The Migration, page 24
I dig through my chest of drawers, searching for my notebook with its inscriptions, scrawled poetry and fragments of translated Latin, Jaina’s unanswered letter folded between the pages. Also newspaper cuttings about JI2, the names of the dead. Sketches of maps, abandoned villages. A strand of Kira’s hair I found curled in her pillow and pressed between the pages for safekeeping. Martin’s report is there as well, folded in half and held in place with a paperclip.
Fear glides down my spine like meltwater. But not just fear—a presentiment. Dreams of something chasing me, darkness descending and Kira calling out my name.
“We can’t stay much longer.” Mom’s voice drifts up from downstairs, ghostly and panicked.
In a plaintive tone, Aunt Irene answering hers: “This is my home. I have to salvage what I can.”
That’s when I know I will never see this place again. We’re leaving for good.
And I don’t want to let go of it, of any of it. The river, this room, the sketch above my bed, a well-thumbed collection of old fairy tales, gilt-edged. And also slanting sunlight on cold mornings, our laughter, the two of us perched on our suitcases on our first day, both eager to go home. Except home is here now.
Cool air from the crack in the window chills my bare arms, riffles through the pages of my notebook. The words dance in front of my eyes, vivid in the greying light.
Things return to us.
There’s a feeling inside of me, a tension, as if I’m being wound up like a spring. If I leave with them now, I’ll never know the truth.
* * *
—
I trudge downstairs with my suitcase, place it carefully beside the stack of luggage in the hall beside the evacuation kit.
“Sophie, can you start loading the bags into the car?” calls Mom. She and Aunt Irene are unplugging all the electrical appliances in the kitchen, one by one. The chairs are being stood on the table, everything upside-down, to avoid water damage.
“Mom.” I say it quietly, watching them from the doorway.
It’s Aunt Irene who comes to me first, hands on her hips, impatient as all teachers are with those who don’t seem to be listening. “Sophie, get moving! We have to go.”
“Mom,” I repeat slowly. “I can’t come.”
I expect hysterics. There aren’t any, only the slow turning of Mom’s face toward me. “Of course you can.”
“We won’t be back, will we?”
“In a couple of weeks, maybe. We hope.”
“But you don’t think so.” She doesn’t answer. “I can’t go yet.”
Aunt Irene stares at the two of us as if we’re mad. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s something I need to do.”
“It’ll have to wait, Feef.” But a look of fear has come into her eyes, the same look I saw when we talked after PC Trefethen brought me home. But I can’t hold back now. There’s no more putting it off, no more room for lies.
“I can’t. Kira is out there. She isn’t dead.”
For a moment she doesn’t say anything, just stares at me, eyes wide. Then she bends forward, caught between hope and fear. “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t her body. They cremated another girl. I fixed it.” Aunt Irene gives me an incredulous look. “I’m telling the truth. Kira is up there. In the storm. And this is my only chance if I want to…” Find her. Save her. Say goodbye. “Keep her safe.”
“Kira’s alive?” Mom demands.
“I think so.”
“I’ve been dreaming about her,” she says, her voice almost lost in the howl of the wind outside.
“She didn’t die. She just…changed. The same way I will.”
“Sophie, don’t,” says Aunt Irene but I shake my head.
“Listen to me. I need you to understand what’s happening to me, what I am.”
I pull the cuff of my cotton blouse away from my wrist, revealing first the JI2 bracelet, then higher up, the seam of the scar from the night of the crash. Mom lets me take her hand, lets me touch the pad of two of her fingers against it.
“I’m still alive, despite the infection I’m still me.” She tries to pull her hand away but I keep hold, not forcing her, just letting her know I’m not finished yet. “When Kira got sick I didn’t understand, not really. Deep down. I thought her body was weakening. That’s what the doctors told us. In Canada. Here, too—like Dr. Varghese said. But that’s not right, is it? Dr. Varghese told me our bodies want this to happen. There’s a reason all this is happening.”
I flex my fingers and the muscles ripple, the scar dances.
“I can’t leave without finding out what she is.”
“If you’re going then I’m going with you,” Mom insists stubbornly.
“You can’t.”
“Like hell I’m going to let you go on your own.”
“I need to do this alone. You have to trust me. I know I don’t deserve it but Kira’s out there and I can find her. I know I can.”
“Will you come back?”
My hands are trembling. “I’ll meet you at the evacuation point.”
She makes a small noise and moves away from me to the window where she can see the storm clouds thick and heavy, swirling as if someone has stirred them with a spoon.
I turn to Aunt Irene. “You said that something will come after. You took me to see the survivors in Ashwell. You told me you didn’t know where the nymphs had gone.”
“We still don’t, Sophie.”
“Listen, this isn’t magical thinking, no matter what you believe. It’s just a new way of thinking. We’re caught in a cycle. This has happened before—during the Black Death, during those earlier cycles of sickness and calamity—because whatever’s causing it is a part of us. We can’t keep doing the same thing we’ve done before. You said you wanted to help me. This is how.”
“You’re only seventeen, how do you…” She still thinks this is her choice to make.
“I’ll be eighteen soon.”
“I wanted to solve this for you. I wanted to help.”
Gently, I say to her: “It doesn’t work like that, not this time. It’s just—the only alternative is nothing. Waiting for the collapse. Shoving coins soaked in vinegar into the boundary stones and hoping someone will see them. Surviving isn’t enough, not anymore.”
“This is crazy, Sophie. Let us come with you.”
“Keep this safe. For me.” I push my notebook into Aunt Irene’s hand. It’s not enough, I know, but it’s something—and she’s used to sorting through the debris. She opens it, hands trembling ever so slightly. Then she sees the report with Martin’s name.
“What is this?”
“It’s everything I have. Just in case. I need you to read it. Maybe then you’ll understand.”
Mom is staring out the window, losing herself, then returning like a tidal flow. She turns to me and tucks a few strands of hair behind my ears, the gesture so casual, so familiar. “I love you,” she says. “You know that, right? And Kira too—so much. You have to promise me you won’t get hurt out there.”
“You mustn’t let her go, Char. It’s too dangerous.”
“You were right before,” Mom answers. “I can’t keep her locked up, can I? Not now. Not when…” Her eyes search for mine. She says: “But promise me anyway.”
“I can’t,” I answer her as honestly as I can.
“Please.”
“I love you too.”
“Come back, Sophie.” A fierce smile, a blue smile—and then she lets me go.
37
“Sod that,” is all Bryan can say when I show up at his door, drenched through, telling him we need to go to the cement works now. “No bloody way. I need to meet my mum at the hospital. She’s already there.”
But I’m nothing if not persistent. Stubborn as the will of kings, Dad used to say. He could never talk me round to what I didn’t want to do. There’s no screaming this time though, no arguments, no rationales or mulish indifference, just me saying: “Please. It’s now or never.”
And Bryan saying: “Get inside at least. I’ll bring round my truck. This is madness, yeah? You know that?”
“I know.”
Ten minutes later I’m crawling into the front of the truck. He has tucked a pair of workman’s boots under the seat as well as a heavy wool jacket. My feet are dwarfed by the boots, so I lace them up tight. Bryan shifts us into gear, and the Ford growls onto the street.
“All right?”
“Maybe.” The pungent sting of ozone sends a charge shooting through my body. Some part of me craves the storm, revels in it, but it isn’t just that. It’s sitting here next to Bryan, the new feeling between us. It warms my skin, grips me in effervescence.
“I wasn’t going to let you walk with that land-lash blowing in, was I?” A spatter of rain flecks the windshield. One wipe is enough to clear it but we both know the worst is yet to come. “Leastwise I can help you use the damn thing. But you think it’s worth it? Your family will be wondering where you took off to.”
“They know all they need to for now.”
“Everything?”
“I told them about Kira. I gave them Martin’s report. The rest I’ll tell them when we’re done here.”
“If nothing goes wrong.”
“It’ll be fine.”
The lie hangs between us, neither of us wanting to acknowledge the litany of things that could go wrong. My phone beeps with a notification: Mom is trying to call me but I can’t talk to her. I’m afraid she’ll convince me to turn back. I thumb it to “silent” as Bryan shifts into second. We take off down Banbury Road.
* * *
—
“It’s a bodge job,” Bryan says, “but it’ll fly pretty well. I mean, it should.”
The cement works is glistening, slicked in the last downpour. The graffiti looks fresh, shiny. The rain is dying down to a sullen spatter, but we both know it’s the eye of the storm, and worse is on its way. Brownish rivulets of water thread the gravel beneath our feet, as we load the paramotor onto the bed of the truck.
Bryan drives us down the potholed road until we find a clear spot. We exit the car, gently lift out the paramotor and unfold the wings. The wind catches them, fills them with pockets of air. There could be hail, I think. It fell in London, chunks as big as duck eggs. I imagine them catching in the wings, tearing them apart, me plunging to the ground.
“Too windy,” Bryan says but all I can do is shrug. Nothing about the circumstances is ideal, but we have to act now, I know that.
He spends a good long time untangling the harness. His tongue pokes out between his teeth as he concentrates, muttering instructions at me. “This is the leading edge here. It has these openings, see, that’ll let the air inflate the wing, yeah? And this is the trailing edge where the brakes are attached.”
“I know all this.”
He shuts me up with a glance. “You know it when you’re hanging two feet off the ground. It’ll be different up there.”
After fastening me into the harness, he touches my face, cups my chin. There’s tenderness in him, but also fear smouldering beneath the surface. His eyes are lambent, nervy. “Like when you were practicing, hold onto the brakes.” He curls both of my hands around the handles. I’m wearing his heavy work gloves, but the leather is supple enough I can hold the handles without any problems. Everything fits snugly against me, the straps pulled taut but with enough slack for me to move a bit and adjust my weight. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.
“Scared.”
“Good, stay scared,” he grunts. “What you’re doing is dangerous.”
He grips my shoulders for a moment. We can both feel it: the terror of hurtling toward some unknown extreme, the necessity of it.
“At least I met you. I’m glad about that. If I’m going to die young, kissing you was worth five years.” He’s kneeling in front of me, his mouth is close enough that the warmth of his breath reaches me. I lean forward, kiss him again.
He pulls away, standing, steeling himself. He’ll survive, I think. Even if I fall, he’ll survive. He has to.
“Just remember. You’ll need a lot of air speed for the landing. Don’t touch the brakes until the last minute. If you pull too hard you’ll end up back in the air. You’ve got a radio headset. I’ll stay in contact the whole time, yeah?” He’s calm now, intent, focused.
“Yeah,” I tell him. Wanting to kiss him again, never going to kiss him again.
* * *
—
I breathe out slowly, trying to keep all the instructions straight in my head. The field is clear of obstructions, the tall grass snapping in the wind. Grey-green light glitters on bent saplings as tall as my shoulder, a tangle of briars and brambles, far enough away I should be in the air before I reach them. I position myself so that I’m facing straight into the wind.
“Just like practice,” I say into the radio, even though it isn’t.
“When the storm starts to break you get down here as quick as you can—but not the hard way. Obviously.” A tinge of humour in his voice. Good, good.
Th-rumble goes the engine, the vibrations running up my spine. The paramotor weighs less than I thought it would, but I still grunt as I swing it off the ground using my hips. My arms are wide overhead, the throttle gripped in my right hand.
I start jogging against the wind and the boots are awkward, too large, sinking into the damp soil. I try to gain speed. Then—thwump! The sail snaps into place in a smooth motion behind me and the lines pull with tension, throwing me off balance. I shift, ducking downward, hoping I can keep the damn thing straight. Momentum drags me forward, legs still pumping. I creep the throttle up until the grass skates away beneath my boots. The barest squeeze on the brake lifts the leading edge. Up, up, up, it sends me.
The first couple of seconds in the air are pure panic and pure joy, more like falling upward than flying. I have to grab height as fast as I can. The trees are coming toward me but then I’m arcing upward, over them. The canopy of leaves shivers beneath me. It’s only noon but it’s dark up here, storm clouds blotting out light, releasing it in snatches. I catch sight of the truck’s headlights carving out bright yellow divots in the shadows, and pass beyond them.
“You all right up there?” Bryan’s voice crackles in my ears. It’s a comfort to hear him.
“It’s dark, I didn’t think…” What I see is deep wood beneath me, the crook of the road somewhere to my left, the travellers few and far between. Empty houses, the power lines useless, strung like streamers from maypoles. The landscape, its rounded hills and flat valleys, formed from the giant beds of hard limestone, the churned-up deposits from an ancient coral reef. I can see the Colleges below, the city walls, centuries old. Built to last forever. Or until the water’s come flooding back.
In the distance, the storm gathers strength, dark and greasy-looking. I feel permeable, as if the world is flowing through me.
“Sophie?” The radio snaps and snarls but I don’t answer. The sky has turned into white clouds around me. Salty droplets of water sting my face, wrapping me in sea fog. The wind is whistling in my ear, a low keening note. Stronger, picking up speed. My sail has gone crooked, it ripples behind me—this is exactly what Bryan warned me about. The harness shakes and bucks, as I tug on the brake line to straighten myself, wondering about dropping lower, getting below the storm. But I don’t.
This, this, my body whispers. What you came for. What you knew was out here.
They burst through the vaporous gloom, gliding around me. Like shadows, ghosts, a shoal of sleek, lustrous fish.
At first I can only sense those closest to me, but then I become aware of hundreds of them. It’s as if a thousand eyes have opened over every inch of my body, sight and sensation merge. I’m attuned to them, snapping into place like a magnet. I realize they’ve been here all along, hidden in the skies, the wild places where they are unreachable. Kernels of beauty in the hurricane.
And Kira is with them. Part of me has been asleep since she disappeared, but now it revives, feeling creeps back in, pins and needles. I hadn’t known I was waiting but now the waiting is over, I’m free of it.
“Kira,” I’m saying into the radio, “she’s here!”
A fluid shape coasts below me, its edges indistinct. White—or not white, not exactly. Whiteness can mean so many different things: clouds, salt, cream, fleece, paper, porcelain. This is the white of feathers, of bone, of eggshells.
Closer now, I know that it’s her. I’ve dreamed about her every night since she left. But not like this. I saw her as she was, my sister. But she is something else too: her wings spread out in a delicate but rigid arc. She is buoyant, perfectly still, a creature of the air inside and out.
She has been made for the storm—not just to survive, but to flourish in it. She will never need to land.
“Sophie!” Crackle and hiss. I think I can hear the town siren blaring in the distance, warning of an emergency.
Go back, go on, go back, go on…Bryan is too far away, earth-bound. And the earth is passing away from me, the earth is an egg, the earth has hatched me. It’s hatched both of us. I can feel her closer now. The hair on my arms is standing on end, every part of me vibrating, like a plucked string, every part of me singing, calling out, echoed, answered in full. Beautiful, she’s so beautiful! And I’m riding the storm with her.
At last I am with her.
38
Memory is a twisty thing, a snake that’s half shed its skin. What I’m remembering is important, necessary—as clear and urgent as if I were reliving it anew.
Snow, a white blanket of it. Last December, the night we left Toronto.
The plane has been delayed, first for twenty minutes, then two hours. At the terminal gate, Kira and I press our faces against the windows overlooking the runway, watching the heavy snowflakes stick to the glass. We breathe on it and draw sad cartoon faces with our fingers.
