The Space Between Worlds Read online

  The more interesting things on the wall—dried animal bones and drawings of creatures with skulls for faces—are from Esther’s faiths. My stepfather might love the Bible and the Quran, but my sister gives almost as many sermons as he does these days and she favors less organized religions, some that don’t even have a unifying text.

  “Joriah wasn’t able to make the journey,” my mother says, and I exhale a bit of the dread I’ve been hiding. I won’t have to pretend all day then. At least, no more than usual.

  She turns away from me. “Company’s here,” she says.

  She won’t say Caramenta. She’s ashamed now to have given her daughter a slum name. My stepfather’s name is Daniel. His children are Esther and Michael. My mother was born Mellorie, but those who trick in Ash use x’s in their names as an identifier, so she’d been Lorix since before I was born. Here and now, she’s just Mel.

  My stepfather comes in, his smile wide and genuine. He is blond, like his daughter. It’s an advertisement. Real Wileyites have white hair and skin so pale it’s a shade off blue. Daniel’s hair reminds his congregation that his great-grandfather came here willingly as a missionary from the city, not as a refugee or migrant trying to get into it.

  He hugs me easily, with less hesitation than it took my mother to look in my eyes. “You made it. What do you think of the tie? Too on the nose?”

  Usually, he wears a tunic like all men from the Rurals, but outsiders are coming and he’s attempting to dress like them. His tie is covered in little fish, smiling at one another as they swim in all directions.

  “Are you going for holy and approachable, or completely cheesy?”

  He fakes thinking about it. “Both?”

  “Then it’s perfect.”

  “Thought so,” he says, then nods over his shoulder. “Twins are out back.”

  I see Esther and Michael outside, having the kind of conversation I’m sure only twins have. Esther looks pleading, Michael resolved. Neither seems to be speaking, and yet both have been understood. Michael’s black hair would have made him the outsider in the family if Mom and I hadn’t shown up. He is nice to me, but not like we’re family, not like I am someone he will ever give a nickname or call late at night. The twins don’t remember their mother, a woman whose face and past matched theirs far better than my mother’s ever will, but I’ve looked her up. In worlds where their mother lives, my mother never meets Dan and never leaves downtown.

  Their conversation picks up again, and the wind carries Esther’s raised voice against the window. I turn away, trying to remember the last time I cared about anything enough to scream for it.

  I change in my old room, now converted into Esther’s office. When she comes in, I take a container from my bag and toss it over my shoulder at her. She smiles as she catches it, running her thumb along the face cream’s silver top.

  “You shouldn’t feed my vanity. It’s my worst trait,” she says, sitting on the cot that will be my bed tonight.

  “That you think vanity is your worst trait is a sign of your vanity.”

  I put on tights, even though they’re thick, black, and hell to wear in the desert, and Esther’s eyes fixate on my legs. This last trip has pushed the traversing bruises—unique stripes on either side of my limbs and torso—down my thighs and onto both sides of my calves. That alone wouldn’t force me to put on tights, but the garage tattoos on the back of my thighs, a massive eye on each leg, are also exposed.

  My mother can never see the tattoos. I’ve had tattoos removed from my arms, chest, the base of my neck, and behind my ears. I’ve saved a little at a time to have the rest removed, but I started on the ones in plain view first. The next one I erase will be the largest: the six letters of someone else’s name scrawled across my back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.

  “Mom still thinks you never got tattoos before you left Ashtown,” she says.

  I concentrate on not pausing in my task. “How did that come up?”

  “Michael wants a plated tooth. She’s been using you as an example, because you’re worldly, but you didn’t alter your body.”

  “He wants a runner’s tooth?”

  “Worse,” she says. “He wants onyx, like Nik Nik.”

  “No.” I look up from my tights so she’ll know I’m serious. “You can’t let him. If runners see him with an emperor’s tooth they’ll rip it out. It’s an insult. If he has to get one, get silver. Silver’s safe.”

  She’s looking at me wide-eyed, seeing too much. It’s the same way she looked at me when she was twelve. She’s probably wondering how a Ruralite girl knows so much about downtown Ash’s runners.

  “Is that what you two were fighting about?”

  She waits a second, deciding whether she’s going to let me get away with moving the conversation along, then answers. “We weren’t fighting, we were discussing, and no. That was about something else.”

  My sister tells me everything, so her pause means this is Michael’s secret.

  “I was good at hiding things from her before I left home,” I say, sitting next to her. “That’s why Mom never knew.”

  “And from me. I never saw them either until you came back.”

  “You were twelve. I could have hidden an eye patch from you then.”

  We talk for a little while, though mostly I listen. Eventually she looks out the window and stands. I stand, too, but I don’t have anywhere to go. This is where we separate. The sun is setting, so she will need to pray. Today, the theme will be gratitude, a litany of thanks from a girl raised in a place with nothing. She will don an apron for tonight’s festivities, something her people wear when they interact with the nonreligious, a sign of their willingness to help if asked. And I will wear my dress, a sign that I am not part of the church, just a nonbelieving donor.

  But she’s taking the face cream with her, just like she does the lip balm and tooth rinses I bring. She wears products from me that change her appearance, and it almost makes up for the fact that she is too fair to ever look like me. When I see her, absent the sunspots of her peers, her teeth shining white in that ever-benevolent smile, I think, There, there I am. Because that’s what a sister is: a piece of yourself you can finally love, because it’s in someone else.

  * * *

  SHOES. I’D FORGOTTEN to bring cheap shoes. I’d grabbed the only dressy pair I owned, black with the distinctive gold line running up the back indicating the brand without saying it. Dell got them for me because she knew I’d embarrass myself at company parties in whatever I owned, and by extension embarrass her, but it doesn’t matter that they were a gift. These shoes could buy a month of food for the families out here. When I walk into the new church they click loudly in a crowd of heels too worn down to match the sound. It shames me more than it shames them, but it does shame us both. I make up for it by smiling too much, because my usual aloofness will look like elitism to them.

  At the dedication ceremony, senior members of the church speak about how much this new building will mean to the community. I believe it. In my journal there’s a picture of the old church. At best, it was a glorified barn. This new building has real walls, the kind that actually keep the heat out instead of just blocking sunlight. And, my stepfather’s greatest pride, it has a series of attached rooms, each large enough to give temporary shelter to a family of four. Rural wastelanders eschew formal houses, but on bright days, days when the sun is too close and the atmosphere too thin, even those adept at living rough need more than mud over their heads.

  The theme of the night is gratitude, so every speaker thanks God. But the theme for the night is also survival, so they are careful to thank Nik Nik almost as often. I don’t know if they’re thanking the emperor for a donation, or if they’re thanking him for the privilege of having a building without his runners burning it down, but they aren’t really grateful, just afraid of what will happen if t
hey don’t look it.

  Nik Nik is sitting behind me. The Ruralites always save a seat in the back row for him during services, even though he rarely attends. Just as they always save a seat for the House proprietor, even though Exlee has no use for religion. They are both here tonight though: Exlee because standing there looking like the only soft thing in the desert is an excellent advertisement, and Nik Nik because he wants to remind people who bow to God that they must bow to him first. I stare at Exlee, done up in leather and black glitter, and long for the days when the proprietor knew my name.

  After the speeches, my mother serves refreshments from behind a counter while the rest of my family gives tours of the facility. When I go to her, she hands me a glass of lemonade like I’m just another donor. It’s her own recipe—hints of honey, the scent of lavender without the taste. She’s not allowed to brag, but when I say it’s the best thing she’s ever made she doesn’t correct me.

  “Did you have to invite everyone?” I ask.

  She manages to convey irritation without compromising the benevolence in her face. It’s all in the eyes. “He gave. Everyone who gave is entitled to come.”

  She has to be respectful, because if you disrespect Nik Nik, he may want to teach you a lesson. That lesson can be a quadrupled utility bill, or a house fire set by a smiling runner.

  I’ve never catered to him. But then, I’ve never been afraid to die, which has probably been my problem on more than one Earth.

  “I don’t know why you hate him so much,” she says. “It’s not as if he’s ever crossed us personally.”

  I open my mouth to tell her how wrong she is, but she continues, saving me from making a mistake.

  “We left downtown before he even inherited.”

  Hearing my mother talk about leaving the center of Ash reminds me where and who I am and which one she is. She doesn’t know how many other hers died in the concrete because of Nik Nik and his even-worse father…but you’d think she could guess.

  “You’re right. I’ve never met the emperor. I just don’t like the idea of him.”

  She stiffens, tapping the lemonade ladle against the bowl.

  The sound is too loud in the room, which has suddenly gone silent. Which means he’s here. If I turn around, I’ll see the spectacle of Nik Nik: two tight rows braided just above his left ear, because he is the third in his line to control Ash; the rest of his hair left down so everyone who sees him knows he is not a man who works in the wastelands or with machines or at all; and in his mouth, all four incisors plated in synthetic onyx so they shine like black diamonds and, yes the rumors are true, cut just like them too.

  And there is a world where in this moment a more reckless and honest me smashes my lemonade glass and cuts his throat with a shard, where I put my hands into his still-warm blood and the thick of it washes away the multitude of shames I carry. But that world and that me are so different from this one I doubt Eldridge would ever be able to resonate with it. I am no longer reckless, and I have never been honest.

  I set the glass back down at my mother’s station and leave the room to find Esther. I haven’t heard Nik Nik’s voice in over six years, and I intend to keep it that way.

  To bring the night to a close, everyone is gathered outside. Daniel and Esther have each had moments addressing the crowd tonight, but this time it’s Michael who steps forward alone. He doesn’t speak. He just kneels, checking the wind every so often, until we finally see a faint spark in his hands. By the time he walks back to the crowd the sky is exploding over us. Michael is the son of the Ruralite leader, but he doesn’t give sermons. He worships with fire.

  The religious are the only ones who use explosive powders anymore. Weapons capable of murdering from a distance were banned after the civil wars, when Nik Senior took power, long before I was born. It feels miraculous to watch the fireworks, louder and brighter than anything Wiley City can ever give me.

  Voices murmur through the crowd. This is when Ruralites believe in making confession, when the fire has grabbed God’s attention and no mortal ears can hear through the explosion. So I wait, and when the next bloom of gold breaks open into the sky with a scream, I tell my truth.

  “I am not Caramenta,” I say. “Caramenta is dead.”

  * * *

  CARAMENTA DIED SIX years ago on Earth 22, my actual home Earth.

  I was born Caralee, but I’d been Caralexx since my seventeenth birthday when I’d finally gotten tired of fighting for scraps in a world that would always be Nik Nik’s. Once his dad died and Nik got true power, I put an x on my name and became his favorite girl. But he had a jealous streak as wide as his smile. I learned early on he was no different from my mom in handing out punishments for things I’d never done. My real mother—not the wilting silk scrap of a woman on Earth Zero who belongs to Esther, Michael, and Daniel but who will never be mine.

  Out on the edge of the wasteland that was still half wet from the mostly dead river, Nik spent the night pretending to drown me. He held my head in the muck, but pulled me back before my lungs were even really burning.

  I’d say, Why’d you stop?

  And he’d say, Practicing.

  Then he left, and left me alive, like he always did, because he liked me walking back to him tired and blistered. He liked caring for me afterward, as if the damage were done by someone else.

  I was in a piece of the wasteland where the Rurals still reach in Earth Zero, face caked in mud that had turned as hard as fired clay under the sun, wishing I had anywhere else to go. That’s when I saw the body.

  Her eyes had starbursts of red in the white. Her left arm was broken out once and then back in again like a puppet, her shoulders caved forward but her spine bent back. In all my years living rough, I’d never met anyone who could stomach doing that to a person. Hers were the only tracks in the dirt—drag marks, not footprints. She’d pulled herself a little with her good arm, but whatever grace had pushed her had worn off, and a blood tide was crawling from her mouth across the sand.

  I crouched down when I should have run away. Maybe I meant to steal what I could. Maybe I needed to see what mark that kind of death left on a human face.

  That’s when I saw it. The part of the face that wasn’t destroyed was mine. The corpse was me, a neater, un-tattooed version of me. I stared at her face, my face, and thought it was a joke.

  Next I heard the voice, small but not distant. It was saying a name.

  I took out the transmitter, grazing an unpierced version of my own ear, and put it in.

  “…menta? Caramenta? Are you there?”

  It wasn’t that the voice was lovely, but the concern in it was pure and sweet, something I’d never heard before and haven’t gotten tired of yet.

  “Yes…I’m here,” I said.

  I put on the woman’s cuff and it activated, recognizing me as her. The picture on Caramenta’s digital ID looked even more like me than her corpse. Her address was in Wiley City. I always wanted to live in Wiley City.

  Caramenta, Caramenta, Caramenta. I repeated it so I wouldn’t forget.

  “Good. Thought we’d lost you on your first day out.”

  “No. I’m just…confused.”

  An irritated sigh, followed by, “I’m bringing you back. You’re not ready. I’ll walk you through the return procedure, but just this once. When you get back you’ll need to do more than pretend to study the manuals.”

  Maybe it shouldn’t have been easy, peeling the clothes off of my own corpse and leaving just enough of my things to identify her as me, but anything is possible once you convince yourself it’s necessary. I’m not sorry, and I’ve never been ashamed.

  After I changed into her clothes, Dell pulled me over and I was born into a brand-new world. That was six years ago. Six years since I’ve heard anyone say my real name. Some days, I can’t even remember it.

  * * * r />
  ON SATURDAY I work in the garden with Esther, because it offends me less than accompanying my mother and stepfather while they preach. The ground in Ashtown grows like it’s half salt—leftover corruption from the same factories that used to pump soot into the air, giving the town its name—so the “garden” is an abandoned airplane hangar on the edge of my parents’ land. There are rows of pots filled with imported soil, and the insulation is better than most houses in this area. The congregation helps with the tending and my stepfather divides the harvest evenly among his parishioners.

  Ruralites aren’t allowed to gossip, but they are allowed to stare, and those working with us can’t help but look at the once-holy daughter of their leader, who went into the city and turned sinner overnight. I stay close to Esther, hiding in the shadow of her belonging. The work clothes I’m wearing stay in the back of my closet until visits like this, so even though it’s been years since I bought them they still have that too-new look. Like I am an imposter. And I am. Back in the Wiles, I pass for someone who has known stability and money her whole life. Here, I pass for someone who remembers how to pray and scrape, who would never let the same kind of peppers they’ve spent weeks nurturing mold forgotten in the back of her fridge. I am always pretending, always wearing costumes but never just clothes.

  Esther and I water and check the plants for salt-rot, a parasite carried in on the bodies of flies. It’s the only thing that lives in the sludge far to the south that used to be a lake. The environment got too toxic for anything else, but salt-rot survived, jumping from reeds to ground plants to trees, leaving petrified white behind as it leached the nutrients out of its hosts.

  On Earth 312 the factories we chased out here are still pumping, and there are no human inhabitants beyond workers who don’t leave the airtight facility. In that world, salt-rot continued to evolve after the trees and the flies were dead. In that world it can infect the skin of a human and spread slowly but inevitably until a few years pass and all that’s left is a glistening white corpse. They used to call it salt-rot too, but now they call it Lot’s Wife and treat it like it’s a curse instead of just a virus. I have the tiniest leaf of it in one of my sealed bags in the collection on my wall, and even though Eldridge’s specimen bags are guaranteed to contain it, having Lot’s Wife in my home is the closest I get to feeling true danger anymore.