The man took the knife to the woman, but he didn’t give it to her. There was a man holding her feet and another her wrists, and she tried to be still. And then Elise knew what they were doing. It was the same as her mom and Hannah’s mom. And a fearsome scream came from the woman as the knife went in, and Elise couldn’t stop watching, and blood came out and down her leg, and Elise could feel it on her own leg, and tried to squirm free, but then it was her wrist being held, and she knew one day this would be her, and the screaming went and went, and the man dug around with the knife and his fingers, a shine of sweat on the top of his head, saying something to the men, who were having trouble with the woman, and there were whispers along the benches, and Elise felt hot, and more blood until the man with the knife erupted with a shout and stood facing the benches with something between his fingers, blood running down his arm to his elbow, his blanket drooping open, a smile on his face as the screams died down.
“Behold!” he shouted.
And the people were clapping. The men bandaged the woman on the table, then brought her down, though she could barely stand. Elise saw that there was another woman by the stage. They were lining up. And the clapping gained a rhythm like when she and the twins would march up the stairs watching each other’s feet, clap, clap at the same time. The clapping grew louder and louder. Until there was a giant clap that made them all go quiet. A clap that made her heart leap up in her chest.
Heads turned to the back of the room. Elise’s ears hurt from the loud bang. Someone shouted and pointed, and Elise turned and saw Solo in the doorway. White powder rained down from the ceiling, and he had something long and black in his hands. Beside him stood Shaw, the boy in the brown coveralls from the bizarre. Elise wondered how he was there.
“Excuse me,” Solo said. He scanned the benches until he saw Elise, and his teeth shined through his beard. “I’ll be taking that young lady with me.”
There were shouts. Men got up from their seats and yelled and pointed, and Mr. Rash shouted something about his wife and property and how dare he interrupt. And the man with the blood and the knife was outraged and stormed down the aisle, which made Solo lift the black thing to his shoulder.
Another clap like it was God doing it with his biggest palms, a bang so loud it made Elise’s insides hurt. There was a noise after it, a shattering of glass, and she turned and saw the pretty colored window was even more broke than before.
The people stopped shouting and moving toward Solo, which Elise thought was a very good thing.
“Come along,” Solo said to Elise. “Hurry now.”
Elise got up from the bench and started toward the aisle, but Mr. Rash grabbed her by the wrist. “She is my wife!” Mr. Rash shouted, and Elise realized this was a bad thing to be. It meant she couldn’t leave.
“You do marriages quick,” Solo said to the quiet crowd. He waved the black thing at them all, and this seemed to make them nervous. “What about funerals?”
The black thing pointed at Mr. Rash. Elise felt his grip on her loosen. She made it to the aisle and ran past the man with the dripping blood, ran to Solo and Shaw and down the hall.
55
Juliette was drowning again. She could feel the water in her throat, the sting in her eyes, the burn in her chest. As she climbed the stairwell, she could sense the old flood around her, but that wasn’t what made her feel as though she couldn’t breathe. It was the voices ranging up and down the stairwell shaft, the evidence already of vandalism and theft, the long stretches of wire and pipe gone missing, the scattering of stalk and leaf and soil from those hurrying away with stolen plants.
She hoped to rise above the injustices strewn about her, to escape this last spasm of civility before chaos reigned. It was coming, she knew. But as high as she and Raph climbed, there were people throwing open doors to explore and loot, to claim territory, to yell down from landings some finding or shout up some question. In the depths of Mechanical, she had lamented how few had survived. And now it seemed like so many.
Stopping to fight any of this would be a waste of time. Juliette worried about Solo and the kids. She worried about the razed farms. But the weight of the explosives in her pack gave her purpose, and the calamity surrounding her gave her resolve. She was out to see that this never happened again.
“I feel like a porter,” Raph said, wheezing between words.
“If you fall behind, we’re heading for thirty-four. Both of the mid farms should have food. You can get water from the hydro pumps.”
“I can keep up with you,” Raph insisted. “Just saying it’s unbecoming.”
Juliette laughed at the proud miner. She wanted to point out the number of times she’d made this run, always with Solo lagging behind and waving her on, promising he’d catch up. Her mind flashed back to those days, and suddenly her silo was still alive and thriving, churning with civilization, so far away and moving forward without her – but still there and alive.
No more.