As she passed by a row of bedrooms between staircases, she lightened her step and slowed down just a touch, avoiding any creak in the floorboards. Lately Imogene and Marcus had been sleeping in separate bedrooms, with Marcus taking up residence on the second floor. Myrra wasn’t sure if this was a result of all the tension she’d felt between them or just another symptom of it. The whole thing filled Myrra with worry, though she couldn’t pinpoint any real reason for it. Why should she care if Marcus and Imogene had marital problems? They’d never been a happy couple, exactly. This latest separation meant nothing. Myrra didn’t see a light on behind any of the bedroom doors, but that didn’t mean Marcus was sleeping. Marcus was an insomniac at the best of times. Over this period he’d barely slept at all.
Marcus’s behavior had become increasingly erratic and mercurial, with him breaking into frantic bouts of chittering laughter in silent rooms, then suddenly throwing objects against the ornately papered walls in a screaming rage. More than once in the past month, he’d reached out to Myrra in an abrupt motion while she was cleaning or setting down a plate, gripping her wrist or arm a little too tight, jerking her closer to his face. Then he would come back to himself and let her go, usually with an offhand comment: she hadn’t dusted something right, or the meal was undercooked. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, their focus imprecise.
Marcus had never been all that intimidating to Myrra before. Despite his insistence on stairs, Marcus had never developed much in the way of muscle mass. Neither fat nor thin, Marcus had skin with the pale yeasty quality of raw dough and babyish fine hair that pasted itself to his head. But lately he’d lost weight, and his body was becoming what could best be described as wiry—not just for his sudden thinness, but because now Marcus seemed constantly, electrically tense and poised to spark at any moment.
Over this time, Myrra had frequently looked to Imogene to see if she noticed the change, but Imogene never commented. Mostly she stared off into space, lost in her own thoughts. Thank God Myrra had Charlotte to pay attention to. The rest of the family belonged in a madhouse.
Just at the top of the third-floor staircase was Marcus’s study. There was an amber light emanating from the crack under the door. She could smell his cigar smoke. Myrra could feel the pressure of Imogene waiting for her, but she eased her pace further, keeping her footfalls as slow and dull as drips in a sink. She imagined him in there, poring over parliamentary strategy, or perhaps already spinning it for the morning broadcast. From observing Marcus, Myrra had learned that news from the government never came in blunt, clear bursts; there were stairsteps to the truth.
From behind the door, she could hear him pacing. Myrra held her breath.
When she’d gone in there yesterday with Marcus’s afternoon tea (“It’s still important to observe English customs,” he often said), his desk had been riddled with stacks of tablets, some depicting charts with plummeting downward curves, others with tightly regimented words darkly marching across each screen. Myrra secretly practiced her reading while pouring him tea; there were lots of good complex phrases to untangle, like Yearly Decline Tracking and Integrity and Stability Projections. Marcus was standing over them, huffing, with sweat stains murking out from the creases in his arms. Myrra had gambled on his patience and asked about the charts. Sometimes Marcus liked to play paternal and explain things to her.
“Oh, it’s just our downfall,” he said with a thin giggle, but then his eyes began to well up, even as he was still forcing out laughter. His hand twitched and he spilled tea all over the tablets. Without reacting, he walked out of the room in a trance, leaving Myrra to clean up the mess. Myrra hadn’t known how to react, but it had left her uneasy.
Once she was out of earshot of the study, Myrra rushed the rest of the way to the master bedroom. When there was no one to entertain, Imogene would often spend days in here, avoiding the endless stairs by having things brought to her in bed. Now the bed was empty, as was Charlotte’s bassinet. Maybe Charlotte needed feeding after all. Myrra couldn’t understand why Imogene would behave so strangely about it. Nobody in this house was sleeping, apparently.
The terrace was adjacent to the master suite of the penthouse. She looked around at the chairs, chaises, and tables. It was large enough for Imogene to throw the occasional rooftop party. The floor was laid out in stunning patterned tiles that retained heat when the sun shone on it, but now, in the dark, they were cold enough that Myrra felt it through her slippers. The damp of early morning seeped in through her robe, through her skin, into her bones.
Myrra didn’t see Imogene at first. She raised her head to look at the city skyline, and that was when she spotted her. The terrace was bordered by a cement wall a little over a meter high that acted as a railing to keep people safe from the drop below. Imogene was standing on top of that wall, with Charlotte in her arms.
if you enjoyed
THE FALL OF KOLI
look out for
GOLDILOCKS
by
Laura Lam
A gripping science fiction thriller where five women task themselves with ensuring the survival of the human race—if you mixed “The Martian and The Handmaid’s Tale, this sci-fi novel would be the incredible result” (Book Riot).
Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation.
It’s humanity’s last hope for survival, and Naomi, Valerie’s surrogate daughter and the ship’s botanist, has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity like this—to step out of Valerie’s shadow and really make a difference.
But when things start going wrong on the ship, Naomi begins to suspect that someone on board is concealing a terrible secret—and realizes time for life on Earth may be running out faster than they feared.…
Chapter One
Launch
Michigan, USA, Earth
If it had been a normal launch, they would have made a spectacle of it all.
There would be picnic blankets laid out on the parched dirt, legs oily beneath smears of sunblock, faces shadowed by hats and hidden behind sunglasses. They’d lift their filter masks long enough to nibble at packed treats. Kids would suck down juice in silver pouches, pretending it was what the astronauts had in space. Adults would sip something stronger, enough to take the edge off and help the time pass on by.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
If this was a normal launch, the masses would be lined up along the flight path. Excited, fairground chatter would twine around the tinny music blasting from speakers. People would imagine what it must be like for the spacefarers clustered in the cockpit, their hearts in their throats as they waited. Family and friends would group four kilometres from the launch pad—as close as allowed—waving farewell even though their loved ones couldn’t see. Tears would weave salted tracks down their cheeks, and they’d be trying very hard not to remember the footage they’d seen of the Challenger shuttle, fine one moment and a fireball the next.
Seven. Six.
But this was not a normal launch.
Naomi clenched her hands into fists, then released, tension flowing out of her. She was strapped down to her chair in the depths of the shuttle, her body cocooned in a bulky spacesuit and fishbowl helmet. All her senses were dulled. Nothing touched her skin but the cotton undergarments beneath the fabric of the suit. No smell, her hearing muffled, her vision hedged in. Everything was distant, as if she were viewing herself from the outside and this was happening to someone else.