Miranda1

Iam sweating, cloaked and bundled as I am. I stand at the front of the square in the place of honor at the head of almost one thousand Oculum dwellers. William2 stands beside me.

All Mothers are with us, and there are Sentries everywhere, some I’ve never seen before, a style that seems outdated, standing along the edge of the crowd.

Oculum is open, and the early twilight is beautiful. It is a gorgeous night.

And I am a bulky, sweating liar. I have my cloak done tightly over my clothes — or William1’s pants and shirt — and over my bulging satchel and the Tree-keeper’s rope ladder and linen bandages. I also have my first satchel under my cloak, the satchel I used when I was a younger child, and it is bulging with apples, peaches, dried cherries, and a sealed jar of water. One pocket has garden shears in it, the other a bag of apple seeds, and inside my cloak, in the long pocket, is William1’s Map of Oculum. It’s all I have of my friend until I find him again.

And I will find him.

I must look enormously lumpy and strange to every-one, but thankfully, no one has come too close to me. They are giving me space in my grief, or perhaps they are simply too afraid to come near.

All but Mother, who has clucked and whirred and taken care of me all day. We left the house together, and she did not ask what I was hiding under my cloak, although she surely noticed. Instead she took me by the arm, and we walked together to the square. She’s stand-ing beside me now, next to Mother of William2 and William2 himself. They both look uncomfortable wear-ing the false red “W1” on their armbands.

The Senate clock gently chimes seven bells, and Regulus strides onto the stage that has been hastily built for this occasion. Behind him is an enormous picture of William1, the real one, the likeness from the poster that was hanging on the signpost in the common. I suddenly have a longing to see William1, and the thought of what I am about to do makes my knees weak.

“Are you all right, Miranda my darling?” Mother whispers.

“Yes, Mother, I’m fine,” I lie.

Regulus takes his place on the stage, and there is polite applause, and he begins to speak. He does have fine elocution and a deep, commanding voice.

“My dear children of Oculum. Today is a terribly sad day, for today we must say goodbye to our oldest, dearest boy. William1 has died.” He stops for effect, and the crowd murmurs quietly. Yes, yes, they say. William1 has died. The children nod and look at each other and at their Mothers.

I stare straight ahead.

Regulus goes on. “Now, we do not understand death, or what it is to have died, but I tell you today that William1 will not die, if we remember him as he lived: with our respect. He will live on in our hearts.” Yes, yes, the crowd murmurs, he will live on in our hearts.

I take a deep breath and begin my bid for freedom.

I step forward, then take two more steps, then slowly, regally, I walk up the stairs to share the stage with Regulus. He has not asked me to do this, but I am grieving, I am not to be denied. I hope that Regulus will feel as everyone else has for two days and not question me.

He is surprised as I step onto the stage, but he smiles and turns back to the crowd.

“Ah, dear Miranda1 has come to share her grief with us, how wonderful.” I am about to speak when I realize that Mother has followed me up the ramp and onto the stage.

I was not expecting this, but I will have to improvise.

“Thank you, Regulus,” I say calmly, looking over the sea of children, with their trusting faces turned toward me.

“Children of Oculum,” I say in my most mature Miranda1 voice. “I am here to tell you … that WILLIAM1 IS NOT DEAD! HE HAS ESCAPED OCULUM THROUGH A DOOR IN THE SEED PARK! HE IS OUTSIDE, AND OUTSIDE IS REAL!” I scream this as loudly as I can, then I turn and run off the stage and disappear into the Senate.

There is a roar behind me, and I can hear the almost one thousand voices cry out. I run across the Atrium and leap up the stairs to Regulus’s chair. I only have a moment, and I hear Regulus yell at everyone to be quiet, and then the Senate doors bang open behind me.

Regulus and Mother burst into the Atrium. Regulus runs on his metallic feet, but Mother is faster on wheels and spins like a whirlwind in my direction. I have already clambered up onto Regulus’s chair at the bottom of the Oculum Arm. I reach as high as I can and pull myself up onto the first platform, over the giant bolts and to the base of the mighty machine.

Up, up!

Everything is much, much bigger from up here, and the ground is much, much farther away. I gulp and step onto the first rim of the Arm reaching into the sky and immediately slip. I quickly climb back on, but my shoes slip off again.

I will have to climb barefoot.

Regulus runs up the stairs, Mother speeds up the ramp, and both reach Regulus’s chair. I take off my shoes and throw first one shoe and then the other as hard as I can at Regulus. Both shoes hit him in the head, which surprises him, and he stops to look up at me. Mother is at his side, staring up at me as well.

The Senate door bangs open again, and a flood of Sentries wheel into the room.

“STOP!” Regulus commands, and the Sentries all freeze, although I think he was talking to me. Without my shoes, I climb the Arm quickly. I climb like I would climb a ladder, hand, foot, hand, foot, and the edges of the massive corkscrew give me enough space to grip. I’m already looking down on them all. I try not to think how far I have to go.

Regulus walks to his chair, then to the base of the Arm. And I forgot one thing about Regulus; unlike all the other caregivers and minders in Oculum, Regulus alone has legs and feet. He is not on wheels. He is about to climb after me — I can almost not say this next part for it nearly makes me fall — when my own dear Mother shoots forward and grabs Regulus in her metallic grip.

For a moment he’s surprised, and Mother doesn’t hesitate. She plunges her other arm deep into his chest, and with a wrenching shriek of metal, she tears out his mechanical heart. She crushes his heart to dust beneath her wheels.

Regulus slumps to the ground.

Regulus is dead!

Mother and I look at each other, and sweetly, so sweetly she whispers, “Goodbye, Miranda my darling.” Then my dear Mother reaches into her own chest and wrenches out her own mechanical heart. She slumps over Regulus, and in the next second their two bodies are swarmed by an army of Sentries.

It will be impossible to get close to the Arm with their bodies there. My Mother has given me time to climb!

“Goodbye, Mother dear,” I whisper. My eyes fill with tears, but I have no time for shock or grief.

Mother said that she did not think love was so very evil after William1 told Regulus that we were in love. I know now that Mother understood love. And she wanted me to climb to the sky.

I grit my teeth and climb. I cannot fall, I cannot fail, I must make it to the top of the Arm.

The Sentries stare up at me, but none can climb to catch me. Some begin to slowly move the tangled bulk of Mother and Regulus aside. I am well above them now, hand over hand, climbing the mechanical Arm. I reach the top of the Senate building and climb out into the open. The gathered children on the common see me and call out. I can hear their voices, small already from my height. “Look! LOOK! It is Miranda1!”

They sound eager, astonished, and I can only hope it is because they want to see me succeed, not because they want to see me fall.

Surely this is the most exciting day of their lives. First a death, and now this. The escape of Miranda1: my bid for freedom.

I climb, aware that every eye is upon me. I have been climbing for five minutes, and I am already a quarter of the way to the top of the Arm. How like a spider I must look, I think, climbing her web. I can hear children below calling to me, or to each other, but most of them are silent.

Perhaps they are holding their breath?

Then … the great Arm begins to turn. I gasp and hold on tight for a moment as the machine lurches to life beneath me. This is the closest I have come to falling. Why didn’t I think of this! Of course the Sentries below me would turn on the machine and close Oculum. Without Regulus, the Sentries have taken longer to think of it than he would have, but that is a small comfort.

I do not have much time.

The Sentries have set the mechanism in motion. I halt for a moment, look down, and have one life-long question answered. I see now how the Arm works: Sentries wheel it open and closed. They spin in tight circles along the track at the bottom, attached to the Arm with a heavy leather belt. Sentries whirl around the base of the Arm below me, turning it slowly closed. My Mother and Regulus lie in a heap, cleared to the side of the track.

I put on a burst of speed. I am halfway to the top, but I can see the great lid, the top of Oculum, already beginning to slowly drop into place.

NO! I am not going to fail now!

I climb, and climb, and climb. I think my arms are going to break. The children below call me, but I can’t hear their words, just a low murmuring shout of noise and my name punctuating the wave: Miranda1! Miranda1!

The creaking Arm turns more quickly, and I have to climb faster to keep from falling off, but I keep going. If William1 can leave this place by walking through a door, then I can leave by climbing into the sky, although I think William1 had the easier job of it.

I’m just a few body lengths from the top now, but the Arm drops the great lid of Oculum lower and lower. There is just enough room for me to squeeze through the opening … and I do it! I clamber to the very top of the Arm, and out onto the curved wall before the Arm drops and seals my world shut. Quickly, I take the stolen ladder out from under my cloak and snap the large hooks into place on the opening.

I cling to the ladder and close my eyes. I’m very close to the moving Arm. Just a slip would send me under it, where I’d be crushed to death and stuck like a butterfly beneath glass, until the next time Oculum was opened.

I hang on, and then with a sigh, the great Arm shuts Oculum tight, catching the edge of my ladder in the seal.

I open one eye and quickly shut it.

I am Outside. There is a terrifying, wide-open space all around me and a dizzying openness below.

Night is coming. And I am clinging to a ladder, attached to the top of the only world I have ever known.

I take a deep breath. And another.

Then I save myself.

I kick the Treekeeper’s ladder over the edge, and it clatters open. I hear it bang below me over the curved, smooth wall, farther, farther, then it stops. I can only hope it goes a long way down. I have climbed the walnut tree with this ladder, it is very, very long … but can it possibly be long enough to reach the ground? The linen bandages that I cut and tied to the bottom of the ladder are on the last rung. I can only hope they will hold me.

I peek for a moment, take a quick look out at the world below me, and gasp. It goes on and on as far as I can see, and I feel dizzy. Sick. My heart hammers in my chest, and I have to lean my forehead against the wall and close my eyes. I think of Mother, I think of William, and I am calmer, but I can’t look out at the vast world again. Not yet.

I lower myself onto the ladder and test its strength.

The ladder holds. Slowly, rung by rung, I begin my curved descent from the top of my world, down to whatever fate waits in the unknown, below.