Once: An Eve Novel

by Anna Carey

  “I keep waiting for something to change with us,” he whispered, his blue eyes meeting mine. I glanced over our shoulder at the two soldiers trailing behind us. They were ten yards back, strolling past the closed home goods store, the windows displaying copper pots and pans. “I know this isn’t ideal—”

  “Ideal?” I said. The word made me laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

  He refused to look away. “I just think that we need more time. To really know each other. They told me you had feelings for him, but that doesn’t mean this can’t be more than it is. That it can’t grow into … something.” I was thankful he didn’t say the word we both knew he was thinking: love.

  I slipped my hand out from under his. It looked so strange with the glittering ring on it, like some picture from a book. “It won’t,” I whispered, walking ahead. I closed my eyes, and for a second I could almost feel Caleb beside me, hear his low laugh, smell the sweet sweat on his skin. We were back in the plane, his ear to my heart, clinging to each other in the dark. “I don’t think that can happen more than once.”

  Charles followed me. “I don’t believe that,” he said. He stared at the marble floor. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked, raising my voice. It sounded so foreign in the wide, empty corridor. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that someone wouldn’t want to be with you?”

  We descended the escalators. Charles stood on the step above me, his hand raking his hair. “You make me sound so awful,” he muttered. “It’s not like that. Ever since I can remember, people have talked about how I’ll marry Clara, as though it were a given. I was sixteen and everyone had my whole life planned out for me.” The soldiers followed behind us. He lowered his voice, making certain they didn’t hear. “And then you came to the Palace. You were different. You haven’t spent the last ten years inside the City, doing the same thing every day, seeing the same people. I’m sorry if I like that about you. I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to have feelings about this whole thing.”

  “Have all the feelings you want,” I said, an edge to my voice. “But that doesn’t mean I can pretend that this is what I always dreamed of—not to you.”

  As we crossed the street toward the Palace, his gaze wandered to the fountains, the statues of the Greek goddesses that stood fifteen feet tall, carved from bone-white marble. All traces of the man I’d met in the conservatory were gone—he seemed so unsure of himself now. He spoke slowly, as if he were taking great care with each word he chose. “This is what I want. You are what I want,” he said finally. “I have to believe that you’ll want it, too—maybe not right now. But someday. Probably sooner than you think.”

  We took the elevator up the tower in silence. Two soldiers joined us, slipping in casually, as though they weren’t watching my every move. I despised Charles then. I could only think about the conversations that must have passed between him and the King, wondering if this was something that had been discussed all along.

  When we reached his floor, Charles leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. I turned away, not caring if the soldiers saw. He stepped back, his face pained. I just pressed the button in the car, over and over again, not stopping until the doors shut behind him, locking him out.

  thirty-one

  BEATRICE MET ME AT THE ELEVATOR. SHE WALKED ME TO MY suite and helped me from the dress, all the while asking me about the party. It was a relief to be out of those skintight clothes. My face was wiped clean, my reflection finally recognizable without all the makeup caked on it. We sat down beside each other on the bed. I slid off the ring and set it on the nightstand, a faint pink mark on my finger the last reminder of what had happened that night.

  “I never would’ve managed this long without you,” I said, pulling at the collar of my nightgown. “A ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem like enough.”

  “Oh, child,” she said, waving me off with her hand. “I’ve done what I can. I only wish I could help more.”

  “I can’t live like this,” I said. My lungs were tight at the thought of it, day piled on top of day, each one more stifling than the one before. I kept waiting for something to change, for the paper to reveal news of Caleb. But nothing happened. Now there would be plans for the wedding, ceaseless, senseless talk of bouquets and rings and which foods they would bring in from where. Did I want beige linens or white? Roses or calla lilies?

  Beatrice pressed her palms together, her face strained with worry. “You will live like this,” she said, “as we all have. With the memories of life before the plague. With the hope that it will one day be better.”

  “But how?” I asked. “How will it be better?”

  She didn’t answer. I put my face in my hands. I couldn’t reach out to the Trail anymore. No one would trust me. I was under constant surveillance now. Caleb was gone, somewhere beyond the City’s walls, with no promise of coming back. Even if the tunnels were built, how would I get to them? And if I managed to escape, how would I survive in the wild alone, with no weapons or food, the King’s troops following just hours behind me?

  Beatrice sat down next to me, working at the thin skin on her hand. “Since you’ve arrived I’ve wondered … if it’s possible for anyone to be truly happy here. You have to hold on to certain delusions, I suppose. Maybe hoping is foolish,” she said, staring at a spot on the floor. “There have been rumors going around the Palace. The workers have been talking. Is it true, what you did for that boy?”

  I offered a slight nod, knowing I could never truly answer that question.

  “It was a brave thing,” Beatrice said, resting her hand on my back.

  I wiped my nose, the memory of Caleb’s broken face coming back to me, the tender pink slice that ran across his forehead, the welt on his cheek. “It doesn’t feel that way,” I said. “I might never see him again.”

  Beatrice let out a deep breath. Her fingers wandered over the bedspread, digging into its soft gold fabric. The smell of cigar smoke still clung to my skin. “You do anything for the person you love,” she said finally. “And then when you don’t think you can give any more of yourself, you do. You keep going. Because it would kill you not to.” She turned to me, her gray eyes wobbly. The room filled with the rush of the air-conditioning vents. “I’ve bargained with the King, too.” A strand of gray hair fell in her face, shielding her eyes.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “When they were doing the census you had to answer questions. Did you want to live inside the City? Did you want to live outside the City? What skills did you have to offer? What resources could you contribute? Some people had companies, warehouses full of goods. I had cleaned houses before the plague struck. I didn’t have much money, and my daughter and I didn’t have anything they wanted. We were put in the lowest category, with the most basic jobs and housing. We would’ve been living in the Outlands with all the others. After the chaos following the plague, people weren’t sure what that would mean, if it would be more of the same—people fighting for food and clean water, more violent robberies.

  “But I was told I was lucky. I was selected out of thousands. They said my application had been flagged, and I was offered a job in the Palace. But my daughter couldn’t come with me. She would go to the Schools. We wouldn’t be able to keep in contact, but she’d return to the City after she graduated, if that’s the life she chose. Now I realize they probably just wanted more children for the Schools and the labor camps, as many as they could get. The Schools …” Beatrice let out a short, sad laugh. She rubbed her cheek. “They were supposed to be these places of great learning, where girls could get a top-rate education. They told me they would give her much more than a life in the City could. When I heard about the Golden Generation, everyone assured me it wasn’t mandatory, that the members of the birthing initiative had volunteered. They said girls were given a choice. But then you came here …”

  “How old is she?” I asked. “Do you know which one she’s in?”

  Beatrice shook her head. �
�I don’t. I was pregnant when the plague began. Sarah just turned fifteen last month.” She looked at me with pink, watery eyes, her lips twitching as she tried not to cry. “Do you know anyone there still? Anyone you could talk to for me?”

  I reached for her hand, my fingers shaking. I thought of Headmistress Burns, her sagging, miserable face, how she’d been aware of the Graduates’ fate all along, how she’d kept her hand on my back as I took those vitamins, how she’d taken me to the doctor each month. I didn’t know what had become of Teacher Florence, if they’d discovered she’d helped me escape. “I don’t know,” I said. “I can try.”

  Beatrice squeezed my fingers so hard her knuckles were white. “That would be good,” she said, her voice breaking.

  I enveloped her in a hug, feeling how small she was, her shoulders stooped, her hands clasped tight behind my back. “Yes” was all I could manage as we sat there in the stillness of the room. “I will try.”

  thirty-two

  “WELL, LOOK AT YOU, CHARLES HARRIS!” MRS. WENTWORTH cried, poking Charles playfully in the chest. “You’re looking more handsome than ever. It must be the glow of looooove,” she drawled, swaying her big hips back and forth. I’d been told Amelda Wentworth was a prominent widow in the City, one of the original founders who had given the King access to her dead husband’s assets, including his trucking company. She’d been like an aunt to Charles, watching him since he was a teenager, when he had first arrived in the City.

  “And you, Your Royal Highness,” she added, curtsying. “What a thrill this must be for you. One day you are living in the Schools and the next you’re here, inside the City walls. Princess Genevieve.” She was standing beside us, turning every few moments to glance around the crowded party.

  We were in the penthouse of Gregor Sparks, one of the men who’d donated resources after the plague. The three-story apartment at the top of the Cosmopolitan building had a waterfall in the center of the room and recovered Matisse paintings on the walls. It was yet another engagement party, this one with delicate crackers dabbed with cheese and a full roast pig laid out on a silver platter. It was larger than the ones we had at School ceremonies, its haunches spread wide as a worker cut into its tender flesh.

  “It’s been a dream,” I said, my smile tight as I took in her curls, stiff with spray, and the lipstick crusted in the corners of her mouth.

  Some guests reclined on Gregor’s long, S-shaped couch, their happy chatter filling the air. The women all wore gowns and silk shawls, while the men donned starched shirts, ties, and buttoned vests. It was a different world than the one beyond the wall, and at times like these, surrounded by the smells of mulled cider and lamb, the wild felt far away, another planet in some far-off galaxy.

  “Baby lamb chop?” a waiter asked, presenting me with a silver tray.

  I picked up a piece of the pink meat by the bone and brought it to my mouth, the sharp smell of mint stinging my nostrils. As I held it between my forefinger and thumb, a memory rose up: Pip and I on the School lawn, hovering over the gray mound we’d discovered in the bushes. A mound of fur, its tail hiding the rest of its body. Pip crept toward it, determined to pick it up, to figure out if it was sick or dead. She reached down and pinched its foot, then pulled, and the rotted flesh came loose. We started screaming, darting out of the bushes, but she had held it just one second—the thin, bloody bone.

  Bile rose in the back of my throat. I could still hear Pip’s scream. I dropped the lamb chop on the platter and stepped away.

  “What is it?” Charles asked, his hand still on the small of my back.

  “I’m feeling sick,” I said, ducking away from him. I pressed a napkin to my forehead and lips, trying to calm myself. I had dreamed of her last night. Pip in those metal beds, Ruby beside her, then Arden. Another girl had appeared, a younger girl, her features faint in the haze of the dream. When are you coming back? Pip had asked, her stomach protruding nearly two feet, breasts swollen and red hair sticking to her forehead. You’ve forgotten about us.

  “Would you like a drink?” Charles asked. “Water maybe?” He signaled to a server in the corner.

  “Just space,” I said, stepping away. “Give me one minute.” I held up a finger. Then I ducked out of the crowded room, not stopping until I was down the hall, beyond the kitchen, my back resting against the wall.

  I stayed there until my breath slowed. I had promised Beatrice. I’d promised her that I would help her find her daughter, and yet in the days that had passed I’d stood stupidly by Charles’s side as he opened the zoo in the old Grand hotel. I’d attended parties and galas and hosted a brunch for the wives of the Elite.

  “Are you all right, Princess?” Mrs. Lemoyne asked as she passed on the way to the bathroom. “You look ill.” She was a mousy woman with rigid manners, always reprimanding someone for making some perceived misstep.

  I patted my forehead with my napkin. “Yes, Grace, thank you. Just needed a breath.”

  “You should go by the window then,” she urged. “Over there.” She directed me into the formal dining room, where a server was hunched over the table, getting ready to serve the evening tea. Another was kneeling by a china cabinet, pulling cups and saucers from a shelf. Thankfully, the window was open, the cool night air rippling the curtains.

  I stepped into the room, the murmurs of the party still audible down the hall. “I hope you don’t mind,” I said as I passed the man at the table. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  A moment passed. He didn’t answer. I turned around and he was staring at me. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. His black hair was smoothed down and his body was rigid, his shoulders back, looking so different from the last time I’d seen him. I covered my mouth to stop myself from saying his name aloud.

  Curtis balanced the tray on his hand. I glanced at the server kneeling just a few feet away, humming slightly as he arranged the cups on a silver tray. One of the chefs strode down the hallway with an empty platter. Mrs. Lemoyne returned from the ladies’ room, smiling at me as she passed.

  I looked into Curtis’s stone-gray eyes, trying to decipher the meaning behind his silence. I wanted to ask if they’d heard anything more about Caleb’s release. I wanted to know how far along the tunnels were, if they’d resumed work on the first one, if the plans had been correct. If they could reach me in the Palace I had a chance still—I could escape.

  But he just leveled his gaze at me, his expression cold. “Tea, Princess?” he asked, holding out the tray. I reached down, my fingers trembling as I took a cup. He tilted the pot, letting the boiling water fall, the steam clouding the air between us.

  In seconds he was gone, striding back down the long corridor, the china rattling against the silver tray. He never looked back. I stood there, the drink hot in my hands, until I heard the King calling from the next room.

  “Genevieve!” he said, his voice cheerful and light. “Come now. It’s time for the celebratory toast.”

  thirty-three

  I STARED OUT THE WINDOW, FAR ACROSS THE CITY, TO THE point where the Outlands met the wall. From fifty stories up it seemed so small, an innocuous thing you could skip a stone over. All night I had been replaying that moment. Curtis’s expression was the same as it had been the day we’d met in the hangar. I’d imagined him going back to the others and telling them I’d paraded around the apartment, chatting happily with Gregor Sparks, or how I’d stood there smiling stupidly as the King went on about the new royal couple.

  I hated what he thought of me—what they all must’ve thought. That with Caleb gone, I’d returned to the Palace and set my sights on marrying Charles. There was no way to explain. Whatever I’d done to prove my loyalty didn’t matter now. I was a traitor in their eyes. I accepted that a little more each day, and a sadness settled in—making every breakfast, every gala, every toast that much lonelier.

  “Your Royal Highness,” Beatrice said, curtsying as she entered the suite. “I’ve had the dresses delivered to the downstairs parlor. They’re wai
ting for you.”

  I studied my reflection in the glass, wondering how anyone could believe I was happy. The skin under my eyes was swollen. My cheeks had the same hollow look they did those first days after I arrived. I blinked a few times, willing back tears. “You don’t have to do that,” I said finally.

  “Would you prefer them in the upstairs sitting room?” she asked.

  “No—the ‘Royal Highness’ nonsense,” I said, turning to her. “It’s unnecessary here.”

  Beatrice sighed. “Well, I can’t go around the Palace calling you Genevieve. The King won’t have that.”

  I picked at the hem of my blue dress, feeling satisfied when a loose thread gave, puckering the silk. I knew she was right. Still, I was desperate to hear my real name spoken out loud—not Princess Genevieve, not Princess or Your Royal Highness, just Eve. “I’ve been thinking about your daughter,” I said. “I just need some time. I need to find out what School she’s in, who the Headmistress is. Maybe after I’m married,” I stumbled over that word, “I’ll have a better chance at negotiating her release. Thankfully we have time before …”

  Beatrice started toward me. “Yes, I know …,” she said, her voice a whisper. We stood there in silence, and then I took her hand, cradling it in my own. I squeezed, trying to stop the trembling in her fingers and the tears that pooled in her eyes, threatening to spill onto her cheeks. “We should go,” she finally said, turning to the door.

  The hallway was quiet. Charles and the King were in the City, visiting one of the new factory farms near the wall. The faint sounds of vacuuming came from another room.

  The elevator opened up on the floor below, where giant white boxes were stacked in one corner. Rose and Clara sat in another, eating blueberry muffins and sipping coffee, a drink I’d yet to try. Rose was still in her silk pajamas, her blond hair pinned on top of her head, the day’s paper in hand. Neither of them looked up when we walked in.