“You have help now,” my mother says.
The sandy-haired man looks out over our group. More and more people are pushing out of the woods, flowing into the clearing, huddling together in the weak morning light. He starts slightly, as though he has only just become aware of our number. “How many of you are there?” he asks.
Raven smiles, showing all her teeth. “Enough,” she says.
Hana
The Hargroves’ house is blazing with light. As our car turns into the drive, I have the impression of a massive white boat run aground. In every single window, a lamp is burning; the trees in the yard have been strung with miniature white lights, and the roof is crowned with them as well.
Of course, the lights are not about celebration. They are a statement of power. We will have, control, possess, even waste—and others will wither away in the dark, sweat in the summer, freeze as soon as the weather changes.
“Don’t you think it’s lovely, Hana?” my mother says as black-suited attendants materialize from the darkness and open up the car door. They stand back and wait for us, hands folded—respectful, deferential, silent. Fred’s work, probably. I think about his fingers tightening around my throat. You will still learn to sit when I tell you. . . .
And the flatness of Cassandra’s voice, the dull resignation in her eyes. He poisoned cats when he was little. He liked to watch them die.
“Lovely,” I echo.
She turns to me in the act of swinging her legs out of the car, and frowns slightly. “You’re very quiet tonight.”
“Tired,” I say.
The past week and a half has slipped away so quickly, I can’t remember individual days: Everything blurs together, turns the muddled gray of a confused dream.
Tomorrow, I marry Fred Hargrove.
All day I have felt as though I am sleepwalking, seeing my body move and smile and speak, get dressed and lotioned and perfumed, float down the stairs to the waiting car and now drift up the flagstone path to Fred’s front door.
See Hana walk. See Hana stepping into the foyer, blinking in the brightness: a chandelier sending rainbow-shards of light across the walls; lamps crowding the hall table and bookshelves; candles burning in hard sterling candlesticks. See Hana turning into the packed living room, a hundred bright and bloated faces turning to look at her.
“There she is!”
“Here comes the bride . . .”
“And Mrs. Tate.”
See Hana say hello, wave and nod, shake hands, and smile.
“Hana! Perfect timing. I was just singing your praises.” Fred is striding across the room toward me, smiling, his loafers sinking soundlessly into the thick carpet.
See Hana give her almost-husband an arm.
Fred leans in to whisper, “You look very pretty.” And then: “I hope you took our conversation to heart.” As he says it, he pinches my arm, hard, on the fleshy inside just above my elbow. He gives his other arm to my mother, and we move into the room while the crowd parts for us, a rustle of silk and linen. Fred steers me through the crowd, pausing to chat with the most important members of city government and his largest benefactors. I listen and laugh at the right moments, but all the time I still feel as though I am dreaming.
“Brilliant idea, Mayor Hargrove. I was just saying to Ginny . . .”
“And why should they have light? Why should they get anything from us at all?”
“. . . soon put an end to the problem.”
My father is already here; I see that he is talking to Patrick Riley, the man who took over as the head of Deliria-Free America after Thomas Fineman was assasinated last month. Riley must have come up from New York, where the group is headquartered.
I think of what Cassandra told me—that the DFA worked with the Invalids, that Fred has too, that both attacks were planned—and feel as if I’m going crazy. I no longer know what to believe. Maybe they’ll lock me in the Crypts with Cassandra and take away my shoelaces.
I have to swallow back the sudden urge to laugh.
“Excuse me,” I say as soon as Fred’s grip on my elbow loosens and I see the opportunity to escape. “I’m going to get a drink.”
Fred smiles at me, although his eyes are dark. The warning is plain: Behave. “Of course,” he says lightly. As I make my way across the living room, the crowd presses tightly around him, blocking him from view.
A linen-draped table has been set up in front of the large bay windows, which look out onto the Hargroves’ well-manicured lawn and impeccable flower beds, where blooms have been organized by height, type, and color. I ask for water and try and make myself as inconspicuous as possible, hoping to avoid conversation for at least a few minutes.
“There she is! Hana! Remember me?” From across the room, Celia Briggs—who is standing next to Steven Hilt, wearing a dress that makes it look as though she has stumbled accidentally into an enormous pile of blue chiffon—is frantically trying to get my attention. I look away, pretending not to have seen her. As she begins barging toward me, pulling Steven by the sleeve, I push into the hall and speed toward the back of the house.
I wonder whether Celia knows what happened last summer: how Steven and I breathed into each other’s mouths, and let feelings pass between each other’s tongues. Maybe Steven has told her. Maybe they laugh about it now, now that we are all safely on the other side of those roiling, frightening nights.
I head to the screened-in porch at the back of the house, but this, too, is packed with people. As I’m about to pass the kitchen, I hear the swell of Mrs. Hargrove’s voice: “Grab that bucket of ice, will you? The bartender’s almost out.”
Hoping to avoid her, I duck into Fred’s study, shutting the door quickly behind me. Mrs. Hargrove will only pilot me firmly back to the party, back to Celia Briggs, and the room full of all those teeth. I lean against the door, exhaling slowly.
My eyes land on the single painting in the room: the man, the hunter, and the butchered carcasses.
Only this time, I don’t look away.
There’s something wrong with the hunter—he’s dressed too well, in an old-fashioned suit and polished boots. Unconsciously, I take two steps closer, horrified and unable to look away. The animals strung from meat hooks aren’t animals at all.
They’re women.
Corpses, human corpses, strung from the ceiling and piled on the marble floor.
Next to the artist’s signature is a small, painted note: The Myth of Bluebeard, or, The Dangers of Disobedience.
I feel a need I can’t exactly name—to speak, or scream, or run. Instead I sit down on the stiff-backed leather chair behind the desk, lean forward, and rest my head on my arms, and try to remember how to cry. But nothing comes except for a faint itch in my throat and a headache.
I don’t know how long I have been sitting like that when I become aware of a siren drawing closer. Then the room is thrown, suddenly, into color: flashes of red and white burst intermittently through the windowpane. The sirens are still going, though—and then I realize that they are everywhere, both near and close, some wailing shrilly just down the street and some no louder than an echo.
Something is wrong.
I move out into the hall, just as several doors slam at once. The murmur of conversation and the music have stopped. Instead I hear people shouting over one another. Fred bursts into the hall and comes striding toward me, just after I’ve closed the door to his study.
He stops when he sees me. “Where were you?” he asks.
“The porch,” I say quickly. My heart is beating hard. “I needed some air.”
He opens his mouth; just then my mother comes into the hall, her face pale.
“Hana,” she says. “There you are.”
“What happened?” I ask. More and more people are flowing out of the living room: regulators in their pressed uniforms, Fred’s bodyguards, two solemn-faced police officers, and Patrick Riley, wrestling on his blazer. Cell phones are ringing, and bursts of walkie-talkie static fill the hall.
“There’s been a disturbance at the border wall,” my mother says, her eyes flitting nervously to Fred.
“Resisters.” I can tell from my mother’s expression that my guess is right.
“They’ve been killed, of course,” Fred says loudly, so everyone can hear.
“How many were there?” I ask.
Fred turns to me as he’s shoving his arms into his suit coat, which a gray-faced regulator has just passed him. “Does it matter? We’ve taken care of it.”
My mother shoots me a look and gives me a minute shake of the head.
Behind him, a policeman murmurs into his walkie-talkie. “Ten-four, ten-four, we’re on our way.”
“You ready?” Patrick Riley asks Fred.
Fred nods. Instantly, his cell phone starts blaring. He removes it from his pocket and silences it quickly. “Shit. We better hurry. The office phones are probably going crazy.”
My mom places an arm around my shoulders. I’m momentarily startled. It’s very rare that we touch like this. She must be more worried than she seems.
“Come on,” she says. “Your father’s waiting for us.”
“Where are we going?” I ask. She’s already moving me toward the front of the house.
“Home,” she says.
Outside, the guests are already amassing. We join the line of people waiting for their cars. We see seven and eight people piling into sedans, women in long gowns squeezing on top of one another in backseats. It’s obvious that no one wants to walk the streets, which are filled with the distant sounds of wailing.
My father ends up riding in the front with Tony. My mom and I squeeze into the backseat with Mr. and Mrs. Brande, who both work in the Department of Sanitization. Normally, Mrs. Brande can’t stop running her mouth—my mom has always speculated that the cure left her with no verbal self-control—but tonight we drive in silence. Tony goes faster than usual.
It begins to rain. The streetlamps pattern the windows with broken halos of light. Now, alert with fear and anxiety, I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been. I make a sudden decision: no more going to Deering Highlands. It’s too dangerous. Lena’s family is not my problem. I have done all I can do.
The guilt is still there, pressing at my throat, but I swallow it down.
We pass under another streetlamp, and the rain on the windows becomes long fingers; then once again the car is swallowed in darkness. I imagine I see different figures moving through the dark, skating next to the car, faces merging in and out of the shadow. For a second, as we move beneath another streetlamp, I see a hooded figure emerging from the woods at the side of the road. Our eyes meet, and I let out a small cry.
Alex. It’s Alex.
“What’s the matter?” my mother asks tensely.
“Nothing, I—” By the time I turn around, he is gone, and then I’m sure I only imagined him. I must have imagined him. Alex is dead; he was taken down at the border and never made it into the Wilds. I swallow hard. “I thought I saw something.”
“Don’t worry, Hana,” my mother says. “We’re perfectly safe in the car.” But she leans forward and says, sharply, to Tony, “Can’t you drive any faster?”
