Appearing in the door, the Padre smiles at me, moving to light the ceremonial candles. Then his smile fades. “Where’s Furo? Bigger and Biggest haven’t seen him at all this morning.”
I shrug. I can’t account for every second of Ro’s day. Ro could be lifting all the dried cereal cakes out of Bigger’s emergency supplies. Chasing Biggest’s donkeys. Sneaking down the Tracks toward the Hole, to buy more parts for the Padre’s busted-up old pistola, shot only on New Year’s Eve. Meeting people he doesn’t want me to meet, learning things he doesn’t want me to know. Preparing for a war he’ll never fight with an enemy that can’t be defeated.
He’s on his own.
The Padre, preoccupied as always, is no longer paying attention to himself or to me. “Careful…” I catch his elbow, pulling him out of the way of a pile of pig waste. A near miss.
He clicks his tongue and leans down to chuck Ramona Jamona on the chin. “Ramona. Not in the chapel.” It’s an act—really, he doesn’t mind. The big pink pig sleeps in his chamber on cold nights, we all know she does. He loves Ro and me just as he does Ramona—in spite of everything we do and beyond anything he says. He’s the only father we have ever known, and though I call him the Padre, I think of him as my Padre.
“She’s a pig, Padre. She’s going to go wherever she wants. She can’t understand you.”
“Ah, well. It’s only once a year, the Blessing of the Animals. We can clean the floors tomorrow. All Earth’s creatures need our prayers.”
“I know. I don’t mind.” I look to the animals, wondering. The Padre sinks onto a low pew, patting the wood next to him. “We can take a few minutes to ourselves, however. Come. Sit.”
I oblige.
He smiles, touching my chin. “Happy birthday, Dolly.” He holds out a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It materializes from his robes, a priestly sleight of hand.
Birthday secrets. My book, finally.
I recognize it from his thoughts, from yesterday. He holds it out to me, but his face is not full of joy.
Only sadness.
“Be careful with it. Don’t let it out of your sight. It’s very rare. And it’s about you.”
I drop my hand.
“Doloria.” He says my real name and I stiffen, bracing myself for the words I fear are coming. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but it’s time we speak of such things. There are people who would harm you, Doloria. I haven’t really told you how I found you, not all of it. Why you survived the attack and your family didn’t. I think you’re ready to hear it now.” He leans closer. “Why I’ve hidden you. Why you’re special. Who you are.”
I’ve been dreading this talk since my tenth birthday. The day he first told me what little I know about who I am and how I am different. That day, over sugar cakes and thick, homemade butter and sun tea, he talked to me slowly about the creeping sadness that came over me, so heavy that my chest fluttered like a startled animal’s and I couldn’t breathe. About the pain that pulsed in my head or came between my shoulder blades. About the nightmares that were so real I was afraid Ro would walk in and find me cold and still in my bed one morning.
As if you really could die from a broken heart.
But the Padre never told me where the feelings came from. That’s one thing even he didn’t know.
I wish someone did.
“Doloria.”
He says my name again to remind me that he knows my secret. He’s the only one, Ro and him. When we’re alone, I let Ro call me Doloria—but even he mostly calls me Dol, or even Dodo. I’m just plain Dolly to everyone else.
Not Doloria Maria de la Cruz. Not a Weeper. Not marked by the lone gray dot on my wrist.
One small circle the color of the sea in the rain.
The one thing that is really me.
My destiny.
Dolor means “sorrow,” in Latin or Greek or some other language from way, way before The Day. BTD. Before everything changed.
“Open it.”
I look at him, uncertain. The candles flicker, and a breeze shudders slowly through the room. Ramona noses closer to the altar, her snout looking for traces of honey on my hand.
I slip my finger through the paper, pulling it loose from the string. Beneath the wrapping is hardly a book, almost more of a journal: the cover is thick, rough burlap, homemade. This is a Grass book, unauthorized, illegal. Most likely preserved by the Rebellion, in spite of and because of the Embassy regulations. Such books are usually on subjects the Ambassadors won’t acknowledge within the world of the Occupation. They are very hard to come by, and extremely valuable.
My eyes well with tears as I read the cover. The Humanity Project: The Icon Children. It looks like it was written by hand.
“No,” I whisper.
“Read it.” He nods. “I was supposed to keep it safe for you and make sure you read it when you were old enough.”
“Who said that? Why?”
“I’m not sure. I discovered the book with a note on the altar, not long after I brought you here. Just read it. It’s time. And nobody knows as much about the subject as this particular author. It’s written by a doctor, it seems, in his own hand.”
“I know enough not to read more.” I look around for Ro. I wish, desperately, he would walk through the chapel door. But the Padre is the Padre, so I open the book to a page he’s marked, and begin to read about myself.
Icon doloris.
Dolorus. Doloria. Me.
My purpose is pain and my name is sorrow.
One gray dot says so.
No.
“Not yet.” I look up at the Padre and shake my head, shoving the book into my belt. The conversation is over. The story of me can wait until I’m ready. My heart hurts again, stronger this time.
I hear strange noises, feel a change in the air. I look to Ramona Jamona, hoping for some moral support, but she is lying at my feet, fast asleep.
No, not asleep.
Dark liquid pools beneath her.
The cold animal in my chest startles awake, fluttering once again.
An old feeling returns. Something really is wrong. Soft pops fill the air.
“Padre,” I say.
Only I look at him and he is not my Padre at all. Not anymore.
“Padre!” I scream. He’s not moving. He’s nothing. Still sitting next to me, still smiling, but not breathing.
He’s gone.
My mind moves slowly. I can’t make sense of it. His eyes are empty and his mouth has fallen open. Gone.
It’s all gone. His jokes. His secret recipes—the butter he made from shaking cream together with smooth, round rocks—the rows of sun tea in jars—gone. Other secrets, too. My secrets.
But I can’t think about it now, because behind the Padre—what was the Padre—stands a line of masked soldiers. Sympas.
Occupation Sympathizers, traitors to humanity. Embassy soldiers, taking orders from the Lords, hiding behind plexi-masks and black armor, standing in pig mess and casting long shadows over the deathly peace of the chapel. One wears golden wings on his jacket. It’s the only detail I see, aside from the weapons. The guns make no noise, but the animals panic all the same. They are screaming—which is something I did not know, that animals could scream.
I open my mouth, but I do not scream. I vomit.
I spit green juices and gray dust and memories of Ramona and the Padre.
All I can see are the guns. All I can feel is hate and fear. The black-gloved hands close around my wrist, overwhelming me, and I know that soon I will no longer have to worry about my nightmares.
I will be dead.
As my knees buckle, all I can think about is Ro and how angry he will be at me for leaving him.
Tracks
I am alive.
When I open my eyes I’m on a train—alone in a prison transport car, gunmetal gray, pushed by an old coal-fueled steam engine. Nothing but four walls lined with metal benches, bolted to the floor. A door to my left, a window to
my right. A pile of old rags in the corner. That’s it. I must be on the Tracks, hurtling toward the Hole. The dim blue waters of Porthole Bay flip in and out of sight, rhythmically punctuated by shuffling old comlink poles. They stick up from the land like so many useless skeleton fingers.
I watch my reflection in the window. My brown hair is dark and loose and matted with dirt and bile. My skin is pale and barely covers the handful of small bones that are me. Then I see my reflection twist, and in the plexi-window I look as sad as the Lady in her painting. Because the Padre is dead.
I try to hold on to his face in my mind, the grooves by his eyes, the mole on his cheek. The cocky spike of his thinning hair. I’m afraid I’ll lose it, him—even the memory. Tomorrow, if not today.
Like everything else, there’s no holding on to the Padre.
Not anymore.
I look back out at the bay, and I can feel the bile churn inside me, strong as the tides. Usually the water calms me. Not today. Today, as I clutch the blue glass bead at my throat, the ocean is almost unrecognizable. I wonder where the Tracks are taking me. To my death? Or worse?
I see a glimpse of the rusting, abandoned cars on the highway along the rails, junked as if all life stopped and the planet froze in place, which is pretty much what happened on The Day. After the House of Lords came, with their Carrier ships, and the thirteen Icons fell from the sky, one landing in each of the largest cities in the world.
The Padre says—said—that people used to live all over Earth, spread out. There were small towns, small cities, big cities. Not anymore. Almost the entire population of the planet lives within a hundred miles of a mega-city. The Padre said this happened because so much of the world has been ruined by people, by the rising waters, rising temperatures, drought, flooding. Some parts of Earth are toxic with radiation from massive wars. People stay in the cities because we are running out of places to live.
Now everything people need to live is produced in or near the cities. Energy, food, technology—it’s all centralized in the cities. Which makes the Lords’ work that much easier.
The Icons regulate everything with an electronic pulse. The Padre said the Icons can control electricity, the power that flows between generators and machines, even the electrical impulses that connect brains and bodies. They can halt all electrical and chemical activity at any time. Which is what happened to Goldengate, on The Day. And São Paulo, Köln-Bonn, Greater Beijing, Cairo, Mumbai. The Silent Cities. Which is why we gave in to the Lords and let them take our planet.
But out in the Grasslands, like at the Mission, we have more freedom. The Icons lose their strength the farther away you go. But the Lords and the Ambassadors are in control, even then, because they have the resources. They have weapons that work. And there’s no power in the Grass, no source of energy. Even so, I have hope. The Padre always tried to reassure me—everything has a limit. Everything has an end. Beyond the borders of the cities and the frequencies of the Icons, life goes on. They can’t turn everything off. They don’t control our whole planet. Not yet.
Nothing in the Grass works that isn’t pulled by a horse or cranked by a person. But at least we know our hearts will be beating in the morning, our lungs pumping air, our bodies shivering from the cold. Which is more than I know about myself tomorrow.
The pile of rags groans from the floor. I was wrong. I’m not alone. A man, lying facedown, is splayed across from me. He smells like a Remnant, which is what the Embassy calls us, another piece of worthless garbage like me. He even smells like he lives with the pigs—drunk pigs.
My heart begins to pound. I sense adrenaline. Heat. Anger. Not just the soldiers. Something more.
Ro’s here.
I close my eyes and feel him. I can’t see him, but I know he’s near. Don’t, I think, though he can’t hear me. Let me go, Ro. Get yourself somewhere safe.
Ro hates Sympas. I know if he comes after me the rage will come after him, and he will probably be killed. Like the Padre. Like my parents, and Ro’s. Like everyone else.
I also know he will come for me.
The man sits up, groaning. He looks like he is going to be sick, leaning against the swaying side of the car. I steady myself, waiting by the window.
The comlink poles go slapping by. The Tracks turn, and the watery curve of the Porthole shoreline comes into view, the Hole beyond it. A few crude skiffs float on the water nearest the shore. Beyond them, rising above the water, is the Hole, the biggest city on the west coast. The only one, since Goldengate was silenced. I don’t look at the Icon, though I know it’s there. It’s always there looming, from the hill above the city, a knife in the otherwise flat skyline. What once was an observatory has been gutted and transformed by the black irregularity that juts out from the structure. It’s also a reminder, this disturbingly nonhuman landmark, sent by our new Lords to pierce the earth and show us all that we are not in control.
That our hearts beat only with their permission.
If I’m not careful, I can feel all of them, the people in the Hole. They well up in me, unannounced. Everyone in the Hole, everyone in the Embassy. Sympas and Remnants and even Ambassador Amare. I fight them off. I try to clear my mind. I will myself not to feel—I’ve felt too much already. I try to press back against the welling. If I let them in, I’m afraid I will lose myself. I’ll lose everything.
Chumash Rancheros Spaniards Californians Americans Grass. I recite the words, over and over, but this time they don’t seem to help.
“Dol!”
It’s Ro. He’s here now, right outside the door. I hear a rattle and see the skull of the Sympa slam into the plexi-door and sink out of sight. There is a dent where he hit. No one else could destroy a Sympa like that, not with only his hands. Ro must already be out of control, to throw him so hard. Which means I don’t have much time. I push myself up to my feet and move across the car to the door. It doesn’t open, but I know Ro is right outside. I can see a glimpse of the narrow hall through the small plexi in the door.
“Ro! Ro, don’t!” Then I hear shouting. Too late.
Please. Go home, Ro.
The shouting grows louder, and the train lurches. I stand up and stumble, almost stepping on the other prisoner, the Remnant. He rolls over and looks up at me, a pile of filth and rags, his face so covered with muck I can’t tell what he is or where he’s from. His skin is the color of bark. “Your Ro is going to get you both killed, you know.” The voice is mocking. He has an accent, but I can’t place it—only that it’s not from the Californias. Maybe not even the Americas.
He moves again, and I see the welt that runs down the length of his face. He’s been beaten, and I can imagine why. I want to kick him myself for mocking Ro, but I don’t. Instead, I feel for the binding beneath my sleeve, wrapping it more tightly around my wrist and my secret.
One gray dot the color of the ocean.
The Padre’s gone. Only Ro knows now.
Unless that’s why the Sympas came.
I can’t worry about it much longer, though, because the man answers himself in a strange falsetto, which I imagine he means to be me. “I know. I’m sorry about that, mate.”
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Sleepwalker
As my bare feet sank into the wet earth, I tried not to think about the dead bodies buried beneath me. I had passed this tiny graveyard a handful of times but never at night, and always outside the boundaries of its peeling iron gates.
I would’ve given anything to be standing outside them now.
In the moonlight, rows of weathered headstones exposed the neat stretch of lawn for what it truly was—the grassy lid of an enormous coffin.
A branch snapped, and I spun around.
“Elvis?” I searched for a trace of my cat’s gray and white ringed tail.
Elvis never ran away, usually content to thread his wa
y between my ankles whenever I opened the door—until tonight. He had taken off so fast that I didn’t even have time to grab my shoes, and I had chased him eight blocks until I ended up here.
Muffled voices drifted through the trees, and I froze.
On the other side of the gates, a girl wearing blue and gray Georgetown University sweats passed underneath the pale glow of the lamppost. Her friends caught up with her, laughing and stumbling down the sidewalk. They reached one of the academic buildings and disappeared inside.
It was easy to forget that the cemetery was in the middle of a college campus. As I walked deeper into the uneven rows, the lampposts vanished behind the trees, and the clouds plunged the graveyard in and out of shadow. I ignored the whispers in the back of my mind urging me to go home.
Something moved in my peripheral vision—a flash of white.
I scanned the stones, now completely bathed in black.
Come on, Elvis. Where are you?
Nothing scared me more than the dark. I liked to see what was coming, and darkness was a place where things could hide.
Think about something else.
The memory closed in before I could stop it….
My mother’s face hovering above mine as I blinked myself awake. The panic in her eyes as she pressed a finger over her lips, signaling me to be quiet. The cold floor against my feet as we made our way to her closet, where she pushed aside the dresses.
“Someone’s in the house,” she whispered, pulling a board away from the wall to reveal a small opening. “Stay here until I come back. Don’t make a sound.”
I squeezed inside as she worked the board back into place. I had never experienced absolute darkness before. I stared at a spot inches in front of me, where my palm rested on the board. But I couldn’t see it.
Dangerous Creatures Page 26
