The Legacy

but stil the house felt warm. Warm and safe. Anna couldn’t understand desires that stretched outside of those two words. Or three, perhaps. Warm and safe and free. Warm and safe and free and loved . . . She shook herself and lit the candle on the kitchen table, took off Ben’s coat and gave him a drink of milk. Peter never used candles – he laughed at her at empts to save on energy, told her that a few hours on the computer and a few lights on weren’t going to make any difference to anyone, particularly as their energy came directly from a secret generator provided by the Underground. They were off the grid and no Authorities rationing could be imposed on them. But Peter didn’t suffer from the guilt that Anna did; she stil felt the pressure to tread lightly on the world, to use as few of its resources as necessary. And anyway, she liked candles.
    They were cosy and reassuring.
    She picked up Mol y and took off the layers of blankets enveloping her. Mol y had been sleeping and opened her eyes, smiling in delight as she always did when she woke up. Anna found it amazing that a baby could be so entirely happy when it knew so lit le of the world; it terrified her that she was responsible for that happiness, for making it continue, for ensuring that Mol y’s smile never faded.
    ‘There’s a good girl,’ she cooed, as she lay the baby down on a sheepskin rug on the floor. ‘I’m just going to scrape the vegetables. Good girl. Now, Ben, would you like to help me?’
    ‘Vegebles,’ Ben agreed. ‘Scape vegebles.’
    He started to rummage half-heartedly through the shopping on the pram, then wandered off to play with a wooden dog on a lead that Peter had made for him a few days earlier. It was too dangerous to take the children shopping. Underground supporters left dried goods and other supplies for them once every couple of supporters left dried goods and other supplies for them once every couple of months and they had to grow most of their food, but every so often, an excursion to the nearest convenience store was unavoidable and Peter would usual y go alone with the fake identicard that Pip had given him. Today though, with no Peter, Anna had been forced to go herself, tying Ben to Mol y’s pram and hiding it out of sight half a mile from the shop. People had looked at her – they always did – but no one said anything, no one chal enged her. The vil age was sympathetic, Pip had told them; twenty years before Catchers had descended looking for Surpluses and a skirmish had ensued. Four Legal children had been kil ed, one just a baby, and that wasn’t the sort of thing anyone forgot easily.
    ‘Doggie!’ Ben yelped excitedly as he pushed it along the floor towards Mol y.
    ‘Doggie rol !’
    ‘Careful of the baby,’ Anna sighed, then started to unload the shopping herself: a few poor cuts of meat, some milk, yogurt, bread. When she’d worked for Mrs Sharpe, she’d imagined that everyone on the Outside ate chocolate every day, that their homes would be brimming with wonderful food. But she’d soon realised that even on the outside food was scarce.
    That was fine with her. She loved growing her own food, loved watching vegetables and fruit ripening, nature at its proudest. She loved the feeling of control over her destiny, loved spending most of her life outdoors and the rest of it inside, cooking, cleaning, making a home for her family.
    She sat down and looked over at the children. Ben’s wooden dog was scampering al over Mol y, who was giggling in delight. Anna found herself smiling too. She was so lucky, she realised. So incredibly fortunate. Perhaps she would start her diary again. She’d been meaning to for ages, but never seemed to find the time. Now, with Peter gone, she could write in the evening when the children were asleep. She could read, too, curled up in bed . . .
    Her thoughts were disturbed by a gust of wind that swept past her face and blew out the candle. Immediately Anna felt a jolt of fear – an irrational one, she knew. It would be a broken window, a gap in one of the dilapidated wal s that they’d yet to fil .
    She had always been scared of the dark, a fear borne out of spel s in Solitary at Grange Hal , a dark, dank, miserable place that aimed to break the spirit of its inhabitants and succeeded in doing so. Al except for Peter, that is. Peter didn’t al ow Solitary to break him; instead it was he who did the breaking – tunnel ing out, taking Anna with him, giving her a