Chapter 43 This Isn’t a Life
This Isn’t a Life
Sascia is eighteen. Technically an adult, although she doesn’t feel like one right now.
She sits in the center of the sofa, with Ksenya on her left and Mama on her right.
In front of them, Baba paces back and forth.
The TV is on behind him, on mute. Hollywood is producing a big-budget film of the Darkgriffin attack and its cast was just announced.
Public opinion is split; some welcome the production, others say it’s too early.
Sascia’s eyes are locked on the screen, but there’s nothing to shield her ears from her father’s disappointment.
“How did this happen, Sascia?” he asks, again. “We let you enroll at the Umbra, to spend your time and effort there, because we thought you were making something out of it.”
She was—she is. It’s just that her effort can’t be quantified in a GPA and SAT scores.
“You knew the conditions of your provisional acceptance to Columbia from the get-go. You had two years to get your GPA up and study for the SATs. Yours”—he brandishes Columbia’s rejection letter—“are not the scores of someone who’s been doing the work.”
“Isn’t my work with the moths more important?
” Sascia asks. “I’ve developed an entire surveillance system that will allow us to use the moths’ movements to predict Darkcreature attacks in New York.
If I keep expanding my map, we could have an attack alarm system more accurate than any invented before. ”
“How are you going to keep expanding your map if you’re kicked out of the Umbra?”
“I’m not going to get kicked out—”
“I spoke with Professor Carr, Sascia. He told me he made it clear to you that without furthering your education, it would be impossible to convince the Umbra funders to keep providing you with a stipend. Isn’t that true?”
Sascia gives a begrudging nod. Yes, it is true, and yes, it’s ridiculous.
Scholarship doesn’t require an Ivy League education.
She can educate herself just fine if she keeps furthering her education the way she does now: with the books she reads, the experiments she conducts.
This is not about scholarship. It’s about money.
Umbra students need to constantly prove their genius so that Carr can constantly ask his funders for more cash.
“I can keep working on my moth map on my own,” she says now to her father.
“I’ll get a job and in my free time I’ll recreate the moth garden.
I can easily refurbish my closet to host the garden safely, and I can get all the software I use with my friend Crow’s help.
I don’t need the Umbra, or Carr’s funding—”
“Sascia, be real.”
The severity of the statement must startle him too, because he stops his pacing and comes to perch in front of her, on the edge of the coffee table.
His features ripen into something sweet and concerned.
“You are still young, but you have seen exactly how the world can turn our life on its head in an instant. You have seen me and your mother work sixteen- and eighteen-hour days to keep the restaurant afloat. You and Ksenya both know better than most kids that life doesn’t always give us the luxury of choice. ”
Ksenya stares straight ahead at the soundless TV, her jaw locked tight. She’s back from Greece for two weeks, for what was supposed to be quality family time—instead, she gets this.
“Honey,” their mother tells her husband, “it’s not all so hopeless as that. They might be limited, but we do have choices. We made plenty of them in our time, and the girls will too. It’s just that,” she adds with a soft smile at Sascia, “we have always hoped you’d make better choices than we did.”
The back of Sascia’s nose is burning. She’d rather stab herself in the foot than cry, in front of her father, during this particular conversation, so instead she grits her teeth and lets her anger take over. “Isn’t it the better choice, always, to do what you love?”
“Kardia mou,” he whispers gently. My heart.
“I know you love your moths. I know you’re passionate about protecting the Dark and its creatures.
But love doesn’t put food on the table. Passion doesn’t keep a roof over your head.
Loving the Dark, protecting the Dark, dedicating your entire life to the Dark—that is not a life. ”
And isn’t that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard? All that she has loved and worked for, discredited with a simple sentence. Because, if that isn’t a life, if Sascia hasn’t been living, what has she been doing?
Her father reaches for her face, cupping it in his rough palms. “You are the smartest, kindest person we know. Isn’t that right?”
Mama and Ksenya nod emphatically.
“You can do so many wonderful things,” he says. “But first, you need to get your life together, kid.”
The next morning, Sascia pleads her case to Professor Carr.
Another year at the Umbra, during which she will get her grades up and ensure a spot at Columbia. She promises to enroll in whatever remedial courses he chooses for her, and promises to excel in them. There’s nothing Carr can do about the loss of her stipend, but she’ll figure something out.
“I can do this,” she tells Carr. “I’m a clever girl, after all.”
How wrong life proves her.