Administrator Erskine nodded as if she understood Zada’s hesitance. “I’ll leave while you change. There is no surveillance in this room. You can trust me, Zada. I know you must be very angry, to be willing to act out the way you did, and I know that those feelings must have been fermenting and blackening inside you for a long time. But the fact remains that New Ionia wouldn’t exist if we didn’t care about each one of our charges. You will get a second chance as long as you choose wisely.” She bent down to extend the clothes to Zada again.
Zada took them.
“Knock on the wall when you’re done,” said AdministratorErskine. “Any wall will do.” She walked to the door, which had reemerged on a different wall, then turned to look back at Zada. “I know you could only do something like what you did tonight if, deep down, you hated yourself. You felt that you couldn’t live up to the lofty standards placed upon our young ladies, and that made you feel as if you were truly alone. When a young person experiences that kind of isolation and anger, that is when the brain can seize upon an inappropriate attachment to another young person suffering from similar distortions. Confusion and rage can bubble up in ways that feel to the very inexperienced like passion. But a little bit of distance can work wonders.”
Administrator Erskine slipped out.
Zada stared down at the neatly folded pile of her own clothes: a dress, a corset, undergarments, and a long-sleeved jacket to protect her arms from the sun. For the first time it occurred to her that she no doubt looked absolutely ridiculous, sitting on the ground in a rumpled pirate costume, her reddened face stained by tears and eye makeup. She wiped her eyes with her fingertips, and the mascara came off in dark, wet smears. She might as well have dipped her hands in ink.
What would Daphne do? Lie to her, obviously. But what about the Daphne that Zada had known back at school, the lightning-sharp and brilliant girl who never missed an opportunity to stand up for anyone who needed her help? It was easy to cast Daphne’s little escapades as silly, impulsive pranks. But so many of them had been to bring a smile to a downtrodden classmate’s face, or to right an injustice.
It was a moot point. Zada could never be Daphne. She could never lead the charge with fire and bravery, could neverorchestrate some brilliant escape plan, even if there had been anywhere to go. Nobody had ever withstood Counseling, and that meant Zada would likely not either. There was only one thing she could do. She shrugged off her magnificent frock coat. It slid to the floor like a dead thing.
A few minutes later, Zada knocked on the wall. The last of the makeup was scrubbed from her face. She hoped she looked presentable. It had been a bit of a project to lace up her own corset, but her household had never been able to afford an autolacer, and she had learned long ago how to make do.
When the door rematerialized, it came in behind her. Zada turned.
“There,” said Administrator Erskine, “isn’t that better.” In her hands now was a pitcher, along with two cups. “You must want something to drink,” she added. “I hear crying takes an awful lot out of a person.”
The inside of Zada’s mouth felt thick and dry but it seemed like such an obvious ploy. She’d seen enough old movies to recognize the scene where the authorities made the suspect ingest something designed to weaken her resolve. She said nothing.
Administrator Erskine emptied the pitcher into the two cups and set it aside on the shelf. Zada watched this through narrowed eyes, waiting for her to carefully offer only one of them to Zada. Whatever covert substance the administrator hoped to slip her had to be in the cup itself. She’d seen enough old movies to know that much.
“Which do you want?” asked Administrator Erskine, almost casually.
Still, Zada said nothing.
“You must realize it’s only water,” Administrator Erskine said. “I couldn’t possibly risk poisoning myself on a fifty-fifty chance, nor do I want to poison you. We still have a great deal of hope for you, Zada Chambers.” She held out both cups.
Zada felt as if the back of her throat might crack and crumble into dust. “Is this how it starts?” she croaked out.
“Is this how what starts?”
“Counseling,” said Zada. “Is that why they sent you?”
“This is me offering you a drink of water,” said Administrator Erskine slowly, “because you’re clearly all cried out, and there’s no way you aren’t thirsty. We’re not the villains here, Zada. We live and work and raise our families in this community because we love New Ionia and we want New Ionia to be the absolute best it can be. No part of that plan involves allowing an eighteen-year-old girl to die of thirst.”
Zada pointed to the cup on her left. Administrator Erskine held the other cup to her own lips and drained it in several neat swallows.
Zada took the remaining cup when offered and sipped cautiously. It tasted like water, nothing else.
“There,” said Administrator Erskine. “Now, you and I are going to have a little chat. Nothing scary, just a few questions.”
There was nothing to tell. Her plans had failed, and so had Daphne’s, the reality of Heartsong dealing them a one-two blow. Nobody was going to get what they wanted.
Still.
“I don’t think anything I say can help you,” Zada made herself say. “What’s in me can’t be Counseled away.” It came out steadier than she felt, and she realized then that she wasnot entirely empty. Somewhere deep inside of herself, a spark continued to flicker.
It wasn’t hope, or even a straightforward, principled resistance. What Zada felt was anger. Zada Chambers was angry. She was angry that Daphne had lied to her for so long. She was angry at herself for believing it. She was angry that, after all of that work and hope and trying, her match was still Buford, and she was angry that Administrator Erskine could talk so blithely about what was good for New Ionia when she herself had helped to compromise the Core.
Daphne was not the only person who had willfully deceived Zada over and over again, and at least Daphne had lied out of a kind of heartsick desperation, the wild yearning of a daughter who had lost her mother. The administration had no such excuses.
Zada wished she’d said something else as the guards had dragged them apart, although she couldn’t imagine what.
“Now, Daphne has already confessed to everything,” Administrator Erskine was saying. “She explained how she led you astray. The only trouble is, there were a few inconsistencies in her story, a few details that needed attending. So what I want to discuss with you is how to get you out of this mess.”
Administrator Erskine was right about that much, Zada thought. Itwasa mess. It was painful and humiliating and it had literally brought her to her knees. Zada still wanted to keep this feeling, she realized. She wanted to hold on to it, no matter how badly it hurt her. Zada’s soul had at last been pierced, and nobody was going to take that from her.
