The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,14

was as if she wasn’t really there.

Only now, after years on the outside, can I make some sense of what was going on in that city, and in that house, and inside her head. Weatherly was a man’s world. Made for Humans, and only Humans, and made for men in particular. Sally Kane had spent her whole life inside the walls. She had followed the rules and believed the stories and shaped herself into the perfect version of what Weatherly wanted. How could you fault someone who became exactly who they thought they needed to be?

Our house was in the suburbs because every house in Weatherly was in the suburbs. Graham wore a suit every day because every man over eighteen wore a suit every day. On the weekends, we went to the arena and watched the games just like all the others. I went to school. I did my homework. I repeated the facts that were taught to me so I could get a good grade and please my parents. I walked the line with all of them. I did as I was told. I stayed inside the walls, just like everybody else.

The wind never came to Weatherly. It was separated from the rest of the world by big walls and even bigger lies. The reasons for the walls were different depending on who you asked. The story inside was that the world had been ravaged by war. Bio-chemicals and bombs had turned everything outside into a wasteland; the only survivors lived within our sanctuary city. Weatherly was the only world that mattered and Human life was the only element worth protecting.

The Patrolmen must have known that the lessons were a lie. They’d all seen things that contradicted the story. Still, they put their faith in the laws of the city and gave in to their fears. Whatever was out there, it had to be dangerous. Whatever their leaders were hiding, it was for good reason. Rather than waste their days wrestling with the truth, it was better to get on with life and trust the lies.

The people inside never spoke of the Dragons or the pointy-eared Elves or the old men who could make miracles with their hands. It was populated only by Humans and the animals they could control; things they could eat, pet or ride upon. A meticulously constructed reality in which we were the top of the food chain.

That was Weatherly’s gift to its people. Ignorance. The Humans outside the walls knew that they were inferior. So, in this place, there was nothing to be inferior to. Children were free to grow up without ever knowing anything else. They would believe they were standing at the height of evolution. Never know the shame. Never know their place. They would never know anything outside the walls.

But I did.

That knowledge meant I acted different, which meant I was treated different, which pretty much meant I was different. I had a head full of wild beasts and bright lights and a world that was bigger than the one they all knew. Occasionally, with trusted friends, I tried to explain the things I remembered: animals as big as houses or strangers with all-white eyes. It never went over too well. As I got older, they stopped saying I was lying and started saying I was crazy, so I learned to shut up. I convinced myself that they weren’t memories at all, just a child’s imagination warped by trauma and change. I did my best to believe in this new world and its strange, rigid beliefs.

Weatherly believed in a God, but he was a vengeful one. An all-powerful, masculine force that damned the outside world for its sins. We were the lucky ones, but our salvation came at the cost of servitude. We would get married. We would work. We would believe what we were told.

I tried to go along with the act. I’d say the lines and learn the laws but, with one eye fixed on the world outside, I lost my focus. I was smart but I wasn’t successful. At the end of school, I was still being told that I hadn’t committed myself. They meant that I hadn’t committed to my studies or a career, but I knew it was more than that.

I hadn’t committed to Weatherly.

The usual thing for teenagers to do after graduation was to become an apprentice. While the others were studying to become doctors and botanists, I was drifting. I worked where I