Burn (Pure #3)(80)

Mother Hestra uses the trees to push herself along, and Pressia starts to do the same, falling into a quick rhythm.

“There was a lull, and then their attacks started. We can only guess.”

“But Willux is dead. Partridge is in charge. How can this be happening?”

Mother Hestra stops and turns. “Willux is dead?”

Pressia shouldn’t have said this. She feels the sick twist of a dagger in her gut. This is bad. Very bad. But there’s no taking it back. Mother Hestra’s face is frozen in an intense gaze. Pressia nods.

“And Partridge is the one who’s sending these Deaths to kill us? Partridge?”

“I don’t think it’s him. It can’t be!”

“But he’s in charge,” Mother Hestra says. “You said so.”

“Don’t tell Our Good Mother,” Pressia pleads.

“How could I keep this from her? How could I keep it from my fellow sisters?”

Our Good Mother will be enraged. There’s no telling what she might unleash. She despises all the Deaths but seemed to dislike Partridge with a special vengeance.

“I just need time. Please, if you—”

“Hush!” Mother Hestra stiffens. “Follow,” she says, picking up her pace.

“Please don’t bring me in to Our Good Mother,” Pressia says. “Please. This is important, Mother Hestra. This is life and death.”

Mother Hestra stops and crouches. She motions for Pressia to do the same. Pressia sits down, her back against a tree. She looks up at the sky—gray, always gray, with dark limbs cutting it up like a fractured piece of glass. She’s a prisoner. She’s failed. “Please, Mother Hestra,” she says again.

Mother Hestra raises her hands to her mouth and lets out a strange birdcall—a long, soft cooing.

Pressia feels like crying. She thinks of making a run for it, but she knows that the mothers are well trained. She wouldn’t get far.

And then there’s a coo in return. It ripples through the woods.

Pressia grips Mother Hestra’s coat. “Please,” she says again.

“Shut up,” Mother Hestra says. “I know why you’re in these woods. You’re not looking for dead children, are you? You want in. Into the Dome. I’m going to get you there.”

“But Our Good Mother…”

“I will disobey her. I will pay the price. When I heard you were here, I volunteered to be the prison guard to bring you in. As Partridge’s sister, you are the only one who can go in and expect any protection, though that could also make you a target. It must be you.”

“How did you know I wanted to go in?”

“You’re going in for Lyda,” Mother Hestra says. “She can’t have her baby inside the Dome. It wouldn’t be safe. It wouldn’t be right. She belongs with us.”

“Her baby?” Pressia blurts out. She’s stunned. There must be some mistake.

“Lyda’s baby,” Mother Hestra says, confused that Pressia doesn’t know. “Partridge is the father.”

“What?”

“She’s pregnant. With child. Not too far along.”

Partridge and Lyda are going to have a baby? “I didn’t know.” Is Lyda scared? Is she alone? Pressia wants to see her and tell her…what? That everything is going to be okay? Will it be? She can’t lie to her. The voices throughout the city, calling for their lost children—Lyda and Partridge will have a child of their own to fear for, to fight for, to call out for…

“How could you not know?” Mother Hestra says. “Isn’t that why you’re going in—to save her?”

“I’m going in because I have what’s needed to cure us. If I can get it to scientists in the Dome, we can undo fusings without side effects. We can make the survivors whole again. All of us.” She looks at the child on Mother Hestra’s leg. He’s watching Pressia, listening, gripping the reed with tears quivering in his eyes.

Mother Hestra’s cheeks flush. She clenches her jaw. “There is no cure for this. None!”

“But there is!”

“I thought you were in these woods because you were preparing to save a sister, a sister with child. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve held a baby from one of our own? Do you know? This child is our new beginning!”

“You were going to bring me in. Do it. Now that I know, I’ll do my best to get Lyda out. I promise.”

The coo comes again—closer this time. Mother Hestra looks up in the direction it came from. “If Our Good Mother knows that Willux is dead, she will sense weakness. And if she knows Partridge is in charge, she will want to kill him all the more.”

“And if she attacks,” Pressia whispers, “it will only cause more deaths, and Lyda’s in there. If you give me time, I can go in and try to get her out before you attack.” She doesn’t dare tell Mother Hestra about the bacterium that can take down the Dome. She needs Mother Hestra to be calm, focused.

Mother Hestra grabs hold of Pressia’s arm. “You promise you’ll get her out.”

“I promise to try.”

Mother Hestra presses her fists against her forehead, clenches her eyes. “Twelve mothers have died at that post where you slept—just that one post alone. Seven of them had children—they’re also dead. The mass grave is full. They’ve started another. Partridge’s father hadn’t brutalized us enough?”