“I gotta go,” Siry said again.
TWO
Siry kicked the sand as he wandered up the beach. Okay, so maybe his dad was right. He felt like he’d been in a bad mood all the time lately. And he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was that was bugging him.
It was just that it seemed as if—well, he remembered when he was younger, there had been times when adults had told him things that he knew weren’t true. And when he confronted them, they’d always say things like, “Siry, you’re too young to understand.” As if he were supposed to be satisfied with that answer.
Back then it had just been little stuff. The time he’d figured out that all those presents that appeared overnight on Simmus Eve weren’t really brought by fairies, for instance.
But now he was starting to feel it was bigger. Like all the sea trash he’d collected over the years—he was starting to be quite sure that some of it was man made. He’d found a piece of something, blue and flexible material that had raised letters on it. The letters didn’t make any sense, but it was easy to see they were letters.
And yet when he showed it to his father, Jen had just said, “Well, I know it looks like letters. But it’s probably just an accident. Some sort of coral maybe.”
An accident? Did Jen really expect him to believe that?
Siry wandered off the beach and began shuffling through the town. Here and there, people called out to him. “Nice work, Siry!”
Siry didn’t even acknowledge them. He just kept walking and thinking. No, there was something else out there. Something his dad wasn’t telling him about. Something the elders were hiding. But what was it?
Without really making any particular decision, he found himself standing in front of the small hut where the occasional prisoner was held. Several guards stood outside. The hut was made from bamboo, topped with thatch. It hadn’t been used much since most people in Rayne behaved themselves, so it was decrepit looking.
Siry knew both the guards pretty well. They were big, solid men, friends of his father.
“Hello, Kemo,” Siry said. Kemo was the leader of Rayne’s guards. “Is she in there?”
“Yes,” Kemo said. He held up his arm, showing off a set of purple teeth marks on his skin. “Look at that, huh? You better believe I gave her a good hit after that, huh?” He grinned. “Nice job, spotting these animals.”
Siry shrugged. “Hey, I was just standing there.” He looked over Kemo’s shoulder. There was a small window, barred with bamboo. “Can I look at her?”
Kemo narrowed her eyes. “Why such an interest in the Flighter?”
“I just want to look at her,” Siry said.
Kemo waved at the barred window. “Just be careful. They’re tricky. Don’t get close or she’s liable to try to attack you.”
Siry walked over to the window and peered in. The Flighter girl was huddled on the floor. Her shoulder was bruised and there was a large cut on her leg.
“Hey,” Siry said. “Can you talk?”
The girl didn’t even look up at him. Siry studied her for a while. Other than being a little skinny, she looked perfectly healthy. If he’d seen her on the street, in different clothing, he’d never have known she was a Flighter.
As he was staring at her, a gaggle of little kids came by and joined him in the window, pointing and laughing at the Flighter. They were all eating juba nuts from a bag. After a minute one of the kids threw a juba nutshell at the girl. It bounced off her forehead and fell on the floor. Another kid threw a whole juba nut. It hit the girl in the face. The girl pounced on it, smashed it on the floor, and began picking the meat out of the broken nut.
Other kids began hurling nuts at the girl.
“Hey!” Siry said. “Stop!”
The kids backed away from him. One of them, a little girl with blond hair, started crying. Kemo gave Siry a nasty look. “Siry, what’s wrong with you?” he said. “They’re just kids having a little fun.”
Siry turned back to the window. Inside, the girl began ravenously swallowing the nuts as if she’d never eaten before. When she was done, she went back to staring blankly at the floor.
After he’d stared at her for a while, he said, “Hey, Kemo. Who’s bringing her food?”
Kemo’s eyebrows went up. “Well—uh—usually when somebody’s in the jail, their families bring them food.”
“You’re saying you don’t have any food for her?”
Kemo shrugged. “I didn’t really think about it.”
“I’ll go talk to my father,” Siry said. “He’ll have some food sent over.”
Siry came back with a steaming bowl of vegetable and meat stew. Kemo let him into the front door. Inside was a small chamber in front of two separate cells. The girl was sitting in the exact same position she’d been in when he left. There was a slot near the floor that was obviously made for pushing food into the cell. Siry slid the bowl through.
“Sorry,” Siry said to the girl, “I know it’s nothing special. My mother died when I was young and my father only knows how to make two things. Vegetable and meat stew…and meat and vegetable stew.” He laughed tentatively.
The girl showed no sign of hearing him, much less of thinking he was funny. She just grabbed the bowl and gobbled up all the stew, scooping it with her hands. He had given her a bamboo spoon, but she ignored it.
When she was finished, the girl threw the empty bowl at him and growled. The bowl clattered off the bamboo bars, splattering him with the remains of the stew.
Siry laughed. “Well, you have some bite, anyway,” he said. He pushed a bucket of hot water and soap through the same slot as the food. “I don’t know if you Flighters understand the concept of washing,” he said. “But just in case…”
He made a motion with his hands, running them over his body as if he were bathing. The girl started drinking the water. Then she took a bite out of the soap, spit it on the ground. Siry laughed again.
The girl glared at him as if he’d tried to trick her.
“No. Soap,” he said. “Soap!”
He reached through the bars, grabbed the soap off the floor. The girl made an attempt to stomp his hand, but he was too quick for her. “Nice try,” he said with a grin. Then he rubbed the soap on his hands. “See? Clean. Like this.” There was a large sink and a shower on the far side of the room. He demonstrated how soap worked. “Look. See? Nice and clean.”
The girl stared uncomprehendingly at him. He tossed the bar of soap into the water. Then he pushed a set of clean clothes through the bars. “They were my mother’s,” he said. “I don’t know if they’ll fit. My father would be upset if he knew I was giving these to you. My mother’s been dead for years. But he’s never thrown out any of her things.” He sat down on the chair opposite her cell. “It’s kind of sad, you know? He still talks about her all the time. I guess he loved her a lot.”
The girl took a piece of juba nutshell and started picking a piece of meat out of her teeth.
“She wasn’t really my mother, though. I was adopted. My dad always says he found me floating on the waves. Isn’t that a strange thing to say to your kid? I suppose it was a nice story when I was young. But now? It seems like an insult to my intelligence.”
The girl finally freed the piece of meat from her teeth, held it out on the juba nutshell, looked at it, then popped it back in her mouth and swallowed.
“I have to say,” Siry said, “your table manners could be better.”
She spit on the floor.
After he left, Kemo put one large hand on Siry’s arm. “Son, look, you probably don’t remember the last time that Rayne had serious problems with the Flighters. We spent three solid years clearing the jungles and pushing those monsters back from Rayne.”
“Okay…,” Siry said.
“What I’m saying is…” Kemo cleared his throat. “That thing in there—it looks as if you cleaned it up, it could be one of us. Don’t be fooled. It can’t be. It’s an animal. It’s sea trash. It’s dangerous.”
“Yes, sir,” Siry said.
Kemo narrowed his eyes. “I’m serious, Siry. That thing in there’ll kill you and rip your throat out. And it won’t blink an eye.”
“Yes, sir,” Siry said.
But as he walked away, he felt sure that Kemo was wrong. The only question in his mind was this: Was Kemo lying? Or did he just not know better?
Later that evening, after they’d eaten supper together, he said to his father, “Where do Flighters come from?”
Jen Remudi broke his gaze from his son’s. “The other end of the island,” he said, staring down at the table.
The explanation didn’t sit right with Siry. Somehow it seemed that these people were from somewhere farther, somewhere that would explain why they had become so different. “But—they look exactly like us. A little dirtier, but otherwise—”
“Appearances can be deceiving. They’re not like us.”
“But how would we know? We never talk to them. We never see them. All we do is fight them.”
Siry’s father looked back up at him, folding his hands together. “Look, Son, Kemo told me that you were talking to the girl we captured.” He paused. “I know if you cleaned her up, she looks like she’d be pretty and sweet. But—”
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Siry said angrily.
“They don’t feel things like we do.”
“Feeling? Who’s talking about feeling?” Siry said. “Every day I see stuff around here that doesn’t seem to add up. Sea trash. What is it? Those bottle-shaped things with writing on them? Those pieces of flexible material that you can see through?”
“Don’t fall in love with a Flighter. Okay?”
Siry stared at his dad. “I’m talking about trying to understand the world. And you’re—I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
There was a long silence. Finally his father said, “Son, she’s going on trial the day after tomorrow. If the tribunal finds that she’s broken our laws, she’ll be…” He sighed. “She’ll be put to death.”
“Put to death!” Siry felt a strange lump in his stomach.
“It sounds cruel, I know. But you don’t remember what it was like.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve always told you that your mother died of a disease. But it’s not so. Those things, those Flighters, they raided Rayne for food one time. There must have been close to a hundred of them. Breaking in to houses. Smashing things. Dragging children into the jungle. Your mother tried to stop them from taking you. They—”
Jen Remudi’s eyes teared up.
Siry blinked. He felt horrible. But at the same time, he couldn’t help thinking, Another story that turns out not to be true!
“She saved your life. But she gave up hers in the process.” Jen Remudi put his face in his hands. Tears started running out through his fingers. “I couldn’t save her. I should have been at the house. But I was with the guards, trying to protect—” He looked up, his eyes rimmed with red. “I love you so much, Son. But I just wish you had known her. I feel like I could have done so much better if—”
Jen stopped and stared out the window. “Anyway. The trial’s in two days.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Finally Siry stood up and said, “If they’re animals, how come you give them a trial?”
Siry waited for his father to answer. But his father said nothing.
THREE
The next morning Siry brought three boiled eggs and some fruit to the Flighter girl.
Kemo was standing at his usual post. “Hey, Siry!” Kemo said. “I can’t believe it.”
“You can’t believe what?”
“That animal. She actually used the soap you brought her. Put on those clothes, too. Amazing. You’d almost think she was human.”
“Maybe she is,” Siry said.
He went inside and pushed the food through the bars. Then he looked up. His eyes widened. The girl was wearing the clothes. And now that she was cleaned up? She was actually really pretty!
The girl ignored him. She just picked up the food and shoveled it in her mouth, dribbling bits of egg all over the floor.
“Still working on those manners, though?” he said.
She finished the food, then flopped down on the little cot in the corner, apparently ignoring him.
“What’s it like out there?” he said. “I wish you could tell me.” He sat down in the chair on the other side of the bars from her. “You can’t imagine how quiet it is here in Rayne. I just can’t help feeling that there’s more to life than this.” He spread his hands. “Nice little town. Nice people. Nice school. Nice food. Nice weather. Everything’s nice. But there’s got to be something more. I bet you could tell me a lot. I mean, if you could just talk.”
The girl belched.
Siry started babbling, talking about all the things that had been going through his head lately. All the questions he had about the world. All the fears and anxieties he had. All the feelings that he’d been keeping bottled up, that he’d tried telling his friends about. But no one had understood. All his friends had stared at him as if he were crazy when he started talking about sea trash, and where it came from.
“Sea trash,” he said. “It just keeps coming back to sea trash. What is it? Where does it come from?” He took out a bag and spread it on the floor, showing her the bits of rusted metal, the hard clear material, the unnaturally flat and regular pieces of wood—and his biggest treasure, the flexible blue fragment with the writing on it.
Finally he put all his treasures back in the bag.
“I guess I must not make any sense to you,” he said. “I talk and talk, and you have no idea what I’m saying.”
He put the bag back on his belt.
“They’re going to put you on trial tomorrow,” he said. “And when they do? They’ll execute you.”
The girl sat up and walked toward him, her green eyes pinned on him. She grabbed the bars, her fingers almost touching his. Yesterday she had smelled horrible. Now she smelled soapy and clean.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but they’re going to kill you.”
Suddenly she reached though the bars and grabbed his arm. For a moment he was sure she was about to bite him or scratch him or stick her fingers in his eyes.
But instead she leaned close to him.
Then she spoke—a hoarse, uncertain whisper.
“Help. Me.”
FOUR
Siry blinked, then flushed. If she could talk, then had she understood everything he’d said? All his complaining about Rayne must have seemed so childish. His life was far easier than life was for the Flighters, starving away off in the jungles on the far side of the island, or wherever they came from.
“You can talk?” he said.
She glared at him.
“But—everybody says—”
She looked out the window. “Help me.” It seemed as though the words didn’t come easily.
“Well…what do you want?”
“Do not.” She looked at the floor. “Do not let them kill me.”
“The tribunal.”
She shrugged, pointed at the guards.
“Do you understand what’s happening here?” he said. “You’ll be tried in front of the tribunal. It’s a group of important—look, if they find you guilty, they’ll execute you.”
She grabbed his collar and pulled him close to the bars. Her eyes were only inches from his. “Rena!” she hissed.
“Huh?”
“Rena.” She tapped her own chest. “Me. Rena.”
“Oh!” he said. “That’s your name.”
She nodded. “Me. Save.”
Their faces were only inches apart. At first he’d been interested in her because she represented something to him—everything that was…out there. Everything that was not Rayne. But now? Now she seemed different. She wasn’t just an idea. She was a person. Maybe not like everybody in Rayne. But still.
“I’ll try,” he said.
She let go of his collar.
/> Siry found his father at the building where the tribunal met. “So this trial…,” Siry said. “When does it happen?”
“First thing tomorrow morning,” Jen Remudi said.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Siry asked.
“We’ll present the facts. If the facts indicate that she was a raider who came here to break our laws and do us harm—” Siry’s father shrugged.
“Who’s going to defend her?”
“We’ll pick a former member of the tribunal.”
“Annik Neelow? She hates Flighters.”
“We haven’t decided. There are several other people who used to be on the tribunal.”
“Yeah, and most of them are so old they can barely—”
“Look,” his father interrupted, “we have a process. That’s what separates us from the Flighters. It may not be perfect, but it’s what we have.”
Siry came to a decision on the spot. “I want to represent her.”
Jen Remudi looked at his son for a long time. “Son, you’re fourteen. You have no experience before the tribunal.”
“Yeah, but I actually care if she lives or dies!” Siry said. It came out sounding a little more emotional than he wanted it to.
“Ah…,” Jen said, his eyes softening. He stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “Look, I don’t really know how to say this. But you can’t get your hopes up. You can’t get involved with this girl.”
“Involved?” Siry said angrily. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just saying—”
“There’s more to her than meets the eye.”
“You’re always saying that, Siry,” his father said. “I’m not saying you’re always wrong. But you’re not always right, either. Sometimes things are exactly what they seem to be.”
Siry fixed his eyes on his father, challenging him. “And sometimes they’re not.”
Jen Remudi looked away. “I’ll think about it,” he said finally. “You’re a smart kid. And I know you’ll do everything you can. But I’m not making any promises.”