“Tell me why.”
Grandmother pulled out her knitting. “Perhaps we should begin at the beginning.”
“Yes.”
“But where is the beginning? It’s hard to say.”
I sighed, loudly.
She didn’t look up from her needles, which began to pulse and swirl. “Don’t worry. I won’t tire you with some aimless story, full of rogues. Though I could—the truth is often picaresque.”
It took a moment: hidden in the thicket ofpicaresquewascare.
They knew about the resistance.
My mind went back to the first moment my life had become uncertain, unmoored, unMorton. “This started with Peter.”
“Yes, perfect.”
We sat in silence for a cumbersome moment. Then I realized that she was waiting for me to continue. Like everything, this was a test.
“The target of a first assignment is never someone close,” I recited. “Not even an acquaintance. Always a stranger—but you had me kill my cousin.”
“Not just any cousin. He loved you best.”
It was difficult to say the next words. “It wasn’t only about culling him. It was about changing me.”
“Your headisbetter, isn’t it? You’re starting to think clearly again.”
I was. But the pills hadn’t confused me—my family had.
“I thought you assigned him to me because I was a prodigy.”
“We did. You are.” Her needles stilled, but she didn’t look up. “That’s why we needed to introduce a crisis, to make you less settled.”
“You sacrificed Peter to destabilize me.”
“Such a troublesome child, always burning things. This way, he could be of use.”
Like his body, composted in the greenhouses. Still working for the family. “What does killing my own cousin have to do with empathy?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Jessica. What came next?”
Cold settled on my skin.
“Hiromi came next.” That long, golden summer with one assignment: pretending to be in love…until it became true.
Grandmother smiled down at her knitting. “That was clever of Garrett, bringing her to the funeral. Presenting her to you, just when a space had opened in your heart.”
I tried to remember—had I felt Peter’s loss back then?
Not until Cyrus had forced me, at knifepoint, to remember those riddles. And then at the memorial service, the stories about Peter’s hobbies, his bone collection, the death of Mister Fluffernutter.
And talking about him with Hiromi.Be memorable.
“Hiromi was supposed to unsettle me?”
Grandmother shrugged. “Artists can do that, I’ve heard.”
