Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

Our elite compounds for extracted children give them the best possible future in this changing world. The film closed and the Spheres whirred down to dormancy. Most of other diners had been oblivious to the film but neither Evie nor I could be drawn away from it while it played.

Evie paled and swallowed hard.

‘They talked about the compounds too, today,’ she said. ‘Not for long but they went into why they were so special – all the statistics that showed how hugely beneficial they were to child development – mentally, emotionally, physically. They really do give a child a better chance, more opportunities.’

I grappled for words. ‘But… a moment ago you said that the information they gave you meant you could avoid extraction.’

‘Well, yes. It did seem a bit like that. But then I said something, I said…’

Evie bit her lip, shuddering slightly at the memory of it.

‘I said – I was joking, I mean, I was just joking – that we’d be sure to mess them up, even if we tried not to. It was just stupid. We were talking through the parental influences and it just slipped out. The group leader just pounced on me. She asked me if I thought I had no control. And then the whole group started this massive debate on responsibility and I could just sense everyone else… they were just… desperate, desperate to distance themselves from me, us. Everyone just started attacking what I said. And then when I said I was just joking, it just started them off again. Do you think this is something to joke over? That kind of thing. It was horrible, just horrible.

‘I never want to go back, which, of course, is not an option. I just wish we could start again. Like I could rewind time and begin the session again. And keep my stupid mouth shut.’

‘Hey, that’s my sister you’re talking about.’

‘I just wish—’ Evie stopped herself abruptly as Seb appeared back at the table. She smiled up at him, falsely cheerful.

‘All okay?’ he asked.

‘Good, good,’ Evie said perkily although I saw the way her fingers twisted and tensed around the stem of her wine glass.

‘We were just talking about Dad’s gardening,’ I covered. ‘He’s spending more time at the allotment than at home.’

Seb looked relieved. ‘Last time we spoke he was telling me that he has found some kind of new super compost. Wouldn’t say what it was though.’

‘Now that would be telling,’ I said. ‘I honestly think that he believes his phone is tapped and he is worried one of the allotment cronies will steal his ideas.’

‘They’re all so competitive,’ Evie joined in and we talked about Dad and his beans and the war he had declared on all slugs because it was easy. Far easier than talking about what we were actually all thinking.

NOW

Evie. I think of Evie.

Her eyes gleaming when she was happy; the way they looked like dull pennies when she was not.

Her tiny, narrow wrists that most bracelets would slip off. She was always losing bracelets.

The dark of her hair smelling only ever of shampoo.

The time that has passed since we saw each other has been the longest period we have ever been apart. I try to think of her only in small details. Otherwise, I lose her. I remember where we are now and I can’t look back on the years and years we stood side by side, united. I think of the last months. I think of those final few taut conversations that spiked, that turned us into strangers.

THEN

I’d seen Marie and Leo bring Tia home, carrying her delicately in a nest of blankets. A tiny, sleep-filled face amidst a cushion of white. They lived in the same building as me, on the floor above mine. The sounds of her crying filled the empty spaces, sinking through walls, creeping around corners.

‘Just look at her!’ Elizabeth, the red-haired woman from the fourth floor, exclaimed as the lift doors closed. Marie, wearing Tia in a sling, had walked out past us as we were getting in. Elizabeth was in her fifties. She had pale skin untouched by the sun, and half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes that made her appear either very bored or very tired or both. ‘Such a wee thing. I just can’t believe we have a child in our building!’

I smiled back at her but my jaw was tight, in anticipation of what might be coming.

‘They’ll probably be moving out soon,’ she continued. ‘This isn’t the best place to raise a child. They’ll be able to afford somewhere better than this now.’ Her hand lightly touched the tatty wall of the lift. Our building was mostly populated with Outs, and a few older people like Elizabeth who I’d heard had tried induction only once but not again.

I murmured a nondescript answer.

‘Are you going through induction?’ she asked. The question came swiftly, deftly. ‘You’re the right age for it.’ Elizabeth narrowed her eyes.

‘I’m… I’m not,’ I said back with more confidence than I felt. More and more, I was being questioned like this and though I thought I could handle it, the truth was that I was finding it harder and harder each time I was challenged. It was like I was being unpeeled with every criticism.

‘You’re not?’ she punctuated.

I smiled back at her again, even more tightly, and gave a small but definite shake of my head.

‘That’s an odd choice to make nowadays, if you don’t mind me saying. I mean, not even trying. It doesn’t work for all of us – but not even trying.’ I saw Elizabeth’s hand come to rest on her abdomen. She spotted me noticing and quickly dusted down her skirt unnecessarily.

An answer formed on my lips; I was ready to lash out, asking her what had happened to her, why she’d not had more inductions, why it was she was living here amongst us Outs – us outcasts. But I swallowed