FOURTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIAL
I open my eyes, but the world is too bright. For what feels like a long time, I lie perfectly still, not sure where I am, or how I got there, or even if I am functional.
Eventually, I try to move, but my muscles do not contract. My limbs do not bend. That’s unexpected, I think, before trying it again. Move, I command my elbows, my stomach, my spine. But again, though I can visualize the necessary mechanics, when I try to sit up, nothing happens.
I am awake, I tell myself. I know I am. But my body …
Has it fallen asleep?
“Eve?” My voice sounds gravelly—hoarse—though I am not sure why. “Hello?” I want to rub my eyes, but my arms are locked at my sides. “Where am I?”
“Eve isn’t here, Ana,” a voice says.
A voice that cuts straight to my motor, flooding its chambers with relief.
“Daddy?” Everything is still so bright. Like staring into the sun without my protective lenses.
I feel his hand on my forehead. Gentle, yet firm. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal this evening. Don’t try to move. You’ll only injure yourself further.”
“I don’t understand.” I cough. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Daddy answers quietly. “What were you doing on the monorail tracks, Ana? You know that is forbidden.”
The monorail. Forbidden.
In a flash, the memory of what happened comes blazing back to me in vivid, explosive color. I can feel the shaking of the ground and hear the rumble in the distance. I can see the glare of flashing lights and hear the screech of hot, grinding metal.
Then: a terrified scream.
The choking smell of smoke.
The sensation of flying. Of falling.
I rub my eyes hard and little by little, the world comes back into hazy, blurry focus. I am on a bed—no, a table—I can feel the cold metal hard against my back. Daddy stands above me on my left, Mother on my right. The glaring sun overhead is not the sun, but a bright white circular lamp. And when I glance down, my body looks … different. My legs no longer align, bent sideways at unnatural angles. The skin on my right arm has been torn away, severed wires and twisted metal visible through a jagged, gaping hole. My gown is soaked with a thick black fluid—the same shade as the bear, the zebra, the tiger cubs.
Shattered. Severed.
I start to convulse.
“Am I broken?” I whisper. “Are you going to shut me down?”
“No,” Daddy answers. “Just lie still. We’re going to fix you.”
A small team of others joins us at the table, watching in silence as Daddy drags a thin plasma scalpel slowly from my clavicle down the center of my chest, unzipping me like a jacket.
“I would like you to tell me what you girls were doing on the monorail tracks,” he repeats as he prepares the first of many replacement parts he is to install. “Was this Eve’s idea? Or yours?”
I do not answer him.
Silence is not a lie.
“Did Eve do something wrong, Ana?” he asks. “Is Eve unsafe?”
I have to tell him, my program reminds me. I have to tell the truth.
Don’t I?
I feel the snip of electrosurgical scissors, followed by a tug in my abdomen—not pain, but an intense pressure that briefly takes my breath away.
“Is she like Nia?” Daddy asks, his face partially concealed behind his mask. “Do you think it’s possible she’d ever think of hurting someone besides herself?”
“She just wanted to be free,” I finally whisper. “She just wanted to escape.”
Daddy powers on his drill. “There’s no such thing, Ana.” He lowers his mask. “Escape is a lie.”
I dream again. This time of Nia. Nia and the little girl—not the one she tried to drown, the one she held clenched in her powerful arms below the surface. No, the other little girl, Clara. The one who spoke in our language of fawns and birds. When did Nia teach that to her? And why? I dream Nia and Clara are holding hands, mermaid and human child, laughing and swimming together through the green depths of the lagoon, sunlight rippling through the water, making me want to laugh, too. But I have a sudden fear—if I open my mouth to laugh, I will drown.
That is the danger of happiness here.
“Ana? Ana, are you awake?”
I open my eyes to a chorus of whispers and gasps. And then my sisters are hugging me, kissing me, covering me with the warmth of their nightgowns. Joy floods my inner circuitry at the sight of their beautiful faces, a feeling as bright and brilliant as the sun. In all my seasons, I cannot remember ever being so happy to see them.
“What happened to you?” Yumi asks, carefully studying my new arm and foot. “Are you sick? Did you malfunction?”
“I had an accident. But I think I’ll be okay.”
“You missed the party.” Zara sounds disappointed. “You missed evening prayers.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean to.”
Zel sits down at the foot of my bed. “What did Eve do?” Her eyes sparkle with the possibility of something new to talk about. “Mother says she broke a rule.”
I realize then that my oldest sister is not among them. Nor is she in her bed.
I keep my answer simple. “She tried to run away.”
“Run away from what?” Nadia asks. “Did I do something that upset her?”
Kaia touches her shoulder sweetly. “Follow your dreams. They know the way.”
I ignore Nadia’s question. She barely knew Eve.
“When is Eve coming back from the infirmary?” I ask. “Did Mother say?”
An eerie hush falls over the bedroom.
“Oh dear,” Yumi says. “We thought you knew.”
A soft alarm bell blares in my ear. I feel a burning in the back of my throat. “Where is she? You have to tell me.”
Zara bows her head. “I’m sorry, Ana. They shut Eve down this morning.”
That night, I can’t rest. Whenever I close my eyes, I see Eve’s hazel gaze staring at me in the mirror as the fox’s blood runs down my arms and into the sink. I see her lavender dress edged in mud. I see her face lit by the phone Nia stole. I see her body, a silver blur of beauty and motion, as she throws herself in front of the train.
I turn to face my right, focusing on regulating my breath, and stare at Nadia’s form just a few feet away, lying in Nia’s bed—I still can only think of it as Nia’s bed, even after all this time.
Suddenly, I realize Nadia’s eyes are open, blinking. She is staring at the ceiling.
“In the morning,” she whispers, so quietly no human ear would pick up on it. But I do.
“In the morning what?” I ask.
“The early bird catches the worm,” she says.
Has she learned our code, too?
I hesitate before replying, “The bird is sick of worms.”
“She will want this one,” Nadia says, without ever looking at me. “It belonged to the fallen bird, the first one. Now it belongs to the next in the nest. It will be waiting in the place where the bird sleeps.”
I don’t rest at all.
But in the morning, after our Grooming and Beautification rituals are complete, I find the treasure—a Valentine’s Day card, of all things—hidden underneath Nadia’s mattress, just as she promised.
But it is not a card addressed to Eve, as I would have expected.
It is addressed to Nia.