Authors: Samantha Marsh
She paused for a moment to give Aedan and Darby a moment to digest everything she had explained. She couldn’t read what they were thinking, but they continued to look intently upon her.
“My life has essentially been meaningless,” Sarah Jane continued. “But I want to do one thing of significance before I meet my maker. Darby, I know I am not your mother but I do love you. When you came into my life two years ago, it marked the beginning of the best years of my pitiful existence. I want you and Aedan to escape and have a chance at a real life together in the real world, and I want to help you.”
“We were going to try to escape during the Celebration.” Aedan blurted out.
“Okay, but there is one glitch,” Sarah Jane said. “These people are not stupid. I am sure they will want to make sure that we are all destroyed in the Celebration Hall so I imagine someone will be there with a roster to account for each and every one of us. I am not certain how they plan to do this. It may mean that you have to attend the Celebration and then try to leave unnoticed. Aedan, you need to start volunteering for set up at the Hall so that you can identify a way for you and Darby to leave unnoticed. Once everyone is accounted for, I imagine the process will begin shortly thereafter. I will do my best to find out how they will conduct the count.
“Next, you need to understand what escaping and surviving will really mean for you two. I hope you are not under the illusion that you can just walk back into your lives and pick up where you left off. If you were suddenly to reappear, They would quickly discover this. You will be leaving here with no money, no identification and nowhere to go. You will have to change your appearances and live a very low-profile lifestyle someplace far away. You should even be prepared to steal a little here and there while you try to rebuild some faction of a life. It’s not going to be easy.”
Sarah Jane sat in silence for a moment and watched Aedan and Darby. It was then that she saw the shock and fear that she had anticipated seeing in Darby’s eyes the day before. Sarah Jane had so many questions at the tip of her tongue. She desperately wanted to know who this young woman was that had come to be her daughter for the last two years, but she convinced herself that the less she knew, the better. Despite the fact that few of Their mind games had ever worked on her, she did not want to jeopardize any small hope that this young man and woman may actually have a future together. The less she knew, the better their chances of survival may actually be.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees the sunshine streaming in from the windows turned grey. Not sure of what else to say, Sarah Jane got up and busied herself setting out lunch for the bewildered couple. Her hands shook and she dropped the napkins twice before Darby came over to her. Darby hugged Sarah Jane long and hard.
“You could come with us,” Darby whispered. For the first time in her entire life, Sarah Jane felt wanted, needed and loved. Even now, after hearing the truth, she could feel a deep connection to this young lady standing before her. She could see the concern in her eyes and feel the warmth in her embrace. She hugged Darby for several more moments, knowing that—for her—there would be no turning back or looking forward. All she had was what was left of now.
She squeezed Desire one more time and then broke the embrace. “Now you listen to me, young lady. I am not living under any illusion that there is any semblance of a future out there for me that doesn’t involve walking the streets at night or falling into bad habits and dying in an alley begging for or overdosing on heroine. Despite the horror of what is really going on here, for someone like me it has been a safe haven. For a few years of my life I got to ‘play-pretend’. I pretended my dreams had come true. I always knew there would be an end point to all of this, but I assumed it ended with me being pushed back out into the City with three thousand dollars in my pocket. But I have reconciled with myself that my destiny is to die here. But now I can die at peace because, even if it was all an illusion, the emotions I felt while leading the other ladies in the community, being wife to Papa and mama to you were real to me. It is with you, darling that my heart finally got to experience the emotions of love and tenderness. I not only got to give, but I got to receive. For me, my dreams have come true. Now when I die, I know that there are two people on earth who I hope may miss me just a little bit but more importantly their lives were touched because I genuinely helped.”
Darby stood dumbfounded and Aedan sat on the couch in silence. Although he felt extremely grateful for the risk Sarah Jane had taken in divulging what she knew to them, a part of him felt hesitant to suddenly trust this woman. He had no way of knowing if what she was saying was true or if they were being manipulated. Oddly enough, even if this was a manipulation tactic this woman standing before them might not even know it herself. They were so close to escaping that he didn’t want to take any chances. Either way, they had to be very careful. If they divulged too much or anything at all they risked being caught and he couldn’t stomach what they might do to his sweet Darby as a punishment. However, if Sarah Jane was truthful and sincere, it would be cruel to disregard her feelings. He couldn’t imagine going to his grave having never been loved of giving love.
Darby looked over to him and stared into his eyes. They had known each long enough that they could almost read each other’s thoughts and he was hoping with the return of her memory so had this connection between them. He detected a slight nod from her and she turned back to Sarah Jane.
“I understand.” She wiped a few tears from Sarah Jane’s face and squeezed her hands. “You are loved and despite everything else, I love you too.”
The tension in Sarah Jane’s face and shoulders dissipated momentarily before she stood up straight and wiped her face. She finished setting the table for lunch and then took the basket that she was to collect vegetables in.
“Well then, it is time that I go. We shall not speak again of any of this. Once I leave this workshop, everything returns to ‘normal’. Remember though, They are always watching. Aside from this place, the forest, my sewing room, and a few odd rooms around town, there is no safe place to step out of character. Do not do anything over the next week to raise suspicion. At this point, there are no more checkups scheduled at the Clinic because aside from waiting out for the Celebration, the experiment is over. If, however, anyone acts out now and gets sent to the Clinic, I suspect they will never return.
“Aedan, please remember what I said and do you best to find an escape from the Celebration Hall. If I learn anything more I will find a way to communicate this to you. Now I must go. I am going to make an unplanned stop at the Church to check on the ladies. Darby, keep this basket and come back home as Aedan has offered, through the forest and into our vegetable garden.”
Aedan got up and quietly showed her out. Darby could hear them exchange phony goodbyes and niceties outside the workshop office. Meanwhile, Darby just stood there, sensing that the world around her seemed to come crashing down. The levity of their predicament and all of her restored memories were making a tremendous amount of noise in her head. She was finding it difficult to sort out any sensible thoughts and then all she saw was grey fading to black.
Chapter Twenty Three
Mama walked across town. Her heart was pounding and her brow was perspiring. She could feel herself shaking inside. For the first time in almost six years, she no longer felt safe. Nervously, she looked about and suddenly everything looked different. Although she felt ready for the end, she was also felt terrified of what might happen to her if They found any of this out.
It was her last check-up at the clinic that convinced her to come forward. She had heard rumblings that her daughter was too sweet to see sizzle up at the Celebration. She heard them make disgusting comments about all the things they could do with a little sex slave of their own. The thought of them ravaging Desire sent chills down her spine. The routine visits to the Clinic for the women of the town were not as routine as Mama had told Johnny and Desire. Most of the woman were sexually assaulted while they were drugged for their checkups. These men were vile beasts that made the tricks from her street days look timid. Desire, having just recently become a woman, had yet to be scheduled for these types of visits and she was terrified of what they may do to her before the Celebration.
When she got to the centre of town, Mama sat down on one of the benches and closed her eyes for a minute. She had to calm her nerves because she feared that she may have a panic attack. She focused on calming her breath and thinking happy thoughts. She pictured Desire making blueberry pancakes with Papa and suddenly it hit her. Desire had asked her a few days ago what her happiest memory was. That was it; something as simple as that; coming down those stairs and seeing Desire and Papa goofing around in the kitchen making her favourite pancakes. That morning, no one else existed except for them inside their kitchen. For a brief moment in time, Papa connected with Desire in a common bond to make her happy. It was the only time in her life that she could remember that anyone had done something just for her and to please her.
Replaying that morning in her mind helped to calm her nerves a little. She let the gentle breeze cool her brow. As her breathing slowed down a little. She opened her eyes. She was startled to see Tobias sitting beside her.
“Oh my, you startled me, Tobias. I did not hear you sit down beside me.” Her voice broke ever so slightly as she talked. “How are you today?”
“Oh, not bad for an old man, I suppose. Are you looking forward to the Celebration Faith?”
She looked at him and answered solemnly, “Yes, I am.” As she said this, a single tear rolled down her cheek.
He put his hand on hers. “Yes, me too. The future is so uncertain at times. Some of us will finally find some peace and solace in the New Year and hopefully some of us will freed from the demons that hold us hostage and we can begin anew.” He looked at her directly, and as their eyes locked, they both knew that they both knew.
“This old man is looking forward to some rest and peace.”
This comforted Mama and she breathed a sigh of relief. She nodded at Tobias and stood up from the bench. She started to walk away and stopped halfway to the church to look back but Tobias was already walking away in the opposite direction.
Tobias wondered how many others like her were in the community. He remembered the day he and his wife had come here ten years ago. They responded to the newspaper ad that asked for retired, married couples to participate in a resort-style therapy research session. The research would take six weeks and they would receive $10,000 for participating. For two retired folks like them eking out a living on their pensions, the money sounded like a win-fall. They were assured that is was a non-invasive observation to study human interactions.
When they arrived, they were taken to the Clinic for a check-up. The next thing he knew, he and his wife Marge woke up in their little Hemac house. Marge was beside herself and was having an anxiety attack. She was throwing things about and asking for her father. Tobias tried to calm her down, but when she saw him she became even more distressed. She didn’t seem to recognize him. She started hitting her head with her fists and screaming” Stop it! Stop it! He felt very frightened and didn’t know what to do. He tried to calm her, but this just agitated her more. Before he knew what was happening, two men came into the house without knocking and went straight for Marge. The held her down and gave her an injection. Tobias tried to object, but at sixty-five years of age, he was in no position to try to stop two strong young men.
The next thing he remembered was waking up back in the Clinic. No one was around so he got up to find Marge. When he came to a little office, he heard some men talking. He paused to try to make out what they were saying.
“Well, we could just get rid of both of them,” he heard one man say.
He listened for another couple of minutes as the men behind the door debated. Tobias thought they were going to be banned from the study and not get their money until he heard, “Get rid of the wife and keep the old man. We will have to keep him here until the new memory implant takes effect.”
Confused and scared he crept back to bed. He was just about to get in when he was caught. He tried to convince them that he was just looking for Marge, but they didn’t care. They tied him down to his bed and wheeled him into a different room.
He is not really sure how long he was in that room but he figures it was at least a week. With no nourishment other than IV fluids, he lay in that bed and his own waste for a week. When they finally brought him out his flesh was raw from laying in his own feces and he was so weak he couldn’t stand up. When he asked about Marge, he received an electric shock or was beaten with a whip. This went on for what seemed like eternity. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he stopped asking.