Bethany Hagen: Landry Park

“You are very astute,” I remarked instead.

“I have been accused of worse.”

We passed the bust of Jacob Landry. Jack paused to examine him. “Madeline, may I ask what your first reaction was upon reading those journals?”

I thought for a moment. “Shock, I guess. Horror. Fear.”

“Fear? That’s interesting. Jacob Landry is dead. Why should you fear him?”

“I do not know.” I thought back to two nights ago, trapped in my debut dress, trapped in my house, trapped in my father’s will. “Except it seems sometimes like he is not really dead. Like his wishes still live on through my father and everyone who listens to my father.”

“And in you?”

In me? I wanted to object, but when I considered it, I’d spent my life doing nothing to help the Rootless, and even after seeing the sorting yards and meeting and befriending them, I’d still taken the first chance at a Landry life when my father offered it. That fear then—could it be the fear of becoming like my father? Like Jacob?

“You see,” Jack said, turning away from the statue, “I had been meeting with the Rootless for a few years before I read those journals. Something tugged at me watching them. I knew something was wrong. My father crushed them tighter and tighter in his fist, killing more and more, and it never seemed to satisfy him. It was never enough to make him feel safe, and the funny thing was that I never felt safe either.

“No matter how many women I bedded or how much wine I drank, I felt as if this life were tenuous. Precious. It all hung on a delicate thread, and sometimes, I found myself secretly grateful for my father’s tenacious hatred. I was like you, Madeline, and David, too. I wanted my comfortable life and a comfortable conscience. I could decide on neither.”

We were in the ballroom now, the wall of windows and glass doors giving a breathtaking vista of the snowbound world.

“And then you read Jacob’s journals,” I guessed.

“Quite right. And I felt everything that you felt. Especially the fear.” He flicked a switch on the wall, and the solar heaters began melting the snow on the patio. “Especially the fear.”

“You see, I could feel everything that Jacob felt. Disgust for the helpless. Lust for power. For money.”

“But he was inhuman,” I said, shaking my head vigorously. “You are completely different—” But then I stopped myself. I didn’t know if Jack was completely different. Not anymore.

“Don’t make a caricature of him,” Jack said. “Jacob was passionate about many things. His family. Science. When you read the journals looking for the man and not the legend, you will see it. He doubted himself, and he doubted his inventions. He could have made any number of choices, even after the Last War. What makes him cruel is that he continued to choose abuse and power, despite his doubts. Even when he could have turned back.”

“You were not going to make the same mistake.”

Jack nodded. “Quite right. I felt acutely aware of his blood in my veins, of his genes shaping my mind and my emotions. I was made of the same stuff and surrounded by the same temptations, so how could I hope to choose differently? If I were in charge of Landry Park and the leader of the Uprisen, I feared I would never leave Jacob’s legacy behind. So I removed myself from the estate, and chose a new name, and in doing so, committed myself to the maintenance of my conscience. I have never regretted it.”

“So why now?”

“An excellent question.” Small lakes formed in the snow, forcing tiny rivers of icy water down the steps. “I had felt for years that we needed a true uprising. With the help of the Empire and with much careful planning, I felt we could succeed and hopefully with minimal loss of Rootless life. After all, what army would dare fight the Empire for long? With them as allies, we could finally shake off the yoke of the gentry. But your father forced my hand. He had Charlie, and I damn well was not going to wait for a foreign army to stop him. My first instinct was to have my people attack, to pretend submission and then swarm the terrace at the last instant. It would, of course, have little likelihood of working, and would probably result in many deaths, and war for the whole country, if the Empire belatedly came to our aid.

“But then David messaged me on the tablet I had been given by the Empire. He was coming to help. We might have a chance to stop the execution and overwhelm your father. But how to stop him from striking back at us? From hunting Charlie again? And punishing you and David? And then it occurred to me that I did have the legal power to stop him, still, after all these years, thanks to the gentry’s foolish obsession with birth order.”

Chunks of snow were sliding off the patio now, carried by the water underneath like icebergs, revealing the platinum symbol below.

“Do I possess the self-control I feared I lacked as a younger man? That remains to be seen, but now I have children who are Rootless, and one may hope that one’s children’s well-being is a sufficient incentive.”

Jamie approached us, and Jack fell silent. “Madeline, can we talk?” Jamie asked. “It’s about your father.”

Jack, who was feeling stiff from the cold, opted to stay downstairs, but Jamie and I climbed up to Father’s room. Inwardly, I prepared myself for the sight of his ugly wounds, but it was unnecessary—clean white bandages had been wrapped around the lower half of his face. He was tucked under several blankets and surrounded by black beeping machines that showed diagnostic interfaces of all his body’s systems. A nurse in white nodded at us and left the room.

“Jamie? What is this about? Is Father okay?”

“Yes. More than okay, actually.”

Jamie walked up to one of the machines and pulled up a screen showing three-dimensional DNA strands, spiraling slowly like a ribbon in the breeze.

“This is your father’s DNA. When we ran tests on his cells to determine if any had become cancerous, not only did we find no trace of pre-cancer, but we saw a type of DNA that we had never seen before.” He zoomed in on part of the strand, and used his finger to highlight part of it. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s seamlessly grafted onto the rest of his genetic code. And what is more, we found that the DNA was repairing itself.”

“Is that strange?”

“DNA repair happens every second of every day—repair from toxins and UV rays and the like. But repair at this speed and efficiency from a radiation injury so severe? I have never heard of anything like it.”

“Does this mean that he will make a complete recovery?” I asked. “Does this mean he will be healthy again?”

Jamie shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m going to ask to use the university’s laboratory to examine this further. It’s fascinating. I wish there were still geneticists who could help us, but I don’t know of any, not around here in any case.”

I sat on the bed and stared at Father. I wondered if he knew about his strange DNA, and if he knew that he was going to be all right. That some strange mechanism that lived within his cells was going to save his life.

I held up my hand, pale and slender in the faint light, and examined it. I shared the Landry name and looks with Father. What else did we share?

The next week, Father and Mother were removed to the Lodge, along with several nurses and equipment to help in Father’s convalescence. Father was sedated and placed on a gurney. When they loaded him into the ambulance, I realized that I couldn’t see his mouth under the bandages and had no way to see if he was healing as well as Jamie claimed. I kissed his forehead and sent him on his way with as many good wishes as I could muster.