“Sit down, Atta,” said Brother Delta.
Atta didn’t. He crouched there, holding Grego’s limp hand, his thumb fitted into the pulse point. How long would this last? Until we were all on the floor? Could Grego last that long? Han, too, was halfway out of his chair, his fist at his teeth, his face nakedly horrified, as if Grego were dying in front of us.
Dying. But surely they wouldn’t—
I stood up.
I felt every eye turn to me.
“Brother Delta,” I said.
Our teacher swiveled toward me. Aligned himself precisely. He did not widen his eye icons, as the Abbot would have done. He was focused on me and not a whisker of him was human. “Greta,” the thing said.
“This has to stop,” I answered.
Delta ticked. “Sit down, please, Greta.” At my elbow, the proctor on Elián’s desk raised itself slowly.
“This has to stop.” I was too hot, too stunned, too sick to say anything else. But I didn’t sit down, either. I stood firm even as the proctor stepped—click, click, click—toward me.
And then, suddenly, there was sound around me. Chairs scraping stone, cloth stirring.
Da-Xia, Thandi, Han. Atta pulling himself off the floor. Everyone—everyone had stood. All at once, everyone had stood.
“Children,” said Brother Delta. Again there was no narrowing of the lips, no widening of the eyes. It had been terrifying a moment ago. Now it was like being scolded by a coatrack. “Children.”
“Enough,” snapped Thandi—and she turned and stalked out of the room. The door slid open for her, and stayed open.
The silence was stunning.
“Da-Xia,” said Brother Delta after a moment. “Would you please go and see if Thandi is well?”
Da-Xia nodded, and then ran from the room with her loosened sleeve points flapping. She moved like a figure out of myth—like something with wings.
Heat—my head was whirling. But the door stood open. Cool air eddied around our feet. The steamy windows cleared.
“Sit down, Children,” said Delta.
No one did.
“I think that will do, Delta.” The voice in the doorway made us turn. It was the Abbot, his facescreen dim, his eyes soft and thoughtful. “Children, if you’d help Mr. Kalvelis? It’s your bell for gardening.”
Atta scooped up Grego. And we didn’t bow. We just left.
Han and I led the way to the gardens, and Atta carried Grego in his arms.
There was a hand pump by the toolshed: an ancient iron thing flecked with blood-red paint. We pumped up the earth-cool and rusty water; we drank and drank. We used our hands to rub the water over Grego, and slowly coaxed him back to life. We leaned him against the terrace, in its meager shade. And then—for what else could we do?—we planted garlic.
We were planting where we had harvested the potatoes. Where Elián had stood, and said: “I’m Spartacus.” Where he had fallen, screaming.
But all day long, we did not see Elián.
Or Thandi. Or Xie.
Elián they had taken to punish, obviously. And Thandi, who had gone out of the room like water bursting a levee. Of course they had taken Thandi. But Xie had done nothing. She was—not innocent, because we weren’t, but innocent in this. They had taken Da-Xia because . . .
I knew in my heart that they had taken her in my place. I had stood up when I should not have, and I needed to be slapped down. They’d taken Xie to hurt me, and hurt me they had.
And God knew what they were doing to her.
As soon as the bell rang to let us inside, I began to search. Da-Xia was not in the kitchens. The miseri was empty.
Desperate, I went to our cell, and there I found her, lying in bed, limp as if fevered.
“Xie!” The name came out of me as if I’d been struck in the stomach. I could have folded up, knotted myself around relief and terror both. But she looked at me blankly and said nothing. Her little braids were spread out on the UN-blue pillow, limp and dark. I sat down on my own cot. The cell was so small that I could reach for her hand, cot to cot. She didn’t reach back, though. She wasn’t looking at me. All our codes and connections had fallen away. I felt adrift.
“Xie?” I whispered.
Nothing.
The glass roof over us seemed to dial in, like a microscope head, coming closer. The origami cranes twitched in a draft I couldn’t feel. The room was bright and hot and still. And my best friend lay as if dead.
The silence was too long, and too much. I leaned forward and put my hand over hers. She still didn’t stir, but she spoke—spoke as if to the ceiling. “Did you get the garlic in?”
“We did,” I said. “Grego needed a bit of a rest, but he helped with the last tray.” Da-Xia would be—normally would be—worried about Grego, whom she had last seen collapsed on the floor. I thought she would be relieved, but she did not even blink. “We missed you and Thandi.” I was fishing for my own reassurances. “And Elián, of course.”
Da-Xia said nothing.