I go very still, almost afraid to breathe. I feel as though I’m teetering on a precipice, on the verge of understanding, and I’m not yet sure if I want to go over.
My mother goes on, “In the real story, King Solomon decides that the baby should be cut in half. But it’s only a test. One mother agrees; the other woman says that she’ll give up claim to the baby altogether. She doesn’t want the child injured.” My mother turns her eyes to me. Even in the dark, I can see their sparkle, the clarity that has never gone away. “That’s how the king identifies the real mother. She’s willing to sacrifice her claim, sacrifice her happiness, to keep the baby safe.”
I close my eyes and see embers burning behind my lids: blood-red dawn, smoke and fire, Alex behind the ash. All of a sudden, I know. I understand the meaning of his note.
“I’m not trying to control you, Lena,” my mother says, her voice low. “I just want you to be safe. That’s what I’ve always wanted.”
I open my eyes. The memory of Alex standing behind the fence as a black swarm enfolded him recedes. “It’s too late.” My voice sounds hollow, and not like my own. “I’ve seen things…I’ve lost things you can’t understand.”
It’s the closest I’ve come to speaking about Alex. Thankfully, she doesn’t pry. She just nods.
“I’m tired.” I push myself to my feet. My body, too, feels unfamiliar, as though I’m a puppet that has begun to come apart at the seams. Alex sacrificed himself once so that I could live and be happy. Now he has done it again.
I’ve been so stupid. And he is gone; there is no way for me to reach him and tell him I know and understand.
There is no way for me to tell him that I am still in love with him.
“I’m going to get some sleep,” I tell her, avoiding her eyes.
“I think that’s a good idea,” she says.
I’ve already started to move away from her when she calls out to me. I turn around. The fire has now burned out completely, and her face is swallowed in darkness.
“We make for the wall at dawn,” she says.
Hana
I can’t sleep.
Tomorrow I will no longer be myself. I will walk down the white carpet, and stand under the white canopy, and pronounce vows of loyalty and purpose. Afterward, white petals will rain down on me, scattered by the priests, by the guests, by my parents.
I will be reborn: blank, clean, featureless, like the world after a blizzard.
I stay up all night and watch dawn break slowly over the horizon, touching the world with white.
Lena
I’m in a crowd, watching two children fight over a baby. They are playing tug-of-war, pulling it violently back and forth, and the baby is blue, and I know they are shaking it to death. I’m trying to push through the crowd, but more and more people are surging around me, blocking my path, making it impossible to move. And then, just as I feared, the baby falls: It hits the pavement and shatters into a thousand pieces, like a china doll.
Then all the people are gone. I am alone on a road, and in front of me, a girl with long, tangled hair is bent over the shattered doll, piecing it back together painstakingly, humming to herself. The day is bright and perfectly still. Each of my footsteps rings out like a gunshot, but she doesn’t look up until I am standing directly in front of her.
Then she does, and she is Grace.
“See?” she says, extending the doll toward me. “I fixed it.”
And I see that the doll’s face is my own, and webbed with thousands of tiny fissures and cracks.
Grace cradles the doll in her arms. “Wake up, wake up,” she croons.
“Wake up.”
I open my eyes: My mother is standing above me. I sit up, my body stiff, working feeling into my fingers and toes, flexing and unflexing. The air is hung with mist, and the sky is just beginning to lighten. The ground is covered with frost, which has seeped through my blanket while I was sleeping, and the wind has a bitter, morning edge. The camp is busy: Around me, people are stirring, standing, moving like shadows through the half darkness. Fires are sparking to life, and every so often, I hear a burst of conversation, a shouted command.
My mother reaches out a hand and helps me to my feet. Incredibly, she looks rested and alert. I stomp the stiffness out of my legs.
“Coffee will get your blood moving,” she says.
It doesn’t surprise me that Raven, Tack, Pippa, and Beast are already up. They are standing with Colin and a dozen others near one of the larger fire pits, their breath clouding the air as they speak in low tones. There is a stockpot of coffee on the fire: bitter and full of grains, but hot. I start to feel better and more awake after I’ve had only a few sips. But I can’t bring myself to eat anything.