by Ally Condie
The Council.
“Which one?”
All of them.
“How?”
They called her in for a meeting. When she arrived, they gave her something to drink, as was the custom, and they had each put some of the poison in her cup. They all did it.
“Why?”
She knew too much.
I don’t want to believe Maire.
But I do.
The Council killed my mother.
A cold fury, as implacable and full as water through the floodgates, comes over me. Maire didn’t kill my mother. But she knows who did. And she hasn’t told anyone. She hasn’t cried out to Atlantia as I know she could, telling them of the evil the Council has done, calling the people to help bring about justice. She has done nothing.
“How do you know this?”
Nevio told me, after it happened. He helped them arrange it.
And Maire’s still in communication with him. She gave him a shell. I can’t speak because my voice will be full of hate.
And she told me. Your mother told me, too. She realized what had happened.
“Why would the Council let her go?” I ask. “Why would they risk her telling someone?”
Because they knew exactly who she would tell. Her sister. And they wanted her death to serve as a warning to me. When I found her, I made sure she was dead and then I stood over her body waiting for the Council to come take her away. I had received the warning. There was nothing more I could do.
I’m sick, hearing this. “How could you let them take her away? When you knew what they’d done?”
It was what I had to do.
All I have to throw in Maire’s face right now is my perfect, practiced control. So I do it. I hold everything in. “You know her killers, but you’ve done nothing to make them accountable. And you still work with the Council and with Nevio. Oceana’s murderers. Why?”
Love.
Of course.
Maire told me who she loves, who she protects at all costs.
Herself.
That’s why Maire sometimes sits in her cell instead of unlocking her doors. Sometimes you can’t speak, not because others won’t let you, but because you are afraid of what you’ll say. You can’t trust your voice. You can’t trust yourself. You stay silent and contained for your own protection.
And I understand, because even though part of me wants to go scream in the streets, telling everyone what the Council has done, I won’t. Because that will put my plan to escape at risk.
I’m looking out for myself, just like Maire.
But at least I won’t go up with her. I’ll go up my own way. My mother’s way.
I never thought Maire could replace my mother or my sister. But somewhere, deep down, I must have hoped that I could love her. Was I stupid enough to think that she might come to love me, too?
You always have more to lose, until you die.
I find myself asking Maire one final question.
“Does being a siren mean that you are always lonely?”
Yes, Maire says.
She’s right.
I have always been lonely.
Even when Bay was here, I often felt alone.
This is what I need to face. Even when I care about other people, there’s a part of me that can’t seem to stop being alone. Maybe it means those people are right, the ones who say that sirens don’t have souls.
If I had one, would I be less lonely? If you have a soul, are you always companioned?
But then I realize that even if I did have a soul, it’s not as though someone else would be there. It would only be more of me.
CHAPTER 16
“So,” Aldo asks, “are you ready for tonight?”
I nod. In the days since I last spoke with Maire, I’ve focused completely on preparing for this evening. For the spectacle. The celebration. When I talk to True, that’s what I call it because that makes me feel stronger, more like Oceana. I’m as ready as I’m going to be. I’ve practiced in the lanes and worked with True on the fish and eels. I’ve made an insignia from the print I took in the bar of soap, and it’s cruder than I would have liked, but I did the best I could.
Aldo looks at the pile of turquoise fabric in my arms. “Is that your costume?”
“Yes,” I say. I used some of the coin to buy the cloth and had a seamstress sew it to my cut-down wetsuit. It’s more like streamers than a robe, but the fabric is supposed to hold together in water, and the effect when I swim is that I’m part of the water and also separate, something different to watch. I think of the costume as my Oceana robes, because this was the color she always wore at the pulpit. And the color she wore when we sent her body through the floodgates.
Aldo unlocks the stall where I plan to store my costume. I’ve come here before work to leave some of my things for the event tonight. True should be along any minute with the fish and eels in their buckets. I think Aldo will do his best to keep things secure, but I can’t risk anyone tampering with the locks, and the single fish that will bring me the key. They’ll stay safe in my room until it’s time for the swim.
“We should have a big crowd,” Aldo says. “The bettors are in a frenzy. They’re wondering what you’ll do after this.”
“Who knows,” I say.
Posters hang in the deepmarket, advertising the event tonight. People have started to recognize me as I walk through the stalls. Notoriety will bring me more money, but it also makes it more necessary for me to leave. Attention is a dangerous thing.
But it’s all coming together. This evening I’ll be back to swim. And then, with the money I earn, I’ll be able to buy the air from Ennio and take it with me when I leave the deepmarket.
If this goes as planned, then I’ll have everything I need to leave Atlantia very soon.
All I’ll need after tonight is for someone to die.
True walks toward us, pushing the cart. He nods to Aldo and hands everything off to him except for a bucket with the fish and the key and the locks, which he hands to me, and another bucket, which he keeps for himself.
The entire time his mouth is set in that firm line I’ve seen once before.
“Are you ready, then?” Aldo asks, when we’ve finished.
“Yes,” I say. “We’ll see you tonight.”
We start back up into the deepmarket. I’m not sure what True is thinking. Neither of us says anything, and then True takes my arm and pulls me into an empty stall with him.
“This is for you,” he says, holding out the bucket. Not smiling.
“Did you think of something new?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “It’s not for tonight. It’s five hundred coin. Now you don’t have to swim.”
I draw in my breath. Is he serious? I kneel down and pull back the cover on the bucket slightly. True wasn’t joking.
“Where did you get this?” I ask.
“All of the publicity from your swims has made people interested in buying the fish,” he says. “I can’t keep up with the demand. But I’ve been saving it for you. It means you can buy the ring back. Right now. And you won’t have to swim tonight.”
With this much money, and what Bay left me and what I’ve earned in the lanes so far, I have enough to buy the air tank. True’s right. As far as the money is concerned, I don’t have to swim tonight.
But I still need the practice. I need the added pressure of performance, the time in the water.
And True doesn’t even know that it’s not the ring I’m trying to buy.
“You should use this money to buy a stall in the deep-market,” I say. “Or more supplies.”
“I want you to have it,” True says. “Please.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “We had everything planned.”
“What if it doesn’t work? What if too many
eels shock you? Or the locks don’t work right, and I can’t get into the lane in time?”
“It is going to work,” I say.
Light flickers through the slats, and I wish it were the light of the Above.
I wish I could tell True the full truth, that I have to leave. And I wish I could tell him this in my real voice. But I remember the expression on Justus’s face in the temple on the day Bay left. I can’t tell True. I don’t want to change how he sees me.
“You don’t know that,” he says.
“I do,” I say.
“So you’re going to swim anyway?” he asks. “Even though you have enough money?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Rio,” he says. I see anger and anguish on his face, all the happiness and laughter gone. There is something he wants to say and he’s fighting against saying it. Whatever it is, he knows it will change something, perhaps ruin everything.
“Tell me,” I say. I whisper it. Because if I speak now, I’ll reveal myself.
He shakes his head. He kneels down and I kneel down next to him and he runs his fingers over the money in the bucket. I trust his hands. And his heart. I want him to touch me. He is dangerous to me.
He knows too much. No one can know me this well, because then they will leave me. That’s what happened with my mother. That’s what happened with Bay.
“I have to do it,” I say. I make myself sound the way I always do, flat and false.
It hurts both of us.
I knew it would.
“I can’t be a part of this,” he says. “I can’t announce you tonight. But you can keep everything. The locks and the keys. The fish. The coin.”
“Thank you,” I say again. “Will you be watching in the stands?” I want to see him one more time. It is the most I have wanted anything besides finding my sister and going Above. It is hard to say the words.
“I can’t be a part of this,” he says again.
“You are a part of this,” I say.
“I know,” he says. And then he leaves, walking fast, because he has nothing left to carry. He’s given it all to me.
Standing in the dappled light of the stall, I fight back the tears. Crying is dangerous. Crying reveals too much. I have everything I need. I have the fish and the locks and the costume and the key. I have the insignia. And I have money.
I will spend it all now. I have the coin True gave me and the other money, too, worn in the bag with my air mask on my back. I will buy the air I need and hide it in my room at the temple. Then I’ll be ready to go at any time, as soon as someone dies.
I know it’s wrong, but I hope it happens quickly.
There is no longer any reason for me to stay.
When I tell Ennio what Maire said, and when I say the name Asha to him, he turns pale. Without speaking he takes the money and gives me an air tank, heavy and made of ancient-looking metal. He rolls it up neatly in a cloth so that it appears to be a bulky but uninteresting, unspecific bundle.
“It works exactly like the air masks for the drills,” he says. “You’re familiar with those. Attach the mask and breathe the same way. But this one will last longer. And it’s pressurized for an ascent.”
“How do you know that?” I ask. “If no one’s ever made it to the surface?”
“I found an old cache of air,” he says. “From when they were building Atlantia. Sometimes they had to work out in the water. Sometimes they had to go up.”
This sounds far from safe. And it’s going to be hard to speak while I’m wearing the mask attached to the air tank. How will I let the words out without letting the water in?
Am I trying to do something impossible? Am I crazy?
I’ve never known if what they say is true, if I’m broken and strange, or if I just belong somewhere else and, if I can get there, I will finally feel right.
That’s what I’ve hoped for all my life.
“Go,” Ennio says. “And don’t come back.” He says that in a nice way, like he means for me to escape instead of die, and so I leave without another word. On my way out of the deepmarket, the bundle heavy on my back, I walk past my mother’s ring. People have gathered around it.
In spite of everything, she can still draw a crowd.
Hopefully, tonight, so will I.
I hide the air tank in my room with the fish and the locks and the last of the money. I’ll win more tonight, but I plan to give all of that to True to pay him back. Then he can buy more supplies and a stall in the deepmarket. Perhaps someday, without me asking for help with other things, he will find a way to make the mechanical bats stay aloft. I wish I could see that.
I glance over at Bay’s and Maire’s shells, but I resist the temptation to try to listen to one or to ask questions of the other. I’ve decided to trust myself and True, and I don’t want any doubt to creep in.
As I ride the gondola down to work, the sounds of Atlantia breathing press in on me, becoming louder and louder. No one else seems to notice.
And when I come into the workplace, the breathing becomes screaming.
I resist the urge to press my hands against the sides of my head to block out the sound. Again, no one else seems to notice it. I look around the room and see Bien watching me. Does she hear it?
Why is Atlantia screaming? Or is it the sirens? Has Maire driven me mad? She said she was trying to help me. Was she trying to break me instead?
And then everyone else looks up, and some of them reach to cover their ears. But it’s not the screaming they’ve noticed—it’s a new sound. The shrill whistle signifying a breach drill sounds down the halls and into our workroom.
Everyone reaches for their air masks, and I reach for mine, but it isn’t there.
In the excitement of everything—True giving me the money, buying the air tank, preparing for tonight—I forgot to bring it with me. I took it off at home and left it with my other things.
I’ve neglected to bring my mask before—we all have—but never during a drill. This will result in a reprimand, certainly, and perhaps more. I swear under my breath. I don’t want anything to mess up tonight.
Bien pulls on her mask and so do the other workers. I hear them breathing as they start their oxygen. A girl near me shudders as she gets ready to seal the mask shut. “I hate this,” she mutters to her friend.
And then she notices me. “No mask?” she asks.
“I forgot it,” I say, and her eyes widen.
“Uh-oh,” she says. “You could have gotten away with it if it weren’t for the drill.”
I know. My timing is terrible. At least the sound of the whistle drowns out the screaming in the walls for now.
I seem to be the only one in the ocean room who didn’t remember to bring a mask today. I suppose the water outside the portal is a constant reminder of how close we are to being unable to breathe.
Emergency procedure apparently dictates that the workers should file into the sky room, because that’s what everyone does. I’m glad. I look for Elinor, walk toward her.
Josiah rushes into the room, mask already in place, and surveys us. His eyes stop on me.
“I need a spare mask,” I say.
He nods. There are always a few on hand in every building, even though we’re supposed to carry our own. He leaves the room to find one for me.
It’s strange not to have mine on, but mostly I’m glad. I don’t have to pretend to breathe the air. And it’s funny to hear the other workers talking to one another through the masks in monotone, depersonalized voices. I’ve always wondered if this is what I sound like to everyone else.
After a few more minutes, the door flies open and Josiah comes back inside. “I haven’t found one yet,” he says. “The closet was empty.”
“It’s all right,” I say. “It’s my own fault.”
Josiah stares at me for a second and hi
s eyes are wide with fear and concern. Why is he so worried about this?
I realize the answer a moment before the whistle stops and a siren’s voice—not Maire’s—comes over the loudspeaker.
“This,” the siren says, her voice pleasant and urgent, “is not a drill. Please follow instructions exactly. If you haven’t done so already, go to your designated gathering location and then remain where you are, with your mask on, breathing regularly and normally. The situation will be remedied as soon as possible.”
And now everyone in the room stares at me.
“Perhaps she could share one. . . .” Elinor begins, making a move to take off her mask.
“No,” Josiah says. “That compromises the survival of both. It’s against the rules.”
His voice sounds flat, but his eyes look sorry.
Everyone is still watching.
What do they think I’ll do? Run? Cry? Scream? The first option doesn’t make any sense, because I don’t know where Atlantia is leaking. For all I know, I could run right into the breach. And crying and screaming are going to use up what air I do have. If it’s a breach in the air system, the oxygen in the room will be gone soon enough.
My heart pounds so hard that I swear I can feel it in my palms as well as in my chest. It strikes me that I’m providing a good diversion for the others—the smaller drama of Will Rio die? is, for now, overshadowing the larger issue of Are we all going to die?
Should I risk everything and command them to let me leave? Then I can go hunt for a mask.
But the voices in the walls of Atlantia start up again, and this time they are screaming at me. Telling me to stay. Stay.
Who are they? The sirens? Maire heard them speak to her from the walls of the city. Am I hearing them, too? But that can’t be right. Maire said they were gone.
Elinor moves to put her hand on my arm, but I’m crawling inside and outside with all these voices and I edge away.
It’s growing dark in our workroom, though it isn’t the dimming time, and that feels ominous. Why lower the lights? Has the breach affected the power in some way?
I have no memory of this ever happening before.
