Origin (32 page)

Kapukiri smacks his lips and resumes speaking.

“The Kaluakoa prayed to the gods to send them a protector. So the gods sent Miua, the god-child. Miua saw the cruelty of the Maturo and the dead, faceless Kaluakoa, and she wept many tears for them. From her tears grew the
yresa
, and in the flowers, her tears collected.”

I look at Eio. “The origin of
yresa
,” I whisper, recalling what he said to me the night he first showed me the river:
“You don’t know, do you? About the origin of
yresa?” It’s the first time I’ve thought back to that moment.

Kapukiri clears his throat, and I realize he’s annoyed at my interruption.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

He keeps his eyes narrowed at me and continues.

“Under Miua’s instructions, the Elders drank the tears of the
yresa
and died. The wise man of the village cut the palms of the dead and placed one drop of the Elders’ blood on the tongues of the living. This became Miu’mani, the Death Ceremonies. After they drank the blood of the Elders, the people wept and mourned in the valley, and from their tears more
yresa
grew. From then on, no Elder died in his sleep. Instead, he went to the valley of
yresa
and drank their tears, and his lifeblood was given to the people. The lifeblood flowed from mother to daughter, from father to son, and every generation a protector was born. The protectors were mighty warriors, swift and sure. They were called the
Tapumiri
, and they could not die. When the Maturo came over the mountain, the
Tapumiri
defended the Kaluakoa and sent the Maturo away with no faces but their own.”

I am transfixed by the fire. The flames take shape, become people. Golden yellow Kaluakoa, rising and falling, giving birth and dying. Brief, fragile lives lived out in seeming obscurity, but now immortalized in Kapukiri’s words.

“The
Tapumiri
were so powerful, their bodies did not grow old. But they grew old in their hearts, and when they had lived the fullness of their years, they too drank the tears of Miua and died. For it is said that the great river of lifeblood is not eternal, but must be renewed with blood, just as the great river of the jungle must be renewed with rain. This is why the gods decreed that so many must die for even one protector to be born—there cannot be birth without death. There cannot be life without the shedding of blood.

“But one
Tapumiri
was born to the chief of the Kaluakoa, and he became chief when his father died. This was Izotaza,
the Foolish One, for he desired to be the only
Tapumiri
in the world, and the most powerful. So he forbade the Elders from drinking the tears of the
yresa
, and he burned the valley where they grew. The Elders wept for his foolishness, but Izotaza would not be swayed, and no more protectors were born.”

The fire burns low, the coals glowing like jaguar eyes. I cannot look away.

“When the Maturo heard of this chief’s foolishness, they came over the mountain as never before, women and children too, and they all carried knives and poison darts. Izotaza was not powerful enough to stop them all by himself, and all of the Kaluakoa were killed.

“Izotaza saw what his foolishness and pride had done, and he went to the valley where the
yresa
had been and wept for the death of the Kaluakoa. For three moons and three suns he wept, and when he could weep no more he looked up and saw that the valley was filled with
yresa
once more, grown from his tears. Izotaza drank and died.”

Kapukiri pauses. It seems almost as if he’s fallen into a trance. He stares into the fire, his eyes glowing with reflected embers. He is as still as stone; not even his chest rises and falls. After a long moment like this, he goes on.

“From then on the valley of
yresa
has been feared by the people of the world. The Ai’oa do not drink, because we are a strong people. We can defend ourselves against tribes like the Maturo, and we have no need of Miua’s tears.”

He looks up, and his dark eyes, at once so young and so ancient, stare directly into mine, and I feel as if he’s looking at every moment of my life, seeing everything I’ve ever done
and hearing every thought I ever had. His eyes hold mine, and they burn.

“But we remember the Kaluakoa, the Ones Who Were but Are No More. And we remember that there must be a balance. No birth without death. No life without tears. What is taken from the world must be given back, and from him who takes and does not give back, who would tip the balance of the river, from him
all
will be taken. No one should live forever, but should give his blood to the river when the time comes so that tomorrow another may live. And so it goes.” He closes his eyes, and I exhale for the first time in several minutes, released from his spell. “And so it goes,” he whispers.

“And so it goes,” repeat the villagers. “And so it goes.”

“And so it goes,” whispers Eio.

Silence falls.

I feel the strangest sensation. It’s as if I’m not me at all. Instead, I’m a disembodied haze suspended in the air above the village, looking down at the cluster of Ai’oans circled around an ancient medicine man and pale, wide-eyed girl. I wonder what she is thinking, to look so still and white. I sense something dreadful has just happened to her, and she doesn’t yet understand it. I yearn, desperately, to glide up and away into the canopy of the rainforest, to leave this grim little scene behind me and search for happier company. But I’m pulled down again to the earth, and suddenly I
am
that pale girl sitting on a mat of leaves, and her sorrow is so deep and sharp that I double over and try to suck in breath, but nothing will enter my lungs. As if even the air despises me.

“Pia?” A voice echoes through my head from across a vast distance. Uncle Antonio. I want to hide from him, but there is
nowhere to go. I’m open and exposed, like a cell lying spread-eagle on a microscope slide. No place to run.

“Pia, look at me.” Eio lifts my chin and finds my eyes with his own. “Are you all right?”

“No,” I whisper. “Eio, take me somewhere where they can’t see me.”

He looks confused, but he acts quickly. The Ai’oans let me go silently, and I avoid their eyes. Uncle Antonio reaches out to me, but I shake my head. I can’t face him right now. I need to get away.

We walk into the trees and sink into the dirt at the base of a massive kapok.

“Eio, I can’t breathe!”

He pulls me close and lays my head on his shoulder. “Yes, you can, Pia. You’re breathing right now. Don’t you feel it?”

“I can’t feel anything. Have you heard this story before?”

Silence. Then, “Yes.”

“Does it mean what I think it means?” I ask.

“I don’t know. It’s just a story.”

I lift my chin so that I can look up at him. “I don’t want to believe it. I don’t know if I can. But Uncle Antonio believes it, doesn’t he?” Of course he does. He said he has seen it with his own eyes:
“I know what really goes on behind those lab doors.”

“Eio, I have to go back.”

“What? Why? He told me that if you heard the story, you would let me take you away.”

I sit up and draw a deep breath, let it out. “I have to know if it’s true, Eio. I have to go back and see it with my own eyes. Like you said, maybe it’s just a story.…But I know how I can find out.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, please don’t. If it
is
true—oh, Eio—if it’s true, then Uncle Antonio was right. About everything.”
There is evil in Little Cam.
“Stay here. Please. I know where to find you.”

He tenses, but finally nods. “Will you be all right?”

“I don’t know.” I stand and wait until my head stops spinning. “I really don’t know.”

The walk back to Little Cam is surreal. The jungle might as well be made of paper and string, and me a puppet moving clumsily and unnaturally through it. I go quickly because I don’t want Uncle Antonio to catch up to me. I hope he’ll stay in Ai’oa a while longer.

I have to put the story of the Kaluakoa to the test. If this legend, told around fires by ancient jungle medicine men, means what I think it means, then Uncle Antonio’s worst fears will be realized: the truth will destroy me. I already feel it at work, gnawing like a rat at the end of each thought passing through my head.

Little Cam is nearly as dark as the jungle. I float through it like a ghost come back to haunt. Everyone seems to be asleep. No lights in the windows, no voices in the shadows. I’m alone, which is frightening. I’d rather be locked up in a B Labs cell than locked up in my head with only my own voice for company.

I consider going straight to my bedroom, shutting the door, and crawling into my bed. Hiding under the blankets and never coming out. Simply locking myself in a room where nothing and no one—not any uncles or aunts, not Eio, and especially not the truth—can find me. But I don’t. I circle the
glass house and go to the cinchona tree where Uncle Antonio found me crying and where I first realized that he was Eio’s father.

It’s as dark as the night can be, but my elysia eyes can still pick out the leaves on the tree and the blades of grass as I kneel down. I run my hands slowly through the grass, each finger alert and sensitive, in case my eyes miss it. If it’s even here at all. I hope with every ounce of will I have that it’s not.

After they drank the blood of the Elders, the people wept and mourned in the valley, and from their tears more
yresa
grew.

The grass is already beaded with dew, and soon my hands and clothes are damp. Each blade is soft, unless my fingers brush its edge, and then it feels as sharp as a needle.

For three moons and three suns he wept, and when he could weep no more he looked up and saw that the valley was filled with
yresa
once more, grown from his tears.

It is my eyes, and not my hands, that find it at the last moment, just before I give up and give in to relief. But relief is not to be mine, not tonight, because there it is, in the very spot where my tears fell. Dim and gray in the darkness, but unmistakable. The longer I stare, the more the colors appear. Purple petals tipped with gold, the orchid-like structure, the breathtaking beauty. I hadn’t expected a flower. I had expected a seedling, or even a bud, but not a fully developed blossom.
Two days. It grew in only two days.

What scientific explanation could Uncle Paolo possibly have for that?

The spores that grow elysia are contained in the tears of immortals, in the DNA of people who have elysia absorbed into their genetic code. It makes a kind of sense, in a crazy,
scientifically unprecedented way. All this time, and the scientists have never figured it out—and the “ignorant” Ai’oans have known all along.

Back in my room, I lie on the bed and turn the flower over in my hands, careful not to tip it and pour the nectar out. Such beauty. Such terror. All contained in a mere blossom.

I hear a soft knock on the door and Uncle Antonio’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“Please,” I reply, just loudly enough for him to hear. “Go away. I need some time.”

“Pia…” I can hear the frustration in his voice. “Okay. Fine. I’ll give you time. But you must know there’s isn’t much left.”

“I know.”

After he leaves, I study the flower again, feeling the velvet of the petals between my fingers.

The catalyst isn’t a flower at all. It’s a person, or many people. It’s all in the story: one person drinks the deadly nectar of the elysia flower, and when they die, the others drink their blood.
The lifeblood flowed from mother to daughter, from father to son, and every generation a protector was born.
Five generations. It takes five generations of death to produce one “protector,” one
Tapumiri
. If nearly an entire village is passing on the genetic influence of elysia, it makes sense that about one child in every generation would be born immortal.

Jaguar, mantis, moon.
Kapukiri saw it in my eyes, in the swirling colors visible only by firelight.

In this lovely, deadly flower, I hold the tears of Miua, which would claim the lives of many to give unending life to one.

A mixture of elysia and the blood of a sacrificed human.

That
is the catalyst. That is Immortis. That is the secret I was so eager to unveil. The destiny I was so ready to commit myself to.

That is my legacy.

I’m shrinking. The world expands and convolutes around me, a monster that’s been sleeping all this time, finally awoken and ravenous to feed. I drop the flower to the floor, not caring if it spills, and curl into a ball on the blankets.

The Wickham tests. Uncle Paolo always said that one day I would understand the necessity of them. Well, now I do. I had to kill Sneeze so that they would believe I could kill a human. Everyone who has come here has had to prove the same thing. We’re not a colony of scientists.

We’re a colony of murderers.

How many have died that I might live?

And
who
has died that I might live?

They must have had dozens of subjects—no, not subjects. Victims. Immortis must be fresh for each injection. They had to make so many injections:
32 original progenitors; 32 begot 16, 16 begot 8, 8 (minus 2 who ran away and drowned, leaving 1 odd one out) begot 2, and 2 begot me; 3 injections each per lifespan per generation.…

“Stop!” I sit up straight in bed, forcing the numbers to dissolve, unable to continue. I’m panting, and there is a thin film of sweat encasing my body.

The injection is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. If Kapukiri’s story is at all accurate—they need someone to be the victim. Someone to offer their life to the altar of immortality.

I need to think. Need to clear away the panic and the fog and the horror that paralyzes my thoughts. I run to the
bathroom and pour the nectar from the flower into the sink, then run water until every drop of the shimmering liquid is gone. My stomach lurches, and I cling to the edges of the sink as I gag, but nothing comes up.

Terrified—I’ve never vomited in my life—I walk in circles around the room, do sit-ups and push-ups, jog in place. My blood pumps faster, washing away most of the hysteria. I force myself to swallow the rest. I have to have myself under control or I’ll only create a worse mess of things.