Lotus and Thorn

by Sara Wilson Etienne

  I took a deep breath and I reminded myself that this was exactly why I needed to do this. For my sisters. For myself. With the Abuelos’ recent raids on Citizen apartments, our naming gifts weren’t safe anymore. We weren’t safe. I would have to find a way through.

  But as I started to evaluate my options, the enormous bonfire was lit—calling everyone to the Remembering. Suddenly, Citizens were moving toward the stage, closing in around me, anxious to show off their faith. Four thousand people all suddenly moving in one direction. Or was it more like three thousand now? And as Sarika’s voice boomed over the Festival Grounds, I was swept along with the press of people.

  “For millennia, Earth was our home. It was beautiful and lush and people were happy.”

  This was not good. I’d hoped to be out and back by now. I caught a glimpse of the gate as the crowd funneled by it—it was open and unguarded now.

  I swung back around—determined not to miss my chance—and smacked straight into a stranger. I grabbed on to him to keep from falling. “Sorry!”

  The man, about my dad’s age, reached out to steady me with an indulgent smile—assuming I’d drunk too much. Then he saw my hand—my fingers—on his arm. I watched his face contort in disgust and he pushed me away, spitting the insult at me. “Indigno!”

  I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying not to draw any more attention to myself. Still, people stared. So I buried myself deeper in the mass of Citizens gathering for the Remembering. Feeling the word branded on me.

  People always found my hands unsettling—my Corruption had isolated and defined me my whole life. But it was so much worse since the outbreak. Everyone wanted someone to blame for all their recent suffering. And everyone wanted to prove they were loyal.

  “But there was a snake in Earth’s Garden! A restless serpent who poisoned our ancestors with lies. Whispering to them, ‘You are Gods!’” Between the heads of the people in front of me, I could see Sarika now, her arms spread wide in the middle of the stage. The Abuelos—dressed in dark, formal hanbok robes—sat in a circle around her, their wrinkled, somber faces ready for prayer.

  Suddenly, I realized I could still make this work. Because in a few minutes, Sarika herself would provide me with just the moment I needed. I started inching my way back through the throng—working my way to the side.

  “The snake told man, ‘God is not the only one who can make life! Why ssssettle for Earth when you can make your own world?’”

  The slyness of the snake was alive on Sarika’s face, and her slithery words were echoed by the crowd. “Why ssssssettle?” As if a thousand snakes writhed at our feet.

  By now, the crowd was pressed up against the edge of the market. A few kids had climbed the wooden stalls so they could have a better view, and I remembered being fascinated once too—fervent even. That was before I’d understood the Remembering wasn’t for me. Now I didn’t know what to believe. But the rest of audience was captivated, a hush falling over them as they listened to the words they already knew by heart.

  “So the Colonists journeyed through the constellations themselves, until they found their way to Gabriel. They took this dusty planet as their own and built Ad Astra Colony. They terraformed this valley. They built tall cities. One sun and one moon—they made Gabriel in Earth’s image.”

  Every eye was on Sarika when I ducked between the rows of booths and slipped away—the crowd caught in the spell of her story. “And God punished the Colonists for their arrogance. He sent Red Death to show our ancestors that, for all their cleverness, they were not gods! He returned his children to blood and bone. He crushed their cities with his almighty fist.”

  I raced down the paths of the empty market, my pack slamming against my shoulder blades—keeping low as I wound my way toward the gate. My mind silently recited the remaining lines along with Sarika, urging my feet to hurry. Marking time with the rhythm of her words.

  “But God is merciful. He saved some. Made them immune. Made others strong enough to survive the plague. Scattered that strength through the generations.”

  Shouts of praise rose up from the crowd, and I put on a burst of speed.

  “But God is merciful! He saved Pleiades for them!” In my mind’s eye, I could see Sarika pointing to the nine blue glass towers behind the stage. And my eyes were pulled, as always, to the Curadores’ Dome perched in the foothills above us. “We have spent the last five hundred years doing God’s work. Undoing the sins of the Colonists.”

  I reached the edge of the stalls with enough time to catch my breath. From here I had a clear view of the gates. There were no guards, but there was an empty stretch of nothing between me and the opening—nowhere to hide. I’d be seen by anyone who was looking. So I crouched behind a kimchi booth—the spicy, sour smell making my mouth water—and I waited for the moment I knew was coming. Ready to run.

  “On the occasion of Chuseok, let us bow our heads and thank God. We are humble in His eyes. We cleanse the land in His name. Let us pray that someday He will find us worthy and return us to our home. Return us to our good, green Earth once again.”

  The world fell quiet and I took off for the gate. My boots silent on the packed sand. My path unseen by the righteous. And as I made it past the wall, it felt liberating for once not to be praying for a future I would never see.

  For the good, green Earth was not for me. As long as I could remember, there had been someone there to remind me that I would not be going to that promised land. I was Corrupted. I was a sign that God had not yet forgiven us. I was sin incarnate.

  Indigno.

  I hurried through the Reclamation Fields, careful to avoid the huge, deep pits riddling the desert. The sun was easing behind the mountains—casting blue shadows across the already blue sands of Gabriel. I suddenly felt a lightness, and soon I would be lighter. I skirted around rusted beams and stacks of old tires ready to be traded with the Curadores, taking cover behind the heaped Finds.

  Then, finally kneeling at the side of a pit, I pulled out the book. As I held it over the bowels of what had once been a Colony building, a song of praise drifted over the wall. I only had a few minutes. I needed to be done by the time the crowd broke up and the guards returned to their posts—slipping back inside during the chaos.

  “For the hundredth time, I don’t care if you haven’t gotten a corn cake! The Abuelos told us to be on the lookout for dissidents and that’s what we’re going to do.” An Abuelos guard—wide face, wide neck, wide shoulders—suddenly came into view, wandering out from behind a mound of tires.

  Fear flooded through me as I tried to freeze, to hide the book, to hide myself. But I was out in the open and the massive guard was coming toward me and it was too late. It’d been too late the second I’d stepped through that gate.

  Another guard—smaller, but meaner looking—followed him. “All I’m saying is, if you were gonna plan some kinda . . . rebellion . . . wouldn’t you choose to do it around a mezcal bottle rather than a pile of old—”

  Then the smaller guard saw me, a smile creeping onto his face. “Well, if we haven’t trapped ourselves a little rat after all.”

  I almost ran, but where would I go? Beyond these fields was nothing. Only the wasteland of Tierra Muerta and the mountains marking the end of the habitable world.

  The guards weren’t gentle when they grabbed me. Despite the fact that I didn’t fight back, I got an elbow in the gut for my trouble. Their fingers dug into my shoulders as they started half carrying me toward the gate, and pain overtook fear.

  “I can walk on my own,” I growled, trying to pry their hands off. But they ignored me—as if I was a thing, and not a person they were dragging through the pits.

  “Will you look at those hands?” There was a gleeful malice in the massive guard’s voice. “Abominations . . . God might as well’ve spit on her.”

  “Never should’ve been allowed to live in the first p
lace,” the smaller one said as they bullied me through the gate.

  As we entered the Festival Grounds, Sarika was offering her closing prayer. Her moment of glory. “God, we are all sinners in your eyes. Only with your guiding . . .”

  But the audience was no longer paying attention to her. Whispers hissed through the mass of people and every eye turned to me as the pair of guards split the crowd down the middle. It was a nightmare—one guard on either side of me, crushing my arms as they “restrained” me. They made a show of jostling me and hustling me, making me lose my footing so they could drag me every few steps.

  “Leica!” I heard Tasch’s shout and Lotus’s more muffled exclamation. My eyes found my sisters in the crowd—still cut off from me by thirty or forty people—Taschen worried, Lotus angry. And for a second I watched with wonder as they pushed their way through the mob. A force of nature moving mountains.

  Then the smaller guard knocked me off my feet again and my knee smashed into the ground. Pain lit up my world and the real danger of the situation hit me—Lotus and Tasch couldn’t get mixed up in this. No matter what else happened, I must keep them safe.

  I was fifty meters from the stage when Sarika finally saw it was me—the scene playing out across her face. Shock. Then concern, as she took in the guards. And finally, a startled, wounded look that didn’t fit on her usually stoic face.

  That was the worst part—the instant Sarika understood I’d done more than steal her thunder. I’d betrayed her, betrayed the laws she revered and preached. It was her daughter, Marisol, all over again—running off with a Curador. Only, I’d humiliated her in front of everyone. After Sarika had taken us in. After she’d made us her family.

  As the guards hauled me up onstage, I ached to explain myself to Sarika. More than anything, I wanted to say I’m sorry. But I was too afraid to face her.

  The pair of Abuelos from Building Nine stepped out from the circle of elders. Their long robes added to the gravity of their movements. I attempted to bow—out of habit—forgetting the guards were holding me.

  The first guard—the hulking one—went over and spoke to the pair of Abuelos. After a whispered exchange, the guard bowed and left the stage.

  “Release her,” the Abuela told the remaining guard. Her white hair was pinned high on her head—giving a sense of tallness despite her stooped frame. The Abuela reached out her hand. “Give me your pack, girl.”

  This woman had known me since I was born, but now she denied me even the respect of my name.

  I hesitated, knowing if I obeyed, I’d be lost. Knowing I was already lost. The guard wrenched the bag off my back, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process. I struggled to stay upright, to stand tall, as the Abuelo now stepped in to take the pack.

  “You were caught out in the Reclamation Fields.” The Abuelo’s voice was croaky, his creased face pulled down in reproach. “For what purpose?”

  When I didn’t answer, he yanked open my pack and dumped its contents on the ground. A jug of water. A knife. And, of course, the book, the camera, the necklace.

  My eyes flicked to the crowd. And there were Lotus and Tasch—not five meters from the front of the stage—their eyes unbelieving as they stared at the objects. As if our mother herself was sprawled there. Rage won out on Lotus’s face, while Tasch’s was raw with grief. And seeing the pain returned there, I wished I could undo every moment of this horrible day. I could only hope my sisters’ shock would keep them silent. And safe.

  The fact that my mother had been fascinated with the vestiges of the ancient Colony had been a badly kept secret. But only my sisters knew that our mother’s fixation had gone far beyond giving us blasphemous names. Even Sarika, her best friend, had no idea that our mother had risked exile, smuggling these Finds back into Pleiades with her. One for each of her daughters—naming gifts, she’d called them.

  “I charge you with the theft and hoarding of objects found beneath the sandline,” the Abuelo said. “These Finds are the sins of our ancestors. Now you have made them your sins. And our sins as well.”

  The rest of the Abuelos nodded their heads solemnly, their wide robes swaying with the movement. Whispers snatched up the accusation and carried it through the audience.

  He asked the next question in a rasping bark. “What do you say to this charge?”

  Slowly, I picked up the book from where it’d fallen. There was no winning this fight. There was no other verdict—I knew the consequences if I got caught. And yet, I heard the word come out of my mouth before I even thought it.

  “How?”

  “What did you say?” The old man loomed over me; he used to be a fighter and I could see the sinews of muscle tensed through his ceremonial sleeves. I wondered if he’d hit me. I wondered if I’d hit him back before the guards got to me.

  “How is this a sin? It’s a storybook. It holds nothing but tales of princes and dragons.” I heard my mother’s words coming out of me. Years of whispered conversations. Of hushed arguments with my father. “And this thing”—I pointed at the camera—“used to take pictures. And that”—I gestured to the necklace—“was a trinket someone wore. How are they sins?”

  “You know Technology is not a sin in itself.” The Abuelo’s voice took on a sanctimonious tone, somewhere between reverence and indignation. “But when the Colonists used their technology to turn their back on Earth . . . to place themselves among the gods . . . that sin summoned the wrath of the Almighty. In every way, we are the children of that sin. And our planet is the vessel which holds it.”

  The Abuelo was relishing his moment. He spread his arms wide—a poor imitation of Sarika—embracing the rapt attention of his Citizens. “You do not see the danger in these trinkets, as you call them, because you are young and you only see the dreams of what could be. That is why the survivors made the law absolute.”

  The Abuela placed a tempering hand on his arm, eager for a turn of her own. “It is not entirely the girl’s fault.” Her face was all sympathy and sorrow, but as she stepped toward me, her eyes were full of a spiteful joy. “Your mother had this sickness in her heart too. How else do you explain being born . . . Corrupted.”

  The Abuela’s eyes lingered dramatically on my six-fingered hands, but my eyes were already looking to my sisters. The two of them were trying to fight their way up onto the stage, their faces masks of fury. I saw now that the Abuelos were toying with us. The elders had long suspected my mother’s sins went beyond outspoken words. As soon as they’d seen what was in my bag, they’d guessed rightly that she was the one who had stolen these things—but they had no proof.

  Now they were baiting my sisters and me, hoping that in our passion to defend our mother, we’d admit her crime. And then her sin would be inherited by all her children. Why punish one sister when you can punish all three?

  The bigger guard grabbed Tasch and Lotus. I don’t know if he was planning to help or hinder their path to the stage. Either way, it was over. The Abuelos would question my sisters and they would slip. In my attempt to protect them, I had condemned us all.

  Then, suddenly, Sarika was down there among them. A word from her and the guard was gone. Another word and Taschen and Lotus went silent.

  I met my sister’s eyes without fear. Without anger. But I couldn’t keep out the sadness. And I shook my head just the tiniest bit. Forbidding them to come to my defense. To our mother’s defense. The Abuelos had hated our family—our strange names, my Corruption, our mother’s obsession with what was forbidden—for as long as I could remember. We would not let that hate destroy us.

  Finally, seeing that we were not going to give her the family confession she craved, the Abuela grabbed me by the hair. With one great yank, she pulled me down to my knees. Then she picked up my knife. She couldn’t implicate my mother or my sisters, but she still had me.

  “You have sullied your hands and your heart for the love of these . . . th
ese trinkets. For your worship of the corrupt. You have sullied all of us.” Her eyes shone with satisfaction—the only hard thing in her round, sagging face. Then she raised the knife and brought it down on the coil of hair she was still holding. Hacking it off with brutal slashes. “You will be exiled to Tierra Muerta for the remainder of your life.”

  Then, with all of Pleiades watching, she performed the ritual, shaving my entire head. The blade scraped at my scalp, leaving it raw and red. I kept my eyes fixed on the ground—lengths of straight black hair falling around me, drifting like crow’s feathers.

  When my humiliation was complete, the guards dragged me to my feet. I held my sisters’ eyes, realizing this was the last time I would see them. We’d never been separated—not for a night. And I didn’t even know how to begin processing the idea, because in truth I didn’t fully understand where I ended and they began. We slept, legs overlapping, elbows digging into ribs. We ate in a constant flurry of unnoticed, automatic trades. Removing unwanted carrots from each other’s plates, exchanging bread crusts for centers. We drank from each other’s cups and ran outside in whoever’s shoes were handy and made a shield with our bodies when one of us cried.

  How can you be exiled from yourself?

  I don’t know if I was crying, but I watched tears stream down Tasch’s face. Red blotches appeared on Lotus’s cheeks as the Abuelo made a show of placing the forbidden gifts back inside my pack. Walking to the edge of the stage, he opened the jug of water. He took a drink, then poured half of it out on the thirsty sand—the sin of wasted water underscoring the sin of my crimes. Finally, he put the half-empty jug and my knife back inside the pack.

  “Take your sins and your Corruption.” The Abuela took the pack from him and handed it to me. I forced myself to look away from Tasch and Lotus as I slung the bag over my shoulder. Knowing that time was already eroding their faces from my memories. “Go through that gate and never return. You are considered Indigno for the rest of your days. May they be thirsty ones. May they be few.”