Idols (14 page)

“Of course he did. Our mother’s name is Ramona, did he ever tell you that?”

I smile.

“That’s what this bird represents. Life, for all of us. That there’s something worth fighting for, even something worth dying for.”

He sounds like his brother, this Bishop. They sound so much alike.

“Do you really believe that?” I’m suddenly curious, as if his beliefs could make me believe something too. Just as the Padre’s did, for so many years.

But they can’t
, I tell myself.
Not anymore. No matter how much I wish they could.

“‘Hope is the thing with feathers.’ It’s a line from an old poem. Emma Dickinson, I think that’s the name.” He smiles. “Maybe she was a member of a resistance too.”

I hand the pin back to him. “You didn’t answer the question.” I feel bad saying it, but it’s true.

“You have to hope. You have to believe that things will get better, that there’s a reason to push on.”

“But is there? Do you really think that? Even with the House of Lords and the Embassies and the GAP, even in spite of the ships and the Icons and the Projects and the Silent Cities?”

He nods.

“After what they did to your brother? To Fortis?”

The words come out before I can stop myself. The Bishop plays with the edge of the ledger on his desk.

Even the ledger reminds me of the Padre. And even losing Fortis reminds me of losing the Padre.

“It isn’t easy,” the Bishop finally says, with a smile. “But hope is a fragile thing. Without hope there is nothing. Hope is what we fight for.”

“I don’t have time for feathers. I’m just trying to survive,” I say, “like everyone else.”
Like they couldn’t
, I think.
Fortis, the Padre, my family…

“Why?” The Bishop taps his desk.

“What do you mean, why?” I’m confused.

“If you don’t have hope, why bother? What does it matter? Why try to survive at all?” The Bishop keeps tapping. He won’t look at me.

“I have to.”
Don’t I?

“Why?”

“Because?”
I don’t know.

“Because why?”

“Because he wanted me to.” The words come tumbling out of my mouth and the truth of it stops me short.

There. That’s what it is.

That’s what it always was.

I am surprised, but I shouldn’t be. The birthday talks about my gift. The book. The lessons.

The Padre taught me to fight.

The Bishop smiles. “There you go. Maybe that is the fight.”

My eyes burn. I don’t care if the tears come. I’ve cried so many times in front of this man’s warm brown eyes, even if they belonged to someone else. “I’m a Grassgirl. I’m not a soldier. I’m not a leader. I’m lost.”

I feel better just saying it, my kitchen table confession. The Bishop smiles at me as if I were very young. It is a kind smile, the smile of the sort of man who lets a pig sleep in his bed at night, and the memory is so strong and so fierce that my breath catches involuntarily.

How rare these smiles are now.

How long it has been since I have had one all to myself.

“Of course you are, Dolly. You’ve been fighting since you were born. Every day is a fight with you. And you’re more than a soldier. The way you live, the things you feel—you’re more alive than any of us. More human. I’d give ten of my best Belters for one Doloria de la Cruz.” He reaches across the table, clasping my hand.

I don’t want to let go. To me, this man really is the Padre. As I listen to him, the face of the Bishop fades, and the face of the Padre looks over at me across the wooden table. I feel like I am sitting, once again, on a wooden bench at a long wooden table with my Padre. All I care is that this wooden bench feels like home.

That is how I will push on, I tell myself. This man. This Bishop who is not a bishop—a Padre who is not the Padre—a Fortis who is not a Fortis—but who keeps them all alive to me.

He fills me with hope. Hope and feathers.

I guess you could say he’s my silver bird, the only one I have, and the only one I’ve ever seen.

Except in my dreams.

I sit forward in my chair. “Bishop, I need your help.”

“Anything.”

“It’s not just me.” I look at him. “It’s all of us.”

“The Icon Children?”

I nod.

“The five of us.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Five?”

Once again I find myself in the position of telling the Bishop my story, the story of my dreams. As I speak, I reach into my chestpack for the jade figurines. My hand finds the Icon shard first, and I pause for a moment, feeling its calming yet unsettling warmth. For the thousandth time I imagine getting rid of it, but I don’t. I can’t. It has somehow become as much a part of me as the marking on my wrist. I leave it in my pack.

The jades I can share.

Not everything else. Not yet.

When I finish, he picks up one of the jade figurines from his desk. I see that I have placed them between us in a meticulous line, without even realizing it.

Without moving his eyes from the figurine, he slides open his desk drawer.

In his hand I see a carved piece of chipped green stone. Another figurine. Part of the same set, carved by the same hand. The Bishop places it next to mine.

“That can’t be a coincidence.” He looks at me. “More like a sign.”

The Emerald Buddha.

“I don’t believe it.”

The chess piece from my dreams, the one the little jade girl gave me.

“Believe it,” he says. “It used to belong to my brother.”

“Where did he get it? And why?” I ask, wonderingly.

“The Hole, I thought. He was quite a scavenger, my brother. He found you, didn’t he?”

I nod, wordlessly.

“Aside from that, I never knew why he’d sent me this—at least, not until now. I suspect,” he says, smiling, “he sent it for you. Maybe he had a dream, like one of yours. Take it.”

He pushes the carved piece toward me.

“Eastasia,” he says, slowly. “That’s probably what you were dreaming about. That’s what it sounds like, anyway, from how you describe it.”

“It does?”

“Watery fields? You plant rice in water. Those are the fields you’re describing. I think you’re dreaming about rice paddies.”

“Go on,” I say, trying as hard as I can not to let myself believe him. Not to get my hopes up.

“The trees with no tops, that’s the jungle, beneath the canopy. The golden temple on the hill, that probably means it’s not the Americas, but Asia. Eastasia, maybe. Or south of there.”

“And the green on green? The green everything?”

“The more green, the more south. Like I said, my guess would be Eastasia, maybe the SEA Colonies. From the South East Asian land reclamation project.”

On the other side of the sea. Farther away than anything I’ve ever imagined.

The Bishop picks up the jade monkey, turning it over and over in his hands. Then he frowns.

“In fact, did Fortis ever tell you he used to work over in the SEA Colonies, Doloria?”

“He did?”

The Bishop nods. “There’s a lot you don’t know about the Merk, I’m guessing.” He frowns. “Didn’t. As I said, I’m sorry for your loss. All of them.”

I nod, swallowing.

“Do you think you can help me?” I look to the Bishop.

He nods, slowly. “We might be able to determine the number of gold temples built on mountaintops in view of rice fields. We could at least try.”

For the first time, it actually sounds logical. Possible. Terrifyingly so.

I swallow. He pulls out a map, tracing routes between us and the Californias—between the Californias and Eastasia.

“It’s pretty hot out there right about now. Sympa activity is off the charts. And not just on our mountain; from here to the Hole, it’s swarming.”

“I don’t have a choice, Bishop.”

He nods, tapping the map. “Well, then. If you’re looking at anywhere in Eastasia, I know a ship headed there out of the Porthole, not three days from now. There’s a routine passage. We’ve got a line into one, a good group of bribable Brass. Could probably get you on, if you were sure about this.”

Three days.

I can almost feel the little bird fluttering its wings as I hear the words.

“But, Dol. Even if you make it across the New Pacific—it’s a different game over there. You might be in trouble, from the first moment you set foot on land. And where you’re going, there wouldn’t be anyone to help you. No one you can trust.”

I stand. “Nothing new about that. I’ll talk to the others.”

That’s what I say, but I know the answer already. There’s no one left to help us, anywhere. Not anymore. No matter how much they want to.

We’ll take our chances.

We don’t have many of those left, either.

I lie in the darkness listening to the sounds of Tima breathing. For a few moments, it is comforting to watch another person’s oblivion.

Until it isn’t.

It’s a strange feeling for a Grassgirl to have a rare, comfortable bed and still not be able to find anything close to comfort.

Tonight my bed feels like a grave.

I toss and turn and torment myself with thinking. It’s like picking at a scab, only worse, because the scab never comes off. I just keep picking.

Three days.

A ship is leaving in just three days.

Am I really this brave?

Can I really do what Fortis wanted and leave him behind—face Eastasia or the Wash or the SEA Colonies without him? Even the memory of him?

All because of my dreams?

I roll over, trying another position, burying my face in the pillow.

It’s too much. I don’t know the answers. The questions are getting too big.

Maybe I want to be small.

Maybe I want to be small and shallow and superficial. Maybe I want my life to be made up of small problems and smaller decisions.

What to eat for breakfast. Where to go, or not. What to do, or not. What to like, or not.

Who to love.

Could that be small as well? Would it matter?

If my life really were that little, would it be different? Would I know?

Small feelings? What would that feel like?

I would wake up without my heart pounding.

I would see a face lined with birthdays and not see my own death.

I would be calm in the sunshine, not waiting for the clouds to roll in.

I’d be gentle with myself. Measured.

Would I be happy? Is happy a small feeling too? Can it be?

I close my eyes and wonder but sleep does not come back for me.

So I do what I always do. I stop trying to be comfortable. Instead, I get up and keep going.

I have to. It’s all I know how to do.

So I pull on my clothes and my chestpack. Shove my feet into my old army boots. Familiar. And perfectly uncomfortable.

Then I notice that the bed begins to rattle beneath my folded sweater. I pick up my sweater, looking up to the ceiling, where the light begins to sway.

I gasp, clutching my temples. My head roils, as if it will explode. A thousand screaming voices accost me, all at once, and I can’t make out a single word they are saying.

Stop.

Slow down.

I can’t understand.

I wonder if it is an earthquake. It sounds and feels like the Tracks when a train is close.