The air smelled clean, and green, and silent.
“We’re entering the chinampas plots,” you said. “The corn is half again as tall as you are.”
I could have laughed. My implants had made the figures look like swaying giants. They had never seen corn before. And, I thought, didn’t that make me precisely the sheltered, privileged Estrato boy she said I was?
“Isn’t it dangerous to grow food with the polluted water?”
You had leaned toward me in our silence, but pulled back now. There had been something—a scent, a memory, a familiarity in that gesture. But I couldn’t hold it. You turned very Colibrí, as if there were cameras ready to broadcast one of your “messages to the people.”
“The chinampas traditionally are nonpolluting. And we have ecologists working with local farmers to introduce algae and plants that are cleaning up Estrato waste.”
“It’s not only Estrato waste,” I said.
“Sure,” you said, “you assholes outsource plenty of it to multinationals too.”
I sighed. “Didn’t I help you?”
“You did,” you said, with something odd in your voice. “But I’m still not sure if it’s because you want to get in my pants or because you care.”
“I care,” I said, softly, but you didn’t respond. We were silent for a while.
“Look,” you said, “it’s a double rainbow.”
I looked up and tried to get a read, but outside of the boat everything was noise. I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be much use, anyhow. Aurora . . . she used to describe colors to me.”
“Tell me, how would she have described a rainbow?”
I was surprised that you asked, but even more surprised when I started to answer. I had tried so hard not to think about Aurora in those months of pursuing you, as though to admit what I had loved about her would mean admitting that I had made a mistake. But you asked, and there she was, smiling against my ear.
“It’s really a circle, she told me that first. But the earth cuts through it, so we only see one half. There’s never an end to a rainbow. And the bottom band is purple, as faint as chiffon. Quinceañera chiffon, Aurora called it. Though she made her own quinceañera gown, and didn’t use any chiffon at all. Then a blue of a sky in a sun shower, the blue of lapis lazuli dusted with chalk. Green so green it seems fake and flat, just to prepare you for the purity of the yellow. Somewhere in between gold foil and parrot feathers, she told me, the ones that puff out close to the neck. And then, last, the crimson that bleeds into the gray of the clouds behind it. And just where they mix, the red of freshly spilled blood.”
“Oh,” you said, and I caught it again, that sweet breath of something familiar. But the rain was dissipating, and the breeze blew it away. She twisted in her seat. “Juanita, let’s get back. Bartolomé should be here soon and I need to talk to him about the next raid.”
We went back to the first structure, which turned out to be a cantina. I had finished my pulque, somehow, so they gave me another. It tasted better this time. I sat with Juanita while you went off to talk to the priest with the booming voice. He was talking about going into the Lomas, because the girls who weren’t killed immediately always seemed to pass through there.
You said something I couldn’t make out and then both of you moved out of hearing. I took a long gulp of my second glass of pulque.
“So, whereabouts do you live?” Juanita asked. “Far from here, I’m sure.”
I felt my throat jumping, the way it does when I’m scared or sad. “Lomas,” I said.
“Ah,” she said. “I hear it’s nice up there. Not even flooded.”
I could only nod. I hadn’t told you anything about my family. Nothing about the slow parade of desperate girls. Had I doomed myself when I agreed to help you? Had implicating Beto led you to my own home? I started shaking and told Juanita I was cold.
“Take the boy home, Coli,” she called. “Our pulque’s too strong for him; you don’t want his junior friends to think we’ve poisoned him!”
There were six others in the cantina now, and they laughed. You came back and put your hand on my shoulder.
“Is everything okay?” you said.
That was your mistake, you know. Even though the voice was still lower and rougher, the tone was like a dream I had been dreaming for a year and forgotten upon waking every morning. It was everything I had missed and tried to forget and resented and never, ever understood.
I stood up and gripped your hand. You knew.
You let Juanita take me back. By the dock, as you handed me down into the boat, you gave me a scarf. The raised pattern was of feathers, you said, quetzal blue. The weave was so tight that the cotton felt as smooth as your hair, falling over your shoulders. It was a work of art, Aurora, and you gave it to someone who could only appreciate half of it.
I pulled down your bandana and leaned in as though to kiss you.
“How is this possible?” I asked. My voice cracked twice on the last word. I could not believe how much I believed it.
“I never could tell you,” you said, in both of their voices. “But I still need your help, Jaime, Jaimecito. We still—”
“I’ll let you know,” I told you. That voice I loved, I couldn’t stand to hear it any longer. I couldn’t stand to smell you and touch your fabric and the feathers of the headdress that you still hadn’t taken off. You nodded and let me go.
So this is my answer:
No. I can’t betray my own blood for someone who has never, behind either mask, never once shown me her true self.
August 5, 2079. The sleeper agent.
It turns out that Aurora has a very interesting history. You’re her real mother.
Dios mío, Aurita, do you think this is a good idea? Are you really recording this?
I’ll keep it secret until it’s safe to use. So you’re a councilmember for which organization?
The New Zapatista Liberation Army. Why are you asking me things you already know?
Because I might not always be around to know them, Mamá. Just speak, you owe me that much.
We intended for Aurora to be an agent on the inside, and she reported back to us for years, it’s true. But about a year ago, the assembly had agreed that we needed more leverage in the fight against the redistricting for the new Highline stations—yes, they’re planning to destroy the entire neighborhood to extend that so-called Estratósfera. They won’t even allow us to use their goddamn monorail or set foot in those towers, and their proposed payment is more of an insult than honest robbery would be. They are going to destroy our sixteenth-century church, which we only managed to save from the flooding with the savings and work of generations. They’re going to destroy our homes, our public spaces, an entire Nahua community, for a shopping mall and luxury apartments. How could we not fight back? But I supposed that Aurora had spent too long up there among those criminals. I supposed that she had forgotten where she came from. Perhaps it was too hard on her, to have to pretend to be an orphan in the blast. We rarely got to see her. And then her father died last December, and she couldn’t even attend the funeral.
You don’t seem very sad about it.
Of course it hurt me to lose her! I pray for her every night. That first year I cried so much I lost my salt. But there was no one else, and we had to take advantage of the opportunity. She and her aunt were our only activists to survive the blast. But then we realized, no one in the hospital had any idea who she was, and that rich woman was begging for an orphan. We had to let her go! She had a special role to play in the Hill family. But this year we told her . . .
You told me to kidnap Jaime.
I wish I had fought harder against the idea. It goes completely against our principles. Just because they accuse us of unspeakable acts doesn’t mean we should lower ourselves to their level. You refused, and that was the last I heard from you for months. Not until I saw the Colibrí . . . Aurora, does anyone else know what you’re doing?
Just Bartolomé and a few f
rom the band, Mamá.
At least your cousin is there. He’s always looked out for you. Oh, what will become of you? You can’t come back here. And if your Estratósfera family ever discovers what you’ve done? If your precious boyfriend ever finds out? Oh, then I won’t even have your body to bury, and they’ll still build a tower where our home used to be.
August 10, 2079. You knew that I knew, and I loved you for it.
You finally call, Jaime? I thought you hated—
There’s a body in the bathroom, Coli. My father told me to wait in the greenhouse. But I’m in the laundry room instead. I can still hear them talking upstairs. They want to clean it up quietly. But it’s a woman, Coli. A young woman dressed like a maid, but her face doesn’t register.
They . . . where are you?
At my uncle’s house in Lomas. I don’t know how you get into our houses or do what you do, but I think you should come here.
You do.
I know your people have stayed away from Lomas since—but I think you have to come here now. I can’t stand this anymore.
Jaime, Jaimecito, what can’t you stand?
I can’t stand that you might have been right.
August 11, 2079. And there comes a time when all that’s left is your own blood.
Juanita was sure it was a setup. You had refused my calls for a month. Our spies said you seemed to be working for your father. You had rejected me, so why call for help? I agreed with her, but I argued that we should go anyway. Your voice was so strained and quiet. You didn’t want to say it, not a word, and yet you were trying to tell me something anyway. You only called me Coli, which meant you hadn’t exposed me to your family.
Juanita shrugged and said, “Let’s get those bastards, then. If we’re lucky we’ll get enough to bring down the mayor. And if we’re not, God will still take care of it when we’re worm food.”
I reached up to hug her, which is a joke between us because she’s so big I can only reach her shoulders. “This is why I love you,” I said.
And she smiled and said we should make sure Bartolomé was willing to risk his neck for my junior boyfriend.
He was, Jaime. Which you know. Or will know, if you survive.
It was one in the morning by the time we arrived, dark from the thick smog blocking out the moon and even the lights of the Estratósfera towers to the east. We decided that I would go in first. Bartolomé would wait for my signal dressed in full Colibrí gear. We’re almost exactly the same height and build; with the sublingual vocal mask it would be hard to tell. I got in—no, I won’t tell you how. I still don’t know if you’ll betray me, Jaime.
The greenhouse was dark and empty. I had to break open the padlock. The flagstone paths inside were covered with dead leaves and flowers and dirt. I flashed the ultraviolet light that I couldn’t see and waited.
You snuck up behind me—you didn’t need light to find your way, after all.
“No headdress,” you said.
I jumped and swung around. You were alone. “The Colibrí is waiting to see what’s really happening.”
“They already got rid of the body,” you said. “A truck came.”
“Convenient.”
You smiled. “But I got the license plate. My uncle’s press secretary is driving.”
It was a very good offer, Jaime. Not your father, not your property, but damning political leverage all the same. I sent the photo to Juanita and told her to follow with Ulises.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
It hurt to see you. I had thought of you so much in the last month that I hadn’t expected it to. But you had chosen to be the rotten fruit of your family’s rotten tree. You hadn’t chosen the hummingbird.
“Why am I here, Jaime?”
Your throat jumped. “So you can tell me to my face,” you said, “why you lied to me. I loved you, or I loved both of the creations I thought were you—did you ever feel anything for me? Did you ever regret using me? Did you think, oh, poor blind Jaime, he can’t tell the difference?”
“You came after me! I never asked for your love affair with the Colibrí.”
“You sure didn’t reject it! You seduced me with my ideal woman, and none of it was real.”
That made me freeze. Because my heart was breaking, I suppose, though I had thought it was already in pieces. “Was she really? Did you really love nothing about Aurora? I wove you a thousand stories in a thousand threads, everything I could never tell you . . .”
You took a deep breath and put your hand to my cheek. “No,” you said, and shoved me to the floor. Glass shattered and floodlights blinded me. I fell at your feet and found my com by touch, to yell at Bartolomé to get the hell away from here. It was too late, of course. He’d already come inside when he hadn’t heard from me.
Someone yelled, “Hands up, Colibrí.” And you left me there on the floor, ran to stop your father’s soldiers from killing us. And instead they shot you. Bartolomé they left to drown in his own blood among the poinsettia.
No one suspected me. They cleaned me up and took me back to Mamá’s and said they would tell me when your condition changed. They were all laughing, what a good joke, they said. Of course it could only have been a man who robbed them like that. But what a good joke to play at being a woman. Poor blind Jaime probably didn’t even know. Don’t worry, they told me, we won’t let his identity go public. Poor Bartolomé. Even in death he’s stuck with my secrets.
We caught your uncle, by the way. Definitively connected him and your cousin to various femicides and disappearances. Impeachment hearings start tomorrow. I’m praying to the virgin you’ll be awake to see them. Hate me all you want, hate me for the rest of your life. But you always knew me, mi vida, you knew more than I could ever tell you.
October 3, 2080. Some wars end because the soldiers refuse to fight.
Daniela Q: Let’s move to something more personal. Just this past week you’ve been taking your first public steps since your near-fatal shooting last summer. Five days ago, you testified in the legislative assembly about the need to unilaterally restrict further Estrato development. So I have to ask, why now? Why has the junior golden boy at last turned political?
Jaime: I spent a lot of time on my back, to be honest. The Colibrí gave me—gave us all—a lot to think about. She gave us a promise that I think we all have to try to make real. She told me once that I never faced my own discomfort. Her death made me face it. She showed me a . . . truth, about myself, about herself, that it took me a long time to understand.
Daniela Q: Your family has been through a number of changes. Your uncle was forced to resign as mayor before the impeachment hearings began. Your cousin Alberto was assassinated by a presumed cartel member. And unlike every other Torres of the last five generations, you’re studying law at the public autonomous university.
Jaime: I never wished misfortune on my family, but I do want justice. I’m lucky to have finally understood how I can use my influence and position in society to help redress the wrongs of systemic inequality.
Daniela Q: Are you writing poetry again?
Jaime: Yes. I’ve even written a couple of songs lately.
Daniela Q: Is there a special someone?
Jaime: I’m not sure, to be honest. There’s just someone—I’d like to get to know better without all the pyrotechnics. I have this feeling we might just get along.
October 4, 2080. The thread and the loom.
Hello again, Jaime. I admit, that poem caught me off guard. A year without a word, and now hearings in the assembly! But I believe you. It’s been a hard year for both of us.
I put this together for you and I thought I wouldn’t send it, that it would just stir up bad memories. But then I reread that poem, and I realized that you knew me—that you knew us—both of them who were always, always me.
I’ll read it and then I’ll press send. It’s time you learned the whole story.
I met an iceberg who wouldn’t tell
me her name
But wove it in a hundred thousand strands of blue-black thread.
The color of the lake, polluted, she once told me,
Is the color of a hummingbird’s crest.
Before She Was Bloody
TESSA GRATTON
. . . and I made the Sahenate strong because I had three hearts.
—from Seven Hundred Declarations of Safiya the Bloody
White petals fluttered in the air that day, hovering over the marble garden that surrounded my grandfather’s palace for a quarter mile in every direction so that no one might approach without being seen. Dedicated currents of magic held the petals suspended in swirls and starbursts to celebrate the return of the Sahe Sahenam, king of kings, from a border war in the northern foothills of Syr Saria. An extravagance, I knew, but that the Architects under my command could so easily ensnare the wind made me heady with power.
No one could see my smile through the sheer red silk of my veil, and so I unleashed it, full of joy at seeing my brother Dalir in his lacquered armor and vibrant blue headscarf, marching across the fused-sand pathway through the garden. It had been months since I’d seen him! And my success here at home in quashing a thread of rebellion was news both he and Idris the Great, our grandfather and the Sahe Sahenam, would relish.
But there, beside Dalir in a place of honor, was a dark young stranger wearing the plated leather armor of the Sarians. My dearest friend and body twin, Farah za Sarenpet, touched my elbow in a quick, familiar caress; she too had noticed the handsome stranger at Dalir’s side.
Grandfather paused at the crescent ablution pool to dip his hands and touch his eyelids in deference to She Who Loves Silence. Dalir followed suit, as did the first and second generals and all five glorified captains in the royal party. But the stranger merely knelt respectfully and never touched the water.
He was no devotee of our goddess! How intriguing! I skimmed my elbow against Farah’s bare arm, and she leaned ever so slightly nearer, to tap our silent language onto my wrist: she agreed with me that he was beautiful, but in the way of heathen horses, strong and stocky and proud as he strode up the shallow marble steps, and not so graceful as Dalir. I let my smile curve wickedly as I reached out to welcome my brother, whose narrow face broke into a grin that matched. He surged faster, skipping every other step to dart around Grandfather. It did the gathered mirza—the small princes of our empire—and all those who’d been away at war very well to see the affection between us, reminding them we were incorruptibly loyal to our family.
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