The door was scraping open. Purple light was flooding into the shadows. It was happening again. Constance stood paralyzed.
For an intense, timeless moment, Constance found herself plunged into the eternal vastness of space, and she found herself imagining that she had been drawn into the contents of the Rosemary's syringe rather than the other way around. She felt cold—not physically, but existentially, as if there was nothing separating her corporeal self from the terrible emptiness in which she was suspended. And then, just as suddenly, she was somewhere again.
"No," she pleaded softly. "Anything but this."
The space was small, even smaller than she remembered, now that she was apparently seeing it through adult eyes. They called them shoeboxes. Hundreds of identical homes, each consisting of a few hundred square feet, set in a neat grid not far from the perimeter of the mine, like dominoes. There was no need to build up; space was not a problem here, but building material was. Inside, a few splashes of sullen ref light pierced through the deep shadows. After the skies had finally been cleared of the ashes of Epiphany, most of the working families had, at their own expense, installed skylights into their homes so that the harsh sunlight could shine in during the day and so that they could see the stars as they lay, exhausted, in their cots at night. Skylights, not windows; there was nothing on the ground worth seeing. They were far from the shining spires of Tomorrow.
From the color of the sky, its pink glow tinted blood-red from the dust of the mining, Constance could see that it was dusk. She knew exactly what time it was, exactly what day it was. On the small table nearby were a few empty cans that she had pulled from the cupboard and eaten in guilty haste, ashamed that she could think of eating when things had gone so horribly wrong. Any moment now, the company man whose name she had never learned would come through that door, carrying the limp and senseless form of her father. Having laid the babbling, gurgling man on a cot, he would confirm in his awkward and halting way what she had gleaned from passing, evasive responses during her several excursions over the past few days. That there had been an accident. That her mother was gone.
The door was scraping open. Purple light was flooding into the shadows. It was happening again. Constance stood paralyzed. Silhouetted against the the bruised glow of the threshold were two figures, one tall and stout, the other more slender, leaning on the first for support.
They emerged into the light. Her father, looking exhausted but still strong, was supporting the limping form of her mother. His coveralls were covered in yellowish dust, but hers was fresh, the same clean white as the bandage that was wrapped around her head. She looked at Constance with a warm, steady gaze.
"Mama!" Constance sobbed, staggering forward to embrace the woman.
"I'm sorry if we spooked you, Connie," her father said, guiding his wife to a seat on the edge of a cot. "There was an accident and I was obliged to tend to your ma. I knew you could fend for yourself for a spell."
"But we're all together again now," her mother whispered, stroking Constance's tangled hair as the girl wept into her shoulder. "You'll never be alone again."