The Great Ellini (Book One of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Fifty Five: Sick

Three hours after sunrise—in the luxurious, fern-shaded interior of the Grand Cafe—a similar story to the one which had so appalled Danvers was being told to Manda. Only she didn't respond so tactfully.

"That's sick!"

Perhaps she said it a little louder than she'd intended, because several of the ladies at the other tables paused with teacups halfway to their lips. The concierge at the door even ventured an "I say!"

Ellini, sitting across from her at the shiny table, looked as though she was trying to suppress a smile. Despite the horrible things they'd been discussing—torture and slavery, not to mention her own wilful masochism—she seemed quite cheerful, as though it was a giddy, girlish relief to finally tell someone about all this.

But there was still something defensive in her body language—in the way she cradled her coffee between her hands. She was hunched over it protectively, as though it was the last, flickering candle in a world of almost-total blackness.

"It's really sick," Manda repeated in a mutter, when the babble of conversation in the cafe had resumed.

"Yes," said Ellini. "I don't know which part you're talking about, but yes. It's all sick."

"Most of what's sick about it is you taking as much punishment as you can get your hands on," said Manda. "I mean, you're—" She waved a hand, but there wasn't a word bad enough, so she was obliged to repeat herself. "—you're seriously sick. You do know that, don't you?"

Ellini smiled and shrugged, unflappable as ever. "I can only reiterate."

Manda sighed. In truth, she didn't think Ellini's plan—her sacrifice—was really all that sick. At least, not compared with all the other sick things that had led up to it. But it seemed selfless and selfish at the same time. Manda understood—she even admired—the girl's desire to help her fellow slaves escape. She just wanted Ellini to admit that that wasn't the only reason she was doing it—that there was something childish and stubborn about the way she was running blindly to her death like this, especially since she'd discovered that Jack had forgotten her. It was as though, in a childish, melodramatic way, she thought this would teach everyone a lesson.

"Why are you doing this?" she said at last, tapping the tabletop irritably. "Are you trying to punish yourself for all the men who died—or went mad, or got their throats slit by Robin Crake—because they fell in love with you?"

"If I was, it wouldn't be unreasonable," said Ellini, "but no, it isn't that. My girls need me. And, at the same time, they are me." She shifted uncomfortably, letting the smile falter for a moment. "I suppose it would be difficult for an outsider to understand. It's not that we're all bonded through suffering. It's sort of the opposite, in fact. If you take a group of people and put them through so much pain and terror, you're breaking things down until they're so primal and simple that there's no room for interiority anymore. You're all frightened of the same thing—you're all frightened at the same time—so you become a collective, a herd, a huddle. It's not bonding, it's... well, it's dissolving. It's not that we all get on—it's just that we were all frightened together. And that's... that's as good as if we were all soul mates. Or as strong, anyway. Do you understand?"

Manda leaned back in her chair. It was a surreal feeling, to be here in the daylight, among the bonnets and pelisses, with clinking china and polite conversation ringing in her ears, and yet to hear about this other world—of flame and darkness and torn-out fingernails. It almost didn't seem real.

And in a way, Ellini was still there. She was nursing the memories as devotedly as she nursed that cup of coffee.

But Manda would find a way to save her. In fact, she was pretty sure she already had.