“Seen some rough handling, haven’t we, Mrs. Mayhew? Who’s done that to your face?”
“None of your business.”
He nodded, his eyes bright, and Lily saw that he already knew … maybe not everything, but more than she wanted him to.
“Don’t take her away, please.”
“Why not?”
Lily cast around for more of the doctor’s words. “There might be roadblocks.”
“There are three roadblocks around New Canaan, Mrs. Mayhew. They’re no impediment to me.”
“Please.” Lily was appalled to find herself near tears. The entire day seemed to have crashed down on her all at once: the horrible surgery, Greg, Maddy … and now this man, who wanted to take Dorian away before Lily could atone for anything. “Please let her stay.”
“What’s your interest here, Mrs. Mayhew? Might as well tell me; I’ll know if you’re lying. Are you looking to collect a reward?”
“No!”
He bent toward Dorian again. Lily fumbled for words, for any excuse, but she came up with nothing. Only the truth.
“I turned my sister in.”
He looked up sharply. “What?”
Lily tried to stop, but the words came tumbling out. “My sister. I turned her in to Security, eight years ago. I didn’t mean to, but I did. Dorian looks just like her.”
He studied her closely for a moment, his eyes narrowed. “What’s your maiden name, Mrs. Mayhew?”
“Freeman.”
“Good name for a separatist. What did your sister do?”
“Nothing.” Lily closed her eyes, feeling tears threatening to swamp her again. “She had a pamphlet in her room. I didn’t know what it was at the time.”
“You showed it to someone?”
Lily nodded, and the tears began to slide down her cheeks. “My friends. One of them had a father who worked for Security, but I never thought about that. I just wanted to know what Maddy was doing.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen. Maddy was fifteen.”
“Did they come for her?”
Lily nodded again, unable to speak. She had no way to explain that morning, the way it never changed in her memory no matter how badly she wished it to: Lily, standing by her locker, surrounded by her own friends, all of them glued to their phones; Maddy, coming out of a classroom thirty feet away; and just around the corner, not yet seen, the four Security officers, closing in. Sometimes Lily had dreams, hopeless nightmares in which she reached for Maddy, grabbed her arm at the last minute and helped her duck into a classroom, behind a door, out the window. But even her dreaming self knew it was futile, that any moment the four men in black uniforms would come around the corner, that two of them would grab each of Maddy’s arms and escort her down the hallway, that Lily’s last glimpse of her sister would be a flash of blonde pigtails before the doors closed.
At dinner the three of them, Mom and Dad and Lily, had waited for Maddy to turn up. They had waited through the night as well, and into the next morning. Dad got on the phone with every important person he knew, and Mom cried almost nonstop, but Lily was silent, some deep and awful part of her already beginning to put two and two together, to understand what she had done. Dad was only an engineer; his clout was nowhere near strong enough to get a prisoner released, especially not one with suspected separatist ties. They had waited for days, and then weeks, but Maddy had never come home; she had vanished into the vast, dark mechanism of Security. The doctors said that Dad had died of cancer, but Lily knew the truth. Dad had been dying for a long time, dying slowly and horribly of Maddy’s disappearance years before. Mom didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t even want to think about it. She told friends that Maddy had run away, and when Lily tried to talk about it, Mom would simply ignore her, turning the conversation into a different path. Mom’s attitude was maddening, but Dad’s grief had been terminal.
I killed him too, Lily often thought to herself, in those defenseless moments right before sleep. I didn’t mean to, but I killed my father.
She looked up at the man in front of her, expecting judgment. But his face was neutral.
“It’s been eating you up, I see.”
Lily nodded.
“And you’re using Dorian as … what? Self-punishment?”
“Fuck you!” Lily hissed. “I’m not the one who sent her to blow up a jet field.”
“She volunteered,” he replied mildly.
“Please. Your group recruits people with nowhere else to go.”
“True, most of them have nowhere else. But that’s not why they volunteer.”
“Then why?”
He leaned forward, his remarkably light eyes gleaming in the candlelight. He steepled his hands, and Lily saw that his fingers were scarred and burned in several places. Whatever she had imagined when she thought of the Blue Horizon, it wasn’t this man.
“Tell me, Mrs. Mayhew, have you ever dreamed of a better world?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Anyone who profits by keeping the world as it is. You and your husband, for instance.”
“I don’t profit by it,” Lily muttered, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“Maybe not,” he replied, his eyes going to the cut on her forehead. “Profit is a relative thing. But regardless, there’s a better world out there. I see it all the—”
The Englishman broke off abruptly, tilting his head to one side. A moment later, Lily heard it as welclass="underline" a siren, no more than a couple of streets away.
“Time for me to be going.” He began digging in the medical bag on the table. “I thought I’d need this, but the doctor seems to have done well. Did he leave antibiotics?”
Lily nodded. “I’m supposed to give her one shot per day.”
“Good. Don’t go shopping and forget.”
Lily’s cheeks colored, but she didn’t take the bait. “She can stay?”
“Until I find a safe way to get her out. A few days at most.” He pulled a small white packet from the bag and held it out to Lily. “Take this. Pour a bit in the bath for a few days.”
“Take it for what?”
He stared down at her, his face unreadable. “You put on a good show, Mrs. Mayhew, but men like your husband rarely limit the damage to the outside.”
Lily took the packet, trying not to touch his fingers. “I suppose you think I have options.”
“Oh, I know you don’t.” He closed the flap of his medical bag. “But don’t lose all hope of the better world. It’s out there, so close we can almost touch it.”
“What better world?”
The Englishman paused, deliberating. Lily had thought that his eyes were grey, but now she saw that they were actually bright silver, the color of moonlight on water.
“Picture a world where there are no rich and poor. No luxury, but everyone is fed and clothed and educated and cared for. God controls nothing. Books aren’t forbidden. Women aren’t the lower class. The color of your skin, the circumstances of your birth, these things don’t matter. Kindness and humanity are everything. There are no guns, no surveillance, no drugs, no debt, and greed holds no sway at all.”
Lily fought against his voice, but not hard enough, for she glimpsed his better world for a moment, clear and limned in shades of blue and green: a village of small wooden houses, of pure kindness, beside a river, surrounded by trees.
Wake up, Lily!
She dug her fingernails into her palms. “I’m told that pipe dreams go better with lubricant.”
His shoulders shook with silent amusement. “That’s late night, Mrs. Mayhew. But you did ask the question.”
He opened the patio door and stood framed for a moment in the doorway, listening to the night. He was taller than Greg, Lily saw now, but whereas Greg was still bulky from his football years, this man was agile, with the lithe muscles of a runner or a swimmer. When he turned back to her, she noticed a long, jagged scar running down the side of his neck.