Atlantia

by Ally Condie

  On the table between us sits a large, golden bowl full of different-colored shells. It’s odd to see so many in one place. “How did you get all of these?”

  Maire shrugs. “How does one get a collection of anything?” she asks. “I kept an eye out in the deepmarket. When I saw one I liked, I bought it. I’ve been gathering them for years.”

  “Is that how you hear me?” I ask Maire, gesturing to the shells. “Do you pick up one and listen?”

  “No,” Maire says. “Those shells are all empty.”

  “That’s what you said about the sirens,” I say. “You said they were empty. Vacant.”

  “Yes,” Maire says. “That’s how the Council wants them to be. And over the years, the Council has become very good at breaking sirens down.”

  “What happened?” I ask. “You told me about the time when the sirens were worshipped. When did they come to be hated?”

  “It’s a terrible story,” Maire says. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  I am, but I’m not sure I want to hear her tell it. It’s one thing to hear of the past from a distance, in the shell, removed from the power of Maire’s voice. It’s another to sit in her home, to look her in the eye as she speaks.

  “Did my mother ever come inside this room?” I ask.

  “Not on the day she died,” Maire says.

  She doesn’t have to answer me directly, because we’re speaking with each other in person. For a moment I want to ask her questions in the shell, see her dance. But that feels wrong. She is not a puppet. Neither am I. She gave me the shell as a gift for when we are apart, so I can keep learning.

  But right now we are together.

  What does Maire know? I still feel that she hasn’t told me everything about my mother’s death. And is Maire aware that Nevio is a siren? Even though the thought of Nevio fills me with revulsion, I have a strange feeling that the three of us—Nevio, Maire, and me—are connected in some way. We are all sirens who have secrets.

  In the full light, Maire looks old and young, as if she has always been and as if she is very new. The light dances on her hair and in her eyes. She waits for me to decide whether or not I will listen as if she has all the time in the world. At the same time, her very stillness lets me know that we do not, because in that stillness I hear Atlantia breathe. And then I hear something more. Voices.

  I draw in my breath.

  “Yes,” Maire says. “It’s like I told you at the wishing pool. The voices are all there. Waiting for someone to hear. I’ve listened to many of them over the years, but I’m finished with that now. I’ve heard enough. Now it’s my time to tell.”

  “And it’s still my time to listen.” I keep the bitterness from my voice, but my heart is full of it.

  “Yes,” Maire says. “But not for much longer, Rio. Not for much longer at all.”

  She’s going to tell me the story, and I’m going to listen. And I am afraid. I wonder if this is how my mother felt, when she went into the floodgate chamber for her trial to be Minister and the doors opened and her sister came inside.

  “After several generations,” Maire begins, “some of the sirens began to use their power to control the people. And to control one another.”

  Her words are simple, no embellishments. Her voice is soft, no force or threat behind it. No anger. No judgment. Only: This is what was, and I am telling it to you.

  “When this happened, the majority of the sirens agreed that they should no longer be able to serve as Ministers. They didn’t want the leader of Atlantia to have too much opportunity for unfair persuasion.

  “Then, several years later, there was an awful day in the temple when two of the sirens stood up and argued right before the Minister’s sermon.

  “One siren stood up and screamed; the other sang.

  The one singing said she had to tell the people the truth about our world. The one screaming said the people weren’t ready to hear it, that the truth could ruin them.

  “After that no one could make out any of their words, only the sounds, and the sounds were terrible.

  “So terrible that some of the worshippers in the temple that day died.

  “They fell with blood streaming from their ears and terror in their eyes.

  “They died under the statues of the gods and in full view of the congregation, and after they fell, the two sirens stopped screaming and singing. One knelt by the bodies and begged them to come back to life, but of course that didn’t work. Even a siren can’t command such a thing. The other began to weep and could not stop. The peacekeepers broke through at last and took away the sirens and, later, the bodies. No one could believe such a terrible thing had happened in the temple, where everyone is supposed to be safe.

  “After that disastrous day, the Council decreed that the sirens should be under their protection and governance. The sirens were so distraught over what had happened that they agreed. They thought it was better for everyone.”

  When Maire finishes, Atlantia is quiet. “And so,” Maire says, “began the long domestication and decline of the sirens.”

  “Those two sirens,” I ask, “what became of them?”

  “One of them agreed to abide by the new rules,” Maire says. “The other committed suicide.”

  “How?”

  “She drowned herself in the wishing pool,” Maire says. “The one where I met you the other day. She used locks to chain her hands and feet together, and then she threw herself into the water, at night, when she knew no one would come along to save her. Hers was the first voice I was able to hear clearly, years ago. It’s gone now. She’s gone now.”

  I don’t know about that. I can picture her in my mind, seaweed-haired, blue-limbed after all these years, lurking at the bottom of the pool, two flat coins settled in the sockets where her eyes used to be. The thought makes me shiver.

  “Your mother did love you,” Maire says. “But it made her afraid. You can’t let love make you afraid.”

  How can she say that? And how could she leave my mother out on the doorstep that day? If Bay died like that, I would bring her inside, away from prying eyes. I would use my real voice and pray to have her back. Even though it wouldn’t work, I’d have to try.

  I stand up to leave. Maire follows me downstairs, turning off the lights as she goes, darkening down the house for the last of the night.

  “You know what they were, don’t you?” Maire says as I open the door. “The two sirens in the temple.”

  She’s right. I do. Though I don’t know their names, and though Maire didn’t tell me this straight-out, I heard it in her voice. I knew it from the story. “They were sisters,” I say.

  “Yes,” Maire says. “No one else knows this anymore but you and I. There had never been two sirens in a family before. There have never been two since.”

  Until the two of us.

  Until now.

  CHAPTER 14

  By the time I walk all the way from Maire’s apartment back up to the main part of Atlantia, it’s almost morning. The lights will come up soon. I have to hurry. I crouch under the temple trees, and carefully gather the metal leaves into the bag that holds my air mask. I hear the rustling of something, and at first I feel afraid, but then I realize how high the sound is.

  It must be one of the temple bats.

  It settles in a tree above me and I smile to myself. “Knock down all you want this time,” I say, and as if to oblige, the bat moves and a silver leaf comes shaking to the ground. I gather that leaf, too.

  The light begins to rise in our false sky.

  I hear the bat lift off out of the tree above me, and I look up hoping for a glimpse of it, but all I catch is a slip shadow flitting in the faint light. This is the time when Bay would be climbing back into bed, when she would have stolen an hour or two of sleep before we put on our robes and began another day of work in the
temple.

  I stand up and pull the bag over my shoulder. It’s heavy, full of leaves. I hope no one looks at it too closely.

  The story of the two sirens in the temple has given me an idea, and I need to talk to True. There are several gondola stations large enough to have sheds where the gondolas can be taken for repair, but I’ve seen True’s work and I think he must be one of the best machinists. So I hazard a guess and go to the biggest station in Atlantia, the one near the Council blocks. I hope I’m right about where he works. I hope his shift hasn’t ended yet.

  Workers spill out of the station, laughing, talking. I listen for True’s voice among them and, to my relief, I hear it.

  I’ll have to follow him until he separates from the others. They’ll wonder what I’m doing out so early. The only people allowed out now are those leaving work.

  It doesn’t take long, thankfully. True calls a good-bye to the group and then starts off down a road on his own. It’s lighter every moment. I follow him for a few steps, gathering my thoughts, preparing to flatten out my voice.

  I haven’t yet called to him, but his back stiffens. He knows someone’s following. Is this what it feels like to be Maire? Spying, waiting, hiding?

  “True,” I say, and he turns.

  “Rio,” he says, relief and concern in his voice. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’ve had an idea,” I say. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Of course,” he says. “In here.” He guides me the short distance back to the gondola shed, keying in a number on the door and then pulling it closed behind us.

  The shed is well-lit, and I blink, taking in True. His fingernails are black with dirt and he smells like oil, and yet there’s that cleanness about him, and I think, He is exactly the kind of person that Atlantia was designed to save.

  “What is it?” he asks. “What can I do?”

  “I’m wondering if you could make me some locks.”

  “Locks?” he asks. “Like for a door?”

  “For me,” I say. “To wear on my hands and feet when I swim.”

  “I don’t understand,” True says.

  “Remember how I said that the best way to get the coin fast is to do one big event? So that I can get the money and be finished?” I wait for him to nod. “Imagine that I’m at one end of the lane, hands and feet locked together, and that there are dozens of eels and fish coming for me from the other end of the lane, and the crowd knows that the eels and fish are electrically charged. And they know that I have to break free of the locks before I can even move.”

  Can True picture it? I can.

  I’ve had a long walk up to think about everything that I learned in my aunt’s house, in the place where my mother died. And I’ve decided I want to follow my mother to the surface—not take my chances with Maire.

  From now on, my focus is on the floodgates. On getting through them alive. Not on listening to voices from the past or to Maire. I don’t trust her.

  I’ve decided that when I create this moment, I will be Oceana, alive against all odds. I will find a robe to wear that looks like hers. I will fetter myself with locks and chains, symbols of death. The fish with their sharp currents and winding ways will represent Nevio and others like him, and then, as Oceana, I will break away and swim past it all. I will come to the surface and breathe again.

  “This will draw a crowd,” I say. “I think people will want to bet on it. We can advertise. Aldo will tell everyone. If you can get the locks made fast enough, we could do it soon. Like next week.”

  But True shakes his head. “Too dangerous,” he says. “If you didn’t get out of the locks in time, and if enough of the fish and the eels got to you, you could go into shock and drown. You could actually die, even though I’ve tried to make them as safe as I can. They’re still charged.”

  “That’s the point,” I say. “People want to see something dangerous.”

  “Then let them go to the night races,” True says. “Take it more slowly. The crowd hasn’t lost interest in you. They like what we’ve done so far.”

  He’s right, of course. And, if I take more time to earn the money, that gives me more time to train.

  But I don’t know how much longer I can last here. How much longer I can go without saying something in my real voice. It’s getting worse than it’s ever been—as I miss my sister more each day, as I learn more about my power and about the sirens who came before. Listening to Bay’s shell each night helped me have enough strength to keep myself in control, but now her voice is gone.

  “I don’t think I can wait,” I say. That’s all I tell him. But as always, True seems to know that there is more I can’t say. He seems to understand.

  I don’t know how or why.

  “So how will you get out of the locks?” True asks.

  “That’s the hard part,” I say. “We want the audience to feel like they’ve seen a miracle, but not like they’ve been tricked, once we tell them how it was done. Which we’ll have to do, at the end. And we’ll probably have to let someone else put the locks on me so that they know that part is fair. Aldo, maybe. Someone the bettors trust.”

  True nods. He looks interested. In the problem, or in me?

  It doesn’t matter. But it does.

  “And look what I have,” I say, opening my bag. “All these leaves. All this metal. It has to be good for something. If not for this, you can use it for your fish.” I reach for one of the buckets among the work gear on the shelves and dump the leaves inside. “There,” I say. “For you.”

  True looks shocked. “Where did you get those?”

  I flush. Does he think I’m a thief? I suppose I am. “From the trees by the temple,” I say.

  For some reason that answer seems to satisfy True. “I’ll help you,” he says, “but you have to promise me that you won’t try this before it’s safe. You can’t do what you did with the eels and jump right in.”

  “I promise. I’ll wait until it’s safe.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re lying.” He sounds as if this surprises him.

  “I’m not lying,” I say. I’m not, but I don’t know how to get him to believe me. And I have lied to him before.

  True smiles. “Good,” he says. “Now, how can we get you a key for the locks without it looking like a trick?” His face lights up. “Maybe we could rig one of the fish to bring it to you in the water.”

  I like this idea. “Yes,” I say. “I’ll have to hold my breath and get myself unlocked, and then I’ll swim.”

  “The unlocking is just the beginning,” True says. “You still have to make it through all of the metal creatures to the other end of the lane.”

  “I’m getting better at avoiding them,” I say. True doesn’t know that I can move the fish and eels. That, if I have to, I can tell the fish with the key to glide right into my palm. “I can do it.”

  “I know you can,” True says.

  “So you’ll help me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, True.” Relief and exhaustion settle over me. “We’ll earn enough money to get what I need and to buy a stall for you, too. This is the beginning, for both of us.”

  True nods. “I’ll get to work on it,” he says. “Right now.”

  “Thank you,” I say again. I wish I could stay and help him, but I have to get to the mining bays to report for work.

  I’m almost at the door when True says my name.

  “Rio.”

  I look back. “You could buy the locks, and we could alter them,” True says. “That would save time.”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say. “It has to be you who makes them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I trust you,” I say. “If you make the locks, I know they’ll work.” I’ve been afraid of many things, but I feel no fear about this. I know that both True and his
creations are good, and I’m not afraid of what I’m asking the locks to do—to come undone so that I can live. I trust my voice.

  It takes True a few days to come up with locks and keys. We schedule an extra practice session in the lane, and we pay Aldo more than the usual rate to make sure that no one will be in the stands or practicing near us.

  Bay’s shell stays silent. I don’t ask Maire any more questions, and she doesn’t try to contact me. I’m sure Maire has her own plans, her own work to do, and I’m focused on swimming, getting stronger, using my voice to make things come to me. All small things, so far.

  But I feel my voice growing.

  True helps me snap the locks into place around my wrists and ankles. On the day of the real event, Aldo will check to make sure that they’re secure. For now it’s enough that I know they are.

  “If I think it’s been too long,” True says, “I’m going to come in and get you out.”

  “I might drown you,” I say. “Pull you under. Can you even swim?”

  He laughs. “Of course I can.”

  “I’ve never seen you.”

  “I learned when I was young,” he says. “But you don’t forget.”

  He’s right. And as I watch True walk down to the other lane, pushing the cart full of eels and fish, I know I won’t forget this—what he’s done for me, and how he did it.

  When True raises his arm a few minutes later, I know he’s ready, and I duck under the water. That’s his sign to begin. He’ll put in the fish with the key first and then everything else.

  Here they come. I see the swirl of bubbles around each of them as they make their way for me. They are fast, beautiful, precise, and one of them reaches me just as my lungs start to burn from holding my breath. An eel stings me.

  “Unlock,” I say, and I feel the locks loosen around my ankles and wrists.

  It works.

  I let the fish with the key come to me, so that True won’t know that I don’t even need it at all, that I unlocked everything with a word underwater. Once the fish brushes against me, I catch it in my hand, slip the key from under its belly, and tell the locks to fall. They do, and I swim.