The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  We were back at base camp, surrounded by all of Don’s best and brightest soldiers. There were two hundred people in our camp total, and though most were from other cities and villages, quite a few were from our home in Luna Moors. Don had seen to it that we had all the comforts of home. Luna Moors was one of the more technologically advanced village-cities, which was strange because it was so isolated. I had thought that there was no electricity on Pangaea, though how I could have thought that, I didn’t know; they were so advanced in so many ways, how could they not have gotten electricity? Light in Janna’s village had come from fireplaces and lantern-lights, and we had counted running water, both hot and cold, as our biggest luxury. We had had no need for electricity, for televisions, radios, or even phones. If we had needed to speak to someone, we went to see them in person. If we were bored, we read or found people to hang out with and talk to. But Luna Moors was different, as were some of the other cities and villages we had seen. They had cars that ran on electricity and solar panels, cars that were as sleek as the cars we had had on Earth. They had little electronic gadgets like our Smartphones they used to stay in contact with people in their villages and in other villages and cities. They had small televisions that played news and nothing more. There was no Pangaean Hollywood churning out movies and television shows for our consumption, only the news anchors updating our Red Anarchy folks on the movements of the Old Spirits, or the non-military Red Anarchy folks updating the Red Anarchy citizens on the movements of the Red Anarchy military.

  In mine and Alice’s large tent, I laid on the cots, my back propped up against the pillow, and turned on one of the televisions, and not a moment too soon, because there was Alice on the screen, standing up straight, looking off in the distance triumphantly, wearing her tight black military uniform with the red Anarchy symbol emblazoned on the chest, holding up a machine gun with one hand and grasping the handle of a large machete with the other. The camera pulled away from the image to show her standing atop the piled remains of dead Old Spirits, and behind the image were the sound of drums beating and voices making primitive vocalizations, like war cries, in tune with the beating of the drums.

  “Freedom isn’t free.” Don’s voice said over the war cries, “For every one of us living in freedom, there are fifty or more of us imprisoned or dead. Close your eyes. Picture the faces of those you have lost. Say their names. They are gone, but are they forgotten?”

  Her head turned from looking off in the distance, and she raised one eyebrow as she stared into the camera with that gaze of steel and fire.

  “Well?” She asked coldly, “Are they?”

  “Fight beside the best and brightest.” Don’s voice said, “Join the ranks of the RAAF.”

  I hit the “Power” button on the remote and laid back just as she came in.

  “I saw your commercial again.”

  “I don’t know why you even turn on the TV.” She told me as she started to shed her uniform. “All they play is that and the other ads, and news that never changes.”

  “‘Red Anarchy takes back Del Mar,’ ‘Possible Lapsarian sighting off the coast of Del Mar.’ ‘Is your neighbor an Old Spirit spy?’” I filled in for her, and she chuckled.

  “Those are my favorite. ‘If your neighbor seems too observant, he is watching you, trying to learn your movements, and he might be a spy.’ ‘If your neighbor seems too unobservant, he might know when the next Old Spirit attack will be, which is why he does not seem worried, and so, he might be a spy.’ Those are hilarious. Well, until they…” She stopped, her smile faded, “Never mind.”

  “I know.” I said, “Until they name names of people they have no right to mention.”

  “Yes. They’re the worst. The ones who bring him up. He’s gone, and they have no right to say his name. They’re like those stupid gossip columnists on Earth. Like the stupid National Enquirer.”

  “Hey.” I sat up and took her hands, pulling her over to me even though she had been in the process of putting on my t-shirt that she always slept in, “What do I always tell you? James was worth ten of them. They didn’t know him. We did, and we know he was a great man.”

  “He wasn’t a spy. I know that it’s Don who started that rumor. He always wanted to step to James, and he couldn’t do it when he was alive, because he was scared shitless of him, so he is doing it now. James was never afraid of him, and he never viewed him as our leader. Everyone loved James, and respected the hell out of him, and Don hates that, so now that James can’t say anything about it, Don is starting these ridiculous rumors that he was an Old Spirit spy.”

  “I know. But we know better, baby. We know Don’s an asshole, and James was totally on our side. One hundred and fifty percent, he was on our side.”

  “We do know that, but what if other people don’t?!” She exclaimed, and she broke from me so she could begin pacing. She did that a lot, but she especially did it when we talked about them. Even after so much time had passed, she couldn’t stand to hear them mentioned.

  “Kids could grow up thinking he was some kind of traitor, that he was lying to all of us, that he was lying to her… They said it’s too weird that he was with her for so long, that he must have been close to her because of her power, because she was so close to Adam. He couldn’t possibly have just loved her! Right? No, not possible! They say that Brynn was drugged up so badly when the Old Spirits invaded that they couldn’t get her to open her eyes, not even with Wake, and that he was the last person with her, so he must have drugged her, but God, you remember it! It has been years, but I know you remember how exhausted she was at that time. She had been up for days, keeping the village safe. She had just lost almost all of her blood. They hear this stuff, and they run with it, and it’s just rumors. It’s bullshit.”

  “Allie…” I stood up, embraced her, and started rubbing her back, “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.”

  It never helped her when I took responsibility for getting her upset. I swear, her eyes always flashed with guilt if she was looking at me, and if she wasn’t looking at me, it was because I was holding her, and then, she would tighten her grip on me. In those moments, I felt her pain and my own. I felt pain over not being able to help her, over not knowing what to say. I felt stupid for saying something that had set her off, and then I felt bad for thinking that I had “set her off” because it implied that she was some sort of time-bomb, and she wasn’t…

  And in those moments, I remembered the night we had found out that they were dead. The night we had seen the black and white photos of their bodies, of Violet and Nick, laid out, clawed and bitten and broken by the trebestia; of James, the back of his head blown off by the bullet, the hole in his cheek where it had come out; of Penny, so pale that her skin seemed to glow in that colorless photo, her eyes closed, her body covered with a sheet; of Brynna, lying on the slab next to James, covered in blood, eyes still open slightly, her stiff fingers rested over his, looking like they were holding on. We hadn’t known how she had died, but it had looked painful. How could they have faked those photos? There was no way that we could deny it wasn’t real.

  Alice’s cheeks had lost all color, and she had turned away, walking quickly, and I had followed after her, feeling the tears falling from my eyes, the breaths coming and going quickly, but I had not felt the freezing Pangaean night there in the mountains when I had gotten outside. Freezing rain was falling from the sky as she dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around herself, and began rocking back and forth. When I collapsed behind her, she began screaming, and at first, I thought it was preceding a sob, but then, when I saw how red her face had become, how her eyes were blazing an even darker shade of red, I knew that it was rage. I threw my arms around her, holding her as she rocked back and forth, as she screamed until her body shook, until her voice gave in under the strain. But before that happened, she had started screaming out something over and over again, and I had not known just how serious she was until twenty years
had passed, and she had never once faltered in staying true to her word.

  “I will never stop! I will never stop! I will never stop! I will never stop!”

  I hadn’t known what she had been talking about, but I had seen quickly that it was not just some random phrase her grieving mind had latched onto to express her rage, sadness, and need for revenge. She had made a promise to herself and to Brynna, James, Penny, Violet, and Nick, and she hadn’t broken it, even two decades later.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” She whispered to me as she broke from our embrace, “I’m sorry for this.”

  “You’ve said that a million times, and I’ve always said the same thing: You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I do. This is nothing like what we wanted. I am not who I was when you met me.”

  “Well, whether we were here or on Earth, you wouldn’t have stayed the same. You would have been different ten years down the road, twenty years down the road. You would have changed how you were from when we first met.”

  “I am a fucking lunatic now, Quinn! I know I am, and I don’t care. By old-world standards, I have a serious problem. God, by this-world’s standards, I have a serious problem, and that is saying something. It’s almost the silver anniversary of them dying, and I still feel the same rage I did the day I saw those pictures. But I can’t stop, Quinn. I know we had our plan. Do you remember? The log cabin?”

  I smiled, and she did, too, as we sat down on the cot, side by side. I remembered those conversations, and in my old age (because I was about fifty, give or take a few years), I could see how childish they were, but I remembered how we had both lit up when we talked about it, how we had planned it all down to the finest details. Of course, Pangaea had had other plans for us, and though there had been chaos, there had also been so much happiness. I could sense in her heart that it was that happiness she was seeing, not the pain of losing them, and not the fear she inevitably had to feel at the idea that she would die in this war, that it wouldn’t end before she could finish it, before she could avenge our family. But she was remembering those nights in the house around our huge dinner table that stretched through six rooms on the ground floor, those lazy days in the village, Tony and Tom’s wedding…

  “Do you know what I miss the most?” She asked me, and when I looked at her, I was shocked to see, for the first time since that night all those years ago, when we had first seen those photos, that there were tears in her eyes. “I miss the way Penny used to walk in between us and make us swing her. Remember that?”

  I nodded, feeling the tears in my eyes now, too.

  “I miss having a best friend. One who finishes my sentences, who knows all our jokes, who I can talk to about anything, no matter how weird, or dark, or mundane, like I did with Violet. I miss the way Nick used to get really sarcastic and keep his face straight, so we’d all think he was being serious. And with Brynnie…” The tears began to fall from her eyes as she looked straight ahead, “I miss her long sentences. I miss her secret sense of humor. Her secret kindness. I miss James’s jokes, how he always knew what to say. And with James and Brynna… I miss watching them meet up after work, how she’d throw herself into his arms, and he’d pick her up, and kiss her, and she’d laugh and kiss him… I always wanted that to be you and me, when we were older. When we were her age. I wanted us to be like them, happy and content and peaceful, all while we were living in our log cabin, away from all of this. And look at us.”

  “It’s alright.” I told her, as I wiped the tears from my eyes, “We’ll get there someday, baby.”

  She looked at me, and then leaned in to kiss me gently. After a long second, she pulled away, tears still falling, and nodded. With a sniffle, she straightened her back, brushed the tears away from her eyes quickly, and said:

  “I hope so. But today is not that day.”

  Violet

  Macie was crying in her sleep again. My eyes opened, and my hands came up to rub the sleepiness from them. I had grown so used to her mid-night fits over the previous twenty years that I was barely panic-stricken upon being woken by screaming. Of course, once my mind was awake, it chided me for allowing my guard to drop. She might not have been screaming because Dr. Miletus was gone, or because she had had a bad dream, or because she missed Illa and hers and Dr. Miletus’s husband, because it all haunted her still. She might have been screaming because they had come to take her away, too.

  I clicked on the light once I was in the room, took her in my arms, and sat her up. In the dim light of the old lamp on the bedside table, she looked older, the crow’s feet around her eyes and the laugh lines around her mouth more pronounced because they were cast in shadow. She was still so pretty; I could see why Lucy and their husband loved her so much, but God, she looked so tired.

  Her eyes opened, and tears began to pour from the corners of each.

  “I woke you.” She whispered, and a soft sob escaped her, “I am so sorry, sweetheart. So, so sorry.”

  “It’s alright.” I whispered back gently, “Really, it is.”

  “It is not. You have much to do in the morning, and you need your rest.”

  “It’s alright, Macie.” I told her, and I laid her back down on her pillows and then laid down beside her, “What were you dreaming about?”

  “Lucy.”

  “She’s alright. She is so strong, Mace. You know she is. She’ll make it through.”

  “It wasn’t her fault. They’re hurting her, and it wasn’t her fault.”

  “I know.”

  “That bloody Caspar Elohimson…”

  “I know.” I said, and the complete hatred in my tone was unmistakable. She turned over to look at me.

  “We came so close to getting away. Then the baby…” She stopped, and the tears began to fall again.

  “I’m sorry.” She whispered, “It was my fault, you know. You both should have left me behind. If you had, you might have gotten away. Or Illa would not have gotten herself in trouble, and she would still be here.” Her voice broke and more tears began to fall from her eyes, “Our poor Illa… I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

  “Turn over.” I told her gently, and when she turned onto her side and covered her face as she cried, I cuddled up against her back and held her, “Go back to sleep, Macie. I’ll stay right here with you.”

  “Won’t Akio miss you?”

  “He’ll be alright. You know he doesn’t mind if I keep you company when you’re not feeling well.”

  “I know. He is such a good boy. He loves you so much. I thank the One God every day that you found such a nice boy amongst them, one who does not believe as they do, and that you two love each other so much. He is so kind. He is so smart, so able to pretend that he follows their ways. I thank the One God that he loves you, and that you love him, too.”

  After Nick, I had sworn to her and Lucy that I would never love anyone again, and they had gently told me that I would.

  “I know your pain. I am experiencing it myself, sweet girl.” Lucy had told me as I cried silently against her chest in our shared cell after they had recaptured us. “But you will love again, for you are young. I promise you.”

  She had been right: I had run into Akio daily in my job at the hospital, and he had been very kind to me. One day, very carefully, he whispered to me that it was all bullshit (that is, all the Old Spirits believed was bullshit), and he knew it. I had thought that he was trying to trick me into saying something blasphemous, and that as soon as I agreed with him, Paul would come rushing around the corner to cart me off to the Gallows, but when I had agreed, almost out of reflex, because it felt so good to say it out loud (albeit very quietly) again, no one came to take me away, and Akio and I were inseparable from that moment on.

  “Everything alright?” He asked from the doorway, his black hair standing up straight on his head, and his eyes, though half-closed still from sleep, somehow looking alert despite his obvious exhaustion. I looked up, smiled, and nodded.

  “I am so
rry for stealing your sweet girl away.” Macie told him.

  “Oh, you know I don’t mind. Are you sure you’re alright, Mace?” He asked her.

  “I am alright. Just feeling strange again, that is all.”

  “Feeling strange” was Macie’s way of saying she felt very sad, or very angry, or very listless. “Feeling strange” was how she had come to define her illness. They kept her medication from her, because her illness was “gifted” to her by their God to make her strong.

  “Okay.” Akio said, and he gave me double thumbs-up, which was his way of questioning whether everything really was alright, and I gave him double thumbs-up back. He smiled, and I smiled, and when I looked at Macie, I saw that she was smiling, too.

  “Oh, stop.” I said with a grin, “Though don’t really, because whatever it is you’re smiling at is clearly making you feel a little better.”

  “It is you at whom I am smiling.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you love him so much, and I am glad for it. I am so thankful for it.”

  “I know.” I said, and I laid down beside her, “I am thankful for it, too.”

  “When do you think Lucy will be home tomorrow? When will they release her to you?”

  “I will be there at the break of dawn. I will stand out in front until they release her to me.”

  “She will not tell me what they do to her. She never does.”

  “She doesn’t tell me, either.”

  “It isn’t her fault, what happened.”

  “Of course it isn’t, Mace.”

  “I can feel her fear. She is ingrained in me. Her essence is part of mine, and I can feel her fear from far away. I can feel her pain. My sweet Lucy…” Her voice broke, and just like that, all traces of her contentment from earlier had gone, “My Luciana…”

  “Shh… It’s alright, Macie. Everything’s going to be okay. She’s getting released tomorrow. She’ll be right back here with you. She misses you so much, but she’ll be back tomorrow. Just go to sleep, and when you wake up, she’ll be home. I’ll bring her home.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes. Just like every night, she cried herself back to sleep.