Origin

by Jessica Khoury

  I stare at her, feeling tears in my eyes that do not fall. It’s a beautiful idea, but it lifts only a tiny bit of the pain.

  Across the glen, I see the warriors who went scouting for Eio return. Eio’s not with them. I inhale sharply, and my vision blurs with tears.

  Luri gently turns my chin so that I’m looking her in the eye. “Eio is strong, and he knows how to take care of himself. Don’t you worry about him now.”

  My breath still turns to ice in my throat, and it’s all I can do not to dash into the jungle myself. But I promised him I would look after the Ai’oans, and after all the evil my life has caused in the world, I won’t add to it by breaking that promise.

  When we have gathered them all, we march to the river. It’s getting late; we need to move more quickly. But I can’t rush them. I think, for the Ai’oans, the deed we do is a kind of spiritual rite. Perhaps they will make it a tradition. Perhaps every year the Ai’oans will find a glen filled with some kind of flower that they’ll pick and carry to the river. Maybe a hundred years from now they’ll still be doing it, still be telling the Story of the Pia-bird, not knowing what really happened, but giving it honor and remembrance all the same.

  I am sorry my education did not teach me more of the religions of the world. Who knows? Maybe somewhere out there, the truth behind all of this really does exist. Paolo used to say that truth always finds a way to present itself; I think it might be the only true thing he ever said.

  We reach the river and begin tossing the elysia into it. It isn’t long before the Little Mississip is drenched in the flowers; a more beautiful sight I have never seen, except perhaps that one afternoon at the swimming hole with Eio and Ami, when we were all smiling and happy and unaware of the evil that haunted our world. I wonder where Eio is and why he hasn’t found us yet. He could be alone, bleeding, or even dying—I force myself to stop thinking about it, and I remember what he said: “The jungle will protect me.”

  The last flower is still tucked behind my ear. I pull it down and stare at the nectar inside. Beauty and death, so closely knit together. This seems to be the central theme of my life.

  I toss it into the water. Unlike the rest, which have already floated out of sight downstream, it sinks and doesn’t reappear.

  When I look up, I see a pair of yellow eyes in the foliage on the opposite bank. I stand still for a moment, then call, “Alai! Alai, come!”

  He emerges from the leaves and stands on the soft mud above the water, watching me. I have seen that look before, after the night I spent in Ai’oa, when Alai ran into the jungle and almost didn’t come back. After a long minute, I nod. “Good-bye.”

  As if he understands, Alai dips his spotted head, then turns. My heart sinks as I see the last of my oldest friend vanish into the jungle, but, after a moment, it lifts again.

  It’s time for both of us to be free.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Are you sure he will come?” Burako asks. “How can we know what these foreigners will do? Seems to me one minute they are going this way, next minute they are going that way. No sense. No reason. How can you know?” He mutters and shakes his head.

  Achiri responds calmly, “Does not the hunter know the ways of the tapir? So does our Pia bird know the ways of the foreigners. Listen to her.”

  “He’ll come,” I say, still trying to focus on the task at hand and not on Eio. Please be safe, please be okay.…“His work is coming down in shambles around him, and this glen is the center of it all. He will come.”

  We are hidden around Falk’s Glen, or what used to be the glen. Now it’s just a barren dip in the jungle, a mossy scar that, within days, will be healed over with new growth. The normal orchids and the ferns and the heliconias will cover the wound, and the jungle will forget what once grew there. Elysia is gone. Forever. Only the Ai’oans and the scientists who manage to make it out of the jungle will remember.

  It is getting darker; there is only an hour of daylight left. I’m certain Paolo will come sooner or later to check on the glen, but maybe we’ll have to wait until morning before he appears.

  I wrap my fingers around the stone bird in my pocket. Oh, Eio, where are you?

  “Sh. He comes.” Kapukiri stands, holding a tall staff in front of him with both hands, eyes shut. My heart flutters, thinking he means Eio, but then I see it isn’t so.

  I step into the clearing as Paolo emerges from the path at the other end. I don’t have to turn around to know the Ai’oans are invisible behind me.

  Paolo comes to a slow halt and stares at the ravaged glen. His ice-and-stone façade quivers. Anger flashes through him, hot and virulent as a volcano. Others soon follow: Timothy, the rest of the Immortis team, my mother, assorted scientists and workers. No Aunt Harriet, no Father. I hope those two made it out.

  Everyone has guns, of course, and they all look exhausted. Were they able to save anything? Maybe in a few days the ants will be gone, moved on, and they can go back and salvage their belongings and equipment. Why am I even thinking about this? Little Cam is not my home anymore. Their problems are their own.

  “You have done a terrible thing today, Pia.” Uncle Paolo’s voice moves like lava beneath rock. “A very, very terrible thing.”

  “You have done many terrible things. I think I’m entitled to at least one.”

  He gives an angry sweep of his hand, indicating the ruined glen. “So this is to be your legacy? The one immortal human ever to live—and this is what you give in return? You would cast your own race to the fires of extinction because of a whim. Because of a hormonal attachment to a savage boy.”

  “I know all about savages,” I reply. “I was raised by them.”

  “Don’t try to play pretty word games with me, girl. I made you what you are. You are mine to destroy.”

  “You will not touch her, karaíba,” says Luri, breaking cover to join me. Ai’oans fall from the jungle like leaves to gather around us. The scientists step back and raise their guns. But for every one gun, there are five poisoned arrows pointed back.

  “Karaíba,” says Burako, stepping forward, “we of Ai’oa have heard the Story of the Pia-bird. We know now what you did to the brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers who left the village to accept your way of life. We know that they are dead. We have heard these things—”

  “We don’t have to listen to this!” Sergei yells, stepping forward and lifting his rifle. “They’re ignorant, spouting words that Pia fed them. It’s ridiculous—”

  As if conjured by Kapukiri, a green-feathered arrow bursts into bloom in Sergei’s throat. He falls without another word, and the scientists gasp collectively and move back even further. With a cry I start to run to him, forgetting for a moment that he’s a murderer. All I see is a man I’ve known my entire life, someone I thought was a friend. But Luri catches my arm and pulls me back, her eyes solemn. There is no telling who shot the arrow, but Burako continues on, unfazed in the least.

  “And we have known them to be true. We of the Ai’oa do not have much room in our hearts for murderers and liars and thieves. And we have judged you to be all of these things. Now. You will leave this place. All of you will leave this place, today, and never come back. If a foreigner shows his face here, we will shoot it. We will not fall for lies and tricks again. Never again. Go. Go now.”

  The scientists have mixed reactions. Some look more than ready to obey, but others harden and step forward, guns lifting once more.

  Paolo holds up his hands until everyone—Ai’oans included—falls silent to hear what he has to say.

  “We will go.” The Ai’oans start to cheer, but he waits until they see he’s not finished. “We will go,” he starts again, “and we will not come back. Whatever reason we had for staying, it’s gone.” He looks at me. “Now I speak to you, Pia. Listen very, very closely. You will come with me. Now.”

  “Never. I—”

  “We have the boy.”

  My scalp tingles. That can’t be right. Eio said he would hide. The
jungle protects him.

  “We have the boy, Pia. And if you do not come, we will kill him. Simple as that.”

  He spreads his hands, then clasps them in front of himself to indicate he’s finished. The Ai’oans mutter about tricks and lies, but I hear only the frantic pounding of my own heart. They have Eio. They must. Even if they didn’t, how could I take that chance? Not Eio. Never Eio. I love him—and I haven’t even had the chance to tell him so.

  “I’ll come.”

  “No, Pia bird!” Luri whispers, but Achiri hushes her.

  I walk across the clearing as my body slowly goes numb. Just before I reach Uncle Paolo, I stop and look back at my Ai’oans.

  I’m so proud of them. It was really their idea to stand up to the foreigners, to take back their pride. I look at Burako. Achiri. Luri. Kapukiri. Ami. All the rest, whose names are manifestations of the jungle itself. Jungle people. Jaguar people. Jaguar, mantis, moon. It’s all the same—the Ai’oans and the jungle, the Kaluakoa and the yresa, the jaguars and the monkeys and the macaws and the river. A world of beauty and mystery, a world we should never have violated. But we did. And now it is the least guilty who pay the price, while the truly guilty go free to continue their foul work elsewhere. At least my Ai’oans will be safe. But they were never mine, were they? They are the jungle’s as much as the jungle is theirs.

  I turn away, back to Paolo. He puts his arm around my shoulders, and I don’t try to stop him. I’m tired of fighting.

  His words, whispered in my ear as we walk, make it worse.

  “Don’t think this is the end, you foolish girl. You may have destroyed it all, but I know your secret, remember?” He grips my chin, pinching hard until tears stand out in my eyes. “There. There they are. Hundreds of them, thousands, if I want. All I need is you and your tears. You might have had it all, Pia—an eternity of health, wealth, happiness, power; whatever you could dream, you could have. Instead, you’ve earned yourself an eternity of sorrow. You will weep, Pia, oh, yes. You will weep. That’s your job now. Your purpose. How do you like that? I gave you one purpose, and you threw it in my face. Smashed it on the ground, literally. So what do I do? Kind, generous Uncle Paolo that I am? I give you another one. A life of weeping, weeping flowers, Pia. Doesn’t it sound poetic? You should like that, you, with your new emotional morality streak. A pity, really. We’ll do better with the next one. Maybe we’ll name her Pia too. Maybe we’ll name her Antonia. Who knows? The world is full of possibility. I can’t wait.”

  We reach the river, where the rest of the Little Cam populace—including my father—is waiting. He gives me a sad look, but I’m just glad they didn’t hurt him for helping us escape. “We’re not going back to Little Cam?” I ask.

  “What? And be devoured by those monsters Will created? I think not, my dear. No, we go on to broader horizons. Maybe Africa. I hear you can see more sky than land in some places there. Wouldn’t that be a nice change?”

  Everyone begins piling into boats and chugging downriver. Eio was right; there are boats hidden everywhere, safely out of sight of airplanes and helicopters. Always a secret, Little Cam. Right up until the end. Uncle Timothy struggles with the motor on one of the boats, cursing at everyone around him when it doesn’t start.

  “You don’t have Eio, do you?” I ask.

  “Of course not,” Paolo laughs.

  Eio is safe. I can breathe again. That, I can hold on to. That can give me hope.

  But not much.

  Everything Paolo says is true. Little Cam is finished, yes, but the research lives on in their heads, and my tears give them a future. The Immortis project hasn’t ended; it’s only just beginning. Which means many more will die. Not Ai’oans, probably, but others.

  I was made to bring life into the world. Life in abundance, life overflowing, life beyond the wildest dreams of humanity.

  But all I’ve really brought is death.

  “There’s one missing,” someone says in a random sentence my ear plucks from the air. A missing boat. Aunt Harriet. It must have been her. There’s no one else. She’s safe too, and I’m glad. I hope that whoever does tell her about Evie does it gently and that one day she might learn how to forgive herself. She did everything she could for her sister, but I know perhaps better than anyone that guilt can still find ways to leak into your heart.

  The second-to-last boat pulls away from shore with my parents on board. My mother never gives me a second look; my father waves and calls out that he’ll see me downriver, earning himself a glare from Sylvia. Only Timothy, Haruto, Jakob, Paolo, and I are left. Timothy cranks the motor, and everyone starts climbing on board. Tears are in my eyes; they gather there quite a lot these days. But they don’t fall. Maybe I’m drying out. I still haven’t truly wept for Uncle Antonio. Maybe the reality of his death hasn’t hit me yet. But if I cry, I don’t want it to be in front of Paolo. I don’t want to give him that satisfaction, not yet.

  The sun’s late rays fall on the river, lighting its copper skin on fire. I stare at the rippling water as it laps the shore, waiting to take me away.

  A tingle on my scalp. My heartbeat falters, just a little, and I exhale slowly and silently.

  There, in the water, bobbing lightly against the side of the boat, is a single blossom of elysia.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The stray blossom must have drifted to the shore while the rest of them floated downstream. I look around and see no others. Just the one, lonely flower, barely noticeable in the shadow of the boat.

  “Uncle Paolo,” I say. “I need to sit for a moment. To…say good-bye.”

  He frowns and nods distractedly, not really paying attention. He’s more worried about the malfunctioning motor on the boat. Good. That’s good.

  I slowly sit down on a mossy rock at the water’s edge. I know at last what I must do.

  I draw a deep breath. Another. The air in the jungle is wet; I once thought of it as comparable to swimming in the pool in Little Cam. It’s like breathing in the jungle itself. Each breath is perfume laced with orchids.

  Perfect is as perfect does.

  I scoop up the flower and kiss its petals, cool and smooth as velvet, just as Paolo turns. His eyes widen, and he lunges at me—and a green-feathered arrow slams into his chest.

  He stumbles backward into the river, driven by the force of the arrow. The water is up to his ankles, and he sways, staring in shock at the shaft protruding from his chest. The other scientists shout and reach for him, but then suddenly they fall back, eyes wide on something behind me.

  A hand grabs mine, pulling the flower from my lips.

  I know that touch.

  Eio. My Eio, pale and ragged, but alive. His shoulder is bloody where the bullet hit, and he’s fashioned a kind of bandage out of leaves over it. He’s muddy and unkempt, his hair tangled around sticks and leaves, but he’s alive, and that’s all that matters.

  “Did you drink?” His gaze is frantic, searching mine in desperation.

  “The others…” I point at the remaining scientists, who stand gaping with shock. Paolo falls to his knees, half in the river, his fingers clutching at the soil on the bank, and his mouth gasping and spitting blood.

  “Idiot boy,” he whispers. “Do you see what you’ve done?” His hands grapple at the arrow, but his strength leaves him like water leaves a sieve. “No, no, no…I have…I have work to…Pia…” I can feel the burn of his wild gaze on my skin.

  My stomach twists and knots as if I’ve swallowed a burning torch. I sink to my knees and crawl forward, ignoring Eio’s protests. I reach out and touch Paolo’s hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice weak. “I never wanted this.”

  He spits blood and gasps, “You’ve ruined…everything.”

  I can’t help it now. The tears fall freely from my eyes. I feel Eio’s hands on my shoulders, trying to pull me back. I resist. There’s something I need to know.

  As Paolo turns his hand over, trying to collect my tears in his palm, I ask, “What�
�s Geneva? When Strauss was threatening you, I heard her tell you to remember Geneva. What does it mean?”

  His eyes slowly turn to me. I can see the light draining from them, and I know he has only seconds left. “Geneva,” I say again.

  “Not…what.” His face is turning gray, his breath thin. “Who. Geneva…was a woman who worked for Corpus.” He coughs, and more blood sprays the ground. “She was in line for this job and I…I wanted it. I needed to be part of the Immortis team, so I…I poisoned her.”

  His body sags to the ground, and the arrow snaps beneath him. “I found out later…all along…she was my Wickham test.”

  I back away, and what little pity I had for him is gone.

  His eyes roll up, find mine. “All…it was all…for you.”

  With a hiss, as if it were being released through a metal valve, the air seeps from his mouth. He doesn’t inhale again.

  He looks unnatural, legs in the water and face planted in the mud, the one eye I can see glaring lifelessly at a pebble on the bank. Paolo dead? It seems impossible, like imagining water to be dry or the sun to be cold. Goose bumps run down my arms, and my tongue feels numb.

  I’d thought, perhaps, that his Geneva might be like Aunt Harriet’s Evie: something good, something noble in his past that might explain why he did so many terrible things. But no. He lived a monster, and he died one. And I find I do pity him, just a little, because it breaks my heart that someone so brilliant and so full of possibility should cast nothing but darkness on the world.

  I let Eio help me up. He sits me back on the rock and brushes the hair from my face. Some of Paolo’s blood is on my hands, and Eio wipes it away with a leaf.

  The other scientists stand still, up to their knees in the river, their eyes locked on the band of Ai’oan warriors materializing from the trees. They carry green-feathered arrows and bows and aim them squarely at the foreigners.