Fierce Reads

by Ann Aguirre

  In my free time I sit on the National Novel Writing Month Advisory Board and watch too much Doctor Who (if that’s possible). I’m currently at work on a new young-adult series that bridges my love of adventure with my obsession with conspiracy. It’s completely different, apart from also having a feisty heroine, and lots of fun.

  THE CYPRESS PROJECT

  by Gennifer Albin

  Marion, Illinois

  The air was heavy and thick, drawing beads of sweat from Lucy’s forehead and neck as she fought against her victory garden. Weeds choked the turnips and she tore at them, determined not to lose a single precious plant. She and Mother were terrible gardeners, but if there was going to be enough food on the table for the two of them, they would have to make it work.

  Lucy’s heart sped up as a figure came into focus. She didn’t dare look past the crisp ironed slacks and recently shined boots, both standard military issue, even as the messenger knocked on her front door.

  She hesitated, remaining hidden among the tomato vines. Whatever news the man had brought couldn’t be undone by ignoring him. There was nothing for it but to be bold. Lucy pushed to her feet, wiping her dirty palms against the jeans she’d stolen from Nicholas’s room and brushing loose hair back under the handkerchief wrapped around her head.

  “Hello,” she called out.

  “Mrs. Price?” the messenger asked.

  She nodded. He wanted her mother, but she wouldn’t be home from her shift at the munitions factory for hours. He would probably give her the message anyway, but if he wouldn’t she’d never sleep tonight, waiting for him to return. Not with both her father and brother at the front.

  “I have a telegram for you.” It took the messenger an eternity to cross the yard and hand her the small yellow telegram. A wisp of paper that could shatter the fragile normality she clung to. She shoved it into her pocket. It would be better to open it inside.

  “I’m very sorry,” the man said, the words as clipped and precise as his sharp turn toward the sidewalk.

  Lucy had never counted the steps from the lawn to the front door before, but she counted them now, willing herself to breathe with each one.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Twenty-five steps until her fingers found the doorknob and she crumpled against the foyer wall, away from the eyes of her neighbors.

  New Haven, Connecticut

  Two gold initials were embossed on the leather suitcase: J. O. The letters mocked him, reminding him how impractical and flashy his father’s gift was, as he made his way through the crowds of soldiers at Union Station. New Haven was a waypoint for most—some heading off to the front, others to training, but no one was headed home. This was the only similarity between the men in uniform and Joshua O’Donnell. They were all strangers headed off to what had been sold to them as an adventure.

  Joshua didn’t believe Yale University would be an adventure, though.

  He gripped the handle of his case tightly, focusing his attention on the doors to the station and trying hard not to look at the men surrounding him. Men who were going to glory or death while he was forced to go to college. Joshua wasn’t sure how his father had secured a 4-F for his file, but he was sure he’d paid handsomely for it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Joshua and being handed a 4-F slip had stung. The army doctor hadn’t been able to meet his eyes.

  Joshua felt the shame as though it had been embossed in gold letters on his forehead.

  A soldier knocked into him. “Watch it, daisy.”

  “My apologies,” Joshua said, his jaw clenched.

  “We’re going off to fight for our country here,” the soldier continued. His eyes traveled up and down, taking in Joshua’s tweed jacket and shined shoes, and a sneer twisted across his lips.

  “I’ll pray for your safe return,” Joshua said as he backed away. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to deck the soldier. In fact, the only thing holding him back was that the soldier was right. That man deserved Joshua’s respect, but Joshua didn’t deserve his.

  Outside the station, Joshua leaned against the brick facade and inhaled the fresh air. Setting down his suitcase, he pulled a folded letter from his pocket. The paper was thin and worn from the number of times he’d read it over the last two months. Opening it, he read it again and noted the address. Joshua O’Donnell would go to Yale as his father demanded, but he would serve his country as well.

  Los Angeles, California

  A hostess beckoned for Harold Patton to follow her through the crowded restaurant. The Polo Lounge remained one of the few places that felt normal in spite of the war. Harold nodded at Spencer Tracy, who was dining with a collection of his fellow polo players. The number of starlets in the room would have turned most men’s heads, but Harold was preoccupied. The only thing he noticed, to his dissatisfaction, was how many women had dared to wear slacks. First the Lounge had given in to Marlene Dietrich and now the entire Beverly Hills Hotel had given in to the modern sensibility. It was an unpleasant reminder that with so many men at war, there were fewer people around to keep women in their place.

  “Mr. Patton.” The hostess motioned toward his table. Two men wearing cheap suits were waiting in the green high-backed booth.

  “I’ll have an old-fashioned,” Harold said to the girl as she turned to leave.

  Harold settled into the booth, taking each man’s hand as it was proffered.

  “Dick Morton, and this is my colleague Walt Fitch.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Harold said, although he wasn’t entirely sure this was the case.

  “You’re probably wondering why the War Department asked you to lunch—” Dick began, but Harold cut him off with a wave of the hand.

  “I assume you want something from me,” Harold said.

  “Well, yes.” Dick shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tugged at his dime-store tie.

  Walt jumped in. “But it’s probably not what you think.” He was younger than Dick, which meant his suit was even cheaper, but there was no hesitation in his words. He believed in his ability to land Harold’s support.

  “I’m a railroad man,” Harold said, “so either you’re after that or you’re after my collection of Baroque paintings. I doubt the War Department has a need for Rembrandt.”

  “Actually, it’s neither of those things,” Walt said. He leaned in, dropping his voice as a waitress placed Harold’s old-fashioned in front of him. “We want you to invest in a project.”

  “So you’re after my money? How refreshingly honest of you.” Harold took a long swig of his drink, studying his companions. Dick’s tie had been loosened to hang around his neck like a noose and his eyes darted around the room. If Dick had been an ambitious man, he might have enjoyed lunch at the Polo Lounge, but it was clear being here unnerved him. Walt’s eyes glowed, on the other hand. He didn’t merely seem at ease, he appeared to feed off the energy in the room. Either he was very invested in what he was selling or he was too young to know that lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel was likely to be a singular event in his life.

  “I think you’ll like what we have to offer,” Walt said.

  “Which is?” Harold asked.

  “An end to the war.”

  “I know this is an unpopular opinion, Mr. Fitch, but I’m not eager to see the war come to an end. It’s been very good for the Patton Railroad Company.” Harold understood this would end the conversation and he would end up paying for the drinks the men abandoned when they took their leave of the unpatriotic fellow, as they’d be sure to call him.

  Dick stood up, bowing slightly. “Mr. Patton, thank you for—”

  “Sit down, Dick,” Walt ordered. “We haven’t explained to Mr. Patton what’s in it for him yet.”

  Harold cocked an eyebrow as he raised his old-fashioned to his lips.

  “You have money, Mr. Patton, but what about power?” Walt asked.

  “Money is power, son.”

  “It won�
�t be for much longer.” Walt leaned back against the booth to let this settle in.

  Harold’s black eyes narrowed, looking for a tell in Walt’s demeanor. He was sure the kid was bluffing him, but Harold couldn’t help but respect him a little. “So you’re going to win the war? How?”

  Walt’s mouth twitched into a smile. “The Cypress Project.”

  * * *

  They buried an empty coffin in the Marion cemetery. The military sent them a medal and some unposted letters Nicholas had had on him when he died in a muddy field in France. It was all they had left of Lucy’s older brother, and it was more than most of the other families in town had received. For many there had been only the telegram and the awkward apology of the army messenger.

  Two months had passed, school had started, but like many of the other girls, Lucy didn’t return. Learning about literature and geometry seemed increasingly pointless, and Mrs. Price hadn’t raised a fuss when Lucy announced she had better ways to spend her time. Her mother’s only requirement was that she didn’t spend that time driving up to the Mattoon canteen to send off the young soldiers. More than one of Lucy’s friends had found herself in a precarious situation following the deployment of a lover. A few had even come home married to boys they barely knew. But her mother didn’t have to worry; those girls had been caught up in the romance of war, falling for the propaganda posters plastered throughout town. Those girls didn’t dream of their brother’s blood mixing with wet dirt and ash in a muddy field in France.

  The weather would change soon, and Lucy canned the vegetables from the miserable victory garden. Victory garden—even the name now cut like a well-timed insult. The war would end as all wars must, she realized, as she stewed tomatoes over the stove top, but there would be no victory for the Price family. Her father would almost certainly come home soon. He’d telegrammed that his commanding officer had learned of Nicholas’s death. The family would be complete then, as complete as it ever would be again. But like so many who returned from the war with legs and arms amputated, the ghost of what they’d lost would linger over the Prices forever.

  A knock at the door startled her from her black mood, but she frowned as she answered it to find a salesman on the porch.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  The man caught the door, barring her from closing it. “Miss Lucy Price?”

  Lucy took a step back, uncertain what to do.

  “My name is Mr. Watson. I’m from the War Department—”

  “Do you have news about my father?” Lucy asked.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I do not. I’d like to speak with you, though.”

  Lucy’s hand fluttered to her chest, the motion asking the question that had stalled on her tongue. Me?

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  She couldn’t think of a reason to say no to the War Department, and besides, a strange sensation was creeping through the haze of grief engulfing her. Lucy had felt nothing but darkness since the day of the telegram, but now something else flickered into her chest.

  Curiosity.

  Lucy showed the man to the sitting room, whipping off her homemade apron when Mr. Watson’s back was to her.

  “Can I get you some tea?” she asked. It was all they had in the house except stewed tomatoes. Neither Lucy nor her mother had much of an appetite these days.

  “I’m fine,” Mr. Watson assured her. “I won’t take too much of your time.”

  She nodded as she sank into a chair across from him. For some reason, she was relieved her mother wasn’t there.

  “The War Department is looking for young girls like yourself to help with the war effort,” he said.

  This time the question leaped from her lips. “Me?”

  “Is it really that shocking? Our mothers and young women are running our factories. Our fathers and brothers are fighting,” he said.

  Girls in Europe worked as nurses on the front. Lucy was too young to enlist as a nurse yet, but she planned to in a year and a half when she was of age. She hoped the war would be over by then, but now she knew it would never end. It would stretch on until there was no one left, until it wiped out the entire world. The realization colored her thoughts black with hopelessness, making her feel even more useless than when most of her victory garden had died after Nicholas’s death.

  It was time girls did something more than blow kisses to passing soldiers or dance with them at the USO or show them one last good time in the backseat of their daddy’s Ford. Lucy knew that, but it didn’t make her any less afraid of the strange man. “What would I be doing?”

  “You’d be ending the war,” Mr. Watson said.

  “No one can end this war,” Lucy said before she thought better of it. “This is a war between good and evil, Mr. Watson. It never ends.”

  Mr. Watson opened his mouth, but then paused, his eyes trained on her. Finally he reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew a business card, which he handed to her. “If you change your mind about that, you can reach me here. I’m on my way to Chicago this evening.”

  Lucy nodded, unable to speak, her mouth full of cotton and doubt. She showed Mr. Watson to the door. Then she made her way into the kitchen where she dropped the card into the garbage, but as it fluttered onto a discarded eggshell, Lucy spied: THE DRAKE HOTEL.

  Lucy’s mother didn’t speak at dinner. Lucy hadn’t been counting but she was fairly certain less than fifty words had passed between the two of them this week. It had been that way since Nicholas died. Nothing had happened between them. Rather, neither felt like talking. They’d tried at first, forcing empty conversations about rations and small-town gossip, and then they’d given up, lapsing into a perpetual silence. The house was quiet as death, which felt appropriate, and the words they shared were utilitarian. There was always a point to them.

  Everywhere Lucy went in town there were signs urging citizens to do this and that to help the war effort. At the picture show they talked about war bonds and beating Hitler, and then played films about young men going off to become heroes. At church they prayed for an end to the war and read the names of the boys going to the front, asking for the heavens to watch over them, but God didn’t seem to be listening. It was all hollow. Death had become routine. Sending boys to be slaughtered was simply a regular sacrifice. And the words on the posters and the film reels and in the mouth of her minister were hollow. They did nothing to calm the ragged anger that burned in her chest. They didn’t fill the void carved from her belly by sadness.

  So she stopped listening and then she stopped talking. They both did.

  But words never left her mind, especially since Mr. Watson’s visit, and now they were lining up to become questions that marched through her thoughts so swiftly she couldn’t latch on to one long enough to find the answer. It left her temples throbbing and now, at dinner, she speared a turnip, holding it up for examination but not eating it, while the deluge of questions continued. Lucy set the fork back down and slumped against the table.

  Mrs. Price watched her, but didn’t say a word. Instead she rose and took her plate to the sink to be washed. It was then that Lucy realized how lonely it was to be stuck in one’s own head. More questions joined the long marching line: Who had stopped talking first? Was it her or her mother? Followed by a perhaps more important one: When would they start talking again?

  It wasn’t until Lucy’s head dropped to her pillow that night that she asked herself the question that would change her life: Why had a man from Chicago come five hours to speak to her?

  * * *

  Two days later, Lucy dropped a note for her mother on the kitchen table and then boarded a train to Chicago. She hadn’t called ahead and when she pushed through the revolving doors to the Drake Hotel and stepped into the opulent lobby she wondered whether she’d made a mistake. She stood there on the marble floor, lost in the click-clack of dress shoes, and marveled at the number of people. Chicago felt alive in a way that Marion, Illinois, hadn’t si
nce the U.S. had joined the war. Perhaps she could lose herself here, become a new person, and forget all the pain she’d left behind when she got on that train. It wasn’t too late. She could walk back out to the busy Chicago sidewalk and disappear, but then she’d never get her answers.

  Watson hadn’t told her what they wanted her to do or why, but she couldn’t stand the nagging questions circling in her brain any longer. She needed to know why he’d come for her. She needed to know why he thought they could end the war.

  And why they hadn’t done so months ago, before Nicholas was killed.

  But most of all she needed to believe that good could still triumph over evil. Lucy supposed that was like wishing for a fairy tale; but she knew there would be no happy ending.

  * * *

  Harold skimmed the file in front of him, paying no attention to the girl in the chair across from him. He didn’t notice how she clutched the locket at her neck or how her eyes darted birdlike around the room. If he had, he might have discovered the girl was nervous, but he probably wouldn’t have cared. Harold Patton wasn’t in the business of sixteen-year-old girls. At least, he wasn’t until recently. Somehow that bastard Walt Fitch had talked him into this little program the War Department needed to have financed, and because of the exorbitant amount of money the leeches had gotten out of him, Harold had insisted on being present for the process. Personally Harold thought these scientists were insane, but they had the backing of the US government, which meant that they had more than a theory. There was no way the War Department would have sanctioned such a ridiculous program, especially during wartime, without evidence that it could succeed.

  He wanted to see that evidence for himself. If they could pull off what they’d proposed to him, Harold wanted in on the ground floor. But he also wanted to know how it would work. When Harold was fifteen his father had sent him out to help lay new track for the railroad. Harold had hated him for it at the time, but because of that experience he understood what business he was in, which meant nobody could pull one over on him. It had also provided him with near-limitless power within his own company. Power that could only grow—if he understood the implications of this little project Fitch had pitched him.