Prologue

In the garden, the dragonfly and the child regarded one another with wary curiosity. The one was perched on a stalk of purple sage, the other on a white stone bench. If it were possible to know one another’s thoughts, they would have been amused to know that they were not all that different, each wondering whether the other was likely to bite. It was the child who decided to move first, reasoning, as well as a one-year-old might, that a bite from such a small creature was worth the risk of touching the dragonfly’s stained-glass-like wings, and she might even try a taste should the opportunity present itself. Sensing the child’s intention, the dragonfly tamped back its fear and leapt from the sage, flying straight at the girl, ready to fight if the need arose, but mostly hoping to catch its opponent off guard and escape. Startled, the child fell backwards and sat down hard on the garden path, her billowy white dress filling with air as she fell and landing about her like a white chrysanthemum.

The child’s mother had brown hair nearly as curly as her daughter’s but straightened into submission and stylishly imprisoned with bobby pins below her half-veiled derby hat. She had been watching the encounter and smiled softly at her confused little girl. The woman picked the girl up off the ground and placed her back atop the stone bench beside her. Their white dresses brushed lazily against one another in the breeze. The girl’s father, dressed in his best suit, had not even noticed the dragonfly or his daughter’s fall as he paced nervously behind them. The girl had his eyes, which were blue but had so little pigment that they looked gray and flashed with reflected light with every turn of his head. The girl’s mother looked past her husband down the long cobblestone boulevard toward the garden’s entrance. It was not quite noon, and she was trying to be patient.

She inclined her head toward her daughter, eyes twinkling with love and pride. “Your grandmother is almost here, Mallory. Do you remember the words?”

Mallory smiled. She had been playing this game since she first learned to walk and talk. “I want ball,” she said with confidence.

“That’s right, little one. Mallory wants to play with her ball.” As soon as the words were out of her mother’s mouth, a small red ball fell from her pocket and rolled across the bench to Mallory. Mallory picked up the ball and shouted, “My ball! My ball!”

Mallory’s father stopped pacing and touched his daughter’s head tenderly, and her mother felt the pools of pride and love in her eyes spill over a bit. She dabbed at her pride with the humble handkerchief tucked in her white glove. Then her husband’s head cocked to the left slightly. “Do you hear that?”

Just audible beyond the wind in the trees and the songbirds flirting in the branches above, faint music grew steadily louder. “They’re coming,” she said and stood up wrapping her gloved, trembling hand in her husband’s. They turned toward the hedged entrance in anticipation. Mallory looked at her parents then at the entrance and back again, confused. Soon, the music pulsed through the garden, a symphony of strings, horns, and the intoxicating beat of a drumline. Mallory and her parents felt their hearts begin to beat in sync to the bass that pounded the air around them. Unconsciously, their hips began to sway, and their heads to nod in time with the rhythm.

Then Mallory’s grandmother turned past the hedges onto the pathway. Her carved cane slapped the cobblestones of the path on every downbeat of the drums as she walked. The old woman was dressed in her official robes as the City Matriarch and strode down the lane with all the pomp and circumstance that a Dikaió christening of this magnitude deserved. Mallory’s grandfather followed just behind his wife. He was also dressed in his official robes, but the joy of the occasion had overcome him. He danced rapturously. The musicians followed behind him. There were ten of them in the line, but each had three or four instruments that they were playing. The instruments flew around the musicians, and like electric songbirds, they swooped and swirled, blazing with vibrant hues of neon light as the notes played.

The musicians never physically touched their instruments, but every motion of their dance moved through the instruments’ lights and pulled musical intonations from the swirling orchestra. The string musicians flowed in a line like ballerinas, using pirouettes and jetés to glide among the lights; their hands beckoning chords and vibrato from the guitars, violins, cellos, and basses flying around them. The woodwinds waltzed in tight circles around their flutes, clarinets, and bassoons. They bowed and tickled the light near the translucent sticks, twirling them about like dance partners at a ball. The brass musicians bopped and swung through the midst of their trumpets, French horns, trombones, and tubas; the musicians chests filling and expulsing just the right amount of breath while their mouths formed the necessary embouchures to sound their notes within the lights. They looked a bit like fish out of water, mouthing O’s and U’s, and it would have been comical if not for the overwhelming blasts from the hovering horns. Finally, the frenetic percussion line drove seventeen drums floating in a line before them. “Boom, t-t-tch hiss BOOM BOOM,” their instruments pulsated as the drummers’ arms popped, locked, and waved, intricately pounding the lights with precision. The individual motions of the musicians might have caused an onlooker to expect some discordancy in the music, but every note was tuned in perfect harmony with its neighbor.

All of the non-essential citizens of the city followed behind the musicians, and like the music they expressed themselves both individually and in concert. Some were imitating the seriousness of the Matriarch and some the joy of her husband and musicians in their dance. But all seemed to be caught in the thrall of the music as their feet landed in unison on the down beat of the Matriarch’s cane, and their heads nodded in sync, as if the entire community were one living organism drifting in a melodic wave of light and sound: a neon dance parade.

Despite the evidence of her cane’s motion, the Matriarch seemed mostly unaffected by the music. Her gaze was aimed at Mallory and her parents in an “all-business” sort of way. Every now and then, when he danced too close, she gave her husband disparaging sidelong glances, but the tics of amusement at the corner of her mouth betrayed her desire to join him if not for her official role in the ceremony. Clearly, she was torn between the formality of her duty and the celebration of her granddaughter’s Dikaió.

As the procession approached, Mallory dropped her ball, took her parent’s hands, and tried to pull them toward her grandparents and the musical lights swirling down the boulevard. Her father knelt down and pointed toward the fountain at the center of the park. “We’re going there,” he tried to say, but his words were drowned out by the music.

Mallory shook her head and pointed toward the procession. The music stole her “NO!” as well, but her set jaw and squared hips carried the message.

Her mother laughed, shrugged, and weaved her hips in a figure eight: an invitation to her husband. Her father laughed in answer, leaned backward, and awkwardly began dancing toward the celebration, circling his fists in the air in front of him like he was spooling rope to the beat. Mallory squealed with delight, sprinting toward the musicians. Her mother’s squeal trailed after her, as she chasséd after her husband like a ballerina, all of them joining the city as it danced.

The Matriarch stopped when she reached the fountain at the center of the gardens. She stood before the monument, taking a moment to trace the ancient reliefs sculpted into the fountain’s center ring and appreciate the traditions of their people. In the center of the ring an old woman stooped to pick up a toddling girl, to the right of that image, a young girl ran after a kite without strings, to the right of that a preadolescent dancing among the flowers, and so the images aged through the life cycle of the woman until she was an old woman stooping to pick up a toddler. Men of all ages were sculpted into the twelve pillars between the scenes of the aging woman, their bodies forever straining to hold the massive basin where the fountain waters performed their choreographed acrobatics. At the very top of the highest arch of water, there was a small unadorned pedestal. 

The Matriarch turned and loudly said, “Listen!” Her cane struck the cobblestones emitting trails of blue flame that swirled up its shaft and into the air in random directions like lightning arcs. The music stopped. The crowd stopped. Even the songbirds in the trees that no one had noticed stopped. The City Council walked silently to the fountain, flanking the Matriarch, six men on one side, and six women on the other. Every citizen was solemn.

The Matriarch spoke: “For generations we have lived in the mystery of the Dikaió. From birth to death, its magic sustains us. And today we bestow the mystery to Mallory Knenne.” She turned to Mallory’s mother and father. “Do you have the object of endearment?”

Mallory’s mother looked down at Mallory who was standing wide eyed at her hip. Mallory did not have her red ball. “Mallory wants to play with her ball,” her mother said, and after a moment the little red ball rolled from wherever it had been discarded to her daughter’s feet. Her mother knelt gently down and looked her daughter in the eyes. “Your grandmother would like to see your ball, Mallory. Let’s show everyone how well you know the words.”

Mallory stooped to pick up her ball, and rather than take it to her grandmother, she clutched it tightly to her chest. “It’s mine.” She eyed her mother and then her grandmother defiantly, daring them to take it.

Every toddler made this part difficult, but the Matriarch had hoped for better from her own granddaughter. No matter: She turned and smiled broadly to the crowd. “As Dikaió Syntec, I christen Mallory Knenne-Dikaió Chorus.” Her husband winced as a murmur erupted in the crowd. The City Council members turned in disbelief toward the Matriarch.

The City Administrator, an older man roughly the same age as the Matriarch, stepped forward from the line of council members smoothing back his peppered gray hair and stammered, “Sarah, we discussed this, and agreed . . .”

The Matriarch turned to him with fire in her eyes, “No, you agreed! I speak only for the Dikaió!”

“You old witch! I hope you--“

The words were cut off when the Governor, young and newly appointed, leapt forward and clamped his hands over the Administrator’s mouth. The Administrator struggled to free himself from the younger man’s grip. The Governor held him soundly and shouted, “Even the Administrator of Justice is not above the law, James. Watch your tongue.” In a world of magic, words could be dangerous, and the Administrator stopped struggling and stood still, signaling acquiescence.

The Governor pulled his hand away, and the Administrator looked at him, then back to the Matriarch, and hissed, “You’ll both be the ruin of this city. I can only hope your daughter has better sense as a Matriarch than you, Sarah.”

The Matriarch retorted, “We’re all aware of your ambition for rule, James! You cannot control me, nor my daughter, nor my granddaughter. The Matriarchs speak for the Dikaió!”

A councilwoman stepped forward and touched her shoulder, “Sarah, the Matriarch is always a Syntec. Like you, like your daughter . . . he’s just worried. We’re all worried.”

“I speak for the Dikaió,” the Matriarch repeated firmly.

 “But it was just a dream. How do you know it was the Dikaió?”

“We’ve been through this, Celeste,” the Matriarch hissed. Then, she whispered urgently to all the council members, nodding toward the staring crowd, “This isn’t the time.”

The council members fell back in line. A mix of emotions ranging from shock to anger played across their collective faces. The crowd continued to murmur and pockets of agitation began to form. Questions floated in the air: “What’s a Chorus?” “Why not a Syntec?” “Who will christen our grandchildren’s children?” The Matriarch again stamped her cane on the cobblestone and spoke loudly, “Listen!”

The crowd settled and stood in nervous anticipation.

The Matriarch looked to Mallory and held out her hand for the little red ball. Mallory turned and held the ball away, looking back into her grandmother’s eyes with her jaw set. She was ready to take this as far as her grandmother was willing to go. The Matriarch rolled her eyes. The city was already on edge and tangling with a toddler over a ball was not going to do much to improve the situation. She took a deep breath and firmly ordered, “Mallory’s ball to the fountain pedestal!” The ball wrenched itself from Mallory’s hands and leapt twenty feet in the air to alight gently onto the pedestal at the top of the fountain.

Mallory’s mother braced for the toddler to break into tears, but the girl just stood looking after her ball determinedly, her little teeth biting her lip and her head cocked to the side. “The words, Mallory,” she prompted.

“I want my ball!” Mallory yelled.

All eyes looked to the little red ball that sat motionless atop the fountain’s pedestal then back to Mallory.

“Try again, sweetie,” her mother prompted.

“I want my ball.” Mallory said, quieter this time. Tears were nearer now.

Nothing happened.

The crowd erupted: “Why doesn’t the ball move?” “Maybe, she wasn’t clear?” “I’ve heard toddlers less clear and the magic worked. Something’s wrong!” “She doesn’t have the Dikaió!” “What does it mean?” “What will we do?”

The entire council circled in fury around the Matriarch: “What have you done?” “We warned you about such foolishness!” “Try again! Give her a different christening.”

The Matriarch, not usually one to admit a mistake, uttered quietly: “I christen Mallory Knenne-Dikaió Syntec.”

The Administrator curled his lip in disgust, turning away from the Matriarch and shaking his head, “You can’t change a christening once it’s given. How many times did we warn you? You and your family are disgraced.”

Then a small voice shouted above the din: “I got my ball!”

The whole city looked in hope toward the sound of the voice, but their hopes became confusion as they beheld, not a girl who had called her beloved ball to her with the magic of her voice, but a dripping wet toddler standing twenty feet in the air atop a small pedestal holding a little red ball triumphantly in the air like a torch bearer about to light the eternal flame.

An anonymous citizen voiced the whole city’s question: “How did she do that?”