My thoughts waver from the Republic to the feeling of June’s smooth hand sliding into mine. She edges closer to me as we near the water. The awkwardness between us is still there, lingering, but at least it’s been dulled. I savor her touch. The memory of her in my arms several nights earlier comes back to me now in a wave of warmth. Somehow, beside her, this whirlwind of lost memories and dark places stills in me, and I can remember things better.
I pause at an intersection marked with the edge of the lake on one side and a pair of towers rising up on the other. One of the towers is old, just as I remember it—ramshackle layers of concrete long streaked by water and grime, the lowest floor a barely lit entrance to a bar and the upper floors made colorful with lines of drying clothes and plants draping haphazardly down rusted balcony ledges.
The other tower is new, a structure of straight lines and polishedstone, its sides draped with crimson-and-black Republic banners. Over the steps leading up to the entrance are words I’ve never seen engraved on a building here:REPUBLIC HISTORY MUSEUM.
I look at June, and she gives me a terse nod. “Come on.” She tugs slightly on my hand and starts making her way up the stairs. “They just finished it this year.”
I nod wordlessly and follow her. It’s better than standing in the middle of the street, lost in memories I don’t want. Trying to keep the fear of my past at bay.
Inside, curators in red and black stand at the entrances of the museum’s many rooms. They bow their heads in recognition at the sight of us. Our boots echo against the stone floors.
We stare at the exhibits in silence. This is a memorial to the horrors of the past. The child-size outfit of a Trial taker, plain and white, now framed and hanging. A plague patrol uniform encased within glass, its gas mask rusted and faceless. Portraits of the late Elector and those who came before him, all lining the back wall. Anden had banned his portrait being hung everywhere not long after the end of the war with the Colonies. I guess one of them ended up in here.
We step between the rooms without speaking. There are old videos from the JumboTrons, the pledge that we used to recite every morning, giant maps hanging by steel cables from the ceiling, indicating how and where the borders of America had changed over the years. There are even rooms dedicated to America before the Republic, when we were unified with the Colonies. I stare, overwhelmed, at placards describing the events that led up to the war that divided us. They’ve named it Coranda’s War, after the young general whofirst staged a coup and became the first Elector Primo of the Republic.
They don’t call it the Civil War. There had already been one that split the nation before, hundreds of years ago, during a time when the enslavement of human beings was legal based on nothing but the color of one’s skin. There is an entire room dedicated to that, to the unified, sinister America before we existed.
We linger in this room so long that the curators have to ask us to leave as they close for the night. I don’t say a word. Maybe the United States was only ever united for some. Maybe this place has always been a dystopia.
The sun is dipping below the clouds as we step out of the museum’s entrance again, and the light against the haze on the lake casts the sky and water in gold. I stand there with June for a moment, taking in the intersection.
“There used to be a row of pawn shops and food stalls where this museum now is,” I finally say, then point to the bar across the street. “I first met Kaede there.” The memories are scattered and broken—a faded image of a dim interior, an Asian girl with a vine tattoo on her neck leaning over the bar counter to give me a clue. Then, a narrow alley, a crowd gathered in dirty, dingy rings, their voices hoarse from yelling. Me, watching a young Tess cut her way through the throngs to place a bet for us.
“This is where I first saw you,” I say in a low voice, my eyes lingering on the narrow street between the two towers. The space is empty now, the shouts of those Skiz duel gamblers nothing more than an echo from the past.
June’s face is serious. She doesn’t turn in the direction of thealley, and I realize with a jolt that it’s because it reminds her of the darkest time in her life, because I recognize the same grim look in her eyes as I’d seen back then. The memory sparks in me, clear and in focus, another piece of her puzzle coming back to me.
“I don’t like coming here,” she finally says in a quiet voice. “It reminds me too much of his death. Of everything that happened after.”
She doesn’t need to say her brother’s name.Metias. I try to remember the first time I’d seenhim, and I can’t. To me, he’s nothing but a blur of a Republic uniform in the night. Instead, I see an image of John, his jacket thrown over his shoulder as he heads home wearily from a long shift at the factory. I recall him reading by candlelight, one word, slowly and steadily, after another.
June has adjusted better than any of us. But even so, she’s afraid of the past. Just like I am. We may not be the same people we used to be. Maybe we’ll never find our way back to that place. But we bear the same scars from the same old wounds.
I reach out and touch her hand. “You’re here,” I reply, pulling her close. “Living in the future, changing the world around you. He’ll always be a part of your story.”
She leans into me, and I close my eyes as she rests her chin against my shoulders, her straight, confident body suddenly tired. She doesn’t answer. She knows I understand what it’s like to love a brother, to hurt for one’s absence, and to worry for the one who’s still here.
“You need to talk to him,” she says, pulling away too soon. Her eyes turn up to me. “Eden. He is you now, in the position you were once in.”
I put my hands in my pockets again and look out at the shining water.
“He’s the only one of us who has any understanding at all of Dominic Hann’s work. It’s not the first time a nation has suddenly come to rest on his shoulders. He needs to know that yougethim, Daniel. That you can see the past like he does, not like we do. That you’ll be there for him now. He can’t move forward and figure this out without you.”
See the past like he does.
I look in the direction of where our current residence is, a sleek condo far off in a Gem district. I think of Eden’s faraway look, his haunted expression when the house is quiet and he thinks no one is around. I think of the defiant anger in his gaze whenever we argue. He had learned that from both his older brothers, from John and from me. And maybe, in my singular drive to protect him, I’ve never acknowledged that he can use his defiance in the same way John and I once had. To change things.
Some pasts can’t be left behind. They must be fought.
***
When the sun finally goes down, Los Angeles transforms back into the evening view I know so well—the dark, grungy streets, pockets of the city grid dark as some sectors have scheduled blackouts in order to conserve electricity.
I’m perched on a ledge overlooking our place when Eden heads into the entrance. He expects me, because he automatically turns his head up without me even moving a muscle.
“Spying again?” he calls up at me with a raised brow.
I shrug, turning my eyes up to the sprinkle of city lights leading toward the horizon. “Just idling until you came home. Not like there isn’t a precedent for you being in trouble when you go missing.”
