THE NIGHT OF THE sixth sinik, I discover what I must do.
It stems from the moment I touch a small button on the mysterious oblong black object I found in the third sack. A bright, bluish light shoots out from it. A light that reminds me of the one that shone on my tent the night Scout Okpik visited me. It’s hard to imagine a world where light came at the mere touch of a finger, instead of arduous ticks with flint and steel over hard-won wood. The pre-Healing people lived in a world of luxury and indulgence, and had no appreciation for it. As for the knife, lodestone, and water sack, well, I still can’t figure out why a girl living in a bustling pre-Healing city would have need for them. They are items used for hunting. All I can figure is that they were sentimental trinkets of a past time before the world became so full and crazy.
Before it vanishes, the light strikes the “Kirov Ballet” book I’ve discovered in the last clear pouch, which contains countless lifelike renderings of dancers in practically no clothing, in all sorts of lewd poses. They have the same precise, realistic appearance as the image on the card with the word nimi. And the dancer who appears in most of the pictures is Elizabet Laine.
Yet the images that move me most are the sketches in a greyish ink along the page borders, the ones that bear a more homemade look. Pictures that seem as though Elizabet had drawn them herself, especially since they bear her initials. Here, a lone dancer is shown on stage in series of uncomfortable contortions before a sea of leering faces. Again, the barely clothed dancer closely resembles Elizabet.
Elizabet looks so exposed. And so very, very cold.
Poor, poor Elizabet. I wish I could cover up her shame. From the humiliation of exposing her body nightly and her spirit daily, with none of the Maidenly protections that the Aerie affords young women. She had none of the Lex-sanctified rules that I benefit from every day, even if I bristle at them from time to time. Maybe my mother has some justification for all her Lex adherence after all.
Because of this, I almost don’t want to share my Relics with anyone, even though there is no precedent for this discovery. Eamon’s meticulous research into past Testings has shown me that. Not even the stuff of rumors. My discovery could be unusual—even legendary. Like my father’s mirror.
But I believe that it’s much more.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s Eamon’s death. Maybe it’s Lukas’s map. Maybe it’s the conspiracy against me that I detect in whispers and glances. But I feel like this is a Gods-given sign. Elizabet Laine sent me this gift from the days before the Healing. With this offering comes a Gods-entrusted duty to Elizabet and to the people of New North—to the past and to the present. I must write a new sort of Chronicle, not simply a cautionary tale of how an object led to the world’s downfall and necessitated the cleansing waters of the Healing.
How will I do this? I have never heard—or read—a Chronicle that wasn’t simply a story of a Relic and the horrific damage it inflicted.
Then it comes to me. My Chronicle will not be just the story of Elizabet’s pink pack and its contents, but the story of Elizabet. I will tell the story of a life lost in the end … lost even before the Healing. And I will tell Elizabet’s story as if I was seeing those final days through Elizabet’s eyes. As if I was her, one of the many sinners who brought about the Healing.
My heart races at the thought of writing this unusual Chronicle. My mother and father will approve; Lukas will approve; Jasper will approve … Eamon would have approved. And this is how I will win. This is how a Maiden can become an Archon.
The Chronicle of Elizabet Laine, Part I
I am lost. Horribly lost. I thought I’d made the proper turn when I left the doctor’s office, but the St. Petersburg streets are a dense warren of dead ends and intersecting roadways. The buildings are starting to look familiar, and I’m pretty sure I’ve made a circle.
The panic starts to build inside me. I’m going to be late. Very late. What will the Keeper of the Ballet do to me?
It doesn’t help my fear that the streets are melting as I go further and further into the warren. The sky-touching buildings grow less and less ornate; instead, they look more like decaying stone towers about to topple onto the garbage heaps lining the streets. I can’t believe people actually live in these teetering steeples stacked one upon another like a deck of cards, but the fresh piles of discarded Cokes and Hersheys on the balconies speak to their habitation. These are the homes of the Penny class. They aren’t even afforded the decoration of the metal trees that line the central St. Petersburg streets where the Euro class lives. It’s beyond bleak in here.
Although it’s still afternoon, the skies are growing dark from the black clouds emitting from the factories. No Electrics light the backstreets, save for the Neons of the adverts for Cokes and Maybellines and, of course, the God Apple. In this darkness, I’m finding it increasingly hard to sidestep the rubbish … and the people.
In some ways, the people are familiar enough. Like most in St. Petersburg, the males wear tight-fitting Levis and tops with stripes and bright patterns, and the females wear Minis and Manolos—just like me. As with many in St. Petersburg, the males leer at the females, and the females competitively scan each other’s costumes. And just like those on the Euro streets, they hold close to their faces the little worship tablets to the God Apple, so they can whisper prayers, something I find myself doing more and more these days. Although these people are probably praying for more Pennies. I pray for help of a different kind.
But these people do look different than those in the Euro parts of St. Petersburg that I normally frequent. Different than me. They are coughing, and they bear the pasty, pale skin of sickness. At any tick, one of their bodies—weakened by the food and the remedies—could spread a Plague, and I want to avoid brushing against them at all costs.
But it isn’t easy to remain untouched amidst the garbage and the throngs of people, and my shoe stick catches on a Coke. I tumble to the cracking, stone ground—no grass exists in St. Petersburg to break my fall—and find myself face-to-face with one of the Homeless. His face is caked with grime from the air and streets. The Homeless is Penniless and can’t afford food, and he’s so thin that his bones nearly poke through the skin. I see this through the holes in the garbage bag he wears for clothes. For a tick, I am mesmerized by the awfulness of his situation and can’t move my eyes or body away from him.
The Homeless mistakes my momentary paralysis for injury. Despite his own bodily weakness, the Homeless tries to rise and help me up. I flinch away from his touch—the Homeless are known to spread all sorts of Plagues—and push myself to standing. I check to make sure my pink pack is still on my back. Then I run.
As I dart in and out of people and trash and Fords, I start to cry. The Homeless was only trying to help—even though no one had ever tried to help him. But what choice did I have? Would I have acted any differently in my Finnish homeland, where the odd tree still grows? Where you can still find a patch of green grass? Probably not. Every man for himself, my father always says. That’s what God Apple wants. My father quotes the preachers on the Panasonic.