by CJ Brightley
So here’s what’s happened. I fell asleep without getting changed or nothing, and woke up sometime later because of a drumming sound—I thought maybe from the TV, but it wasn’t the TV. It was someone out in the hall, knocking.
I opened the door: hard-faced Lt. Sana, with his tight uniform stretched over his big chest. He’s come to arrest me, I thought, to arrest me for being an accomplice, an accessory. My brain said run! but my body wouldn’t move. I just stared up at him.
“I need you to come with me,” he said, same flat voice as back at the ministry. I shook my head fiercely and took a step back into my room. This is a bad dream, I thought, and I struggled to wake up, but nothing changed. On the TV, an old black-and-white movie was playing. An actress with swooping dark eyebrows was singing, but her high tones were half lost in hissing and crackling.
“Please.”
Not a word I think Lt. Sana has much practice saying. “The little film we made—it will never work. It was a waste of time; 116—Kaya—won’t let any of us get close enough to hand it to her.” His lip curled. “Too skittish. And even if she does look at it, she’ll think it’s a fabrication. That’s why I—we—need you. Otherwise, she goes for a swim in Abenanyi. None of us want that.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Then come. If she sees you, she’ll listen.”
I glanced back into my room and out the window at the far end, at the dazzle of nighttime lights—a city of fireflies.
“Now? In the middle of the night?”
“The wind has turned. The helicopter can make an approach. There’s no telling how much time we have. This is the first time in days that flying has been possible.”
I licked my lips and swallowed. “Okay. I’ll come.” My whole body chose that moment to start shaking. I wrapped my arms around my middle, trying to hold myself together.
The door across the hall opened sharply: Mr. Dubois.
“Lt. Sana. What are you doing here, at this hour? Em, go back in your room and shut the door. I’ll talk to the lieutenant.” Mr. Dubois’s voice was cold.
“No, you g-go back in your room. I’m g-going with Lt. Sana to bring K-Kaya back,” I said. I just couldn’t stop shaking.
“You’re absolutely not. I told you. It’s not safe.”
“I have to! There ain’t m-much time. She’ll die if I don’t. She’ll never even look at that little movie I made.”
“Is that what the lieutenant said?”
“It’s true,” said Lt. Sana.
“If she won’t listen and won’t come, then that’s her poor decision and a shame, but that’s the way it goes, I guess,” said Mr. Dubois, as hard and harsh as Lt. Sana, who he was glaring at. “But there’s nothing gained by your risking your life, just a lot of potential grief and sadness for a lot more people. Do your superiors know you’re here, Lieutenant?”
“I’m taking … how do you say it? Personal initiative,” said Lt. Sana, not so much grinning as baring his teeth.
“Uh huh. I thought so. Well initiative yourself on out of here or I’m going to start raising a very loud stink.”
“No!” I said. “Please don’t do that! Just let me go.” I could feel myself filling up with tears. “I’m always getting in trouble for things like this, running away, not stopping to think. You know I am! Let’s just pretend you were sleeping the whole time and I ran off with Lt. Sana, and you never knew. No one could blame you. My fault. Please? If it saves Kaya’s life, ain’t it worth it?”
Lt. Sana pulled a buzzing phone from his pocket and flipped it open. He looked up. “Now. We have to go now,” he said.
Mr. Dubois closed his eyes a moment, took a breath, and said, “I’m coming too.”
“As you wish,” said Lt. Sana. “Hurry.”
We had to race to keep up with him, down to the ground floor by the stairs, not the elevator, then out to a car, which Lt. Sana drove fast and hard to a base, where a helicopter was already running.
“Get in,” he ordered, opening the cabin door. “Here, take these. You may need them.” He tossed us both gauze masks with loops for our ears.
“To keep out ash and particles in the air,” Mr. Dubois explained. Lt. Sana climbed in, said some words to the pilot, and the helicopter lifted into the air.
And here we are, in the air.
I think we’re getting close. It’s been pitch black for a while, no lights from towns, but there’s a glow up ahead.
It’s all clouds and smoke. Lt. Sana said the wind had changed, but has it? Or maybe it’s already changed back. There’s nothing solid, just columns and towers of cloud wherever the pilot directs the searchlight. You can’t even see the Ruby Lake, just a cherry red glow deep in the clouds. I definitely don’t see no platform or nothing like that. How can the pilot land?
I saw it! I saw the Ruby Lake through the clouds, and a black silhouette right in the middle of it that must be Kaya’s Lotus. The pilot’s taking the helicopter down.
He’s tried twice but had to pull away both times. Clouds keep drifting by. We’re really pitching and rolling. How long before we get too low on fuel and have to give up?
These masks don’t do no good. I can’t stop coughing, and Mr. Dubois is wheezing when he breathes, like Tammy on a bad day.
I think we raked the lip of the crater on this pass. I saw Mr. Dubois looking at the picture of his wife and little girl a minute ago, but now his head’s dropped, and he’s just concentrating on his breathing.
Maybe we really are going to die. I don’t feel like writing no more right now.
October 24 (Michael Dubois to Kelsey Dubois)
From: Michael Dubois
Subject: what really happened
Date: October 24
To: Kelsey Dubois
A follow-up to my call, just to reassure you again that I’m alive and well (should be a doctor along soon to say I’m free to go) and to try to get down everything that happened while it’s still fresh in my mind, so that you know the real story and don’t have a heart attack when you hear whatever it is that they end up saying on the news.
While the pilot was trying to land the helicopter, I was trying to quell my panic at the air being practically unbreathable—should have expected as much, it being a volcano on the brink of erupting and all, but I confess, I wasn’t thinking very clearly that night. Call it poor response to pressure. Anyway, I was running through my breathing exercises, and next thing I knew, we’d touched down and Lt. Sana was opening the cabin door.
At first I couldn’t make a move. It was like being asked to step into a furnace. The air was shimmering; each breath seared. But I took the plunge, and Em followed, face all squinched up against the heat.
The Lotus on the Ruby Lake was nothing more than a long wooden platform, maybe 50 yards long. Around it on every side, too bright to look at for long, the crusting, weeping sore of the lake. Every now and then a fountain of lava would spurt up somewhere on the lake’s surface, which had risen perilously close to the platform.
At the far end of the platform was a tiny structure not much bigger than our tool shed. It had roof finials like you see on coastal shrines here in W—, but as near as I could make out, they were in the shape of flames instead of fish. Gotta give the government credit for attention to detail there.
Once Em was safely out of the helicopter, Sana shouted something up to the pilot, then drew a gun.
“Is that necessary?” I asked. Even those three words took it out of me.
“She’s dangerous,” Sana said grimly. He started down the platform. “Matarayi! Kayamanira Matarayi! Someone’s here to see you!” he shouted. Something cool and damp touched my arm—Em’s hand.
“I changed my mind,” she said, anguished. “I don’t want to be bait for Kaya. She put her hands over her face. “I’m as bad as Jiminy, getting my friend in trouble.”
“She’s already in plenty of trouble. Nothing they can do …” (had to pause for breath there) “is any worse than what’s going to happen right
here …” (pause) “any minute now. You’re not betraying Kaya. You’re saving her. Remember? Let’s go.”
Sana opened the door to the little shrine-thing without so much as a knock, but before we could look in, he’d pulled it shut again.
“Empty. She’ll be on the rail,” he said, which I didn’t understand until we walked round to the back of the shrine. There, sitting on the guard rail that ran the perimeter of the platform, was Kaya. She had a white cloth covering her head and wrapped tightly around her upper body. She held it over her mouth and nose with her right hand and steadied herself on the rail with her left.
It hurt to look at her: impossibly thin wrists, sharp cheekbones showing even through the white wrap, eyes sunken—but bright. Fierce, even. She said something quick and sharp to Sana, who stopped in his tracks. I was relieved to see that he’d lowered the damn gun.
“Look who I’ve brought to see you. Your pen pal from America,” he said. He added something in his own language, then pushed Em forward.
“Go on, talk to her,” he said.
Em took off her gauze mask. “Kaya, it’s me, Em. Your friend,” she said. I can’t explain how it felt to hear her. It was a voice that belongs splashing through incoming tide, or joking with friends, or shouting angrily at me about injustices. It didn’t belong in that inferno. All the same, Em spoke up clearly.
Kaya let the white cloth drop away from her face.
“I recognize you,” she said, tilting her head slightly. “You’re exactly as I dreamed you.” She smiled, and I could see the ghost of the woman she must have been ten months ago, when she was just a botanical researcher, excited about her plans for a festival. But her eyes moved to Lt. Sana, and the smile didn’t linger. “How is it that you’re here? Why are you here?”
Em’s eyes fell and she hunched her shoulders. “He brought me,” she mumbled, with a small jerk of the head toward Sana. But then she straightened up and said, “It’s because I want to rescue you. Please? Will you come with me?” She took a step forward, the sole of her sneaker peeling stickily up from the platform. The wood was that hot; I could feel it through the soles of my shoes, too. Kaya slipped down from the guard rail, then gasped as Em pulled her into a hug. I winced, thinking like as not Em would crack her ribs, but apparently Kaya’s less fragile that she looks. I suppose she’d have to be. She rested a hand on Em’s cheek—such a tender gesture.
“I can’t,” she said. “There are things I have to do here.”
My heart sank. How can you argue with a ridiculous assertion? How long would we be there pleading before Lt. Sana lost patience—or one of those lava fountains ignited the platform?
Em took Kaya’s caressing hand in both of her own and held it clutched to her chest.
“There ain’t nothing to do here. You’ll die if you stay here.”
“Stay or go, that will happen, I’m afraid. Isn’t that so.” The last remark was directed with jutting chin and narrowed eyes at Sana. Em twisted round and looked up at the lieutenant. He rocked back on his heels.
“That’s for a tribunal to decide,” he replied with a shrug and the faintest trace of a smile.
Kaya shot him a defiant look and turned to Em.
“If I go with you, and I’m executed, then he and his friends get to tell the story of who I am and what I’ve done. A horrible story, a shameful story—and everyone I know, everyone I’ve grown up with, will be punished for it. But if I stay here, stay with the Lady, give her my thoughts, my memories, my everything, then what I gain for them is such power. No troops, no armored vehicles, no helicopters can withstand it. Do you understand?”
Em looked frightened. Poor kid. I wonder if she grew up with warnings about the dangers the drowning pose to the living. Maybe not, because she said,
“I- I think I understand. But—” She took a gulp of the molten air. “I remember when I found out we couldn’t rebuild Mermaid’s Hands, I remember thinking, wishing we could just go down under the waves and live with the seafolk. We’re seachildren!” She ran her tongue over her lips. “If we did that, though, we could never come back up again. Maybe I’d’ve tried anyway, if I’d been with everyone at the Winterhulls’ house instead of at Aunt Brenda’s. But I’ll never know, because instead you saved Mermaid’s Hands, and now we’re rebuilding, and there’s gonna be windmills! And I want to build a submarine with Small Bill, and I want to show Tammy the picture I drew at the embassy, and I wouldn’t get to do none of that if I went under the waves. So won’t you let me save you, like you saved me and mine? Because I just bet your ma and your friends would rather bear some of the troubles and hardship they have if it means they can also keep you, the way you are now, in this world right here.”
Kaya gazed into Em’s beseeching face, brow furrowed. Her eyes went distant, and she murmured something none of us could quite hear. Then she shook her head slightly. “A miracle,” she said, still barely audible. “The Lady promised me a miracle. I thought it was to be the other thing … but maybe you are the miracle.”
Em nodded vigorously. “Yes! Me for you, like you were, for me.”
Kaya pulled her white wrap tight around her with her free hand. “All right,” she said. “For the miracle that appears, rather than the one I imagined.” Her voice shook slightly. Lt. Sana stirred. There was a clink and click as he opened handcuffs.
“For crying out loud, handcuffs, too? Not safe enough with the gun?” But the force of my sarcasm was lost in a fit of coughing that left me woozy.
“Just protocol for transporting a prisoner, Mr. Dubois,” Sana said, his satisfaction evident. “I believe it’s standard practice in your country too. Come then, Miss Matarayi,” he said, lingering on each syllable of her surname, “Mr. Dubois thinks you’re a reasonable creature; let’s see who’s right.” Kaya didn’t move.
“Well? Coming?”
Kaya’s eyes met Sana’s for a moment. His smile—predatory, triumphant—deepened. Kaya looked away. Em still held Kaya’s hand clasped in hers; now Kaya closed her fingers tightly around Em’s. Sana advanced a step. Kaya retreated, and Em with her.
“Now, now,” said Sana, a note of warning in his voice. He raised the gun a fraction. I forced myself to exhale slowly, slowly, then drew in a superheated, sulfurous breath.
“Kaya,” I said, “It’s going to be all right. You may be in his custody, but we’re here too; we’re witnesses. We’re not going to let anything bad happen. We’re going to make sure your side of the story gets told. When I get back stateside, I can get in touch with your professors at Cornell to vouch for you; I can see if human-rights organizations want to get involved. We won’t let them—”
Lt. Sana was staring at me with a look of such hot fury that the rest of my words shriveled in my mouth.
“Her side of the story! Human-rights organizations? You want to keep her from justice? She ordered vandalism, sabotage, murder. Destabilized the country, made W— appear weak and chaotic in the eyes of the world. And you think you can shield her from the consequences? Because she wrote letters full of lies to a little girl? You’re a fool; you know nothing.” Then, to Kaya, “Get over here right now or—” Face flushed with emotion, Sana abandoned English for his last few words. Kaya gasped and then—well, it was very confusing, everything happening at once.
“She’s going to jump! She’s going to take the girl with her!” Sana shouted, raising his gun in earnest and taking aim, while simultaneously Kaya screamed, “He means to shoot Em! Em, drop!”—but that last part was lost in the crack of gunfire.
“Are you out of your mind?” I choked out. Both girls were down, but I couldn’t see if either had been hit. I threw myself at Sana, missed, and went sprawling, knocking whatever wind my sad lungs contained clean out. My vision cleared enough to see Em roll free of the melee and get to her feet—unharmed, thank God—and I saw Kaya stagger to a stand as well, right hand clutching her breast just below her left shoulder, red blossoming between her fingers on the white wrap.
“Em, r
un for the helicopter!” I heard her say. And then—I swear I didn’t imagine this—Sana took aim again, but not at Kaya. At Em.
I couldn’t yell a warning, couldn’t even offer a distraction, having barely managed to lever myself onto my elbows at that point and still struggling to draw breath. There was a gunshot and a blur of motion that must have been Em, diving for the protection of the little shrine.
“Your death’s upon you, lieutenant!” Kaya called, and eerily, a white web descended, shroudlike, over his head. Kaya’s wrap—she’d unfurled it over him.
He flailed wildly, trying to tear it off, and when finally he was free of it, there was Kaya, so close to him that her upturned face practically brushed his chin. Her lips moved, a message for his ears only. Whatever she said provoked him; he lunged. She stepped to one side and he skidded on something slick and wet—her blood. His hands flew open as he tried to catch his balance, and the gun slid across the platform. Seconds later his desperate dance ended, as with top-heavy force he fell against, and then went over, the guard rail. The Ruby Lake swallowed him before he had a chance to scream.
Em had reemerged from the shrine and stood trembling, eyes fixed on the place where Sana had vanished. I managed to pick myself up and take a shallow breath of the poisonous air.
“The Lady is coming. We have to leave,” Kaya said. As she stepped over her crumpled wrap, I became aware of the trail of blood down her left side.
“You need medical attention,” I said.
“In a hospital in Palem? No.” She bent to retrieve the gun. “Quickly!” We hurried to the helicopter; Kaya disappearing for a moment into the shrine and returning with a heavy volume—Trees of Insular Southeast Asia. At the helicopter, she trained the gun on the pilot.
“Do you have to do that?” Em asked, voice quavering.
“Yes,” Kaya said softly. “It’s better for the pilot this way—he can say he was coerced, and it will be true.” She gave orders, and as the helicopter lifted off, the far end of the platform burst into flames.