The Chemical Garden Series Books 1-3: Wither, Fever, Sever. Lauren DeStefano

to bring my medicine.”

      “I never said I did.”

      “Well, then, who are you?” She reaches her trembling hand and touches my hair. She holds up a lock of it for inspection, and then a horrible pain fills her eyes. “Oh. You’re my replacement. How old are you?”

      “Sixteen,” I say, again startled into honesty. Replacement? Is she one of the House Governor’s wives?

      She stares at me for a while, and the pain begins to recede into something else. Something almost maternal. “Do you hate it here?” she says.

      “Yes,” I say.

      “Then you should see the verandah.” She smiles as she closes her eyes. Her hand falls away from my hair. She coughs, and blood from her mouth splatters my nightgown. I’ve had nightmares that I’ll enter a room where my parents have been murdered and lie in a pool of fresh blood, and in those nightmares I stand in the doorway forever, too frightened to run. Now I feel a similar terror. I want to go, to be anywhere but here, but I can’t seem to make my legs move. I can only watch as she coughs and struggles, and my gown becomes redder for it. I feel the warmth of her blood on my hands and face.

      I don’t know how long this goes on for. Eventually someone comes running, an older woman, a first generation, holding a metal basin that sloshes soapy water. “Oh, Lady Rose, why didn’t you press the button if you were in pain?” the basin woman says.

      I hurry to my feet, toward the door, but the basin woman doesn’t even notice me. She helps the coughing woman sit up in the bed, and she peels off the woman’s nightgown and begins to sponge the soapy water over her skin.

      “Medicine in the water,” the coughing woman moans. “I smell it. Medicine everywhere. Just let me die.”

      She sounds so horrible and wounded that, despite my own situation, I pity her.

      “What are you doing?” a voice whispers harshly behind me. I turn and see the boy who brought my lunch earlier, looking nervous. “How did you get out? Go back to your room. Hurry, go!” This is one thing my nightmares never had, someone forcing me into action. I’m grateful for it. I run back to my open bedroom, though not before crashing into someone standing in my path.

      I look up, and I recognize the man who has caught me in his arms. His smile glimmers with bits of gold.

      “Why, hello,” he says.

      I don’t know what to make of his smile, whether it’s sinister or kind. It takes only a moment longer for him to notice the blood on my face, my gown, and then he pushes past me. He runs into the bedroom where the woman is still in a riot of coughs.

      I run into my bedroom. I tear off the nightgown and use the clean parts of it to scrub the blood from my skin, and then I huddle under the comforter of my bed, holding my hands over my ears, trying to hide from those awful sounds. This whole awful place.

      The sound of the doorknob awakens me this time. The boy who brought my lunch earlier is now holding another silver tray. He doesn’t meet my eyes; he crosses the room and sets the tray on my nightstand.

      “Dinner,” he says solemnly.

      I watch him from where I’m huddled in my blankets, but he doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t even raise his head as he picks the sullied nightgown off the floor, splattered with Lady Rose’s blood, and disposes of it in the chute. Then he turns to go.

      “Wait,” I say. “Please.”

      He freezes, with his back to me.

      And I’m not sure what it is about him—that he’s close to my own age, that he’s so unobtrusive, that he seems no happier to be here than I am—but I want his company. Even if it can only be for a minute or two.

      “That woman—,” I say, desperate to make conversation before he leaves. “Who is she?”

      “That’s Lady Rose,” he says. “The House Governor’s first wife.” All Governors take a first wife; the number doesn’t refer to the order of marriage, but is an indication of power. The first wives attend all the social events, they appear with their Governors in public, and, apparently, they are entitled to the privilege of an open window. They’re the favorites.

      “What’s wrong with her?”

      “Virus,” he says, and when he turns to face me, he has a look of genuine curiosity. “You’ve never seen someone with the virus?”

      “Not up close,” I say.

      “Not even your parents?”

      “No.” My parents were first generation, well into their fifties when my brother and I were born, but I’m not sure I want to tell him this. Instead I say, “I try really hard not to think about the virus.”

      “Me too,” he says. “She asked for you, after you left. Your name is Rhine?”

      He’s looking at me now, so I nod, suddenly aware that I’m naked under these blankets. I draw them closer around myself. “What’s your name?”

      “Gabriel,” he says. And there it is again, that almost smile, hindered by the weight of things. I want to ask him what he’s doing in this awful place with its beautiful gardens and clear blue pools, symmetrical green hedges. I want to know where he came from, and if he’s planning on going back. I even want to tell him about my plan to escape—if I ever formulate a plan, that is. But these thoughts are dangerous. If my brother were here, he’d tell me to trust nobody. And he’d be right.

      “Good night,” the boy, Gabriel, says. “You might want to eat and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.” His tone implies I’ve just been warned of something awful ahead.

      He turns to leave, and I notice a slight limp in his walk that wasn’t there this afternoon. Beneath the thin white fabric of his uniform, I can see the shadow of bruises beginning to form. Is it because of me? Was he punished for making my escape down the hallway possible? These are more questions that I don’t ask.

      Then he’s gone. And I hear the click of a lock turning in the door.