Way Down Dark Read Online Free PDF Page A

I am saddest, I wonder if anything in those machines could have helped my mother and if, therefore, there’s somebody real I can blame for her sickness. That’s pointless, I know, and a waste of time, but it helps to try to find a place to lay the blame.) I wonder what Australia must have been like when our ancestors first boarded because on some parts of this floor you can still see the white tile underneath the dirt.
    Even though I want to get my new shoes quickly, I stop. I don’t know why exactly, but I like this floor. There’s nothing here—no partitions, no berths, no grates or gates or anything to make living here actually doable. I like being here, though, because of how quiet it is. It’s not like noise from everywhere else doesn’t travel, but it’s more muted, and you never see anybody else. There’s nothing here for them, which somehow leaves something for me: the quiet. I watch my step, because there are glass slivers on the floor still. Nothing big enough to do any immediate damage, because that stuff all got taken for weapons or whatever, but if you catch a splinter and can’t get it out, that’s just as likely to kill you. Infection sets in, and as soon as you know it, you’re having that foot amputated. As good as a death sentence if you don’t have somebody to help you out. Those people never last long here.So I tread carefully, head down, eyes on the ground, trying to catch glimmers of light reflecting off anything that could stick in me. Stupid, really. Eyes down is no way to live on Australia . I know that.
    I hear the breathing before I see the Pale Women—a group of them. They never travel alone, it seems. And when I look up and they light their candles in front of their faces, I suddenly realize how close to them I am. Feet away—nothing more. But they never come down here. They stay on their floor. That’s the rule.
    “Hello,” I say. I start to back away, but I stay friendly. They are no threat to me, I know that. But this—their being here—breaks all the rules.
    Used to be, Agatha says, that way, way back, the Pale Women tried to save people on the ship. They went around butting in when fights broke out, doing what they could to help. But then they abandoned the rest of the ship, choosing to stay on the top floor and never leave. Agatha knows more about it than I do. They call their floor Limbo. I don’t know what it means: It’s a word from one of their Testaments .
    One of them steps forward. She tries to speak, but the words don’t come, so she licks her lips, which are chapped and dry (I can see that much in the flickering candlelight), and then tries again. “You’re lost,” she says. They have hoods on, nearly covering their whole heads. Her chin, I can see, is a mess of scars.
    “I’m not,” I reply. “I know exactly where I am.”
    “Child,” she says, and it’s the first time I’ve been called that in an age, “we’re worried about you.”
    “Well, don’t be,” I reply. “I’m fine.”
    “Will you take this?” She holds something out, her hand darting out from underneath her cloak, and her motioning makes me jump. Usually, somebody producing something that fast means a weapon. This? It’s a bundle of papers, nothing more. I can see a scrawl of handwriting across it.
    “I’m fine,” I say.
    “You think that you have a choice?” It’s threatening. I’ve never had any trouble from them, and I don’t want to start now.
    “Okay,” I say. I step forward, and she does, and I reach out as far as my arm will extend to take the thing from her fingers. As she lets go, I see that chunks of her hand are missing: the tips of two fingers, the nails from another. I look away, up at the other Women. I can see them all clearly now, all dressed the same, and another person behind them, head bowed, outfit slightly different. More covered, darker, more ragged. Not a woman: a boy. He’s younger than the women. Around his neck is a thick white collar, tight