Darkness Follows Page 31

  I gazed over at Collie. His mouth was open, his eyes shining. He looked back at me and his grin was threatening to split his face, just as mine was.

  The small plane was brilliant against the blue summer sky. A barrel roll, a spin, a loop-the-loop, all as effortless as a fish in water.

  Finally Dad brought the Dove in. It trundled to a stop on the field. HALCYON and COLLIS glinted in the sunlight. The Dove’s roar died; the ribbons fluttered and went limp. Collie’s arm was summer-warm against mine. We all jumped up and down, cheering, even Ma.

  My father pushed back the cockpit hood. He peeled off his helmet and waved to the crowd.

  Then Dad waved just to us. He smiled and blew a kiss.

  “Extraordinary performance,” I heard a woman say.

  The sun was shining inside of me. It felt as if I’d never stop smiling.

  “That’s my dad,” I told her. “He was a Peacefighter.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  February, 1942

  I was sitting on a bus beside an overweight man with shiny cheeks who told me he was a shoe salesman. He went door to door, he said, showing people samples of his shoes, and if they bought them, then four weeks later – “…to the day,” he emphasized, jabbing a finger at me – they’d receive a shiny box in the mail with their shoes all wrapped in tissue paper, like a birthday present.

  It seemed a strange way to buy shoes to me. It seemed a strange way to make a living. I pressed my forehead against the window, watching the gentle green hills of Appalachia pass by. The further south we travelled, the more the world seemed to realize it was almost spring. Rain-washed farms looked perfect and new: the barns were red as apples, with white fences. Cows grazed, standing so still they might have been statues.

  Occasionally I caught glimpses of ruins. Once we passed what looked like an ancient airport. The control tower lay crumpled along the ground.

  When the man told me I looked familiar, I shrugged.

  “I guess I just have one of those faces,” I said.

  Two days after we’d set off from Topeka, we rolled into Washington’s Terminus Station. It was unseasonably hot for February and when I rose with the others I felt sticky, my clothes like a second skin. My leg ached. I clutched the railing as I struggled down the bus’s metal stairs.

  “Hurt your leg, sister?” said a man cheerfully, giving me his hand for the final step.

  They don’t know, I thought. They really don’t know what’s coming. I stared at the man but didn’t realize I was doing it until I saw how uncomfortable he’d become. I gripped my cane.

  “Yes, I had a bad fall,” I said.

  Everyone else clustered around the driver – a crowd of wilted hats and rumpled clothes, waiting for him to swing open the belly of the bus and start hauling out their luggage.

  My only luggage was the small, battered case from Arvin’s. I’d kept it between my feet on the journey, not willing to let it out of my sight. My fingers tightened around its worn handle.

  I turned and walked away.

  The station reminded me of Sacrament Station. There was even a similar ornate timepiece over the main entrance, with a motif of Firedoves and real doves, counting the minutes since the Cataclysm. Lest we forget, read the florid script.

  Outside I found myself on a city street thick with traffic – autos, buses, taxicabs. It also reminded me a little of Sacrament: the same ziggurat buildings, the same billboards advertising toothpaste and cigarettes. An endless flow of people passed by on the sidewalk, some carrying shopping, others briefcases.

  No one wore overcoats. The air weighed heavy under a blue sky. My sweater was too warm; dampness dotted under my armpits and along my spine.

  I didn’t know where I was going yet. Joining the hurried stream of passers-by with my bad leg felt daunting but I did it. I headed east for lack of a better direction, wincing when I was occasionally jostled but trying not to lean too heavily on my cane. I knew I shouldn’t depend on it so much. I needed to be more mobile than this.

  They had astrologers here too. Once this would have surprised and dismayed me. Now, when I saw the red-and-black Harmony symbol on a side street, I turned off the main road and made my way to it. Madame Ursula, read the sign on the door. Charts cast, futures revealed.

  I opened the door. A bell tinkled cheerfully. I was in a small waiting room with red furniture that had faded to a deep pink. A middle-aged woman poked her head out from behind a set of curtains. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said with a smile.

  I nodded and sat down, resting the case at my feet. I liked feeling it against my ankle – the security of what was inside. I rolled my cane between my palms and gazed at the Harmony symbol on the door.

  In my mind, I saw a chain-link gate with that symbol in weathered metal, its two halves splitting as the gate slowly swung open against the snowy ground.

  I started as the woman emerged again. “Sorry for the wait. Please, step into my consulting room. You’re here for a reading?”

  I followed her into the inner chamber, keeping my case with me. There were astrology symbols on the walls and a table with a book of planetary graphs on it. A pencil. A ruler. It looked clinical, scientific.

  “No, I don’t want a reading,” I said as I lowered myself into a chair. “Just information. If you were going to do something at an astrologically significant time tomorrow, what time would you choose?”

  The woman had been sitting down. She hesitated, a crease touching her forehead, and I realized how flat and intense I’d sounded. I managed a pleasant smile.

  “It’s for something special,” I told her. “A surprise for someone. I want it to be just right.”

  The rest of the day passed. I wasn’t hungry but knew I should eat so I went to a diner where I picked at my food. It seemed unbelievable that I could ever view a meal with disinterest. Later I went to a movie, my first in almost a year. The story on the screen – a farce involving mistaken identities, instant romance, charming characters leading brittle, clever lives – felt like something from a distant moon.

  The audience kept laughing. Nothing about it seemed funny to me.

  I wondered what Ingo would think.

  That night I slept on a park bench with my arms folded around my case until a policeman moved me on. “You should know better, Miss,” he scolded. “Now get yourself to a nice women’s hotel. There’s one on Hillview.”

  He gave me directions, holding my arm and pointing up the street – stressing that I should turn right on Baltimore, not left. I nodded and thanked him, and when he was gone I turned and walked the other way.

  The streets were quiet now. I felt agitated but knew I should rest my leg. Seven minutes past two in the afternoon, the astrologer had told me. I had to be fit and ready. I found my way back to the station. Almost empty but still open. A cleaner hummed tunelessly as he made his way across the broad expanse of floor with a mop, leaving it gleaming in his wake.

  I sat on a bench and looked up at the memorial timepiece. My gaze lingered on a Firedove’s sleek lines as I remembered slipping into a cockpit before battle, its metal warmed by the Angeles sun. The faint smell of machine oil in the hangar where our morning meeting was held – how straight and tall we’d stood as we made our vows.

  I had really thought it all meant something.

  By six o’clock in the morning the station had begun to fill. By eight it was bustling. I stayed on the bench and held my case on my lap. Once or twice I flipped open its scuffed catches and checked inside, though no one could have stolen its contents. I hadn’t let that case out of my sight since I left Can-Amer.

  What I needed was still there.

  Just before twelve o’clock, I rose. I went to the crowded ladies’ restroom and struggled my way to a basin. The women on either side were combing their hair, applying fresh lipstick. I splashed water on my face and gazed at myself in the mirror.

  My too-thin face looked back: olive skin and light brown eyes. Dark hair that was longer
than I’d worn it in years, hanging unfashionably straight to my shoulders. My eyes were so steady, my mouth so unsmiling, that I could see why people had been shrinking away from me these past few days.

  I glanced down at the Aries mark: the stylized ram’s head etched blackly on my palm. I understood why Collie had always tried to hide his own mark, yet when I let my hand fall it wasn’t as a fist. There was no point. The mark would always be there, for however much longer I lived.

  I picked up my case again and left the station. It was a brilliant blue day, this last day that Appalachia would taste freedom. I thought of the poem about spring and a wistful sadness touched me.

  A taxi rank stood outside the station. A cabbie leaned against a bright yellow cab reading a newspaper. The headline read: Gunnison and Staff Arrive, President Weir Stresses Nothing Will Change.

  I approached him. “I’m going sightseeing,” I said. “Could you just drive me around the city for a while?”

  The cabbie glanced up and shrugged. “Sure, sister. No particular destination?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it,” I said.

  I gazed out the window with the case in my lap as he drove me through the city streets. At first he tried to make conversation. When I didn’t respond he gave up. I saw his eyes flicker to me in the rear-view mirror, curious and a little wary.

  I didn’t pay much attention to the buildings we passed, not even the rebuilt capitol building with its broad, gleaming dome. It nestled down in a slight dip; the surrounding roads were at a higher level now than in the time of the ancients.

  I gave it only a fleeting glance. I was looking at the crowds on the sidewalks, at the traffic itself. It took over an hour of driving, but I was right. I knew it when I saw it.

  I leaned forward.

  “Here,” I said to the cabbie. “Could you stop, please?”

  The cabbie gave a low whistle as we pulled to a stop outside Ranger Stadium. “Hey, I guess this is where the signing’s happening.”

  The vast parking lot was packed. For over ten blocks before we’d reached the stadium, I’d noticed a steady flow of people heading towards it, though there was no game on. That morning I’d read the same paper as the cabbie. It had confirmed that a specially selected audience would witness the historic event: the entire continent rejoined under a single flag.

  The stadium’s main entrance was invisible behind the throng; I could see only the graceful top of an arch. The line going in moved so slowly that it seemed not to move at all. Though it was no surprise, I still stiffened as I glimpsed grey-suited Guns at the door, searching everyone before they went in.

  Aries, number seven, hut twelve.

  SING!

  The cabbie tipped his cap back. “Man, I don’t like all the secrecy that’s been around this thing. Paper said not even those attending knew where they were going until this morning. Crazy!” He glanced at me. “Ready to move on?”

  I shook my head. After a pause, I said, “I think I’ll stay for a while and check it out.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I don’t think they’ll let you in, sister. You gotta have a special ticket, the paper said.”

  I came back to myself and managed a smile. “That’s all right.” I got out my pocketbook and paid him. I gave him the rest of the money I had. It was a big tip and he held the bills uncertainly, gazing back at me.

  “Hey, you okay? Want me to wait for you?”

  “No need,” I said. I opened the door and got out, gripping my cane. I reached back into the cab for my case and shut the door. “Thanks,” I told him, lifting the case in a sort of wave.

  I could feel his eyes on me as I turned and started towards the crowd. Finally I heard the cab’s engine start again and he pulled away.

  A ragtag crowd had gathered on the edges of the parking lot, curious about what was happening. They stood in small groups, murmuring, watching the ticket holders go in.

  I skirted my way around them. I didn’t head for the main entrance. I found a corner of the parking lot that was quiet and propped my case on the back of someone’s auto – an old Fraser, just like we used to have when I was growing up.

  I opened my case and pulled out the pistol. It was loaded. It gleamed darkly in the sun. I slipped it in the pocket of my skirt and then took something else out too, which I held in the palm of my hand, between my skin and the cane.

  I left my suitcase where it was, still open.

  I started around the broad, curved shape of Ranger Stadium. Soon I’d left the buzzing crowds behind. Even the noise of city traffic dimmed. A chain-link fence closed off the stadium’s rear section; a cluster of Guns stood guarding it.

  It was further away than it looked. My leg turned weak and throbbing long before I got there. I ignored it and kept on, using my cane as lightly as I could. The sun shone too warm on my arms but I didn’t really mind. Being warm still seemed like something of a miracle.

  Before I reached the fence, the Guns had all noticed me. They stood waiting, watching. I knew I must have seen their warm-weather uniform before – short-sleeved grey shirts with the red-and-black swirl of the Harmony emblem on the breast – but I didn’t recall it. To me, Guns would forever be dressed in long wool coats, their faces shrouded by scarves.

  Behind them, parked near the back door of the stadium, was a fleet of Shadowcars. I gazed at them, remembering the smell of fear and urine – remembering the places those things took you to.

  President Weir stresses nothing will change.

  The fence swung open with a clang. A trio of Guns strode towards me, their boots black and shining.

  “You’re not allowed back here,” barked one.

  I stopped short, letting them approach. My leg hurt and I was glad to stop moving. Just before they reached me, I pulled the pistol out of my skirt pocket and pressed it against my temple.

  “My name is Amity Vancour,” I said. “I’ve planted a bomb in this facility. I want to talk to Madeline Bark, or I’ll pull the trigger and you’ll never find it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  They sent one of the Guns into the stadium. The other two stood nearby and murmured together, watching me with hard eyes. From their body language, one wanted to rush me – the other, maybe his superior, was forbidding it. I stood leaning on my cane. The object in my palm bit against my skin. The pistol in my other hand felt warm. So did the sun on my neck.

  It didn’t take long. My name meant something, apparently. When Madeline arrived she was walking briskly, almost running, escorted by two other Guns.

  She came to a stop in front of me. She wore a grey skirt and a white silk blouse with a string of pearls. Her hazel eyes were wide. As she gazed at me her freckles stood out starkly.

  “Amity,” she whispered. “But we thought…”

  She flinched as I took the pistol away from my head. The Guns leaped forward. I turned the pistol so that the barrel was facing me and handed the weapon to Madeline.

  “I’m giving myself up,” I said in a low voice. “But I won’t tell you where the bomb is until you talk to me. In private.”

  Madeline stared down at the pistol in her hand as if she had no idea what to do with it. Finally she looked up, her face expressionless.

  “Take her to my office,” she said to the Guns. “I’ll get the information from her and then you can take her away.”

  Guns grabbed my arms. They hurried me through the gate and across the inner parking lot, past the Shadowcars. I gritted my teeth against the pain – they were walking faster than I could really manage – but said nothing.

  Once inside the stadium, the long corridor they took me down was cool and subterranean. Madeline walked behind us, her high-heeled footsteps measured against the concrete. Above, bare light bulbs shone. My pulse beat double-time. Yet I felt tautly focused – oddly calm.

  We reached a door. What looked like a temporary sign hung on it: M Bark, Event Coordinator.

  “Take her in,” said Madeline.

  The head Gun mot
ioned at my cane. “Not with that.”

  “It’s just a cane,” I said. “I can’t walk very well without it.”

  Madeline had the Gun check my cane over. He turned it this way and that, testing to see if the handle came off. Another Gun searched me, his hands rough and probing as he swept them over my body. I stood motionless, feeling the glass that was still pressed against my palm.

  Finally the first Gun handed my cane back. “We’ll be right outside,” he said to Madeline.

  “I’ll be quick,” she said.

  The room was plain and functional – nothing like her World for Peace office. Madeline motioned for me to sit in a metal chair. Keeping the pistol on me, she edged behind the desk and sat down too, staring at me.

  “We thought you were dead,” she whispered. “We saw photos.”

  “Then someone was lying to you.”

  “How did you escape?”

  I felt made of stone. She still looked exactly like the woman my father had been in love with – the woman I’d trusted, admired. “We don’t have much time, Madeline,” I said. “Is this really what you want to spend it talking about?”

  Her eyes flicked to a clock on the wall: ten minutes to two. “You can’t have planted a bomb,” she said. “We – we’ve kept this venue utterly private. Security has been kept at a—”

  “I’m afraid you can’t always trust the people you believe in,” I said.

  She licked her lips and I knew that, like me, she was seeing the note I’d once left on her desk in the World for Peace offices: I trusted you.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  I clenched my cane. I was hyper-aware of the small room and everything in it. Madeline’s pearl necklace had a silver clasp showing on one side of her neck. A condensation stain marked the wall behind her.

  “Answers,” I said in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own. “You’re going to tell me why my father threw the civil war Peacefight. You’re going to promise me you’ll get those answers to Hal. And then, if you can’t let me go, you’re going to take that pistol and shoot me – because I’m not going back to that place.”