She ached to see breath. She held her own like it might somehow give it to him. He wore nothing above his waist; his skin marred with deep lines and discoloration. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't. Something inside her told her the moment she did; he wouldn't exist anymore. That's how it was within The Tower.
Finally, two other men came to the tree and cut the ropes away. He toppled forward, and they let him fall to the ground. She imagined his blood soaking into the ground and being drawn up into a tree's roots. They picked him up and dragged him away. She didn't know his name. She never had to.
The next morning, she could only wonder how many men's blood were within the apples ground down for their cider.
Two weeks later, she put the final stitch in her blanket. It was beautiful, and she looked forward to draping it across her bed. It would give her something new to look at, a reminder that there was loveliness and hope to come. But when she brought it to Ruth, to show she had finished what she'd been told to do, she wasn't allowed to bring the blanket to her room.
She was brought into the core of The Tower, led to a room with a steaming bath sunken into the floor. Her hair hung long and loose now, no longer braided like the women first brought into the Society. Two other women, their hair twisted in tight buns at the backs of their heads and their wrists encircled with bright scars, brushed through the long strands, then undressed her. Without a word of explanation, they bathed her and rubbed oil into her skin. The brand on her waist no longer hurt when the water touched it, but she still hadn't gotten used to the way it felt, so rough and protruding against the rest of her skin.
As they draped her in pale blue gossamer and strung her neck with gold, she knew what was happening. They were preparing her for sacrifice.
The blanket she crafted, designed by her spirit, stitched with her hopes and devotion, imbued with her blood, wasn't for her. It would never be on her bed. It was made as a gift to present to Lucas. Ruth brought her into a massive bedroom lined with heavy wood wardrobes, their doors open. Inside were rows of blankets hanging from hooks.
"Congratulations, Sister Abigail," Ruth said, carrying the blanket over to the bed at the side of the room and resting it on the crisp white sheets. "Your first phase of the Circle of Light purified you and warmed your spirit. You have learned to be a light for yourself and a light unto others. Tonight, you fulfill your ultimate purpose and become a light for Lucas."
She shook her head.
"I don't understand," she said.
Ruth looked at her through eyes that had seen so many standing in just the place she was. Yes, you do, those eyes said. But her lips curved into a soft smile. That smile crept through her veins and wrapped in a coil around her heart. It was always that smile. That smile came before the lesson. It came before needles pressed into her fingertips over and over so she would be prepared to stitch. It came before missed meals and hours washing what was already clean. It came before people left The Tower, and she came to stroke her hair and remind her to guard herself from The Existence or fear losing her place in the New Time.
"Everyone must work together to bring about the New Time, Sister Abigail. Everyone within our Society has within them a special task, a role that is essential to creating the glorious future that awaits us. Lucas's role is the most important, the most valuable. You were chosen and have been nurtured until now to be in the Circle of Light, his gathering of treasures. You will be his light, and he will cherish you. This will give him strength and connect his spirit to The Essence. Through this, he will lead us all into what has been promised to us."
She remembered Sister Clarissa with her long blond hair and blood on her lips. She was there for a brief time after she was brought into the Circle. All the women in the Circle lived together in a separate section of The Tower, away from where they lived before they were brought through the ceremony. For a few weeks, they spent time together, but then she was gone. She never asked.
Never ask. Never question. Now she wondered which of the blankets was Sister Clarissa's, and where she would be brought when the night was through, and hers was hung on the empty hook in the wardrobe across the room.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Now
I press the mask closer to my face to make it easier to breathe as we pick our way through the wreckage of the bus station. Even after the time that's passed, there's still so much dust and debris in the air in some areas; it makes breathing feel like choking. Occasionally the crews working on cleaning up the destruction move something that sends another gust of crumbled concrete and dirt into our eyes.
It's strange to be working in a crime scene that's also being demolished around us as we speak. It's like we are working against time. Ideally, we would have everything kept exactly as it was the day of the explosion, but that just isn't an option. The bus station is set in a busy area of this city, and having a crumbling building is a threat against public safety. We have to make do with the extensive photographs, surveillance camera footage, and picking our way through the scene itself, hoping to uncover its secrets as it's dismantled around us.
Yesterday there were piles of stuffed animals and flowers stacked just beyond the orange plastic fencing set up to block access to the site. Tributes for the lives lost in the wreckage just feet away. Some of the survivors who managed to get through the incident without serious injury stood there staring at what was left of the building.
There's always a haunted look to the face of someone who has walked through a brush with death. They're called survivors and celebrated for making it through the horrible incident. But that's not really true. No one ever really survives something like this. Human beings may walk out of the building, and others may be released from the hospital in the days and weeks following. They may still be breathing, and they may continue on for years. But those are not the same people who walked into the building that morning. No one can watch an explosion tear apart a couple kissing after being reunited after weeks apart or be splattered by the blood of someone's arm being blown off right beside them, and really survive.
They are different people when it's all over. Some can go back to the lives they lived. They can seem the same in nearly every way, but there's always going to be a part of them lying dead in the ashes.
"That's where the lockers were?" I ask, pointing to a pile of mangled metal and cracked concrete several feet ahead.
"Yes," Eric nods. "Only a few of them were still standing. Mostly the ones to the very far back."
"Do you think that's where the bomb was planted? Someone put it in a locker and waited for it to go off?" I ask.
I don't say Greg's name. I'm not going to make that assumption.
"We don't know that for sure. The experts are still analyzing all the information we have, to try to pinpoint exactly where the explosive detonated. Right now, we can't even say for sure it was only one site," Eric says.
"You think it could have been more than one set of explosives?" I ask.
"It's possible. It would be hard to bring in something of this type of magnitude without someone noticing something. But if it was several smaller devices, it would be easier for someone to bring them in and set them up," he says.