by Sarah Fine
He herds me onto the elevator, where my father and Melik wrap their arms around me. Bo looks at my father. “Guiren, thank you for these years.”
My father nods, and when I look closer, I see he is crying too. But then his head jerks up at a resounding crash, and his eyes widen as the first men descend the steps. Bo steps back from the elevator and turns to face his attackers, who are armed with cattle prods and knives and guns.
Slowly, like a gesture of defiance, he raises his metal arm and presses a button on his wrist. Current hums through the arm, ending in a sharp popping spark between two of his steel fingers.
The whirring of gears is louder than any I’ve heard before.
Every single statue in the room raises its head at the same time.
My father makes a frightened noise and lunges for the elevator’s red button. He punches it as the metal statues stand up or turn around, whatever programmed movement is required for them to face Bo’s attackers. They all step forward at once—Mugo, Jipu, Melik, even Minny’s tiny little boy. Bo turns his head to look at me. He smiles.
The last thing I hear before the elevator whisks us up is the screams of the mob as the metal army attacks.
MELIK CRUSHES ME against his chest and bows his head over mine as the elevator accelerates, carrying us past floor after floor. The metal cage shakes me to my bones. I don’t know what’s louder: Melik’s heartbeat or my own sobs. I barely notice as the elevator stops and my father slides the door open, as I am half dragged and half carried along a path littered with broken glass and bird droppings.
We have just reached the catwalk when a tremor shakes the entire building, making the remaining glass around us clank and rattle in its panes. Suddenly I feel dizzy, and I stumble against the wall. My father does the same.
Only Melik keeps his balance. “The building. Could he destroy the building?”
My father shoves off the wall and puts his arm around my waist. “I am not surprised at anything Bo can do. Hurry.”
Another tremor sends my father careening into a wall. “It’s going to come down,” he says, his voice rising to a panicked squeak.
Melik grabs my hand and pulls me to the catwalk, then pushes me ahead of him. He’s muttering under his breath, something like “Go, go, go”—suddenly we’re thrown forward and I land hard on my stomach. My tiny white seashell falls through the grate and plummets to the ground four stories below. Melik is on top of me, crushing my face into the metal, but then he’s up and so am I. We scramble as the entire Gochan One factory shifts and cracks, enough to loosen the catwalk where it’s fastened to the brick. It’s going to be sheared off, and we’re going to fall.
I throw myself toward the hatch in the ceiling of the Gochan Two warehouse as the catwalk drops away below my feet. I heave myself through the opening, with Melik’s large hands on either side of mine. “My father!” I scream.
“He’s holding my legs,” Melik grunts. “Help me.” He’s grasping for anything that will give him leverage, and all there is . . . is me. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and tug, and he grits his teeth and drags himself through the hatch. Slowly we pull my father through as well, in time to watch Gochan One disappear in a roaring cloud of dust.
We sit there for what feels like days but is probably only a few minutes. My father says he should go attend to the wounded, and I know that is where I belong as well, even though I am wearing only a dressing gown and sticky, crimson woolen shoes. Father leads us down a side stairwell of Gochan Two, and it is clear to me he has been here before. “Did you help him put together the arm?” I ask.
He nods. “Bo drew up the design when he was only fourteen. As soon as he recovered from the injuries, he was coming over here to learn. I got him the parts, but once he had that arm, he never needed me again, not really.”
He sounds so sad. He has lost a son today. I link my arm with his as we get to the factory’s side exit, one that opens onto a small plaza between Gochan One and Two. My father stops Melik before we open the door. “We have to do something about your hair.”
Melik nods toward the door. “The dust will be my disguise.”
We pull the fabric of our clothes over our faces and walk into the brown fog, and the world is full of the cries of injured men, panicked men, frightened men. Layered under sirens and over the pops and crackles of fire, buried in black smoke. I follow the dim outline of my father. Tears stream from my eyes, from both grief and the sting of grit. It is a slow journey, as we must climb over piles of rubble, all that remains of Gochan One. My hands are torn and bleeding by the time we make it.
The compound square is chaos, with the dead and dying laid out in a tangle while the living search the rubble. The firefighters spray their hoses on the flames. Some of our cafeteria workers and office girls are tending to the wounded. I look over my shoulder to tell Melik I should be helping.
He’s disappeared.
I turn in place. I should be able to spot him; he’s taller than most, and I’d recognize the way he carries himself. But he has melted into the dust. Without saying good-bye.
Too many losses for this one day. Too many. I sink to the ground and cover my head with my arms, blocking out the noise, the sights, the pain. People touch me, move me out of the way, try to talk to me, but I have nothing left for them. My heart has been crushed. I am as empty as the tiny white seashell now lost in the rubble, shattered into jagged pieces.
Someone smacks me lightly on the shoulder. “I need your help,” my father says. “Put aside what’s happened and work.” His face is streaked with grime; his shoulders are dotted with blood; his eyes are shining with grief. But he has not crumbled or snapped.
And so I stand up and get to work.
I don’t stop for the next six days.
On the seventh day after the collapse I tell my father I want to go back to my mother’s cottage. I’m going to sell the last of my dresses to give us enough to have some choices about what we want to do next.
The autumn sun glows bright above me as I make the walk past rubble to massive factory to genteel mansions clinging to the side of the Hill. I tilt my face to the light, thankful that I am here and alive and able to see the sky. I unlock the door to my mother’s cottage and inhale what is left of her scent, lotus and apple blossoms. I pull the jade green silk dress from my closet. It is the last thing I have from her, the last dress she ever made for me. The sleeves, waist, hem, and neckline are intricately embroidered, the work of an artist.
I run my fingertips over each bud and leaf and swirl of thread, remembering her voice, her smile, her songs. Before I realize what I’m doing, I am wearing this dress, humming the song about the girl and boy in the field of citron. The warped mirror on my dresser shows me a girl with shoulder-length black hair too short to braid. Her face is heart-shaped but less full than it used to be, less childlike. This dress fits her perfectly because her mother made it so.
The time for this dress is over, though. I change back into the new brown work dress given to me by the factory store matron so that I didn’t have to spend the past week wearing a torn and bloody nightgown. I wander out into the overgrown walled garden, where I sit on the stone bench and stare out at the Western Hills. No more do I wonder what is on the other side. I know. I ache with knowing.
“I was wondering when you would come,” he says, stepping out from behind my mother’s gardening shed.
I stifle my cry of surprise and jump up, my mouth opening and closing like a fish without water. “You were gone,” I say stupidly.
Melik has wound a makeshift bandage around his neck, and his eyes are still red. But the bruises have faded and his face is beautiful again. He bites his lip and looks at his boots. “I had to find Sinan.”
“Is he well?”
He nods toward the hills. “He’s waiting for me, along with the others. He curses me every day that I lost my head over a girl.�
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I stare at him. “You disappeared without saying good-bye.”
He runs a hand over his head, and his rust red hair sticks up. “I stand out. Right now people think I’m dead. But if I were to hang around the Ring . . .” He shrugs apologetically. “Do people assume we’re gone? Have you heard rumors?”
I let out a raspy breath. “Those are rampant these days, but not many are about the Noor. Many are fixated on how the Ghost got his revenge and took over a hundred men with him. But mostly things are being blamed on the unsafe factory conditions and the unstable building. It’s quite a scandal.” I tuck my short hair behind my ear.
Melik gives me a concerned look. “How are you?”
I’ll fall apart if I answer him honestly. “We’ve been using the company store as a clinic. Lots of broken bones and burns. Many people have been helping us, though.” Both Vie and Onya have been by my side, bandaging and splinting the survivors, horrified at what happened to all our good Itanyai boys and men. “There’s always work to do,” I say in a thin voice.
“Wen always has medicine,” he says softly, his words snatched by the breeze. “And your father?”
“I shouldn’t be happy about this, but the collapse of the factory might be a wonderful thing for him. For all the surviving workers, actually.”
He tilts his head.
“All the records of their debts were destroyed,” I explain. “The company’s trying to figure out who owes what, but everything’s in chaos. I’m hoping that everyone’s slates will be wiped clean.”
Melik gives me a weary smile. “That might be too much to hope for.”
I feel so hollowed out that his voice echoes inside me. “I know you’re right.” I clear my throat. “And without the factory, there’s no meat—not in this area, anyway. Many people are blaming the government, and others are blaming the companies that run the factories. Things are very tense in the Ring.”
His smile fades. “Things are tense everywhere.”
Yes, they are. Including right here. I’ve been thinking of Melik every moment of every day, no matter how hard I try to stop, but seeing him hurts so badly I can barely catch my breath. I clench my teeth and will my eyes to stay dry.
“Wen, please look at me.” He waits until I do. “I’m sorry I left so suddenly that day. I didn’t want to, but—”
The pain of it twists in my chest. “I wanted you to be safe. I understand.” But I’m choking on my words, and now he’s rushing toward me. He lets me collapse onto him, lets me hold on tight.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he mumbles into my hair as the grief and longing of the past seven days come gushing out of me.
He lifts my chin and kisses me, and I feel it pouring from him as well, a want as deep as the ocean, wishes as unreachable as the moon. This will never last long enough for me, but I let him hold me against him and pretend it might.
He sets his forehead on mine. “I have to go back to the west. My family needs me.”
“Take me with you.” There is nothing for my father and me here, nothing I love, not anymore.
Melik kisses me again and shakes his head. “The road between here and there is too dangerous, and nothing waits for me but sorrow. Still, I have to go.” He bends to kiss my neck, murmuring his words into my skin so they will seep into my heart and stay. “If you think this is the last time you will see me, you are wrong. Say you believe that.”
And then he is kissing me deep, demanding the answer he wants, making promise after wordless promise. He does not object when I unbutton his shirt and slip my hand underneath to feel his chest, to slide my fingers over the scar that runs from the spot over his heart to his shoulder. At some point in the last week he has removed the stitches, and now there is only a thin red line that has already started to fade. But it reminds me of what we’ve already been through, and how we are standing here now, together.
“I believe that,” I finally whisper.
As soon as I do, he leaves me under the autumn sun, which does nothing to warm me. Shivering and shoving my hands into the deep pockets of my dress, I watch him walk away with his shoulders straight, unbowed and unbroken, still not knowing his place. He leaves me there to pray to gods I don’t believe in for his safety, to weave my wishes together tightly and hope they keep me warm, to make offerings to a ghost who no longer exists. . . .
My fingers close around the object and lift it from my pocket, into the light. I have no idea when or how it got there, and it makes my heart thump heavy and fast. It is my tiny metal girl with her Wen face and body, but she looks different now. The long, fine braid at her back has been snipped; it is now shoulder length. Knitted to her side is a boy, and his arms wind around her waist and chest, holding her against him, keeping her safe. I twist them this way and that, and cannot figure him out.
He doesn’t have a face.
I raise my head and search the Western Hills, but Melik has long since vanished from sight. I turn from them and look out on the Ring, to the still-smoking gap where Gochan One used to be.
With the metal couple clenched tightly in my hand, I begin my long walk back.
Everything that has happened with this book has felt strange and wonderful, and that is due in large part to the people who have encouraged and challenged me through this journey. My very first thanks must go to Brigid Kemmerer, who read the first few chapters of this story at a moment when I was very unsure if I had the time or skill to write it properly. Her “go go go!” email set me in motion, and less than three weeks later I had completed this book. So Brigid, this is all your fault. (Thank you.)
Major gratitude, as always, goes to my agent, Kathleen Ortiz, who didn’t freak out when I told her I needed to take a few weeks off working on something else so I could write this story, and who later put her foot down and said this was the next thing we needed to submit. Thank you, Kathleen, for keeping me sane, organized, and focused, and for managing all the behind-the-scenes details. You’re amazing. Thank-yous are also due to the phenomenal team at New Leaf Literary, Joanna, Danielle, Jaida, and Pouya especially.
To my editor, Ruta Rimas: working with you is as wonderful as I thought it would be. Thank you for understanding this story, for helping me make it better, and for being its champion. This is me, putting my hand over my heart and turning my palm to you. Thank you also to the team at Margaret K. McElderry Books, who have been instrumental in making everything about this book exquisite: managing editor Bridget Madsen, copy editor Erica Stahler, proofreader Katie Grim, and especially Debra Sfetsios-Conover, for designing the cover and interior formatting, and Michael Frost, for the beautiful photography.
So many people have supported me as I’ve bobbed along in the current of the publishing world. Dearest Dr. Lydia Kang, there’s no one else with whom I’d wish to share a case of folie à deux. All the shrimp toast goes to you. Jennifer, you are my first and best cheerleader. Jennifer Walkup, Jaime Loren, Justine Dell, and Stina Lindenblatt, you are astute and awesome beta-readers. Catherine, Kim, Anne-Marie, Yerissa, Chris, Casey, Heather, and the entire staff of CCBS: you are excellent, and that makes it possible for me to do both my jobs. Paul, Liz, and Leah, you are practically family—maybe we should go camping sometime. And to the bloggers and readers who were willing to take a closer look at this story just because I wrote it, I hope you know how amazing that feels and how honored I am.
To my sister and brother-in-law, Cathryn and Nicholas Yang, thank you for answering my incessant questions, for providing linguistic consultation, for reading with a critical eye, and for understanding my liberal application of creative license. Thank you to Susan Walters for providing naming inspiration.
And for the rest of my family—Mom and Dad, thank you for always sounding happy when I call at 7:30 a.m. and for making sure I know I will always have a home in your hearts no matter where I wander. Robin, thank you for inspiring me and being
my sister, and please know that I’m still waiting for a picture of the singing hair stylists. Joey, thank you for being patient and making sure I have time to do this strange job. Alma, thank you for being such a powerful, mysterious, and delightful creature. And Asher, thank you for building and building and building. I am in awe, and so proud.
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About the Author
Sarah Fine is the author of The Guards of the Shadowlands series. She was born on the West Coast, raised in the Midwest, and is now firmly entrenched on the East Coast, where she lives with her husband and two children. When she’s not writing, she’s working as a child psychologist. Visit her at SarahFineBooks.com.
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