Origin (6 page)

“She shouldn’t have said anything,” my mother mutters. “I don’t like the looks of that Fields woman. She’s wild and unpredictable.”

“She’s not a math problem. You can’t subtract the parts of her you don’t like.” Even as I say it, I wonder why I’m defending Dr. Klutz. I don’t like the looks of her either.

Uncle Will laughs at that. Mother frowns now and stabs her knife in his direction. “And
you
shouldn’t be saying
anything either. Paolo won’t like it.” She looks around again. The cook is putting out a bowl of hot dinner rolls, but he’s too far across the room to hear our conversation.

“Why shouldn’t he say anything?” I challenge. “Maybe I
want
to know about San Francisco.”

“You don’t need to worry about anything except your studies,” Mother says firmly. “When the time comes, you have to be ready to take over Dr. Alvez’s work.”

“Uncle Paolo’s not that old. He’ll be here for years and years.”

They are training me to eventually assume Uncle Paolo’s role as director, so that Uncle Timothy will never have to bring another head scientist to Little Cam again. I’ll be in charge. Forever. Fulfilling the destiny of which I’ve dreamed for years: creating others like me. My own kind. Immortal, perfect people who will in turn help create even more of us. In time, we’ll no longer be an isolated group hidden in the jungle, but a
race
. Thinking of that day almost brings tears to my eyes, I want it so badly.

It’s all part of the plan that Dr. Falk wrote out a century ago. Well, most of it’s part of the plan. The Accident wasn’t anywhere in the plan, but it happened anyway.

If it wasn’t for the Accident, Alex and Marian would have had a baby girl. When they ran from Little Cam, Marian was pregnant. That baby girl was supposed to have been bred to my Uncle Antonio, and
their
son would have been my “Mr. Perfect,” as Dr. Klutz put it. Then we would have started the new race together. So much for Dr. Falk’s great plan.

Alex and Marian died, and my immortal mate died with them. So now I have to wait for Uncle Paolo to make one
from scratch. And he can’t do that until he decides I’m ready to help. Which means I must pass more Wickham tests. The thought destroys the little appetite I had, as I remember the quivering heartbeat of the sparrow in my palm.

“I’d like to see San Francisco,” my father says dreamily as he plays with a shrimp on his plate.

“That’s ridiculous,” says my mother. “You’re never going to see San Francisco. Your place is here, in Little Cam.”

I look from one parent to the other, wondering suddenly if they ever looked out their windows the way I look out mine. I wonder if they hate the fence like I do, and if the jungle calls to them too. They have been outside, of course. My father sometimes goes with Uncle Antonio to collect specimens, and my mother has even been as far as the Little Mississip. One day Uncle Paolo will let me out too, but it’s so
hard
to wait.

“Uncle Will,” I say as I help myself to some fresh plantain, “have you ever seen a map of the world?” I ask him and not Mother because I already know what she’ll say.
Of course not, Pia. That’s ridiculous
.

But I see that even Uncle Will is growing anxious with the turn of the conversation. “No, Pia. No.” He says nothing more, but he wipes his mouth, throws his napkin on the table, and stands up. “I have some tests to run in the lab.”

I watch him go, wishing I had a lab to run off to. All I have is my glass room. It’s times like these that I almost wish I hadn’t stopped them from plastering my walls, however fond of the view I am.

My glass room is wonderful for looking out, but not very good for hiding.

T
oday I am seventeen years old.

Seventeen birthdays down. An eternity of them to go.

Evening falls, and I take out the dress Dr. Klutz picked for me. When I stand in front of my mirror and see it on me, I feel breathless. No matter what I think of Dr. Klutz, I can’t deny that the dress is beautiful. It does match my eyes, like my mother said. My eyes are the same blue-green of the rainforest. I pin strands of my hair above one ear and let a few fall across the sides of my face.

I would never have known about parties were it not for Clarence the janitor. One night while I ate dinner in the dining hall, he forgot I was sitting nearby and began recounting what his life had been like before he came to Little Cam. No one is supposed to talk about their past lives. That’s the first rule here, the one that everyone must read and sign on the day they arrive. But sometimes they forget, and I hear stories. Clarence talked about the day he met his wife at a party with
dresses and tuxedos and cake. After his wife died in a car accident, he left everything behind to come here.

It was a sad story, but it made me dream of parties. When I asked Uncle Paolo for a party with dresses and cake, he wanted me to tell him where I heard such stories. I told him that I’d read about it in the dictionary, which was a lie, but he let me have the party. Sometimes I wonder why everyone else seems so timid around him, because Uncle Paolo’s softer than he lets on.

I catch my image in the glass wall facing the rainforest and spin slowly to see the full effect of the gown. The reflected color nearly blends in with the jungle beyond, as if I’m dressed not in fabric but in leaves.

I walk to the window and press my hands to the glass. It is a perfect night for the perfect party. I look up, and through the gaps in the canopy of trees, I see a clear, starry night. A full moon shines above the kapoks and the palms, but the leaves and vines are so thick that its rays hardly reach the jungle floor. Yet I see one place where a column of faint silver light filters down through the canopy and tinges the lower foliage. It dances across the leaves, creating a path over the undergrowth, a road of moonlight that would be invisible by day. If I were a butterfly, I would follow that path into the heart of the jungle, perhaps even to Falk’s Glen, where the elysia grows.

For a moment, I don’t want parties or cake or dresses. Those things seem suddenly hollow and silly. I want instead to follow that silver path until it ends and never look back. Pressing my hands against the cold glass, I stare at the jungle and wonder what secrets lie in its shadows.

Suddenly I notice movement in the leaves, and a
coatimundi emerges from the undergrowth, his long black tail pointing straight up at the sky. He sniffs the fence, and for a moment I’m horrified that he’ll touch it and shock himself. The electric pulses in the fencing are generated every 1.2 seconds, and only at enough voltage to deter intruders, but to a small animal like the coatimundi, the fence could do serious damage. But he must smell the danger, because he shakes his head and turns around.

He disappears into the leaves, and my insanity disappears with him. I laugh out loud at my own crazy thoughts—really, running off into the jungle at night?—and hurry to find my party.

The center of Little Cam is a garden. It includes one large plot where we grow vegetables and fruits, but the rest is made of pathways and ponds and flowerbeds. I smell the orchids before I even reach the garden. They smell sweetest at night, to attract the moths that spread their pollen through the jungle.

I find a crowd waiting for me. They cheer when they see me, and I can’t help but laugh at how they look. Most of the men are in suits they brought when they came to Little Cam years ago, and I can tell that this is the first time they’ve worn them since arriving. They are all wrinkled or don’t fit right. Some of them have tuxedos, including my father and Uncle Paolo, which they must have had Uncle Timothy bring from the outside. My mother is wearing a silver dress, and there are orchids in her hair. She looks nothing like the serious, stern woman who normally runs around in a tank top and shorts. I’ve never realized how beautiful my mother is until now. The
few wrinkles on her face seem to have vanished, and she is smiling and holding Uncle Paolo’s arm.

When she sees me, she sighs and lets go of Uncle Paolo to take my hands.

“Oh, Pia.” Her fingers brush the delicate sleeves of the dress. “Turn for me.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” I ask as I spin slowly. Leave it to my mother to find something to criticize.

But when I face her again, it isn’t scorn I see in her eyes—but tears. I try not to gape. Tears?
My
mother? Unheard of.

“Are you…okay?” I ask uncertainly.

She smiles. “You look so grown up. My Pia. Seventeen years old.” Suddenly—as if the moment were strange enough already—she pulls me into a hug. A
hug
. The last time my mother hugged me I couldn’t even walk yet. I freeze in astonishment, then slowly return the embrace. I stare at Uncle Paolo over her shoulder and the look he gives in return is just as surprised.

When Mother pulls away, I feel warmer inside. Maybe I don’t know her as well I thought.

“Come, Pia,” she says. “Your party’s waiting.”

There are torches thrust into the ground all over the garden. Their flames sway sinuously, dozens of tiny orange and white dancers creating silent fire music with their bodies. I am momentarily mesmerized by them and feel the urge to dance their dance. The torches are an extravagance, a special indulgence I hadn’t asked for. When night comes in Little Cam, we leave as little light on as possible. Uncle Timothy told me once that the outside world has eyes in the sky, satellites flung
so far from the earth they hang in space, watching everything below. By daylight we are hidden beneath the many palms, kapoks, and capironas that grow between the buildings. But at night, even the dense canopy cannot keep light from reaching the sky.

“Pia, you look beautiful,” says Uncle Paolo. He hands me a glass of punch. “Seventeen years,” he says, raising his own drink. Everyone raises theirs with him. “Seventeen years of perfection, Pia. Most of us remember the day you were born, and what an unforgettable day that was. One day, your birthday will be celebrated not by a small crowd like this, but by the
world
.”

His eyes burn brightly, filled with torchlight. “The day you were born marked a new era in the history of man, and an entire race of immortals will someday rise to honor you. But let’s remember that it all starts here. It all starts with us.” His eyes shift to the people of Little Cam, and he sweeps his arm wide. “All of us are a part of this. We have altered the course of history, my friends, but most important of all…” He looks back at me, takes my hand in his. “Most of all, we ourselves have been altered. By you, Pia. By the fierce, unquenchable fire of life that burns within you. Happy birthday.”

I can’t help it; I smile, my eyes meeting his with equal light.

“To Pia!” he says.

“To Pia!” everyone else choruses, and then they all drink.

“Now,” Uncle Paolo says, “come and look at your cake.”

He leads me to a long table covered with food, and everyone gathers around and behind us. There are mostly native
fruits, yumanasa berries, aguaje, and soursops. But there are also strawberries and apples and my favorite of all, watermelons, all brought by Uncle Timothy from the outside. Then there’s the cake.

It’s enormous, three tiers of pink and white icing, and cascading with deep-purple orchids and—I can’t help but grin—multicolored Skittles. I gasp and clap my hands, too delighted for words. Everyone else starts clapping too, and Jacques the cook takes a deep bow before he starts serving it. I get the first slice and dive right in. When I taste it, I force myself to slow down and savor each bite. Lime and vanilla and cream…I swear I’ll never eat anything else after this. Nothing else could compare.

“Happy Birthday, Pia!” someone yells from behind me, and the words spread from mouth to mouth. My parents each hug me, then Uncle Antonio and Uncle Paolo, Aunt Brigid, who runs the medical center, Aunt Nénine, Uncle Jonas the menagerie keeper, old Uncle Smithy, who accidentally stabs my foot with his cane, and dozens more. Everyone wants to hug me, even the ones I rarely speak with, like the maintenance men and the lab assistants.

Uncle Antonio starts grumbling and pulls me away from everyone just as a beaming plumber named Mick steps up for his hug. Mick shouts indignantly at us, but Uncle Antonio ignores him and leads me to the wide tile floor that usually holds tables and chairs for people to eat lunches outside. A great Brazil nut tree rises from an opening in the center of the floor, its trunk rearing a staggering hundred feet before it bursts into a wide, umbrella-like canopy. There are several
torches burning around its trunk, and at its base sits a skinny, freckled lab assistant with a CD player in his hands. He seems half-asleep, and Uncle Antonio kicks his leg.

“This is supposed to be a party, Owens! Get that music cranked or I’ll put you in charge of mucking the menagerie for a month!”

Owens hastily punches a button, and the music pumps through two large speakers sitting on either side of him. It’s the kind of music called jazz, I think. We don’t listen to music much in Little Cam. Uncle Paolo says it’s extraneous and distracts from our real work. The music fills my ears and my veins, and even the flames of the torches seem to alter their swaying to match the beat.

“May I have this dance?” asks Uncle Antonio, bowing low.

I laugh at him. “I don’t know how to dance!”

“Let me show you then!” He sweeps me around in a circle, and I can’t stop giggling, it’s so ridiculous. But soon other people join in, and I feel less silly. My mother dances from Uncle Paolo to my father. Aunt Brigid dances with Uncle Jonas. The cook dances with the laundress. Soon nearly everyone is dancing, but I suddenly realize someone is missing. “Where’s that Dr. Fields? She didn’t seem like one to miss a party.”

“Right here,” someone says, and I turn to see her standing behind me. She’s wearing a very tight red dress that starts low and ends high. Her long legs are tipped with enormous red heels that would have me falling onto my face, but she navigates around me with ease.

“May I?” she asks.

I stare at her until Uncle Antonio interrupts. “Ahem. You may indeed.”