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“Ro. It’s beautiful.” I finger each curving copper tendril.

“She’s beautiful.” He shrugs, embarrassed. So I only nod and move on to the next gift, an old book of stories, nicked from the Padre’s bookcase. Not the first time we’ve done that—and I smile at him conspiratorially. Finally, I pick up the music player, examining the white wires. They have soft pieces on the ends, and I fit one into my ear. I look at Ro and laugh, fitting one in his.

Ro clicks a round button on the side of the rectangle. Screaming music streams into the air—I jump and my earpiece goes flying. When I stick it back in, I can almost feel the music. The nest of cardboard and plywood and tin around us is practically vibrating.

We let the music drown out our thoughts and occupy ourselves with singing and shouting—until the door flies open and the night comes tumbling inside. The night, and the Padre.

“DOLORIA MARIA DE LA CRUZ!”

It’s my real name—though no one is supposed to know or say it—and he wields it like a weapon. He must be really angry. The Padre, as red-faced and short as Ro is brown and long, looks like he could flatten us both with one more word.

“FURO COSTAS!”

But I’ve given Ro his own turn with the earphones, and the music is so loud he can’t hear the Padre. Ro’s singing along badly, and dancing worse. I stand frozen in place while the Padre yanks the white cord from Ro’s ear. The Padre holds out his other hand and Ro drops the silver music player into it.

“I see you’ve raided the storage room once more, Furo.”

Ro looks at his feet.

The Padre rips the lights out of the black box, and a spark shoots across the room. The Padre raises an eyebrow.

“You’re lucky you didn’t burn down half the mountain with this contraband,” he says, looking meaningfully at Ro. “Again.”

“So lucky.” Ro snorts. “I think that every day, right before dawn when I get up to feed the pigs.”

The Padre drops the string of lights like a snake. “You realize, of course, that a Sympa patrol could have seen the lights on this mountain all the way down to the Tracks?”

“Don’t you ever get tired of hiding?” Ro glowers.

“That depends. Do you ever get tired of living?” The Padre glares back. Ro says nothing.

The Padre has the look he gets when he’s doing the Mission accounting, hunched over the ledgers he fills with rows of tiny numbers. This time, he is calculating punishments, and multiplying them times two. I tug on his sleeve, looking repentant—a skill I mastered when I was little. “Ro didn’t mean it, Padre. Don’t be angry. He did it for me.”

He cups my chin with one hand, and I feel his fingers on my face. In a flash, I sense him. What comes to me first is worry and fear—not for himself, but for us. He wants to be a wall around us, and he can’t, and it makes him crazy. Mostly, he is patience and caution; he is a globe spinning and a finger tracing roads on a worn map. His heart beats more clearly than most. The Padre remembers everything—he was a grown man when the first Carriers came—and most of what he remembers are the children he has helped. Ro, and me, and all the others who lived at the Mission until they were placed with families.

Then, in my mind’s eye, I see something new.

The image of a book takes shape.

The Padre is wrapping it, with his careful hands. My present.

He smiles at me, and I pretend not to know where his mind is.

“Tomorrow we will speak of bigger things. Not today. It’s not your fault, Dolly. It’s your birthday eve.”

And with that, he winks at Ro and draws his robed arm around me, and we both know all is forgiven.

“Now, come to dinner. Bigger and Biggest are waiting, and if we make them wait much longer, Ramona Jamona will no longer be a guest at our table but the main dish.”

As we slide our way back down the hillside, the Padre curses the bushes that tug at his robes, and Ro and I laugh like the children we were when he first found us. We race, stumbling in the darkness toward the warm yellow glow of the Mission kitchen. I can see the homemade beeswax candles flickering, the hand-cut paper streamers hanging from the rafters.

My birthday eve dinner is a success. Everyone on the Mission is there—almost a dozen people, counting the farmhands and the church workers—all crammed around our long wooden table. Bigger and Biggest have used every cracked plate in the shed. I get to sit in the Padre’s seat, a birthday tradition, and we eat my favorite potato-cheese stew and Bigger’s famous sugar cake and sing old songs by the fire until the moon is high and our eyes are heavy and I fall asleep in my usual warm spot in front of the oven.

When the old nightmare comes—my mother and me and the radio going silent—Ro is there next to me on the floor, asleep with crumbs still on his face and twigs still in his hair.

My thief of junk. Climber of mountains. Builder of worlds.

I rest my head on his back and listen to him breathe. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. What the Padre wants to tell me.

Bigger things, that’s what he said.

I think about bigger things until I am too small and too tired to care.

EMBASSY CITY TRIBUNAL AUTOPSY

CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET

Performed by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD

Note: Conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare

Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B

Also see adjoining DPPT in addendum file.

Deceased Personal Possessions Transcript

Deceased classified as victim of Grass Rebellion uprising. Known to be Person of Interest to Ambassador Amare.

Gender: Female.

Ethnicity: Indeterminate.

Age: Estimate mid-to-late teens. Postadolescent.

Physical Characteristics:

Slightly underweight. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Skin characterized by some discoloration indicative of elemental exposure. Exhibits human protein markers and low body weight indicative of predominantly agrarian diet. Staining patterns on teeth consistent with consumption habits of local Grass cultures.

Distinguishing Physical Markings:

A recognizable

marking

appears inside the specimen’s right wrist. At the Ambassador’s request, a

specimen of the