by Kat Zhang
“So, sad stories,” Devon said. “That’s what did it.”
Addie frowned, closing Sabine’s notebook and climbing to our feet. “If that’s what you want to cheapen it to, then yes, sad stories. That’s what changed my mind. Other people’s sad stories.”
“Everybody’s got sad stories.” Devon’s voice was as ungiving as stone. “And everyone thinks they’re so very special and broken because of them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged.
“You came back to the attic with us,” Addie said. Our fingers tightened around the notebook, the cover biting into our skin. “You could have refused. You’re the one who said you’d go.”
“You were going to go.” Devon wore the look he usually saved for other people. The one that said, You’re being very stupid, but I’ll speak slowly in hopes you might understand. Addie rolled our eyes. “You really believe Ryan would have allowed us to stay behind if you went?” He hesitated. Had we ever seen Devon hesitate? He always either spoke or he didn’t—no vacillation. “Ryan cares about Eva. Which means he cares about you. Which makes you and Eva . . .”
“Makes us what?” Addie snapped.
“Makes you one of us.”
“Us?”
The hesitation ebbed from Devon’s body. He was all quiet, steady confidence again. He nodded.
“Who’s the rest of us?”
“Hally,” he said, “and Lissa.”
“Oh,” Addie said.
“We look out for one another.” His eyes were bright and intent on ours. There was almost a dare in them. “No matter what happens.”
Addie nodded. Something transpired between the two of them. Something I didn’t understand. Without another word, Devon turned and headed back down the hall.
Devon frowned, and for a moment, I was afraid I’d offended him. Would I have been offended if someone had told me, Step aside, I want to talk with Addie, not you?
Probably.
Yes.
Sorry, I started to say, but I didn’t get the chance.
“Ryan isn’t here,” Devon said.
I shut our mouth so quickly our teeth clicked against one another. It shouldn’t have felt this strange, knowing Ryan was temporarily gone. I’d disappeared myself. I’d been with Ryan without Devon there. But watching those familiar eyes, that familiar face, and knowing Ryan wasn’t looking back at me . . .
I thought Devon would just leave again, but he lingered a moment at the door.
“Look,” he said. “Everyone’s telling stories. Everyone has something they want. You can’t trust them all.”
“Who are we supposed to trust, then?” I said.
He studied me. Said, quietly, “I don’t know.”
This time, he left and didn’t look back.
TWENTY-ONE
Emalia and Nina were huddled on the couch when I finally ventured from our bedroom, Emalia’s arm around Nina’s shoulders, both of them laughing at a television show. I’d just poured a cup of juice when Addie said
Left me in the middle of the kitchen, a glass of orange juice halfway to my lips, my feet cold against the tiles.
Nina called, “Can you pour me some?”
I gave her mine, since I didn’t want it anymore. Somehow, it hadn’t fully struck me until now how Addie could leave me when I didn’t want her to go.
“Join us?” Emalia said. I shook my head.
The knock at the door came long after the show had ended. Nina was in the shower. I was milling about our room and only came out when I heard Emalia say, “Oh, hi, Lissa. How’re you?”
“I’m fine.” Lissa’s voice was barely above a whisper, and she didn’t speak again until she saw me in the hallway. She cradled a roll of clothes and a towel in her arms, a small denim bag slung over her shoulder. “I was wondering . . .” Her dark eyes shifted between Emalia and me. “Could I spend the night here?”
I didn’t speak. I’d barely seen Lissa or Hally since the day they refused to go back to the attic. They’d stayed secreted away in Henri’s apartment, burying themselves in books, I guessed. Or maybe just staring out the window, the way they used to.
“Of course, Lissa,” Emalia said finally. “You can sleep over whenever you want.”
Emalia didn’t own a sleeping bag, and the twin beds were too narrow to share, so Lissa and I laid out blankets in the living room. Of course, Nina wanted to join us. She grabbed her blanket and declared ownership of the couch while Lissa and I were still carrying the coffee table out of the way.
We moved awkwardly, not meeting eyes.
Emalia, who had work the next day, went to bed. The rest of us watched late-night television with the volume barely loud enough to hear. Eventually, Nina drifted asleep. Lissa and I watched for a little longer after that, but soon most of the channels showed nothing but infomercials, and I switched off the television. The living room dipped into darkness and silence. Addie still hadn’t returned. The warmth where she should have been was dark and silent.
Lissa lay curled away from me, so still I thought she’d fallen asleep, too. But then I heard a quiet “Eva?”
“Yeah?” I whispered.
She turned to face me. She’d removed her glasses, and her face looked different without them—more vulnerable. I braced myself for any number of questions: What are you and the others up to now? Why are you doing this? Why haven’t you talked with me? Why have you left me alone?
The question she asked wasn’t any I’d expected.
“You ever wonder why we’re like this? Why people are hybrid? Why some of us are and some of us aren’t?”
Lissa’s eyes searched mine, and I nodded. Of course I had. How could I not?
And what do you think?
That was the natural next question, but she didn’t ask it, and neither did I. It felt too private to ask. All hybrids must wonder why they were born to this fate. I’d wondered as a child alone on the playground. Lissa had been kept cloistered at home until second grade, seeing no one beyond her parents and her brother. Did that mean she’d started wondering later, or earlier?
“It’s always been this way,” Lissa murmured. “Since human beings first came to be. And I . . . I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” She shifted onto her back, her long hair tangled beneath her. “My father used to tell Hally and me stories, when we were really little. I don’t think he knows we remember, but we do.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Legends,” Lissa said. “Of how the world began. Of how the hybrids began. His grandma taught them to him, before she died. He had to translate them, since she didn’t speak English. There were ones about Purusha, and ones about Brahma. And others, too. He used to tell us so many. We’d beg for them.” She twisted a curl of hair around her fingers. “This was before we started pretending we’d settled. He never told us any more after that.”
I’d never heard those stories, but I’d been taught others. At school, we’d learned what the ancient world believed—that their gods had created all people to be hybrid, so they’d never have to suffer the agony of loneliness. Then one man had committed some unpardonable sin and, as punishment, the gods tore out his second soul. He was cast from society and left all alone.
Finally the people took pity on him and brought him back into the fold, where he was allowed to stay as a second-class citizen, doing menial labor. Only menial labor, because who could trust higher-level jobs to a man with only one soul? One mind?
The first time Addie and I heard the legend, we were in third grade. The only unsettled child in our entire class.
What a cruel story, the teacher had said, invented to justify the hybrids’ even crueler treatment of our ancestors. Do you know what ancestor means?
We’d lingered at the
door at the end of the day, waiting for the teacher’s attention to fall on us. We’d been comfortable with her. Eight years old and unsettled, we were unusual but not obscene, and she’d been kinder than our peers.
Who did he marry? I asked.
She gave us a confused smile. I’m sorry?
The man who wasn’t hybrid. He must have married someone. So they had kids. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be more single-souled people.
Addie, she said. Everyone called us Addie then, because it was mostly Addie in control. I didn’t bother correcting her. It’s only a story. He didn’t marry anyone. He didn’t even exist. The hybrids just made it up so they could feel better about treating the non-hybrids so horribly. Do you understand?
Yes, I’d said, though I didn’t. How could the hybrids have felt better about themselves if their story didn’t even make sense?
“How can you think Sabine’s plan is a good idea, Eva?” Lissa’s question pulled me back to the present. Her moods tended to be less extreme than Hally’s, so maybe I ought to be grateful for that. But the quiet disappointment in her voice made my stomach squeeze, made a wrecking ball of my guilt. I needed Addie here for this. I didn’t want to face Lissa’s question alone.
“It’s just a building,” I said. “Think about how it’ll strike a blow against the government.”
“Strike a blow against the government?” She propped herself up on her elbows and stared right at me. “Come on, Eva. You didn’t come up with that. You don’t talk like that.”
It was something Vince had said, actually, but I kept quiet.
“Have you talked to Ryan about this?” I said.
She sighed, flopping back down on the ground. “Yes, but he’s Ryan. Give him a project, make him feel like he’s needed, and he’s set. He won’t listen to us. We thought you would.”
“The explosives—”
“The bomb, Eva,” Lissa said. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s a bomb.”
“The bomb.” The word felt heavy, bitter on our tongue. Like how settling had felt once, when Addie and I were small and confused and linked it to something we were doing wrong, something that was wrong with us.
I forgot what the rest of my sentence had been. Bomb filled my mind, pushing everything else away.
“Maybe you should tell Peter about it,” Lissa said softly.
“Peter?” I said. “Peter wants to send us all away, and you think—”
“What?”
The word cut through the room. We both checked on Nina, but if she’d woken, she pretended otherwise. Still, I waited a moment before replying. I needed it to steady my breathing. “Ryan didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Lissa tried to whisper, but her voice kept rising. “Peter wants to send us where? He told you that? When?”
“I don’t know. A while ago. He—” I pressed my fist to my forehead. “It’s not decided. I thought Ryan or Devon had told you. But Lissa, he’s the last person we can go to, all right?”
A hundred emotions flashed across Lissa’s face, each bleeding into the next. She took a shaky breath and shoved them all under control.
“Henri, then? Emalia?” There was something pleading in her expression. “I could tell them, Eva.”
She wasn’t really asking for permission. She could tell anyone—I couldn’t stop her. But she wanted acceptance. My support, when everything came apart. Vince would be furious. They’d all be. God knew what Christoph might do.
“Ryan would probably hate me,” Lissa said. And maybe I should have said, No, he wouldn’t. Of course not, but I didn’t. Because the unasked question growing between us was: Would you?
I didn’t answer it. I said, instead, “Don’t, okay?”
She didn’t sigh. Hardly reacted at all. But I caught the dimming in her eyes.
“Please.” I sat up, drawing my blanket against me, feeling it bunch beneath my fingers. “Tell Emalia or Henri, and they’ll immediately go to Peter.” I reached out hesitantly, and touched Lissa’s arm. “Don’t tell anyone. Just . . . just trust me, okay?”
“I do trust you. It’s just—”
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. My mouth was so dry I could barely get the words out. “I’m going to make everything okay.”
“How?” Lissa demanded.
“I don’t know. Just—just give me some time, all right? I promise. I’ll figure it out.”
An eternity passed before Lissa replied. A hundred thousand years separating our bodies in the dark.
“Okay,” she said, and I hated the unease on her face. The knowledge that I’d put it there. But I didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t tell anyone. She just couldn’t.
Lissa sighed and lay back down. I watched her stare at the ceiling fan until her eyes slid shut and her breathing grew shallow. I sat there for what seemed like hours more, my thoughts stumbling around in the darkness.
Entombed in the silence of my own mind, I waited for Addie to come back.
I fell asleep before she did.
TWENTY-TWO
The next couple weeks passed quickly. Sabine decided we should have a test run before the real thing, so Ryan had to make two containers, one much smaller than the other. The two of them calculated how much kerosene and liquid oxygen they’d need, and what dimensions the containers should be.
Ryan spent hours and hours in the attic, looking through his books, fiddling with his designs. Cordelia or Sabine came up occasionally during the day, but they had customers to deal with. The others visited during the afternoon. Most of the time, it was just Ryan and me. Really just Ryan and me.
Addie had developed a new fervor for practicing just how long and accurately we could go under. The two of us spent more and more time alone in our body.
But little by little, we managed it. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. An hour. Three hours. I’d go under just after breakfast and wake up hungry for lunch. I’d disappear in our bedroom while still in our pajamas and wake up in open air, dressed in clothes I had no memory of putting on.
At first, Addie and I filled each other in on everything we’d done while the other was asleep. But soon, we stopped. Most of it wasn’t important anyway, especially since the others could tell between Addie and me now and didn’t expect one of us to know what the other had been up to.
For the first time in our lives, we had some modicum of privacy. I could be with Ryan alone. Without Addie’s emotions fogging up the back of my mind. Without the taste of her disapproval in my throat.
She took a long time to answer. But finally, she said
Trust was all we had to get us through this. Nothing in our lives had ever prepared us for it. No one had ever taught us how to handle it.
Months ago, during that first night in Anchoit, Ryan and I kissed, floundering, in the hallway of Peter’s apartment. There was something to be said, certainly, about first kisses. But there was more to be said about the ones that came afterward. We kissed urgently at first—driven by a sense of secrecy, of stolen time. Then languidly, softly, knowing there wasn’t any rush. We lived in the circle of fairy lights, hidden in an attic that seemed like its own world.
I told Ryan about our old apartment in the city. About the fire escape that had felt like our sanctuary. About the teachers at school only calling Addie’s name, even when mine had also been on the roster, because otherwise the class was simply too hard to quiet down again.
One morning, Addie asked
She didn’t preface the questio
n with a name or any sort of explanation at all, and it took me a moment to realize who she was referring to.
We were eating breakfast, and she was quiet a long moment.
And I did keep that in mind, from then on.
Two weeks passed. Then three. October approached. Back home in Lupside, the leaves would be changing colors, drifting like embers from their branches. There were no trees on the walk between our apartment building and the photography shop, but the odd holiday decorations started popping up on the store windows: miniature pumpkins, black witch hats, frightened-looking cats.
Insulated by the attic’s sloping walls, there didn’t seem to be any need to think about time.
At first, Ryan’s ideas only existed on paper: words and diagrams. One day, I found him staring at his notes and laughing quietly to himself.
“What?” I shifted closer and tried to read his handwriting.
He lifted his head. I reached over and smoothed down his hair as he spoke. “I’m going to need tools. And supplies. Possibly a welder. Where am I going to get a welder, Eva?”
My hand stilled. I stared at him until the absurdity of it got the better of me and I had to laugh. I laughed more now than I’d ever laughed in my life. I laughed as often as I could, savoring it.
“Ask Jackson,” I said through the giggles. “He probably knows someone who knows someone with power tools who owes him a favor.”
Turned out Jackson did. Addie was hesitant about sneaking out late at night. We didn’t need to go. But if Ryan was going to chance being caught, then I was going to risk it with him, and Addie eventually came around.
We broke curfew to spend late nights secreted in a garage downtown, surrounded by power tools Jackson admitted we didn’t technically have permission to use, so hurry up and get it done. I woke once in the semidarkness of the garage, hearing Ryan working in the background. Jackson was laughing. I—Addie—was laughing, too. She quieted a little once she felt my presence, but didn’t lose her smile.