by Karen Bao
Now I cringe away, and picture all the things I’ll face on my journey: storms at sea; pirates and outlaws; hostile troops, Earthbound and Lunar alike . . . and Lunar spacecraft, which they’ve probably stationed on Pacifia.
Could I turn my death sentence into a homecoming?
“You’re sending her to Pacifia? Alone?” Wes demands. “Father, you don’t understand. She’s got traumatizing memories of the place.”
“So she should be keen to succeed in her assignment.”
No, but I’m keen to begin my journey. To get away from this foreign planet and back to the thirteen-year-old boy who needs me.
“Imagine how strange it’ll look if she disappears,” Wes says. “How will you explain it to everyone?”
“She volunteered.” Wesley Sr. locks his fingers around my right wrist; his grip is the closest thing to handcuffs on Saint Oda. “I will send you off now, Phaet.”
He pulls me across the barren garden. I don’t resist. Behind us, Wes jogs to keep up, talking animatedly. “Think about what you’re doing! Sentencing a girl to die based on one man’s word. I’ve kept silent about this for almost five years, but I’ll be quiet no longer. Father, Lazarus Penny lied to my sister. Your daughter.”
My mind won’t wrap around the thought. What could that man possibly have lied about?
“Why wouldn’t he take the next step and lie to you?” Wes demands.
Wesley Sr. walks faster, as if driven forward by his son’s words. We’re approaching the front of the Carlyle house, where the trail dips down the mountain.
“You have spoken out of turn long enough—”
“He broke a secret engagement to her!” Wes shouts.
The mountainside seems to tilt around me. Did Lazarus’s kind words blind me to his faults? Or . . . could Wes be lying? His accusation seems too outlandish to be true. I push numbers through my mind: Lazarus left for the Moon four and a half years ago. Murray was seventeen then, too young by Odan standards to seek a relationship.
Wesley Sr. has stopped in his tracks. We’re right outside the front door.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He cut her off just before she turned eighteen, before she became an adult and could officially declare the partnership. And because he was on the Moon, he designated me as his messenger!”
“Lazarus is a full decade older than your sister, and he is a good man. He would never harm a fellow Odan.”
“That’s what he wants you to think!”
That’s what he duped me into thinking, apparently. But should I trust my instincts or Wes’s accusations?
We hear footsteps along the path up the hill, the sound of someone running. Murray limps into view, a sack of flour in her hand, sweat on her brow. Although it isn’t noon yet, she’s already finished feeding the bacterial lights. The illumination helps prevent foot-traffic accidents on foggy days like this.
A few meters away from us, she halts. The glass orbs hanging from a nearby fir tree glow an intense blue, throwing her scar into sharp relief. A twitching, agitated Lewis sits on her shoulder; his feathers are puffed out to make him look larger—a self-defense mechanism.
Murray takes in her father’s hold on me and the angry words being exchanged. “Will someone tell me what this is about?” Her voice is a whimper.
“Your brother claims that you were secretly engaged to Lazarus Penny,” Wesley Sr. says. “Do you confirm or deny this?”
Lewis abandons Murray then. He flies in an upward spiral until his dun feathers blend in with the trees.
A puff of white escapes the opening of Murray’s flour sack as it hits the ground. Another cloud filling the air between us.
And Wes’s sister flees down the mountain, toward the green-gray sea.
* * *
She makes it only five meters before her toe catches on a gnarled root. Wes, who’s followed her, grabs her elbow before she falls.
“You told him?” Murray yanks her arm away, snarling. Now I can see her at thirteen, grieving and raging against her friend’s death, against her own misfortune. “Those months of happiness were mine, to hide or reveal as I chose. My past belongs to me! Don’t you know it’s all I have left? None of you Sanctuarists can be trusted, not with anything!”
Lazarus couldn’t have left her without a good reason. I feel embarrassed, stumbling upon these feelings, these secrets that would have been better hidden in the lunar dust or sunk deep in the Odan harbor.
The hand gripping my arm slackens.
“Which of you has disappointed me more? I cannot decide.” Wesley Sr. looks from one child to the other, his expression of fury softening into sadness—this man of stone being sanded down one grain at a time. “We have much to discuss. But first, we will remove this Lunar fugitive from Saint Oda.”
With the pressure back on me, my pulse starts rattling away in my throat.
Wes tries to argue one last time. “She’s not a—”
“I am,” I say, thinking of Cygnus. “I’ve endangered this place just by being here. Let me get what I deserve, Wes.”
Murray lets out a bark of laughter. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, in which an electrical storm brews. “So! My little brother smuggled a Lunar lady back home! Wes, you’re no better than him, with all his plaything females and fancy words. What is it about you Sanctuarists and demon girls?”
“What? No!” Wes shakes his head as if clearing fog from his vision.
“This racket is unbearable!” Mrs. Carlyle marches out of the house, holding something Odans call a broomstick. She points the handle at us, and her voice slices the air, making way for her body. “I’ll wager that the lichen mats in the lower levels can hear you too!”
“We’re discussing Odan security,” says Wesley Sr.
“From what I heard, it’s more a matter of vice.” Mrs. Carlyle turns her glare on Wes and Murray, and continues in a harsh whisper. “You have both substituted hedonistic comforts for faith. How did I fail to teach you better? Weren’t God and nature enough for you?”
“Did God let me forget my past for hours at a time?” Murray says. “Did he ever say he loved me?”
Mrs. Carlyle scoffs. “Lazarus Penny’s love was evidently fleeting.”
“But it was enough! When we drank the wine we made together, when we watched lunar eclipses from the mountaintops, I felt whole. Like I’d never hurt my eye, like the raid had never happened!”
“Shame on you.” Mrs. Carlyle shakes a finger at her daughter, her lips a straight, colorless line. “Shame on you!”
“I know, I know! I’ve carried enough shame for the two of us, me and him both.” Murray twists away from her mother, facing Wesley Sr. Her knees strike the muddy ground; her open hands reach for his. Lightning flashes in the distance. “I hate myself for it. I should have run to the other side of the Earth. Oh, Father, forgive me!”
The jagged edges in her voice cut me deeply. It’s a cry for Wesley Sr.—and, perhaps, a cry for God.
Wesley Sr. slaps Murray’s hands away at the same moment God sends a clap of thunder to shake the island’s bedrock. Turning to his son, he says, “What’s your excuse?”
“You mean my rationale?” Wes tears his eyes from his sister’s broken form. Does he regret sharing her secret now, even though he did it to protect me? “Bringing Phaet here was a practical choice, not a personal one. She’s a prominent Lunar rebel’s daughter. If she died, the resistance would lose all hope of overthrowing the Committee’s rule. If she lives and they succeed, it’ll benefit all of humanity. Imagine a benevolent Moon, Mother. Think what that would mean for everyone on Earth.”
“It seems to me,” says Wesley Sr., “that you’ve attempted to make peace by inciting a war. Pacifia is en route to Saint Oda, with Lunars on board. Lazarus says the attacking force is substantial.”
Mrs. Carlyle’s jaw clenches and
unclenches, as if she’s biting back screams. “God help us.”
“He won’t,” Wes growls.
His mother advances on him. “Shame on you, too. You’ve betrayed your family. And your city. For one girl—one demon girl—”
“Don’t,” Wes hisses, “call her that.”
Mrs. Carlyle is silenced.
“How can you value everything that lives,” Wes continues, “except for people who happen to be born up there?” He points at the sky. “It’s inconsistent. Illogical.”
“You,” his mother says, “haven’t the right to judge anyone—”
“Stop!” Murray claps her hands over her ears. “Stop fighting, won’t you?”
I move to put an arm around her, but she twists away. “Don’t touch me!” she hisses. There’s a corresponding twist somewhere in my heart.
“The demons treated us like scum,” Mrs. Carlyle says. With her eyes on Wes, she’s oblivious to Murray’s rejection of me. “Their behavior is unnatural, and so are they.”
“You’re wrong—look at her.” Wes’s hand touches my back. “Look her in the eye and tell her she’s anything less than human. Can you do it? Can you tell her that her life is forfeit because of where she came from?”
Mrs. Carlyle shakes off his words and looks past me, as if I’m not even here. “How dare you speak to me that way,” she tells Wes. “I’m your mother.”
“You’re a hypocrite,” Wes shoots back.
I count my heartbeats as the seconds go by.
Mrs. Carlyle recovers quickly. “You had a choice: protect us, or her. We raised you—she only entertained you.” She singes me with a glare and turns back to her son. “Evidently, you hold this demon child in higher esteem than all of us.”
“I . . . I—” Wes begins.
“Very well,” Mrs. Carlyle says, cutting him off. Her face spasms, but after a moment, it settles back into an expression of cold neutrality. “Then you are no child of mine.”
“Holly!” Wesley Sr. booms. “Consider what you’re saying. What that means.”
“It means that I’m no more welcome here than Phaet. Understand that I’m not picking sides, but merely putting myself between a dear friend and her certain death.” Wes points toward the Odan harbor, the way obscured by shifting mists, and then looks me in the eye. “Let’s go, Phaet. Pacifia’s waiting.”
9
WES AND GRAVITY PULL ME DOWN THE mountain. He leads me by the hand into the damp tunnel system, but we take an unfamiliar path—probably heading to some secret dock known only to the Sanctuarists. His family’s shouts blend into echoes behind us, but they can’t hope to match our pace.
“How can you leave them like that?” I demand, my voice lost in the smack of cloth soles on rock. I wish now that I’d had time to fetch my Militia boots before leaving; Wes hid them in a cranny in the Sanctuary Room while I was recuperating. “What if something happens to them, or to us, and you never get to apologize? Will you ever forgive yourself?”
My hand slips in his, and his grip tightens. I’ve imagined holding his hand more often than I’d like to admit, never anticipating that the contact would be this clammy or harried. Or full of anger.
“What do you want me to do—leave you to die alone out there?” As usual, running doesn’t fragment Wes’s speech in the slightest. During Militia training last year, we’d dash through Defense together, having clumsy conversations that grew more coordinated as the weeks passed. Now we’re like antagonistic new trainees again. I’m hurting, like I did then, but not physically.
“I hope you’re not coming with me just to spite your family.” I regret my words as soon as they hit the air, because I need him. If I set out alone, Earth’s ocean might swallow me before the Pacifian alliance gets a chance.
“I’m taking a break from them. With you.” He lets go of my hand, and the air feels especially cold where his skin was touching mine. “Even though you sent messages to the Moon—and to Lazarus, of all people. Why didn’t you tell me you were planning to do that?”
“You’d have stopped me.”
“Yes! I said we could only trust each other on Earth. Now do you see why?” Wes pulls ahead, as if trying to put me out of sight. “Why can’t you believe in me, after all we’ve been through?”
“You lied to me on the Moon,” I say. “For months.”
It’s true; he let me believe he was Lunar until we were en route to his home planet—Earth. He quits arguing.
The hallways grow dimmer, their bacterial lights out of commission. Our feet begin to slip on the stone floor; we slide on algal growths and splash through puddles of salt water into an open cavern, where water laps against the rock on which we stand.
At the far end, a semicircle of gray sky is visible. The Sanctuarists have partially beached the submarine, which resembles an oversized ripe eggplant. Though small—only six meters long from nose to propeller—it’s striking. Like most Tourmalinian artifacts, it lends itself more to show than stealth. Perfect for a suicide mission.
Wes and I push the vessel into the water, wade in up to our calves, and climb into the hatch. Buttons, gauges, screens, and switches cover the rounded walls from the floor to the low ceiling. I bang my head as I stumble to one of the two rear seats.
Wes sits at the helm and touches the controls with easy familiarity. He probably had to steer a similar vehicle on his initial journey to the Moon. He taps the monitor on the wall, entering passwords and overriding commands to take us from SET DESTINATION: PACIFIA to MANUAL.
His comfort with the vehicle worries me. No going back now.
We sink into the water, and the propeller switches on with a roar. Just before we dip beneath the surface, I notice movement in the rearview screen. Two figures—one male, one female—rush into the cavern, holding hands. Wes’s parents. His father’s eyes cling to us as a man dangling from a cliff clings to a ledge. His mother’s face is buried in the shadow of her husband’s shoulder. She can’t watch us go.
For a fleeting moment, my mind’s eye replaces her features with Mom’s. Then the black water blinds us to everything but itself.
* * *
Days and nights merge together. The dimly lit interior of the submarine never seems to change, nor does the murky water outside. From a face-sized window, I look down at the so-called mid-Atlantic kelp “forests”—patches better describes them now. Clusters of the green-brown algae reach only a meter or so high, grasping at stray beams of sunlight. According to Nanna Zeffie, the kelp used to extend from bedrock to surface, undulating in the gentle waters and growing as much as half a meter in a day—until pollutants like industrial fertilizers caused phytoplankton to bloom in the photic zone, preventing light from reaching the kelp below. Above us, at the surface, patches of accreted plastic waste dim the water even more.
Sometimes, a bale of sea turtles or a pod of dolphins swims straight past our headlights, frightening me despite Wes’s insistence that they’re harmless. Grayish tumors cover some of the bigger turtles’ faces and flippers, and many dolphins have skin that is crusted with the yellowish parasites that grew abundantly after the oceans warmed last century. Although skinny and few in number, the animals seem amused by our awkwardness, the way we struggle to move through the fluid realm that belongs to them. It’s a realm that humans almost decimated centuries ago. Life came back, as it has after every one of Earth’s major ecological disturbances—as it always does. But in a form our ancestors wouldn’t recognize.
Wes and I have tacitly partitioned the vehicle. He holds the helm, while I occupy one of the backward-facing seats in the rear of the cabin. When he needs to eat a can of oats and beans or use the tiny bin of a water closet, I hold the controls steady.
At night, we tether the submarine to rock formations. When breathing the recycled air gets unbearable, we surface and pop open the hatch. If other vessels come too close, we dive deep and
flee, whether they’re freight barges or scouting submarines carrying bombs; everything out here is a potential threat.
And always, we utter the bare minimum of words necessary to coordinate these activities.
Five days into our journey, I track our progress on the satellite-generated map of Earth and realize with a start that we’re moving away from Pacifia.
“But Pacifia’s in the Arabian Sea,” I say, not looking at Wes. It has made startlingly fast progress from Australia to its current location.
“We’re going to Battery Bay,” he says, pointing to the map and similarly avoiding my eyes. Examining the map, I see that Pacifia’s rival is sunning itself off the southwestern coast of Africa. Although most of the continents are still technically habitable, their climate is so volatile that life is more manageable floating on migratory cities than staying in one place.
“We’ll beg them for help,” I say. “Or guns.”
Years ago, the Batterers promised the Odans protection when they declared the city an International Sanctuary. Wes’s plan makes sense.
“If they say no,” he says, “I’ll turn back and help my father set up Odan civil defenses. But you’re free to go home, if Battery Bay gives you a ship. And that’s a big if.” Battery Bay’s border security is notoriously harsh; they’re known to imprison undocumented visitors or throw them overboard to die. “Honestly, I think you should go home. Away from me and Saint Oda.”
His words sting, and my arms automatically wrap around my torso to nurse the wound. If I managed to board a spacecraft on Battery Bay . . . I could fly home, gather all the information I can, and then somehow hide Anka and Umbriel somewhere safer, and end my brother’s suffering. Memories of Cygnus’s toothy grin, which I may finally see again, flash through my mind without bringing me happiness. Would it be fair to rescue one boy and leave a city to burn? Not when the threat of Saint Oda’s destruction exists partially because of me. And especially not when it’s the refuge that saved my life.
