Across

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Dinner that night proved to be a lighthearted affair. Joseph practically ran into the room when he saw her. “Marie!” he exclaimed, hugging her and blushing. “So good to have you back!”

  Raymond made do with greeting her with a curt nod, for which Marie was grateful. The hugs hurt her shoulder.

  It was when she retrieved her food carton from the ever-glowering Bernard that Marie remembered the downfall to returning to camp: meals. She poked at the white mush in her carton gloomily. It looked completely unappetizing. Her mind drifted back to the meals Max brought her, and her stomach clenched.

  “Not what you’re used to, huh?” asked Dustin, eyeing her.

  Marie smiled ruefully. “Not anymore.” She set it down after taking only a few bites. Really, how had she ever managed to eat that stuff?

  “We get a few fresh fruits and vegetables,” Raymond told her.

  “But,” interjected Joseph, “Bernard is in charge of distributing them. And you know him: one big bowl of generosity. We only get them occasionally—whenever he’s in a good mood.”

  Marie’s eyes fell on Bernard. “What puts him in a good mood?” What a very strange thought.

  Jennifer smirked knowingly. “Hannah.”

  “What—ugh.” She shuddered. Jennifer cackled.

  Marie did her best to explain what she did in the city while they ate. She told Joseph about the gardens and Jennifer about court fashion and the dresses that appeared every morning. Dustin asked her about the Maretzian military, but Marie couldn’t answer much.

  “All I really know is that their officers are trained in a school called the Academy,” she confessed. “I know it’s somewhere in the palace—but Dustin, the palace is just so huge—I honestly haven’t seen it.” Her thoughts flicked to Rheidan. “And I know that active officers stay in the palace sometimes. And that they go on training excursions periodically.” She frowned. “I don’t think most of their military is here, to be honest. I imagine a significant portion of their army is in Madalinda, fighting this rebellion.”

  “And what’s the deal with this rebellion?” asked Raymond. He poked at something in his carton. “No one has told us much about it. Only that the fight against it has required the emperor’s presence.”

  Marie shrugged. “Some people in Madalinda want independence. Headed by a guy named Gaidus Herpanteon. Emperor is expected to crush it. That’s all I know.”

  They fell silent. Marie’s eyes roved over them. They didn’t look any different from when Marie had last seen them. Had it only been two months? It felt like two years.

  “What do you guys do during the day?”

  “Other than play football?” Dustin arched an eyebrow. “We have drills to stay in shape. Target practice, the like—but away from the Maretzian soldiers. Barnabas doesn’t want to give the Maretzians any ideas—you know, about guns, etcetera. We’ve also been forced to learn a lot more hand to hand combat.”

  Beside Dustin, Jennifer shrugged. “I just do what I’ve always done. Make sure the dogs stay alive. And breed them.” At Marie’s look of surprise, she shrugged again. “Yeah, we brought a few breeders. Just in case we thought we might need them. I think Barnabas is thinking of trading the pups.”

  Next to Jennifer, Joseph scowled. “You have no idea what that might do to the local ecosystem. Unleashing dogs—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Jennifer held up her hand. “You’ve told me. And I’ll tell you again: not my problem. Not my decision. Barnabas’s decision. If you and your little group of scientists feel so strongly about it, have Mabel talk to Barnabas about it.”

  Joseph harrumphed and turned to Marie. “I’ve been working with Mabel and the other botanists, collecting plants and whatnot. You know…the job we’ve always been doing. Except here we can set up a more permanent lab and run some more elaborate tests. Hence Mabel is working all of us harder than ever.”

  “And I’ve continued to take pictures,” interrupted Raymond.

  “Yeah,” added Jennifer eagerly. “He actually gets to go into the city and the surrounding countryside. He’s so lucky.” She lowered her voice. “Very few people are allowed far out of camp. Barnabas doesn’t want to overwhelm the local population.”

  “It is a good idea,” said Marie. “A few of us…we’re a curiosity, people to be intrigued by. A lot of us…we’re trouble.”

  “But people pass our camp every day,” Jennifer protested. “They know how many of us there are.”

  Marie frowned, thinking about it. “Not really,” she disagreed. “The people that pass you are merchants, more often than not. Or soldiers. And they bring back rumors of your numbers, whispers in the streets. But in reality, most people don’t know how many of us there are. Only a very small percentage of the denizens of Melei-Argalla leave its walls.” She paused. “You really have no idea quite how large the city is.” Her mind flashed back to the incident with Terrah. They had roamed through a maze of streets. “The city just…stretches on…and on. I would be willing to bet two million people live in Melei-Argalla.”

  They stared at her skeptically.

  Marie shrugged. “Just saying. It’s pretty big. Pretty populated. This camp is an anthill in comparison.”

  When Barnabas left for the city that evening, Marie abruptly realized how stressed his presence made her. Without Barnabas, Darius, or Pamela breathing down her neck, Marie felt free. The constant wariness towards her companions that had hounded her in the city disappeared now that she was outside its walls. Marie felt its absence as if a weight had vanished from her body. She ran around like a child, prattling away to anyone who would talk to her, telling jokes and singing songs around the campfires. She attended another football game, teamed up with Jennifer in a game of chess against Hamako and Bryce—they were beaten soundly, but she was too happy to care—and even helped Mabel negotiate with Bernard for a few samples of his fruit and vegetables. She was fairly sure her presence hindered rather than helped Mabel, but Bernard ended up relinquishing the necessary plants anyway. When Mabel called Bernard “that good-for-nothing, miserable lowlife,” Marie thought she couldn’t be happier.

  The one low spot in her blissful vacation was Joseph. She supposed she should have expected it, considering how he had acted on the journey to Melei-Argalla, but she had honestly forgotten about his crush on her. And with Rheidan not around competing for her attention, he seemed determined to pursue her.

  “Well, it’s not exactly like he has very many options,” Mabel told her bluntly.

  Marie arched an eyebrow. “Are you telling me the only reason he’s attracted to me is because I’m the best option he’s got?” She didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted.

  Mabel set a blue bush into a pot and scooped up a shovelful of dirt. “Well, you have to be honest: That’s part of the reason. As far as people his age are concerned, it’s either you or Jennifer.” She shook her head. “And can you imagine him with a girl like Jennifer?”

  No. But more importantly, Marie couldn’t imagine Jennifer with a boy like Joseph.

  Mabel poured the dirt into the pot and patted it down. “But he is honestly attracted to you, Marie. I knew him before, back on Earth. I was the one who recruited him.” She glanced at Marie out of the corner of her eye. “Mind like that—he was exactly what we needed. To be honest, he’s the best man I have working for me.”

  “I don’t doubt he’s a hard worker—” started Marie.

  “Oh, I know. I’m not reprimanding you. You’re just saying he’s not your type. Am I right?”

  Marie nodded unhappily. “I wish he was, though.” She twirled the orange flower he had given her earlier, a beautiful, slender thing that smelled like apples. “He’s very considerate. Very nice. You don’t see the flower type very often.” She smiled fondly. “He’ll make a great husband for one lucky girl one day.” She sighed. “That girl’s just not me.”

  Her thoughts flickered to Rheidan, with his dark eyes and heart-s
topping smile. She couldn’t imagine Rheidan going out and picking flowers for her, at least not without Terrah prodding him.

  Mabel nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Just be honest with him, I suppose.” She waved her hand over herself. “When you spend half your time covered in mud, you don’t end up with much romantic experience, so don’t blame me if I give you bad advice.” She hesitated. “Just be gentle with him.”

  Marie resolved to tell him her feelings, but the next time she saw Joseph, the words died in her throat. He presented her with a beautiful bouquet of flowers, some of the prettiest she had ever seen. She could tell just by looking at it that he had spent a long time putting it together. And he was so proud when he handed it to her. She just couldn’t say it.

  As he bounced away, his eyes alight, she felt her heart sink. She leaned up against the pole of one tent and brought the bouquet up to her nose. The various scents melded together perfectly. She sighed unhappily, dropping the bouquet to her side. She didn’t need this.

  To her delight, but not necessarily to her surprise, one of the items Jennifer had packed in her long-term roller was a manicure/pedicure kit, so that night Marie and Jennifer sat in the corner of tent 12 and painted their nails. It was a like a sleepover, but one with Ranjana sitting in the corner and scowling at them.

  “So, purple or pink or”—Jennifer plucked a few more vials out the bag—“French?”

  Marie studied her nails. “French. It goes with everything.”

  “French it is. Give me your right hand.”

  As Jennifer filed down Marie’s nail, she asked, “So do Maretzian woman not do anything for their hands?”

  Marie shrugged, then winced as her shoulder stung. “I don’t know.” She had never noticed Terrah flashing fancy nails, and though Terrah was the only noblewoman Marie ever saw frequently, she somehow doubted there was a Maretzian equivalent to a manicure.

  “Pity,” said Jennifer, squinting. “That’s one of the things we’re going to have to introduce to this world.”

  Marie arched an eyebrow. “Not sure how well that will go over.”

  “I imagine the same way make-up will,” said Jennifer breezily.

  Marie looked at her like she was crazy. “Make-up? Are you serious? That’s so—so—” not going to happen here. “I don’t think make-up will catch on.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “SpiritStar will try it, I’m sure. I imagine most every product you can imagine will be tried here. Even jeans and shorts and whatnot.”

  Marie tried to imagine it, but couldn’t. It was ludicrous. Terrah in jeans? She wouldn’t be Terrah. Her eyes flicked down to her hands again. She felt stunned, as if someone had just hit her over the head. She had been so focused on learning about Maretzia, she had never actually thought about what would happen to it now that Earth had contacted it. How much would change because of the expedition?

  As soon as she thought about it, though, she knew. She knew it with a clarity and certainty that was startling, and the realization hit her like a lightning bolt. Her time in the palace and among the Maretzian people had given her a greater grasp of Maretzian culture than anyone else on the expedition, and she knew that no matter what Barnabas did up in that palace, no matter how great his contracts turned out to be, blood would be shed. Earth and Maretzia were just too different. The Maretzians would resent Earth traders trying to sell them jeans and T-shirts and make-up and ideas. Probably the only thing they’d accept would be guns, which they would then use to fight each other and people like Barnabas.

  And Earth…Marie had thought about it before, but not too much. Would the people of Earth really want to have a trading relationship with a people whose society was entrenched in slavery? Maretzia was brutal. If it had been on Earth, its leaders would have been arrested for human rights abuses by now. The entire society was like a slap in the face to modern philosophy on human liberty. SpiritStar would never make the fortune it had set out to make because people would boycott their products.

  The realization stunned her, even though seeing it now she realized it should have been obvious all along. She suddenly wondered what she was even doing in Maretzia. Why was SpiritStar still here? Didn’t anyone else realize they should have never come to Maretzia? So much blood would be lost and so many families would be destroyed if contact between Earth and Maretzia continued. Marie’s eyes fell. She hated Maretzian society. She hated slavery. She hated death games. She hated everything that was wrong with this world. But when everything fell apart, who would suffer? People like Sidriel and Lord Parvenin, yes. But Rheidan and Terrah, too. Even the victims of Maretzian society would suffer when it fell.

  “You know,” Jennifer’s voice brought her out of her gloomy thoughts, “I really hate it when you go silent like that. It means you’re thinking about something, and I’ve learned it’s generally about something boring and depressing.” She set down the nail polish. “You’re done, by the way. Let your nails dry.”

  Marie examined them. Jennifer could have done nails professionally. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Thanks.” She sounded pleased. “Now mine?”

  Marie arched an eyebrow. “All right. But don’t expect similar results.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “I can patch them up if you mutilate them too much.”

  Marie grinned despite herself. “It may come to that. Purple, pink, or French?”

  “Pink. I would hate to see you try to do French.”

  Marie picked up the nail file and grabbed Jennifer’s left hand. Her thoughts flickered to Barnabas and then the mysterious Sidriel. Was he really as clever as everyone said he was? If so, why had he left, and what would he do when he figured out what was going to happen to his empire? Marie had once read of a king named Afonso I. He had ruled the Kingdom of the Kongo when the Portuguese had started trading with it. The Portuguese had traded guns for slaves, and his people had gone mad with their lust for guns. Kongo society had fallen apart, and Afonso had watched, knowing what was happening but being powerless to stop it. In the span of his lifetime, his nation had gone from prosperous to decaying. Marie wondered if the same thing would happen to Emperor Sidriel.

  Marie paused in the process of painting Jennifer’s thumbnail. She raised her head, her eyes turning to the flap of the tent. Did she hear shouting? She turned questioningly to Jennifer.

  Jennifer looked as puzzled as Marie felt. She slowly rose to her feet, careful to hold her nails aloft. Near the flap of the tent, Ranjana set down her book and opened the flap, craning her neck to peer outside. Marie set down the nail polish.

  A worried frown crossed Ranjana’s face. She unfolded herself and stood, shooting Jennifer a significant look before disappearing outside. Marie’s pulse leapt. Something was wrong.

  Without waiting for Jennifer, Marie stood and strode out of the tent.

  She saw the crowd as if in a dream. The sun had just set; the stars and two moons shone dimly against a red and purple sky. She could feel the chilly grass beneath her feet. A stinging wind picked up, ruffling her hair around her face. Her fingers felt sticky with nail polish. All of these insignificant details she registered clearly as she stared at the crowd that had gathered. The crowd that was shouting. The crowd that was booing and hissing. The faces that were crying.

  Because she knew. She knew. She knew as soon as she saw the crowd. She knew as she stumbled forward to join it. She knew before she heard the angry words pouring out of everyone’s mouths. She knew before she saw Hamako, Bryce, and Jaime scampering away, looking terrified. She knew.

  The CD was dead. Gone. Broken. Kaput. Cristaña had succeeded. There would be no returning to Earth.

  Marie stepped a few feet away from the crowd. She saw Raymond, and he looked like a stranger. His face had contorted in anger. His eyes had narrowed. His jaw was tight, as though he was gritting his teeth. The man cursing next to him had turned purple with rage. She heard a smack, and she knew a punch had been thrown.
>
  It acted like a signal: Before Marie’s eyes, the angry crowd transformed into an angry mob.

  “This is not what I signed up for!”

  “You promised us the problem would be fixed!”

  The shouting became a roar of anger, and for one fleeting moment Marie thought she was back in the amphitheatre. The crowd surged forward. Men elbowed each other in the face and tumbled over each other. Teeth flew. Bones broke. Someone screamed. Marie backpedaled, her eyes wide.

  “Don’t—no—stop—!”

  The tent closest to the mob shivered, and then the cloth was tearing, the tent was collapsing. Someone shouted, “You idiots! Don’t you know what—!” The voice gasped.

  Marie turned and ran back to tent 12. Her heart raced inside her. The sounds behind her faded, and all she could hear was her own rapid breathing, the blood pounding in her head, the soft whisper of her bare feet against the grass. A shadow loomed ahead of her, and Marie ducked out of the way, running past it.

  “Marie!”

  Jennifer had emerged from the tent. She looked bizarre: alarmed and off-balanced, yet carefully holding her glistening nails in front of her. Marie grabbed her arm and yanked her forward.

  “Wait—what?—Marie!”

  The silence disappeared. Behind her, Marie could hear the roar of the crowd, the angry feet stamping, the screams of fury and terror, and the tearing down of tents. “Come on! It’s not safe here! We need to leave!”

  Jennifer dragged her feet. “Marie!” she huffed. “Marie, what’s going on?”

  “The—CD,” Marie shouted over her shoulder, “is—broken!”

  “What?” Jennifer yanked her arm out of Marie’s grasp.

  Marie whirled around. Jennifer’s eyes were wide and round and horrified. “Let’s go! Everyone’s going nuts! There’s no telling what’s going to happen tonight!”

  “But—but,” Jennifer spluttered. “They were going to fix it!”

  “Well, they didn’t,” said Marie grimly. “And we should leave!”

  But Jennifer backed away. Her chest heaved. Her eyes dilated. She shook her head in denial. “No! No! No!”

  “Jennifer—” started Marie helplessly.

  “No!” Jennifer glared at Marie. “It is not broken. That is impossible! I have too much to lose back at home just because some lunatic decided to get ticked at SpiritStar!”

  Marie’s temper flared. “Like I don’t have something to go home to?” she screamed. “I have 5 million dollars waiting for me!”

  Jennifer gaped at her for a moment. And then she cackled. And cackled. And cackled. Tears poured down her face. She looked mad. “Five—five million dollars?” she gasped.

  Marie slowly backed away from her.

  “And you—you—you really think you’re going to get it?” She dropped to her knees, clutching her side, howling with laughter.

  Marie stared at her. “I signed a contract.” The words sounded distant and small.

  Jennifer laughed. Marie turned and ran.

  She didn’t go far, just to the edge of the football field. It was far enough away from the raging mob for Marie to feel safe. She didn’t want to wander too far. The gates to the city were closed, and besides, she was in her PJs. So she sat, crossing her legs and propping her chin up with her arms.

  She suddenly felt amazingly calm.

  It was like being at the amphitheatre again. If she closed her eyes and blocked out the sounds, she could pretend nothing bad was happening.

  Pretending is not going to get me anywhere, she told herself sternly. This isn’t a fairytale.

  She watched as the expedition’s forces fell into chaos. The screams came louder and the shouts more furious. Something wooshed, and orange flames crackled to her right. The acrid scent of smoke filled the air.

  Something big and wet plopped on her forehead. Marie tilted her head backward, slowly tearing her eyes from the scene in front of her to the sky above her. Where had the clouds come from? She recalled a starry sky.

  The heavens poured down on her. Big, fat raindrops soaked her skin, chilling her. The water came down in straight sheets. Her hair plastered against her forehead. Her thin T-shirt glued to her skin. She sat in a pile of mud.

  Marie’s heart labored in her chest. With the rain came her tears, pouring down her cheeks in little rivulets indiscernible from the rain. She could taste their saltiness on her lips. Here at last, far away from the angry throng, far away from camp, all by herself, could she finally cry for all she had lost. She cried for her friends, who would be worried sick. She cried for the college that had promised to hold a spot for her. She cried for lazy days on the lake and buying lemonade from four year olds with smiles. She cried for everything she may not see again.

  A shadow stumbled across the field. It was so dark from the cloud-cover Marie didn’t see it at first. She tensed, slowly rising to her feet, prepared to bolt. The shadow wavered for a moment upon seeing her, then stumbled forward some more. It laughed madly and came closer. The odor of alcohol was so strong Marie caught a whiff of it even through the rain.

  “H-hey!” The man giggled, and as he stepped forward, Marie recognized him. He was Hollis Paddock.

  “Hollis,” she said warily, inching backwards.

  Hollis squinted at her. His eyes were bloodshot. “You look fam-il-yor,” he slurred.

  “It’s me,” she said shortly. “Marie.”

  He peered at her again, then cackled. “So you are!” He held a bottle of wine to his lips and chugged it.

  Marie’s eyes slid over him distastefully. He looked like he had just wrestled with a giant and lost. His face was one big bruise, and his shirt was torn and fragmented. Someone had ripped a large hole in his shorts, and a bloody bandage covered his right knee.

  A bandage over his right knee…

  Something stirred in Marie’s mind. Something slid into place. A memory. She stared at his knee.

  “Hollis,” she said slowly. “Hollis. Didn’t you already hurt your knee? Early in the trip. It was just a few days into it…” she trailed off. She remembered they had been worried about bacteria. Her fingers crept to her shoulder. She could feel the wet bandage beneath her shirt.

  Hollis giggled. “Sure did! And it’s still bleeding, ain’t it?” He threw the bottle down to the ground, and it splintered into a million glittering pieces. “Damn world. Can’t even heal right.”

  Marie stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Hollis turned his bloodshot eyes to her. “Don’t you know?” His voice rose loudly. “Don’t you know how weak we are here? Didn’t you get a transfusion, girl?”

  Marie shook her head and took a step back. She felt it again—that nauseating feeling of horror and betrayal she had felt when she had first learned Barnabas had lied to her. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but she knew it couldn’t be good. “No, I didn’t get a blood transfusion,” she whispered. “What were they for?”

  “Why,” Hollis twisted his body exaggeratedly and leered at her, “For the blood loss of course. You won’t feel the weakness yet. They gave us the blood transfusion two days before you came here as a precaution, but said it’d be a few more weeks before we felt anything.” He giggled. “You see, in this world, our bodies have a hard time working right…” His voice quieted amazingly quickly, and Marie couldn’t understand what was saying. Then it rose again, abruptly loud. “….see, our blood doesn’t replenish itself as quickly as it ought to…almost unnoticeable, I should say. But it’s a bad enough problem that you’ll…well…die if you don’t get a transfusion.” He hiccupped. “And, well, if you’re injured—”

  Someone screamed extremely loudly, and Hollis’s head swiveled around. “Ooh, what is going on there? Someone’s having a good time!” He guffawed.

  Marie stepped forward, grabbed his chin, and jerked him around to face her. “Hollis,” she said sharply. “What about injuries? What were you saying?”

  Her heart raced inside her.
Her palms were sweaty. She could feel the blood throbbing in the veins in her forehead.

  Hollis blinked stupidly at her, and at last he slurred. “Injuries…injuries…well, injuries don’t heal here.” He tilted his head. “Most, anyway.” He giggled and pointed at his bandaged leg. “See that?” he asked proudly. “That’s going to kill me. I’m going die because of it. I’m eventually going to bleed dry if they don’t keep giving me damn blood transfusions.” He stumbled out of her grasp. “Damn world. Damn world. Damn world…”

  He fell on his back.

  Marie felt something twist in her stomach. “What about me?” Her voice cracked. “Why wasn’t I told about this? Why didn’t I get a transfusion?”

  She came to stand over him, and he stared up at her in surprise. “Well, you’re not supposed to survive, are you?” He seemed befuddled. Marie felt something cold wash over her. “You’re too much of a liability, aren’t you? You know too much about this world, don’t you? You were never supposed to live this long—were supposed to mysteriously vanish if Barnabas didn’t think you’d cooperate—and then that damn Rheidan took a fancy to you…”

  Marie stumbled away. Shock, horror, betrayal, fear—all warred for control. They wanted to kill her. Kill her. Why? Why? Why? For a minute she felt like throwing up. Her face twisted, and she stared down at Hollis in revulsion. She brought up her foot and slammed it into his face. Blood splattered from his nose, coating her foot. He howled. She stepped away.

  “Bleed to death from that,” she hissed venomously.

  She left him flailing on the ground. She ran. She didn’t know in which direction she ran. She didn’t even know how far. Long stalks of grass whipped about her ankles, her calves…She slipped and fell in a stream of mud and then leapt to her feet again, running still.

  She stopped when she could run no longer, crouching over. Her lungs burned. Her limbs trembled. Sweat and rain soaked her body. But she did not cry. She could not cry. She had cried so much in this place. She had cried and cried and cried and not done anything about the things that made her cry. Well, no more. She was done with crying. Fierce anger burned inside her, and she straightened, her eyes flashing.

  There were people on this mission—she didn’t know who, and she didn’t know why—who wanted her dead. And then there were others, who had known about it and not warned her. She faced those facts grimly and angrily. She recalled Jennifer’s laughing face, and she suddenly knew the reason for that laughter. Jennifer knew. It was possible the entire damn expedition knew. Fury made her limbs tremble.

  She paced back and forth, her expression thunderous. They had planned on killing her. They had been afraid of her for some reason. There was something they thought she could do that could hurt them, and they feared it enough to kill her. So she was going to find out what they were afraid of, and she was going to destroy them with it.

  Part III