Rise An Eve Novel

twenty-three



IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS THE BEACH WAS QUIET. CLARA started the wash, plunging the clothes into the cold water. She looked so natural doing it, rubbing the fabric together, loosening the dirt, I hardly recognized her as the girl I had met in the City Palace so many months before. She spread the clothes out on the rocks to dry, adding them to the rest. Shirts and pants, sweaters and socks—they all laid there, colorful shadows on the shore.

As Sarah and I started down the sandy incline, carrying pots for lake water, I noticed Helene. She sat off to the side, her bad foot resting in the shallows. The swelling had gone down, but it was apparent now that the bone hadn’t healed right. Her ankle was turned outward at an odd angle. She reached for it, pressing her fingers against the tender spot where it had broken. “Best not to,” I said, setting the pots down. I leaned over to examine the bone. The skin was a greenish blue—the remnants of bruising.

“It looks horrible,” she said. “Last night I woke up because it was throbbing. It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it? I’ll never be able to walk on it again.” She searched my face, looking for some answer.

“We’ll get you better help when we reach Califia. There’s a woman there who studied medicine. I don’t know enough to tell you,” I said, brushing back her braids. But it seemed, more than a week later, that the bone had set wrong. There might’ve been a chance to rebreak it, but I couldn’t imagine that—to have to suffer through the pain all over again. I picked up the two boards and set them down on either side of her shin, helping her tie the splint back in place.

Sarah dropped her pots at the edge of the lake. “That’s what Beatrice keeps saying, but how long do we have to stay here before we can leave?” She pointed out over the water. “If we’re going to be here much longer, you have to at least teach us how to swim. How are we supposed to help fish if I can’t even go in past my knees?”

“This is a good place to rest,” I said. “We have supplies here, and we don’t need a lookout at night. We should stay a day or two more.” I stared at a spot across the lake, just barely able to see Ruby and Pip behind the trees. They went out every morning, alone, gathering berries and wild grapes. I didn’t know if it would ever seem like enough time here. Three days or thirty, when I left I’d be leaving them all over again.

I pulled my sweater down, over the width of my stomach, making sure it was covered. Every day my body felt different. I’d traded my worn jeans for wider pants, adjusting the belt. My breasts were swollen and sore, my face fuller, and I could feel my stomach expanding out, growing harder to conceal. I hadn’t wanted to tell the girls. I’d imagined how it would change their perception of me, that I might seem weaker, more vulnerable if they knew. When we were back on the road, dividing our meager supplies, I didn’t want them worrying that there wasn’t enough. Beatrice and Clara had already insisted on sharing their small portions, trying to keep up my energy on the way to the dugout.

Then there was Caleb. It had been so long since I’d spoken his name out loud. How could I explain what had happened between us? How could the girls understand that I’d not only spent time with him but that I had loved him? Wasn’t I just like those women the Teachers had always spoken about, ruined, in some ways, by that love? It was as though some invisible wall had been erected, separating me from everyone else. Now that Caleb was dead, what was I supposed to do with the love I still felt? Where was it all supposed to go?

Pip and Ruby were coming closer, weaving through the trees. I could feel Clara watching them, waiting to see if they turned toward us, onto the beach. They’d decided to eat separately, taking their meals to their room for the past two days. They spent the afternoons with Benny and Silas, the mornings scavenging the woods by the lakefront, coming back with the occasional find—a plastic cup, bent fork, or unlabeled can. I hadn’t tried to speak to them since our first night. A silence had settled between us. I would think of the words to say, carefully forming another apology, then we’d pass in the corridor. Pip would barely look up, barely acknowledge me, and I’d be reminded again that it wasn’t enough. Nothing I said could ever be enough.

Pip had a sack in one hand. She stepped beyond the trees, Ruby following behind. I watched them approach as Sarah filled one pot, then the next. “I just want to be there already,” she said. “I feel like this whole time I’ve just been waiting. You and Beatrice keep talking about all these things we’ll have at Califia, but it just reminds everyone of what we don’t have now.”

“We’ll leave soon,” I promised, dipping my pot into the water.

My gaze returned to Ruby and Pip. Pip glanced up, and for a moment her face changed, her eyes meeting mine, her lips twisting to one side in an almost smile. She came toward us, holding my gaze for the first time since we’d arrived. “We found some black willow bark,” she said. She pulled the brown flakes from the sack, then looked from me to Helene. “I heard your leg was hurting you last night. This might help.”

Sarah set the pot of water onto the beach, her brows knitted together, as if not quite certain it was Pip who was speaking. She’d ignored most of the girls since our fight. “You eat it?” Sarah asked.

Ruby pointed to the pot of water. “You boil it, then drink the tea. Pip has been reading a book we found in the dugout about natural remedies. Black willow bark helps with pain.” Ruby offered Helene her arm, trying to ease her onto her feet. “Why don’t you two come with me. We can make it now, then you’ll have plenty for tonight. We can even make some for your trip.” She took one of the pots from Sarah, and they started up the beach. Ruby glanced back, nodding to me before she left.

Pip settled down on the beach. She dug her feet into the sand, her toes just grazing the lake’s edge. “She thinks I should talk to you.” She stared straight ahead as she said it, looking out over the lake.

So she was sitting here because Ruby told her to? Now that she’d done it, begrudgingly, she couldn’t even look at me. How long was I supposed to wait here in this desperate, pleading place of apology, hoping she’d forgive me? “And what do you think?” I asked.

Pip brushed a few tangled curls away from her face. In the daylight I could see her freckles had faded, the gray circles under her eyes making her look perpetually tired. “I think she’s right,” she said. “I think there are still things left to say.”

I dug my fingers into the sand, satisfied when I had a good handful—something, anything to hold on to. “I would change everything if I could,” I said. “You have to know that.”

“I know.” Pip picked up a worn twig from the shore, rubbing it between her fingers before finally turning to me. “But so much of that time in that building I spent thinking about you, worrying about where you were. I thought they might’ve taken you somewhere else. But when I saw you across the lake, in that dress, it was so obvious you’d been living in the City that whole time. I hated you for not being there with me. And it’s too late now. I’m living a life I don’t want. I never chose this.” She looked down at her stomach, the T-shirt that tightened around her midsection. Then she lowered her head, pressing her fingers into her eyes.

“There is no choice anymore. I didn’t want to be my father’s daughter. I was in the City when the siege happened—I saw my friends hanged. I saw someone I loved shot and killed by soldiers. I didn’t want any of it. We’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve been given,” I said, repeating Charles’s words. The Palace, that suite—it felt far away now, a memory from a time before. “And maybe some people’s best isn’t enough. Maybe I didn’t do enough.”

“Someone you loved?” Pip asked. “Is that the one Arden told us about? Caleb?”

“He was killed,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I should go on, but it somehow felt wrong that Clara and Beatrice knew something Pip didn’t. Even now, even after so much time apart. “I’m pregnant. Nearly four months. I haven’t told the other girls.”

Pip studied me. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “Why would you want this?”

“There’s no way to prevent it inside the City,” I said. “And with everything the Teachers said, there was no way to know what was the truth. I didn’t know all the consequences, but I can’t regret what we did. I loved him.”

Pip shook her head. “Both of us,” she said, her eyes misting over. “It just feels like everything is ending, like a part of me has died. Remember last year at this time? Remember all the things we talked about? I kept imagining the apartment we’d have in the City. I thought it would be so incredible to learn a trade, to live beyond the compound walls.”

“We have time still.” I let the sand fall through my fingers, then took her hand in my own. She didn’t pull away. “You have to come with us to Califia. It’ll be safer for you there, for both of us. You could stay there indefinitely.” She was already shaking her head. “What are you going to do here, with just you and Ruby? You can’t stay here forever—eventually the supplies will run out.”

Pip squeezed my hand hard. “I just can’t go right now,” she said. “It doesn’t feel right. I’m barely able to manage here—how am I going to be on the road for a week?”

“If we take the horses it’ll only be a few days. You wouldn’t have to walk,” I said.

Pip slipped her hand from under mine, instead resting it on her stomach. “What if something happens on the way to Califia? I’d just rather stay here. I don’t care what the risk is. It’s too late to leave now—it’s been nearly six months.”

I heard the sound of shifting rocks behind me. Beatrice started down the beach, hugging a sack of clothes. She dropped them on the ground behind Clara and rolled her pants up. She watched us as she waded in, carefully studying Pip, who was still wiping at her eyes. “How many horses are there left?” I asked.

“Maybe six or seven,” Pip said. “They took at least half of them. The others who came through had supplies, too. Someone had stolen one of the government Jeeps.”

“Four days,” I tried again. “That’s all. Can you try?”

“I don’t have the energy, I don’t.” Her chin shook a little, the way it always did when she was trying not to cry. “If you have to go, I’ll understand.”

I looked out on the lake, on its still, glassy surface. We’d be safer in Califia. The girls could begin settling in, permanently, making homes for themselves among the rest of the escapees. But how could we leave Ruby and Pip here? As much as I didn’t want to accept it, I knew it was more dangerous for her to travel than it was for me. It was likely she was carrying more than one child, like most of the girls from the compound. Since we’d arrived she’d always seemed exhausted, retreating to her room before dinner to sleep for hours, sometimes not waking until after the sun had gone down. “I won’t leave you again,” I said.

“But I can’t, Eve.”

“I know you can’t go,” I said. “Then I won’t either.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. She pressed her face into my neck, and in an instant we returned to the comfortable silence between us. At School we’d always been good at sharing space with quiet understanding, being alone together without saying a word.

It was a long while before Clara’s voice called out from the beach. “We’re all finished,” she said, setting the last of the shirts down on the rocks. She came toward us, her expression softening. I could tell she was relieved to see us talking. “I was planning on training the girls this afternoon, assuming the horses are ready?” She looked to Pip.

“They should be,” she said. “Ruby feeds them every morning. She can take you to the stable—it’s about a quarter mile from here.”

“Good, then,” Clara said, drying her hands on the front of her pants. “Once the girls have the basics down we can go. Give me two days with them, maybe three, depending on the horses.”

Clara had learned to ride in the City stables, spending the first few years training there. She’d taken me once, and I’d learned just enough to coax the horse around the giant dirt ring.

“I’m going to stay here,” I explained, unable to look at her as I said it. “I’m going to stay with Ruby and Pip until it’s safe enough to leave for Califia.”

“Just the three of you?” she asked. “What about the girls?”

“You have to go without me. You know how to ride, and I can show you the route to take. It might even be safer in Califia without me there. They don’t know you’re related to my father.”

Clara just stood there. She didn’t look away, as if she were waiting for me to rethink it, to take it back before it was set. “I’ll come as soon as I can,” I ventured. I owed something to Clara, too, for leaving the City with me. Either way, if I stayed or went, I was betraying one of my friends. “I just can’t leave them here.”

“Right, I understand,” Clara said, but she looked past me, to where the beach met the trees. “I’ll be able to take them the rest of the way.”

She stared at me, the silence settling between us. “It won’t be for long,” I said, but she was already turning away, walking quickly up the beach.