Lady Liberty notices me riffling through the suitcases and screeches, rushing toward me before I can react. Her cone catches me in the back so suddenly, I’m caught off guard. I scream at the blossom of pain in my back and shoulder as I go flying through the air. Slamming into the wall with a grunt of pain, I realize I’m not nearly as good at taking hits as Locke.
“Oh, Girl. That looked like it hurt,” Stevie declares, fluttering around me. “I can totally protect you if you attempt to sacrifice yourself for Lockey Poo again. We could try that.”
Gritting my teeth, I drag myself to my feet. “I just gotta find the answer. Protect Locke.”
Before she can zero in on me and smash me for good while I try to catch my breath, Locke leaps onto her leg and starts to climb, distracting her. She swats at him as he climbs, the sound of metal slamming into metal loud as she continues to scream.
“Doesn’t look like he needs my help,” Stevie giggles. “Look at my Lockey Poo go!”
I’ve opened so many suitcases by this point, and none of them hold the answer. I start to doubt my instincts, thinking that I’m looking in the wrong place. It isn’t until I make it three quarters of the way around the courtyard that my eyes catch on a specific suitcase.
It’s green, or at least, it used to be. It’s so old and worn now that patches of the leather are completely worn away, making it look decayed. It has to be the oldest suitcase in the courtyard, the golden latches lacking the luster of the other ones, the handle broken completely off. I pause, staring at it. Something tells me to pull my hyena mask on, so I do, dragging it over my eyes, letting my senses open up. Now, looking through the mask, as I stare at it, small tendrils of turquoise dance around it, the same color as the statue.
“There,” I gasp. “It’s that one.”
“Well hurry up and open it,” Svetlana encourages. “Before the Bone Breaker has all his bones broken.”
I rush toward it, shoving my mask back up over my face as I go sliding on my knees across the white tile to reach it. I press the buttons to release the latches and jerk the suitcase open expectantly. Inside, there are only three items.
A photograph of a little girl with what must be her mother and father is right in the center. The photograph is in black and white, but even with the lack of color, I can tell the family look like me. Their eyes are a little slanted. Their hair is black. They’re standing on the edge of a shore, and in the background, I can see the statue of Lady Liberty, tall and regal in the distance, a forever flame in her torch. The little girl is holding the suitcase in her hand, in better condition than it is now.
There’s a piece of paper with letters typed in black ink across the page.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Petition for Naturalization
Beneath that, there is all the information written in black ink for the family. Their appearances, their occupation, their names, every part of their lives. The little girl’s name is Imani. Across the middle of the page, there is a big red stamp that says, “Denied,” but beneath it, written in a beautiful script, are the words, “Child approved. Process for separation.”
My chest squeezes tight. “Cipher,” I breathe.
“Yes,” he answers right away when my mental walls fall. “The humans of Earth were often times cruel.”
“Did she . . . did she ever see them again?” I ask.
He hesitates. “The young family pictured in that photograph were fleeing from war in their home country. They came to America in search of the freedom Lady Liberty represented. She was a beacon of hope for many immigrants, and they flocked to her shores. The child’s parents were denied entry due to quotas already being met for their country. When the child’s parents were sent back, they were killed in a bombing.”
“And the little girl?”
“You do not wish to know her story, Vespera.”
“Tell me,” I croak, holding the photo in my hand. “Tell me.”
“Very well,” he breathes. “She was transported to an orphanage where she was pressed into a too small room with dozens of other children. As she grew, she was forced to use her body to survive. She died at the age of seventeen from tuberculosis.”
“So, she never made it,” I whisper.
“No,” Cipher responds. “She did not.”
I pick up the third item in the suitcase, a bottle, and stare at it. Inside, a fire swirls as if it’s liquid. The outside of the bottle is warm, but not hot, and as I cradle it against my chest, the photo in my other hand, I stand and face the statue.
Lady Liberty is still chasing Locke, her enraged screaming shaking the very buildings around us. Locke is panting now, getting slower, and I know I won’t have much time.
I don’t know when I started crying. I have no memory of the moment tears began to drip down my face, only the realization that they are. My chest is ripped open, pained for that little girl who was unjustly cursed before her life ever began through no fault of her own. A family separated. A child paying the price.
Who decides that price?
Why has humanity always made the wrong choices?
