Once

by Anna Carey

Page 44

  “Please,” I tried. “I want to see it just one last time. I spent twelve years of my life there. It’s important to me. Besides, I could speak to the students as the Princess of The New America. ” I tried to keep my voice even. The soldiers were all looking up, waiting for us to descend the stairs. A few people on the street had stopped to see the spectacle: the King and his daughter out and about in the City.

  He started toward me, his arm around my shoulder. “I suppose it’s not a bad idea,” he said. “I’ve heard reports that the girls were very confused by your sudden disappearance. ” We slid into the cool car, his hand heavy on mine. “I suppose so, yes,” he said. “But we’ll have to send soldiers with you. And you’ll take Beatrice. ”

  I smiled, the first genuine smile of the day. “Thank you,” I said, as the car started back toward the Palace. “Thank you, Father. Thank you. ”

  thirty-seven

  RAIN STREAMED DOWN THE JEEP’S WINDOWS IN NARROW, twisting rivers. Beatrice sat beside me, her hand on mine, as the dark wilderness spread out before us. I took it all in: the houses overgrown with ivy, the broken road that wound for miles, dotted with orange traffic cones. Old cars sat abandoned on the side of the highway, their gas tanks left open by travelers who’d tried to siphon fuel. Every part of it felt familiar, more like home than anything else—even the Palace, my suite, School.

  “I haven’t seen this in nearly a decade,” Beatrice said. “It’s worse than I remembered. ”

  Two female soldiers sat in the front seat. The driver, a young blond girl with an oval birthmark on her cheek, scanned the horizon, looking for any signs of gangs. “I love it,” I said breathlessly, staring at the purple wildflowers that sprouted up in the cracks of an old parking lot. A giant factory stood in the distance, HOME DEPOT written on its side in faded print.

  We’d been traveling for hours, but the time slipped away easily. Trees snaked around one another, winding up toward the sky. Bicycle wheels were tangled with flowers and the rain accumulated in potholes, forming shallow, murky puddles. The other Jeep was right behind us, pitching over the same mounds of pavement that we had, slowing as we slowed, watching us from the back.

  We would be in the woods again. The abandoned shacks and stores would provide cover as Caleb and I moved east, away from the City, the Schools, and the camps. The plan had been set in motion. The morning of my wedding, as I weaved through the congested City streets, blending in with the crowds, the dissidents would work with their contact inside the prison to secure Caleb’s release.

  Then we’d move through the tunnel, leave the City, and wait. We’d live in the eastern edge of the country, where the land was not visited as much by soldiers. We’d keep in contact with the Trail until the dissidents had mobilized, until the next steps were planned. For the first time in weeks I felt a sense of purpose, of control. The future was not just a string of dinners and cocktails and public addresses, of lies uttered with a tight, false smile.

  “That’s it up there,” the soldier in the passenger seat said, pointing to the high stone wall. She was shorter than the other soldier, her machine gun resting across her muscular legs. The King had sent the few female troops he had along with us, knowing that Headmistress Burns would never permit men inside the compound.

  Beatrice squeezed my hand. “They were juvenile detention centers before the plague. ” She pointed at the sharp, coiled wire that sat on the top of the building. “Holding cells for children who had committed crimes. ”

  Rain battered the car. When we reached the wall, the soldiers exchanged paperwork with the female guards out front, their uniforms soaked through. After a few minutes we were let in. The Jeep pulled alongside the stone building where I’d eaten my meals for twelve years.

  Now that we were inside, the excitement of the journey was gone. I stared across the lake at the windowless building, the place where Pip, Ruby, and Arden were all being held. The dinner churned in my stomach. I looked at the bushes beside the dining hall, the ones with the slight ditch underneath them. It was the exact spot I’d found Arden the night she escaped. When she revealed the truth about the Graduates.

  My past rose up around me—the School, the lawn, the lake, all of it reminding me of my life before. Through the rain I could make out the library window on the fourth floor where Pip and I had sat reading, stopping sometimes to watch the sparrows outside. The apple tree was still there, across the compound. We would lie under it in the summer months enjoying the shade. The metal spoke jutted out of the ground where we used to play horseshoes. I’d tripped over it once, the top of it splitting my shin.

  “I have a feeling …,” Beatrice began, peering out the rain-beaded window. The soldiers stepped out of the Jeeps to speak with the School guards. “… that just maybe … Who knows, right?” She didn’t have to go on. She had asked me that morning, the question posed in half sentences, about whether her daughter could be at the School. It was possible, but improbable. I doubted that the King would’ve allowed her to come if her daughter was here, and I didn’t remember any girl named Sarah. I had told her as much, but I could see now that she’d thought only of this as she stared out the window for all those miles, her fingers nervously twisting a strand of hair.

  “There’s always the chance,” I said, squeezing her hand. “We can hope. ”

  I looked out the side window, through the wall of rain, at the figure coming toward us. She stood under a giant black umbrella, her gray rain slicker falling past her knees. Even from twenty feet away I recognized her, her slow uneven steps, her square jaw, the hair that was always roped back into a tight bun.

  Headmistress Burns.

  She approached the side of the Jeep, staring at me through the rain. A soldier opened the door and helped me down the high step. “Princess Genevieve,” Headmistress said, her voice slow and deliberate, lingering over my new title. “How delightful of you to grace us with your presence. ” She took another umbrella from her side and wrapped her hand around its neck, slowly expanding its cloth dome.

  “Hello, Headmistress,” I said, as the guard helped Beatrice out behind me. “It’s delightful to be here. ” I kept my chin up, my shoulders back, careful not to reveal the terror I felt. I hated that she had this effect on me, even now, when I was no longer under her supervision.

  Beatrice took the umbrella and held it above us. Her presence by my side comforted me. “This is Beatrice,” I said as we started toward the dining building. “She’ll be staying the night with me. ”

  “So I’ve been told,” Headmistress Burns said, looking straight ahead. “They’ve cleared out an upstairs bedroom for you two, as well as one for your armed escorts. It’s nothing fancy, just the same beds you slept in when you were here. I hope you’re not terribly offended by them now. ” Each word was tinged with malice. There was no way for me to respond.

  She opened the door to the building and gestured for us to go inside. The hallway was quiet except for the low hum of the generators. I stamped the water off my feet as we hung up our coats in the closet. “The girls are waiting for you in the main dining hall,” Headmistress continued. “You can imagine how confused they were when you disappeared the night before graduation. First Arden, then you. It raised a lot of questions for them, especially these younger ones. ”