Page 35 of The Verdant Cage
Misia’s still studying me. I step closer. She smells like the honey lotion they make in the Beekeeper House. Each cottage used to be allotted a bottle per season, but that was before the fields and hives were closed. I haven’t smelled the lotion in months.
“Thereisa stomach bug going around,” I lie, pressing the inside of my wrist against her forehead to check for a fever that I know won’t be there. “It’s what I suffered from the other day. Let me make you some tea and toast to settle your stomach.”
I feel her eye-knifing my back as I prepare breakfast, but she doesn’t say a thing, even when Jarek and Gryphon stumble through the front door, exhausted from what must have been a full night of patrol. Jarek looks particularly sallow, and I feel an ugly jolt of pleasure. Both men go upstairs to change into their chapel clothes.
My brief moment of amusement disappears when the Crier passes down our lane, telling us all that there will be a funeral before today’s sermon, and we’re to gather immediately at Eden’s Gate.
The Tzus and I step into the brisk, woodsmoke-scented morning air, our breath puffing out in clouds. Overhead, the sun decides to make an appearance. I keep my head down as villagers stream out of their homes and into the square, all of us stopping as close to the Gate as allowed. Because the Tzus reside in the Guardian cottage designated to protect the town’s center, it’s a short walk for us four.
The Harvest basket hovers just above the ground, tight to the Wall, already bearing its burden. My stomach twists at the sight. Peter’s wrapped body should’ve been placed there during the ceremony, not before—another break in tradition that sets my teeth on edge. Everything about this feels wrong. They say it’s a sacred journey up the Gate, a return to the Heavens, a reunion with the divine. But I’ve seen enough now to question what they say.
Sojourner stands upon the stage, her dark skin gleaming in the morning light, her robes rippling like ink in water. Her voice carries across the gathering with practiced authority, though even she seems flustered, perhaps by the hasty nature of the funeral.
“We commit the soul of Peter Martinez to Eden,” she intones. “May the ascent cleanse our brother; may the Sun, Water, and Wall carry him to the sky.”
The Potter family stands to the side, clinging to each other, shoulders quaking with sobs. Magdalene, Peter’s mother, presses her face into her husband’s chest, her fingers digging into his tunic as if she could tear the pain from her own heart and bury it in his. Peter was their oldest son, surely well loved. I glance again at the shape in the basket and swallow hard, remembering how he looked yesterday. Like a pale berry, withered in the sun. A hollow spot opens just beneath my ribs.
I force my feet toward the Potters, keeping my head low so Jarek doesn’t see me. My anxiety nearly silences me, but I need to talk to them. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say, my voice breaking as I stand beside them.
Magdalene glances up, eyes hollow, lips parted as if she might speak, but no words come. Shoji, her husband, clears his throat, his voice gravelly and choked.“Peter went to get tools. Just tools. He’s done it a dozen times since we had to evacuate the neighborhood. A dozen times and it’s never—” His words collapse into a sob, his body folding inward, crumbling. “I was the one who asked him to go.”
Something inside me splinters. I look around for Jarek. He is nowhere in sight. Neither is Misia.
“The Council told us,” Magdalene murmurs, voice thick with anguish. “They told us he had to be covered…because of what the animal did to him.” Her gaze flits toward the basket, her face contorted with pain.
My cheeks burn. I nod numbly.
Sojourner’s voice rises, a hymn lilting through the air, the words both ancient and comforting. The crowd sings along in a harmony of grief. As we sing, Jarek joins Sojourner on stage, his hands quick and sure on the tablet. He presses it, and the basket ascends Eden’s Gate, whirring toward the sky.
Up, up, up, working just fine with the piece of its panel missing. With a jolt, I realize exactly how it is that Albert’s chair can hover. He didn’t just steal a solar panel—he stole a piece of our most sacred technology! But my irritation is swallowed by fresh grief as I watch Peter’s remains disappear into the gloom above, swallowed by the dreary morning.
It’s over. Another child of the Valley is gone.
22
I rejoin the Tzus for our walk to chapel, as is customary for families.
We’re taught that our chapel was built from marble quarried across an ocean, a great body of salted water. The humble wattle and daub cottages lining the square look like squat little boxes alongside it.
The chapel’s most impressive feature is its tower, rising nearly four stories high, twice as tall as any other structure inside the Wall. Inside is a massive bell behind windows of stained glass. They burn red, green, and gold with the Sun’s sacred rays.
Jarek and Misia lead the way up the stone steps, surrounded by the hum of hundreds of conversations as the entire village files inside. The two of them carry themselves tall and rigid. I realize Gryphon does, too, and immediately square my own shoulders to match.
Someone jostles me, catching me off balance, and I bump into Gryphon. He recoils. I duck my head in embarrassment, instinctively yanking down hair to cover the birthmarked side of my face. My betrothed can’t even stand to touch me.
I shouldn’t care that I disgust him, but I do, and it makes me angry. I turn to glare at the person who nudged me and see it’s Eero, his own hair slicked back. His cowlick has escaped, though, and it sticks straight up, reminding me of Jonas. I force the thought from my mind.
Sorry, Eero mouths.
I nod.
We’re technically free to sit where we choose, but over time, each House has claimed its pocket. Services can last upward of four hours, and it’s not unheard of for a medical crisis to occur, so the Apothecaries have always sat in the back. We can observe our neighbors best from there.
The Guardians sit in the front pew.
Something like stage fright seizes me as we parade down the center aisle. I spot Uncle Richard trying to catch my eye with a reassuring smile, but I’m too miserable to return it. We shuffle to the head of the chapel, Jarek taking the seat nearest the aisle, then Misia, followed by Gryphon, then me. Less than fifteen unobstructed feet separate us from the podium where Sojourner, her husband, and their three children stand in red robes.
Once we’re all seated, the chapel as quiet as sleep, Sojourner speaks. Her voice booms across the space. “Welcome, everyone. It’s so wonderful to see your faces as we gather on this holy day to celebrate our life, our love, and our community, especially after such a terrible loss. Before I begin, are there any announcements?”
