The Unspoken: Book One in the Keres Trilogy (5 page)

“
Well, most of us have been keeping active,
”
confesses Harc,
“
We tried to move about our rooms and do some of the exercises from Physical Assessment. We thought it would be a good idea to try to stay alert.
”

I can
’
t seem to take in what they are saying. Harc sounds like they developed this alertness plan after we were separated. I stare at her blankly. I manage to croak out,
“
We?
”

“
Wex-
”
Merit starts.

Wex cuts him off,
“
Merit, remember.
”
He glances at the common room door.

“
If they were listening, they would have been in here to clean up Keres already. You know they gravitate towards mess and sickness are like moths to flames. They can
’
t help themselves,
”
Frehn says with a wave of his hand indicating there are no moths around my flame of sick.

I consider this. Yes, it
’
s true. In the canteen when Doe fell with her lunch tray, The Mothers hovered around us, itching to dive in with the cleaning cloths they keep under their white aprons. But PG3456 got to Harc first and The Mothers couldn
’
t stand it. When we were small, every scrape or sneeze brought a flock of them to us, dripping with coos and simple remedies. The way they lingered over me in my dark days under the Heavy, their white cornets fairly vibrating with their desire to drink in my pain.

We all turn to the common room door leading onto the hall and wait. It remains closed and still. The bell silent, no one comes. Merit begins to move around the room, quietly feeling under the furniture and lamp shades. Harc, Wex and Frehn join him while Doe cleans me up. I protest, saying I
’
m perfectly capable of cleaning up my own face and vomit, but she resolutely continues. When she is finished she joins the others in their search for monitoring devices.

When they have gone over the room three times, I can
’
t stand it anymore.
“
What do you mean we decided to stay alert?
”
I ask again.

Wex comes over and takes the chair in front of me.
“
A few weeks after the announcement of our Solace, I heard Frehn scream. His yells were saturated with so much pain, I could feel them crash through me. The next day I heard Harc, the same shuddering screams. I knew then that we all must be in our rooms, still together and only separated by walls. I also knew that the Solace wasn
’
t the only punishment handed down by the Absolute Mothers.
”

“
I didn
’
t hear anyone! I would have known you were near and been alright if I had heard you, any of you,
”
I cry in disbelief.

Wex glances at Harc who says quietly,
“
We think that something different was done in your room. Something that cut you off from the rest of us even more than just walls and a locked door.
”

I feel stupid and purposefully excluded. They are exchanging knowing looks as if I am a toddler from another Play Group who stumbled into the wrong common room. Putting my hands to the sides of my head, I feel the black diamond. My fingers rip it out and slam it on the table. It leaves a mark in the wood.
“
Go on,
”
I say quietly to Wex.

He swallows and continues,
“
The night after they- after they hurt Harc they came for me. Five of them, all in black and masked. They strapped me to a chair and
… ”
his face is white now, he has trouble even saying the words in a barely audible whisper,
“
and they used needles, hundreds of needles shoved under my nails.
”
He trails off, stands and begins moving around the room,
“
They injected me with fire, poison, something that burned through my entire body like white hot metal. Blisters erupted all over me and when they burst the pus burned like fire on my skin.
”

I can see him arching his back in remembrance of the pain. Wincing for him, Doe slides her tiny hand in his. He looks down and smiles, calmed by her touch. He looks back at me and continues,
“
They tortured each of us in turn for weeks, night after night always in the same succession. Frehn, Harc, me, Merit, Doe. Everyone, expect you. I never heard you scream or cry out.
”

“
No,
”
I breathe,
“
No, they never came for me.
”

Wex sits back down.
“
Exactly. I thought at first that you must have been moved, you couldn
’
t still be on our block. I had to find out. So I began to respond to The Mothers sycophantic simpering when they came in to switch out food trays or change my sheets. I allowed them to feel like they were soothing me, calming me. I let them clean the layers of sweat and pus off me. I started paying close attention to the Pedagogic lectures piped in over the television and asked for materials for study. Because of that the torturing stopped. Gradually, I stopped hearing the others being tortured as well.
”

“
They cut my fingers to the bone with a slaughter knife. A finger a night,
”
Harc spits out.
“
They poured some kind of liquid on them, until I couldn
’
t keep the screams down any longer. When that wasn
’
t enough, they broke the bones with heavy irons. They moved on to my hands when there wasn
’
t anything left of my fingers. I wasn
’
t as smart as Wex, I should have just pretended to respond to The Mothers
’
kindness in order to avoid the torture. Instead, I gave in to the pain. When I started crying instead of screaming The Mothers swooped in gushing and kissing and cleaning my hands.
”
Harc swallows hard, looking sick,
“
I let them wash and bandage me, and I thanked them. After that the five in black didn
’
t come back.
”

I look at Harc
’
s delicate fingers. There were so beautiful once. Now rows upon rows of ugly scars fill each one. A mutilated finger a night. And where was I when she was being sliced to pieces? In bed. Crying because I was alone. I almost vomit again but put my head between my knees instead.

“
We all went through... something,
”
Wex says quietly,
“
But we found a way to appease The Mothers. After that, things became surprisingly easy. I began searching my room for ways to communicate, to discover where you were, Keres. I figured out I could talk through the vents as long as the air was moving. I made contact with Frehn first, who was still receiving visits from the five. The stubborn mule wouldn
’
t let The Mothers touch him.
”

“
No, and it took a massive amount of convincing from you and Doe to make me,
”
Frehn says almost proudly.
“
But I saw reason. If we were going to come up on top, find out where you were, I had to give in.
”

“
I tracked the air currents and we worked out a relay system to communicate with each other through the vents and not be overheard,
”
Wex continues after giving Frehn a look.

“
And that
’
s when I pulled the television off the wall,
”
Harc says.

“
You- what?
”
Somehow this is what makes me raise my head. She pulled the television out of its encasement in the bookshelf with her broken fingers and hands.
“
What did The Mothers say to that?
”

“
Oh, they never knew,
”
Harc says with a shrug,
“
I had it all back in place once I got what I needed from the back. It
’
s remarkable how much waste there was back there. Lots of wide plastic tubing covering the wires to keep them neat, I guess. Once we got all of it off our TVs, I was able to connect everything into kind of a network. That tube was just enough to connect all our rooms to each other and to reach from Wex
’
s vent straight to yours. If we could figure out how to get it there.
”

“
It took a while but we managed to hear what was happening in the common room. We heard The Mothers going in and out of your room but couldn
’
t hear anything inside it. Finally, Merit was able to get his vent cover off and squeeze through the ducts to look into your room. He saw you, on the bed, and looking in relatively good physical condition. We were all relieved at first, that you had either overcome any physical torture or that you were spared all together.
”

“
Then we began to really worry,
”
interrupts Frehn.
“
There
’
s no way you would have been spared when you were the one who flew at The Mother. She must have known you were going to attack her, that
’
s not the kind of thing you just miss. We had to make contact with you. Merit laid the network of tube through the ducts so Wex would have a direct connection to you.
”

“
So I did hear you last night.
”
Was it only just last night?
“
Yes, but you should have heard me months ago. I talked to you every night,
”
Wex says with a sigh.
“
That
’
s why we think something else, a different kind of torture was happening to you. Something prevented our voices from getting to you or what was happening in your room to get out. Until last night. When you heard me.
”

Until I heard him. Until I heard him I hadn
’
t been able to move out of bed. When his voice came from the vent, I sprang out of bed and across the room without knowing how it happened. Is the Heavy something manufactured by the five torturers to keep me subdued? I try to remember the early days of the Solace. I search my mind for the days before I didn
’
t leave my bed and I can
’
t remember them. I only remember the Heavy and living in the memories that replayed on the backs of my eyes. Where is my quick mind when I actually need it? I shake my head to clear the confusion.