Chapter 3
A LITTLE BITE OF JOY
Thirty Days Later
Turning in the sweaty imprint of my sheets, I frown and crack open my crusted lids. Filtered light streams through our small tent, and I immediately scan the space for irregularities.
No.
How did I sleep in?
Nix always wakes me when he’s ready to start our early morning rounds.
We walk the ground together, marking which of the sixty-six rods need work.
There is inevitably always damage from the previous night’s strikes.
After we’ve discussed our plan of attack for the day, I feed Mam while Nix starts working on the most dire tasks.
This all usually happens as the hazy sun is peeking over the horizon.
Next to me is empty. No Mam. Shit.
Panic starts to set in. My heart forces itself into my sternum.
Wasting no time, I shoot out of bed to find our tent empty.
Propelled by my erratic nerves, I’m quick to change out of my nightdress and into my standard-issue dreary uniform.
I don’t even bother to brush my mangled black hair as I sprint through the door, Nix coming into focus in the distance, climbing down a rod—without me.
A haggard cough has me swivelling to the side to find Mam sitting on one of our dining chairs outside the doorway with a cup of tea in her hands, watching Nix. My heart slows.
“Mam?” I ask. I’m so relieved to know she’s still here. She hasn’t had the strength to get out of bed for weeks.
How long has she been here? Is she in pain?
Guilt is a heavy ache that sits on my chest as her face meets mine. Those warm, comforting brown eyes, the same shade as Nix’s. Her lips extend, and not a small smile either. A big, everything-is-alright-in-the-world smile. Next, she says two words that seem so far from reality, I don’t understand.
“Happy Birthday.”
My first thought is that my birthday isn’t for another month, at least, and I’m going to say as much. She’s been losing time. Then I notice a small package sitting on her lap.
“Mam, it’s not my birthday.” My features are a mix of concern and apprehension.
She coughs. It turns into a chuckle. “Oh, my little Storm cloud, stop worrying about me. I’m not so far gone. Nix and I have been planning this since the last Market Day.”
If that isn’t a shock, suddenly, two broad arms wrap around my waist, lifting me from my sure footing. I’m taken over by the unmissable smell of my brother—a familiar scent of oil and metal.
“Eww, Nix, you’re all sweaty,” I complain.
“Happy Birthday, little sis.” He laughs.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He puts me down and pats my unruly hair.
“It’s your birthday. It’s the one day you’re allowed to sleep in. Right, Mam?”
She agrees, nodding slowly, saying, “Mhmmm.”
“But we have so much to do. The damage from the last few strikes has been more than normal, and—” My hands fly towards the rods, trying to emphasise my point.
“And you need to stop worrying so much.”
I huff. “That’s what Mam said.” Last night.
When I was complaining to her about the unusually harsh activity of the strikes this week.
They were hitting with a force I haven’t witnessed before.
One of next door’s rods split clean in half, and someone was electrocuted in a safe zone the day before that.
“Mam is always right.” Nix walks over to her, picking up the crudely wrapped package from her lap.
Pushing my disobedient fly-aways behind my ears, I try to school a smile onto my face. They were expecting me to be happy about this birthday, like the many before. Instead, a sinking feeling settles in my stomach and continues to yawn open. Maybe it is going to eat me from the inside out.
“So, what did you get me?” When I was old enough to understand guidelines, Mam, Nix, and I came up with the birthday rules. Since we lived inside a container of rules, it only seemed fitting that our own were the opposite of what we’d grown to know.
Rule number one: the birthday person gets to sleep in.
Rule number two: impractical presents only.
Rule number three: on the next Market Day, you can choose one treat.
Now, as a nineteen-year-old, they seem like pretty mild rules, if somewhat silly.
We were only kids when we created them. The prospect of a present that wasn’t clothing, no one making us get up before sunrise, and eating treats was heaven in our small slice of hell.
When it was one of our birthdays, we thought we had hit the jackpot.
I hold out my hands, and Nix places the brown-wrapped package in them. “You’ll never guess,” he teases. I can’t hide my splitting grin at his attempt to goad me. It’s not presents I want this year, but time with Mam and Nix.
The tree line beyond the barbed fences that surround our fields grows more and more appealing every day.
Even if the fairies are a supposed cannibalistic race of multi-coloured demons.
For the price of freedom, I might try to make it within their territory, if only for the feel of leaves crunching underfoot.
The freedom to choose my death.
The freedom to choose if I go left or right.
The freedom to feel nature within my fingertips that’s still living and breathing.
The package is no bigger than the palm of my hand, so I bring it to my ear and give it a slight shake, hearing the soft jingle of something moving around.
“What did you two do?” This birthday in particular, I wasn’t expecting much. However, they have surprised me before. One year, I received a cute little handmade teddy. Another year, a slingshot. Last year, a book—contraband.
All books in Halo are banned, anything that spreads disorder or has any worth buried before it can cause dissonance.
We don’t talk much about it. The book they bought me is filled with poetry.
I have no idea where they found it; most likely traded with another farmer.
Some people in the fields hoard sentimental pieces until they need to let them go for food.
That book is tucked away underneath our bedding.
Mam and I read it when the heat is too heavy to continue climbing outside.
Nix will bring his work inside and listen from the dining table.
It’s rare to still find people in the lightning fields who read beyond the words market, stop, go, credit, and farmer.
Mam’s mother taught her to read in the dirt outside, engraving the words into the cracked earth.
And Mam taught us the same way. Our only obstacle was timing our lessons so the drones weren’t nearby.
A few poems from my birthday book stick with me, stirring in my head, one that Nix recites to me every night in particular being the only thing that gets me to sleep now.
In some way, over the last year, the words from each of those poems have helped as I watch Mam’s body wither, turning my rage into something more potent.
No one talks about before. Mam is a third-generation lightning farmer.
She knows as much as her parents were willing to share with her right before they passed from the wasting.
There’s no time in history anyone can recall that we haven’t been held captive by Halo.
The thought sometimes pricks at me, a wound festering. How did we get here?
For dramatic effect, I sniff the parcel.
“Mmm. Not sweets.” I give a mock frown, and Nix and Mam buy into the display, though I’m decaying from the inside.
The cost of one treat means we have to thin our rations out leading up to the month before a birthday.
When me and Nix came to realise the value of credit when we were teens, we told Mam we didn’t want them anymore, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
We don’t get much to look forward to in this life, and she is determined to indulge us once a year.
Gingerly opening up the crumpled corners of the rough paper, I find a neat, folded piece of cotton. I pass the paper to Nix to use for next time and run my fingers along the outline of something curved in shape.
Not holding back my anticipation any longer, I let the object inside the material drop into my palm. My mouth falls open on a gasp.
As the air whooshes from my lungs, I hold another forbidden item in my hand, polished silver glimmering.
“What? How?” I cock my head, gazing at Nix and Mam, both of their faces beaming. The only brightness in this dreary land, happy they could out-shock me after last year.
Nix approaches, grasping the necklace, the long silver chain reaching to nestle between my breasts as he places the jewellery around my neck.
“It was Mam’s, and her mam’s before her.”
My eyes well as I take my mother in, half the woman she used to be. Instinctively, I brush the tear dripping down my cheek. There’s no time for theatrics. No time for sadness.
But, ire… That’s something that continually propels me.
Mam is far worse for wear than I am as she sniffles into her sleeve. “It has been hidden for many years, and now is the perfect time for it to come out of hiding.”
Nix moves around to my front and points to the dangling silver heart at the end of the chain. “Open it.”
Intrigued, I find a slit in the side of the perfectly moulded heart, a clasp popping open with slight pressure, and I’m met with one simple, shakily scribbled word.
“Hope.” It slips eagerly off my tongue. One optimistic part of me that I find hard to shake, regardless of pain, anger, and resistance.
Nix grasps my shoulders and gives my body a quick jerk, eyes popping back to his. “We know this life isn’t easy, Storm. If there’s anyone who can make this a life worth living, it’s you.”
“Thank you.” I don’t stop them coming this time, the waterworks pumping through as I wrap my arms around Nix’s neck, stretching up to reach him. “I couldn’t have asked for a better big brother.”
He scoffs. “I know.”
We both chuckle from the depths of our souls.
Mam’s sniffles catch my attention. I pull away from Nix and go to sit at her feet, pulling her clammy, thin hands in mine, the purple veins prominent. “I promise you, I’ll make you proud, Mam.”