And for the next few days this is how we go to bed every day. It’s not even every night, because we wake up and fall asleep at strange hours. There is no sun to tell us the time. Alis has people organizing meals every three hours, and we usually get at least two of them, six or nine hours apart, and water bottles in between. Sloan goes up and comes back down; more snow is falling, she tells us, and I wonder what it’s like on the beach. It is November now; we have been down here for almost a whole month, and I’m already feeling the effects. It’s been two months for Ava, and years on end for Penny and Sloan; decades for Shan. I don’t know how they do it. I’m already feeling constantly tired and kind of depressed. I don’t know what else I can do except wander around the tracks and sit in the Shan buildings while the Shan people are talking. Marissa’s stomach grows bigger. I don’t think a baby should be born down here. It’s dirty and it would need sunlight, wouldn’t it, but there’s nothing else to do. She cannot go to the surface, no one gives birth anymore, no one would know what to do up there any more than we do down here.
We go through a story or two every night, depending on how long they are. Nua never complains. Ava looks over his shoulder sometimes, and I don’t know what she sees on the page. Maybe it’s coming back to her a little bit. She still has the index card that Penny gave her, with words on it too, 9 67 104, eastward oceanfront park. She can recognize the numbers, I think, I think Keol could too, but one day when Nua is asleep but we’re both awake she taps me on the shoulder and reluctantly asks me to read the words out loud for her. I do and she just goes back to staring at them, tracing the letters with her fingers.
A few days after the whole debacle, Penny calls us together again and finally explains the whole plan. Sigrid and Nova are there too, with their own little index cards, but Penny doesn’t use them this time. He just sits on the table in the fire forum, as I sit in the armchair with Ava on my lap once again and Nua on the ground leaning against my legs. The numbers all refer to different streets in the city, and the words are either train stations or popular public spaces downtown that everyone seems to know about except me, because I’m not from around here. That’s also why Haywood has trouble finding out about my parents, because I do not know where Miss Lilly took them after she arrested them, or whatever happened that day at the shelter. I never lived so close to the city before; Miss Lilly took me away from my mother and father so that I would not be able to find them again.
But Penny tells us that despite the hardships of figuring out what’s really going on in the real world from all the way down here, we have sympathy on the surface, and some of it comes from people who actually have a way to help. One of these people is Alicia’s sister, so Alicia and Sloan will be the ones leading the plan about the trains. Stopping the trains is a lot easier said than done, though, so this plan will take a few months of planning. Penny has just finally gotten all the details roughly outlined. Alicia’s sister has access to the system that programs the trains, and obviously she cannot shut it down or stop them all at once, but there is a way, Penny tells us, to slow things down. There are three agencies in the city, and six different trains run by them in total. Penny and Sloan, along with Alicia and Alicia’s sister, are going to stop the trains in front of the agencies. People will understand, he says, and I believe him.
Ava has questions. Penny answers them. The cards he gave us are where Sigrid’s women will be when it happens so they can trouble-shoot if need be. They have the addresses of the agencies, of course, scattered across the city, so they won’t be close by, but he wants to work with Sigrid and her women to find a way to link it all together. To make people know it wasn’t an accident, and it has to do with Lilly LeGatte.
That night he and his sister go off together to get dinner for the rest of us, and after they come back with boxes stacked on top of each other and hand them out, they sit next to each other on the ground near the fire. It’s them and Nua and I and Bayan and Sloan, and we’re all talking and eating and thinking. After a while Ava yawns, putting her head on Penny’s shoulder, and he leans back, bracing his hands on the ground, and continues his conversation with Bayan. I thought fraternal twins weren’t supposed to be exactly the same but they look like carbon copies of each other, except for the fact that Penny actually has longer hair that he ties up behind his head. I don’t think I look much like Abigala.
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His ever-present dog is with us too, lying on the ground next to them. Her head is up and she pants, looking around, and then looks at me. I smile, and move closer so I can stroke her. I notice that Penny is humming, and after a moment I realize I recognize the song.
We sit in near-silence a little longer, and Nua moves over to join us. Bayan goes to sit next to Sloan on the other side of the fire. Penny’s eyelids are drooping, and after a little bit they silently switch positions so his head is on his sister’s shoulder, and then in a few moments he’s asleep.
Nua laughs slightly, and Ava looks down at her twin, grinning. “He works hard.”
“Was he singing the birdie lullaby?” I ask, and she nods, touching his hair. “Yeah. I taught it to him when we were younger. Although…”
She trails off, and Nua raises his eyebrows at her. She sits for a minute, then completes her thought. “Although I only taught him two of the verses.”
Nua looks at her. “You only sang two of the verses to us, too.”
She sighs, staring into the firelight, but after a moment, she begins to sing quietly.
“Two birdies sitting in an old palm tree
A coconut falls,
there’s room for three
Another birdie comes and settles in the tree
and there they stay
to sit and greet the day.
Three birdies sitting in an old palm tree
but one flies away
it has to flee.
Two birdies left in the old palm tree
and there they stay
to sit and greet the day.”
This is the part we know. She used to sing this to Keol in the garden while he lay on the stone fountain, pretending to ignore her high, light voice. I caught him humming the tune occasionally, absentmindedly like he didn’t even know he was doing it. Now, she pauses, and then takes a deep breath.
“Two birdies sitting in an old palm tree
But half fly away
leaving one, not two nor three
And one birdie sits in the old palm tree
But the others flew away;
so why, then, should it stay?”
She ends with an exhale, her eyes fixated on her brother’s face, and then Nua says quietly, “Oh.”
“I never taught him that part,” she whispers, almost to Penny himself. “I didn’t want him to think that everyone leaves him.”
“You came back,” I say quietly. She smiles slightly, her hand pressing against her chest where her heart beats. “Owen taught it to me.”
Nua takes a deep breath, touching her knee, and she exhales. He studies her in the flickering light, her fingers curling over Keol’s heart, and then says softly, “It’s late. We should probably get to bed.”
“Yeah,” she murmurs, then all of a sudden stands up. “Hey, asshole.”
Penny lets out a small shout as he falls to the ground, and I hold back a laugh as he groans. “Ava!” His dog barks, and he touches her on the head to calm her down. Ava grins down at her twin. “Payback.”
Nua laughs; I’m surprised he’s condoning this. Penny laughs too, though, and Ava pulls him up. He punches her lightly on the arm. “Glad you’re back.”
She laughs, taking Nua’s outstretched hand, and then reaches for mine. Penny says good night as he settles back in, a safe distance from the fire, and we follow Ava back to our tent.