Shadows of Glass (15 page)

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s a map of the world,” Levi says from behind me. I can feel him, standing there,
tall and straight, and he smells wonderful, like the sea and air. I feel strange,
ashamed of how I must look and smell, yet I feel warm and comforted, as if I’m back
in my bed before all this madness started.

“The entire world?” I ask. He moves up beside me to stand as I look at the map. There
are tiny pins stuck in various places. I have so many questions, yet I do not know
where to begin.

“The way it is now,” Levi says. “Yes.”

“It was different before the comet?” I ask. I turn to look at him and am struck once
again by his beauty. He is like Lucy, who nearly takes your breath away when you look
at her. He is the way Alex was. It is as if he’s from a different time or place. And
I realize that he is. He isn’t from my world, which has been lost in time for two
hundred years. His hair has more colors in it than I can count, and his skin has a
golden hue to it that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Still his brown eyes are
warm and welcoming as he talks to me as if I’m the only person in the room.

“Yes it was,” he says. “Has the dome been here since before the comet?”

“Yes,” I say. “They built it to protect the royals.”

“They preserved the royal bloodline of England? Queen Victoria and the Hanoverians?”
Dr. Stewart interjects. “Outstanding! Whoever conceived of it were geniuses. I cannot
wait to examine it closer. To think that everything from that period of history has
been preserved. I imagine they have the crown jewels in there. Excellent!”

“Has it been closed up all this time?” Lyon asks as Dr. Stewart rambles on about things
I’ve never heard of. It is a sad state of affairs that he knows more about my history
than I do.

“Until two days ago,” I say.

“Heavens,” Jane interjects. “All those people for all those years? Whatever for?”

It is too much for me to just say at the moment. The questions are too fast and I
am still confused and wondering if I should be here. Instead of answering them I stare
in wonder at the map. “Where are we?” I ask. Pace told me about the British Isles,
but I need to see them on the map.

Levi places his finger on a point in the center of the map above my head. “Here,”
he says, “on the coast of Wales.” His finger trails to the left, across the pale blue
that has Atlantic Ocean written in script. “And this is where we are from.”

I look at the country, across the sea, and I cannot begin to imagine the journey that
brought them here. Their country is so much bigger than mine, so much broader, so
vast. I look at Wales and England again. There are dotted lines around part of the
map. “What does this mean?” I ask, pointing to the lines.

“The comet caused the melting of the polar ice caps,” Dr. Stewart says. “Which led
to the sea levels rising. The dotted lines are what used to be land masses, which
are now under water.” He puts a finger above and moves it across to the right to a
place called Russia. “The comet entered the atmosphere here,” he says and traces his
finger across Russia and onward over France and Spain, words I can read but which
have no meaning. I know they are countries, like mine, England, but they are nothing
more than words to me. “These countries were devastated by the fires and, like yours,
are in a state of recovery now. It continued onward,” he moves his finger across the
Atlantic, below where Levi showed their course just a moment before, “and crashed
into the land mass formerly known as South America. The devastation there was complete
and brutal. The land there is just now recovering.”

“After two hundred years?” I say.

“We are lucky, as a human race, to have survived,” Lyon says quietly. “Lucky that
we lived in America, which like Africa, was spared the brunt of it.”

“And survive we did,” Jane says cheerily. “I asked Cook to fix us breakfast since
it’s so early. Wren, would you like to wash up first? Zan can show you where.”

“Thank you,” I say and follow Zan. She leads me into a hallway at the front of the
cabin.

“There are our rooms,” she says. “Mother and Father’s there,” she points to a door
straight ahead. “Levi’s there and mine here.” She opens the door on the left and leads
me into a small room, just as nicely appointed as the main cabin. The bed is nearly
four times the size of mine, with fabric draped around it and linens piled upon it.
I have never seen a single piece of fabric so big, and she has several. A wardrobe
stands open and clothes spill out of it, and I see at least five sets of shoes and
boots.

“I’m sorry it’s such a mess,” Zan apologizes. “I dressed rather quickly when we saw
the smoke from your dome.”

“No, it’s…” I do not know what to say. I certainly did not want her to think I was
criticizing her.

“The water closet is here,” she continues, and I realize that she wasn’t really concerned
about my opinion; she just likes to talk. She opens a door to reveal a small room
with a strange looking hard white chair. There’s a washstand of sorts with a bowl
built in with different handles and knobs above it. Most surprising of all is a brass
tub with a curtain around it and another set of knobs.

I am totally confounded. I stand in the doorway looking into the room and have no
idea what to do.

“It’s quite brilliant you know,” Zan says. “Our waste is cycled for use as fuel and
we are able to remove the salt from the ocean water to use for washing. It still doesn’t
taste as good as fresh water but it will do in a pinch.”

“You use your waste as fuel?” I ask.

“Dr. Stewart is a genius,” she says. “As I imagine the scientists who built your dome
were.” She tilts her head to look at me, and I once more feel inadequate around her
golden beauty. “You don’t have a system like this, do you?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Let me show you how it works,” she says and goes to the washstand. She turns a knob.
“This is hot and this is cold.”

“You have hot water just by turning a knob?” I ask.

“It’s heated with steam and kept in a tank until we call it up just by turning it
on.” I shake my head, amazed, as she lifts the seat of the chair. “This is where you
go,” she says. “And then you pull this chain and it goes down to be cycled into fuel.”
She demonstrates and I am once more amazed. “And this is for bathing.”

“That I knew,” I say and she laughs in delight. “Although I’ve never imagined bathing
in something this big.”

“What did you do, in the dome?” Zan asks.

“I worked in the mines, beneath it.”

“Digging coal?”

“My job was to move it,” I say. “But yes, I am, was, a shiner.”

“Because of your eyes? They called you shiners instead of miners? You lived your entire
life underground?”

I answer all her questions with one word. “Yes.”

“Amazing,” she exclaims. “I’ll leave you now, just come out when you’re done. I’m
going to change out of my flight clothes,” she continues as she closes the door and
leaves me inside the small room.

What luxury! Is this how the royals live? If so, no wonder they wanted to protect
it. If this had been my life, I would not want to give it up. I take care of my needs
and go to the washstand to wash my hands. I tentatively put my hand under the water
tap to feel the heat of the water. I am amazed. A bar of soap lies on the stand and
I pick it up and inhale its scent. I’ve never smelled anything like it, but it is
so very pleasant. What would it be like to bathe with it?

I put the soap back and realize there is a mirror above the washstand with small lamps
on either side. Not a piece of one with the paint coming off the back like we had
in our home, but a large one, large enough that I see myself from my chest to the
top of my head.

My hair is a mess. Zan has a brush that alleviates that. There is a streak on my cheek
and when I look at it closer I realize it is blood. My wounds from a few days past
are healing but still are tender, especially the cut on my temple. My eyes seem larger
than I remember and my skin looks raw. That’s what the sun did to me. It burned my
eyes and it burned my skin. Yet it is what makes Levi and Zan seem so golden and warm.

There are dark smudges under my eyes, and I rub at them with the water, but they do
not go away. I am able to remove the blood, and when I am done I look down at my hands
to make sure there is none there. There isn’t, but just because I do not see it does
not mean it does not exist.

I take a deep breath and open the door. I am worried about my friends. But my hunger
will not let me leave.

11

I
have never seen
so much food in one place. Not even when our community had a feast was there such
an abundance of things to eat. I have never had bacon, or seen an orange, much less
drink the juice squeezed from one. I have never seen strawberries or heard of a thing
called whipped cream. Neither have I eaten at a table so exquisitely set with china
that is so fine and delicate that I am certain if I hold it up to the light I will
be able to see a shadow through it. There are so many utensils that are heavy with
silver that I do not know what to do with them so I steal a look at Zan. She unfolds
the large piece of linen that lies on her plate and places it in her lap, so I do
the same and nearly shake my head at the foolishness of it. The linen is much nicer
than my clothes. The utensils are not much of a problem, except I do not know why
there are so many. Still I keep an eye on Zan, who sits next to me, and follow her
lead.

She spreads soft butter on a slice of bread that has a brown swirl in it and I do
the same with the small slices of butter that sit on their own little plate next to
mine. The taste of it explodes in my mouth with such pleasure that I touch my fingers
to my lips.

“It’s cinnamon,” Zan explains. “A spice.”

“It is wonderful,” I say honestly, and both her and Levi grin at me as I take another
bite. I want to taste everything, but I feel guilty at every morsel that passes my
lips because my friends are hungry. Yet I do not have the power to leave. Leaving
means I have to face what I’ve done.

My hosts wait until I have sated the worst of my appetite before they question me.
“How did you get out?” Lyon asks right off. “I’ve been all over that dome twice and
as far as I can tell there is only one way in and one way out.”

“We came from below ground,” I say. “From the mines. A tunnel was opened up when the
gas exploded, and we followed the water until it led us out.”

“Gas? Explosion?” Levi asks. Both he and Zan have changed out of their leathers and
into the same type of clothing that the adults wear. Zan’s shirt is decorated with
lace and Levi’s is much simpler. Neither has a patch or a mended place anywhere that
I can see. Levi sits across from me, with Dr. Stewart next to him, Lyon at the head
of the table, and Jane next to me at the opposite end.

“Wait, you said ‘we,’” Jane asks. “Are there more like you?”

“Yes there are.” I feel my face flush with shame. “I did not want to mention them
until I was sure you wouldn’t harm me, us.”

“Very smart on your part,” Lyon admits. “You had no way of knowing if we were friend
or foe.”

“You are all so very nice that I cannot imagine you being anyone’s foe,” I confess.

“We are quite capable of defending ourselves if attacked,” Lyon reminds me.

“We are mostly children,” I say. “And your dog, Beau, is with them,” I add.

“You were spying on us,” Lyon says with a smile.

“I had to find out if you were a threat,” I say. “And I’ve never seen anything like
this before.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Dr. Stewart says. “The entire world is new to you. What a
marvel you are. An entire city trapped in time.”

“I am not so certain we would think that a marvel,” I said. “For most of us, it was
a prison.”

“What led to this explosion you speak of?” Lyon asks.

“Wait, before you get into your story,” Jane says, “tell me of the others. You said
there are children? We must prepare some food for them. Surely they are as hungry
as you.”

“They are,” I say. “There are twenty of us. Half are children and the rest my age
or older. We also have five ponies from the mines and a small herd of goats. And an
abundance of cats, except for the one Beau killed.”

“So sorry,” Levi says. “We must work on that. His manners are atrocious.”

“I think he was hungry,” I say.

Levi smiles a dazzling smile at me. “There is no excuse for bad manners,” he replies
and Zan rolls her eyes at him.

“I will tell Cook to prepare some baskets of food,” Jane says and leaves the table
to go through doors at the back of the room.

“If you don’t mind,” Lyon says and I realize it is time to pay for my meal, “please
tell us your story.”

I tell them everything about my world. About working in the mines. About how the coal
ran the fans to keep us alive. About how we were lied to about the flames and kept
under control all these years so the royals would remain safe. Then I tell them about
Alex and how his death rallied us to find a way out. And then I tell them the price
we all paid. The only thing I do not tell them is that Sir William Meredith is my
father. I see no reason for them to know that. I also do not mention my part in it.
I just let them believe that it was all of us acting as one. I want no credit for
what happened. I am not a hero and I do not want anyone to think I am. Especially
after what I’ve done.

“So you just left the dome two days ago?” Lyon asks.

Was it only two days? “Yes. The first day we sheltered in the cave because the sun
burned us.”

“Of course it did,” Dr. Stewart says. “You must build up a resistance to it.” He picks
up Lyon’s arm and pushes up his sleeve to show bronze skin. “This is a result of several
days of sun exposure. After a bit your skin gets used to it. But you must take it
in small doses.” He studies me for a moment. “It must have been brutal on your eyes.”