Chapter Six In Which a Door Is Opened #3
It was a tragedy, of course, but it was also the system working as designed.
Daphne’s father carried the weighty responsibility of living up to his ancestors’ legacy as the architect and intellectual force behind New Ionia.
Some argued that Orion Fallow had been the most important Founder of all.
He’d done more than simply amass a fortune by innovating in a world that had descended into crisis.
He had created a solution to all the suffering, all the shortages and desperation.
He’d designed the biodome that would become New Ionia and made it a reality.
The imprint of his mind was a part of the Core for a reason, and it was thanks to his brilliance that New Ionia was such a beacon of hope.
As a member of the board that oversaw the day-to-day running of New Ionia, Daphne’s father had carried enough on his shoulders before his wife had decided to betray him and, in effect, abandon her home, her friends, and her young daughter in a single act.
She’d been punished accordingly, as any citizen of New Ionia would have been.
She’d deserved it, for chasing momentary pleasure above her own family, even her own child.
A traitorous part of Zada wondered if Carine had really deserved the same fate. But that wasn’t for her to decide. (Founders Creed, rule three: “I will be faithful. I will not doubt the wisdom of the Founders, nor will I sow seeds of doubt in the minds of others.”)
“Should we step out?” Zada said. “We can go.”
“And why would we do that?” Daphne’s smile had gone stiff and forced, as if pinned on.
“Well, when we were younger—”
“When we were younger, I was terrified of snakes,” said Daphne. “So I made myself watch hours of archival footage of them. Now I could tongue-kiss a cobra if the occasion called for it.”
“Name an occasion where that would come up.”
Daphne fiddled with a lilac branch. “Suppose I was in a play, and the actor slated as my love interest was so literal-minded as to actually break a leg—”
“And what, the only understudy was a gigantic snake?” Zada broke in.
“With dreams of the stage!” said Daphne. “Who am I to quash a snake’s dreams?”
“Enter Callum the Cobra,” said Zada, “and enter and enter and enter. He’s a very long snake.”
This earned a snort from Daphne. “That was somehow even worse than a pun. I commend you.”
And there it was again, the familiar thrill Zada always felt when she made Daphne laugh or even crack a smile.
“Excuse me, I take it you’re here for a wedding?” said a reedy man wearing an apron. He didn’t seem to recognize Daphne at all, which was unusual for the shopping district. Maybe he was new to the city. Outsiders gaining admittance was rare, but it did happen.
Zada nodded. “Yes, we are.”
“In that case, might I recommend our custom flower breeding service? It’s guaranteed to match your signature colors down to the very hue and shade.” From the floor-to-ceiling wall of rose vines, he plucked a lavender bloom streaked with gold, which he waved directly under Daphne’s nose.
Without thinking, Zada reached over and took Daphne’s hand, lacing their fingers together like they’d done so many times before. Daphne went very still beside her. Then she squeezed back, so hard Zada could feel the half-moon bite of Daphne’s very short nails.
“—can actually tweak the precise luminescence in real time, if you so desire,” the shopkeeper was saying. “Isn’t that marvelous?
“Of course,” said Zada.
The shopkeeper glanced back and forth between them. “And may I say, it’s always a joy to meet a couple so in sync, so clearly devoted to each other as you two—”
“I need some air,” Daphne announced, bolting for the door.
Zada made her excuses and followed. She found Daphne loitering outside, leaning against the wall. Daphne had never found a wall she wouldn’t lean on. It was a hobby of hers, somewhere between the pranks and the brooding.
“Let’s call it a day,” said Daphne, straightening when Zada emerged. “I don’t think either of us has what it takes for a repeat performance.”
Discreetly, Zada rubbed a thumb over the meat of her palm, and the indents from Daphne’s nails. She nodded.
“In that case, we need to get you paid,” said Zada. “The only problem is, your beetle is at home.”
Daphne scoffed. “A likely story.”
“Likelier than me deciding to do all my errands with a bug in my pocket? What if your friend, the aspiring actor, tried to eat it?”
“I don’t think a snake could live off bugs,” said Daphne.
“Maybe it could be an appetizer,” Zada said. “An amuse-bouche. Are you saying cobras can’t engage in fine dining?”
They kept up a stream of such talk all the way from the florist’s shop to the train terminal, and then for the duration of the trip back to Zada’s home.
Zada knew it was a deflection, a beeline directly around the issue of what it meant that they were speaking again.
Zada also knew that she should have expressed her regret for ending their friendship, on the off chance it had in some way hurt Daphne.
At the same time, this fragile peace between them, this fabric of jokes and fanciful nonsense linking them together again, as gossamer-thin as a butterfly’s wing, felt too precious to disrupt.
None of Zada’s schoolmates had ever been inside her home before.
As she waved her hand over the doorpad, Zada felt a shiver of trepidation.
What would Daphne think of everything? The humid air, the slightest sheen of mold creeping up the walls, the sickly greenish glow that emanated from the council-issued lights—Zada silently catalogued it all as they stepped through the door.
But Daphne did not so much as glance around before holding out one hand.
“My payment?” Daphne said.
Zada picked up a sheet of one the paper letters from the morning, a shiny periwinkle square of congratulations. She creased it diagonally in half.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Zada. Perspiration was already blooming at her hairline.
“I would like my beetle, please,” said Daphne.
Zada added a few more folds to the paper. “I’m sure you would, but I don’t know how that would pair with a cup of Earl Grey.”
Daphne’s outstretched hand fluttered back to her side. “Are you calling me a snake?”
“By your own description, that’s not an insult,” said Zada. Another crease. Another fold.
“Are you talking to me or to your stationery?” said Daphne. “What in the world are you doing? Let me see.”
“If you insist,” she said, handing over the carefully creased paper.
Daphne frowned down at the former square, now folded into a layered diamond shape, with three thin rays each emanating from the left and right sides.
“It’s the beetle,” said Zada.
Flipping it over in her hands, Daphne said, “It’s not a very good beetle.”
“Don’t judge something by its larval form,” Zada said. “And it’s not done yet, so if you wouldn’t mind—”
Daphne passed it back to Zada. Their fingers brushed in the handoff. Even though by now, Zada knew there would be no music, the silence felt sharp.
“How’d you learn how to do that?” Daphne asked. “The folding.”
Zada resumed her work. “Picked it up after graduation,” she lied.
There was no way she could admit the truth, that she’d seen the instructions in her lenses two years ago and it had made her think of Daphne.
She’d practiced it again and again in her final year at school to try to fill up the hole in her time left by Daphne’s absence.
She had worked on the paper beetles all through class, half hoping Daphne would look over and half hoping she’d never notice.
A few quick manipulations of the paper and the flat lower point of the diamond became a chunky, three-dimensional wing case. From there, it was a simple matter of shaping the legs and pleating the two layers of the upper point into something like mandibles.
“There. A one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen specimen,” Zada announced, holding the origami beetle aloft on the flat of her palm.
“And what peculiar markings,” added Daphne, peering at the scraps of words still visible in Jocelin Hastings’s tidy cursive. The word love could be clearly read on one of the periwinkle legs. She exhaled, and Zada could feel the gust of breath on the underside of her wrist.
“I did say that this was one you didn’t already have.”
“I’m not sure a paper beetle counts,” Daphne said.
Still, she plucked the beetle off of Zada’s palm and slipped it into her trouser pocket anyway.
“But I suppose it would be boorish of me to complain. Now that payment has been tendered, I’ll be on my way.
Good luck with your impending nuptials and your perfect future with your perfect match. ”
Daphne saluted and headed out the door.
Zada followed. Walking out onto the sidewalk after Daphne into the searing midday sun, she felt like the string of a cello, vibrating after a bow.
“Did you need something?” Daphne asked.
“I’m just seeing you out,” Zada said. With one hand, she shielded her eyes from the harsh rays that beamed through the hexagonal pieces of clear blue sky above them on the dome.
“Well, don’t. Or if you must, at least put up your sunshield.
With your complexion, you’ll be crispy in five minutes,” Daphne grumbled.
With a tap of her SmartGem, she activated her own sunshield.
A blue-tinted shade unfolded above them, the force field filtering out the sun.
They both stepped into the cooler darkness, a relief from the scorch of the surrounding summer air.
“Thank you,” Zada said fervently. Just a minute outside without her sunshield up was enough to make her feel ever so slightly fried.
New Ionia had state-of-the-art, self-sustaining climate control systems that kept temperatures within a livable range.
The problem was her. She’d never been able to handle the heat.
It was one of her many flaws—inability to tolerate higher temperatures, chronic introversion, and now, failure to love her Heartsong match.
Zada was only eighteen, but she’d already made a complete hash of her life.
“Uh-huh.” Daphne shifted her weight, creating space between the two of them. “You’d better head inside before—”
“Please don’t go yet,” Zada blurted out.
There was no one around. There were only the hydroponics labs crammed full of overgrown crops and the small, shabby family units that had made up the backdrop of Zada’s life for as long as she could remember.
Everyone kept to themselves out here, and certainly no one was venturing out into the noonday heat. Still, Zada glanced around to check.
“Oh, I see,” said Daphne, the mockery sliding back into her voice, smooth and acidic. “A secret, is it? I know these days you’re afraid of even sneezing too loudly, in case it might hurt your social standing. What clandestine dramas could someone like you possibly be involved in?”
“Um,” Zada started.
“Nothing worth sharing after all, I take it,” said Daphne. “Disappointing.” She stepped away, taking the shade with her.
“I don’t love him,” said Zada in a rush.
“What?” Daphne stilled. “Say that again.”
Breathe. Zada made herself look Daphne in the eye.
It was a choice this time, saying this terrible secret out loud.
It was a deliberate choice, not a foolish impulse that she couldn’t control.
She said slowly, “I don’t love Buford. I want to, but I can’t, and I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Daphne’s jaw tensed. “Why are you telling me?”
It was a good question. Zada’s brain scrambled for an answer. Maybe it was simply her mouth failing to contain the truth, like water overflowing from a bottle.
Except that reasoning felt weak, even in the privacy of her mind. She’d kept secrets before. She knew how to school her expression and say the right things, no matter what her useless mind conjured. It was all part of her duty, as a student of Dalrymple Academy and a citizen of New Ionia.
Maybe she’d told Daphne for the same reason she’d asked Daphne to accompany her to the shopping district.
She missed her friend. And now, faced with this new chapter of her life, she felt the absence of Daphne all the more acutely.
If she was honest with herself, blurting out this life-ruining secret of hers might have been a bid to keep Daphne looking at her for just one second more.
Zada settled for, “Perhaps because you’re the only person who wouldn’t tell me that I must be imagining things. That everything will be all right.”
“No, I wouldn’t, would I?” Daphne said softly. “So what do you want me to say?”
“I don’t expect you to say anything. You don’t owe that to me, not after what I did to you.” Zada sighed. “I suppose I wanted to tell someone, at least once, and be heard. That’s all.”
She couldn’t bear to look at Daphne now. She darted back to the shade of the entryway and pushed against the sunbaked metal with the edge of her sleeve, mentally drawing up a list of the errands ahead of her.
Organize her notes on the caterers. Report as much as she could remember from her visit to the florist’s shop, editing out the feel of Daphne’s hand squeezing hers.
Develop some sort of opinion about buttercream.
Remind herself that the Heartsong program was unerring in its selection, and that she would love Buford in time, no matter how she felt now.
She was simply overheated and overwrought, too immature to accept the blessings of her future.
All she had to do was try harder, be better.
She felt a tug, a hand on her arm. It was Daphne, out of breath, standing beside her now.
“Wait.” Daphne closed her eyes briefly, as if making a very difficult choice. Her profile was half in sunlight and half in shadow. “There’s something you should know.”