Lauren DeStefano - Wither

I can’t tell him the truth. I don’t want to risk getting Gabriel into trouble again. “Rose gave them to me. The other day, from the bowl in her room.”

“She was fond of you,” he says.

I don’t want to discuss Rose with him. The night is over, and I won’t be his solace any longer. In the night when we were both vulnerable, I was more forgiving, but now in the daylight everything is clear again. I’m still his prisoner.

But I can’t be completely cold. I can’t let my contempt show if he’s ever to trust me. “Do you swim?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “You like the water?”

When I was a child, safe in my parents’ care, I would swim in the indoor pool at the local gym, diving for rings and trying to best my brother in somersault competitions. It’s been years since I last went. The world has become too dangerous since then. After the city’s only research lab was bombed, destroying jobs and hope for the antidote in one fell swoop, things deteriorated rapidly. There was once a time when science was optimistic about an antidote. But years turned to decades, and new generations are still dying. And hope, like all of us, is dying fast.

“A little,” I say.

“I’ll have to show you the pool, then,” Linden says. “You’ve never experienced anything like this one.”

The pool doesn’t look very special from here, but I think of the effects the bath soaps have on my skin, and the glitter that surrounded Cecily’s dress without falling, and I understand that not everything in Linden Ashby’s world is as it seems.

“I’d like that,” I say. This is the truth. I would very much like to be out there where the attendant is skimming the water. It’s not freedom, but I bet it’s close enough that I’d be able to pretend.

He’s still watching me, though I’m acting interested in the pool.

“Would it be asking too much,” he says, “for you to come sit with me for a while?”

Yes. Yes, it would be too much. It’s too much that I’m here at all. I wonder if Linden is aware of the unfair power he has over me. If I express even a fraction of my disgust, I’ll never leave this floor again in my life. I have no choice but to oblige.

I find a comfortable in-between by carrying my breakfast tray to the bed. I set it between us, and I sit cross-legged before him. “Breakfast came in while you were asleep,” I say. “You should try to eat something.” I lift the lid over the food, and there are waffles dotted with fresh blueberries, far bluer than the ones in the grocery stores back home. Rowan would say not to trust anything so bright. I wonder if these berries were grown in one of the many gardens, if this is what fruit used to look like before it started being harvested in chemical soil.

Linden picks up a waffle in his hand and studies it. I know that look in his eyes. When my parents died, I stared at my meals the same way. Like food was paste, like there was no point to it. Before I can stop myself, I pick up a blueberry and bring it to his lips. I just can’t stand to be reminded of that pitiful sadness.

He looks surprised, but he eats it, smiles a little.

I bring him another blueberry, and this time he puts his hand on my wrist. It isn’t a forceful grip, like I’d expected. It’s tenuous, and it lasts only as long as it takes him to swallow the blueberry in his mouth. Then he clears his throat.

We’ve been married for nearly a month, but this is the first time since our wedding that I’ve been able to look at him. Perhaps it’s the grief, the pink swollen skin around his eyes that makes him seem harmless. Even kind.

“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I say, and take a blueberry for myself. It tastes sweeter than the ones I’m used to. I take the waffle out of his hand and break it in half—a piece for each of us.

He eats, taking small bites and swallowing like it’s painful. It’s like that for a while, with only the sound of the birds outside and us chewing.

When the plate is cleaned, I hand him the glass of orange juice. He takes it in the numb way he’s taken the rest of the meal, gulping methodically, his heavy eyelashes pointed down. All this sugar will be good for him, I think.

I shouldn’t care how he feels. But it will be good for him.

“Rhine?” There’s a knock at my door. It’s Cecily. “Are you up? What’s this word? A-M-N-I-O-C-E-N-T-E-SI-S.”

“Amniocentesis,” I call back, pronouncing it for her.

“Oh. Did you know that’s how they test babies for defects?” she says.

I do know. My parents worked in a laboratory that analyzed everything about fetuses and newborns.

“That’s nice,” I say.

“Come out,” she says. “There’s a robin’s nest outside my window. I want to show you. The eggs are really pretty!” She’s rarely interested in seeing me, but I’ve noticed she doesn’t like when doors are closed to her.

“After I get dressed,” I say, and listen for the silence that means she’s left. I pick up the tray and bring it to my dressing table, wondering how long Linden is going to stay. I busy myself by brushing my hair, fastening it back with clips. I open my mouth and see that the green is gone from my tongue.

Linden leans back on his elbow, picking at a stray thread on his cuff and looking pensive. After a while he gets up. “I’ll be sure someone comes for the tray,” he says, and leaves.

I take a warm bath, soaking in the layer of pink foam that floats on the water. I’ve gotten used to the crackling sensation the bubbles leave on my skin. I dry my hair and dress in jeans, and a sweater that feels like heaven to touch. All Deirdre’s work. I am always shimmering in the things she makes me. I roam the hallway for a while, expecting Cecily to find me and lead me to her bird’s nest, but she’s nowhere to be found.

“Governor Linden took her out to one of the gardens,” Jenna says when I find her, thumbing through the catalog cards in the library. Her voice sounds clearer today, less sullen. She even looks at me after she speaks, purses her lips like she’s deciding whether to say more. Then she looks back to the cards.

“Why do you call him Governor Linden?” I ask her. During our wedding dinner Housemaster Vaughn explained to us that he was to be addressed as Housemaster, because he was the highest authority in the house. But we were expected to call our husband by his given name as a sign of familiarity.

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