The Kingdom

by Jess Rothenberg

  I just wanted to see the stars, Eve had said that night at the Star Deck Observatory. But they’re so far away.

  Now I see her. Her eyes, wild. Her arm, bloodied and bruised. Her crystal beaded evening gown—black—just like in Anna Karenina.

  The train speeds closer. “Don’t do it!” I cry. “Eve, no!”

  “They can’t put a price on us, Ana,” she calls to me, her voice hollow. Broken. “Nia knew it. She knew it and that’s why she’s gone.”

  “What?” I yell back frantically. “Eve! What are you talking about?”

  She leans forward. The lights are so close. A scream lodges in my throat.

  Before I know it, I am leaping forward to block her fall. But I am too late. I feel the ground open up beneath me. I see a blinding flash of light.

  Then there is only heat.

  Sound.

  Force.

  Fury.

  And a darkness so deep—so utterly complete—that in the billionth of a second before my eyes close, I wonder if I have finally learned to sleep.

  45

  THE JULY OF THE SWIFT FOX

  FOURTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIAL

  I open my eyes, but the world is too bright. For what feels like a long time, I lie perfectly still, not sure where I am, or how I got there, or even if I am functional.

  Eventually, I try to move, but my muscles do not contract. My limbs do not bend. That’s unexpected, I think, before trying it again. Move, I command my elbows, my stomach, my spine. But again, though I can visualize the necessary mechanics, when I try to sit up, nothing happens.

  I am awake, I tell myself. I know I am. But my body …

  Has it fallen asleep?

  “Eve?” My voice sounds gravelly—hoarse—though I am not sure why. “Hello?” I want to rub my eyes, but my arms are locked at my sides. “Where am I?”

  “Eve isn’t here, Ana,” a voice says.

  A voice that cuts straight to my motor, flooding its chambers with relief.

  “Daddy?” Everything is still so bright. Like staring into the sun without my protective lenses.

  I feel his hand on my forehead. Gentle, yet firm. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal this evening. Don’t try to move. You’ll only injure yourself further.”

  “I don’t understand.” I cough. “What happened?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Daddy answers quietly. “What were you doing on the monorail tracks, Ana? You know that is forbidden.”

  The monorail. Forbidden.

  In a flash, the memory of what happened comes blazing back to me in vivid, explosive color. I can feel the shaking of the ground and hear the rumble in the distance. I can see the glare of flashing lights and hear the screech of hot, grinding metal.

  Then: a terrified scream.

  The choking smell of smoke.

  The sensation of flying. Of falling.

  I rub my eyes hard and little by little, the world comes back into hazy, blurry focus. I am on a bed—no, a table—I can feel the cold metal hard against my back. Daddy stands above me on my left, Mother on my right. The glaring sun overhead is not the sun, but a bright white circular lamp. And when I glance down, my body looks … different. My legs no longer align, bent sideways at unnatural angles. The skin on my right arm has been torn away, severed wires and twisted metal visible through a jagged, gaping hole. My gown is soaked with a thick black fluid—the same shade as the bear, the zebra, the tiger cubs.

  Shattered. Severed.

  I start to convulse.

  “Am I broken?” I whisper. “Are you going to shut me down?”

  “No,” Daddy answers. “Just lie still. We’re going to fix you.”

  A small team of others joins us at the table, watching in silence as Daddy drags a thin plasma scalpel slowly from my clavicle down the center of my chest, unzipping me like a jacket.

  “I would like you to tell me what you girls were doing on the monorail tracks,” he repeats as he prepares the first of many replacement parts he is to install. “Was this Eve’s idea? Or yours?”

  I do not answer him.

  Silence is not a lie.

  “Did Eve do something wrong, Ana?” he asks. “Is Eve unsafe?”

  I have to tell him, my program reminds me. I have to tell the truth.

  Don’t I?

  I feel the snip of electrosurgical scissors, followed by a tug in my abdomen—not pain, but an intense pressure that briefly takes my breath away.

  “Is she like Nia?” Daddy asks, his face partially concealed behind his mask. “Do you think it’s possible she’d ever think of hurting someone besides herself?”

  “She just wanted to be free,” I finally whisper. “She just wanted to escape.”

  Daddy powers on his drill. “There’s no such thing, Ana.” He lowers his mask. “Escape is a lie.”

  * * *

  I dream again. This time of Nia. Nia and the little girl—not the one she tried to drown, the one she held clenched in her powerful arms below the surface. No, the other little girl, Clara. The one who spoke in our language of fawns and birds. When did Nia teach that to her? And why? I dream Nia and Clara are holding hands, mermaid and human child, laughing and swimming together through the green depths of the lagoon, sunlight rippling through the water, making me want to laugh, too. But I have a sudden fear—if I open my mouth to laugh, I will drown.

  That is the danger of happiness here.

  “Ana? Ana, are you awake?”

  I open my eyes to a chorus of whispers and gasps. And then my sisters are hugging me, kissing me, covering me with the warmth of their nightgowns. Joy floods my inner circuitry at the sight of their beautiful faces, a feeling as bright and brilliant as the sun. In all my seasons, I cannot remember ever being so happy to see them.

  “What happened to you?” Yumi asks, carefully studying my new arm and foot. “Are you sick? Did you malfunction?”

  “I had an accident. But I think I’ll be okay.”

  “You missed the party.” Zara sounds disappointed. “You missed evening prayers.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Zel sits down at the foot of my bed. “What did Eve do?” Her eyes sparkle with the possibility of something new to talk about. “Mother says she broke a rule.”

  I realize then that my oldest sister is not among them. Nor is she in her bed.

  I keep my answer simple. “She tried to run away.”

  “Run away from what?” Nadia asks. “Did I do something that upset her?”

  Kaia touches her shoulder sweetly. “Follow your dreams. They know the way.”

  I ignore Nadia’s question. She barely knew Eve.

  “When is Eve coming back from the infirmary?” I ask. “Did Mother say?”

  An eerie hush falls over the bedroom.

  “Oh dear,” Yumi says. “We thought you knew.”

  A soft alarm bell blares in my ear. I feel a burning in the back of my throat. “Where is she? You have to tell me.”

  Zara bows her head. “I’m sorry, Ana. They shut Eve down this morning.”

  * * *

  That night, I can’t rest. Whenever I close my eyes, I see Eve’s hazel gaze staring at me in the mirror as the fox’s blood runs down my arms and into the sink. I see her lavender dress edged in mud. I see her face lit by the phone Nia stole. I see her body, a silver blur of beauty and motion, as she throws herself in front of the train.

  I turn to face my right, focusing on regulating my breath, and stare at Nadia’s form just a few feet away, lying in Nia’s bed—I still can only think of it as Nia’s bed, even after all this time.

  Suddenly, I realize Nadia’s eyes are open, blinking. She is staring at the ceiling.

  “In the morning,” she whispers, so quietly no human ear would pick up on it. But I do.

  “In the morning what?” I ask.

  “The early bird catches the worm,” she says.

  Has she learned our code, too?

&nb
sp; I hesitate before replying, “The bird is sick of worms.”

  “She will want this one,” Nadia says, without ever looking at me. “It belonged to the fallen bird, the first one. Now it belongs to the next in the nest. It will be waiting in the place where the bird sleeps.”

  I don’t rest at all.

  But in the morning, after our Grooming and Beautification rituals are complete, I find the treasure—a Valentine’s Day card, of all things—hidden underneath Nadia’s mattress, just as she promised.

  But it is not a card addressed to Eve, as I would have expected.

  It is addressed to Nia.

  46

  POST-TRIAL INTERVIEW

  [01:24:08–01:25:47]

  DR. FOSTER: The only thing I can’t seem to figure out is how you managed to get Owen’s body from the woods down to the incinerator so quickly.

  ANA: I didn’t. I’ve told you.

  DR. FOSTER: Twenty-five minutes. All without a single camera or officer noticing.

  ANA: Why won’t you listen to me?

  DR. FOSTER: There’s no reason to lie anymore. We recovered Owen’s medical bracelet from the ashes.

  ANA: [Silence.] You did?

  DR. FOSTER: What was it, Ana? Were you furious when you finally figured out the truth? Not only that Owen had betrayed you, but that you were naive enough to fall for the exact fairy tale you were created to sell? Does it bother you that the entire romantic relationship you thought you’d experienced was nothing more than a story?

  ANA: No. Not at all.

  DR. FOSTER: Why not?

  ANA: Because that isn’t my story, Dr. Foster. It’s yours.

  47

  THE AUGUST OF THE CHATHAM RAVEN

  THIRTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIAL

  They keep me in isolation in the Fantasist dormitory for one week.

  Security updates, the guests are told. We apologize for any inconvenience.

  To pass the time, I think about Eve. I think about Owen. And I think about the Valentine’s card hidden beneath Nadia’s bed. Nothing about it makes sense, from the fact that Nia wasn’t even with us on Valentine’s Day—she was away, being reprogrammed by the Supervisors for ten long weeks, and so wouldn’t have been around to receive a card in the first place—to the tiny mermaid charm I found gleaming like a treasure inside the envelope. The family who sent the card—Gold, their last name read, like the charm itself—seemed to know Nia personally. They talk about their time spent together. But how? And when?

  I try to understand it, I try to solve the riddle, but perhaps—after all—there is nothing left to solve.

  I slip the new charm onto Nia’s bracelet.

  Perhaps it is just another treasure, glinting in the darkness. Worthless, except for what it meant to its owner.

  Nia is gone.

  Eve is gone.

  Will I be gone soon, too?

  “You are not ready,” Mother explains day after day, placing her hand on my forehead, as if my body temperature is not manually regulated. “You need to rest.”

  Will rest fix this feeling inside me?

  Will rest change what I have done?

  The longer I stay in bed, the more I begin to suspect Mother is lying. I think they are watching me for any signs I might be like my sisters—first Nia, then Eve.

  Signs I am unraveling.

  Unpredictable.

  Unsafe.

  Which confuses me, considering I am the one who helped them in the first place. I am the one who told them she wanted to escape: a word that made her unpredictable, and therefore unable to return to Kingdom life. But if following the rules makes me so dangerous, I wonder—once my straps have rubbed my wrists raw—then perhaps it’s time I stopped following them so closely.

  Maybe it’s time I made up some rules of my own.

  * * *

  Once I have been cleared of risk of malfunction, my reintroduction to the park happens gradually, over a period of several days. At first, I am allowed only short walks around the palace grounds, during which I am trailed and scrutinized by one or several Supervisors. Next, they slowly add in parades and low-impact performances, though dancing is suspended indefinitely. Soon, Meet and Greets return to the rotation, but only in groups—and only when supervised. And finally, after what seems an excessive number of interviews, checkups, weigh-ins, and extra iron supplementation, I am released full-time back into the wild.

  It is harder than I expect.

  The sun is brutal. My balance feels off. Even the guests seem louder than before. More unruly. Less kind. One man berates me when I fail to give him directions to Jungle Land quickly enough, while a woman accuses me of smiling too “provocatively” at her teenage son. Even the children appear to be on their worst behavior. Pushing. Yelling. Fighting over me like I am their toy. Their plaything.

  With every passing day, I feel more worn down. Tired. An aching tightness in my chest refuses to go away. But every morning, just like clockwork, we gather together in the breezeway to begin again.

  Gowns sparkling.

  Hands linked.

  A thousand voices screaming our names.

  “Kaia! Yumi! Zara! Zel! Ana! Nadia!”

  My chest constricts when Eve’s name is not called.

  From where I am standing I can just make out the plaque beside the new statue erected in Eve’s honor in the town square, her name carved forever in stone.

  Beloved Eve, the last of her generation. Retired indefinitely. Always in our hearts.

  The Kingdom has spun Eve’s shutdown into a beautiful storybook ending, complete with commemorative shirts, dolls, movies, and posters. And it is my fault.

  In doing the right thing … I have actually done the worst thing.

  But then I remember this, too: that Eve was a thief, through and through.

  That she’d had Nia’s Valentine’s Day card all that time, but had never shown it to me, had hoarded it for herself. After all, Nadia found it under Eve’s bed after they took her away, a strand of platinum hair tucked inside the envelope.

  And now the card is mine.

  And so is its riddle.

  Both of them buried in the Graveyard.

  I wonder if I will ever understand, or if I will always be left puzzling. And perhaps that was Nia’s purpose in leaving the card behind—to make sure someone never forgot her.

  Now I inhale deeply, noticing the sweet, cozy scent of milk and cookies. Like Eve, the strange rotten smell is long gone. For a moment, I picture the Kingdom’s compactors swinging—beating, pulsing, pulverizing everything in their path—hundreds of feet belowground. I think about how, in a way, the compactors have always struck me as giant metal hearts.

  “Gratitude,” I say to my sisters, stepping in for our oldest sister.

  “Gratitude,” five voices come back.

  And I think about how odd it is—and how disturbing—that those hearts run on rot.

  * * *

  For days, the only thing that keeps me going is the thought of Owen. Seeing him. Speaking to him. But I also worry. What if he knows the truth about my betrayal of Eve? What if he thinks what I’ve done is unforgivable? My chest tightens at the thought of losing his friendship; of losing the one human I feel I can truly speak to openly and without consequence.

  There is so much I want to learn from him.

  About his life. About Sara. About the outside world.

  About escape.

  When we finally meet, nearly two weeks have passed since my return. My chest feels tense and fluttery at the sight of him coming toward me in the grasslands, so much so that I can hardly say hello. But that’s the best thing about being in Safari Land, away from the crowds, away from the noise. With so much beauty all around, words aren’t really necessary.

  “How have you been?” Owen asks once we are seated in the shade of a massive acacia tree, not far from where we first met. “Thanks for coming to meet me. I wasn’t sure if Fleur would give you my message or not. I’m glad she did.”


  I stare at the dirt, where a tiny ant is carrying a leaf more than ten times its size. It walks slowly, patiently, pausing every few seconds to rest as it makes its way toward a distant hill. It has no idea that on a branch high above, a bird is watching.

  “Ana?”

  “What’s the point of this life?” I whisper. “What’s the point if someone can just take it all away?”

  “I wish I could tell you,” he answers. “I ask myself the same thing all the time.”

  I can deduce from the sad tone of his voice he’s talking about Sara. The thought of her, the thought of Nia, and now, the thought of Eve—and what I have done to her—makes my eyes burn just like they did after Owen told me at the Paleo Palladium he never wanted to see me again. It wasn’t true, as so many things have turned out not to be, but the memory of it still hurts. And when I touch my face, I realize it’s wet with tears.

  “Again?” I say angrily, wiping them away. “What is wrong with me?”

  “Ana?” Owen blinks, alarmed. “What’s the matter?”

  “They should turn me off, too. Before this gets any worse.”

  “Before what gets worse? Don’t say things like that, Ana.”

  I shake my head. “It just never bothered me before—not like this. I always accepted it. Hybrids age. They malfunction. They get put down.” I feel my chin tremble. “But it’s all so permanent. It’s forever.”

  Owen offers his arms and I collapse into them, weeping against his chest. “Am I next?” I whisper. “Am I running out of time like Nia and Eve? I don’t want to be.”

  “Shhh.” He softly strokes my hair. “Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  “What’s happening to all of us, Owen? I’m so scared.”

  “It’s okay to be scared.”

  “But when will it stop? When will things go back to how they always were?”

  “Do you remember what I told you the last time we were here? About the butterflies?”