Текст книги "The Wall"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

We came out of a hole and stood on top of the wall. I looked down at my hands and traced the letters carved into the rock, ‘LH was here 1983’. There were hundreds of similar carvings. Ancient scrawl, the only thing left of a civilization now gone. Another one caught my eye: EV loves RJ. These people were long dead but their little dedication of love survived. It was kind of sweet. I remember someone got caught scratching words into the wall of Ring Four. They had their fingers crushed with a stone while everyone watched.

I expected to see other people up there but the survivors were nowhere.

The wall was very different to the Rings, which was a relief. It was as wide as a road, a low barrier on either side. And when I stood and surveyed the greater area, the sight baffled my eyes.

It looked like the spine of some gigantic creature that had laid itself gently across the hills and breathed its last breath. The world grew up around its remains. The tail of the monster was endless. Curving and following the hills until it disappeared to a line and then a point. Sandy grey stone perforated the forest but seemed a part of it.

Matthew was grinning, hands on hips, so pleased with himself that I wanted to slap him.

“Where’s the settlement?” I asked. Looking over the edge of the wall, all I could see were trees—the place was thick with them. I couldn’t for the life of me see any signs of people, no houses, no light, just woods. It was like Gwen and the others had stepped into the clouds.

This was all a big joke to him but I didn’t get it. Then he walked over to the edge of the wall and pointed to a small, metal disc that was stuck to the parapet. When I observed the sides more closely, I could see they lined the whole side of the wall that faced away from the train station. I walked back over to the opposite side and waved at Joseph and the others but they didn’t respond. Then I yelled. Heads moved in my direction but they still couldn’t see me. Confused, I walked back to Matthew.

He took my hand and placed it in front of one the metal discs. The sky flashed and a shaft of a view appeared before me. Roofs of houses nestled in amongst the trees. Little cabins with light-colored, wooden shingles covered in snow, narrow roads with people walking along them. I gasped and then I smiled, big and full, the grin splitting my face. I removed my hand and the view was replaced with the woods again. Then I covered another one, revealing a slightly different view that was connected to the one before like a sliding puzzle. Further out, past the wooden shacks, I could see a city in the distance. The most important thing I couldn’t see was another wall. The land was divided by the great structure but not surrounded by it.

Matthew explained. “This was once called the Great Wall. It spans most of the border between Mongolia and China. We didn’t build it, but it was perfect for our needs. I think it’s at least a few thousand years old.”

I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking of those little cabins surrounded by trees. Each looked different, each one was handmade, not handed over, with a character of its own.

“How do we get down there?” I asked, jumping a little, curiosity sending shivers of excitement through my whole body.

“There are some stairs a bit further along. We just walk down.”

“Then what?” I felt confused, but only wanted to know more, the instinctual runner in me didn’t kick in this time.

“You’ll have to go through quarantine and then you can choose a place to live.”

“Ok,” I said excitedly. “Show me the stairs.”

Matthew showed me the entry point, a neat set of metal stairs held up by scaffolding, which led to ground level on the other side of the wall, and then we went back to the others.

They had taken some convincing, aside from Joseph, who still wanted to walk head first into danger without a second thought. Watching him dipping his shoulders and trying to squish his hulking form up the narrow stairs was amusement enough. Now we were all standing up there—they looked so confused. Apella stared this way and that, as I had, looking for evidence of people. Alexei blinked like a mole staring at the sun. Deshi distractedly squeezed Hessa’s chubby little arm too tight and he started crying.

It was mean, but I couldn’t help myself. They followed me and we walked along the wall a way. I’d asked Matthew to be quiet and let me explain it to them but I hadn’t told him what I was planning to do.

Without warning, I stood on a parapet, talking as I walked. “It’s pretty fascinating really, this wall was here way before the war, before the Woodlands, all of it.” Jumping from parapet to parapet and back again, I pretended to lose my balance, teetering and flailing my arms. I stepped off the wall, concealing myself behind the projection that kept the town camouflaged. Crouching on the first step, I snickered as I heard them scream and gasp. Then I popped my head back up, my body cut in half by the projection, like half of my body was missing and I was a floating torso in the sky.

Joseph growled at me, his brow furrowed in a worried anger I had seen many times before, “That wasn’t funny Rosa.”

I shrugged and walked back to them. I thought it was hilarious.

“Ingenious,” Alexei muttered, flapping his hands back and forth over the discs.

“Apparently, they were used for festivals and such, projecting giant images in to the sky for an audience to watch,” Matthew said. “This used to be a tourist destination.”

I rolled that word around in my head, tourist. We had learned about them in class, about the wastefulness of our predecessors. We were told people used to fly around the world on ‘holidays’. Poisoning the earth and wasting time they could have otherwise spent working. The idea of a holiday didn’t sound that sinister to me but then I was never a true believer in the Superiors’ propaganda.

They all took turns sticking their heads over the edge to see what we were getting ourselves into. We all agreed we would try it.

“There is one stipulation,” Matthew said seriously. “You will all have to go through quarantine before you can become part of the community. It means two weeks in hospital. If you are ok with that, then I’ll take you now.”

I wish I had thought about it longer. Not just said ‘yeah yeah’ and ignored half of what he was saying. I was too anxious to get down to the trees. They called to me and the rest was just dull humming.

We agreed to the conditions, not thinking to ask why they needed us to do this and what exactly it would involve. We all stepped off the edge of the wall and hit the metal steps with a clang, like we were diving off a board into silky, black water. There was no turning back now.

It was beautiful.

No. More than that. If I had concocted an idea of the perfect home for my child and me, this would be it. I stomped down the steps, enjoying the metallic vibrations, and held out my hands, sweeping the frozen leaves as I went. I wanted to climb. I wanted to run.

There were people watching us, people of different ages mixing together. Maybe I did invent this. I was the one in the coma and this was my dream. I shook it out with a light laugh.

Joseph took my hand and I wound my fingers in his. Breathing in deeply, the smells of wet leaves, dirt, and wood smoke was unmistakable and wonderful. It brought me home. It swam around my heart like a warm drink and made me whole.

Stones made up the road. There was a track cut down the middle and spinners moved soundlessly through the streets. It was a bizarre mix of old and new. Cottages were dotted against the backdrop of the ancient wall, each with a generous plot of land begging for vegetables to be grown when the sun actually warmed the earth, not just threw its light sparingly across it with distaste.

The modest, wooden cottages stood on stacked-stone foundations, simply shingled, with thick, glass windows and smoke coming out of the stone chimneys. They must have been built individually, not by some Class team, as each one had its own personality. They were new too, maybe about five to ten years old. And the plants… My chest swelled at the possibility of it. They had the freedom to plant their own gardens. Any tree, any flower. It was too much to take in. Too much but not enough—I craved more.

This was what my eyes, my heart, took in in the five minutes we had before we were ambushed by people in white coats. Before we were barreled into a spinner and rushed towards the grey, ramshackle town down the hill. I let out a strangled sigh as we got further away from the cottages, my hand pressed to the wall of the carriage, willing it to shatter. I put my head in my hands and swore I would get back there, somehow. Joseph’s hand made a fist in the small of my back.

Matthew explained that it was necessary, that although it seemed like they had it all together, most of their technology was borrowed and pieced together. Survivors were scroungers; they had eked out an existence here after much trial and error and a new disease would devastate the community. He explained this as we were manhandled up the stairs of a dark, dingy building. He pleaded for our patience as we were stripped of our clothing and forced to stand before scrutinizing doctors, thrown white pajamas, and pushed down halls into a room where we would be separated by glass. Then they made him leave and I was glad. I was having trouble restraining myself. He had not been clear and I knew why. Because he knew we would say no. And they wanted us here. I wasn’t sure why, but they wanted something from us.

Now we sit.

Each room has a bed, a bathroom with a privacy curtain, and a chair. In the corner, to keep us occupied, are stacks of books and a device for playing music with headphones. My first modification to our accommodation was to throw everything at the humming air-conditioning vent and let it land in a pile by the door, which was always locked. Books flew like shot-gunned birds, flapping their wings once before tumbling inelegantly to the ground, bent and splayed open, spines twisted. The next morning when I woke up, they were neatly stacked back where they were originally.

I was so unhappy, contained.

But they did one thing, a thing that made their behavior unforgivable in my mind. They took Orry.

The books they gave us were all nonsense to me. Made-up stories. No history books, no how-to guides. They didn’t understand we knew nothing of this past world. Although it was interesting, coming from where we did, the ‘fiction’, as they called it, seemed frivolous and self-indulgent. Flicking through a book called ‘Alice in Wonderland’, I dragged my chair over to Orry’s cot. They had pressed it up against the wall so I could see him and he could see me. It was of little comfort. He turned his head at the sound of my muffled voice.

I read a little bit of the story to him out loud, but when I got to the part where the Queen of Hearts started ordering beheadings for stealing pies, I slammed it shut. It sounded too much like Pau.

My mood shifted between periods of shaking wordlessly, to screaming at no one, to trying to breathe and stay calm. I didn’t want to remember these things but being here in this sterile, scraped-down environment brought back memories I didn’t even know I had. Scenes that, up until now, had been pinned under a cloud of fog, started pushing their way up to the front of my already-crowded brain.

“Rosa,” Joseph said, his voice throttling for attention. But I was gone; I stood in the center of the room, my body rigid. My face stinging from a memory that hit me like a broad board of plywood. “Rosa…?”

I was lying on a metal table. My wrists and ankles tethered. My feet pushed up into stirrups. My head lolled around and someone dabbed at my mouth with a tissue.

“Is she worth keeping?” someone asked.

“For now she is—we’ll just have to wait on those eyes.” A pause and a sigh. “She’s ready for implantation. Transport her as soon as possible. Oh, and keep her heavily sedated; she keeps waking and fighting.”

The memory pulled away like a blanket and I was standing back in the white room, shivering from imagined cold, with Joseph watching me. I ran my hands over my wrists, reliving the way the restraints rubbed away at my skin. They hurt still. I shook my head and made my way over to him, my eyes watery, my body feeling pinched and weak.

“Get me out of here,” I said. “I don’t want a baby.”

“What?”

Where did the old world end and the current one begin? I felt half-in, half-out.

“Oh, sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying.” I put my hand to my forehead, confused, like I’d been drugged.

Joseph’s voice was calming, but had an edge of a grumble to it. “It’s ok. You’ll be ok. Just hang on.”

They said two weeks. Joseph argued with them, especially on my behalf. Being trapped held a special sense of horror for me that it didn’t for the others. But I heard them all at different times, pleading and yelling. Deshi was beside himself too. They had placed Hessa on the other side of a glass wall as they had Orry.

The doctors were kind. They were patient with my attitude. They assured us we were safe. They encouraged us to ask questions, but my trust was not so easily won. Joseph tried to be more forgiving but even he found it frustrating.

Watching another woman feed my baby was agonizing. They gave me a pump so I could express milk for him, which I did. When I initially refused, thinking I could blackmail them into bringing him to me, they shrugged and said they would give him artificial baby milk. I was desperate to maintain any connection to him so I relented.

They took blood and did physical tests. It all looked good, they said. We should be cleared in no time, they said. Now? I would ask. No, not yet. Soon.

If Joseph wasn’t there, I think I may have hung myself from the shower rail. He talked me down from my panic. We pushed our beds together and talked through the glass, our breath fogging around our faces. Joseph found music he thought I would like and noted the tracks, telling me to find them on my music device. I stared into his green eyes and counted the gold flecks. I put my hand to the glass and imagined I was touching his hand—that I was lying next to him.

He chewed through the books. I watched him read and wished I had the strength to sit still and try, but I didn’t. My skin was crawling; the bugs and itches of the past ran through my body and surfed alongside me. I felt and knew I was one meltdown away from completely snapping.

When they took Orry’s blood, the snap echoed like a tree falling, a dry crack and splinters creaked and cried out. He screamed and screamed as they pricked his little heel and squeezed drops of blood onto a piece of paper. All I could think was, They took my baby. And no matter how many times they told me he was safe, no matter how many times they pressed his little body up against the glass, I didn’t care. He should have been with me. I couldn’t take it anymore. It had been a week. The glass was smudged with my desperate, pattering hands. Layers of tears and terror clouded my view.

Before I knew what was happening, my body acted. I picked up a chair and banged it against the glass as hard as I could. It rebounded. The glass wobbled but it didn’t break. I smashed it again and again. The rubber stoppers on the legs squeaked down the pane. Joseph watched me, exasperated and helpless.

I hit and hit until my arms were bowed and shaking from the exertion of holding the chair over my head.

I walked to the center of the room, my hands in my hair, and screamed.

“He should be with me! Bring Orry to me,” I yelled, and then I whispered to myself, to my body that felt fragile and broken, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Joseph’s muffled voice called to me. “Rosa, come here.” He had his hand on the glass, bumping it gently with his fist. I didn’t want to look. I shook my head, listening to the rhythmic clunk of his hand on the glass. He wanted to calm me down and I didn’t want to be calm. I wanted to build angry flames around me, set the sprinklers off, and let the doors open. Let the whole place burn down for all I cared.

“Rosa, come here!” His voice was more frustrated now, the word, “please,” choking on the way out.

He was kneeling on the floor, banging on the glass, trying so hard to get me to turn around. Reluctantly, I shuffled over to him. This was unbearable. After six weeks apart, we only had a week together before they separated us again.

He breathed in deeply. I watched his chest rise and fall. The scar from his operation moved as he talked. “Just breathe. It will be over soon.”

“But, how can you trust them? How can you be sure...?”

“It will be ok. You know this is killing me too.” He pulled his hair back with both hands, his muscles tensing, and whispered through gritted teeth, “Don’t you know how much I want to punch through the glass and touch you?” A shudder of agonizing pleasure ran through me. His eyes were so intensely focused on me, all of me. I couldn’t stand it. “But we have to wait,” he continued. “We agreed to this and now we have to wait.”

I banged my head on the glass, a little too hard, the thud reverberating and rippling up to the ceiling. “I hate it,” I sobbed.

“I know,” he said.

We touched hands, and I swear I could feel the heat burning through, like if we concentrated hard enough on reaching each other, we could melt the glass. How was I ever going to survive another week of this hell?

That night I slept in fits and bursts, my body knotting and unknotting around the cool, white sheets. I continuously woke screaming but there was no one to hold and comfort me. Most of the dreams I couldn’t remember. But I knew my mind was taking me back to the facility, to the four months I lost. And I wished they’d stayed lost.

I awoke with my hands around my throat. Not screaming but gurgling and gasping for air. Joseph was kneeling on his bed, trying to get my attention. His eyes panicked, his muscles tensing at the fact they couldn’t reach me. When I shook myself free from the dream, I slumped down on my pillow and shoved my face against the cold, cotton pillow, letting out one pathetic whimper.

The dull thud on the glass continued until I turned to face him.

“Tell me what you dream?” he asked, his eyes flicking back and forth, searching my own.

“I don’t want to,” I said with a scowl. How could I?

“Why?” He looked down at his knees, the bed bowing and squeaking under his weight.

“It will hurt you.”

He sighed, frustrated. “I can handle it. You need to stop protecting me.” He used his eyes against me, staring deep into mine, until I felt incapable of resistance.

“Ok, but I warned you.” I kept it as brief as I could. “I’m in the underground facility. I wake up, suddenly aware of what they’re doing. I start to fight, to scream, and try to pull myself out of bed but they’re always there in a second. People in white coats hold me down, tie my ankles and wrists to the bed with leather straps, then they put a mask on my face. A man holds me by the neck and presses his hand down on my forehead because I’m thrashing my head around so much. Then I feel like I’m dying. Or I’m dead. Like I’ve floated away, out of my body. But it’s not peaceful; it’s terrifying and I’m always fighting, scratching, grappling to get back to myself.”

His mouth twisted and I could see his neck and shoulder muscles tightening. I knew it hurt him. I knew he found it hard to hear but all he said was, “Thank you for sharing that with me, Rosa. I appreciate it,” in an oddly formal tone.

“S’ok,” I shrugged, a little confused.

“Can you sleep?”

“Probably not, but you should.” I could feel the dark, craggy fingers of sleep trying to wrestle me under but I was fighting it.

“No, I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep. Close your eyes.” He lay facing me, propping his head up with his hand. His body caused the rollaway bed to sag in the middle, his big feet hanging off the edge.

I lay on my side facing him and closed my eyes, opening them a couple of times to see if he was still awake. He was. He just watched me softly, his eyes muted in the safety lights, his warmth radiating through the glass and wrapping around me.

Eventually, my eyes became heavy and I slept without a single nightmare. But I knew as long as I was in here it would only be a temporary reprieve.

After my meltdown, Matthew came to visit. He casually walked up to the glass like this was a normal experience, knocking like it was my front door. And if it were, he would have got no answer. He explained that he and the others we were with had been quarantined too. But they were allowed out earlier because the doctors already had most of the data on them. I tried to avoid his eyes.

“You lied to us,” I muttered sulkily.

“No, I didn’t, Rosa. I said you had to go into quarantine,” he said unconvincingly.

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t keep details from us so we would go more easily. Just don’t. I am so tired of being lied to or half-lied to or whatever.”

He sighed, pulling his shoulders back proudly like he was shaking me off, moving on to the others who were happier to talk to him. I was disappointed and resigned. Maybe he was done with me. After a while, everyone was.

“How much longer do we have to stay here?” Joseph asked.

“One more week,” Matthew said.

“She won’t make it,” I heard him whisper. “You have to understand—this is much harder for her than the rest of us. It brings back too many bad memories. I think she’s traumatized or something.” I stiffened at this. The number of times I’d heard someone say that about me was starting to add up.

Matthew’s tone was terse when he replied, “Look, this is just the way it has to be. You have no choice.”

No choice. Back to the Woodlands we go, I thought.

Most of the time, Matthew seemed ever-patient and willing to help but sometimes something else slipped through—a shred of impatience, a tight knot of rope that constricted around his throat when he spoke, like the burden of being our caregiver was wearing thin.

After that, Matthew stopped talking to me. He would wave, but took his steaming mug of coffee and pulled up a chair at one of the other pens. I didn’t acknowledge him. But a parade of guests started arriving. I don’t know whether he sent them or if they came of their own volition but they were all unwelcome.

I was an animal on display. A static exhibition—an example of a Woodland citizen. See how she snarls at passersby. It’s because of the way they treat people over there. They have lost their humanity, the tour guide would say.

First was Cal. I was so rude to him but he didn’t seem to get the hint. Pushing my headphones on my head, I turned my back and ignored him. But he just sat there, tapping along to imaginary music, and smiling gawkily at me.

Joseph tapped on the glass and beckoned him over to the far corner of his room, as far away as he could get from me. I watched them curiously while trying to seem uninterested. He whispered something and then I saw Cal’s eyes widen as he nodded. He waved to me and left, walking jauntily off like he had just heard fantastic news.

I walked over to the glass separating us and glared at Joseph, who had a ridiculous grin on his face, distracting me with his white teeth. I picked out my favorite one, the broken one, and focused on that instead of his eyes.

“What did you say to him?” I was sure it was something unkind.

“Nothing,” he said mischievously, his hands behind his back, looking up at the ceiling.

“What?” I threatened. Most of the time, I wanted to break the glass so I could hold him. Right then, I wanted to get through so I could shove him over.

He wouldn’t answer me but was obviously very amused with himself.

“Well, at least you think yourself funny,” I snapped. I flopped down on the bed and put my finger to my mouth. I’d started biting my fingernails. Nervousness and fear had manifested itself and my nails were disappearing. I flashed back to when I had first seen Clara ahead of me in the line of dopey, pregnant girls. Her hands were raw and painful looking like someone had tried to strip the skin from her fingers with a vegetable peeler. Would she have been able to make this easier for me or would she have found it just as hard because she was also ‘traumatized’?

Careen finally came to see us. I think they asked her to. She repeated some lines I was sure they’d fed her about how she’d been through it too. I knew it wasn’t her own words because she talked slowly for once, her mouth chewing over every word carefully before she spewed them out. She told us it really wasn’t so bad and once she was out, she was free to do whatever she wanted.

“Which is what?” I asked.

“Um. I’m in the hunting party,” she said, twisting uncomfortably under my gaze for a second and then jumping up and down like a toddler again, lifting her butt off the chair with her arms and legs swinging. “Yeah, I get to use all sorts of weapons. We hunt for food and share it with the rest of the people. It’s fun. When you’re out, I can show you how, if you like?” Her words mashed together.

Take a breath, I thought. I wanted to pinch her lips together with my thumb and forefinger. I’m pretty sure that would be the only way to stop her from talking. But I was glad she had found something she enjoyed, even if it was slightly disturbing.

“How fun for you,” I said sarcastically. I was being unkind, but I was jealous of her freedom, and jealous of her ability to assimilate into this new society so easily.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and her face went smooth and serious. Her tied-back hair revealed a scar seamed across her left temple I hadn’t seen before. It was jagged, like the skin had been split apart or burst. “I never told you this before but my father was a butcher,” she said. “He taught me everything about the trade. I know it sounds terribly simple. I mean, to want to be a butcher, but I had a dream that I would set up my own shop once I left the Classes. But then I got pulled into Guardian training and that was the end of my dream.”

This threw me. My assumptions about Careen flew off her body and landed in a pile at my feet. Another person I was wrong about. Her dream was not dissimilar to my own. There was a question I wanted to ask her, but it meant bringing up my own downfall at the Classes. I hadn’t told Joseph yet… I’m not sure I ever would.

I said it anyway. “What did you do to end up underground, with me?”

She shrugged and held her stomach, holding a baby long gone. “I said ‘no’.”

Her eyes meandered around the room, avoiding mine, and I knew she wasn’t going to say anymore.

I put my hand to the glass, remembering the hammer breaking my face, breaking my dream apart in an instant. “Me too.”

There was a moment’s silence, then she shook her perfect hair free of the tie and started jabbering again. She talked about the surrounding woods, which were overflowing with life. There was good game in there. The words just made me ache and I started to feel like the walls were closing in on me, or that I was getting smaller. The glass cube would fold over on itself and I would disappear.

Eventually, when I found a break in her prattling, I asked her to stop. She skipped off to say hello to the others and then left the area. One more week left of hell.

The next morning, I awoke to gentle tapping on the glass. I peeled one eye back and then the other, pulling myself slowly to sitting. What time was it? It felt like I’d barely closed my eyes and now someone was waking me up. I was about to snap at them when my blurry eyes focused and I was rendered speechless.

Matthew stood behind a tiny woman, his hand affectionately on her shoulder. I dragged myself up and walked towards her timidly, fascinated.

She cocked her head and smiled, missing teeth on the bottom row, her crinkly lips curling around her gums like they were searching for moisture. “So this is the one who’s giving you all the trouble?” she said, eyeing me carefully. Her voice sounded like gravel rattling in a paper bag. “She doesn’t look like much.” I would have been offended but she said it with a twinkle in her eye, like she was challenging me to prove her wrong. “You can stop staring, dear, and shut your mouth. You’re liable to catch flies.”

I clamped my lips together with some effort. I’d never seen anyone like her before. I stumbled over my words, selecting probably the most offensive ones my brain could come up with. “I’m sorry. It’s just, you’re so old.”

Joseph chuckled in the corner. He had seen older people before. I’d never seen anyone past the age of sixty. The Superiors’ attitude was everyone had to get around on their own steam, so if you were too old to walk that far, you never made it to the center circle.

She patted down her clothes like she was looking for something and then replied, “Am I? I’m only twenty. This is what living on the outside does to you.”

My eyes were bulged out of my head in disbelief. Matthew covered his mouth with his hand and laughed. The woman turned to him, cupping her hand over his ear, and whispered dramatically, “I thought you said she was clever?”

At this point, Joseph fell backwards on his mattress and started laughing uncontrollably. I walked to the glass and glared at him.

“Ooh, ouch,” he said. “If looks could kill.”

“If only!” I said.

Matthew tapping on the glass brought me back. “This is my grandmother, Adleta.”

Grandmother? I know I looked confused. My face scrunched up like if I refocused my eyes, she would look young again and things would make more sense. Suspecting my confusion, Matthew explained, “She is my father’s mother.”

“But how is she still alive? How did you find her?” I said, feeling more stupid every time I spoke. But this crumpled-up bag of skin didn’t look like a person to me. Her words sounded real enough, she seemed to have a lot of life in her, but I couldn’t quite grasp the idea of this being allowed, or even possible.

I nodded slowly, taking her whole form in. “Adleta,” I repeated. She was tiny, shorter than me. She looked like it was just her clothing holding her together. Her skin was sagging over her eyebrows, her cheeks slipping off her face like melting wax, but she wasn’t frightening. Just foreign. I could see Matthew in her bright eyes. That kindness and kinship was there.