“What goes out to the city? Just blankets and apples and stuff, right?”
Our mother looked uncomfortable. Next to me, Taema rested her head on my shoulder. She was especially tired today.
“Yes,” Mom said. “Plus several boxes I’m not allowed to open. If they get paid for any of it, I never see the money. Mana-ma packs those boxes herself, so there’s no way to sneak you out in those.”
“Doesn’t that … worry you? That she’s sending stuff out and you have no idea what it is?”
“She must be doing God’s will in one way or another.” My mother did not sound convinced as she gave us a tremulous smile. Dad looked worried.
“You’re both doubting her, aren’t you? At least a little bit.”
Taema’s head rose from my shoulder as she stared at them.
“We’d never…” Mom trailed off, unable to complete the lie.
“The closer we get to the top,” Dad whispered, “the more we see. The more we aren’t able to unsee.”
He wouldn’t elaborate more than that. This conversation was going very differently than how I’d thought it would.
“We’d have to go behind Mana-ma,” Dad said. “It won’t be easy.”
“Can you do it?” I asked.
They looked at us as though we were crazy for asking. “Of course.”
“Will you come with us?”
A pause. My parents exchanged a glance. “We can’t. It’d be too hard to sneak all of us out. We can do more good here.”
I lost it then and started crying. So did Taema. Mom and Dad came and put their arms around us. Nothing would ever be the same as before our heart attack. Or before we found that tablet and realized that there was a whole world out there, and this one was fucked. Maybe, even if our heart hadn’t been weak, we would still have tried to escape. I’d like to think we would have. Somehow.
Taema finally spoke up. “Thank you,” she whispered.
They kept their arms around us, kissing the tops of our heads.
Our heart kept skittering in our ribcage. If they were going to save us, they would have to do it soon. If they were going to be able to do it at all.
*
The worst part was waiting.
I was never very good at waiting. I’d rather barrel in head first and figure it out later.
Our parents were formulating a plan, but didn’t tell us the exact details. They said it’d be safer that way. It made Taema and me feel guilty and confused—what would Mana-ma do to them, or us, if she found out we were trying to leave? I imagine she’d been furious when she found out that Mia left. None of us were meant to speak of her, in any case; just like nobody spoke about the Brother.
It was hard going through day-to-day life when we could barely move. We started sleeping more and eating less. We needed canes to support us when we did try to walk.
It was terrible.
When we were feeling stronger we’d walk through the path in the woods until we reached the swamp. The air smelled thick and fetid, cutting through the scent of crushed pine needles. There were no boats on the island, for no one ever needed to leave, at least according to Mana-ma.
We ran our hands along the ferns, their leaves tickling our hands. We wanted to leave the confines of the Hearth more than anything, but we were also so scared.
“What do you think it’ll be like?” Taema asked. She always asked that when we were alone. Now that we’d decided, and even though deep down the crisis of faith was getting to her, I could tell she was daydreaming about it all the time so that she didn’t have to focus on the here and now. I kept wanting to pretend it was perfect on the other side, that we’d have wonderful new lives. The problem was, I’ve always been too much of a cynic to believe in happily ever after.
“It’ll be the best,” I reassured her. “We can do anything we want. A whole fresh start. The world is our oyster!”
“What does that even mean?”
“No idea. It was in one of your books I borrowed.”
She laughed weakly. Up overhead, the supply ship flew for its first drop in three months.
Taema shifted uncomfortably next to me, pulling on our shared skin. “Should we go see it?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to risk anyone seeing us hanging around there this time.
The last time.
NINETEEN
TAEMA
“Tila,” Ensi, the leader of the Ratel, says with a smile. Like so many in San Francisco, he looks hardly older than thirty, but I’m sure he must be at least ten years older or more. Perhaps significantly more.
He’s not quite as classically handsome as many men I’ve seen in the city—most likely intentionally. The crescent moon tattoo by his eye glows slightly green.
I’m still shaking. “What’s going on?”
“I Tested you.”
“The others … they weren’t real?”
“No. Mere images projected from those electrodes and your ocular implants.”
“I haven’t killed anyone,” I whisper. I can’t believe how relieved I feel. I’m light-headed with it.