Lotus and Thorn

by Sara Wilson Etienne

  “Earth.” The word came out hushed, but he didn’t seem happy about it.

  I spotted another knob and fished it out. “I thought if we could get the radio working—”

  “No.” Alejo sounded angry.

  Lotus wasn’t exactly overflowing with enthusiasm either. “But we can’t exactly ignore it, can we? If Earth is out there, we can’t just pretend we never found this.”

  “Why not?” Alejo said.

  Their reactions confused me. “But this is what all the Rememberings talk about.”

  “Exactly. It’s exactly like one of Sarika’s stories. And people like us”—Alejo spread his hands out, including the whole camp in his assessment—“never fare too well in those, do we?” He got to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have some burned-out bulbs to change.” He gave us a faux bow, making light, but his face was deep in thought as he left.

  “And you?” I half expected Lotus to follow him.

  But Lotus just frowned as she started sorting through the pile—laying out more components on the dirt. “I’ll help. But mostly ’cause I can’t get Mom’s voice out of my head.” Then she gave a sad smile. “She’d love this, you know?”

  It was true, and it made me smile too. Lotus and I weren’t the enthusiastic team I’d anticipated, but it didn’t matter.

  “Okay, then. We’ll have to figure out what was attached to what and splice them all back together. Find out how rough the trip was on them. And we’ll obviously need a power source.”

  The equipment was mostly intact, but the storm had done some damage. The day slipped away as we cleaned off exposed wires and corroded electrical contacts, clearing sand out of everything as we went. And it was so easy between us, chatting one minute, falling silent when one of us was concentrating, passing tools back and forth without asking. It was a way of being I’d forgotten even existed.

  Once everything looked right, we wired and rewired the different components together, trying to get the right combination. I had no idea if the descrambler Edison had talked about was something inside the radio itself or a different piece altogether. Or what it even looked like. So we had to try everything.

  It was so good being with Lotus again. After our parents died and Marisol left, my sisters and I had gone to work for Sarika—cooking up endless and varied batches of mezcal and pulque. Lotus had a keen mind for experimentation and I was good at tracking what we’d already tried and with what results. But Tasch was the one who always saw the big picture—and the space where she should’ve been grew more pronounced the further we got.

  Finally, we got the radio’s power lights to come on, but nothing came out of the speakers. Then, after a little tweaking, we managed to get weak static. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get a better signal.

  “Any ideas?” I leaned back on my elbows. The dirt under me was cool in the stuffy workshop.

  “Well, I know what Tasch would say.” Lotus looked at me and together we recited, “Fresh air is food for the brain!”

  Then I remembered Edison’s intercom—him climbing up to the top of the dune to get a signal. “Of course! That’s exactly what we need.”

  The sun was straight overhead by the time we got everything set up again at the top of the camp. But once we did, the static was much louder. But it was still static.

  “Hello? Hello?” I tried out the microphone as I punched various buttons. “Crap.”

  “Maybe it’s time to take a break. There’s no shade up here and we need lunch.”

  I nodded, peering inside the radio with my flashlight. “You go on, I’m just going to see if any connectors came loose. If I can get it working, I could find that signal again. Can you imagine it? Us? Finding a way home?”

  “Leica, I’m already home.” Her voice was careful. “Don’t you see? All those years spent making up stories about another world. This is that world. This is our chance to make Gabriel beautiful and green.”

  She reached out and turned off my flashlight, waiting till I met her eyes. “You could find a hundred Earths and the Abuelos would still call you Corrupted.” Lotus squeezed my hand. “But not here. This can be your home too . . . if you want it.”

  I blinked hard. I shouldn’t have been surprised Lotus saw through me. And I wanted to believe her—to believe in the Indignos’ dream. I wanted to say something like our side and mean it.

  I wasn’t ready to give up on Earth. But Lotus was right. And for now, I reached out and switched off the radio.

  CHAPTER 11

  AS WE PUT the radio away in the shed, I noticed the empty field was now filled with people working. I recognized the green glossy leaves on the tiny saplings they were planting. “Lime trees? Where did you get those?”

  “I brought them with me,” said a voice as familiar to me as my mother’s.

  I turned and there was Sarika. It seemed impossible that she was standing in front of me. And in the Indigno camp, of all places. I’d dreamed of and dreaded this moment, this moment I never thought I’d get—my chance to explain myself to Sarika. I’d failed her, even more than I’d failed Tasch and Lotus. I would never forget her face when the Abuelos pulled the naming gifts out of my pack in front of all of Pleiades—like I’d physically hit her. One more daughter who’d betrayed her.

  Now that the moment was here, my mouth was dry—empty of words. Sarika stared at me hard, her hair falling around her like a silvery-black curtain. Her nose cut a sharp line across her strong, weathered face. Then she opened her arms to me and I let myself collapse into them. As they wrapped tight around me, I disintegrated.

  “I was just trying to protect them.” My voice was muffled against her shoulder. “I was just trying to keep Tasch and Lotus safe.”

  “I know you were.” Sarika soothed my back with her hand. “You did well. You were brave and you survived.”

  I gripped her tighter, the horrors of my exile pushing out of me in a primal sob. “I thought I’d die . . . without . . . without getting to say it.” I forced myself to meet her eyes as I said the words that’d been heavy in my chest for so long. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are.” And I was amazed to see understanding in Sarika’s stern eyes. “I blame myself for not being vigilant. For not seeing what was right there in front of me.” And for the barest fraction of a second, Sarika’s eyes flicked down to my hands.

  It was so quick, it was easy to believe I’d imagined it. And the next second she was wiping away the tears that were still streaming down my cheeks. Then Sarika held me at arm’s length. “It’s okay. I forgive you. You’re safe with us now.”

  I nodded, feeling as if a slideboard harness had suddenly been cut from my shoulders. With Lotus, I’d shared my grief, but Sarika had lifted it from me, even if it was just for this moment. But I discovered something else was left behind—along with relief, there was a tiny grain of anger that I didn’t understand. I took a shaky breath, pulling myself together.

  Only then did the incongruity of Sarika’s presence here hit me. “You’re the last person I expected to see with the Indignos.”

  “Well, I guess that makes you the second-to-last, then.” Sarika actually laughed, the lines clearing from her face. I suddenly had a flash of what she and my mom must have looked like, running around together as girls. “I didn’t dare believe Jaesun when I got here this afternoon. You, safe and sound and here with us? It felt like a miracle.” And she said the word with the gravity of scripture, the illusion of youth disappearing.

  And there was that incongruity again. “I’d think all of this was against everything you believe in.”

  “Maybe if I show you what we’re making here, you’ll understand.” Sarika put her arm around me and together we walked through the fields. There weren’t just lime trees being planted, but olives and pecans as well. This grove wouldn’t bear fruit for at least five years. These people were planning on
staying.

  Sarika led me to a cornfield. Only when we were well out of earshot did she give me a real answer to my question. “God’s work is not always how you imagine it. The Abuelos have gone astray—become too dependent on the Curadores—and so my path has strayed as well. Sometimes the righteous must walk among their enemies. Remember that, Leica.”

  I squinted down the narrow corridor of corn—who were Sarika’s enemies? The Abuelos? The Indignos? The Curadores? But I knew better than to ask.

  Once when I was little, I made the mistake of asking Sarika if the Remembering stories were true. She sat me in her lap and said, “Truth is like the agave . . . someone else can plant a cutting, but if you want it to take root, you have to make room for it inside yourself. Even so, it can stay there, small and forgotten for years. Then one day something will happen, and it will shoot up, seven meters into the sky, and give you flowers.”

  So now I asked a simple question instead. One I might get an answer to. “You said you brought the saplings with you. From where? Is there a part of the camp I haven’t seen?”

  “You misunderstand. I still live in Pleiades. There’s certain advantages to being head brewer. I can journey into the desert to find herbs or harvest agave. It makes me the perfect inside man. Or woman, rather. Still, I usually send supplies and news with defecting Citizens . . . three days across Tierra Muerta is no easy task for someone at my age. But it’s the height of planting season now, and the saplings are too valuable to trust with anyone else.”

  “So you are how people find this place.”

  “Yes. At the moment, the Indignos and I want the same thing—to be independent from the Curadores’ technology. That’s enough for now.”

  We walked in silence. Here and there some of the stalks had turned a nasty shade of brown. “What happened to them?”

  “Some kind of blight. It’s happened in the other fields as well. Whole sections just withering and dying. We’re adjusting the water levels and compost, but so far it hasn’t made a difference. We’ll find an answer, though.” Sarika touched the crinkly leaves. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  Time. That was the difference between the Indignos and the rest of Pleiades. Time was not a series of days spent digging for atonement in a hot desert. Time was a building block that created a new future. And it was a tantalizing idea.

  • • •

  I wandered through the uninhabited middle layers of camp as the sun set that night. My headlamp lit up small rooms—sinks, beds, desks all in their own spots. I flipped light switches that didn’t work. Investigated computer panels installed in some of the walls. Happily, I hadn’t run into any dead occupants so far.

  As a scout I’d often explored ruins, but I’d always been dismantling them. No one had ever asked me to put things back together again. And the biggest question was what to do first.

  Down below, Indignos were unscrewing the caps from metal cylinders sticking out of the ground. Lotus had told me about the hydrants when she explained why all the fields were planted on the lowest layer of the camp.

  I hadn’t understood what she was talking about, but now I saw for myself. As the cap came off, water gushed out, flooding across the fields. Aside from storms, it was more water than I’d seen in my entire life—put together. The ground in the grove had been ingeniously slanted so it collected in the middle, pooling around the water-hungry pecans. I stood there in the last of the light, looking down on the water flowing through the trees. Turning the sandy dirt a dark blue. And eventually, the land green.

  In that moment, I caught a glimmer. Not of the scrawny twigs or the sandy field. But of tall trees giving shade and food. Children climbing in the thick branches. A world we’d made ourselves.

  Awwrawk!

  The noise caught my attention and I spotted turquoise eyes glowing in the shadows of a decaying house.

  “How in the world did you find me? I barely know where I am myself,” I whispered. I took a step closer, more fascinated than afraid as I looked into the bird’s strange eyes illuminating its round face. It ruffled its feathers, almost like a nervous twitch.

  I reached out a hand. “I won’t hurt you.”

  But the bird twitched again, cocking its head like it was listening. Then, with another soft awwrawk, it took off. Becoming a silhouette against the evening sky. A second later, angry voices reached my ears as well. Lotus and Alejo—mid-argument.

  They were coming up the stairs from the workshop and Alejo’s voice rose loud enough that I could hear what he was saying. “You know as well as I do she shouldn’t be here.”

  Then Lotus. “But we need her. There’s no getting around that.” Her voice was light but careful—an offhand tone I’d heard Tasch use a thousand times when she was trying to defuse an argument between Lotus and me.

  But it didn’t help. Alejo’s words were full of venom when he said, “It’s a deal with the devil. We’re gonna regret we ever brought her here.”

  I switched off my light and stepped into the doorway of a room as they came up the stairs past me. But they were too engrossed in their fight to notice me anyway.

  There was a warning in Lotus’s reply. “Sarika is not the devil. She’s a true believer. Our goals are the same—to break away from the Curadores. To do that, we need to find a way to feed ourselves, figure out what’s wrong with the crops, keep recruiting people from the inside. We can sort out differences later.”

  “I’m just afraid later might be too late.” Alejo’s voice faded as they made their way up to the fire.

  And I was left alone with my thoughts. Maybe making a new world wasn’t as easy as splicing wires and planting seeds. Even if the Citizens managed to feed themselves in this barren desert—managed to grow themselves a forest of lime trees—the real question would still be unanswered.

  Who was going to rule this new world?

  CHAPTER 12

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jaesun was back for more. This time as we sparred, we fell into an easy rhythm. Punch and parry. Kick and dodge. The pup jumped around us, yipping, like a referee. It felt good to have a capable training partner—almost like having my dad back. And after yesterday, there was no pressure to prove myself.

  “I have to patrol this morning. Would you like to join me? A few of the other guards are curious about you.”

  I immediately went on the defensive and it must have shown on my face.

  “Let’s just say a couple of folks witnessed our fight yesterday and saw . . .”

  “Me kick your ass?” I couldn’t help grinning.

  “Saw your demonstration of skill,” Jaesun finished, answering my smile. “It made you a popular girl yesterday.”

  “In that case . . .” I paused to scratch the pup’s ears. Her tail thumped on the packed mud, sending up a cloud of dust. “I’d like that.”

  • • •

  At breakfast, I tried to choke down the nettle tea Lotus gave me, but I was grateful when Jaesun interrupted us.

  “You ready?”

  “Let me grab my pack.”

  “You taking her on patrol? Is that safe?” Lotus sounded alarmed.

  “No more so than any other day,” Jaesun said. “Don’t worry, I promise to take good care of your sister.”

  But Lotus looked uneasy. And I understood. We were still practicing at being sisters again. We might have to let each other out of our sight, but we didn’t have to like it.

  Jaesun and I climbed out of the Indigno camp in silence—the pup charged ahead, leading the way. Jaesun whistled up toward the mountains before following.

  “Always smart to let them know we’re coming.” Jaesun’s shrill whistle was returned and we headed up a gritty trail. It helped knowing there were guards up there, but going into the mountains went against every survival instinct I had. “Lotus told me about your radio. And the message from Earth.”

  Of cour
se she had. I suppose there were no secrets in a place like the Indigno camp. After Lotus’s reaction, not to mention Alejo’s, I knew this was my chance to make my case about why the radio was so important. “Not just a message, voices. People. We managed to get the power working, and if I can get the signal back, then just think about it! We can contact Earth! They can help us.” I glanced at Jaesun, but his eyes were on the steep path that zigzagged back and forth, slowly easing us up the mountain.

  Finally, he looked at me. “Well, you’re welcome to try keep trying. But don’t be disappointed if no one around here is very excited by the idea of a miraculous rescue.”

  I kept my eyes on him; he seemed to be leading up to something.

  “I was a loyal Citizen once—a digger in the Reclamation Fields. I believed the Rememberings and taught them to my children. Then three years ago, Red Death came to claim them. My wife had already died in childbirth and I was left completely alone in the world. And still I believed.

  “But the grief wouldn’t lift, and so I went to talk to the Abuelos. They told me that God had punished us for our arrogance. That our people must try harder. That we must dig deeper. Cleanse the Fields.

  “What kind of God punishes children for the world they were born into? That was the day I stopped believing.”

  I didn’t say anything. I knew the pain of loss. Of doubt. The ache in my chest was from more than the steep climb.

  “Everyone here’s got a story like mine. They all have different reasons for coming, but this camp works because we all see the same vision . . . a place where we make our own way. The people of this planet are standing on our own feet for the first time in five hundred years. We rescued ourselves. The last thing the Indignos want is someone else showing up and telling them what to do. No. Earth turned its back on us a long time ago.”

  We reached the top of the trail and Jaesun stopped, leaning against a rock. Taking a drink from his water jug.

  You could see the whole camp from here, spread out below us. People busy shoring up the stretch of tarp-covered buildings. Moving in and out of the rows of corn. Planting new fields. I suppose Jaesun hoped this view would inspire me—but after all this time in Tierra Muerta, all I felt was exposed, standing on the steep mountainside. Even with the guards, even if wild animals weren’t carriers for Red Death, I was still uncomfortable being so out in the open.