Once An Eve Novel

fourteen



THE BLACK CONVERTIBLE CREPT ALONG THE MAIN ROAD, speeding up, then stopping, like a frightened cockroach. I rode in back with Beatrice, the King in the car ahead of us. There were nearly half a million people in the City, and it seemed as if all of them had turned out for the parade. They stood, hands outstretched over the barricades that lined the street, cheering and waving. A sign hung down the side of one building, WELCOME, PRINCESS GENEVIEVE painted in tall red letters.

We rolled forward. The Palace was just ahead, the cluster of giant white buildings a hundred yards away. A marble pedestal was set up in front of the fountains. A wooden podium faced out over the largest crowd of all, gathered on the street just in front of it. I couldn’t stop thinking of Caleb, of the troops tracking him through the wild. I hadn’t slept. My head ached, a dull, constant pain.

“Princess! Princess! Over here!” a girl cried. She couldn’t have been much older than me, her hair a tangle of black curls. She bounced up and down on her heels. But I looked right past her, at the man hovering over her shoulder. His hair was so greasy it stuck to his forehead, his chin rough from days without shaving.

The car idled, waiting for the King to exit his vehicle in front of the Palace steps. The man pushed through the crowd. I gripped the seat, suddenly looking for the soldiers who were stationed along the parade route, guns in their hands. The nearest one was five feet behind me, his eyes locked on the King’s vehicle. The man pressed closer.

Then his hand was up, hurling a large gray rock through the air. Time slowed. I saw it coming toward me in a clear arc. But before it reached me the car lurched forward. The rock whizzed behind my back and ricocheted off the far barricade, panicking the crowd.

“He threw it at her!” a heavyset woman with a blue scarf yelled to the soldier, as the rock skidded across the pavement, settling by the curb. “That man threw a rock at the Princess!” She pointed to the man across the street. He was already pushing into the crowd, away from the Palace, toward the vast stretches of land beyond the City center.

“Are you all right?” A soldier ran at the car, resting his hand on the door. Two more took off after the man.

“Yes,” I said, my breath short. Three soldiers surrounded the car as we moved closer to the Palace. “Who was he?” I asked Beatrice, scanning the crowd for more angry faces.

“The King has made the City a great place,” Beatrice said, smiling at the soldiers who now walked beside the car. “But there are still some who are unhappy,” she said, her voice much lower. “Very unhappy.”

One of the soldiers opened the door of the car, letting us out in front of the giant marble stairs. The screaming crowd drowned out my thoughts. People leaned over the barricades, their hands reaching out for me.

Beatrice stooped to grab the train of the red evening gown I wore, and I kneeled beside her, pretending to adjust my shoe. “What do you mean?” I asked, remembering what the King had said about the people who questioned his choices. Her eyes darted up to a soldier standing just a few feet away, waiting to escort me to my seat. “Are you unhappy here?” I whispered.

Beatrice let out an uncomfortable laugh, her eyes returning to the soldier. “The people are waiting for you, Princess,” she said. “We should go.” In one swift motion she stood, fluffing the train of the dress.

I climbed the stairs, the soldiers surrounding me. The crowd fell silent. The midday sun was scorching. The King stood to greet me, pressing his thin lips once against each cheek. Sergeant Stark sat beside him. He’d traded his uniform for a dark green suit, medals and badges marking its front. Beside him was a short, plump man, his bald spot pink and sweaty from the sun. I sat down in the empty seat next to him as the King took his place at the podium.

“Citizens of The New America. We have come together on this glorious day to celebrate my daughter, Princess Genevieve.” He gestured to me and the people cheered, their applause echoing off the giant stone buildings. I looked straight ahead, taking in the crowd, which expanded across the City sidewalks and into alleyways. Spectators hung out of the top floors of apartment buildings. Others stood on the overpass, their palms against the glass.

“Twelve years she was inside one of our prestigious Schools, until she was discovered and returned to me. While Genevieve was there, she excelled in every subject, learned to play the piano and paint, and enjoyed the security of the guarded compound. She, like so many of the School’s students, received an unparalleled education. The Teachers spoke of her commitment to her studies and her boundless enthusiasm, describing it as the very spirit on which our nation was built so many years ago, and on which it has now been rebuilt.

“This is all a testament to the success of our new education system, and a tribute to our Head of Education, Horace Jackson.” The short man bowed his head, taking in the burst of applause. I looked at him in disgust, his shoulder just inches from mine. Sweat ran down the sides of his head and caught in the thin ring of gray hair.

The King kept speaking of my return, how proud he was to bring me here, to this City that had been established on the first of January over a decade before. “The Princess was lucky. On her journey to the City of Sand she was escorted by this nation’s brave soldiers, among them the fierce and loyal Sergeant Stark. It was Sergeant Stark who found her, who put his own life at risk to bring her back to us.” Stark rose to receive a medal. The King went on about his service and commitment, detailing his accomplishments as he promoted him to lieutenant.

I closed my eyes, retreating into myself. The shouts, the cheers, that booming voice I’d heard on the radio so many times before, all of it disappeared. I remembered lying beside Caleb that night on the mountain, the thick, musty sweaters we wore an unwelcome wall between us. He had pulled me to him, my body resting against his to keep warm. We’d stayed like that all night, my head on his chest, listening to the quiet drumming of his heart.

“And now to conclude,” the King said cheerfully. “I’d like to introduce you once again to the Golden Generation, the bright young children who came directly from the birthing initiatives. Every day, women are volunteering their service to support The New America and help restore this country to its fullest potential. Every day our nation becomes stronger, less vulnerable to war and disease. As we grow in numbers we come closer to returning to our rich past, to becoming the people we once were—the nation that invented electricity, air travel, and the telephone. The nation that put a man on the moon.”

At this, people broke out into wild applause. A chant started somewhere in the back of the crowd and rippled forward, a great ocean of feeling. “We will rise again! We will rise again!” they repeated, their voices blending together into one.

The crowd in front of him looked vulnerable and desperate. Their faces were thin, their shoulders stooped. Some were badly scarred, others had leathery, sunburned skin, deep creases in their foreheads. A man standing on top of a hotel awning was missing an arm. The Teachers had often spoken of the chaos in the years after the plague. No one went to hospitals for fear of the disease. Broken arms were splinted with the leg of a chair, the handle of a broom. Wounds were stitched up with sewing thread, and infected limbs were amputated with handsaws. People looted stores. Survivors were attacked on the way home from supermarkets. Their cars were raided, their houses burglarized. People died fighting over a single bottle of water. The worst was what they did to the women, Teacher Agnes had said, staring out the window, its frame pitted and broken from where the bars had been removed. Rapes, kidnappings, and abuse. My neighbor was shot when she refused to give her daughter to a gang.

The King cleared his throat, pausing before resuming the speech. “Becoming your leader has been the greatest honor of my life. We have embarked on a long road, and I will see you through to its end.” His voice cracked. “I will not fail you.”

The King took his seat beside me. He grabbed my hand, squeezing it in his own. Looking out at the crowd, it was easy to believe he was right—that he had saved the people inside the City walls. They seemed calm, happy even, in his presence. I wondered if I was the only one who thought now of the boys in the labor camps, or the girls who were still trapped inside the Schools.

There were children assembled behind us on risers. They were all about five—the same age as Benny and Silas—but much smaller. The boys were dressed in crisp white shirts and pants, the girls in the same jumpers we’d worn at School, gray dresses with the New American crest pasted over the front. “Amazing Grace,” a girl with a long auburn braid sang into the microphone. “How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found …”

The chorus joined in, swaying back and forth as they sang, their voices cutting clear across the City. Their mothers might’ve been the girls who had graduated five years before me. Pip and I had watched them from our upstairs window. We loved how they walked, how they tousled their hair, how they seemed so womanly and beautiful striding across the lawn. I want to be just like them, Pip had said, leaning her head over the stone ledge. They’re so … cool.

The crowd was overcome. Some wrapped their arms around friends, others stood with their eyes closed. A woman lowered her head to cry, blotting her face with the sleeve of her shirt. I almost looked away, but something behind her caught my eye. A man was standing just a yard away from the metal barricade. Everyone else was engrossed in the music. He was in the center of them all. He didn’t move. He wasn’t paying attention to the children behind me, to Lieutenant Stark, or to the King. He was looking only at me.

Then he smiled. It was barely noticeable—just a tiny curl of the lips, a brightness in his pale green eyes. His head had been shaved. He was thinner, yes, clad in a dark brown suit. But my whole body knew him, the tears coming fast as we stared at each other, letting the truth of it sink in.

Caleb had found me.

He was in the City of Sand.