I slide onto the bench next to Mark, putting my chipped bowl of cereal in front of me.
The canteen has those high windows again as well as some electric tube lights high above our heads where we couldn’t possibly reach them. Mark’s staring at his toast like it insulted him.
He’s got his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and I know he’s done this so that I can see that he hasn’t hurt himself. But it looks like the toast might be about to be subjected to some wrath.
He turns to me finally, still not eating anything. “Where’d you go yesterday?”
I have a mouthful of cereal, so I just look at him questioningly.
“We were upstairs, and then you just got up and left. It’s not like you.”
I feel my eyebrows contract slightly as I swallow and then look quizzically at him. I didn’t leave. He did. I open and then quickly shut my mouth, taking a second to look around us.
“Did you see me after that?” I say quickly and quietly.
“No.” He raises an eyebrow. “You weren’t in class or in meals after that. I assumed you were just hiding somewhere. You liked Eva.”
He hadn’t seen me all day, and I’d left first? Where the hell had I gone, and why didn’t I remember? I want to ask, but Emerie sits gracefully opposite us and gives Mark a sad smile.
“Morning, guys. Mark, I’m so sorry about Eva. I know you two were…close.”
Mark pushes his glasses up his nose and looks away. I can’t tell if he’s embarrassed or sad, but Em doesn’t seem to get the hint to be quiet.
“So that’s another one down. Mother’s really kicking the shit out of us this year, isn’t she? I wonder when we’ll get some new blood for them to murder.”
I look behind her with horror on my face. Emerie spins around, knocking her spoon onto the floor. When she sees nothing behind her, she slowly turns back to me.
I give her a smirk, and she kicks me lightly under the table. “That’s mean, Remy.”
I shrug. She falls for it every time. My hope is that it turns the conversation from being about Eva, which it does.
“So my chore this week is washing dishes.” Emerie’s face shows her disgust. “And Three appeared right behind me when I was scrubbing a bowl.
“I heard something and turned around so fast that the water in the bowl sloshed onto her. Dirty dishwater straight down her robes.” Em grips the table in a dramatic fashion.
“And I thought I was in for it. The others in the kitchen all turned to stare at me. Oliver dropped a saucepan, and the noise was so loud, but nobody looked at him.
“Three was just was just watching me like I’m some kind of disgusting insect.” She shudders theatrically.
“What happened next?” Teagan’s small voice comes from next to me, and I jump. I didn’t notice her sitting down with us. She’s almost as good of a shadow as I am.
Emerie leans toward her. “Three put a hand down and wiped the water away, and it vanished. Gone. Poof. She used magic, right in front of us, like it was nothing.”
Em’s fists clench. “Just to prove that they can. It makes me sick.” She then reaches a hand out and mimes grabbing Teagan’s face.
“Then she takes my face in one hand, just like this, and says, ‘Be more careful, scullery maid, or you’ll be cleaning more than pots. Your little friends make such a mess.’
“Then she let me go and vanished.”
Teagan gasps. “So, they’re going to make you clean toilets or something? Or the boys’ dorm? Gross.”
Emerie nods conspiratorially and starts eating her cereal. I can’t believe she hasn’t picked up on the hint. I look at Mark, and he’s staring at her, his face pale.
Suddenly he gets up from the table and stalks off. Emerie and Teagan look up, shocked, but I just abandon my food and follow him.
I find him out in the corridor, a shaking hand held against his forehead.
“You thought it too, right?” he asks me, looking shaken.
“I think they meant Eva.” Mark presses into his temples with his fingers. “I think they meant cleaning up what…what was left of her.”
I agree. I mean, it could be that she was just talking about being on bathroom duty, but the fact that she wasn’t open about it makes it seem like she’s being sinister.
I just nod sadly and stand there with Mark. I want to tell him about the dream I had and the fact I lost an afternoon, but it’s not the right time.
He just lost Eva. I don’t want to bring that back right now.
We just stand here, in the corridor, until the klaxon goes and it’s time for Praise. I look at Mark, and he pushes his glasses up his nose and gives me a nod.
The door to the canteen opens, and the rest of the kids pour out as we make our way to Mother’s Chapel.
The walls and corridors at Home are all the same, as are most of the rooms behind the metal doors. But Mother’s Chapel has double doors and is one of the few rooms with large windows.
I get swept along with the crowd and separated from Mark. The boys have to sit separately in here.
Through the double doors is a large room, the largest I’ve seen here, and the walls are not concrete but made of a shining rock that reflects light and sound. It’s like being inside a mirror.
The windows run floor to ceiling but don’t show the courtyard or walls outside. Instead, they show a void of space. You can see stars and little else out in the dark.
Low stone benches, made of the same shiny stone, line the walls and face into the center of the room.
The vaulted ceiling arches overhead and then comes to a point over the center of the room where a long, blue spike descends down to just over Mark’s head if he stands directly under it.
Which makes it just over six and a half feet high. I’ve never known the purpose of this, but I’ll bet it’s not good. I sit on a bench directly in the middle of the room.
I hate being that exposed, but sitting at the edges means being near the Daughters, who sit by the door and against the wall opposite.
Then the girls and the boys fill up the benches parallel to each other.
I watch the boys as they sit down.
Mark sits in front of the windows and reaches a hand behind him, checking to see if he can get into the darkness, but his fingers just press against the glass like normal.
I look away and catch Callum’s eye. Before he can smile at me like he sometimes does, I stare down at my interlocked hands.
Callum’s a year younger than Mark and me, and I’ve always thought he looks like a poet.
Red hair that’s just longer than mine and curls at the ends frames large eyes that seem bluer than the sky against his creamy skin. I stare resolutely at my hands as I can feel his eyes on me.
He’s nice to me, and Mark thinks he’s “interested” in me, but that’s not… It’s just not who I am.
I only look up a few minutes when the Daughters sweep in. The only thing making noise is their robes swishing against the marble floor.
Seven looks right at me, or the best approximation she can make with her eyes covered, but I feel her gaze like a leaden weight. She takes her seat in the row.
They always sit in the same places. It’s why we named them after numbers. As one, they look at the descended spike, and the service begins.
It’s always the same, and in my years witnessing it, nothing new has ever happened.
They speak the same prayer that Mother will protect us and lead us, and then One gets up and brings one of us to the center of the room, right under the spike.
She prays for us to be filled with Mother’s spirit, follow her teachings, and lead the rest of us into a new era of Her reign.
Today it’s a young boy called Michael who gets pulled into the center.
He looks up at the ceiling and its imposing spike, and though he’s seen this ritual twice a week for the nine or so months he’s been here, I can see his hands shaking slightly.
I look away, not wanting to watch this small boy being terrorized, and I stare into the void in the windows behind Mark.
As I look into the darkness, a flash of blue in the far distance causes me to pause. Out there in the blackness, a tiny spark of light streaks across the window so far away that I could be mistaken.
I look around wildly to see if anybody else saw anything, and I see three of the Daughters, including Seven, facing me. They’re not smiling, but I feel a cold sweat break out on my forehead.
I flick my gaze between the other windows I can see, but there’s nothing apart from darkness and stars.
A few of the other kids, including Mark, are looking at me now. Mark leans forward with his forearms on his knees and stares at me with open concern.
I feel my face getting red from the attention and try to shrink back into myself or into the wall behind me. If I just pretend nothing is wrong, then they’ll stop looking at me.
Silence. The key to life is silence.
But as I repeat this, I realize that there is silence all around me. The prayer has stopped. I can’t even hear movement as people fidget.
There’s just a complete lack of sound, like I’ve suddenly gone underwater. Then it comes to me. A rattling breath behind me that I immediately recognize. I try to stay calm for a few moments.
Nobody is looking behind me, and there are no screams of horror. That means she’s not here. She’s not real. What was once Eva is not behind me. There’s just no way. It’s not real. It’s not real.
A hand clamps onto my shoulder, and I look down to see the fingers are gnarled and rotted, with blood and other liquids leaking onto my sweater. I flinch uncontrollably.
I wrench myself away from the hand and fall to the floor. I look back up at the apparition, and it’s not Eva this time but Raj. Or it was Raj once.
The rope is still around his neck and pulled tight, making blood leak out his mouth as his rotting eyes bulge. He’s still reaching for me with hands that are now more bone than anything else.
I feel a scream rising in my throat, but nobody around me moves or seems to notice something is wrong.
He takes a step toward me, but his foot doesn’t clear the bench, and he just stumbles into it and starts to fall. I crawl backward as I stare at him, my heart thundering in my ears.
And I find myself directly in the middle of the room, looking up at the spike. The flash of blue I’d seen in the window appears again, but this time running across the ceiling like lightning.
It rushes down the spike and stops at the end, like it’s considering what to do next.
A crash in front of me draws my attention back, and Raj is now on all fours, black liquid spewing from his mouth as he crawls toward me.
I’m rooted to the spot. Nothing within me is following commands anymore. I’m a slave to my terror. Somehow I know that either the light will fall on me or Raj will reach me.
And either way, I’m going to die.
The noises stop, and I open my eyes. I’m being held upright. I struggle, but there are many bonds holding me, and I barely move. I’m still in Mother’s Chapel, but the lights are out.
My head is being wrenched back by my hair, and I’m being forced to stare at the ceiling in the exact spot I was when I saw the blue lightning.
“Tell me.” A raspy voice speaks so close to me that I feel the spittle from the force of the words hit my ear. “Tell me what you see.”
I struggle again, but the things holding me, which I realize are hands, just tighten on my limbs.
“Tell me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I’m not sure if this is real or if Raj was real. Suddenly I’m released, and my legs crumble.
I hit the floor hard with my knees and stay there, stunned, for a few seconds. I’m alone now, just me in the chapel in the darkness. I crawl to the edge of the room, where Mark sat before.
I look around, but there’s no blue lightning or people or even monsters. I cradle my head in my hands, tugging slightly on my hair, and I try to keep from crying. Crying solves nothing.
Am I going mad? I consider that maybe this is part of the powers that apparently lay dormant inside me. Maybe I’m supposed to have been seeing terrifying visions all my life.
Knowing my luck, that’s exactly what I am. Some kind of monster…vision…thing. I wish that there was someone here that I could talk to about this kind of thing.
There’s a library here, but no books explain how to figure out what kind of magic you are with no clues. And everyone else remembers what they are. Everyone apart from me.
I take my hands away from my head and stare at them. They’re shaking, but I ignore that and flip them over, looking at the insides of my wrists.
The blood there seems so close to the surface, and it’s pulsing so loudly that it seems like I can hear it. To get away from it all, I stand up and run from the room.
The corridor outside is also dark, but I keep running, my head spinning.
Eventually I stop and lean against the wall, breathing hard. I’m thin, but I can’t run for long. Everything around me is in darkness, and suddenly the words from the dream come back to me.
As if spurred by this memory, I hear noises in the dark behind me.
I turn around quickly, nausea rising as I prepare for whatever vision will assault me now.
There’s weak light coming from one of the high windows, which are barred here, leaving tiny strips of pale light casting over the tall figure behind me in the dark.
There’s a slight flash of light, and I realize that it’s a reflection from glasses.
Mark takes another step forward, his arms out to me like he’s afraid I’ll attack him. “Remy?” He sounds hesitant and a little fearful. “By the gods, Rem, is that really you?”
I nod, a little confused. My heart is still in my throat. Then suddenly I’m engulfed in what turns out to be Mark’s arms.
He’s wrapped them around me, and his cheek is pressing into the top of my head. He’s holding me against his chest, and I’m not sure how to respond.
Then suddenly I feel, more than hear, the sob he lets out, and I reflexively hug him back. I place my hands awkwardly on his back.
I honestly cannot remember ever being hugged, so I’m not sure what I should be doing, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
After a minute or so, he pulls back and looks down at me.
“Where the fuck have you been? I thought… We ALL thought… I mean, I’m so fucking glad you’re back. Have you been hiding somewhere? Are you okay?”
All these questions start to make sense. It’s night again, so I’ve missed another whole day. And this time, he thought they’d taken me.
“I have no idea” is all I can manage. I try to convey my fear and confusion and then fall silent again as he looks at me.
Then he grabs my hand and starts pulling me along the corridor. “C’mon,” he says quietly. “Let’s go somewhere with light. I have to check that you’re real.”
We end up in the shabby library. He turns the lights on and puts a chair under the door handle. Not that this will keep the Daughters out, but I guess he likes the feeling of security, however false.
I look around at the wooden shelves that hold the books we’re allowed to read. There are twelve shelves that are filled with handwritten books by the Daughters, which are the “gospels” of Mother.
There are also fifty shelves filled with books we’re allowed to read. There’s no specific theme to them. There are stories and histories, but nothing about escape.
Mark pulls up two of the folding chairs and puts me in one, then drops into the other, staring at me. His eyes are brighter than normal, and I’m shocked to see more tears in them.
I wrap my arms around myself and look away. I’m not worth missing, so he shouldn’t… It… I’m not sure how I feel about it.
He pushes his glasses up his nose and takes a deep breath. “Where have you been? You’ve been off since Eva died, and you’ve been less present than usual, but I just thought you were upstairs.
“Then you didn’t come to breakfast, and there was just no fucking trace of you. Emerie was just beside herself, and they had to sedate Teagan.
“I thought something was weird, because the Daughters kept going to your bed and just standing there, but you didn’t come back. I thought I’d lost you.”
I could feel my brow furrowing in confusion. I was at breakfast. I was at Praise… Eva only died yesterday. He’s talking like…
“How— How long was I gone?”
Mark looks up at me sharply. He opens and then closes his mouth, his brown eyes trying to read me.
“Five days.” As he says this, a lead weight seems to drop into my stomach.
I stand up so fast that the chair gets knocked to the side. I have my hands over my mouth, and I back away into the wall. Mark stands as well, which is much more impressive with his height.
He’s holding his hands out with his palms facing me as if he’s trying to calm down a wild animal. “Hey, hey, don’t freak out. We’ll figure this out.”
He takes a small step toward me, but I slide along the wall away from him, suddenly not wanting to be touched. He understands and pulls his hands back.
“Sorry. But you’re alive, Remy. You’re the first one to ever come back. I about lost my mind when we couldn’t find you. I just lost it.”
My eyes flick reflexively to his wrists. He catches my glance, and I see a flush creep into his cheeks. He pulls both sleeves up slightly and holds his arms out to me, wrists up.
There’s nothing there, no new marks or bandages. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I look up at Mark’s face, but he’s staring at his own wrists.
“You—” he starts, clearly embarrassed. “You wouldn’t have wanted me to. I couldn’t lose you and then…I dunno, dishonor your memory or something. You’re my only friend. I…”
He pulls his arms away and puts his hands back into his pockets, looking down at the floor.
As he does this, I get the sudden feeling that we’re being watched. I look around the room, and there aren’t that many shadows with the lights on, but the ones there seem darker, almost sticky.
Then I’m yanked backward by my collar into what should have been the wall, but it’s all just darkness. There’s a shout from Mark, which somehow comforts me.
For the first time in days, somebody has noticed when I’m in trouble.
I reappear in front of two of the Daughters, One and Four.
One has a normal human face from what we can see, and Four has a mouth that stretches from ear to ear and lips that look like bloated leeches.
It’s One that grabbed me, and Four has a struggling Mark in her grip.
He’s taller and heavier than her, but the Daughters are much stronger than us, and he eventually gives up trying to tug his arm from her grip.
One shakes me roughly, causing my head to smack against the wall. “Where have you been, child of none? What did you see?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” I cry out as my eyes water from the pain in my head. “I don’t know what happened.”
One shakes me again and looks at Four, whose toadlike mouth mumbles around the words, “She speaks the truth.”
A few of the Daughters can tell lies from truth. I’d always thought One was in that group, but apparently not. Her metal-covered eyes turn back to me. “What do you remember?”
I don’t know what’s real and what’s not from the last few days that I remember, so I don’t know how to answer. Dreams, visions, lightning… How do I even begin to explain?
One has lost patience again and slams my head once more into the wall. I shriek as the pain bolts through me. Somehow the lights in the corridor are back on.
I still don’t answer, because I don’t know how. But they take this as insubordination. Four clutches at Mark, forcing him to his knees. “Cause pain to this one. Then she will talk.”
“NO!” I shriek, pulling at One. “No, please. I don’t know anything. I don’t know what I saw.”
Four sneers at me, her maw opening to reveal a green tongue. “Again, you speak the truth but not the wholeness.”
“I don’t know what was real,” I admit miserably.
One leans in, smelling like perfume over rotten fruit.
“Have you been deceived, little monster? Mother warns against believing the liars. The mind-eaters and the Red Ones do not set foot here. Who has lied to you?”
She lifts her free hand and runs one long finger down my face in a caress. “Tell us, and Mother will punish them. People must not hurt Mother’s precious children.”
I can’t pull away from her, and I stare into the metal where her eyes should be. Silence. I repeat to myself. Be silent, but show no fear. Stay alive. Just stay alive. I just shake my head slightly.
My head still throbs, and a tear leaks out of my eye. One wipes it away, clearly still trying to be motherly even though she was the one that hurt me.
“Don’t cry, little one. Mother forgives those who ask it of her. And she loves you. She has chosen you to be one of her most beloved followers.”
I still have nothing to say. I can feel them both watching me. I look over, and Mark is looking at One with a look of disgust on his face.
He catches my eye, still on his knees with his glasses askew, and flicks his eyes at Four and then back to me. I can’t lie, not with her about, but they won’t let us go without me saying something.
“I—,” I start falteringly. “I don’t know what happened to me, but I lost time, and I saw monsters that—that used to live here. People you killed.”
The last sentence is impulsive, and I immediately reprimand myself. Silence, silence is the way.
One tightens her grip on me. “We kill nobody, but the tainted cannot live in the gaze of our Mother.” She throws me away from her, and I fall onto the concrete with a thud.
I look up, and Four has her fingers under Mark’s chin, pushing his head upward. She turns her face to me.
“Think on this, child. Nobody escapes us. Nobody lies to us. We will learn what you know, or he will pay your penance.” She jerks her fingers upward, and Mark collapses, unconscious or dead.
The Daughters vanish, and I crawl to Mark, my left arm screaming under any pressure. He’s breathing. I can feel tears flowing from my eyes and have no idea how to stop them.
I can’t move Mark, especially not with my arm hurting like this, and I don’t understand what’s happening to me.
I curl up next to Mark, too tired and afraid to go for help. I don’t know how long I lie here, curled into a ball and crying.
At some point I must fall asleep because Mark shakes me awake, and sunlight is starting to filter through the windows. He helps me stand up and ruffles my hair fondly.
There are noises near us, which means the others will also be awake.
I have to face them, the people who think that I’m dead. I have no explanation other than a mind full of visions and five full days that I can’t remember.
But more than that, this will put attention on me. They’ll have questions, and neither Em nor Molly is going to let me stay quiet.
But if I don’t remember what happened and learn from it, they’re going to hurt or even kill Mark.
Because they’ve taken everything in my life from me, and now they know that he’s the only person I voluntarily talk to, and taking him from me would destroy me.
He’s all I’ve got.
