Chapter 23
Marina tries to ditch me after Misia tells her I’ll be helping with the census, but I don’t want to return to the Tzu cottage a second earlier than I have to. Plus, I need to get in the vault. I follow her out of the chapel, pulling my cloak tight.
“Marina,” I call out, “I’d like to get a head start on tomorrow’s work.”
She picks up her pace, calling over her shoulder. “That’s not necessary.” Her tone indicates annoyance. “Your part won’t require any planning.”
“It’s an important task. I want to do a good job,” I say as I hurry to reach her side. “Even if I only peek at last year’s census, that’ll help me to mentally prepare.”
She tosses me a festering look, but I’ve given her nothing to argue with. “Whatever,” she says. “But Lozen is dropping by, so I won’t be able to help you. Maybe Simon can.”
Even better. If I have to deal with the Record Keeper children, I much prefer Simon to Marina. Besides, I just saw him talking with Eero back at chapel. If I hurry, and if Lozen distracts Marina, I might be able to slip into the cellar unsupervised.
Marina’s shoulders are bunched around her ears as she walks. I think there will be silence between us, but then she says, “You’re lucky to get a sunshine wedding for your second one.” Her tone’s sullen.
“You’re lucky to still have your brother,” I respond, just for something to say. My mind had been wandering into plans for sneaking downstairs once we reached her cottage.
Marina stops walking, her eyes blazing. “Lucky?”
It takes me a moment to recall what I’ve just said. My heart skips a beat. I might be unraveling inside, but these are dangerous times to let it show. “I know how much you love him,” I say, my words tumbling over themselves. “That’s all I meant.”
Her lips curl. “It’s an honor to be chosen for the Harvest, don’t you agree?”
I nod, my heart thudding. “Of course.” I swallow loudly. “We must trust in the Wall.”
She looks like she wants to say more but, instead, starts walking again.
We continue without talking until we reach her home, where Lozen lounges out front, leaning against the cottage with a foot balanced on the wall behind her.
She’s sister to Leonidas but looks little like him or their parents.
Her hair is long and wavy, brown at first glance, though I’ve seen it glint orange in the sun.
Her most memorable feature is her mouth, which is always curved as though she’s tasting a delicious secret.
I don’t recall her being in Marina’s friend circle, but I’ve seen the two of them together quite a bit at celebrations and chapel the last few weeks.
“Rose Allgood,” Lozen says. She pushes herself off the wall. “Marina didn’t tell me you were invited to our afternoon tea.”
“She wasn’t,” Marina says. “She tagged along. Misia wants her to help me with the census tomorrow.”
Lozen smirks. “No need to sound so pissed off about it.”
I hold my breath. Never in my life have I seen someone stand up to Marina Seingalt, not even her own father.
“Screw you,” Marina says, angling past Lozen to enter her cottage. There’s no malice in her words, though, and I wonder if I’ve just learned something valuable about how to treat her.
“After you,” Lozen says, stepping aside. She barely waits until we’re inside to press me. “Did you sleep together?” she asks, tossing herself onto the sofa. Her eyes are bright, her lips on the verge of cracking into that sly smile. “You and Gryphon?”
Marina had asked a version of that same question after Jonas was Harvested. “None of your business,” I say. The words suggest confidence, but my voice quavers.
Lozen throws her head back and howls with laughter. “All right, little chicken. It is none of my business.”
Marina sits next to her, crossing her legs daintily at the ankle. “Too bad he hates you,” she says.
“That was a dramatic scene at chapel.” Lozen’s smile stays put. “You’d think he was being forced to marry his own mother. How do you think he’ll behave when it comes to your actual wedding day?”
Lozen is two years younger than me yet manages to make me feel like a child. “I think it doesn’t matter,” I say, done with this conversation. Let them make of my comment what they will. I rub the bridge of my nose. “I’d like to review last year’s census. Is it in the library?”
“Yes,” Marina says. She smooths the front of her tunic. “I’m sure you can locate it on your own. Let’s go upstairs, Lozen. I have something to show you in my bedroom.”
Lozen seems reluctant to leave. Her interest in me is distressing. Riding a burst of annoyance, I hold her gaze well past the point of comfort. She breaks first, winking at me before hopping off the couch to follow Marina up the stairs.
“I see you, Rose,” she calls over her shoulder. “The real you.”
Not bloody likely, I think, striding over to the library section of the cottage. I don’t even pretend to search for last year’s census. Jonas’s words are vibrating through me.
We’re not what you think. Go to the vault.
Now that I’m about to trespass, my pulse flutters along my throat. I suspect Jonas only went into the vault that one time; he’d never mentioned it before our last conversation.
Grief knits through me, an ache where my missing family members used to be.
With the pain comes a clear, unexpected memory of Mom teaching Jonas and me to swim.
Dad had already passed then, but it was a rare chunk of time where Aunt Florence, Uncle Richard, and Gran could handle the Apothecary duties, so we took the afternoon off.
The day was hot and sunny, the water cool.
I took to swimming right away, while Jonas sank like a stone.
Mom joked we should call him Pebble, and he said then we might as well call her Mountain because he’d come from her, and it was so dorky that we’d all laughed until our bellies hurt.
The memory strangles me.
I toy with Lucky Bunny inside my pocket, glancing back toward the Record Keeper family quarters.
Lozen and Marina are laughing about something upstairs, the sound muffled.
Simon is hopefully still hanging out with Eero.
I’ve no idea where their father, David, is, but we hadn’t run into him coming home from chapel.
There’s never going to be a safe time to do this.
I charge across the library before I lose my slim thread of courage.
The village’s communal books used to be housed in chapel, we’re told, but three generations back, the Council of Elders decided to move them to an addition on the Record Keeper cottage to more fairly distribute duties, as the Record Keeper did not have many outside of the census.
That reconfiguration is the only reason anyone is allowed to get this close to the entrance to the most confidential chamber in all of Noah’s Valley.
The wood floor creaks beneath my feet. Normally, the cool weather would make this an ideal day to curl up with a good book, something encouraged on Sundays, but I only have eyes for the basement door.
It’s embedded in the bookshelves and made of wood that doesn’t grow inside the Wall, a blood-red mahogany girded with metal.
Instead of a doorknob, there is an ornate steel ring in its center.
I push against a lifetime of conditioning and reach for the ring, its metal cool in my hand.
I pull. It doesn’t budge.
“You have to turn it,” says a voice behind me.