We need the drug, Martina. Identification papers aren’t a solution.
True enough. If her brothers couldn’t come solid long enough for a brief conversation, it would be a nightmare trying to obtain photographs or fingerprints or whatever else one needed.
You have to help us, said Hansel. You know you do. You have no other choice.
Something bright and hot flared inside Martina. She had no choice? This was not her fault. Why was choice something that only other people exercised? Where were her choices? Give up rippling or you’ll never go to university. Give up rippling or you’ll get sick and die. Help your brothers or they’ll get sick and die. These weren’t choices. She was tired of being pushed around by the dictates of others. She was fighting to create a life for herself, all by herself, and now, because of stupid decisions her brothers had made, she had no choice but to help them?
I don’t have to do anything, she said, trying to infuse the words with the anger she felt. This is your fault. Yours and Georg’s. I didn’t tell you to run away in Montpellier. Oh, that’s right, I told you to stay, didn’t I? She wasn’t sure sarcasm would come through in thoughts, either. This was a damned inconvenient way to have an important conversation.
Martina, please, said Hansel. Forgive me. His voice sounded conciliatory. So maybe her emotions bled through her thoughts as well. But if you don’t help us, who will?
She fumed. This was maddening. I asked you to stay with me and Günter and Friedrich. In Montpellier. I begged you, Hansel. And I begged Georg. And you both told me you had to do what you had to do. That you didn’t care about the cost. Well, I cared about the cost. It cost me, Hansel. You abandoned us.
Hansel sighed. Is this about Matteo?
Martina felt her pulse trip at the mention of Matteo’s name. It stung like saltwater on a cut you didn’t even know you had until you were ten feet out into the ocean.
No. This stung like dozens of tiny, secret cuts. Like someone had followed you out in the ocean and was now busy, snick-snick-snick, slicing underwater with tiny invisible razors. How dare Hansel bring Matteo into this? How dare he mention Matteo’s name in her hearing?
She hurled angry thoughts at her brother. You’re such a … such a …
She couldn’t find the word that fit. Not in any of the six languages she’d learned as a child.
Just shut up about Matteo, she demanded. You’re never to mention that name to me again. Do you understand?
I’m sorry, said Hansel.
He was sorry? The words were easily spoken. But he’d meant to hurt her when he mentioned Matteo. And he had hurt her. The pain swelled into angry words. Go away, Hansel. No—you know what? You don’t have to go: I’m going. I’m turning solid where you can’t come whining to me. I don’t want you to come bothering me about your problems any more. They’re your problems, Hansel. Not mine. Yours.
Before she’d even finished her tirade, she half wanted to take it back. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her brothers. Not to Hansel, especially.
Stupid, stupid Hansel.
Martina, you don’t mean that. You don’t want these to be our last words.
She didn’t. And she hated that he knew this.
Hansel spoke again. Let’s talk after you’ve had a chance to think some more. Tomorrow. After you finish work.
Martina didn’t say anything. In an ordinary conversation, this would have been the time her posture would have spoken volumes. Crossed arms. Tight jaw. Averted gaze.
But none of that was available. Finally, she replied. Maybe. I don’t know if I’ll be free tomorrow.
Hansel jumped on the opening she gave him. We have so much to talk about. Your invisibility—I thought Pfeffer would never in a million years allow that.
Martina was on the verge of saying he hadn’t allowed it. That she’d tricked Pfeffer. But if Hansel hesitated over sharing secrets, so did she. This was her secret. Hers. It belonged to no one else. Just as her future and her choices belonged to no one else.
I want a week to think things through, she said, at last. A week would give her time to decide what she wanted. What she might or might not be willing to do for her brothers. For herself. Where can I find you in a week?
Georg and I have nowhere in particular to be, Hansel admitted, laughing.
Hansel’s laugh sounded like sunny days. Days when they had been allowed to play rescue-on-the-beach instead of studying in stuffy classrooms. Her heart went out to the memory of what they had been to one another, once.
Once.
Well, you’d better pick some place in particular, replied Martina. I won’t be able to hear you if you’re in Moscow next week.
Here, said Hansel. We’ll meet you right here. In your apartment.
Fine, grunted Martina. You should know Friedrich and Günter might be here next week. They do actually live here, technically. Technically. She hadn’t seen them in how many days? The siblings, once so important to one another, now communicated by sticky notes left on the refrigerator. If they communicated at all.
And suddenly Martina was done talking. She didn’t want to explain to Hansel how Friedrich and Günter had accepted Pfeffer’s offer and gone off to have new and exciting lives of their own and never even bothered to question if maybe their sister was lonely or wondered what they were doing or who they were with, because when it came down to it, brothers were selfish bastards who did whatever they wanted without ever asking what you thought about it, or if they did ask, they sure as hell didn’t listen to what you had to say.
I’m solidifying, said Martina. We can talk in a week. Goodbye.
Martina slipped back into the solid world. Her goodbye echoed in her ears. Brothers were the worst things ever, and she hated Helmann for giving her however many hundreds she had, but she hated him worst of all for giving her the four she’d shared a home with for seventeen years.
11
THIS IS NOT NEGOTIABLE
Nice, France
Martina couldn’t sleep. And she didn’t want to wander the streets doing good deeds. She wanted … she wasn’t even sure what she wanted. Her old life back? No. Of course not. That life had been based on lies.
But, oh, how sweet those lies had tasted at the time. The chance to remake the world! How she missed waking up with a heart bursting to see what new thing she might learn or achieve today. That had been stolen from her, along with her body’s health and her gift to become invisible.
She sighed. She still had the hope, however small, of doing some good in this world. She’d asked Pfeffer to give her a new position—one where she felt herself more uniquely qualified to help than in a tiny clinic where she was just one more volunteer. Her heart went out to her unknown half-siblings, waking to find the world was not to be changed for the better—that they had been intended as angels of death, and not of mercy. She wanted to help her siblings come to terms with this reality. Who better to help them navigate the narrow path between the Scylla of despair and the Charybdis of rage?
Or who worse.
Because, right now, she didn’t even feel capable of motivating herself to get out there and find a way to make a difference. Maybe she’d been wrong embracing even her small hopes. How much of a difference was she really making, inoculating children with tetanus? Who cared?
A quiet voice spoke from somewhere deep inside her. You know who cares. That child. And her sister or her best friend or her mother. A simple injection would have saved Katrin’s life. And Katrin, alive, would have made such a difference in Martina’s life. A twin. A constant companion. Someone who would always listen, always understand. She would never have turned to Matteo if Katrin had lived.
Matteo.
Again the sharp, bright pain, exquisite in its ability to hurt as if for the first time. She pushed the thought of the beautiful boy back, back, and thought of Katrin, instead. Thought of what it would have meant if anti-venin had been available for Katrin. Just a simple inoculation. Something she did every day.
Martina was making a difference for other Martinas-and-Katrins.
Wasn’t she?
And if she was, then surely it was worthwhile to encourage and train others to do the same.
Wasn’t it?
Her throat felt full, tight. She closed her eyes. She needed advice. A trusted listener. She wanted her Mutti—her foster mother. She wanted to be held close and have comforting words spilled into her ear. No one could comfort like Mutti. Even the other foster mothers had known this. How many times had Martina walked into the house to see Mutti offering advice or consolation to one of the other mothers?
A sob escaped her throat. She wanted Mutti. Wanted her now. Neither Friedrich nor Günter could give her what she craved. Perhaps they had loved her once. Perhaps they had never loved her. She didn’t know anymore. But she knew Mutti had loved her. Had loved her apart from what Martina could do or achieve, loved her apart from what awards or grades she received, loved her without demanding anything in return.
To be loved so freely, so unconditionally—Martina felt with sudden certainty that her Mutti’s love was what had made her into who she was today. More than Helmann’s programs or Aunt Helga’s games, more than Uncle Franz’s tests or Uncle Fritz’s threats. She was brave and determined—and yes, stubborn as a little donkey—because someone had loved her and believed in her.
She reached for her cell phone—a pathetic anything-but-smart affair Pfeffer had given her when she’d said she needed to keep in touch with Friedrich and Günter, once they’d begun to have differing schedules. She didn’t have Mutti’s number, but she had something else. Four numbers were stored into her phone’s memory: her two brothers, the clinic, and Pfeffer.
She sent a message to Pfeffer.
I want to visit my foster mother. You said you could find her for us. I want to see her this week.
After a moment’s thought, she added, This is not negotiable, and pressed SEND.
And then she climbed into her bed, wadded up her blanket until she could hug it in her arms, a soft, warm thing, and cried herself to sleep.
By the following morning, Pfeffer had replied, sending her an address in Sint Maarten and a plane ticket, first class, for one.
Along with a passport.
12
SHE HAD CHOICES
Sint Maarten, The Caribbean
The passport listed her as a citizen of the UK. Her English vocabulary and accent were passable if you didn’t listen too carefully or for too long. The passport was good for another six and one-half months. She flipped through it, and as she did so, two crisp hundred euro notes fluttered out, folded in half. She examined them. Money passed through her hands so infrequently. Her apartment, her food, her clothing—all this was paid for, but not by her.
Which was just one more way Pfeffer kept them under his thumb. Martina threw the money down in disgust. It looked like a filthy bribe to her now. Do as you’re told, child, and you’ll get your pudding.
On the back side of the passport was a sticky note, telling Martina that a driver would be waiting for her at the airport in Sint Maarten to take her to Mutti’s. The car had been prepaid, so the money was hers to do with as she wished.
Well, she wished to not use it at all, thanks just the same. On the verge of tossing the notes into the trash, she thought better of it. She would give the money away, when she returned. The plane ticket gave her a week away; when she returned, she would still have several days of invisibility left.
And when those days ran out, she would refuse the Neuroprine.
It was time to find out what Pfeffer would do with an outright refusal.
She had choices. She had agency. And she wouldn’t be bribed or bullied out of them. She placed the euro notes inside a drawer.
As she grabbed a few things and stuffed them in a bag, Martina considered travelling invisibly—without the ticket or the passport. Why not cast away all of Pfeffer’s gifts? But if she boarded a plane invisibly, she would arrive no sooner, and flying solid presented enough of a novelty that she decided she would try it.
Her bag in hand, Martina rippled and glided along the seashore to Nice’s airport.
Ninety minutes later, she was sitting in a window seat in solid form, watching the city of Nice shrink away, smaller and smaller. It felt like a goodbye to her old life.
Pfeffer had chosen a route that only required one plane change in Paris. After that, Martina slept across the Atlantic Ocean and arrived at Princess Juliana International Airport late in the afternoon the same day, courtesy of several time changes.
A driver met her at the airport and took her to a remote, hilly location far from the coast, just barely on the Dutch side of the island, overlooking the French side, or so her driver informed her.
A single dwelling—a hut, really—sat by itself amidst low brush and two scrubby trees that looked as if they meant to give up living quite soon if, indeed, they had not already done so. Martina stepped outside the car.
The hot, damp air struck her with fresh force—the driver had kept air conditioning running. Nice, France could get sticky, but this was humidity on a completely different scale. She knew she’d been used to it once, as a child, but now, after so many years away from the stifling tropical heat, she had to remind herself to move slowly, slowly.
Her driver handed over her only bag, containing a change of clothing and a toothbrush. Too late, Martina remembered she’d left her toothpaste beside the sink. As the taxi drove away, Martina swallowed hard. She was an idiot to come this far without contacting her foster mother first. What if Mutti was gone visiting friends or shopping or fishing or whatever you did when you lived on an island in the Caribbean by yourself?
Martina approached the front door—the only door, as far as she could determine. She smoothed her hair, wishing she had thought to tie it up off her neck, the way she’d worn it as a child. Already, sweat was tickling its way down the back of her neck. She reached out and rapped on the front door.
When a minute had passed with no one answering, Martina tried the door handle. It opened. No lock.
“Hello?” She stepped inside. The room was stuffy and there was a too-sweet odor. Rotting fruit. A compost bucket, maybe? Mutti had never been one to let food go bad. “Mutti? Hello?”
There was sound coming from the back room—the only other room. She heard a heavy exhalation. The sound of someone rising from a creaking bed. A soft curse as the someone stubbed a toe or knocked an elbow funny. The voice sounded male.
Martina stepped back several paces toward the still-open door.
And then a man stepped in the room.
“The hell are you?” he asked, his grammatically challenged sentence in keeping with his drowsy state.
Martina gasped.
Matteo?
13
THEN I’LL WAIT
Sint Maarten, The Caribbean
Matteo’s voice was low and gravelly and exactly as she remembered it. “Martina?” he said as recognition dawned on him. He rubbed sleep from his eyes. His beautiful eyes, as shockingly green as ever.
He ran his hand through a toxic exhibit of bed-head. “I didn’t think any of you would come,” he said.
Martina couldn’t think of a response to this. She couldn’t think of any appropriate response to seeing Matteo after the way he’d abandoned them all two years ago. After the way he’d abandoned her two years ago.
“Is it just you?” he asked.
He was wearing only trunks. Martina wasn’t sure if they were boxers or something meant for swimming. His hipbones jutted out sharply. A sliver of pale skin was exposed along the waist of whatever he was wearing, white against the deep brown of his belly, chest, and arms. He was as perfect as she remembered. Angles and planes, knotted muscles and not an ounce of body fat to be seen. And there was quite a lot of him to be seen at the moment.
“Put some clothes on,” she said. Her voice sounded hoarse. She hadn’t said more than half a dozen words in the fourteen hours since she’d depa
rted Nice.
Matteo looked down as if expecting to find himself naked. Seeing his trunks, he scowled. “I am dressed. And you’re overdressed. Take off that … sweater or whatever it’s called before you pass out.” He waved his hands vaguely, indicating the pashmina she’d draped around her shoulders, blanket-like, on the flight over.
And suddenly, now that the shock of seeing him golden and glorious and half-naked had worn off, she felt a rush of hot anger welling up inside her. How dare he speak to her as if nothing had happened? How dare he speak to her at all?
“I didn’t come here to talk to you. Where’s—” she broke off. She wasn’t going to call her foster mother “Mutti” in front of Matteo, her foster mother’s actual son. Martina had never understood how it was that Mutti had been permitted to raise a child she’d borne herself. Especially one not fathered by Dr. Helmann.
Martina spoke again. “Where’s my foster mother?” The title felt awkward, insufficient.
Matteo’s expression changed. First he looked confused. Then, for a split-second he looked heart-broken. And then he looked nothing but angry. In two swift steps, he closed the space between them. He grabbed Martina by the upper arm—his grip vice-like—and forced her outside.
“Get out of here,” he said, releasing her. To make sure she complied, he stationed himself in front of the door. Crossing his arms, he glared at Martina, his eyes flashing emerald fire. “I said get out! You’re too late.”
Martina’s rage swelled to match his. Matteo or not, she’d come here to see her foster mother, and that was exactly what she was going to do. She stepped back to the door and stood nose-to-nose with Matteo. Looking into his angry green eyes, she employed her I mean business voice.
“I’m not going anywhere until I speak with her. I flew fourteen hours—”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” snarled Matteo. “You’re too late.”
A gust of wind, hot and thick with moisture, blew past, lifting Matteo’s hair off his forehead. He was wearing it long again, the way she had liked it. Up close, she could see he hadn’t touched a razor for several days. His beard was growing in thicker now, dark like the scruffy patch she remembered on his chin. He’d been unbearably proud of it. She pushed her memories aside.
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