Transcendent (15 page)

And from the way Zoey froze next to me, the way her breathing cut off with a gasp, she couldn't look at a castle anymore either, not without seeing the same terrible images playing out like a terrible flipbook.

“Sorry,” I said, dropping the lid onto the floor. “It was the only puzzle. Do you still . . . ?”

The question faded from my lips, though, when I saw the single tear slowly rolling down her cheek. Her eyes were glassy, unreadable, as she kept staring down at that castle. One tear turned into two, three, four—a steady, silent stream.

“Zoey,” I started, my voice low. There were a handful of other women in the room, most curled up in bed, sleeping, or staring off into space, but from what I could tell, none of them cared about us enough to pay much attention to our conversation. Not even Mikki, who hadn't moved from bed since breakfast. “Zoey,” I said again, willing myself to ask, “do you want to talk about anything? If you do, I'm here. If you don't, that's okay, too. Up to you.”

She didn't answer right away. I assumed that she wasn't going to, that we would just sit there instead, her crying, me wanting to do something to make it better but not being able to. Not being able to do a single damn thing to help her out, because I was just
me
, just Iris, because our
lives were too separate, because she couldn't trust a stranger, and because I couldn't even touch the surface of understanding what made a little girl like her so broken and beaten down.

“My cousin, Brinley . . .” she said, the words so quiet I had to lean in even closer to hear, so close that her lips were practically grazing my cheek. “She was at Disney with her choir. Some big contest. She had the prettiest voice I ever heard. She used to sing to me, every night before bed. And every morning, too, while we got ready for school. She didn't care that she had to share her room with me. And her bed and her clothes and her toys. Everything. She told me I was her sister, and Zane was her big brother. We lived with them for so long, and my real mom and dad had been gone for so long that . . . that I sometimes even forgot. I forgot she wasn't just my real big sister.” Her whole face seemed to collapse then—eyes, nose, mouth folding in on themselves, dissolving in her heavy tears and the quiet, racking sobs that shook her tiny body.

I wanted to respond, to reassure her somehow, but I couldn't speak. I knew what she was saying, of course, without her actually saying the words out loud.

Brinley had been at Disney World in August.

Brinley had been killed.

Brinley no longer sang her to sleep every night, no longer started her day with a song.

“She was there,” Zoey whispered through the tears. She was hugging herself, squeezing her palms against her stomach, as if her insides were imploding and she was trying her best to hold it all together. “When it happened. When the bombs went off and killed so many people. She was there. She got hit and she . . .” I closed my eyes and listened to her inhale, exhale. “Died. She died right then. That's what some of her friends said, friends that were there with her. Some of her friends got to be okay. They got to come back home. But Brinley . . .” She reached up and grabbed for her blanket, balling it up and shoving it between her teeth. I saw her temples clench as her jaw tightened, as she funneled all the hurt and the rage into that bite, teeth on teeth, cutting through the thin material.

I put my arm around her, bracing myself against her trembling shoulders.

Her face was flushed, shiny now with sweat and with tears, but after a few minutes the shaking slowed. I felt her muscles, slowly, one at a time, release. The blanket fell from her lips onto the floor, covering the piles of colors, the lid, the castle.

“Why did Brinley have to be one of the ones who died? Why did her friends get to live and she didn't?”

I shook my head, pulling her in closer. “There aren't
answers for things like that, Zoey. It's not fair. None of it's fair.”

“I don't get how people can be so bad. How they can just kill people they don't even know. Why would anybody do that?”

“I don't know either.” I sighed, smoothing my hand against her dark braids. I realized now, close up, how neat and precise they were. Did she braid them herself? Did Zane?

“I don't think anyone understands something like this, really,” I went on. “I think that these people who did it—I think bad things have happened to them, too. I think they've been hurt. And they were angry. And that kind of hurt and anger made them do something awful that didn't actually help them, or help anyone at all. It was wrong. It was a terrible, terrible mistake.”

I wanted to ask her more. I wanted to ask why losing Brinley also meant losing her aunt and uncle, losing the only home she had, the only guardians other than Zane, who was potentially still a minor—and a minor with a record, no less.

“I don't even know your name,” she said. She pulled back, just a little, not so much that my arm slipped away from her shoulders. Just enough that she could tilt her face up and look at me with her red, swollen eyes. “I've
been crying to you all about my family, and I still don't know your name.” She laughed, and for a second—just a second—I saw a spark in her eyes, a light that hadn't been there before.

“I'm Iris,” I said. “I go to school with your brother, Zane.” As soon as the words were out, I realized my mistake. I wasn't Iris here. I was Clemence. But it was too late to take it back, and besides that, how could I lie to her? How could I lie to this little girl who had just told me so many sad, deep-down scary things about her life?

Everyone in this room was probably running from something or someone, just like I was. My secret wouldn't matter to them.

Unless they believed, like Zane's grandmother. Believed that Virgin Mina's baby was destined to help people, people just like them.

But Zoey hadn't read the article. Zoey wouldn't put it all together.

“That's a pretty name,” she said, very matter-of-factly. There was no hint of anything else, no sense of recognition.

I took a deep breath and let it fill me up, slow my racing pulse.

“Should I clean up the puzzle?” I asked, my free hand already reaching out to scatter the neat piles.

“No,” she said, batting at my arm. “No. Let's do the puzzle.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “It's okay. It's just an old castle, right? I don't want to be scared anymore.”

•   •   •

The rain finally stopped as the sun went down, but by then the power had gone out. A flicker, a burst, and then nothing. There was a generator for the church's heating system, and a few electric lamps scattered around the rooms, but it was dim. Too dim to do anything but go to bed right after dinner—cold cheese sandwiches, fruit, and canned tomato soup. There were granola bars, too, and I stowed two in my pocket for later, just in case. My stomach had been growling loudly all day, and I was desperate to make it stop. I could leave and go to a bodega, buy a few granola bars for myself and not worry about taking them from the homeless shelter, the people who really needed them—but I only had that twenty-dollar bill. I wasn't sure just how long I needed to make it stretch.

Mikki had gotten up to eat with the rest of us, but we didn't have the chance to talk much before she smiled at me, tapped my shoulder, and scurried back to her bed. And Zane—he had left to “attend to business” elsewhere,
asking if I'd keep an eye on Zoey until he returned, sometime before bedtime, he promised. Zoey had been mostly silent after that, but she'd stuck close to my side. I was glad. I felt safer with her next to me, less like the outsider. I needed her as much as she seemed to need me.

Benjamin, back again for the second night, knocked on the door soon after dinner, asking if Zane could say good night to Zoey. She soared out of her bed at the news that her big brother was here, her eyes so bright and excited, I could almost believe that there was a regular little girl in there somewhere. A little girl waiting for the world to prove her wrong.

She was back a few minutes later, still beaming as she climbed onto her bed.

“He asked if he could talk to you for a minute, too.” She squinted her eyes at me, a curious-looking smile on her lips.

I turned away before she could see my frown. I was nervous to see him—nervous about what he might have to say to me after a day out in the real world beyond the shelter.

“Hey,” I said quietly, closing the bedroom door behind me. “How was your day?” I considered asking more about Zane's “business,” but I doubted he'd tell me, and I wasn't sure I'd really want to know.

He didn't bother to respond, just cocked his head
toward the front door and started down the hallway, assuming without glancing back that I would be following him.

I was.

Benjamin waved at us from his post at the desk as we passed by. I tried to smile back, but I couldn't. I was shaking now, a tremor that kept my fingers in constant motion, my hands clenching and unclenching. The dread was sinking back in again—deep in—after a day of avoiding thinking much about myself at all. I'd been too busy thinking about Zoey, but now it was all me again. All Mina and Iris and what would come next.

“What's happening, Zane?” As soon as we were out the door, I lodged myself right in front of him, staring up into his eyes. “Say something.”

He looked away, kicked at a filthy dented-up can on the ground, one of the many disgusting pieces of debris that had flooded into the courtyard.

“It's not just that one paper. It's all of them. And on the news, too, and I even saw some posters up in the subway station.”

“Shit.” I rocked back, almost slipping on the muddy cement. “How do people care this much?
Why?
”

“Disney fucked people's minds up,” he said simply. “People need something to make it better. Anything. Even something as crazy as all of this. Your mom's old supporters are all over the story. And even people who didn't believe
before seem to be reconsidering. I don't know . . . You can't see thousands of kids blown up and not question the world a little.”

We were both silent after that, staring out over the dimly light courtyard.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked finally, turning to face him. He was already watching me, though, his eyebrows raised as if he was surprised that I was so desperate for his opinion.

“Well, you'll have to leave here in the morning. You could try to find another shelter, I guess, but other places are crowded. It takes time. And they'll ask a shit ton of questions that I doubt you're prepared to answer. With all these pictures of you floating around, someone's going to recognize you. It'll just be a matter of time.”

I nodded, my harsh reality sinking in. I was at the end of the line. I had to move on, even if I had no idea where or what or how that would be.

“Go to bed,” he said, his face taking on an expression that looked strangely like pity. “Think fresh on it tomorrow. Maybe something will come up.”

“Is that what you do?” I asked. “You and Zoey. One day at a time?”

“It's different.”

“How? Do you have a plan? Is it true what you told Benjamin, that this is only temporary?”

He looked away, shaking his head. The connection—whatever fragile connection we'd somehow been forming—was already caving in. I could feel him backing away before he even took a single step.

“Don't you worry about us, okay? My life is my problem to figure out.”

“Listen, I care about what happens to Zoey,” I said, taking a step closer to him, refusing to let him brush me off so easily. “She told me today . . . she told me about Brinley. About how you used to live with your aunt and uncle but now you don't anymore. What happened?”

“And that is
definitely
none of your damn business,” he said, his lips drawing into an angry, ugly scowl. His nose flared, his eyes widened—everything about his face was suddenly five times bigger, stronger, scarier.

“She shouldn't have said anything to you. And you shouldn't have been poking around asking questions that you had no right to be asking. You don't know her. You don't know me.”

“I
didn't
ask,” I bit back. Hot, thick anger swept past the worry and the fear and the weakness I'd been feeling only the minute before. Anger was better right now. Anger was a distraction. “She told me. On her own. She started sobbing, looking at a stupid castle puzzle, and told me the whole thing. She was sobbing last night, too, while I was trying to sleep. Did you know that? Did you
know that she cries herself to sleep at night?”

Zane's head reared back hard, like he'd been backhanded across the face.

“I'm sorry,” I said, my stomach already twisting with regret. Just that fast, the anger had faded, left me feeling nothing but small and helpless. “I don't blame you. I'm just saying, Zoey needed to talk, even if I am a stranger. She's clearly got a lot on her mind, and I just wanted to help, even if all I could do was sit there and listen. I know it doesn't make much difference. But I couldn't walk away.”

Zane was quiet. His eyes were closed now, squeezed tightly shut, and I could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, hear the deep breaths in and out.

“I don't want this life for her,” he said, his eyes snapping open. “I don't want any of this. I don't want our shitty past, our shitty future. But it's fucking hard to do a single thing about it. Because every time I try, every time I think maybe I've got it figured out, I just get beat down all over again. If it wasn't for her—if it wasn't for Zoey—I would have stopped trying years ago.”

He turned back for the door. I tried to yell out to him, tried to follow, but I was stuck, weighted down by everything he'd said to me, by everything wrong with my life, and now everything that was wrong with his life, too, and with Zoey's. You couldn't see that little girl, too skinny for her age, too hollow and too tough with those tattoos and
that jaded slant to her eyes, and not want to help. And you couldn't see Zane, either, with his pain that he wore like full metal body armor, and not want to do something—
anything
—to make both of their lives just a little bit easier.