. I groaned. Oh, Orion, where are you?
Of course, I didn’t get an answer to that question, so I tucked them all away into a little box in my heart, wondering if I would ever see any of them again. I shut the lid tightly. I had work to do and thinking like that would not get me to the Asters.
Under Pan’s careful watch, the hole in my forearm healed and quit hurting. Still, for some odd reason, I missed the tracker-timer. It had been a part of me for my entire life. I kept glancing at my arm, checking for the time, but nothing was there except a huge, ugly scar. I missed my tablet most of all, but Garment said we needed to be extra careful. There was a news bulletin on the net about me, and he didn’t want to take the chance of anyone tracking me down.
One day Blush brought me something I had only heard about. It was shaped in a rectangle and was made of paper. The edges of it were tattered and there was a picture and some writing on the front. “What is it?” I asked her.
“It’s a book.”
“A book,” I answered, running my fingers over the soft paper, an odd feeling to my fingertips. “What do you do with it?” I asked her.
She laughed. “You read it.”
“Oh.” I thought for a moment. “How?”
She chuckled under her breath and showed me how to turn the pages, starting at what she called the front of the book. “It’s something to do if you get bored,” she told me gruffly. “If you finish it, I have more.”
“Where do you get them?” I asked, furrowing my brows.
“At an antique store on Broadway.”
I smiled, remembering the lie I told
Dove, missing her and my family so much that my heart felt as if Pan had kicked me right in the center of my chest. I read the blocky words on the book. “Of Mice and Men”. I wondered what it would be about. Would I be learning about mice? It seemed like an odd thing to read about at my age.
“It’s a classic,” Blush told me. She looked like a proud peacock.
“Thanks. Thanks so much,” I told her.
Just then Garment entered. He had crafted several sets of clothes for me to wear, all of different colors. He presented them proudly to me, stacked in a neat bundle. “There are different bands of Exiles,” he explained. “Their colors mark them for what they stand for.”
“But Orion told me that he went on a military mission with his father and the people wore tattered clothing.”
“Those aren’t the Exiles,” he whispered, leaning in close to me. “Those are the Outcasts.”
“How did they become Outcasts?”
“By not being Exiles.”
“I’m confused.”
Garment laughed, his high pitched girlish giggle. “Butterfly, you must find a band that will accept you in the Asters.” He patted my head like I was a puppy. “Or you will be an Outcast. Believe me, you want to be an Exile.”
“How?” None of this was making sense to me.
“By kicking their asses, of course.”
“Oh great,” I sighed, rolling my eyes at him.
Just then Pan walked in. “Ready for your session?”
“As ready as I ever will be,” I sighed, getting up to put my gear on. I trudged to the bathroom to change, wondering if I would ever figure out how to be an Exile.
Chapter16
Vanish
I knew that my time to leave was nearing. Part of me just wanted to stay with Garment and Blush forever in the back room. Have Sergio bring me food. Pan could check on the baby and Blush would bring me more books to read. I was on a new one by now, “Gone with the Wind”. I pictured myself living in the dead Province that once had been termed the Southern part of our defunct country. I was fascinated by the Civil War, how people were actually kept as slaves. It seemed unthinkable, and then I glanced to my missing tracker-timer. Were we any different than the slaves back then? Not much, I sighed, thinking of the “charge” some students received for not following rules, the cameras in every home. The incarceration I received for seeing Orion, meeting him in private. But I loved and hated Scarlett, the main character of the book. She was so selfish, yet when things were tough, she found inner strength.
Even when her daughter died. Could I ever be as strong as her? I doubted it.
When Rhett left Scarlett in the end of the book, I cried, just as Blush entered the back room. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed.
“He left her.”
“Who?”
“Rhett Butler. He left Scarlett.” I sniffed. “It was worse than Orion…”
Blush ruffled my hair. “Hey, kid. It’s just a story. It’s not true.”
I was baffled. Everything we read on our tablets was true, or so the Administration wanted us to believe. Still we didn’t read anything that was presented to be untrue. “What do you mean?” I earnestly questioned.
“People used to write stories. It was called fiction. People read them for entertainment.”
I thought for a minute about the book. “Entertainment? Who would make the ending so sad, separate two people who loved each other, have their daughter die?” I asked.
“I guess Margaret Mitchell would.” Blush responded. Then she paused. “Don’t you think she kind of deserved it, though?”
“Who?”
“Scarlett.”
Hesitating, images of Scarlett flashed in my mind. Perhaps she did deserve it. But did I? What had I done to cause Orion to leave me? “I…guess,” I answered.
“Hey, Blush.” I tossed the thick paper book onto my couch-bed.
“Yeah.” She sat down next to me, the bed creaking under our combined weight.
“I think I’m going to just stay here. At least until the baby is born. We’ll be happy enough. Maybe once the baby is big enough, I can take it to the Asters.” The thought of leaving the comfort of Garment’s room left me empty inside, as if someone had taken a vacuum and sucked everything out of me.
Blush turned her plain face toward me, shaking it. “If they find you…the Administration…it’s not just you or me, Garment or Sergio that will be on the line.” She gave me the sternest look of all. “You and I both know they’ll kill that baby.” I shuddered, my hand instinctively falling to my swelling stomach.
How could we have come to this as a society? I thought of Ruler 9 and all of his mandates. Why would he allow so many S.L.A.G.s to live but kill an innocent, non-S.L.A.G. baby like Blush’s? It didn’t make sense to me.
I thought of the ending to “Gone with the Wind”, where Scarlett strongly states “Tomorrow is another day.” I sucked up a deep breath. If even a made-up character could throw her shoulders back and face the death of her child as well as her husband leaving her, then I guessed what I had on my plate wasn’t so bad. “Tomorrow is another day,” would have to be my mantra…to get me through the next few months anyway.
Garment walked in and clapped the lights on. I had become so accustomed to the darkness that I squinted my eyes up at him. “Time for a haircut, butterfly.”
“I don’t need my hair cut,” I snipped at him, throwing my long hair over my shoulders.
“If you’re going to be accepted in a band of Exiles, you’re going to have to have it cut.”
“Why?”
“Tsk tsk. So many questions.”
I scrunched my face up at him, lowering my eyebrows. “How do you know so much about all of this?”
Garment lifted my chin. “Little one, I was once an Exile.”
“What?” I screeched, the thought of Garment being an Exile seeming impossible. Questions danced in my brain, ballerinas out of control, tumbling and falling haphazardly. “Then how…why did you come back?”
“Pan. He and I are…ah…”
I waited a second to answer. “Oh. I get it.”
“He came for me.” Garment smiled dreamily. “He kicked asses all over the Asters until he found me.” Garment sighed. “He brought me back here and Dove changed my name, my identity.”
“Pan doesn’t live here? With you?”
“No. We must be extra careful, butterfly.” He grinned again, a lopsided lipstick grin. “Everybody thinks that Blush is my marriage partner. Of course she just goes along with it so she can harbor Sergio here.”
Then his face turned sad, a frown forming on his lips like a red, upside down mountain. “I’ve gotten attached to you, butterfly. I don’t want to see you go.” He patted me on the back with long fingers.
“I know. Me too.”
Just then Sergio came in with his bucket of hair cutting supplies. I had always loved my long black hair, but apparently it was going to get chopped off. Garment left and came back with a dark purple plastic chair and pointed at it. I sat down in it, dreading what was coming. Garment did some kind of odd hand signal to Sergio, who simply nodded his head.
The scissors were smooth in Sergio’s pudgy hands, and he chopped and clipped, long black locks of hair falling to the slick marble floor like stricken soldiers. I must have had a look of horror on my face, because Garment patted me on the back again. “It will be okay. Once you’re accepted, you can grow it back out.”
I wanted to nod my head, but I knew better. I didn’t want to get cut with scissors. “Okay,” I answered thickly.
At that moment I became so angry at Orion that I wanted to hunt him down and kick his ass. As if I could. Still, I hated him for what he was putting me through. Leaving me first, then causing me to leave my family. Gods, they must be worried about me. I bit my lower lip, forcing a shield up over my heart. If I was going to make it to the Asters and do what Garment and Pan said I needed to do, then I had to forget about Orion. Cast
him out of my life and certainly out of my heart. He would only bring me down.
By then the cutting had stopped and Sergio handed me a mirror, but I couldn’t bring it to my face at first. Then, I thought, what the hell. There isn’t much of the old Rain left anyway.
My breath caught in my throat at what I saw. It was me alright, but I had a short, almost military styled haircut, snipped above my ears but then a small wave of bangs in front. I stared for a minute, not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. I studied my new self again. My cheeks had filled out and I hardly resembled the old Rain who had left her home several weeks ago. I glanced to my bulging arm and leg muscles, my protruding stomach. How could so much happen is such a short time?
“I love it,” I smiled up to Sergio. And I meant it. I really did love my new hairstyle.
I laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Garment asked as Blush silently slipped into the room.
“Oh, just a thought I had.” I smiled at them all. “I am vanishing. Every day, I vanish just a little bit more.”
Blush laughed out loud, almost snorting. “Vanishing Rain.” I like it.
Pan walked in at that moment, ready for one of our sessions. “You like what?” he queried.
“Her name. She’ll call herself Vanish. Short for Vanishing Rain.”
“What?” I sputtered. I don’t get to keep my name?”
“No, butterfly, you don’t,” Garment consoled. “We’ve all been through it. From now on, you will be Vanish.”
“Vanish. Vanish.” I rolled it off of my tongue, but it caught somewhere between my mouth and my throat, like sticky salt water taffy.
I turned to Garment. “Can you tell me what your name was before?”
He smiled, so much like Dove and Falcon that my heart twisted into a giant knot.
“Eagle,” he answered softly. “My name was Eagle.” Then he waved his hand, his rings clattering against each other.
“But Garment suits me better, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t imagine him as anything else. “Yes,” I agreed. “It does.”
