I wanted to feel something—relief, maybe. Our long-kept secrets were out in the open now, but as I looked at Griffin, I knew the biggest question still remained: “Why is Griffin the solution?”
“We’re all solutions,” explained my father. “Or the descendants of one. It’s just the name given to the first person who reveals a new element.”
“Why solution, though?”
He rubbed his chin. “When the first colony faced extinction, they received the gift of the elements—earth, water, wind, and fire—to keep them alive. When the world changed, driven by engines and machines, our power emerged—yours and mine, Thomas. And when the world was consumed by Plague, Griffin was born.”
“So why aren’t I a solution too?” asked Dennis.
“No one knows. Elements are passed from parent to child. I passed my power to Thomas, and my secondary element, fire, to Ananias. Their mother was a seer, and so is Griffin. I can’t say why he’s the solution, though. I suppose it’s a kind of evolution, just like the way some elements that existed in the past have died off.”
“What kind of elements?” Ananias asked.
“All sorts. Back in the era of steam-driven machines, there were people who could boil water with just their hands. It sounds like a water-fire hybrid, but it wasn’t really. It was a unique element. And then the machines changed, and those elements naturally phased out.”
“Except for earth, water, wind, and fire,” said Alice, speaking up at last. She sat in the corner of the room and rested her head against the cold stone wall. “Just before he was shot, Kyte said: Four boys, four elements. How did they get the first elements?”
Father adjusted the blanket pressed into the small of his back. He’d been lying down for days, and it showed. “No one knows for sure. Legend says the boys visited one of the tribes on the mainland. They stole food and other goods. Someone sounded the alarm, and in their haste to escape, the boys destroyed an idol of the god Kiwasa. The natives gave chase, followed the boys to their Roanoke Island colony. A battle seemed inevitable. But as tribesmen neared the shore, one of the boys caused a wave that overturned their canoe. Another summoned a wind that pushed them out into the sound. The third boy created a flame, and in the light the natives saw the final boy touch the earth and make it shake.” He shrugged, as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe it himself. “Some say it was Kiwasa’s revenge. From that day onward, the boys were outcasts, as was every one of their descendants. They had the power to survive almost anything, it seemed, but they were destined to do so alone.”
Marin cleared her throat. “So now you know.” She sounded disappointed, as though the fault was with us for wanting answers, rather than with her for keeping them from us.
“No, Mother,” said Rose. “You still haven’t explained why you kept this a secret from us all these years.”
Marin’s eyes flickered to me as if I had spoken, not Rose. “You have no idea how hard it used to be for us. When we were young, people were as superstitious as they’d been in John White’s time. We lived in constant fear that one of us would reveal an element.” She took a calming breath. “When the world changed, we had a choice: Tell you that you’re nature’s mistake, or allow you to be the perfect humans you are. We gave you the one thing we’d always dreamed of: a colony free from non-elementals, where we could be truly ourselves.”
She sat up straighter now, confident in the truth of her words. “But now we’re living with non-elementals again. And while the world may have changed, attitudes haven’t. If anyone finds out what we can do, they’ll kill us without hesitation, simply out of fear. Which is why we’ve promised to put our elements behind us.”
“No.” My father smacked his fist against the blankets. “They need to practice.”
“So someone can give our secret away? Or maybe Thomas’ll accidentally kill someone else.” She stood and placed a claw-like hand on Dennis’s shoulder. “Think we’d survive that, do you, Ordyn?”
“The elements are more important now than ever,” he insisted.
“Not to us, they’re not.” She nudged Dennis toward the door.
“Where are you going?” demanded Rose.
“Our colony is no more. Your father is dead, and our elements are done. Chief has found a different room for us, Rose. If this is home now, we should be looking forward, not back. We should be joining our new family, not staying with the old.” She picked up Dennis’s bag and paused beside the door. “Come along.”
Rose seemed frozen in shock. There was no ignoring the finality of what her mother was doing. Dennis sensed it too, and hesitated, torn between the people he’d always known and the mother he trusted above all of us.
My thoughts returned to the conversation with Chief. When he’d asked me if Marin was happy, he already knew the answer. Which meant that he wasn’t really asking for my opinion at all. He was trying to work out if he could trust me.
“Rose?” Marin said her daughter’s name without enthusiasm, a question she didn’t much care to have answered. When she received only silence in return, she didn’t even seem disappointed. “Your father would be ashamed of you.”
She left without a backward glance. The door swung shut behind Dennis. In the quiet of the room I counted seven people. Our colony—fractured and decimated—was no longer a colony. It wasn’t even a cohesive group, just the residue from centuries of lies.
CHAPTER 21
I claimed two portions of dinner and carried one to my father, grateful for a reason to avoid Chief. Father was sleeping, so I ate one bowl and left the other beside his bed.
Outside, I climbed the metal staircase that ran against the battery and wandered across the roof. Beyond the roof was the esplanade, a large area on the same level. The flat grounds were covered in rows of plants. There was grass too, brown, worn thin by the long summer. A stone monument rose a yard above it all.
I took a seat on the monument and surveyed the harbor. It was dark now. Stars glittered to life above me. Waves brushed against the tiny island, soft and hypnotic.
Footsteps on the staircase broke the quiet. It took me a moment to recognize Dennis’s figure, and longer for him to recognize mine. He stopped a few yards away, and turned to leave.
“Don’t go,” I said. “Please.”
He hesitated, then shuffled onto the stone beside me. “My father made me promise not to talk to you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why I said that, but I meant it. Dennis had lost his father. Maybe his sister too, if things didn’t get resolved between Rose and Marin. “Your father was probably trying to protect Rose. You’ve seen what I can do. Or maybe it was because Dare was my uncle.”
He raised his hands. “So? You never knew that before. It’s not fair.” He dangled his legs from the monument. His feet bounced against it. Seeing him like this reminded me how young he was—still only nine.
“How’s your new room?”
“Weird. Mother was so pleased to get away from you all. But no one in that room will talk to me. They smile and nod, but . . . something’s not right.”
“They’re probably just not used to you yet.”
“No. It’s more than that. Chief made two of the adults give us their beds. It doesn’t make sense. If this is home now, why should I get a bed? Why should adults sleep on the floor?”
“It’s strange,” I agreed. “Do you want to move back to our room? It’s all right if you do.”