The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  Mia couldn’t stop marveling at Carrie’s transformation. She’d taken off her ponytail band and let her golden hair flow. Her face was made up flawlessly, and she wore a one-sleeve dress that looked absolutely stunning on her. She could have been the Barbie to David’s Ken, a thought that came with a slew of discomforts. Mia never forgot the partial note she’d once glimpsed from her future self.

  —genuinely likes you. And she’s a great kisser. Give the girl a chance.

  She leaned forward and peeked down at her fellow Silvers. Four tall wooden chairs had been set at the base of the seating pool, an exclusive front row for the ceremony’s inductees. Mia felt guilty for not sitting near Amanda and the others, but Carrie assured her that she was better off here in the cheap seats.

  The elders sat onstage behind a curved stone table, all looking majestic in their long ivory vestments. Mia had expected the council to be a gaggle of Gandalfs, but three of them were women of late middle age. The two men only had flecks of gray in their beards. According to Liam, these people were indeed some of the clan’s oldest members, as few of the Gothams ever lived past sixty. When Mia asked him why, Liam had merely shrugged. “I don’t know. Guess time always hurts the ones it loves.”

  A muddled hush coursed through the audience as a late arrival walked down the aisle. Rebel was the last person anyone expected to see here tonight. He’d been keeping to himself these past ten days, wallowing in grief as he recovered from his injuries. Though his loose black suit was formal enough for the occasion, his cheeks were covered in beard scruff. His eyes were hidden behind aviator shades. He passed by Mia without so much as a glance, then claimed a seat in the twelfth row, just spitting distance from David.

  Yvonne whispered into David’s ear. “We can move.”

  “I’m fine,” he insisted. Like Mia, he’d opted to sit with new friends over old ones. He figured this farce would be more tolerable at a distance, in pleasant company.

  Yvonne caressed the stumps of his missing fingers. “Did Rebel do that to you?”

  David shook his head. “Federal agent.”

  She tapped the thin red scar on the back of his other hand. “And that one?”

  “Semerjean. That’s a fairly new one.”

  Yvonne stared at him, awestruck. “God. The hells you’ve suffered. They would have broken a lesser man.”

  David smiled humbly. “I’m not technically a man yet.”

  “Oh, yes you are.” She clutched his arm. “More than that, you’re one of us now. Whatever happens from this point forward, you have eleven hundred people on your side.”

  David turned to his right and swapped a frosty look with Rebel. “Give or take.”

  By eight o’clock, everyone was seated. The lumicands were extinguished. All the light in the amphitheater now came from the stage.

  The council rose. The elder in the middle—a distinguished-looking man of Indian heritage—raised his hands in the air. Peter had warned the Silvers that he was the only one they had to watch out for. He was an ornery bastard even on the best of days, and these were not good days for Irwin Sunder. His favorite son and only daughter had recently died on a runaway aerstraunt. And he was angry about it.

  “Let us begin,” said Sunder.

  —

  The sermon seemed to go on forever, an endless invocation of blessed this and sacred that. Amanda was surprised by the flexibility of the Gothams’ dogma, the way their faith stretched to cover all existing religions. The Christians, Jews, and Hindus of the tribe had no trouble working chronokinesis into their orthodoxies. In their minds, their powers were merely proof that they were all the favored children of their gods.

  Hannah sat to her left, her knees bouncing uneasily. This whole damn liturgy was just a big circle jerk, a vainglorious ode to the greatness of timebenders. She might have tolerated the tedium if she hadn’t been forced into the most uncomfortable dress ever—a white, frilly number that made her look like a doily and feel like the bride of Frankenstein.

  Even more distracting, she kept sensing the aura of a nearby swifter, a pint-size girl who dashed through the village at impossible speeds. If Hannah had known about Naomi Byers, she would have understood why the child couldn’t sit still for ceremonies, why she delighted in having the whole town to herself. There was something very, very wrong about her energies.

  “Hannah?”

  She snapped out of her daze. “Huh?”

  “They just called you,” Theo whispered. “You’re up.”

  Hannah looked around and saw everyone staring at her expectantly. Alma Rubinek, the oldest and largest of the elders, beckoned her with a wrinkled hand. “Come.”

  Shaken, Hannah stood up, straightened her dress, then climbed the ramp to the stage. Though she could barely see the crowd with all the floodlights on her, she could easily feel their rigidness. The Gothams were as cold as her worst theater audiences—a thousand critics and only a couple of fans.

  Rubinek plucked a microphone from its stand and passed it to her. Hannah suddenly had the daft urge to belt out a song. Some Leonard Cohen, maybe. Or Madonna.

  “State your full name,” Rubinek said.

  Hannah cleared her throat and spoke into the mic. “Hannah Marie Given.”

  “Hannah Marie Given. You are one of time’s sacred children. Do you accept your blessing with grace and humility?”

  “Stupid-ass question,” Mia muttered under her breath. Carrie giggled and shushed her.

  “I do,” Hannah said.

  “And what is your sacrifice?”

  Hannah squinted at the front row and saw Jonathan and Heath sitting snugly between the Pendergens. They looked just as embittered as she felt.

  “I sacrifice my singing.”

  A wave of grumbles swept through the theater. The elders traded incredulous looks.

  “That is insufficient,” Irwin Sunder insisted. “There are those among us who relinquish their voice entirely. Your offering insults them.”

  Jonathan shot to his feet. “Hey!”

  Peter pulled him down, just as another member of the audience stood up. Olga Varnov was a thick-bodied woman with flowing white hair, a venerated figure in the village. She was the primarch of the turners, the matron of the vivery, the beloved nanny to all the clan’s children.

  Her strong voice echoed throughout the hall. “We discussed this, Elder. I implored you to show lenience in light of the circumstances.”

  “We heard you, Mother Olga—”

  “Clearly you didn’t.” She gestured at Hannah. “This woman has bled at our hands and now you scold her for not sacrificing enough. Where’s your humility?”

  The crowd fell into high-strung chatter. Peter smiled behind his hand. Only his godmother could speak to the elders like that and get away with it.

  The council converged in hasty conference. Hannah dawdled onstage, her dark eyes locked on Amanda’s.

  This doesn’t mean a damn thing, her sister had told her. You can still sing behind closed doors.

  Even so, Hannah was livid. All she had left of her old life was her voice and her sibling. Now she had to hide one of them like a criminal, just to please these fanatics.

  The elders finished their debate. It was clear from Sunder’s pouting expression that he’d been outvoted.

  “I still believe that this is a meager offering,” he attested. “But Mother Olga makes a compelling point. We reluctantly accept your sacrifice.”

  As the crowd kept mumbling, Sunder raised his finger at Hannah. “But I advise you to keep your oath with stringent honor, and to seek other avenues of humility.”

  “But—”

  “Be seated.”

  Hannah descended the ramp, red-faced, seething. The moment she sat down, Jonathan leaned forward and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. A smaller, darker hand reached out and patted her oth
er arm. Hannah wasn’t sure if she’d laugh or cry. She could have leapt over her seat and hugged Jonathan and Heath for hours. Her treasures. Her Golds.

  The council called Theo up to the stage next. As Rubinek passed the microphone into his hand, he looked to the front row and shot a skeptical glance at Peter. The man had made a bizarre suggestion about what Theo should sacrifice.

  “Guitar?” Theo had asked him, three nights before. “I don’t even play.”

  “The elders don’t know that,” Peter had assured him. “Nobody knows but us.”

  “But what if they see through it? What if they ask for a demonstration?”

  Peter shook his head. “If they’ll go easy on anyone, it’ll be you.”

  “State your name,” Elder Rubinek said flatly.

  He spoke into the mic. “Uh, Theo. Theo Maranan. I don’t have a middle name.”

  “Theo Maranan. You are one of time’s sacred children. Do you accept your blessing with grace and humility?”

  “I do.”

  “Are you prepared to save us all from the death that comes?”

  Theo was a hair’s-breadth away from saying “guitar” when he suddenly realized the question. He turned to Rubinek, wide-eyed. “What?”

  “Does this string exist?” Elder Howell asked from the table. “Can you find it?”

  Theo’s stomach dropped. He found Prudent Lee in the second row and watched her shrink away from his gaze.

  “Yes,” he lied. “I believe I can.”

  A wind of a thousand breaths passed through the theater. Some of the Gothams began to applaud. Sunder silenced them with a gesture.

  “You are exempt from making a sacrifice,” he told Theo. “You may be seated.”

  Theo returned to his chair, desperately avoiding the smiles of his friends. They all saw this as a minor victory when it was really just a con job. He was conning every living soul in this theater, even his own people.

  Amanda approached the stage next, her lower back covered in stress tempis. She hated public speaking. She hated the creepy doll dress she was wearing. She especially hated having hundreds of tempics in her vicinity. She could feel them all in the periphery of her senses. Each one was like a bee on her skin.

  “State your name,” said Rubinek.

  Amanda leaned into the microphone, her hands folded over her fluttering stomach. “Amanda Stephanie Given.”

  “Amanda Stephanie Given. You are one of time’s sacred children. Do you—”

  “Yes.”

  Rubinek narrowed her eyes. “Do you accept your blessing with grace and humility?”

  “I do.”

  “What is your sacrifice?”

  “Cuisine,” Amanda declared. “I take the whitefood vow.”

  The audience grumbled with skepticism. No Gotham had ever adhered to the whitefood diet for more than a year. There was only so long a person could subsist on water, rice, and vitamins before losing their mind. In recent times, it had become the go-to choice for those who had no intention of honoring their oath. Mercy Lee had taken the whitefood vow with a candy bar in her pocket, and then wolfed it down in front of the whole clan. Amanda planned to be more discreet with her cheating.

  “You’ve chosen a difficult path,” Sunder warned her. “Do you truly plan to commit to it, or are you merely offering lip service?”

  Amanda glared at him. “I watched my whole world die, Elder. Everyone I ever loved. The path ahead is nothing compared to the one I’ve traveled.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “That’s the answer you get.”

  Amanda could feel the angry white energy beneath Sunder’s skin. The man had been primarch of the tempics for twenty years before becoming an elder. By all accounts, his power was legendary.

  “Your offering is accepted,” Sunder declared, with a dismissive gesture. “Take your seat.”

  A mutter escaped Amanda’s lips. Sunder turned to her. “Excuse me?”

  “I said you had no right to talk to my sister like that. Singing was her life.”

  Peter winced at the startled gasps behind him. Sunder stood up at the table, his knuckles white with tempis. “Your sister still has her life, unlike my son and daughter.”

  “Your son and daughter were murderers.”

  The hall erupted in shouts of protest. Peter urgently motioned to Amanda while the elders struggled to calm Sunder down.

  The Mayor stood up in the third row and used his power to amplify himself. “Kinsmen.”

  His booming voice echoed all throughout the village. To those in the theater, it sounded as if God himself was speaking. Everyone stopped to look at him.

  “We have enough troubles,” the Mayor reminded them. “All of us. So let’s show our new friends the breadth of our temperance, and finish this ceremony in peace.”

  One by one, the audience settled back into their seats. David nodded approvingly. “Okay, that was impressive.”

  Yvonne smiled. “My dad has his moments.”

  It took another thirty seconds for the chatter to die down. Elder Tam instructed everyone to remain quiet for the fourth and final pledge.

  Peter sat forward and studied Zack warily. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Don’t I dare what?”

  “I know that look. You’re up to no good.”

  Amanda shuffled in her seat, her skin still flush from her confrontation with Sunder. She saw the acerbic gleam in Zack’s eyes and immediately knew that Peter was right. He was about to go Bugs Bunny on some very serious people.

  “I screwed up,” Amanda told him. “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  Peter nodded. “Just tell him what they want to hear and be done with it. Please.”

  Elder Rubinek called Zack to the stage. He rose from his seat and leaned into Amanda. Her heartbeat doubled as she felt his warm breath on her ear.

  “You were beautiful up there,” he whispered. “I’ll never stop loving you.”

  Amanda fought back tears and squeezed Zack’s wrist, just as Rubinek summoned him again. He climbed the ramp, approached the microphone, and then loosened his tie.

  “State your full name,” said the elder.

  “Zarack Obama Trillinger.” He smiled into the mic. “I live on Freak Street.”

  A hundred low chuckles rolled through the audience. Mia and Carrie doubled over in laughter. Peter shook his head, grimacing.

  None of the elders were particularly amused. “Mr. Trillinger, if you won’t take this seriously—”

  “I take this very seriously,” Zack insisted. “I was fully prepared to stand here and pretend to give up my drawing. But now I have something better to give you. Something real.”

  Elder Tam eyed him dubiously. “So you accept your—”

  “Yes,” Zack said. “I’m one of time’s sacred children and I accept my blessing with grace and humility.”

  Rubinek crossed her heavy arms. “And what is your sacrifice?”

  Zack held the mic in both hands, his head bowed and his eyes closed. Most of the audience assumed he was praying.

  “Fury,” Zack said at last. “I sacrifice my anger at each and every one of you.”

  The theater churned with agitated voices. Zack moved downstage before Rubinek could take the microphone from him.

  “I had a brother,” he reminded everyone. “The one thing in my life the Pelletiers didn’t take from me. Yet I lost him all the same, and why? Because ten months ago, you listened to the wrong guy.”

  Elder Kohl thumped the table. “Mr. Trillinger—”

  “Please. Call me Zarack.”

  “You’re playing a very dangerous game here.”

  “It’s no game, Elder. My only brother died for no reason. So far, only one of you has had the decency to apologize.”

  Mercy watched him
from the back row, her lip quivering with emotion.

  “I’m not trying to guilt you,” Zack said. “I’m just offering to let go of my anger. Believe me, that’s no small—”

  “Enough!” Sunder yelled. “You’re making a mockery of this ceremony!”

  The shouting intensified. The Mayor, Peter, and Mother Olga all rose to speak. They were drowned out by a gravelly voice from the tenth row.

  “Elders.”

  Rebel rose to his feet and walked toward the stage. “I seek private word with the council.”

  Sunder nodded at his son-in-law, then shot a baleful look at Zack. “Return to your seat.”

  Zack descended the ramp just as Rebel climbed it. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Rebel took off his shades and folded them into his pocket. “You give any more thought to the Semerjean thing?”

  “No.”

  “Then we got nothing to talk about.”

  Soon Rebel and the elders disappeared behind the curtain. The audience resumed their anxious blather.

  Amanda turned in her chair to face Peter. “What’s going on?”

  “No idea,” he confessed. “This whole thing just went off the rails.”

  Three minutes after the conference started, Rebel and the council reemerged. The elders took their seats at the table. Sunder looked down at the front row and kept his inscrutable gaze on Zack.

  “You are exempt.”

  “What?”

  “What?” Liam exclaimed.

  Peter stared at Rebel, hang-jawed. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “What just happened?” Jonathan asked.

  “He took on a sacrifice for Zack.”

  “Who, Rebel?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “I didn’t even know you could do that.”

  “In rare cases,” Peter said. “When one kinsman has gravely wronged another.”

  Theo turned his astonished gaze onto Zack. “I think you just got your apology.”

  A thousand eyes followed Rebel as he exited the amphitheater. Zack watched him the whole way, speechless.

  Soon Elder Howell summoned all the Silvers and Golds onto the stage. They stood side by side in fidgety unease while Elder Tam repeated the same liturgy for each of them. By the eighth and final go-round, the audience had fallen back into docile boredom.