No one knew better than Ingris that on El Caminante, every resource mattered.
No one.
No one knew how old she was, but everyone on the worldship visited her shop to rent clothes. Rich and poor, old and young alike came to see Ingris and find the perfect outfit for their needs. The children down in the orfanato whispered that she’d been part of the ship’s original crew, La Tripulación Originaria. Rumor had it that a long, long time ago, she’d felt grass between her bare toes.
That hace mucho tiempo, Ingris once had a family of her own.
Ingris couldn’t remember how long she’d run her shop, either. She supposed she could remember her age if she tried, but she hadn’t needed to in many years. Most older people on El Caminante had families to occupy their time.
Ingris had her tienda.
For decades, she had run the second-hand clothing shop from its back workroom, where she used her wrinkled hands to make old clothes look new. Sometimes, she transformed the fabrics into new works of art that the ship’s wealthy queued up to rent for upcoming bailes before she even finished hanging them on the mannequins behind her shop panes.
Over the years, she’d learned to take each day one at a time. Each was distinto. No two days were the same, despite their similarities.
And today—today was very different.
Like the day she’d lost her family, but in reverse.
Instead of someone breaking down her locked workroom door, someone darted through it and slapped the control pad, triggering the locks.
Startled, Ingris looked up from the multicolored tocapu she’d taken from an old-fashioned caftan—one of the first upcycled rental pieces she’d ever made—to decorate the hem of a plain, beige child’s tunic. Once it was done, she planned to make the journey to the Deep Belowdecks and gift the tunic with its abstract, colorful pattern to the children in the orfanato.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded, setting the tunic and tocapu down on her workstation. “This is a place of work!”
“Perdón, Señora. I– I–” said the intruder, before bursting into sobs and throwing herself at Ingris, as if she somehow knew the old seamstress would catch her.
“Shhhh, there, there. Tranquila, tranquila.” Ingris held the girl and patted her back comfortingly. “Calm down, mijita. Everything will be okay.”
“It won’t!”
Ingris didn’t fight when her visitor pushed back and away from her. The elder woman’s warm eyes examined the child, who wasn’t much more than a bruised and battered tumble of skin and bones. A huérfana. Ingris might be old, but she wasn’t slow-witted. Her heart ached for the child even as her stomach sank, already knowing the answer. “It’s your cumpleciclos?”
“I’m thirteen and two days!”
No one knew better than Ingris that on El Caminante, every resource mattered.
And on El Caminante, children strained resources, unbalanced them. Even a child could be a resource, which was why unplanned and unaccounted for children belonged to the científicos. Once an orphaned child turned thirteen, the law said their odds of adoption were too low. Who would want to adopt a teenager during their years of peak irascibility?
Rather than panic, rather than relive the past, Ingris smiled.
“As I said, mijita, everything will be okay.” She didn’t recognize this child, but she’d been prepared for this moment for decades. Ever since the científicos had cut through her locked door with welding torches and saws. Ever since they ripped her secret, unplanned daughter from her arms.
No one knew better than Ingris that on El Caminante, every resource mattered.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve got a safe place for you, mijita. And friends who will help us.”
The girl’s lower lip quavered. Ingris took in her wispy, tangled black ponytail and grease-smeared face as the girl continued, “They never came for me, Señora. Never. I prayed and prayed every day in the Templo to the Tripulación Originaria and I never got myself parents. The Minders said if we prayed hard enough we’d get families, so I must not be faithful enough.”
Ingris sucked her teeth in disapproval. “Do you still want a family, child?”
“I’m gonna find one if it kills me.”
“I’ve been praying to San Cibernético for a daughter.” Ingris closed her eyes, fought back tears that still stung even after so long. “I had one, once. She was the light of my life, but the científicos took her. My tienda is all I have left.”
Ingris met the girl’s dark brown gaze and said, “I’m getting old and I’m so lonely. Would you help me, por favor?”
The child wiped her nose with a grimy fist. “Are you gonna be my family if I do?”
Ingris heard her unasked question—the same one Ingris had asked herself so many years ago. Could she save this child, who’d barely lived, from the científicos and their experiments?
“Yes, of course, mijita.”
A powerful knock shuddered the door as they embraced. Ingris hastily extricated herself. She slapped the door panel open to find a slackjawed científico lowering a saw. He seemed shocked that she’d willingly opened the door. She watched the other científicos and armored Enforcers with him shift their weight, some looking elsewhere. The usually-bustling storefront was silent. Customers and staff froze in place, watching.
“¿Sí? Oh, Merlí. I’ve got your lab coat back here somewhere.”
“Excuse us, Señora. We’re here for a huérfana due in the labs. She goes by the name Michay. Her cumpleciclos was—”
“Two or three days ago, yes, lo sé.”
Merlí’s jaw dropped. “You– how do you know?”
No one knew better than Ingris that on El Caminante, every resource mattered.
Ingris turned in the doorframe to peer back into the workroom at the huérfana—at Michay. “Venid, mijita.”
Her visitor trudged forward and buried herself in Ingris’s waiting arms.
“I know, because she is my new daughter. This is her home.”
Monica Louzon (she/her) is a queer Maryland-based writer, editor, and translator. Her writing and translations have appeared in Apex Magazine, Constelación Magazine, Curiouser Magazine, NewMyths.com, and others. She is Acquiring Editor at The Dread Machine, and most recently co-edited the anthology Mixtape: 1986. Follow her on Twitter @molo_writes.