“Aws Blessings to you, Quaestor.” Bram bows politely, holding the toddler with his right hand. Edda stays silent, her attention elsewhere.
A trace of irritation crosses Marjolein’s face. “Aws Blessings to you, Edda!” she shouts louder, walking to her.
Edda turns and stares at her.
In silence.
Willem hurriedly places a hand on Marjolein’s shoulder. “Don’t mind her. She is giving me the silent treatment.”
“Seriously? That is not very pious of you, Edda.”
Edda remains silent, facing away.
“Please, let her be,” Willem says to Marjolein. “It’s nothing.”
She purses her lips. “It is most certainly not nothing!” Her eyes glare at Edda with rising indignation. “Two mere months to your Joyousday, and this is the family life you must put up with? It’s heartless! It should be a time of love, remembrance and family.”
Edda turns with sudden fury in her eyes. “What do you know of family?!” Edda shouts in Marjolein’s face. “You never had parents!”
Marjolein takes a hesitant step back, blinking, eyes wide in disbelief.
“E- Edda!” Willem is horrified.
“You kill our parents!” Edda shouts, tiny drops of spit falling on Marjolein’s toga.
“Edda!” Willem’s furious lashing shout freezes Edda and makes Bram and many colonists in the immediate vicinity startle. “Shut up this instant!” With bloodshot eyes and a brow distorted with rage, his face is almost unrecognizable, as if a demon had taken possession of the always placid Meester.
The toddler in Bram’s hold begins to cry like he has just seen a monster leaping out of nowhere, which in a way it has. A large circle of colonists gawk at him.
“I’m so sorry, Marjo,” Willem says, voice trembling with emotion. “Edda is just upset. She doesn’t mean it.”
“I do—” Edda begins to speak, but Willem’s expression stops her. Tears of frustration begin to well in her eyes.
“Marjo, please forget all this. It’s not worth it.” Willem takes her hands. “Tonight is the most important moment of your career.” He forces a smile. “You alone brought the New-Year’s Festival—no, the Century Festival—here to Lunteren. All Germania will listen to your words. It is your moment!”
Marjolein’s expression softens. “Will, you cannot begin to imagine how many favors I had to call to get us selected. But I didn’t do it for me,” she says louder, looking around, meeting the glances of the staring crowd with her practiced, professional smile. “I did it for all of us. This honor doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to Lunteren!” Some bystanders clap spontaneously, but soon the frenzy of the celebration takes over, and the crowd dissolves into smaller groups, mixing, dispersing.
“Don’t worry, Will,” Marjolein caresses his cheek, “immature words don’t offend Goah.”
The Forum is now considerably more crowded, which would have seemed impossible to Ximena a moment ago. The music thumps louder, the mood more expectant; even the colors feel more vibrant. Midnight is close, Ximena thinks, and begins to tap on the bench with impatience.
Edda gives the ticking, mechanical hand-clock an anxious glance. “Shit, it’s almost eleven,” she mutters, and puts the clock back into a discreet pocket as she turns to her family. “Sorry, I need to do something.”
Before Willem and Bram have time to react, she slips through the crowd, and the auditorium scene begins to follow her frantic trot westwards, towards the entry streets into the Forum.
But the progress is slow as she pushes against the current of people still flowing en-masse into the Forum. They are strangers, many of them—in Lunteren just for this one night. And those occasional greetings of the few known faces she crosses, she simply ignores.
With a final gasp, she turns into a narrow, quiet alley off the busy street.
“Goah’s Mercy, about time!” Aline says, looking relieved and anxious at the same time. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”
“Sorry, it took me forever to… Wow! You look… yummy!” Aline is wearing a long, pale-blue tunic, open on her legs, that shapes her body suggestively. Her long black hair, expertly curled, frames her rosy, beautiful face. “Don’t let Piet see you, if you want to keep your tunic on.” She laughs.
Aline blushes. “Thanks, you look stunning too, but no time for that.” She is holding a clock in her own hands. “Less than a minute to eleven, sister!” She takes a heavy-looking radio receiver out of a cloth bag on her feet and places it on the ground. “Prepare to synchronize.”
Edda retrieves her own clock from her pocket and takes it in her hands.
“Wind it up,” Aline says, turning the receiver on. Both listen intently to the radio broadcast while Edda turns a knob on the top of her clock.
“… heavy rain is not stopping the brave Tczew colonists from joining in droves their Imperator by the imperial palace, Goah praise their devotion. Imperator Castimer Cisek is waving at the faithful. The coordination ritual will begin any second now. Switching over to his microphone…”
“Aws Blessings to you, Hansa.” A strong, masculine voice soars over the background noise. The roar of an enthusiastic gathering replies. “It is my duty, it is my privilege, once more, to fulfill the ancestral tradition of the annual coordination!”
The crowd cheers again.
“Goah, guide my words as I mark the twenty-third hour of the last Day of Light. Let the same exact time rule inside the borders of the Hanseatic Imperium, from the Atlantic to the Urals. Ready for countdown!”
The crowd noise dies down, slowly replaced by an expectant murmur.
“TEN—NINE—EIGHT—” The crowd joins the count, loud and cheerful, as it progresses down. Edda and Aline listen in silence, fully still, each tightly holding their clock in their hands, their right thumbs ready on top of a protruding knob. “—TWO—ONE—NOW!”
Edda and Aline both press their thumbs at once, as the crowd roars.
Aline turns off the radio device, removes a bundle wrapped in a checked cloth from her bag and hands it to Edda. A delicious warm smell makes Ximena’s mouth water. “Nut cookies ala Speese, freshly out of the oven. The
