Courage Is the Price Page 3

  Rue’s hair remains a mess, will always remain a mess to her mother. Her make-up she does not even attempt with the way she’s trembling. Rue is certain that Amaranth will add her own daughter to the dinner courses for not looking her best, but at least her reflection that she’s filled out her clothes in a way that her parents will approve of. As if she can control how her body has grown. There is that. And Rue decides she has done a remarkable job of pinning up her hair, considering that she’s the one who did it. Amaranth would still kill her if Rue weren’t her daughter. Only daughter. After a moment’s consideration, Rue dashes on some lipstick.

  If she is lucky, very lucky, tonight’s dinner will be nothing more than three people doing their best to ignore one another. Or her parents talking about things she has never concerned herself with and forgetting that she is there at all. Ghost would remind her that it is her first day home since the school year ended and that her parents have never ignored her before. Her friend is not here and so Rue hopes.

  Perhaps they will finally see that she does not fit within their circles of Old Earth vanity. Perhaps this will convince her parents to let her find something else, become a teacher at the Academy or somewhere. Rue isn’t sure that she’d like teaching, but she will need something to keep her busy. And she will consider anything as long as it distracts her mind from Ghost and the pain she felt (thought she felt). Ghosts, Rue reflects, are complicated. She has also, she realises as she reaches the grand staircase, forgotten to put on shoes.

  Her new dress is long enough to conceal that, probably, but Rue dares not risk it and dashes back to her room to fetch the matching green pair of heels she is bound to find. She knows it’ll be heels because she overheard one of the girls from Libby’s clique brag about the ones her parents had bought her to celebrate her marks. Rue loathes the stone-encrusted shoes the moment she lays eyes on them, but she doesn’t have the time to look for anything better.

  On her way back out she pauses to change the dinner alarm settings. Ten minutes earlier should be enough.

  8

  RUE’S PARENTS ARE not impressed by her timing. She is late. They are not impressed by her appearance either. It is not perfect. Yet. This is her first day back for the long holiday and so they pass through the apologies and the pleasantries quickly. It is a relief that does not last long. Rue can tell what is coming from the attention Amaranth pays her over the first course. She can also tell from the food. Salads are never a good sign, especially horseradish salad. They only have horseradish if Amaranth is planning something.

  Indeed, the dinner discussion turns to Rue’s future. Has she thought about it yet? There have been several young people who have expressed interest in Rue. Most of them are male, her father informs her, because of course Amaranth has adopted more Old Earth customs than just the clothing and the mannerisms the rest of society is enamoured with. Rue lets the list of names her mother produces wash over her and wonders if, perhaps, her father has paid more attention to her than she’s ever realised. For all his faults, he seems to understand what Rue’s romantic happiness entails. It is her father who discusses marriage partners with Amaranth and her father who argues that there is no reason Rue cannot marry a woman if she wants to save ideas that were already outdated and ridiculed a millennium ago.

  Perhaps, when she finds the courage, Rue will tell her father that, actually, she does not want to marry at all. She is only seventeen yet and will have her own wealth when she comes of age. Marriage and a career are far into Rue’s future and neither of them are things that she particularly wants. Marriage, certainly, has never been on her list of things to accomplish before she dies. Motherhood, perhaps, but not marriage.

  Their conversation changes with the dishes Rue has only half-eaten. She pecks at the food on her plate. If it’d been real fish she might have made an effort; even for the richest family it isn’t cheap. But it’s only synth-fish and anyone can buy that. Rue shuts out Amaranth’s droning about how to introduce her into society in a few years as best she can and tries to eat the bland food. There are, if Rue and her father can be trusted to keep accurate count, at least a dozen ways which would accentuate Rue’s aspects during her debut, physical or not.

  Ghost would have been doubled-up at most of them and doing her very best laughter-impaired imitation of Amaranth. Her mother’s suggestions are as ridiculous as they are extravagant. They miss out on the most important aspect of a debut: the ideas don’t reflect who Rue is. They reflect Amaranth’s ideals.

  If she has to be introduced into society at all, Rue would like it to be a quiet event. She’d like enough carving tools to entice all the eligible suitors to try their hand at a simple woodworking project. Perhaps something that could fit together like a puzzle, a little synth-wooden statuette of Rue to keep Amaranth somewhat content. Ideally, Rue would like real wood for her suitors to work with. That would be even more extravagant than anything Amaranth has come up with, far more than anyone could afford, and it would risk being such a social failure that would all but ostracise Rue from the other families.

  But it’d be how Rue has dreamed of entering society since she was six years old and Amaranth made it abundantly clear that this was not optional.

  Her father, at least, understands her dreams better than Amaranth does. The idea of the celebration is to find someone Rue might get along with by announcing to the world what kind of person she is. There is no chance any of Amaranth’s ideas will work for Rue, but she gave up fighting her mother years ago. It’s brought her nothing but heartache. And so Rue says nothing and waits for her father to be silenced too. She nibbles at the food, surprised to find that almost all of it is synthed, and wonders whether her family is worse off than she thinks or whether her father’s frugality has finally won. Trying not to think of the implications, she focuses on the taste of her food and nibbles. She’ll be able to have a real meal with Mrs Krombel soon. It’ll still be synthed, but they’ll be proper portions with proper food. And then… Then she’ll be free to think up a plan.

  Something about what her father says startles her. Rue is too far lost in her thoughts to understand the words, but she’s certain her parents are still arguing over her grand debut. Those ‘discussions’ always last through dinner. She’ll have to speak up once they start turning her dreams into actions. Getting her own way in this risks casting her out. Lying to all of society ensures it. Rue will have to try and talk to her father. There is no point in talking to Amaranth. Everything has to happen Amaranth’s way. Rue switches from trying to block out her mother’s shrill voice to pretending she is anywhere else at all. Perhaps Old Earth rather than the stupid station. In a jungle, perhaps. Or a pine forest. Something with so much greenery that it short-circuits the senses, with big, wild animals that Rue has only ever seen pictures of.

  At long last, Rue drifts out of dinner with images of real creatures running around lush, colourful jungles still at the forefront of her mind. She has to change for her supper with Mrs Krombel and puts the simple chiffon gown on backwards. She only notices because Mrs Krombel tsks at her. She does not change again. The food would grow cold. And Rue is no hungrier than she had been with her parents. She just makes more of an effort.

  When the older woman asks her about school and her anxiety, Rue tries to hedge her replies. She refuses to answer entirely when Mrs Krombel asks Rue how dinner with her parents was. The very last thing she needs is a fight between Amaranth and Mrs Krombel. So Rue stays silent and sullen until Mrs Krombel is willing to leave her alone and eat in quietude. They never have before. It feels… uncomfortable, but Rue does not have the energy to fix it.

  Because Rue is tired, Mrs Krombel prepares a special tea to help her sleep. It is true valerian. Rue hasn’t tasted it in ages. It is too rare for the Academy to afford, even though they boast that students can have their hearts’ desire. The tea means Rue will be able to sleep tonight. Tomorrow, she will try to track down Ghost. Tomorrow, after some sleep, the glow should be at least redisc
overable. It always has been. Unless something has gone terribly wrong… But Rue’s body is too tired and her mind too sluggish with sleep to panic.

  9

  THE NEXT MORNING, Rue sits through breakfast with her parents as quietly as always. Her parents have not brought up her debut or a marriage yet. Rue speaks only when spoken to, has dressed how she knows Amaranth would prefer it. Not with help, though. Rue is perfectly capable of dressing herself, has been doing it all year and every year since she joined the Academy. For once Rue’s anxiety and her mother’s obsession with appearances do something that Rue appreciates deeply. Amaranth has compromised and Rue gets to dress herself. It has still been a hard-won… battle. Though the archaic expression feels strange to Rue’s mind, her experiences fit the stories she’s read.

  Today, surprisingly, breakfast is easier than usual. Rue tries to tell herself that it is not the absence of Ghost, the lack of a need to suppress giggles at her friend’s antics at the table, that makes a difference. But, guiltily, she suspects that it does. She isn’t sure how she likes that feeling. How easily she’s slipped into the thoughts of being alone. It scares her, but she has no room for fear. Not now. She has too much to do.

  After breakfast, after the niceties, after dodging her way out of some of the social commitments her parents have wanted her to make with more effort than usual, Rue escapes into her own rooms and seeks out some of her old sporting clothes. She participates in sports at school, of course, but that uniform would be too noticeable. Finding something in her vast closet takes some time. It has been a while since she has done something other than swim at her own home. The tracksuit she finally finds is dark brown and fits a little more tightly around the hips and breasts than Rue remembers, but it is not too bad.

  Rue isn’t sure whether she should bring any food with her, so she sits on her bed and ponders. She doesn’t even know where to start looking. She attempts to capture the sense of her friend in her mind, to see if she can get any idea of the distance between them.

  She has nothing. It is too faint. She should gather food from the kitchen. But people would ask questions that she cannot answer. Her parents would be involved; Amaranth would be involved. Her father would not care much. Amaranth… would find some way to make her life miserable.

  Rue could go into town on her own. Sort of. Her father has said he does not mind if she sneaks out to visit shops. Her mother hates it, but in this her father has the final say. He thinks it is a valuable experience for Rue to go shopping on her own, but even he has his limits. She may sneak out, but there are rules to his allowed shopping. Rules to govern her spending, which are not so bad, and rules that govern her whereabouts. Those are not rules she can follow now.

  Rue’s heart has started to beat in her throat at the thought. She has not sneaked out of the house often and she has never been in town on her own. She will, almost certainly, have to step beyond anything that has ever been known or familiar to her and into everything that she has always been warned against. She has experienced so little; it is not hard to step beyond what she has known. Ghost has always chafed at it, but Rue has never cared about it herself. She has never had any need to travel beyond the boundaries of her life. Rue isn’t brave. She doesn’t want to go. Ghost would not hesitate to find her, to go after her, Rue knows that, but she cannot help being afraid.

  Sitting back down, Rue rests her head between her knees. Hesitates, reminds herself to breathe. In and out. In and out. How is she going to save Ghost when she can barely walk out of the door of her own bedroom at the thought? No, Rue tells herself. No, she has to focus on something else. Think about anything but how her ears are buzzing and the bile is rising up. She has to think of something else, but it is hard. So hard. The glow in her mind is still faint, but Rue can focus on it without thinking. She has had plenty of practice. It helps, a little, and she tries to call it closer, make it stronger. It takes up all of her attention and she does not feel the tremors in her limbs, but she can finally get a sense of direction.

  The success is enough to make Rue jump up and rush for the door, but before she’s even halfway up from her seat, she has both forgotten the direction and doubled up to try and soothe her stomach. It never used to be so difficult to pin the sense of Ghost down even when she is not paying attention. It never used to be so hard, but they have also never been so far apart for so long before. Slowly, Rue’s bravery is slipping away and she knows that if she does not leave now she won’t leave at all. She will only stay in her room and refine what she is trying to do rather than actually doing it. Ghost would tell her to act now.

  So Rue leaves.

  10

  RUE TAKES THAT STEP. She leaves the house.

  The gravel underneath her feet is not unfamiliar. She has always stood on it when the hovercar drops her off in front of the great house or has come to pick her up, or when she has had to welcome visitors outside with her parents. But she has never walked the length of the driveway before and she has never walked on gravel for so long before, not even at school.

  It is not a long driveway, though it is far longer than Rue likes. It is shaded by perfectly kept trees. Rue has never been close to them before, but now, walking past them, touching her hand to their bark, she realises that the trees are actually shaped trees rather than the ones her school has planted around the premises. The trees at her school require constant maintenance. Shaped trees do not. They’re engineered to grow exactly as desired. It looks very impressive, but Rue is more in awe of the fact that Amaranth has allowed them. They are far less expensive than true synth-trees.

  The shade makes the driveway cool and dark. As the trees have pretty big leaves, there is very little sunlight coming through the canopy. Rue hasn’t checked the calendar for changes before leaving and she doesn’t dare to check it now in case someone notices that she is leaving on foot. It means she doesn’t know whether a hovercar is coming to visit her parents. She is a little worried she won’t be visible and that she’ll die before she can rescue Ghost, but Rue swallows the fear back down and tries to tell herself that she’s being silly.

  Because that doesn’t work, Rue tries to imagine the ways in which her friend would distract her and try to make her understand how silly she is being. Not even Ghost’s efforts have ever lasted, but they have often helped within the moment. Probably, Ghost would tell her to hide amidst the branches. Her friend would also have run ahead and told her whether anyone was coming. The driveway is a comma-shape rather than a straight line, so the trees obscure part of the way.

  There are no animals in the trees, of course. There are no animals allowed on the family grounds. The only sound Rue hears is the soft rustling of leaves, but she can at least imagine her friend’s laughter, pretending to be a squirrel or a bird.

  Her feet hurt. Rue has been walking on gravel for what feels like forever. She stops. She swallows. There’s a strip of grass, just big enough for a person to walk on along both sides of the driveway. It looks so much softer than the gravel. But no one walks on the grass. Even the gardeners have to use hoverboards. Would anyone be able to tell that she’d ventured off the path? Rue does not know. She has never felt grass below her feet before. Ghost would be urging her onto it, would have made it a dare.

  That’s what decides Rue. Whatever has happened to Ghost, Rue wants to have one story of daring to tell when she finds her friend. Just one. One story of something brave that she did on her own, because she chose to do it. Rue walks over to the side and… stops. There’s a low barrier, no higher than her ankle. It appears to be only wire, but that is not why Rue has stopped. She’s stopped because, for a moment, her vision had darkened and she thought she was going to faint. If she takes that step over the wire, someone will surely jump out from behind the trees, or down from one, to drag her back inside and add ‘destroying grass’ to the list of things she should be scolded for. Grass, even synth-grass, is precious. She might even (would probably) get punished. Mrs Krombel has always threatened to punish
her, but the woman has never done it before.

  Rue looks around and sees no one. There are no cameras hanging along the drive, none hidden in the trees. Rue lifts one foot off the ground and puts it back down on the gravel quickly. She cannot do this. She can’t walk on the grass. How can she? Even synth-grass costs a fortune, and this is true grass. She has to, though. Just one tale of daring. Taking a deep breath and balling her fists, Rue jumps over the barrier.

  The grass tickles her ankles and it does not cut through her slippers and into her feet as she’d expected. It is soft, but Rue is too tense to truly enjoy it. The rustling of the wind sounds louder now, here, like someone is hiding in the leaves above her. Any moment now she will be seized, watch the grass bruised and twisted below her as she’s hoisted into the air or pushed back over the barrier and onto the gravel.

  But nothing happens. Nibbling her lip, Rue steps over the barrier back onto the gravel with its nips and bites. She squats down on the ground and studies the grass where she just stood. It does not look harmed. It seems to have sprung back to its original shape. Emboldened, Rue steps onto the grass again in a different spot then back onto the gravel. Again, there appears to be no damage.

  Rue spends a little time hopping back and forth as she continues along the path, just to be sure, but each time the grass seems fine. Eventually she remembers that she is not supposed to be here, not supposed to leave on foot on her own. And if her parents — or, more likely, Mrs Krombel — discover that she is missing she will be found and lose her chance to help her friend. Rue stays on the grass this time and does something that Amaranth, the teachers at her school and even Mrs Krombel would most definitely not approve of.

  She runs. She runs along the grass as fast and as far and as long as she can run. Rue has never been particularly good at sports. By the time she can see the gate, she is out of breath and stumbles to a halt. Doubling up, Rue pants and presses a hand to the sting in her side. It feels like someone has clawed a piece out of her or like something has attempted to cleave her in two. She’s only guessing. She hasn’t run like this since she was a little child, when it was still allowed. Resting her hands on her knees, she waits until she feels like she can breathe again.