“You want fifteen thousand a piece?” she burst out, not bothering to hide her indignation. “That’s more than the richest undersider in Bracken could afford.”
“You’d be surprised,” the merchant gave her a knowing look. He was short and had greasy hair that reminded her of Brit, though this man was slightly better looking. Slightly.
“Maybe dishonest people have money like that to throw around,” she told him, raising her voice. “But I’m not one of them.”
“You are welcome to wait until the market opens to see if you can get a better price,” the man replied, eyeing her confidently.
“My father is dying,” she blurted out in frustration. She knew she shouldn’t have said it, that the merchant would only use it against her, but she couldn’t help herself.
“All the more reason to pay the price I’m asking,” the merchant crowed. “You can’t put a price on the life of a loved one.”
Sun li slammed her fist on the merchant’s counter. This man was being ridiculous.
“You know, I’m a blade,” she told him. The merchant took a step back, his eyes darting to the hulking auger guarding the entrance to the shop. He had a locus pulser in place of one of his eyes and a large metallic forearm that looked like a massive sewage pipe.
“I’m not trying to threaten you,” she reassured him. “I was just wondering if I could offer my services in lieu of part of the payment.”
The man eyed her with silent suspicion. Then, for some reason his expression softened.
“Wait. You’re Zhu’s girl aren’t you? I didn’t recognize you at first. The light is so bad in here and my eyesight is awful.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. In an instant his demeanor changed. “Is he really that sick?”
“He won’t make it past today if I don’t get him these flowers.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, looking her in the eye. “Zhu saved me from a gang of undersiders a few years ago and refused to take payment of any kind. If I had known you were his daughter, I would not have tried to gouge you like that. I’ll give you the entire lot for five thousand and we’ll consider the debt paid. How does that sound?”
“Really? You would do that?” Sun li gushed. She felt like hugging him, but she restrained herself.
“Don’t tell anyone I cut you a deal, though,” he told her. “It’s bad for business.”
Sun li nodded, struggling to contain her joy. But try as she might, she could not keep the corners of her mouth from inching upwards.
The man handed her the precious flowers and she gave him five large orange shards in return.
“Tell him Pato says hello if he pulls through,” the old merchant said.
“I will, sir,” she promised. “Bless you.” She kissed him on the cheek in spite of herself and raced out of the shop as fast as she could. Considering her skills at negotiating, that had gone better than she could have possibly hoped.
* * *
Sun li deposited the rainbow petals into the bowl of water and wiped off her hands over it just to be sure. She wanted her father to have every last mote of pollen from these precious flowers.
Li li came up beside her.
“He’s asking for you,” she said.
Sun li had been so caught up in mixing the cure that she must not have heard her father’s voice. She left the bowl and was at his side a moment later.
“Yes, father?” she said.
“You’ve done well,” he whispered, his voice sounding like rustling paper. “But tell me, did you keep the Code?”
Sun li could have bent the truth or said that for the most part she had done so, or at least tried to. But she knew that to say such things would have been wrong.
“No,” she said, sighing. “I let my anger take hold of me. There was a man who wronged me and I—I tried to kill him, Father.”
Zhu’s face tightened and his eyes brimmed with sadness. He looked at her like that for the longest time until she did not know if she could bear it. Then at last he spoke.
“‘Life does not consist in the mere beating of your heart,’” he said softly, quoting the Code, “‘but in the manner of your living. Live well or you do not live at all.’”
She bowed her head respectfully and said nothing. Despite his words, the tone of his voice said everything to her. The gentle rebuke, the tender correction—these things told her that despite her failings, her father loved her and forgave her for falling short, just as he had on a hundred other occasions.
“You believe that the Code is not enough. And you are right,” he said, “You must learn to listen for Adonai’s voice through the words. They are alive, my blossom. One day you will see that. Many dark days lie ahead for you, daughter. Often his face will be hidden from you as it has been for these past few days. But he is there, even in the clouds. And he can bring light out of our darkness. A good thing may come out of a bad thing in the end.”
“Yes, father,” she said quietly.
He smiled at her for a long moment and then closed his eyes.
Sun li rose and went back to the mixture, thankful for her father’s words. It felt terrible to know she had failed him, but it would have felt worse had she not told him the truth. She could feel the weight beginning to lift from her as the sweet perfume of the flowers rose to meet her.
“I think the flowers are going to work,” said Li li as she watched her sister mix the precious petals in the bowl.
“Yes, I believe so,” Sun li replied, allowing herself a brief smile. Then she glanced up from her work around their cramped little room. Like the rest of Bracken it was falling apart. The frames for their cots had been re-soldered a dozen times over and the ceiling was slowly caving in, but it was home and she was going to miss it.
“Li li,” she said, catching her sister’s eyes. “We have to leave Bracken by this time tomorrow. And we won’t be coming back.”
Li li gave her a startled look, but she didn’t lose control of herself as she was prone to do when something unexpected happened.
“Why? Are we in some sort of danger?”
“Yes,” Sun li answered. “I had a run-in with a Delegation soldier. Eventually they will come looking for me. And if they can’t find me, they’ll hurt you and father. “Bracken is no longer safe for our family.”
“But where will we go?” Li li’s beautiful brow knitted itself with lines of worry.
“Matthew’s mother told me of a place. She knows someone who will take us in.”
“Where?”
“Shoal.”
“But that’s—”
“I know how far it is, but the farther the better.”
Sun li finished mixing the flowers and brought the bowl over to her father’s bedside. The petals of the arcoiris gave off a soft glow as they floated in the multi-colored water.
She had expected Li li to give some resistance, to at least express regret at having to leave all of her friends, but she simply stared at father, her worried look changing to one of resolve.
“I’ll start packing our things,” she said. Her voice sounded nothing like the flighty sixteen year old girl Sun li had left a few days ago. In that moment, she thought how much Li li looked like their mother. Quiet strength radiated from her almost like the glow from the flowers. Li li ducked through the curtains into the other part of the shop and Sun li heard her speaking to Zhang in the next room.
“Hey, little kumquat, guess what?” she said. “We’re going on a trip.”
“We are?” her brother asked, excitement bubbling up in his eyes. “Do we get to take Matthew?”
“Yes, and lots of our things,” Li li told him. “We only have room for your favorite toys, though. So would you be a good boy and stuff them in this sack for me?”
“Oh, boy,” Zhang replied. Sun li could hear him bouncing around the shop. “This is the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time.”
Sun li shook her head and dabbed the rag into the arcoiris liquid she had made. She touched it gently
to her father’s forehead, letting the mixture soak into his skin.
Oh to be innocent again, she thought, as she considered her brother’s reaction to Li li’s words. But then she remembered what her father had just told her. A good thing may come out of a bad thing, in the end. As she thought of what lay ahead for her and her family, she wondered if that would prove true. She could not know, of course, but looking at her father’s serene face, she hoped that it would.
About the Author
DJ Edwardson spent two years working in Latin America after college. It was during that time that the ideas for his first series, The Chronotrace Sequence, first started percolating inside his mind. Much later, after encouragement from a friend in a reading group he had joined, he started writing in earnest, publishing the first book in the series in 2012.
His favorite authors are J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. He likes to think that authors who use their initials are better writers but he can't actually prove it. Although much of what he writes falls in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, he likes to call his work "imaginative" fiction and often incorporates elements from multiple genres. He is currently at work on the second book in his series, The Chronotrace Sequence, due out in the second half of 2013.
To sign up for DJ’s newsletter and find out about upcoming releases, please visit:
www.djedwardson.com
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, be sure to check out DJ’s full length novel, Into the Vast, book 1 in The Chronotrace Sequence.
The Institute is all Adan knows. And the scientists who run it don't seem to know or even care who he might have been before he came there. But the strange technology they've fused inside of him and his missing memories are only the beginning as he finds himself swept up into a conflict between the researchers and the last remnants of humanity untouched by their experiments.
Part mystical science fiction, part dystopian thriller, Into the Vast is the high-tech exploration of humanity at the pinnacle of innovation and achievement, a time when science has made virtually anything possible. But in getting there, something has been lost along the way. And perhaps the only person who knows what that is, is the one who doesn't know anything at all.
Step into the journey of one man to rediscover his own identity and in the process to save humanity from its greatest enemy: itself.
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