Chapter Nineteen
When Vivian arrived home, she stopped short in front of the dormitory. Delilah paced around the grounds, her violet skirts swirling around her feet.
“Are you alright?” Vivian asked. “Is it the baby?”
“Baby?” Delilah snorted. “The blastocyst is fine.”
“What is it then?” Vivian touched Delilah’s shoulder to stop her frantic pacing.
Delilah gave her a brief smile that did not reach her eyes. “A message has arrived from Earth.”
Vivian dug her nails into her palm. “What message?”
“I haven’t watched it yet. I was waiting for you.”
Inside, Delilah tapped the shared console off the kitchen, and her parents’ smiling faces appeared on the screen. A tightness in Vivian’s chest eased.
“Girls, we have received news from Arcadia that Delilah has found a partner,” her father began. His thin voice carried an unfamiliar upbeat and energetic tone. “Congratulations, darling. I hope that she gives you a lifetime of love and happiness.”
Their mother leaned in. “We wish you a marriage as blessed as ours has been.”
Delilah huffed a humorless laugh. “Love and happiness. Does she honestly think that’s what this is about?”
Vivian turned worried eyes on her sister. All Delilah had wanted was to fall in love. Were things with Mitzi really that bad?
“Arcadia has sent us a payment,” her father continued. “Enough for us to rent a trailer outside of Greenwood. Delilah, my girl, you got us out.”
“Girls, we can’t thank you enough for your courage.
We had to use most of the money to buy permits to leave the camp, and the trailer is only paid for a month.
Those nice Arcadia reps explained we’ll receive another lump payment in a few weeks when Vivian selects her partner.
That should hold us over for a while.” She wiped a tear from her eye.
“Everyone is so friendly here. And there’s a bus only half a mile down the road to take us into town.
That’s where we are right now. We’re recording this at the post office. ”
“Your mother’s trying to convince me to get a dog,” her father put in.
“Oh! Our time is about to be up. We love you both so much.”
“Girls, I hope you know how much we appreciate you and—” Her father’s voice cut off as the recording ended.
Her parents were safe. Vivian let out a slow breath. The awful weight she’d carried since she’d left Sumter was suddenly lifted.
Delilah rose abruptly to her feet. “I need to get out of here.”
“I’ll come with you. Delilah, we should celebrate! A dog? Can you imagine?”
Delilah’s face flicked in a smile that came and went. “Alright, come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“The barracks,” Delilah answered promptly.
“I don’t know if I want to see the soldiers again,” Vivian said, thinking of Xavier’s revelations.
“Suit yourself. I’ll go alone.” She walked toward the door without looking back.
Vivian scrambled to catch up with her as her sister hurried through the grounds. “Delilah, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”
“I’m fine.” Delilah walked rapidly to the wall and found the low tree they had used before.
“You can walk freely out of the compound, can’t you? Now that you’re partnered?”
Delilah made a face. “Mitzi gets a report every time I use my ID. No, thank you.” She reached for the tree branch.
“Should you be climbing trees?”
“I’ve been pregnant for one week. Don’t be such a spoilsport,” Delilah grumbled and lifted herself easily onto the branches.
At the top, Vivian winced as she watched Delilah jump off the wall, but she climbed to her feet without issue. They easily located the barracks, and Delilah soon struck up a conversation with her old acquaintances, giving the soldiers a bright smile Vivian knew was forced.
In the distance, the door to the militia tavern opened, and Silas stepped out, his handsome face alight as he turned behind him to speak to his companion. Vivian blinked. Was that River Hawk? Surely not.
“What do you think, Viv?” Delilah called.
Vivian turned to see her sister twirling in a tricorn hat. “You should enlist.”
“Look who’s here,” a voice murmured beside her, and Vivian glanced up into Silas’s vibrant green eyes. She looked behind him for his companion, but there was no one in sight. “I heard you had the displeasure of dining with Xavier Dorsey at Secretary Yarrow’s home.”
“Word travels fast.” Without giving him the satisfaction of a smile, she continued, “I think Xavier improves the more one gets to know him.”
“Really?” Silas looked dismayed. “Has he learned some manners? For I doubt he has improved in character.”
“Oh, no!” Vivian ducked her head. “In character, I think he’s unchanged.” Now, she knew Xavier to be passionate in his ideals, unyielding in his convictions, and loyal to his friends. To Silas, she simply said, “I only mean that I understand him better, now that I’ve spent more time with him.”
Silas curled his lip. “You, who so well know my feelings toward X, will understand how happy I am to hear that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right. I only fear that he was only behaving himself in front of his aunt, whose good opinion and judgment he values highly.”
Vivian thought of Xavier’s grin as he sat across from her in the greenhouse, allowing her to mock him with good humor, and answered Silas only by a slight inclination of the head.
Now that she understood his true nature, she was in no mood to engage with him.
This man caused a fifteen-year-old to nearly die from a dangerous pregnancy.
For him to act as if he was the wronged party made her ill.
Delilah returned to her side. “Silas, great to see you again.”
Silas turned his full charismatic attention on her sister. “The pleasure is all mine. Congratulations on your good fortune. Mitzi King is a lucky woman indeed.”
“Please make sure you tell her the next time you see her.” Delilah gave Silas a coy smile. “Mitzi could use a reminder.”
Vivian frowned at her sister. What was going on with Delilah?
“You deserve to have all the affection in the world showered upon you,” Silas murmured. He took Delilah’s hand in his and kissed her palm.
He’d used a similar move on her, Vivian realized. And she’d been foolish enough to fall for it.
Delilah cocked her head. “I do, don’t I?” She pulled her sketchbook out of a skirt pocket. “Would you let me draw you, Mr. Gatlin? You have such an interesting face.”
Silas bowed to her, his eyes glinting. “It would be my honor.”
Delilah kept her gaze on Silas as she said, “Viv, I’ve heard the largest law library is just up the road. Silas, did you know my sister is practically a law student?”
“Oh, excellent. Vivian, you must view the original version of the Charter of the Planet Mars.” He pulled Delilah’s free hand through his arm.
Vivian caught herself. “The original version?”
“Turn left at the headquarters,” Silas said helpfully. “You can’t miss it.”
Vivian followed his gesture with interest.
“Go on,” Delilah urged, her gaze returning to Silas. “I’ll join you when I’ve finished my sketch. I don’t have many opportunities to draw the male form these days.”
Vivian hesitated. “I don’t know, Delilah. We should stay together.” Xavier’s letter had clearly been intended for Vivian’s eyes only, but perhaps she could at least give Delilah a warning not to trust Silas.
“I’m fine,” Delilah snapped.
Vivian looked at the street that led to the library and back at her sister. How much trouble could Delilah get into with Silas if Vivian left her for a few minutes? Especially if she was just practicing her drawing. Delilah had chosen a partner. And she was already pregnant.
“Viv, stop mothering me and go.”
Vivian knew there was no arguing with her baby sister when she used that tone. “Fine.”
Lifting her skirts, she followed the directions and soon came to a three-story building. She stopped short when she saw the name Dorsey Law Library embossed above the door. Xavier had promised he’d keep away from her, but everywhere she turned were reminders of his presence.
Vivian pushed the door open and entered a hushed, low-ceilinged room. Martians sat in study, turning the pages of paper books with gloved hands or hunched over consoles typing furiously.
“May I help you?” an older Martian woman asked her from her seat behind a reference desk.
“I …” Vivian looked around. She was the only Earther in sight. “I was hoping I could view the original Charter of the Planet Mars.”
The woman’s stern face broke out into a friendly smile.
“Come on then.” She led the way up two flights of stairs to a room packed with artifacts encased in glass.
“Here is the Phillip Dorsey Museum of Martian Law. We don’t get a lot of interest in these dusty old relics, but House Dorsey believes in the importance of preserving our history.
The current Counselor Dorsey is especially passionate about upholding the values Mars was founded upon. ”
Vivian walked to the center wall to view a long, rectangular page of cream-colored paper posted behind glass.
The text was crisp and legible with no signs of decay.
Article I: All Martians are entitled to the fundamental rights of water, food, air, and energy.
Vivian reached out a hand, hovering over the glass above another.
Article VI: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
America used to revere documents like this, kept behind glass.
Back when it was the United States of America, not a fractured group of semi-independent regions barely agreeing to govern as a loose federation.
But here on Mars, the ideas behind these documents were real.
Or they should be. Her finger strayed to the word “servitude.”
Were the Red Mothers in servitude?
No, of course not. She knew the basics of the history of American slavery, at least as much as her censored education allowed. Her experience was nothing compared to those horrors. But was Xavier right? Was the Red Mothers initiative an echo of earlier forms of bondage throughout Earth’s history?
“Are you interested in law, dear?” the reference librarian asked.
“I think I am,” Vivian said slowly.
“I love hearing that. Please, let me show you everything.”