by Eden Wolfe
She still feels them.
But their status is unknown.
They might be dead. She might be feeling them from the dead just as I feel those within me who are long dead.
That would be logical.
“Be pragmatic, Maeva.” the voices chided.
“The two might be planning to come for you now. This might be the end of it all.”
The old voices spoke, and she let them in. She dove even deeper into them, giving them space to maneuver, a stage on which to announce. This was dangerous, she knew that well enough. But she couldn’t avoid them this time. The voices may have had their own motives, but she was never meant to play at Queen for a dying world. There was more she had to know before making her next move.
Inhaling deeply, she moved her consciousness into the dark place inside her. She felt like she was suffocating but she had to ask the questions from those who came before. She pulled at her clothes, needing space, needing air. The sensation of the night breeze soothed her. She let herself go, into the deeper cells, into the old ones. She plunged in without hesitation. She dove.
Mother! Mother of mother! What do you say to this? Please! Please tell me what I must do!
She sought, begging in her deepest place, tearing into her code. She listened as the generations boiled up, dead but not silent. She listened to all that her mother and her mother's mother and her mother's mother’s mother taught her.
It came back in a blast of explosion, and then, like a bomb's mushroom, it pulled back into silent clarity.
The Queen stood tall, assured, young and old at once. She set her eyes somewhere far ahead and nodded.
New plan.
39
Rose
Rose ran her fingers through the dark hair of the second sister-self sleeping on the edge of the water. She missed them already even though she hadn't yet left. She burned the memory in so that she could recall it at will. She wanted to remember the fullness of feeling she had when she held them close.
The other one was settled. She, too, a beauty. A beauty saved. A future saved.
It won't be long now. They will awake. Someone will come looking for them and they must fend for themselves.
She had to run.
Two sleeping sister-selves; a lifetime of anguish was beginning to come to good.
Sweet communion.
She felt their souls pushing at her heart and she wanted so badly to stay. To let them see her face. To show them her love, her loyalty to them.
Instead, she ran.
Unseen and unheard, she rode wind-like and arrived at his doorway, the stench of morning and sweaty sleep emerging from it, but she didn’t mind. She hardly even noticed.
40
Lucius
Lucius heard her but pretended he didn’t. That way he could feign surprise at her appearance in the door. That always made her smile. He loved to see her smile. It was like all the ugliness of life flew from her face and her eyes sparkled. They radiated when she smiled. No one could smile as she did.
You fat idiot, selfish too. After all she’s done and you want to see her smile.
But he did.
He waited, feeling her eyes on him, but hummed to himself in the mirror as he slowly washed his face. He was desperate to know the outcome but pushed his anxiety aside. He wobbled on his semi-paralyzed legs but was determined to stay upright before spending the rest of the day in the rolling coffin.
Ugh, this body, Lucius cursed as he lifted the flaps of fat. He sprayed too-strong cologne and brushed his hair back in a comb-over for the single spot that was thinning, not that anyone would ever see the back of his head through the chair. But still.
Pride, my manly pride.
There she was, waiting, patient and silent, a faraway look and rosy cheeks to match her flaming red hair.
"Well now, look who has returned from the ends of the earth."
But there was no smile. Her bottom lip quivered and a tear fell down her misshaped face.
"How was your trip?" He tried to keep it light, but his voice lowered unintentionally.
She looked at the floor. Her chin nodded up, then down. Up, then down. She looked at him.
Lucius waddled closer and firmly grasped her shoulder. Trying to control his heart rate, he barely managed to speak.
"Were you able to get there safely?"
She nodded.
His heartbeat quickened. At least she hadn’t been cut off before she began.
He had to know but was afraid to ask. Almost in a whisper, he breathed it out.
"Were you seen?"
She raised her eyes with a look Lucius understood to mean that she probably had been.
"That's okay, you've done your part. That was all you could do. You risked a lot, you see that, little fairy? You did more than your share."
She shook her head fiercely. "No."
"Yes, you did."
"NO!"
Lucius was surprised as the fierceness of her response. He didn’t know she was capable of speaking loudly. He’d thought her hushed voice was another consequence of the DNA mosaicism.
She whispered. "It was my duty."
"Oh little fairy, come now." He pulled her into an embrace and felt her body relax and heave. She must have traveled fast. He heard the blood rushing through her. It hadn't been easy, he now understood. She had been scared, so very, very scared.
"So you were frightened, little fairy?"
She pulled back enough that he could see the tears again welling in her eyes. "No, not afraid."
He pulled her in even tighter.
"Okay, it's okay now."
This de facto daughter. Most days it didn’t feel worth the agony of seeing himself in the mirror, but he had so many reasons not to give up yet.
And she was by far the most compelling.
He took her face in his giant hands. Her deformity was a blessing to him, a sign of survival and grace. He knew that she was the superior race. More human than any of them. He knew it. After all, he designed her code for it.
"You did well, little fairy."
"Yes, Papa."
"I love it when you call me Papa." He kissed her rippled forehead and let her go as he stumbled to his chair. "Now make me some coffee."
41
Maeva
The Queen had questions, so many questions. But they would all have to wait. Archer's state was precarious at best, and she preferred his ill silence to the ill blabbering she’d listened to all morning. She'd returned to the fortress, intending to return in the afternoon. Then she would demand he return to his senses.
You can never believe what comes out of a sick man’s mouth. There will be ample opportunity to gather the detail later.
But she wasn’t sure she wanted the detail. It had been done, clearly had been done. A single look at Archer’s face and there was no question. She'd meticulously arranged it. The fears of Upper Earth were valid, Archer would be a normal vehicle for the conversations, both had been primed for the story. For the attack. For each other. There was no reason to believe anything in the plan had changed. He said it himself.
He had killed them.
And yet, the words of the Future Queen rolled back and forth through her mind. Could they live? Could it be possible that they all still lived?
What kind of misguided conscience comes to torment me now? It is done.
Irene slammed the bedroom door behind her. "Queen, we have two decisions that must be referred to your level. You cannot keep rejecting the arrivals."
Irene's voice grated on her.
“This business will not disappear in the distance. The priestesses know something has gone awry. The whole of Gana is talking – “
“Enough! Not today, Irene. You’re infuriating! One day I ask for peace. One day.”
Irene lowered her chin. “Fine. I will be back later. We must spread a message.”
She needed silence and yet no matter where she turned, someone was blabbering in her face.
"Your bath is now ready," the waiting-woman said.
"Obviously, since it's in front of me and I watched you do it. Get out."
Maeva laid in the tub until the water went cold. Clearing everything from her mind.
But she knew the voices would be back.
Footsteps approached. Maeva groaned.
“I can’t even see you yet, Irene, and already your presence is unwelcome.”
“Maeva, the High Councilor representing West Strangelands awaits your company."
"Send her away, I’m about to take a bath."
"You invited her." Irene lowered her voice. “This was part of the plan, do you remember? You have to plant the seed of – "
"I invited her and now I'm sending her away. Is that clear?"
Irene approached the tub, her eyes flaming. Her voice came out as a hiss. "You are better than this, Maeva. This weakness you're wearing does not hang nicely on you. I don't have to say it. You know it already. There are things we are born to do. Perhaps it's destroying you inside, but that is no matter for anyone else.”
"You lecture me?" She did not have the strength for a confrontation now. If only Irene would go away.
"I remind you."
"I have not forgotten."
"Then act the Queen. Act it, if you cannot be the Queen we need right now."
"Then here is my next Queenly command: Get out."
Irene bowed deep and low and turned to exit.
"You mock me?" Maeva felt the voices screeching inside at the insult. The affront.
Irene didn't turn around.
"I wouldn't dare, my Queen." She left.
The voices were mumbling, agitating, creating something inside her. A protest. None spoke a word loud enough for her to understand, but they weren't quiet enough to ignore. They rang inside her, making her veins quiver, and still not one would speak up enough for her to listen. She lowered herself into the tepid water, hoping to drown them away.
42
Archer
He felt the pillow wet under his head. The fever hadn't broken in days. Wilma wanted to call the doctor, but he wouldn't hear of it.
"I'm not sick." His insistence was more like the lazy swatting of a fly. The gashes on his face and neck felt infected, but that was the least of his concerns.
Wilma looked at him sideways. He'd lost track of how many times she'd said he was dying.
“Two weeks maximum, that’s all you have left at this rate,” she muttered under her breath, but loud enough for him to hear. Then she shook her head and went back to her apartment, knitting in hand.
He turned over in bed, fitfully moving in and out of sleep.
That face, her face, always in double, was in front of his eyes, regardless of whether they were open or closed.
"I'm going mad," he said to the ceiling fan.
Whomp whomp whomp, it agreed.
A guilty conscience kills cleaner than poison, the voice of his Willing Mother echoed in his head, recalling every childhood misdemeanor, white lies, and darker lies. But nothing, nothing compared to what he had done now.
Archer, Archer, the voice of his mother chastised in his ear. You've been bad, so very bad, Archer.
He shook his head to send the vision of her away, but she was a stalwart. She wouldn't budge from his inner ear, this dead mother's voice from generations ago mingled with the memory of her soiled apron from his childhood.
Slap slap, she wiped her hands on the apron sides, handprint of coarse flour caked on her hairline. Slap slap, she smacked him on the ear, the sound pounding into his memory. "Horrid boy, you, boy who killed us all off when the world almost ended! It was you!"
He was sickened and sick, in his head and heart, but he had no words to get it out. Festering, the guilt weighed heavy in his stomach. He felt the burden with each beat of his heart.
In a blink, he was taken back. Ariane, crouching by the water’s edge, communion with the creatures that lived within. Ariane, running across the barren field in West Strangelands. That peculiar way she moved, deer-like and free, but fast like a shooting star, her brown hair leaving visual memory in his eyes even after she was gone. Ariane. Always Ariane. Deep brown eyes with shards of green, like broken glass that cut into his heart. That smile which spoke of obligation and love. He was nestled between father and uncle, and sometimes something else he didn't let his mind consciously explore.
A passion for her. A driving need to hold her. Desire.
He had burned for her. Ariane, joy-filled. Ariane, feeling so deeply. Even now he remained lost between the two of them. How he loved them both.
The memory was burned into him, from the time he arrived in Gana, that time he took Ariane's hand, his little Aria. Seven years old but with the gaze of a woman. She'd led him like he was the child to the creek's edge.
"Archer, do you see the fish?"
There had been no fish to see.
"Archer, do you not hear them coming?"
There was nothing to hear, he was sure of it, a silly child, she was just a silly child. He'd always believed they were children like all children.
But the fish came, and how they came, the rushing monsters roaring toward them.
How the fish came.
There had been nothing to hear, no sign of them coming. And she smiled, satisfied and defiant. And so much more powerful than he.
He feared her. Oh, how he feared her.
He awoke with a start.
"Daytime, Archer." A gentle voice sang. "Daytime, dear Archer."
Now I truly am going mad, Archer said in his head. The Queen at the foot of my bed, singing me awake? What dream is this?
He dismissed the vision but stayed in his waking dream.
"Please now, Archer," she took a deep breath, her breasts rising in the square-necked velvet, and he was again struck by how beautiful she was in his dreams.
Blinking he waited for the apparition to fade away into his mother's voice and the daytime to turn to night again, but she didn’t budge. Instead, she moved closer to him. She looked so real.
"What you did was good, Archer. It was right. It was what had to be done." Her face was even closer, she floated before him. His heartbeat started to pound.
He reached out, gentle giant fingers moving towards the apparition's face. He feared he would reach right through her.
What do I do then? How many bodies must I pierce? How much blood?
But the apparition took his hand, boiling hot in her cool smooth fingers, and brought it to her heart.
"Archer, you're a good man, I have a kind of love for you, the most you could ever expect of me. For all you have done, you have my loyalty and admiration. Do you feel this?"
Her heartbeat was suddenly drumming against his fingers, his knuckles resting fist-like on her bare skin. She opened his hand and held it against her heart.
Caress her! he told his hallucinating self, but he was too afraid. The flesh of her breast, so smooth and cold, clean and fresh. His eyes widened.
She gently laid his hand down on the bed again, where it came from, and stood up solid, towering over him. Cool Queen over gentle giant. Her cheeks tightened and her voice lowered as she looked him hard in the eye.
"Now get up."
43
Maeva
Look at this man. A complete wreck. How is it that this breed, this strain, this man ruled the world?
"I said, get up, Archer." The marks on his face and neck glared, evidence of his weakness.
She understood on a psychological level why he had turned into this mess. Unwashed, unshaven, distracted, open-mouthed madman.
And these are the genes of the men who tried to oppress us? I can hardly believe it.
And yet, looking down on Archer, seeing him in this state, Maeva felt something for him still.
Affection.
He is fragile. This man is fragile, despite his code, she thought. But responsibility is what responsibility is.
He had no understanding of her responsibil
ity. He was incapable of it. All he'd had to do was follow her instructions.
"Archer, tell me, is it truly done?"
"I loved them."
The heat rose from deep within her, so many voices bursting with her own.
"Is it done?"
"I loved them. I loved you," his mouth hardly moved as he repeated the words again and again.
Loved?
Those eyes, pleading with her.
She hardened herself.
"How could you make me do that, Maeva? How could you?"
Her walls crumbled. He was so small. And somehow she didn’t have the answer anymore.
"No more, Archer."
She left.
He promised. He must have done it. He promised.
He had promised, and more so, he promised he would never regret it.
Promises.
Men and their promises, the words of her mother, and her mother's mother, and her mother before that, snuck into the edge of hearing.
44
Aria
The constant thump of her heart blasted between her ears. The scar under Aria's shirt throbbed. She hadn't had a chance to check its condition. But it could wait.
The hunter was still close.
Every breath was exaggerated; she tried to mute the sound of her breathing, but it rushed through her brain. Aria focused her attention on any movement across the forest that was out of place. She scanned for miles.
A twig snapped. A slight brush of leaves.
She leaped off again, running, running, running. She covered miles in minutes, even in her compromised state.
Assess condition: Injury well treated. Timeline and caregiver unknown.
She moved slower than the gentle shift of evening air. Listening. The sounds moving closer. Then away. And away. And away.
