Time Next

by Carolyn Cohagan

  “No one is going to their grave, Rose. You’re going to get better. How about we eat something together?” I look to Bithia. “Can we get some food from Horton?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not supposed to leave the room.”

  “Please. I don’t think she’ll eat otherwise.”

  Bithia stares at Rose, unsure.

  Rose nods, saying, “Yes. With Mina.”

  Encouraged, Bithia agrees to go downstairs. “I’m leaving this door open, Mina. So don’t you try anything.”

  I have no idea what she thinks I can do, but I nod.

  As soon as Bithia is gone, Rose leans in, saying softly, “He’s trying to poison me.”

  “Horton?” I ask, taken aback.

  She nods.

  The man downstairs was unnerving and disdainful, but is he really trying to kill Rose? Her eyes dart at the open doorway and back to me. She’s acting deranged.

  “Will you eat Horton’s food if I eat some first?” I ask, desperate. She shakes her head. “What if Bithia does?”

  Shaking her head again, she says through closed teeth, “I heard them talking downstairs. They hate us. Me and you. They want us dead.”

  “What?” My voice rises. “Who do you mean? Why?”

  Bithia is back holding a tray with two bowls. “Here we are! Some delicious potato soup.” She places the tray on a small table next to Rose.

  “Go on, Mina. Show her how delicious it is!” says Bithia.

  Sitting up, I take a bowl and stir the soup with a spoon. “Mmmm. It smells delicious. You should have some, Rose.” My voice is not as confident as before.

  Tightening her lips together, she shakes her head.

  Lifting my spoon to my mouth, I see her eyes bulge. Could she be right? Could there be poison in it?

  Bithia grins at me, waiting for me to try it. She wouldn’t let me eat something that would hurt me . . . right?

  I breathe deeply and swallow a big spoonful.

  I immediately cry out, and Rose screams.

  “It’s hot! Scalding hot,” I say, waving my hand in front of my mouth. “It’s fine. I just burned my tongue.”

  “No need to be so dramatic!” says Bithia.

  “It’s good,” I say, eyes watering. “You should have some, Rose. Please.” Dipping my spoon back into my bowl, I blow on the soup and take a second mouthful.

  I’m about to take a third, when suddenly Rose’s arm flies up and sends the tray tumbling to the floor. The crack of ceramic bowls is followed by the deafening clang of the metal tray.

  “This is unacceptable behavior!” screams Bithia.

  Horton appears in the doorway. “What was THAT?” he screeches. He sees the mess. “You’re going to clean that up, Mrs. Alvero!” he yells at Rose.

  “Visiting time is over,” says Bithia. I don’t want to leave, but she pulls me out the door.

  “I’ll be back, Rose. I promise!” I yell, as she marches me down the stairs.

  I can still hear Horton hollering, as Bithia closes the front door. Once outside, Bithia starts complaining about how rude Rose was.

  “She needs her son,” I say. “She’d be fine if you’d let her see him, I promise.”

  “That’s not my decision to make,” she says, as she leads us home.

  “But you could ask Ram, couldn’t you?”

  Without answering, she quickens her pace.

  I jog to catch up to her. “Couldn’t you?”

  “Why would I do you any favors after you’ve treated my family with such disrespect?”

  I have no answer for her, and we walk the rest of the way in silence.

  By the time we reach the house, I feel an uncomfortable tightness in my stomach, but I have no way of knowing if it’s stress or something more ominous. Deciding I don’t want to wait to find out, I run upstairs and force myself to throw up in the toilet.

  Eleven

  The next morning, Bithia cooks a breakfast large enough for the whole block. She claims she wants us all to have plenty of fuel for our day of Prom preparation; however, the copious amounts of biscuits, butter, eggs, and plump meats make me want to crawl back into bed.

  The conversation is dominated by Tabby’s experience working off her demerit. Before dawn, she was forced to wake up and visit the small compound in the East where the Fallen live.

  “It was major feeble, the worst,” she says, slumping in her chair.

  “Did you have to touch garbage?” asks Silas, enjoying himself.

  “I wish,” Tabby says. “Anything would’ve been better than being lectured by a woman that looks like Dad.”

  Bithia and Gilad laugh.

  “I hope they taught you the importance of refinement,” Bithia says.

  “Those are the least refined women I’ve ever met. They live together like animals.”

  “What do you mean?” Silas asks, interested for real now.

  “One of them burped, and the rest of them laughed and laughed. It’s like they aren’t women at all anymore. They curse and yell. It was just . . . pathetic.”

  Corny burps loudly.

  Silas laughs, as Bithia and Gilad frown. “That is unacceptable, Cornelius. Say ‘excuse, me,’” Bithia says.

  “Cuse me,” Corny says. “Why do the ladies live and burp together, Mom?”

  “Because they didn’t behave like nice young women,” Bithia says.

  “Two of them were woolies!” Tabby says.

  After Gilad raises an eyebrow at her, she says, “They were refugees, I mean. And get this, they want to be Fallen. They like living there.”

  Giving Bithia an annoyed look, Gilad says, “Surely the point of the demerit system is to demonstrate the humiliation of joining the Fallen?”

  “Yes, dear,” Bithia says.

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” Tabby says. “Just because the Fallen live better than the Propheteers doesn’t mean it’s not major disgusting. I wouldn’t live with them for all the Tacts in Kingsboro.”

  “I’m sure there’s no danger of that, Honey Bunches,” Gilad says. “Just stop talking back to your teachers and you’ll be fine.” He smiles at her. He seems so sweet when he talks to Tabby.

  “What happened to your new dress?” Tabby asks me, all innocence. She was in class yesterday when I was told it was an “eye trap.”

  “I’m altering it,” Bithia says.

  I am back in the green clothes until Bithia can modify the dress and find me other white ones. I’m sure Tabby is thrilled to see me back in the sickly pea green.

  Silas wears the same unsightly color, and I wonder why he hasn’t progressed to yellow. I’ll have to remember to ask.

  Finishing her food, Tabby stands, throwing down her napkin and looking at Silas and me. “Okay, freakos. Time to be my servants for the day!”

  Silas and I look at each other with dread. Maybe this punishment is going to be worse than I thought.

  Silas and I sit on the cold floor inside the atrium of the Leisure Center constructing flowers out of tissue paper. Every Unbound kid under eighteen must be here. The younger children run around laughing and blowing up balloons, while the older ones, like us, take care of the more complicated decorations.

  We have to make the paper flowers exactly as Tabby instructed us: “layer the white tissue paper, fold it like an accordion, attach the pipe cleaner, and fluff the paper out. The fluffing is the most important part.” Because of his broken wrist, Silas can only layer the paper and place the finished flowers into piles. I would never say it, but I think these flowers look like big wads of toilet paper.

  “You’re quiet today,” Silas says.

  I’ve spent the morning worrying about Rose and wondering how on earth I can get Juda to visit her. If he knew she was ill, he would be there in a heartbeat. So either he doesn’t know, or he can’t reach her.

  Looking around at the dozens of paper flowers, I ask, “Did Tabby say how many she needed?”

  “No, which is a bad sign. She probably wants all the guests ch
in-deep in flowers.”

  “It looks like wedding decorations.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not. All of the Promise girls will be celebrating their honor.”

  “Their family honor?” I understand this. A family’s name is all they have in the end. Sadness drifts over me as I think again of the dishonor I have done to the Clark name.

  “Yes, but more than that,” Silas says. “It’s about a girl’s . . . you know . . . her purity.” He smiles shyly.

  His embarrassment finally makes me realize what he’s talking about: Tabby’s virginity. Of course. Mrs. Prue talked about Prom and then showed us pictures of the avocado and what happens when you cut into it too soon. This party will celebrate Tabby’s untouched femininity.

  Seeing all the teenage boys who are helping to decorate, I ask, “Are boys invited to the party?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s, like, the biggest party of the year.”

  I make another flower without speaking. I’m horrified. Women gather together in Manhattan to celebrate things such as the arrival of menses, but we would never do such a thing under the gaze of men. It would be humiliating, to say the least. I’m embarrassed for Tabby and wonder if her consistently foul temper is about the shame she’s about to endure.

  Tabby works across the room, separating twinkly lights. She doesn’t look ashamed or uncomfortable. On the contrary, she’s giving orders to two girls in green who seem very afraid of her. The nervous girls have stringy brown hair and buck teeth.

  Silas follows my gaze. “Those are the otter daughters,” he says. “I told you about them.”

  With simpering looks, the girls take strings of lights from Tabby.

  “I feel bad for them,” I say.

  “You shouldn’t. Growing up, they liked to bite people. And look at those teeth!”

  Dekker and Juda are living in their house. Maybe they can get a message to Juda about his mother! I’m wondering how to approach them, when a familiar voice says, “Here you two are!”

  I look up to see Susanna and Frannie. Susanna grins madly while Frannie grows shy, unable to look at Silas.

  Susanna sticks out her lower lip, pouting. “Silas, I thought you were going to help me wrap the pillars in ribbon.”

  “Sorry, Susanna,” he says. “Tabby put me on flower duty.”

  Susanna glances at me. “Or maybe you like the company over here a bit better?”

  Silas, not looking up from his pile of tissue papers, whispers, “Maybe I do.”

  My whole body goes red and hot, as if someone shoved me in front of an open oven. I keep folding the flowers.

  Frannie nudges Susanna with her elbow. “Let’s find Marjory and ask her what she needs us to do.”

  The girls walk away, Susanna looking back over her shoulder at Silas. Reaching a group of girls arranging chairs, Susanna speaks in an animated fashion. She then points to me and Silas. No doubt she is telling them what Silas just said. Why did he have to do that?

  Silas and I sit in awkward silence. We continue making flowers, avoiding eye contact. I’m still figuring out how to talk to the “otter daughters,” when Silas says, “So, uh, do you know why virginity is even a thing?”

  “What?” I can’t have heard him correctly.

  “Chastity––the reason people started caring about it. Do you know why?”

  Silas seems determined to embarrass me at every possible moment.

  I say nothing, but he continues anyway. “It’s about property. Like, thousands of years ago, the land and cows and stuff were handed down through the men, and they had to be sure they were giving their stuff to their kids, and the only way of being sure a kid was yours was if your wife had never slept with anyone else.”

  I feel so out of place. The only person who speaks this way with me is Nana. I can’t believe a boy would even say the word virginity to me, let alone converse about it. Please stop talking.

  “Like, think about what might’ve happened if people had decided that property should be handed down through women, you know? Women knew exactly who their kids came from, right? Men would’ve like, constantly needed to behave well, so that the women didn’t say, ‘Maybe you’re not the dad.’” He grins at the thought.

  “But if a man thought he wasn’t the dad, wouldn’t he just leave?” I ask, surprised I’ve entered the conversation.

  Silas stops arranging flowers, contemplating. The sunlight catches his long eyelashes. “But if it’s a matriarchy, then she could just find a new husband, and no one would judge her.”

  “Matriarchy?”

  “A society ruled by women.”

  I’ve never heard this word before. “Where is the matriarchy?”

  He smiles. “I don’t actually know any. I’ve just read about them in books.”

  Of course it doesn’t exist.

  Silas makes it sound like matriarchy would solve a great deal of problems, but would it? A lot of women raising children without fathers doesn’t sound so perfect to me. It sounds hard.

  “I know of one,” I say, thinking that this is what the Laurel Society must be––women in charge, raising children, without the guidance of men.

  “You do?” he says, amazed.

  “Yes, it’s, uh . . .” I want to say that Grace lived with them her entire life, and that the women are strong and amazing. I want to explain the horrible price for living with them is abandoning your family, living underground, and deciding you hate men.

  “Does it count if there are no men at all?” I ask.

  “Only women live there? How is that possible, with babies and stuff?”

  I can’t risk betraying the Laurel Society, even to this striking boy. “Never mind. I’m confused about the word.”

  His face sinks. “That’s okay. It’s a complicated concept.” Trying to keep the conversation going, he says, “There’s no animal in nature that cares about virginity, so why do we make such a big deal out of it?”

  Silas seems like he’s read a lot of books. “No boy has ever spoken to me this way.”

  “Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s . . . different, but I think I like it. I like learning new things.” Silas speaks with me like I’m another male. Ram treats me like I’m special, but I feel his authority over me. I don’t feel that way with Silas.

  “I’m not always great with people,” he says, less confident than when he was talking about history. “A lot of people, uh, don’t like me.”

  I look at Susanna across the room. “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Do you like me?” he asks.

  I’m thrown. I want to tell him about Juda, but I’ve tried hard to keep my feelings for him private. “I . . . uh . . .”

  Seeing my discomfort, he says, “I mean like, Mina, nothing more.”

  “Oh. Yes. I like you.”

  He smiles. “Good. I like you, too.” He leans forward, squeezing my forearm with his good hand. “A lot.”

  I feel the watchful gaze of every girl in the room. I look around to see Susanna, Frannie, and a dozen other faces gaping at an action that at home would mean I was now engaged.

  Uneasy, I hop up, heading to Tabby. I hear Silas say, “Don’t go over there!” but I ignore him.

  When I reach Tabby and the “otter daughters,” I say, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Are you done with the flowers?” asks Tabby, glancing at Silas in doubt.

  “No, but I, uh, need a break.”

  “Yeah, my brother is annoying,” says Tabby.

  The otter daughters giggle. Tabby stares at them and they stop.

  “Hello,” I say to them.

  They stare back at me, mouths open.

  “Mina, meet Ginnie and Delilah. Ginnie and Delilah, meet Mina.”

  Smiling, I say, “Nice to meet you.” They say nothing, apparently struck dumb by my presence. “Are you part of the celebration tonight?” I ask, but they continue to stare.

  Looking away from my f
ace, Delilah says, “We’re not allowed to talk to you.”

  I don’t know how to respond.

  “Not allowed,” Ginnie echoes.

  Handing them the remaining lights in her hands, Tabby leads me away. “Don’t freak out. They have a refugee in their house, and you’re a refugee who breaks rules. Their dad would kill them for talking to you.”

  “You mean they have two refugees,” I say, correcting her.

  “Huh?” she says, ready to go back to her task.

  “There are two boys staying at the Delford house.”

  “No way,” she says. “Families are only allowed to have one Propheteer at a time. Everyone knows that.”

  Completely confused, my head whips over to look at Silas. Why did he say he was sneaking me out to look at two boys?

  But I have no chance to ask him, because Silas is gone.

  He must have known I would ask the Delford girls about Juda and Dekker. He knew I would figure out that he deceived me. Why would he lie?

  Running out of the Leisure Center, I don't see him. My Bee follows me outside, humming louder than ever. I head in the direction of the Dixons, and, before long, I spot Silas’ hurrying figure in the distance.

  “Silas!” I shout. He looks over his shoulder but doesn't slow down. He can’t possibly think he can avoid me. We live in the same house.

  Silas breaks into a run. I jog after him, wondering if there’s a rule against refugees running. Will my Bee sound an alarm?

  Before long, Silas reaches the Dixon’s, rushing through the front door. I’m right behind him, racing across the living room, when Bithia appears. “Mina. I was about to come find you.”

  I try to step around her. What if Silas locks himself inside his room? He could stay in there for days, and I need answers now.

  Bithia puts her hand on my shoulder. “I need you to come with me.”

  “Sorry,” I say, “but I really need to talk to Silas.”

  “Your friend Rose is in the hospital.”

  My body seems to sink into the floor. Rose. I’d stopped thinking about her. “What happened?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Horton didn’t say.”

  Horton—the man Rose said was trying to kill her.

  “Can you take me to her?” I ask.