by Melissa Kuch
Aurora stepped away from Roland, thanking him for the offer but stating matter-of-factly that she was not going to be staying in the country for long. She hurriedly made her way back to the table and wondered if that was Babs’s game, to get out of her arranged marriage. Or maybe she was going to trick Boreas into staying down with her for as long as she could. As she said, no one left Plymouth Tartarus. Perhaps she wanted it that way.
“She is not going to ruin our mission,” Aurora thought madly. She ran up to Mrs. Xiomy and demanded, “Do you know where they went?”
“Oh, kids just having fun. I saw you dancing with that nice looking boy. What’s his name? Does he have an older and attractive father, preferably single with no drama?”
Aurora marched over to Otus and tugged at his pant leg to get his attention from the group of children asking for his autograph.
“Have you seen Boreas?”
“Why? Is he in trouble?”
She sighed deeply. What was she doing? She was not Boreas’s keeper. Why did she care where he went?
Otus patted her on the head. “Relax and have fun. He’ll show up.”
She grabbed a glass of water and chugged it down. It helped calm her nerves a bit. She then found Eileen, and together they danced as Babs’s fiancé sang their two songs. They were absolutely horrendous. No wonder Babs wanted them to learn different songs. She turned to Eileen and asked, “Are you having an arranged marriage too?”
She shrugged. “Unless I find someone I am in love with first. But all the boys here are so immature. I hope that I’ll have another visitor come down to us before my parents have to make a decision.”
“What if you want to stay single? What if you don’t want to get married?”
She turned to her as if she had three heads. “Why would I not want to get married?”
Aurora took a step back and shrugged. “I mean, women have careers. Some never get married. Others have children and never marry; freezing their eggs so that they can have children in their forties. But then again, it’s a different world up there.”
“A strange world,” Eileen said. After another dance she turned to Aurora. “I never thought of having—what do you call it?—–a career. What kind of career do you want?”
Aurora smiled. “Well, I first want to go to college and possibly study history. Then I could go for teaching and help mentor other children. But the history I would love to teach is no longer in the curriculum. We can only teach everything starting with the Last Straw Protest.”
Eileen nodded along with the music, and they continued to dance. A bunch of boys joined them, and she started dancing from one to the other. This was the best night of her life, having so many people admiring her, and she continued dancing and dancing until out of nowhere a loud booming noise erupted over the intercom, and everyone froze in place.
Eileen clung to Aurora’s arm, worried. “Oh my god!” she said, her face turning pale.
“What is that noise?” Aurora asked, alarmed.
The doors swung open, and Boreas was led into the room by two cloaked figures, an electrical cord bound around his wrists.
oreas was shoved down onto his knees in the center of the ballroom, followed by Babs, who was led out by two other cloaked men. Fawn stood up, horrified, and everyone else looked on with blank expressions. Aurora took a step back to the edge of the dance floor, holding onto Eileen, who looked as if she might fall over at any minute.
Fawn spoke out. “What is the reason for disturbing the party?”
The Great Secretary stepped forward. “We found the accused kissing Miss Barbara O’Hara in the Sacristy, amidst the sacred books!”
The audience cried out in confusion and anger. Babs’s fiancé stepped forward, his face filled with anguish.
“Babs, is this true?”
She started to sob uncontrollably, and Boreas was flung to the ground.
The fiancé continued, exasperated, “He’s an agitator. He must have forced himself onto her. Justice must be served!”
“No! No, he didn’t,” Babs cried out. “Please. It’s all my fault.”
“Silence!” Fawn’s voice boomed out, and everyone went silent.
Boreas hadn’t said a word, and Aurora caught his eye, but he immediately looked the other way. Otus was standing, unsure of how to proceed. Mrs. Xiomy held his arm, and everyone appeared to be waiting for Fawn to pass sentencing.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” she asked, pointing down at Boreas, who finally looked up and stared at her square in the face.
“I have nothing to say to you,” he said brusquely, and the armed guards shocked him with an electric current that flowed through the electrical cord. His body shook in convulsions.
“Speak in your defense, or else I will have to sentence you. And our laws down here are not the same as what you have in Candlewick, Boreas.”
“You have no right to call me by my name.”
“Who do you think gave you your name?”
“A mother doesn’t abandon her child at five years old for this place!”
The Great Secretary ordered the guards to shock him again but this time Fawn cried out, “Stop! Take him to the chapel. Both of them! The party will continue despite this momentary disturbance.”
The officers lead Boreas and Babs away, and Fawn followed suit with the Great Secretary at her heels. The band started up the music, but Aurora grabbed Eileen’s hand. “Come on!”
They snuck out after the group as the rest of the congregation proceeded with talking and dancing. She turned to Eileen. “Do you know a way that we can eavesdrop? A secret chamber? Anything?”
“There’s the vent,” she said, snapping out of her stupor. “I used to have to clean there when I was younger.”
Aurora followed Eileen as they headed to a picture, which she removed to reveal a grated vent. She unlocked it, and together they clambered inside, replacing the vent behind them. They then crawled through the narrow, dark passageway. Aurora felt like a mouse crawling unobserved through the walls. She couldn’t see anything in front of her but followed Eileen’s movements until they got to a place light was emanating from slits in the vent. They both put their ears against it and listened to the conversation echoing from below.
“You are going to be locked up for a long time! Kissing a woman who is already betrothed is punishable by ten years in prison.”
“My fiancé has the right to not press charges!” Babs cried out vehemently. “And he never wanted to marry me. Our parents are forcing us!”
“So you thought doing this would get you out of it. Is that it?” Fawn’s voice fired out. Babs grew silent. Aurora saw her head over to Boreas, who was on his knees, the guards directly behind him, his hands still held behind his back by the electrical cord.
“And you, making a scene in the Great Hall. I am the High Magistrate. Just because I gave birth to you, don’t think that I won’t adhere to the laws.”
Eileen turned to Aurora in shock, but Aurora didn’t pay attention. She was trying to come up with a way to save Boreas from his fate. If his mother wouldn’t intervene for him, no one would.
“Why don’t you take your medieval laws and shove them up your ass,” Boreas exclaimed. “You’re probably glad that this happened so that your secret won’t reach Dad or Jonathan. Do you remember them? Huh? Or have you chosen this other family, your new family!”
“Leave us!” she ordered. The guards dragged Babs out, and she cried out to Boreas to forgive her. The doors slammed shut, and it was only Fawn, the Great Secretary and Boreas in the room. She went over to him, put her hand under his chin, and raised his face to hers.
“There has not been a day I haven’t thought about you, what I gave up. But I had to, and I couldn’t drag you and your brother down with me. Your father never would have allowed it. To die was the only way that I could disappear and be forgotten and yet forgiven. You have to understand that.”
He continued to stare into her eyes and said
slowly, “Just because I’m your son doesn’t mean I have to forgive you. I hope your sacrifice was worth it because you are dead to me. You will always be dead to me. Because to think of you in any other way breaks my heart! I’m just your visitor. A freaking visitor!”
She released her hold on him, and he bent his head down like a wounded animal. Then she rose to her feet turning her back on her son. “Great Secretary, what is the ruling?”
“For the girl, she is to go through with the marriage if her fiancé will still take her. But she will have no privileges of marriage and will continue to have to serve in addition to give birth. For Boreas Stockington, five years in intensive religious service, and he will remain incarcerated until his years are up.”
Aurora shook her head and immediately started to unfasten the grate. “Eileen, get out of here,” she ordered as she lifted the vent cover upwards to expose a square opening in the ceiling. Eileen scampered off without another word, and Aurora reached out to grab the edge of the velvet curtain. She couldn’t believe she was doing this but closed her eyes tight and wrapped her legs around the fabric. She slid down the curtain, landing on her feet just behind the throne. Boreas, having seen Aurora perform her circus stunt, quickly cried out to Fawn to distract her from turning around. “You got what you wanted, huh? You got to keep me here as a prisoner. To keep me from Dad and from Jonathan!”
“You chose to break the rules of our land!”
“You know perfectly well I didn’t know I was breaking anything! But I’m glad I kissed that girl! I would do it all over again even knowing the rules because you know what? I am a rule breaker. Always have been. I give Dad a lot of hell back home. And don’t think I’m going to be quiet while serving the religious orders either.”
The Great Secretary took out a long sharp bladed knife and held it up to his face, yanking Boreas’s hair until his head was pointed upward. “I will cut out your tongue, you insolent boy. She is the High Magistrate and you will pay her your respect!”
Aurora spotted the sparkling silver gun on a pillow beside the throne and grabbed it instinctively. Before she had time to be frightened, she jumped out from behind the throne with the gun raised.
“You touch his tongue, I swear I will shoot your High Magistrate in the head!”
Fawn whirled around, and the Great Secretary didn’t flinch, still holding onto Boreas’s hair.
“Of course, there are times that he won’t shut up, so maybe losing his tongue wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Aurora, you aren’t helping!” Boreas exclaimed.
“Oh, I mean, release him or else I’ll shoot,” she threatened with her finger on the trigger. Aurora had never fired a gun in her life, and she hoped she was holding it correctly. She was envisioning how the guards did it back in Candlewick Prison and hoped she was impersonating them correctly. She opened the safety and held the trigger with her pointer finger, trying hard not to appear nervous though her hand was shaking.
The Great Secretary laughed and exclaimed, “She couldn’t shoot you even if she tried, High Magistrate. Let me complete this job, and then we’ll take care of the girl together.”
Fawn stared at Boreas, the knife inches away from his throat, and she then pivoted back toward Aurora. “What do you want?” she demanded. The Great Secretary looked on, horrified, as she was negotiating with the armed girl.
“Let Boreas go, and release him from his sentence immediately!”
The High Magistrate nodded her consent. “Done! Great Secretary, let him go!”
He shook his head, the knife now at the cleft of Boreas’s chin. “I will not let you give in to them. Once you waver in your sentencing, people will not adhere to you. We cannot risk error. We cannot risk them to turn against you!”
“Or what? We will end up exactly like the people we are fighting against. Have we become the Common Good? Are we just as twisted as they are?’
“You’re blinded because he’s your son, High Magistrate! You know you cannot back down from this. You have a duty to your people. She cannot shoot you. She doesn’t know how to kill! She’s a girl, for heaven’s sake!”
“If you hurt him, I swear I will hit you square in the heart!” Aurora declared, taking a step down from the altar and pointing the gun in the direction of the Great Secretary.
The Great Secretary looked to the High Magistrate for assistance, but none was given.
“Put down the knife, Great Secretary.”
“I cannot let you do this!” he yelled madly, his pupils glaring, and he sliced the knife across Boreas’s neck, slitting his throat. The Great Secretary lifted the bloody knife up as if to strike again when a shot fired, the bullet hit him right in the center of his forehead. His body jolted and then fell backwards onto the ground, blood oozing down his face. Aurora stared down at her gun, but no bullet had been fired. Her finger was still resting on the trigger. Smoke instead was emanating from under Fawn’s cape.
Fawn dropped the gun and ran to Boreas, who was bleeding heavily by the neck.
“Quick, Aurora, run out and tell the guards to fetch the doctor. Now!”
Aurora ran down the steps and yelled at the first guard she spotted outside the door to quickly find the doctor. She then ran back to where Fawn held Boreas in her arms, blood seeping into her clothing. She had ripped part of her cloak and was using it to try to stop the bleeding, applying pressure to the wound. Boreas looked as if he was about to go into shock, his face pale and his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
“It looks like it just missed the main jugular artery. We need to act quickly. Get some alcohol from the inner cabinet.”
Aurora ran to the cabinet, fetched the bottle, and handed it back to Fawn, who poured it onto the wound to ease the infection. Boreas winced in pain, not able to speak. She rocked him in her arms, and Aurora knelt down beside them, helping to hold Boreas’s hand while Fawn’s soothing voice whispered, “Hang on, Boreas. Help is coming.”
The doctor appeared in the doorway and ran to the patient and told Aurora to leave and wait for them outside. She obeyed and the doors slammed shut behind her. She stood gaping at the door, not knowing what to do. She ran back to the Great Hall, blood soaked into her maroon dress. She had to find Otus. He would know what to do. He was still at the table waiting for her. When he saw her in the doorway he immediately got up and gave some excuse to the table, with Mrs. Xiomy following his lead.
Aurora was in a state of shock and Otus picked her up, asking, “What is it? What happened?”
As they walked to the Sanctuary, Aurora relayed the events of the past half hour to Otus.
“There’s nothing we can do but wait,” she said. “Oh, Otus, what are we going to do?”
He shook his head, worried. “I should have listened to him. We should have left before the gala! We should never have abandoned our mission at hand.”
She dug her face into his tuxedo sleeve, and he carried her back to the Sanctuary. She changed out of her blood-soaked clothes and into her shirt and jeans while Otus went to see to see if there was any news yet on Boreas’s fate.
Mrs. Xiomy put her arm around the young girl and held her tightly. “He’s a survivor. Like we both are. He’ll get through this,” she said.
“I didn’t even react. I didn’t expect the Great Secretary to go through with it. I didn’t know that he would slit his throat, and I just stood there with the gun pointing and nothing happened. I failed Boreas.”
“It’s not easy to kill. Fawn did one right thing by her son. Boreas is in his mother’s hands now.”
Aurora watched as Mrs. Xiomy drifted off to sleep. She snuck out of the room and entered the Sacristy with the great books lined up and illuminated with a solitary light. She got down on her knees as she saw the others do earlier that day. She folded her hands and prayed to a god up above, if one did exist, to watch over Boreas.
“Please let him get well,” she whispered. She found the words comforting to say, and she kept repeating them over and over again,
thinking that if anyone or anything could cure Boreas, it was a god. She continued to pray over and over again until darkness swept over her.
urora awoke to find herself in her bed in the Sanctuary. The events of the night before played over and over again in her mind like a nightmare. She turned to see that she was alone in the room. She got up and opened the door. Nobody was there, and she dreaded the worst. Why didn’t anyone wake her up? Unless Boreas didn’t make it.
She ran down the hall and to the Sacristy. She nearly ran smack into Eileen, who was carrying the breakfast tray.
“Eileen! Where is he? Is he…?”
“He’s alive! I thought someone had told you by now!”
Aurora didn’t let her finish. She threw her arms around her friend and hugged her so tight that she dropped the breakfast tray onto the floor.
“Where is he? Is Otus with him? I need to go to him.”
Eileen showed her the way to another chamber that they hadn’t been allowed access the day before. She didn’t bother to knock and opened the door wildly, stepping forth into a grand bedroom with bookshelves lining each of the four walls. There was an open ceiling letting in an ominous blue-gray light and there were candles lit on each of the four walls. A large canopied bed stood at the center of the room, and there sleeping on the bed with a thick bandage around his neck was Boreas. Otus was standing over him, bending down slightly and holding his hand tenderly. Mrs. Xiomy was busy talking to the doctor in the corner. His features she hadn’t cared to notice the night before, but he was an attractive man with a mustache and thick graying brown hair. He wore glasses with small clear lenses and was writing something vigorously on a pad of paper. Fawn was nowhere to be found.
She ran to the bedside and Otus put his hand up to indicate a whisper. “He’s asleep, but he’s a fighter this one. I told you my first impression was right. The doctor said he’ll make a full recovery.”
