Lotus and Thorn (6 page)

“Yes.” I tried not to let my doubt show in my face. “As long as
we
manage to get out of here.” I leaned my head against the makeshift wall. “Let’s get some sleep while we can. If we’re lucky, when the storm passes, you can reach your buddies and they can get us out of here.”

“And if we’re not lucky?”

“Then we’ll need all the strength we can get to dig ourselves out.” I closed my eyes.

But no sleep came.

After a few minutes, Edison’s voice broke the quiet again. “Will you tell me about Pleiades?”

“Why?”

“Because when you’re talking, I can’t hear the sand burying us alive.”

“What should I tell you about?”

“How about your sisters?”

I usually tried not to think about them. In some ways, I’d always been an exile from Pleiades, so leaving my home was not the burden it might’ve been. But leaving my sisters . . . that was different. “We were born, one after the other . . . three children in three years.”

“Sounds nice.”

I laughed. “Sometimes it was. Sometimes they drove me crazy.” I remembered the sudden isolation of those first days in Tierra Muerta, before Suji found me. I’d never been without my sisters before. “But it meant I always knew my role. I was the damaged one.” I glanced down at my hands. “The one who knew how to break the tension with a laugh. I was the lightening rod.” And then suddenly, I was nothing.

“And what about them?”

“Taschen’s the oldest. She’s the peacemaker. She knows what to do to keep everyone happy.” But that wasn’t right. Not happy, so much as, make everyone okay. I struggled to explain it. “Like just before I was exiled, I was . . . anxious.”

That was putting it mildly. The Abuelos had been going after rumors of unrest. They’d been raiding apartments, sometimes to look for salvage smuggled from the Reclamation Fields. Sometimes just to show they were in charge. My extra fingers and our
family’s reputation made us the perfect target. “And Taschen slipped this bit of lime peel into my pocket. It was a scrap of nothing, but when I found it later in the day, I was deep down in the pits and the smell was like a bit of sunshine. And I felt . . . cared for, you know?”

My chest burned and I was surprised by how much that memory still hurt. Then Edison asked, “And your younger sister?”

“Lotus.” I thought about her hesitation that day at the Festival. “It’s strange. Even though she was the youngest, she was the protector.”

I remembered her as a little girl, frowning the first time one of the older boys spit at my feet and told me I couldn’t play some game or other. Lotus studied my extra pinkies as if seeing them for the first time.
But that’s stupid,
she said,
that’s just the way you were born.
“She plays things close to the chest . . . watching. Thinking. It made her a good fighter, but it also made her hold back.”

Until it didn’t. A week after the incident, six-year-old Lotus had been working in the garden while the other kids were playing tag. She waited until the older boy ran past, then stuck out her rake and sent him sprawling into a heap of compost. Then she’d disappeared into the rows of blackberries before anyone could figure out what’d happened. But she’d made sure I’d seen it.

Lotus had an innate sense of righteousness. Like the sudden rainstorms that hit the desert—unrelenting as they gouged a path through the dunes—her vindication was swift and absolute.

“Lotus. That’s what’s printed on the necklace.” Edison looked up at the corpses.

I shrugged, feeling protective of my family. The old habits of
hiding were hard to break. “You find the word everywhere out in the Reclamation Fields.”

It was true; in the lowest levels of the pits the word
was
everywhere. Printed in chipped paint on the walls. On fragments of equipment. And, of course, on the necklace. The gift hadn’t been arbitrary, though. The oblong pendants were made out of a curious metal—something I’d never seen anywhere else in Pleiades or the Reclamation Fields. The black alloy wasn’t rusted or tarnished and its matte finish was so dark, it seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. My mother wouldn’t have been able to resist such a Find.

Edison said, “I thought everyone in Pleiades was named after the original survivors . . .”

I nodded. “When my mother was pregnant, Lotus came too fast . . . she was actually born down in a digsite Mom was scouting. And my mother had a thing about the Reclamation Fields. In fact, she named us all after Finds she salvaged while she was pregnant.” I didn’t mention anything about the stealing.

“What about your name then?”

“Leica was a camera. Boxy with curved lenses.”

“And Taschen?”

“A book.” I glanced involuntarily at my pack. “Our names did nothing to help our popularity.”

Edison nodded in the silence—as if he understood something I hadn’t said out loud. “My brother and I were like that too. Different from everyone else. Alone.”

“What about your parents?”

“It’s not the same in the Dome. We don’t really do things like
that.” By the soft light of his suit, I could see the frown pulling down his mouth.

“You don’t have parents?” So little was known about the Curadores and their Dome, but I couldn’t imagine how that was possible.

“Well, after the plague first came to Gabriel, there weren’t enough of us left inside the Dome to repopulate. But we had genetic samples from Earth . . . we used those to prevent inbreeding. So we don’t really know our parents.”

“How are you born, then?”

“Well, one of the Mothers has to carry us, of course. But we aren’t
her
child. When we’re born, we become children of the whole Dome. And all the Mothers raise us.”

“It doesn’t sound like you were alone.”

“My brother and I weren’t allowed to spend much time with the other kids. We just had each other. And
Jenner
.” But the way he said the man’s name sounded almost like a curse—I didn’t dare ask more about him. “Like I said, Nikola and I were different. We’re . . .” And he hesitated before saying, “The
future
.”

The word set off a kind of wild combustion in his eyes. Like he’d lost his footing and was falling. His fists tightened into balls and he was almost shaking. I didn’t need him punching walls again, so I reached over and put my hand on his leg. I met his eyes—matching the caustic fire with the unflinching blackness of my own. Slowly, the panic eased from his face.

“I wish, growing up, that Nikola and I had known you and your sisters,” he said.

“Well, I know you now,” I said.

Edison smiled at me and his eyes settled back into a steady flame.

• • •

At some point, I must’ve drifted off. I was dreaming of wild dogs attacking. Ripping me apart. Then suddenly, my dream self was very alert. Sounds were filtering down to me, through layers of sleep.

Breathing.

Someone . . . nearby. Closer than they had any right to be. Closer to my belongings than was smart.

Careful not to twitch my face or eyelids, I tightened my grip on my knife. Then I launched myself in their direction at the same moment I opened my eyes.

I had my knife at Edison’s throat before I even understood who he was or where we were. My pack flew across the shuttle in the attack, but Edison was frozen—wide-eyed, backed against the wall. My book clutched to his chest.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I said. Edison made a choked noise and I pulled the knife away.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “I just wanted to see if you had anything in your bag that might help us get out of here.”

“Like a working radio?” My voice was a growl, but I stuck the knife back in my belt and checked my pack. Water, scope, jerky. And I felt the outline of Lotus’s necklace, sewn into an inside pocket.

Edison looked chastened. But I wasn’t sure if he felt bad for rifling through my things or for getting caught. “I don’t know what I thought. I was just hoping . . . I’m sorry. I should’ve realized it would be an unforgivable invasion.”

He laid my book gently in front of me. “I’m sorry.”

As I picked it up, I was struck by the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Here we were, trapped inside a shuttle. Probably completely buried under the sand by now. Edison wasn’t trying to steal anything. I mean, what would he do with it?

Still . . . I ran my hand over the cover. He shouldn’t have been going through my things.

“
Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
?” The authority was gone from Edison’s voice, leaving it tentative. “Is that the book?”

I stiffened, running my fingers over the gold lettering on the cover. I had to remind myself that the Curadores had nothing to do with Pleiades’ laws and its prejudices. In fact, Curadores lived with technology every day . . . they were alive
because
of it. “The book?”

“The book you said your mother named Taschen after.”

“Oh. Yes. This is the book.” And I showed him where the word
Taschen
was written in gold on the binding.

Lotus had been fascinated by the Grimms’ tales when she was little, flipping through the pictures thousands of times. She’d been slower to read than I had, and Taschen had no interest in learning at all. So it had fallen to me to read the fairy tales to both of them.

But once we’d gone through the fairy tales so often we had them memorized, Tasch had taken to making up her own. Ones where, as she put it, the girls just don’t wait around in towers and the men aren’t quite so stupid. As we got older, somehow the stories had become more real—inspired by the things we’d seen and found out in the Reclamation Fields. We’d whispered them late at night in our bedroom, feeling a giddy rebelliousness as we imagined what the original Colony might’ve been like. Or the dream of returning to Earth, journeying on great ships through the stars. Living a life that had nothing to do with plagues, hunger, or atonement.

“Can I hear one of the stories?” Edison asked.

I hesitated. The book had been a secret between me and my sisters for so long—it almost felt like a betrayal to read the fairy tales without them. Then again, it would keep back the dark and the nightmares.

And I opened the book to my sisters’ favorite. A story I knew by heart.

Once upon a time . . . there was a sorcerer who disguised himself as a beggar. He went from house to house stealing beautiful girls. He spirited them away and no one knew where, for none of them were ever heard from again.

“Let me see that thing.” Edison came and sat next to me, flipping through the pages. “Why don’t we find one with a valiant prince instead?”

But he got sidetracked, looking at the strange pictures. I understood the fascination—women in beautiful dresses, animals wearing clothes, and rolling hillsides with perfect, rectangular houses. But scattered amongst the playful loveliness were disturbing images as well. Snarling wolves with cruel teeth. Thorns dripping with blood. Lost, weeping children.

“Do you think Earth was really like this? With huge palaces and all those trees?” He pointed to the cover—the girl with the golden ball and the faraway castle. The illustration was from the tale of the Frog Prince. The story read,
When it was hot, the Princess would escape deep into the forest, where even the sun couldn’t touch her.

There were only a few scrubby trees out in Tierra Muerta and small clumps of them climbing up the mountains, nothing like in this book. Lotus and Tasch and I had debated about this a thousand times—in fact, it was our favorite argument. Could there really be
so many trees that even the heat of the sun couldn’t reach you? So many that you could get lost in them and never found again? But if Earth had been so green and lovely, why would anyone leave? I thought again of the missing radio, wondering if we’d ever get our answer.

“Well, if Earth was like this book, then we finally know why the Colonists left.” I made my voice deadly serious as I paged through the pictures to find the right one.

“What?” he asked, tensed.

“Mice in pants.”

Edison looked at me sharply, then cracked up, shaking his head. Then he found the story of the three sisters again, continuing where I’d left off. And we took turns like that. Reading to each other from the ancient book.

I don’t remember when I fell asleep. I just know that Edison’s steady, deep voice was in my ears. And then a thought drifted up from the silt of my mind, like a riddle I’d been trying to solve without even knowing it. Edison had asked me about my sisters . . . before I’d ever told him that I had any.

I WAS SHIVERING
and wet. Everything lit up in a flash, and an epic crash of thunder rattled through me. I was on my feet before I was fully awake.

My shoes were soaked and the shuttle groaned. Another flash of lightning showed rain pouring down the windows.

“Get up!” I prodded Edison with my foot and shoved the book in my pack as the whole shuttle lurched forward. A gush of water flooded in through the makeshift barricade in front of the door.

We’d done the one thing you never do in a sandstorm: take shelter in the lowlands between dunes. And
this
was a prime example of why not. Rain rarely fell in Tierra Muerta, so when it did, it came so fast the desert didn’t know what to do with it. The paths between dunes turned into raging rivers, drowning everything in their way.

I could hear Edison scrambling in the dark now. The beam of his headlamp strobed around the cabin.

“For God’s sake, help me!” I threw on my own pack, then started yanking crates and bags out of the way. Trying to clear the slideboard—even as water rushed in through gaps. The whole
tower of bags teetered and I ducked. But the blow didn’t come. Edison was beside me now, helping me unblock the hatch.

“We’re gonna drown if we don’t get to high ground.” I went for the opening in the door, just as another flash lit up the world.

And there
was
no ground—only an angry, spitting river. Edison yanked me back just before I fell in. The rain had swept away all the sand and now the shuttle was at the center of a rabid flood surging through the dunes. Carrying us along with it. The shuttle was floating—but not for long.

“Climb up!” I pointed to the roof, screaming over the roar of water.

And Edison nodded, hoisting me out the doorway and toward the roof of the shuttle. Wild panic hit me as I dangled over the waves. I didn’t know the first thing about swimming. Even if I did, I’d be pulled under in seconds.

Then from out of nowhere, something swooped down on me—its great wings thrashing against the pelting rain. Luminescent blue eyes enormous in its moon-face. The bird’s talons grabbed at my shirt, raking my arm, as if it was trying against all odds to haul me onto the roof.

Before I had a chance to do anything, the shuttle slammed against the side of a dune, spinning the ship madly in the current. My fingernails clawed the roof of the shuttle, trying to hold on. Finally, they caught on a seam in the slick metal. Using it as a handhold, I pushed off Edison’s shoulders and scrambled up.

By then, the bird was gone. I reached down for Edison—but he was already leaping up onto the roof next to me. As much a force of nature as the lightning streaking through the sky.

Water streamed down my face, blurring everything. But by
now my panic had morphed into the same rush I felt when I was sparring. I was used to uneven odds.

“We have to jump,” I yelled over the storm.

If Edison said anything back, I couldn’t hear it. He just shook his head, wiping at the rain pouring down the face of his isolation suit.

I opened my mouth to speak again, but he shook his head and pulled me to him. His arms wrapped around me, pressing the side of my face against his warm chest. And for a moment, we stood there, rocking in the darkness.

“Now, say it again.” The voice from his speakers rolled through me like thunder.

“We have to jump.” The shuttle was sinking lower and lower as it filled with water. Soon there would be no roof to stand on.

“I can’t see anything,” Edison said.

“You’ll have to trust me.”

“Anytime.” And there was a smile in his voice, even now.

I pulled away and took Edison’s hand. Mine was lost inside his grip and I let the solidness of it ground me. I leaned into him. “One, two . . .”

Water crept over the edge of the shuttle’s roof and I waited just long enough for the current to take us a bit closer into the side of the dune.

“Three!” I squeezed his hand and we leapt.

I never would’ve made it on my own. I know that. But Edison sent us soaring into the air, pulling me along with him. We cleared the river and slammed into the hill of wet sand.

Then we were on our feet again. Clambering up the dune. Trying to find traction in the grit.

“Here!” Edison shouted.

He’d stumbled over the ruins of an old building the flood had uncovered. Clinging to each other and what remained of the structure, we climbed. Pulling ourselves up jagged walls. Half-gone staircases. Steel crossbeams. Anything we could find, as long as it was up. Away from the water.

Rain turned to hail and I scrambled into what was left of an old stairwell. Part of the ceiling was intact and we huddled together, catching our breath.

“Let’s wait it out here,” Edison said. His headlamp scanned the narrow stairway, but we couldn’t see much. Which was fine with me. I had no desire to see how unstable this place was.

I sat there, listening to the rain. Remembering to breathe. Wiping water out of my eyes. My teeth chattering.

Edison pulled me close to him and I let him. Letting the heat from his suit calm me down. Stop my shivering.

“Once upon a time . . .” Edison’s voice rumbled through me. “There was a house belonging to three beautiful sisters . . .”