Natural Selection (5 page)

I turned away to go back to my tent. I heard them whispering about me as I left.

When Morgan returned a while later, I heard her unzip her tent and toss her bathroom stuff inside. I thought she was going to ignore me and go to sleep, but instead she said in a low voice, “Can I talk to you?”

I sat up, hope crashing through me. “Sure.”

She unzipped my tent and knelt down, halfway inside. Her face was in shadow as she said, “Is what Zach said true?”

I could deny it. Would that make things okay? But I’d already lied to her about so much—about practically everything real about me—and I didn’t want to lie anymore. With this, at least, I could tell her the truth. “Yes,” I said. “What Zach said is true.”

She sighed, seeming to deflate a little. “You know I don’t feel that way,” she whispered.

Maybe I had expected her to be disgusted, because the tone in her voice—the sadness in it—took me by surprise. And then I remembered: This was why I liked her in the first place. She was honest. She was a horrible liar. I always knew exactly how she felt about me, even without my Imrian abilities. Maybe that gave me the idea—false, I now understood—that she was like my people. “I know you don’t feel that way,” I said. “That’s why I never told you.”

“How did Zach know?” she asked.

I thought about it.
Josh told me about you
, Zach had said. “I guess Josh told Zach that I didn’t want to make out with him when we went to the movies.”

“But not wanting to make out with Josh Taylor doesn’t make you gay,” Morgan said. “Are you sure?”

She wanted so badly for it to be a lie that I was tempted to give in to her.

“Maybe we just need to find you someone else,” Morgan said. “What about Matt Steiger? Don’t you think he’s so cute?”

“Yeah, he’s cute,” I agreed.

This seemed to encourage her. “That’s great! Maybe you’re beyond the boys at school. I mean, other than Zach, they are kind of annoying. Maybe you’ll find a guy you like in high school.”

I laughed in a half-choked kind of way. “Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?” she said, sounding unexpectedly fierce. “How can you know for sure that you’re—that you don’t like boys? You’ve never gone out with anyone except Josh. Have you?”

“No,” I admitted.

“So you don’t know!”

Her denial made me cringe. “But I do know,” I said.

“How?” she demanded.

“How do you know you’re straight?”

She thought about that for a moment but shook her head. “You’re so pretty. All the boys like you. Why would you—? It doesn’t make any sense.”

My heart seemed to stop. I knew that she was basically insulting me. She thought I was too pretty to be gay—as if all gay people were ugly. But the only thing I could feel was a thick, sad wonder at the fact that she thought I was pretty at all.
She thought I was pretty.
“Morgan,” I whispered. I took a deep breath, preparing myself. “I like girls. I know you don’t, but this doesn’t change anything. We’re both the same people we were yesterday. Are we okay? Are we still friends?” I reached for her, wanting to touch her the way I would touch an Imrian. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t help it at that moment. I had to know how she felt.

She pulled away from me, leaving my hand hanging in the air. She crossed her arms. I drew my hand back, and my heart sank.

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

My eyes were hot. I was glad she couldn’t see my face.

“I better go,” she whispered, and before I could stop her, she left my tent and zipped it shut.

I wake up to the sound of bells chiming in the vaulted ceiling of the shelter. When I open my eyes, it’s still dark, but as I shift in my hammock the lights come on. I climb out of my hammock and see Nasha do the same. I didn’t think I would be able to sleep at all, and now my head feels muddy—half-awake, half-asleep.

Nasha looks tired too, but she shoots me a smile as she pulls on her pack. “Did you dream?”

I shake my head. “No. I didn’t even realize I was asleep until the bells rang.” I sling my pack over my shoulder and we head toward the exit. “What about you?”

“I don’t remember anything. Some people say that dreams during
kibila
are prophetic, but I’m not sure if I believe that.”

The air is cool and smells like early morning, fresh and sharp. I take a deep breath as we strike out on the steep trail, and the oxygen and movement begin to shake away my drowsiness. “I bet humans would think we’re crazy to believe in things like that,” I say. “They think aliens are either super high-tech and emotionless, or scary insectlike monsters.”

“I’ve heard about that,” she says. “But why? I don’t get it.”

“I think it’s a projection of their own fantasies. Or nightmares, I guess. A fear of difference?”

“So we’re either robots or monsters?”

“Well, there are also the grays. Those are my favorite.”

She’s ahead of me, and she glances back over her shoulder as she says, “I’ve never heard of the grays. What are they?”

“They’re these aliens with gray skin and giant, bulbous heads and huge eyes.”

She laughs, the sound of it tinkling brightly down the trail. “That’s funny. Where do they come up with this stuff?”

“The grays are the smartest of the aliens. They’re like all brain, and they do experiments on humans too. Sometimes they have telepathic powers.”

“Hmm. Why do you like them?” She sounds amused.

“Well, they’re not giant ugly insects bent on destroying all of humanity,” I point out. “And… they’re mysterious.”

“You like mysterious things?”

“Yeah.” I slow down as we negotiate a rocky portion of the trail in the near dark. “You’re mysterious.”

I can tell she’s smiling as she says, “You think so?”

“Sure. I’ve been here for more than eight months, but you’ve never really talked to me until last night. Why?”

“Why didn’t you talk to me?” she counters.

“I thought… I guess I didn’t think you were interested in knowing me. I mean, you never touched me. I thought you were trying to hide that.”

She pauses and turns to face me. Behind her, the sky is beginning to lighten. “I’ve been interested in you since I was born,” she says.

This startles me. “Why?”

She takes a step closer. “All my life, I’ve known that you would be my
kibila
partner. That assignment was made at birth. And every time I thought about this night, I thought about you. Who you were; what you were doing; where you were. But when you came back eight months ago, you had changed so much from when we were little. I didn’t know how to talk to you. If I was trying to hide anything, it was only that.”

“Oh. I’m… sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. We have plenty of time to know each other. You and I will always be bound together, even after you go back to Earth. Even after we have lovers, and real responsibilities, and children, if we have children.”

She’s right. Every fifteen years, I will spend one night with her. The weight of that future suddenly impresses itself on me, and I reach for her without thinking, catching her hand in mine.

She’s closed to me, of course, as
kibila
demands. Her fingers squeeze mine, and she is like an anchor. On this mountain, we are anchored together. She will witness my transformations every time.

I wonder what it was like for earlier generations of Imria, who undertook their
kibila
in larger groups. That shelter could hold a dozen or more at a time. What would it be like to go through life with that group of people anchoring you throughout every transformation? I feel a sharp ache for a time long past, when this planet was alive with so many more of us. Now it is an isolated, lonesome place. Earth, in comparison, is a hive of bright, vibrant life. Earth is our future.

And I know, finally, that what everyone has told me is true. After today, I will be a new person. Ready to do what I was born to do.

We left Coconino National Forest the morning after my talk with Morgan. At breakfast, Morgan ignored me, but she looked sad while she sat with Zach. Part of me always knew she would react this way. She had never had gay friends or family before, and the few times the topic of gay people came up she always made a face as if they were gross. I felt stupid for ignoring that part of her for so long.

On the bus, I was stuck sitting with Ryan Walker. His parents had forced him to join Nature Club because they thought he needed outdoor exercise, but he never seemed to enjoy it. His nose was already deep in a book when I sat next to him in the only empty seat. He didn’t even look at me until the bus pulled to a stop at the visitors’ center on the way out of the forest. Ms. Lucas told us we had half an hour to pick out a souvenir, and Ryan’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Ryan?” she said.

“Can I use the bathroom?”

“Yes. There are bathrooms around the side of the visitors’ center.”

He stuffed his book into his backpack and was about to get up when he saw that I was still sitting there. “Hey, I heard about—” He cut himself off, turning beet red.

“Yeah? So?” I hadn’t thought Ryan would bring it up.

He looked embarrassed. “Just—I read this book once, and these girls liked each other, and—” He hesitated. “I think it’s okay. You’re okay.”

I was surprised. “Um, thanks.”

He hurriedly brushed past me out of the seat, and his backpack banged against my head. “Sorry!” he said, and then fled the bus as if he were afraid of me.

I waited till the rest of the kids were off before I followed them out. Some of them were hanging out by the edge of the parking lot, talking. Morgan was among the group of girls, their heads pressed together. I went into the visitors’ center before I could catch them staring at me.

Inside there were various tourist souvenirs for purchase in addition to maps and hiking gear. A couple of kids were buying postcards, but I avoided them and headed to the back of the store. I found a rotating jewelry display beside a bin full of sale-priced T-shirts, and I spun the display around to look at the earrings and pendants. I wasn’t planning to get anything—what did I want a souvenir of this weekend for?—but something on the bottom of the rack caught my eye. I bent down and pulled the necklace off the display. It was a piece of amber about the size of a quarter on a silver chain. In the center of the hardened resin was a curled frond, like a fiddlehead fern. I flipped over the card on which the chain was looped, and read: “This GENUINE piece of Amber was formed twenty-five million years ago in Central America.”

I pulled the pendant off the card and cupped it in my palm, gazing at the twenty-five-million-year-old fern preserved within the golden-orange resin. I couldn’t wrap my head around the age of the amber. It was here long before humans existed. Were my people alive back then? Were they only beginning to learn how to stand? This tiny object, warmed by the skin of my hand, had existed throughout all of that. It would exist throughout so much more to come. I rubbed a finger over the smooth surface, and for a second I thought I felt an electric charge in the palm of my hand, as if the amber were tugging at me.

I closed my fingers around it and took it to the cash register. Maybe I did want to remember this place, this planet. I wanted to take a piece of it home with me.

The temple is built into the peak of Isi Na, the walls made of stone quarried from somewhere nearby so that the temple seems to grow directly out of the mountain itself. The front of the temple opens into a flat, circular area that is tiled in the colors of the ocean, which it overlooks. When we arrive, the sun is slightly below the horizon, making the edge of the sea glow. We enter the temple through its main doors, built of black wood that has been carved into a lattice pattern. Inside, there is an atrium with a long, narrow pool. On either side are murals depicting Isi Na and the sea painted in deep, rich colors.

Two attendants are waiting for us at the rear of the atrium, both wearing long gray robes. One of them approaches Nasha; the other approaches me. We bow. My attendant takes me into an antechamber where I will change into my ritual clothing. Nasha follows her attendant into the same room. There are two stations set up, but there is space for many more; the room is long and extends far into the mountainside. Each station is comprised of a chair and a small table on which several ritual implements are laid out: a clipper, a razor, a bottle of scent. My attendant gestures for me to sit down as he picks up the clippers.

I watch my hair fall in clumps onto the floor as he cuts it off.
Kiss of honey.
That’s what the hair color I used was called. I bought it because Morgan liked that color, and I packed several boxes to bring back here with me. I kept using it because I couldn’t bring myself to end that part of my life yet. But today, it’s over. My natural hair is dark brown, and after my head is shaved, it will grow back in that color. Some Imrians go directly from their
kibila
to a stylist to have new hair rooted immediately, but I think I’ll let mine come in on its own. It might be kind of fun to be bald for a while.

Once most of my hair is gone, my attendant rubs a soft, faintly scented foam into my remaining hair, then picks up the razor. The blade slides cool and wet over my scalp, and nervous energy begins to flutter inside me.

The first time Eres Tilhar walked me through all the steps of
kibila
, I told my teacher I thought it sounded bizarre. Why would we change ourselves every fifteen years? I remember Eres saying, “It is the natural course of things—to change. We cannot hold ourselves back from changing.
Kibila
honors that, and gives us the opportunity to recognize how we are evolving.”

This morning, I’m eager to change. I’m eager to become who I am now.

When my attendant finishes shaving my head, he picks up the bottle of scented oil and taps some of it onto his fingertips, then makes a ritual marking over my newly shaved head. He touches the oil to my temples and my lips, and then he bows to me. I stand up and take off my hiking clothes. Nasha has already changed and is waiting near the entrance to the atrium. I slide into my ritual robes, gray like the attendant’s, made of a soft cloth woven from a cottonlike plant that grows on the southern slopes of the mountains. It’s like a caftan, with embroidery at the wrists and the collar in the shape of waves breaking upon the shore. I will wear this robe at every one of my
kibila
for the rest of my life.