Once: An Eve Novel

by Anna Carey

  Each drawer was labeled. A few read OUTLANDS with different directions beside it—northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest. Others were named after old hotels: two drawers each for the Venetian, Mirage, Cosmopolitan, and Grand. “When they started construction, they turned every lawn and golf course in the City into usable gardens. Which we needed, yes,” Charles said, riffling through a stack of papers in the drawer. “But the public doesn’t have access to those. We have clean water now, the ability to sustain plants. I wanted to create outdoor space for everyone.” He spread a sheet of paper down on the table.

  I stared at the wide expanse of green, broken in places by winding pathways. Trees were drawn in intricate detail, their limbs spread out over ponds and rock gardens. The giant lake in the center was surrounded by three stone buildings. I ran my fingers over the light pencil marks. It was as good a drawing as any of the ones I’d made in School. “You sketched this?”

  “Don’t be so surprised.” Charles laughed. “It’ll be four hundred acres if it’s ever built. The largest park inside the City’s walls.”

  Every tree and flower was carefully drawn. Boats floated along a pond. Red and yellow blooms were clustered around the shore. One of the buildings was labeled RECREATION CENTER; another, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. A third had a patio and chairs. “A library,” I said, unable to stop from smiling. “There’s none in the City?”

  “We restored one off the main road, but it’s small and always overcrowded. This would be four stories, with a view of the water. It’s just a matter of sorting all the recovered books. There’s a whole building full of them just three blocks east.” Charles pointed to the room behind him. “I have the model somewhere—would you like to see?”

  He stared at me, his blue eyes wide. He looked like one of the dolls on Lilac’s bed in Califia, with his square jaw and strong features, his mop of black hair perfectly in place. I knew he was objectively handsome. It was clear from the way Clara stole glimpses at him, or how clusters of women whispered when he passed. But every time I saw him I was reminded of my father, of the City walls that rose up around us, locking us in. “I’d love to,” I said.

  As soon as he disappeared into the cramped room, I walked over to the cabinets, running my finger down the labels on each drawer. The first one contained papers from the old hotels. The next had blueprints from a hospital building, another from the two schools that had been restored inside the City. There were ones marked for something called Planet Hollywood. I knelt down, studying the last few drawers. Charles shuffled around in the other room, searching through the stacked models, his footsteps quickening my pulse.

  “Where is it?” I whispered, reading the labels. Three of the lower drawers were marked EMERGENCY PLANS. I pulled the first open and started flipping through its contents, papers showing the gates in the walls, inventories of the warehouses in the Outlands—medical supplies, bottled water, canned goods. None of them showed the flood tunnels.

  Charles’s footsteps stopped for a moment, then started again, growing louder as he came toward the door. I pulled the last drawer open. I didn’t have time to think, simply rolled the whole stack of papers up as tightly as I could and squeezed them down the side of my boot. I slid the drawer shut and stood just as Charles came back into the room.

  “This,” he said, setting the model down on the table, “should give you the full idea.”

  I wiped at my forehead, hoping he didn’t notice the thin layer of sweat that had settled on my skin. The miniature version of the park took up half the table, the buildings crafted out of thin pieces of wood. Blue paint had hardened to form the still ponds. A green, mosslike fuzz covered the ground. Charles kept looking at me, then at the model, as if waiting for some kind of approval.

  “It’s great, it really is,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. But with the plans tucked away, I just wanted to be alone again.

  “There’s more,” he added, pointing over his shoulder, at the side room. “I used to build these with my father. I can show you the others—”

  “That’s all right,” I said quickly, stepping away. “I should really get back.”

  Charles’s face changed, his smile suddenly gone. He looked stricken. “Right. Some other time then,” he said, taking a deep breath. His eyes searched mine, looking desperately for something more.

  “Another day,” I finally offered, giving in to the lingering guilt. I tried to remind myself that he worked for my father. That we’d only spent a few hours together—if that—and that he probably had his own motivations for seeking out my company. “I promise.”

  I started out the door, leaving him there, his face half lit by the sun streaming through the blinds. A soldier waited for me in the hallway. He followed me into the elevator and up to the top floors of the Palace.

  When I was alone in my suite I sat down on the floor and pulled off my boots. As I sorted through the thin sheets, any guilt I felt about deceiving Charles disappeared. There, just ten papers into the stack, were sketches of tunnels. LAS VEGAS DRAINAGE SYSTEM typed across the top in beautiful, perfect print.

  twenty-five

  “YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS,” CALEB SAID WHEN WE reached the top of the motel stairs. He grabbed my hand, pulling me to him, his arms wrapped around my shoulders. “But I’m glad you did.”

  The faint sounds of music drifted from a room at the end of the corridor. We’d traveled through the Outlands to Harper’s apartment, looking for Jo and Curtis. Now we stood on the upper landing of the run-down motel. Faded plastic chips were strewn everywhere. Broken chairs covered the patio. A man bathed his small son in the half-empty hot tub below, using an old juice carton to rinse the soap from his hair.

  Caleb led me through the corridor. We stayed close to the wall, hidden below the awning. A few lights were on in the other rooms, visible through windows covered with tarps and ripped sheets. Caleb knocked five times on the last door in the hall, the same way he had at the hangar. Harper was inside, his hearty laugh breaking the silence.

  “You two again.” Harper grinned, opening the door. He wore a long blue robe, a tight gray tank top visible just underneath it. “What are you doing out here?” He ushered us in, checking to make sure no one had seen. The room was crammed with worn mattresses and stacks of the City’s newspapers. Curtis and Jo were sitting on warped wooden boxes, drinking from a jug of amber liquid. Curtis set the jug down when he saw me. His eyes were tiny black specks behind his thick glasses.

  “I have a present for you,” I said, unable to stop from smiling. I kneeled down and unzipped my boot, handing the roll of papers to him.

  Jo helped Curtis spread them out on the floor. “Are these what I think they are?” she asked, flipping through the pages.

  “Where did you find them?” Curtis pulled one from the bottom of the stack, tracing his fingers over the sketches. He glanced sideways at Jo, his face breaking into a smile. He covered his mouth as if trying to hide it. “I don’t believe this.”

  “I think what you mean to say is ‘Thank you,’” I corrected. Harper let out a little laugh and winked at me in approval.

  “That’s where the collapse is,” Jo whispered, pointing to a spot on the map. She moved her finger across to the other side. “We need to access this tunnel to the east. All this time we’ve been thinking we should keep digging north.”

  A pot was boiling on a hot plate next to the refrigerator, the steam filling the air with a strong, spicy scent. Harper moved around the makeshift kitchen, taking another jug and emptying it into glasses for Caleb and me. “You did good,” he whispered, handing me one.

  “Eve stole them from Charles Harris’s office,” Caleb added, as if that provided some greater understanding.

  Even Jo laughed. “The Charles Harris? The King’s Head of Development?”

  I nodded, taking a sip of the drink. It tasted similar to the beer they made in Califia. “I brought them to you as soon as I could.” I stared at Curtis, waiting for him to respond—to sa
y thank you, to apologize, anything—but he kept his eyes on the papers, studying the new route. It was a long while before he even looked up.

  We were all watching him. He glanced around the room and shrugged. “You’re the King’s daughter,” he said, adjusting his glasses on his nose. “What do you expect?”

  Jo looked up at me, her eyes rimmed with thick black eyeliner. “We made a mistake.” She glanced sideways at Curtis. “It’s hard to know who to trust. We just lost some of our own because of leaked information.”

  Harper sat down beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “That’s their code for ‘sorry,’” he whispered. He took another swig of his drink.

  “With the new plans, it can’t be more than a week off,” Caleb offered. He kneeled down beside Curtis and traced the distance to the wall. “I’ve already alerted Moss to let him know that construction will move forward tomorrow. He’s contacting the Trail.”

  “I can get thirty workers by the afternoon,” Jo said, looking at her watch. Her blond dreadlocks were tied back with a strip of red fabric. “I’ll get the contacts coming off the night shifts.”

  “Curtis, I’ll trust you to run construction while I’m at the other site tomorrow morning,” Caleb added. Curtis rolled up the papers and tucked them in his knapsack. He nodded, his eyes moving from Caleb to me.

  “Which means,” Harper said, jumping up from the mattress, “instead of commiserating, we should be celebrating.” He went over to a stereo on the dresser and popped in a disc like the ones I’d seen at School. The room filled with low music, a silly song with a man speaking the lyrics. He did the mash, it played. He did the Monster Mash. The Monster Mash. It was a graveyard smash!

  Caleb laughed. “What is this, Harper?” he asked.

  Harper kicked a few crumpled shirts out of the way to clear a dance floor. “This is the only CD I have that works. Halloween songs or not, it’s still music.”

  Harper spun around, his beer sloshing in the glass as he pulled Jo along in his wake. She sidestepped some crumpled newspapers, laughing the whole way. I sat on the mattress, watching as Caleb joined in, halfheartedly shaking his hips, to Harper’s delight. “Woohoo!” Harper yelled. “Atta boy!”

  It took me a moment to realize Curtis had sat down beside me. “I doubted you,” he said, so low I could barely hear it over the music. “We’ve been working on that tunnel for the last three months and because of you, we just might finish.” He offered his hand. “You’re one of us now.”

  I took it in my own. “I always was,” I said. “The King may be my father, but I’ve been in the wild, the Schools. I know what he’s done.”

  The music filled the small room. Curtis was quiet for a moment, considering what I’d said. “It just takes me a long time to trust someone. Most people in the Outlands don’t even know my real name.”

  “Enough of your yapping!” Harper interrupted us. He grabbed my arm, pulling me up from the floor. He twirled me once, quickly, his limbs loose from all the beer. “Let’s enjoy ourselves for one night. Come on, Curtis—on your feet, man! Otherwise I’ll do it—I will,” he threatened, grabbing the straps of his robe, ready to open it.

  Curtis held up his hands in surrender. He joined in, shuffling awkwardly around the cramped room. Caleb took my hand, spun me around, and dipped me so fast my stomach felt light. His green eyes met mine, our faces just inches apart as we stayed there for a second, listening to the silly chorus.

  He leaned in, his lips brushing against my ear. “Do you want to go?” he asked.

  He smiled at me, the same smile I’d seen so many times before. I loved every part of him. The smell of his skin, the scar on his cheek, the feel of his fingers pressing into my back. The way he could tell what I was thinking just by looking at me.

  “Yes,” I said finally, my skin hot beneath his hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  twenty-six

  CALEB’S HANDS WERE COVERING MY EYES, HIS PALMS SWEATY against my skin. I held onto his wrists, loving the way his arms felt around me, his feet on either side of mine, his steps guiding me forward. We were inside, that much I could tell, but I didn’t know where. “Now?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low. “Not yet,” he whispered in my ear. I shuffled along in darkness.

  Soon, he stopped, turning me to the right. Then he dropped his hands. “All right,” he whispered, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Now you can look.”

  I opened my eyes. We were in another airplane hangar, much bigger than the one where the tunnel entrance was hidden. Airplanes sat in rows, some large, some smaller, all lit up by the moonlight streaming in through the hangar’s windows. “This is where you’ve been living?” I asked, looking at the plane above us.

  He grabbed a metal staircase and dragged it over, its rusted wheels squeaking and groaning with each turn. “Harper found it for me—he thinks I’ll be safer here. It’s on the other side of the airport from where we were yesterday.” He gestured at the steps. “After you.”

  I started up the metal stairs, dwarfed by the plane. It was so much bigger when you stood right beside it, with wings ten people could lie across. I remembered the day we’d read about a plane crash in Lord of the Flies. Teacher Agnes had told us about the planes that flew over oceans and continents, how crashes were rare but deadly. We’d made her tell us everything—about the “flight attendants” who rolled carts down the aisles, serving drinks and miniature meals, about the televisions nestled in the back of each seat. That afternoon Pip and I had lain on the grass, staring up at the sky, wondering what it was like to touch the clouds.

  Caleb opened an oval door marked EMERGENCY EXIT, pulling it out and up with both hands. Seats were lined up, row after row after row, stretching all the way back to the plane’s tail. The plastic shades were drawn. Lanterns were perched on trays in the seat backs, giving the whole place a warm glow.

  “I’ve never seen the inside of one of these,” I said, following Caleb down the front rows. The seats were wider. Two were folded down like beds, musty blankets piled on top of them. A knapsack full of clothes and some old newspapers sat on the chair beside it. The top one had the picture of me from the parade, PRINCESS GENEVIEVE GREETS CITIZENS written below it.

  “Look at all this room!” I spun around with my arms out and still didn’t touch anything.

  Caleb pushed past me, to the front of the airplane, landing a kiss on my forehead as he did. “Where would you like to fly to? France? Spain?” He grabbed my hand, leading me into the front cabin, which was covered in metal panels and a thousand tiny dials.

  “Italy,” I said, putting my fingers over his, as he moved a control in the front seat. “Venice.”

  “Ahhh … you want a real gondola ride.” He laughed. He slid a tab over our heads, then another, pretending he was preparing the plane for takeoff.

  I picked up one of the headsets and covered my ears. I turned a switch on our right, then another, as I settled into one of the chairs. “Fasten your seatbelt,” Caleb said. He pulled the buckle around my waist, one hand resting on my hip.

  He leaned forward and gripped the controls, pretending to fly. We gazed out the front window, scanning the dark hangar as though it held the most spectacular view. “We’ll have to stop over in London first,” he said, his voice booming in the small metal room. “See Big Ben. Then maybe Spain—then Venice.”

  I pointed at the ground below. “Everything is so tiny from up here.” I leaned over him to get a better look at the imaginary world below. “The Stratosphere tower is an inch tall …”

  “Look,” Caleb said, pointing out the side window. “You can see over the mountains.” He rested his hand on my leg and smiled.

  “We’re finally on our way.” The plane was lifting off, my body sinking into the soft cushiony seat, and the City was growing smaller, the buildings shrinking until they vanished in the distance. We were drifting up, over the clouds, the sun beaming down on us.

  After a long while, Caleb leaned in and brushed the
hair away from my temple, kissing my forehead. He unbuckled my seat belt and stood, pulling me out of my seat, his hands on my hips. He was smiling to himself, his eyes bright in the lantern light, as if he knew something I didn’t.

  I took off the headset. “What is it?” I asked, trying to meet his gaze.

  “Moss granted me leave from the City,” he said. “As soon as the first tunnel is completed, he told me I can go. He thinks it’s too dangerous to stay, to be leading the digs. They’re narrowing their search. I’ll return if he needs me.”

  My hands trembled. “So you’re going to leave?” I asked, my voice thin with nerves.

  “We’re going to leave.” He stroked the side of my cheek. “If you’ll come with me. I want to go east, away from the City. It’ll be a risk, but it’s a risk everywhere. We’d be on the run again, which isn’t what either of us want, but please, at least consider it.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Of course.” I brought my hands to his face, watching the lantern light on his skin. “It’s not even a question.”

  He pressed our bodies into one, his hands moving over my back, my shoulders, my waist, pulling me closer and closer to him. “I promise you we’ll figure it out—we’ll figure out some way to live.” He breathed into my neck. “This feels right to me. It’s everything else that’s screwed up.”

  “So things begin now,” I said. “I’m here. I’m with you. And in a week we’ll leave. It’s as simple as that.”

  Caleb lifted me up, letting my back rest against the metal wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist. He pressed his mouth to mine, his hands in my hair. My lips touched his, then found their way to the soft skin of his neck. His hands slipped down my sides, ran over my vest, and settled on my bottom ribs.

  He carried me into the cabin. Every inch of me was awake, my cheeks flushed, my pulse alive in my fingers and toes. I couldn’t stop touching him. My fingers ran down the knots of his spine, lingering on each one, a tiny knot below the surface of his skin. The plane was silent and still, his hands cradling my neck as we lay down on the makeshift bed, just big enough to fit us both. He pulled off his shirt and threw it on the floor. I ran my fingertips over his chest, watching goose bumps appear under my touch. He let out a small laugh. I circled over his ribs, then down to the square muscles of his stomach, watching his lips twist as my fingers moved.