“None of that either,” he said, still firm but less harsh, “this is the first time they have slept in three days, they need their rest, and they are much less aggravating when unconscious. Close your eyes and sleep. I will tell them that you woke up and asked about them while they were resting.”
“Promise?” I asked him, my eyes already closing without my say so.
I could still hear, and I heard him sigh, the sigh of a father putting up with the idiosyncrasies of a wayward child.
“I promise,” he said eventually. With that, I let my limbs relax, my eyelids ceased their fluttering, and I was close to sleep when a sharp pain sliced across my belly. I grimaced, and the voice was back, Constantine was back.
“I am calling for the doctors; there is something wrong.”
Even though I couldn’t move, I still tried to reach out to him as the pain increased, but soon everything was white, and then that deep velvety black again.
***
At first, I thought they must have moved me. Gone were the chairs that the boys had been sitting in; the only item of furniture in the room was the bed that I was lying in. There was only one tube attached to me now, and my sheets were flat and unblemished by wrinkles, caused by sleeping men or me writhing in pain. The ceiling was high, much higher than could possibly be needed, and a large, tall window made its home in the wall. The white of the room reflected the light around, making everything so bright that it almost blinded me.
Everything was so perfect and sterile that if it weren’t for the low ache in my stomach, I would have thought that I had died and gone to some sort of medical purgatory, but I didn’t think you kept your wounds in the afterlife.
Now more lucid, I could remember all that had happened in the last week or so. I missed the guys so fiercely that my stomach muscles clenched automatically, triggering a wave of dull pain. They must still have me on some strong painkillers, and for that I was grateful to them, but at the same time I feared whoever ‘they’ were. I knew that the guys, my guys, were mostlikely in court being prosecuted for missing the conference as they said they would be. They were on their own, as I was. I would have to be strong without them for a bit, I told myself bravely.
My mouth was dry as sandpaper, and so I gingerly moved my legs. Eventually, after a few small scootches testing out the limits of my stomach wound, I was able to swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, albeit with a wince. I had to be hunched over, sure, but I was truly standing.
After the effort that it took to stand, the door and a potential glass of water behind it seemed too far away to even try, so I turned instead to the panel of lights and wires above the bed. There was a small, round red button with the shape of a bell on it, which I pushed after a moment of indecision. It made no noise when pushed, so I pushed it again, and then one more time for good luck, and then sat back down on my bed and waited.
It was a strange sort of waiting. I wondered if no one would come, and I would learn that this was some sort of horrid dream, but the door at the far side of the room swung open and in walked a woman.
She was the type of person that you knew was important just by looking at her. She almost had a shine to her. She was probably in her late 40s to early 50s, but her face was beautiful and almost entirely unblemished from age spots and wrinkles. Despite her youthful beauty, her hair was white and cut into a sharp bob. Along with her hair, her severe mouth led to the obvious conclusion that she was Constantine’s mother, and if what the boys had told me was true, a powerful politician as well. I sat up straighter in my bed, wincing as the movement pulled what I was coming to believe were stitches.
She stopped at the foot of the bed and looked me over from head to toe. When she didn’t say anything, I gathered myself and spoke.
“Hi, I’m Mina, Wilhelmina Wright.”
“I know who you are,” she replied with the same flat tone and slight accent that Constantine had. The last remnant of Consultant Mina begged to come out, to be accommodating to this woman; for a woman to be so powerful meant she had a spine of steel. Consultant Mina would find her a mine of potential, but I wasn’t Consultant Mina anymore, and this woman was being rude.
“So, as you can see, I am recovering. Please, if you have something to speak to me about, just say it so I can rest.” Not quite as snippy as I could have been, but honestly, I was tired.
“My son says that you are Renai, and your blood test confirms this.”
“How?” I asked, genuinely curious. I sank back into the pillows. This looked like it would be a more extended conversation, and my poor stomach muscles could only take so much.
“We…lost track of a few bloodlines in the mess of World War Two. Women and children were brought to camps, fleeing countries, changing names, getting married and divorced, and soldiers being captured and labeled missing in action. It seems like that for the past three generations, the Renai in your family tree have been finding other Renai who didn’t know that they were Renai and having children with them, the result is you.”
She didn’t seem particularly happy about that fact.
“Ah,” was all I said. What else was there to say?
“You are biologically Renai, but I am giving you a choice.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. I didn’t like the way she said biologically, as if she couldn’t bear to say that I was real Renai, someone just as Renai as she was.
“What choice?” I snapped.
“You have suffered a great deal since coming into contact with the Renai. You have been shipwrecked, starved, and shot.”
I had, but once again, I didn’t trust her. When I didn’t affirm or deny her statement, she continued.
“Being a Renai woman is a heavy responsibility. You are required to raise children or bear children, or donate eggs; that is a requirement for the survival of our community. You will be expected to take several husbands, attend and be active in political meetings, and be a crucial link in society. You have not been raised to have the tools to do these things.”
That was what they must have learned in that Renai girls’ school, McLeir or McBeir. Normally, I would have asked more questions; a new society operating parallel to the rest of the world is incredibly interesting, but again, there was something else coming, a giant ‘but’.
