1.
The streets of the Grecian Sector were always hot, even the small markets that bordered the dark ocean and had a slight breeze to cool the shoppers that lingered in the mid-day quiet. People here moved slowly and wore loose hanging garments, when they wore clothing at all. Only one woman walking down the street defied the airy garments.
Sarah Ruth Huntington cared little for the citizens of another sector or their customs. Her smooth face ironed into a frown, stretched tighter by her strict bun. The black dress buttoned from ankle to neck trumpeted her foreignness to the Grecian sector more than her pale skin and light eyes. A red cape flowed over her shoulders, a dark crimson burden dragging in the dust.
Nothing on the street moved when a man in a volex hovered down to the street and came beside her. “Hey Sweetheart, need a ride?”
Sarah Ruth Huntington turned toward the driver hanging off the front deck and controlling the volex by remote. She pulled the red cape thrown off her shoulders onto her head to hide her face as she replied. “No. Thank you kindly, sir.”
“It’s awfully hot to be wearing all those clothes.” The man leaned closer to her. He was not wearing the customary robes of the Grecians, just a pair of loose linen pants that gathered about his ankles and hung lasciviously low. “You must not be from this region of the world.”
“In the Vatican Sector we believe in covering the flesh,” She replied, answering and rebuking in the same breath.
“This isn’t the safest sector for a girl like you.” The man laughed at her, reaching out and trying to take hold of her cape, but in a bored swat, like a young dog pawing at a small cat. “We’re all heathens this close to the equator.”
She pulled the red cape closer. “I shall fear no evil.”
The man leered. “Maybe you should.”
Sarah stopped and turned to look at the man. He wore dark sun-glasses and there was something blacker behind his gaze as if he didn’t have eyes. She repeated stoutly. “I shall fear no evil.”
“What’s a girl from the Vatican doing out here anyway?” The volex landed with a light puff, purposefully light as if to contrast the loud thud it’s driver made when he jumped off the deck. He walked beside her and touched her cape. “I’ve never seen a girl from the Vatican with a red cape either.”
She jerked the cape back defensively. “It signifies that I am a messenger to other sectors.”
“A dispensable girl, huh?” He chuckled. “Must be a sinner.”
Sarah didn’t refute the comment. “I am delivering letters and communion to my grandmother.”
“That scientist you visit every week isn’t your grandmother.” The man replied. “She’s a politician with your misplaced sense of religion.”
“How do you know that?” Sarah demanded.
The man merely shrugged. “It’s common knowledge that there’s a scientist working out there. I’ve seen her and she doesn’t look like you.”
“All people are related through God.” Sarah defended her lie. “And I’d rather have a misplaced sense of religion than follow a religion that allows its followers to tread about half-naked.”
“How do you know if you’ve never tried one?” He laughed, amused. “I’ll walk you to the dock.”
Sarah walked faster away from the sauntering height and power of the dark-skinned man. “It’s not proper for a man to escort a woman he does not know.”
“But we’re all related through God. Think of me as your brother.” He lifted his hand to his sunglasses but did not remove them. “You boat doesn’t get here for another hour?”
“Half an hour.” She replied quickly.
When the man laughed this time, the sound growled out of his throat. “Why not look through the shops? Bring your grandmother some flowers.”
His suggestion made her more wary of him than ever and when she turned her harsh eyes to glare at him, he explained with a smile. “I’m the florist’s brother-in-law. I see you out here every week.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes, debating the plausibility of the man’s words. “I’ve never seen you.”
“I’ll bet you never saw the florist shop either. You miss all the beauty of this street.” Sarah’s body steeled when he pinched her shoulders and steered her towards the shops. “Take a look. Catch the second boat out to sea.”
Sarah broke away from his hands, the hood of her cape falling to her shoulders. For a moment, she stared at him with a wild angry gaze, but then she stood straighter her temper cooling in the heat of the sun. She looked off to the florist’s shop and turned in that direction. “Thank you for your kind advice, sir.”
She fled the encounter and stumbled into the shade of the floral stand, distancing herself quickly from the man and his wolfish smile.
2.
Sarah was surprised that the old woman was not standing on the deck to greet her. But the old man who brought her out the scientist’s ship had other passengers and he was gone as soon as Sarah was out of his boat.
“Hello, Mrs. Eastman! I’ve brought you some nice lilies.” Sarah called out, but the ship groaned with silence. She walked around the deck and called down the stairs into the galley of the research vessel. “Hello?”
Sarah glanced around the deck again and then picked up her skirts and stepped down into the darkness below deck. She was not accustomed to the dark coolness of the living quarters, where the only light came from the shuttered windows. Sarah saw someone moving by the window and she smiled. “Oh, there you are, Mrs. Eastman. I have your letters and the commun-“
“I’m not your grandma, sweetheart.”
Sarah stepped back, recognizing the voice and the man on the street.
“Where is Mrs. Eastman?” Sarah darted her gaze over the room searching for the old woman.
The man shrugged, cleaning a knife on a white cloth. “Well, she might have fallen overboard and drown. She might have been strangled by her own bed sheets and mysteriously ended up in the ocean. She may be sitting quietly in my volex. Shall we go look for her there?”
A ray of sunlight reflected off his blade and stabbed her eyes. Sarah reached one hand behind her feeling for the railing to the stairs and tried to step back to them. She stepped on her cape instead and gasped as it choked her.
The man didn’t bother to block her escape. “Listen, Sweetheart. You be a good girl, and step over here and I won’t rape, torture, and otherwise mutilate your corpse. Sound fair?”
The fear choking her released into a scream that frightened her more than it frightened the murderer. She fled to the deck, her basket falling as she slammed the door to the galley. The communion wafers and letters tumbled onto the deck as he jammed his hand into the door to prevent it from closing. He forced the door open, pushing Sarah back even though she hung all her weight in the effort to close the door. Still clinging to the lilies, Sarah stumbled away, faltering across the deck of the ship that had once seemed so large to her and was now far too small.
Sarah ran to the other side of the deck, darting behind the bulge of the engine room, a small square on the deck that offered the only hiding place. She stood there seeing the open ocean all around her and caught her breath realizing what the murderer already understood. She had no where to run and few places to hide. She saw a life boat and lay down inside and covered the boat with the tarp rolled up inside of it.
“Listen, Sweetheart.” His voice was muffled somehow. He was still below deck. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I won’t chase you.”
She gasped and covered her ears hearing the loud explosions of a gun. She heard wood splintering apart and the sound of rushing water filling the galley. She muttered to herself. “He’s sinking the ship.”
The stairs thundered when he returned to the deck and walked a slow circle about the engine room. Sarah swallowed an unrealized scream when he rolled the tarp away. He still had the gun and he was pointing it at her. She pinched her eyes shut, bracing for death.
She heard the click, the explosion, the shatter of wood close to her head. When death felt too much like life she opened her eyes and saw him smiling down at her, leaning on the edge of the ship.
He pushed the lifeboat to swing it in the air. “Oops, looks like I missed.”
Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the gaping hole in the small boat and then stared at him.
The man left her curled up in the lifeboat he had just destroyed, while the sea he had invited into the rest of the ship began to bubble onto the deck. From his volex he called. “Good luck getting to shore, Sweetheart. You should’ve let me kill you.”
Sarah climbed out of the swinging lifeboat and back onto the sinking ship. He laughed when she fell to her knees in prayer.
3.
The lilies floated away from her black skirts as the ocean claimed the ship falling away from her knees. Sarah didn’t realize that ships sank so gently and she was surprised to find that she was more buoyant than the sopping wood slowly falling into the deep water. Her flailing arms would not keep her afloat long and she knew it was useless to cry for help.
So Sarah turned inward, allowing the weight of her sins to pull her beneath the waves. She chose to recite the “Sinner’s Chant” until she was dead. The water had filled her lungs by the time she asked for salvation. She didn’t feel the strong brown hands circling her waist.
She was not aware of her rescue until her face pierced the air and the water fled her lungs. Her vision blurred and she refused to regain consciousness, yet she felt oddly secure, held out of the water from her waist up.
Sarah felt her savior tugging at the strings lacing her dress together and she thought it was terribly odd for an angel of the Lord to divest her clothes. She still felt the ties of her cape pulling on her throat and she realized that she would be delivered into Heaven as the Lord had made her. Only the red cloak, the symbol of her earthy sins, would clothe her.
4.
Sarah realized, when she woke, that her clothing was too loose to be modest and her cape was missing. She sat up, seeing a dim office with one bright light focused on a desk. The man sitting at the desk seemed too pale to be human and Sarah lost her breath at the sight of him. Her eyes caught on the silk scarf twined about his neck and she stammered. “Sir, where am I?”
“I’ll tend to you in a moment.” His voice was lighter than his form. Sarah could not tell which sector shaped his accent. He continued writing at his desk.
Sarah swallowed and asked. “Are you the Angel Gabriel or Saint Peter?”
His head jerked up and he stared at her with narrowed eyes. Then he smiled a soft smug expression. “Neither angel nor saint, I’m afraid.”
“I’m in Hell.” Sarah sighed, reaching her hand to her shoulder groping for the crimson cape that was not there. “My faith was weak. Too new. I only found God a few years ago and I was… licentious.”
The man set down his pen and rested his chin on his palm, suddenly interested. “Licentious?”
“I will repay my sins through suffering, of course.” She looked up, trying to hold her tears back. “Will I remain here for all eternity or until my sins are atoned? It’s a matter of debate in my church.”
“What have you got worth selling?” He giggled at his own words. “I personally could return you to your home in a matter of months.”
She lowered her eyes and lifted her hand to the buttons on the loose gown. “Does it matter that I am virgin to men?”
The man finally burst into laughter and stood. “I am sorry. I should be sympathetic. Tell me what clothing you wear and I will see that you have it.”
Sarah’s brow wrinkled. “Please, sir, I want only to join my Heavenly Father.”
“Mademoiselle, your sins will have to be atoned some other time. You are not dead, though you may be in Hell. You were rescued from drowning, but your dress and identification were quite lost. You’ll need a new identification card to leave the Lower Parisian Sector, where you find yourself now. I can get you a new identification card, shelter, food, and clothing, if you work for me.”
Sarah blushed with shame, but she practiced the virtue of patience. “What is this place?”
The man grinned as if he knew a secret. “La Masque.”
5.
Bathed in marble and silk, La Masque would have seemed like an elite business, if it were not for the prostitutes, philanders, and pagans dancing around its elaborately carved pillars and draping themselves over its glass tables. Sarah was unimpressed by the grandeur. “This place is ungodly.”
The man had not left her side. “If you have a knack for hair or make-up, you may work backstage in our Preferential Lounge.”
“I will develop the knack.” Sarah replied sharply. Her lip curled when she saw a man at the bar lean over to flirtatiously kiss another man. “Those sodomites. Is this kind of behavior-”
The man interrupted, a chilling departure from his previous politeness. “This is the lower Parisian Sector, Mademoiselle. Careful how you finish that sentence, if you care to leave it.”
Sarah absorbed his words and narrowed her eyes. “It is unnatural… a sin against God; that’s all I will say.”
He pointed to a distant wall, less helpful suddenly. “Go through that white door. You will find dresses. Look for a woman named Monique. That’s all I will say.”
Sarah did not let the man escape her so easily. “When I meet this Monique, who shall I say sent me?”
The man was preoccupied, noticing something behind her and watching it. “Tell her you are from Ice and that you a not a whore. She will understand.”
Sarah caught his shoulder when he turned to leave, even as she hardened against him. “What may I tell her is your Christian name, sir?”
“I am Ice.” He spoke with an unquestionable authority. “And I advise you to keep your Christianity to yourself.”
Sarah replied, “It is difficult to keep God’s word to myself.”
“Then it may become difficult to get you out of this sector.” Ice’s pale eyes jumped from her face to someone behind her. “Maloup.”
“Excuse me, but you’ll have to wait a moment before you talk to this-” Sarah turned around to send the newcomer away until she was finished. Her voice became faint when she saw the tall man with dark skin and blacker sunglasses.
He ignored her. “Are you ready to go? I told her we’d meet her in an hour.”
“In a moment.” Ice casually gestured to her, looking at a small black planner and seeing not to notice she was there. “Did you need to kill this woman?”
“No.” Maloup shook his head. “The politician was my target. She’s just some delivery girl from the Vatican Sector that just got in the way.”
“Mrs. Eastman was a saint and whatever she was working on was for the good.” Sarah said.
“The old woman was as human as anyone else,” Maloup replied. “Died that same at any rate.”
Sarah shuddered at his callousness and asked quietly. “Did you pull me from the water?”
Maloup scoffed. “I wouldn’t have put you in the water if I expected you to come out, sweetheart. Must have been a fisherman. I went back and I saw your cape floating around. I picked that up. Thought it would be a nice prop for a stripper.”
Sarah’s terror shivered into anger and she snapped her face away from Maloup and to the man he worked for. She lifted her chin with a command she did not feel and spoke to Ice. “I want to meet the man who rescued me.”
“The man who rescued you?” Ice laughed quietly, amused and secretive. “It isn’t possible for you to meet the man who rescued you.”
“But you know who he is.” Sarah did not like being a source of amusement for this man. “I want to know his name.”
Ice shrugged and turned away again. “It’s not up for me to grant that wish.”
Sarah stepped forward to follow him and found Maloup stood in her way. She glared up at the man and took a breath to steady herself. She couldn’t find the words to overpower him and he was too uninterested to wait for her, turning and following his employer. Sarah pulled her cape over her shoulders and walked towards the white door.
6.
“Will Sarah talk to Panya about Sarah?” There was no one else in the dressing room for the Preferential Lounge. Panya liked to show up first when everything was quiet. Sarah enjoyed being able to tend Panya’s knotted hair without distraction.
In all the time Sarah had been trapped inside the Lower Parisian Sector, she had never met a girl like Panya. It was hard to talk to the foreign girl. The red and green of her hair, as natural as her smile, made Sarah’s voice clump. Ice had insisted that they become roommates.
“Well.” Sarah answered Panya’s fragmented request. “I lived with my father all my life, in the Britton Sector. I rarely saw him though. He divorced my mother. She was deeply ashamed of it, when she returned to her home in the Vatican Sector. I always thought it wrong of him once I met her. I didn’t even know she was alive until my father married again. My step-mother chased me out and I found my mother and lived with her.”
“This stepping mother, she did not love Sarah?” Panya turned her head to see Sarah.
Sarah straightened Panya’s head again and then swallowed hard and tried to answer. “My step- mother and I had a… an unpredictable relationship.”
“Panya’s mothers loved her very much. Mother Erro songed so Panya knows many songs from Erro. Mother Suisuin dance.”
“You father divorced and remarried, too?” Sarah smiled at their commonality.
“I have no father.” Panya answered simply.
Sarah chuckled. “You must have a father.”
“I have Mother Erro and Mother Suisuin.” Panya said stubbornly.
“Oh, nuns, of some sort.” Sarah spoke her simplest. “Were you an orphan? Without parents?”
The foreign woman turned, laughing with frustration. “No. Mother Error and Mother Suisuin are Panya’s parents.”
“But two women can’t have children.” Sarah insisted.
Panya faced the mirror again, her face crunching with confusion. She shrugged and conceded. “Maybe Panya is confused with words.”
Sarah hummed to herself doubting Panya’s decision, but choosing not to speak. She blushed when Panya took the edges of her red cape between her fingers and said. “Sarah’s has pretty collar.”
“It’s called a cape.” Sarah corrected.
“You wear it always.” Panya lifted the material to her face and rubbed it against her cheek.
Sarah pulled the red cloth away from Panya’s hands. “In my sector, it tells the world that I have sinned and have been forgiven.”
“What bad did Sarah do?” Panya lifted her eyes to Sarah curiously.
Sarah had been the one who taught Panya the very concept of sin and she disliked the question. She stared at the green hair she was weaving into the crimpy black. “I challenged the natural order.”
Panya’s face furrowed again with deep thought. Her voice filled with casual curiosity. “What in world is this mean?”
Sarah laughed quietly at Panya’s broken attempt. “Oh, Panya, you’re impossibly endearing.”
“This is good.” Panya grinned with pride. “This is meaning Sarah loves Panya, yes.”
“Of course.” Sarah spoke even quieter, twisting the last strands of Panya’s hair. “I love all of God’s creations. And you’re very sweet, Panya. There, you’re finished.”
Panya stood at once, tall and towering, and turned to Sarah with a smile as overwhelming as her height. Sarah bit her lips when Panya stooped to kiss her cheek, a parting gesture that Panya shared with nearly everyone in La Masque. Sarah held her breath, but even after Panya was gone, the spicy scent of her skin hovered in Sarah’s memory. Sarah confessed her sins to herself and hoped that five Hail Maries was enough.
7.
Sarah didn’t mean to surrender so easily when Panya kissed her. She fell into the memory of what waited after a kiss, tripping over the other woman’s tongue until she was lost. She remembered why she wanted to forget such memories when Panya’s hands parted her red cape to touch the buttons of her blouse. “Panya, stop.”
Panya leaned back onto the arm of the couch, smiling.
Sarah shrank from the woman’s easy grace. “This isn’t… is not right. Unnatural. Against God.”
Panya shifted forward again, concerned. “Why?”
“Woman is made for man.” Sarah stood up and walked away. “Two women… it’s not right.”
“Panya never understands this man and this woman.” Panya demanded explanation.
Sarah paced, patting the hair that Panya’s hands had misplaced. Distance and dogma gave her strength. “God made men and women to compliment each other. God made man strong and powerful, and fit to be a provider. God made woman smaller, weaker, but fairer. More compassionate.”
“Panya is not weak.” The woman protested her voice dark and persuasive. “Panya is strong. And Monsieur Ice is small and fair. Is Ice woman?”
“Ice is a man.” Sarah replied.
Panya snorted. “Ice has a flat chest. That is difference. Woman is round and man is flat.”
“It’s not that simple, Panya. We can’t…” Sarah drew a hard breath. “I can’t do this.”
Panya’s strange eyes flickered sadly. “Sarah wants flat-chests. God means nothing to this.”
“That’s not true! The last thing I want is flat-chests.” Sarah flushed with her revelation and her quick temper. She turned away and crossed her arms. “Damn it, this has everything to do with God.”
Panya coiled away from Sarah’s anger, but said. “Sarah is afraid, hides behind God.”
“God is my shield against evil.” Sarah replied resisting the understanding in Panya’s voice.
“God should not make stupid laws.” Panya muttered.
Sarah gripped the edge of her cape, trying to stretch the stiff fabric. “That’s blasphemy.”
“A person cannot love another person? That is a stupid law.”
“You don’t understand.” Sarah replied, wanting to turn, not daring to look at Panya.
“Panya understands. God wants babies. God doesn’t care about love.”
“God is love.”
“Not my love.”
When Panya stood, finally walking towards her, Sarah did not turn. Sarah didn’t want to fight. One more kiss would convince Sarah that love was more important than natural, that God was unfair, and that her religion misunderstood the path to Heaven. She waited for Panya’s hands and warm mouth.
Sarah startled when the door closed. She was alone.
8.
Ice seemed supremely surprised to see Sarah slam through the door to his office. “Why is it so difficult to find you?”
“I always know where I am.” Ice shrugged. “And everyone else knows they can find me here at the edges of the day. Why? You look panicked.”
“Panya has gone missing.” Sarah said. “She disappeared three nights ago after we- well, not really argued. There were some raised voices – I haven’t been able to find her anywhere in La Masque. I’ve been looking for you ever since. I must find her.”
“Calm down, Sarah.” Ice didn’t look up from the sheet he was reading. “Panya is fine. You should be happy in fact.”
He set down the paper and leaned forward on his desk, sharing a secret that entertained him. “Panya has found a way for you to leave this sector.”
Sarah closed her eyes to block out the news. The idea had grown foreign to her and she felt her throat tighten as she answered. “Leave this sector?”
“Yes. And return to the Vatican. Panya has found your fiancé.” Ice’s brow lifted amused. “A wood cutter?”
“Yes.” Sarah lowered her head. “I mentioned him once to her. But how did she find her way?”
“She found me.” Ice replied. “I told her where you came from. I didn’t expect her to swim all the way there.”
“She just left the sector?” Sarah sat in the chair across from Ice. “But she had no identification?”
Ice shrugged. “The amazing thing about Panya is that she doesn’t care about laws and rules. Doesn’t understand the limitations people try to make. You or I or anyone else in this place could walk out whenever we chose. But instead we stay here, and we wait for a different kind of escape. But not Panya. She just strips off her clothes and swims away.”
Sarah wasn’t certain she understood or agreed. “But Panya’s come back?”
“She wasn’t able to give directions back to La Masque. She had to lead him here herself.” Ice smiled delighting in some tidbit he was not telling her. “It’s so funny. When she arrived in the Vatican Sector, she wasn’t wearing any clothes. So they brought her back wearing all red. Men’s clothes too. I suppose they had nothing in her size. Now she refuses to wear her other clothes.”
“She must find the color attractive.” Sarah replied.
“I think it’s because you wear red.” Ice shrugged. “I like her better in blue.”
“Blue is a color of innocence. They would view a naked woman as a shameful one and clothe her in red.” Sarah answered bitterly.
“You wear red.” Ice pointed to her cape.
“And you wear blue.” Sarah glared at him and gestured to the piece of sky-blue silk twirled about his neck. “The colors don’t mean much.”
“Well.” Ice pushed out his chair and stood. “Panya is a very affectionate person, very helpful. You must have told her you wanted to go home?”
Sarah understood he was looking for more secrets. She refused to give him any more. “I did.”
Ice slipped to the front of his desk and leaned against it. “She would be an easy woman to love, if one found it easy to love women.”
“When is my fiancé coming?” Sarah demanded.
“He is in the High Parisian Sector. I arranged to shelter her from La Masque.” Ice smiled as if Sarah should be grateful. “We can’t have you going home all in red too. No, Sarah must leave dressed in white. When you marry him in High Parisian you will receive a citizenship to his sector. “
Sarah scowled at his sarcasm but said nothing.
Ice paused just long enough. “That is, if you still intend to marry him.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Sarah lifted her head to return a sense of haughtiness to her voice. “Anything to leave this place.”
He dragged his hand over the desk as returned to work. “So much for the sanctity of marriage. You may leave now. Phillip Froggs – you remember, the omni-pianist – will drive you to your husband.”
Sarah defended herself. “I was going to marry him before any of-”
Ice interrupted. “I understand. Marriage is a magnificent shield.”
“I have nothing to hide.” Sarah protested.
His blue eyes snapped out of the file he was reading as if her protests provoked him. Ice spoke with a quiet viciousness. “You will not see Panya again. Do you have anything you want to say to her?”
Sarah was stunned a moment by the idea that had brought her to Ice’s office in the first place: Panya would be gone.
“Tell Panya it is a stupid law and that-” Sarah turned her eyes to the floor and changed her direction. “Never mind that. Tell her I am grateful for her help. That is all.”
