Grounded

by G. P. Ching

  Maxwell busies himself with his notebook and doesn’t elaborate. I don’t push the subject. Strictly speaking, it’s none of my business. “I’d like you to try something for me. Korwin says you used the spark on the Holotread yesterday. Can you try to show me? Draw it down into your hand.”

  I try to find that thing inside of me that I used at CGEF. Without time to think, I’d acted on instinct that night, simply trusting it. This time, my slow introspection reveals the source. I turn my attention inward, toward the tickle that has lived at the back of my brain since the MRI machine. I try to stretch it to my fingertips. It’s difficult. I don’t have a target like I did with the Biolock or the panel in the elevator. Still, with some concentration, the spark obeys me, stretching to my elbow, then to my palm. I grunt, and a small arc of white light travels between my thumb and forefinger.

  “Very good, Lydia,” Maxwell says, clapping me on my shoulder. “How did that feel?”

  “Like threading a quilting needle with yarn,” I say with a laugh.

  He shakes his head.

  “It was difficult,” I say. “Draining.”

  With quick fingers, he peels the electrode off my arm and moves on to the next one. “Enough for today. Let’s get you out of this. More tomorrow?”

  I think about that for a moment. “Not that I don’t want to help, but I need to find a way back home. My friend, Jeremiah, is still in Willow’s Province. I’m concerned for his safety.”

  Maxwell buries his hands in his pockets and gives me a long look. His yellowing eyes seem tired behind his glasses, and the lines around his tight mouth age him. “Hmm. Give me a day or two to see what I can do.”

  “How do you find your way here? I keep losing my sense of direction.” I’m back in the maze of hallways with Korwin, done with testing for now.

  “You noticed, huh? This place is designed to be confusing, in case the enemy ever made it this far. You’ll get it, eventually.”

  Will I? How long will I be staying? Clearly, Korwin thinks this will be an extended visit. I’m not ready to admit I’m a prisoner here or to take issue with the help the Stuarts are giving me, but homesickness plows into me when I think about staying. All I want to do is go home to Hemlock Hollow. I miss the simple thrill of diving off the haymow with Jeremiah. I’d give anything to share a glass of lemonade on Mary’s porch swing. Where will I go to church on Sunday? I desperately need Bishop Kauffman’s sage advice. My father! Oh, I need to see my father.

  “Are you okay?” Korwin asks.

  “Just homesick,” I say. I hide my distress by taking interest in the artwork on the wall and square my shoulders in front of a painting of a pack of wolves in purple hues. It’s breathtaking, and for a moment, I forget what I was worried about and just take it in, not just what I see but how it makes me feel. A scrollwork K is painted in the bottom corner, a symbol I remember from the palomino painting near the stairwell.

  “Did you paint this?” I ask in amazement.

  “Yes.”

  “But I thought you didn’t go outside much. How do you know what these animals look like?”

  “Internet. Television. Sometimes books.”

  “There are videos of animals?”

  “Living and dead. Every one since video was invented. I can tell it’s not exactly how it would look in real life, but I don’t know what’s missing. The color is my way of filling in the missing pieces. Well, what I imagine them to be.” He rubs the back of his neck like the thought is ridiculous.

  “Oh, I think I get it. You’ve captured their relationship with the color.”

  “Huh?”

  “They’re pack animals. I’ve watched them before, at the edge of the wood where I live. See how you’ve made this one bright? I think you could tell that he was the alpha, the leader. This dark one, this is the submissive. Look how you used the different shade in the snow. You can tell they just finished playing. It’s a very good likeness. Very real.” I correct myself. “The colors aren’t real, but the relationships are. Maybe more real than if you’d painted them in their natural colors.”

  Korwin steps closer, peering over my shoulder at his artwork. His brow furrows. “None of that was on purpose. I just painted.”

  I pivot, realizing when my shoulder brushes his chest just how close he is to me. I look up into his eyes. “I’ve seen wolves, Korwin, in real life. Your paintings are very good. They’re amazing.”

  A cynical grin forms on his lips. “I wish I’d seen what you’ve seen. It’s too bad the English don’t have the opposite of rumspringa. I’d like to visit Hemlock Hollow.”

  I search his face for any sign of insincerity. The irony is that I’ve spent my life longing to taste the wonders of the English world, and here is a boy who aches for a taste of mine. “Maybe some day I can show you.”

  His hazel eyes play over his wolf painting, taking in his own work in a new way. I can see I haven’t satisfied his curiosity about the wolves. In fact, he seems agitated by the revelation of their relationship.

  “Do you have more to show me?” Casually, I run my fingers down the outside of his wrist to get his attention. The contact reignites the electricity inside of me, sending a hot current through my body. Whoa. Heat creeps up my neck to my ears.

  The hard lines of Korwin’s face soften. If he notices my blush, he doesn’t say anything. “Yeah. Come on. There’s more.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “A part of the compound I didn’t get a chance to show you yesterday. I think you’ll find it interesting.” He leads me a bit farther down the hall to a set of French doors decorated with stained glass panels. “The library.”

  I am struck speechless as I enter a room with shelves of books floor to ceiling. At the center, a table is stacked with clear plastic panels, electric tablets if I remember correctly from my studies. “There are so many.”

  “A little of everything. If it’s not here in paper, you can download anything you want on the tablets. We’ve got an entire section of fiction if you’re interested, besides the ones you would expect about politics and electrokinesis.”

  Turning in a circle, I scan the titles around me. “Can I stay here for a while?” The books in Hemlock Hollow are few and far between. Each one has to be approved by the Ordnung. I am overwhelmed by the knowledge contained in this room. The sheer number and diversity of the titles astounds me.

  Korwin steps in close. “Sure. I can come back to get you before dinner.”

  “Thank you,” I say. The intense pull is back and I have to force myself not to close the small distance between us.

  He leans forward, and for a moment I think he might kiss me. I’m tempted to give in to it too. But I lower my chin and turn away, suddenly overcome with guilt and thoughts of Jeremiah.

  Korwin’s kiss lands on my forehead, leaving a tingle in its wake. “See you later.”

  I nod, because I can’t speak, and watch him leave the room.

  13

  Lightning. In Hemlock Hollow we make up loads of stories about how it came to be. God fighting angels. God playing baseball. Mary and I sometimes lie in the attic and watch out the window in wonder as fire sliced through the sky. But I never understood it. Not really.

  I sit at the table in the library of Stuart Manor in front of a stack of open books, riveted. If I retain a quarter of what I’m reading, I’ll count myself lucky. Here’s what I’ve learned. Far above me, particles of ice and water tumble around inside the clouds. When these particles collide, they build up an electrical field. Electrical fields can be either negatively charged or positively charged, and the ones in the cloud are negative. I think of them as looking for trouble.

  Meanwhile, on the ground, invisible particles spin and dance, causing a positively charged electrical field. Mutual attraction draws the particles on the ground toward the particles in the sky and when they touch, crack! The collision creates lightning. Lightning travels at sixty-two thousand miles per second and is hotter than the surface of t
he sun. I have a hard time believing what the books say. How could anything burn so hot or move so fast?

  Electrokinesis, this thing I have, works in much the same way. My cells bump into each other, building up a charge. The atoms buzzing around everything else do the same. Even the air. When I want my electrokinesis to work, the books say I can move my charge to the outside of my body and flip it to either positive or negative to connect with objects around me. In theory, it’s mutual. The electrokinetic individual “asks” the object to accept the charged particles, and zap.

  It’s so much easier to believe what happened in CGEF was a miracle from God. A miracle has a purpose. But seeing my strange cells and learning about my electrokinesis makes it feel like one giant accident. It frightens me to think that everything that’s happened has been a product of my genetics and nothing more. How did I get like this?

  All this questioning leads me full circle. My mutation must have been a miracle. There’s no other explanation. Which leads me to the ultimate question: why did God make me this way? And what about Korwin?

  Korwin. I hardly know him but every time we’re together it’s like an invisible hand is shoving me in his direction. It’s too fast and entirely inappropriate. But just like the particles between the cloud and the ground, I suspect our attraction has more to do with science than affection. As I flip the page of the book I’m reading, I wonder if I have any control over my attraction to him or if, like lightning, it’s simply a matter of time before it strikes.

  “Have you had enough yet?” Korwin stands in the doorway. Funny, I didn’t hear it open. By the way he leans against the frame, it appears he’s been there for some time.

  “I think so,” I say, closing the tome in front of me.

  “Good, because it’s time for dinner.”

  “Give me a minute and I’ll clean up this mess,” I say, walking the book in my hands to its space on the shelf.

  “Leave it, Lydia. Jameson can do it later,” he says.

  I close another volume and return it to the shelf. “I prefer to do it myself. I’m sure Jameson has better things to do than pick up my books.”

  “Like what? This is his job, and my father pays him very well for it.”

  Retrieving another book from the table, I scowl at him. “Many hands make light work. Caring for a home is a burden to be shared. Everyone should pick up his or her own mess.” Geez. I sound like an old Amish maam. Why does the thought of Jameson picking up after me bother me so much?

  Korwin laughs and grabs a book from the table. “You said you’re a seamstress on the preservation, right?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “How would you feel if one of your customers demanded to help sew her own dress?”

  I finish shelving the book and rise to my full height, hands on my hips. “That is completely different.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. I’m trained as a seamstress. The buyer might do more harm than good.”

  Korwin raises an eyebrow. “Jameson trained to be a butler at a professional school. He’s an expert who keeps this library in tiptop shape. Frankly, I hope we’ve put these books back in their proper places or there might be hell to pay.”

  “I… Uh…”

  “He’s not my mother. He won’t give me a hug if I fall down and skin my knee. He’s a butler and this is what he’s paid to do. Why not let him do it?”

  I return to the table but there are no more books to shelve. Gripping the back of the chair, I toss the idea around in my mind. Is this my way of clinging to Hemlock Hollow? “Maybe you’re right. This world is different. We don’t have servants on the preservation.” I grin. “Instead, people have children. We’re the servants.”

  “Well, it’s time to put down the broom and go to the ball, Cinderella,” Korwin says.

  “Who’s Cinderella?”

  His face falls.

  “I’m kidding. Even I know that one.”

  He hooks his fingers into mine. “Speaking of Jameson, he’s going to kill me if I don’t get you to dinner on time. Come on.”

  I let him lead me from the library, my hand in his. I know I should fight it. Holding hands is a promise I’m not ready to keep. But I can’t. I can’t bring myself to let go.

  14

  I wake in a cold sweat. It’s pitch black and the pounding of my heart is audible in the stillness. Or maybe it’s an internal noise punctuated by the thumping inside my chest. I’m in bed. A bed that is not my own. It’s comfortable enough but has the muffled walls of a cellar. In Hemlock Hollow I fall asleep to the sounds of the night, the howl of the wind or the chirp of crickets under the moon. It’s too quiet in this room and too loud inside me. Nightmares of giant rats and officers in green uniforms plague my dreams.

  Surely my anxiety is due to the questions riddling me. Is Stuart Manor a safe house or a different kind of prison? Will I ever see Jeremiah or my father again? What will Maxwell expect from me tomorrow? When can I return to Hemlock Hollow?

  There’s a Bible verse in the book of Matthew that says, Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. I’ve heard Bishop Kauffman preach on it often enough. Dwelling on these thoughts isn’t right or helpful, but casting them aside is nearly impossible.

  I decide to take a walk to try to calm my nerves. The lights in the hallway are on. It’s three a.m. I guess they never turn off. I wander toward the gym and beyond, with no particular goal but to wear myself out so that I can sleep. I end up lost in the maze of hallways, finally finding a landmark in the blue palomino painting. The door to my right is the healing chamber, and the staircase behind me leads to the main level of the house.

  On my toes I jog up the stairs and cross the wood floors to the wall of windows at the rear of what Korwin calls “the great room.” The night calls to me through the glass. Pale moonlight guides my way, and stars poke pinholes of light in the late summer sky. I need to be outside, to be under the same moon as my father, Jeremiah, and Hemlock Hollow.

  I trace my fingers along the cool glass until I reach a pair of French doors and, after some experimentation, figure out how to unlock them. Stepping out into the warm night air, I jog across the enormous white deck to the railing. There is a stark drop and then miles of lawn blend into ever-thickening woods.

  “Makes you want to run to the Outlands and never look back, doesn’t it?”

  Startled, I pivot toward the voice, gripping the rail of the deck to steady myself. Jameson sits in an Adirondack chair pressed against the side of the house, a place he’d be impossible to see through the windows. He swirls a glass of something brown and syrupy in his hand, the ice clinking with each rotation of his wrist. Striped pajamas hang off of him like loose skin. They age him. Or maybe it’s the moonlight that gives his face the quality of parchment.

  “Jameson. You scared me,” I say, adding a breathy laugh. “I didn’t see you there.”

  He lifts his drink to his lips and gulps. When he lowers it again, the ice clinks to the bottom and he sets the empty glass on the deck next to his chair. “Maybe, you should be scared.”

  What? “I think I have enough to be scared about already,” I say. Why is he staring at me like that?

  He stands and approaches me. “If it would make you take your security seriously, I could pretend to be a threat.”

  “Because I came outside? Is this not allowed?” Maxwell said we were on “lockdown” but what harm could come from being on the grounds in the middle of the night?

  Jameson doesn’t answer me. “Where did you come from, Lydia?” he asks.

  I have no idea how much Jameson knows or understands about my plight. How much of my conversations with the Stuarts has he overheard or been told by the Stuarts? I decide right then I won’t burden him with the details. “Willow’s Province.”

  Jamison grunts. He steps closer, close enough that I can smell the alcohol on his breath. By the reek of it, I’d
guess that wasn’t his first drink. “Willow’s Province, huh? They have good schools in Willow’s Province?”

  “No. The schools are horrible. The energy is inconsistent, as is the record-keeping.” Even I know that. There’s a reason we’re told to say we are from Willow’s Province. As an Englisher, he must know the answer. So, why is he asking? He’s prying. I force my expression to remain impassive but inside I’m suspicious of his interest. I’ve already shared my secret with two Englishers. I’m not willing to expose Hemlock Hollow any more than I already have.

  He steps next to me and rests his hand on the railing. When he does, the sleeve of his pajamas stays crumpled at the elbow, exposing a bandage like the one Maxwell used on me when he took my blood. Jameson catches me staring and tugs his cuff into place. “You look just like her,” he mumbles.

  “Like who?” I ask. It’s the second time he’s mentioned it. “Who is this twin I have in Crater City?”

  Jameson blinks rapidly and clears his throat. “Someone I used to know. A friend. You look incredibly similar. Of course, if she were alive today, she’d be my age.”

  “Do you have a picture?” I ask.

  He shakes his head and steps in closer to me.

  “It’s interesting when people look alike. I’ve always been fascinated by twins and doppelgangers.” My voice is abnormally high and my skin crawls with discomfort. What does he want from me?

  “Likewise.” He stares at me as if I will bloom an explanation. It’s unnerving. I can feel him willing the truth from me.

  I turn away and stare across the lawn.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” he says abruptly. “If someone sees you, it could cause hardship for Mr. Stuart.”

  I’m perplexed by the trace of venom I hear in his voice and turn my head to look at him again. His eyes are dark and intense. He’s too close and I inch down the railing to avoid touching him. I glance down at my tangled fingers and remind myself that Jameson is an employee and I’ve disturbed his personal time.