PRESSIA
LOOKING GLASS
The air is stagnant, the engines loud. The airship buffets in the wind. The entire trip will take over fifty hours. She’s checked the metal box a few times, touching the vial and the formula—both intact, thankfully; it’s become a nervous habit. Much of that time has passed, but still the remaining hours—how many exactly?—stretch out before Pressia restlessly. On the one hand, there’s only the view out the porthole down at the glinting sea; on the other, the airship is dangerous. El Capitan is a novice pilot, and he was angry when he realized they’d be heading back without his guns. He looked lost and desperate. “How the hell does Kelly expect us to get anywhere without guns?” He settled down enough to take off, and occasionally he sends out a laser-reflecting tracking buoy. The noise is deafening as it blasts from the airship, lighting up the portholes, rattling the airship itself. They could die out here—plummet, crash, and then sink, soundlessly, to the ocean floor. This scares her, but she’s been scared of death for so long that it doesn’t hold as much power over her as it once did.
Instead, the sinking feeling she has in her chest—relentless and awful—is because of Bradwell. He sits just across the aisle from her, and even though he saved her life, they still haven’t spoken. How does it feel to be trapped in a small space with someone who hates her? It makes her want to be smaller and smaller until she disappears.
She’s hoping there will be a moment when Bradwell lets his guard slip a little, when he’ll let himself soften, open up some. But even when he sleeps, he looks angry. His brow furrows in dreams, maybe nightmares. He kicks restlessly. It’s hard for him to simply sit in the seat. Stiff and awkward, his wings seem to jut his shoulders forward, forcing him to slouch.
El Capitan and Helmud are in the cockpit, Fignan at their side. El Capitan is singing old songs—nothing about love, though. She assumes he’s being careful now.
But there’s no time to be careful with each other. They have to talk about their next move.
“Bradwell!” Pressia says.
He doesn’t stir.
“Bradwell!”
Again, nothing.
She unfastens her seatbelt, crosses the aisle, and shoves his shoulder. “Bradwell, wake up!”
He wakes from a dream the way he used to in the mossy cottage where he recuperated after they almost froze to death on the forest floor—his arms and legs jerk, he gasps for air. “What? What is it?”
“We need to talk.”
He looks around, wide-eyed, then out the porthole—most likely startled to find himself on the airship careening over the ocean. “I don’t want to talk about us,” he says. “I can’t.”
“Not about us,” she says, but she wishes they could talk about what they mean to each other. Will they ever? “We need a plan. We need to talk to El Capitan and Helmud too.”
He rubs his eyes and nods. “You’re right.”
Bradwell follows Pressia to the cockpit. El Capitan is singing, and Helmud seems to be humming harmony. It’s beautiful. Fignan appears to be in sleep mode, as if the singing lulled him. She hates to interrupt.
The door is open, but she knocks anyway.
He stops midnote. “I thought you two were asleep.”
“I was,” Bradwell says. He and Pressia step into the cockpit. He barely fits in the space. His ribs and chest and shoulders have broadened. His wings are bulky and arched on his back.
“We have to check on Hastings,” Pressia says, gripping the back of the empty copilot’s seat.
“We’d have to touch down at Crazy John-Johns then lift off and land again,” El Capitan says nervously.
“We can’t leave him there,” Bradwell says.
“I wasn’t saying I’d abandon him. It’s just a risk—that’s all. If we crash-land like we did last time, we won’t have anyone to help us. We’d have to make it back home on foot through a territory we barely survived the first time.”
“We have no choice,” Pressia says. “He needs us, and we might need him too.”
“Need him for what?” El Capitan asks.
Pressia sighs. “I’m going into the Dome. I’ve got to talk to Partridge. I’ve got to get the cure to the right people on the inside.” She keeps the backpack on at all times.
“You’re assuming there are right people on the inside,” Bradwell says.
“Right people,” Helmud says optimistically.
“They can’t all be bad. And now that Partridge is in charge, I’m sure he’s—”
“I’m not sure of anything,” Bradwell says. “Kelly knew that Willux was dead, that Partridge was in charge, so why hasn’t he heard about a new order in the Dome?”
“Maybe Partridge hasn’t had time,” Pressia says angrily. “Maybe his plan is in the works. Or maybe he has started to make real changes but telling Kelly—an ocean away—isn’t a top priority right now!” She turns to El Capitan. “You believe in Partridge, don’t you?”
“I always doubt people,” El Capitan says. “I’ve survived by not believing in other human beings.”
Pressia understands. She’s someone who’s let Cap down; she doesn’t love him the way he loves her. “What’s your plan? You bring down the Dome and there’s civil war? More blood, more death?” Pressia asks them.
“If you want to side with her, go ahead,” Bradwell says to El Capitan. “How you feel about Pressia isn’t a secret anymore. Do what you want.”
Pressia’s shocked that Bradwell’s said this out loud. She glances at El Capitan. His cheeks are flushed. He coughs into his fist and looks out the windshield. They’re cutting through a bank of clouds.
“You just want to be proven right after all these years,” Pressia says to Bradwell. “You’ll take justice over peace, even if it means people are going to die.”
“I’m not trying to prove I’m right. I am right. There’s a difference. The truth is important,” Bradwell says. “History is important.”
“El Capitan will do what he thinks is right—justice or peace,” Pressia says. “I trust him to make that call.”
“Peace,” Helmud says, giving his vote.
Pressia’s glad that Helmud is on her side. “Good,” Pressia says. “Thanks.”
“Cap?” Bradwell says.
“No,” El Capitan says. “I’m not choosing between you. We’ve got to be united on this.”
Bradwell stares out the windshield, and Pressia can only see his profile, the twin scars running down one cheek. He says, “My mother died gripping my father’s shirt. Her eyes were still open, staring at him, like she’d died begging him to stay alive. But they died Pure—on the inside.” He jabs his own chest. “They died as they were, fighting to get the truth out.” He rubs his knuckles together and says. “And what am I?” His wings twitch on his back. “I’m a fairy tale parents tell their children to scare them into living careful lives. I’m not real.”
Pressia imagines him as a little boy running through the house calling for them, his panic growing. Sometimes she forgets the little boy he once was—the one who was sent to his aunt and uncle’s to live, who ran through the flock of birds when the Detonations hit, the one who found his way back to his parents’ house, to the footlocker in the secured room, who fended for himself for years. She loves that kid. She loves the man he’s become—complex and stubborn. “You are real. You’re the same person.”
He shakes his head. “No. That Bradwell is gone.”
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“What’s really kept me going all these years is the truth and justice. I could look up at that white Dome, its gleaming cross, anytime, and I had all I needed to survive. They killed my parents. They holed up in their perfect little bubble and destroyed the world. I’m a wretch. That’s what made me Pure. And now? With those chemicals pumped into me, what am I?”
“You’re still yourself,” Pressia says. She wants to say more. She wants to tell him that he’s real, that she loves him. But his back is stiff. His eyes are locked on the sky. He’s cut off. She says, “You have every reason to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I only wish I could.”
“Look,” El Capitan says, “someone’s got to compromise.”
The cockpit is quiet.
“Here’s my compromise.” Bradwell breaks the silence. “Only over my dead body are the Pures coming out of this as heroes.” He looks each of them in the eyes and then turns and walks out.
Pressia stares at the windshield that held his reflection. It’s now a black screen shuddering with occasional clouds. He let his guard down. He talked about finding his dead parents. She wishes she’d said something different, but what?
She turns to El Capitan’s reflection. He catches her eye and smiles sadly. “Sorry,” he says. “For everything. I shouldn’t have pushed him to—”
“Don’t,” she says. “It’s okay.”
Helmud reaches out and quickly touches her hair then shyly looks away.
She sees her own reflection and thinks of the rhyming game of tag the children were playing in the field.
Look in a looking glass. Look for a match. Find yourself! Find yourself! Don’t be the last!
She lifts the doll head. Who would she be without it? More herself or less? She can’t imagine what it must be like for Bradwell—his body isn’t his own. She thinks of her own DNA, the instructions of how to build her and her alone. Hair, skin, blood.
And then she remembers the hairbrush in her room, how it never had a strand of hair in it the next morning. Did they take her DNA? Will there be replicas of her—out there—one day? The idea terrifies her in ways she doesn’t understand. Find yourself. Find yourself. She doesn’t really even know who she is. Neither does Bradwell. Does anyone?
El Capitan says, “We’re over land.”
“Land,” Helmud says, as if commanding his brother to bring the airship down. “Land!”
Pressia pulls the backpack off and holds it to her chest. She looks out the windshield at the rugged horizon. From here, it looks peaceful and calm. But she knows it’s teeming with Beasts and Dusts. The land itself is alive—hatefully alive. Maybe vengefulness is part of all of them.