The Invasion of the Tearling

“Lady—”

“Shhh.” Kelsea was dreaming now, awake and dreaming at the same time. Lily had called, and Kelsea had heard her. Everything had darkened; Kelsea groped blindly in the shadows, seeking the past. If Kelsea could only reach them, Lily and William Tear. She could picture them standing before her, their eyes kind … but all around them swirled a maelstrom of violence. Lily—

LILY.”

She spun around, hearing a whisper behind her, certain it was Greg. But there was nothing, only early sunlight streaming through the living room windows. The nearly silent motors of the house’s internal processes hummed along inside the walls. Had her house ever seemed so small before? The furniture she had bought, the carpet she had chosen … there was a falsity to these things, a sense that she could push them aside and see chalk markings, a bare stage.

Greg was not in the house. The kitchen floor had provided no answers, only a large smear of dried blood. Had Greg gotten up, called an ambulance? There was no way to know. The stain on the kitchen floor had the thick, viscous look of menstrual blood, and it reminded Lily that she had forgotten to take her pill the night before. She headed for the nursery, leaving Jonathan in the kitchen. Did she have anything to do today? Yes, lunch with Michele and Sarah, but that could be canceled. If Security came for her, it would be better to have it happen here than downtown or at the club. Lily didn’t kid herself that she would hold up well under questioning, but she thought she had the parameters clear now. She would break, one way or another; her job was simply to make sure that she didn’t break until September first. Could she do that? She closed her eyes, looking for the better world, but instead she found William Tear, standing beneath the streetlights.

The nursery faced eastward, a wash of light in the early sun. Lily darted over to the loose tile, suddenly aware of the sun moving, of the fact that Greg, or Security, could show up at any time. After she took her pill, she would run upstairs and take a shower, put on a good dress and some makeup. Security would come, and when they did, the way she looked would matter. She would appear as respectable as possible, a woman who couldn’t possibly be involved in midnight journeys, in separatist plots. She would—

The space beneath the tile was empty.

Lily rocked back on her heels, staring in disbelief. Yesterday she’d had ten boxes of pills in there. Cash too, over two thousand dollars, her emergency stash. Lily’s stomach seemed to contract in on itself as the meaning of the empty hole socked home. Her pills were gone.

“Lose something?”

Lily croaked in fright and nearly fell over, clutching the arm of her sofa for balance, as Greg emerged from behind the nursery door. The left side of his head was caked with dried blood; it had matted his hair and trickled down his neck to stain the shoulder of his white shirt. He was grinning.

“Where’ve you been, Lily?”

“Nowhere,” she whispered. She wanted to speak up, to be strong, but she seemed to have no voice. When Greg wasn’t around, he became diminutive in her mind, but in real life, he wasn’t small at all. In the light, airy space of the nursery, he seemed about ten feet tall.

“Nowhere,” Greg repeated smoothly. “Just out and about, all night, outside the wall.”

“That’s right. I got carjacked too, in case you care.”

“All night, outside the wall,” Greg repeated, and Lily shuddered. His eyes were wide and empty, dark orbs that seemed to reflect no light. “My dad was right, you know. He said all women are cunts, and I said no, Lily’s different. And look here!”

Greg held up a box of her pills, pinching them between two fingers, the way he would something diseased. And now something utterly unexpected and wonderful happened: at the sight of her pills, Lily’s panic melted quickly and silently away. She straightened, took a deep breath, and tipped her head to one side, cracking her neck, as he loomed closer. She had to fight the urge to jump up and grab the small orange box out of his hand.

“All the bullshit I had to listen to, all the jokes they made at my expense. Do you know what I’ve had to put up with because of you? I lost out on a promotion last year because I didn’t have a son! My boss calls me Blank-Shooting Greg.”

“Catchy.”

Greg’s eyes narrowed. “You want to be careful, Lily. I could turn you over to Security right now.”

“Do that. Better them than you.”

“No.” Greg’s mouth twisted upward in a wide, spitless grin. “I think we’ll keep this just between us. Where were you?”

“None of your business.”

He slapped her, and her head rocked backward on her neck, a flower bobbing on its stalk. But she kept her feet.

“You need to learn to watch your mouth, Lily. Where were you last night?”