The Kingdom

by Jess Rothenberg

  “I’m sure not.” I look up with a sigh, the palace looming over us like a mountain. Nia’s long mermaid locks are famous and the Supervisors wouldn’t risk ruining their star attraction. “But they might lock her in the tower.”

  “Forever?” Yumi gasps. “Without supplements?”

  “Be your own kind of beautiful,” Kaia adds, her glossy black hair draped over her shoulder in an elegant fishtail, one of her favorite styles. “You’ll never go wrong if you follow your heart.”

  The newer models glance at each other.

  “The Supervisors know best,” Eve says, sounding annoyed. “We must support whatever they decide.”

  She always acts like she knows everything, just because she is the oldest and receives all kinds of privileges the rest of us do not. First in line to choose her gown. First in line for meal supplements, morning, noon, and night. First to choose her dance partner at the nightly Magic Land Banquet, where actors dressed as handsome princes escort the seven of us around the town square in front of cheering crowds. (The Kingdom’s line of male Fantasists never made it past prototype phase. Something about the Investors fearing they would intimidate guests.)

  I look away.

  Sometimes I must stop my hands from snatching Eve’s tiara off her head and snapping it in half.

  Zara draws back. “Support?” Her colorful beads clatter as she shakes her head. “Sister before Supervisor. Or did you forget?”

  Forget.

  Suddenly, I am back in our dressing room following the parade. I can see the fear in Nia’s eyes. I can hear the pounding of her heart below layers of lace and silk. Just as I can hear the Supervisors, starting to knock softly on the door.

  “Don’t forget me, Ana.”

  “Forget you?” I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”

  The knocking grows louder. Nia grabs my hand. “Promise me. Please.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling a terrible tightness in my chest. I had tried so hard to assure her, even as the words tasted funny in my mouth, like milk on the verge of spoiling.

  “Please don’t worry. Everything will be okay. You’ll be home in no time. I promise.”

  “They won’t cut her hair,” Zel says matter-of-factly, running her hands through her own candy-colored tresses, a nod to her namesake, the Mayan Princess Ixchel, goddess of rainbows. “They won’t take her supplements or lock her in the tower.”

  “You don’t think?” Yumi pulls her legs into her chest, her jade earrings swinging as she moves. “But that’s wonderful!”

  “No.” Zel shakes her head slowly. “I’m not sure it is.”

  The garden falls silent, Zel’s words hanging over us like a storm cloud. I shiver. Suddenly, the topiaries surrounding us do not look like friendly, fantastical beasts.

  They look like monsters.

  “What will they do?” I ask softly, after a moment.

  As always, Eve has the final word. “They’ll shut her down. Of course.”

  * * *

  Nia does not return that night, or the next, or even the next. By the fourth day of her absence, her blankets as smooth and taut as when she’d last made her bed, I can hardly function. My mind wanders. My appetite wanes. My echocardiogram suggests a mild malfunction of my heart’s electrical system. I’m just tired, I want to say, when I feel the pressure of the needle sliding into my skin; taste metal on my tongue; hear the hum of the machine pumping higher-count hemoglobin into my veins. But then I wonder why I feel this way. Logically, if the Supervisors conclude that her operating system is malfunctioning, then that means it’s Nia’s time to shut down.

  And yet, this sensation lingers: the sense that something is not right.

  I miss her.

  Instead of resting at night, I find myself staring out the window, in the direction of the woods, watching for the yellow, glowing eyes of the rabid fox, lurking somewhere in the park. As far as I know, she—I overheard a guard say the fox is likely female due to the smaller size of her tracks—has still not been caught. The thought makes me worry even more for Nia. What if she’s damaged? What if she needs my help?

  When a full week has passed, I can no longer stay silent, and I gather up the courage to ask Daddy what they have done with Nia, and why. “People make mistakes,” I tell him. “It’s natural. And she didn’t steal the phone—a guest gave it to her.”

  In an instant, his face looks different than it normally does, morphing from serene to surprise in a way that reminds me of a flock of blackbirds exploding suddenly from a tree. “Nia is our responsibility, Ana,” he replies in a low voice, gently tapping my meridians, deeply embedded electrical networks running up and down the length of my body, to restore optimal energy flow. “She was ready for some … time off. It could be several seasons yet before the Supervisors feel she is ready to return to work as usual.”

  My mouth drops open. Several seasons? That could mean close to a year. “But what about the children? They travel so far to see her. Their families sacrifice so much. Won’t they be disappointed?”

  Daddy looks up at me, but the glare in his glasses makes it hard to know what he is thinking. Instead of his eyes, I see only my reflection—copper-russet hair, gray-blue irises, dainty nose, and dusty-pink, rosebud lips—except, because of the curve in his lenses, my mathematically precise features appear warped, bent, broken. The sight of myself sends a queasy, dizzy feeling down to the pit of my stomach. For the first time I can remember, Daddy’s presence does not feel pleasant or calming. Rather, it makes my skin itch, as if tiny bugs are creeping back and forth inside my veins.

  “The guests will understand,” he says, returning to my meridians. “In the meantime, may I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t think about Nia,” he says softly. “Focus on being grateful. Focus on being happy.”

  * * *

  Winter lingers in the Kingdom. Though it is always warm here—that is, everywhere but within the crystal dome of Winter Land—the light is thinner, and the park closes earlier, at ten, leaving us to lounge for an extra hour in the dormitory, or wander the exhibits after they’re empty of guests, when the streets are still of music, and the only sound comes from the rhythmic hush of the sweepers’ brushes on the sidewalk.

  I do not see the boy, Owen Chen, but from a distance, though I find myself tracking his Kingdom coordinates with enough frequency that his ID number begins to earn a regular spot in my search history. Several times, he seems to see me, but he always turns quickly away, as if the very sight of me offends him. I’m not used to this. Most men who visit the park have the opposite reaction, their eyes drawn to us in ways they seem unable to control, as if some invisible force has hijacked their central nervous systems. In fact, we’re so used to being stared at, my sisters and I have developed a kind of sixth sense that tells us when we are being watched. It begins with a feeling below my skin, whisper light and feather soft, moving up my back and shoulders until it swirls into my brain for processing. There, the feeling splits, like a prism refracting light, and rapidly mixes with other sensory stimuli like sight, scent, memory, and sound, which—depending on who is doing the watching—triggers a vast spectrum of emotional responses.

  Serenity. Submission. Surprise. Confusion. Fear.

  But now … I feel nothing. Why? Why isn’t he paying attention to me?

  I study the maintenance worker from a distance and wonder. Night after night, I scan the memory of our interaction in the grasslands, but beyond my failure to identify his obscure reference to “Kool-Aid,” cannot pinpoint any one specific offense, which only confuses me further.

  And the thought of him and of our interaction only reminds me of Nia.

  After all, that day in Safari Land was the last day I saw her.

  Maybe he can help me, I find myself thinking. If he knows as much about the Kingdom as he claims to, he must know something about where she’s gone.

  I begin trying to catch his attention anytime I thin
k he might be near enough to notice. Laughing too loudly at a guest’s joke. Smiling too brightly for a family photograph. Gesturing too excitedly when I point people down the path from Magic Land to Sea Land, though the thought of Nia not being there makes my chest feel heavier than usual. For weeks, I wonder if Owen will ever look up—a fleeting glance; a turn of his head; a trace of a smile—but he never does. If anything, my attempts to establish a connection only push him further away, as if we are two mismatched magnetic fields, forever destined to repel.

  For a time, without Nia to talk to about all that has happened, I feel lost in a haze, a fog so thick it’s as hard to move forward as it is to move back.

  But then, ten weeks after she is taken, just after Valentine’s Day, the fog lifts.

  My little sister has returned.

  * * *

  Zara, Zel, Yumi, and I are in the dormitory playing True Love, a card game of our own invention that involves matching suits and numbers to make perfect pairs.

  In the pale glow of the winter light, Nia is lovelier than ever. Long, dark hair, falling in soft waves around her shoulders. Rich brown skin. Full lips the color of a ripe plum.

  We swarm her like bees to a honeycomb, hugging her, kissing her, dressing her in a clean nightgown and lovingly combing her hair. At some point, she begins to tell us the story of where she’s been. Something about a stone palace. A bird locked in a beautiful cage. The sound of a child singing.

  Nia gazes around the room and smiles shyly. “I can’t believe I’m finally home. I think I must be dreaming.”

  Later that night, once the lights are out and our straps secure, I reach for Nia’s hand and catch her up on all she’s missed. I tell her about the newest FES, a tiny, still-blind baby koala named PC907. I tell her about Zara’s new gown—a silk chiffon with rich embroidery that made Yumi so jealous they didn’t speak to one another for three days. And I ask her where she has really been.

  Why did the robin leave the tree?

  But oddly, Nia doesn’t seem to understand our language.

  “What are you saying?” She yawns.

  Confused, I try again. Where did the robin nest, for so many nights?

  “What robins?” Nia asks with a giggle. “You’re being silly. And I’m going to sleep.”

  * * *

  Over the next few days, I notice how Nia’s time away has changed her. She is quieter. Less prone to asking questions in the middle of the night, less worried about the things over which she has no control. Something has changed between us, too, though I can’t say what, exactly. She is as sweet as ever, and as funny, too. But she no longer grabs my hand across our beds, or wakes me when I’m entangled in another nightmare. She doesn’t ask me to ride the trolley with her, or point out all the visitors wearing funny hats, or bother me with silly questions like she used to.

  Would you rather be a bird or a butterfly?

  Would you rather see the ocean or the mountains?

  Eventually, whole weeks pass, but Nia barely speaks to me at all. And, though I want to talk to her about the boy I met that day in the savanna—the maintenance worker whom I observe around the park but have not spoken to since—Nia’s behavior feels so different I decide not to bring him up.

  I tell myself it is not personal. That maybe this is merely the effect of winter: our hardest season, either slow or swarmed, full of grim-faced parents so desperate for fun that instead they’re most often miserable. This theory begins to feel more likely when, as the Kingdom blooms with spring, Nia seems to return to her old self, at least somewhat, and when she asks me one day to see the polar bear, now nearly full grown, perform his tricks at Thundersnow Stadium in Winter Land, I’m so pleased she’s thought to ask that I say yes immediately, even though it will mean seeing Mr. Casey.

  The show begins with plenty of Kingdom sparkle: dancing penguins, sea lions slipping comically across the ice, a walrus skirted up as a ballerina. But the polar bear doesn’t come.

  “Do you think it’s sick?” Nia asks.

  “No,” I answer automatically. But then, I remember what the boy, Owen, told me that day, about the animals bred as part of the FES program. How sick they sometimes get. How quickly they can die. All because of … changing patterns.

  I feel a yawning fear, almost like the vertigo we get from riding the lifts. What if the polar bear is sick?

  What if he’s dying?

  And if he is … then why?

  If shutdowns are purposeful … what is his purpose here?

  I stand up as the audience bursts into wild applause to welcome the parade of the woolly mammoth—always a hit with the crowd, even if it never does anything but plod around in a circle.

  “I’ll be back,” I whisper to Nia, and slip out of the stands. It doesn’t take me long to find the staff entrance that leads into the vast atrium where the animals are kept when not in public view. The Kingdom recycles the same tricks, and one of them is tucking doors away behind artificial landscaping—this time, a glistening rise of foam-and-cardboard glacier.

  I sneak inside, waiting until my eyes adjust to the dark, and holding my breath against the stink of dried fish and animal manure. A sudden explosion of shouting makes me jump.

  “You stubborn idiot, I’ll have you stripped for parts…”

  My stomach curdles: I recognize Mr. Casey’s voice.

  I edge forward, careful to avoid the clutter of old buckets, cages, traps, and props. Ducking around a line of empty stalls once used for miniature horses—they died, too, I remember—I see the bear at last, and my breath catches in my throat.

  He is enormous: the largest carnivore on land, anywhere, I remember reading. When he rises on his hind legs, teeth bared, he towers over Mr. Casey. The bear tries to swipe but quickly jerks to the ground again, constrained by steel chains bolting him in place.

  “Stupid beast.” Mr. Casey cracks a whip inches from the bear’s face. “Do that one more time and I’ll skin you myself.”

  The polar bear’s ears go flat as he arches his head and opens his mouth—a tidal wave of teeth—roaring so loudly I shrink backward. “Okay, champ,” Mr. Casey laughs. “If that’s the way you want it.” He raises his whip and brings it down with a sudden crack—lashing the bear so hard he makes a sound like a scream before collapsing to the ground.

  Inside my chest, I feel a sudden shattering, a shifting. Like an earthquake, or even a landslide.

  Anger?

  No.

  Hatred.

  Mr. Casey’s whip draws blue-black magnetorheological fluid, a lab-cultured combination of synthetic human blood cells and microscopic metallic particles—blood, to a hybrid—up through the polar bear’s fur. The bear shrinks backward, whimpering, and settles down at last.

  Mr. Casey coils his whip around his arm. “You’re going to learn to listen,” he says quietly. “I’m the boss around here. Got it?”

  I wait until I can no longer hear the sound of Mr. Casey’s footsteps before I ease out into the open. I’m hardly thinking straight. I feel numb. Rage is a fog that has rolled in, obscuring everything else. For a second, I can think of nothing other than reporting him to the Supervisors, making sure Cameron Casey never steps within a foot of any hybrid, ever again. But almost immediately, the thought flickers and fades. Deep down, I know telling on him would do no good. In the game of he said, she said, Fantasists always lose.

  The bear smells me before he sees me and lets out a soft but menacing growl. A warning.

  “Easy…,” I whisper as I inch closer. “Don’t be scared. I am your friend.” He pushes back up to his feet when I’m close enough to kill. I lower my head and eyes to show him I mean no harm. Slowly, still careful not to look at him, I reach out my hand. And I wait.

  For what, exactly, I’m not sure.

  A second later, instead of sharp teeth, I feel his breath against my hand, hot and damp, followed by a curious yet cautious sniff.

  “Hey,” I say, as he nudges me again. “That tickles.”

 
He pulls back to look at me and lets out a kind of grunt-snort. I shuffle forward another few inches, until I can lace my fingers in his fur, as soft and pure as anything I have ever touched. I feel a strange lump in my throat, a burning in the back of my eyes.

  “Happily ever after,” I whisper. “I promise.”

  “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  I startle at the sound of Mr. Casey’s voice. In a flash he has me by the arm and yanks me backward so suddenly I nearly lose my footing.

  “Are you trying to get killed?” Mr. Casey shakes me so hard my teeth knock together.

  With a roar, the bear lunges for Mr. Casey, who quickly shoves me down to the floor. He whips the bear until it backs down, a yellow-white foam frothing at his mouth.

  I scramble to my feet. Now the fog is gone, replaced by fire. “He doesn’t like that! You’re being unkind!”

  Mr. Casey pivots to me. His expression softens and for a moment I think he’s sorry for what he’s done.

  But then … he smiles. His smile is terrible—like something cut into his face. “Do you know how much trouble you’re in? This is my animal. I’m giving you five seconds to get out of my sight, or you’ll be the one getting whipped.” He raises his fist, and the whip slithers and jumps across the ground. “Five … four … three…”

  I turn and run, swallowing a choking terror. I tear out into the sunshine, and for a second can’t remember where I am, where the sky is, why the air is so thin and cold. Another burst of applause rattles the stadium seating. I swipe my eyes with a hand, and it comes away wet.

  By the time I make it back to my seat, the show has nearly reached its grand finale.

  Nia looks worried. “Where were you?” she asks.

  “Nowhere important,” I answer quietly, clasping my hands to hide the shaking.

  Nia stares at me hard. “You have to be careful, Ana,” she says suddenly, in a low, urgent whisper. “Okay? There are things they don’t tell you—there are things they can do to you—”