Sophie Littlefield - Aftertime

“Okay, okay,” Cass said hastily. “I’m sorry. Look, just tell me where Ruthie is and I’ll-I’ll be careful. I won’t do anything to get you in trouble. Or any of the others. I promise.”

Elaine walked silently for a few moments before speaking. When she did, her voice was softer, almost tentative. “All right. I’ll tell you what I know. But you have to understand, there’s no guarantee that-there’s just no guarantees.” Cass thought Ruthie -small hand in hers, dimpled knees and cheek so soft she could kiss it a hundred times, a thousand-and pushed the panic away. Pushed it with all her might. “Fine.”

“When we found out the Rebuilders were coming-a scout came first, so we knew-we sent all the girls-every female under sixteen-to the Convent.”

The Convent … Cass remembered the words in Elaine’s hasty scrawl in the bathroom. “What is it-like a church?”

Elaine laughed without humor. “Not like any church you’ve ever seen. Like a cult, I guess. I don’t really know. No one’s been in it. Once you go in, you don’t come out. No one I know about, anyway.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s up in San Pedro,” Elaine said.

San Pedro: not too far from Sykes, where Sammi’s dad was. Maybe fifteen miles to the south. The girl’s heart-shaped face, her wide gold eyes, flashed through Cass’s mind-a promise she should never have made-but she didn’t have time to dwell on the girl now.

“That’s forty miles from here.”

Elaine nodded. “It’s in the old Miners stadium. They’ve taken over the whole damn thing, apparently.”

“Who?”

“These…women. They’re like, I don’t know, fundamentalists, I guess. Sort of Christian…but they have a lot of their own beliefs. Kind of whacked-out is what I hear, into some strange rituals and shit like that.”

“And you sent the children there?” Cass tried and failed to keep the accusation from her voice. “You sent Ruthie?”

“Yes, we did,” Elaine said, turning to face Cass head-on, and in a trick of the light, a bright beam from the sun that had just crested the roof of the library, her face was fully illuminated, and Cass saw the network of fine lines around her eyes, the deep groove between her eyebrows. The evidence of the toll the weeks had taken on this woman who had once been her friend. “And you would have, too. Because no matter what they’re doing with the girls at the Convent, what the Rebuilders do is far worse.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN-” CASS ASKED, THE WORLD falling away from her, the air sucked from her throat. “What were they going to do?”

– to my baby, my darling, the person I’d die for -

“No one knows, Cass. Don’t lose your shit here, no one really knows.” Elaine stared straight ahead, sped up her pace, swung her arms as though she was racing against herself. “But there were rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“Quiet,” Elaine snapped, reaching for Cass’s arm. She dug her sharp fingernails into the soft flesh of her wrist, kept digging until tears sprang to Cass’s eyes and she finally, reluctantly, nodded. “Look, you can’t put too much stock in this. We don’t really know what’s going down in Colima. They keep us in the dark. You know, they have their propaganda…”

“Just tell me.”

“All right. The vaccine they were talking about? You know, against the fever? No one really thinks they can do that. But what they are trying to do is develop a test. To see if you’re immune or not. And people say they’re close.”

“But what does that have to do with the children?”

“They say they’re taking the kids and testing them first. The outliers are going to be raised together down there. Kind of a superresistant colony, get it? They’re going to get the best of everything-food, medicine, whatever it takes. They’re being raised drinking the Rebuilder Kool-Aid.”

“But what happens to the ones who aren’t?”

“No one knows. But it can’t be good, right?”

Cass felt her blood go cold. “What do you mean…”

“Look, Cass, they’re zealots. They use everything, twist everything for their purpose. I think some of them are even glad Before is gone, gives them a chance to reshape the world in their image. I mean, they’re not going to waste an opportunity just because it goes against what regular people think of as unacceptable.”

“What, Elaine? Just say it-”

“The rumor is they’re putting the rest of the kids to work. The ones who are old enough. They’re sending them out on raiding parties, into the buildings first, places an adult can’t or won’t go. They probably have them washing dishes and emptying latrines and carrying water, the things no one else wants to do. The slave labor jobs.”

Cass felt faint with dismay. “But the babies-”

“Who knows, Cass? Infirmary or cradle camp or something. Come on, they’re not going to let them starve. But you can bet they aren’t getting much attention. Probably just enough so they grow up to join the labor pool.”

Cass slowed, her body going numb with the horror of it, but Elaine did not slow down. After a moment Cass had to jog a little to catch up. “You could be wrong… About all of it. I mean, you yourself said you don’t know.”

“You’re right,” Elaine said. “I could be wrong. You want to take that chance? You think any mother here wanted to take that chance? That’s why we sent the ones away that we could.”

“Their own children…”

“Look, Cass, you haven’t seen the others. You wouldn’t recognize them. You want to know why I got this job? Why I’m a trusted member of the team around here?” The sarcasm in her voice was painful to hear. “Because I didn’t fall apart like some of the others. The parents . Do you want to know how many suicides we’ve had since then? No…you don’t. Trust me, you don’t. The Convent would only take the girls. The families with boys? They…”

She shook her head, went silent. Cass walked beside her, making almost an entire lap, both of them lost to their thoughts.

“The boys went with the Rebuilders,” Cass finally said. “The girls went to the Convent.”

“Yes. That’s what I’ve been telling you. And you need to be grateful. Maybe they have to listen to Jesus talk morning, noon and night. Maybe they practice witchcraft or worship phases of the moon. Does it really matter? They’re safe. They’re safe enough for now, Cass, and that’s enough. That’s all we have anymore.”

“But why didn’t the parents go with them? The mothers, at least-if they allow women-”

“The Convent refused,” Elaine said. “Only the children. The Convent takes new acolytes sometimes but only the ones they feel are called. They wouldn’t take the mothers because they said they weren’t called to join, but the girls were still innocents, so they could. Their leader, this woman they have, she makes all these decisions. I don’t know, maybe she reads tea leaves or whatever, but she sent the word down. They took eleven girls. Ruthie was the youngest. The oldest was fifteen.”

Ruthie, given away again…how many times in her short life had she been passed along to strangers? Cass felt the guilt and grief encroaching and gritted her teeth so hard her head pounded. “When did they take them?”

“Almost three weeks ago. After the scout came…they took them the next morning.”

“Who? Can I talk to them?” Maybe she could find out more about the Convent, maybe they could tell her how to get in, who to talk to, how Ruthie had done on the journey, if she was frightened or sad, if someone had been there to take care of her-anything, anything at all. “ No, Cass,” Elaine snapped. “Don’t you get what a risk I’m taking just talking to you? I just wanted you to know. The best thing for everyone is for you to go tomorrow. Go down to Colima, be grateful-let them do their experiments and feed you and take care of you, and forget all about Ruthie.”