2

In the afternoon, the Matriarch’s kitchen overflowed with the smoky bouquets of cumin and coriander on potatoes; the peppery woodiness of cinnamon and cloves in currant rice; the earthy lemon, mint, and licorice mixed with cilantro, basil, and fenugreek in lentil soup; and perhaps Mallory’s favorite smell with any meal, the full smell of flatbread baking, soon to be coated in clear butter.  There was also the bright aroma of fruits and chopped vegetables, which brought to mind images of brightly colored charcuterie boards complete with sweet and savory yogurt for dipping. While Mallory and her family usually just ate at the small table in the kitchen on most nights, the kitchen sprites were setting the large table in the dining hall for company.

Mallory’s mother sat in her tall-backed chair at the foot of the table. Even though she was not currently employed in government duties, her curly brown hair had been immaculately straightened and pinned up for business. Mallory almost never saw her mother with a hair out of place; a trait she seemed not to have inherited. Her wild curls refused to be tamed, despite her mother’s constant endeavoring to domesticate them. Her mother barked orders for this or that decoration or garnish to be moved or set just so. The sprites, ever-attentive to the Dikaió at her command, whizzed about busily, moving the flower arrangement to the left and that pesky table setting a smidge closer to the edge. Mallory’s father sat at his position at the head of the table smiling across the expanse at his busy wife.

“This seems like a lot of trouble for an ‘informal get-together’ among friends, Sarai,” he shouted above the din of preparations.

She smiled condescendingly back at him. “Roger, you know very well that a formal get-together at the Matriarch’s home would entail much more pomp and circumstance than this.”

He leaned back in his chair and waived his hands in circles in the air: “Weeks of planning. I know; I know.”

She smiled, “If you want to be upset about the delay in dinner, perhaps you should discuss all the extra groceries with your daughter. The poor sprites couldn’t find a place to store them all—it was a choice of either having a dinner party or throwing them out when they rot in a week.” She turned toward a four-armed sprite that had arrived holding spoons with samples of tonight’s selections. Mallory’s mother tried the potatoes first. “Oh, these are just lovely, but add some cilantro leaves for garnish.”

Mallory’s father looked over his shoulder at Mallory who was leaning against the door post, biting the corner of her lip, and staring absently toward the kitchen and the line of sprites carrying glasses and saucers down the hallway. She felt useless at events like this, unable to even hang up a coat for their guests. She would sit idly by while her mother showed effortless hospitality. Today, Mallory had finally managed to help with getting groceries, but she still felt like she didn’t belong in her own family.

“Mallory,” her father called. “Mallory?”

She startled and turned her attention away from the bustle. “Yes, father?”

“Well, what about it then?”

“What about what, father?”

“Your mother says I should ask you why we need all this fuss over a few extra groceries.”

Mallory smiled and looked toward her mother who was pretending not to hear. “Well, I suppose it’s a celebration, father.”

“A celebration?”

“Sure, it’s not every day that the incompetent heir of the Matriarchy provides the groceries for her family.” She regretted her words as soon as she said them, though they felt true.

A glass crashed to the floor on the other side of the room, having just fallen from her mother’s grip. Both her parents stared at her, mouths opening and closing like the fish in the aquariums below the skyscraper gardens. A kitchen sprite weaved in and out of the line of helper sprites and quickly vacuumed the glass shards off the floor. Her mother composed herself first after the whirring of the vacuum ended, “Mallory, why do you have to be this way?”

Mallory squared her shoulders, “Grandmother always said it’s because I was special, but we all know that’s just a euphemism for ‘less than.’ There’s no point in denying my place in life, Mother.”

A sprite bumped past her leg then, and Mallory yelled at it, “Drop that carafe! Spill it on the floor! Jump up and down!” The sprite considered her for a moment and then continued down the length of the table to place the carafe in its designated place. “Why don’t you just explode?” Still nothing.

“Mallory,” her father whispered, trying to look her in the eyes.

Mallory forced back tears trying to escape her ducts as she turned away from him. Who would host the parties when she was grown? Her husband? “Maybe I just want to be normal, fit in like everyone else.”

Mallory’s mother held up a hand to the next sprite vying for her attention. “That’s normal for a teenage girl, dear. When I was your age, I worried about fitting in as well.”

“Really?!?”

Mallory’s mother began to look around the table like she was searching for something. She pulled the wrinkles out of the tablecloth in front of her and then said, “Well, of course, it’s not quite the same, but it’s not all that different either. Your father and I are very proud of your independence, Mallory. I, for one, love having dinner parties. Yes, it’s quite a lovely thing you’ve done for us Mallory. Thank you!”

Mallory’s father looked from his wife to his daughter and back again, his gray eyes flashing as he nodded nervously. “Oh yes, I can wait for dinner. Company is always welcome. Thank you, Mallory.”

Mallory was not in the mood for playful patronization. “What if I could be normal? What if there were words in the Dikaió that could make me like everyone else?”

“Oh, Mallory,” her mother’s face drooped. There it was; there was the pity Mallory hated. “It’s too late for that. Even if I could change it, which is impossible, I’m not sure the council . . . the Governor . . . No, they would never allow it. Your Dikaió is part of the records now. We can’t just rewrite history.”

Mallory growled and kicked the nearest sprite. It nearly dropped the butter dish it was carrying as it spun backwards down the hall, but it righted itself and restarted its inane march toward dinner prep. Her parents were mimicking fish again, this time gasping for air as if they had been pulled up in the Dikaió Culture’s nets. Mallory could feel them sucking up the air and fled up the stairs to her room. The tears had fought their way through the guards in her eyes, and they were making a break for it down the trenches of her cheeks, flowing freer and freer, until their uprising was quashed by smashing her face into the synthetic-down of her pillow. Sobs racked her body for a time until she got enough control to roll over and stare at the barren whiteness of her ceiling.

She lay there on top the cool silk of her duvet cover, absently tracing the lines of the sateen weave with the tips of her fingers. As the sun began to set, the stained glass of her window filled the room with its image: an Art Deco dragonfly sitting on a lily leaf. The sun’s orange and red hues swirled through the veins of the wing panes, while the hunter green and deep purple of the dragonfly’s body floated in the room, waiting as dragonflies do, silent and motionless.

When she was younger, this room used to be her grandmother’s study. She thought back to the days when she would sit and trace the veins of the dragonfly in the carpet while her grandmother repeated and rehearsed the necessary Dikaió christenings for the children who were coming of age in the city. Oftentimes, her mother was there, and the two older women would sit and rehearse the words together as a means of training the next Dikaió Syntec, always purposefully using alternative filler words in the phrasing, lest a mistake curse a child for life: “As Dikaió (Salamander), I christen Zachary Jons, Dikaió Technic.”  When they messed up the words, Mallory would often laugh and say the phrase correctly: “No, no, you sillies! It’s ‘As Dikaió Syntec, I christen Zachary Jons, Dikaió Technic.” The older women would tense every time, and Mallory used to think the game was great fun, but then as she got older, she started to notice the tears in her grandmother’s eyes and the pity in her mother’s face when she would correct them and nothing would happen, so the game lost its luster.

Once when her mother did not join them, Mallory demanded that her grandmother explain why she had not christened her a Dikaió Syntec. The old woman paused from rehearsing and told Mallory a story from her childhood:

“I can’t quite remember how old I was, not much older than you, my sweet Mallory, when the last Dikaió Chorus passed into the life after life. He was quite old: a hundred and seven years since his birth, if you can imagine it. He hobbled about town with the use of a walking stick, but no one ever noticed him. I remember asking my mother, the Matriarch before me, about the Dikaió Chorus and how he served the city, but she only shrugged and said, ‘My mother never taught me that christening.’ And as my grandmother had passed away before I was born, that knowledge was nearly forever lost from the Matriarchs.”

And then Mallory’s grandmother leaned in close as if she were about to reveal a great secret, “But one day, I took matters into my own hands. I started following the Dikaió Chorus around town. He had a magic like I’ve never seen. Rather than using words to command magic, things just seemed to happen for him. For example, when he walked up to his house on Manuel Avenue, the door would unlock without him uttering one word, the lights in his house turned on just because he was there, and shopping sprites came and delivered whatever he needed to his home without him calling them or taking them to market. One day, as he was hobbling home from a walk in the park, I stepped into his path and blocked his door. ‘How do you use magic without words? What is your purpose?’

“He looked down his nose at me long enough for me to notice the overflowing billows of white hair puffing out from his nostrils, which was quite contrasted against his wrinkled dark skin. Then he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. ‘My, aren’t you a feisty little Matriarch! Does your mother know that you’re running about accosting old men on their doorsteps, little one?’

“‘My mother doesn’t know what your purpose is either. So, what is it?’

“The old man looked a little sad at that. ‘Much has been lost over the generations. Too much.’ Then he shrugged. ‘But life was never meant to be permanent. Change is the only way to advance. Still, conserving the things that were can help us not repeat the mistakes of the past. Come in and have a cup of tea with me, little one, and I will answer your questions as best I can.’

“He stepped past me, and I heard the bolt of his lock draw aside. The door opened like a dog recognizing its beloved master. He stepped briskly through, then paused and looked back: ‘Coming, child?’

“I hesitated. The Chorus was a stranger, and while no one in the city was dangerous, adults can be mysterious to a child, and the unknown frightens even adults, but I was determined to know what the Chorus did in the city, so I stepped across his threshold. It was as if I had entered another world: books were piled on shelves, on tables, on seats, on the floor—if there was space for a book in the man’s home, there were ten crammed there, balanced precariously one atop the other.

“‘S’cuse the mess, child. I haven’t had visitors in . . . well come to think of it, I don’t know that I’ve ever had visitors in my own home. My parents used to entertain, but that was before—'

“He hobbled through a doorway and disappeared into another room.  I assumed he had gone to make tea for us. He may have still been talking in the other room, as us older people do, but I was captivated by the books in the house and walked through the piles, turning my head sideways trying to read all their titles. They were coated with such a film of dust, I was certain that if I picked one up I might sneeze and bring the whole collection falling down about me. It would have taken the rescuers days to find me, and I would have only survived eating sheaves of dusty paper.” Mallory’s grandmother mimicked eating her journal on the desk for effect. “This was years before the fire sprite revealed how dangerous books could be, but still I had never seen so many books in the whole city, and the draw of the information that must have been contained in their pages cast a lazy, curious spell over my imagination.

“I don’t know how long the Chorus was gone, but he must have been talking the whole time he was out of the room because he was still talking when he re-entered.

“‘—and of course, we Choruses didn’t have much say in the whole matter. And after that, our purpose was discarded and forgotten by the city, though you can well imagine that without us the city would have never been built in the first place.’

“I felt like I had missed something important, but I think children are trained in their lessons to never admit when they’re not paying attention, both by the consternation of the teacher and the laughter of the other children. So, rather than asking the old man to repeat himself, I looked up at him from behind a tall stack of books like a curious neighbor peeking over a fence and said, ‘Yes, I see. But what is your purpose in the city now?’

“He tossed his head back and laughed uproariously. ‘Nothing like the honesty of a child. Yes, sir. One can always count on a child to shoot straight with you. Well, child, to be honest, in my opinion, the Chorus is still the most important role in the city. Without a Dikaió Chorus, the city has no purpose. It’s just a soul-less machine perpetuating its own existence, like a shop owner with no customers, or a bakery with no one to eat its baked goods. Do you understand?’

“I didn’t, but I nodded in earnest, eager to keep the company of that curious human being from another time for as long as he would have me. ‘What should happen to the city without a Dikaió Chorus then?’

“The old man slowly lowered himself to sit atop a wobbly stack of books and looked thoughtfully down at me. ‘Well, that’s a question that many, some much older and wiser than you, have never thought to ask. To be honest, I hadn’t quite thought about it myself since it means I would no longer be here, doesn’t it?’

“‘Well, you are quite old.”

“‘There’s that youthful honesty again.’ He smiled gently. ‘But you’re right. No one should live forever, else what good is living—at least that’s what my parents used to say before they left the city . . . so long ago . . .’ His eyes started to glaze over a bit traveling back to some distant memory.”

Mallory interrupted at that point: “His parents left the city? How?”

Her grandmother shrugged, “There were stories that before the city’s light was stoked to protect it, people could leave whenever they wished, but that also meant that things in the wild beyond the borders could come in. That’s why things like the fire sprite existed—they were tools used to fight the wilds and keep the city safe, but no one I have ever met other than the Chorus could remember a time before the light.”

Mallory cocked her head to the side as though reading the titles of ancient texts like her grandmother’s story and bit her lip, thinking silently about the wilds no longer seen.

Her grandmother continued: “Eventually, I began to wonder if he was reliving a memory, or if he fell asleep, so I half-shouted, ‘Well, what do you think?’

“He started back to the present: ‘What do I think about what!?’

“‘What would happen to the city without a Dikaió Chorus?’

“‘Oh, I suppose the same thing that would happen to the shop or the bakery without anyone to serve; it would close.’

“‘Close?’

“‘Yes, cease to be. Life is more than getting anything you want with a word. Do you understand, child?’

“‘No, not really,’ I said, and he threw his head back and laughed nearly falling off his stack of books.

“A shrill whistle sounded from the other room, and he haphazardly pushed off his makeshift seat. ‘Well, if we’re going to discuss the philosophy of existence, we ought to at least have our tea whilst we pontificate. Come along, child.’ I followed him through the doorway into a cozy little kitchen with a tiny wooden dinette and two chairs. Books were piled chaotically in this room as well, leaving only a small trail in the kitchen. He pulled two mismatched mugs out of the cupboard and poured hot water into them then added teabags. ‘Sugar? Milk?’

“‘Yes, please . . . but why do you pour the tea yourself? Where are your kitchen sprites?’

“He again threw his head back and laughed his guttural guffaw causing tea water to slosh over the brims of the mugs. ‘Oops!’ He righted the mugs and carried them more solemnly to the table, and slowly lowered himself into one of the seats. ‘Not all of us have the same luxuries as the Matriarch, dear child, but we make do as best we can with what we’re given.’

“I had never considered that there might be differences among the classes in the city. ‘So, you don’t have much because you can’t use the Dikaió like we can?’ I asked.

“He grew suddenly serious. ‘People were never meant to live by the Dikaió, child. He waved to the books piled in the kitchen. ‘These are only a tiny bit of humanity’s progress through the ages. There is so much more to life than just existing.’

“‘I don’t understand.’

“He sighed and shook his head. ‘It’s not my place to help you understand, child.’ He reached over the tea and took my hands in his. ‘But the world needs a Chorus. The Chorus is what enables humanity to continue, to accept things as they are and overcome the trials and tribulations of life. The Chorus is able to learn and adapt, to become more than what they began as. I’m old now, and my body has limited my usefulness, and the city has forgotten the Chorus—but when you are Matriarch, you can change that, child. Yes, you can save the city.’

“This old man who seemed to have so much less than our family, possessed something I did not. He understood the world, and I readily agreed to the idea. If the Dikaió Chorus could possess the wisdom of the ages, then that was something worth holding onto. I determined that I would learn everything I could from him about what a Chorus was, and how to help future Dikaió Choruses fulfill their purpose in the city. When I left that day, I decided I would come back as often as I could to talk with him and read as many of his books as I could . . .

“ . . . But then those boys conjured up the fire sprite.” Mallory’s grandmother looked down at her with wide eyes, reliving the memory. “Oh child, I remember when the smoke filled the sky; it billowed up to the city’s light. It swirled and billowed like mud settling in a stream when you toss a dirt clump into the water. I ran, like a lot of people, to see where the smoke was coming from. The sprite was terrible. It glowed like molten bronze, and when the fire spewed out, it shrieked with a voice that sounded like scraping metal on metal. The air was hot and acrid, and the smoke burned my lungs, but I couldn’t move. I was transfixed by the fire, dancing atop the houses and in the streets, an otherworldly spirit summoned for destruction. Someone was screaming, maybe it was me; it’s all so jumbled now.

“But I do remember the Governor. He stepped into the street like a knight in a fairytale facing down a dragon. His robes blew in the wind amidst the glowing embers and ash floating through the air. He seemed to be running slowly, though it probably was all happening much faster than I see it in my mind’s eye. He stepped into the path of the fire sprite, standing defiantly there in the street, and it turned its deadly attention toward him. The screeching metal sound began, and its glow intensified. It was going to incinerate him. I covered my eyes not wanting to see what came next. But then I heard the Governor speak: ‘Dikaió Fire Cease!’

“When I looked up, the fire sprite had gone dark, but the house fires were still burning. That’s when I realized the first one in the line was the Dikaió Chorus’s house. It turned out that the boys had snuck into his house through an open window and stole the book that contained instructions for birthing the fire sprite. When they loosed that thing, the Chorus, he, . . .” Her grandmother paused and turned to stare out the window, her words catching.

Mallory got up off the floor and climbed into her grandmother’s lap, wrapping her arms around her neck. She laid her head on her grandmother’s bosom and just sat their quietly while her grandmother absently stroked her hair, staring out the window with distant sadness.

Abruptly, her grandmother started speaking again, “In some ways, I was sorely disappointed that he went into the life after life without divulging all of his secrets and passing on the generations of learning he held, but in other ways I was glad to have learned anything about the Dikiaó Chorus at all, especially after all his books were lost in the fire, and the city’s leadership started getting rid of the books that were left. Still, after time passed, I began to wonder if the city really was worse off without a Chorus, or his knowledge in general, as nothing changed after he died. The Dikaió still provided all we needed. Children were born. The old passed into the life after life. The city continued.

“But then just before you were conceived, I dreamt of a Matriarch.  A Matriarch who was also a Dikaió Chorus who would save the city. When you were born, I knew that the dream was about you, little Mallory, and I knew that there was purpose in my having known the Chorus; it was not just a chance encounter of youth. I wish I could tell you more about your destiny. More about your heritage than strange magic, fire, and the knowledge of the ages, but life’s mysteries are often left for us to discover on our own, my dear girl, and the mystery of the Dikaió Chorus will be yours to solve, but I know that you can.”

The light shining through the stained glass had all but faded, along with the image of her grandmother holding her, and the Dikaió lights drained all the color from the dragonfly and left it shrouded in darkness. Mallory’s thoughts shifted from the hallowed memories of her childhood to her current situation. Mallory did not want to disappoint her grandmother’s vision for her, but so far it seemed that a Dikaió Chorus was the most useless role a person could have in the city. She had long ago figured out the secrets to the wordless magic the old man her grandmother knew had used. It was just the same Dikaió magic as always: When Mallory’s mother became the Matriarch, she ordered the house sprites to serve Mallory. For example, her mother had told the door, “Door, this is Mallory. Unlock for her when she comes in and out.” And ever since then, the door locked and unlocked for her when she was near. Someone must have done the same for the older Chorus. It was embarrassing to have everyone have to order sprites and magic items to serve her and not be able to do anything herself.

Mallory wished that she could talk with her grandmother about the book Alex found, but her grandmother had gotten sick . . . and so early in her retirement, she hardly had a chance to enjoy the time without the duty that came with being elderly. Life was not fair. But now! Now, there might be a possibility to undo the curse of the Chorus and be the Matriarch the city needed. Mallory sat up, leaning on her elbow as she imagined it. Now, she could have a purpose like the other citizens and not be a burden. Now, perhaps she could be normal.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a tap at her window. She looked out just as a small pebble struck the window again. Alex was standing behind one of the twin oaks with her arm drawn back, getting ready to launch another projectile. She dropped the pebble when Mallory opened the window.

“Mallory!” Alex’s voice hissed in nigh hysterical excitement. “I found it!”

Mallory’s heart climbed into her throat, but she was trying hard not to get her hopes up too high. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Alex motioned for her to come with her. “Hurry! The words look simple. We can end the curse tonight!”

Mallory closed the window. The red ball from her childhood, once an object of endearment and now a reminder of her limitations, was sitting on a shelf with some other heirlooms. She grabbed it and pushed it into her pocket. She looked back at the dark dragonfly, closed her eyes slowly, held the lids tightly for a moment, and then decidedly turned away from the window toward a more hopeful future.