I’M SUPPOSED to go to class. I’m supposed to sit at that conference table across from Gabriel, and act calm, and read The Tempest aloud with everyone, wondering the whole time what Gabe is planning for me now that he’s completely sure they don’t need me—to act as an interpreter between them and the blue, to coax it into helping them with their war on the normals. If the blue could create us here, it could do the same thing everywhere, or at least everywhere near the ocean; that must be their reasoning. As I get dressed and head down the hallway to breakfast, I’m thinking about what today will be like and wondering how I’ll stand it.
“Ada? You saw Marley, right? Is she okay?” It’s Ophelia, fluttering up behind me.
“Not really. It’s like she’s losing herself. It’s not quite as bad as dying, but I think for her it feels pretty close to that.” The hall is jostling with kids. I catch a glimpse of Gabriel’s hand blinking blue and orange between the clustered bodies ahead of us, and my mind’s not really on the conversation.
“But—she’s going to have wings! She might be able to fly! Did you point that out to her, Ada? How phenomenal it’s going to be? Because I think you might be the only person here she’ll really listen to.” I can feel the cool stir of wind as Ophelia hover-hops along. The ceiling isn’t high enough here for her to launch herself upward, and I get the feeling that she hates it more every time her toes touch down on the carpet.
“I did tell her that. But she says that whatever she turns into, it won’t be her anymore. Not—not her real self.”
She flurries around me and turns, softly curling a hand on my shoulder. “Ada? You seem sad. I know you’re worried about Marley, but that’s not all that’s wrong, is it?”
I think about how to answer. Gabriel might tell her part of what Marley said; he’ll give her a version of it that’s useful for him, anyway. “She was saying some crazy things. Like—whatever accident happened to make the chimeras, whether it was the scientists at Novasphere or whatever—Marley was calling us its daughters. And I guess that made me miss my real parents.”
Ophelia nods. She’s walking close to me now with one wing brushing my shoulder blades. “Have you heard anything from them?”
It’s a sensitive subject for everyone here, so I usually avoid it. But Ophelia sounds like she really cares about the answer, and maybe I can admit this much. “I’ve been too scared to check my email. I know I should, but I just can’t make myself do it.”
“Would it help if I stayed with you while you checked? You know, for moral support?” The shimmer on her eyes almost swirls; maybe she’s feeling anxious about something herself.
I smile at her. It took me a while, but now the complicated green-black sparkle of her compound eyes doesn’t seem alien or eerie to me at all. They’re beautiful, and they’re so right for her. “Thanks. I think that might make it easier.”
Personally, I’d way rather believe we were all a disastrous mistake, the result of some experiment gone horribly awry at Novasphere, than accept my new idea: that the blue truly is our parent, that it made us for reasons of its own. But maybe that’s because I have real parents out there, and I don’t like the idea of them being replaced by some floating inhuman thing, even if it is beautiful. Just thinking about it makes my insides twist, and I want to escape from ever having that thought again.
Rowan and Ophelia might feel differently, though. They might go crazy with longing at the realization that they have a parent who never abandoned them, who drifted and nestled around them in their sleep, even if they could never see it. I can imagine that would feel like a huge improvement over the way their human parents acted, sending them away as soon as they were born. As soon as they saw how their babies stirred their shining wings, curled their flippers.
Maybe that’s why Rowan was crying. Maybe that’s why he was ready to lie to Gabe and Ms. Stuart. If he thinks he’s found a parent who actually loves him, he’ll probably do almost anything it wants.
In the dining room Ophelia catches my hand to tow me over to the table where Gabriel and Rowan are already sitting, both of them staring at me, though in very different ways. I pull away from her. “I hope you don’t mind. I need a little time alone right now. Seeing Marley like that really upset me.”
She gives me a little hug. “Don’t worry, Ada. And I bet Marley’s going to absolutely adore her brand-new self when she hatches, even if she doesn’t think so now. You should be happy for her! But I understand. We won’t be hurt if you want to sit by yourself today.”
I head for the table where Marley huddled on her own our first night here. Breakfast is oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins and an apple on the side. I stir the oatmeal and swallow a few bites, but it’s hard to feel hungry. Gabriel and Rowan go on looking over at me to the point where it’s embarrassing, and Ophelia leans in close to Gabe. They keep whispering into each other’s ears, and I know I’ve made another mistake by not sitting with them, because now I can’t stop wondering what they’re talking about.
I watch while Gabe slides his arm around her shoulders, just above the place where her wings jut out. He’s never done that before, I’m certain. I watch her blush. But he’s smiling at me while he holds her. I have to remind myself that Ophelia has no idea what he did to me—that I lied to her about it myself—so of course she doesn’t think of cuddling up to him as a betrayal. But it still hurts. She must at least realize how much he hates me.
Is he just using her as a way to hurt me? If he is, that’s so sick I’d like to smash his sprained ankle with a hammer.
Way before everyone else is done eating, I clear my place and walk out. I weave through the corridors and find a torn vinyl chair in a dark corner of the library. I feel cold and nauseous, and I stare at the screens of those two old computers as if my parents’ voices might start bubbling out of them, telling me they miss me, telling me they never should have let me go. But I still can’t make myself turn one on.
It’s time for class. I never cut classes at my old school, and I know I shouldn’t try it here. Everyone will notice. They might even send somebody to search for me. But suddenly I don’t care.
Maybe my parents don’t want me, but I still have a sister. She’s strong and wild and fierce, bashing her way through the ocean, not hanging around here for everyone to treat her like she’s some kind of enemy. Soraya goes where she wants, and she doesn’t follow anyone’s rules.
And if she and Rowan invented their own language, then maybe the two of us can learn to communicate, too. She’s got to be just as lonely as I am.
I stay where I am while the hallway outside turns into a river of laughing, cooing, shrieking voices. The shadows are deep, and a maze of bookcases fills the space, so probably no one will notice me through the glass door. The vinyl chair slurps at my bare shoulders and sweat pools under my thighs, but I don’t move, and eventually the voices drain away. Maybe Ophelia will tell everyone I’m so agitated over Marley that they’ll decide to let me have some time to myself. Maybe no one will bother me.
When it’s been quiet for a few minutes, I slip to a spot where I can peer above a row of books—the bookcases are the cheap kind made of riveted metal with no backs to them—and then through the door. Gray shadows cling to the scarred, graffitied paint, and the lights buzz in the emptiness. There are rooms used for classes along this hallway, including our conference room, so I slide out of the library and walk along fast with my head bowed, heading back to my bedroom. I need to get something. I need Soraya to hear me, to know how much I care about reaching her.
Five minutes later, I’m running through the parched golden grass with my violin case thudding against my thigh.