Enmity Read online

  ENMITY

  E.J. ANDREWS

  www.harlequinteen.com.au

  Contents

  Prologue

  The Time

  The Place

  The War

  Epilogue

  This book is dedicated to those whose likenesses were fundamental in creating these characters–and to their namesakes.

  You have either influenced or truly annoyed me enough to make a lasting impression.

  Either way, thank you.

  And to the boy with brown eyes–I really did hate them before I met you.

  Prologue

  Saoirse

  The clock at the front of the library has a double tick. It ticks once forward, and then halfway back, then once forward and halfway back. I watch the second hand as it swings past the hour hand that sits happily atop the number nine.

  I am supposed to be studying, readying myself for my first year of exams, but the clock before me is testing my procrastinator’s mind, pulling me from my work.

  I set my book down and start taking notes on the one line I have read over and over for what feels like the past hour, hoping that the information I write down will somehow wrap itself into the confines of my brain.

  I suppress a yawn—losing track of time is one of my many virtues, and I have misplaced a lot of it today. I pull myself upwards and pack my books into my bag, trying not to catch the binds on the soft fabric. I stop off at Ms Brandon’s desk and give it a tap. Ms Brandon jumps with a start as I wake her from her dreams.

  ‘You can go home now, I’m calling it a night,’ I tell her.

  Ms Brandon looks dazed, but nods with a yawn.

  ‘Goodnight Saoirse.’

  Exiting the library, the air is so hot it is like the back of an exhaust blowing straight onto my skin. This winter air is not so much like the winters of my childhood; it has grown hotter each year since I can remember, and the records keep rising, as the news presenters keep reminding us.

  I start on my walk. To and from school I go the same way every day, especially on nights like tonight when I’m coming home late. It’s nice to keep to normality when nights like this seem so dark and menacing. Tonight’s air is so hot I feel like I am sweating through my clothes, as though I may die from loss of fluid. I take out my water bottle and take a big, long drag of the liquid inside, easing my worries and my thirst. What I wouldn’t give for the air conditioning of my parents’ car, but they wouldn’t come even if I called.

  Walking up the main street, it has a slight incline, but not enough to make you hate the walk. You barely even notice it is uphill, until you make it to the top, where my house sits. I can see the lights shining down from that hill, down from where my parents will be sitting behind exactly the same mahogany desk, in identical offices, but at different ends of the house.

  As I make my way further into town I see that it is buzzing with people. A movie must have just finished because there are hordes of kids from my school gathered out front of the theatre, and the restaurant across the street, Tamarillos, is almost packed. I don’t understand why they’re always busy, the food is terrible.

  This is the one main street of Quay, that’s the city I’m from. Quay has everything in the one block. Some people see it as convenience, I see it as lazy town planning. There are baskets with flowers that hang from chains between lampposts, but most of the flowers are wilting and the moss that surrounds them is dry and stiff with the slow draining death of heat. I think they were trying to make the city feel like a small town and less a city but the skyscrapers seem to make that idea void.

  The air is becoming more and more humid and every breath feels like it’s filling my lungs with a powdery concrete. There is a grumble of thunder that pulls my attention to the sky—but there is no lightning and it is cloudless with nothing above to show signs of rain. I start to make my way home a little quicker. I don’t want to get caught in a storm, and my mother will have a fit if I come home soaking wet. There is a crack. I expect it to be lightning, but then I think I see the stars falling. I hear screams and as I turn I can see the street lamps exploding in a shower of sparks down Main Street.

  The people gathered on the street are still screaming and alive with commotion and the confusion of what has happened. The world seems black and blank, like a room that seems so much darker when the light has just been switched off.

  In the distance, there is a low glow, like the start of a sunrise. But that’s the west. I know because most of the time I watch that sun set over this city from my perch atop the hill, watch as the city slowly descends into darkness. The sun rises from the other direction.

  Without even realising it, I am running home.

  I get to the large, rough iron gates and push the intercom, but there is no response to my insistent buzzing. I throw my bag over the four-metre fence and then start to climb myself. All this physical activity is wearing me out, along with the exhausting heat that surrounds me, and somehow it feels to be getting worse, even though I can’t believe it could get any worse than it was ten minutes ago.

  I get myself to the top of the fence and then pretty much throw myself backwards and off, onto the hard paved driveway. The sun is still rising, still making its way up in the wrong direction. I run forward to the house when I hear the most curious sound.

  An engine.

  I look over towards the garage and my father’s favourite, an Audi R8—the blue one, he doesn’t like his black one much—is poking its bonnet from inside the garage. I hear the gate I just had to scale opening with a crunch.

  I am moving towards the car and it is lurching at me. I step to the side but not enough to let him get away that easily. Then I notice that it is both of them, my mother and my father.

  ‘What’s going on? Where are you going?’ I stammer out.

  My mother takes my hands which are grabbing the door of the car so tightly I am afraid I won’t be able to ever let go. Her black hair is in its usual curls down to her shoulders and she is still in her dark pantsuit from work.

  ‘We need to check the reactor—’

  ‘No!’ I say quickly in defiance. They can’t seriously be going there when God knows what is going on here.

  My mother shakes her head in her usual way, telling me that I should not speak so out of turn with her, that I should trust that what she is doing is what is needed.

  My father begins to edge the car further forward, just as the sun rises enough for me to make out that he looks determined, strong. There is no way I can convince him to stay, his light eyes are focused on the road ahead; he doesn’t even blink in my direction.

  ‘No,’ I plead again, quietly, softly, without any authority at all. Just asking my parents to stay and take care of me when I am afraid.

  ‘Go to the bomb shelter, we will call you when we know it is safe for you to come out.’

  I am shaking my head hard and my mouth is agape with dismay.

  ‘No, please.’

  ‘Go,’ my mother says and then pulls my hands away from the car.

  My father says nothing.

  I watch them leave, and I am left with the still-rising sun in the wrong position on my right shoulder.

  My body feels empty, but I move towards the house, remembering I left my bag down by the gate. It doesn’t matter now.

  The doors swing open so easily to our house, they always do. It is the only thing that feels homely about this place, the fact that it is so easily accessible to anyone who can make it past the gate. I don’t know if that’s how a home is meant to feel at all.

  I run to my room, which faces west. I cross my room in twelve steps and come to my closet. The sun is coming across my hardwood floor and is almost touching the edge of my bed. I turn back to the closet and move a picture of our old dog Lilly so t
hat a keypad is revealed and I enter the code for the bomb shelter. The door opens and a white, empty room is revealed.

  I turn back to the window and see that the sun is getting brighter and brighter even though I still can’t see it. I turn my body to my big bay window and feel the sun. It feels cold. How can it feel cold? There is a strange tinge to the light that is reflecting around outside. It reminds me of the northern lights. It has a strange beauty to it, a fluorescent green hue.

  I feel weightless, I feel free and without fear. There is nothing and no one. I am alone. My parents have left me to be with their true child, the power plant that they designed together, their masterpiece. I can’t compete with that. My heart pounds, and then everything happens so quickly.

  An explosion erupts, the light outside my window becomes a fireball and I can feel the heat radiate while shards of glass fly around me, slicing into my face, neck, arms, everything. My body is pushed back and into the bomb shelter, I fly against the wall and fall to the ground. The door slides shut so quickly I can’t even catch a last glimpse of that beautiful light. I can’t feel anything except the rushing thoughts that are ever present in my mind; there seem to be thousands more than normal. I can hear the loud click of the lock turning, the bolts coming home in the concrete structure I am now confined within.

  I close my eyes, unsure of what the world will look like when I reopen them.

  Sixty Years Later . . .

  The Time

  Hermia

  I look at the lines that mark my face.

  Were they there a few days ago? A month ago?

  My eyes are the same mix of green and brown. Most people say they are my one redeeming feature. My hair is the same mess of brown wavy curls that falls halfway down my back, but only when I let it. My mind is filled with the same doubts and worries, doubts about what kind of person I have come to be and worries about how much longer I will get to be a person at all. But I don’t feel any different really, so why don’t I recognise myself?

  There is a long crack in the mirror that distorts my image, just off to my right. I have told Elaine that it needs fixing, but nothing as small as a cracked mirror is of importance to her.

  I wipe off the last of my make-up, removing the mask everyone assumes is my face.

  The dull pink colour on the walls is fading and deteriorating, but the little paint that still remains seems to tell the tale of a brighter time in this building’s life, before the depravity and debauchery took over.

  There is a splintering of wood as Ezra makes her presence known.

  She is laughing, this hysterical, crazed thing. Her make-up is smudged, which annoys me. I hate to see my hard work wiped away so carelessly. Not to mention her hair, a tangled dark mess that clouds half her face in a chaotic disorder, which does nothing but illustrate her complete and utter disrespect for herself. I have no idea how anyone can respect themselves after what she does.

  Ezra’s laughter has turned to crying, and she is now sitting on the floor with her legs pressed tightly to her chest, lightly rocking backwards and forwards.

  I move over to her, pushing back the hair that covers her eyes. She is out of it, her eyes are all pupils, only a small ring of light blue visible beneath her drugged haze. It is hard to believe we are the same age for two months of the year; for the other ten, I am older than her.

  ‘Ezra.’ I shake her shoulders, to no avail. I should leave her—leave her mired in her own pity.

  ‘Ezra!’ I push again and give her a slap on the cheek.

  To my surprise, Ezra pushes me backwards with her full force, which I must say isn’t much. But it is enough to push me back.

  Ezra looks up, her eyes focusing on me for only a split second, her mouth agape.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t little Hermia.’ Ezra always speaks my name with the same amount of disgust. I know this is because she hates me. If I were her, I’d hate me too.

  She isn’t going to pass out and die now, or just yet. So I turn back to continue collecting my things.

  ‘Better not call you Mi—’

  The gun is in my hand and pointed at her head before I have time to think about it. It isn’t loaded, but she doesn’t know that. There is a glimmer of fear in her eyes. I can sense when others are afraid, even when they don’t know it themselves.

  Ezra doesn’t take her eyes from mine. We are locked within our own world, trying to figure where to move next.

  ‘You think I’m afraid of that?’ Her eyes flicker to the gun. So do mine. I don’t answer. Ezra laughs in a short burst, her eyes hard and focused now. ‘I die a little every day so that I can live. How does that make any sense?’

  I try not to take in anything she says, you can’t take anything anyone says too personally here. But I must say those words do make contact with something that resides within me.

  ‘Really you’d be doing me one hell of a favour—’

  ‘Hermia.’

  Elaine’s voice. I should move. So why can’t I?

  ‘Hermia. Back off.’

  That ought to do it. I lower the gun and move back to my original position at the mirror. I watch their reflections as I pretend to watch my own.

  Elaine walks forward and grabs Ezra by the top of the head, snatching a handful of hair in her grasp. Ezra seethes and hisses in pain.

  ‘I told you not to piss her off.’ Elaine looks Ezra dead in the eyes and spits.

  Then she gives the young girl an open-palmed slap across the face, sending her flying to the floor. Ezra is lucky this fight is being held in one of the few rooms that actually has carpet underfoot.

  ‘I’m guessing you’re high on Bronx’s pills?’ Elaine has the voice of a schoolteacher, one that you can’t help but answer, one that terrifies you at the same time it almost soothes you.

  Ezra nods.

  Elaine closes her eyes for a few seconds, a mannerism she only ever uses when she is truly annoyed.

  ‘You know you’re going to have to pay him for them.’ And around here that doesn’t mean with plain old money.

  I see a shudder go through Ezra’s body.

  ‘Go wash yourself off. Use my shower, the hot water’s back on.’

  Now Elaine is back to normal. She is no longer the woman we all fear, no longer the woman who runs the most successful gentlemen’s club in the city. She is simply Ezra’s mother, and a mother figure to most of the girls here.

  Ezra cowers off. She knows she shouldn’t have stolen from Bronx, and he could easily kill her for it. I suppose she wasn’t lying when she said it would be a kindness to her.

  Elaine turns to me now; I try not to look at her for too long. I don’t particularly like the attention.

  Elaine and Ezra are very similar; the only major difference is that Elaine’s hair is long and Ezra’s is short. They both have light blue eyes that border on grey and soft features that border on delicate. It looks to most like they are sisters, because there are only thirteen years between them, and the drugs have aged Ezra so badly now.

  ‘I take it you’re prepared for tomorrow?’

  Concern. She sounds very concerned. Though I now wonder if her fear is down to the fact she worries I won’t turn up. And she will be out of pocket.

  ‘Of course.’ It’s all I can answer now.

  Elaine nods and comes closer, taking the seat beside me.

  ‘Selling your virginity is a big thing, Hermia. It will earn you a lot of money, but a lot of graces as well.’

  I look at Elaine and wonder who she sold hers to. I would never be so rude as to ask, though.

  ‘Well, what else am I going to do with it?’ I ask her.

  This makes her laugh quickly, sharply and as though it really isn’t funny; I didn’t mean it to be.

  She stands and then puts her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Be back at ten, I’ll be here to dress you and help with your make-up.’

  Elaine gives me a small smile that looks amazingly natural; coming from her it means a lot. She usually give
s this tight, horribly artificial smile that she reserves for clients. I’ve never seen a smile quite like this.

  Elaine walks out and I am alone.

  I don’t give myself enough time to think about tomorrow. It will come and I will deal with it, along with everything afterwards. There is nothing to do but deal with it.

  I notice that I still have my gun in my hand, and I reach for my bullets. Then, finding I have none, I curse myself.

  I will have to stop by the ammunition shop on my way home.

  The air is brisk as soon as I step out into it. It’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago we were being warned of the biggest heatwave to hit since the after-effects of the solar flare that almost wiped out the entire human race altogether.

  The one thing I truly appreciate as I walk out of the club is the sunlight. All the windows of Elaine’s are painted black to block out any natural light that tries to flood its way in. The walls of the city are high, but the sun still makes its way through the cracks. There are wire baskets that still hang from chains, lining Main Street. I don’t see why they don’t take them down. It’s depressing to see a charred planter box hanging above your head filled with old leaves and street people’s broken dreams.

  Not many people like to be outside anymore, not after everything turned to a fireball sixty years ago. The devastation is still very evident—from the buildings that remain, gutted by fire, to the cars that line the highway out of town, many with skeletons still inside, the roads scattered with debris—until President Collins III came into power and started a big clean-up of everything ‘flare’ related.

  I push my hands further into the pockets of my jacket, picking at pieces of lint embedded within the seams.

  My apartment is only two blocks away from the club, but those two blocks can often be treacherous. The sky may open up one day and take the rest of us, you never know.

  I hurry to the ammunition stall and find it closed. My mind races as I try to decide what to do. Nothing. I can do nothing. This is the one ammunition dealer who will sell to someone who is the ripe old age of sixteen.