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and i'll meet you where the river forks
when everyone else is dead, you'll be safe on the water
we'll be much younger than we remember
you're on the distant shore
i'll stamp my feet down, down do you hear knuckles on your door?
shut up, i am dreaming of places where lovers have wings
She enters Krone's room after midnight. There are metal locks on all their doors but what purpose do they serve? Only to remind helplessness. Fecklessness. Krone has never latched her lock. Never wanted that lull of false security.Even so. The door clicks open without warning, throws a sliver of yellow-white into her eyelashes and -- hah, it's impossible not to flinch. She flinches every time, animal instinct clawing up from the belly. Who. Who. Who. It's proof of some mordant masochism after all, to leave her door unlocked night after night.Muscles tense, her chest grows tight. Her eyes shut against the light. But the door is closing again, there is a hand on the knob and it clicks the room back into darkness. Back into silence.Under the door, a sliver of lamp-yellow gentles the edge of the bed into focus. Creeps outward to find the silhouette of the girl who stands at Krone's door. Krone sits up.Her breathing in the dark is heavy and too-loud. Her heart is a rabbit-pulse. She wishes she could see the other’s expression.Low footsteps, then long fingers -- warm against her cheekbone, a palm cradling her jaw. Krone tilts her head into the scent of soap and laundered clothing. Breathes deeply. Beneath the skin-scent, the cloying sweetness of dried rust. She startles."Are you --" she asks. Begins. The fingers move to her mouth. Sliding across her lower lip, pressing down in warning. Krone quiets.“Shh,” 73584 murmurs. The older girl bends down, presses her mouth to Krone’s. Soft lips. The taste of mint, toothpaste and tea. The question on her tongue is eaten, swallowed without a sound.There are hands on her shoulders, pushing her down. Hot through the thin layer of her nightdress. Fingers cradling the back of her head, a warm mouth at her throat. Gentle, yes, and inexorable as the sea Krone has never seen. How do you resist that? The waves that come in to drown you. She relents, gives in with a whisper, a sigh. She always relents. Long fingers run through her hair. She's humming a lullaby Krone will never know the words to, will never know the name of. But what words are necessary between them. There is no language for this. For the creatures they are, vicious and hungry and yearning softness in black places.They are on her cot, the two of them -- this too-small cot, and when they sleep they are two bodies that curl together between the wall and a sheer drop. Almost one. Almost.But right now it is nearing three in the morning and 73584 is only watching her, sitting on the edge of the bed with her luminous eyes open. Thinking. Krone does not know what she thinks about, is not permitted to ask. She closes her eyes instead. Curls her knees into her body. Falls asleep to the soft hum of 73584's voice. To the gentle hand stroking through her curls.I would die to cut this feeling out of me, she thinks, drowsy as a dream, and has to decide what it means. She knows what it means.It would kill me. It would kill me. Sometimes, when the bitter-sour-sweet in her chest is at its softest, at its most quiet-content -- when it is three in the morning and there are still two hours before 73584 must leave, and there is a body beside Krone and arms wrapping around her waist. Sometimes. Just, sometimes.She closes her eyes and closes her mouth and gives the emotion a name. Never to be spoken aloud.(It's a little foolish -- a rose is a rose by any other name, and all that drivel. Giving a name just makes it hurt more.) When did it start? How long has it been. Forever, the heart whispers, forever. Since Krone died (was murdered, throat slit by a girl with her face and trembling hands), since she was born again in this light-lit horror of a place. In this place where she must kill and kill and kill. In this place you cannot survive without finding a little light, a little softness. But remember -- remember to bury it, this softness. Keep it so deep they won't find it even if they crack open your bones, suck out all the harsh marrow and choke on the cyanide in their throat.Bury it until the moment it isn't buried any longer, in the dark when you know you're alone.She's seen how 88384 and 21984 look at each other. Little glances they think nobody else will catch. Little moments where the shifting of body posture puts the blonde girl behind her lover, the twitch of a foot closes millimeters of distance. It's just a matter of time until someone uses it against them and succeeds.How many times has Krone derided them in her thoughts, ugly fear growing in her ugly heart -- how many times has she searched to find justification for this. For them. 73584 is so far ahead Krone will never have to catch up. They don't share a class. Nobody knows. Nobody knows.She doesn't even know 73584's name. There is a gentle swell to 73584’s belly. You can't see it yet; sometimes Krone passes the older girl in corridors and there's nothing visible under the pristine white of her apron, the flat black of her dress. In the middle of the night, in the dark that keeps secrets and lovers, Krone runs her palm over the developing heartbeat. The not-quite bump on the soft of her stomach.She wonders what the child will look like. What do babies look like, even -- Krone has such uneven, strange memories of the children at the House. At the farm. Small, squalling things with loud cries and chubby hands. In her dreams they are milky-eyed and motionless, saliva pooling on their chins, tiny limbs twisted in awful directions.No. No.Krone closes her eyes and thinks of the loud cries and chubby hands. The gurgling laughter. The laughter. The laughter. She realizes her breathing is short and thin. There's a hand overlaid atop her own. Long, pale fingers digging into her pulse.She blinks. Not her own fingers. Not her own hand. She looks up.“What would you name them?” She asks. Disjointed. Stitching herself back into the tapestry of the room. Of the room they are in.She realizes her overstep perhaps a minute later. The silence has dragged. Her breathing is normal again. Oh, Krone comprehends. She forgot. What they are meant to be to one another. What the thing growing in 73584’s belly is meant to be. Will be.An apology stirs at her lips, a little red and a little wretched.“Her.” 73584 murmurs. “I’d name her Leslie.”Krone hesitates. "I think she'll be beautiful."73584 only nods. As the weeks pass, the swell of 73584’s belly grows noticeable. Grows large. She is exempted from physical labour, from attending class -- by daylight, Krone sees less and less of her. No more glimpses in the corridor, no more secret smiles in the mess hall. It's not so terrible; they were always in separate classes and work-bands.And lately, 73584 comes to her almost every night. Stays until almost-dawn. Krone has heard of how motherhood affects people. The cravings, the strange moods, the nostalgia. They kiss a lot more. They talk a lot more. Sometimes, they do not talk at all. 73584 spends the night in silence and Krone's hands will be tentative as they trace her lover's face, searching to find her expression in the dark. Offering what scraps of solace she can in careful touch, in tokens of softness.Then, one day, 73584 is gone. 73584 is gone and Krone wonders if she will return.There was a girl, Krone remembers this. A few months ago. Only a few months ago. She wore a white apron. They said she might be a candidate for going back to the other side. Everyone knew her number. Everyone knew she would have a name again, soon.It was one of those things. 20584 was a perfect candidate. 20584 was ruthless, intelligent, loyal.Even so, 20584 had left, full-bellied and so rounded and soft with childbirth -- and never come back. Just misfortune. Just a stroke of bad luck.Nobody said anything about it. Somehow, everyone still knew.Krone waits for her turn on the sparring mat. Her stomach clenches like a bloody fist. It might be pain or it might be panic. It might be ugly premonition. In a few years, Krone knows. In just a few years. God, the nausea that chokes her throat. Rises like a seasick wave. She doesn't want children. She doesn't. She doesn't.When her turn arrives, the clench has turned into a pit of fear that sits low in her belly. Not distraction. Just -- anxiety.She wins, of course. These days she always wins. Her heart a rabid hunter-pulse in her chest, sweat lining her forehead. The empty victory fanning red and glorious in her veins.At night, she falls asleep waiting for her door to click open. Curled towards the wall and dreaming of tender hands and dark eyes. 73584 comes back. Her belly, swollen when she'd vanished one day unbidden, is perfectly flat again. She is reintegrated into the whole seamlessly, melds back with the flock as though she was never gone. All in the span of one quiet evening.That night, Krone’s door opens without a sound. Lights bleeds into her room. Bleeds out, just as quickly.Krone’s breathing remains slow and even, her body curled away from the door. There are footsteps. A creak, a dip in her bed. The heat of another body in proximity to her own.She wonders if she should say something. She wonders what to say.The silence like a vice against her throat.Slender fingers land to rest on her head. She stiffens. It must be tangible, that motion. But 73584 says nothing. Her hands slowly moving to stroke Krone’s hair. Falling into a rhythm.It’s -- pleasant. Soothing.The silence suddenly doesn’t seem as stifling.Finally, as Krone is just about to fall asleep again, a dream softly tugging at the black dark beneath her eyelids, the hand on her hair grows still.“It was a boy.” 73584 says, strange and tender and tenderly desolate.Something hot and sickly twists in Krone’s chest.After a moment, 73584 stands. Some strange urge possesses Krone then, presses her to turn, to raise her arm and grasp the girl’s wrist with her hand. Her fingers slack but 73584 stops. Her back still turned.“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Rasped and awful in the silence.The sound of someone turning. Krone can’t read the girl’s expression in the darkness. She opens her mouth again. She opens her mouth to say something. Anything. A hundred thousand words begging a miracle of her tongue in the silence.“I.” She begins, and it’s something like a confession, it’s something like a prayer.73584 slaps her.She reels back. Her eyes stinging in the cold of the room.There’s a step, a whoosh of air. Hands seizing her collar and soft lips finding her own, soft fingers pressing a breadth too hard to be tender. Cruel on the smart of her cheek, nails digging into flesh. She’s pushed back onto the bed, her hands suddenly scrambling for purchase on the mattress, sheets falling haphazard to the floor.“No-” she says, “No, wait-”Pain materializes on her other cheek. Blood blooming to coat the inside of her mouth. Her head falls to the side. Her grip falls slack.Her eyes still stinging.73584 kisses her again, her hands coming up to cradle Krone’s face, her tongue licking relentlessly inside her mouth. The taste of iron spreads over Krone’s tongue, pinned down like a butterfly, driven by spikes onto an examination table. The darkness that swathes her hides nothing.Her mouth is open but every word is trapped in her throat. The cool fingers at her jaw run lower, nails dragging the hollow of her throat. Pressing against her thudding, thunderous pulse.Krone closes her eyes. “I.” She repeats, afterwards. The sentence lying unfinished in the thin air between them.In the dim half-light bleeding up from the bottom of the door, the curl of 73584’s mouth is terrible and mocking.“I know.” The woman replies. She says it with the thoughtless cruelty of one who has known all along and does not care.In her chest, Krone finds the kernel of self-hatred has sprouted another seed. They are all assembled in the hall the very next afternoon. Every upper hall candidate over the age of 14. Dressed in their black dresses and white aprons.73584’s collar is starched and pristine, her suitcase lifted in hand. She is not stood with them, but rather in front of them. No longer a candidate, but an effigy of a thing beyond them.Their Grandmother is smiling as she speaks. Krone has never seen that expression on Grandmother's face. She has never heard the words Grandmother is speaking, either. Praise for 73584’s performance, praise for 73584’s youth, praise for her flawless birth. Not 73584, but Isabella. Isabella. It’s all white noise, buzzing in the space between Krone’s ears.The woman’s eyes pass over Krone just once. She smiles, a faint upturn of the lips. Her eyes crinkling with the motion.Then, five minutes later, she is gone.Just like that. Just like that. The sun is so sweet on her face. The scent of grass, of mildew and freshly laundered clothing -- Krone steps forward, steps into her childhood. Under her palm, sweat gathering on the leather of her suitcase. It must be anticipation. It must be fear. They're the same thing -- she stopped knowing the difference a long time ago.“I look forward to working under you, Mother Isabella.”Isabella smiles. It reaches her eyes, spreads across her whole face. An awful imitation of authenticity. It hasn’t changed. She hasn’t changed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sister Krone.”A slender hand reaches out into the air between them, palm tilted up. What is it, curling in Krone’s throat. A sourness like lemons. Like blood. She has dreamt about this. All her dreams are in her throat now, she could fall to her knees and retch them out. She could drive two fingers through Isabella's mouth and drag her heart up through her throat. Make her choke it out and crush it between her filthy fingers.She does not do that. Krone tightens her grip on the suitcase, and smiles back.