Two more days slip by. I wait with bated breath every time Marisa comes to the door, but she has no news for us. The compound is still shrouded in mystery—to us outsiders, nothing looks different. But Marisa says Ananke and Trigger haven’t been to the yez or the black market. It reinforces what Shale told me: the situation there is unsafe. Shale is in danger. But what can I do about it? What?
Eventually I come to the decision that once the baby is born, I will go to Shale. In my current condition—visibly pregnant and painfully slow—I am of no use and would even mark us as targets, should the officials see me. But once the baby comes, I won’t be so easily noticed.
In spite of me trying to broach the subject with Ceres repeatedly, she refuses to talk. It is as if I’ve turned into a wraith, a column of steam—she looks right through me. The pain of her rejection, her anger, is intense. But I cling to the thought that I am doing what’s best for them, for the children. I try to ignore the self-loathing that is creeping up on me, the feeling that I am showcasing myself as utterly helpless and vulnerable when I might actually be able to do something if only I tried.
Am I hiding behind the veneer of motherhood and sisterhood because I am actually a complete coward? Would Shale find a way to rescue me immediately, to get me out of that compound right now, if the tables were turned? Do I put us all in danger to save him? Impossible questions. The answers to them remained cloaked in darkness.
It is a new season now. Spring. The birth of new things.
I sit by the window, watching flowers begin to unfurl, green shoots struggle to thrust through brown grass. I stroke my stomach—it has been tensing and releasing all day in what the obstetrician calls “practice contractions;” after all, I am seven months along and measuring nearly eight and a half—as I reread Alice in Wonderland.
Marisa has me addicted to reading. So far I have read stories about a tree that died giving of itself to a little boy, a book about a woman who was a real-life princess, and a book about four sisters and their mother, all of whom lived a long time ago. It is interesting to read about places and people who no longer—and sometimes never did—exist, thinking thoughts I have always been forbidden to think. I wonder what it was like, living back when my grandmother did, able to freely read these texts and think of them whatever you wished.
A rustling at the door interrupts my reverie. It bursts open, startling me. Elara hurries in though it is hours before she is scheduled to be home. After a cursory look at me, she says, "I shall be in the library. Please see to it that I remain undisturbed."
I stand, my heart beginning to race at her expression. "What is it? What's happened?"
But she's already tearing down the hallway. The door closes behind her. I stand there, wondering if I dare follow her. Will she be sufficiently engrossed in whatever this is to not come out of her library for a while? I have an inexplicable feeling that this has something to do with the agrarian compound. I have to find out what’s happening.
I creep down the hallway, stopping every few moments, scared that Elara will open the door and see me. As I get closer, I can hear bursts of conversation—she is on the phone. "...captured. Yes! ...assume the worst. Well, I can...one thing: I am not going to...for this." Who was captured? A pulse begins to beat at my temple. I press my ear against the wood of her door, straining to hear the conversation. She is speaking lower now and her words are muffled. "He knows...everything. It was unavoidable. They...relationship before she...live with me. It's his baby."
Blood rushes to my head; spots of blackness encroach in my vision. Shale. She's talking about Shale. He's been captured. They've found him. I press my hand to my mouth to keep from crying out. My stomach clenches again, and I put my hand on it to ease the practice contraction.
Elara is silent as she listens for a moment. When she speaks again, her voice is cold, empty. “...nothing else to do...find and execute him...cannot trace it to me.”
I straighten, goosebumps rippling on my limbs. She wants to have Shale killed. He knows too much, and she needs him dead so as to protect her own identity. No. No, no, no. When I hear Elara place the phone back in its cradle, I turn and rush down the hall to our bedroom.
This is it. I can’t afford to wait any longer; I might already have waited too long. If her order is carried out before I can do something...but no. I cannot think that way. I place my hand on my belly and take a deep breath. It is time to put my mask back on.