I dream about fire. It surrounds me yet it does not burn me. That does not take the fear away. I know it is just a matter of time before I am consumed, just like Alex. The flames lick higher than my head. Beyond them, I hear voices calling out to me. It seems as if everyone I know is searching for me in the flames. I turn from one way, to the other, calling out to Pace, Levi, and Jilly. Finally I see faces through the flames, and there are so many of them that I cannot count them all. All of my friends from the outside. Those that we lost, including Peggy and the man Stone, who saved my life when I was almost killed by the rover woman. They spin around me and play hide-and-seek with the flames until the only remaining face I can see is my own. For some reason, I think it is a mirror, but I soon realize that it is my mother, Maggie.
“I only wanted out,” she cries out, desperately, and reaches for me as if she is imploring me to understand. But I don’t. Did she want out of the dome, or merely an escape from her life as a shiner? Did she feel trapped by me when she realized she was pregnant? I realize that I will never have a chance to know, unless for some miraculous reason she can tell me now.
I try to go to her, but the flames are too high and too hot. They soar upward, twining around me and blocking me from everyone I know, until the only way I can look is up. A burnt skull hovers in the circle above the flames, and as it opens its mouth to speak, I realize it is all that is left of Alex.
I awaken with a start, thinking, as I look up at the dark and dirty ceiling above me, that I am back home in my bed, in the cave house I shared with my grandfather. I am slow to realize that it was the closing of the cell door that interrupted the nightmare. I hold my breath, wondering if someone is in the cell with us, sent to kill us in our sleep. After a long, long moment I know that we are alone, that whoever was here is now gone.
Jilly is still asleep next to me. I ease myself up and she rolls over into the space I occupied, already missing the warmth I offered. A bundle lies on the floor just inside the door. My jacket and pants, along with the shawl and the small handbag I carried to the party.
If we are all to die, then why did someone bother to return my stuff to me? I quickly remove the pretty green dress and change into my regular clothes. As I pick up my jacket something falls out and lands with a clatter on the floor. I freeze in place, afraid that Pruitt heard the noise beyond my cell, but all is quiet, except for the coughing in the next cell. I look down.
It is a knife. I pick it up. It is not much longer than my hand. I prick my finger on the end and see a drop of blood ooze out. I stick my finger in my mouth and slide the blade into my boot. It has to be from Findley. There is no one else to help us.
I shake out the shawl, as it is the only thing left in hopes that there is a note or something that will inform me of Findley’s plan. There is nothing. I search inside the handbag, and it holds nothing beyond the things I put inside it. I slide my goggles down on my neck and cover Jilly with the green dress and shawl. My inner clock tells me that it is a few hours still until dawn. I sit on the end of the cot and wait.
Waiting is the hardest part, especially when you do not know what you are waiting for. Morning comes and with it a bowl of something I could not identify and Jilly could not even eat. The day drags by, slowly, with no noise coming from the corridor and only the coughing in the next cell to let us know we’ve not been abandoned to die.
“I feel the worst for my parents,” Jilly says when we can no longer tolerate the silence and the waiting. “Because of my brother.”
“I didn’t know you have a brother.” We sit side by side on the narrow cot. “Was he at the party?” I try to remember if I saw a boy with bright red hair like Jilly’s.
Jilly shakes her head. “He died when he was six. Just a few months past the date of replacement.”
“Replacement?”
“Not only are we told who to marry,” she explains. “We are also limited to how many children we can have. Two is the limit. If one dies before his or her sixth birthday you can apply for another. Since most couples don’t really love each other, it keeps it simple as far as birth control is concerned. They simply stop sleeping together after they have replaced themselves with the next generation.”
I nod my understanding. I always thought the royals had nothing to complain about, as they had nothing to worry about and all the privileges of life in the dome. But having your husbands and wives chosen for you, without any thought given to love or even compatibility would be horrible. And then knowing you had to sleep with them to keep the dynasty going. We shiners might not have had much, but we did have the right to choose.
“What happened to your brother?” I ask.
“A silly accident,” Jilly says. “He was playing with his toys at the top of the staircase and took a tumble down. It broke his neck. I was only three at the time. I barely remember it. But I do remember my parent’s devastation when they were told they could not have another child. Not that they wanted to replace Robbie. But because they were … are very much in love and could have experienced that joy again. But another child, especially a boy, would have upset the balance of the continuing population. And now they’ve lost their daughter. Not that I was that special, but still, my father’s name and our line will expire with me. It’s rather sad when you think of all the trouble they went to to preserve it.” She grins ruefully in the darkness.
“It is so very personal for you,” I say. “You’ve seen your parents suffering and you want to change it.”
“I’m not that unselfish, Wren,” Jilly says with a laugh. I am glad she can laugh and not get caught up in our desperate circumstances. “I just want to spare myself the same sort of suffering, especially with the lout the matchmaker wanted to put me with. He is quite insufferable, and that’s his good point.”
“I think you are terribly brave,” I say. I need her to be brave for what is to come, whatever that may be. “And who says you, or your father’s line is going to die?”
“You are not that good of a liar,” Jilly says with a jab of her elbow to my ribs. “You’ve had a peek into my world. Why don’t you tell me about yours?”
“It’s very different,” I say. “Or it was. It is gone now. All destroyed in the flood.”
“I am so sorry,” Jilly says. “You lost your family?”
“I didn’t have one to lose,” I say. “My grandfather was all I had, and he died a few days earlier.”
“I’m so sorry. Pace said Peggy died also. I know her and Adam were very much in love. She went to the library with me that day we all met. She was quite nice. And very pretty.”
“She was my best friend,” I say. “I miss her.”
Jilly squeezes my hand. “I would very much like to be your friend,” she says.
“You already are.” I squeeze her hand in return.
“So tell me about a day in the life of a shiner.”
“We all lived in a big cavern underground,” I say. “It is kind of like the dome, only smaller and darker. A stream ran through it and we had a waterwheel on it that gave us power for our lights.”
“For some reason, I thought you lived totally in the dark.”
“No, we had lights strung all through the tunnels. It made it less lonesome down there,” I explain. “My job was to carry the coal. I had a team of ponies that pulled the carts, and we went from tunnel to tunnel to collect the coal that was dug each night.”
“How old were you when you started working?”
“Thirteen. We go to school when we are four and into the mines at thirteen. Most of us die before forty of black lung. That’s when the coal dust builds up in your lungs.”