The Treemakers (A YA Dystopian Scifi Romance Adventure) (32 page)

“Don’t apologize.” He wraps an arm gently around my shoulder. “I’m so sorry you lost your sister. And if they come, we’ll be ready for them. I’ll brief my
militia shortly.”

With Mateo limping badly, and Emerson helping to steady him by gripping under his arm, we head toward Johnny and Pedro standing at the bunker’s open door. When we reach them, Johnny’s at the part where we’d headed to Zentao on the trolley to drop off the children. Pedro’s listening, but he’s also staring at the moonlit ocean, tears streaming down his face. When he sees me, he scoops me up and holds me there for close to forever, rocking me back and forth, back and forth, to the rhythm of the waves hushing against
the shore.

“Thank you,” he says. “For saving
my life.”

“But I’ve lost two
. . . .
Aby,
your brother—”

“You’re the one who told me, when our mother died
. . . .
” He taps his heart. “No one ever really dies. And your sister, my brother
. . .
they risked their lives for the ones they loved. They’ll live forever in our hearts
. . .
as heroes.”

After I’ve spent a whole day in bed, Ms. Ruby makes me get up and take a shower. She brings me sweet tea, which I’m sure has nectar from the gods snuck into it. Instantly, my body’s rejuvenated. Not so much my mind, though. As I wash, my entire life flashes through my thoughts, and when I get to Aby, things grow dark around the brilliant smile she had before they locked us in the dungeon. Before Emmanuel Superior took her hair, and before Miguel died and her sister wouldn’t forgive her for making a mistake. Guilt swallows me whole, tightens its grip around my heart. Only one person I can think to talk
to now.

I find her at dinnertime with Chloe and Baby Lou. Vila, Emerson, and Pia are nearby, with Mateo close enough for me to touch. But the feeling of vitality the mere thought of his touch once brought is now gone. At least for the
time being.

“Are you okay?” Smudge
asks me.

I pick at my food, which smells delicious, but can’t talk myself into
eating it.

“No,” I admit. “Can we talk?
After dinner?”

“Yes, of course. I think Ms. Ruby’s planning an honoring ceremony for Aby and Miguel
. . .
on the beach after dinner. Do you want to talk before, or
after that?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.
Maybe both.”

She takes a bite of her food. “
Of course.”

I try to help Baby Lou with a few bites, but she’s determined to do it herself, now that food’s delicious, not hideously disgusting. She gets it everywhere, but she’s having fun, and I don’t care enough to stop
her anyway.

“Don’t worry,” says Smudge. “I’ll clean it up when she’
s finished.”

“
Thank you.”

Ms. Ruby announces the ceremony time as everyone finishes eating. One by one, children deliver their plates to the kitchen counter to be washed, then head outside. The sun’s setting beautifully over the ocean. Seeing it makes me feel slightly better, though I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel
entirely so.

How do you move on
from this?

How do you let go of someone
you love?

How do you forgive yourself, when someone you loved died before you could even
forgive them?

Through most of the ceremony, I’m numb. I hear Ms. Ruby talking, then children take turns sharing fond memories of Aby and Miguel. Then
. . .
it’s my turn. My knees are wobbly as I walk over to the fire and peer into the faces of everyone I love—missing two. Then and there, I make
a decision.

“To be strong in the face of weakness,” I begin. “This is something our sister, Abrilynne, and our brother, Miguel, taught me. To smile, though there’s pain. To laugh, though there’s sorrow. To love, no matter what. And to forgive.” I wipe my tears and continue with quivering lips. “Sometimes in life, there’s sadness. But it doesn’t take away from the love, and the joy, and the beauty, and the friendship that remains. We cannot let the loss of our sweet Aby and dear Miguel take from us the very things they wanted for us all: laughter, hope, and freedom from bondage. The surrounding darkness is gone forever; as Pedro reminded me recently, the light Aby and Miguel have given to us will forever shine brightly in
our hearts.”

Trembling, I sit back down on the log, having spoken words I didn’t intend on saying. Words I didn’t realize I had in me. Strange how our own hearts and souls and minds know things that we sometimes can’t
even see.

But I
see now.

I hear my daddy’s words:
When the secrets are revealed, you’ll see the way the
magic works
.

He was right about
so much.

After the ceremony, we all exchange embraces and words, and many of the olders tell me my own were beautiful and moving. Not sure how moved I am, myself, but I’ll come around. Healing has begun somewhere in my heart, though the pain, I’m sure, will never fade completely. Aby will be sitting there, near my daddy in his cloak and hat, as he makes something float through the air, and with my mother, as she sews Millie’s last stitch and kisses my cheek. There, Aby will stay, her smile burning like the brightest guiding star. And Miguel will be there, too, beside her, in awe of her brilliance,
like always.

Jax approaches me with his head down, face wet. When he gets to me, arms crossed in front of him, I fold him up in
my own.

“So
. . .
does this mean you forgive me?”
he whispers.

“Yes.”

He unfolds his arms to wrap them around me, squeezing tightly. “
Thank you.”

“No, thank you. For telling Aby I forgave her. Thank you so much for
doing that.”

“Of course.” He pushes gently back from me, takes both of my hands in his own and squeezes them. “We’ll get through this, okay? We’re free now. And you’re
. . .
a hero.”

“We’re all heroes, Jax. We did
this together.”

“But you stayed strong. And I didn’t. We wouldn’t have made it without you being
the light.”

We share a smile. “Thank you for saying that,” I
say quietly.

Smudge leaves Johnny and heads in our direction. Jax wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he surveys the stars above
our heads.

“Am I
. . .
interrupting?” Smudge asks when she gets
to us.

“No,” I say. “Not
at all.”

“Actually, I’m going to go chat with Johnny for a bit,” Jax says. “I’ll see you
two later.”

While the children play, and groups of olders gather here and there in small groups to talk, Smudge and I walk down to the water’s edge and sit with our toes at the breathing sea. Waves curl up around them, their bubbly coolness and mystery giving me more
life inside.

“What was it you wanted to talk about?”
Smudge asks.

“About Aby,” I reply. “About guilt and forgiveness
. . .
but I think I’ve worked some things out in my mind. I think I’ll forgive myself
. . .
eventually.”

“What you said at the ceremony was
. . .
touching. You have a way with words that is truly
. . .
astonishing.”

“Thank you. I appreciate you
saying that.”

For a few timeless moments, we watch the waves and the children playing along the beach, until I remember some things I’d wanted to ask her. So much has happened, I haven’t had the chance. Now
I do.

“The trees in the Subterrane
. . .
who made them? Is there, in fact, another
Tree Factory?”

“Yes. One hundred-seventy miles northwest. Larger than the one
in Greenleigh.”

I contemplate that for a moment. “Are there children running that one, too?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know much about
that one.”

Another question comes to me. “What really happened when you left Zentao, Smudge? You told Vila it was because of your grandmother, but I know you don’t have a mother or grandmother. So what’s the
real story?”

“My donor. Her name was Sadie, and she was
an artist.”

“That’s why Raffai and Ms. Ruby called you Sadie
. . . .
”

“Yes. When I first left, I was angry. I did go into the jungle to welcome death, furious with Raffai for making me more human—all of these emotions I had no idea what to do with, or how to handle. I went into the jungle and walked aimlessly along the river, trying to decide whether I wanted to jump in and let the Teuridons gobble me up, or if I wanted to let the Reapers tear me to shreds. Right when I decided I’d have a much better chance of death by Teuridons, a white butterfly landed on
my arm.”

“Okay
. . .
?”

“Sadie loved butterflies. She used to paint them all the time. That was when I realized I had her memories; like I had her, living inside of me. Everything she ever thought, felt, desired, or dreamed, I had in my own mind. And that’s when I discovered
. . .
my soul. At that point, I had no choice; I had to go
to Greenleigh.”

“
Why there?”

“Because that’s where she lived and where her things were, hidden beneath the floor in her quarters. Her paintings in the corridor. I had to see them myself to know it was real. That would be a
. . .
human
. . .
quality.”

“But what about us?” I ask. “Why did you lead us down to
the portal?”

“I
. . .
haven’t quite told you everything about the
. . .
portal.”

“So
tell me.”

“First, I want to give you something.” Smudge digs into her pocket, then drops something into my hand. I’d know it anywhere. The blue-and-white speckles, the
perfect spiral.

“This is the shell I found. How did you
get this?”

“What you call the ‘portal to paradise’ is the transfer program. The citrus smell is from the chemical used to induce a dreamlike state, in which the transfer takes place. The program can be manipulated according to what the donor wants to experience in exchange for their sacrifice. I manipulated your program to be like Zentao. I placed that shell there, because it was the first gift I was ever given by a human. By Cheyenne. She painted it perfectly. I
. . .
thought it was a
nice touch.”

“This is hand-painted?”

“Yes. She is an
extraordinary artist.”

“Wait. You led us down there. You were going to
. . .
transfer us?”

“I had an
. . .
extended
. . .
moment of insanity. Another
. . .
unfortunate human quality. I thought I wanted to return to Lord Daumier. I knew I would never belong in the human world, and I thought if I had
. . .
an offering for Him
. . .
he would accept me back into His Clergy. I first gave you and Jax a
. . .
taste
. . .
of the transfer program, because I knew you would be back with more
. . .
bodies. More minds. And
you were.”

“You were going to
. . .
kill us
?”

“Well, no, not directly. Raffai’s reprogramming wouldn’t allow me to do that. But yes, I was planning to transfer you, and leave your brain-dead bodies to die slowly. I justified it because, in your minds, you’d live out a whole, almost-perfect life there. Time in the transfer program is different from real life; exponential. In twelve hours, you’d spend a lifetime in
. . .
paradise. I thought it was the perfect way to make everyone
. . .
happy. But
. . . .
”

“But what? What made you change
your mind?”

“Three things, actually. First, I realized no matter what I did, Lord Daumier would never accept me back. I was no longer ‘pure,’ and never would be again. Once an OAI is reprogrammed, there is no ‘re-purifying’ them, as far as Lord Daumier is concerned. Second, you mentioned the children, your Baby Lou. That was my first experience with
. . .
guilt.”

“
And three?”

Smudge looks down at her hands, then up at me. “The butterfly landed on you. It wasn’t an original part of the transfer program I had set up. The white butterfly must’ve somehow transferred from my subconscious, into
the program.”

“That’s it? A butterfly landed on me, and that’s what changed your mind? And if your mind was changed, why’d you send us away? You told us we’d never see
you again.”

“All right, well
. . .
first, I told you that because I was
. . .
scared. I had never interacted with humans before. I had no clue what to do
. . .
at that moment. I felt the only way to keep you safe was to keep you
. . .
away from me. I realized though, as I contemplated things, what needed to be done.” She bows her head, studies her fingertips, and then continues. “When the butterfly landed on you, that’s when I remembered you. Through Sadie’
s memories.”

“I never knew anyone named Sadie. How did she
know me?”

“She didn’t want to
. . .
complicate things for you. You had just lost your mother, and she didn’t want you to think she was trying to
replace her.”

“Why would I
think that?”

“Because she and your father
. . .
were
in love.”

I freeze in disbelief, unable to truly grasp what she’
s saying.

“He’s the one who first called her Smudge,” she explains. “Every time he saw her, she’d have something—paint, charcoal, soot; whatever she had used that day—smudged somewhere on her face. It’s what made him fall in love with her, that reckless abandon when immersed in her art. Like nothing else existed. He loved to watch her work, just as she loved to watch him perform. They were
. . .
entirely mesmerized, and baffled by each other. You were so young
. . .
heartbroken from losing your mother
. . .
and there was no way you’d understand.” She swings the worn-out satchel around to her lap and hugs it. “Remember how I told you I found Sadie’s paints under the floor tiles in her quarters with
. . .
a few
other things?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been dying to give this to you,” she says. “When I went back to the Subterrane for your supplies, I left this bag by the jungle portal. I didn’t want you to discover it before I could explain everything.” She gives the bag a pat. “Sadie kept it hidden, so the Superiors wouldn’t have the satisfaction of claiming it after your father died. I only wish I could tell her that what she did enabled you to have it. That would make her very happy.” Smudge pushes the satchel into my lap, and for a second, I stare at it before unlatching it to
peer inside.