No one has called me ma’am before. At the Enclave, I amgirl, orSister Prudence.
Mr. O’Rourke guides me toward a wall of polished metal doors. He presses a button, and one of the doors slides open with a chime, revealing a small box-like room with mirrored walls.
“It’s an elevator,” he says. “It will carry us up to my floor. Step inside.”
When I enter, the mirrored walls throw my reflection back at me from every angle, and the sight is jarring—I am gaunt, my hair is stringy, and my face has streaks of dirt and tears. I look away.
The doors close, and my stomach drops so fast I grab the metal railing bolted to the wall. The entire room lifts.
My knees buckle, and a cry escapes me—a small, strangled sound I cannot swallow in time.
“It’s okay. We’re moving upward, propelled by a pulley system.” Mr. O’Rourke’s voice does not rush. He speaks the way a person speaks to a spooked animal—measured, deliberate. “Thirty-two floors. It takes about forty seconds.”
Thirty-two floors. I keep hold of the railing and watch as numbers over the door light up. Each one glows white, then dims, then the next one glows. Seven. Eight. Nine.
My pulse hammers, but my grip loosens by a fraction with each passing number. I am panicked but curious.
Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one.
The doors slide open to reveal a space that takes my breath away.
Mr. O’Rourke steps out, but I stay where I am. He turns, holding the door with one hand, waiting. My bare feet are still on the metal lip of the box.
“Prudence.”
His voice is soft. He says my name carefully.
I step across.
My eyes are drawn to a wall of glass. An entire wall. From floor to ceiling. Beyond the glass, the city spreads out below us. We are so high in the sky, I cannot make sense of it. Gray towers. Silver towers. A blue ribbon of water in the far distance, flashing where the sun catches it.
We are up in the heavens.
My stomach spins and swirls.
“You can breathe,” Mr. O’Rourke says.
I cannot.
I turn for the door behind me, but the door has already slid shut.
“Prudence, look at me.”
My eyes flit to him. He has not moved. His eyes are still on me with an intensity that makes my skin tingle.
“You’re safe here,” he says. “Nothing in this room will harm you. The glass is thick. The floor is solid. Nothing will fall. Okay?”
I nod. Nodding is all I seem to know how to do right now and I feel stupid.
“Come, sit.”
He walks to a long, low piece of furniture covered in cream-colored fabric and gestures to it. I know what it is. It’s a couch. I have never sat on one. The pews in the chapel are wood, the benches in the dining hall are wood, and my mat in the dormitory is on the floor.
I cross to it, not really sure how to sit on it, so I perch at the very edge, my knees together, my bare feet flat, and my hands clasped in my lap.
He sits in an armchair across from me with a low table between us.
“I need to make a call,” he says. “You…uh… I need to get you some clothes. Is that alright?”
