“Would it be so terrible?” She ignores my question, shivering violently. “Don’t you like him? I thought you liked him.”
I turn to face our little kitchen, the small stove, the rickety table and chairs we never use.The wooden plaque hanging above the sink.
Our society
REESTABLISHED
Our future
REDEFINED
My eyes unfocus.
I was ten when I came home to find a black bear tearing through the last of our food. Clara was three; Mama had been dead three days. I don’t remember killing the bear or burying what remained of my mother.
I remember the blood.
I remember the weeks it took to scrub the floorboards. The bars of Clara’s crib. The ceiling. Mama’s last words to me had beenclose your eyes, Rosa, except that she’d closed her eyes and I’d kept mine open. She put the gun in her mouth just hours after we heard that Papa would no longer be executed for war crimes. He’d traded all of us in for a half-life, selling secrets to the enemy in exchange for a slow rot in prison. I used to think Mama killed herself because she couldn’t withstand the shame. Now I’m certain it was because she knew she’d be forced to pay for Papa’s treason.
Maybe she thought they’d spare her children.
I grab the bear pelt from its hook and drape it around Clara’s trembling limbs. She hates the pelt. She says the bear’s pain still lingers in the cottage, that it makes her retch even after all these years.So when she allows the fur to settle on her shoulders without protest, I know the situation is dire.
“If you married Sebastian, things would be better,” Clara says, suppressing another shiver. She pauses to cough, and the hacking sound drives a hole through my head. “They’d lift the sanctions. You wouldn’t have to pretend we have food in our cupboards every morning.”
Slowly, I meet her eyes.
I remember when Clara was born, when I’d looked at her and wondered whether Mama had given birth to a doll. Only later did I realize I must’ve looked just as strange when I was born: all ghost and glass. I study her often when she sleeps, or when the illness overtakes her so completely she slips into a coma. At thirteen, she’s tender and optimistic; nothing like I was at her age. Still, despite the seven years between us, she and I are physically similar: shockingly pale; hair so blond it’s nearly white; eyes a disorienting shade of cold. Staring at Clara is like staring into the past, at what I used to be, who I could’ve been.
I was soft once, too.
“I really think he loves you,” she says, her eyes brightening with feeling. “You should’ve heard the way he talked about you— Rosa, wait—”
I don’t say goodbye to my sister.
I reach for the automatic rifle tucked away in the entry, pulling the strap over my head before tugging a battered balaclava over my face. I step into the cold, and thick flakes catch in my eyelashes just as the front door slams shut behind me,the sound briefly drowning out his voice. It’s my only explanation for being startled.
“Rosabelle,” he says, cutting in front of me with a smile. “Still dead inside?”
Rosabelle
Chapter 2
I sidestep Lieutenant Soledad, absently running my hand along the cold weapon slung across my chest. Soledad is no longer a lieutenant the way he once was; the title is a relic of another time. In this newly imagined world he’s the head of our island’s security, which makes him nothing more than a glorified busybody. And a tyrant.
I nod at familiar faces as they pass, their eyes anxiously tracking between myself and Soledad, who’s fallen into step beside me. Snow is beginning to stick to the ground; spirals of smoke curl away from stacked chimneys, smudging the skies like errant brushstrokes. I adjust the balaclava on my face; the wool is old and itchy. I am impatient.
“I thought our appointment was for tomorrow,” I say flatly.
“I thought I’d surprise you,” he says. “Impromptu interrogations often yield interesting results.”
I come to a halt, turning to face him.
I remember when Soledad was young and fit and full of bravado—when he served under my father, the chief commander and regent of Sector 52. Now he’s somehow barrel-chested but soft; stooped. His skin is waxy, his hair thinning. He wears the stale air of another time, the only lingering evidence of that epoch imprinted on his face.A soft blue glow pulses at his temples, his dark eyes occasionally brightening, then dimming.
Unbidden, my right arm trembles.
Quietly I change course for the day, feeling the pressure of a single, physical key tucked inside in the false pocket sewn into Papa’s old coat. The only lock I own is bolted to the shed camouflaged in the wilds beyond the cottage—which I meant to visit first, and which I’ll now have to avoid. No one in the pit knows about the lock because the lock is illegal; the homes in the pit are meant to be borderless. Our minds, too, are meant to be open at all times for inspection. It was the way of our parents, the way of The Reestablishment.
