“It’s all the same story, again and again,” she would complain. “Why waste our little time with crap that never changes?”
“Because what can be predicted can be understood,” he had argued. “And in little ways, the inevitable can be beaten.”
They had some fine debates on the subject, yes.
But ten days ago, there was a change. The girl turned pleasant overnight. She still didn’t want to read history, but she was polite, even sweet about her defiance. A smile kept surfacing, and what most alarmed Nissim was that he believed in her smile. But the girl had always been an accomplished liar. So long as Elata’s true thoughts were a mystery, he intended to watch her carefully.
“Seldom,” said the Master. “Would you please read the bottom passage?”
The boy’s long back needed to be straightened, and Seldom always grew serious when reading. Even reciting a joke, words came out slow and heavy.
“ ‘The first person to define the natural motions of weight was not Akkan Cheen, as is commonly thought. At least three other scientists from three distinct earlier ages have been credited for making these discoveries independently. It seems as though each era of social order and relative wealth leads to the same epiphanies, and perhaps that is the mark of real disorder—when we forget what should be self-evident, and for the willing mind, what should be most beautiful.’ ”
Seldom finished with a grin.
Nissim once took Diamond aside, saying, “You deserve to be told. The best student that I have—the finest that I’ve ever known—is Seldom. It isn’t you, and that probably won’t ever change.”
Diamond had the perfect memory, but Seldom adored knowledge.
Diamond could easily outthink his friend, yet he never outworked him or wrung half as much pleasure from an elegant thought found inside his own head.
To all three students, the Master said, “I adore that passage.”
Diamond nodded, waiting.
“And why do I like it?”
Diamond was listening and reading in his head, and he was looking at Elata too. He saw her serious focused and very pretty face and how the long pencil swirled over the paper, creating the shaggy magnificence of a blackwood tree.
The girl habitually drew pictures of her lost home.
“Diamond,” said the Master.
Diamond blinked and looked ahead, ready for an answer to pop into his mind.
Then Nissim said, “No. Not your first response.”
The boy blinked, a little startled.
“Give me your eighth reaction. Will you try to do that for me?”
He wasn’t sure that was possible, but he started to resurrect what had just happened inside his head, counting the ideas.
Then the sentries’ call-line cackled.
A sour voice said, “Yeah?”
Something felt peculiar. Mother was standing in the hallway, leaning toward their protectors. Everyone listened as the sentry said nothing. They heard his boots sliding on the bloodwood floor, and the man taking a deep nervous breath. It was easy to imagine neck veins bulging, and maybe his hand shook a little. Then the same voice said one more word.
“Understood.”
But the sentry didn’t quite understand. He got as far as Mother before he stopped and delivered the news.
“That was the Archon,” he said, amazed by the important voice. “They found another one and they’re bringing it to big abattoir on Jakken’s Tree.”
“Another what?” Nissim asked.
“You know,” the man said, trying to sound sharp and informed. “It’s one of those special coronas.”
What did that mean?
“A detachment’s coming to take you,” he continued. “All of you. The Archon and King are already leaving . . . but he wants all of you brought after him.”
“What special corona?” Diamond asked.
But the answer had already popped into his head, and it was probably in everyone else’s head too.
Another silence got started.
And then as they were sharing numbed, astonished looks, Elata suddenly stood up, throwing her pencil down, a loud grim half-happy voice saying, “Well, good. Now we can finally be outside.”
Elata had known her intentions for the last few days.
As soon as she had the chance, whenever that was, she was going to climb over a convenient railing or open a likely window and then jump to her death.
The image found her one morning, clear and sharp and perfect. Her plan had one immediate benefit: for the first time in ages, Elata felt something that resembled happiness. She wasn’t joyful or ready to laugh, but the massive ache dragging at her soul was gone. A decision was made. Like the old phrase said: “One branch left to walk.” All that remained was finding the means while not losing her focus. She didn’t want others watching her when she did it, because that would be mean. But she also couldn’t afford to be picky with time and place. The others would try to stop her. Give them any warning, and they’d throw words at her, kindness and lies wrapped together, and they would use their own bodies too. But none of their warm-hearted efforts would work. Elata was certainly the dumbest person inside this house, and that might include Good. But better than anyone else, she didn’t bother trying to find the best answers to every smart, unanswerable question, and when given an answer to what mattered, she would never waste time with doubt or thinking twice.
Life wasn’t big enough for doubts, and after the first day of being alive, everything started filling up fast.
Elata knew that better than anyone.
Her bedroom was a mess of stuffed drawers and overflowing boxes and dirty clothes thrown over the clean, and standing in the middle of that unmapped chaos, she yelled at people who probably weren’t even thinking about her, telling them that she would be there in another two breaths.
Where did she hide her purse?
There. The leather-and-brass satchel was tucked at the bottom of a wooden box filled with secondhand dolls. It made her a little sick, reaching past those brightly painted big-eyed faces. She never liked playing with dolls. They were nothing but fancy sticks. Real babies and grown people never looked this way. But some old woman decided that she was another orphan needing toys, and the gift came with a soft pat on the shoulders. Elata had threatened to throw all of them away. But that was when they first arrived here and everybody was trying to be nice. Haddi took Elata aside to talk. With her most reasonable voice, the despairing widow told the gloomy orphan girl, “You should keep them, in case you have a daughter someday.”
Elata was living with strange, sick people, and talk about a daughter was just another example of how screwed up everyone was.
People they knew and people they didn’t know were always looking at Diamond and then at her.
She knew what they were thinking.
And she knew even better what she was thinking, which seemed like a blessing lately. This was the day to leave the world, she knew. Unless a different day would be better. Either way, Elata had a fancy purse filled with folded up drawings—the big drawings of blackwoods that others had seen, and also the secret drawings of her mother and her long dead father, plus her friends, including half a dozen careful drawings showing Diamond at various ages.
Seldom called plaintively to Elata.
She ran back to the main doorway, except nobody was there except one young soldier, and his only duty was to wave her towards the half-secret emergency exit in the back of the house.
Haddi was the first person she saw. The old woman was telling the monkey to stay behind, and Good stuck out his chest, glad for the order. New soldiers had appeared, unfamiliar faces and muscles and office clothes bulging where the guns tried to hide, and only one of those men had a voice. He told Elata that she was wasting time. She smiled, making apologetic sounds. The hidden door led into a tunnel that existed only in reality and inside a few heads. No map or official diagram included this passageway cut through the bloodwood’s trunk. She had used it twice before, and it emptied onto a private landing owned by a fictional citizen, and there were three routes off the landing, into the mayhem of this overpopulated District.