“Ok, so what do I need to look out for?” I wanted to know if there were any signs. I needed to prepare myself, as well as Clara.
“When her labor starts, she will have contractions. They will be painful and will last for a minute or two. They will come at even intervals. Don’t worry, Rosa. Clara and I have discussed it all. She is as prepared as she is going to be.” Apella’s pale blue eyes were avoiding my gaze, her fair eyelashes lapsing over them longer than necessary. It didn’t surprise me that Clara had spoken to Apella. She didn’t subscribe to my dislike of the woman. Clara didn’t dislike anyone.
I went to say thank you, but I couldn’t get the words out. It was like trying to rearrange my bones. It wouldn’t sit right. I stopped walking until Clara had caught up to me. She linked her arm in mine.
“Find out anything interesting?” she said with a wink. I shook my head. Apella was useless. I felt like we were alone in this. We had a doctor, but she seemed to distance herself from the very real scenario we were about to face. I don’t think she had ever asked me how I was feeling or checked on the leech. I knew if things went wrong, I would do anything to help Clara. Even if that meant holding Apella at knifepoint while she assisted.
I kept these violent thoughts to myself and walked. Monotonous trudging. Boots crunching gravel, sounding like scraping frost from the freezer. Walking, always walking.
“So you know you’re going to be an aunt soon,” Clara announced, beaming. If Joseph was liquid gold in my veins, Clara was light. Pure white light, shining through me and surrounding me. She lifted me because she was better than me. I was never going to be as fundamentally good as she was.
This word aunt meant very little to me. The way she spoke, sometimes, it was like she was from another world or another time, a place where families existed: aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
“How’s that?” I asked.
“We are sisters,” she said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “So when my baby is born, you will be an aunt.”
I was too touched by what she had said to make my normal sarcastic comments. Sisters. The word warmed me. Like I could hold my hands up to it and thaw my fingertips. I liked the sound of it. We were sisters and as soon as I had accepted it in my head, it was so. It was probably always the case, just without the label.
All I said was, “I suppose I will be.”
I had a sister. I smiled to myself, letting a little light in, cracks starting to show in the stone.
Blood surrounds me, life-giving and life-taking. I am swimming in it and drowning in it. No matter what I do, I can never escape it.
Unfortunately for me, Apella walked with us for the next couple of days. Clara had asked her to and I couldn’t object. She was the only one who knew anything about what was going to happen to her.
The railway had started to lead us upwards. Grey rock dominated the landscape more and more. Joseph carried Clara most of the time. So our duo became a group. They talked amongst each other a lot, for which I was grateful. I didn’t need or want to talk to either Joseph or Apella. I wanted to be close to him but I still didn’t know what to say. Apella, I could have easily thrown out in the open. Let the choppers see her. As I got bigger, surprisingly, I felt stronger. Apella was a waif, her thin frame inviting me to snap her like a twig. I daydreamed that I threw her in the path of a passing helicopter, her perfect blonde hair whipping around her face, as a long claw reached down and pulled her from our group. But Clara wanted Apella close, so I kept my hands fisted at my sides and gritted my teeth through the polite conversations.
The choppers were fewer now. The last one we saw was a day behind us and I knew it wasn’t looking for us; it was carrying a giant curve of concrete wall. It twisted and swung in the wind, a somber arc. I wondered whether it was part of something they had torn down or something they were building. My mind went to all those girls we had left behind. Had some escaped? What about all the babies? The haunting question was—what were they going to do with all those children?
Around noon, we sat down for lunch. I ventured into the forest, searching for some berries I had tested out a few days ago. They were so sour, I felt my mouth salivating at the thought of them, but they weren’t poisonous and that was good enough for me. Joseph had started following me into the woods, asking questions about the plants. This was easier. I didn’t mind sharing this information and it gave us a way to communicate without touching on the subjects I couldn’t handle. Every now and then though, he looked at me like he wanted to say something more. I was good at reading those times and quickly changed the subject, bending down and picking up a leaf or a pinecone, shoving it in his consternated face and telling him to look at it. I knew he was frustrated with me. I knew it was only a matter of time before he confronted me, but not yet. I wasn’t ready, the leech made sure of that.
When I came back, they were all staring at the box like they were waiting for it to burst into song. There wasn’t much sun and it was taking a while to charge. Slowly, the light came on and they started preparing their lunch. I declined. I had some pine nuts, some dandelions, and the purple berries. I did take some water.
Clara inhaled her lunch. She then complained of a stomachache. So we sat with her for a while until she said it had passed. Just indigestion, she said. Just to be safe, I stayed right by her, exchanging worried glances with Apella.
It became increasingly difficult to walk off the railway line. On one side it fell away steeply. On the other side, we were looking up at the mountainside, straggly pines clinging to the loose, grey dirt. Pebbles constantly dripped down, pinging off the ground. The line was cut into the rock now. Alexei announced that we were not going to be able to hide anymore. We would have to take our chances in the open. We would be hard to spot anyway, all in grey except Alexei. We could hide against the cliff side if we heard the helicopters coming and be quite well camouflaged.
As we rounded a bend, the line seemed to just stop. In front of us was a steep mountainside covered in grass with a heavily wooded peak that went on forever. Juvenile pines, only my height, stretched as far as the eye could see. I could no longer see the railway snaking its way up the mountain. It was a dead end. Without thinking, I grabbed Joseph’s arm.
“What do we do?” I asked, pointing straight ahead and then letting my finger rise to the sky. This was our only plan. What would we do if there were no line to follow?
“It’s all right, look a bit closer,” he said, chuckling. Sure enough, on closer inspection, I could see two black holes punched into the hill. Tunnels. The thought of being underground again filled me with dread. So much so that I didn’t know I was digging my fingernails into Joseph’s arm, clinging to him like a half-drowned animal. He gently put Clara down and grabbed both my shoulders. I was gasping for air.
“Rosa, breathe slowly.” Joseph’s green eyes were locked with mine. I searched them, picking out flecks of gold, watching his eyelashes flutter and close. I concentrated on that, as I tried to slow down.
“I can’t go in there,” I stammered, shaking. I was picturing all the earth piled on top of us. No air, no light.
“Ahhhhh,” Clara emitted a slow, painful sound. She was crouched on the ground, holding her stomach, rocking back and forth. Like that, I snapped out of it. This was no stomachache. Apella knelt down beside her and touched Clara’s enormous belly. She nodded to me.
“We need to find some shelter,” Apella said. I knew there was only one place we could go. Joseph scooped Clara up in his arms and walked briskly towards the black holes. Deshi and Alexei were running ahead. They arrived at the tunnel and entered, disappearing into the blackness like it was a solid curtain. I shuddered.