Chapter Three:

On the Matter of Skirts

When Lana awoke she no longer felt cold. She was lying in a narrow bed in a lime-washed room with six other women. In the corner of the room sat a round woman with her hair pulled into severe braids either side of her head. She wore all white and a starched cape which gave her the appearance of having angel's wings. When she noticed Lana stirring she came to her bedside. There was a name embroidered above her breast pocket: Mistress Coyle.

"My my," the woman said. She smiled, a sight which Lana thought entirely un-angelic. "You've got yourself into some trouble, haven't you, my girl?"

"There's an army coming, we have to warn the city-"

"Too late for that, my girl. You're in Haven, in one of our Houses of Healing; or should I say New Prentisstown. The army arrived before you did. A soldier brought you here more than a week ago; I'm sorry to have to tell you that we haven't the slightest clue where he found you, or what he'd done to leave you in such a state. Can you remember what happened?"

Lana sat upright in bed, her thoughts in disarray. She recognised the familiar feeling of Jeffers root, a strong medicinal herb which clouded her thoughts. She could recall little of her arrival at Haven, other than that she had found shelter in the stables and had seen herself in the Noise of the stable boy. Her lips had been purple, her face disfigured by dried blood and bluish bruising beneath her eyes. She remembered the boy's dark hair and icy, searching eyes. She was sure that she had seen him before, but she could not place where. Unsure of how to answer the Mistress' question, she feigned ignorance by shaking her head.

"Perhaps that's for the best. On the bright side I've set your nose properly." The woman held up a mirror and Lana saw that the bruising was an unsettling rust-colour. "It might not heal as pretty as it once was, but they say a lack of symmetry adds character."

"Thank you, Mistress."

"You may rethink your gratitude once you see what sort of a world I've revived you to."

A fresh-faced young woman with a white cap over a shower of soft blonde hair came skipping across the ward towards them.

"Oh, she's awake then!"

"Quiet yourself, Maddy! What sort of nurse wakes up all her patients?"

"Sorry," the girl said, but her tone was not apologetic. She smiled at Lana. "This was my bed, you know. They brought me here after… well, it doesn't matter now, but Mistress Coyle woke me up at the crack of dawn, tipped me out of bed and said, 'out you go, Madeline Poole, we've someone who needs this bed more than you; let's get her in it while it's still warm!' and she was right, because you didn't look right at all, but look at you now, bright as a button, and now I've got this job, so everything worked out in the end-!"

"Enough!" Mistress Coyle barked. "You'll have the young lady wishing she'd never returned to the waking world, yammering on like that. Go and check on Viola."

Maddy disappeared as quickly as she had come. Lana recognised the name, Viola; it was the girl whose arrival had meant the destruction of Farbranch. Mistress Coyle was shaking her head fondly.

"Mad as a hatter is our Maddy, but she's a good apprentice. They'll put you to work too, as soon as they know you're healthy. If I were you I'd feign sickness for a few days longer. What did you do, before all this?"

"The usual seasonal farm work, but I'm a seamstress, really."

"I'm sure he'll find some use for you."

"Who do you mean?"

The Mistress brushed loose strands of hair away from Lana's face.

"Enjoy a few more days of blissful ignorance, my girl. Get your strength up. You're going to need it."

The Mistress was right. As she had predicted, it wasn't long before Lana was put to work; work which neither she nor any of the other women confined to the Houses of Healing had any say in. Each morning soldiers with rifles would come by the dormitories to gather women for field work. Lana mostly found herself working in the orchards, just as she had back home. Some days, when the sun was shining and the soldiers kept well back, it almost felt like a summer day in Farbranch... except that her sister was missing from her side.

Lana thought only of Avery. She had not dared to tell anyone how or why she had come to Haven, and her unusual accent had been put down to the swelling in her nose. Since then she had since become quite adept at mimicking the clipped tones of New Prentisstown's residents. Though the President had banned the women of New Prentisstown from moving about freely, Lana continuously searched the faces of the soldiers for her sister, and listened closely to their Noise, until one day in passing she spotted a flash of her sister's face in the Noise of a soldier who was grumbling over why Prentiss allowed her to serve in the army. The relief of knowing that Avery was at least alive carried Lana through the dark and lonely days. She almost grew used to her strange new life, searching always for her sister, until one day she was reminded of the true cruelty of the conquerors which had occupied the city. In the middle of the night there was a banging at the door of the House of Healing which woke half the women within. Lana found Captain Hammar in the foyer holding onto a hysterical Viola; the girl had convinced Maddy the apprentice to help her escape the town, and Hammar had caught them in the act. For no reason other than he could, he had murdered Maddy.

Lana found that she could feel no kinship with Viola, who was important to the President, and therefore had escaped Maddy's fate. Neither Lana nor the other inhabitants of the House of Healing made any effort to comfort her. Lana and two others were forced out into the cold by armed soldiers to retrieve Maddy's body. Afterwards Mistress Coyle sent them back to their beds, of which there were not enough to go around. Lana lay on the cold floor and wept.

Maddy's funeral was a simple, graceless affair. Lana waited like a ghost among the other women, silent and weary. Captain Tate, who had been appointed as overseer of the Houses of Healing, was in attendance. He was despised less than the other soldiers on account that he treated his charges with a degree of patience and his handsome looks. After the funeral the women were gathered in the hall to be sent straight back to work. Tate was accompanied by another Captain who Lana didn't recognise, an older man with a pointed grey beard and three short scars against his cheek like the claw marks of an animal.

"If I could have your attention, ladies," Anderson Tate said to the mumbling crowd. "I know it's been a difficult morning, so we'll take things easy this afternoon. We've had new orders from the President, effective immediately, on the subject of modesty. From now on you're to keep your hair tied back, and no more trousers or skirts above the knee."

"Why does he care what we wear?" Lana said, incensed to the issue which had arisen so often in her life as a seamstress. "That's just ridiculous Old-World nonsense."

"Our President hasn't made this decision willy-nilly. These new restrictions are designed for your own protection."

"Protection from the men he brought here! He doesn't care about our protection. He proved that last night, when he let Hammar kill Maddy Poole."

There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd, which grew into shouts. Captain Tate struggled to quiet them, his deep voice resonating over their shrill tones.

"I'm sure our President is doing all he can to ensure that nothing like last night's accident happens again... and on the matter of skirts, the President is making provisions for that, too. Is anyone here good with a needle?"

The crowd went quiet. Lana raised her hand. She and another two dozen women were sent with the other Captain, a man called Collins, to an old school house near the Cathedral stacked high with fabrics, from old bed linens to the same coarse material Lana used to make blankets for horses. It quickly became evident that no real planning had been put in place; there were no patterns, no instructions, nothing but the expectation that the group would know how to craft garments just by virtue of being women.

Lana walked to the front of the room, grabbed a pen and paper and took it upon herself to bring some order to the situation. She began to sketch, ignoring the Captain as he hovered over her shoulder. He, like Captain Tate and the all the other soldiers who took the Cure, had absolutely no Noise. Lana found his silence disturbing.

"The simplest design would be this," she said, sketching as she spoke. "One big circle cut out of the fabric with a hole in the middle. Run a draw-string through and it'll fit anyone. There'll be a lot of waste fabric, though."

"Are you one of the Tailor's apprentices?" Collins asked.

"No. If ythe President's got a Tailor then maybe he should have someone who knows what they're doing running this operation."

"Maybe," Collins said. "Unfortunatley, the Tailor's got a mouth… just like you."

Lana gathered some supplies and demonstrated her design to the other women, after which the work began. There were hardly enough scissors to go around, neither was there enough floor space to cut out the skirts. Lana moved about helping as best she could, while the Captain watched over the work with his feet up on his desk and a rifle across his lap.

A handful of Collins' soldiers entered the room to help oversee the operation. Lana's heart dropped forty feet as she saw that her sister was among them.

Avery looked awkward and uncomfortable in her makeshift uniform. Her hair was tied back in a bun and there was a rifle strapped across her back. Lana gathered her courage and approached Collins at his desk.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she said, loudly enough that her sister might hear. Collins snapped his fingers at one of his soldiers.

"Escort this young lady and make sure she doesn't try to do a runner."

"I'll go," said Avery, a little too enthusiastically. The Captain gave her a strange look. Avery blushed. "I need to pee anyway."

The two young women stepped out into the hall, not daring to say a word to one another until they reached the bathrooms. Once inside they held each other close, and Avery wept into her sister's shoulder. Lana noticed immediately that her sister, like many of the soldiers, had no Noise; she was not surprised that the Cure had been tempting to her.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Lana said, holding back her own tears. Avery wiped her nose on her sleeve.

"It's been awful, Lana… I've been awful. I had to do horrible things. They would have killed me if I didn't. Alex told me he'd helped you to escape Farbranch, but I was starting to believe we'd never see each other again."

"I followed the army," Lana explained. "Where is Alex? Is he safe?"

"I've hardly seen him since we left Farbranch. He's in Captain Tate's division, there's not much interaction between the different groups. Besides, the President watches me like a hawk... I have to share a dormitory with Ivan bloody Farrow, and during the day I've been working with the Spackle and the President's son. His son is so much worse than he is, Lana... The things he does to those poor creatures..."

"He's not our President. Mistress Coyle says Prentiss was never even elected Mayor of his own town."

"But he's been good to me… I never even had to pretend to be something I'm not, he treats me like he would any other woman. If I tell him you're here-"

Lana seized her sister by the shoulders.

"If he were treating you like any other woman, you'd be locked up with the rest of us. He's a bloody tyrant. Don't tell him a damn thing."

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat. The sisters released one another and found Captain Collins leaning up against the doorway. The sisters remained frozen. There was no way of explaining the embrace, or the tears.

"We were just…"

"I'll bet," the man said, walking back towards the main hall. "Come on."

Avery and Lana followed after him, wiping their eyes. Once they entered the hall they went back to work as though nothing had happened. By the end of the working day in the women had managed to make only two thirds of what the President had ordered, but given their working conditions Lana considered that much an achievement. Collins instructed the soldiers to escort the women back through town; as Lana fell into step with Avery, Collins called for both of them to stand beside his desk. He put his feet up on the table and asked,

"So which one of you is going to tell me what all that was about?"

"Nothing," Avery said. "She was just upset after the funeral. I wanted to comfort her."

"Don't give me that bullshit. A blind man could see that the you two are related. You're siblings, aren't you?"

The silence of the sisters affirmed their guilt.

"Big Sis here somehow escaped the army's attack and was stupid enough to follow us here, is that right? I take it the President doesn't know about this."

"Don't tell him," Avery implored, giving up the ghost. Now that she had had time to think it over, Avery agreed with Lana that the President knowing of their situation might not be a good thing. What had happened in Farbranch was no secret to the people of Haven, but the President had clearly not intended to leave behind any survivors who might give first-hand accounts. Perhaps he would want the job finished, or imprison Lana for trespassing. It was not a risk Avery wanted to take.

"I saved your arse today," Lana said to the Captain, her eyes narrow above the bruising. "I can't imagine your President would have been too impressed if he'd seen the shambles you were running before I took over."

"Relax, kid. The President wouldn't know you from Eve; I don't see why your being here should matter, so long as you keep your head down and don't cause any trouble. But you owe me one."

A muscle twitched in Lana's jaw. As she opened her mouth with a response, the world was drowned out by a sudden colossal BOOM!

The trio jolted with surprise, the noise so loud it was as though the sky had cracked in two. The ground beneath them shook as Avery ran to the window, trying to pinpoint the source of the explosion.

"What the hell was that?" Lana asked the Captain. His expression was like a death mask, possessed of a sudden rage. Beneath that, though, there was something else; something like fear.

"That's trouble," Collins said.

Which was when the screaming began.