Atlantia (20 page)

N
evio stares at me.

“But that's not possible,” he says. “You're related to Maire by blood.”

“Nevertheless,” Maire says. “She is a siren. You heard her.”

Nevio keeps looking at me. Then he smiles. “Bring her to my office,” he says, and he walks out of the room, leaving my aunt and me alone.

“Why now?” I ask Maire as soon as Nevio leaves. I use my false voice. It's hard to do after speaking in my real one.

She takes me by the arm, and I try to twist away, but her grip is strong.

“Good,” she says. “Keep using your old voice. Save the true one. You will need it Above.” And then the peacekeepers catch up to us, and Maire lets go.

I expect them to take us to Nevio's office in the temple, but instead we walk down a long corridor and to another door. So he also has an office in the Council buildings. They offered one to my mother, but she never used it. She liked to do all her work in the temple.

A peacekeeper opens the door for us, and I stand there and gape. I can't help it.

Nevio's office here is like nothing I've ever seen. The walls are paneled entirely in wood. I feel like I'm standing inside a tree, where its heart should be, and I don't like it.

“We need to take her with us to the surface,” Nevio says.

“Yes,” Maire says.

“I should have known.” Nevio paces around me. “That dull voice. It stood to reason that you were hiding something.” He laughs, a truly ugly sound because it's full of anger and condescension, no mirth at all. He turns on Maire. “How long have you known?”

“Not long,” Maire says. “I heard her that day in the temple when her sister went Above.”

“And you didn't tell me?”

“I didn't,” Maire agrees.

“Did anyone else hear you?” Nevio asks me.

“Justus did,” Maire says.

“Justus,” Nevio says dismissively, as if Justus is nothing at all. “Anyone else?”

The Minister pacing, Maire betraying, neither one of them treating me as if I'm a person at all. I told them what I was, but nothing has changed—

“That boy she's been running around with,” Maire says, and my head snaps up. “His name is—”

“Stop,”
I say, and I don't hold anything back.

For one long, long second, they do stop. Nevio quits pacing. Maire doesn't speak.

Then Maire says, “True Beck.”

No. Not True. How did she know?

“Impressive,” Nevio says, his eyes running over me like I'm a fascinating piece of sculpture to admire; a line of scripture to decipher; a thing, not a person. “She told us to stop, and we did. How long did it last?” he asks Maire.

“Just for a moment,” Maire says. “And you?”

“The same,” he says.

For a few seconds, I made them do what I wanted.

Nevio watches me, calculating. Is he changing his mind about what should be done with me? Why does he get to decide?

He doesn't.

“I am going Above,” I say, in my true voice.

I've known it all along. I've known it since I could first think or feel. Hearing myself say it now takes away all uncertainty. Maire shakes her head at me. She told me that she wants me to save my voice. For what? Why does it matter now?

I'm going Above.

“You are,” Nevio says. “Take care of everything,” he tells Maire. “We leave as soon as they send down the transports.”

“I know you hate me,” Maire says as we hurry down the hall together. The peacekeepers have vanished, and Maire and I follow the winding pathways of the Council buildings, a place I know only from the artfully constructed exteriors, the sand- and candy-colored stuccos of the buildings.

I don't deny it. “You said that you'd let me choose.”

“You were the one who made the final choice, who said the words just now,” Maire says. “Which is good. Because this won't work if it isn't what
you
want. And we are running out of time. If you don't come up with us now, you'll be stuck Below forever.”

“What won't work?” I ask. “What am I supposed to do Above? And why did you tell him about True?”

Maire doesn't answer. She pulls me to a window in the long hallway. “It's all falling apart,” she says. “Look.”

The plaza is flooded. Not by much, but the entire surface is sheeted in several inches' worth of water. It's so beautiful that I can't keep from staring—a pool, shining like a lake in pictures of the world before the Divide. The bare silver trees reflect on the water, making two of each of them—one in the water, one above.

“Another problem,” Maire says. “It began last night. A small, slow leak, but we haven't been able to stop it or drain it yet.”

“How can you work with Nevio?” I ask. “He's part of the Council that killed my mother.”

“You know what he is,” Maire says.

So she does know that he's a siren. Of course she would.

“I know what he is,” I agree. “And I know what you are.” I can't hide the hatred in my voice. “You gave Nevio a shell. I saw it in the safe in his office. You're his collaborator.”

“I have never spoken with Nevio that way,” Maire says. “There's only one other person I've spoken back and forth with through a shell the way I have with you. And that was your mother.”

Out in the plaza, peacekeepers direct people away from the water. Maire touches the wall next to the window, and I wonder if there are voices in here, too.

“The shell you found in his office,” she says. “Was it white?”

“Yes.”

“That was the shell Oceana and I used to communicate, near the end, when they were watching her,” Maire says. “She had it with her when the Council poisoned her. I'll never forget that, hearing her whisper what they'd done, and then the silence after.” Maire's eyes stay dry, but her voice sounds rough and sad. “Nevio took it from her just after that, before she ran away to find me. He knew the shell was important, but he didn't understand why or what it did. He must not have seen her speaking into it. I'm not surprised he's kept the shell. He doesn't like mysteries.”

“She tried to keep you safe,” I say, “but you didn't do the same thing for her. What kind of sister are you?”

Maire turns away from the water, and I take a step back. For the first time, I think that she looks like Oceana. I see the same weariness in her eyes that I used to notice in my mother's, but in Maire's it is even more profound.

“I need you to do what you do best for a moment,” Maire says.
“Listen.”

“To
you
?”

“To the city,” she says.

And I do. I can't help myself. Atlantia no longer screams, but breathes the way a child does after he has cried all he can and is tired and broken and empty. I listen to Atlantia's sounds and I look out at all her sights: the colorful houses, the iron rivets, the metal trees, the sky, the people who are so sure they are blessed.

“When I first heard you, that day in the temple,” Maire says, “I knew we needed you. I knew how powerful you might be. You've had to keep your voice hidden, which means that when you
do
speak with your full voice, you have a raw power that the rest of us no longer possess.”

“Did my mother know that?” I ask. Was she trying not to hide me, but to make me strong?

Maire smiles. “Yes,” she says. “Of course, making a siren hide her voice can also have the opposite effect. It can destroy a child who isn't strong enough.”

This is what I hate about Maire. Right as she tells me something I desperately want to know, she gives me terrible answers to questions I never thought to ask.

“I have been waiting for you,” Maire says. “But I can't wait any longer. We might succeed, if you join us. We've found you just in time.” She shakes her head and smiles, a sad smile. “How could Oceana hide you so long from me? Especially when we were friends again, near the end, and she told me
everything
else?”

I hear tenderness when she speaks of my mother, and I can't bear it. “Don't talk about her,” I say.

“So you won't allow me to speak of my own sister,” Maire says. Her eyes flash and she looks dangerous, but she keeps her voice on an even keel. “Then let's continue to speak about you and your extremely useful voice. Pure and untrained. The most powerful voice I've ever heard.”

That can't be right. “The Minister—” I begin.

Maire shakes her head. “Nevio isn't as powerful as you. But his talent
is
unusual, and I don't know that any siren in history has been able to mask their voice as well as he has masked his. The sirens have changed. The Minister can hide
and
use his voice. You and I are in the same family, and we can control things in addition to people. It seems that even miracles evolve.”

Even miracles evolve. The bats did. They made their wings blue like glass and water. They changed to suit their environment.

And now they are dying.

“The Minister is speaking to the other sirens right now,” Maire says. “He is telling them that we are the Below's last chance for survival. He will let them know that we are going to the Above to remind the people there of their place in the world, and of ours. He will say that the people of the Above are tired of providing for us Below, and they do not plan to continue to do so. The Minister will say that this mission is essential to the survival of Atlantia. He is right.”

“Atlantia will die without us?”

“Yes,” Maire says. “It will. Two weeks ago the Above stopped sending food, and our stores are almost depleted. The city is breaking, and we are running out of materials to repair it.”

She doesn't use her voice to convince me. She doesn't have to. This all makes sense to me, so much so that I wonder why it's taken the people Above this long. Why
wouldn't
they hate us? Why
wouldn't
they want our better lives? But I also have the distinct feeling that there is something Maire isn't telling me.

“Do they want us dead so that they can take over Atlantia?” I ask. Is that it? Then they could have our city and our longer, easier lives.

“They want us dead,” Maire says to me very quietly, her voice sounding the way it did in the shell. “
They're
the ones who put the mines in the water to keep us from coming up. And they don't care about Atlantia.”

So Josiah was wrong, or he lied to me. The people
Above
are the ones who put the mines in the water to prevent us from trying to escape.

They don't care about us, and they don't care about our city.

I have always wanted to leave Atlantia, but I never wanted it to die.

The temple, with its aquamarine-painted wooden door and rusty hinges. The plaza, shimmering now with water. The gods in the trees and the leaves we take such care to put back on, the apartments painted pink and blue and white and orange. The mining bays, the beautiful broken drones, the dark ocean room and the metal scraps glinting in the sky room. The prows and bellies of the gondolas, their sleek way of moving through the canals. The priests, who wear robes and minister to others, and the workers who throw gold coins into the wishing pools and the children who sing as they run across the plazas, their feet fast and their arms open wide.

And True. Most of all, True.

“We may lose everything,” Maire says. “We need you to join us. Will you?”

When she says it like that, there is only one answer I can give.

P
eacekeepers lead Maire and me through a tunnel at the back of the Council buildings and to a waiting transport. It's full of people—the other sirens are already here. I count heads quickly. Including Maire, there are twenty-seven of them, far fewer than I would have expected. One of the sirens asks who I am, and when she does, I recognize her voice. She's the siren who spoke to Atlantia during the breach in the deepmarket.

“Rio is another siren,” Maire says, gesturing to me. “One who's managed to stay hidden until now.”

“Can we hear her speak?” asks another siren, a man.

“No,” Maire says. “Nevio wants her to save her voice. It will be more powerful that way.”

Something about the way Maire tells them this forestalls further questions, though I can see that the others are intrigued.

I am the youngest siren on the transport. “So I
am
the last,” I say to Maire under my breath.

“As far as we know,” Maire says. “But I believe there may be many more to come, if Atlantia survives.”

Someone hands us blue robes to wear over our clothes. For a moment I am speechless at the beautiful cloth in my hands—it is a lovely, iridescent turquoise, shot through with golden threads and silver and green and white and even black. I am wearing the ocean. The cloth feels ancient, a remnant of a finer time.

“Sirens used to wear these when they went to the surface,” Maire says. “The cloth was made with a technique unique to the Below that we have since lost.”

I slip my arms into the robes. The sirens also wear makeup—including the men. The cheekbones and contours of their faces are brought out with shading. They—we—bring to mind those sharp-faced animals from the Above, the ones called birds. I've seen them in pictures. One of the sirens comes toward Maire and begins marking up her face.

It's not hard to see that, to the people Above, we are supposed to appear otherworldly, powerful and strange. We are meant to impress and convince them.

“Don't we need to wear masks?” I ask. “Isn't the air dangerous up there?”

“We won't wear masks today,” Maire says. “It's more powerful that way.”

The other sirens have decided to be civil to me. Some of them look guarded, but most seem to regard me with something bordering on reverence. “Oceana's daughter, a siren,” one says.

So they've figured out who I am. I wonder if they'll also make the connection between Maire and me, if they'll realize that she's my aunt.

“See?” Maire says, her voice dry. “You're not alone in worshipping her.”

Everyone speaks of my mother, but I can't stop thinking of Bay. This could be the very transport she used to go to the surface.
I'm going to the surface
. I wish there were windows. I want to see what it's like, all the way up.

“You'll love it,” one of the sirens says, leaning close to me as she brushes my face with iridescent powder. “Do you know what they think about us Above?” She smiles. “They think we
are
the gods.” She reaches for a dark pencil, smudges lines above my eyes. “It's intoxicating.”

“It's magic,” one of the other sirens says.

“How do you know this?” I ask. “Have any of you been Above?” And how much do they know of the real history of the Below, the one I heard from the shell and from Maire?

They all fall silent.

“No,” Maire says. “None of us have ever seen the Above.”

“But Nevio and the Council told us how it would be,” another siren says, “and we're ready. The people of Atlantia will love us again after this. We're about to perform the third miracle.”

Maire smiles and there is no mirth in it. She doesn't believe that the people Above think we are gods anymore. She doesn't believe that the people Below are going to worship and love us again.

Maire's eyes meet mine, and I think,
The people Below will never know what the sirens do today.
Nevio will never tell them. If this doesn't work, Atlantia will die, and if it
does
work, Atlantia will go on as it always has. Nevio won't give the sirens credit for this.

“Where do we go when we get Above?” I ask Maire. I've always pictured myself walking alone on a shore, where there are trees and sun and sand. But I know it won't be like that.

“The Above is a large island,” Maire says, “with many smaller surrounding islands. The dock for the transports that bring people up is on one of those smaller islands. We are to wait on a platform there for the citizens of the Above to come meet us.”

“Is it the same spot where they brought Bay?” I ask.

“Yes,” Maire says. “It's been the meeting place since the Divide.”

“How is this going to work?” I ask.

“They say that our voices are even more powerful up here,” the deepmarket siren tells me. She has a clear, calming inflection. “That when we speak, our voices go much farther and last much longer. There is no way to avoid us or disobey us once we have given a command. If they try, they hear our voices in their minds speaking to them again, even though we have long since gone back Below. Our voices haunt them. It's why they stopped us from coming Above long ago. But the Council agrees that it is time for us to go back.”

“Who told you all this?” I ask.

“The knowledge has been passed down among generations,” Maire says. “From siren to siren.”

I wish I knew if she were speaking the truth. I wish I trusted her.

I wanted to love her.

“If we can really do all of this, why would the Above let us come up again?” I ask.

“Nevio arranged it,” Maire says.

The door to the transport opens, and the Minister himself appears. Everyone hushes instantly.

Nevio paces in front of the sirens as if we are a row of acolytes awaiting instruction in the temple. “It is our duty as sirens,” he says, “to remind the people Above of their place in the order of things.”

So the sirens know what he is. He has identified himself as one of them in words, and he does it with his voice as well, speaking without holding back. “We must remind those Above of their obligation to honor the gods. Their Council understands this. They believe that their people have become too wicked, too dismissive of their religion. They have agreed to let us come Above to remind and convince the people there of the rightness of the Divide.”

Now he looks at Maire. She smiles at him. It is the coldest thing I have ever seen.

“We have been trying to decide if we should command or persuade,” one of the sirens says. “And if we should speak in unison or cacophony.”

“Ah,” Nevio says. “I think it must be a command. How else can we make sure that they listen to us? But as for the other matter—well. Let me hear you.”

The sirens nod eagerly. How long have they known that he is one of them? How long have they let themselves be under his spell?

“What are the gifts given to we who live Below?” he asks. In his full, real voice, his siren voice.

It is honey and blood, dark and warm, golden and full of shadow. It is a beautiful voice, a decayed voice. I catch my breath. Nevio notices. He smiles.

“Long life, health, strength, and happiness,”
the other sirens answer, and I am afraid to move. I've never heard anything like this, and my heart fills with joy at the beauty of their voices, at the power behind them. They are angels singing to their god, their voices hopeful and full of belief.

But their faith has been misdirected.

He has taken their power and turned it all toward himself. Do they understand that?

“What is the curse of those who live Above?” Nevio asks.

“Short life, illness, weakness, and misery.”

“Is this fair?”

“It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time of the Divide. Some have to stay Above so that humanity might survive Below.”

They go on through all the rest of it. Neither Maire nor I join in.

“Maire and the new siren didn't say anything,” someone says, when they have finished.

“It's all right,” Nevio says. “They've been instructed to save their voices. Some sirens who don't train as you do aren't prepared to use their voices more than once in the space of a few hours.” He smiles. “But they may still be of use.”

He's insulting us, I realize. But he's also lying. He knows that Maire and I are powerful. Why is he pretending that we're not?

“Now,” Nevio says, “let's try the other way.”

This time, the sirens speak in cacophony. All saying the same things but not at the same time, each using their voice's own particular, potent power—screaming, shrieking, singing, whispering, calling.

It's unsettling, ugly, and powerful in a completely different way. I feel like my bones are rearranging, scraping against one another inside my body, that my brain is itchy and agitated and my blood hot.

“Unison,” Nevio decides. “We will have you speak in unison. You have trained, and you know all the words.”

I knew the words from listening to them in the temple, but now, after hearing the sirens, it's as if the litany has been seared into my brain.

“We are ready,” Nevio says. “I will see you at the surface.”

“Aren't you coming with us?” one of the other sirens asks in dismay.

“I am coming up right behind you, in another transport,” Nevio says, his voice soothing. “As the Minister, there are matters of prayer I need to attend to, alone, in order to help ensure our success. But I will see you soon in the Above. And I leave my blessing upon you.”

He nods to all of us and disappears through the door of the transport. As soon as he's gone through, the door slides shut and I hear the lock engaging. Now that the door is closed, it's hard to see where it was before—it fits into the wall so smoothly. There's no handle or opening mechanism on the inside. “No going back now,” one of the sirens says. “Once the door's locked, it won't open again until we're at the surface.”

Another siren, one about my mother's age, sits down in front of me. “You've ruined your makeup,” she says. She takes out a cloth and wipes my cheeks. She doesn't seem surprised, and I suppose she understands. How could I
not
weep at the siren sounds, both ugly and beautiful?

“I think we're doing this wrong,” I say. “All of this. The makeup, the commands. We should try to be
more
human, not less. We should try to talk to them. To the people Above. We should plead with them, convince them that this is what they
want
to do. Use our voices, but then let them make the choice. They won't hate us that way.”

The sirens stare at me as if I'm not even speaking their language.

“Is this your idea, Maire?” one of them asks. “It sounds like you.”

“I don't know why the Minister and the Council decided to let you come.” One of the male sirens sneers at my aunt. I stare in disbelief. How can he treat Maire so casually? Does he have no idea of what she can do?

“Because I'm powerful,” Maire says, and there is no anger in her voice. Only sorrow. “And the Minister and the Council know that. Until today they have always wanted me alive.”

Until today? What does Maire mean?

Why does she never tell me the whole truth?

I think about what she said earlier:

“The Minister is speaking to the other sirens right now. He is telling them that we are the Below's last chance for survival. He will let them know that we are going to the Above to remind the people there of their place in the world, and of ours. He will say that the people of the Above are tired of providing for us Below, and they do not plan to continue to do so. The Minister will say that this mission is essential to the survival of Atlantia. He is right.”

But I also think about what Maire didn't say. She didn't say Nevio was telling the sirens the truth about everything. She only said that this mission is essential to the survival of Atlantia.

Something is very, very wrong here, and I don't know what it is. I think Maire does. And she hasn't told me.

I can't bear it. I stand up and walk to the other end of the transport.

Maire follows me. “Save your tears and your anger,” she says. “You're going to need them when we reach the Above.”

“Why should I believe anything you say?”

“Because I do tell the truth about some things. Your mother needed me. Your sister did, too. When I said that to you, it wasn't a lie.”

She slides a corner of paper out from her sleeve. I know the writing on it.

It's a letter from Bay.

“She told me that I was only to give it to you if you tried to go Above,” Maire says.

I snatch the letter from Maire before she can say anything more.

Rio,

If you read this, it means I've gone Above and that I managed to keep my decision to leave a secret from you.

And it means that
you
are trying to go Above. I know you. I know you won't give up until you find a way. But you have to remain Below.

I don't know where I should begin, but I know that I have to tell you everything so that you can understand why you have to stay.

Our mother didn't tell me until a few weeks before she died that you could never go Above. I wonder if she was starting to suspect what you've always wanted to do. She told me about the history of the sirens. They used to go Above, but they've been banned from doing so for generations. They hate the sirens Above, Rio, and they will kill you as soon as they know what you are. You won't be able to speak Above, not any more than you can speak Below.

I asked her why she didn't tell
you
this, and she said it was because she didn't want to break your heart.

A few weeks later, she died. And all I could think about, besides who killed her, was keeping you safe.