They heard the Liberty Train before they saw it. The din terrified Afarra, who clung to Musa’s craggy head like someone drowning. The thunderous CHUG-chug-chug, CHUG-chug-chug of the engine didn’t scare Ji-ji. She knew how risky it was to hop a freight train, especially one carrying a cohort of heavily armed guards. In spite of this, she felt dizzy with exhilaration.
When the metal serpent came to a screeching halt at the timber-loading station, Ji-ji wanted to cheer. All her life she had fretted over what would slam into her next. The future invoked dread because it was indeed dreadful and beyond her control. “I betroth myself to my own future,” Ji-ji whispered as she prepared to race toward the train. “I will never be meek again in the face of it.”
As soon as they spotted a man in uniform sliding open the rusty door of the boxcar and signaling to them to rush out from their hiding place in the woods, Ji-ji knew they would make it all the way to Monticello. They would not be caught, couldn’t be caught, because it had already happened in her mind and now they were just reliving it. She couldn’t pinpoint the reason for her courage. It could be her sproutings, or the fact that Charra had been a Wingchild too. Or maybe it was simply the sight of the salvaged train, which seemed to gather up all the tenses of her life and slingshot her from a traumatic past, through a stupefying present, into a future that could be anything at all. She was certain of only one thing: her future would be hers. She would write it herself in bold font. Whatever dangers lurked inside the train’s belly, and whatever horrors waited for her in the next place, she would not permit them to erase her.
She was Silapu’s daughter, Charra’s sister, and Lua’s best friend. She was Toteppi, from the tribe who remembered flight. She had known Uncle Dreg and witnessed his sermon at the Circle. She had been tended by his sister, a.k.a. the Gardener of Tears, and she loved his descendant who flew Free in the cage. She was with her adopted little sister. Whatever the cost, she would thrust herself into her aching dreams and live there. She had gumption. She had purpose. She had (almost!) wings.
They only had a few minutes to make it across the field before the train would depart from the loading station. Ji-ji was grateful the three of them would not be traveling unaccompanied. Germaine Judd and Bently Turner, selected by Man Cryday to serve as their escorts, were pros.
Tiro and Ji-ji grabbed hold of Afarra’s hands while Germaine and Bently ran ahead, guns drawn. Musa, also accompanying them, bounded along in the rear. If they were spotted they were done for. The railway men and security contingent were farther down the track loading timber onto the train. All the freight hoppers had to do was slip into the boxcar and slide the door closed.
Under the cover of early-morning darkness, the group sprinted forward. Ji-ji’s disobedient sproutings had been bandaged into submission by Man Cryday, who’d been as merciless with them as Silapu had been with her hair on the morning of Lua’s harvesting. Her back was still tender, but at least her sproutings didn’t bounce around when she ran like her breasts did in her ill-fitting bra. She carried Zinc’s saddlebag. Ben had gone through it hurriedly before they’d set out and determined what she should keep. He hadn’t found the letter or the photo. He surmised they must have been lost during the river crossing. Ben called the tooled saddlebag “exceptionally high quality” and advised her to hang on to it.
The fairskin rail guard who hurried them onto the train was nothing like Ji-ji expected. In a hoarse whisper, he cursed them for moving too slow and told them to haul their lazy butts into the boxcar before someone spotted them. When he saw the striper, he drew back in consternation. “Hold up!” he said in a furious whisper. “No way you’re bringing that stinkin’ mutant on board!”
Musa was in agreement. He bared his teeth and started to back away.
The man pulled nervously on his full beard: “Morons, all of you! No one tames a striper! That filthy ant belongs in a cage like the other one.” He gestured to a dark corner of the car. They realized the train hadn’t spooked Musa. Something else had.
There among the crates, in a cage taking up a third of the boxcar, lay a sleeping snarlcat, his mane forming a shaggy halo around his head. It was too dark for Ji-ji to see his dagger-length canines or lethal claws, but she remembered from the attack she’d witnessed on a hunt with Lotter how easily they could rip someone to shreds. Snarlcats weighed even more than stripers. With their huge, leonine jaws and lightning-fast speed, these superpredators could make quick work of almost any foe. As Ben pointed out, Musa, with his hunched, hyena-like back and piercing yellow eyes, could intimidate the crap out of anyone, yet even he shrank back when faced with a snarlcat. The creature was sedated, but Musa seemed to think he was faking it, and the others didn’t trust he would stay asleep either.
The guard insisted this boxcar was their only option: “Train’s packed to the gills with coal, grain, an’ timber. Everyone’s scared shitless of the cat, so no one’ll bother you. Tell the ant to get lost before someone catches us!” But Afarra had no intention of riding the serpent without her friend. As the man continued to abuse them, she coaxed the striper up into the car with a stick of candy one of the Friends had given her.
The railman, muttering something about never doing another favor for that black bitch even if she put a hex on him, leapt down from the boxcar. Speaking fast and addressing Germaine, he told her to tell the dusky witch Reggie’s debt was paid in full and then some. He reminded them they would only have a couple of minutes to disembark when they reached Monticello, unless of course they wanted their heads blown off, which it looked like they did cos only morons traveled in a boxcar with an unchained striper. “This car’s at the back so you should be able to sneak off okay. But the area around Monticello’s swarming with Bounty Boys. Some bigwig’s been murdered.”
“Who?” Ben asked.
“How should I know, boy?” Ben’s eyes flickered in anger at the word boy.
Railman Reggie turned his attention to Tiro. “There’s a reward out for you. Saw your face flash across the Wanted screen ’fore the whole damn system messed up cos of that quake a few days ago. Man, that was a doozy! Must be drillin’ for gas round here again or somethin’. You from the 437th, ain’t you, Mule?” The man took his silence as a yes. “Thought so. They’re lookin’ for you.”
Reggie said to Germaine, “NoVA’s the next stop after Monticello. Every car’s inspected then. Disembark before then or you can say sayonara to liberty. You’ll be toast, understand?”
Afarra, who still didn’t seem to understand what the phrase meant, repeated what she’d said to Ji-ji after she’d lost the map: “We can be toast together.”
Reggie looked Afarra up and down. “I guess you can,” he said, “but I wouldn’t advise it.” He turned back to Germaine. “Dusky’s a Cloth, right? Pretty. Not like the other one. What is she? Eleven? Twelve?” He looked down the track toward the loading dock. “Looks like we could be here a while. She available for a quickie? I ain’t particular when it comes to pussy. Won’t take a second.”
As Germaine pretended she was considering his offer, Ji-ji grabbed hold of Afarra’s arm and held on tight, Tiro moved his hand closer to his gun, and Ben took hold of Tiro’s arm and whispered, “Easy, T. Germy can handle it.”
“How can we trust this jerk?” Tiro whispered back.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Ben replied.
Germaine and Reggie kept talking. “Yeah. That sounds like a decent price for a quickie,” she said, all smiles and accommodation. “Only one drawback. Wherever she goes, he goes too.” She patted Musa’s tiara. “They come as a pair. Still interested?”
Railman Reggie backed away so fast he nearly stumbled on the gravel. “Take me for a fuckin’ pervert?” he hissed. “You tell that witch to leave me alone, y’hear? Tell her if she don’t I’ll have somethin’ to say about it.” Even Reggie seemed to know how pathetic his threat sounded. He spat on the ground in disgust and slid the door closed, leaving them in the dark with the snarlcat.
Tiro holstered his weapon. “Think the bastard knew how close he came to having his fuckin’ balls blowed off?”
“Easy, fly-boy,” Ben said. “You go chasing after every insult an’ you’ll be dead before we reach Monticello. An’ no swearing in front of the ladies. Germaine here ain’t used to vulgarity, are you, darlin’?” Germaine raised her eyes to heaven. “Now let’s make ourselves comfy.”
In the confined space, the stench of snarlcat excrement and urine was so strong it burned Ji-ji’s sinuses. Musa’s odor didn’t help either. Ji-ji was thankful her sproutings no longer stank. As long as she wasn’t the cause, she could put up with almost anything.
A few minutes later, just when they were breathing sighs of relief, they heard other men approaching, calling out as they came.
“Hey! Reggie boy!” Two men. Maybe three.… No, four!
Musa started to growl. “Keep him quiet!” Ben hissed.
Afarra mumbled entreaties to Musa, who stopped growling and lay down on his belly. Germaine and Ben drew their weapons. Tiro wasn’t far behind. Ji-ji dug her hand into Zinc’s saddlebag and withdrew Petrus’ semiautomatic as the group of men strode closer to the boxcar, their heavy work boots crunching on gravel. They could be heard clearly through the warped metal door. One of them told Reggie plans had changed. The entire train would be inspected by inquisitors in Monticello. It would be up to Reggie to make sure the snarlcat behaved himself.
“Thought we didn’t get inspected till we hit NoVA,” Reggie said.
“You deaf or just plain dumb?” another man asked. “If Tate here says cars get inspected in Monticello, that’s what happens. It’s an inquisitorial inspection too. You know what those cardinals do if you keep ’em waiting. Am I right, Tate?”
“It’s not pretty,” Tate replied. His accent made Ji-ji think Tate was from the Midwest Territories. “Cards like their victims to squeal. ’Specially fond of newbies. How’s Pussykins? I gotta hand it to you, Reggie boy, you’re a natural. Could be the Dreamfleet’ll be willing to let you keep the cat company. Bet Kitty would enjoy nibbling on a coupla fresh Rocky Mountain oysters. That’s if you got any. Hear tell you’re one of them hick Deviants they got a whole bunch of down here in the boonies. Is it true you fellas got a preference for bitches of the four-legged variety?”
The men howled with laughter. Ji-ji thought of Zinc and Chet and Daryl. The laughter was the same—thirsty, menacing.… She aimed the gun at the door and held it steady.
“How ’bout we check on the cat?” a voice—Tate’s?—suggested. “He still out like a light? Al, get that door. Let’s have us some fun with Reggie an’ his little friend.”
They heard Al attempt to slide the door open. It stuck.
Musa leapt to all fours. His tiara stood up straight on his head. Ben put his hand to his lips to signal quiet. They’d have a second or two before the men saw them hiding in the shadows.
Al jerked on the door again. Harder this time. It slid partway open!
“JESUS!” Al yelled, as he reeled back and covered his nose.
Quick as a flash, Reggie grabbed the handle and yanked the door closed. “Sorry, Al,” Reggie said. “Guess I should’ve warned you. Kitty pooped. He’s a big fella. Don’t do nothin’ small scale.”
There was a long pause. The tension was broken by a voice yelling in the distance—an order to the railmen to get their butts on the train. Tate cussed Reggie out, promised he’d pay him back later. The men scurried off, their voices melting into the distance. A few seconds later, they heard Reggie walk away.
When Ben was sure they’d gone, he holstered his weapon and said, “Well, how ’bout that? Guess we’re indebted to Pussykins for pooping.” He inhaled more deeply than was wise. “This place smells a whole bunch sweeter’n it did earlier. It surely does.”
Ji-ji slipped Petrus’ gun back into Zinc’s saddlebag. They weren’t toast yet.
After the Liberty Train got underway, Musa didn’t seem bothered by the snarlcat in the cage. For Ji-ji, it wasn’t so easy. Squeezed between crates, she could hear the wild creature breathing and snuffling a few feet away. Ben had said it was safe to have a mini light on a dim setting so they could keep an eye on their fellow traveler. If Ji-ji leaned forward a little, she could make out the outline of the snarlcat’s enormous back, which rose and fell with each drugged snore. The smell got worse, if that was possible. Afarra offered to reach into the cage, scoop up the mountain of poop, and toss it out of the car, but Tiro said Musa, who was extremely protective of Afarra, would go nuts if she went anywhere near the snarlcat. “The cat is not for killing,” Afarra insisted. “He see us but he is very sleepy.” “I don’t care if he’s dead,” Tiro told her. “You’re not sticking your hand in that cage. He could swallow you in one gulp an’ he wouldn’t even belch afterward.” Unwisely, Ben happened to mention that if the cat woke before they disembarked, he would go berserk when he realized he was in an enclosed space with a striper. Ben said they’d be forced to shoot him if he made a ruckus. Afarra got so upset that Tiro told her Ben had a gun with “special sleeping bullets.” He’d use that one. It took some convincing, but at last Afarra seemed to buy it.
Ji-ji wondered aloud why the Dreamfleet needed a snarlcat. Germaine said the fleet was assembling “a menagerie of exotics” to go along with their state-of-the-art fly-coop. The owners of the Dreamfleet’s flyer-battlers would pay a lot for a full-grown male. It was rumored that, come fall, the flyers would fight in the coop’s upper tiers while ants prowled in the ring below. “The truce has been in place for a while now,” Germaine said, “which means there’s money to be made. The Dreamfleet used to serve as guards to the D.C. Congress when it re-formed itself as an Independent. But the flyer-battler wing is all about entertainment—keeping the public occupied so they don’t see how screwed up things are. Distract people enough an’ they forget what they were objecting to in the first place. Fans’ll pay good money to see a few privileged flyer-battlers get mauled … or worse.”
“No way I’m climbing in the coop with that,” Tiro asserted.
Ben feigned surprise: “Don’t tell me the great Tiro Dregulahmo’s afraid of a little pussy.”
“You bet I am. S’why I still got my Rocky Mountains. How’d you lose yours, Ben?”
Ben gave Tiro a friendly swipe on the back. “The fans’re gonna lap you up, man. Kitty over there’ll be first in line. Ignore Germaine the Judgmental. Got kicked out of the fleet. Been bitter ever since—right, Germ?”
“You better not call me that, Bennyboy. Not when I got a loaded gun on me.”
“She loves me somethin’ awful,” Ben boasted. “S’why she hates me so much.” Ben blew her a kiss, which Germaine batted away in contempt. Ji-ji had never witnessed a black male acting like that before with a female who looked white. On a planting, a seed could be Tilled to death for less than that.
Tiro and Ben were soon in a deep, ’shroom-laced conversation about the pros and cons of the equipment in flying coops. Ben spoke about his experience as a pro wistfully, describing the daredevil moves of flyer-battlers like X-Clamation and his female partner Re-Router. Excitement stirred inside Ji-ji. Not a single Elevation Prohibition against female flyers in Dream City. Maybe she would be the first flyer-battler in history to soar unassisted in the coop.
Ji-ji could see why Man Cryday had picked Ben to serve as one of their escorts. The confident black man dismissed Germaine’s concern about the APB out on Tiro. As long as they kept out of sight till they reached the walls of the Monticello Protectorate they’d be fine, he said. Compact and stocky, with a weightlifter’s build and strength, Ben had a rich brown complexion. If he’d been born in the Territories, he would have been on a slightly darker color arc than Ji-ji, but he had never been a botanical. Bently Turner had been born “New England Free,” as he put it. His knowledge of fly-coops surpassed even Coach B’s. Not surprisingly, Tiro pummeled him with questions. Joining the race at the second leg, Ben said, meant Tiro would have only two opportunities in the coop to score high marks, cos neither of his scores could be dropped. He had to do well in the Jefferson Coop, meet the qualifying time in the sprint segment, and do well in the Dream Coop too. “That’s where the rubber hits the road. Corcoran’ll be there watching.”
Ji-ji wished Pheebs had decided to enter the race. Between the two of them, they could have helped Afarra make it to the finish line. Wild Seeds had no age limit on them, and though she was probably in her fifties, Pheebs was fit as a fiddle. But no one had been able to persuade her to join them. She’d promised Billy she would escort Afarra to safety, if it proved necessary. Having completed her task, she was heading for the Rad Region to rescue her friend and mentor. “Are you nuts, Pheebs?” Tiro had exclaimed. “That’s the last thing Coach B would want. He’d kill me if he found out I let you—” “Let me!” Pheebs had shot back. “No one let me do nothing, fly-boy! Not you an’ not the beards on the 437th. Billy save me. Taught me to read an’ write. Never let ’em hurt me. My turn to save him. I forget no one.” Ji-ji wondered whether Tiro would give up his dream to fly with the Dreamfleet to search for her. If she’d asked herself that question a few days ago, her answer would have been yes. Looking at him now, however, she doubted it.
Before she’d taken off, Pheebs had put her arm around Afarra. “Look after this one like gold,” she’d said. “She small like me—but she grow two inches since we leave. See how she tower above me now? Why? Cos she Free to grow in outer air an’ cos she stay in the tower an’ stretch to the sky at last. No need for hiding small anymore.”
Pheebs’ logic sounded iffy to Ji-ji. Hard to imagine that the old shot tower caused Afarra’s growth spurt. Besides, anyone looked tall next to Coach B’s tiny assistant.… On the other hand, Ji-ji had to admit Afarra had shot up uncannily fast in just a few days.
Pheebs had snuck off during the night, leaving a brief note behind in a sprawling hand.
To say Goodby is bad. I Can not do it Afarra. Musa protect you now. And Jiji too. And Tiro. He is not so dumb for a fly boy sometimes. Love Pheebee. (NOT Cloth-34b) XOX
After Pheebs’ departure, Afarra had been so cut up that Man Cryday agreed to ask Musa if he wanted to go with them. He couldn’t enter the Monticello Protectorate—they shot stripers on sight—but he could travel with them until then. Presumably, Musa had agreed to Man Cryday’s request, because there he was, serving as Afarra’s pillow.
If there had been any doubt that Afarra could communicate across species, doubt dissolved that morning when Afarra began talking to the striper in a hodgepodge language even Man Cryday had difficulty following. She’d detected a mixture of English, patois, Creole, Swahili, sign language, baby talk, and Afarra’s own invented language. A spattering of Totepp too, words she must have picked up from Uncle Dreg. She had the same uncanny ability to converse with the stallion, who would stop fretting in his pen whenever Afarra approached. She could also communicate with Drol. Ji-ji had witnessed it herself.
Late yesterday evening before they went to bed, Man Cryday had invited Drol to her cabin so he could converse with Afarra. When she saw him, Afarra ran to the door, grasped his huge hairy index finger, and pulled him inside. Outfitted in a Jangler costume with a large cow bell and a series of smaller bells in a chain around his neck (so people would know a Viral was approaching and beat a hasty retreat), Drol proved to be a bashful giant. At over seven feet, he made Afarra look like a toddler. He’d been caged for so long, Man Cryday said, his back had forgotten how to straighten itself. She estimated him to be a few years older than Ji-ji, though his stooped posture aged him.
Ji-ji had prepared herself to see Drol’s face, having only seen it in shadow before. But when he slid back his hood she couldn’t stifle a gasp. More ape than bear, and more beast than man, his hairy face and skull were grievously misshapen. His distorted mouth exposed his gums and made his speech—closer to grunting than speaking—almost impossible to decipher. His eyes and many of his facial features were decidedly human, and his fingers and toes, though misshapen, looked human too. His prominent forehead, tiny ears, and thick body hair alarmed Ji-ji until she reminded herself they had a lot in common. I’m like this creature now. When Tiro looks at me he sees what I saw when I looked at Drol for the first time.
Afarra had served as an enthusiastic translator, though Ji-ji couldn’t say for certain how much Drol actually told her and how much she made up. In the end, however, they learned that a guard named either One Monty or Juan Monteverdi (the latter being Man Cryday’s adaptation of Afarra’s translation of Drol’s indecipherable speech) had shown him kindness, joining him in his cage to tutor him whenever he could get away with it. Drol didn’t know when he’d been transferred to the 437th, but it had taken him days to make the journey in the back of a covered truck. The most surprising part of the conversation related to how he’d escaped from the arsenal. He’d been held there for days, in transit to somewhere else, if Afarra’s interpretation was accurate. Apparently, on Death Day morning, Uncle Dreg had been hurrying past the arsenal on his way back to PenPen when he’d heard Drol’s moans through an open vent on the outer wall of the building. Casting his own sorrow aside, the wizard had ripped off the vent cover, climbed down into the shaft (at least, that was how Afarra translated it), found Drol, and unbolted his cage. After she heard this, Ji-ji understood why Drol uttered the wizard’s name with a reverence usually reserved for God.
Man Cryday did her best to elicit as much information from Drol as possible about his time in captivity. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to tell them much about the first cage where he’d spent his younger years, or the last one on the 437th. Each time Man Cryday asked him about it he screamed and wailed. Eventually, Afarra realized that Drol remembered very little apart from the other prisoners’ screams and wails, which explained why all he could do was scream and wail when they questioned him about it. He’d been kept in solitary confinement for much of the time, and his weak eyesight made it difficult for him to see much of anything. His heartbreaking revelations prompted Ji-ji to leap up from the bed and spontaneously embrace him. (A reckless thing to do because he’d returned the embrace with gusto and almost crushed her wing sprouts.)
In the swinging hammock of the train, Afarra the Ant Whisperer soon slept as peacefully as a baby. She looked so comfortable snuggled on Musa’s belly she could have been one of his cubs. His odor didn’t bother her. Ji-ji had always assumed Afarra was about three or four years younger than she was. The more time she spent with her, however, the more she questioned that assumption. Afarra had an ancient quality. Each time she wore Uncle Dreg’s Seeing Eyes, she seemed to age a little more. Her language was evolving into more complex structures. Her stubbornness, on the other hand, hadn’t changed at all.
Man Cryday had given Afarra a pair of shoes—the first real shoes she’d ever had—yet she adamantly refused to wear them. Her toes had told her they didn’t like being “cooped up,” so Afarra tied the laces together and hung the sneakers around her neck, a substitute for the Seeing Eyes she carried in her bag. Tiro had warned her that the wizard’s necklace would attract attention if she wore it in public. “Folks’ll freak out if they see weird stuff like that,” he said. As Ji-ji recalled his words, she felt her sproutings struggle against their restraints.
Ji-ji struggled to adjust to her new body. In the past, her body had obeyed her. She told it to run fast and it ran fast. She told it to eat and it ate, to piss and it complied. But her wayward sproutings did whatever they felt like. Once, when they were seedlings of seven and nearly nine, Ji-ji heard one of the field-seeds say his penis had a mind of its own. She’d demanded to know if this was true and asked to take a look at Tiro’s to see its brain. He’d been reluctant at first, but she’d kept pestering him and eventually he’d pulled down his boycloth. She was disappointed. His penis looked like a small, undercooked sausage; she couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have one of those things slapping around down there, nor could she figure out where its brain was. She’d laughed when she’d seen it, and he’d gotten angry and stormed off—a reaction she hadn’t anticipated. Why wasn’t his fat little sausage funny? Now, for the first time, she realized what a liability it was to have appendages with wills of their own, and how sensitive you could be about them.
Tiro caught her looking at him and smiled before turning back to talk to Ben. He had new friends now who were older and wiser than she was. Ben and Germaine spoke with authority but they didn’t talk down to their young companions. Ben had an easy confidence that could charm the pants off most people, while Germaine’s earnestness told you to listen carefully to what she had to say cos you’d almost certainly learn something. Ben had a SuperState passport that granted him the inalienable Right to Roam Free. In theory, as long as he didn’t break the law in the Territories (which he did regularly, he said, as this situation demonstrated), the steaders couldn’t touch him.
“Your timing couldn’t be better,” Ben told Tiro. “With a pedigree like yours they’ll want to interview you for the D.C. sports channel. Uncle Dreg’s a hero after his Culmination Speech. Everyone’s talking about it. Just give ’em that big sappy grin an’ say you’re humbled by all the fuss. Fans don’t take kindly to an uppity Mule.” The two flyers laughed. Ji-ji felt her wing sprouts stir again underneath the bandages.
Germaine, who had spent three years as one of only a handful of female flyer-battlers, eased herself down next to Ji-ji.
“Benny romanticizes the coop,” she said. “But most flyers are black and brown for a reason. Takes desperation to risk your neck like that.”
“Man Cryday says things aren’t going well,” Ji-ji said.
“She’s right. S’been rough lately. Uprooting the planting system’s tougher than the reunionists anticipated. It staked its claim to a third of the country before most people realized how quickly it was spreading—states writing their own Declarations of Independence after the Sequel, disgruntled whites from the north an’ west pledging themselves to the Territories and the Found Cause. Chaos, rationing, riots.… Law and order’s tempting, ’specially after you seen chaos up close. So you trade justice for peace, an’ avert your eyes when the disease metastasizes.… Thing is, Ji-ji, the Friends need a symbol—something to raise ’em up, give ’em hope. Man Cryday says you could be the one to do that.”
“But I’m not a symbol. I’m a—” Ji-ji stopped herself. She’d nearly said she was a Muleseed. “I’m just … me.”
“Maybe,” Germaine replied. “But the Oziadhee thought there could be more to it than that. Sounded pretty certain about it too. We all gotta dream, kid. And we all gotta find someone to help carry that dream to the mountaintop. S’what leaders do.”
“I’m no leader. I guess I was pretty good at public speaking but I hated it.”
Germaine smiled and patted Ji-ji’s knee. “I don’t think public speaking will be something you gotta worry about yet, kid. You’ll likely have a few other things to tackle first.”
Ji-ji nodded. Her sproutings were itching like crazy. She wanted to rip off her T-shirt, tear off her bandages, and scratch herself raw. Man Cryday had shown Germaine how to apply the ointment, and Germaine had done it without flinching, but it hadn’t had the same effect. Germaine had been worried about hurting her, so she hadn’t massaged it in as deep as it needed to go. No one had a touch like Man Cryday. Ji-ji had underestimated how hard it would be to part ways with the Gardener of Tears.
When they’d said goodbye, Man Cryday had kissed Ji-ji on the cheek and said, “Alis volat propriis,” and Ji-ji recognized the words as ones she’d heard through the caller. She’d asked who Alice was. Man Cryday had smiled and said, “Each congregation of Friends has its own saying. Some have been transplanted from the old state mottoes. The phrase is Latin. It means ‘She flies with her own wings’—or ‘his own wings,’ some say. I like ‘her’ better, yes?” Then she’d held her close like a grandmother. Ji-ji had wanted to ask if the phrase was just coincidence, but it had seemed like a vain question, the kind that would result in a flauntification fine on the 437th.
Ji-ji shifted her position. Man Cryday had bound her sproutings so tight it was like wearing one of those ridiculous corsets fairskin women in the Territories had to wear. Unaccustomed to restrictive clothing, Ji-ji found it impossible to take a deep breath. There was no way she could run for miles bound up like this. Luckily, one of the Friends—a Cradle recruit named Kofi—had been tasked by Man Cryday to make her a runner’s short-cape. In the early days of the Freedom Race, everyone wore these mini capes that ended just below the waist. Man Cryday said a few runners usually paid tribute to this tradition by wearing short-capes themselves. The clothing was treated with the same respect afforded to military uniforms. With any luck, therefore, Ji-ji wouldn’t be required to remove it. Man Cryday gave Ji-ji strict instructions not to do so in public unless she could retract her sproutings and keep them retracted. Until then, she had to keep them bound under her short-cape, which should make them hard to detect as long as they didn’t act up too much.
The train slowed down to take a curve, then sped up again. Prior to the train ride, Ji-ji hadn’t experienced speed often, apart from the occasional ride in an automobile. Like height, speed was something female botanicals were prohibited from indulging in “to excess.” If her wings flowered, would she be able to match the speed of a horse, or a truck, or a train? What would it feel like to rise into the air and see things fall away, as if the force of gravity were little more than a cape?
The train jolted noisily along the tracks. At times, it lurched abruptly to the right or left. Ji-ji wondered if it felt like this sailing on the ocean. How frightened the Passengers must have been if it did—lying in filth among strangers in the dark belly of a wooden beast as the ship rocked them farther and farther away from home. The motion, though it made her companions drowsy, made her pensive. She welcomed having time to reflect on the past few days.
Zinc’s saddlebag lay beside her. Into it she’d transferred many of the items from Lucky’s duffel bag—Tiro’s letter, her watch, and her map among them. Man Cryday had added a change of clothes, and a book called The Dreamer King, about the civil rights struggle. Books were precious. Few were printed anymore and new ones cost a small fortune. Ji-ji felt rich. She would have to surrender her bag to Germaine before she entered the race, but she knew she could trust her to return it when (if?) she made it to the city. Aside from shoes and a change of clothes, competitors weren’t permitted to bring anything with them.
Carrying so much wealth had a sobering effect. She’d never had anything of real value to leave to someone else. If she didn’t make it, and if Tiro and Afarra didn’t either, she’d instructed Germaine to look for Dipthong Spareseed, who would probably be going by Donna, and give the bag to her. Ji-ji knew chances were slim Dip had made it out of The Margins alive, yet it made her happy to imagine her generous friend in the City of Dreams. She pictured the long-suffering kitchen-seed living happily inside the city walls, reading excerpts from the Dreamer’s speeches to the four orphans she’d adopted. No contamination cross on her chest to shame her cos her days as a Tainted were over.
Ji-ji knew how fortunate they’d been. If the train hadn’t been carrying the snarlcat, there wouldn’t have been room for them. Following the latest trade treaty, the steaders had salvaged and returned to service more of the trains built in the Age of Plenty. Lotter often complained that spotty maintenance and the labor shortage made these trains notoriously unreliable. In addition, unrest in the Territories and recent floods forced them to take circuitous routes. Their journey to Monticello, not very far as the crow flies, would take several hours. They should arrive at the second checkpoint before dawn. After they disembarked and passed under Hemingsgate, Tiro would battle in the Jefferson Coop. The morning after that, assuming they’d been ratified as Wild Seeds, she and Afarra would set out on their marathon to the city. If the monitors were kind, they would bus the runners part of the way and the race would be a fifty- or sixty-miler. If the inquisitors had their way, the runners would have to cover the entire distance—110 miles over some rough, hilly terrain, right through the heart of wild country. Ji-ji looked at Afarra. How would she run that far?
Germaine woke for a moment and felt instinctively for her gun before dozing off again. Earlier, she’d told Ji-ji her real name was Maria Mya Alexander Santos, but she’d said that name could be tricky in a region filled with first-class morons, so Ji-ji shouldn’t use it till they met up again in the city, if then. Germaine’s father was a white Texican, her mother “Mexican through and through.” As a child, Germaine had traveled up with her mother and two sisters in search of the man who’d left one day when he’d gotten bored. “Mom searched for my dad her whole life,” Germaine had explained, “even after she found him. He didn’t give a crap about her or us. Mom refused to believe that. Never believed anything she didn’t want to believe. She was a bitter romantic. Beware of that, kid. It’s a lethal blend.”
Germaine had described how they’d been hoisted up over the Weeping Wall on the southern border. Her mom hadn’t a clue where to go and they’d wound up smack-dab in the middle of the Rad Region. Germaine said she probably had the same type of cancer that killed her mom. “I check my boobs every morning an’ wait for lumps to appear. It’s depressing. But it’s spurred me on to do more with my life, y’know? Don’t want to look back and discover I never made a difference.… Mom had PTSD real bad. Made her crazy mean. I got the scars to prove it. Mom was carrying too much crap around and only a fraction of it was hers. Ate her up in the end, along with the cancer. But I was a teenager by then. Could take care of myself. Like you.” Ji-ji had nodded sympathetically and instructed herself to look up PTSD when she got her own dictionary in the city.
Germaine had said she’d heard there were hardly any white women on plantings anymore. Said the more the SuperStates and Independents got their act together, the more wives were hightailing it off the plantings to seek a better life for themselves. “Who wants to see your husband screwing around with girls young enough to be his granddaughters, even if it’s all a grand sacrifice to seed the Territories? Figure the Wives-Proper are the steaders’ Achilles’ heel. They’re the ones we gotta persuade. S’why Man Cryday was pinning her hopes on your mam. From what I hear, she had a classiness all her own. Wanted her to appeal to other women. Tell ’em why all females had to band together and fight for liberation. Were there many white women on the 437th?”
“Only Old Shadowy, the planting diviner,” Ji-ji had told her. “An’ a few Liberty Laborers’ wives. Miss Zyla Clobershay used to live there too, but she was fired. You know her?”
“You kidding? Everyone knows Zy. She’s amazing.… She also happens to be batshit crazy. Takes chances no sane person would dream of taking. But if you’re in a tight spot, it’s Zy you want fighting next to you over and above everyone else in the Friends—’cept Lucky, of course.”
When Ji-ji had made the mistake of pointing out that Lucky hadn’t officially been a Friend, Germaine’s temper had flared. “What the hell do you know, kid? Lucky Dyce was the bravest friend I’ve ever known!” Then, to Ji-ji’s surprise, Germaine had burst into tears.
The Liberty Train chugged along through the night. Everyone except Ji-ji had been rocked to sleep. The snarlcat, thank god, was still out cold. The notion that she’d forgotten something important gnawed at Ji-ji, but then it always did. The revelations about Silas, Bonbon, and Charra highlighted how blind she’d been. From now on, she would do better.
Tiro moaned, softly at first, then louder. He was dreaming. Probably one of his recurring nightmares about his brother. Sometimes Amadee appeared whole; at other times, he’d been tractor-pulled and Tiro had to gather up the pieces and put him back together like a puzzle. Tiro said that was the worst cos he knew how futile it was but he had to keep doing it, otherwise he’d have to show his mother what happened to her son. Which made no sense either cos she was the one who’d rocked Amadee in her arms that morning, so wouldn’t she know about it already? Tiro had discovered them like that. Pushed his way through a crowd of gawking seeds. He still didn’t know why he’d been drawn to the cornfield behind Williams’ father-house where he’d found his mother with what was left of Amadee.
Tiro moaned again, tried to speak. His nightmare must be getting worse. Ji-ji didn’t feel she could go over to where he lay and comfort him, not when her back disgusted him so much. While they waited for the Liberty Train, Ji-ji had told Tiro about Charra’s double amputation and he’d gotten excited. “They got a bunch of surgeons in the city. Got a new hospital up an’ running at full strength, pretty much, in the city’s Elevated Zone. The doctors got loads of experience with the terror and disaster victims. Ben says they got a special wing devoted to the Dreamfleet battlers an’ their kith-n-kin.” Ji-ji had attempted to make light of it by saying, “So you want me to have my wings amputated in a special wing?” Tiro had looked at her like she’d gone mad. Though she’d never wanted to chain him to her, it still felt like she’d lost her conjoined twin—like she’d woken up after surgery to see him standing there in front of her, separate and distinct. She wished she could be sensible and admit that he was he and she was she and that was that.
If only Charra were here. Her warrior sister would never be intimidated by a couple of wing stubs. Charra had been right about so many things. Steaders being scared of Toteppi for one. She must have been pregnant when Ji-ji had stopped by Petrus’ seed quarters to see her. Truth was, Ji-ji had been too young and dumb to notice anything. (Another time when I wasn’t paying attention.) All she’d noticed was Charra’s beat-up face as she stood there, beaten by Petrus … the steader who’d seeded both Lua’s and Charra’s offspring … the bastard who’d killed Mam in cold blood. Could it be coincidence that Petrus seeded both Wingchildren? Maybe he didn’t, Ji-ji thought. Maybe Charra an’ Lua were taken to the arsenal and inseminated like the Tuskegees? Does that mean Lotter may not be my father-man either? She had to think this through. Her mam had said Lotter forced himself on her a few hours after he’d pyred Elly, but maybe something else got her pregnant? The idea that Lotter wasn’t her father-man should have made her glad, in a way. Yet she felt suddenly adrift, as if she wasn’t tethered to anything real at all. Who was she? More to the point, what was she? She needed consolation. She reached into the saddlebag and took out the book Man Cryday had given her.
Most seeds had heard of the Dreamer but few had an opportunity to read his words. She trained Lucky’s flashlight onto the pages as closely as she could so the bright cone of light didn’t disturb the others. She’d heard the Reverend’s words before. Uncle Dreg had played them to her and Tiro on his old gramophone. The wizard had to turn the volume way down so no one else would hear the Dreamer’s impassioned pleas. His voice had stayed with Ji-ji all these years. Like Uncle Dreg’s, it was filled with so much yearning it inspired you to do something to make things better. Man Cryday had inserted a bloodred leaf from an Immaculate tree into one of the pages that featured excerpts from the Dreamer’s letter, the one written on April 16th, when he was confined to a jail cell. Ji-ji began to read. It seemed to her like the Dreamer was worried the dream would fly away. A chill ran down her spine. I’ll be in jail one day, she thought. A caged bird.
She looked over at the snarlcat’s cage and saw herself inside a cage, her wings broken and useless. A six- or seven-year-old Bonbon lay bleeding beside her, his wings ripped from his back. Someone had mounted them to the bars of the cage! She heard the drip, drip, drip of wing blood as it hit the floor. She reached out to comfort her brother. Her touch engulfed him in flames!
She was back in the boxcar. The snarlcat still snored. She must have dozed off, had a nightmare. Yes, that must be it. The memory of her time in the confessional haunted her; so did the Dreamer’s letter. What she’d learned about those awful mutation sites haunted her too. She must have mixed it all together in her head.
Afarra woke. “You are shaking like a leaf, Elly,” she said. Afarra reached into her bag, pulled out the Seeing Eyes, and hung them round her neck.
Afarra’s voice changed: “‘Read the letter,’ he is saying. ‘Read the letter now.’”
It seemed like good advice. Uncle Dreg knew the Dreamer’s words could heal her.
Ji-ji turned again to the book, which had fallen to the floor. She picked it up, found the page with the letter again. The excerpts moved her—certain sentences in particular, the rage and the tears and the weariness all mixed together. Though the Dreamer felt compelled to keep going, Ji-ji sensed he yearned to lay his burden down. She understood why so many refugees flocked to the City of Dreams to set up their tents and cardboard hovels at the foot of the Reverend’s statue in the flood-prone part of the city. There he was in the photo—a small black man, preaching in front of a monument to another assassinated leader, who would understand his burden the way others couldn’t.
Afarra moved her head from Musa’s belly to Ji-ji’s lap. “The sproutings are sad?” she asked. “They are hurting?”
“No,” Ji-ji replied. “Nothing hurts as bad as it did before.”
“Do not concern. We will see him. I will pass the exam and race the way home.”
Tiro said he’d gone over the questions on the Race Eligibility Exam with Afarra during their journey through The Margins, before they’d gotten separated. He and Pheebs had both concluded that Afarra’s answers were beyond peculiar, so Man Cryday had sent word to Friends in Monticello that Afarra needed to be quizzed by a race monitor who would appreciate her unique point of view. Tiro had told Afarra that as long as she didn’t wind up being quizzed by an asshole she’d be fine. Afarra had asked him how many assholes there were in Monticello. When Tiro, pulling a number out of his ass, had told her there were seven altogether but none of them would be working on the day they arrived, Afarra had been visibly relieved.
Ji-ji put her arms around Afarra and held her close, tried again to dismiss the gnawing sense that she’d forgotten something important.
Their companions soon began to stir. They needed to disembark while darkness was still their friend. The train began to slow down.
Ben jumped up and eased the door open a little. He peered into the dark.
“Okay,” Ben said. “You ready? I can see the lights of Monticello way off in the distance. We gotta jump when we slow down an’ hit this next curve.”
“Jump?” Ji-ji cried. “From the train? While it’s moving?”
“Don’t you remember?” Germaine told her. “There’s an inquisitor inspection in Monticello. No way we can risk riding this thing all the way. Last person you want to tussle with is a cardinal.”
“If we ride all the way we are toast,” Afarra declared, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Oh crap! Ji-ji thought. Does everyone know this but me? Please let this be the only important thing I missed.
The train slowed a little more; then it slowed more than that. Ji-ji grabbed her saddlebag.
“You ready?” Ben yelled to Tiro above the clatter of the train.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” Tiro yelled back.
Ben slid the door open further. “You first, fly-boy!” he cried.
At least I won’t be the first to jump, Ji-ji thought, grateful for small mercies. Wrong again.
Before she could protest, Tiro grabbed her hand and pulled her down with him into the rushing dark.