*
I AM WOKEN JUST before dawn by Brax’s sudden shifting. In an instant he’s on his feet. My head, which had been resting on his furry neck, cracks against the ground.
“Ouch!” I grumble, rubbing my tender skull.
Brax is hunkered down in a pounce position and the hair on the crest of his neck has begun to stand on end. His black lips have drawn back menacingly over sharp teeth, but he does not growl because he’s smart and knows the value of silence.
I rise up onto my elbows and listen intently for what has spooked Brax. A moment later, the office’s automatic glass door slides open.
“Home, Brax,” I command. Brax tilts his head at me, and there is a sharp edge of resentment in his blue eyes, almost as though he’s angry because I won’t let him be a hero.
But he already is my hero. He is my only real friend.
“Home,” I say again, just as the Watcher’s boots scuff against the dirt outside the office.
This time he listens. I barely catch the silver of Brax’s tail as he scrams into the sewer. My heart relaxes when he completely disappears from view.
The Watcher rounds the corner of the office and stares at me for long enough to make me fidgety. Not as though he’s interested, but as though this time he will fulfill what the Governess has asked of him. As far as Watcher positions go, guarding a girl in solitary probably rates up there with shining boots or scrubbing latrines.
I glance at the key on his chest strap and feel the frown pull at my lips. I’d have gone for it today if I hadn’t blown it yesterday. Now he’s more wary than before. His gaze flickers down to where I was looking, and immediately I turn away.
The morning is cool and has left a glossy layer of dew on my skin. Without the warmth of my Brax pillow, I’m beginning to feel the cold. When I rub my now shivering arm, a glimmering black streak remains. The tiny bits of coal floating in the morning smog will continue to paint me until a breeze clears it from the valley, which might be weeks.
I rise, and rotate my sore wrist as much as I can within the metal bracelet. With the moisture, the skin is already beginning to chafe, but I can’t focus on that. There are things I have to do today.
I begin by jogging around my horseshoe-shaped pen, the chain tossed over my shoulder. At the end of my run I do sprints, hiking my slinky dress up around my thighs and racing around the office like a caged animal. I do push-ups, sit-ups. The things the Pips beat me for in the rec yard because the men who come from the street don’t need to think the Garden is for loons.
If they think I’m a loon, so be it. When I break out of here, I’m going to run so fast they’ll never catch me.
The Watcher tracks me every time I cross in front of his view, but he doesn’t get up to stop me. There are plants here in the solitary yard he probably thinks are weeds. A fat purslane bush with its purple forking stems. Ivy and hotrod. Near the brook I find the flat lobed leaves of the bloodroot, and I pull it up from the roots and lay it on a large rock to dry. In small doses bloodroot can aid a cough. In heavier doses, the red, bleeding stems can be used as a sedative, so strong it will knock you flat. A little more and you won’t wake up again.
I’ve made it that strong one time. I hope I never have to again.
Finally, when the sun is swallowed by the evening haze, I make a big show of gulping down my dinner pill in front of the glass office wall and stare across the open area to the rec yard, where the girls are milling about near the building, fifty paces away. I can see them strutting around like that actress—Solace. Repeating her words that are played on the media booths downtown like she’s some icon, not the property of some man, like most everyone else.
Several of them are taunting the men who stand on the street gawking. It’s a smaller crowd than usual, but rowdier. I can tell by their bold invitations that they’ve been drinking. I remind myself with a sigh of relief that it’s market day and I’ve avoided the auction yet again.
I can’t see Daphne and wonder if she’s inside meeting with a potential buyer. Probably not. She’s been here longer than me and nobody’s wanted her yet.
Some of the girls see me, and though I can’t hear what they’re saying, I know it ends in laughter. I fight back the bitterness that bites into my stomach and remind myself that I’m better off alone than stuck with them.
A moment later, the new girl with the straw hair breaks away from a group standing by the pond and runs to the high fence. I strain my eyes, watching her curiously. What is she doing? She must know that it’s electric.
She halts a few feet in front of the barrier, and even from the distance I can see her shoulders heave. She’s bawling now, and a strange sadness cracks my hardened heart. She didn’t want to come to the Garden, and if I understand nothing more about her, I get that.
I wonder if she’s been to auction. The Governess usually holds back the new girls for at least a month of conditioning, but if she already had a prospective buyer she could have gone today. I’m too far away to see if she’s still wearing her Unpromised earrings. One would have been removed if she’s progressed to the paperwork stages.
And then I see a figure break from the crowd on the street and approach the fence.
One of his hands stretches towards her, and for a moment I think he’ll touch the metal, but he backs away suddenly and kicks the ground. She’s still crying, and has wrapped her arms around her midsection. In his other hand is a bottle, and I see it only moments before he heaves it at the ground near the fence. Pieces of glass clang against the metal, and sparks fly as the liquid spurts out.
Straw Hair is wailing now, chasing him down the fence line as he strides away, head down.
He’s right to make a quick escape. He’ll be fined for throwing that bottle. If he’s a Merchant, he might even lose his business license. If he ever wanted to buy her, he won’t be able to now.
She’s lucky he didn’t throw a knife at her chest.
I keep staring at her like she’s putting on some kind of show.
It’s dark now, and the Watcher is rising from his chair. I think he’ll come out and watch me for a while, but instead the door slides open, and he throws a thin bedroll on the ground outside. It rolls through a patch of dust until it’s coated on all sides by dirt. I sneer at him, but he simply turns around and lays down on his mattress inside the office.
Though the bedroll would make a nice mattress atop the rocks, I refuse to take it, and march back behind the office to the little privacy I have. I keep my eyes on the barn, just in case the Driver boy wants to break the Watcher’s command and come at me, but only the horses are moving within.
Tam and Nina love horses. Tam especially. He’d probably have chewed through the chain by now, just to get to that barn. The thought makes me smile.
At last Brax arrives. He’s happy again to see me, though probably not as happy as I am to see him. We play for a while, and soon I’ve forgotten all about the straw-haired girl and her visitor. About the Watcher and his stupid bedroll. About everything ugly in my life.
Brax has laid down, and I am just about to rest on his fluffy neck when he jumps back up and snarls, so quietly I can barely hear him. He’s facing the barn, and I strain my eyes to see what he’s looking at. Maybe a horse out in its paddock has startled him.
A moment later, the Driver boy appears, and this time I can see that he’s wearing a plain white T-shirt and dirty, tie-on linen pants, and he’s barefoot.
An ice-cold fist closes around my heart. He’s walking straight towards me.