Crewel (3 page)

‘Eat, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.’

I take a couple of bites, knowing I won’t be able to eat if he answers me first anyway, but as soon as I swallow, I turn my attention back to him. ‘Are they dead?’ The words come out flat, and in that moment I know I’ve lost hope.

‘Your father is,’ Cormac admits in a low voice. There’s no remorse in his face. It’s a fact.

I look down and take a deep breath. ‘And my mother and sister?’

‘Your sister is in custody, but I have no news on your mother.’

‘Then she got away?’ I ask breathlessly, wondering how they managed to catch Amie. Despite the news about my father, I feel a tug of hope.

‘She got away for now. You’ll be more upset later when the Valpron wears off.’

‘Maybe I’m stronger than you think,’ I challenge, although I’m all too aware of the numbness throughout my body.

‘That would be a surprise. Valpron is a calming agent.’ Cormac’s eyes narrow, and he sets down his fork. ‘What was your plan anyway?’

‘Plan?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Adelice,’ he snarls. ‘They found four tunnels under your house that lead to places around your neighbourhood. Where were you going to go?’

‘I have no idea. I didn’t know about them.’ It’s the truth. I’m not sure I could lie right now if I wanted to, but I’d
never
guessed exactly how far my parents were willing to go to keep me from the Guild. How long ago had they dug those four tunnels, and how had they got away with it? From the way Cormac is staring at me, I’m sure he believes I know more than I’m telling.

Cormac snorts, but resumes eating. Or rather, drinking. ‘Sure you didn’t. Just like you didn’t try to fail at the testing.’

My eyes snap up to his, and I wonder how much he knows about this, but I don’t say anything else.

‘I’ve seen the surveillance Stream on your testing. The moment you wove was an accident,’ he continues.

‘I had no idea what I was doing,’ I say, and in truth, I didn’t. I’d never used a loom to weave before and something about seeing the fabric of life – the very raw materials that composed the space around me – laid out before me, rattled me. We’d been measured and questioned, and had practised basic tasks like weaving actual fabric, but none of my classmates had much success with it. It took a certain talent they didn’t seem to possess, and I’d spent my whole childhood learning to ignore mine.

‘I doubt that,’ Cormac says, setting down his glass. ‘I know it was an accident because the loom wasn’t on. A girl who can weave through time without a loom is a rare thing. It takes a very special girl to do that. We almost retrieved you right there.’

I want to sink under the table. I’d known I’d given myself away, but not how much I’d revealed. This is my fault.

‘Fine. Don’t say anything. There’s no way your mother got out,’ he tells me coldly. ‘We had to clean the area after the Stream crew left.’

‘Clean?’ I think back to the complant conversation I overheard in the motocarriage. It was short and he was mad, but the rest is lost in a haze. As I sift back further, the evening comes in bursts of images. Eating with my family. A white cake. Cold, dark dirt.

‘I love how innocent you are. It’s really just . . . delightful.’ He smirks, and this time I see tiny crinkles around his eyes. ‘The section has been cleaned and rewoven. No use trying to explain why a whole family went missing, especially not with the recent accident.’

‘My sister’s teacher,’ I murmur.

‘Mrs Swander,’ he confirms. ‘What a mess, but not significant enough to justify a full cleaning.’

I try to wrap my mind around what he’s saying. The Guild transports food, assigns roles and houses, and oversees the addition of new babies to the population. But Arras hasn’t had an accident or crime in years. At least not that I know of. ‘Wait, are you saying you removed the memories of all the people in Romen?’

‘Not exactly,’ he says, downing the last of his bourbon. ‘We adjusted them a bit. When people try to remember your family, it will be a bit blurry. Your history now indicates you were an only child and your parents have been given clearance to move closer to the Coventry – that’s if anyone bothers to check up on you, but they won’t.’

‘You made it all disappear,’ I whisper.

‘It’s easy to adjust at night thanks to the curfew,’ he says, taking a bite of steak. ‘I’m sure it sounds horrible to you, but there’s no need to cause massive panic.’

‘You mean’ – I lean in and keep my voice low – ‘there’s no need to let people know you murdered their neighbours.’

The wicked grin fades from his face. ‘Some day you’ll understand, Adelice, that everything I do ensures people are safe. Cleaning a whole town isn’t something I take lightly, and it’s not easy. Most Spinsters don’t have the talent for it. You’d be wise to remember you’re the reason I had to order it.’

‘I thought Arras didn’t have to worry about safety. Isn’t that why you need girls like me?’ I challenge, gripping the butter knife next to my plate.

‘Like I said, your ignorance is truly delightful.’ But he doesn’t seem amused any more. Instead his black eyes blaze with repressed fury. ‘Spinsters do ensure safety, by following my orders. It’s not all parties and loom work. The Guild demands loyalty. Never forget that.’

I can hear the warning in his voice not to push this further, so I relax my hand and the knife clatters back to the table.

‘I hope you had enough to eat,’ he snaps, rising from his seat. Apparently two bites of food is enough to appease him.

I follow. I don’t have any other choice.

A girl from our neighbourhood was labelled a deviant a few years back. It’s a very rare thing, since everyone in Arras lives by a zero-tolerance policy for misbehaviour. But my dad told me that occasionally a child is brought up on charges and taken away. He said sometimes they come back, but most don’t. The little girl came back, but she was always in a daze, never quite in the moment with the rest of us. That’s how my neighbours will be when they think of me. It’s as though I don’t exist, and even the meds still coursing through my body can’t block the tingle of pain that runs down to my fingertips when I think of it.

The meal was a courtesy, it turns out, because we don’t have rebound appointments. We don’t need them. I’m torn between feeling guilty that he was being nice to me and wondering what his motives were. I trail Cormac as he strides past the line of men waiting on deck for their scheduled departures. A few grumble as we pass but the others shush them.

‘I need to bump two spots,’ Cormac tells the man at the counter, flashing him his PC.

I have no doubt this man knows who he is, but he takes the card and studies it for a moment before keying in a code on the companel, a communications system built into the wall behind him. A moment later, a young woman dressed in a snug sky-blue suit steps out from the corridor behind the desk and leads us past the counter.

‘Ambassador Patton, will you require a refreshment while you rebound?’ She’s all bubbles and pink lipstick.

‘I ate. Thank you,’ he tells her with a wink.

She doesn’t ask me.

Cormac’s rebound compartment is before my own, and I half expect him to disappear through the door without another word to me, but he turns and sizes me up one last time. ‘Adelice, I suggest you get some rest during your rebound.’

I keep my eyes focused on the end of the corridor. He’s acting like my dad. Telling me when to eat, when to sleep. But he’s the reason I need a surrogate father in the first place.

‘You know you don’t deserve the way they’re going to treat you.’ His voice sounds concerned but the Valpron must be wearing off, because I can barely keep myself from spitting at him. I don’t need his kindness.

‘You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,’ he says, reading my face. He sighs and opens the chamber door. ‘I hope you learn to listen before it’s too late.’

I don’t bother to respond. I don’t want his arrogant advice. I watch him fixedly until the door shuts behind him. My guide shepherds me to the next compartment and follows me in.

‘This is the first time you’ve rebounded,’ she says matter-of-factly as she ushers me to a single chair on a small platform in the centre of the room. ‘You’re likely to experience some nausea or vomiting.’

I sit down awkwardly and take in the sparse room.

‘Here.’ She reaches around me and buckles a strap against my waist.

‘What’s that for?’

‘We need to keep your movement confined to a minimal space during the rebounding process. Usually you can read or eat or drink,’ she tells me, unfolding a small tray from the arm of the chair. ‘But no getting up.’

I glance down at the straps, and raise an eyebrow.

‘I’m sorry.’ She lifts her heavily lined eyes, and I can see she means it. ‘I’m not authorised to give you anything.’

‘It’s okay,’ I say with a shrug. ‘I get the impression girls are rare around here.’

The girl adjusts my straps and checks the buckle before she steps back. She hesitates and checks the countdown on the wall: I have two minutes until the rebound will begin.

‘That’s it though.’ She pauses and glances around the room. ‘I probably should shut up.’

‘What?’ The medication is definitely wearing off, because now I’m holding back panic.

‘Yes, women very rarely rebound, only Spinsters and Ministers’ wives. But they are given anything they want,’ she whispers.

‘I don’t understand,’ I admit slowly.

She leans forward and pretends to adjust the tray. ‘They come in dressed up and we are supposed to give them bulletins and fashion catalogues to peruse. But you . . .’

I stare at her, trying to get what she’s telling me.

‘My directions were to keep you buckled and locked down.’

‘Locked down?’

‘Yes.’ She sighs and gives me a sympathetic pat. ‘I’m sorry.’

She reaches behind my back, and a second later, a large helmet woven of thick steel chains clamps down over my head. I cry out, but the sound is muffled. She squeezes my hand once, and I calm a little. Then more metal locks down, binding my wrists.

‘Your rebound will only take an hour,’ she reassures me, although I can barely hear her through the twisted metal. ‘Good luck, Adelice.’

I wish I’d asked her name.

The helmet blocks most of the room around me, but I can see through the gaps. It’s an inconsequential room with bare white walls, except for the clock counting down in the corner.

The nausea hits first. The floor drops from under me and my stomach turns over, but I don’t fall. The helmet keeps my head perfectly straight and my neck stretched, so I don’t throw up, but I want to. Closing my eyes, I breathe evenly, trying to keep the sickness at bay. When I open them and peer through the steel wires, the room around me is gone, and I’m surrounded by a shimmering array of lights. The sight calms me and I focus on studying the gleaming strands that comprise the rebound compartment. Glowing beams twist across the room and then long threads of grey knit up through them, crisscrossing over the light into a luminous fabric of gold and silver. Somewhere a girl sits, replacing the weave of the rebound chamber with that of a chamber in a coventry, effectively moving me from one location to the other. I’m travelling hundreds of miles without moving a muscle. It’s a delicate procedure, which is why it’s reserved for the most important people in Arras. The Stream ran a special story vlip about the process a few years ago.

Gradually the light disappears and slowly – too slowly – grey walls form in patches around me, and the radiant canvas of the rebound process fades into a concrete room. It takes an eternity before the beams are gone, but when the last flickers into wall, I’m happy to feel the helmet being lifted from my head.

A group of sombrely clad officers surrounds me. The one who removed the helmet hesitates at the cuffs on my arms. They ache from being shackled during the trip, and I’m about to tell him so when a young blond in an expensive suit steps forward and holds his hand up. His head is cocked to the side, and I realise he’s on his complant. Despite his obvious youth, he seems to be in charge. He’s the kind of boy my classmates would zero in on in the daily
Bulletin
and giggle over as they passed his image around. But even this close to him, I only feel curiosity.

‘Sedate her.’

‘Sir?’ the officer asks in surprise.

‘She wants her sedated,’ the blond boy orders. ‘You want to ask her why?’

The officer shakes his head, but as a medic rushes forward with a syringe I can see the apology in the boy’s blindingly blue eyes.

When I was eight, the girl next door, Beth, found a bird’s nest that had fallen on the line marking her yard from ours. I was not allowed to enter her yard, and she never came into mine. She applied that line to all of our interactions, keeping a firm boundary between us at home, at academy, and at the commons where we played with the rest of the neighbourhood girls. Beth made sure the other girls didn’t talk to me either, so I kept to myself. Her bullying made me timid in her presence – always drawing back instead of coming forward – so I watched as she batted the nest along the property marker with a stick. I didn’t say anything until I saw the speckle of blue as it tumbled over.

‘Stop.’ My command was so low she shouldn’t have heard it, but our street was as quiet as usual, and her head perked up to stare at me, the stick frozen in place.

‘What did you say?’ she asked in a voice that wanted me to remember my place, not answer her.

Whatever that glimpse of blue had stirred in my chest, I grabbed on to it and pushed the demand out louder.

Beth edged closer to the line, but didn’t cross it. Instead, she hoisted the nest on her stick and tossed it over to my yard. ‘There,’ she mocked. ‘Take your precious nest. It doesn’t matter, the mama bird isn’t coming back for it now. They don’t want their eggs after someone else has touched them.’

Hatred seethed inside me, but I stood on my side and watched her walk into her house without saying another word. She glanced at me just once as she opened her front door, and her eyes were full of scorn. I stared at the nest for a long time: two eggs peeked out of the grass next to it. I thought of myself and my sister when I looked at them: two sister sparrows. Gathering up some fallen leaves from our yard, I covered my bare hands before placing the eggs into their spots in the nest, and then lifted it back to the tree in our yard. But the small gesture did nothing to soothe the aching rage building in my chest.

As I watched the nest, growing increasingly frustrated with my inability to protect the tiny lives inside, the strands of the weave glimmered to life around me. The tree and the nest blurred like a delicate tapestry before my eyes, strands that called out to be touched, and I reached and slipped my fingers around them. Although I’d been aware of the fabric of life woven around us before, for the first time I noticed how bands of gold stretched across it horizontally, and how coloured threads wove up through them to create the objects around me. As I watched, the golden strands of light flickered slightly, and I realised they were slowly moving forwards, away from the moment in front of me. They weren’t simply fibres in Arras’s tapestry – they were lines of time. Tentatively, I reached for one of the golden fibres. Encouraged by its silky texture, I took it and yanked it hard, trying to force the time bands back to a moment when the mama bird was guarding her precious babies. But the strands resisted. No matter what I did, they kept on creeping forward. There was no going back.

The mama bird never returned. I checked on the little blue eggs every morning until one day my dad relieved me from my vigilance and the whole nest vanished. I didn’t touch those eggs, but I guess the mama bird didn’t know where to look; that’s why she didn’t come back.

There is only darkness. It is damp, and with the palms of my hands I can feel that the floor of my cell alternates between smooth and jagged, but one thing is constant: it is always cold. My parents’ suspicions about the Guild were well-founded. I wonder if my mother knows where I am. I picture her circling our house, searching for me in her own empty nest.

If she’s still alive. My heart flutters in response to some new emotion. It sits like a big lump in my throat as I remember the body bag leaking onto the floor. And now they have Amie. The idea that she’s at their mercy claws at my stomach. Never in the years my parents were training me did I understand why they were doing it. They told me that they didn’t want to lose me. My father spoke of the dangers of too much power, but in vague, noncommittal terms, and my mother always shushed him when he became too
impassioned
. The Guild gave us food and perfectly controlled weather and health patches. I have to believe those people – the humane government of my memory – have Amie now. Whatever my crimes, those officials wouldn’t hold her accountable. But I can’t ignore how wrong I was about the Guild or my parents. And it’s my fault she was taken. It was my hands that gave me away at testing. I run them along the rough cracks in the patches of stone until my fingertips are torn and bloody.

The facts are inescapable. I’d been taught to hide my gift by my parents. All I had to do was pretend for a month while I performed the Guild’s testing and I would have been released from service. And if I hadn’t been so selfish, so scared of disappointing my mom and dad on the night of my retrieval, none of this would have happened. But I’m not sure I know how things might be different now. Even if I had told them I’d slipped during testing, would we have escaped? Sifting through flashes of my childhood for clues, I remember my parents being strong, but isolated from the rest of our community. They genuinely loved each other. Dad would leave Mom little love notes around the house, which I found both revolting and oddly reassuring when I stumbled across one. He treated her with a respect that few of the other grown men I encountered in Romen showed women or girls. I’d believed this was why they didn’t want me to become a Spinster, because it would tear our family apart – and our family was all we had. But beneath the happy veneer of our home, there were always secrets, particularly my training, which was kept from Amie. They told me she wouldn’t understand, and the tone they used when they explained this was the same one they used when discussing my ‘condition’ with each other.

In the dark, I can’t hide from the only thing I can finally see. I didn’t want to see the treason in their actions. I ignored the implication of their words and heard what I needed to hear to feel safe, not what they were actually telling me. And now I’ve lost my chance to know my parents. All I can do is fit together the pieces they left behind in my memory.

No one comes to visit me. There’s no food and no water. And no light. This can’t be how they treat the Spinsters. I must be being punished for my family’s treason. I was taught about the coventries in academy and shown pictures of the formidable towered compounds, one of which I think I’m in now. But the walls and buttresses of those compounds housed sumptuous rooms and art and plumbing. There’s not even a toilet in this cell. I’m forced to go in the corner. The mustiness of the stone overpowers the smell at first, but even the muck of the cell can’t control it forever and now the acrid odour of bile prickles my nostrils. In the dark, the smells are becoming more acute, burning my throat.

I lie on the floor and try to picture my location. I imagine there is a window in the room and light streams in from the sun. Cormac told me I was being taken to the Western Compound, which houses the largest coventry of Spinsters in Arras and sits on the edge of the Endless Sea, so if I looked out I might see pine trees or maybe the ocean. Even though my hometown of Romen is only a few hours from the ocean, I’ve never travelled outside metro limits. The population of each metro is strictly regulated to ensure the local weave isn’t damaged by excessive change to its structure. That’s why the boundaries of each metro are carefully guarded – for our safety.

Each of the four sectors has these special compounds, built on the edge of the Endless Sea, that are responsible for keeping Arras functioning. In academy, we were permitted to study a very simple map that outlined the sectors and their capitals. Four perfect triangles of land, surrounded by an ocean that never ceases, and their coventries arranged in perfect symmetry like the points of a cross. But that’s all we were shown. The Guild didn’t want to tempt students to try to travel outside their hometowns. We were taught that if too many people travelled at a time, it could undermine the structural integrity of Arras. So all travelling arrangements have to be pre-approved through proper channels or it wouldn’t be safe, but Spinsters have special border privileges, making them almost as important as businessmen and politicians. It was the one thing that ever appealed to me about becoming a Spinster – being able to see the world – but the idea that I could never return home outweighed the travel perks.

And there’re not many other perks to being a Spinster, as it turns out. I can’t force myself to pretend there is a window in the cell. Because there is no sun. No clock. No hum of insects. I have no idea how long I’ve been here. I’m starting to wonder if I’m dead. I decide to sleep and not wake up. If this is the afterlife, I should be free from dreams. But no such luck – nightmares continually interrupt my sleep. I lie here, eyes burning in the dark, still trying to adjust, hopelessly, and my mind rages with the injustice.

And then the door opens and light streams in, blinding me, until my eyes begin to see the dark outlines of the tiny chamber.

‘Adelice?’

Is that my name? I can’t remember.

‘Adelice!’ Less timid this time, but still a squeaky yap.

‘Take her up to the clinic and rehydrate her. I want her in the salon in an hour.’ The squeaky voice instructs someone I don’t care to see. The voiceless one crosses over to me, boots clicking against the stones, and lifts me casually over his shoulder.

‘What a stink. Never thought something so foul could come out of such a tiny thing.’ He laughs. Maybe later he can buy himself a drink to celebrate his cleverness. ‘At least you’re light.’

I consider reminding him that starving a person has an influence on her weight, but I don’t want to encourage his feeble sense of humour. And I’m too weak to think of something smart to defend myself.

‘Are you even old enough to be chosen?’

I say nothing.

‘I know they found you during testing,’ he continues. I begin to count each of his tangled curls. They’re so dark they are almost black, but looking closer I realise his hair is actually brown. He’s not like metro men, who are polished and groomed and chiselled until their jawlines are angular and smooth without a trace of facial hair. Even my father scrubbed his nails and shaved each night. He smells of hops and sweat and work. He must do more physical labour than most men in Arras, because he carries me like I’m nothing, and I can feel how taut the muscles of his arms and chest are against my thin gown.

‘Not much to say, huh,’ he mocks. ‘Well, good. It’ll be a nice change not to have another over-privileged brat bossing us around. I wish they were all mute like you.’

‘I suppose even a mute girl,’ I snarl, ‘has more privileges than the scum that has to drag her stinking body upstairs.’

He drops me, and it’s a testament to how long I was imprisoned that being dropped on a hard stone floor doesn’t hurt. I’m so used to it that I sit and stare up at him. I’m surprised to find that my eyes have adjusted enough to see the look of loathing on his face. He’s as dirty as he smells, a coat of grime almost theatrically applied to his face and neck, but underneath it, he’s striking. His cobalt-blue eyes, accented by the dirt, radiate out against the filth all over him and for a moment something stirs in my stomach, and I’m rendered speechless again.

‘You can walk on your own. I was doing you a favour,’ he growls. ‘I thought maybe you were different. But don’t worry, you’ll fit right in with the rest of them.’

I swallow hard and stumble to my feet. I almost lose my balance, but I’m too proud to apologise or to ask for the strange boy’s help. And I can’t deny that now that I’ve really looked at him, I feel funny about letting him touch me again. Girls don’t talk to boys back home, and they certainly don’t let boys carry them. Most parents, like my own, bring their daughters into the metro rarely, to avoid any pre-dismissal contact with the opposite sex. But I’m guessing the electric pulse racing through me where his arms and hands held me up wasn’t caused by the modesty the academy tried to instil in me for years. I find myself wanting to say something clever to him, but the words won’t come, so I concentrate on trying to walk. Something that’s definitely harder than it used to be.

‘You can tattle on me when you’ve been processed. Maybe they’ll rip me for mistreating a new Eligible.’ His tone is cruel, and I’m surprised at how much it stings. I lumped him in with all my other captors, and now he’s lumping me in with the Guild, too.

He walks briskly, and I can barely keep up. My feet prickle, shooting needles up my legs, but I follow behind him and eventually catch up. He glances down, obviously surprised to see me walking beside him.

‘Probably dying to get your hands on some fancy cosmetics,’ he chides, and I’m tempted to call him scum again.

‘The Spinsters have the best aestheticians,’ he continues. ‘It’s one of the perks. All you poor, new Eligibles are so eager to get beautified. It must be such a burden to wait sixteen years to wear lipstick.’

I hate being treated like I’m some stupid metro girl eager to paint her face, curl her hair, and step into the working world. I’ve seen pictures of the Spinsters made up until they look like moulded plastic, but I’m not about to talk to him about it. He can think whatever he wants; he’s a nobody anyway. I repeat the words in my head – he’s a nobody – but I can’t seem to believe it myself.

‘’Course, you were in the cells,’ he continues, clearly not needing me to participate in this conversation, ‘which means you tried to run.’ Our eyes meet for the first time and the brilliant blue seems to warm a little. ‘Guess you have some fire in you, girl.’

That does it. ‘Do you always call women a few years younger than you “girl”?’

‘Only ones that look like they’re
girls
,’ he says, purposefully emphasising the offending term.

‘Oh, right. And what are you? Eighteen?’ I point out. Does he think the dirt covers his age?

He taps his grimy forehead. ‘I’m older up here than most men twice my age.’