The One Safe Place by Tania Unsworth

Author:Tania Unsworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2014-02-07T16:59:17+00:00

Fourteen

DEVIN COULDN’T SLEEP, AND after a while, he stopped trying. He sat, fully dressed, on the edge of his bed, watching as dawn crept over the sky. There was a tiny knock on the door.

“I’m the messenger,” Karen said.

Devin nodded.

Karen twisted her hands together. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m always the messenger. It makes me feel . . .”

“It’s okay,” Devin said. “I’ll be fine. Look out for Kit for me, will you?”

He left the room and went downstairs. The courtyard was empty. There was still dew on the grass, the faintest trace of moisture. It would be gone soon, when the sun rose. Devin looked up into the clear blue sky, wondering suddenly what it had been like to live in a world where clouds were common, everyday things. Where all kinds of plants grew without any help and there was always hay for the horse and grain for the chickens. It hadn’t been as easy as that on the farm—they’d had to work for everything—but it had been better there. A pocket of richness, his grandfather had called it. There were seasons on the farm; spring brought a scattering of flowers in the hedgerow, and autumn, color to the trees. And one January morning, when he was very small, his grandfather had woken him up to show him a miracle: a glittering sheet of ice, paper thin, on the top of a bucket of water by the back door.

The farm was different from the outside, hidden and protected. It was as if it had been forgotten by time itself and simply left to its own blessed devices. Perhaps there were other spots like it, but Devin did not know of them. And whatever happened at this place, however confused his mind and terrible the dreams, he would hold on to the memory of the farm. A pocket of richness, the one safe place in all the world.

Mrs. Babbage was at the door of the tower.

“You’re to report to the East Building,” she said.

She meant the Place, of course. He followed her down the path, around the field with the small hill, and up toward the recreation hall and the turning with the strange, twisted trees. She didn’t say anything to him as they walked. He thought perhaps that dim as she was, she understood he was afraid and felt a little sorry for him.

The entrance to the Place was open, and they went inside.

It was just as Luke had described it. The walls were white and shining and there was a room with nothing but screens and monitors and glass panels and a staff member in a white coat who led him to a chair without saying anything. The Administrator was there. He saw her at the back of the room behind one of the glass panels, looking intently at something, her hand held up as if to say “wait.” Then she murmured something into a black button in front of her mouth and her hand came down.

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