“She isn’t like us. She’s been taught to look and act exactly like us, but she isn’t.”
Alisha’s breath hisses through her teeth. “Sometimes I wonder if she’s more human than you are.”
I utter a silent gasp. There’s silence.
“God, I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Al, do you think I want to hurt her?” he demands. “Do you think I’m enjoying this?” His voice is raw, as though he has been weeping. “But this is the last thing our daughter wanted. The last thing. How can we even consider denying her?”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? I feel like I’m spitting on her ashes by thinking this, but I’m thinking about what’s right, and to have her destroyed—”
“It won’t hurt,” says Neil. “You know Adrian told us it’s just like going to sleep—”
“You believed him, did you?”
“This . . .” His voice cracks. “This is the last thing she will ever ask us for.”
“I know.”
There’s a pause, a tense silence full of anger and pain and love, and then Neil says, “Is this about the wings?”
I stiffen.
“What?”
“I saw the wings in your studio. Did Eva make them?”
“Yes, but that has nothing—”
“I think it has a lot to do with this,” he says. “You always wanted a child who loved art like you did. Who had a talent for it like you.”
Alisha’s voice is cold as ice. “Are you suggesting I love my children less because they happen to be uninterested in art?”
“Of course not,” he says wearily. “God knows you’d love them if they morphed into cannibals overnight. But you did hope, didn’t you? You always hoped one of them would be passionate about it. Now there’s a girl in this house and in many ways she is exactly the kind of child you wanted.”
“You can’t be serious!”
There’s a fraught pause. Then Neil says, “Al, did you ask Matthew to make her that way? To put that passion and talent into her?”
Alisha gasps. “No,” she says icily, “I didn’t.”
“Do you think he might have done it to please you?”
“Matthew has no interest in making me happy any longer, Neil!” she snaps. “And considering neither of us has the faintest idea how they make an echo, I think this conversation is ridiculous and insulting. I would never try to choose what my children grow up to be.”
“You know I didn’t mean it that way,” he says. “I just saw the wings and I thought—”
“I’m surprised you saw the wings and didn’t see the obvious,” says Alisha, rather miserably. “She made them, Neil. She made them because she’s sad. They’re wings. Wings make you fly. That’s all she wants. To live. And fly. How can you argue that that isn’t human?”
“I don’t know,” says Neil. “But I do know that if I have to choose between my daughter and her echo, and that’s what you’re asking me to do, I choose Amarra. I loved her the moment she opened her eyes. I didn’t stop loving her when she closed them.”
Alisha sounds tired, unsure. She’s wavering. “I never realized how unhappy this made her. She was always so good about it. She so rarely complained about anything.”
“But she hated it, Al. We made her write in that journal every week. We made copies of her photographs, asked her to tell us what we needed to know. She never believed this was her second chance. She never had arrogant hopes of living after death. She wanted the life she already had, and we made her share it with a stranger.” I hear the snap of paper. “She was afraid for us. That we’d go to jail and she’d lose us! We were blind not to see it. And now she’s gone. Doing this one thing she asks us to, it won’t make up for that, but it’s the only thing we can do for her. I can’t not give her the only thing she wanted.”
A sob breaks into Alisha’s voice. “I just want her back.”
“So do I,” he says. “I want it more than anything.”
There’s a tremor in his voice. I think he’s crying too. I don’t want to listen anymore. I turn on my heel and almost bump into Nik. My heart sinks.
“Yeah,” he says before I can ask. “I heard.” He looks puzzled and lost, like a small child. “I thought they’d keep you.”
“I don’t think they can, Nik,” I tell him gently, trying not to let my own hurt show. “Amarra’s still so real to them. They don’t believe she’s in me, but they still feel her. They can’t bring her back. They couldn’t save her. All they can do for her now is carry out her last wish.”
My hands are shaking. If I am honest with myself, I have to admit that I’m angry and scared and hurt, but I also can’t imagine it could have gone any other way. I can’t imagine I would have done any differently in their shoes.
I check that Sasha is occupied with her toys. Then I take Nikhil downstairs and make him some hot chocolate to calm him. He drinks it and stares quietly at the table. I wash up his cup, the spoon, and tidy the kitchen. I feel like someone has sliced me open.
When there’s nothing left to do, I go back to Amarra’s room, locking the door behind me. So that’s it, then. I fling the cushions across the room, as hard as I can, over and over until my arms ache and the seams split. I sit down on the bed and try not to cry. Then I spring up again, furious. I can’t just give up. I can’t let them take me like a meek little lamb.
With a frenzied surge of energy, I start packing my things, only to unpack them again and put everything back in its place.
As terrifying as the open, unknown world is, my instinct is to run. To break free and cut loose and flee as fast and as far as I can go before they can find me and catch me and take me to the Loom. It’s the only thing I can think of. It’s my only chance.
But I can’t run. Not because Mina Ma once said to me, desperately, “Don’t run.” But because I’m bound to the Loom by my own umbilical cord.
A tracker.
If I leave, if I do anything I shouldn’t, they’ll know. They’ll find me. I have no way of removing the tracker. I don’t know where it is.
I have no way out.
I’m sitting by the window more than an hour later, when someone knocks on the door. I unlock it and let Neil and Alisha in. Though red-eyed still, they seem composed. Calm.
Alisha’s face is guilty. “Eva—” She falters and can’t seem to go on. She covers her mouth, but to her credit, she doesn’t look away.
“We signed the papers,” says Neil. He doesn’t sound like it gave him much pleasure to do so. “And we’ve sent them to London. By courier. They should be there in a couple of days. But I haven’t called ahead to warn them that they’re coming. They won’t know about the Request for Removal until they get the papers.” I don’t say anything because I’m not sure what he’s getting at. “If you were to— If you felt like you couldn’t stay here any longer— We’d like you to know that we, ah, we wouldn’t feel it necessary to stop you.”
I blink at them. Once, twice. Then the penny drops.
“You’re telling me to run away,” I say. “That isn’t possible. Didn’t anyone tell you? There’s a tracker somewhere in my body. They’d find me wherever I went.”
“But . . .” Alisha begins, dismayed. “But then . . .”
They stare at each other. Then at me. It makes me feel slightly better, knowing that they did want to help me. That they don’t want me to be hurt. So I smile faintly and say, “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” I’ve become a very good liar.
It’s obvious they don’t want to leave it at that, but I don’t want to prolong this conversation, so I say, “Could I be alone now, please?” and they leave the room, reluctantly, and I let the smile slip off my face.
I don’t sleep at all that night. I sit on the bed and make paper cranes out of a spare notebook. I read somewhere that if you make a thousand paper cranes, you get to make a wish. I work feverishly, relentlessly, through the night. My mind wanders. I think of crazy, outrageous, elaborate s
chemes and then laugh at myself for being fanciful. I am caught in a net. Every way I turn, I am brought up short.
And then, in the early hours, when my energy has burned out and despair sinks deep into my belly, I think about my guardians and how anguished they will feel when they find out. Will I see them one last time before the Weavers unstitch me? Do I even want to? I see a flash of Sean’s green eyes behind my eyelids and I flinch. Do I really want their last memory of me to be right before I die? It will break Mina Ma’s heart. I’ve failed her. I’ve failed them all.
I wait until eight o’clock the following evening, when I know Alisha will be in the attic. When she’s upset, she spends more time making things.
I slip upstairs to the bedroom she shares with Neil and go straight to the table by her side of the bed. Her phone is there. She never takes it up to the attic with her.
It takes me less than a minute to find the number I’m looking for. I press the green button to dial.
One ring. My heart begins to race. Two rings. Three.
“Truly, I am astounded,” a familiar voice answers, the drawl faintly punctuated with genuine surprise. “Two phone calls in as many days? You must be—”
“It’s not Alisha,” I cut in. “It’s me.”
There’s a pause.
Under any other circumstances I would have laughed. Matthew Mercer is speechless.
“What do you want?” he asks wearily.
“You said two phone calls in as many days,” I say. “Did Alisha ring you yesterday? Did she tell you about the—”
“The Sleep Order, yes, she did,” drawls Matthew. “For a woman who has allowed this to happen in the first place, she seems peculiarly concerned about your safety. She rather thought I might be able to, ah, how did she put it? Help you.”
From the scornful way he says it, I can already see this is doomed to failure, but I have to try.
“I was sort of hoping you might help me, too,” I say quietly.
“And why on earth would I do that?”
“Because you made me,” I remind him. “You said it yourself. I’m your creation and you don’t like destroying your creations.”
“And you’re enjoying this, are you?” Matthew sounds amused. I could strangle him.
“No,” I say flatly, “I’m not. I hate asking you for help. But I’ll regret it later if I refuse to try every possible thing I can think of. Amarra’s papers will be there by tomorrow. You could revoke the Sleep Order. You could save me. I know you can. You can do whatever you want with us.”
“True.”
I wait. He doesn’t say anything else. Despair and help-lessness claw at my throat.
“You made me. You’d be wasting that if you destroyed me.”
“Again, true.” I hear a yawn. “Are you going to keep telling me things I already know? If so, I’ll have you know I have the attention span of a two-year-old and simply won’t listen—”
“Please.”
I hear a delighted chuckle. “Say that again. Do.”
“No,” I snap. “Will you help me?”
“I rather think not,” says Matthew. I stare at the window. I was clutching at straws, and now the last straw is vanishing like smoke. “That said, you are aware that a Sleep Order cannot be enforced until an echo reaches the age of eighteen, are you not?”
I blink. “What?”
Matthew snorts. “Ignorant. All of you. It’s preposterous, really. Doesn’t anyone learn anything these days? Elsa insisted on it,” he says, with a deep and heartfelt sigh. “She refuses to kill what she calls ‘children.’ Unless an echo has broken a law and is brought to us for trial, they cannot be removed until they are eighteen. And seeing as you’ve been a good little girl—well, hardly, but we’ll disregard that for the moment—you are not on trial. So it will not be enforced until your eighteenth birthday.”
“But I’ll be seventeen in less than a week! That means I have a year left!”
I almost see Matthew rolling his eyes. “And in what way is that not a vast improvement on having a day left?”
He makes a good point. Hope prickles tentatively in my chest, like a seed looking for sunlight. A year gives me time to work something out.
“So that’s all?” I ask Matthew. “You won’t revoke the Sleep Order? You’ll leave me with one last year?”
“Well, yes. Nicely put. Very succinct.”
“Thanks,” I say bitterly.
“Eva.”
His tone keeps me from hanging up. I wait.
“As you have pointed out already, I made you, so you are not mindless or helpless. It would be insulting, quite frankly. So do not, I implore you, bore me by asking me for my help. Find your own way out of the noose.”
There’s a click as the line goes dead.
I should be angry with him, but instead I’m furious with myself. Why had I hoped he would help me? Because of the stupid, silly dreams of the pale green nursery and Matthew singing lullabies to my infant self? They’re dreams. They were never real. Matthew won’t help me. Neil and Alisha have condemned me and can’t help me escape it. My guardians are far away, and if I were to try and speak to them, and the Weavers found out, I’d be breaking the law. That would mean going to trial, and trials trump Sleep Orders. After the things I have heard, I have no illusions that the Weavers would vote to save me at trial. That would mean losing the little time I have left.
Panic makes me feel dizzy. I have no more ideas. But I do have time. I force myself to breathe. One way or another, I must find a way out.
I stumble back to Amarra’s room, weak-kneed and cold. I sit down on her bed, my bed, and wait for my seventeenth birthday, for the clock to begin ticking the last twelve months of my life away.
12
Mines
I leave the house on my birthday. Hanging around will only remind Amarra’s family of the day their daughter and sister won’t have. Instead Lekha takes me to lunch at a place called Koshy’s, a Bangalore landmark. The food’s amazing and we have fun, but she has to leave straight after and meet her father. “He’s going to pick me up at the corner there,” she says as we stand outside. “Sigh. I can’t wait to be old enough for a real license.”
“Ray drives,” I say. “So does Sonya. They’re not eighteen, are they?”
Lekha rolls her eyes. “I might be the only one who cares about having a real license before getting on the road. Ray and Sonya know how to drive. I know how to drive. But we’re too young to do it legally.”
“And Ray didn’t get in trouble for that after the accident?”
“His lack of a license didn’t cause the accident,” Lekha points out. “So it wasn’t hard to pay a police officer to ignore that teensy-weensy circumstance.”
I will never understand how this city works.
“Are you okay?”
The question makes my face feel hot. I put on my best poker face. “Well, it would be nice if someone dropped a bucket of cold water on my head. How can it be this hot? I’m wilting.”
“Oh, no,” says Lekha. “Don’t even try that innocent, ooh-I’m-a-delicate-flower thing with me. You’ve been quiet all day.” She points a finger at me. “I thought I gave you specific instructions not to think about that Sleep Order boondocks today.”
“I’m not sure boondocks is—”
“Eva!”
“I can’t help it,” I say quietly. “It’s like my brain is counting down.”
Lekha’s face softens. She’s been remarkably tough since she found out, apart from bursting into tears when I first told her. “You have a year,” she says, regaining her brisk, no-nonsense manner almost at once. “You’re going to find a way to stop this. We’ll find a way. Now I admit I know next to nothing about the Loom and these wretched laws you’re always going on about, but I am a troubadour and I will help however I can.”
I bite back a laugh. “You meant trouper, didn’t you?”
“Trouper, troubadour, quite frankly it’s all the same to me. Should someone wh
o has the Grim Reaper waving his sickle-scythe thing at her really be so concerned about words?”
“Fine,” I say, defeated and smiling in spite of myself. “You’re a regular troubadour.”
She smiles and gives me a hug. “I won’t let them kill you,” she says. “I’ll smuggle you away and stick you on my mother’s coffee plantation if I have to.”
“Thank you,” I say, hugging her tight and feeling a bit more hopeful. “I may hold you to that.”
After Lekha heads off to the corner, I walk the other way to the main network of streets, MG Road and Brigade Road and Church Street. I trace the roads, beating an invisible path into concrete so hot the air is rising off it, glittering like diamonds. In a couple of weeks, the first showers and storms will cool the country down.
Amarra’s phone rings. I squint at the screen. The number’s blocked, but there are only a few people it could be.
“Hello?”
“Happy birthday,” says a voice I know well—oh, so well.
I stop, electrified, cemented to the concrete. The sounds of laughter and traffic and horns blur into stillness.
Sean.
“S-Sean?” I whisper in disbelief.
“I know it’s been a while,” he says lightly, “but have you really forgotten the sound of my voice?”
“Hardly. I never forget things.”
He laughs. It sears through me. After all this time, all these months, it’s like the earth has just exploded in fire and smoke.
“You’re not supposed to call” is all I can say. “If they—”
“I thought you might like to hear a voice from another time and world. Even if it was just for a minute or two.”
My body thrums with aliveness. It is agony, but I can’t remember ever being so happy. I try to swallow a lump in my throat, but it won’t go.
“Sean—” My voice cracks.
There’s a pause, which lengthens. Then Sean says, “How are you?”
His voice is strange, as though someone has spread it like cheese over bread, spread it too thin. My heart pounds. Too fast. It makes me giddy.
“I’m all right,” I say.