The itchiness intensified. One moody stumbled and fell, and the two moodies next to her tried to make up for it by absorbing the itchiness inside them, until one collapsed onto the ground and was almost injured. The other kept the lines intact, drawing more and more of the tingling itch, enabling the elementalist cops to create whirlwinds of earth and fire. Gaia took advantage of the moody’s tumble and amplified the itchiness Lee had created. I could anticipate her cries of joy a few minutes later.
The airheads on Lee’s side dissipated the whirlwinds, and the splashers launched a concentrated barrage of hail on the cops.
The moody cops prevented Gaia’s access to them. She couldn’t penetrate the barrier they erected, and after a few moments she gave a shout and one of the splashers on our side raised a ball of ice into the air, the symbol of surrender.
The battle was over. I looked at Sherry. “They’re quick learners.”
“Not quick enough. They broke up their lines. There were four breaches assassins could infiltrate through.” Sherry waved over an airhead from our side. He stopped a few steps from us. Sherry got up and started shouting. The airhead amplified her voice so that everyone could hear. She declared a ten-minute break, followed by a rematch.
During the break, Lee and I took advantage of the wall Daphne had pointed at earlier. When we returned, Daphne rolled her eyes before going back to discussing humor in children’s TV shows with Sherry. Gaia sent me wonderment and excitement. She probably wanted to tell me more about what happened on the battlefield, as if I hadn’t witnessed it myself. Lee was following the trail of emotions and looked at Gaia, who was standing across the lot.
“Tell your admirer you’re taken.”
“I think she picked up on that all by herself.” I kissed him. Gaia sent me an embarrassed wave. I sent her back an apology.
During our short absence, the two groups had mingled and it was difficult to tell the cops from the civilians. I heard Aurora launch into one of her “accept, understand and support” speeches. This time she was lecturing the cops about the importance of understanding the Sons of Simeon, of accepting their motives and working to integrate them into society. When one of the cops remarked that it was hard to accept murder as a legitimate form of resistance, Aurora said, “Think how desperate someone has to be to go to such extremes. You understand? We mustn’t respond with violence. We have to understand and contain their pain and show them a different method of coping.”
I was about to intervene when Daphne suddenly turned her gaze to someone limping towards us.
“Is that Oleander?” Lee asked.
Daphne rushed to him with me in tow.
She wrapped her arm around him, letting him support his weight against her. “What are you doing here? You need to be resting!”
Oleander kissed her curls. “What I need is to be with you.”
A victorious wave surged from Gaia’s direction. So that was the surprise they’d been planning.
Despite her anguish, Daphne smiled. Oleander looked at me. “And how are you?”
I shrugged. “Could be worse.”
Lee caught up with us and stood behind me. He wrapped his arms around me, the smell of his sweat engulfing me. We stood there, two couples staring at each other.
Oleander straightened up a little, and Lee winced when the pain in Oleander’s leg radiated to both of us. “So what’s going on here?”
Lee smiled. “They’re letting me make the cops high.”
Oleander smiled back. “Sounds great. What are you giving them?”
Lee pointed his thumb at Sherry. “Whatever the boss tells me to.”
Oleander looked past Lee’s shoulder. “You think she’d let me join?”
“No,” Daphne said sharply. “You have to rest, you can’t be running around like this when you’re so…”
He looked at her, his pain reflecting in his smile. The deep pain of an imminent parting. “I just want to be with you.”
“I can totally relate,” Lee said, pulling me tighter into his embrace.
Daphne bit her lip. “Fine, but not on the ground with us.” She pointed to the spot where Sherry and I had been sitting earlier. “You’re with Reed. Far from the rest. Safe.”
When Daphne helped Oleander trudge across the lot, Gaia hopped towards me with Guy. “Did you see? Did you see? It worked, we did it!”
I sent her a wave of genuine admiration. “I can’t believe you managed to hide it from Daphne.”
Guy looked puffed up with pride. “We did it together.”
“Excellent work.” I patted his shoulder. “Daphne’s happy.”
“Did what together?” Lee asked, shifting his gaze between us.
Gaia launched into one of her incessant rambles. Apparently Guy had focused on timelines in which Oleander wasn’t with us in order to draw Daphne’s attention, and Gaia tried to distract Daphne while Guy sent Oleander a text asking when was the most convenient time for him to arrive. Looking quite lost in her babble, Lee smiled politely and paid the successful duo a few compliments of his own.
“Round three!” Sherry called out, using the airhead as a megaphone.
The battle resumed, and I took my seat between Sherry and Oleander. He stared intently at the field and didn’t comment when I explained to Sherry what Lee was doing, or what I sensed from her officers. Every so often Sherry stopped the fight and gave Lee more instructions. The battle became more complex, entangled by conflicting orders, and Sherry kept halting them whenever she detected a breach. I mainly followed the teenagers. They were clearly getting tired, but were so full of good intentions that you couldn’t get mad at them. The cops tried to avoid hurting them, creating small breaches in their force, which Lee’s side failed to take advantage of.
After the fifth round ended, Sherry stood up. “I can’t take it anymore,” she grumbled. “They’re completely ignoring everything I told them to do,” she said and walked away.
I wondered whether I had enough time to steal a few minutes with Lee.
“Not really,” Oleander said. “She’ll be back in two minutes.”
“You’re reading me, and what’s worse, you’re reading a cop.”
“What are they going to do, execute me?” He wasn’t feeling angry or lost. He was feeling whole, having come to accept his fate.
I searched for the right words to say. “How weird is it, knowing you’re about to die without even being sick, huh?”
Oleander nodded. “I was always sure I’d go in a mountain climbing accident or something. The last thing I see is the earth coming closer and I can hear people shouting.” Oleander touched his leg. I could feel the bandage under his pants. “But I guess that’s not it.”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
Oleander nodded. “Sure.”
“How much do you see?”
“I can see more details the closer we get to it.” He turned to me. “You want me to look and tell you how it ends for you? I’m close enough to Daphne to see her timelines.”
I let out a short chuckle. “What I really want is to crawl into bed and never get out. I want everything to be over and done with.” I looked at Sherry, furious at her cops. “I have no idea how you two can handle it. For real.”
“Remember Silman? The guy who set himself on fire during the welfare protest?”
“Sure,” I answered quickly. It was the summer when we were sure change was finally coming. That this time they were really going to listen to us.
“In some timelines they actually do get him a heater like he asked for before the protest started. A small one, and his blanket catches fire during the night. He always dies in a fire. He simply chose the timeline in which his death had the most impact.”
Oleander straightened his leg. I recoiled when the pain shot through me.
“Sorry,” he said, stopping mid-movement. “I didn’t take anything before I left the house because I thought I’d be able to handle it.”
“It’s OK. Want me to ta
ke some of your pain and pass it onto Sherry’s people? I’ve got permission to maneuver cops.”
He started smiling. “Yes. Enough so I can walk.”
“And then you and Daphne will bail on me?”
He chuckled. “We’ll bail on this together. Want to go to the amusement park? I heard they give great discounts to dying people.”
Before I could think of a smart reply, Sherry turned to us and walked back up the hill, her rage blocking our attempts to carry on with the conversation.
She waved her hand, and the battle resumed.
This time Lee made each one of the cops feel something different. It was a complex hallucination, and it took me some time to describe it in detail to Sherry. She drummed her fingers on her knee.
“Come on, figure it out,” she mumbled to herself, her tension radiating to me and Oleander.
Maybe we really could go to the amusement park? Matthew could probably get us a wheelchair. I could imagine Lee and me pushing Oleander along the paths. And Daphne would be happy.
The pyros aimed at the ground in the middle of the circle of cops and set it on fire, and the cops’ splashers struck back. Hail formed in the middle of Lee’s side. I could feel the chill seeping into my clothes.
“I’d love to be there right now,” Oleander mumbled, his leg sweating inside the bandages.
“Me too,” I whispered back.
“Quiet,” Sherry scolded us, pointing at Lee. “What’s he doing now?”
“He’s continuing to drown the–” I started to say, when a flame burst out inside our side of the lot.
“Yes!” Sherry exclaimed excitedly.
I felt the pyros struggling to extinguish the fire, pushing the teens back in order to shield them. Our damuses, led by Daphne, protected them. Everyone was responding too slowly, starting to deplete after such prolonged fighting. The pebbles joined forces with the splashers and created little lakes of mud under the cops’ feet. Lee bolstered the hallucination he had inspired in them earlier, and they slipped. I followed the twists and turns of their emotions. Gaia was maneuvering them, adding some gentleness into the motion. She was inexperienced, but knew enough to support Lee’s efforts.
I sent her a small wave of satisfaction. She was too focused to respond, but I felt the wave seeping into her. She’d understand later…
Guy screamed. A sharp pain cut through me. I couldn’t feel Gaia anymore.
I froze, and after a moment ran across the lot faster than Sherry. Someone had put out the fire that was burning in the middle of our side of the field. I heard people yelling, talking, someone calling out for help. I pushed people out of my way, I didn’t care if they were cops or not.
Guy was crouching in the middle of a circle of people, Gaia in his arms. An icicle was sticking out of her stomach, darkening from the blood pouring out of her. She was unconscious.
“I didn’t… I…” Tears were running down Guy’s cheeks.
One of the cops standing next to us had turned completely pale. “I… I thought she was protected. I didn’t even see her.”
I put my hand on her chest. She was still breathing. What did Matthew say? What had he done after Oleander was injured?
“Pyros.” I looked up. “I need pyros!”
I called Matthew’s instructions to mind: pyros to cauterize the wound, splashers to sanitize it, then call for help. I didn’t remove my hand from Gaia’s chest. Every breath she took was a small victory. Every trickle of blood a failure.
“Choose the present in which she makes it,” I heard myself say.
I sounded composed. Confident. Nothing like the frenzied clusters of fear I actually felt. I pretended I was Matthew, and sealed my expression. Like Lee. Masking my emotions.
Lee.
I put out my feelers and tapped into him. He was blurry, trying to rid himself of all remnants of the concoctions he had taken.
I withdrew it all from him and deposited it in Gaia. To alleviate her pain. He quickly sobered up, and I felt the lightheadedness overwhelming him. Dizziness and nausea, and early traces of the headache that would attack him full on in a few hours. Not my problem. I blocked him out.
“It’s going to be OK,” I said to Guy, my expression conveying nothing but compassion and assurance. “It’ll all be OK.”
Three pyros were crouching beside me. I passed on the instructions as I remembered them. One of the pyros was from my Yoyo group. Keep my expression composed. Look confident. I’m still their counselor. The splashers sanitized the wound, the pyros cauterized it. I trusted Daphne to help Guy choose the present in which Gaia survived. She wasn’t near us, but she was good. The best damus I knew. She’d pull it off.
Gaia’s chest rose with breath.
The icicle slowly melted thanks, in part, to the pyros’ cauterization and the splashers’ efforts. Guy hugged Gaia so tightly I could feel the tension in his biceps.
She exhaled.
The residues of Lee’s blurriness spread inside her. I could feel her pain, followed by silence.
“No,” I whispered.
And she ceased to be.
36
After Daphne got stuck in traffic, and mumbled “Sorry,” and started crying behind the steering wheel; after I let Lee fog up my mind, stopping just before I’d no longer be able to stand; after Sherry arrived in official uniform and approached the family, and I heard her speaking but couldn’t make sense of her words, and hugging Guy at length; after the look on Gaia’s parents’ faces when her mother told me, “She thought the world of you,” and her father said, “She was grateful for everything you taught her,” and her brother, a ten-year-old in a stiff suit, shook my hand…
After the shrouded body and the hole in the ground and the quiet murmurs and the shovels; and after I couldn’t stop trying to poke into her, to feel her, and no one sent me a wave of amusement with unrefined edges of boredom, or called me a geezer or popped pink bubblegum in my face…
After all that we stood in the parking lot. Sherry’s gaze followed the line of cars forming at the exit. “We can go to the shiva.”
Matthew was on call, and I had no doubt that if he had been here Sherry would have leaned on him like I clung to Lee. All her arguments about maintaining boundaries and the need to devote herself to the cause would have gone up in smoke had he been here right now.
“No,” Daphne said with a shaky voice. “I’m not… in her house, it’s…” Her voice trailed off. We all understood. Gaia’s house, where her life had unfolded, would be full of her reflections.
Daphne’s phone rang and she picked up. “Oleander’s suggesting we meet at the beach. He’ll bring food and drinks and meet us there.”
“How will he carry it all?” Sherry’s voice was reserved. Daphne listened to Oleander for a moment and then turned back to us and said, “Ivy will bring it. He says he’d love to come, even though he didn’t know…” her voice choked. “Because it’s important to him to support us, and he…”
Sherry raised her hand and looked at me. “You want to go to the beach?”
I wanted to take some of Lee’s concoctions, and make the thoughts go away until it stopped hurting. “OK.”
Daphne settled the specifics with Oleander and hung up. We walked to the car, and Sherry stepped in front of Daphne and snatched the keys out of her hand. Daphne didn’t even protest.
It was hot, and the breeze from the shore wasn’t enough to dry the sweat on my back. It wasn’t yet the time of day when the sea worked its charm. There were people on the beach, but no one came near the circle around Oleander and Ivy. I could picture him saying, “Why do you think you’ve got two damuses here?” if I’d asked how they managed to pull it off.
Ivy stood up once we approached. She looked at me. “I’m sorry, I know how much…”
“Enough,” Daphne said, her voice soaked with tears. “Not now.”
Ivy seemed as though she was about to tell me something, but instead she just said, “You’ll give Oleander a ride home?”
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“Sure,” Sherry said, and Ivy walked away without looking back.
We sat down. Oleander and Daphne talked, and Sherry interjected a remark every now and then, and all I could think about was the tight lump in my throat, and why we didn’t just go home, and how everyone managed to talk to one another and seem interested, and I wanted to scream, and cry, and instead I stared silently at the sea. Three children were burying a jellyfish with sand, and a woman behind us was yelling at a kid to finish his grapes, and someone was swearing and laughing at the same time.
Lee touched my hand. I had no doubt that if I asked him to, he’d maneuver me more, but I could feel his pain exacerbating. Soon he wouldn’t be able to do anything. He had worked harder than all of us in the circle yesterday.
It was only yesterday.
I sniffled, and Lee tugged me closer to him, and I couldn’t let the tears out and couldn’t push the aching lump deeper down my throat, and the woman behind us yelled at the boy not to throw his grapes in the sand.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Daphne said with a cracked voice. “I don’t understand how it happened.”
Sherry opened her mouth and closed it without saying a word. Her hair was disheveled, and she looked paler than ever. Not just because of the formal uniform. She seemed… hollowed.
Oleander stroked Daphne’s hand, but she didn’t lean into him. She remained stiff in her spot, staring into the horizon. “I don’t understand how it happened,” she whispered to herself.
“Stop looking over there.” Oleander’s voice was the only one that didn’t sound strained with tears. “Nothing good can come out of–”
“Guy was right there next to her. Guy was protecting her.” Daphne blinked, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. “I specifically remember making sure Guy was near her, and I told him–”
“Enough, honey, enough.” Oleander caressed Daphne’s shoulders, her shirt glued to her lower back.
The Heart of the Circle Page 33
