Atlantia (21 page)

So I made you promise that you would stay. And I decided that I'd have to go Above when the time came. I didn't want to leave Atlantia, but this was the best way to protect you—to guarantee that you couldn't ever go. I had to hide my plan from you. It felt impossible. You know we didn't hide things from each other.

But I'm not leaving you alone.

I'm giving Maire this letter to give to you, and some money, too, so you can use it for whatever you might need.

Maire will watch over you and make sure you survive. You need to be where she is, now that our mother is gone.

I'm so sorry, Rio.

But I have to go to keep you safe.

I love you.

Bay

I swallow. An angry, hard ache in my throat makes it difficult.

This is just like my mother and Bay. Always protecting me.

“Always underestimating you,” Maire says out loud next to me.

I don't want to listen to her. I'm still angry with her. She was supposed to give me this
before
I was actually on my way to the surface. Now I'm locked in the transport with no way out.

“You didn't play fair,” I say.

“I only cheat when I have to,” Maire tells me. “But what I said now is true. Your mother and your sister loved you, but they never understood your potential. I do.”

I hear the sound of the door unlocking. All the sirens look dumbfounded. “I thought that, once it was locked, no one else could enter,” someone says.

“That's what they said,” another agrees.

“Interesting,” Maire says. “Are they letting one of us out?”

They are not.

When the door opens, peacekeepers stand at the ready to keep us from attempting to exit. They escort someone in, and then they close the door behind him.

It's True.

The transport begins to move.

M
y entire world is in motion, the transport slipping toward the surface, the pieces and people I thought I knew moving into new places.

My mother knew I wanted to come Above.

My sister left to try to save me.

I'm going to the surface with my last family member from Below, one I'm not at all sure I can trust.

And True is here. Why? He is not a siren.

I haven't seen him since that night after the breach in the deepmarket—less than two days ago, but it feels like much longer. Does he know what I tried to do at the floodgates?

True's eyes lock on mine. The lights of the transport flicker briefly off and then back on, and I remember how the light filtered through the slats of the stall in the deepmarket and how it felt to kiss him under the naked silver trees, in the gondola in the fog.

“Who is this?” the deepmarket siren asks.

“Another siren,” Maire says. “Nevio found him at the last minute.”

True nods, going along with her.

“I hope you're telling the truth,” the siren says. “We need you with us, Maire. This mission has to go
perfectly
.” She appeals to True and me. “Do you know what the Minister has promised in return for our success?”

I shake my head.

“If we succeed,” the siren says, “Nevio is going to make us part of the Council. Can you imagine?”

I can't. Nevio would never let such a thing happen. He's lied to the sirens, and for some reason they've chosen to believe him. I glance over at Maire, and she smiles very slightly. So she knew what the Minister promised. Once again she hasn't been completely honest with me.

One of the sirens hands True a blue robe, and he pulls it on over his clothes. He and Maire and I sit down together at the far end of the transport so that the others can't hear us talk. It feels strange and wrong not to touch him, but there are too many people watching.

“Why are you here?” I ask True. It comes out flat and cold and nothing like my real voice, or my real feelings.

“The Minister found me,” True says. When he speaks, I love the sound. But it's my fault he's here. And Maire's, for giving out his name.

“Nevio told me you were going Above,” True says. “He wanted to know if I'm a hidden siren, too. I'm not. But I told him what I can do, and he let me come.”

I feel us ascending, the slow pull of the transport through the water. I hear the air changing, feel the pressure inside the transport adjusting. Even though I'm worried about everything—Maire, Bay, True—I can't stop the pulse of excitement, the thrill that I am at last going to see the Above. This is what I've wanted for so long. What will it be like?

And True is with me.

It would be safer if he stayed behind, but I don't know if I would wish him away.

“What do you mean?” I ask True. “Did you tell him about all the things you can make?” I'm thinking of the metal fish, the eels, the locks. And then I realize that of course that's not what True means—he means that he told the Minister about being immune. But why would Nevio send True up with us? There are many other people in Atlantia who are immune to the sirens' songs, and they're not here.

“No,” True says. He takes a deep breath. “Rio, I haven't told you everything.”

What else can there be? He's immune, he heard me speak—isn't that everything? Isn't that enough secrets? “What is it?” I ask.

“I can tell when a siren is lying,” he says. His voice sounds shaky. “Once I knew what Nevio was, I listened carefully. And I could tell that he lied in the broadcast when he said the breach was an accident. Someone caused it.”

“Who?” I ask.

“I don't know,” True says.

I glance at Maire. I remember how I saw her down in the deepmarket, how I wondered if she had had something to do with the break.

“I didn't help them,” she says. “It was Nevio, and the Council. They altered the controls and compromised the pressurization system. They wanted the deepmarket dead.”

“I believe her,” True says.

Maire smiles. She does not seem surprised at True's secret. But I am.

“I've never heard of someone being able to do this,” I say.

“I know,” True says. “I hadn't, either.”

“So you're immune to sirens,” I say, trying to get it straight, “
and
you know when they're lying?”

“Yes,” True says.

“How can you be sure?” I ask, because how could anyone know that?

True shrugs. “Things have happened,” he says. “I know.” The laugh lines, the sun on his skin, the brown and gold of his eyes—it is all still the same. He's still the same. But I should have known there was even more to him, that all the empathy he has shown me also indicated an understanding of mystery, of keeping back part of yourself. He knows what it's like to have depths that others don't, that are dangerous to share.

“So I'll have to take your word for it.”

True nods.

“Even though you've lied to me,” I say, trying to put up one last wall.

“I didn't lie,” True says. “I had secrets I wasn't sure I could tell you. You felt the same way.” He's right, of course. I never did let him know what I planned to do to get to the Above.

“Does it work with people who aren't sirens?”

“No,” True says. “Only with sirens. If I listen closely, I can hear something in their voices when they're not telling the truth. It sounds like the wrong note in a song. I don't know how to explain it better than that.”

“But you were affected by
me
,” I say, trying to understand everything. “You said that you heard me calling to you in my real voice when the breach happened.” Even though that was imaginary, the thought of my real voice was enough to impact him, which shouldn't be the case if he's truly immune.

“Yes,” he says. “I'm affected by
you
. Not your voice.” I hear him swallow. “Do you believe me?”

“I
want
to believe you,” I say.

“Nevio tested me to make sure I was telling the truth,” True says. “He told me some things, said for me to tell him if he was lying or not. I guess I passed his test, because he decided to send me with you. He said that I'll be useful, because I can tell if any of the sirens are trying to sabotage the mission. He said it was my responsibility to stop them.”

“And you believe that's why he sent you?” Maire asks.

True looks right in her eyes. “No,” he says. “I acted like I did. But he knew I was lying. We all know why I'm really here.”

“Why
are
you here?” I ask.

I want to hear him say it. I want it almost as much as I want the Above.

“Because of you,” he says. “I wanted to come with you.”

True's arm and shoulder are warm next to mine, and I want to turn right into him, to have his arms around me and mine around him, as we come to the Above. But I don't want the sirens to see, to think there's any reason for him being there other than the one Maire's given. I want to protect him as much as I can, though it may be too late.

Nevio sent True up so he wouldn't have to worry about True's talent and the problems it could cause for a lying, siren Minister. And Nevio made promises to the sirens because he doesn't think he's going to have to keep those promises.

The Minister doesn't plan on any of us coming back from the Above.

And even though I realize this, I still want to go. Something in my heart feels like it is opening. I imagine the water outside lightening, too, the deep ocean blue of it turning the color of the sky and the sun. If I could get off the transport this moment and go back home, I wouldn't do it. Is it because of Bay? Or because True is here? Or because the Above is where I've always wanted to be?

“We can't stay on the transport when we arrive,” Maire tells the two of us, her voice quiet. “They're not going to send it back down with anyone aboard, and we're trapped in here. Our best chance of escape is to get out and do what we can.”

“The sirens aren't what I expected,” I say. “They're so—tame. So controlled.”

“There used to be more of us,” Maire says. “There used to be more like me.”

“What happened?”

“The others were culled and eliminated,” Maire says. “They were too dangerous.”

“Why not you?”

“I think Oceana did what she could to protect me,” Maire says. “And I told you. I am always willing to do what I must to stay alive.”

Her voice is hard. I wonder what she has done. I don't want to ask.

“Stay with me when we get Above,” Maire says. “Do what I say. I promised my sister I would take care of you, and I will.”

In this moment I believe her. I can see from True's face that he does, too.

If this is the moment of my own death, this time I want to inhabit it. I reach out and hold True's hand, and his fingers tighten around mine. And I imagine what our transport looks like moving up through the water, from dark to light, past the uncurious fish and the dying coral, on to things I have never seen but know enough to imagine, like sand on a shore, and birds swimming on the surface of the ocean, dipping their beaks down to eat.

“Remember,” the deepmarket siren says to all of us as the transport stops. “Our voices are the Below's best weapons. We are miracles, meant for this moment.”

I don't know that I'm a miracle, but I do believe I was meant for this moment Above, however long or short it may be.

T
he door slides open, and for the first time in my life I see both sky and land, and they are blue and gray and green and brown and so much lighter than the deep of the ocean that I feel dizzy.

I am Above.

Whatever else happens, I am Above.

It is all glinting light and moving air, light coming down from the sky and reflecting on the water, on the metal bridge that leads from the transport to the shore, air touching every inch of my skin, warm. The sun is a hot, orange circle, like a single piece of coin burning as it dips toward the ocean. I grab on to the rail of the bridge that leads to the land, unsteady on my feet. And then I think I'm going to be sick. It is disconcerting in the extreme to be standing over the water, to see the top of the ocean. It might be how people who live Above would feel if they could stand over the sky.

“It's all right,” Maire says, and she holds my arm and helps me cross the bridge.

I take my first step ever on real land—on sand, fine and white and brown and mixed through with grass and shells, so much texture, more than even the woodwork in the temple, more than I've seen in all my life.

I suck in deep lungfuls of the air, rich and warm and oxygenated, even though I know it's also thick with pollution and the particulate matter that will eat my lungs away with cancer. My hands still have salt on them from the sea, from my attempt to surface hours ago.

“Rio,” True says. “Trees.”

He's right. There are silver-gray trees with ash-colored moss hanging from them growing right up out of the sand a few feet in front of us. The color is similar to the trees I know, but they are not the trees I know—these trees are alive, and when their leaves fall off, no one bothers to put them back on because new ones grow. And you could never reattach these fallen leaves—soft, brittle as paper, crumbling in my hands as I bend down to pick them up. I can't help myself.

And then Maire's voice is in my ear, and she's pulling me back up to my feet and away from the leaves. When I turn around, I am stunned to see that the transport has already disappeared Below.

I didn't even hear it go.

Maire speaks to me quickly as we cross the sand to join the other sirens, who ascend a low, wooden platform. It appears as if it were made from trees like the ones growing on the island. “I have a plan,” Maire says, “for you and True to escape.”

I listen.

“Behind those rocks on your left,” Maire says, “there is a little inlet. Climb in and swim and follow the curve of the inlet. You'll find a cave, farther back along this shore. Hide there. Wait until it's nearly dark, if you can. And then swim from this island to the main isle and go to the temple. You'll see it as soon as you come over that rise.” She points across the water to the shore of the main island.

“How do you know all this?” I ask.

“One of the voices told me,” Maire says. She sounds sad. “This way is best. You would never have survived the floodgates. Your lungs would have burst in the ascent. That's why I told Nevio what you were doing. We were just in time.”

So she
was
the one who betrayed me. But how did she know?

“It was another way up,” Maire says, “and you hadn't chosen mine. At least you have a chance this way.”

“She's telling the truth,” True says to me softly. “But I think you know that.”

“No,” I say. “I don't.”

We've reached the other sirens. They stand in a line on the platform, their robes of blue undulating in the wind.

People sit in boats near the shore, waiting. People from the Above. “What are they carrying?” I ask, loud enough that the other sirens can hear. “Are those weapons?”

“It doesn't matter if they are,” one of the sirens says, her tone so confident that I almost believe her.

The sirens have no weapons except for their voices. This is a fool's errand, one of Nevio's devising, one that will end in destruction and silence. Why is he doing this? Does he want to be the last siren in the Below? Does he even want to save Atlantia at all?

Nevio himself is nowhere in sight. The other sirens look around for him, too. “It's all right,” one of them says. “He must be here somewhere.”

The people in the boats wait. The boats are gray, like the trees.

The deepmarket siren raises her arms. The rest look up at her, eager to respond.

“What are the gifts given to we who live Below?” she asks, exactly as my mother used to do on the anniversary of the Divide, as Nevio did this year on the day Bay left and again on the transport.

Where
is
Nevio now?

And why did he cause the breach in the deepmarket? So that the sirens would come up to try to save the city, thinking that the breach had been an attack from the Above? Will he tell the people Below that the sirens offered themselves as sacrifices to save Atlantia, or will he tell the citizens that the Council purged the Below of our dangerous, evil presence?

Either way, he thinks we are all going to die.

Are we?

“Save your voice,”
Maire whispers to me. “But move your lips. So that you don't draw attention from the others. Don't try to escape until I tell you.”

After a beat of silence, the sirens all begin calling in response, their voices as textured as this land Above. And it is true that their voices are even more powerful here. I feel the air shivering with sound.

“Long life, health, strength, and happiness.”

“What is the curse of those who live Above?” the deepmarket siren asks.

“Short life, illness, weakness, and misery.”

“Is this fair?”

“It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time of the Divide. Some have to stay Above so that humanity might survive Below.”

“Then give thanks.”

I don't join my voices with the sirens.

I do not
speak for the gods. All I ever wanted was to speak for me.

The siren begins asking the questions again. And this time Maire joins her voice with the others.

It is the most sorrowful, singing sound I have ever heard. Through the frightening, layered unison of the other voices, there is Maire's, apart though she speaks at the same time and with the same words. Her voice is the sound of blue and brown, of trees with no leaves and flooded marketplaces and candles lit in memory of people now gone and gods who never were, a begging, pleading, asking the people of the Above to let us live in our place Below. She is not telling like the others, she is asking.

But even Maire's voice is not working. I don't know how I know; I just do. I can't see the faces of the people on the boats. The boats move up and down on the waves, each moment closer to us. The people watch the sirens. They wait for something. Their faces are terribly blank. I have an impression of unmoving lips, staring eyes. I realize that they wear masks. To protect them from the air? To hide their faces?

The sirens' voices swell, like a wave of the sea. They rise and fall, the commanding, the cajoling, the sweetness of some voices, the poison of others.

The deepmarket siren has been calling over the water and now she turns back to us to continue the litany.

She opens her mouth and lifts her hands. But she doesn't speak. She falls.

I don't understand at first. Neither do the others. One voice less, they keep speaking.

“And have mercy on us.

“And on those who live Above.”

The fallen siren does not move.

The people of Atlantia always thought we had the upper hand over the people of the Above, that we had the power.

But we were wrong.

Somehow, the sirens' miraculous voices have lost their effect on the people of the Above.

The sirens begin calling for the people of the Above to
go back
,
go back. Leave. Leave.

“Why aren't our voices working?” one siren asks another in panic.

Another siren starts to run. Before she's taken more than a few steps, the people in the boats shoot her down, too. True cries out and goes to kneel beside her, to see if there is something he can do, but of course there is nothing. She doesn't even breathe, only bleeds.

I stare in horror at her crumpled body, her robe pooled blue around her. I think,
Like the bat.

The miracles are dying. The sirens no longer have power to dictate what happens Above.

I open my mouth to beg for True. Perhaps I could tell the people in the boats that True's not a siren, convince them to spare his life.

But then Maire is beside me, speaking into my ear low and urgent. “Save your voice,” she says. “You will need it later.” She smiles at me. “I have enough power to distract them now while you run. I can make them forget there were two more people on the island today.”

“But what about you?” I ask.

Another siren falls, but we three are safe.

Maire takes my hand and presses something hard and fragile into it. I don't even have to look to know that she has given me another shell. “She will tell you everything,” she says. “You will believe it, if you hear it from her. But I had to save it for a long time. She will speak just once. Be sure you listen.”

“Who?” I ask, hardly daring to hope.

“Your mother,” Maire says. She closes her eyes. “My
sister
.” Her voice is so full of pride and love that it brings tears to my eyes. It is how I want to speak of Bay. It is how I hope Bay speaks of me.

“You loved her,” I say.

“Always,” Maire says. “I love her still.”

With her eyes closed and her voice soft like this, she looks the smallest bit like my mother, her sister.

“She loved you,” I say.

“Of course she did,” Maire says. “And I care enough about myself to want redemption for the things I've done.” Before I can ask what she means, what she's done, whether she believes in the gods after all, she opens her eyes and looks right at me.

“You didn't care about me until you heard my voice,” I say.

“Your voice is part of you,” Maire says. “So when I say that I love your voice, which I do, I am also saying that I love you.”

“But you didn't love me without it.”

“No,” she says. “I didn't. Not as much. But that is the kind of person I am.” She pauses. “Would you love me without my voice?”

I have a strange thought. Perhaps I could love her
more
without her voice.

She sees what I am thinking.

“Yes,” she says. “That is how it has always been for me.”

My cheeks are wet.

“Maire,” I say, “how do you know you can do this? How do you know
I
can do this?”

“My dear,” Maire says, “the only chance of success is to trust in your own power.”

And then she gestures for us to run, and she moves away from me, calling out to the people in the boats.

“Listen,”
she says. In a voice full of power but also hope, and kindness, no curses, no fear. It's golden, beautiful, pure. When I hear it, I believe in her as absolutely as I used to believe in my mother. I
know
Maire has the power to save us.

But we have to go now.

I reach out and try to touch the sleeve of her robe in farewell, but she doesn't turn. True grabs my hand, and we run across the sand, our feet sinking in, our breath coming hard. I glance back once but I can't see Maire.

What has happened to her? Has she disappeared? Is she dead?

True and I pull off our robes and leave them on the shore. I slip into the water, the shell Maire gave me clutched tight in my hand, her perfect voice ringing in my ears. And then, for the first time in my life, I swim in the sea Above.