Part 9 (1/2)

In unspoken agreement, they started walking. Their feet made soft whispers in the shush of the sand. They walked closer to the sh.o.r.eline, leaving smears of footprints that were erased by the water's edge.

”So you are my angel,” Consuela said casually.

V slid his hands into his pockets. ”Something like that.”

Grandma Celina had once told her that everyone had angels to watch over them, protect them, and listen with love. Consuela decided V deserved the chance to do his job.

”I have to go back,” she said. ”I need to go back. But Abacus didn't know how.”

”I know. You're 'an anomaly,'” V quoted. ”If he'd stop getting so excited about the math, he'd get how much it doesn't help being an exception to the rules.”

They walked together in the silence.

”So what was supposed to happen to me?” she said.

After a long moment, he answered. ”I should have saved you,” V said. ”Right there on the floor.”

”From what?”she asked.

”I don't know,” V said. ”But when I saw you again after you crossed over, all I could think of was how you were just like that first time * bright/beautiful/laughing/ alive * and it reminded me of . . . something.” He scuffed long tracks in the sand.

Consuela couldn't tell which words struck her more: the things that V said or what he said without knowing it.

V shrugged. ”Whenever I've saved someone, saying 'No, not yet' or 'I'm not going to die' usually works. Simple and direct. The mind tells the body, and the body obeys. You know it. You believe it. You are not going to die.” He spoke harshly, as if convincing himself. ”And they don't. That's all it takes. Knowing yourself.” * Know thyself * He shook his head. ”But you? You had all that already,” he said through a fan of wind-tossed hair. ”You didn't need me, you couldn't even hear me-you picked yourself off of that floor.” He looked away. * I just screwed it up. *

Consuela, embarra.s.sed, inspected her hands; soft hues of pink and blue s.h.i.+mmered along her willowy bones. It wasn't true.

”'Know thyself,'” she quoted.

The words. .h.i.t unexpectedly hard. His eyes swam and she wanted to take it back.

”You heard me,” he whispered.

”I heard you,” Consuela said, but couldn't add, I still hear you. The fact that she could hear his innermost thoughts was an intimacy she couldn't confess.

”Then why . . . ?” V began, but exhaled a long, slow breath and glanced away at many nothings. ”After my father left, it was Mama, my four younger sisters, and me,” he said. ”The man of the house. There were bills to pay and school and protection and rent due and it was . . . more than I could handle.” He kicked at the sand.

”Whenever I didn't know what to do, or couldn't choose, or had to play Dad when the girls got wild, Mama would say, 'Know thyself.'” V shook his head, remembering. ”It was her answer for everything; like all the answers were already inside me.” He sounded wistful. ”I never felt like I got it, though. And when I saw you in the mirror . . .” He glanced at her profile at the juncture where the jaw and skull met. ”I got it. You had it. You were huge with it. You were so completely, obviously you.” He spoke with his hands in grand gestures. ”It was all I could think about when I saw you. 'Know thyself.' That's what she meant.” He sc.r.a.ped his teeth over his bottom lip. ”I hadn't meant to say it * to you * instead of whatever I should have said. But I thought, maybe, that it might have been enough . . .”

”To save me?” she said.

V nodded. ”Yes. But even if I failed, you were never supposed to show up here,” he insisted, stopping their walk. ”I'm glad you did. And I'm sorry you did. And I'm sure none of that makes any sense.” He fumbled the apology, but made an effort to be sincere. ”You know what happens when we fail?” he said.

”They die.”

”They die,” V agreed. ”But you didn't die. You're here. And that means there's still a chance to get you back,” he said. ”You'll be exactly who you are and where you belong.” * Meant to do great things. *

A flash of light pa.s.sed over him, a slicing s.h.i.+ne as if he'd suddenly gone one-dimensional, reflected in a pane of gla.s.s. V sighed.

”I've got to go. Next a.s.signment.” He placed his hands gently on her clavicle. He spoke like a father, an older brother, a best friend-but her attention was on his thumbs resting softly on the curve of her bones.

”I promise I'll do everything I can to get you home.”

She believed him. At that moment, he was the realest thing in the world.

”I know,” she said softly. ”Thank you.”

They stood that way in silence. There was another flash of shorn light, and Consuela was alone on the sand.

TENDER bowed into the first tower thinking if Abacus was so smart, he should have dismantled the door. He trailed his fingers over its purple-gold surfaces, listening for the tiny mouse sounds of clapping beads.

”Crunching?” he called by way of greeting.

”Like granola,” Abacus answered. ”I'm up in T3, 24-15-66.”

Tender ducked into a sharp corridor and wound his way up an acute-angled wall, hopping into the adjacent tower as naturally as a spider.

”You met the new girl?” he asked.

”Yeah. She's a game changer,” Abacus replied from somewhere up ahead.

Tender entered the room where Abacus sat hunched over his calculations. The flat map of stars hung like a blanket over his head; an indoor pup tent for the Chinese Boy Scout.

”Isn't that why you're here?”

”Sure,” Abacus said, sliding the suanpan clear. ”And why are you here?”

Six quick excuses danced across Tender's tongue, but none of them fit as nicely or neatly as the math on the wall. Instead of answering, Tender walked over and admired it once again, although parts of the pattern were broken or bulging in gross parodies of their sleek, former design. He touched the calculations, which writhed under his fingertips. He flattened his palm possessively.

”Why are any of us here?” Tender said aloud.

Abacus stood up and hung his namesake on the wall with a slap. ”You think you've got something figured out, don't you?” he said, his voice bouncing off the crystal walls. ”But you haven't, you know. None of this is true. No solid answers. No grand design. Bones proves that.” The young mathematician wiped his hand over the wall and the elaborate constellation erased, swept blank by its uncaring creator. Tender touched the wall in confirmation. Only a smear of fingerprints remained.

”We don't know anything,” Abacus said, casually pinching out a few errant points of light. He reset his gla.s.ses on the bridge of his nose. ”If a tree falls in the forest,” he quoted, ”et cetera and so on.”

Tender shook his head with a ripple of laughter. ”Oh no,” he said. ”You're the one who's got it wrong.” He relished the flash of momentary confusion in Abacus's eyes before making himself clear. ”Here is the grand design: if there are no trees, there is no forest.” Tender turned from the wall and ticked off his fingers. ”No trees, no forest. Ergo: no us, no Flow.”

The Chinese boy paled save for two hot spots on his cheeks.

Tender was glad to see that Abacus understood.

Then he cut his friend down and licked his dark fingers clean.

SHE'D gone as a skeleton down through the Flow, following an odd trail of raked pebbles and smooth bits of gla.s.s. Consuela stumbled across the recycled Zen garden while waiting for V, feeling restless and powerless. The worn shards of cobalt, pale blue, and bottle green were like sea-gla.s.s stars in a pale gravel sky. The tiny bones of her toes could be any one of those smooth, pink stones.

When she looked up, there was a young man perched on a boulder.

He had thin blond hair that hung long in the front, the edges of his bangs curtaining impossibly thick black eyebrows. He posed like a model, confident and sure, wearing a navy polo s.h.i.+rt and jeans with a wide, stamped silver buckle.

This was undeniably Tender.