The Woodlands

  “Because I know what you want and I’m not sure I can give it to you. Whatever I feel, it doesn’t matter. I’m carrying your child and you want that child. I just don’t know if I want it. If I could even tolerate it,” I blurted out in one breath. I had hoped I could say it better, but it was too late to take it back.

  “Rosa, you are so frustrating.” He was angry—I knew he would be. “I know you have been through hell and I know you don’t know whether you can love this baby.” I wasn’t expecting that. He took my hand in his. “We have months before we have to face that problem. I’m not going to force you to make a choice. Just tell me...” He stuttered over the last part, trying to choose his words carefully. “How do you, I mean, um, do you love me?” He removed his hand from mine and clasped his own two hands together tightly, awaiting my reply.

  There it was. I could have lied. Perhaps I should have, but he was looking at me so intensely, his beautiful eyes searching mine. Begging me for an answer. “You know I do,” I whispered, feeling the blood run to my face. Feeling the gravity of my words anchoring me.

  His laugh boomed out across the forest. Our traveling companions stirred in their sleep, but thankfully they did not wake. I was shocked—what was so funny about that?

  “Why are you laughing at me?” I said, glaring at him, unconsciously waving the knife in his face.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe you would think that, somehow, I would know that you loved me. You are always pushing me away.” I suppose that was true, but I had always thought he knew why I was doing that, that my feelings were obvious. I was trying to protect him. Then I remembered that day, when Clara told me that I’d hurt him. That he thought I was in love with Rash, which was ridiculous. Perhaps it was obvious, only to her, how much I cared for him. I held my heart, feeling pain creeping in.

  Joseph’s face flickered with concern. “You ok?” he asked.

  I nodded. “It’s just...Clara,” I whispered. He nodded in agreement. Sometimes the pain was physically crippling. I wondered if he was scared I would regress to that shadow state again. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t

  “So what do we do?” he said as he pressed his cheek to mine. I leaned into it, feeling liquid gold rising. Like the sun, I had no power to stop it. What could we do?

  I used the point of the knife to create swirls, working the curves into the wood, linking each curl together in a flowing pattern. “I’m open to suggestions.” I shrugged in a failed attempt to look unaffected. It wasn’t working. Nothing would work now. I had said the words. My heart was beating so fast at the realization that I couldn’t stand the idea of him walking away from me now. If he said we had to stop, I would fall to pieces. But if I chose him now, what would happen in two months?

  “Well, if we love each other then we should be together.”

  “You say it like it’s so simple.”

  “It is.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. There was the future to consider, but I had resolved not to think about it. We didn’t know what would happen next. If I died tomorrow, I knew I would regret not saying yes to him tonight. Was it simple? I carved the dent of a chin into my piece of wood, scraping the neck down. It needed to be thinner. I closed my eyes. Threatening myself. Just speak. It would be better to lose this, than to not have had it at all.

  “Ok,” I managed to utter softly.

  He raised his eyebrows. He was surprised. I guess he didn’t always know what I was going to do. I smiled at him. He pulled me towards him in a tight embrace, my stomach, as always, getting in the way.

  “Rosa, thank you,” was all he said. It was relief and fear mixed together. I knew that now I had made this choice, there was no going back. Everything that I had held back came spilling over. I allowed the liquid gold to spread throughout my body, finding its way in the dark. Opening me up, making me brave and vulnerable. It felt good.

  “Will you lie with me?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said, still surprised. I watched him nervously and clumsily zip the bags together. Stumbling over the logs we had stacked for the fire. He was the sweetest man I could have found. I let it in. I let him in. I would let it heal me.

  I gently placed the piece of wood and knife on the ground by the fire. I would finish her tomorrow.

  Joseph lay down and I curled up in his arms. He swept my hair back from my ear, tiny tendrils of electricity making me shiver. He whispered, “I love you.” There was no urgency, no pain to his voice. It was simple. I knew this was where I should be, probably where I was always supposed to be. I didn’t reply, but placed his hand to my heart, hoping nightmares would not find me that night.

  To say I was happy wouldn’t be the right word. It was more like, once I had made that choice, I felt released. Released from the angst of denying myself something I had wanted so very much. A pressure in my heart let out. I felt normal.

  Joseph still irritated me, with his permanently cheery outlook and terrible sense of humor. That would probably never change. But I never understood why anyone would want to be with someone who was the same as them anyway. I think that would be the worst of all. Always agreeing, never having someone challenge you. I would die of boredom. But when he held my hand, or sidled up behind me and whispered in my ear, I disappeared into a bath of gold. I still thought of Clara constantly, but I was sure this was the path she had been trying to put me on ever since we were found in the forest.

  When we awoke, our confessions, our decisions, were laid out for everyone to see. But there was no interest in our sleeping arrangements whatsoever. I don’t know what I was expecting, perhaps a raised eyebrow or a sarcastic comment from Deshi, but none was forthcoming. It didn’t bother Joseph. Maybe they expected it would happen eventually. I don’t why it should have mattered, but I didn’t like the idea that people thought they knew what I was going to do.

  After nearly throwing Hessa in the fire, I resolved to spend as much time with him as I could during the day. Not being able to sleep with him was hard and I was determined to make up for what I’d nearly done. I had almost finished my gift last night when I was interrupted. So I picked up the knife and carved the last details into her face and clothing while the others were eating breakfast.

  There. I was done. Joseph put his hand over mine. I withdrew sharply, not used to allowing his touch. His eyes widened, worried that I had changed my mind.

  “Sorry, old habits,” I said, turning to him and holding out my hand for him to take.

  “It’s ok,” he said, slapping my hand away, “but that wasn’t what I was after.” He held out his hand, palm upwards. I placed her on top. “Wow!” he exclaimed as he turned it around in his fingers, tracing her hair and face, smiling to himself. “It looks just like her. Rosa, it’s beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” I said shyly. I walked over to Deshi, who was arranging Hessa in the cradle. “Here, it’s for Hessa.” I handed the carved doll to Deshi. He eyed it suspiciously. “It’s ok; I used a really hard wood so even if he chews on it, it won’t harm him.”

  Deshi took the doll, examining it carefully, and then smiled. “It does look very much like his mother,” he said as he held it in front of Hessa, who grasped at it and then proceeded to slobber all over her head. “You’re sure it’s safe?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” I assured him.

  I left them to pack up, announcing that I wanted to collect a few things for the walk, some nuts and fruit I had seen growing a few hundred meters away. Joseph offered to go with me, but I said I would be fine. He could keep packing and I wouldn’t be very long. I walked towards the blossoms I had seen in the distance, hoping they would be wild apple. As I approached them, I could hear the soft padding of feet behind me. I felt the hairs on the back of rise, thinking it was an animal. I turned around slowly and was face to face with Alexei.

  “You scared me,” I sighed as I moved to the tree to collect the fruit.

  “Sorry, just thought you could use some help,” he said, unconvincingly
.

  “Um, all right, well just put the apples in your pack and I’ll collect those nuts over there.” I left him, but he followed me. I spun around and faced him, “What’s going on, Alexei, you’re not being very helpful. What do you actually want?” He obviously wanted to talk to me about something and I was never one to wait. I wanted him to get on with it. He fumbled around with his reader. “Spit it out!” I said, probably a bit too impatiently.

  “It’s about Apella,” he said quietly. Of course it was. “I was wondering if you would let her spend more time with Gab...I mean, Hessa?” What a question, I thought.

  “No. I don’t think so. Sorry.” I shook my head. I didn’t trust either of them.

  “I know you think she’s a bad person but she’s not. If you understood more about her, maybe you would see things differently—maybe you would see her as I do.” He was pleading with me now, hands shaking. I didn’t want to know anything about her. I couldn’t feel sorry for her, but I suspected he wasn’t going to give me a choice. He sat down under the blossoms. An odd frame for his nervous, thin body. Flowers kept falling down around him, floating like snowflakes and landing in his thinning hair.

  “When I met Apella, we were both at the Classes. She was a brilliant scientist, studying Medical. I was in the uppers also, training for Intelligence. We were lucky enough to be sent to the same town and were preparing for marriage and a child. But after years of trying, it was apparent that it was not going to happen for us. Apella left me.” He paused, reliving some painful memory. I tried really hard not to say that he would have been better off. He would have. “She was pulled into a secret project for Superior Este and I was left to manage the archives in Ring Eight of Casuarina.”

  I wanted to stop him there. I could see where this was going.

  He continued, “Apella was developing ways to help infertile couples conceive, working closely with Este and Semmez. At some point, she realized what they were really trying to do and that’s when they took me.” He stopped and engaged my eyes, slowly lifting up his shirt to reveal hundreds of tiny scars, burn marks. I winced and motioned for him to cover himself back up.

  “They held me hostage for two years, threatening to kill me if she stopped making progress on the project. You see, she didn’t want to do this to you, Rosa. It was never her intention for her research to be used in this way,” he explained.

  “But she let it happen. She didn’t try and stop them. To preserve your life, hundreds have had to suffer.” I couldn’t abide her choice.

  “I know you think she’s selfish, but she really didn’t know until it was too late. After they had impregnated the first round of girls, Apella dedicated all her time to caring for them, giving up her senior research role to become a nurse.” I shuddered at the words ‘first round’.

  “After they let me go, we thought it would be over.” Alexei sighed, showing his weariness. I did pity him.

  “What? They let you go?” I was confused. I thought they had run away to save Alexei. Little bits of the truth kept getting lost. Their lies running through every conversation we’d ever had. “Why did you run, then?”

  “We’re not matched. We’re too genetically similar and they were never going to allow us to use the technology to have a child together. If we were ever going to have a chance at a family, we had to escape,” he admitted, the truth coming out at last. They ran just so they could have a baby.

  “So Joseph and I…” I said, following a single blossom twirling to the ground.

  “It is very rare for people from the same town to be matched, but the two of you are so genetically different, the computer selected you as an ideal match.” He finished my thought for me. I laughed. It was not news to me that Joseph and I were different.

  It didn’t make much sense. Now that they were on the run, they would not have access to the technology needed to conceive that child they so desperately wanted—there was something missing from his story.

  “So, what, the plan was to steal Clara’s baby all along?” I could feel the rage boiling up inside me. How could this possibly make me sympathetic to her? I hated her even more. Had she let Clara die? I pushed Alexei and he fell backwards to the ground, jarring his arms to break his fall. The curtain of blossoms fell more rapidly to the earth as I pushed through them. I stood over him, considering calling for Joseph and Deshi to come help me, stalling as I watched him fumbling around, trying to find his glasses in the dirt.

  “No, no. Apella loved Clara. She wanted to give her a chance with her baby. We knew it was a risk, but Clara was never going to leave your side,” he stammered. It was slightly hilarious that this six-foot-two man was afraid of me. “Now that Clara’s gone, she wants to try and make it up to her, care for Hessa as her own. Hessa would be a brother to our child.”

  “Apella’s pregnant?” My voice ran high, coasting along a wave of disbelief and anger.

  He just looked at me with his sickly blue eyes, so pale they were almost clear. He gave a diminutive nod, confirming my suspicions.

  Ugh! I felt sick. Was I always to be surrounded by gooey-eyed pregnant women and expectant fathers? I put my foot to his chest, pushing down. It was unbelievable to me the things people were willing to sacrifice for a child. Lie, steal, risk lives. At the same time though, I knew I would have done anything to protect Hessa. I eased off, a little.

  How many lives had she ruined so that she could have this child? Too many to count.

  “So why aren’t they scouring the wilderness to find you two traitors?” I asked. There were so many questions.

  “Apella and I are inconsequential to the project now. They have everything they need to continue. My guess is, they don’t believe us to be alive. Clara was on her fourth pregnancy, she was to be disposed of after this child and you…well.”

  I never got used to it. The way the Superiors treated us like we were nothing. Vessels to be used and disposed of. What was the purpose of all of this? Where was it leading?

  “What about me?” I was afraid to ask.

  His pale face twisted, his nose wiggling like a mouse. He ran his hand through his fair hair, coming up with a handful of flowers. Shaking them off, he told me, “Well, you were always considered slightly defective because of your extraordinary eyes. You were an experiment. The babies they are aiming for are more like Hessa, an interesting combination of characteristics, blue eyes, light brown skin. If your eye colors were passed to your child, you would no longer be useful.” He put his head down, ashamed, as he should be.

  I was defective, in the Superiors’ minds. I stood taller. Out here, those things didn’t matter. I searched myself. Letting my eyes follow one blossom, drowsily wandering to the earth, picking up minute winds and changing direction. I think I liked being defective.

  “What about Joseph and Deshi? Won’t they be looking for them?” I asked, thinking they must be missing us by now.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

  I only had one more question. “What exactly is the Project?”

  “The Project is the Woodlands way to become as they have always wanted,” he wheezed. “To be All Kind. They use the samples to create the perfect race, a raceless race where every child will look almost the same. They have around four-hundred girls at the moment. Each girl can produce an indefinite amount of children.”

  I gulped. My mind was spinning.

  “Do you remember when they took all the eldest children about eight or nine years ago?” I nodded. Of course I remembered. I drew a breath, which cut my lungs sharply.

  “Well, that’s where it started. Those children were the first test subjects.”

  I couldn’t believe it. A lot of those kids were only well, kids.

  “Apella worked very hard perfecting her methods. Her technology is flawless,” he said. I tried to control my rolling stomach at the thought of what ‘perfecting her methods’ may have actually involved for those poor children. “And Este has taken that technology to another,
dreadful level. There will be no need to continue interracial marriage or breeding. No need for breeding at all.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, feeling like I was drowning in this information. I shook the droplets of horrible revelations from my hair. “What about the children in towns now?” I thought of my mother and her baby.

  Alexei, the bearer of bad tidings said, “They will be fine. But it is the end of families. Soon, they will announce no children can be conceived after a certain date. The one-child law was a way to wind things down and get the first test subjects. Now they will stop women having any babies outside of the Project.” He paused, speculating, “Something in the water maybe…” His eyes wandered.

  I guess they could. They had enough girls to produce the children required to make this work and they were always going to have a fresh supply.

  I was reeling. Feeling faint. I dropped the apples and the nuts I’d collected. They fell with a dull thud in the dirt. I stepped off Alexei and he breathed a sigh of relief. I felt myself being sucked into a black hole, pulled backwards in time and space. Angered and frightened. The arrogance of the Superiors. It was insane. It was as I had always suspected. We were not protected—we were controlled. I felt a cloud of nausea hit me and I fell. Joseph caught me under my arms and sat me down on the ground.

  They had come to find me.

  I turned and vomited, physically purging myself of the information I had just heard. I wiped my mouth inelegantly.

  “How long have you been standing there?” I asked.

  “Long enough,” Deshi replied, glaring in Alexei’s direction. Joseph looked sympathetic, like he could see the two sides, his brows pulling together in consternation. So many lies. Part of me wished I hadn’t heard the story. The thought of all those girls, walking in line like zombies. What a miserable future they had in front of them. I couldn’t bear it.

  “Where’s Hessa?” I asked.

  “He’s with Apella,” Deshi said.

  My feelings for her were confused. She was weak and selfish, yes. But she was just a pawn in a much bigger and disturbing plan. I was not able to forgive her, I’m not sure I ever would, but I understood her better.