Bad Seed

Elsa jolted awake to a black so thick it seemed like her eyelids were still closed. There was a moment of confusion, a second where she fought to orient herself in the dark.

“Though I am lost in the labyrinth of eternal night, keep my salvation close at hand…”

The Smoker’s prayer bounced off the stone around her. She followed the sound and patted the rough wall, searching for the small hollow holding matches and a candle.

“…If I am worthy, let my presence shine…”

Her fingers trembled as she struck the match's cheap phosphorus tip against the cave wall and tilted the tiny flame over the wick. The candle bloomed. Its glow spread over Elsa’s narrow sleeping shelf.

“…For in the light, I am found.”

The smell of rendered fat wafted into the air. She waved out the match and collapsed back onto her pallet. Handmade charms and junked ornaments hung from the ceiling and they caught and scattered the candlelight across the yellow stone. She ran her hand through them, grounding herself with the tinkle of glass stars and round tin baubles. Her silver watch dangled from a hook at the heart of this cluster. She grasped it and felt the even pulse against her palm.

The loose sleeve of her nightgown slipped back and candlelight hit the ugly tattoo colouring the pale skin at her wrist. The black image showed a dead tree with a crown of twisting branches, and at its heart the number 271.

The mark of a Bad Seed.

A symbol of disgrace.

Elsa hadn’t yet turned eight when she’d received it. Every time she saw the tattoo she thought of that day, how it had started and how it had ended.

The guards had come in the middle of the night and without warning. They’d dragged her and her mother from their apartment on charges of disobedience and sedition, two complicated words that meant nothing to Elsa, two angry words that no one took time to explain.

The guards escorted Elsa and her mother straight to their trial before Haven’s council. Vivid red decorated the council chambers. Its members sat in a row, an imposing wall of robes and ornate wooden chairs. The Keeper, holding court at its centre, wore a thick gold chain that caught the light. Elsa stared in awe at Haven’s leader, only ever seen at a distance, and shrank beneath the woman’s callous stare and pinched frown.

Elsa’s mother, straight and proud, did her best to fight the charges. She begged and pleaded and reasoned. The Keeper’s pink lips only pinched tighter. The council’s outrage only grew. It took less than an hour for them to reach their unanimous decision: banishment from Haven. Her mother fainted and had to be carried from the council chambers. Not knowing what else to do, Elsa followed behind.

An old lady waited for them in the next room, her apron on and her tools unpacked. Dark blue tattoos covered the sagging skin of both her forearms. Her clothing smelled of ink and her breath of sour milk and garlic. She wasted no time.

“Wake the mother,” she told a guard. “I’ll start on the daughter.”

Her cold, bony fingers pinned Elsa’s slender wrist to the table while another guard held her shoulders. The tattooist warned Elsa not to move.

The needle had pricked Elsa’s skin, and she’d cried out. She’d struggled against the hard grip with all her might and when this failed, she’d called to her mother. Helena Jefferson had done nothing to help her. She’d sat like a wilted flower on her stool, watching the process with dull eyes.

Elsa blinked away the horrid memory and glanced over to her mother’s sleeping shelf. A shabby blanket covered a thin pallet. Indentations in the rock held a hairbrush, a clay mug and a candle stub on a chipped plate. If her mother had any reminders of their old life in this stark, unloved space, she kept them well hidden.

A ladder took Elsa to the floor of their small windowless nook. Around her, the rough stone walls rippled like the surface of a bubbling pot, all swollen bulges and burst hollows. A low ceiling added to the sense of claustrophobia. She stretched her arms upward and outward, measuring the space to fight the irrational feeling that the room was shrinking.

“Nothing’s changed,” Elsa said, even as she performed the ritual a second time from start to finish. “It’s all in your crazy, messed up mind.”

Elsa retrieved her work pants and a grey shirt from a cupboard squashed into the lopsided gap beneath her sleeping shelf. She pulled a blue scarf from a drawer holding her more precious items and held the smooth silk up to her cheek.

Her uncle had junked it from a house on the surface years ago. From a girl Elsa’s age, he’d told her, her bedroom walls covered in posters and faded photographs of friends. Elsa had intended to sell it at market, until a Citizen had commented that the colour suited her. He said it brightened her green eyes and warmed her pale skin. She’d left the market that day with the scarf tucked deep in her pocket.

Such wastefulness. It was her mother’s voice that crept into her head, as it always did when Elsa felt she’d done something wrong. Such a shameful, vain daughter.

“I don’t care,” Elsa said. She tied the scarf over her head and pushed every stray chestnut lock beneath the soft material

The candle guttered, reminding her that she was wasting light. In their tiny pantry there was a crock of pickled cabbage for breakfast. Elsa reached for it and paused. Only one jar of lamp oil sat on the shelf below.

Thoughtless, wasteful girl!

The shrill voice in her mind amplified her feelings of guilt. Elsa hadn’t been careful enough in her daily visits to the outer caves. If her mother found out about these excursions, she’d be furious. Fuel for cooking they could live without, fuel for light they could not.

Elsa collected her watch and checked the time. Her mother wasn’t due back from her shift in the plantation caves for at least an hour. She could replace the oil and her mother would never know. Elsa gave a longing look at breakfast and turned away. She retrieved her lantern, her watch and her basket. On went her coat and her cracked, leather boots.

She gathered her courage and pressed her ear to the door, listening for sounds in the Chimney beyond. The lock released with a loud snap. The iron handle shuddered beneath her hand as she opened the door. She peered into the darkness beyond. A cautious step took her from one stone cage into another.

The updraught hit Elsa as soon as she entered the Chimney. The ventilation fan, hundreds of metres above, dragged the smoky air into a whirling frenzy. Elsa gripped the doorframe and waited while her body adjusted to the sound and pull of this wind. She concentrated on her boots, firm and solid on the stone.

Glowing smoke holes pierced the void around her, pricks of light that seemed like fireflies twinkling in the rush of tainted grey air. Entryways scattered the ledges above and below, adding their light to the dark shaft. A few lucky Smokers had a door to guard their home, but most used what they could. They barricaded themselves and their meagre possessions behind ill-fitting tin sheets and stretched tarps. They squeezed into every available nook, burrowing deep into the stone, and were grateful for even the smallest of spaces.

Elsa locked her own sturdy wooden door and negotiated the narrow ledge. The path was slick with water. Halfway around this ledge, a ladder took her down to a new level. Elsa repeated the process, gradually winding her way to the bottom of the long vertical tunnel.

It was late into the second work shift and there were only a few Smokers to block the path. Elsa gave way to a woman climbing up a ladder with water bottles slung over her shoulders, and again further down to a small boy going door to door with hot rocks in an old, insulated bag. She avoided eye contact with them both and neither gave her any trouble.

The final ladder was the longest and Elsa paused before she made her descent. A dormant exhaust funnel rose like an ancient bronze idol from the floor of the shaft. It dominated the ground and reached several stories up the Chimney’s interior.

Elsa stepped onto the ladder and climbed down, one slow foot after another. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand as soon as she reached the ground level. A gleaming moat surrounded the ventilation funnel, thick with discarded offerings from those who dwelt above. The rich slurry coated the machine’s metal casing with a foul mixture of water, human waste, ash and garbage. Insects formed rippling skins on fish bones and other indistinguishable matter. Elsa made her breathing shallow, but the ripe odour filled her lungs and coated her nostrils.

Long planks created bridges across the filth. She shuffled to the opposite wall and ducked into a hand-carved tunnel, escaping the Chimney.

The interconnecting passage swallowed all sound ahead and behind her. Oily fingers had turned the narrow walls a shiny black and carbon from countless candles and lanterns had stained the low ceiling.

The floor dived into a carved staircase. Elsa descended. She held her lantern far in front of her and took her time with each step. Care was one lesson burnt into her brain. The careless and the rushed ended up with their blood coating the steps, or a shiv sticking from their backs and their possessions stolen.

Elsa emerged into the Darkzone’s marketplace and extinguished her lantern. The Alley, as it was known, followed the course of an extinct river and was a scene of organised chaos. Power cords tangled with tattered bunting and draped over hand-painted shop signs. Makeshift stores crowded either side of the slender path and climbed up the chasm like blooms of man-made fungi, narrow at the bottom and bloated at the top. Beams propped these oversized upper levels, and in some cases two shops leant across the passageway, meeting in the middle to create shonky arches of timber and tin.

Elsa hurried beneath electric bulbs and flaming torches. Further along, a Smoker made flatbread beside another set of stairs, these ones leading up to the Plantations caves. She flattened a rolled lump to the inside of a red-hot drum. The scent of baking bread hit Elsa, who was hungry enough to devour the dozen cooked rounds already on display. Her stomach grumbled. Elsa slowed.

The baker noticed her interest and wiped her sweat-drenched forehead with an arm covered in burn scars. “It’s a tin lumiere per round. A cap of lamp oil will get you two.”

Elsa’s tokens felt heavy in her pocket. “No. Thank you.”

“Get on, then,” the bread maker said. “The rush is coming.”

Elsa nodded goodbye and continued further into the Alley. The tight press of shops widened into an open space. At its centre lay a rough hand-cut well. A girl in a torn pair of shorts and an over-sized shirt sat on its lip. One small foot dangled into the pit, swinging back and forth, while she scrubbed a pot with water and a ratty plastic bag.

A second girl, her dark hair in a bun, her pinafore white and neat, filled a large metal bucket from the well. She jerked on the wire handle and grunted as she lifted it.

The first girl pointed to a small container. “Fill it up, would you?”

“No,” the second girl said, her body tilted to one side under the bucket’s weight. “Get your own. Madame Marcella is watching me.”

The water carrier hurried across Elsa’s path, leaving wet footprints on the stone. The child disappeared into the entrance of the Lonely Flame Saloon, interrupting the bright light shining from the doorway. Sharp peals of laughter came from within. Elsa shivered.

The Lonely Flame’s balcony overlooked the path. Fake flower garlands and fairy lights hid its tired railings. Marcella stood behind a wreath of dusty silk roses, watching her young charge in the street below. Her eyes locked with Elsa’s. Marcella gave her a welcoming smile. Elsa fought a surge of panic. She quickened her pace, until the buildings closed in tight, cutting off Marcella’s heavy gaze.

Stores painted garish colours crowded the passageway, each one offering dubious medicinal services. Hanging signs proclaimed miracle cures for anything from Darkzone madness, to broken bones and damp lung. She could already smell the vile concoctions brewing in these stores, their fumes wafting through the closed shutters and locked doors.

Rusty’s General Store sat amongst these amateur sawbones and shoddy apothecaries. Unlike his neighbours, Rusty had no need to trick or cajole to win customers. He didn’t even advertise. There were no signs hanging above his reinforced door, and the plan exterior of wire mesh and tin sheets gave no hint of the product within.

Elsa knocked on the metal grate above the counter. A large peephole slid back and a flat nose, dark skin and busy white eyebrows filled the opening.

“Yeah?”

“Rusty, did I wake you?”

The face tipped to see her. She had a brief view of grey blankets and firelogs on the shelves behind him.

“Elsa! You know I don’t sleep when there’s business to be had. The second shift’ll finish soon. I don’t have long to chat.”

“That’s okay. I’m here for supplies. Are you selling lantern oil today?”

The wide nose swept back and forth. “Nope. There’s a shake-up happening in Haven and the Commerce Chamber’s trimming the fat, so to speak. My supplier’s gone quiet. I’m out until market day, like everyone else.”

Elsa couldn’t hide her surprise. “Every last drop?”

“Barely got enough for myself,” Rusty said, “and that’s the honest truth. Has your uncle got none?”

“He’s still on his junking expedition.”

“Sorry, my dear,” Rusty said. “I can’t help you, though I’d like to. You should try the Black Hole. Word is Dapper brought out his emergency supply.”

Her heart sank at the name. She’d have to go even deeper into the Darkzone.

“Is there no one else?” Elsa asked.

A noise in the shadows of the neighbouring apothecary distracted her from Rusty’s answer. Elsa squinted into the darkness until she could make out two people crouched behind a grubby hand-painted sign advertising a fool proof remedy for rickets.

Rusty slid open his counter shield. “What is it?”

He bent across the bench, a shotgun in his hand. Elsa couldn’t help admiring the illegal weapon, even as her wariness increased. Guns were an automatic ticket to the Guardhouse. They were also rare and expensive, their ammunition even more so.

Rusty scanned the shadows. “Is it shankers?”

“I’m not sure.”

He located the pair and relaxed. “Oh, those two.”

“You know them?”

He leant back. “I just know they’re seed gone rotten. I told you, there’s been a shake up in the city. Those two have been snivelling in the shadows since last night, looking for charity.” Rusty propped his gun on the counter and began to wipe the barrel with his handkerchief.

“Like we need more of their kind. Darkness knows, we’ve got enough Smokers clambering to get into the city, squashing into every cranny in the hope of some glorious life in Haven, but we’ve got to take the one’s Haven City chucks out! It ain’t right, I say. The guards should have the decency to cut their throats at the gate.”

Rusty stopped. The tattoo on Elsa’s wrist felt hot and itchy, and she fought the urge to touch her sleeve and check the mark was covered.

The shopkeeper cleared his throat. “Ah, of course, I’m excluding your mother and yourself from their numbers. You’re a hard-working pair, even for Bad Seed…true assets to the Darkzone.”

He coughed and collected one of his lanterns from inside. He bent over the counter again and the light chased away the shadows and revealed a middle-aged man and a young woman wearing a rich blue dress.

“Alright. I think you’ve enjoyed enough of my hospitality. Time to shove off.”

The young woman shielded her face against the sudden wash of light and jolted the dyed feathers sitting over her auburn hair. Elsa noted the glossy shine to her curls. This woman was healthy and bright and beautiful. She was a shiny bird caged by grimy stone and even grimier people.

People like Elsa.

The man clutched his bandaged wrist. His hair was a similar shade to the woman’s and his face, though wrinkled, was as full and soft as the pricey peaches that sometimes appeared in the city marketplace.

“We’ve nowhere to go,” the man said. “The Keeper forced us out. I don’t know what to do. My daughter—”

“Is not my problem,” Rusty interrupted. “You being in the shadows by my place of business, however, is my problem. We don’t like people lurking without a light. Only shankers and light snatchers hide in shadows, and both are bad for trade. Now get on.”

The man held out his hands. “Have mercy. We’ve nothing.”

Rusty scoffed and looked the man over from his polished boots to his thick wool tunic dyed a deep saffron.

“And yet, your nothing is still a sight better than many others here, ain’t it, Elsa?”

She nodded.

“There you have it then.” Rusty slammed the counter shield shut, taking his light with him. The pair were thrown once more into the gloom.

The man stepped closer to Elsa. “My name is Donald Mercer. This is my daughter, Sienna. We’re not asking for charity. We’ll work for food. I’m a hard worker, so is my daughter. Help us, please.”

He brought his daughter forward and Elsa recognised her. This was someone she’d once envied. Sienna had visited her junking stall on city market days, elegant and beautiful. She’d whispered with her friends about Elsa’s smoky smell and appearance. She had turned up her nose at Elsa’s wares.

Sienna lifted her head, and their eyes met as equals. Elsa waited for a hint of recognition and found none. She shouldn’t have felt disappointed, but she did. Her disappointment turned to anger, and her anger made her mean. Elsa adjusted the basket on her arm. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

She turned away from them and headed back along the Alley. She expected to feel some satisfaction at this small revenge. Instead, her actions made her feel tainted, like water spoiled with ash.