Once An Eve Novel

twelve



“AND THIS IS WHERE YOU’LL HAVE YOUR AFTERNOON TEA,” Beatrice said, gesturing at the massive atrium. Three walls were all windows, and the glass ceiling exposed the starless sky. We had passed the formal dining room, the sitting area, the locked guest suites, and the maid’s kitchen. It had all gone by in a blur. He is your father, I repeated to myself, as if I were a stranger delivering the news. The King is your father.

No matter how many times I turned over the thought, it seemed impossible. I felt the hardwood floors beneath my feet. I smelled the sickeningly sweet cider boiling on the stove down the hall. I saw the sterile white walls, the polished wooden doors, heard the clack clack clack of Beatrice’s low heels. But I still couldn’t believe that I was here, in the King’s Palace, so far away from School, Califia, and the wild. So far from Arden, Pip, and Caleb.

Beatrice walked two steps ahead of me, telling me about the indoor pool, rattling off the thread count of the sheets. She went on about the fresh meats and vegetables that were delivered to the Palace daily, the King’s personal chef, and something called air conditioning. I didn’t listen. Everywhere I looked I saw a locked door with a keypad beside it.

“All the doors need a code to open?” I asked.

Beatrice glanced at me over her shoulder. “Only some. Your safety is obviously very important, so the King has asked that I not share the code. You can call me on the intercom if you need anything, and I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

“Right,” I muttered. “My safety.”

“You must be relieved to be here,” Beatrice went on. “I wanted to say how sorry I was about all you’ve been through.” I watched as she punched in the code to the suite, trying to catch as many numbers as I could. She pushed open the door, exposing a wide bed, chandelier, and a serving cart with a covered silver platter. The faint smell of roast chicken filled the room. “I’ve heard what happened in the wild—how that Stray took you, how he murdered those soldiers right in front of you.”

“A Stray?” I asked. The photograph of my mother trembled in my hands.

“The boy,” she said, lowering her voice as she led me into the bathroom. “The boy who kidnapped you. I guess it isn’t public yet, but the Palace workers have all heard. You must be so grateful to Sergeant Stark for bringing you back here, inside the walls. Everyone’s talking about his upcoming promotion.”

My stomach felt hollow. Stark’s words in the elevator returned, his promise that he would never let me forget what happened that day. He must’ve known how I felt about Caleb. He had seen how concerned I was on that ride in the Jeep, could hear the panic in my voice as I begged him to stitch up Caleb’s leg. It all became sickeningly clear: As the King’s daughter, I could never be executed in the City. But Caleb could.

“You have it wrong. Caleb didn’t kill anyone. I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for him.” I tried to look her in the face, but she turned away. She stood in front of the sink and twisted on the faucet, waiting until the water was hot and steaming.

“But that’s what everyone’s saying,” she repeated. “They’re searching for the boy in the wild. There’s a warrant out for him.”

“You don’t understand,” I managed. “They’re all lying. You don’t know what the King has done out there. He’s evil—”

Beatrice’s eyes widened. When she finally spoke her voice was so low I could barely hear it over the running water. “You didn’t mean that,” she whispered. “You cannot say such things about the King.”

I pointed to the window, the land stretched out for hundreds of miles. “My closest friends are imprisoned right now in those Schools. They are being used like farm animals, like they never imagined or hoped for anything different.”

I let the photograph fall to the floor and put my head in my hands. I heard Beatrice shuffling around the bedroom, opening and closing drawers. The tap was still running. Then she was beside me, tugging the sour, sweat-soaked shirt from my body, helping me step out of the muddy pants. She set a hot, soapy cloth on the back of my neck and ran it over my shoulders, working the dirt off my skin.

“Maybe you misunderstood or misheard,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s a choice the girls have at the Schools—it’s always a choice. The ones who are part of the birthing initiative volunteered.”

“They didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “They didn’t. We didn’t …” I bit my bottom lip. I wanted to hate her, this foolish woman, who was telling me about my School, my friends, my life. I wanted to take hold of her arm and squeeze, until she listened. She had to listen—why wouldn’t she just listen? But she worked the washcloth over my back, gently lifting up the thin straps of my tank top. She wiped the dirt from my legs and out from between my toes and rubbed at the mud behind my knees. She did it with such care. After so many months on the run, of sleeping in the cold basements of abandoned houses, her tenderness was almost too much to bear.

“They hunted us,” I went on, letting my body relax just a little. “The troops hunted me and Caleb. They stabbed him. And my friend Arden was dragged back to that School. She was screaming.” I paused, waiting for her to argue, but she was kneeling beside me, the washcloth hovering over the gash on my arm.

She turned over my hands, staring at the bluish-red line around my wrist where the restraints had been. The cloth slipped over the mark, working at the raw skin, the blood now a thin, purple crust. “We shouldn’t be talking about the troops this way,” she said slowly, less assured. “I can’t.” She looked up at me, her eyes pleading with me to stop. Finally, she turned away and picked up a nightgown she’d laid out on the bed.

I took the ruffled dress from her hand and slung it over my head. I wanted to cry, to let my body heave with sobs, but I was too exhausted. There was nothing in me left. “He can’t be my father,” I mumbled, not caring if she was listening. “He just can’t be.” I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.

Beatrice sat down beside me, the mattress springs creaking underneath her. She pressed a clean washcloth to my face, wiping around my hairline, my cheeks, then folded it and placed it gently over my eyes. The whole world was black.

The day had been too much. The hope of seeing Caleb, the soldiers’ attack, Arden and Ruby and the King with his declarations—the weight of it fell on me, pinning me down. Beatrice was right beside me still, her gentle fingers rubbing at my temples, but she seemed so far away.

“You’re not feeling well,” she offered. “Yes,” she repeated to herself as I drifted off. “That must be it.”