Beyond the Sea

Sarah - 1966

Sarah sighed, and threw the covers back. It was barely daylight, but there was no way she was getting back to sleep now. She touched the frame of the photo she kept by the bed - her and Helena, and Rachel. Combing her hair with her fingers, a memory flashed through her mind of Helena sitting behind her and carefully brushing her hair and braiding it, back in the orphanage. Then Sarah would do the same to hers. She could barely remember anything before that time. A vague idea of a small apartment, dark eyes that smiled, plaster dust that made you sneeze, family.

Maty had found out a little information, and filled in the background later. Their parents had been workers - builders, engineers, part of the early wave into Rapture that built the city, gave Andrew Ryan's dreams physical form...and then were forgotten when the structure was complete. No one could leave Rapture, and there was no social welfare programs, no safety net for the multitude of working-class people with no work.

With the discovery of ADAM, and the growing demand for it, came the Little Sisters. Research had concluded that the sea-slug that produced the ADAM could be implanted into a suitable host, said host becoming a ADAM production factory.

And the most suitable hosts were little girls.

And so Fontaines Little Sister's Orphanage were created. Fontaine saw the need for more children to produce more ADAM...and for himself to gain some credit for his ‘compassion’ and ‘social responsibility”. The orphanages took in not only orphans, but children of the poorer residents, convincing them that their children would be fed, clothed, and educated - after all, ‘Children are the future of Rapture!’ Any parents that asked too many questions just...stopped coming back. It was impossible to find out if the Mannings had actually died, or had been disappeared, although the lack of any official death certificates indicated the latter.

Suitable candidates for the Little Sisters program were chosen by DYAD. Sarah remembered the day they had first met Maty Tenenbaum. She had been with a tall thin man with no hair, and the twins had quietly giggled behind their hands about how he looked like a skeleton. Maty - of course she hadn’t been ‘Maty’ then, just Dr Tenenbaum - had been professionally distant, but had at least smiled at the assorted children. The skeleton man, who they discovered was called Dr Leekie (more giggles) just seemed uncomfortable being around so many children in such a crowded and dingy space.

Both the adults moved around the room, talking to various children. Various girls, Sarah remembered. There were boys at the orphanage, but only girls were taken away by DYAD. There were at least a dozen in the twins group. Sarah listed all their names in her head - Beth, Katja, Jennifer, Veera, Janika, Danielle, Niki, Krystal, Justyna,  Alison, Cosima - all now living their lives on the surface with relatives the two older women had tracked down. Even though they were no longer connected by the ADAM, they still considered themselves sisters, of a kind, and kept in touch. Even got together once a year.  But there had been so many left behind. She thought about Rachel and chewed on her lip. She’d be eighteen years old as well, same as Sarah. Did her parents get her out? Were they still down there? Was she...

Sarah rested the coffee cup against her forehead for a moment. She’d wandered through the kitchen, and out onto the small back verandah. Some part of her still was in awe of the sunrise. She’d been born in Rapture. Sunshine had been a word, meaningless, until the day she had come to the surface and squinted into the relentless light.

She heard footsteps from behind her, and a hand rested on her shoulder. “Bad dreams again, love?” asked Mrs S softly.

“Yeah.” Sarah answered quietly. She gulped the rest of her coffee down. “I need to fix this, S. I can’t go on just...I have to go back. I have to go back and find Helena. It’s like...there’s a piece of me that’s missing and it’ll never be right until we’re together again.”

Her grip tightened on Sarah’s shoulder, then Mrs S walked around and sat on the steps leading to the small garden. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?  Rapture has been in decay for years, overrun by splicers.  How do you know that - ”

Sarah cut her off. “I know. Helena is still alive, she’s still down there, waiting for me. I know it. I’m not a little girl anymore. I can do this.”

Mrs S nodded, once. “Right then. I have something to give you. From Brigid.”

Sarah swallowed. “From Maty?” she asked, her voice scarcely cracking.

“That’s right, love. From your Maty. I promised her that I would keep it safe, and hidden, until you were ready. She knew-” a wry smile “that you would never be at peace until you were with your sister again. So she made plans, for when you were old enough. She was a great one for plans.”

Mrs S smiled fondly, thinking of Brigid, her silvery hair falling in her eyes, so clever and driven. One of a kind, she was. Mrs S had been doing dodgy work on the black market in Rapture, part of a smuggling ring bringing in goods from the surface. Brigid Tenenbaum had needed help in smuggling particular goods back out.

She hadn’t expected those goods to be little girls, but Mrs S always kept her side of a bargain, and Brigid...well, she had certainly been worth the risk.

And S had ended up with a family. Smaller now that Brigid had passed - diagnosed with cancer two years after returning to the surface, they had lost her in 1965. She’d had regrets about her part in the program, but had tried to make amends as best she could. All the girls had traveled back to England for her funeral, from all over the world.  They all owed Brigid their lives, and they would never forget her. Mrs S would never forget her either.

“And she told me not to try to stop you. That you were a...what was it...міцний горішок.”* The words sounded odd in S’s Irish accent, but it made Sarah smile.

“Have some breakfast, Sarah. I’ll need to go talk to some old friends.”

Sarah nodded, although breakfast was likely to be just another coffee. After she heard the front door close behind Mrs S, she went and refilled her cup, then returned to her seat on the verandah, staring at the sunlight on the rhododendrons, and the red bricks of the squat garden shed. She thought about her sister. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what she would look like now.

sestra

Sarah started, almost spilling her coffee. She stared around, but there was nothing. Just the garden, and the sunlight, and...what was that music spilling out of the neighbours windows?

‘Somewhere- beyond the sea!

She’s there - waiting for me!’

Her eyes welled up and suddenly she was crying - intense, snotty sobbing like the ocean was trying to make it’s way out of her.

I’m coming for you Helena she thought, I’ll save you I’ll save you I’ll save you I’ll