Free Vacation by Jeremy C. Shipp

you could leave like that, why didn’t you escape before tonight?”
    She laughs. “You’re the one escaping. I’m leaving. I was never a prisoner there.” She walks in silence for a few moments, maybe reflecting on a memory, then says, “Weis saved my life. For years he’s given me food and shelter. Safety. He said I was like the daughter he could never see.”
    Hearing someone talk about Weis like this makes the pain of what I went through with the man lessen. A little.
    “It wasn’t a bad life,” she says. “But I promised myself I’d leave if something better came along. You’re that something better.”
    “What can I do to help you?”
    “Marry me.”
    “Marry you? I can’t marry you.”
    “The Garden can give me the documents I need. Officially, you’re in a hospital right now, so they can say I’m a nurse there. We fell in love as I cared for you. You want to marry me and take me to America.”
    “I’d like to help you, but—”
    “Is it my leg? Do you think I’m ugly?”
    In truth, she’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, but I’m too afraid to tell her that. For my whole life I’ve been bombarded with images showing me that youthfulness is beautiful and sexy. But I’ve also been taught by the very same society that once I think about how beautiful and sexy youthfulness is, I should feel ashamed of myself. And I do.
    “You’re not ugly,” I say. “But I don’t want to marry someone I don’t love.”
    She sighs. “Once we get settled in America, I’ll start looking for someone else. Once I find someone, we’ll separate. Honestly, Bernard, this is the least you can do after what I did for you.”
    “You’re right,” I say.
    “Good.”
    “You haven’t told me your name.”
    She breathes out puffs of white for a while. “Aubrey.”
    “I had a sister named Aubrey.”
    “I know. I heard you talking in your sleep.”
    “Does that mean your name isn’t Aubrey?”
    “It doesn’t matter. Call me Aubrey. It’s a good name.” She stops walking and heads across the stream, jumping from stone to stone. “What happened to your sister?”
    I follow. “She died before I was born.”
    “You’re lucky. My brother died right in front of me.”
    As we continue into the dark forest, I feel better.
    We can help each other, like the brother or sister we each lost.
     
    They shine sunrise at us, with multicolored faces, holding hands and folding hands. The artificial doves and flowers block the view of the actual forest behind them. Their frozen stained-glass bodies contrast with the goings-on of the children below. They’re playing and eating and shouting in an area where you’d expect to find pews.
    “Are you sure it’s safe here?” I ask.
    “They might be able to help us,” so-called Aubrey says.
    “How?”
    She doesn’t reply.
    This is when the priests notice us. They approach in a black herd of gaunt bodies and glassy eyes. On the way, one of them vomits into a metal pot on the floor. These pots are everywhere.
    “Hello there, young man,” says a priest, about my age.
    “Hello,” I say. “My name’s Bernard. This is Aubrey.”
    “Are you feeling ill?” the same priest says.
    “No. Why do you ask?”
    The priests glance at each other.
    “We can use him,” says one.
    “It’s wrong to use the children anyway,” says another.
    “They know as much pain as anyone,” says a third. “They’re not innocent.”
    “He’s perfect.”
    “He’s closer to God.”
    “What are you talking about?” I say.
    But they go on like this, mumbling to each other.
    I turn to Aubrey, who stands a few feet behind me. “Do you understand any of this?”
    She shakes her head. “No clue.”
    “Come with us,” says the first priest, and reaches out his hand. “We need your help.”
    I look at Aubrey again.
    She shrugs. “They might be able to help us.”
    So I take his hand, and follow him to the confessional, where he tells me to sit.
    But I’m sitting in