Skylark Read online

  I knew her now for what she was. Renewable. The magic they stripped from her would power the Wall, the automatic harvesting machines, the generators that allowed us to breathe. I wondered how much of the Resource that kept us alive came from the kids they so publicly harvested and how much came from this creature. I wondered if the harvest’s sole purpose was to find another like her. If so, they had achieved their aim.

  I wondered how long she had been there; I wondered how long she would continue to live. How long would I live?

  •  •  •

  I had no memory of the walk back to my cell. I woke only when the door opened and the lights came on. I was lying on my stomach, half on the bed, one arm trailing to the floor. Weakly I pressed my palm against it to try to lever myself back on the bed.

  A hand grasped my arm, gently, and lifted me into a more comfortable position. I tried to turn my head to see, but the motion tugged on the raw skin on my back and I whimpered.

  “Shh. Try to stay still.”

  Kris. I tried to remember that he was one of them, was as responsible as any for what was happening to me. Instead I could only start to weep with relief.

  He rubbed my arm as one would comfort a child. “Shh. It’s going to be okay. I brought something for your back. May I?”

  I tried to say yes, but my throat was so hoarse that all I managed was a little moan.

  Without further warning he lifted the edge of my tunic and touched my back with his hand, and I stiffened. Even as smooth and uncallused as his fingertips were, they felt like sandpaper. The pillow muffled my cry. No sooner had he touched me, though, than a blissful coolness spread. He worked his way across my back, slathering it with something that smelled acrid and chilled the insides of my nostrils.

  My sobs quieted as he worked, and by the time he finished I was silent. Facedown in the pillow, I didn’t lift my head when I felt him stand. A few seconds later I heard him washing the pungent salve from his hands in the shower. Then footsteps, and that gentle weight making the bed creak and depress by my hip.

  He plucked a few strands of hair away from my neck, freeing them from the sticky salve. I remembered my mother doing something similar so that she could tickle me there. I couldn’t bear the thought of Kris doing the same, and made a sound into the pillow.

  Kris stopped, but didn’t rise from the bed. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke.

  “You won’t be going back into the Machine.”

  One second passed, then two. Then, spots exploding in front of my closed eyes, I was forced to breathe again. I didn’t dare linger on the significance of those words.

  “We want you healed up, Lark. You’ll get some time, let the Resource fully recharge.” His voice was very, very quiet. Subdued. There was a deadness to his tone, the charm vanished. The skin on the back of my neck prickled in warning.

  I started to speak, but he put a hand on the back of my head, stopping me.

  “At least you’re back on normal rations now,” he said, evidently spotting my barely touched tray of food. “Just as well. I never could stand those little cakes at harvest time.”

  I had barely enough time to register confusion—just days ago he’d been telling me how much he loved those—before his hand tightened around a lock of my hair, giving it a painful tug.

  “Listen to me, Lark,” he said when I tried to protest his painful grip. “I’m to tell you that you’ll be monitored closely and any attempts to disobey will send you back to the Machine. We expect you to behave and do your duty. Think of your family, your friends, everyone who is counting on you to do this. One broken piece and the whole machine breaks down. We need you.”

  There was tension in his grip on my hair. I realized that we must be being monitored. He was reciting a script. The emphasis on “I’m to tell you” said everything. There was urgency in the clench of his fingers. Suddenly the pain in my back, in the roots of my hair, wasn’t the sole focus of my attention anymore. What was he trying to tell me?

  “We expect your recovery to take about a week,” he went on. “During this time you are to rest and eat to replenish the Resource within you.”

  I lifted my head very slowly so that I could turn it, free my mouth enough for speaking. He didn’t shift his grip on my hair. “And then?” I asked. I didn’t recognize my own voice.

  There was a pause. “And then you’ll go home,” he said, and twisted my hair so hard my eyes watered. I didn’t cry out, though. I heard his message:

  We’re lying.

  “Okay,” I gasped.

  He let me go and then, very gently, stroked the back of my head so that the hair lay flat. “Good girl.”

  And then he was gone, the door closed and the lights off, leaving me in the dark again.

  The blackness was so complete that it made no difference whether my eyes were open or closed. Instead, as if burned into my retinas like some blinding afterimage, I saw that empty spinal column, the fingerlike tendrils of glass wires, waiting. Waiting for me.

  Home, I thought. Where I’d be spending the rest of my existence. Home.

  Chapter 8

  I lay there for a time, facedown on my mattress. I know I should have been frantic, weeping, panicked. But instead the predominant sensation was one of relief. The past week—or had it been weeks?—had been full of pain, but now my skin was numb, and I knew I would not be going back into the Machine.

  One week , I thought, Kris’s words echoing in my mind. They had had no problem putting me in the Machine when my back was still raw and my magic half-charged, but perhaps it was different when it came to—my skin crawled at the word—installing me in the web of glass wiring. It seemed that they needed me to be at full strength.

  With a groan, I pushed myself up on my arms and gasped as the wounded skin stretched. The pain woke me, made me sharp.

  And I’m going to need to be sharp if I’m going to get out of here.

  The very thought was ridiculous. The Institute was the most heavily guarded and sophisticated place in the entire city. And even if I could break free, then what? There was nowhere to hide. There was nothing after escape except death outside the Wall or recapture within it.

  But the tiny trickle of a thought ate away at my reservations bit by bit. Escape.

  I knew that the moment they deemed me fit they would slot me into those glass wires, and I would become something barely human.

  I would rather die. The thought came to me one night with all the fury of the Machine, echoing through my body and vibrating in my bones. Out of the black, I saw the Renewable creature’s mouth set in that constant, soundless scream. I would rather kill myself.

  “Yes,” I whispered aloud, staring into the darkness. In my mind I saw the tangled wires of glass reaching for me. “Oh, yes.”

  For the first time since this place had become my prison, I slept soundly and of my own free will.

  •  •  •

  In the morning I rose and choked down the dry ration bread in the dark. They were careful to give me plenty of food, and I had realized quickly that it was linked to the regeneration of magic in my system. Energy in equaled energy out, no matter the form.

  They rarely turned the overhead lights on anymore. I climbed onto the bed in darkness and stretched up toward where I knew the light to be. I imagined the paper bird, cupping my hand around it, making it wake up and fly. A faint roaring in my ears rose and then subsided again as the image vanished. I concentrated again, this time seizing the image and the feeling and thrusting out toward the dark light.

  Something snapped in my mind, and one bulb of the light burst into brilliance. I fell back, stumbling against the wall. My eyes were dazzled after so long in darkness. My head ached from effort and from the hum now emanating from the light, but it was nothing compared to the surge of triumph. The Institute was strong because it had the Resource, relied upon it, needed it. It sucked it away from us, had been doing so for centuries. I had never once questioned them; we needed it, after all,
to keep the horrors beyond the Wall from reaching us. But that reliance was exactly what was going to get me out of here.

  Magic , said my brother’s voice in my mind.

  If I could manipulate their lights, I could do anything. My gaze fell upon the door, dimly lit now by the single square of light overhead. I fell upon it, seizing every scrap of power within myself and hurling it at the lock.

  I strained until my vision swam and sweat rolled down my temples, but the lock made no sound other than vibrating once, and only briefly. When I tried the handle, it remained immovable.

  But that lone vibration was enough to tell me that I wasn’t wrong to think that I could blast my way out of here; I just wasn’t strong enough yet.

  Perhaps magic was like any ability. Perhaps all I needed was a little practice.

  I threw myself into my new routine. Every morning after eating I would stuff spare clothing against the crack under the door to hide the light and stand over my bed in order to focus my magic on the ceiling panels. At first I could only light one before I had to rest, and then two, and then three. After four days I could turn them all on, one by one, without having to stand on the bed to be close to them. I would turn each of them on, and then, with the same tiny surge of power, turn each of them off again.

  The feel of the magic was drastically different from what I had felt when I’d made the paper bird sing. That had felt sweet and clear, ringing like a bell and leaving me lightheaded. Now it felt thick and heavy, twanging out of my body like an alien thing, painful and harsh. But it worked.

  I ate ravenously. As the days passed, I found that after turning the lights on and off a couple of times, the hunger would be so great and so sudden that it would nearly make me black out. I saved a few pieces of the dry bread for these occasions, hiding them inside my mattress.

  Now and then, I tried the door. Only once did I ever get it to vibrate again. Still, I was growing stronger by the hour. I knew it was only a matter of time.

  •  •  •

  On the fifth night, as near as I could estimate, the door banged open unceremoniously. Three red coats. I recognized them only vaguely through my eyelashes, and tried to feign sleep.

  “Miss Ainsley,” one of them said firmly. “Will you please come with us?”

  They were always the soul of courtesy. Almost friendly. “Where are we going?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest.

  “Almost time to go home,” said another red coat. It stretched a red sleeve out toward me, offering a hand. “We just have one last test to run.”

  They led me through the maze of corridors once more, down an elevator, and up another hall. With so much time between me and my last trip to the Machine, my mind was more clear and lucid than it had been in weeks. And yet, I still couldn’t recognize where we were going. Every time I thought I recognized a turn, it opened up into a hallway I was certain I’d never seen before.

  When we reached the Renewable’s chamber, I balked. I had little strength but I began to struggle anyway, for all that my efforts did to stall the two techs gripping my arms. The empty spinal column of glass stood waiting, side by side with the one occupied by the creature. It was finished.

  Administrator Gloriette stepped out from behind a curtained alcove, and beamed at me. The expression was half-lost in the rolls of her face. My gut roiled at the sight of her. How had I ever thought her harmless, even jolly?

  “Poor duckling,” she oozed, gliding toward me. “You must be really ready to get settled, aren’t you?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, unable to speak except through clenched teeth. “Really.”

  “Such a brave chicklet,” she replied, delighted. “Still, we can’t have such a brave girl suffering so much. We just have one more measurement to make. Then you can go home.”

  No. No. It was too soon. I hadn’t figured out yet how to escape. “But—”

  A burning pinch on my neck interrupted me. I started to whirl around but my knees buckled. I had a brief image of one of the red coats holding something long and glinting, and then Gloriette’s face. She was no longer smiling. And then her face began to melt, like a piece of glass in a furnace. Long rivulets of pasty, fat flesh, pooling and swirling and burning into blackness.

  •  •  •

  I woke nauseous, feeling as though I was barely touching the mattress. I knew this sensation. They had put me in the Machine. I felt raw and stretched and hollowed out. I leapt off of my bed, staggering. My knees didn’t bend right. Nevertheless I craned my neck, trying to get a look at my back.

  The scars there were clean, pink, shiny—no new gashes. And a slight thrum of power fluttered at the edge of my mind. The magic of the door lock, perhaps. Fainter than that of the lights, which were off, but I could hear it. Which meant my magic was still intact.

  In a panic I reached out for the door with my mind, stomach convulsing with the effort. Nothing. I still couldn’t budge the lock. I was trapped.

  And tomorrow would start the rest of my life.

  There was a tray of food by the door. I still felt nauseous, but something caught my eye.

  In addition to the usual rations of dry bread and soy protein paste, there were two round cakes on the corner of the tray.

  Kris.

  A treat on my last day. I wanted to feel something: gratitude or grief, maybe. Instead I stared at the cakes numbly.

  There was a tiny point of gray-white sticking out from the edge of the cake. When I lifted the cake, whatever was beneath it stuck to the bottom. I peeled it away, and then sat cupping the thing in my hands.

  How long I sat there, gazing at the paper lark my brother had made for me, I couldn’t say. Tears came and went, and my nausea subsided. I tucked the little bird into the palm of my hand and held it against my heart, reaching for the other cake.

  As I lifted it, something else peeled away from the bottom of the cake where it too had stuck. It fell with a metallic clatter against the tray.

  A key.

  Chapter 9

  I lurched to my feet. How much time had I wasted? There was no way of knowing how long I had until they were at my door, ready to take me to the Renewable’s chamber. To put me into that glass cage forever.

  I dug a pair of the drawstring pants from the chest at the foot of my bed. Tying the legs together, I loaded my makeshift bag with my untouched bread rations and the rolls I’d hoarded. I drained cup after cup of water. When I could hold no more, I threw the cup in the bag with the rations.

  It was an awkward backpack, but it would hold for now. I tried not to think about what I would do when I got home. What would my parents do? What could they do? Sucking in a deep breath, I shoved the key into the keyhole and twisted.

  There was a click, and the door swung outward at my touch. The corridor stretched away on either side. I could hear movement to the left and so I went right. I passed door after door—the rooms that had been occupied by other children. They were all unlocked, giving me easy places to hide whenever architects passed.

  My mind remained oddly detached. As though subconscious memory was leading me, impulse told me without hesitation which direction to go whenever I reached an intersection of hallways.

  I came to a door at the end of the hallway that was built more solidly than the others, designed to swing outward rather than slide open. I saw a strip of light below it. I couldn’t know what was on the other side of the door. A room full of architects, a corridor lined with guards, or alarms sounding throughout the building—but I couldn’t wander the halls forever. I placed both palms against the door, willing myself to go through with it.

  A sound, behind me. A clatter of a door opening, voices exclaiming. Footsteps, running. Someone had realized I wasn’t in my cell. It didn’t matter now whether I set off an alarm or not.

  I threw my body against the bar on the door and daylight exploded against my eyes as I staggered over the threshold— and onto empty space.

  My momentum turned me in midair, giving me
a glimpse of the open door above me. There would have once been a fire escape there, but no longer, only a long drop from several stories off the ground.

  My mind worked clearly, efficiently; it seemed I fell for hours. I had time to picture the oddly comforting image of my broken body once it hit the ground. I had said I would rather die than be their magical slave. So be it.

  The air rushed past me, and the wind whispered, Just like you, Lark. An imaginary shoulder jostled mine, a broad palm cradled a little bird made of paper. A rustle of wings, a breath, and then stillness.

  NO . Something flew from me with such force that it sent me tumbling sideways in midair. I collided heavily with the wall opposite, striking my head so hard that my vision spotted with black. I hit something else, something yielding and buzzing with power, and then bounced onto the cobblestones.

  •  •  •

  I lay there stunned and gasping. My body tingled and roared. I rolled over and the motion sent a ripple of pain and dizziness that triggered a spasm of nausea. I fought the impulse to retch—I couldn’t afford to waste the food.

  My hands were resting on something sticky and warm. I lifted one, staring without recognition at the aggressively bright red color coating it. It wasn’t until I saw something drip past my vision and into the crimson puddle that I clapped my hand to my head. A wave of dizziness swept over me, and this time I did vomit, a thin stream of acidic, vile liquid. Head wounds bleed, I reminded myself, trying not to panic. It looks worse than it is.

  With a groan I hauled myself up against the wall. I aimed my steps toward the mouth of the alley. I was still within the Institute complex, but at least I was outside the building.