Atlantia (8 page)

Maire took me to the floodgates to talk about my mother. But she also took me there to remind me of what death looks like. Bodies laid out on the stone, cold water coming in, someone you love going up. She wanted me to recognize that trying to go through the mining bay or in the transports isn't safe. She wanted me to see
her
as my way to the Above.

Instead, she has reminded me of another way that I can leave.

I can't leave Atlantia the way my sister did.

But I can try to leave the way my mother did.

Of course, there will be one significant difference.

When I go through the floodgates, I'll be alive.

I
wonder how much a tank of air will cost. What if it's five hundred and seven coin, exactly the amount of the money that Maire says Bay left for me? If so, would that be a message from Bay, a signal that she wanted me to find a way to follow her to the surface?

The day after Maire takes me to the floodgates, I go straight to the deepmarket when I've finished work and make my way through the stalls, listening to the air vendors, the ones who sell shots of pure, heady air flavored with scents and spices.

I make several passes up and down the rows of sellers, paying attention to how each vendor sounds and to what they're saying, wondering who to choose. I find myself slowing down, stopping, in front of the stall bearing a placard that says: E
NNIO,
A
IR
M
ERCHANT
. Ennio is a slight young man, full of movement.
When he sees me, he holds up a small canister. “Our most popular scent,” he says. “Lavender. It's restful, if you're having trouble sleeping.”

I shake my head at him. “I need more air than that,” I say. “Plain air.”

I don't know if I'm using the right words—will Ennio know what I'm really asking? He does. His eyes shutter, and his voice becomes tight and low. He wants me gone and that lets me know that I might be on the right track.

“No,” he says. “
No.
I don't sell that kind. My air is for people who want to stay comfortable right here in Atlantia.”

I think he's lying to me.
Why? Because I'm young? A girl? Because he doesn't like the sound of my voice? I'm tired of that getting in my way. “How much
would
plain air cost, if someone were to sell that kind?” I press. “A tank of it, pressurized? Can you tell me that, at least?”

I think he won't answer, but he does. “A thousand at best,” he says, “and there's no guarantee that you're even getting what you pay for. You might have an empty canister or one that won't do you a bit of good because it hasn't been pressurized correctly. And you won't live long enough to take more than one or two breaths of that. Some want to try to go up on their own, and there are those who don't mind profiting from the stupidity of others. But no one's ever made it Above unless the Council's taken them up.”

A thousand coin. Almost twice the amount Bay left me.

“I should turn you in,” Ennio says, watching me. “The Council likes to know who asks these kinds of questions.”

“There's no need,” I say. “I wouldn't try it. I wanted to know what was possible.”

“Going Above isn't possible,” Ennio says. “You're young. Don't throw everything away.” I nod and do my best to appear chagrined.

He's no siren. He told me what I need to know, but he doesn't have the power to change my mind.

Aldo has pinned up the brackets in the usual place on the wall of the market stalls nearest the racing lanes. I'm surprised to find that I feel a stirring of excitement. It will be nice to have a distraction, something to do with my body. I've been restless since Bay left and I stopped swimming, and of course there are reasons for what I'm going to do—I have to get strong enough to swim to the Above and fast enough to get around the mines, and I have to win enough coin to buy an air tank to take with me. I don't think Ennio will refuse to sell to me if I show up with a thousand coin in hand. And the way he spoke about the air and the sellers tells me that he, at least, attempts to sell air that will work.

But I don't see my last name—Conwy—on any of the brackets. I read them over again and turn around to see Aldo walking in my direction. He shakes his head.

“They said no,” he tells me, when he gets close. “Neither the bettors nor the other racers were willing for you to take her place.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Didn't you tell them that I could keep up with her in training?”

“Yes,” Aldo says, “and they know it anyway from seeing the two of you swim together. But you didn't earn her place. Bay did, and she's gone.”

I suppose I can understand this. Although I've seen Bay and myself as two halves of the same whole for years, everyone else might not feel that way. “All right,” I say. “I'll start at the bottom. In the low brackets.”

Aldo shakes his head. “You can't race. At all.”

“Why not?” I clench my hands into fists. “They raced Bay. Why am I any different?”

“You just are,” Aldo says. “There's something wrong about you.”

If they only knew.
Everything
is wrong about me.

How am I supposed to get faster—and stronger—without anyone to race?

There's nothing I can do about it.

Except, there is.

I could speak to Aldo, putting barely any sound behind the word; it could be made mostly of air, my breath against his neck as I leaned in. I would hardly have to use any of my real voice. But he'd hear a hint of it, close to him and only for him.
“Please,”
I'd whisper, and in spite of himself he'd close his eyes. He'd do whatever I said. I know he would.

But I don't do it.

In that moment I remember the money I brought with me.

“Then I'll rent a lane,” I say. “Right now.”

“For what?” he asks. “You'll waste your coin. No one's going to race you.”

A few of the bettors and other racers have gathered around to listen, to see what I'll do. I don't look at any of them. I keep my eyes on Aldo.

“I'll swim against myself,” I say.

Aldo laughs. “No one will watch that,” he says. “No one will bet on it.”

“That's fine,” I say. “I'm not doing it for them.” My mind buzzes with ways to make swimming harder, to push myself. Should I use some of my money to buy one of the fancier training suits, the kind with resistance to make you stronger? And then I realize I'm already wearing the perfect suit. My machinist's gear from work will weigh me down. It will be hard to swim in this, and I can let it dry overnight so I can wear it again tomorrow.

I step down into the lane. The water drags on me and it's hard to walk. I hear people laughing, someone saying that I'd do better to take everything off, someone else saying that there's always been something odd about the other Conwy girl. I duck my head under the water and I no longer hear anything they say.

I can barely swim the first few strokes after I push away from the wall. The weight of my clothing pulls me down. But then I remind myself.
It's going to be harder than this to get to the surface. And you don't know how far you'll have to swim once you get up there. This is nothing. This is the very beginning of what you'll have to do.

I look down at the black line along the center of the lane, the one that keeps you away from the sides if you follow it. I keep to that line, with all the drag and pull from my suit weighing on me, and I don't stop until I've made it all the way down and back, over and over again, until I'm afraid that I will actually drown.

I climb back out. My clothes are soaked, and my muscles tremble from the effort.

People are watching. Some of them laugh. Some of them cheer. But they're all paying attention, and I fight down a smile. They have reminded me of something I have always known, something that my mother knew how to play upon. People love a spectacle, an event. Give them something to watch and you will make them happy. “So much of life is in the smallness of moments,” my mother said. “But they are harder to mark. So we need the grander celebrations and occasions. People like to feel significant.”

Maybe if I give them something good enough to watch when I swim alone, they'll pay me for it. What if I made it so interesting that I could draw a crowd? The thought terrifies me, but then my time in the lanes would serve two purposes: I could train for the swim to the Above,
and
I could make money to buy the air tank I need.

“I'll rent a lane again, same time tomorrow,” I tell Aldo. “Tell anyone who's interested. And I'll do something new next time.”

“You think they're going to care?” he asks.

“They already do,” I say, pointing at the crowd. They think I'm odd. No one wants to swim against me. But they don't mind watching me take risks myself.

I don't have extra clothes with me, so I have to drip my way home. I pass one of the stalls that sells pastries cut into wedges, with flaky crusts and nuts and raisins and brown sugar inside. My stomach rolls with hunger. But I need to save my coin. Every bit of it. I worry already about how much I've spent. I need to make all the money back, and much more besides.

I pause for a moment near a stall where a vendor sells tiny bottles of dirt (marked as R
EAL AND
F
ROM
A
BOVE)
.
In spite of the labels, I feel certain that the dirt must be counterfeit, and I want to say something to the woman who counts out coin with shaking hands to buy a bottle from the smarmy-looking vendor.
I've seen the real thing up close,
I want to tell her,
and this isn't it.

I know what dirt looks like because my mother let us look at the large jar of earth that sits on top of the altar. She even let us open the jar. We couldn't touch the dirt, but we could certainly see how dark and rich it was, and sometimes I felt that the smell of it was the smell of home.

But not everyone is as lucky as I was, and if this woman wants to think she has a tiny jar of real soil, perhaps it's worth it. After all, I liked believing that my sister and I told each other everything, and that turned out not to be true.

Was it ever true?

I know it was.

When did it change?

I have no idea.

I don't realize that I've stopped walking until someone bumps into me and
tsk
s
at my waterlogged clothes. A few children point and laugh at me.

Everything is heavy.

I want this pain off my back. I want to stop thinking about why Bay left and whether or not I can believe Maire. The swimming has worn me out, which is good, because I didn't have to think of Bay while I was doing it, but it's also when I'm exhausted that the dark loneliness breaks in.

And I realize that in order to go up through the floodgates, I have to trade places with someone else. I have to slip into the morgue and arrange myself like a body. I have to hide the real corpse, whoever it is they mean to send up. And, of course, in hoping for the floodgates to open, I am hoping for someone to die. I am hoping for someone to die so that I can leave.

I pass the vendors who sell jewelry—ornate silver; round, carved beads; puddles of stone and glass held together with wire and metal—and then I see something that stops me in my tracks.

It's a ring, arranged on black velvet in a glass-lidded case, and even though I don't care anything about jewelry, I know that ring.

It's the one that belonged to my mother. The one Bay forgot to bring to the morgue that day.

The ring is made of platinum and inlaid with brown and blue. My father gave it to my mother on their wedding day. It is extremely precious, because the blue is a gem called turquoise and the brown is wood, both rare materials from Above. My father had my mother's name engraved inside the band, and then, when Bay and I were born, he had our names engraved there, too.

After my mother went up through the floodgates, Bay wore this ring every day.

Was she wearing it the day she went Above?

I can't remember.

You're not allowed to take anything valuable with you when you choose the Above. Only the clothes on your back. So did someone take this from Bay after she chose the Divide? And bring it to the deepmarket to sell?

Or was it gone before then?

Could Bay have sold it?

I shiver and stare, trying to make sense of what I see. Could this ring be a counterfeit, like the dirt sold in bottles? If so, it's a perfect replica, and the closer I look, the more I recognize that silver band inlaid with wood and blue stone, smooth, circling.