The whole world was so small compared with the vastness that extended beyond this window, and what a thin layer of material it was that kept them from all that black outside. It was a deeply humbling thing, to stand in front of the universe. How could he hope to stand here and think of himself, of his feelings, his hopes, and claim any right, any need for them to exist?
Myrra was holding his hand. It felt like a tether; he was a balloon, she was the string, keeping him from floating away and popping when the weather got rough. Myrra held on to his hand, and Charlotte weighed him down at his side, and he knew for certain that if they had not been there to ground him, his molecules would have separated and dispersed into thin air.
He was going to die. It hit him again, as it had over and over that past week. He would die soon, and when he did, that was where his body would go, out past that window, stiffly turning over and over in darkness, drifting between stars. The thought broke his heart in two, but it wasn’t a panicked thought. For the first time since he’d learned their fates, his mind wasn’t trying to fight the feeling of it.
For Myrra it was impossible to understand the dimensions of what she saw. It wasn’t like the dunes of the desert, which up until now had seemed to go on forever, or like the catacombs of Nabat, which had receded into deeper and deeper darkness. This was darker; this was something really and truly endless. There was no horizon.
She compared the stars, in her mind’s eye, to the stars as she’d known them, the ones she’d seen every night growing up in New London. They’d felt so far away; now they seemed flat by comparison. And here there were so many! Here, in front of her, was a multitude of stars, a storm of stars, dancing into the great beyond.
Her heart filled—it was hard to express the feeling this view gave her. There was such grace to what she was seeing—light and fire, movement and life. Memories flashed in her brain, of similar moments that had elicited the same feeling. The time Imogene had permitted her to come along to the ballet so she could hold her furs. She’d stood at the back of the theater and watched as the dancer moved with absolute fluidity, her limbs flicking and floating like ribbons in the wind. It had filled her with something—she couldn’t call it happiness, it wasn’t as simple as that, it was something rounder, more all-consuming. What else had done that? Charlotte’s delicate blonde eyelashes, closing and opening, when she’d first laid her head on Myrra’s chest. Her own mother when she was young, her eyes too, the dark-brown depth of them, as alive and deep as the darkness before her, looking out at her with a desperate and confused love.
And Myrra knew all at once, in this place, that she had forgiven her mother completely, and it was not a forgiveness based on exhaustion or giving up; she had forgiven her because in the greatness of what was before her, the loss of one person was a small thing, a single action in a multitude of actions stretching out in all directions. They were alone in an infinite black space, about to die, and so every action was full of meaning and insignificant, all at the same time.
There was the sound of a man clearing his throat. Tobias heard him, but didn’t let his eyes leave the window.
“This is why folks don’t leave,” Tom said. “You understand now?”
“I understand,” he said.
With great reluctance Tobias tore his eyes away and looked over at Tom. His serene energy was faltering; he seemed edgy now, standing in the doorway. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, watching them.
“I think it’s going to happen soon,” Tom said. “I can feel it, in the walls.”
Myrra turned her head to look at Tom as well. She squeezed Tobias’s hand tighter.
“This is the halfway point, like I said,” Tom continued. “So I was wondering, do you guys want to go all the way up, or are you happy here? I want to get back downstairs and be with everyone when it—” He stopped himself, changing tacks. “But I wanted to check on you guys before I did.”
Myrra looked at Tobias.
“What do you want to do?” she asked him.
What a thing to ask. The truth was, Tobias’s world had turned so completely around that he had no sense of direction left. It was clear to him now that he’d spent his life chasing all the wrong things, and now, at the end of it, he didn’t want to chase after anything anymore. They were so close to death now, and he’d come so close to it being an empty death, a lonely death. Everyone dies alone, a man had told him years ago, and even then, at his most unsentimental, Tobias hadn’t believed that was true. But you needed to find your people. He didn’t care where he died, or what they did next, so long as they stayed together.
“I’m happy with you,” he said. “I’ll want what you want.”
He smiled. She was still holding his hand.
“I’m so glad I’ve seen this,” she said to Tobias, “but I think I’d like to keep going. If we’re saying goodbye soon, I want to stand where my mother stood, and see our world one more time.”
Tom opened a wide round hatch in the ceiling by the elevator bay and extended a ladder down from inside. Myrra looked up. The ladder rose up through a long wide tunnel above them, long enough that it was difficult to see the end. But it didn’t feel infinite now, not after she’d seen the stars.
“So because of the way this world spins, this is sort of the last room where your feet are going to stay firmly on the ground,” Tom explained. “Just climb up this ladder—it’s going to go on for a while, I’d say about twenty-five, thirty meters. Keep a good grip, and about halfway through you’re going to feel your weight start to shift. Just go with it, and you’ll end up climbing down the ladder the rest of the way. Then you take another elevator at the end, and that’ll lead you down to the sky.”
Myrra looked over at Tobias, to see if he understood. Tobias looked as confused as Myrra felt.
“It’ll make sense once you see it in action,” Tom added. “I can’t go with you that far. Like I said, I’d like to be down with everyone else for the rest of the time that’s left.” His voice broke halfway through his last sentence.
“The elevator on the other side has a button marked ‘S,’ for the sky floor. Just press that, and you should be good,” he said. “Good luck.”
He gave a small nod and started back toward his elevator, where Sana and Luce and a number of other workers were waiting. Myrra ran over impulsively and gave a long hug to Luce. She held her tight, feeling the woman’s bones through her skin.
“Careful, you’re going to break me!” she said, her words muffled in Myrra’s shoulder. For a moment Myrra was worried that she’d hurt her, but when she pulled back, Luce was laughing. Tears streamed down Myrra’s cheeks.
“Thank you for telling me about her.”
The elevator doors opened, and they all filed in. Everyone was crying. They were so close to the end that now every touch, every interaction, felt momentous.
“Happy to meet you,” Tom said. Luce nodded in agreement, sniffing a little.
“We are beholden to you,” Myrra said. The words felt right for the occasion.
Tom gave a nod of his chin, tears welling up in his eyes. He raised a hand, and the chrome doors closed before him.
They climbed. The ladder was made of rough metal, same as the walls and floors. There was a faint dripping coming from somewhere, though Myrra couldn’t see where. The tunnel surrounding the ladder was wide enough inside to keep it from feeling claustrophobic. Lamps protruded from the walls every few meters, giving them just enough light to keep going.
Myrra had Charlotte wrapped tightly around her body in the scarf, to keep her hands free. She went up the hatch first and heard Tobias clamber up behind her, rung by rung.
Her body became more buoyant the higher they climbed.
“Are you feeling this?” she called down to Tobias, wanting to make sure it wasn’t hallucination or exhaustion.
“Yes—” he called out. He sounded nervous. “My shoes are barely touching the ladder.”
Her feet became feathers, skimming a
long each rung. She followed Tom’s advice and kept a firm grip with her hands.
“Oh—” She let out an involuntary noise. Her feet left the ladder entirely and her body floated sideways, perpendicular to the ladder, bobbing and drifting as if it were on an ocean current. She looked down at Tobias and laughed. He floated as well, one hand gripping the ladder and one hand trying to wrangle his glasses, which were floating off his head.
“This reminds me of your botched interrogation,” she said. He laughed along with her but looked a little guilty, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t brought it up.
Charlotte was chattering away in unintelligible sounds, lots of “oohs” and “aaahs,” very excited by her sudden weightlessness. She wriggled against Myrra’s chest, wrapped tight—she was getting too big for that scarf.
“Aaagah,” she said, patting Myrra’s neck, trying to get her attention.
“That’s right,” Myrra responded. She tentatively released one hand from the ladder, then the other, and hovered with Charlotte in midair. She looked below her—or was it above her?—and shouted to Tobias, “Try it!”
Tobias followed suit, lifting his hands just a few centimeters off the rung, his fingers curved as though he were still gripping it. He could only let go for a few seconds before he rushed to grab hold again. “You’re better at this than me,” he called back.
Charlotte was still making sounds and smacking at the sides of Myrra’s face, evidently frustrated that she wasn’t paying attention.
“Ohhh…” she said. “Uh-oh.”
Her too-loud voice, the voice of someone still testing how loud she could get, rang through the metal tunnel. “Mmmm…” she said. She tugged on a strand of Myrra’s hair.
“Mmma,” Myrra repeated back. “Mamamaaa…”
She looked down at Tobias. “I’ve been trying to get her to say her first word,” she explained. Myrra reached out a hand and pushed on the side of the ladder, sending her and Charlotte into a twirl. Charlotte squealed with delight. They were dancing.
“Mmmaa,” Charlotte said. Myrra held her breath and let their bodies slow down and drift. She was so close to saying it. One more milestone… one more, please, before it was all over.
“Maammaa,” Myrra said again, guiding Charlotte, testing the waters. She held her lips closed forcibly on the Ms, exaggerating them.
“Mama,” Charlotte replied, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
“Ha!” Myrra erupted in one loud clear laugh.
Charlotte responded to the joy on Myrra’s face and said it again, louder. “Maamaa!”
“That’s her first word?” Tobias asked.
“Yes!” Myrra shouted.
Charlotte kept shouting, first “Mama,” then “Maa-maaa,” then just shouting long “aaahhhhs” out through space, caterwauling up and down the tunnel.
“I wish Imogene could see this,” she said, staring at Charlotte’s happy face. Myrra sent out a prayer to Imogene, dead on a slab in the morgue, shattered on a sidewalk. She had birthed Charlotte, named her. Those things were important, even if she hadn’t had much of a chance to raise her.
Myrra swam back with Charlotte toward the ladder and grabbed hold again. Tobias hadn’t wanted to say anything, but he let out a sigh of relief. Though he logically understood the physics of the situation, thinking back to classrooms and centrifugal force, he didn’t completely trust it. Myrra didn’t notice his worrying anyway; she was too busy watching Charlotte in awe. He didn’t want to ruin their moment. The three of them proceeded, using just their hands to move along the ladder, their feet still stuck out in midair. They kept moving up—down? Tobias couldn’t tell, and anyway, there didn’t seem to be an easy up or down, now that he’d seen all the infinite directions of space. They kept going in the direction that they were going.
At some point Tobias felt his feet pulling up above his head. They kept moving, and his feet kept pulling in the opposite direction from the one they had been pulling in before, until his body had completely reversed direction. Up was officially down. It was very unsettling. Tobias held on to the ladder for dear life. There was some awkwardness once his feet settled back onto the cold metal rungs—due to his previous position, his body was now facing out, away from the ladder. With great care and a hefty dose of fear, he turned his body to reorient himself. It was funny how afraid he was of falling off a ladder, when he knew that he was unlikely to live out the day.
Was it even day? He checked his watch. The screen was black, with just a small frowning-face icon in the middle. Battery dead.
He looked down at Myrra, who was now below him when just minutes ago she had been above.
“You OK?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, though she sounded somewhat breathless.
Another small tremor shook the walls around them. Both kept a tight grip on the ladder and waited for it to pass. What if the world ended right now; what if we died right here? Tobias wondered. Would that be so bad?
The quake passed. Tobias heard the soft clanking sound of Myrra’s shoes descending the rungs. He followed.
His body felt heavier the farther down he went. He remembered a teacher in his seventh grade science class explaining how the world spun, how it kept everyone’s feet on the ground. He was a wiry slip of a man, with thick glasses and a thin mustache. He had all sorts of diagrams, showing what the world looked like at a distance, animations to show the motion of it. He was very passionate about the subject, but not very articulate. Tobias had dutifully taken down notes on everything the teacher described, memorized all the terminology: exterior axle, centrifugal force, path of inertia. He’d copied down the distance from the ground to the sky, the circumference of the world on the ground. Tobias had been a very good student. He’d gotten an A on his exams, but it had meant nothing to him. He’d never really understood how the whole thing worked until now.
The elevator on the other side was the same shining chrome as the first, with the same cushioned bench inside. It made Myrra miss all the warm wood of Marcus’s office and the textured stone of Nabat. They pressed the down button and sat down next to each other.
Myrra felt as if she were asleep and dreaming; everything had a slow-motion quality, even the way she unwrapped Charlotte from her scarf, her hands moving in lazy, wide circles. Charlotte, by contrast, was a ball of energy. She shook off the scarf and scrambled to have Myrra put her down on the floor, then crawled back and forth, back and forth, as if she were doing wind sprints. Myrra realized, a little guiltily, that they hadn’t really let her move around since going inside the hull. There had always been a protective arm, a sling to keep her close. Charlotte rolled her body across the floor, kicking her legs out with abandon.
“At least she learned her first word, before everything ended,” Myrra said to Tobias. She was suddenly very aware of their legs touching, of his finger on her wrist.
“I don’t know, I think her first word might have been uh-oh,” Tobias replied. Myrra let out a short laugh.
What if we died here on the elevator, on the way to the sky? Myrra wondered. Would that be so bad? She thought back to the ladder and their bodies floating, dancing through the air. Maybe they should have stayed there. Maybe that was the place to die.
“So do you understand the gravity shift, what happened on the ladder?” She hated being the dumb one, but she couldn’t quite picture how the physics worked, and she was desperately curious.
“Kind of…” Tobias wavered. “Have you ever been on a spinning carnival ride—?”
She gave him a look. That was a stupid question, and he knew it. “Of course not.”
“OK, try this.” He held his hand up, palm flat, then grabbed her hand and pressed her palm against his.
“So the world is spinning, right? End over end, ground over sky. And the ground spins fast enough that—” He pushed hard against her hand, and on instinct she pushed hard back. “Objects, people, boats, cars, they all press against it. So by that same logic, the sky is sp
inning too—”
“So we can walk on the sky,” she said, finishing his thought. She pushed harder against his hand and smiled. It felt like a contest now.
“Right. And since the world is shaped like a cylinder, if you travel up the side, between those two outer points, where the spinning is the fastest—”
“The gravity goes away, and we float,” she finished.
“Well, not technically gravity, it’s centrifugal…” Tobias stopped himself. She was still pushing forcefully against his hand, and he was looking at her, trying to suss her out. She liked it when he looked confused, when she made him a little uncomfortable. His strength faltered, and she fell forward against him, her face against his neck. She looked up at him. He looked terrified.
Well, why not? She pulled his head down and kissed him, because it felt good, because she chose to, because it was the end of the world and she liked his glasses and Charlotte had said her first word, and her mother loved her after all and when she was sad he had asked her what she needed. Tobias leaned into her too, caressed the back of her neck with his hand. She’d never kissed someone without an ulterior motive—she’d never kissed someone just to kiss them.
Then she pulled back and their faces parted, and she could feel energy crackling in the space between them.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
“Me too.” And he didn’t lean in or try to push the moment; he simply laid a hand on her knee. Myrra liked that too.
36
MYRRA & TOBIAS
When the elevator doors opened, Myrra and Tobias were met with another vast tract of space. There was a metal floor, and there was a metal ceiling, but aside from the wall directly behind them, Tobias could see no boundary. The space was dimly lit, as Sector Nine had been, just enough light to make out the surroundings and not trip over anything on the floor. They wandered forward, hand in hand, Myrra holding Charlotte against her hip.
The World Gives Way: A Novel Page 35