Burn (Pure #3)(71)

She thinks of writing him that she’s nesting—a term she learned in the girls’ academy in an infant-care class, one that Chandry uses often when she comes for knitting lessons. Lyda likes the word because when she was in the girls’ academy, she loved walking through the aviary and watching the birds fortify their nests. Her nesting instincts might not be what Partridge expects, but she does feel like she’s building a place for herself and this child—just for them. She feels safe in the nursery. But lying here, in her own room, on her fresh sheets, having combed her hair smooth, she’s vulnerable.

Something’s coming. Things are unstable. It’s not just that Willux has died. It’s as if the air is agitated, combustible. And while Partridge is out there, busy with his wedding plans, he doesn’t even notice. No one seems to. The guards stand stiffly outside of her door. Chandry comes and goes. Sometimes Lyda looks out the window and sees people on the street, bustling with packages, walking miniature dogs, pushing strollers.

It’s almost completely back to normal—like the truth was never spoken.

Sometimes, she writes Partridge,

I feel like the fire is inside of me. I don’t know what I’m becoming. But I think it’s to help me meet some future I can’t imagine, but a future that’s coming all the same.

When will I see you again? Ever?

Love,

Lyda





PRESSIA





MOTHERS




The mothers emerge from the woods one at a time. A bush becomes a body. A woman jumps from the thin limbs of a tree. It’s dark, and their bodies—alive with the restlessness of their children—are hard to make out. One of the mothers says, “Take her to camp. Guard her closely. We’ll send word to Our Good Mother of her presence.” Pressia, still staked to the tree by the dart through her coat, isn’t sure what Our Good Mother might think of her being one of their prisoners.

Two mothers walk up to her, one in a woolen cap and the other with white hair.

Pressia hopes that they don’t confiscate her backpack. That’s what matters most.

The one with white hair pulls the blade from the tree—leaving a fresh rip in Pressia’s coat—and tucks the dart back into a small bag strapped over her shoulder. “This way,” she says. “Hands on your head.”

Pressia walks between the two mothers. Her arms start to ache. She can see their children now—one on his mother’s shoulder, another curved across her mother’s chest.

“You’ve kept these woods from getting burned,” Pressia whispers.

They nod, walking her past a small camouflaged lean-to. Inside, Pressia glimpses strange contraptions—catapults on wheels?—and baskets of what look like grenades. “I made some of those from the robotic spiders sent down from the Dome.”

“And we continued the effort,” the woman with white hair says. “We’re the first line of defense. We take out the new Special Forces when they step out and descend, when they’re still disoriented.” The mother stops at a large barrel filled with guns—freshly polished. “We gut them for their guns, clean them off. The stockpile is growing.”

Pressia remembers the Special Forces boy—not Pure, a wretch. “Aren’t some of them young?”

“They send their boys off to die. We comply.” The mother with white hair squints at Pressia. “Why are you here?”

Pressia doesn’t want to tell them. The mothers are erratic—calm and then murderous, capable of most anything. “I was looking for someone,” she says.

“Who?” the mother with white hair says, and Pressia wonders if the woman in the wool cap has a voice at all. Is she mute?

“The children who were Purified in the Dome, especially one named Wilda.”

The mother in the wool cap makes a clucking noise with her tongue as if Pressia’s said the wrong thing and the mother is rebuking her.

“Stop looking. It’s a waste of time,” the mother with white hair says.

“Because they’re dead or because they’re hidden away somewhere?”

“Some questions are better left unanswered,” the mother says. “Plus, you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You’re not telling the whole truth, which is lying.”

The mother in the wool cap clucks her tongue again.

The mother with the white hair reaches up and pulls one of the few remaining leaves from a branch overhead. She says, “This is a season of death. We are not sure there will be another spring.”

“What do you mean?” Pressia says. “The earth has endured this much. Of course there will be spring.” She thinks of Bradwell saying, If we don’t see each other again…

“After they took Lyda, we decided we would never back down. Some say it’s a death wish. We don’t wish for death. We’re already dead.”

“Took Lyda? She was going into the Dome with Partridge. She wasn’t taken. She went on her own…”

“She was taken!” the mother with the white hair says.

“Mmmhmm,” the mother in the wool cap purrs from the back of her throat.

Pressia isn’t sure what to believe. The mothers sometimes tell themselves the stories they want to believe. Pressia can’t blame them. But right now, she wishes she understood. “What happened? Tell me.”