The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song) (10 page)

14: The Owl’s Song

“I don’t want you to go,” Suri said for the fourth time, pacing around the small room, which had been transformed from Ruby’s private place into Suri’s domain. Daria was there, too, so it felt quite small and crowded.

“I don’t care.” Ruby counted out five strands of blue beads from the neat rows of finished jewelry in front of her. “Owl Paulie was my friend, and his family—my friends—asked me to do this.”

“You didn’t even know the old man before the sky fell,” Daria noted.

“You did,” Ruby replied. “Why aren’t you going to common at least?”

“I am going to common.”

“Good.”

“And Suri’s going with me,” Daria added.

“I am?”

“Yes.” Daria’s face hardened around her tightly pursed mouth.

“I didn’t know him,” Suri said, staring in a mirror and plucking out gray hairs.

Ruby let out a long breath as she looped multiple strands of blue beads around her neck. She glanced at her mom, and at Ean, who stood silently near Suri like a shadow. “I’m singing, and you can hear me if you go to common. You haven’t listened to me in a long time.” Without Macky around there was no one big enough to tackle her, so she opened the door and went through it.

She met Hugh and Lya outside of the living habs. They looked solemn in their best gray uniforms. They all embraced. “Thank you,” Hugh said.

“I loved him,” Ruby replied simply, her throat thick. They walked side by side by side and silent, around medical and down a long industrial corridor with plain, dirty walls. Near the end there was a single door. On the other side, a blue would be waiting beside Owl Paulie’s body.

The door opened as they approached. Hugh flinched. Instead of a blue, a red uniform. Ruby tensed and then felt relief. Ben. She squeezed Hugh’s arm, offering reassurance. “Hi, Ben, what brings you here?” She glanced down at Owl Paulie’s body. “Did you know him?”

Ben shook his head. “Not well. But Ix assigned a red, so I picked it up.”

He didn’t actually say he did it for her. If this weren’t being broadcast she might have kissed his cheek, although she still wanted to know why there was a red here at all. There was always a blue to keep the form of the ceremony and say the last words. It was the ritual, the way of the ship, and expected.

There was, in fact, a blue. He stood beside the hatch on the far wall, so still he might have been a statue, except for his breathing. He was small and square-jawed, with dark skin and light hair, his uniform clean and pressed perfect, with shiny shoes and creases in his pants. Ruby stared hard at the blue to see if he would look at her, but Ben tugged her arm and refocused her.

She’d never been part of a funeral before. From the few times she’d sat in common and watched, she expected the room to be cleaner. The walls had been banged up over the years by maintenance bots gone feral or clumsy, a few of the gouges deep enough to collect grease and dust.

The five of them—Hugh, Lya, Ruby, Ben, and the unnamed silent blue—stood in a square room that was about ten meters on each side, big enough to make them feel small.

Owl Paulie’s remains lay bundled at their feet, the old man’s face left exposed so he’d be able to see the stars. His cheeks, which had been thin in life, had disappeared entirely into the bones of his face as if his skeleton wanted to free itself from his drained and desiccated body.

He seemed too small and weak to have been the force that set her in motion. Only in this moment did it sink in that she truly wouldn’t see him again. Ever.

At home, arguing with Daria and her mom, singing for him had seemed like a natural thing, maybe an inevitable thing, but now that she stood here, Ruby felt scared and out of place. She had been thinking of this song as for her, but that wasn’t right. She had to make it about him completely.

She bowed her head and stripped the strands of beads from her neck. She put one strand back on and separated the others out across her palm, dangling down and glimmering in the light. She walked along, handing one each to Hugh and Lya. She had to help Hugh put his on, and when she was done, he nodded and licked his lips, glanced down, and whispered, “Thanks.”

Lya took hers with grave silence.

Ruby eyed the body below her. She’d planned to send him off with a strand of beads as a farewell gift, but the way he was wrapped, there was no way to fasten the beads on him well enough to be sure they’d stay.

She glanced at Ben.

He gazed back at her, his face emotionally flat. Looking red.

She stood on tiptoe and draped a strand over his shoulders.

He reached up and clutched them, his knuckles white.

She held her breath, waiting for him to rip them over his head or pull hard enough to break them.

His fist clenched tighter, the veins on the back of his aged hands turning to ridges. He didn’t have to look at Ruby for her to feel the struggle going on inside him.

The blue remained still, but his eyes tracked the small, tense moment. He was younger than Ben by half, even if he was much older than Ruby, and he seemed to feel bound to stay quiet and play his role as observer and time-keeper.

Ben dropped his hand, and Ruby turned to Hugh and nodded.

The blue smiled coolly and asked Hugh, “Ready?”

Hugh nodded and gazed at the far wall, where the stationary cameras had to be hidden. Lya leaned in to him and spoke loudly enough for Ruby to hear. “They’re watching.”

As if her words had evoked change, a section of the wall bloomed into a vid screen, displaying the expectant faces of the crowd in common. There were so many faces; it looked nearly like a festival, except that they were looking toward the cameras, which were above their heads. Ruby spotted Onor and Marcelle next to Salli and Jinn, her mom and Daria in the back, and Ean beside one of his friends.

Hugh cleared his throat. “This man who lies at my feet gave me hope all my life. He told me that we should learn and strive. He told me I’d need to be everything I could be. He told me to be strong and smart . . .” He paused. “He told me to love and be loved.” Hugh hugged Lya and Ruby close to him. “He told me to find people to admire.”

The faces below stayed rapt.

“Owl Paulie told me to be ready whenever
The
Creative Fire
needed me. He told me that all my life, and last night, he told me that time is now.”

He stopped for a moment. Ben and the blue stepped forward.

Hugh waved them back.

Lya whispered to them both, “Be strong.”

Hugh continued. “Yesterday afternoon, he also told many of you that the time is now. While I was wheeling him over, he told me that he is proud of this generation of young men and women.”

Ruby was pretty sure she saw the people in her year group, and even the one below it, straightening up a bit. A girl clutched at her neck, her hand holding a blue cord. There were blue headscarves, too, and blue earrings. They were adorned in all the ways grays were allowed to wear color. Most of it was blue and a little red. The rest was the traditional black of mourning. The colors made Ruby proud and a bit awed.

Then Hugh added, “He told me we will
all
have to be strong.”

A tear started down Hugh’s face, then another.

The blue’s body had tightened, his still face as stiff as the metal walls behind him.

Lya stepped in front of Hugh and said, “Ruby will sing now. Please listen.”

Ruby’s stomach twisted. She whispered in Hugh’s ear, “That was good, you sounded like him.”

Hugh gave her a shaky smile.

Lya pushed Ruby forward.

She stood staring down at the crowd. If anything, they’d grown even quieter. She glanced at Hugh and Lya, who didn’t know exactly what she planned to do. She took in a deep breath, then another. “Many of you will remember the song, ‘Requiem for Grandmother.’ This is for Hugh’s grandfather.”

She had requested an instrumental version of it, so she stood quietly while the first few bars started. She smiled when she noticed some of the audience start to nod their heads as she began the last verse first.

Beloved Grandfather who kept me

Safe and taught me how to be

Part of
Creative Fire
’s journey

Wait for me in the cold of space

For I too will pass in my day

And I’ll need your lovely face

To see me on my way

She went right into the chorus:

Grandpa, will you watch for me?

I’ll be right here, growing old.

Grandpa, will you catch me

The day I go out the door?

They had joined in, following along, a few getting confused and singing grandma instead of grandpa. “Now, just listen this time through.” She started in on the verse she’d been up modifying in more ways than changing the gender.

Beloved Grandfather who kept me

Safe and taught me how to be

A person yearning to be free

I’ll don the mantle you left behind

I’ll hold you deep inside my soul

I’ll keep our histories in my mind

And use them to reach our goal

She didn’t dare look behind her at Ben or the blue. “One more time.”

She sang the same two verses (and the chorus) two more times through, using her hands and her body language to urge the crowd to sing. Behind her, Hugh and Lya sang, Hugh’s voice soft and breaking a bit and Lya’s loud and a tiny bit off key for all her enthusiasm.

Neither Ben nor the blue sang.

The last time through, Ruby closed her eyes and really let go on the last verse. As she sang, she felt like she meant the words, like Owl Paulie’s spirit was in her, beside her, helping her sing to everyone who’d come to see him off.

When she finished, Ruby opened her eyes. Hugh and Lya looked shocked and a bit in awe.

Even on the screen, the faces of the people watching and listening down in common weren’t streaked with tears, even though her own cheeks were wet. Instead, she saw . . . anticipation. Or maybe it was excitement. Only on a few faces, fear.

The blue startled her by moving. He opened the hatch in the far wall, slowly and exactly, every movement scripted and practiced.

Ben stepped back and gestured to Hugh, who bent down to grasp the stretcher on one side and with help from the blue, he lifted Owl Paulie’s shrouded body and held it up to the chute it would slide into. The light caught the strand of blue beads on Hugh’s chest, so they sparkled a bit as he moved. The two men slid the old man’s feet in and then his legs, and then his torso, the body slightly tilted. This way,
The
Creative Fire
herself took some of Owl Paulie’s weight.

The blue spoke the closing words, his voice stilted and tinged with anger. “We of
The
Creative Fire
thank you for being one of us. We counted the years with you as years of grace, and we will miss you among us. May the Universe hold you in her arms.”

There was no sincerity in the words, just ceremony. He was doing what he’d been told. Ruby wasn’t used to thinking of blues as people who did what they were told, but she was sure she was right.

They tipped the old man’s body up a bit further and let it slide down into the chute and then shut and latched the hatch over it. Hugh moaned and Lya pulled him to her. The blue turned and stood formally, looking at the camera.

The video screen went dark.

As slowly and deliberately as he had dogged the hatch, the blue reached toward Ben and grabbed the string of beads Ruby had placed around his neck. The blue yanked, hard, and the beads spilled off their broken thread like a thin waterfall. They rolled and scattered across the floor, finding crevasses. Her first random thought was that she’d used almost all of Daria’s blue beads, and her next was that they’d never free this room entirely of blue beads.

The blue’s face looked serene, until she saw the fear in his eyes.

Fear
. Real and dangerous, and far scarier than anger. Owl Paulie had warned them of this, but it had been a concept and not a truth to Ruby.

She gazed back as levelly as she could, but only for a moment. She didn’t say anything; there was nothing a gray could say to a blue who had done nothing directly to her. She didn’t dare look at Ben in case she’d gotten him in trouble.

She did resolve to make him a new necklace.

15: Symbol’s Birth

Ruby shook as she, Lya, and Hugh walked back from Owl Paulie’s funeral. Lya clutched Hugh’s hand tightly to her. She looked ovar at Ruby with her eyes narrowed. “Why’re you shaking? You sing all the time. You’re always brave.”

“I never . . . never sang words I wrote before. Besides, the reds won’t like what I had to say.”

“So why’d you do it?” Lya’s voice sounded slightly edged.

Ruby let a few steps pass, listening to the echoes in the narrow corridor. They were alone here, but she kept expecting a blue or a red to come out of a door or an intersecting corridor and stop them. “Are you unhappy I did?”

Lya shook her head, but she didn’t look at Ruby.

Hugh spoke for the first time since they’d left the funeral. “He would have loved that song. Thank you.”

Ruby flinched at footsteps in the corridor until she saw it was Marcelle and Onor, who had come to meet them. Tears fell down Marcelle’s cheeks as she embraced Ruby and murmured, “I’m so proud of you. That was beautiful.”

The exclamations continued back in common. Even Ruby’s mother gave her a brief nod of recognition and clung to her for a few minutes, walking close, as if she wanted to be seen with her daughter. Ruby brushed Suri away by introducing her to Salli and Jinn’s parents and suggesting to them that Suri might like friends in her new pod.

A few people ignored her. Some pointedly. Others came up and thanked her or just watched her curiously. The mood was hushed, and a bit wary, yet with an undercurrent of excitement she hoped had come from her song and from Hugh’s words. Also from Owl Paulie’s last speech, which she overhead three conversations about.

Whatever the varied reasons, there were enough eyes on her to make her back itch. Twice reds came in and left again, and both times they made sure to meet her eyes. A message.

In spite of that, maybe because of it, she talked to as many people as she could. She collected stories about Owl Paulie, shared some of her own, and nodded acceptance when people complimented her performance.

After about an hour, just as the wake was beginning to break apart, a hand grabbed her roughly on the bicep from behind, and she spun to look up into Ben’s eyes. “That wasn’t smart.” His voice was harsher than she was used to from him.

She hissed a question at him. “Did you get in trouble?”

He shook his head. “No. But you will. You’ve been headed that way since I met you.”

She swallowed. “Thank you for being there.”

He licked his lips and leaned down and whispered loudly to her, his breath a bit rank from stim. “Be careful.”

“I can’t,” she replied.

“You’ve gone past the kinds of trouble I can protect you from.” He was still keeping his voice low. “You’re not the only one believes life should be different. But more like it how it is. And you’re getting pretty enough for a rape.”

At the look she gave him, he said, “Not from me.”

“I know.”

“Some of the boys talk about it,” he said. “Be careful.” He pushed her away from him almost roughly.

Now she was shaking more than she had while singing the song. That had been fear and pride all at once, an edge that she liked. Ben manhandling her scared her. She left the room and hurried to Daria’s hab and the quiet of the jewelry room.

She collapsed into the softest chair, suddenly grateful to be away from the stares of people. She’d wanted the attention, she knew that. But so many of the people had seemed to want something from her, more than ever before.

She ran her fingers through colored beads. Surely people had wanted things from Lila Red, too, and that was how she became famous enough to matter.

Ruby wanted to give the grays hope. That’s what the beads and the test and everything was about, finding more . . . what? More freedom, more choice. For all of them.

Lila Red had been . . . well, a red. That was the secret. But she, Ruby, had Ben on her side. He’d been protecting her tonight, both by being there at the funeral and by warning her afterward. Except he was no hero. He was old.

But so was Owl Paulie.

Why was this so hard to think about?

The blue at the funeral had been afraid.

She felt afraid. A little. In this moment, anyway.

She stood up and paced as best she could in the tiny room. Most of the jars that had held blue beads were empty now, although there were more left than she had remembered. Enough for at least five more necklaces. She selected a jar of them. She started humming as she took down a container of red beads, setting it beside the blue. Then a gray, and as an afterthought, a small jar of black beads.

While she strung beads, her fingers moved in ways that had become practiced and smooth, like song itself. She hummed quietly and tried to think good thoughts about what the beads could change. Eventually she came to a place where she was thinking about nothing at all, and happiness seeped in between her fingers.