52. Vesper #2
“We’re going to die because of that pain,” I say, darting between the statue’s feet and almost getting stomped on.
She ends up clipping my shoulder with her heel and I go flying into a stack of suitcases, tumbling into them and knocking them over before I can catch myself.
One of the suitcases springs open, revealing emptiness.
Another one scatters a yellowed newspaper and a silver spoon.
I stare at the contents with wide eyes, and then realization slams into me.
The hint.
I stare up at the statue as she chases Locke, as she swings that cone down and tries to smash him with it. As the cone passes, I notice it’s hollow in the top, open. It’s not a club or a hammer at all. It’s not even a weapon.
“‘Ask you to light the flame of my liberty,’” I repeat, staring at the cone. She screams again, that shrill, painful lament shredding my heart to pieces.
Not a cone. Not a weapon. Something else.
“Light the flame,” I repeat. “Svetlana, that’s it! It’s not a cone! It’s a fucking torch!”
Svetlana scoffs. “A torch?”
“Yes! We have to light the flame,” I shout excitedly. “We have to light her flame!”
Svetlana hunkers down. “I do not like fire.”
“But how?” I pop open my inventory and look, but I don’t have anything that creates fire on me other than a small lighter.
It’s too small for such a large flame, especially while moving.
It would just flicker out the first chance we had to start it, if we could even get something lit.
“Locke! Do you have something that makes fire in your inventory?”
“Not really!” he shouts back, grunting as the cone catches him and throws him against the wall.
Anyone else would have been knocked out of breath with that hit.
Not Locke. He immediately drops back to his feet and takes off again despite the human sized crack in the wall behind him. “Just a few matches.”
“Fuck,” I hiss, looking around, my eyes catching on the dozens of suitcases again. “Keep her busy!”
“What?” he snarls, before diving out of the way of her cone again. The violent scream that rips from her throat rocks the courtyard.
“Just do it! I think I’ve figured it out,” I tell him, before starting to open the suitcases closest to me.
“Well, hurry it up!” Locke growls. She almost stomps on him again and he goes flying when her sandaled toe catches his heel. He has exactly one second of being sprawled on the white floor before he has to leap up and rush away, avoiding her stomping feet again.
The next scream makes my head squeeze and I pause long enough to rub my temple and glance up at her.
“I’m working on it, Lady Liberty. I’m trying.”
I rush through the suitcases, opening one after the other, finding them either empty or with only a few useless items. Baby shoes rest inside one, pink and frilly.
They’re clean, never worn. A child’s toy dog, so worn it almost doesn’t look like a dog anymore.
A single pair of clothing, folded pristinely and proper, made of all cotton.
Remnants of people that never made it to their destination, or items left behind when they had to leave in a hurry.
The photographs are the worst. Families peering at cameras, families of all types.
Some of them are smiling. Some of them just stare sternly at the camera.
Some of them are regal with wealth. Some of them are happy in rags. All of them have one thing in common.
Their belongings are scattered around this courtyard, forgotten.
I try my best not to damage any of the items in my haste to find something that will help. My instincts are screaming at me that the suitcases are the answer. I just have to find the right one.
Lady Liberty notices me riffling through the suitcases and screeches, rushing toward me before I can react.
Her cone catches me in the back so suddenly, I’m caught off guard.
I scream at the blossom of pain in my back and shoulder as I go flying through the air.
Slamming into the wall with a grunt of pain, I realize I’m not nearly as good at taking hits as Locke.
“Oh, Girl. That looked like it hurt,” Stevie declares, fluttering around me. “I can totally protect you if you attempt to sacrifice yourself for Lockey Poo again. We could try that.”
Gritting my teeth, I drag myself to my feet. “I just gotta find the answer. Protect Locke.”
Before she can zero in on me and smash me for good while I try to catch my breath, Locke leaps onto her leg and starts to climb, distracting her. She swats at him as he climbs, the sound of metal slamming into metal loud as she continues to scream.
“Doesn’t look like he needs my help,” Stevie giggles. “Look at my Lockey Poo go!”
I’ve opened so many suitcases by this point, and none of them hold the answer. I start to doubt my instincts, thinking that I’m looking in the wrong place. It isn’t until I make it three quarters of the way around the courtyard that my eyes catch on a specific suitcase.
It’s green, or at least, it used to be. It’s so old and worn now that patches of the leather are completely worn away, making it look decayed.
It has to be the oldest suitcase in the courtyard, the golden latches lacking the luster of the other ones, the handle broken completely off.
I pause, staring at it. Something tells me to pull my hyena mask on, so I do, dragging it over my eyes, letting my senses open up.
Now, looking through the mask, as I stare at it, small tendrils of turquoise dance around it, the same color as the statue.
“There,” I gasp. “It’s that one.”
“Well hurry up and open it,” Svetlana encourages. “Before the Bone Breaker has all his bones broken.”
I rush toward it, shoving my mask back up over my face as I go sliding on my knees across the white tile to reach it. I press the buttons to release the latches and jerk the suitcase open expectantly. Inside, there are only three items.
A photograph of a little girl with what must be her mother and father is right in the center.
The photograph is in black and white, but even with the lack of color, I can tell the family look like me.
Their eyes are a little slanted. Their hair is black.
They’re standing on the edge of a shore, and in the background, I can see the statue of Lady Liberty, tall and regal in the distance, a forever flame in her torch.
The little girl is holding the suitcase in her hand, in better condition than it is now.
There’s a piece of paper with letters typed in black ink across the page.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Petition for Naturalization
Beneath that, there is all the information written in black ink for the family.
Their appearances, their occupation, their names, every part of their lives.
The little girl’s name is Imani. Across the middle of the page, there is a big red stamp that says, “Denied,” but beneath it, written in a beautiful script, are the words, “Child approved. Process for separation.”
My chest squeezes tight. “Cipher,” I breathe.
“Yes,” he answers right away when my mental walls fall. “The humans of Earth were often times cruel.”
“Did she . . . did she ever see them again?” I ask.
He hesitates. “The young family pictured in that photograph were fleeing from war in their home country. They came to America in search of the freedom Lady Liberty represented. She was a beacon of hope for many immigrants, and they flocked to her shores. The child’s parents were denied entry due to quotas already being met for their country.
When the child’s parents were sent back, they were killed in a bombing. ”
“And the little girl?”
“You do not wish to know her story, Vespera.”
“Tell me,” I croak, holding the photo in my hand. “Tell me.”
“Very well,” he breathes. “She was transported to an orphanage where she was pressed into a too small room with dozens of other children. As she grew, she was forced to use her body to survive. She died at the age of seventeen from tuberculosis.”
“So, she never made it,” I whisper.
“No,” Cipher responds. “She did not.”
I pick up the third item in the suitcase, a bottle, and stare at it. Inside, a fire swirls as if it’s liquid. The outside of the bottle is warm, but not hot, and as I cradle it against my chest, the photo in my other hand, I stand and face the statue.
Lady Liberty is still chasing Locke, her enraged screaming shaking the very buildings around us. Locke is panting now, getting slower, and I know I won’t have much time.
I don’t know when I started crying. I have no memory of the moment tears began to drip down my face, only the realization that they are.
My chest is ripped open, pained for that little girl who was unjustly cursed before her life ever began through no fault of her own.
A family separated. A child paying the price.
Who decides that price?
Why has humanity always made the wrong choices?
Why is it always the people at the fucking top stepping down on everyone else?