by John Helfers
‘‘The Praise Dome, you mean?’’
‘‘I mean not everyone thinks it’s a sin if you’re not working all the time. Like the lilies in the field. How can you love anyone or anything if all you do your whole life is haul shale through rain that’ll eat you to the bone?’’
‘‘You know all this on account a you’re from Outside.’’
‘‘It’s different up North.’’
‘‘Without the rain.’’
‘‘With only good rain.’’
I knew the story. I’d asked Flea to tell me a thousand million times about how his uncle hid him away in the hills on account of his leg. But I’d hear it a thousand million more times if I could.
‘‘There’s real trees,’’ I said.
‘‘And tall green grass with feather tops made of seeds. A silver moon that rises and sets. Mountains where the snow stays always, and where you can drink from the lakes right next to the deer. Waterfalls louder than the loaders. Things we don’t have in the holograms.’’
‘‘The wind.’’
‘‘Like to blow you over.’’
‘‘And you’d a stayed there if someone hadn’t found out.’’
‘‘Forever.’’
‘‘But someone saw your uncle goin back and forth. Then the coppers arrested him and you had to live with the Gawders.’’
‘‘Where I met you, Willow.’’
This was my favorite part. ‘‘And gave me my name.’’
‘‘And fell in love with you. Someone to dream with.
I’m going to take you North.’’
I wanted to curl up against him, make him promise. ‘‘Flea, you still got your leg. They won’t want us.’’
‘‘I’ve heard it’s different now.’’
‘‘I’m not smart.’’
‘‘They don’t care.’’
‘‘You promise?’’
‘‘Sure, Willow.’’
I wrapped my arms around him. ‘‘What you see in someone like me?’’
He reached back and took my hands, crossed his fingers between mine. ‘‘Smarts aren’t everything, anymore than having straight legs. I love you because you’ve got a good heart, Willow. Honest and true.’’
‘‘There really a tunnel not closed?’’
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘And we can get through it?’’
‘‘It took hard work to get it open, but it wasn’t welded shut. It’s been opened before. Maybe someone else went through that tunnel. Maybe they got away. Could be it’s blocked farther along, but we won’t know till we try. Trying is half the game, right?’’
‘‘How come the Gawders haven’t found it?’’
He shrugged and grabbed up his crutches. ‘‘Because it still looks sealed, I guess. And because you have to be small and skinny to fit through it.’’
‘‘What if we get out a here, Flea? I mean, for real-like?’’
‘‘Then we’ll go far away. We’ll get married and raise a family.’’
‘‘They’ll find us.’’
‘‘Not up North. I know how to hide.’’
‘‘How we gonna get North?’’
‘‘I’ll figure something. Do you trust me, Willow?’’
‘‘I trust you.’’
I touched Flea’s face, and he put his fingers over mine. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him, even though it didn’t need sayin. A course a nobody like me would love Flea. But Fox Girl was there, all the sudden. And Rings.
Flea loosened the screws on each corner a the screen, and the screen just sat there till he grunted and lifted the whole thing away from the opening. He leaned the screen against the wall and dropped the screws in his pocket. He snapped his fingers, and we slid, one by one, into the tunnel and through the door. Me first, then Fox Girl. Flea and Rings was last. When I heard them two pull the grill back into place, somethin clanged in my heart. I didn’t know if it was death’s gong or a bell a freedom.
I touched Flea’s leg as he crawled past me draggin his crutches. I touched his twisted leg, down near his foot where his ankle was hot and smooth.
It was dark in the tunnel and cold. Flea had brought two glowlights, and Rings had a third, but the lights was sorry in all that black. At first, I didn’t so much mind. We was on an adventure, and it’s not a proper adventure, there’s no scary parts.
But pretty soon I started to feel like this was purgatory, and we’d be stuck here till Judgment. And then I thought it was hell, and we’d be stuck here forever.
When my brain had become a little shriveled thing, all scared and talkin to itself, Flea signaled us to stop. We’d been real quiet, on account a the tunnel would go right under the Prayer Dome for a long way. But now Flea said we was past all that, and we could talk in whispers.
He grinned at me. ‘‘How’s freedom feel, Willow?’’
‘‘Like I gotta pee,’’ I said truthfully.
We all laughed, but Flea looked at me a real long time, and I figured if this was purgatory, then it was okay long as Flea was around.
It got harder after that.
Sometimes the tunnel was vertical, and we’d have to haul ourselves, hand over hand, up the slurry-car cable. Sometimes the tunnel was nearly filled with water pipes that had fallen from their brackets, leavin just enough room for us to squeeze through. The old rails hurt our knees when we had to crawl. Sometimes we’d go one way and find the tunnel had fallen and we’d have to back out, stirrin up the dust and tryin not to cough. Worst, sometimes we heard the rain beatin on the dirt over the tunnel from somethin like a hundred miles away. I thought of all that rain, eatin its way to us.
But Flea got us through. He had to drag his crutches, and I knowed it was harder for him than for the rest a us, but he never said nothin.
We stopped for another water break in an old processing room. We fetched up against the dead furnace and stared at each other till our grins was like to split our faces. I was startin to think it might all be real, and my heart stuck in my throat. When we started again, I kept movin by watchin Flea’s skinny back and flat bottom twitch and shimmer in Rings’ light like he was a rabbit in one a them springtime holograms and this was his hidey-hole.
After forever, we went through another door. After that, Flea raised his hand. We huddled ahind him.
Twenty feet afore us, light poured through the grillwork, broken up by the screen into thousands a tiny stars. We heard voices, lots a voices, like the roar a the generators, but like music, too.
‘‘We done died,’’ Rings said.
‘‘It’s heaven,’’ Fox Girl whispered.
Flea reached through and undid the screws and the grill hung in place, just like at the other end. Through the grill we saw the Bios Dome was filled with people rushin here and there on sidewalks and streets or just sittin in chairs with their legs crossed and their arms wavin and lookin happy like they didn’t have to be nowhere.
There was music, and it wasn’t nothin like the music in the dome. It jumped and snapped and hopped sideways like it couldn’t hold itself. Real trees in the distance, leaves shimmerin like as if they wanted to
move to the music. A snippet a air floated by, filled with what I thought might be how leaves and grass smelled. My stomach rumbled.
Flea said we had to wait for everyone in Bios to be lookin the other way. We waited and waited, tryin not to cough or sneeze. My stomach was tight as my fists, sayin to me, This is wrong, girl, and my mind thinkin back, So what?
Finally, Flea said, ‘‘Let’s go,’’ and he lifted out the grill.
We scrambled through the tunnel opening, and we was out! We straightened up and smiled a little shaky at each other and didn’t hold hands on account a we was in Bios and we began walkin.
Noise and things rushin and more noise. The people all strong and full a good color. Not a gray-hair or wrinkled face or any backs bent over. Big white teeth, high shoulders, strong hands. They pushed past other people all unafraid, and they nodded and showed their teeth and the scent that rose off them said they hadn’t ever been scared or hungry.
There was places filled with clothes in colors like flowers. There was jewelry all shiny like the snow on the ponderosas. A picture of a woman and two children the way the Book said it was supposed to be, and I looked at that picture and wanted it like I wanted the music, and Flea said, ‘‘Come on, Willow,’’ and pulled me along.
We went past the trees and touched the leaves, and I took off my shoes and Fox Girl ran through the bushes, her voice all high and happy.
Smells was comin from some places like to drive me mad. Flea said you could walk into them places, if you had credit, and order yourself anything you wanted. And eat as much a it as you wanted. I knowed about that. It was part a the myth.
After a long time we began to hitch and slow, feelin too much. I saw that people was lookin at us. Maybe it was Flea’s crutches. I didn’t see nobody else with crutches. Maybe it was our clothes, which I could tell was all wrong. Or maybe it was on account a Rings bein all white and Fox Girl all pinched and me with my slow eyes. We wasn’t streamin very well.
It was Rings that noticed we was bein followed.
‘‘A man’s watchin us,’’ he said. ‘‘All dressed in shiny blue.’’
‘‘A copper, I’ll bet,’’ Flea said. ‘‘They’re Law here. This way.’’ He ducked down an alley quick as a sin, crutches or no crutches.
We began movin fast again, changin directions. Bios was bigger than the ocean must be. It went on and on and on like to never end, and my heart got small and quiet. Then we passed a huge room filled with light. Glass, to tell it true, but glass that held the light. Glass that tripped up the light and sent it round in a thousand million colors. Glass in the shapes a people and animals and the flower called American Beauty Rose that I’d seen in the holographs. And tiny trees in more shades a brown and green than I’d a figured there could be.
I stared.
After some time I became myself again and realized wantin somethin so bad was a sin. I forced my eyes away from the light. The Flea Pack was gone, and there was a fat man dressed all in bright blue standin at my elbow.
He looked me in the eye. ‘‘Hey, girl, you one of the Praise kids?’’
I thought to run, but it wouldn’t a helped much, bein without an idea how to find the tunnel. I opened my mouth and shut it.
‘‘Thought so,’’ he said. ‘‘Word is out that four of you bolted. Get tired of all that singing and digging?’’
I blinked and shook my head, knowin soon as I said somethin he’d know what I was. I looked round for Flea.
The Law frowned. ‘‘You guys are nothing but trouble. Bad luck and trouble all rolled up in one little praise package.’’ He had a long, brown stick, and he began feelin it up, like he had an itch. ‘‘You’ve got no business hanging around normal folk. You’re a bunch of crips and retards and loonies. Sick in the head from all that praise stuff. World’s bad enough without your kind.’’
Just then a woman came runnin up. ‘‘Maria!’’ she cried, lookin at me. ‘‘There you are. Niece, you gave me a fright. Now stay with me and be a proper tour guide, or I’m going to have a talk with your mother.’’
My mouth opened again. Suddenly I knowed how badly I didn’t wanna go back to the Praise Dome. I made a smile. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’
The man glanced at the woman, his face confused. ‘‘She with you?’’
‘‘Oh, yes,’’ the woman said. ‘‘She’s my niece. She offered to take me around, but it looks like she lost me. Or I lost her. Thank you for looking after her.’’
The woman tucked her arm through mine and pulled me away. She leaned close and whispered. ‘‘Let’s stroll about a bit until the policeman gives up, shall we?’’
‘‘Thank you, ma’am.’’
She patted my arm. ‘‘My pleasure.’’
She was from Outside. I could tell on account a her skin was dark and there was wrinkles at her eyes and she was round like she’d eaten real food her whole life. Her arms her hips her breasts her stomach. Rollin like the hills in the spring holograms.
We walked round, and looked here and there until my naked feet was afire, and if the fat man was followin us, he’d know for sure I wasn’t no mainstream kid. I couldn’t stop my mouth from fallin open. I tried to look for the Flea Pack, but the woman clung to my arm and dragged me in and out a shops and finally took me back to the store a glass and light. She bought me a little tree she called a maple. The leaves was red.
‘‘There are still maples. Did you know?’’
I nodded, though I didn’t know about the maples. I held it tight and gentle.
‘‘Now we’ll go to my sister’s, and you can tell me why that policeman was following you. I’ve just arrived here, and I’m afraid I don’t know much about this place. But I’m sure terrifying children isn’t the normal code of ethics. He looked about to hit you! Diane—that’s my sister—will know what to do.’’
I thought I saw Flea twice and Rings once as we walked through Bios, but every time I stopped and turned to look closer, they vanished. Maybe they was followin us, maybe I was just wishin. Either way, I was stickin with the woman till I was sure that copper was gone.
Diane laughed and shrieked when she saw her sister, and hugged her. Then she looked at me and screamed again, but it wasn’t the same kind a scream. She waved us in, then rounded on her sister.
‘‘Anna, I thought you’d given up bringing home strays.’’
‘‘She was being terrorized.’’
‘‘Well, you can’t keep her,’’ Diane said, closin the door. ‘‘She’s a Gawder.’’
‘‘A what?’’
‘‘From over near Deep Water. The Praise Dome. My dear Anna, what have you done?’’
A look a understandin showed on my rescuer’s face. ‘‘She was to be aborted?’’
‘‘Apparently.’’
‘‘Why didn’t her mother have a gen-screen?’’
‘‘Maybe she did.’’
‘‘And she couldn’t afford to do anything with the information.’’
‘‘It happens all the time.’’
Somethin dark showed in Anna’s eyes. ‘‘Poor child.’’
‘‘Amen,’’ I said, like we was supposed to when people talked about bein saved.
‘‘And the mother?â€
™â€™ Anna asked.
‘‘An eye for an eye,’’ Diane answered.
I bent my head. ‘‘Amen.’’
We all sat down and was quiet awhile, and Diane gave us tea to drink. I sipped mine careful like. It was wicked hot.
Somewhere, somethin ticked.
‘‘Abortion wasn’t always a crime,’’ Anna said.
‘‘It is now.’’ Diane slapped a plate a cookies on the table. The little cookies hopped up and down.
I grabbed a cookie and took a quick bite, then slid the rest of the cookie into my pocket.
‘‘But they use the children in the mines!’’ Anna said. ‘‘Why save them for a life like that?’’
‘‘It’s still a life!’’ Diane snapped. ‘‘They’re fed and taught to read and write a little, and cost the domes nothing. Most of the children are content to stay, even when they’re of legal age.’’
Anna snorted. ‘‘They stay because they’re not qualified to make a living anywhere else. And they’re probably too scared to try.’’ She grabbed a book from the counter and slapped it open in front of me. ‘‘Can you read any of this?’’
I shook my head. ‘‘Sorry, ma’am.’’
But Anna didn’t look upset. She was studyin me like I was a praise song that needed memorizin. Then she glanced at Diane. ‘‘They can be adopted, can’t they?’’
‘‘Anna! For heaven’s sake! You don’t even know this girl.’’
But Anna was again lookin at me. ‘‘You have a name?’’
‘‘Maria?’’ I asked.
‘‘That was only for the policeman’s benefit.’’
‘‘Miriam 237.’’
‘‘Miriam,’’ Anna said softly. ‘‘My little girl’s name was Lilith. She would have been twelve, now. How old are you, Miriam?’’
I smiled hopefully. ‘‘Twelve.’’
