by Laura Lam
We’d lie down in the meadow, or in the church if it was raining. We’d hold hands in one large circle. And we would lucid dream. Mana-ma would guide us through visions so realistic that when I awoke from them, sometimes the real world didn’t seem like the true one. The dreams were meant to be calming, with visions of nature.
“A mountain stream,” Mana-ma would say, and all of us world work together to create the perfect one.
“A sunrise,” she would say next, and the sky of our mind’s eye would bloom so bright.
The trouble was that collective dreaming hurt. Every nerve ending would feel as though it were on fire. Tears would leak from all our eyes. We’d cry out as each vision shifted. Yet we still did it. Day after day, week after week. I think she did it to bring us closer together, and because she could. Out there, with no Chairs, no needles, we made our own dreamscapes.
We’d do it on our own, too, without whatever drug she pumped us full of (it wasn’t Zeal, I know that much), and it meant we never woke up unable to remember our dreams. It made me and my sister incredible lucid dreamers. I still do it now, especially now that I’m in my cell. I can close my eyes, drift off, and then take off into the sky and fly. It’s pretty much the only thing I can ever thank Mana-ma for.
We only had Confession once a week, different days for different people in the Hearth, but it was always just after Meditation. We’d be weak with the comedown and pain and drugs, so we’d tell her everything.
Of course, now the whole ritual seems strange, but at the time it was considered a normal part of our routine. Even with our newly gained knowledge, my sister and I didn’t question it too much—until Adam grew sick. Then we couldn’t pretend Mana’s Hearth was anything other than what it was. What it is.
Adam was born missing the lower half of his left arm, though it never troubled him. I’ve learned, since escaping the Hearth, that people within are born with a higher chance of disabilities. Like me and Taema. My guess is that it’s either because of the bloodline being so intermingled in a small populace, or because the drug Mana-ma gave us for Meditation did something to babies in the womb.
Anyway, Taema and I had both been sweet on Adam. We still hadn’t quite figured out how romance would work, with us being conjoined. I guess we thought we’d deal with it when the time came. I think we would have been happy enough sharing Adam, if he liked us.
That might sound odd to some of you, but I don’t care. San Francisco has poly relationships aplenty, even if none of them are with conjoined twins. The Hearth would have accepted it just fine.
Adam caught an infection when he was tilling the fields, which most of the men and some of the stronger women took turns with. He cut himself on the plow and didn’t wash it properly, or something. It shouldn’t have been fatal. If he’d had access to a needle full of magic medicine from the city, he’d have been right as rain in less than an hour. But whatever infection Adam caught was more stubborn than our medicine could handle.
He grew worse, and was moved to the Wellness Cabin. People weren’t really allowed to go see him, but Nurse Meadows allowed us to peek in through the window. He was happy to see us. I liked to think he was sweet on us too, but that he liked me best. We brought him some grapes. His leg was all wrapped up and propped up in a sling. He was sweating and pale. I hated to see him like that. But he didn’t seem on the brink of death or anything. I figured he’d get better in no time. Just needed some rest.
“How are you feeling?” I remember Taema and I asked at the same time. I hated when we did that. We’d have the exact same tone, timing, everything, as if we were creepy echoes of each other.
Adam smiled weakly at us. “Been better, T-and-T,” he said, and we both fought down blushes. I’d always liked the joint nickname, understanding we were two, but also one. And he didn’t even know we called each other T when we were alone.
We threw him the grapes, and he tried to catch them in his mouth. He missed, or we missed, more often than they landed in his mouth, and soon the floor of the cabin was littered with green grapes. We collapsed into laughter, clutching our sides.
“You cheered me up and no mistake,” he said when we’d run out of grapes. We reached through the window, each of us holding out a hand. He reached out with his one hand and clasped both of ours in it. I remember his skin was so warm. Too warm.
“We’ll come visit you every day until you’re well,” we promised.
But he was gone the next day.
Considering the rudimentary medicine, there weren’t actually that many deaths in Mana’s Hearth. His was such a shock for Taema and me. We couldn’t cope. He was there, and then he wasn’t. We’d never see him again. We lay in bed, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, foreheads pressed against each other, just sobbing. It wasn’t fair.
There wasn’t a funeral; we didn’t really have them in Mana’s Hearth. We didn’t gather around a corpse and plant it in the ground, or burn it up. I knew they did something with the body, but not exactly what. People mourned, and people would still talk about Adam and others who died and say they missed them; but there’d be no celebration, or wake, or anything like that.
Seems backward too, doesn’t it? Looking back now, I see that, but the Hearth doesn’t celebrate beginnings or endings. We focused on celebrating the day-to-day life that continued. The passing of seasons had a special meaning for us, but other holidays that lingered on from past religions we had nothing to do with. In the Hearth there were no Christmas trees or Hanukah menorahs.
I tried to convince Taema to get a Christmas tree, the first year we were living in San Francisco, but she didn’t want one.
“We’re never going to believe in it,” she said.
“Does anyone? It’s a tree in the living room with pretty lights, and there aren’t many Pagans around anymore. Santa Claus and a tree have nothing to do with Jesus. And not a lot of people seem to believe in him here, either.”
“Shouldn’t we celebrate winter?”
“Why? We don’t believe in Mana-ma or her God anymore, either.”
She had no answer to that.
Back then, it was almost time to celebrate summer. Taema and I dragged our feet as we made our way to the church, wearing our best dress. It wrapped around our conjoined torso, but we’d taken the time to have it fit around each of our waists. Taema had green ribbon and I had blue. The skirt swished around our legs, edged with hand-stitched lace.
We stood near the back, since the pews were too uncomfortable for us to sit on—the hard wood dug into our sitz bones. We still hadn’t gotten over Adam, and we were feeling pretty morose. Nobody even spoke about him—as if he’d shamed us by getting ill enough to die. I looked at the backs of all the heads of the people sitting in the church, and realized a lot of them might not even know that Adam could have been saved. And that somehow made his death even sadder.
Adam’s death was the first thing that made us really think about leaving. Strange, isn’t it? We’d willingly let ourselves be mentally tortured, but that wasn’t what made us want to run. It was a boy dying who could have been saved.
Mana-ma was up on the pew at the front of the church. She was the minister, the wife of God, the mayor, everything. She always wore a plain black robe, as if she were mourning all the sin we were surrounded with in the outside world. Everyone in the audience was wearing white with just a little bit of color. Summer was the season of prosperity and warmth—yes, I know, not that it ever really got that cold in winter, compared to, say, Minnesota—and it was a reason to celebrate. The mushroom crops were growing well in the greenhouse and the fields were lush; aside from the small issue of Adam, health was pretty good. No drama. If there ever was anything, it was swept under the rug to be whispered about after lights out.
So we celebrated summer. We sang the old songs, like “Let’s Live for Today,” “Everlasting Love” and “Wonderful World, Beautiful People.”
None of you reading this will probably have heard of these songs, but
I still love them, despite everything. They remind me of the good parts of the Hearth. The bees buzzing, the scent of flowers in the warm breeze, the feel of the water and sand from the lake between my toes. We had a bunch of vinyl, and a record player that they must have replaced part by part over the years. Taema and I sat in our room and listened to the music a lot. I miss music, here in this cold, dark cell.
When we moved to San Francisco, we tracked down a lot of it with some of our early wages, going pale at how much it cost on the original vinyl. So we bought the songs on the modern players, but they didn’t sound the same. We still listen to “The Sound of Silence” together, remembering all we’ve lost.
On the day we celebrated summer, we sang loud and clear, our voices lifting to the rafters, and Mana-ma read from the Good Book.
It was a little different, that particular summer celebration. Mana-ma mentioned Adam. She decided she wanted to say something, so she could. That was the hierarchy; if we were sad and wanted to remember him, we couldn’t publicly without her say-so. We couldn’t change anything in the Hearth, because we didn’t hear the voice of God.
“I know that we do not acknowledge endings often,” she said. “Especially at the beginning of such a warm and prosperous season, but God spoke to me last night. He told me that today, we should have a moment to mourn Adam.”
There were quiet murmurs in the crowd.
“The loss of Adam reminded me of all the other losses we’ve had through the years. God told me that they are never truly gone. He wanted me to remind you all that those we have loved have returned to the Cycle, to bloom elsewhere in the universe. Remember that in times of sadness, and remember the light. Every time you see the glory of God and nature, remember that those we loved are still a part of it.”
We all bowed our heads for a moment and thought of Adam. Taema and I felt better after that. It was better than pretending it never happened, or never really acknowledging it. Maybe Mana-ma finally realized that.
We went outside and we each rested a hand on the sunflowers now thriving in the summer heat, their yellow faces tilted toward the sky. We thought of Adam.
Afterward, though, we could not escape the meadow and another Meditation. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but there were no excuses granted unless we were ill. We queued, and took our bitter medicine. We lay on our sides. I looked into Taema’s eyes. We both already felt the effects of the drugs, our eyes heavy and lidded. Our whole body tingled.
I’m not sure if Mana-ma realized that this was a side effect, but Taema and I were even closer when we took those drugs. I swear I could read her every thought, her every feeling. We all connected, but no one connected more than me and her. It was as if we did become one person. Even Mana-ma noticed.
I sort of wish I could do that again with Taema. It’d be so much easier to explain everything that way, but I’m too afraid of what she would find.
That Meditation was like all the others. Mana-ma’s voice rang out, clear and reverberating. The sun beat down on us. We closed our eyes and held hands, and created worlds with our minds inhabited only by us as our bodies stiffened with pain. This time, though, the pain was less, which made the dream sweeter.
It ended up being a turning point. We were all becoming better at lucid dreaming. The better we were, the less pain we felt. By the time we left the Hearth, Meditation barely hurt at all.
Afterward, it wasn’t our day for Confession. As we left the meadow, people paired off. For some, the drug made them incredibly horny afterward. Sex was another way of connecting, a way of expressing God’s love, and it was fully supported if all parties were willing. Most marriages were open, though not all. Our parents only had eyes for each other.
Taema and I never did that. We didn’t feel ready yet, and no one minded. We wandered through the path into the forest.
The forest was better than any church for me. Nowhere ever felt as holy to me as when Taema and I looked up at those gigantic redwood trees, smelling bark, dirt and leaves, the light filtered through so many shades of green. Mushrooms sprang up beneath the ferns, bright yellow like banana slugs. The sunbeams would catch the swirling motes of dust in the air. Overhead, birds called to each other. I do miss that. In the city there are the skyscrapers of trees, but you know it’s manufactured. I miss raw, unfettered nature.
We went to our hollowed-out redwood tree to be surrounded by that perfect smell of charred wood, damp and greenness.
That was when we first felt it.
The irregular jump of our heart in our chests. The painful squeeze. The faintness.
We gasped. We left the tree, and staggered to the forest path. We had to make it back to camp. Our vision blurred and we couldn’t breathe. I clutched Taema hard. I was so scared.
“What’s wrong?” she wheezed. We could see the roof of the church in the distance. It seemed so far away. “What’s happening?” Her head lolled on my shoulder.
“Don’t you dare faint on me, Taema,” I said, pinching her cheeks until she squeaked and her eyes opened wide. “If you faint, we’re a tortoise on its back. Come on, Taema. Come on.”
Somehow, she stayed with me. When we were a little closer to the main town, it felt like we couldn’t go any further. We leaned against the fence that lined the path. It was warm, the sun beating down on our hair. I couldn’t breathe. Up ahead, we saw a figure. For a second, delirious with pain and lack of oxygen, I thought it was Adam. That he was dead, coming to take us into God’s loving arms to begin the Cycle again. But then the figure cleared and I saw that it was Dad. We collapsed, and he started running.
TEN
TAEMA
I have a crick in my neck from sleeping in the damn Chair.
I sit up, managing to unplug myself. Again, it looks as though Nazarin turned it off for me a few hours ago, so I could have at least some proper sleep. It’s, as ever, not enough.
It’s another day of training. Of fighting Nazarin, a quick pause to eat, and then training some more. My muscle mods have responded well to the extra stimuli, and already I can feel that I’m the fastest and strongest I’ve ever been. After another shower and a giant meal to replenish my energy reserves, I ask Nazarin what we’ll be doing today. I crunched the numbers. Tila was arrested Thursday, I agreed to go undercover on Friday, I told the Ratel I’d be missing two shifts on Saturday and I went to Zenith on Sunday. Tila’s shifts are Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for two weeks, and then Mondays and Wednesdays the next two. She went to her last Thursday shift before she went to Zenith and everything went to shit. My next shift is next Monday. One week until I’ll have to go in as my sister. It doesn’t feel like anywhere near enough time, despite how much information I’ve had crammed into my brain already.
“Today I’m to show you the crime scene,” Nazarin says.
That brings me up short. “What?”
“Forensics have finished with it, along with the autopsy. I had them make a re-creation holograph here. We can view it upstairs.”
My eyes rise to the ceiling of their own volition. “Now?”
“Now. If you’re ready.”
I feel like he’s testing me. “All right.”
He starts up the stairs and I follow hesitantly. The old wood creaks beneath my feet. At the top, he turns to the right and opens the first door.
“Wait,” I say. I suppose I’m not ready. I need a moment. I’m about to see a re-creation of a gruesome crime scene. One that my sister might have created. I’ve never seen large amounts of blood before. “Will it look … real?”
“At first glance, it’ll look exactly like the crime scene, down to every last angle and splash, but remember: it’s not. It’s only a hologram.”
A flash of Tila gripping my shirt. Not my blood. I rub a hand over my new face, composing myself. “Right. OK.” I push open the door and step inside, Nazarin following me.
A transparent plastic bubble lies over most of the open floor, mirroring the one that would have been put over the real scene as
soon as the authorities arrived, and just after Tila had apparently fled the scene. A huge bloodstain lies within, wet and glistening, as if it’s just been spilled.
I fight down my gag reflex. It is so much blood.
Almost all five liters of it, some of it soaking into the white rug, ruined beyond repair. Just a few days ago, Tila had been in that original room in Zenith, entertaining, joking, flirting, laughing. I can imagine it so clearly now, after being there last night. What happened? What changed?
I want to understand everything—whether she’d known this Vuk she’d attacked, and if so, how, and from where. I move around the bubble, Detective Nazarin watching my every reaction. His brown eyes have flecks of gold in them.
I don’t know what he wants me to find—if there is anything to find. There are empty glasses on the replicated coffee table. Most are overturned or shattered, but a wine glass is still upright and unbroken, the imprint of lipstick on its glass. Purple, the same shade I painted my lips last night. I try to remember if it was the same color Tila was wearing on Thursday night. I only saw her for those few moments before they took her away. The make-up, half-smeared across her face by rain, tears and wiped-away blood. It must have been purple lipstick.
“Have they done the autopsy?” I ask.
“Yes. They sent through the report and a possible re-creation. I can show it to you. Are you sure you want to see it?”
I nod, even though watching it is the last thing I want to do.
He takes out his tablet and places it next to him on the sofa. He presses a button and a little holographic display comes up. He could have streamed it right to my implants, but I appreciate him putting it on the tablet instead. It gives me the illusion of distance.