Transcendent (27 page)

“Please. Please listen. I'm trying; I am. I'm visiting people who need . . .”
Me
, I almost said. But that word, that idea, still caught in my throat. “People who need help. I'm not ignoring you. I see you out here every day, and I'm listening. But standing with signs in front of my home isn't doing any good. I need my privacy. Please go back to your lives, and let me live mine. I'll do my best, but that's all I can promise. Okay?”

Instead of nodding and waving good-bye, as I'd maybe naively hoped, they responded with a chorus of eager questions, more frantic even than before, pressing
in tighter, closer to the gate. The voices, the words, all melded into one long, terrible string as I leaned back against Zane's chest for balance.

Who are you helping? Tell us more! Can you help me? My mom? My sister? Who do you think you are? Liar! Healer! Touch my hand! Damn you! Help me! Burn in hell! Sign my Bible! Iris! Iris! Please!

I saw the two women with the banner I'd first passed on the sidewalk, both in their seventies, I'd guess, with graying hair and glasses, colorful scarves, and knit beanies. They reminded me of Nanny. But then my eyes landed on that neon yellow.
YOU MUST SAVE US ALL.
The poster Ari had seen the other day.

“I'm doing all I can do,” I said, though my own frail voice was nothing against the crowd. “You have to believe me.”

“Let's go,” Zane said, tugging me up the steps. “You did what you wanted to do.” I let him pull me along, turning away from the crowd.

Ari had been right.

The old ladies' poster was just as scary as the
CRUCIFY THE SPE
RO
banner she'd seen out there, too. Because it was still a threat. What if I
didn't
save everyone? And I couldn't. Maddie Rae was proof of that. So what then?

What would be my punishment?

I
DIDN'T IMME
DIATELY
tell my parents about my public announcement, but I hadn't needed to. My face was all over the news, my grand proclamation about helping people, my assurance that I was doing the best I could do.

“Oh, Iris,” my dad said with a sigh, hugging me as we all sat in the living room, staring at the TV screen. Cal was perched on a chair by the window, peeping through the curtain every few minutes, his pale face disturbingly blank. “I know you probably thought you were helping, but . . .”

My dad didn't need to finish the sentence. The crowd had more than doubled after my little display. Now that people knew I was definitely here, that I was definitely helping, they were only more determined to beg me or condemn me. Apparently the “please go away” bit of my speech was the least memorable.

Cops had tried to break the crowd apart, at least
temporarily. And my dad had disappeared for a while and come back with a gigantic pit bull—Marvin, my dad's friend's dog, whom I'd already met a handful of times. Friendly enough but fiercely loyal, and entirely intimidating looking with his massive, slobbery jowls. He'd be sleeping by the front door all night, watching over the stoop. Marvin made me feel safer than the security system, but still . . .

After dinner I peeked out from the front window, and at least a few people were back, lingering along the sidewalk. I pulled the curtain shut and collapsed on the couch, every last inch of me drained. Even my skin somehow felt tired, my hair, my fingernails.

How long could I do this? How many days, how many kids?

“Hey,” Zane said, dropping down on the floor in front of me, Zoey and Caleb just behind him. Zoey hopped onto the sofa and I shifted my legs, letting her curl up along my side. I patted the other open cushion, motioning to a hesitant-looking Caleb. But he shook his head and crouched down next to Zane on the floor. He'd still barely spoken to me since we'd all come back together. I needed Cal time, I realized. One-on-one, just the two of us. This weirdness, it had to end.

But right now . . . right now I just wanted to lie there.

“You don't look so good.” Zane brushed a stray hair
from my face, tucking it behind my ear. My cheeks warmed at the touch.

One good thing about being so busy, so tired, so scared and confused—I didn't have time to analyze what was going on between me and Zane. How much time we were spending together, how he was still sticking around. How glad it made me that he was.

“I'm just worn out,” I said. I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as my thoughts settled in, heavier and more solid. Every doubt and every fear that I'd ignored—had to ignore, if I was going to do this at all—started creeping back in. I was too weak to hold it back. “I don't know how long I can keep this up, how long I can keep giving people hope before they realize I'm just a disappointment, that I can't
actually
heal them . . . And there's school to consider, too. Orchestra, my training, auditions. The rest of my life. I mean, really, what
am
I doing?”

“Firstly, you're not a disappointment, Iris,” Zane said, frowning at me. “You're not claiming to be working any crazy magic on these kids. You're just making them feel like they still have good and happy things to live for. Sure, some people are still going to get angry if you don't solve things for them. Like that ass today at the hospital, who had no right to take anything out on you.” His hands balled into fists at his sides, and he jammed them hard in his pockets, sighing. “But, Iris . . . you'll never make
everyone happy. It's not possible. So you have to do what makes
you
most happy.”

I nodded, his words spilling through my cluttered brain like cool water.

“And maybe you don't see it,” he said more quietly, his intense gaze searing into me, “but you've changed in these last few days. There's something in your eyes that wasn't there before. A fire. Like you want to be doing this. You
need
to be doing this. It's who you are.”

I wasn't sure he was right about that. But I wasn't sure that he was totally wrong, either.

“All I know,” I said, “is that what I'm doing now—it feels too small for how exhausting it is. If I'm going to do anything at all, putting myself out there like I am . . . then I want to be doing so much more than this. It feels so insignificant when I think about how many kids are still out there, like I'm barely scratching at the surface.”

“What are your options, though,” Zane asked, “besides getting every kid in one room?”

Every kid in one room
. Impossible, obviously, but still—there was something to that, the idea of bringing these kids all together in some way. Kids who were mostly going through so much of this recovery alone, in their own isolated family units.

“What if . . .” I started, trailing off as a zillion tiny fragments of an idea began colliding in my mind.

“What if what?” Zoey asked, batting at my leg to get my attention.

“I don't know, I'm just thinking, but . . . what if we could somehow get a group of these kids together? Kids who are in this general area, at least.”

“And what, just hang out?” Zane asked, his brow furrowing. “A lot of these families are struggling to get by, with all the medical bills. Parents needing to quit jobs to take care of their kids, or getting fired because they're too deep in grief to work. Janelle and Sam didn't talk about it—they're too proud for that shit—but I know things are hard right now.”

“So you think we should help with some kind of fund-raiser, maybe?” I asked, though the question immediately felt so obvious. The kids could come together, and they could help raise money at the same time—much-needed money for their families, and for other families who couldn't actually be there.

“Maybe,” Zane said. “But what would the kids actually
do
? Not to be a downer or anything, but most of the more injured ones can't do much of anything right now. And even the kids who
can
don't want to. So what would you have them all do, just wave and fake smile for a camera to get money?”

“I don't know,” I said, raking my fingers through one particularly knotted strand of hair. The idea was there but
not—I could just barely see A and C, and B was missing altogether. I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about these kids, these strong, resilient, awe-inspiring kids I'd met in the last three days. Zane was right—they certainly weren't up for any dance marathons or charity sporting events, but that didn't mean they had to just sit around in their chairs.

“I have an idea,” Zoey said slowly, “though it's probably nothing. It's probably dumb.”

“I'm sure it's not dumb,” I said, pushing myself up so that I was sitting, facing her. “I want to hear anything you have, trust me.”

“Well, I told you how Brinley was super into music. She used to write some of her own songs. They were really, really good. Weren't they, Zane?” She glanced over at him and I followed, watched him nod in agreement. “Some of them were funny; some were really serious. She was so good at it, she would have been . . .” Her voice caught, but she shook it off, straightened her shoulders, and looked at me straight on. “She would have been famous someday, I bet, if she hadn't died. She would have been a superstar.”

“I'm sure she would have been,” I said, overcome again with the deep, persistent ache that had clung to me those past few days. Every family, every child I'd met—when I left them, it was as if I physically carried a piece of their heartbreak with me. Like a bag of jagged rocks, no two
the same, rattling and scraping against me everywhere I went, every hour of the day. But I couldn't toss them out, couldn't scatter them behind me, no matter how painful they became. I needed to carry them. I needed the constant presence, the weight, the reminder.

Brinley's music. My music, too. Slowly, creakily, as if an old rusty knob was twisting in my mind, a door opened and there it was . . .

“Music,” I said, the realization dropping on me all at once, so heavy, so certain, that I wasn't sure how I'd been oblivious to it before then. “That's one thing that all the kids I've met have in common. They can make or at least appreciate music—whether it's them singing or humming or tapping, or even just swaying their shoulders and listening. Music makes people feel better. And music,” I said, grabbing for Zoey's hands, “is something that Brinley can help us with, too. Do you think we could look through some of her songs, Zoey?”

As soon as I'd said the words, I realized my mistake. Of course we couldn't get to Brinley's music. Not without talking to her parents, Zane and Zoey's aunt and uncle.

But it was too late to backstep. I could see it in Zoey's eyes, all of her ordinary defenses gone as she smiled at me, those warm golden brown eyes so alive and so radiant.

“I'll ask them,” Zane said, his voice steady and even.
Like it was that simple. My jaw gaped open as I turned to face him. He would go back there—he would see Monica and Leo again? For
this
?

“I think it's a good idea,” he continued, his lips pulled tight into a straight line as he returned my stare. His eyes were dark and glassy, unreadable. He must be scared—how could he not be?—but he was too proud to let Zoey see. To let
me
see. “Zoey's right, Brinley's songs were great. I always told her she had the mind of an old lady trapped in a little kid's body, the things she used to think and say. These songs . . . her songs were pretty deep. They were
real
. Brin would like this idea, I think, getting these kids together to do her songs.”

“And maybe they could write some of their own songs, too,” Caleb chimed in softly. It was the first time he'd spoken since we'd sat down, and the sound of it—his voice, the hope—made me warm with happiness. “They could sing some of Brinley's stuff to start—but they could maybe be writing new songs, too. Songs about what happened. About their lives now.” He paused, sucking his lips in as he waited to hear our response.

“That's perfect, Cal,” I said, grabbing his hand before he could stop me, the excitement buzzing through me louder now, more urgent. “And maybe . . . maybe it doesn't have to be just a one-day, onetime thing.”

I stopped myself there, the idea whirling and building
to epic proportions in my mind. Too grand to say out loud, maybe. Too big to take back.

“What do you mean?” Caleb asked. He pulled his hand away.

“I'm not exactly sure, but . . . maybe some of these kids can keep singing and writing songs—maybe they can travel to other places, around the country, around the
world
even, so they can spread the message beyond New York City. Then it's not just this one place. It's everywhere.”

I could go, too,
I realized, the words jolting every other thought to a standstill.
I could go with them.
Play my violin. Play my music, too.

I could travel—the country, the world—meeting hundreds of thousands of people along the way. People who I had no doubt would come out to see these kids. People, too, who would come out to see
me
.

I'd be putting auditions and college on hold for a little while—but I wasn't giving up on my dream, was I? All I'd ever wanted was to play music. This wasn't school orchestra, but I had a feeling it would be even better. Much better.

Zane had said that I needed to do what made
me
happy. But I also knew I wasn't off the hook—and I never would be, not for the rest of my life. Because I needed to do what made
other
people happy, too. Maybe this way, though . . . I could do both.

This idea was insane. It was big, too big probably. But I wanted it.

Zane shook his head, a loud, unfamiliar belly laugh spilling from his lips.

“You're even crazier than I thought. But you're going to do this, aren't you?”

•   •   •

I couldn't sleep that night. Instead of fighting it, I did what I'd been simultaneously desperate to do and desperate to avoid ever since I'd been back home with my laptop, the sleeping screen a black, unblinking eye staring at me from my desk.

“Iris Spero,” I typed in the search bar.

I shouldn't have been surprised by the number of results. Not after I'd seen the thousands of pages that had been dedicated to my mom. But still, seeing my name, over and over, a long list of news articles, blogs, social media sites—it was a lot to take in.
Virgin Mina. Messiah. Second Coming. Heaven, Hell. To believe or not to believe. Heretic. Crucify. Damnation.

The keywords blazed from the screen, the black ink of the text seeming to spill out from the monitor.

I clicked a new page open, logging in to my e-mail.