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"Empty Ones," I whispered, unable to take my eyes away from the swollen bellies of the girls. They were making more of me.
Chapter Sixteen
HAPPY PILLS
I couldn't move, frozen as I stared at this meadow of girls stolen from their lives and brought here for the sole purpose of creating more Empty Ones, more homeless, placeless, half-mortal half-nothing girls like me.
"Why so many?" I finally asked.
Reth raised his eyebrows, considering the scene before us. "Safer, I suppose. This way if one doesn't work out, like Vivian, the Dark Queen has several others to fall back on. She is terribly efficient. Which is likely the reason why she has them here where she can keep an eye on them, unlike how you and Vivian were left in the mortal realms with minimal supervision. Though the whole thing is pointless. "
"We have to save them. "
"Do they look like they want to be saved?"
I had to admit they didn't. That was what was so horrible about it. They all looked so bleeping happy, so tranquil. One girl, a tiny blonde who was all belly, lay on the bank of the stream on a bed of flowers, smiling even in her sleep.
It was sick.
"We have to try, at least. "
Reth shook his head. "If you pulled them away, like this, it might kill them. I am afraid we have no help to offer right now. And, need I remind you, helping these poor creatures is not why we're here. "
I felt angry and impossibly sad watching those girls, but he was right. They weren't why we were here. That didn't mean I was going to forget about them, though. "Okay," I said, my voice hollow and quiet. "Let's go. "
We skirted the edge of the meadow. I feared detection, but the pregnant girls were all so blissed out they didn't even notice us. Back under the cover of the trees, I stumbled along in silence for a while until I couldn't take it anymore. "Do you think she was like that?"
"I've found it is helpful when talking to use actual subjects and context so your listener can understand what, exactly, you are trying to convey. "
I rolled my eyes. "Like you're so big on clear communication. I mean my mom. Do you think she was like them when she was pregnant with me?"
"In what way?"
"You know. Happy. Peaceful. "
There was a long pause, and when Reth spoke again his voice had none of the sharp tones it often took on, only warmth. "Yes, I suppose she was. "
"Until he left her. "
"Yes. "
"But while she was with me, while I was in her, she was happy. She wasn't scared, or lonely, or angry. "
"No, I cannot imagine she was any of those things. "
I nodded, unable to talk anymore. I didn't know if it made me feel better or worse that my mom would have been happy about me, for a while at least, until my stupid faerie father abandoned her. I guess it made me feel a little bit better, in a very sad sort of way.
Up ahead I heard voices through the trees and I stopped, worried about what we'd run into next. "What do you think it is?" I whispered to Reth.
"Those aren't faerie voices. "
We walked forward and peered through the edge of the trees to see a small valley with homes, quaint and cheerful cottages in perfect rows. Outside, around those homes, were people.
Dozens of people.
People people, not faeries. I scanned the ranks, panicked, but none of them seemed to be pregnant. They were all colors, men and women, from children on up to middle age, going about what seemed to be a perfectly sedate farming life. Women in plain spun but beautiful dresses trekked back and forth from a stream, carrying buckets of water and baskets of brilliant yellow berries. Kids laughed and chased one another in the cobbled street.
It was like looking back in time at some medieval village. Except it was more like the Middle Ages on Prozac, where everything was clean and everyone was shining with good health instead of dirty and diseased.
