Gods of Anthem (35 page)

We all wonder how things can possibly get worse. Any hope felt is wiped away by Serena’s lifeless gaze. She doesn’t have to explain.
Stolen,
her posture says.
Invaded,
her eyes scream.

A lady Manda found through word of mouth comes to give Serena some holistic medicine. Sephora’s her name, and she’s the closest thing we have to a doctor down here.

They had one in Section once, I’d been told. But he’d been arrested for some small infraction.

South Anthem dwindles with people barely leaving their rooms.

Manda asks Sephora what we can do, but Sephora merely washes up and shakes her head. “It’s not here.” She points at her stomach. “But here.” And she points at her head and heart. “There is nothing I can do for her.”

Then, at the door, Sephora hesitates and, taking in the level of our desperation, sighs. “There is a place. I knew one girl who said they helped.”

She writes down an address, but grips my arm before handing it over. “You don’t get this from me.”

Sephora leaves quickly after that.

Manda reads the paper. “Um … can you take her?”

“Why?”

“Because”—Manda looks down guiltily—“that address she gave you is for a church.”

I play with the paper, conflicted. I’ve never been to church, but I nod anyway. What else is there left to do?

Serena
follows me there, listlessly.

I was picturing an actual church, like with a steeple and maybe some stained glass; some grim and Gothic setting here, hidden in Anthem. But this church is just another warehouse in the poorest of the poor areas of Section. One worse off than us, where almost everyone I’ve asked for directions from is homeless or speaks another language.

The last wrong turn we made seems to have put us near the Cantonese-speaking area. Not one of my even passable languages.

Serena walks like she’s in a fog. Plus, she refuses to eat and has grown perilously thin. Manda has fussed and worried, tried everything to avoid this dangerous visit, but it’s becoming clear we might actually lose Serena, so we have to try everything.

Once we arrive, we wait at the back while a man in front of a gathering of four speaks rapidly in Russian. It takes me a moment before I realize he’s the preacher and he’s giving a sermon.

From what little I can decipher, they’re laughing at his joke about roosters in his room and an “everything” soup with a boot in it that he’d eaten once in their country.

Serena sits and stares at the crucifix propped up against the far wall. That thing makes me uneasy; it
has
to be illegal.

When the man has finished, he strides over, mopping his brow. It’s boiling today, strengthening the odor of humanity.

“Can I help you?” he asks in an accent that’s decidedly not Russian.

“Oh. You
do
speak English.”

“I do.” His lilt and his smile are both broad. “There’s another night in English.”

“Okay then,” I say, “we can come back.” And I place a hand on Serena’s elbow to leave.

“No,” he says, “I think you can stay.” And he glances at Serena with a knowing look. “Name’s Nathaniel, but everyone calls me Nate.”

“Liza.” I sigh with relief. “And this is Serena.”

Nate notices me eyeing the cross. “Mother is a bit of the old church,” he tells me, and his accent becomes clearer.

“Irish…?” I ask.

“’Tis. Is that English you’ve got there?”

My laugh is stiff. “Yes. Slightly.”

He grunts a noise from his throat. “We’re a long way from home, miss. I’ve seen England since the flood, have you? No? Well, it’s doing a far bit better than my own island, I’ll tell ya that. They’ve not as much food, mind you, but plenty of tea.”

“I miss my mother’s tea.” So, England still has people. How many other regions are alive?

“A true blue blood, was she?” Nate crosses his arms as if he’d known all along.

“Yes. She said coffee was like drinking gasoline. My father disagreed.”

“Probably why they stayed married, then. I know my da was always pickin’ on my ma, and it took me until the last few years to understand it.”

“I know what you mean,” I say. “It’s good to argue about banal things in light of what arguments we have now.”

Nate scratches his scruffy chin in thought. “A philosopher and a royal. What made you leave?”

“Well, I actually never lived there. Even though we traveled a lot, I only visited London once, and it was such a short visit. I always thought to go … until … well, after.”

“You’ve not been living in Ash City, though. That much is sure.”

“How’d you know?”

He shrugs. “That look of seemingly useless hope is still stamped upon your face.”

My sudden laugh surprises me, but I cover my mouth and check that cross again.

Nate flashes me a grin between his mustache and short beard. “He won’t mind. But if you’ve come to see a preacher, you’re a smidge too late. Preachin’ was my brother’s job. The Authority took him just last week.”

I nod in sympathy. “And you stayed?”

“I’ve no choice.” His gaze wanders over to Serena and back to me again.

My whisper in reply seems so loud in here. “I didn’t know what else to do. She’s been so depressed.”

“These are depressing times.”

An older woman separates from the small group of Russians and catches my eye with a bright smile as she comes over. She and Nate hold some unspoken communication before she turns to face Serena with a softened gaze.

“Mother,” he says, “will you take this one to the back with you? Might be better where it’s more private.”

“Of course. Come along, dearie.” Her accent’s twice as strong as her son’s.

With a cluck of her tongue, she takes Serena’s hand to guide her away.

Nate stops me from following. “Let her speak with her for a moment alone, miss. We’ve seen a good many come in like this, and it does no good to have a crowd.”

“How did you know?”

His expression turns weary and he sits. “Most of the time we have young girls come in here, all pale and sickly afterwards. And they all have that same look, with their hands still wrapped around their middles.”

“What will she say to her? Your mother, I mean.”

“She’ll tell her that she can heal; that what’s lost in this way won’t always hurt so bad. She’ll open up to Mother more than to you or me; she has a way of handling these types of delicate things, you know. She has ‘the touch.’ Gets through to them.”

Relief loosens my spine, and I sit, as well. We’d both felt so helpless, Manda and I. What could we possibly know about children lost?

Nate asks, “I suppose you have questions, yourself?”

“Me? Not really.”

“Have you been raised in the faith?”

“No. My father said everyone’s path is his alone. He learned this through watching my mother pass.”

“Your father sounds very wise.”

“He was. He believed in something, though, I think. In his own way. He used to say music was his religion, because it had life and its own spirit, that it was proof there is more to this world than just breathing. I think that’s where I stand, as well.”

“That makes a lot of sense. But something else brought you here. I believe that, too.”

“Maybe.” I smile back at his own smile. “I thought you said you weren’t a preacher?”

He laughs.

“What did you do before the flood?” I ask.

“I’m a microbiologist. Mostly, my work was in the field. My brother, Collin, and I, we fought fiercely for years over what to believe. To think, those types of fights used to matter so much….”

“And now?”

“We found a common ground, built this place—”

His expression is grim while in thought, and Serena returns, interrupting the rest of what Nate wanted to say. She has more color in her face than I’ve seen in a long time, and although she’s still quite sad, her steps aren’t as slow and filled with despair.

She says she promised to visit again, and I tell her that we will.

Jeremy’s at my
door, wearing that detestable guilty look.

He reaches for my hand, and his fingers tighten around my wrist. “Come on.”

He leads me back toward the wall on our side. We arrive at its base, and I’m shivering slightly from the very thought of how big and tall it is.

Jeremy finds the part he was looking for and guides me into an elevator shaft. “We have about a half-hour,” he says. “This side of the wall is dead for a while.”

We go inside, and he presses the button.

It’s a slow ride to the top, and for some reason I don’t want to break the silence. I’m suddenly worried.

With a hiss and a jerk, the elevator stops, and Jeremy rattles the doors open along the track.

A strong wind immediately blows inside.

I follow, carefully, even though it’s wide enough up here to build two houses side-by-side.

The view takes my breath away. We’re in the clouds, grey and lifeless, but far below sits the old world.

“It’s like a jungle down there,” I say.

“Yeah,” says Jeremy. “It all grew back after we left it alone.”

Most visible are the treetops, and off in the distance lies an old city. I can’t remember which one, and I really don’t care, because Jeremy is acting strange, which is making me nervous.

I drag my gaze away from history, turn to face him. “What’s wrong?”

He sighs, and the wind lifts his hair. Without looking at me, he quietly says, “Liza, we need to say goodbye.”

“Why?”

His shoulders slump, and he finally faces me, my hand still gripped inside his larger one. “You can’t get hurt. Not for me.”

I pull free and cup his face. “The people are finally angry, and they have every right to be. I’m not as innocent or weak as you think, Jeremy. I can help.”

He shakes his head, searching my face.

“Jeremy, I want to. I need to.”

“Why?”

I cross my arms. “You don’t get to ask me that. You don’t know what it was like; you can only imagine.”

He turns toward the edge again, and instantly I feel guilty. This boy has a past, too. A brutal one. In my hypocrisy, I’ve dismissed his pain. Still, how can he not see? The rebellion needs every person it can get.