The Bone Wall Read Online Free Page B

bookcase.
    Filaments flutter their shadowy wings on the ceiling. The imminent end of all I know looms above me like the sagging shelves of heavy tomes. Sleep eludes me, partly due to the soft grunts, sighs, and muted conversation of my parents. Partly to the ache for Max between my thighs and the wish that he and I would have that grown-up, moaning farewell. My chances at love seem very far away now, my future stolen from me. All I possess is the utter horror of what lies ahead tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next day, forever until I’m dead.
    **
    In the pallor of dawn, we drift like sallow ghosts, a Heaven of lifeless wraiths lurching numbly through the heart of our Garden. Their faces aglow with beatific grace, elders and deacons praise God between the grand pillars of the House of Law. Lit by a crackling blue sky, they spew lavish speeches, fling imposing words at my ears such as glory, heroism, and salvation.
    Of two thousand descendants in Heaven, close to a third are children, and though I’ve no certainty, I assume the same of other Gardens. Why then do I count little more than a hundred men and a handful of wrinkled women standing armed on the paving stones? Why are there no elders or deacons? Does this mean we will accept only a hundred children? What of the rest? Will we add only a hundred to the defenders’ ranks? Will so few be enough?
    The same unspoken questions seem to echo in other ears. Fear etches every face, all dark-ringed eyes unnaturally wide with dread. Though I yield not a sound and feel no sensation of weeping, my cheeks feel moist with tears. Tidal waves of fear and despair heave inside me, break through my frail defenses, spill, flood, and recede. I want the world to stop spinning, the next moment to never come, and I want time to speed up, to race ahead and finish with this agony. A shameful, sinful part of me hopes the Biters have already attacked, the refugees of Paradise reduced to lifeless meat, their rescue no longer required.
    His bulk draped in a spotless, black robe, Deacon Abrum leads us down the East Spoke, a virtuous march to triumph. Chin up, his mouth expounds on the benevolence of God, on the righteousness of His laws, on the many rewards we shall reap for Heaven’s great sacrifice. To the rest of us, it’s a funeral march, the tempo of our footfalls a dirge. I bear my father’s hammer; my mother drags his wooden spear; he carries a kitchen knife tucked in his belt. We both hold his hands, squeezing. Not one of us speaks.
    Sunlight shimmers beyond the shield, golden shafts of light slanting through our pines. Here in our orderly forest most of us are to pivot and retreat to the heart of Heaven. My father kisses us and we embrace, words of love and regret spoken until our throats ache. His gray eyes reflect the morning’s sunrays despite his doom. “If all goes well, I’ll return by nightfall and the children will rejoin their families,” he says, a useless attempt to assuage our fears. “I’ll meet you in the library.” He smiles and kisses my mother, his hands in her flaxen hair. “I love you. Pray for me.” He pats my head and leaves us to walk the stone spoke through the trees with God’s other lambs to the metal portal that will deliver him to the broken world.
    My mother keeps a strong grip on my hand as we trudge with the other women back toward our homes, her face a clay mask carved with cracks. My body rebels, shaking, on the verge of igniting. My legs need to run, to escape from the invisible, oppressive weight of Heaven. I rip my hand from my mother’s grasp. “I have to see Max,” I shout at her as I dart back toward the trees. “I haven’t said farewell.”
    “Rimma,” she demands, running after me. “Rimma!”
    “I’ll be a moment,” I yell, refusing to listen or glance back, my skirt clutched in my fists. I run for my life, knowing she will race after me, but that I’ll outpace her, lose her in the forest, my hideout. My sprint from