Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852)

by Beck, Glenn

  “Stand up,” he said. His voice was familiar.

  My legs had no strength, would not straighten. I could not stand.

  “Stand up.” Where had I heard that voice before?

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. My clothes were wet, clinging to me. How far away were Paul and Micah?

  The hand tugged on my arm, pulling me upright. The man and I stood face-to-face. In a flicker of lightning, I saw his hair, his eyes, and his forehead. I knew him.

  It was George, the first partner the Authorities had assigned to me.

  He was Elsa’s father.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  * * *

  He wasn’t as large as I remembered. His hair had thinned and his shoulders weren’t as broad. It was as if all of him had shrunken, been reduced somehow.

  “Emmeline?” George’s voice was shaking, unsure. “Oh my God, Emmeline. Is that really you? How did you get here?” He took a step closer, his arms reaching for me. The metal ball dragged behind him. I felt and heard his desperation. I took a step back and fought the urge to run. Would the guard hear him? I looked around. I saw no one.

  It couldn’t be George standing in front of me. It just couldn’t be. The Authorities told me he and Father were dead. “We regret to inform you . . .” they had said, but there had been no regret, no sorrow or pity in their voices, and no expressions on their faces. None. Mother had wailed, her cries so shrill I felt like they were cutting my skin. I had asked to see their bodies but the Authorities said that wasn’t possible. They said it was a bus-box accident, that the brakes had failed going downhill. But now here he was, in front of me. If he was alive, maybe Father was, too. I looked around, hoping to see the dark shadow of another man, hoping I’d see Father.

  “The baby? You had our baby?”

  The rain beat down, relentlessly pummeling us. Were those tears on his face mixed with the rain?

  “They said you were dead.” I heard myself say the words but it was as if someone else was talking, not me. I felt disconnected from my own voice. “They said Father was dead.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment. There was a wall of awkward silence between us. I waited for his answer, afraid to breathe.

  Finally, he spoke. “Your father died. I didn’t.”

  I let out a huge puff of air as though I had been punched in the stomach. I had never seen Father’s body, so a part of me had held out hope he was alive somewhere, somehow. But George said he was dead. That made it final. Grief lay heavy on my shoulders. George had been there. George knew the truth. I trusted him.

  I dropped the half-full sack of peas and sank to my knees, the ground wet and cold on my legs. Peas spilled from the open mouth of the sack onto my feet. George knelt in front of me.

  “The night we planned to smuggle you out of the Compound before you had the baby. Do you remember?”

  Of course I remembered. It had rained that night, too. I didn’t go to the Social Update meeting. I slept instead. Pregnancy had privileges. The three of them—Mother, Father, and George—were whispering, planning. I heard them when I woke. Father was nervous, pacing to the window slit, urging everyone to talk quietly.

  “I remember,” I said. “I remember asking Mother if it was dangerous. She said yes, that most good things are.”

  “She was such a wise woman. Is she with you?”

  Of course, he didn’t know she was gone. “They took her away.” The words came out of my mouth as flat and hard as stones.

  “Dear Lord. They took her away? It never ends, does it?”

  We fell silent for a moment, lost in dark memories. The rain began to ease, the thunder becoming less frequent.

  “You didn’t answer me about the baby? You had the baby?”

  “Yes. I had the baby. A girl.”

  “I have a daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she in the Children’s Village?”

  His questions nearly tumbled over themselves, but I understood why—I had questions, too.

  “What happened that day?” I asked. “The day they said you died.”

  “The brakes failed. It wasn’t an accident. The wooden brake had been cut through halfway. The Authorities did that. They must have heard us talking and knew our plan.”

  Someone was always listening, tracking, collecting information, reporting.

  “How did you survive that?”

  “When the brake snapped, the bus-box rolled over us. I fell first and . . .” He paused, his voice trembling. “And your father fell on top of me. He took the full brunt of the bus-box on him. I know he saved my life that day. But saved me for what? This?” He pointed to his ankle with the collar and ball and chain. “They pulled me out from under your father and the bus-box. They left your father there to rot. Said Re-Cy was too far away and that he was too heavy to drag. Pure evil. That’s what the Authorities were. That’s what they will always be.”

  The clouds lay across the top of the moon like a headscarf. I could see his features more clearly now. He looked tired, older than I remembered. His face was crisscrossed with deep lines.

  “First they took everything that ever mattered to me,” he said. “Then they took me. Put me in leg irons because I was high risk for escaping. We’re not allowed to talk to each other here. I have no human contact. They’ve taken everything from all of us, piece by piece.”

  I remembered his kindness, his gentleness.

  “I’m not the same person anymore. I’m not the same man you knew.” He said this in a monotone, his voice hard. He used to call me little teapot. He used to make me laugh. And now, here we were in the dark and rain on the edge of a muddy field of peas. The twists and turns of time that separated us had now rejoined us.

  “I changed when they put the metal and leather of this ankle bracelet on me. When they made me walk here, dragging this heavy ball behind me the whole way. They laughed. That’s what changed me even more: them laughing. What’s done is done. I can’t fight it anymore.” He paused, took a deep breath. I could hear the breath, the raspiness and harshness of it. “I wish I had died with your father. I felt like part of me did, the part of me that cared about life.”

  The cloud that looked like a scarf on the moon slipped away.

  “How did you get here?” he continued. “Is it really you, or am I imagining this?”

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “How did you escape? No one escapes. The only way to escape is to die.”

  “I did. I escaped.”

  “But how? Why?”

  “The how isn’t important. The why is. I did it to save our child. I took her out of the Children’s Village.”

  “You did that? Oh, Emmeline, how brave of you. Tell me more about our baby.”

  “Her name is Elsa, and she’s perfect.”

  “Elsa! Your mother’s name. I can’t believe I have a daughter! Is she with you? Is she here?” His voice was eager, vibrant for the first time. He stood up, looked around, sat back down, and took my hand. “I want to see her. I need to see her.” His hand was cold on mine. I pulled my hand away.

  “She’s not here with me. She’s someplace safe.”

  “Can you bring her here sometime? Can I see her?”

  Could I, would I, ever risk bringing Elsa here? I hesitated before I answered him.

  “She’s somewhere safe, George. I can’t bring her here.”

  “Is there any way you could help me escape? If you can’t bring her here, I could go to her.”

  Could I? Could I help him escape this commune? Even if I gave him my knife, he couldn’t slice through the leather-wrapped metal around his ankle. Even if I could help him, should I? I felt ashamed for the question, but so much hung in the balance. It would mean a lot to him to see Elsa. But it meant more to me to keep her safe. What if the guards noticed that George was missing and were able to track us back to the cave? What if our own safety was compromised? What if I put Ingrid and Paul in danger? I said nothing. It was a choice I didn’
t want to think about right then. I looked at him uncertainly.

  He let go of my hand and stood up. “Now I’m glad I didn’t die that day. I have a daughter named Elsa. I will find a way to see her. I have to see her, just once, and make sure she’s real so that I’ll know that I created something of value in this valueless life. I finally have a reason to live.”

  “George, I’m afraid someone will hear us talking. I don’t feel safe here.”

  “You want me to go back into my tent? Is that what you want?”

  I nodded and sat silent while sadness washed over me.

  “You know they will find you, don’t you? They won’t rest until they do. And I won’t rest until I see my child.” He walked away, the ball and chain dragging behind him, and disappeared into his tent, the first one in a long line of small, dark tents that served as living spaces.

  Living spaces. How ironic. As if these people actually had anything worth living for.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  * * *

  EMMELINE

  Day 11

  Paul made no comment about my half-full sack. Instead, he quickly began adding more peas from the ground to it, and Micah joined him. Four hands were frantically stuffing food into my sack. But my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t pick up a single pea. I felt my pulse drumming in my neck and my ears, so loud I wondered if Paul could hear it. Even breathing hurt, as if there were knives between my ribs. I kept searching the flat field ahead of me, looking for George, or worse, a guard, in the moonlight.

  The rain had stopped. Stars emerged, one by one, venturing into the sky on sparkling white tiptoes. Some pale light rippled along the horizon, making the stars fade from the competition. Paul stopped picking and tied my sack closed. “Come,” he said, in his simple style. Just “come,” but it meant move, move quickly, and follow me.

  We started back toward the cave, our sacks slung over our backs, our clothes wet and clammy, clinging to us. Micah’s enthusiasm had evaporated, replaced by fatigue. He struggled to keep up. Paul slowed his pace a little and walked beside Micah, his hand on his shoulder as if he could transfer energy to the child. I followed behind them, looking over my shoulder, watching for any shadow that could conceal a guard following us. All shadows were suspicious. All trees hid danger behind them. Every sound was the sound of stalking.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I could see the cave ahead of us, the entrance darker than the dawn. A few more steps and I saw the vague silhouette of Ingrid, and next to her, David. Should I tell him that I had seen George, that I had spoken with him? No, not yet. I’d have to do it at the right time and in the right way.

  We laid our sacks at their feet and collapsed beside them. David reached out and hugged me with two arms. Two arms! He must be feeling better. He picked up some blankets and draped them over my wet shoulders. Elsa crawled over to me and pulled herself onto my lap.

  Ingrid dumped the sacks onto the grass and began freeing the peas from the vines and leaves. “In the old days,” she said, “we’d throw away the pods. That was wasteful. Now we eat the peas with pods and all.”

  “Today we’ll have a banquet of peas. A celebration!” Paul said. “The three of us gathered so much, far too much for just one feast. After we eat, I’ll dehydrate the rest of them for the winter. But for now, we’re all exhausted, so it’s time to take a little nap.” He motioned for Micah and me to follow him inside the cave. Micah yawned.

  “I’ll rest right here, Paul,” I said. David squeezed my shoulder. I leaned against David, his arm around me. Ingrid’s fingers flew in a blur, working on the peas. I felt my eyelids slip down, heavy, weighted, but, startled by my own thoughts, I opened them.

  Was George as desperate to see Elsa as I was to save her? He was a good man, a kind man. I did not have the right to deny him the chance to see his daughter. Nor did I have the heart to deny him. I would just have to be aware of the risks my decision would create.

  Birdsong was all around us with soothing chirps and twitters.

  The smell of grass and leaves filled my nose.

  The warmth of David’s arm was a comfort to me.

  Ingrid hummed a tune Mother used to hum. The itsy, bitsy spider . . . I could almost see Mother climbing off her energy board to read to me, before they took the books away.

  The sound of peas dropping into a container. Ping . . . ping . . . ping.

  I had to get up and walk around. Handing Elsa to David, I went to the latrine just to be alone. There was a burning behind my eyes, and a tightness in my throat. I cried silently, and a stream of hot tears ran down my face. I cried until I was empty of emotion. Or so I thought.

  I went back to David. He stared at me and I know he must have seen the streaks on my face. He reached out a finger and traced my cheeks. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Just tired.” I answered. Partly true, I told myself, so it wasn’t really a lie.

  “Then sleep,” he said.

  I lay down with my head on his lap and slipped into slumber.

  Too soon, David shook my shoulder. I didn’t want to wake up. He shook it harder. “Emmy,” he said, “You’re having a nightmare. Wake up.”

  I sat up and smoothed my clothes around me. They were still damp.

  “You were shouting in your sleep. What were you dreaming?”

  “I don’t know. What was I shouting?” I had to know what I said, what he heard.

  “You were beating your hands on my legs and shouting ‘No! No! No!’ What were you shouting about?”

  “We need to talk,” I said. “I have to tell you something.” The word something didn’t seem big enough for what I had to tell him.

  “Follow me,” I said to him. “Ingrid, will you keep an eye on Elsa?” Elsa was still asleep. Ingrid smiled, her teeth white against the mud on her face. She nodded and kept working on the peas, pinging them into the pot.

  We went down the hill to the river. “Splash some water on your face. It will feel good,” David said.

  I bent toward the cold, rushing water, cupped my hands, and splashed great handfuls of water on my face and arms, over and over again. The water ran down my chin, my chest, my forearms.

  “There she is. My beautiful Emmy.” David helped me stand, looked at my damp face, touched my cheek with a single finger, and then kissed me. Standing by the flowing water, I felt his power and love. I felt safe.

  “We’re alone here. No one can see us.” His voice was strangely thick, deep.

  He kissed me again, this time with urgency, pressing against me.

  “Be with me,” he whispered into my ear.

  I was suddenly filled with overwhelming desire for him. It burned in me, hot, consuming.

  With the stream roaring beside us, our passion was as powerful as the force driving the water, as free as the wind blowing in the trees, as joyful as the birdsong around us. During that time, nothing else mattered.

  He never asked me what I meant when I said we needed to talk. And I didn’t want to ruin this precious time together.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  * * *

  Ingrid made a meal of peas and some kind of salted fish she had soaked in water all day. I forced myself to eat even though my stomach was queasy. A cold, clammy dread washed over me, chilling my skin. I had to tell David about George even though I knew David would think that doing anything to help George would increase the danger for us. I also knew that David would be right to think that.

  Micah was exhausted after the foraging, but grumpily agreed to an early bedtime when Paul promised to take him fishing in the stream soon.

  Both children were asleep inside the cave, near the entrance. I could hear the rhythm of their slow, even, deep-sleep breathing. We were sitting in front of the cave as evening veiled us in transparent grayness.

  “Tea, anyone?” Ingrid asked in the chirpy voice she had when she talked about cooking.

  “Ingrid makes the best dandelion tea! Watch how she does it.” Ingrid beam
ed at Paul’s compliment.

  She had a pile of plants heaped in front of her. They were the same yellow flowers I had seen on our first day outside the Compound. Ingrid rinsed the plants, roots and all, in a pail of water, then set about crushing the roots between two stones. I moved closer and watched.

  “May I try?” I asked. She moved aside and I crushed some roots while she picked the smallest leaves off other plants. The smell of the roots was like wet wood; the sound of stone against stone was grating, like grinding your teeth. When we’d finished with all the plants, Ingrid scooped everything up and dumped it all into a pot of hot water on the fire pit.

  “A watched pot doesn’t boil,” she announced, like she was giving a cooking lesson, then sat next to Paul. “It’ll be ready in a bit.”

  We sat quietly, waiting for the tea, watching the stars appear, one by one, like shy children tiptoeing across the sky. The trees were dark silhouettes around us. Most birds had roosted for the night; an owl let out a lonely call from one of the nearby trees. Far away, a fox yip-yip-yipped.

  Ingrid served the tea proudly, breathing in the steam and giving a satisfied nod of approval to each mug, before handing them to us. The mug was warm in my hands; I wrapped my fingers around it. I thought I saw movement in the trees, something, I didn’t know what. George? It couldn’t be, not with that ball and chain. Maybe a guard from the commune had seen me? Even worse, could it be one of the Earth Protectors? Startled, I spilled some hot tea on my leg. Paul quickly got a dipper of cold water and poured it on the burn.

  “You jumped.” He bent down and looking into my eyes. “Why?”

  “I thought I saw something.”

  He stood, gazed into the woods, then turned back to me. “I don’t see anything.” He stared at me for a long moment; I had to look away. I felt like he could read my mind.

  “Something is bothering you, Emmy,” Paul said with quiet conviction.