The Freedom Race, page 49
The Friends had no doubt, however, that Ji-ji remained a target. Armed Friends of Freedom guarded the door to Zyla’s apartment; more stood guard at the entrances to the building. Visitors were frisked before they entered, and the Friends purposely leaked the news that Ji-ji’s condition was deteriorating fast.
Afarra never left her side, except to go to the bathroom and to bathe, usually after Zyla Clobershay told her she stank. Tiro visited Ji-ji every day, bringing stories of the city with him, promising she’d get better. Tulip visited too, ecstatic because her kith-n-kins had sailed through, and she’d successfully snatched her little sisters Rosemary and Thyme from the mouth of Clownfish.
As people tiptoed around her, Ji-ji realized she might be dying. Sometimes that scared her; at other times it didn’t. She’d never been so tired in her life. She made Afarra promise to prevent them from amputating her wings, if that’s what they decided to do—not that Afarra needed convincing. “No one is taking them!” Afarra pledged, resting her hand on the Seeing Eyes. “This is why I stay here day out day in. To bodyguard. The sproutings are belonging to you. We are needing them to fly to the moon.”
Ji-ji didn’t tell Afarra she’d given up on the whole damn flying business—an old man’s impossible dream. Nor did she ask Tiro to repeat his promise not to let them amputate. She suspected he would betray her, hang on too tight cos he needed her to be there for him. Hard though it was for Ji-ji to admit it, she couldn’t trust him to respect her wishes. When she confided this to Afarra one evening, Afarra touched the necklace and said, “He is saying he will catch up one day. He is saying give him time.”
“I wish I could,” Ji-ji said. “But I don’t have much left. If something happens, Zyla an’ the others will look after you. You know that, right?”
“Oh yes. Something will happen,” Afarra replied. “He is saying it is a certain almost.”
Ji-ji smiled. A “certain almost” would have to suffice.
* * *
To Ji-ji’s surprise, Doc Riff showed up one day. Ben accompanied him, reunited at last with Germaine, who’d been very anxious about the mission he’d undertaken to deliver a copy of Fester’s letter to Man Cryday. Germaine flung herself in Ben’s arms and gave him one of the longest kisses Ji-ji had ever seen, involving tongues and what looked like a decent amount of saliva. Ji-ji and Afarra found it fascinating.
Doc Riff took a long time examining her back and prescribed something even stronger than his usual horse pills for the pain. He told her Man Cryday had requested he make the house call and asked him to report back his findings. The Gardener of Tears had hoped to make the journey herself, but the threat to Dimmers Wood and Memoria prevented her from leaving right now.
Having observed Doc Riff interact with the others, Ji-ji realized he must have been a Friend of Freedom for years. He urged her not to tire herself and to drink as much fluid as possible. It worried her when he said that. She couldn’t get to the bathroom these days without assistance. She wanted to mention this to Doc Riff but she was afraid he’d insist on a catheter, and it would have mortified her if he had. She wished Man Cryday could have examined her instead. Doc Riff’s good looks made it difficult for her to confide in him about urination.
In the next few days, the pain in Ji-ji’s back soared to a new level. It had been agonizing before but nothing had prepared her for pain as vengeful as this. It came at her in waves. Zyla called it her “high tides” and “low tides.” During high tides, Ji-ji wished for death; during the low tides, she wished for death less frequently.
As the pain increased, Zyla and Germaine, close friends, took turns tending to her round the clock. Ji-ji felt time slipping away. Though she’d reached the City of Dreams, she didn’t have the strength to see it. Couldn’t even stand at the window to catch a glimpse of some of the city’s war-ravaged buildings being restored. Hours ran into days. Racked with migraines, she begged her teacher to keep the curtains drawn. She asked to wear her minstrel-mouse watch. Afarra fetched it (Germaine had carried her possessions safely to the city) and strapped it onto Ji-ji’s thin wrist. It didn’t help. In the room where it was always dark, Ji-ji couldn’t tell whether the mouse’s white-gloved hands indicated ten in the morning or ten at night.
Whenever the pain was at low tide, she sat propped up with pillows and conversed as much as she could with visitors. Usually, she had an hour or two before the pain jackhammered a path up her spine and forced her to ask visitors to leave.
She asked about Dip. Had they heard from her? No one had. Not from Sloppy either. Tiro said if Sloppy really had betrayed them, she deserved to be flogged. Ji-ji could see his point, but she couldn’t help thinking about Sloppy’s big toe (the one Casper mashed because his biscuits and gravy were cold) and what she’d said about running alone through the dark in The Margins. Hard to forgive someone for their cowardice—not so hard to forgive them for their fear.
Sometimes, Tiro brought Marcus with him. Although he wasn’t a Friend of Freedom, he knew the truth about Ji-ji’s condition and was privy to most of the Friends’ other secrets. The two fly-boys filled her in on all the latest news from the coop. Their performance in the final Freedom Race battle in the Dream Coop, when they’d once again taken the top spot with Laughing Tree, had earned offers for the three from the Dreamfleet Flyers. Marcus decided to take his time and mull it over. Tiro, on the other hand, had signed on the spot so he could use his signing bonus to sweeten his kith-n-kin petitions for Zaini and the boys. It would work, he told her. It had to.
Soon, the relentless pain responded only to a morphine drip. Medicine was extremely expensive, but Tiro, who claimed Ji-ji as a member of his medical kith-n-kins, obtained whatever she needed.
“You gotta be able … to manage without me,” she told Tiro at the conclusion of a visit during low tide. She felt the tide rising and had to struggle to get the words out.
“Don’t talk like that, Ji. How many times I got to tell you? You ain’t going nowhere. Not while I’m around.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Ji-ji said.
* * *
Her condition steadily worsened. The Friends tried to honor her request to see Charra, or speak to her if that was all they could arrange. They sent multiple messages into the Madlands, all to no avail. Ji-ji knew her sister would never ignore a message like that. Either she was in such deep hiding that even the Friends’ network couldn’t locate her, or she’d been killed. Ji-ji said she would have to settle for meeting up with her sister in the afterlife. If the two of them decided to Dimmer a few people—Lotter, Williams, Casper, Worthy, and Tryton, for example—they could team up and do it together.
These days, her dreams were invariably about flight. Once, she flew to the moon, where twelve white men waited for her, all of them delighted to see she’d joined them. In her dreams, she wasn’t like a bird, she was a bird: her whole body spoke the language of flight. She would awaken in the wake of her flight dream and feel it pulling her into its vortex again. Each time this happened, she found it harder and harder to resist.
* * *
One after another they came to visit. They trod softly, as if Death were a light sleeper they were terrified of waking.
The Friends had been praying for a miracle. Ji-ji wanted to tell them not to be sad, but the avalanche of pain raking her back wouldn’t let her. More morphine … rest.…
The next time she looked over—a minute later? an hour? a day?—Ji-ji saw Zyla with something in her hand. A folded-up piece of fabric. A story-cloth!
“Is it the one about the birds?” Ji-ji asked. “That’s my favorite.”
“Yes, it is,” Zyla replied. She unfolded it.
Not the story-cloth after all, but it was still the one about the birds. It came with a note. Zyla warned her it might be upsetting. “If it is, tell me to stop reading,” she said.
Dear Ji-ji
Thought youd appreciate a gift from the 437th. I salvaged it before he burned her cabin to the ground. I hear your sick. Thought this quilt could cheer you up. (I asked a trusted friend whose alot better at spelling to look over this note and help me make a few corrections. Writing isn’t my strong suit. You may not know this but A-Is don’t have to pass things through the censors on account of our status as Indigenous. So don’t worry about this winding up in the wrong hands.)
I want to ask a favor. I know I don’t deserve it seeing as how I was always short with you but if we all got what we deserve the world would be a pitiful place and you did get on my nerves and thats the truth.
If things go south and you pass to the Other Side, please tell Lua-Dim not to Dimmer me anymore. Tell her I did my best under the circumstances. Tell her Bettie’s sorry her wombling died. Real sorry.
We got a plague of Dimmers on the 437th. Uncle Dreg come back as a Dimmer too. You hear about that? Wafts round PenPen shaking the bars and vowing to help the prisoners fly away. Hasn’t worked so far.
Lua was a good girl but Lua-Dims a devil. Braids detaching and wafting down, her shrieking all the time cos he refuses to nurse. Deadborns dont nurse, I tell her. She says to me all smartass, Dead don’t shriek neither, but here I am a-shrieking. Lua-Dims nothing like the live version. Can’t take the nighttime din no more.
Tell her Betties sorry as sorry can be for what happened. And give little Sidney a hug from his mama. (Sid was my onlyborn. Sweetest seedling there ever was.) Tell him, before Lua-Dim, no night went by when I didnt rock him in my arms in my dreams. Kiss him for me, Jellybean. Tell him his mother sent that kiss. If Sidney wants to Dimmer me tell him go ahead. Tell him I wouldnt mind one bit. Don’t forget.
Best regards,
Bettie (no ann at the end. The anns are their doing not mine.)
“Sounds like Bettie Plowman’s dealing with a lot of guilt,” Zyla said.
“She deserves it,” Ji-ji told her. “She killed Silas. Wexcisioned him. I’m glad Lua-Dim’s making her life hell.”
“That doesn’t sound like you, Ji-ji.”
“You weren’t there,” Ji-ji said. “You didn’t see what I saw.”
“No. None of us really sees what another person sees,” Zyla said. “But guilt’s a hard thing to deal with without forgiveness.”
Ji-ji closed her eyes to get Zyla to stop talking. Moral lessons were irrelevant if she didn’t have time to practice what Zyla preached. She said the pain was approaching high tide again and asked that Bettie’s gift be laid on her bed. Zyla and Afarra arranged the quilt Zaini made for Silapu on top of the sheets. Three blackbirds nesting in an Immaculate tree, a flock taking off from the tree like fireworks. Everything quilted together. Wounds patched and sewn.
* * *
Tiro sat in the vigil chair by the bed, shaken. Afarra, fists raised, straddled Ji-ji’s bed.
“What the hell just happened?” Tiro asked. “How’d she do that? Freaked me out the way she spoke. His same exact voice—like Uncle was in the room with us! Jesus!”
Afarra brandished the living will Ji-ji had signed. “No touching!” she cried.
Ji-ji indicated she wanted to speak. She took a deep breath. The pain in her lungs made her wish she hadn’t.
“You … snuck in … when Zyla and Germaine … were out.”
“Sneak!” Afarra yelled.
“I’m sorry, Ji. But you got any idea how much work it took to get that surgeon to come here? Thought he could take a look—see if there was anything could be done. Riff an’ Narayanan ain’t surgeons. Man Cryday ain’t either—not anymore. Hasn’t practiced in years. Probably why she botched Charra’s amputation.”
“My … choice,” Ji-ji said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Not yours.”
“Okay. I get it. I do.… Brought you something. Tickets to the big battle in the fall. First time me an’ Laughing Tree’ll fly with the pros. One for you an’ one for the harpy over there.” Afarra gave him the finger. “Think it’s the necklace makes her spout that weird shit?”
“Ask … her,” Ji-ji suggested.
“Hey, Afarra. You can get down off the bed now. Surgeon’s gone. You scared the crap outta him. How’d you do Uncle Dreg’s voice like that?”
Afarra jumped down off the bed and glared at Tiro. “He is doing his voice, dumbass!”
“But it came out of your mouth. How’d you do that?”
“Moron,” Afarra said.
“Now you sound like Aunt Cryday. Give a fly-boy a break, okay?”
He turned to Ji-ji, said, “Listen, in a few weeks, after … you know … I gotta head on back to the 437th. Got official word yesterday. Williams is keeping ’em. Bastard says he looks forward to guiding Bromadu an’ Eeyatho ‘away from the path of Deviancy.’ Says he’ll auction ’em off soon as they ‘ripen.’ Hate to deliver bad news.”
“I’m real sorry … to hear … this,” Ji-ji managed to say.
“Guess I should’ve expected it from that bastard.… Georgie-Porge an’ Orlie send their love. Arrived yesterday. Their petitions sailed through. Zyla told you all six of yours were granted, right? Six kitchen-seeds just got tickets to Freedom. You did it, Ji.… An’ thanks for trying to petition for Mother an’ the boys. I know it was risky filling out the forms. I appreciate it.”
Tiro looked at Afarra, who still scowled at him. He tried to make it up to her, said, “Wish Cloths got kith-n-kins, Afarra. Bet you’d choose some great ones to petition for. Hey, I almost forgot.” He reached down and picked up a bag. “Marcus loaded me down with chocolates. Fly-boy’s enlisted in the fleet at last. Told him you got no appetite, but Marcus says everyone loves chocolate, an’—”
Afarra snatched the bag from Tiro’s hand and offered the chocolates to Ji-ji. When Ji-ji waved them away, Afarra dug in, humming contentedly to herself as she did so.
“How’s Tree?” Ji-ji asked.
“Tree’s Tree. Know what he went an’ did? Petitioned for Ink. Paying his medical. Tree’s having this basket contraption made for Ink to sit in. Plans to carry him around like some damn parrot. Marcus calls Tree Trink to rile him up. Tree likes it. Says it’s a compliment.”
“Trink is a good name,” Afarra said in a deep voice, through bites of chocolate. “I like it.”
“You hear that?” Tiro exclaimed. “She did it again! Sounded just like him!”
Ji-ji moaned. The pain was rising fast. High tide! High tide!
“You need more painkillers, Ji? More morphine?” She shook her head. “Who knows? Could be I won’t be missing you for long. Chances of me getting ’em out is next to nothing, an’ the chances of me swinging from Sylvie are pretty damn good. If the worst happens, give Amadee a message for me. Tell him I miss him like it’s me who got tractor-pulled. Hey, Ji. Think you get put back together? Don’t think I could bear it if he was all pulled apart like he was at the end.”
She reached out to comfort him but the vigil chair was empty. How long had it been since he’d sat there? She had no idea. What a shame he was gone when she still had so much to tell him.…
* * *
Germaine burst in at two in the morning, waking Zyla, who sat in the vigil chair, Afarra, who was curled up at the foot of the bed, and Ji-ji, who’d finally fallen asleep about an hour before.
Zyla leapt up, alarmed. “Have they found her? Are the steaders here?”
“No,” Germaine said. “Sorry. Thoughtless of me to burst in like that. Got a message to deliver. Thought Ji-ji would want to hear it.”
“It better be good news,” Zyla said, “or I’ll strangle you. Took us ages to get the pain down to where she could sleep. Riff only just left.”
“It is good news, Zy. Real good news.”
Ji-ji indicated she wanted to sit up. The three of them propped her up with pillows.
“You ready?” Germaine said, so excited she hopped from one foot to the other. Ji-ji nodded.
“It’s addressed to G. Judd, and it was sent to this address. It says:
“Dear G. J. (that’s me, of course)
I hear from a little dickybird there’s been some developments. Can’t wait to see what they are.
Ask the Ex if she’s still got that timely gift I gave her. Tell her it’s almost impossible to rid yourself of a Brit once they’ve decided to be your friend.
Tell her I hope she’s steering clear of cutlery.
Tell her I am, as always, lucky.
P.S. And give her these.”
Germaine placed a pair of dice in Ji-ji’s hand.
“Lucky’s alive!” Ji-ji murmured. “How?”
“Beats me, kid,” Germaine told her. “Guess we’ll have to wait to hear the details. But it’s definitely him. His handwriting—everything. Man Cryday’ll know more I bet. But for now, I thought you’d want to know. Was I right to wake you?”
“Oh yes,” Ji-ji said, happily.
The Existential closed her eyes and slept like a baby.
* * *
Afarra sat beside her on the bed and stroked her hair. Uncle Dreg had told her to look after Elly, to stay close because hard times lay ahead. Afarra had promised to do exactly that.
In her heart she knew Elly would never die. But no one believed her. And sometimes, when she looked at the girl she loved more than life, a tiny seed of doubt sprouted in her brain.
Today had been hard. Agony! The sproutings swollen and raw, covered in pus and scabs. Man Cryday had said they needed to be vivacious. Afarra didn’t know what that meant exactly, but she did know the worms were poison now. Even his necklace hurt her when she put it on—heavy, heavy! His voice ricocheting inside her head.
