Light in the Darkness

by CJ Brightley

  They have a computer, but Mandy’s only allowed to use it for homework, so I didn’t feel like I could ask to use it to try to find out about Kaya. I hope she has food. I wonder if she gave in and decided to read that thing they want her to read.

  I just thought: If police in Kaya’s country can make her say things she don’t believe, can they do that here, too? Could they make Jiminy say yes, he stole from those people in the casino, even if he didn’t?

  September 9 (Em’s diary)

  Aunt Brenda’s taking Ma to the school offices here to sign me and Tammy up for school. We have to go from tomorrow, they’re saying. How long are we staying here? It’s meant to be temporary! Going to school in a place means you’re living there. I was feeling pretty stormy about it this morning.

  Tammy wasn’t. She was too excited about the ballet costume Mandy gave her—one of Mandy’s old ones from when she was Tammy’s age. We were supposed to be getting dressed so we could go with Ma and Aunt Brenda and see the school, but Tammy put on the costume instead. The top part is white velvet, with ruby-colored sequins down the front in a V. The skirt is layers of floaty material in shades of green, with here and there some white, and there are tiny, puffy sleeves just at the shoulders, in matching green and white.

  “Mandy said it was for a Christmas recital,” said Tammy. She was twisting around to try to see her back in the long mirror on Mandy’s door. “See? It’s Christmas colors.”

  “Or ruby-throat colors,” I said. “You look like a ruby-throated hummingbird.”

  “Really?” Her voice and face were sunshine-water-sparkle bright. “I’m going to show Ma!” She thundered down the stairs the way no hummingbird ever did. I pulled on a Mermaid’s Hands T-shirt and followed her down.

  “I’m a hummingbird,” Tammy was saying. “See? Ma, do I look like a hummingbird?”

  “Tammy, put some proper—” Ma began, but Aunt Brenda interrupted her.

  “Ain’t you the sweetest thing! She’s adorable, Josie; let her enjoy the costume. It’s been so long since my girls were anything like that small!”

  “I wish I could be sung into a hummingbird line—is there a hummingbird line, Em?” Tammy asked, flying forward on tiptoes, then backward, arms out.

  “Not in Mermaid’s Hands, I don’t believe,” I said, flinching inside at the face Aunt Brenda made when she heard that name. “Anyway, you already got two lines to choose from, red-winged blackbird and Vaillant’s …” I trailed off. I wanted to add You wouldn’t want to fly away from those lines, would you?—but I couldn’t, not with Aunt Brenda in the room, not seeing as how she thinks it was running away for Ma to go to Mermaid’s Hands in the first place.

  “Maybe—” I was going to say Maybe you can start a whole new genealogy. The sea hummingbirds, who have scales instead of feathers, and both lungs and gills, but Aunt Brenda interrupted me.

  “You’ve got a real-life bloodline right here with us Parkers,” she said crisply. “No made-up stories, just real people. No, no arguing; I don’t want to hear it. You do look a picture, though. Maybe if we can get your mother set up with a job, you can have ballet lessons. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Tammy looked from Aunt Brenda to Ma to me, like she was trying to find the right answer. Ma gave a tiny, tight smile and looked away. Those sea hummingbirds I made up started making trouble in my stomach, and I felt a powerful longing for Dad.

  “You better put on some real clothes, if we’re going with Ma and Aunt Brenda,” I said. “I’ll follow you up.”

  Question I have: Do people change, depending on whether they’re on dry land or in the water? Because at home, Ma’s always arguing so loudly with Dad, and always has her opinions and her say, but here, she’s so quiet. Is it because Aunt Brenda’s her big sister? (Am I that bossy with Tammy?) Or is it because we’re guests? Or is it because she agrees with what Aunt Brenda’s saying?

  September 10 (Em’s diary)

  Today on the second page of Aunt Brenda and Uncle Lew’s newspaper, there were photographs from down by the coast, of hurricane damage, and one had the title “Showdown in Sandy Bay.” I recognized Dad and Mrs. Ovey and Snowy and some others: they were standing on the wreck of the Winterhulls’ house—just half a house, really. That’s all that’s left. The tide was in, so it was floating. All around, where the other houses should be, were just splintery floating piles of broken-up boards and corrugated tin and thatch, mixed together like a giant stew. In the picture you could also see a bunch of boats, swarming round like a shiver of sharks, and you could tell that the men in the boats were arguing with Dad and the others on the veranda of the Winterhulls’ house.

  “Locals and clean-up crews face off near Sandy Bay,” the caption said, and then “Workers hired by the state to clear away dangerous debris, which presents a hazard to marine traffic, meet resistance from locals.” But nothing more. Nothing about who won. Did the cleanup crews go away? Or is Mermaid’s Hands gone now?

  I showed Ma, but she just patted me on the shoulder and said, “Your daddy and the others can’t rebuild out of those broken bits and pieces anyway. They need it cleared away so there’s room to start fresh. Don’t worry. So long as people are in the Winterhulls’ house, nobody’s gonna clear it away.”

  Ma doesn’t care. She’s already applied for three jobs here. I don’t think Tammy cares much, either. After just one day at school, she’s already talking about new friends. I asked her if she missed Clara, and she looked surprised and sad and said, “Yeah, I do miss her.” I felt as rotten as a waterlogged plank for wrecking her good mood—except, except, except, is it right to be in a good mood when Mr. Ovey’s gone below forever, and maybe our home has, too?

  You know what else? I decided to try out my idea about Jiminy on Ma. I cornered her after dinner, when Aunt Brenda had gone in to work and Mandy was at a volleyball game, and asked her whether maybe it could be that Jiminy was innocent—that they just forced him to say he was guilty when really he wasn’t. Her face got sad in almost the exact same way as Tammy’s did, and she said, “He had the cash and jewelry on him when they arrested him.” She paused a moment. “And he had a gun,” she said. That part she said in a real quiet voice.

  I remember when I was little and Tammy was even littler, how Jiminy would swim with us on his back and let us jump from his shoulders into the water. But that was a long time ago. When he got to high school, he started arguing with Ma and Dad a lot and doing stupid things. Like, one time he took the dinghy out fishing and left it grounded by Foul Point at low tide. How could he take it out and not come home with it? Things like that: careless. He still was always fun with me and Tammy, though. He once brought home a magnet from inside a computer and showed us how it would gather up all of Tammy’s bottle caps.

  I never stopped to think about where or how he got the magnet.

  Then he left school and said he was going to get a job on an oil rig. That’s not so strange—lots of people go away from Mermaid’s Hands to work for a while—but he only came back to visit once, and was sea urchin prickly and super jumpy. Then we got a postcard from him from New Orleans, saying he was switching jobs, but he didn’t say to what. And then he got arrested.

  All this time, I’ve been imagining good-guy Jiminy, laughing Jiminy. Big-brother Jiminy. But people can change. Look how different Ma is here from the way she is in Mermaid’s Hands. Maybe Jiminy ain’t like Sabelle Morning or like Kaya. Maybe he’s just somebody who threatens folks with a gun and steals their stuff.

  Right now, I hate everything.

  8

  Hurricane Heart, Fire Heart

  (From the W— State Security Service’s files on the insurgency: email records)

  From: Lt. Den

  Subject: Update

  Date: September 2

  To: Capt. Aran

  Cc: Lt. Sana (attachment)

  The attached document summarizes the writings we confiscated from Prisoner 116. Briefly, her research work is nothing more than that—investigation of th
e potential of some naturalized shrub to replenish the soil. However, she also began a memoir, which is useful for our purposes in three ways.

  1. It reinforces our impressions about Prisoner 117’s political ambitions. It’s still hard to say whether these make him more of a threat or whether they offer us leverage. Promise of amnesty might induce him to turn on the others.

  2. It gives us new insights into Prisoner 118. We already knew about 118’s past, but from the memoir it would appear that 116 is fond of him in a special way, which is helpful to know.

  3. It confirms what the people at St. Margaret’s said about 116’s friendship with Tema Baii, the daughter of Ty Chell (CEO, Pearl Fin Consolidated Fisheries). I’m very sure Baii can be persuaded to put pressure on 116 to go along with “Voice from the Lotus.”

  116 has also been corresponding with someone in America, apparently a child. At first we suspected this to be a cover for some sort of covert communications with mountain insurgents, but 116’s mother has, in fact, been posting letters out of the country, and none of the others admit to any knowledge of the exchange. Furthermore, our contacts in the mountains say that the separatist movement remains parochial; most of the locals can barely speak the national language, let alone English. There’s always the risk that the correspondence is an attempt to stir up international sympathies, in which case it would be good to put a stop to it. That is Sana’s recommendation. I am inclined to let it continue and see if there’s a way to wring some benefit out of it for our purposes.

  September 2 (Kaya’s journal)

  Having come to rely on writing as a form of release, I find I can’t stop, not even with the risks being as great as they are. If I don’t put the buzz and jangle of my thoughts down on paper, they will surely drive me mad. Writing quiets my mind for a while.

  Here, between the lines of text in Trees of Insular Southeast Asia, I can write safely, I think. I’m lucky those thugs overlooked it when they took away my other books. I doubt they will ever bother to flip through its pages, and if they do, they’ll take my scratchings for marginal notes, not worth their time to translate into the bloody national language.

  Still, I’ll be careful. I won’t write about certain things. Or people. If my heart gets too full, I’ll just … I don’t know. Sing my thoughts out to the Lady, maybe.

  (From the W— State Security Service’s files on the insurgency: email records)

  From: Tema Baii

  Subject: Re: Re: State Security Service visit

  Date: September 3

  To: Hetan Baii

  Yes of course I’ll write the damn letter! It’s just the whole thing is so upsetting, you know? I’d been thinking of writing her anyway, to ask what in heaven’s name she thinks she’s doing, but there’s something about a team of goons arriving at the house and demanding that I do it, with all kinds of threats implied, that gets my back up.

  At least they didn’t come to the office. I don’t want to become known as the reporter with ties to the insurgency!

  But I can’t help thinking. It was in January that we reported on a half-dozen mountain agitators being arrested for inciting riots—that’s eight months ago now. They have Kaya in that bizarre temple, but what about the others? We haven’t seen or heard anything about them. What’s going on? A little bit more openness on the government’s part might help dispel people’s anxieties.

  Anyway, I’m trying to organize what I’m going to say to Kaya. I hope I can persuade her to cool things down.

  _______________________________________

  Tema Baii

  Correspondent, Prosperity Television

  September 3 (Kaya’s journal)

  For three nights now, when I’ve gone out to stand by the guard rail and look at the stars, I’ve seen something, a bright pinprick of light, right at the rim of the Ruby Lake. Maybe a small fire? Not a bonfire, maybe not much more than a torch flame, but bright in the darkness. The first time it shone for almost an hour before disappearing. Yesterday it appeared in another place along the rim, and I had its company for about half an hour, maybe, before it flickered out. Tonight it was only minutes.

  Is it friends? Mother said the State Security Service barricaded the path to the Ruby Lake even before they built this “lotus” for me; no one’s been allowed near. But are they finding a way up? I feel so grateful for the company, but I worry about the risks the people are taking in lighting them.

  September 4 (Tema to Kaya)

  Dear Kaya,

  It’s been some time since I last wrote to you. I meant to write sooner, but I misplaced your address, and now, of course, you are no longer at home. I would say I hope you are well, but the circumstances being what they are, I can’t really imagine that you are well. In fact, I feel obliged to ask: Are you crazy?

  What in the world are you doing? And why? When I first heard your name among those arrested back in January, I was sure it must be some other Kayamanira, not you. But then they said you had attended St. Margaret’s and had a degree from an American university, and I knew it had to be you.

  I know mountain traditions and customs and all that culture stuff means a lot to you—I remember you sometimes bringing it up when we were at school. That’s great. I like the traditions from my grandfather’s village, too. But don’t you see how these things can be twisted around—are being twisted around? It’s one thing to like old dances and songs and so on, and it’s another thing to use them to stir up people’s resentments and dissatisfactions. Doesn’t that seem like the worst sort of corruption, to corrupt a tradition? You and I both know it would be a disaster for the mountain region and for W— as a whole if the mountain districts tried to separate. You do know that, right? I think you do.

  I can imagine you pining after old festivals and organizing one. You probably didn’t realize or couldn’t believe that it would get co-opted by agitators, but there’s a history of that happening. That’s why the law is the way it is.

  Do you have access to newspapers or television in that temple thing you’re in? Are you following the news? All those work and school boycotts in the mountains, during August? They only confirm lowland stereotypes of mountain people as undisciplined and irresponsible. They see people throwing rocks at the regional government buildings and they just say, “Well what do you expect? It’s the mountain districts.” And now the parliament is considering ending the scholarships for mountain schoolchildren, as a punitive measure. I think it’s a terrible idea, but you can understand their logic. Why waste money on people who are just going to use the education they receive to make trouble? I hate to say it, but currently you’re who they point to as an example of what can go wrong. “Invest all that in her education, and she still reverts to some kind of shamanic priestess what-have-you.”

  And things are getting worse. Did you hear about the tires being slashed on that mountain MP’s car? And about the fire at the hotel in Palem? People are saying that mountain activists set that fire. That’s just hysteria; no one in the mountains claimed responsibility for it, but that’s how people in the capital are feeling! They’re ready to blame every bad thing that happens on mountain separatists.

  Members of the State Security Service came to see me. They said they thought you could stop all this, and they asked me to try to persuade you to. I worry they may be attributing too much power to you, but for goodness sake, if they’re right, please do. I know you care about a better future for everybody in our country. You’ve seen what happens in the countries round about us when there’s division and agitation. Lives are lost, economies stagnate, governments become more authoritarian. I know you don’t want that. If W— does better, we all do better. If W— plunges into civil unrest, we’ll all do much, much worse. Please, do what you can to stop the protests and the demonstrations—for everyone’s sake.

  I care about you, Kaya. I don’t like thinking of you sitting above that lava lake, even if it’s supposed to be an honor. Maybe if all this mess gets sorted out, you can go back to a
more normal life.

  Your friend,

  Tema

  September 5 (Kaya’s journal)

  A helicopter came today, which I wasn’t expecting. It was those two officers from the State Security Service. After last time, I quailed when I saw them, especially the bully, but they didn’t say one word, just handed me a long brown envelope and left again. Inside the envelope were newspaper clippings about what’s been happening in the mountains. There was also a letter from Tema.

  The news stories … there’s so much anger in them. It’s only a matter of time before someone is killed, and then what will happen? Will the government send troops into the mountains?

  And Tema’s letter. What hit me hardest is what she writes about the scholarships … I think of the boys Rami was helping with their multiplication tables the day I first talked to him about the festival. Will those boys be barred from scholarships, because of what we’ve done? It will set the mountain region back a whole generation. So few can afford secondary school, let alone university, without scholarship money.

  I feel so ashamed. I’ve stolen from children. I’ve been given everything, but it wasn’t enough to have my own future, I had to steal theirs as well.

  But there’s a little, hot, angry ember in me that says why? Why must I shoulder responsibility for the government’s punishing measures? Yes, I’m responsible for the festival; I won’t shrink from that, but am I to blame if the government goes to extremes?