Layla Zipse stood in the arching doorway, hirsute arms folded before her worn bathrobe, feet bare and filthy, perpetual growl hanging on the corner of her mouth. Her matted gray hair hung limply around her shoulders. She grabbed her right ear and tugged. The dull glint of silver flashed in the morning light.
“I heard it start, Ronja—do you think I’m a pitching idiot?”
“No,” Ronja began carefully.
She set the mug on the table and slid it toward her mother, who was already trembling.
“But you asked the time, and since The Day Song always starts at five-thirty—”
“I know what time it starts,” Layla spat. Even the frayed ends of her hair seemed to shudder with anger. “My question was rhetorical.”
“Then why did you expect an answer?” Georgie asked.
“I didn’t want an answer,” she replied, her voice abruptly low.
The mutt prowled forward, reaching out with clubbed fingers for the milk. She lifted the glass in her left hand and reached into her dressing gown pocket with her right. She pulled out a metallic flask, popped the lid, and poured half the contents into her milk.
Layla sipped the drink and smacked her lips, smiling sweetly.
“I didn’t want an answer, I wanted an apology!”
Ronja closed her eyes, sucking in the oxygen and The Day Song.
Passion is perilous. Emotion is treacherous.
“I’m sorry, what did we do to upset you?” Ronja asked, keeping her voice level.
“You woke me with all your jabbering,” Layla gulped her mug ferociously. “I was up late with The Night Song going yak yak yak, then I wake up to hear you two skitz-heads jabbering about Ronja’s check getting cut. Why were you late, hmm? Out kissing boys on your shift?”
“I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well, and that we woke you,” Ronja replied evenly. “I forget your ears are more sensitive than ours. I’m sorry my check was cut, but I have it under control.”
“I’ve decided to take up a job after school, to help Ro out.” Georgie broke in. “She works so hard.”
Ronja shot a withering glance at Georgie, which she tactfully ignored.
Layla paused, puffy lips pressed to the rim of her mug, then snorted into the repellent concoction.
“If she’s working so hard, why are we out of milk again?”
Ronja felt her ears grow hot. She dropped her gaze to her hands, which were pressed palms-down on the table. The knife caught a shard of sunlight, glinted in her peripheral vision.
Emotion is treacherous.
“Georgie,” Layla barked.
The mousy-haired girl nearly dropped the plate she was polishing.
“Yes?”
“You can get a job after school, but just after school. Can’t have you droppin’ out like this pitcher.” Layla gestured at her daughter with a tilt of her head.
Ronja’s composure snapped. She slammed a fist into the table. The bread shuddered, the blade rang against the wood. The Day Song started like a frightened rabbit, wailed in her ear. Hot white lights ruptured in her vision, but she ignored them. She leaned toward her mother, whose jaundiced eyes narrowed to slits.
“I left school because you were too lazy to get off your ass and work, you useless mutt.”
Layla lunged forward and seized Ronja by the front of her sweater. Her spiked milk crashed to the floor, shattering and splashing across their legs. Georgie screamed and grabbed Ronja by the shoulders, trying to yank her away. The older girl shoved her off with ease, matched her mother’s snarl.
“Don’t you ever talk down to me, girl,” Layla spat. She drew Ronja closer, licked her rotten teeth. “If I hadn’t been too sick to work, you’d have flunked out anyway.”
“I’m smarter than you ever were,” Ronja insisted, her voice climbing higher than she thought it could.
“Then why can’t you get a better job?”
“Because my mother’s a pitching mutt, and they think I’m one too!” Ronja shrieked.
Layla released her jumper and shoved her away with a gnarled hand. She dug into her dressing gown again, retrieving her flask. Ronja was reminded of Georgie grasping her rabbit’s ear for comfort.
“That ain’t true,” her mother growled, fiddling with the cap.
“It is!” Ronja shouted. “They bark at me when I walk down the street,” her voice cracked. Her eyes glazed over and she blinked them into focus. “If you could just tell them I’m not a—”
“What?!” Layla roared, lobbing the metal cap across the kitchen. It sang against the wall, then bounced across the floor before vanishing beneath the icebox. “Not a mutt?! You’re skitzin’. Mutt genes are passed with the rest of ’em. You’ve been sayin’ for years you ain’t one, but you are and you’d best get used to it.”
Layla swiped a slice of stale bread from table and, ripping off a portion with her teeth, marched from the kitchen. She paused in the doorframe, her muscles taut beneath her sagging skin.
“Just listen to The Music, girl, you’ll hear the truth. No one hears The Music like us mutts.”
Ronja swallowed the stone in her throat. It landed in her stomach, nearly dragging her to her knees.
She was about to turn away when Layla loosed a gasp, drawing Ronja from her stupor. The mutt flicked her gaze to The Conductor’s brooding portrait. Her papery lids fell like curtains over her twitching, yellow eyes.
“The Music hears me. The Music hears me. The Music hears me. The Music—” Layla’s words bled together beneath the scalding gaze of the mute painting.
A minute passed, choked by the string of words. Ronja felt Georgie watching her, but she ignored it. She looked on as her mother’s rage unraveled into nothingness and tried to feel relief.
When Layla opened her eyes, they were still and flat. She no longer seemed to register their presence. The mutt turned on her heel and trudged toward the door, her hands feeble at her sides.
Neither Georgie nor Ronja spoke as Layla retreated up the staircase.
The Conductor was vividly present in their kitchen and their ears.
A door squeaked open, then clicked shut above them.
Ronja sank into a chair and exhaled deeply, forcing her anger out with her breath. Generally, The Music was enough to maintain her composure, its tune wringing the rage from her mind. Today, it was not sufficient. She knew she would feel the repercussions of her temper later.
“You know she’s wrong, right?” Georgie asked.
Ronja fell back into the kitchen. Georgie was sweeping the shattered glass into a dustpan.
“About?”
“You. You are smart, and I know you’re not a mutt.”
Ronja laughed dryly.
“One thing’s for sure, it doesn’t make sense. She was made a mutt before I was born. I checked our papers.”
Georgie paused and leaned on the broom handle heavily, her wide eyes roving. Ronja could tell she was seeing far beyond the kitchen.
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” the girl finally said. “Just be grateful you’re not like her.”
Ronja allowed her head to sag onto the table. She wrapped her arms around it as if to protect it from a bomb blast.
A soft hand kissed her shoulder.
“It isn’t your fault, Ro,” Georgie whispered in her free ear.
“She shouldn’t be like this,” Ronja murmured, her forehead pressed to the cool, scrubbed wood. She screwed her eyes shut, drew her arms tighter around her curls. “She should be like the rest of them.”
“She usually is,” Georgie replied, beginning to knead her cousin’s stiff shoulders. “She’s just—”
“A time bomb,” Ronja finished.
“The Music gets her before she goes too far,” Georgie said soothingly, moving her fingers up to massage Ronja’s neck.
The older girl chuckled mirthlessly from beneath her tent of hair.
“Not always. I prefer her as a vegetable.”
“No you don’t,” Georgie admonished gently.
Ronja rose abruptly, knocking away the tender hands. She shoved a piece of bread into her mouth. It was stale and tasteless on her tongue, and it stuck in her throat. She reached for the milk bottle, then swore when she found it empty.
“I’m going to sleep,” Ronja said through her mouthful of food.
She slammed the bottle down on the table.
“When should I wake you?” Georgie asked calmly, leaning on the broom.
Ronja sighed, passing an apology to her cousin through her gaze. “Eleven . . . no . . . ten-thirty, please,” she replied in a milder tone, gathering her coat in her arms and starting toward her bedroom. Her limbs were leaden. Her train of sleepless nights was gaining on her.
“Wake Cosmin in a half-hour, would you? And get him to finish the pitching dishes.”
Georgie nodded, mustered a weak smile.
Ronja’s heart tightened. Georgie looked like a paper doll. She clung to the broom like a life raft. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, and her lips were cracked.
“Finish that,” Ronja commanded, pointing at the loaf as if to prove a point. “Just leave a bit for Cos, he always gets extra from his friends.”
“What about Aunt Layla?”
Ronja glanced up the quiet stairwell where her mother had disappeared.
“Don’t call her that,” Ronja replied. “Just Layla.”
She turned on the heel of her boot and strode toward the basement door.
5: Home
It was a relief to shut the door on her mother’s erratic rage, on Georgie’s aching expression.
Ronja stood at the crest of the basement stairs with her back pressed against the door. The weight of the world bulged against the wood.
She peeled away from the barrier and started down the stairs. The aroma of must and dry soil settled in her nose. She inhaled deeply. The knots in her shoulders loosened.
Home for Ronja was not the house; it was her bedroom.
Her basement chamber was nearly pitch black, save for the silvery light that crawled in through the narrow street-level window. Each day, the glass was caked with sludge from trampling boots and revolving wheels. Each day, she took a rag to the mess. It was a hopeless task, but she liked to watch the pairs of feet go by and imagine the lives attached.
Her room was sparsely furnished. It housed a twin bed; a plain, ancient desk; an oil lamp; and a chair with an uneven leg. A smaller rendition of Bullon’s portrait regarded her from the shadows above her headboard.
Ronja tossed her hat and coat onto her desk. Her cap tumbled to the floor, but she ignored it. Her limbs like anchors, she flopped onto her bed face first and sank into her blankets.
Despite the comfort, dark memories swirled behind her eyelids. Not even The Music could drown out the creeping sense of dread that accompanied them.
Layla had been a mutt since before Ronja was born, but she knew her mother had not always been so demented.
She had proof.
Ronja let her fingers drip over the edge of her bed. They skimmed the underbelly of her mattress, pausing when they brushed the sharp edge of the photograph lodged between the rusted springs. She tugged it into the muted light.
In the photograph, Ronja’s father had swept Layla off her feet. She could not see his face, it was hugged by the shadow of his hat. His Singer glinted hollowly in the sunlight. The camera portrayed him as a sturdily-built man with a smudge of gray for a face.
Ronja had never known her father. He had died when she was a baby. He sometimes slipped into her dreams, a splotch of gray in a trench coat. She trailed him through the tilting city streets, losing him around corners only to rediscover him behind her. His footsteps tapping on the bricks, nearly loud enough to overcome The Music. She would awake to a cold sweat and an aching skull.
Ronja brushed her forefinger across her mother’s static face, which was bitingly clear in comparison to her father’s.
In the past, Layla was neat, pretty without being beautiful. Her hair was spun into tight pin curls, her dress was pressed, her toes pinched into dainty heels. Although the photograph was black and white, Ronja could see that a hint of color had been applied to her cheeks and lips. Her teeth were stark white, her eyes scrunched with laughter.
Ronja let the snapshot fall from her fingers. She pressed her face into her pillow, breathing in the cool, dry cotton.
It was against the law for mutts to keep photographs of themselves pre-procedure. Ronja did not know how it had escaped the furnace. She had discovered it when she was seven, tucked between two quilts in the attic. She had been too fearful to ask if its presence was purposeful.
Despite the roar in her head, Ronja had not been able to burn the illicit photo.
She rolled over onto her side, careful not to crumple it.
No one really knew what was in the serum that created mutts. It was a tangle of nefarious genetic material laced to a carrier virus that chewed through healthy human DNA and filled the gaps with recombined sequences. In the end, it did not matter what it was made of, but what it did.
The mutt virus opened the minds of citizens previously deaf to The Music. Criminals, traitors, enemies of The Conductor and His regime. Their fiery brains were numbed, their erratic emotions plateaued. They were made soft, malleable, and highly susceptible to The Music.
At least, they were supposed to be.
Layla spent days, weeks at a time, in the foggy stupor where she belonged. She wandered the house, mumbling to herself about the flow of The Music, nursing her flask. Occasionally, the mutt would sink into a coma that spanned days. Ronja suspected these episodes were signs of the virus beginning to wear her down, especially since they seemed to grow worse with age. She often wondered when her mother would go to sleep and never wake up.
Then, there were times when Layla’s rage erupted, shattering The Music like a brick through a window.
It was against the nature of a mutt to feel rage. It was against their nature to be anything but obedient and docile. Regardless, Ronja had the marks to prove her mother’s violent outbursts.
Ronja reached up and brushed the jagged scar puckered on her collarbone with the pads of her singed fingers. She closed her eyes, shoved her hand under her cool pillow.
If Layla kept fighting her nature, she would doubtlessly go into The Quiet.
But did she deserve to?
That was the question Ronja had wrestled with since the day her mother gave her her first black eye. Was Layla a naturally violent person barely restrained by her numbing mutt genes? Or had something gone wrong with her procedure, altering her brain and making her—?
Ronja winced as The Day Song pinched her.
The Music Hears You.
She grabbed the spare blanket folded neatly at the end of her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. She laid down and tucked herself into a ball, her knees curled to her chest. She tried to close her eyes, but found her lids were painted with both her mother’s faces. Human and mutt. Old and new. Worse and . . . better?
Ronja snaked her hand out from beneath her pillow and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
In the end, Layla was right.
Mutt DNA was transferable. It was designed as a mark of shame that lived on through generations. Ronja should have inherited her coarse features, harsh voice, and muddled brain.
But Ronja knew damn well she was human.
In her youth she had spent hours staring into the hazy bathroom mirror, nose pressed to the glass in search of a hint of yellow in her irises. They had always remained the same pale shade of green, flecked with gray. Her fingernails were not clubbed, but long and slender. She was not plagued by listlessness and lethargy. By age ten, she was convinced she did not house a sliver of mutt DNA.
Such logic did not affect the minds of the Revinians. Ronja had never understood it, and had long since given up trying. Each and every person she encountered seemed to inherently recognize her genes though she knew in her bones they were invisible. It was as if they could sm
ell the virus festering beneath her skin.
Since the first grade, Ronja had been shunted into corners. Teachers averted their gazes, ignored her questions. Her peers shied away from her, cringing if their skin happened to brush hers. Her naturally quick mouth stilled when she realized that her words were discounted.
By all but one.
Ronja smiled feebly at the thought of Henry. Her best friend was blissfully unaware of the consequences of his actions. He had doubtlessly lost friends in order to maintain their relationship, but he never complained.
Ronja fell asleep as the rest of the city was beginning to stir.
She dreamed of driving a steamer through a ceaseless, linear tunnel punctuated by unsavory fluorescent bulbs. The vision was perfectly dispassionate, until a familiar silhouette appeared in the arch of the catacomb.
6: Sapped
“Ronja,” a voice called from somewhere in her dream. Ronja groaned.
“Ro!”
Ronja blinked sluggishly. A blinding shaft of sunlight shot through the window above her bed. She flung her forearm across her eyes.
“You gotta get up,” the voice implored.
Two hands shook her shoulders roughly.
“I’m up, Cos, I’m up,” Ronja muttered.
She yawned and propped herself up on her elbows, squinting wearily at her cousin.
Cosmin beamed at her, his arms folded over his chest. He was tall for a twelve year-old, and thin as a rail. He had the same mop of dark curls Ronja was burdened with, and an easy smile. He wore spectacles while he read, which magnified his grayish-green eyes.
“I wish I had a camera, Ro. You’re a train wreck.”
Ronja stretched, her muscles creaking like the scaffold of an old house. “Is that supposed to be a pun?”
Cosmin laughed good-naturedly and offered his hand. Ronja clasped it, and he yanked her out of bed. She was still wearing her boots, trousers, and sweater.
“What time is it?” Ronja yawned again, stretching her arms toward the low hanging ceiling.
“Nearly eleven,” Cosmin replied, stepping back.
Ronja opened her mouth to yell at him, but the adolescent threw his hands up.
Vinyl: Book One of the Vinyl Trilogy Page 3
