Celeste was looking at her now. “With your what? What’s wrong?”
Myrta forced the words out. “I think it’s my eyes.”
Celeste took a step backward. “Oh. Oh, dear heavens. Terrence, please leave.”
He looked at Celeste. She didn’t meet his gaze. His face stilled. “Celeste?”
She turned to the stove, took a hand cloth, and began wiping. “I’ll see to Myrta. You needn’t worry.”
A look of suspicion came over him, and he thundered, “What is goin’ on with Myrta’s eyes?”
Stunned, Myrta stared at him. He had turned red, and Celeste faced him squarely. “Terrence, get a hold of yourself.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” he boomed. “Tell me what’s going on!”
Celeste was reddening now too, and her voice no longer shook. “These are children. They are the fruit of our love and our labor. All the work we do is for nothing if not to raise them well and safely.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Myrta has the Elige trait?” Terrence roared.
“Because you would not have allowed her to live here! That man tried to take her! You weren’t there! He’s with Renico!”
Myrta shrank into her chair. Celeste had a wild look; her self-discipline bled clean away.
Terrence bellowed, “You waited years to tell me my daughter has the trait?”
“Your daughter doesn’t have it!”
Myrta looked at Celeste in astonishment, but Celeste had pulled back, eyes wide and mouth pressed shut, her face the image of shock. Her words hung in the air.
After a long moment, Celeste took a breath and her face smoothed out. She said with resolve, “Your daughter lives in Collimais with Ephraim and Ardelle. Myrta is our niece. She has the Elige trait. When the girls were born, Ardelle believed Myrta would be safer here.”
The air in the kitchen lay still, like an oppressive summer afternoon. Terrence and Celeste faced off motionless, while Myrta tried to make sense of what she’d just heard.
A lifetime of memories flooded back. Celeste not speaking of Myrta’s spells with anyone. The times Terrence would simply put up a hand to stop her from talking. That hand, with dirt etched into the creases like a field, like a map of his life. And Celeste would say to let him be and she’d keep Myrta apart.
Myrta saw the blanket from Ardelle, knit in the linked hearts pattern. The sweater, in a twined cable pattern. The letters and gifts all smelling of lavender.
Something cracked inside, pain or bewilderment, and through that shock a feeling of unbreachable distance.
She wasn’t Terrence’s daughter. Her biological father—Uncle Ephraim, holiest heaven—he was from a city.
Celeste had raised her under a lie. She stared at the woman, still facing off against Terrence, holding firm against his gale.
An inarticulate howl screamed out of Terrence’s mouth, and there was movement again.
“What were we to do?” Celeste cried. “Leave her in the town? She wouldn’t have survived five years.”
Terrence slammed his fist on the table, its leg cracking from the power of his blow. Myrta jumped out of her chair and backed against the wall.
Celeste said, “Terrence, we never know what next season will bring. Keeping Myrie here was the only choice.” She leaned into her argument with each proclamation. “It was the right step. We need to protect her until circumstances change.”
Rage flashed across his face again and again like a tornado ripping through the house.
Celeste stood firm. Myrta stood, trembling.
She’d been raised under a lie.
Terrence stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the front door of the house as he left. Celeste’s breathing—the only sound in the kitchen—came rough. After a moment, Celeste sat, the chair shaking as she pulled to the table. “Oh,” she said, trembling, “I’ve messed up.”
Myrta shut her eyes. She’d been given away as a baby and raised under a lie. She would have been given away in marriage, but she’d expected that. She couldn’t stop shaking.
“Sweetheart?” After a long moment, Celeste whispered, “I’ve truly made a mess of things.” Standing again, she busied herself about the kitchen. “Myrie?”
“I can’t,” she managed.
Celeste tipped her head. “All right. Go, lie down. I’ll take care of the animals.”
* * *
That evening, after a tense meal, Myrta crawled back into bed, under the blanket from Ardelle. Her eyes stung, and dried tears crusted her lids. She held her mind in its numb place and stared at the dresser across the room, at the dried lavender in a vase. The lavender from Ardelle.
There was a tap on the door. It was Celeste. “Can I come in?”
Myrta pulled her blanket tighter but didn’t answer.
Celeste came into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll leave if you need.”
Myrta pulled a pillow to her chest and silent minutes passed. The light outside darkened to deep pink. Myrta held herself as small as she could, a little puddle of nothing, all she’d heard that day and all she’d seen the night before too big to take on at once.
Celeste put a gentle hand on her knee. “Do you remember when you were small I would read to you?”
She did. They’d sit on the porch in the evenings, and Celeste would read to her and Jack. Fantastical stories with bizarre creatures, people seeking adventure, all sorts of tales from a stack of books Celeste had bought years and years ago in Narona.
“There’s a true story I never told you. It might be hard to believe.”
Myrta squeezed her pillow closer. Shafts of down poked through the casing and pricked her arms. She nodded once.
Celeste’s eyes unfocused. She took a deep breath and rubbed her thumb back and forth over a tomato stain on her skirt. “When you and the boys were small, we would visit Ardelle and Ephraim and Odile every year. We’d stay a nice long time. Do you remember those trips?”
Myrta blinked hard and nodded again.
“And we had a little tradition. You and me and Odile and Ardelle, we’d go for a walk every evening away from the boys. Do you remember that too?”
The walks had been the best part. Just her, her cousin Odile, and Auntie Ardelle. And her mama too.
They’d stopped visiting years ago.
“Do you remember,” Celeste’s voice caught on her words, “that when you were very small, Ardelle would carry you on those walks, and I would carry Odile, and—” Celeste stopped for a moment. She wiped her eyes. She looked away. She sank a little bit, and then sat up again and continued, “that we would each hug the girl we held so tightly, and cover that girl with kisses, and tell them just how very much we loved them.”
Myrta began to cry again.
“Dear child, Ardelle loves you so much. We both do. She’s told you—in kisses, and letters, and special gifts, so that you would always have something to look at and remember . . . You must know that keeping you safe comes first.”
Celeste sat a little straighter, but her voice was still weak. “Your great-grandpapa had a vision trait. Ardelle and I don’t. But you do, and so you’ve grown up here, far away from anything to do with the combustion industry. Grandpapa said people from Renico, he called them discerners, he said they find people with it. Mr. di Vaun . . . I don’t know. He’s a very wrong man. I feel I should know him, that I’ve met him, perhaps when I was young. Oh, Myrta, I should have told you all of this long ago.”
Yes.
“Ardelle and Ephraim . . . Ephraim knows the details best. I’ve ignored this, pretended your ability isn’t real, told you to relax and not think about it.” Celeste gave a small, strained laugh. “As if that would make it go away. But Ephraim knows, he knows more about it than any person should. Myrta, I’m so sorry I didn’t handle this better. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me
.”
Chapter Twelve
The world thawed, and the oceans came alive. Bacteria and archaea tumbled about.
“Volcanoes, Alphonse! They put carbon back into the air. Isn’t it marvelous?”
Alphonse was a bacterium again but no longer a blue-green one. He was a proteobacterium, and he spun about in the water, scavenging for food. “I’m hungry.”
Stavo laughed. “You’re the trash collector. You are hungry for the waste the other microbes expel. Collecting the trash is a very important part of the story.”
Pyruvate was the waste he lived on. Alphonse found a morsel and made a burst of energy. He searched for more; he found a trail; he could not get enough of it. He grew frantic, trying to find the source.
And then he did, he found the archaeon that excreted the pyruvate. Alphonse thrust himself against the archaeal cell. “There’s so much inside!”
Ramming again and again, trying to get at the source of it, he finally breached the membrane. “I’m in!” Pyruvate surrounded him, he floated in the beautiful food—the other cell’s waste.
“You’ve done well.”
Alphonse ate it in a frenzy, he did not let one molecule escape to the ocean waters. He ate, and grew, and divided, over and over, inside the archaeal cell. He generated more energy than even he could use, and he shared with his host, so it too could thrive.
“The first complex cell. Many times, Grandson, cooperation is the path to success. Remember that.”
* * *
After working at the inn for the better part of a month, it occurred to Alphonse that the Vonards lost money because he took a room. In fact, Ardelle had turned away travelers only a few days earlier. And if she was losing money, she might be paying him less than she would otherwise.
He went to the back office with a proposition and found Ephraim there.
Shelves cramped the room, stacked with a manic collection of books and papers. Alphonse ran a quick glance along the spines. Historical texts, plant and animal sketchbooks. Chemistry books. Economic forecasts. Surgical manuals. A book on the ancestral modifications—the genetic engineering said to lie at the root of the founders' success colonizing Turaset.
A table with a few city newspapers took up the middle of the room. Against the far wall sat a desk with ledgers, loose receipts, and a bottle of whiskey.
Ephraim was leaning against the desk, engrossed in a textbook.
“Excuse me, sir.”
The man read for another moment then looked up.
Alphonse stepped up to the table and considered his words. Direct might be best, that seemed to be how things were done out here. “I’d like permission to sleep in the hay loft.”
Ephraim frowned. “The inn’s not rustic enough?”
“No, sir, the inn’s fine.” Better than fine, especially since the questions had dropped off. Life was pleasant here, with a day-to-day rhythm about it. The meals and the chores, the guests and the carriages. Bucolic, all of it. Even Odile had been friendlier, almost congenial.
Ephraim set the book on the desk with an expression somewhere between puzzlement and consternation. “Son, why would you want to sleep with the horses?”
But in truth, sharing space with this family throughout his waking hours—under the same roof, during the work itself—there was still too much of them throughout the day.
He couldn’t say that of course. Easier to frame his request as a financial matter, which was true enough. “Mrs. Vonard didn’t have a free room a few nights ago, so she took a loss. I thought if you had more reblas coming in—”
“Aha. I begin to infer your intent. Are you asking for a raise?” The corners of Ephraim’s eyes crinkled.
“No, sir.” Not a raise, just a mutually beneficial arrangement. “It’s better if the room’s free, and I thought—”
“Do you know what Ardelle would say if you slept in the barn?” The man seemed to be holding back laughter, his mouth pressed shut while his eyes crinkled further.
“Truly, I was thinking about costs. Forget it.”
The laughter won out. “Actually, Al, I think I understand. You strike me as an independent sort and sleeping under a roof with eight or ten other people, well. It’s different than a mountaintop, isn’t it?”
Yes, that summed it up well.
“Tell you what. Build a bed frame; we’ll find a pallet. We won’t give you a raise, but we can add a bonus whenever the inn’s full.”
* * *
In the evenings, Alphonse walked through the orchard and up into the hills. After ten or fifteen minutes of hiking, he’d reach a spot overlooking the town and sit on a smooth patch of soft dirt. He’d close his eyes and listen. He’d muse back through his childhood, trying to discern the moments his mother had so fundamentally changed. If he could work through that, find the pieces of her that were still warm, still loving, he might see a way to salvage their relationship.
This evening on his way back, he found Odile on the orchard bench making notes in one of the office manuals. She looked up, smiled briefly, and turned back to her book.
He’d made efforts to be pleasant since their walk, and the space between them was slowly defining itself. “I didn’t expect to see you out.”
She kept writing. “It’s quieter here.”
Plum branches heavy with fruit hung around the bench, and a faint smell of spices, cinnamon and cumin, came from Odile. She must’ve helped with supper. Alphonse said, “I’ll leave you alone. Enjoy your evening.”
“No, Al, wait.” She turned to face him, and her eyes landed briefly on his nose, again, before she looked him in the eye. “Why do you say you’re from Masotin?”
“Because I am.” They somehow knew he wasn’t, which perversely made him dig in deeper. If they knew his family background, Ephraim might pull him into their meetings, which seemed to be some sort of coalition of butchers and bakers opposing combustion. If Ephraim knew who Alphonse’s grandfather had been . . . Alphonse laughed out loud at the thought of being drawn into a country squad of rabble rousers. Ridiculous.
Odile looked at him in a puzzled way, but he couldn’t help it. He shook his head, still laughing. “Born and raised on the sunny coast of Masotin. Worked a trawler the last three years.”
She eyed him warily. “No.”
The color of her hair was like honey and her blouse had a grease spot, but she never seemed bothered by stains. She stared past him, down the orchard path toward the yard, then she lifted the manual by its spine and thumped it onto the bench. The book was worn, the front cover ripped and scribbled upon. Combustion and Mechanation for Continental Advancement. She looked down at the thing. “We don’t need their tools.”
The manual was from Renico, headquarters of the combustion industry in Renivia Province. Renico powered both cities in Renivia and oversaw the combustion subsidiaries in the neighboring provinces.
“When you go back to Masotin, tell them we don’t need Renico—or Delsico, or Garco, for that matter. Or their manufacturing.” Odile’s voice took a startling note of fear. “They’re changing Collimais. They’re changing Turaset.”
But her passion made little sense. Foothill towns weren’t part of any province and didn’t fall under provincial law. The industry held no sway here. It couldn’t make demands, and only sold to foothillers who wanted to buy. “They have no rights in Collimais. It’s hard to see how they’re affecting you.”
“It’s not a matter of rights. They pollute the air and the water. They change the weather.”
“The weather?”
She exhaled loudly. “Why do I try? You don’t even smell right. You’re not from Masotin.”
“I don’t smell right?”
She didn’t respond to that, and he shook his head. This woman was a puzzle all her own, and as much as he might wish to untangle that puzzle, it had to take second seat
to his more pressing goals.
She shot him a look of determination. The strength of her gaze and the straight, forceful way she sat, it defined her. “You asked me what people do for work.”
“Right. And you said there’s plenty of work and people are happy. Happy little town.”
“I lied. There’s not enough work. So, on top of polluting the planet, Renico knows there aren’t enough jobs here, and they recruit us into their factories.”
“I’ve never heard that.” If it were true, he should have. He put his right foot up on the edge of the bench and dug his knuckles into his thigh.
“Well, they do. It helps their profits, see, because foothillers,” and she was gesturing past the inn, toward Collimais, “work for less than provincial wage.”
“Hold on. So, why did you say everyone’s happy?”
“I thought you were a handler.”
“What’s that?”
“You know, a scout. To recruit foothillers.” With a look of disgust she lifted the book and threw it to the ground. Its front cover bent under its weight.
The resources of the belt—including people. That would fit Renico’s profit-driven philosophy. “Miere,” he muttered. “They hire kids out of the foothills.”
“Yes. Like I said less than a minute ago. Do you even listen?”
He’d never heard such a thing, but it was possible. The lowest paying jobs, on the assembly lines—it made financial sense. “Do people come back?”
Odile leaned forward onto her knees and stared straight ahead, unfocused. “No. Maybe they make a good life.” She looked up at him, her eyes lit again, like a campfire on a chilly mountaintop drawing him in. “We need information. We want access to their records. When you said you were from Masotin, and you’ve clearly had a decent education, we wanted to know if you knew anything useful about Renico.”
He couldn’t admit his mother was Ivette Najiwe, one of combustion’s top political funders working in Delsina Province. Any hint of his past would be enough. Odile was clever. She’d figure him out. Ask more questions. Pressure him to join them.
He needed to stay cool, pay his bill, and go home to mend whatever was left of his family. A snatch of lullaby flashed through his mind, and the birds with feathered kisses . . . One of the songs his mother used to sing. Where had that woman gone? Did any part of her still hold Stavo’s values?
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