by Lisa Lee
“Ya Ya, you are here to visit Gabe?”
His grandmother slowly nodded, and then her eyes filled with tears. She seemed stricken with grief.
Gideon sighed and hugged his grandmother. “Ya Ya, he’s not dead. He will recover.”
He was surprised when she pushed him away, her strength greater than he suspected.
“I warned you,” she hissed in an accusing voice.
Gideon stared at her. He had never seen this side of his grandmother.
“I warned you,” she said again, despairingly, the venom in her voice gone as her whole body slumped in disappointment.
“Ya Ya, I did ask the maintenance folks if they had any issues with snakes or if they’d seen any snakes. No one has seen anything,” Gideon said, hoping to reassure her.
“You have eyes to see but do not see,” his grandmother replied, turning to shuffle back to her personal rooms instead of visiting Gabe.
Gideon opened his mouth to ask her to explain but then felt exhaustion weigh heavily on him. He needed sleep more than another confusing conversation with his grandmother. He walked her quietly back to her rooms before going to his own suite. He lay down, fully clothed, and got his first full night of sleep since Gabe became ill.
* * *
The next day around midafternoon, a royal page stopped by Gideon’s office to inform him that “the king” requested his presence immediately. A page only used his father’s title if his father instructed them that the matter pertained to official business with respect to running the island. Gideon aborted the phone call he was about to make and headed over to his father’s—the king’s—office suite. His father’s suite was not far from his own.
Upon arriving at his father’s office, he was greeted rather abruptly by his father’s royal assistant, Joseph Park. “Your father will be with you shortly.”
Surprisingly, he didn’t stand as he usually did upon greeting a member of the royal family. He didn’t even look up. Gideon almost commented on his rudeness but decided to hold it in for now. Park had been his father’s assistant since before Gideon was born and was a stickler for following all social courtesies. Gideon decided to assume Park was working urgently on something for the king.
After thirty minutes of waiting for his father, Gideon decided his time would be spent more productively in his office, getting work done and getting updates on the virus situation. As he moved to walk out of the waiting area of his father’s office suite, however, Royal Assistant Park spoke.
“Your father specifically requested that you wait here until he is available.”
Gideon nodded and paced a bit before sitting back down, his fingers and right leg continuing to bounce. He couldn’t remember the last time his father made him wait for such a lengthy period. If something urgent came up requiring his father’s immediate attention, he would just wave Gideon away and circle back when his schedule opened. Specifically making Gideon wait was something the king only did when he was extremely displeased.
Gideon stopped moving as he tried to think of any new thing that could have angered his father. Perhaps the king was very upset over his lack of progress in finding the virus culprit?
After Gideon had waited an hour, his father called him into his office. Gideon walked in and decided to go on the offense. “What have I done this time?” he said as he sat down, facing his father across the rather overlarge ornately carved desk.
“I did not give you permission to sit,” his father said, ice dripping from each syllable.
“What?” Gideon asked, more surprised than dismayed.
His father just looked at him impassively. Gideon stood and waited to hear judgment on his yet unknown crime.
“How is Angel?” his father asked.
Gideon felt his stomach drop as he tried to keep his face as impassive as his father’s.
“Minister Kang’s daughter? She seems fine. Why do you ask?”
His father’s hard eyes bored into him, and Gideon dropped his gaze first.
“Is her father upset?” Gideon asked, wondering how much he should admit to. “Is he—is he hoping I’ll marry her?” Gideon felt his throat tighten at the thought.
“Minister Kang has resigned,” his father said with a sigh.
“Why?” Gideon asked, even more bewildered than before.
“Angel was the person who delivered the virus to your brother,” his father said.
Gideon could not comprehend his father’s statement. “What are you talking about?” he asked. He could not imagine Angel with the intellectual capacity to even dream up such an idea.
His father shook his head at Gideon. “Angel assumed you would marry her. She figured if she made your brother sterile, then he would have only one heir, which would make any sons she had with you that much closer to the throne. I suppose she thought having such sons would increase her stature.”
Gideon thoughts were scrambled. Angel was someone with whom he’d had a bit of fun, with no intention of marriage. He couldn’t place her in any other category.
“But this doesn’t seem like Angel,” he said eventually.
“Or maybe this situation doesn’t seem like the Angel you know,” his father said, leaning back in his chair. “How well do you know Angel?”
“I—I—I know her somewhat well,” Gideon finally stammered out, still standing.
“Really? Did you know she got this virus from the terrorist group Seven?” His father abruptly stood, picked up a glass paperweight from his desk, and threw it against the wall. It shattered into a thousand shards of glass. Gideon had never seen his father lose control.
“How could you do this?” his father asked him, breathing hard.
“But how?” Gideon asked, his mind too turmoiled to think in complete sentences.
His father started to speak and then paused and blew out a breath. “Through you,” he replied.
“No, I never—” Gideon began. He stopped as his father shook his head at him in disappointment.
Gideon thought back to his time with Angel. She worked as the entertainment director at the Foreign Quarter’s famous Merman Hotel. Gideon would frequently reserve the Royal Suite at the hotel for meetings. The suite included conference rooms, a sitting room, and a small-but-luxurious bedroom with a bath and small kitchenette. In the guise of going over details for his visits, Angel would visit him after his guests had departed.
He winced as he remembered their last conversation. They were getting ready to leave his suite and Angel was helping him adjust his tie.
She asked “Gideon, when can we do an official parents meeting?”
Gideon looked at her in shock. Angel still held his tie in her hands, and her gaze was painfully hopeful as she gazed up at him. The hope in her eyes almost repelled him.
He swallowed hard before he said, “I thought we agreed that this wasn’t a serious relationship.”
“We did,” she agreed, looking down at the tie gripped tightly in her hands. “But I thought we’d come to care for each other.” Her gaze rose to meet his, and he saw the glisten of tears in hers.
Could I be with her? he thought to himself. They had been friends since kindergarten. On the first family visit day for their kindergarten class, Angel had no one with her. She had stood with her eyes downcast, clutching her hands together, her hair in uneven pigtails. Her mother had died when Angel was two years old, and Angel’s father was so focused on work that he forgot to mark the date on his calendar. As she stood in the corner of their classroom, some parents looked sideways at her and then whispered amongst themselves. Gideon could remember feeling bad for her, but he couldn’t remember if it was him or Gabe who had invited her to their table. On that day, Angel ended up hanging out with him, his brother, and his mother. His mother showed unusual forbearance. She exclaimed over Angel’s work just like she did with her boys.
Angel had remained their close friend until recently. With Gabe spending his time with Lily, Gideon found himself spending more time alone with
Angel. On the night of Gabe’s bachelor party at the Merman Hotel, Gideon had drunk more than he should’ve, and instead of going home, he spent the night at the hotel. Angel was on duty that night, and they had slid from an innocent friendship to a relationship that would be frowned upon were it known.
“Gideon,” Angel said, interrupting his thoughts. Her grip on his tie was almost strangling him, and tears poured down her face. “You don’t want to be with me?” she asked, her voice quavering.
With her one question, Gideon realized he didn’t want to be with her in the way she was asking. He didn’t want to marry her to make the relationship right. As feelings of guilt flooded him, he struggled to stay still. But he really couldn’t look at her, or she would know the truth. He needed to find a way to end the relationship that didn’t cause her pain.
“Let me think about it,” he said, turning away from her and putting on his suit jacket.
When he turned back, Angel smiled at him and leaned over to kiss his cheek. As they walked to the door, he pondered the problem. So deep in thought was he that he bumped into Angel who had paused.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I left you a present.” She walked over to the side table in the sitting room where she picked up two boxes, one wrapped in shiny black-and-gold-striped wrapping paper, the other in shiny green-and-gold-striped wrapping paper. Both boxes had a big gold bow on top.
“It’s Ming tea, very rare. The green tea is for you, and the black tea is for your brother. I think the green tea has the better flavor, so that one’s for you.” She had held the boxes out to him with a charming smile.
“It was the tea,” he said, gripping the chair in front of him as he looked at his father.
His father nodded. As he took in the full implications of his father’s confirmation, Gideon clinched his fists to keep his body from shaking with shame and grief. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he struggled to absorb that he was the cause of his brother’s illness, the fact that his brother and Lily would never have any more children together, and that he had lost his father’s love and respect. Despite his best efforts, his eyes filled with unshed tears, and a visible tremor went through his body.
“What will happen to Angel?” he asked.
“She will be executed, along with any member of the Seven that we can find.”
“Execution . . .” Gideon was furious that Angel had used him for such a destructive plan, but he just couldn’t picture her before the royal executioner, especially when he felt partially responsible for her actions. “Is there any—” He stopped speaking as his father stomped around the desk and grabbed Gideon by the shoulders.
“Only by grace did I not lose two sons, my only children. If Angel did not have her own plan of trying to marry you, who knows how much damage she could have done with Seven’s resources. Did you really think I would show her mercy?”
Gideon shook his head.
“It makes me furious that that child sat in my kitchen and played with my children. Even your mother was nice to her. I feel doubly betrayed. She and all members of the Seven will be executed, no exceptions. We only have members of five cells instead of the entire seven, but as we find them, they will be executed.”
Gideon nodded in a jerking motion.
“If it’s any consolation, it appears that Angel did love you in a twisted sort of way.” His father shook his head as he dropped his hands from Gideon’s shoulders. “But as you can now see, her love was destructive. We found out from one of the men we captured that she used Seven to get the tea with the virus, promising them information from certain meetings at the Merman Hotel.”
Gideon shook his head, confused. “But you said she thought—she thought I would marry her?”
“Ah, yes. She had a backup plan in case you didn’t ask her. She was ready to blackmail you into marriage.”
Gideon stood still as he tried to process his father’s words.
“Angel will be executed in the morning. I expect you to be there.”
Gideon jerked another nod.
“You can leave now.”
* * *
That night Gideon didn’t sleep. He sat on the window seat in his bedroom and looked out over the island. A hard rain fell against the window pane so all he could see was a soft watery reflection of his own tormented face. Was he a bad man who had enticed an innocent girl to her doom? Was he an innocent man who had been enticed by a bad girl? Was there any way to save her? Did he want to save her? Whom had he failed? He couldn’t control the images that played through his head at random—his father’s disappointed face, his grandmother’s disappointed face, Angel’s laughing eyes, his brother lying ill, Angel’s lowered eyes hiding disappointment. On and on, his memories fought for screen time as his mind reeled. If he hadn’t been so reckless, none of this would have happened.
In the morning, he watched as a crowd gathered at the Golden Bowl. He watched as thirty-four male members of the Seven were executed. Each person was executed by a bullet through the head. A board had been put up to catch the backsplash. The bodies were removed almost as quickly as they fell. Still, the air stank of death as red blood and brain matter sprayed through the air, only to fall onto ground already saturated from the rain the night before.
Angel was the only female member and the only one from the island. She was to be the last execution. Gideon felt his hands tremble and then his body as he waited for Angel to be brought out.
The raucous crowd grew quiet as well. Angel was very social, and lots of the island’s citizens had interacted with her in some way. Some in the crowd cried silently for her. It was extremely rare for the king to order the execution of an islander. Gideon braced himself for Angel’s name to be called. It was customary for the secretary to the royal executioner to read out the name of the prisoner about to be executed.
“Former Minister John Kang,” the secretary’s booming voice called out over the public speakers.
Gideon’s eyes widened in shock, and his gaze sought his father’s. His father was standing beside him and continued to look straight ahead as he said, “While he is entirely innocent of his daughter’s crime, he has decided to take her punishment.”
“Angel?” Gideon croaked out.
“Life imprisonment,” his father replied.
They watched together as the executioner shot Minister Kang and his body fell. The entire crowd was openly crying.
“An innocent man lost his life today,” his father said as he nodded to the royal executioner and walked away.
Gideon followed, feeling lost and unanchored.
As their security detail escorted them to the car, they walked past the prison staff loading Angel back into the van that had come with thirty-five prisoners and would return with only one. Tears and grief marred her normally beautiful laughing face.
For an instant, Gideon’s gaze met hers. Her expression of disbelief mirrored his own.
Gideon finally tore his gaze away and walked on resolutely. In the car, he and his father sat silent and alone. His father had requested that no guards sit in the car with them. As they pulled up to The Red Palace, his father finally spoke.
“I never thought I would ever be as displeased with you as I am today. Minister Kang’s death weighs heavy on my heart. Your brother’s situation is breaking my heart. And yet, you’ve suffered nothing.” His father closed his eyes tight and took a deep breath before continuing. “I am holding my anger back by only the thinnest of threads. Go to the temple and stay until I call you back. The car will take you.”
Gideon nodded his acquiescence. “Mom? Gabe? Ya Ya?” He was asking what his father would tell them. The news of the executions would be rampant.
His father exited the car without answering.
FIVE
Eden, Adjustment
My first day of classes, I got up at the set time to make my bed, neaten my room, and head to the communal washroom. Kaitlyn and Bethany had warned me the night before that the water would be lukewarm at best, if
not downright cold. Each class used the washroom in fifteen-minute increments with the fourth-years going first and the first-years last, so it was no surprise that there was no hot water by the time the first-years came in.
The washroom was huge with two wide entrances, one leading to a long row of toilet stalls and sinks, and the other leading to a long row of shower stalls with outside hooks for towels and robes. On the wall opposite the two entrances were stacks of fluffy white towels and robes below a series of opaque windows.
The washroom was quieter than I imagined it would be. Perhaps the silence was due to the presence of two older ladies, one at each end of the opaque windows. Their hair was an impossible mass of short monochromatic black curls against deeply lined and grooved pale faces dotted with age spots. Both had slight stoops to their backs. Their dark black eyes were like the lens of a camera, seeing everything and revealing nothing. Everyone seemed aware of them, but no one spoke to them, only giving them the slightest of nods in passing.
Despite the cold water, the washroom itself seemed to have good heating. When I looked in one of the mirrors, I couldn’t clearly see my face. The invisible heat had combined with the humidity from the water and the fragrance from the soaps to make a visible layer of fragrant condensation on the mirrors.
Kaitlyn and Bethany had told me there was an optional “beauty room” right next to the washroom where girls blow-dried and styled their hair and painted their faces. Apparently, according to Kaitlyn, there was a specialized program that used scientific data to recommend colors and products after using a scanner to view your skin tone and texture, hair color and length, and facial feature dimensions. I wasn’t sure I trusted Kaitlyn’s scientific explanation, but I had a more practicable reason for avoiding the beauty room. My hair was a minimum two-hour job and one usually reserved for the weekend. The idea of putting makeup on was too intimating to try on my first day of school. I had only been allowed to wear light-colored lip gloss back home and then only on special occasions.
