after all these centuries? The blast had levelled most cities. And even if there were anything salvageable in the taboo towns now, centuries later, who would dare to take it, knowing the penalty? More frightening than the law were the rumours of what those remnants could hold. The radiation, said to shelter like a nest of wasps in such relics. The contaminating presence of the past. If the Before was mentioned at all, it was in hushed voices, with a mixture of awe and disgust.
Zach and I used to dare each other to get close to the silos. Always braver than me, once he ran right up to the closest one and placed a hand on the curved concrete wall before running back to me, giddy with pride and fear. But these days I was always alone, and would sit for hours under a tree that overlooked the silos. The three huge, tubular buildings were more intact than many such ruins – they’d been shielded by the gorge that surrounded them, and by the fourth silo, which must have taken the brunt of the blast. It had collapsed entirely, leaving only its circular base. Twisted metal spars rose out of the dust like the grasping fingers of a world buried alive. But I was grateful for the silos, despite their ugliness – they guaranteed that nobody else would go near the place, so I could at least count on solitude. And unlike the walls of Haven, or the larger of the villages nearby, there were no Council posters flapping at the wind: Vigilance against Contamination from Omegas. Alpha Unity: Support Increased Tithes for Omegas. Since the drought years, everything seemed scarcer except for new Council posters.
I wondered, sometimes, whether I was drawn to the ruins because I recognised myself in them. We Omegas, in our brokenness, were like those taboo ruins: dangerous. Contaminating. Reminders of the blast and what it had wrought.
Although Zach no longer came with me to the silos, or on my other wanderings, I knew he was still observing me more intently than ever. When I came back from the silos, tired from the long walk, he’d smile at me in his watchful way, ask politely about my day. He knew where I’d been, but never told our parents, although they would have been furious. But he left me alone. He was like a snake, drawing back before the strike.
The first time he tried to expose me, he took my favourite doll, Scarlett, the one in the red dress that Mum had sewn. When Zach and I had first been given separate beds, I’d hung on to that doll for comfort at night. Even at twelve, I always slept with Scarlett under one arm, the coarse, plaited wool of her hair reassuringly scratchy against my skin. Then one morning she was gone.
When I asked about Scarlett at breakfast, Zach was buoyant with triumph. ‘It’s hidden, outside the village. I took it while Cass was asleep.’ He turned to our parents. ‘If she finds where I buried it, she has to be a seer. It’ll be proof.’ Our mother chided him, and put a hand on my shoulder, but all day I saw how my parents watched me even more carefully than usual.
I cried, as I had planned. Seeing the hopeful alertness of my parents made it easy. How keen they were to solve the riddle that Zach and I had become, even if it meant being rid of me. In the evening, I pulled from the small toybox an unfamiliar-looking doll with awkwardly chopped short hair and a simple white smock. That night, tucked under my left arm, Scarlett was returned from the toybox exile that I’d imposed on her a week before, when I’d swapped her red dress onto an unfavoured doll, and hacked off her long hair.
From then on Scarlett remained secret, in full view, on my bed. I never bothered to go to the lightning-charred willow downstream and dig up the doll in the red dress that Zach had buried there.
Downstairs, Mum and Dad were fighting again, the sound of their argument drifting up through the floorboards, insidious as smoke.
‘It’s more of a problem every day,’ Dad said.
Mum’s voice was quieter. ‘They’re not “a problem” – they’re our children.’
‘One of them is,’ he replied. A pot clattered loudly on the table. ‘The other one’s dangerous. Poison. We just don’t know which one.’
Zach hated to let me see him cry, but the dregs of the candle threw out enough light for me to see the slight shuddering of his back under the blanket. I slipped out from under my quilt. The floorboards creaked slightly as I took the two steps to the edge of Zach’s bed.
‘He doesn’t mean it,’ I whispered, putting a hand on his back. ‘He doesn’t mean to hurt you when he says things like that.’
He sat up, shrugging off my hand. I was surprised to see he didn’t even try to wipe away the tears. ‘I’m not hurt by him,’ he said. ‘What he says, it’s all true. You want to pat me on the back, comfort me, act like you’re the caring one? It’s not them hurting me. Not even the other kids, the ones who throw stones. See all of this?’ The sweep of his hand took in the sounds from the kitchen below, as well as his own tear-streaked face. ‘It’s all your fault. You’re the problem, Cass, not them. You’re the reason we’re stuck in this limbo.’
I was suddenly aware of the cold boards underfoot, and the night air on my bare arms.
‘You want to show you really care about me?’ he said. ‘Then tell them the truth. You could end it right away.’
‘Do you really want me sent away? It’s me. I’m not some strange creature. Forget what the Council says about contamination. It’s just me. You know me.’
‘You keep saying that. Why should I think I know you? You’ve never been honest with me. You never told me the truth. You made me figure it out for myself.’
‘I couldn’t tell you,’ I said. Even admitting as much to him, alone in our room, was risky.
‘Because you didn’t trust me. You want to make out that we’re so close. But you’re the one who’s lied this whole time. You never trusted me enough to tell me the truth. All these years, you left me to wonder. To fear that it might be me who was the freak. And now you think I should trust you?’
I retreated to my bed. He was still staring at me. Could things ever have been different, if I’d trusted him with the truth? Could we have found a way to share the secret, to make our way together? Had he caught his distrust from me? Maybe that was the poison I’d been carrying – not the contamination of the blast that all Omegas bore, but the secret.
A tear had settled on the top of his upper lip. It glinted gold in the candlelight.
I didn’t want him to see the matching tear on my face. I reached out to the table and snuffed the flame.
‘It’s got to end,’ he whispered into the darkness. It was half a plea, half a threat.
*
His impatience to expose me grew with our father’s illness. Dad fell sick when we’d just turned thirteen. As with the previous year, there was no mention of our birthday – our age had become an increasingly shameful reminder of our unsplit state. That night, Zach had whispered across the bedroom: ‘You know what day it was today?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Happy birthday,’ he said. It was only a whisper, so it was hard to tell whether he was being sarcastic.
Two days later, Dad collapsed. Dad, who had always seemed as robust and solid as the huge oak cross-beam that ran the length of the kitchen ceiling. He hauled buckets of water up the well faster than anyone else in the village, and when Zach and I were
