21. Sullha
SULLHA
" Y es, Zohara, in the morning," Sullha said into the phone for the third time. "The driver that brought us to the village will drive us to the other location. His name is Okidu."
"Are we going in the bus again? The one with the windows that turn milky?"
"I don't know. Maybe something smaller this time since there are not as many of us."
"Does Ravsoh know we are coming?"
Sullha shifted the phone to her other ear. "I'm sure he does."
She looked at Tomek, who was laughing at something on the television screen, the sound so carefree and joyful that it made her eyes sting.
He was sitting cross-legged on the living-room floor, entranced by an animated movie in a language he didn't understand, but laughing anyway whenever something funny happened on screen, or the music suggested that it was a funny moment.
"What should I wear?" Zohara asked. "I have so many options now that it's confusing. I don't know what the customs are here. What's appropriate?"
"Wear whatever makes you feel good, and don't stay up all night worrying. It's going to be fine."
There was a long moment of silence, then a sigh. "I don't know what to say to him," Zohara said in a near whisper. "On the boat, I cried, and he just stood there and patted my shoulder because I made him feel awkward. What if he doesn't really want to see me because I make him uncomfortable?"
Sullha closed her eyes.
She had answered a version of this question five times already.
Mirumah had asked it with stiff dignity, Baruha had asked it in a rush, Karina had not asked it at all, which somehow said the most, and Rohilah had asked whether she should bring Bianca or leave her with Saphira, who wasn't coming because she had no relatives among the soldiers.
"Of course, he wants to see you," Sullha said.
"They all want to see their mothers and sisters.
That's why they helped you escape. Why would they do that if they didn't want you in their lives?
They are just not used to interacting with you.
They need to re-learn what they knew before they were taken away and turned into hard warriors.
It will take time, and we all need to be patient. "
The others still didn't know about the hive mind. They might have suspected that something was odd about the way the Eight interacted with one another and the way they seemed to do things in a synchronized manner, but that was the extent of it, and she wasn't going to be the one to tell them.
It wasn't her place.
Zohara exhaled shakily. "You are so brave, Sullha. You are helping all of us."
"I'm not brave. I'm also scared, but I don't let fear rule me. I'll call you tomorrow again to tell you when to come outside. We will walk to the pavilion together."
"Thank you, Sullha. You are the best."
When the call ended, she lowered the phone and sighed. Her ear felt hot from holding the phone against it, and a headache was starting in her temples.
Was it because she wasn't used to conducting conversations that way or because of the stress?
After what she had been through over the past few weeks, this should have been nothing, an easy organizational task, but it wasn't. The emotional load was making it feel like a bigger deal than it was.
She was finally going to see Yaaf.
"Mama." Tomek lifted a pair of pleading eyes at her. "One more movie? Can I?"
"I think you've watched enough television for one day. It's time for your bath."
He looked down at himself. "I'm clean. I didn't play in the dirt." He lifted his head and cast her an accusing look. "You promised we would go to the playground, and we didn't."
"I'm sorry, sweetie. Tomorrow, after we return from visiting Yaaf and his friends, I'll take you to the playground."
His face brightened. "Two good things are happening tomorrow. I get to see Yaaf and go to the playground. Can I do both at the same time? Can Yaaf come play with me on the swings?"
"He's not in the village, sweetheart. He's in the city. We are taking a bus to see him."
He was about to ask more questions when her phone rang.
She looked down, expecting to see one of the familiar faces of the women she'd been talking with all afternoon, but it wasn't, and her heart nearly stopped because Yaaf's face filled the screen.
Someone had somehow added him to her phone, and he was looking out at her from the photograph with a smile on his face.
"Mama? Your phone is singing."
"Yes. It is. You can watch another movie." She rose to her feet and started toward her bedroom.
Tomek didn't argue.
She closed the door to her room and accepted the call.
"Yaaf?"
"It's me."
It was his voice, in her ear, low and close, as if he were standing just behind her shoulder, invisible like he had used to be in the enclosure's yard when he had come to visit her.
Her eyes filled with tears. "Yaaf." She pressed her free hand against her chest. "You weren't in my list of contacts and now you are, and you are calling me. How did that happen?"
"They gave us phones tonight. I've been standing in a corridor holding this phone and trying to think of what to say, but I don't remember any of the words I planned on saying."
"I don't remember how to breathe, so you're doing better than I am." She took a deep breath. "How are you doing? Did the scientists make the medicine for you?"
"We are well. Dimitri had the compound ready the first night, before we had even showered. He gave us the doses closer together than usual, so we are mostly back to normal."
"I'm glad. I was so worried for you." She let out another long breath. "Tell me everything. Where are you? What is it like? Are they treating you well? Is it terrible?"
"It's not terrible. We have rooms. Beds, showers, televisions. Today, the Guardians showed us the gym."
"The what?"
"Gymnasium. It is a room full of machines built for exercise. There are weights, and bags for punching that are reinforced so immortals cannot break them, and machines called treadmills, which have moving floors that you run on without going anywhere."
"Why would anyone run without going anywhere?"
"I asked the same question. The answer is convenience and privacy. This is not a private island. It's a very big city, and humans are not supposed to see immortals running at speeds exceeding seventy kilometers an hour."
That made sense, but then the number he'd said registered.
"You can run that fast?"
"We can."
"Wow. That's fast. I wish I could see you run."
"You will. When you come visit tomorrow, I can take you to the gym and show you.
There is also a movie theater, and Dimitri has declared that we will all watch a film together tonight.
It's about a submarine crew who defects from their country to the enemy side, and the enemy cannot decide whether to trust them.
" He chuckled. "Dimitri is not being subtle. "
"He's not."
"The Guardians are friendly. They eat and talk with us as if they have already accepted us into their community.
They heard from the Guardians who participated in the mission about how helpful we were, and they view us positively.
It is still a cage, but it's guarded by people who seem embarrassed that it must be this way. "
She pressed the phone to her ear, as if that would bring him closer. "I'm glad. I was afraid you were not being treated well."
"Bowen told me that you have a whole house to yourself and he visited you, and I have to admit that I was jealous. I wish I could be there to see it. To see you in it. Tell me about it."
She settled back against the pillows, opened the store of everything she had been saving to tell him, and it poured out of her.
She told him about the bus windows going blind and the tunnel and the elevator big enough to lift a whole bus.
She told him about the glass pavilion, and Kian, who was beautiful and awkward and nothing like the cold single letter she'd first known him as, and his wife, Syssi, who was warm and welcoming.
She told him about the square that looked like an illustration from a book, the ponds and the playground Tomek had spotted in the first ten seconds.
She told him about meeting the harem ladies in the café.
It was a confirmation of what he'd already guessed on the island, that the clan had freed them all.
She told him about the house. Three bedrooms, one for each of them, and the closet larger than her old room, and the four pairs of shoes.
"Four," she repeated. "New ones. Never worn by anyone. I keep opening the closet to check that they haven't disappeared."
He laughed. "Have they?"
"Not yet. I'm watching them closely." She curled onto her side, phone tucked against her ear.
"Someone went to a lot of trouble to fill the closets with clothes for all of us and to fill Tomek's room with toys.
I don't know who it was, but when I find out, I will thank them from the bottom of my heart.
I stood in front of the mirror today in a beautiful, brand new green dress, and I didn't recognize myself, and I thought, I wish Yaaf could see me.
I kept a list, you know. Every beautiful or strange thing I saw, I put on the list. To tell you.
The list got so long I was afraid I'd forget half of it. "
"I want to hear it all."
"You have a movie to watch."
"The movie will survive without me. The collective will watch it, which means I will have seen it anyway. That is one of the conveniences of being eight people." He said it lightly, but then his voice lowered. "I would rather have this."
Warmth spread through her chest.
"Tomorrow," she said. "I can show you instead of telling you. Well. Not the village. But me. We are all coming for a visit. All the mothers and sisters. Only Saphira is staying behind because she doesn't have a son or a brother among you."
"I know. Bowen told us at dinner."
"The mothers are terrified and overjoyed in equal measures. Zohara asked me three times whether Ravsoh actually wanted to see her."
"He does," Yaaf said. "They all do. They do not know how to say it or show it, and they might be uncomfortable, but they want it to change. They want to be a family again."
"The mothers feel the same. Everyone is afraid of the same thing at the same time, which means no one should be."
"That is either very wise or completely wrong."
"I'll take either." She hugged her free arm around herself. "What time do we arrive? Do you know? I want to count the hours properly."
"I do not know the schedule. Morning is all Bowen said. The visit will take place in a chamber two levels above us, and Mattie has taken it upon herself to make it a celebration. She and Anita are planning a brunch."
"I like Mattie. When we were hiding on the boat, I was too scared to strike up a conversation with her, but she seemed fierce."
Yaaf chuckled. "I'm sure she thinks the same about you. Everyone thinks that. You were the leader of the rebellion."
"What rebellion?"
"The escape. You coordinated everything. It was risky and scary, and yet you did it anyway."
Everyone seemed to think that she was so brave, but she wasn't. She was even afraid to ask Yaaf whether he knew about the breeders' ability to transition into immortality.
The question had been festering in her mind ever since Margaret and Bowen had explained how it really worked, and now it climbed into her throat.
Did you know, Yaaf? About the venom, about the women, about what we could have been. Did you know and not tell me?
She opened her mouth and then closed it.
He was right there, sounding so warm and unguarded, more open than she had ever heard him, and she could ask it now, and he would answer, but she would not see his face.
She needed to be looking at him when he answered, needed to see the truth in his eyes before his words could dress it. A voice could be steadied. His face could not, not with her.
"Sullha?"
"I'm still here. I was just thinking that tomorrow I get to ask you all the questions that I've saved up along with the list."
"Should I be worried?"
"Yes," she said, honestly. "Just a little."
The bedroom door burst open, and Tomek stood in the doorway, and his eyes were enormous. "Is that Yaaf? Nana said you're talking to Yaaf. Is it him? Can I talk? Please, Mama, please."
She smiled. "Someone demands an audience."
"Put him on."
She held out the phone, and Tomek grabbed it with both hands and pressed it to his ear sideways, then corrected it.
"Yaaf! It's me, Tomek!" A pause while Yaaf presumably confirmed it was him.
"I have a room all to myself, and it has a box of cars, they're tiny and so shiny, and a castle with knights, and Mama says I don't have to share unless I want to, and there's a big television, and I'm watching a movie about a cat and a mouse, and it's very funny.
" He took a breath. "Can you come so I can show you my room? "
Sullha watched her son listen to Yaaf's response, watched his face go through its rapid changes, cloudy then sunny, then cloudy again.
"Oh." Disappointment. "But we're coming to see you tomorrow." Sunny again, blazing. "With Mama and Nana. I'll bring my cars to show you." Another pause. "Okay. Okay! Bye, Yaaf!"
He thrust the phone back at her, transaction complete, and bolted back toward his movie.
She returned the phone to her ear. "You made his day, or rather night."
"He made mine." Yaaf had gone quieter. "He speaks to me as if I have always been there. As if I am simply a person in his life."
"You are a very important person in his life. He also started calling my mother Nana, and she doesn't correct him."
The silence that followed was full of unsaid things and shared memories.
She listened to him breathe, and she thought about a stone shelf at the cove, and a wet deck, and all the places they had stood close together and not given voice to the thing between them.
They had said it to each other in so many words, and saying it again should have been easier, but it wasn't.