Chapter 20 Cora
At dusk on the third day home, I went to Crystal's tent.
The camp had been settling around me for two days.
The settling was the way camps settled after a long convoy.
Slow, full of small re-attunements, the camp's daily count adjusting to the new bodies and the lost ones and the new shapes of who-slept-where and who-ate-with-whom.
The new tent, Drew's and mine, the one Cruz and Loren and Brecca and Tess and Mark had helped us put up between the family tents, had been a feature of the camp's gossip web for two days.
Auriel had said D-eh twice more. The third time, this morning, she had added Co afterward.
Tess had made me sit down. Tess had told me: she is going to say your names before she says ours, you are now her people, you are now uncle and aunt, I am not arguing. I had not argued.
I had been at the rosemary bed for most of the morning.
Crystal had not been at the rosemary bed today.
Crystal had been with Deedee. Deedee's first day at the schoolhouse, which had also been my first day teaching, the cohort-of-twelve including the eleven from Urbana, plus Mira, plus three of the older blood-farm-survivor kids who had decided they wanted to learn to read at a slower pace than the morning advanced class.
I had taught a unit on number-systems. The kids had learned to count by sevens.
The Urbana kids had asked why sevens. I had told them that sevens were a good number.
Deedee, who had been at the back of the room, had raised her hand and said: Cora teaches sevens because Cora's family loves sevens, and we are all Cora's family now.
I had not been able to answer.
Crystal had walked into the schoolhouse at that moment with a basket of dried-apricots-from-Vegas for the kids and had heard the line. Crystal had set the basket down. Crystal had nodded at me. I had kept teaching.
Now it was dusk.
I went to Crystal's tent.
Crystal was at the doorway. She had been waiting. Mark was inside, with Deedee. Deedee was at the small table with paper and a pencil that Crystal had been saving for two hundred and seventy-three days for this moment. Deedee was drawing something. Mark was watching her.
Crystal said: "Cora."
"Crystal."
"Come walk with me."
"Where."
"The watchtower. The eastern one. The water treatment facility."
"That's where Brecca and Rael go."
"I know. I want to go there. With you. Tonight. Mark will keep Deedee."
I walked with her.
The watchtower was at the eastern edge of the camp.
It was the tallest structure at the Mojave camp.
Three stories of repurposed water-treatment concrete with a small lookout platform at the top that had been the smoke-monitor station before the invasion and which the camp had taken over and reinforced in year three.
The platform had a view of the eastern foothills, the Mojave high desert to the north, and on a clear day the LA basin to the southwest.
We climbed the stairs.
Crystal had a key on a string around her neck. The watchtower had a locked maintenance door at the second landing that nobody but Loren and Crystal and Mark had keys to, and the key Crystal had was the one Mark had given her in year three as the camp's logistics chief.
We came out onto the platform.
The sun was setting.
The light over the foothills was the gold-and-rust the Mojave produced in late spring.
The light hit Crystal's face. Crystal had been crying earlier today.
The crying was the post-funeral crying that came in small irregular waves and which the body did not announce.
The crying was done now. She wiped her face on the back of her hand. She looked at the foothills.
She said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"You are family."
I did not say anything.
She said:
"You have been family for eight years. Since the night I told you about Deedee at Urbana and you told me about Talia in the bathroom.
You have been family since then. The family has not been formal.
The family has been the thing it is. The family has been you and me and Mark and Tess and Kal and Brecca and Rael and Cassi and Danton and Loren and Kiera and Mindy and Alek, and now also Drew, and now also Veron, and now also Nina and Jet and Saul, and now also the eleven Urbana kids and Deedee and Auriel and Sebastian and Elena and Mira and Sylvia and Cruz and Renn and the two hundred and fourteen humans of the Mojave camp.
The family is the whole camp. The family is the count. The family is the people."
"Crystal."
"Yes."
"I know."
"I know you know. I am saying it because today Deedee said in the schoolhouse we are all Cora's family now and I heard it and I have not been able to think about anything else all afternoon.
Deedee said it. Deedee said it the way Talia would have said it.
Deedee said it because Deedee learned the word family from Mara at Urbana.
Mara taught the kids the word, Mara taught the kids that the safehouse was a family.
And Deedee remembered it, and Deedee used it about you, and you have been family to her for the whole twenty-day convoy without knowing.
You have been her aunt. You have been her teacher.
You have been the woman in the lead truck.
You have been Maestra in the way Talia called you.
Deedee did not know about Talia. Deedee just knew. "
I did not say anything.
She said:
"I wanted to tell you on the watchtower because the watchtower is the place where the camp's old eyes are.
The watchtower is where Brecca brought Rael the morning after the three-species council met.
The watchtower is the place that watches everything.
I wanted to tell you here because I wanted the camp's old eyes to hear me say it.
You are family. Drew is family. The two of you are family.
The tent between mine and Tess's is family.
The count is the family. The family is holding. "
I said: "Crystal."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"You are welcome."
"Crystal."
"Yes."
"I. Crystal, I want to say something."
"Tell me."
"You have been the engine of this camp for eight years.
You and Mark. The two of you. You have been the kitchen, the logistics, the shortwave, the family-tent center.
You have been holding the camp while I have been counting in stacks of seven and Drew has been at the perimeter and Brecca has been medic-ing and Cassi has been generaling and Loren has been exhausted.
You have been the engine. Today Deedee is back.
Today Mara is in the rosemary. Today Auriel said D-eh.
Today the family is family. The family is family because you held it.
The family is here because you held it. I want.
Crystal. I am thanking you. The whole camp is thanking you.
The whole camp does not know how to thank you.
I am the one who is in the room right now.
I am thanking you for the whole camp. Thank you. "
She did not cry.
She had not cried in two hours.
She nodded.
She said: "You are welcome."
The sun finished setting.
The sky over the foothills went purple-orange-gold. The Mojave at dusk was the clear that came when the spring monsoon was a month away and the dust had settled. The stars were starting to come out. Venus was already up at the western edge of the sky.
I stood at the watchtower railing.
Crystal stood beside me.
Below us the camp was in the evening rhythm.
The kitchen tent was open. Tess and Mark and Cassi and Kal were at the long table.
The Urbana kids were at the schoolhouse.
Drew was at the medical tent. He had stayed late with Brecca to finish the inventory for the morning.
Sylvia was at the supply tent doing the post-trip inventory.
Cruz was at the third truck doing the final transmission re-seat.
Renn was on the south perimeter. Veron was at the east perimeter. The camp was holding.
Crystal said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"There is one more thing."
"Tell me."
"Rael is coming up."
I looked.
Rael was at the stairs.
Rael was at the door of the watchtower platform.
Rael's silver-blue luminescence flickered once.
Just once. Faintly.
Rael stepped onto the platform.
His face was the Lucian-still. The perfect-attention thing Rael did when he was listening for something the room could not hear. His head was angled slightly. His eyes were the Lucian-mercury, the silver, the small bright flicker at the inner edge that was the bond-pulse with Brecca.
He stopped at the railing.
He stood very still.
He said, quietly:
"Something just touched the network."
I went still.
Crystal went still.
He said: "From beyond the sky. Not Earth."
A pause.
He said: "Faint. Far. The network was silent for the last six months.
The network is silent now. The touching was not on the network.
The touching was at the edge of the network.
The way the wind catches a flag and the flag knows the wind.
The network knows. The network has been touched.
The touching is over. The thing that touched is gone. But the network has been touched."
He looked at Crystal.
He looked at me.
He said: "Tyvor is dead. The network is silent. The touching was older than Tyvor. The touching was. I do not have the word. The touching was Lucis."
Crystal said: "Rael."
"Yes."
"Lucis is the Lucian homeworld."
"Lucis was the Lucian homeworld."
"Was."
"Yes."
"The homeworld was destroyed."
"Yes. Three hundred years ago. By the Vampyren."
"Then how."
"I do not know."
He stood at the railing.
His hand was on the rail. The luminescence at his hand was very faint. The flicker was over. The network was silent again. The touching was done.
He said: "I am going to find Brecca."
I said: "Yes."
He went down the stairs.
Crystal and I stood on the platform.
We looked west.