“The miracles have only begun,” I say.
“Miracles come only from God,” she replies.
“Call it whatever you like. The technology is powerful. It is a good thing that it remains in good hands.”
“The line between good and evil goes through every heart.” She laughs lightly. “But let’s not debate that again. This is a celebration. What you’ve done is courageous.”
We sit quietly for a while. I think of Benjamin, my son who died, too young, too soon, and I know Susan thinks of him, too. Eventually I ask, “Can courage come from fear...for what we lost?”
“Maybe,” she says. “Even fear serves a purpose.”
7
THE NEXT MORNING I feel sore all over. There are more blisters on my hands. Kernel sleeps beside me. The injured little bird pecks at corn dust. The dream glows warmly in my mind. Even fear serves a purpose. I was facing my fear, trying to save others from the sickness that took my son. But my ambitions were not pure. There was something off, a dark undercurrent. If I’ve learned one thing about the Five Towers, it’s that I’ll have to face that darkness, whatever it was. It’s the only way out—to learn the past, and scour it.
I rise from the straw bed and shiver from the cold. The faint coals in the hearth do not hold back the chill in the air. I summon the wind to add more wood, then pick up the wren to place it closer to the hearth.
The moment I have the bird in hand, it feels different. There’s a subtle current passing from it to me. I focus on this energy, and it is like the blue threads of air, but golden. I’ve felt it before, much stronger, from Emma.
I follow the threads, hopeful, and they lead into the bird.
Its tiny heart thumps rapidly. Its tiny muscles pulse with this energy. I find the break in the wing. It is like a gap in the golden threads.
I pull the threads together, slowly, carefully, until they touch again. Then, for good measure, I coil them around each other, like splicing two ends of a wire.
A sudden motion makes me jump. The bird leaps out of my hands and hovers before me for an instant, wings flapping. It chirps, then soars out the window.
I stare after it, stunned.
I healed it.
This was completely different from what I did on Earth. There was no splint, no brace. The threads were not there last night. But this morning, after the dream, they were nearly as clear as the blue threads of air. And I wove them together inside a bird smaller than my hand. Amazing.
When I step outside, I feel like a new person. The air is fresh and crisp. Birds sing and swoop overhead, and I wonder if one of them is my wren. No crows are in sight. The three suns shine brightly and make the drops of dew on my newly planted rows glisten like brilliant little pearls.
Kernel barks ahead of me, and past him I glimpse a new person at the edge of the field of golden wheat beside mine. I head that way, with Kernel joining at my side.
“You know this person?” I ask the dog.
Kernel’s tongue lolls. He bounces as he walks.
As I approach, the person looks up from underneath a wide sunhat. She is pretty, with a narrow face, brown skin, and large, dark eyes. There’s a hoe in her hand, just like the one Drew had. Kernel walks straight to her, passing through the line between our fields, where the invisible wall should be.
The girl kneels down and pets Kernel like they’re old friends. She ignores me.
“Hey, I’m Cipher.”
She glances past me, as if assessing my plot of land. “You’re new.”
“Yes. I came from the Green Tower.”
“I heard Green’s a wild place. I like the peace and quiet here.”
“Looks like you have a way with farming.” I say, eyeing the golden stalks and ripe clusters at the top, swaying gently in the breeze. “Any tips?”
“Have anything to offer me?”
“Um, corn kernels? I just planted some.”
“Come back when you got something ripe.” She spits on the ground beside her.
“What’s your name?”
“People call me Sally.”
“Was that your name on Earth?”
She stands up straight and looks steadily into my eyes. She looks young, like everyone in the towers, except for the eyes. She looks like she’s seen her share of trouble. “You first,” she says.
“Paul Fitzroy. Everyone here calls me Cipher.”
“Sounds American.”
I nod. “Twenty-first century. You?”
“My name was Sally Hemings.” She studies me, as if expecting some reaction. “I was also American, a few hundred years before you.” She looks toward Drew’s plot of land. “That makes three of us here. I wonder...”
“What?”
“There must be some reason for it. They say the leader Elijah—who nobody’s ever seen—picks everyone’s plot.”
“There could be a connection between us. It’s like that in the other towers, too. Lots of people knew each other on earth, one way or another. Are you connected to Drew?”
She frowns. “Ask him.”
“Were you family or something, across generations?”
“No,” Sally snaps angrily. “We look nothing alike. Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know...My mother was here, in Red.”
“Ah.” She seems surprised. “Was here?”
“She went up to the White Tower.”
“Bah, a myth.” Sally spits on the ground again. Kernel sniffs at it, then whimpers softly before lying at Sally’s feet.
“No, I saw it,” I say. “We were in the Scouring. She went up through the light in the center and never came back. It’s the only way out of this place.”
Sally scowls as she gazes toward the Yellow Tower in the distance. “Lies they tell us. No way I’m baking any nine-grain loaf and going there. Not any tower, not any scouring. Oh, I heard about that once. They fight. They die. But here I got my land, the sunshine, everything I need. So I’m going to enjoy it in peace and not let anyone tell me otherwise.”
She hoists her hoe over her shoulder and turns to walk away, holding out a hand to graze the ripe wheat above her waist. Kernel stays at her side and disappears among the tall golden grains.
I press my hand to the invisible wall. “Wait, please.”
She pauses and glances back. “I do like corn. So when you got something fresh to trade, maybe we’ll talk.”
She leaves and I return to my hut without Kernel or any new grain. The suns bear down on me. The morning cold has quickly given way to heat so thick it makes the horizon blur in a haze. The Yellow Tower looks like a wavering mirage in the distance.
Back in the hut, a new cat is waiting, curled up in front of the hearth. This one is black with a streak of white fur down its nose and slitted green eyes. I move toward it, hoping for more supplies, or better yet, another note.
The cat rises lazily.
A grey shape darts away from it, but the cat pounces. The grey creature twitches then falls still. The cat moves away proudly, leaving a small dead rabbit on the dirt floor. The cat’s green eyes look up to me, blink, then turn away. The cat leaps smoothly up to the open window and out, leaving the rabbit.
Faced with another meal of mushy cornbread and milk, I decide to accept the cat’s gift. It’s messy work, but I watched enough meat cooked in the forest of the Green Tower to know how to turn the creature into a little feast. There’s even some salt to season it. The meat tastes pretty good, with leftover cornbread on the side. With my belly full, weariness settles over me. It’s still too hot for work outside. I lay on the pallet of straw for a nap.