“A single star, then.” Not that they actually let anyone add or subtract stars. You couldn’t get rid of the hash marks detailing your place in the world even if you wanted to, not unless you wanted to risk looking as though your marks had been burned off entirely like mine. Even if that weren’t the case, rewarding comrades for good work with a new set of stars would make people aspire. Compete. Competition makes for arguments and anger instead of duties well performed, according to General Hong. But I don’t let the General’s chiding voice in my head stop me from making fun. “One star and a job treating nosebleeds up in the First Quarter. Or whatever it is they’re excited about this week. Did I see a new pamphlet about a breakthrough in bone remodeling?”
Tai-ge shakes his head, smiling. “So chipper. At least you’re off your shifts at the cannery with your injuries. Should I figure out how to get myself a pair of broken ribs and get out of all the extra duties father is giving to me? It doesn’t look so bad.”
“It just hurts to move. And breathe. And think. I wouldn’t recommend it. In fact, I want my money back. I’ll just go shake my fist a little at the guard on the bridge. Want to come?”
Tai-ge sobers a little, twirling the ring on his finger as he does when he’s uncomfortable, the City seal stark against the gold. “He didn’t make it. They found him downstream in pieces. I think the bomb hit his office dead-on. He left a wife and two kids, both in the youth corps of the Liberation Army. Between you and him, this bombing made a big enough stir for even the Chairman to notice.”
The Chairman? He actually came out of wherever it is he commands from up on the Steppe because of me? Curiosity bristles inside of me, battling the flash of regret that flames in my cheeks for making fun of a dead man.
Tai-ge’s face slides into something even more reserved. “Which means you should probably avoid shaking your fist at anyone for the next few days. Maybe not even make eye contact.”
“I’m not the one who . . .” I trail off. Tai-ge already knows I’m not the one who killed the Watchman, but there are some who won’t look closely at facts, only that I was there. Casting about for something to say, I ask, “Is the Chairman upset? Or is it your mother I have to worry about? You wouldn’t have been down on the bridge at all if it weren’t for me. Did it take a bomb to convince her that I’m not salvageable as a comrade?”
“No. Well, I hope not.” Tai-ge’s voice is a little strained. “Just stay here. Do what the nuns tell you to do. I’m not allowed to say anything else. But you didn’t do anything wrong. This will pass.”
“Didn’t do anything wrong?” A thrill of fear marches up my arms, and rubbing them sends jolts of pain through my middle. “What do you mean? What will pass?”
“I can’t talk about it.” Tai-ge frowns. “Stay here and you’ll be fine. I’m glad you’re awake. I’ll check in later to make sure . . .” He shrugs again as he stands, blinking as if he hasn’t slept in days, and starts for the door. “Oh, and Sevvy”—Tai-ge turns back, pointing a finger at me—“don’t think for a moment that pity is going to get you out of repercussions for trying to destroy my reports. My great-great-grandfather is probably trying to cross back over and kill you as we speak.”
“Don’t know what you are talking about.” I keep a straight face. “I would never touch your family shrine. Or any of your fancy Watch reports.”
“Bringing the City down, one wax-smudged document at a time.” Tai-ge’s smile is real now, stretching wide. “I’m on to you, Fourth. And the nuns wouldn’t notice if I lit your mattress on fire or snuck a baby gore in to sleep in the extra bed, so you’d better watch out. Those broken ribs should be the least of your worries.” With that, he’s gone.
I let my own smile curl for a moment, then struggle to sit up so I can watch him leave the orphanage through my window. But, when I’m upright enough to see the street outside, all thoughts of Tai-ge and smiles flee. Outside, the street is filled with Watchmen, and not the normal City Watch either. The simple cut and subdued colors of their jerkins mark these men as Outside patrollers. Men who are used to death and killing, to hunting and being hunted. Men who have firsthand experience of what untreated SS looks like when left to rot in an infected brain.
The Reds salute Tai-ge as he leaves. He looks back more than once with a troubled expression on his face as he heads off toward the Second Quarter, where he belongs.
CHAPTER 4
WATCHMEN OUTSIDE? WHAT DID I do that was so terrible the Chairman feels the need to guard a teenage orphan with no friends and a side full of broken ribs? Missing shifts at the cannery? Did they open an inquiry as to where the traitor was hiding, only to find me sleeping in bed? Fourths are supposed to be inherently lazy.
Perhaps my sleeping through cannery shifts is enough ammunition to finally destroy the annoying Fourth pebble stuck for too long in Comrade Hong’s shoe.
Tai-ge told me to stay here. But If I’m going to be arrested, I at least want to know why.
I close my eyes and reach for the tray of stale food balanced on my trunk, trying to ignore the jagged edges of my cracked ribs as they grind together, leaving me gasping. My hands shake as I bite into the bread, not stopping until I’ve downed most of the food on my tray. Feeling a bit more capable with food in my stomach, I inch my feet over the side of the bed to rest on the floor, breathing through the firestorm erupting through my core. Half walking, half pulling myself along the side of the bed, I make it to my trunk and open the lid, grabbing a bottle hidden at the very bottom.
Da’ard pills are hard to come by in the orphanage. The nuns seem to think painkillers are a waste on kids who are causing most of the pain in the first place. Enduring pain builds character, as Sister Lei might say. In my experience, pain mostly builds my bad temper and lands me extra chores.
Fortunately, Tai-ge slipped me some last year when I broke my arm. It was his fault anyway. He was the one who wanted a look at the First Circle passing judgment on some chemical bomb tactics the Reds formulated. Just to get a look at them, he said. They were holding the meeting in the People’s Garden on the Second side of the City Center, where anyone could look if they were motivated enough. We see their faces plastered all over the evening announcements and their names polka-dotting the medical research triumphs passed out at least once a week, but the men themselves tend to stay up on the Steppe where test tubes and elevated conversation are a bit more easily come by. Instead of a good look at the men, I got a good look at the ground when Tai-ge accidentally broke the branch above me and knocked me out of the tree we were hiding in. To this day, whenever we manage to eat together alone, I steal all his white rice, saying he doesn’t need the extra weight.
At least I fell outside the People’s Garden wall, out of sight. Can’t think about what the Circle would have made of the Fourth traitor caught spying on them.
Actually, I do know.
In any case, with the leftover Da’ard pills the pain will be manageable, if not completely gone.
I swig the last of my water to wash the pills down and wait for them to take effect. After a few minutes, I twist experimentally and am rewarded with a dull ache instead of lancing pain.
Stealing a coat and boots from the girls who sleep next door, I prepare to go outside. A heavy winter cap with a brim, buttons done up to my chin, an extra set of stars secure on my shoulder so no one will think I’m trying to hide if they catch me. The ones I wore the night of the bombing must be at the bottom of the river with my coat and boots. The pins are supposed to be worn proudly, a marker for our irreplaceable responsibilities, each of us equal, though our tasks are different.
Something makes me stop. I go back to my chest, push the old clothes aside, and pull out a box. Tai-ge made it for me for my fifteenth birthday. There’s a trick to opening it—all the pieces have to slide into place in the correct order before it will open. An ideal hiding place for something I’m not supposed to have. Inside is another gift from Tai-ge from long ago, his name carved deep into the handle in awkwa
rd, childish characters. A knife.
Not that I’m going to be fighting anyone. Or even that I could. It just seems right to take it with me, as if bringing Tai-ge’s name along will somehow protect me.
The room across the hall has a window grown over with vines, which should have made it impossible to climb through. Those of us who have been here long enough know how to get it open and outside without disturbing the vines, letting ourselves down into a back alley behind the orphanage with no one to sound the alarm that an infected orphan is letting him or herself out.
Peishan and I used to go to the market when we were supposed to be meditating on the Chairman’s words, though neither of us ever had ration papers to spend. It was nice to feel as if the long, ugly, straight lines of my schedule couldn’t strangle me for the ten minutes I was outside with no one watching me.
I should be able to climb down, eavesdrop until I find out what’s going on, then be back in my room before anyone notices.
The climbing part shoots pain through my rib cage even with the Da’ard, and I’m relieved when my borrowed boots find the dirty paving stones. I cringe as the kitchen door, the only door that opens into the alley, creaks. One of the cooks throws some trash out into the alley, the bag falling open to deposit an apple core and some fish bones at my feet. The cook who threw the bag doesn’t bother to look out, or he would have seen me, paralyzed and attempting to hide behind the vines’ empty skeleton base. Fear curdles through me as I wait for a moment, wondering if the cook will come out to shove the bag through the gate at the back of the alley for the trash collectors to pick up, but he doesn’t.
I keep low as I creep around the corner to the front of the orphanage, hoping no one will notice a little Fourth bobbing about in the bushes. I don’t think the headsman would be called for my climbing out of my room, but it might depend on who catches me, and Outside patrollers don’t have a reputation of being merciful. I duck behind a particularly large bush, hoping I can get close enough to the soldiers to hear if they’re talking. Most of them are hanging around the entrance, waiting for something.
“Do you know when?” one of them asks.
“Awaiting orders. Just like you,” another snaps. “We’re just supposed to keep her contained until all of the evidence can be gathered.”
Evidence? Of what? Are they talking about me? I wait, hoping one of them will randomly decide to run through all the details of the situation, but of course none of the soldiers oblige. They just stand there, watching the street with bored expressions and blowing smoke at one another from their army-issue cigarettes. After a moment, one comes to lean against the orphanage wall, uncomfortably close to my hiding place.
What would happen if I just asked them what is going on? I didn’t do anything wrong. Even if the City did give me four stars for my mother’s crimes, the First Circle and Comrade Hong couldn’t have made something up completely out of the wind and sky.
Could they?
Maybe a couple of jokes could make the soldiers forget they’re standing next to an orphanage riddled with SS. Maybe they won’t notice my mother’s face or my traitor brand. I haven’t been around Outside patrols much, but I bet they need a laugh more than most. Maybe they’ve been fighting Kamari soldiers long enough that one teenage girl with a birthmark won’t be scary anymore.
Of course, all of those “maybes” are quite unlikely. And the idea of approaching an Outside patroller makes me shiver inside my thick wool coat. Every one of those men has seen death. Every one of them has caused it, then walked away to smoke a cigarette.
More soldiers walk up from the opposite direction, putting my hiding place at risk. I slide back between the buildings, only to hear their gruff voices following me, as if they’re coming to check the alleyway. Not enough time to climb up the vines, so I squeeze the rest of the way down the alley to the gate where the cooks leave the trash.
There’s a solid wooden gate blocking the back of the alley, a flap at the bottom only big enough for trash bags to be shoved through for pickup. The trash gets carted off to the wall and thrown over. Outsiders, you’re welcome.
My nose wrinkles at the stench of rotting vegetables as I crouch down and look at the flap. It’s small and coated in stickiness. But if I’m caught outside my room, will whatever Tai-ge was so worried about happen?
The footsteps echo off the brick of the alleyway as I jam myself under the flap, my shoulders scraping against the sides. I have to turn cockeyed for my hips to fit, barely sliding through as the footsteps draw near. I huddle in the mounds of trash with my back against the gate, knees drawn up to my nose. Waiting for them to stick a hand through the flap and grab me.
“Thought for sure I heard something back here.” The gate jiggles against my back as one of the soldiers gives it a kick, the flap swinging with the motion.
“Just rats probably. Don’t think I could fit more than my arm through that flap. Keeps hungry kids from trying to sneak into the kitchens, I guess. Have to be a pretty small kid to fit under there.”
Or a young lady very motivated not to die under the Arch.
I breathe out as they walk away, waiting until the footsteps are gone before tipping the flap up an inch to make sure they’re really gone. There’s a set of boots facing away from me at the end of the alley.
Carefully letting the flap close, I look at the gate for a moment. But then I get up, lurching down the alley until I find a path to a main street. I brush at my coat and pants. Soybean hulls, burned rice, eggshells are all ground into the wool of my borrowed coat.
I wonder if the Watchmen would find the situation funny. Guarding the orphanage doors to keep the Fourth in, but keeping me out instead.
I’ll just have to watch and wait until I can sneak back up. I scrub at the bits of trash and spoiled food decorating my coat, the smell of rot wafting up from the new stains.
No one pays attention to me on the street, my winter-shrouded form only one in the stream of hunchbacked workers shuffling to and fro from the factories. Not wanting to be found by someone actually looking for me, I walk a few streets down toward the market, watching a throng of students lining up to purchase bright red scarves to show support for the army from the safety of an alley. Before I can edge my way into the crowd, a man crashes into me, sending me back into the alleyway.
Pain sears through me, the impact too much even for Da’ard to cloak. I curl up, back to the wall, my arms clutched around my ribs, the world a red haze around me. The man who crashed into me grabs my wrist, hauling me deeper into the dark of the Third Quarter’s maze of back roads.
I scratch at his hand, screams bottled up in my throat as he clamps the other hand down over my mouth. A few people do glance at us through the gaps between buildings, but they just look back down at their feet, too tired from long hours and food rations that don’t quite fill their stomachs to wonder about anything at all. The pain blossoming all through my ribs steals any strength I might have had from my arms and legs, leaving me to sag limply to the ground. The man scoops me up, then strides down the alley, looking both directions before he opens a small wooden doorway and carries me into the darkness waiting inside. Kicking the door shut, he deposits me on something soft and velvety. A light clicks on, and I’m sitting in what looks like an old-world throne, the chair’s upholstery shiny in the sudden light, the wooden arms chipped with age.
Pain hums insistently through my sides, but I refuse to feel it. I ram my elbow into the man’s stomach and run for the door. Locked. I stumble along the walls, frantically pulling aside curtains and looking for a way out, but there is nowhere to go. My stare goes back to the man, bent over and clutching his stomach where he stands between me and the door.
“Stop.” He croaks in a painful whisper, “I want to help you.”
Not one of the curtains has a window behind it. One room with one door that opens out into the street. It makes no sense. The City doesn’t build anything down in the Third Quarter unless it has a practical purpose. To s
leep in, to eat in, to work in. But here, there are books—real books, not propaganda pamphlets—lining the walls. An intricately threaded rug covers the center of the floor, the reds and golds woven in and out of each other reminding me of something beautiful, something past.
He coughs, putting a hand over his heart. Catching my eye, he moves his other hand to cover the first, two fingers over his right hand, the rest curled underneath. A sign. Mother’s sign.
CHAPTER 5
WE USED TO SPY TOGETHER. Me; my sister, Aya; and Mother. Sometimes Father, too, all of us hiding secret notes to each other under the fancy silk upholstered chair in the family room, listening at doors to hear the maid’s gossip, me and Aya attempting to sneak into their self-criticism sessions. Father would try to hide the twinkle in his eye as Aya and I fell all over each other laughing when we came back to report to Mother. Just fun and games, though now it seems I should have taken spy games as some sort of warning long before Mother disappeared in a bloody terror. Who else but a traitor would teach her daughters to pass secret messages, to hide in doorways and listen to the Thirds talk for fun? Maybe she was training us, hoping we’d take after her, be part of her network.
Or maybe they were just games. Was this man there, lurking in the background of my childhood, watching us play?
We had lots of hand signals, but Mother made this one up. Two fingers over a closed fist meant danger. To freeze.
“Where did you learn that?” I snap, then immediately wish I had held my tongue. My hat was lost in the scuffle outside, and I find myself with one hand to my cheek, covering my birthmark as if that might somehow negate any connection I have to Jiang Gui-hua.
“Jiang Sev.” The man’s eyes hold mine fast. “I’m sorry I frightened you. There are rumors in the Third Quarter you are responsible for the bomb that destroyed the Aihu Bridge.”
“That I did what? The bomb fell from a plane, for Yuan’s sake. Tai-ge was there. . . .” And Tai-ge told me to stay inside. Not to draw attention to myself and it all would pass. But here I am, sitting with a man who must have anti-City leanings if he’s trying to help a Fourth, and especially a Fourth with my parentage.
Last Star Burning Page 4
