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“Did you check the dining hall?” I mumble. “That’s where you’re likely to find Ben.”
“He’s not there.” She sighs. “It’s been like this the whole week. Every day they’re off discovering some new activity in yet another nook and cranny. I can’t keep track of them. Gene, I feel like I’m losing them.”
“They’re fine.”
“I know.” Then in a lower voice: “Are they? Are we?”
I sit up, blinking my eyes into sharpness. “We should ask someone where they are.”
Sissy snorts. “Good luck with that. The girls here don’t answer my questions. They don’t even look at me. Except to shoot me the evil eye when they think I’m not looking, probably because I’m breaking one of their precious bylaws again.”
Right then, we hear Epap shouting with excitement. His lanky body bounds up the path. “Sissy! You’ve got to see this, you have simply got to see this!” His feet kick up a cloud of dust as he brakes in front of us.
“What is it?” Sissy says. “Calm down.”
“No calming down over this, let me tell you,” he says, panting excitedly. He ignores me, not so much as a glance, as his hand clamps down on Sissy’s wrist. “C’mon,” he says, turning and pulling her along.
Sissy pulls her hand away. “I don’t think so.”
Epap turns back, a hurt expression ripping through his face. He shoots a quick look at me, then gazes back at Sissy. “You really need to see this.”
“What?”
“Seriously, it’s amazing. I saw a class of young kids on a field trip. I tagged along. You won’t believe what I saw.”
“Okay, I’ll come, just don’t wrench my arm out of the socket.”
He shrugs his shoulders, starts walking. Every so often, he glances back to make sure Sissy’s still following. He takes us along the meandering path, past the schoolhouse.
“Where are you taking us?” I ask.
He ignores me, walking faster toward the oddly shaped building I recognize from last night. The dark building toward which the elder had carried the bundled newborn. “Epap, what is this building?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.
About twenty young children are queued outside the closed double doors. Two older girls—the teachers?—converse quietly with an elder. All heads turn to us as we arrive.
“You won’t believe what’s in here,” Epap says, wetting his lips.
The elder turns to us as we approach. “Is this a maternity ward?” I ask him.
“Come again?”
“Aren’t newborn babies brought here?”
His face stiffens. “Nothing of the sort. The maternity ward is way back there,” he chuffs, pointing back in the general direction of the village square. “This is the Vastnarium.”
“The ‘Vastnarium’? I saw a newborn being carried here last night.”
His eyes snap to mine. “We don’t discuss births. It’s against the precepts.” He turns away.
I frown. I’m about to ask him another question when the double doors swing open. A stream of schoolchildren, blinking in the light, pours out. Their faces are pale, frightened pictures of alarm, as if they’ve just viewed a horror movie they had no business watching.
“Epap,” I say, “what is this place?”
But he’s too excited, too preoccupied with sidling next to Sissy to listen to me.
The young elder speaks to another elder inside, whispering in hushed tones, occasionally glancing at us. Finally, they nod in agreement, and we’re all corralled in, walking in single file.
The iron-plated doors close behind us, plunging us into darkness. A metallic hum slides across the door, then there’s silence. We’re in, we’re locked in now.
“Do not be afraid, do not be afraid,” Epap whispers somewhere in the darkness, his voice giddy with excitement. “Sissy, this is going to be amazing.”
One of the teachers speaks. “In a moment, the next set of doors will open. It will open up to the small auditorium. Walk carefully; it’s even darker inside there. Sit down on the second row. I will hand you a GlowBurn as you enter; don’t snap it until I say so.” With a clang, the doors open. We all tread in. Something is handed to me and I grab at it. It’s soft, about a foot long, feels like a plastic tube. This must be a GlowBurn.
We shuffle in, walk along the length of a curved bench, sit down. A dark shape looms toward me. “Come with me, you three,” the teacher says to us. “We have special VIP seats for such esteemed guests as yourselves. Usually only the eldership is permitted to sit there, but for you we’ll make an exception.” Sissy, Epap, and I get up, move to the front row. The VIP bench is wider and cushioned with a velvet pillow.
The teacher’s voice comes from behind. “Welcome to your bimonthly visit to the Vastnarium. As always, the purpose of this visit is to remind ourselves of the cruel world that we are called to watch over, to reignite in us a sense of purpose and mission. To make real that which might regress to the merely abstract and theoretical.”
Next to me, Epap is bouncing up and down with excitement.
“Now,” the teacher says, “take your GlowBurns. Snap them, then throw them twenty meters in front of you.” Instantly, from the row behind, a clatter of snaps cracks the dark. A nimbus of green light breaks out. Not a second later, rotating blades of green light fly over our heads, smacking against a glass wall in front of us. The sticks smash on impact, splattering a glowing green fluid. The fluid drips down, illuminating the glass wall. And what lies within the walls, within the sealed glass chamber.
The chamber encompasses an area roughly the size of a classroom. A petite young girl stands inside, her body willowy and sylphlike, long raven hair falling over one half of her face. Her eyes are feline-shaped, awesome in intensity, her lips small. She lifts her head slowly, as if with great reluctance. She stares with only mild interest at the row of students but when she sees the three of us sitting in the VIP seats, her head cocks viciously sideways. She stares intently at us.
“What’s going on?” Sissy asks, her voice urgent. “Why is that girl inside?”
Epap can barely contain himself. He slides closer to Sissy, his mouth widening in a toothy grin. “What makes you think it’s a girl? What makes you think it’s even human?” He inhales, once, twice, wetly, quickly. “It’s one of them. A ‘dusker.’ That’s what they call them here. Fitting name, don’t you think, since they only come out at dusk. Wish we’d thought of it. All those years being gawked at by them at night, it would have been nice to have a name to yell back at them.”
Sissy flinches back, her face collapsing in shock. Her hands grab the front edge of the bench. I see the bones of her hands jutting out with tension as she stares at the imprisoned girl. The dusker girl. I whisper the word, “Dusker.”
What is it doing here? How did it get here?
Epap snaps his GlowBurn. The green light illuminates his suddenly serious face. He leaps to his feet, throws the stick with all his might. It splatters dead center. He raises his hands aloft in celebration, then notices the GlowBurn still sitting in my suddenly slack hands. He snatches it, snaps and throws it with a shout. The stick smacks into the glass directly in front of the girl. She does not blink. She’s still staring at us. At me.
Behind us, everyone is quiet. Not a sound from the group of young children.
Epap finally sits down. “Just wait for what’s coming next,” he says, breathing hard.
Boots clip-clop down the center aisle. A teacher walks down, her arms wrapped around a tightly capped plastic jar that’s filled to the brim with a dark liquid sloshing inside. The dusker girl suddenly goes erect, its back bent, eyes fixed on that jar. “We must never forget, never stop fearing,” the teacher whispers, “the insatiable hunger and thirst duskers have for our flesh and blood. Watch and learn, little children.”
The teacher stands in front of a tiny glass slot, the dimensions of which are so small, they’d barely accommodate even a small fist. She pauses. The dusker, as if by some previous agre
ement, moves to the opposite side of the chamber, eyes fixed on the jar. The teacher waits until the dusker crouches on all fours, then places the jar into the tiny slot and shuts the door. The teacher bolts the door and the corresponding slot door swings open on the inside of the chamber. Instantly, the dusker girl springs forward, sprinting across the short length of the chamber. It doesn’t slow down but simply flies into the wall with a force that would have concussed a dozen heads. The dusker grabs for the open slot even as it drops to the ground, its arms and legs grappling as if each limb were a separate entity in direct competition with the other.
A young girl screams from the row behind me. Then another tearful cry, the sound of sobbing now spreading down the line of schoolchildren.
The dusker rips open the lid with her teeth, then pours the liquid down its throat. Within seconds, it’s downed the liquid, its tongue flicking out to lick the blood dribbling down the sides of its mouth. The dusker girl looks at me again. A surprising sadness fills its eyes, an expression of shame courses off its face. It turns around and retreats to the far corner. Into the only part of the chamber still hidden over in shadows.
“And that was only pig blood,” the teacher whispers over the children’s sobs. “On the rare occasion, when it’s fed human blood, it is that much more frenzied, that much more manic.”
Human blood? I think, chilled at the thought.
