by Nova McBee
“Yes,” I say flatly, staring. She squirms. My eyes have not shifted. It’s making her nervous.
She leans over to the interpreter and whispers, “Please don’t translate this, but if I’m making any cultural mistakes, please let me know.” The interpreter assures her nothing is wrong.
“In your own words, tell me your current situation,” I say. “Then I’ll need to ask you some very personal questions. It’s all part of the program.”
Mara nods. “We moved to China about two years ago. At first, we did quite well, but now we’ve exhausted our resources, and our projects are on hold. As you know, construction is one of the industries that halts completely during recessions. Your bond assures we remain part owners until we are able to pay you back.”
After my phone call with Kai, I devoured all the information on the company they started that I could find. Dad had bought land in China years ago. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would try construction with Mr. Bao, his old partner. Xi He Construction did well the first year, however, according to Phillip, they’ll lose everything by the end of this year because of debt. This does not interest me.
“You refer to ‘we’ but you’re not the head of the company.”
“My father, Jeff Rivers, is the CEO.”
He is alive.
Electric shock. Stabbing. Tingling all over my body. My eyes close at the sound of his name. It rushes over me like the wind. I’m the one rubbing my arms now.
“Why is he not here with you today?” I ask, sharply.
“He is sick, ma’am.”
“What kind of sick?” The concern on my face and in my voice must show because Mara perks up. Her back straightens.
“He has not been well for more than a year, almost two. Doctors cannot account for it.”
Did she just say almost two years? That’s about when I was taken…
“What other family members do you have?”
“Excuse me?” Mara holds the papers for the bond application. “I have filled out the application entirely.”
“We have this interview for such questions,” I lie. “We need lots of information to verify truth. With the crash all kinds of scams are coming in.”
“Of course,” she says, reluctantly. “I have a younger sister.”
“No one else in your family?”
“No, ma’am,” she replies to the interpreter.
“I do not mean to pry, but I need to know of any other deceased members. You see, it will turn up on our search after the application is approved, if you do not verify it, I’m afraid there may be an automatic refusal of the bond.”
Mara pales. A frown appears on her lips. Perhaps the subject stings? I don’t care. I need to hear her say it; to see the look on her face.
I also need to remember to speak Chinese. English is on the tip of my tongue, like a flood pushing against the dam. If I am not careful, the dam will break, and I’ll yell at her like when we were kids.
Mara fiddles with her pen, slowly forming words. Her brow tightens, and she swallows hard. “My mother died in a car crash,” she says, “and my other sister…died as well.”
“Your deceased sister, what was her name?” Will there be remorse? Has she carried pain as heavy as mine? My face is hot, yet the cold of the Pratt seeps into me, Madame’s darkness fills my eyes. It’s all I can do not to shout, pour out my suffering, show her the marks on my body.
“Her name was Josephine.” It’s a whisper, barely audible.
“Excuse me?” I need to hear her say it. I lost everything when I was taken, even my name. I want it back. The sound of my own name haunted me for two years, mocking me of the life I lost. Perhaps hearing her say it will satisfy my desire for justice and my nightmares will stop.
“Josephine,” she says louder.
My name on her lips has an opposite effect. Instead of feelings of justice, a deep chord is struck. Floods of childhood memories erupt of two little girls playing dolls, eating pizza, opening Christmas presents. I have to look away.
“How did she die?” I choke out, face down at the files on my desk.
“Sorry, Ms. Phoenix, we don’t know. She disappeared.”
“Disappeared? But you said she is dead.”
“We assume so. She was abducted. Unfortunately, her body was never found.” Mara looks sick. Or guilty? Sad?
“So, she could be alive? Wouldn’t that be a miracle.”
“A miracle that just may make my father’s heart stop. He all but died when he lost her,” Mara says.
“He—uh,” I say in English but catch myself and speak in Chinese. I scoot to the edge of my chair. “What else happened to him?”
“After my sister’s abduction, he suffered severe PTSD and months later was hospitalized for a while. Last year, he developed a type of muscle deterioration.”
“I see.” A lump lodges in my throat. Dad. Are those tears forming in my eyes too? I blink them away. Get through the interview Phoenix. “What about your other sister?” I ask.
“I’m sorry. Is this necessary for the interview?”
“Forgive me. We need a lot of details. Each company is evaluated by their history.” I stop and swallow hard. The amount of effort it takes to resist prying every single detail I want is sky high. “Well, just tell me about her, so I can fill in the details. What does she do? Can she play any instruments?”
“Uh, um…yes. She can play piano.” There’s confusion on Mara’s face. My questions throw her for a loop. She’s wondering how this is relevant. What she doesn’t understand is that to me Lily was dead not long ago and now she’s alive. Living. Breathing. Materializing before me as she speaks. “Please just tell me what I can do for the loan.”
“Yes, Ms. Rivers,” I reply. My interpreter is also a bit confused. He has sat in on other meetings and nothing of this sort has occurred. “One last question—” it’s over the top but I can’t help myself—“Have you ever been involved in criminal activity?”
Anger rises in my cheeks. She’s the girl who dropped me off at the pier. Who handed details to Madame.
Can the forgiveness I gave to her in the Pratt last?
Mara cocks her head.
My eyes drill into her. The questions I long to ask her but can’t twist like a tornado inside me—Have you ever been an accomplice of sorts? Ever been bribed? Received illegal money? Tortured? Starved? Held against your will?
I have, I want to tell her.
She’s nervous, scooting away from me deeper into the sofa.
“No,” she says. “I have never been convicted of a crime, if that is what you are asking.”
Liar.
She’s trembling now. I am too. The interpreter looks from me to her, eyes wide. My heart thumps wildly. Fire spreads to every limb because she is lying. We would not be in this meeting if she were telling the truth.
“Let me explain something. We are very thorough at China Generation. I see the need to assess your case a bit more. You will need to bring the whole family in for interviews. If this is possible, I’ll approve the bond for the first year. You have three days.”
Mara jumps to her feet. She thanks me quietly and leaves the room. When the doors closes behind her and the interpreter, I crumble onto the floor, tears spilling onto the ground. I rock there, my head on my knees.
I am a phoenix, flying.
I won’t let go of my sanity now. I just regained it.
I have risen from the ashes.
My family will come here in three days.
I will not crash but soar.
I stand. My body obeys the command, but numbness overtakes me. My hands reach for the phone. I dial the secretary.
“Yes?”
“Tell Ms. Rivers they have to be here by Thursday or no bond,” I say without emotion. “And Lin? Deposit a hundred grand into their accounts and pay for their transportation.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I move my chair next to the window. The Shanghai skyline is lit up. I can’t count the lights like I used t
o be able to do, so I lose myself in them as I would in a campfire.
After only five minutes Secretary Lin rings again. “Sorry to disturb you again. It’s the police.”
“Put them through,” I sigh, tired but ready for this to be over.
“Phoenix? Agent Bai, here,” his low voice says. “We’ve got her.”
“Spain, then?”
“No.” There’s a brief pause. “Australia. Bob Lee—apparently a friend of yours—contacted us after we arrived in Venezuela. He is one heck of an ox. Last night, he was able to hold her even in her state of rage until the Australian authorities arrived. We could use a guy like that on the inside.”
They got her. Bo Gong. I knew he could do it. For a moment I forget Mara and celebration appears on my face.
“Hate to admit it, but you were right. Thanks, Phoenix.”
“Where is she now?” I ask.
“On her way back to China, to prison.”
I breathe a deep sigh of relief. Everything is done. Closed. I can put her behind me now.
I thank Agent Bai. I’m about to hang up when he stops me.
“Phoenix?” He hesitates like what he is going to say next is difficult. “One last thing.”
“Yes?” Whatever he has to say can’t be any more emotional than what I have already experienced meeting Mara. I can handle it. “Go ahead.”
“Celia has only one request before her trial.”
As he speaks, I realize I’m wrong. Very, very, wrong. I don’t think I can handle this.
“Her request,” he says, “is to see you.”
43
Present: Phoenix
HONGKOU CORRECTIONAL DISTRICT, SHANGHAI, CHINA
The next night my dreams are invaded by Celia Marsovich’s icy eyes and red lips. To deny the last request of a person is a big deal. I don’t know what will happen to her and I couldn’t care less—but there’s more to it than that—she has something I want. Numbers can’t advise me. My heart deceives me and the battle rages on. I toss, turn, sweat, scream. I battle. I analyze.
Why did she choose me? Why did she let me go? These are questions only she can answer.
By morning I make a decision—to face her one last time. If I get my answers, perhaps I can bury her forever.
When Kai and I arrive at the prison, the policeman holds out a report to me. “Take it. You’ll want to read it.” The woman in the picture—Celia—looks years older. Pale, freckled, no makeup, strung-out hair, a frightening creature to behold.
“Celia’s connection to the Australian nursing home was a woman, a mother figure, who at one point cared for her, who knows nothing of her crimes. She was in stage-five dementia when Celia transported her to Australia. Since then, hands off Australia.”
Another officer comes out from behind a thick metal door. “It’s time.” I shove the report in my pocket for later.
I find Kai’s hand and squeeze. He takes hold of my shoulder. “I can come with you.”
“No. I have to face her alone.”
My feet drag down another hallway. The empty corridors are eerily quiet, only silent questions seems to echo and bounce off the walls. She knew I’d be at the Expo. She wanted me to escape with her. What will she want this time?
My heart quickens.
I am safe. She can’t hurt me anymore. This time I took everything from her—her life, money, Lev, her crimes. She has nothing left except pain.
If I could take that away too, would I?
The thought strikes me hard. It’s a “Red” question. It leaves me breathless and squirming. Do I want to see her die?
No.
I don’t want to see any more death.
As I make my way through the final hallway, I silently pray I’ll see remorse in her. Change is possible. Perhaps with a second chance Celia can change too.
At the end of the hall, there’s a large white door with a sign that says, Maximum Security: Solitary Confinement. The officer escorts me in. Even though Celia has been here for several days, the faintest trace of her perfume wafts in the air.
There’s a plastic stool, the kind a child would use, beside her cell. I sit. At first, she doesn’t notice me. I watch her pick at her nails. Her face is deathly pale. Her hair is tangled into a red knot on her head pulled back so tight that her skin stretches in an unnatural way. Without makeup, wrinkles and freckles show on her face like never before. How old is she really? Her cheeks are wet—from crying? That would be a stretch.
The guard rings the bell beside her door. In long slow movements, she looks up at me. “Octavia?” she stutters, her eyes, black and watery. “I knew you’d come.”
Celia crawls up to the bars, gripping them like a caged beast. She looks childlike. Not like the powerful woman I knew, draped in gold and jewels, the snap of her fingers holding so much power. But then again, she doesn’t look frightened either. Her words tickle my ears, if they catch me today…
“Come here,” she says, touching the glass with her hand, “I want to be sure I’m not hallucinating.”
Logic can’t explain why I touch her hand on the glass. Even though there is glass separating us, I can tell her hand is ice cold. I recoil before she can do anything else.
“Why me, Celia? Why did you choose me? When all those other girls…” A thick lump blocks my throat. I don’t have the heart to say the rest. “Why did you let me go at the Expo?”
She traces, what looks like numbers, in the air with her finger. I don’t know how long I wait before she speaks.
“You are me.” She peers up through the bars. “You have my gift, the one that was stolen from me.”
Is she saying what I think she is? My eyes widen as it dawns on me. It’s as if I’ve known it all along—Celia had something that matched me, equaled me. All her obsession, her hatred, her genius, was always there.
“Yes, Octavia. You can see it now. I was a prodigy, just like you.” Her eyes light up. “But unlike you, my opportunities were scarce. When I was nine, I was orphaned. No one cared about me or my gift. No one cared that numbers invaded my world. I survived by my gift alone for two years before a neighbor took me in. A woman who was kind and gentle, unlike her abusive husband…Men are dangerous, Octavia. That’s when I realized I needed to use my gift to be faster, wiser. But the man was stronger. My gift waned with every time he touched me. By the time I was 17, I outsmarted him. I learned how to escape danger, to make money, to take revenge. I learned how to be great. Thinking about getting my numbers back was the only thing that kept me sane. Wickedness, goodness, meant nothing.”
The energy shifts in the room. “I despised everything and everyone…until you. I recognized it immediately. Your gift. What you were doing in your father’s company. You had my numbers. But you were pure. At first, I wanted to end you, but I couldn’t. It would be like ending my own life. I vowed to protect you – so that nothing bad would ever happen to you. No one would ever hurt you the way they hurt me. I chose you, Octavia. You would inherit my empire. You’d be my one success.”
Celia smiles. I can’t be sure if what I’m looking at is kindness or pure insanity. Does she not grasp that her twisted idea of protecting me was ripping me away from my family?
“We are the same, Octavia. Can’t you see it? I let you into my home, to give you everything. I loved you the way I was never loved.” She twitches like an earthquake victim reliving the moment the walls began to tumble. “When I sent you to King’s, it was the first time in years I felt regret, guilt. I hurt the one thing I promised to save. Your blood was on my hands. After you ‘died’ you were everywhere. In the computer, in the streets, in my dreams. I died a little more each day, but then light sparked again. You were alive. The Expo was my last chance. If I let you live, I’d live too.”
Even as she is speaking, I can’t believe my ears. I have become really good at detecting lies, and nothing rings false. She’s a victim, like me. She suffered for years. She’s like a knot, twisted and pulled tight, suffocating, but somewhere
in that mess, goodness is fighting for redemption.
“You said you’d give me what I most cared for?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I can handle much more.
“Your family is alive.” She says it like it hurts.
“I figured that out already.”
Her eyes are still frozen in place like it’s not really her talking. “I lied about…” she picks at her short bitten back nails—“your father.”
“Which part?” My chest beats so hard I’m afraid it’ll open up right here.
“He never stopped loving you,” she says. “He spent all he had trying to find you, but I couldn’t trust him, Octavia. He’s a man.” She said the word like it had a bad taste.
“My sister?”
“She knew she was doing something to you. She just didn’t know what. She blamed herself, entirely. I enjoyed watching her suffer.”
My heart beats fire. For almost two years I believed my father had dismissed me like loose change. That Mara hated me and never regretted what she did. It’s as if a veil has been removed, the clouds swept away. What was so foggy before is coming into focus.
Our time is almost up, and my emotions are a hot mess.
Celia blinks. Her eyes are wild again. “Do you still have your gift?”
“Not really,” I answer.
“Who was it? When I get out, I swear I’ll—” she growls, suddenly defensive.
“Nothing like that. It just left.” For the first time since losing my gift, I don’t feel hollow, but warmth stirs in my chest. Of all the people with whom I could share my thoughts, I do it now with Madame.
“It’s strange not seeing numbers everywhere,” I start. “I realize now, though, I don’t need them. They taught me what’s in my heart. I know my own limits. I know who I am. I see the risks and I’m not afraid to take them anymore. I don’t need to be a prodigy to be great. And I never needed to be a prodigy to make the right choice.”
Weight lifts off my chest. “That goes for you too. Our gifts change, but we never really lose them. You were born with a gift and you became powerful even after you lost it. When you were Madame, you chose to use your gift for evil instead of good. But you’ve been given a second chance, Maryam. You can choose to change. That little girl can come back.”