The 45th Parallel, page 22
Morning came, and there was no sign of Gio and Matteo. We pottered around, trying to maintain a conversation. But it was stilted. Unable to eat, we sat and stared out the window.
“It is the full moon tomorrow,” I said, watching the sunrise, its reflection shimmering across the lake.
“I want to go home.”
Sera went off to work, wanting to leave the team with positive memories of her. Give them some plans to follow. She came home at midday to find me still seated at the window, alone.
We didn’t leave the apartment, just sat, and stewed over everything we had lost. Then and now.
“Tomorrow,” I whispered as she fell asleep beside me. “We will go home tomorrow.”
“Promise me we won’t leave again,” she sobbed. “I don’t care what punishment Mum doles out. Adventures are not as exciting as I thought they would be.”
“I promise. Home it is.”
Chapter 39
We woke to a silent apartment for the second morning. Well, at least we would be gone soon.
As broken as we felt, they had taken us in, and we didn’t need to be assholes. After breakfast, I started cleaning the kitchen. Sera stood from her breakfast and started wiping down benches.
“I’m happy to wait lakeside if you are,” she said as I swept the floors, “although the portal won’t be open for nearly fifteen hours. Small hours of the morning is when the moon is full.”
“Sure. The sooner we get out of here, the better. Should I make us a sandwich? Once I am down there, I don’t want to leave again.”
We removed all traces of our presence, packed our single bag each, and left, pulling the door closed. I left the swimwear Gio had bought me. I could never wear it again without thinking of him, so best to leave all memories behind. Sera handled her laptop with even more care, and sorrow wracked me. She had met no one like Matteo. I had never seen her so happy. I had broken up with boyfriends before, but I felt awful that she was losing her first love. Part of me wished we had never told them about us. Everyone in the Collective knew, of course. But this was how the rest of the world would forever see us. Strange and different. Freaks.
Avoiding people was tricky, but as we set a cracking pace, most people smiled but didn’t stop to talk. That was just as well. So many people here had been welcoming, wanting to know about the outside world. Our lives, how things were different—out there. But on our last day, all I wanted was to get home to my family. My parents and my siblings. My room in our shared house. I’d even tolerate months of planting trees as punishment.
Swallowing the lump that rose in my throat, we slipped into the access hallway and down the metal stairwell. The one that led to the lake beneath the city. The access that was off-limits. At least there were no cameras here. We wouldn’t be seen. It might take them days to realize we had left. I exhaled forcefully. What was it with me and leaving abruptly? In the most recent weekly meeting, the community had agreed to take more time to consider their options with the portals re-opening. No one would travel today.
“I swear, I will never date again,” I called up to Sera as I began my descent down the long steep winding stairwell, spiraled around a central support post.
“Liar,” she replied, her voice drifting down the stairwell. “Until the next time you meet a hottie.”
“All boys do is get me into trouble,” I moaned.
“No, you get you into trouble. You just find men to help you get there.”
“That…”
“…is completely true,” she cut me off. “Think about it. Half the times we have got into serious trouble was because of a guy.”
I cast my mind back. The two on Newgrange. But then there was Ivan on Clava and Oliver on Lewis before that.
“Maybe,” I admitted grudgingly. “Men are trouble. Full stop.”
“Maybe it is time to consider life with a woman,” Sera continued. “Di and Sorcha seem happy. So do Bridget and Jorja. All those couples on Newgrange.”
I considered that. They were happy. But so were my mum and Dad. Louis and Iona were besotted with each other and had been for more than a decade. I had never heard Fraser and Isla say a bad word against each other.
“Do you believe in soul mates?” I asked her as we trudged down the cold, narrow metal staircase.
Sera paused. “I don’t know. I asked my sisters that once, and Mum overheard. She said that she didn’t believe in soulmates, but then she changed her mind. She said that it is that person who you meet and go. ‘Ah! There you are.’ And your life suddenly feels complete.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“I thought I had found that. That missing piece to the puzzle. The part that completed me.”
“Me too.”
As we reached the damp concrete corridor that ran in a ring around the water storage, I asked, “Do you want to wait out here or in there?” It was humid out here, the steam from the lake filling the passageway with moisture. Unlike Yellowstone, the machinery was on the upper level here. It still felt like a dungeon, but at least it was quiet.
“May as well head in. We know the window isn’t for a few hours, but I don’t want to miss it. We can find a rock to sit on and wait. Not the one we cracked our heads on, maybe.”
“Agreed.” The injury that had seen Gio tend to me, spend the night talking to me—had probably brought us together. I pushed the door open and heard the footsteps on the concrete behind me.
“Where are you going?”
I would have recognized that voice anywhere, even as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“Home.”
“Why?”
“I would have thought that was bleedingly obvious,” I snapped. “We aren’t welcome. It is the full moon tonight, so we are going home.”
“You would leave without saying goodbye?”
“You are the ones who haven’t been home in two nights,” I spat. “That made your feelings crystal clear. We are freaks. We get it. We aren’t welcome here. We didn’t need an interpreter for that message.”
“That isn’t it.” I heard Matteo’s softer voice slightly farther away. “We just needed some time to talk.”
“Two nights?” I spat incredulously.
“Well, talking isn’t getting us home,” Sera interrupted. “Enjoy your life. Wish you all the best.”
“Please, hear us out. It is many hours until the portal opens, and if you want to go, we will let you. I promise. But please, listen to us first.”
“I don’t think there is anything you can say that…”
“Please.” Gio’s tone was pleading. “Just an hour. The portal doesn’t open for nearly twelve. You have plenty of time.”
I couldn’t see Sera’s face in the gloom. Gio was strong-willed and determined. I had never heard him sound like that.
“Sairs?”
“Okay. You have one hour. But I warn you, I am not missing this opportunity. I do not want to be here another month where I am not wanted.” The hurt in her voice was more audible than in mine. I was fuming. Even on Lewis, people saw me as a freak. That was what hurt so much. I had opened my heart and soul to someone, and he had ripped it to pieces, stomped on it in the mud, and walked away. There was nothing that could repair that.
Chapter 40
“You have told us about your past. Now we need to tell you something. But first, please let’s go back to the apartment.”
“I’m not sure that is a good idea,” I said coldly. “I don’t want to miss…”
“Please. It is important. You have my word that you won’t miss the portal. I have never lied to you, Caitlin. We won’t let you miss it.”
Unable to speak through the rage building in my chest, we silently followed them back to the apartment. I was resolute. Nothing would stop me from seeing my family, even if I had to go back via Yellowstone. I would swim if need be. I just needed to find the moon pools, and we could drop out and swim. They couldn’t follow us.
Sera’s face was drawn as she clutched my hand, and our backpacks knocked against each other. She was more emotional than I was. I hadn’t realized her feelings for Matteo ran so deep, but listening to her sob in the night, my heart broke for her. If he hurt her again, I would ram a stake through his heart before leaving. Possibly his screwdriver.
Sera and I sat rigidly, shoulder to shoulder, on the opposite couch, waiting. Our bags were placed securely between our feet. Ready to go.
“Do you want some water?” Matteo asked.
“No, I just want you to get on with it,” I snapped, angry that he had made my sister feel this way.
“We were fortunate enough to have two wonderful parents,” Gio began. “Parents who gave us opportunities and protected us. They shielded us from the worst things here and loved us unconditionally. Life here in the early days wasn’t easy. As I have told you before, there was a class divide, and resources were allocated along those lines. We weren’t in tier one, but we never felt that we missed out. Our food was adequate. We attended the tier two school. But our mother put in the extra hours to teach us what we needed to become tier-one workers. Only a few people ever bridged that divide, but she was adamant that we would.”
Keeping my back straight and maintaining eye contact, I listened, unsure where this was heading.
“Then, everything changed.”
“Changed?” I asked coldly.
“There was a coup here, I guess you could call it. Il Livellamento. The Leveling, I think, is the correct translation. Tier three people were fed up with being the serving class, being given the worst accommodation and food. Then the twos joined, and there was anarchy for a time. It was pretty bad. Apartments were raided and possessions destroyed. Groups of people damaging the facilities reserved for the tier ones. They alone had access to the gymnasium, hot springs, and other places. Mum kept us locked in the apartment, even though we begged her to let us out. She tried to make it fun. She only went out herself to get food. We were lucky that she was an amazing cook.”
I still didn’t see what this had to do with us. I opened my mouth to say this when Gio spoke.
“Our father was actively involved in getting the twos to join. Many didn’t want to. They were comfortable, the middle class. But my father was from a working-class family. He had worked hard at school and won a scholarship to study engineering. He was engaged as a second engineer but not permitted to have the same benefits as a tier-one engineer, despite doing the same job.”
I glanced at the clock. Thank goodness it was digital. We had never learned to tell time from analog clocks as we didn’t use them on Lewis.
“Look, this is fascinating history, but…”
Matteo cut in. “The coup was a success. After thirty days of standoff, no food, and no fresh water from the pumps being shut down, it was agreed that all people should be treated equally. Our father became an engineer with the same rank as the others.”
“Okay.”
“About a year later, our father passed.”
“Did he suffer from the darkness?” Sera asked softly.
“No. Our father worked on the water filtration systems. He also managed the il portale,” Matteo explained.
“What’s that?”
“What we called the passage between communities. Portal, you called it.”
My stomach dropped. “What happened?”
“It was a Saturday morning, so we weren’t at school. Dad was at work, and Mum was teaching us at that table,” he said, indicating the dining table we had eaten at many times. “The pods started shaking. I was only a child, but I still remember it like it was this morning. All the dishes fell from the cupboard and smashed. The furniture slammed against the walls. People were running around screaming. Cracks started appearing in the ceilings. The books we were working from flew across the room. Mum yelled and made us get into a cupboard. She pushed Matt and me into the wardrobe, and we sat there, clutching each other, believing we were going to die. If that the pod broke apart, then we would drown. Then the pods fell. It was a sickening feeling, plummeting and not being able to stop it. The thump when we hit the lake floor jolted me so hard that I whacked my head against the side of the wardrobe. I had a lump on my head for weeks.”
I was listening now, but a look on his face warned me not to interrupt.
“Eventually, it stopped. In reality, it probably didn’t go for longer than a few minutes, but they were the most terrifying of my life. You read that people see their lives flash before their eyes. All I know is that I felt sick. After we hit the bottom, I thought we were all dead, and the door was opening to let us into heaven. But it stopped, and my mother opened the cupboard door. Mum had light hair, and I remember seeing her as she opened the door, glowing like an angel in the emergency lighting. We were terrified, believing we were dead, and she needed to convince us it was alright. It had stopped, and we were alive.”
“And your father?” I asked.
“He was alone, so no one knows for sure. But they found his body floating in the lake. The water storage. At the time, we were told that he fell into the lake with the shaking and drowned. When I became a doctor, I accessed his medical file. His autopsy records. He was crushed when one of the pumps broke free of its housing and fell on him. It crushed his torso, and then he drowned.”
Oh. My. God.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
I looked at him, the pain showing in my face. “But it is. If we weren’t different, freaks, no one would have hunted us. Our mothers wouldn’t have needed to deactivate the portals. Our mothers did that.”
“You didn’t choose this. And your parents did everything they could to keep you safe.”
“Yes, but that decision affected so many people.”
“It did. For all these years, we thought it was an earthquake, some random event that killed our father. Learning it was deliberate was hard to hear.”
Sera and I stared at each other miserably.
“But what Matteo and I have discussed over the past days is that while the deactivation was deliberate, what happened to our father truly was an accident. We talked about what we would do if that had been our children. Our family. Each other.”
“And?” I asked coolly.
“One day, we would like to have children. When that happens, we want to be the parents we had. Kind, caring, protective. Parents who put their children’s needs first. We know what our parents would have done. So we asked ourselves, if we had genetically immune children, those who were destined to ensure the survival of us all, who would allow our ancestors to leave this place at some point in the future, to no longer suffer from the darkness, would we do everything possible to keep them safe?”
“And would you?”
“We would.”
I raised my eyebrows, assessing. I hadn’t forgotten the pain of the past two days.
“We don’t blame you. This wasn’t your doing. You were little girls, only seven. But for fourteen years we have been angry that our father was taken away from us. One day, he went to work, and he never came home. It was a week after my ninth birthday. Matteo was ten. We lost him when we needed him most. Then our mother lapsed into the darkness. He was her light, her reason for living. They were so happy. You could see the love between them. When you walked into a room, there was a glow between them, a sense of peace. It was like they buzzed around all day, exhaled, and just melded into each other. After his death, she turned into a shadow of the vibrant, alive woman she was. Wasting away little by little. We would hear her sobbing in the night, crying out for him in her sleep. She kept going as long as she could until the nightmares tortured her too much.”
“She never met anyone else?”
“Never. She said that after Dad, it would be settling for second best. It wouldn’t be fair to them.”
“Sounds like your mum,” I said to Sera. “She always said after your dad passed, she would never find her great love again.”
“Carmelo tried, offered to move in and help her raise us. But she said she loved him as a friend, nothing more. His wife had taken the ultimate step in the first ten years, and he was lonely too. But in our teenage years, when we needed our father more than ever, we had to step up. We watched Mum fall deeper and deeper into the hole until finally, it consumed her. So, we let her go too.”
Desperately, I wanted to apologize. Our family’s actions had taken both his parents. I started to speak, but Gio raised a hand.
“No. This wasn’t you, and now we have answers. It was for the greater good; we can see that. It just took us some time.”
“Greater good?” I asked incredulously. Now I felt horribly guilty. How was I, Caitlin Claira Jorgensen Mackintosh, the greater good? I couldn’t fathom this. They had lost both their parents because of actions taken to protect my sisters and me.
“You are special. We knew it as soon as we met you, but we didn’t know how much until you told us you were immune. You are the great hope.”
“Us?” I looked at him, stunned.
“You. Because of you, one day, our people will live outside once more. No longer will our people be trapped here and struggle with the darkness. We want to be part of this journey.”
“What took you so long?” Sera asked, tears of relief running down her face.
“We had a lot we needed to work through. We didn’t want to come back with matters unresolved. We want to be the men you need.”
I dropped my head to the side, assessing. “What are you saying?”
“We are saying we don’t want you to go.”
Gio stood and held his arms out to me. Matteo followed suit. Sera and I looked at each other from our seated position on the couch.
