The Whole World for Each

1. An Elusive Vocation

1

An Elusive Vocation

It wasn’t hard to believe two children had died here. April Nguyen stopped short at the bottom of the steep stairway, pulling her foot back before it touched the narrow catwalk. Through the grating was an inky blackness with distorted patches reflecting the glow from the emergency lights. Water. She couldn’t see the edges of it in the dim light; it lay under the entire network of catwalks and platforms, each with token handrails at waist height but nothing to save anyone who took a tumble. Or anyone shorter than the rail, like a child. No, it wasn’t hard to believe they had died here; what was hard to believe was that anyone could actually live here. And yet they did. Entire families, the borders of their homes the edges of the blankets or carpets they had spread on the platforms, blanket after blanket with only the narrowest of open floor serving as corridors between private spaces.

April’s mother was halfway across the catwalk when she realized April wasn’t following. She looked back, waving for April to follow. April gripped the end of the stairway rail and looked past the toes of her faded, too-small slippers at the dark water below. She had exercised as much as she could, but months in free fall had taken their toll. Her legs trembled and stumbling and falling was a real possibility.

Her mother came back to her, her hands gripping the catwalk railing tightly, and April knew that as weak as she was feeling, her mother had to feel weaker still. Her months of free fall had been spent barely stirring from her hammock.

“We’ll keep it to the short ceremony,” her mother said, low so her words didn’t carry to the people waiting for them on the far side of the catwalk.

“It’s so dark down here,” April said.

“That’s good. The red from the emergency lights—it really creates an atmosphere. That’s good for you,” her mother said.

“I’m going to unveil,” April said. “I can’t see through all this. It’s dark enough, right?”

Her mother frowned as she pondered, then gave a short nod. “Just remember you’re not just any teenaged girl; you’re the conduit.”

“I remember,” April said, lifting the front layers of her veils and smoothing them back over the top of her head. Then she set her foot on the catwalk, the bells at her ankle chiming softly. Then the other foot with its bells, and then she was crossing the catwalk, carefully not looking down, hands clasped one inside the other at chest height, forcing her posture to stay tall despite the aching in her back. So much aching, and they’d been under gravity-simulating spin for only an hour.

She could get through this. She had to; the money had run out days ago. If she failed to put on a worthy show, they would have no choice but to sell her reader for food. Her stomach growled loudly even as her heart sank at the idea. That reader, the books it contained—those were her life. She could not fail.

Ted Vasquez, the man they had met in the shuttle bay, led them over four crowded platforms and catwalks to a final platform tucked away in a nest of thick pipes. There was a wall here that reached down into the water, but April suspected anyone brave enough to attempt the swim could get under it, even circumnavigate the station, if they wanted to. The water, in addition to serving the usual functions of water for the people and their plants and animals living on the station, also shielded them all from radiation. It was open water here, where it was filtered and dispensed throughout the station, and where used water was cleaned before being returned to the immense tank. There might be another similar station at a different point along the perimeter, perhaps several others; April didn’t know for sure, but the Triomphe was certainly large enough for it. But even if there were, it would be a long, dark swim to find it.

“Did they fall in the water?” April asked, not able to pull her gaze away from the rippling surface below them. It looked bottomless, and so dark and cold.

“No,” Ted said. “Like I said before, what killed them is a mystery. We just found them dead and gone, arms around each other like they were napping, but they were so cold.” He took a deep, shaking breath, then pointed with his chin. “There is my wife, Carmen.” He threaded his way along the narrow open space between blankets to the frayed ends of what must once have been a navy-blue wool bedcover. A sleeping bag was curled up at the far corner, not even a head visible, only the lumpy outline of a person inside. The man knelt beside the sleeping bag, his hand finding and squeezing a shoulder as he spoke softly. The figure stirred and a voice murmured an answer.

April felt eyes on her and looked down at a little girl of perhaps six, staring up at her with big brown eyes from the edge of a blanket covered in vines and roses. April resisted the urge to smile back; she was supposed to be ethereal, otherworldly, not friendly. She lifted her head higher, the bells in her braid tinkling with the movement, and the girl’s mouth formed a wide O to match her eyes.

“Come,” April’s mother said, briefly touching April’s elbow before leading the way to the far blanket. April gave the girl one last look, hoping her eyes were giving the smile her lips weren’t allowed to, then followed her mother.

“Mrs. Vasquez,” her mother said as she too knelt beside the sleeping bag. “My name is Melena Nguyen. This is my daughter April. We’re here to help.”

A hand reached out of the sleeping bag to clutch at the man. He helped his wife sit up, and her head emerged. She was younger than April was expecting, but grief was already etching deep lines on her thin face. She ran a hand over the braids wrapped around her head, loose hair everywhere refusing to be smoothed down.

“How can you help? Nothing can bring my girls back. Nothing else matters.” Her voice sounded dead, devoid of emotion. April could sense the scars left behind when all the young mother’s feelings had been ripped away, and her own heart ached.

“Tell me about them,” Melena said, taking the woman’s hand between her own. Her mouth worked but the words wouldn’t come and she slumped against her husband.

“They were perfect babies,” he said, his voice muffled as he pressed his face into his wife’s hair. “We thought it would be hard, having two at once, but they were angels.”

April was standing on the very edge of their blue blanket, hands still clasped as she listened. She felt a tug at her kameez and looked down to see the girl standing beside her, her feet still in the uncovered common area but her toes brushing the edges of the blanket. She didn’t speak, just pointed up into the tangle of pipes above them.

“There is a space up there,” April said, looking up. “Like a little platform.”

Carmen, not noticing the little girl tucked out of sight behind April’s legs, looked up with a start. “That was their special place. They would play up there. That’s where they were when it...” Then her tears did come. Her husband hugged her close, tears in his own eyes, and Melena murmured whatever kind words she thought would help. April looked down at the girl.

“You’ve seen them up there?” The girl nodded. “Since they died?” She nodded again.

“We all see them,” a soft voice said, and April saw that every family on the platform was looking at her.

“We hear them laugh,” another added.

Suddenly, the pipes snaking all around them began to rumble and the water below churned. April’s knees nearly crumpled as a sudden wave of dizziness and nausea hit her and she clutched at the nearest thing to support herself, closing her eyes as she waited for it to pass. Was she getting motion sickness from the spinning station? That didn’t seem likely; the station was immense, not one of those tiny things where you could feel your feet moving faster than your head. More likely it was the lack of food for the last few days catching up with her.

She had thought she was gripping the railing, but as the nausea passed and her brain cleared, she realized—being in the middle of the platform—that wasn’t possible. She gave herself a little shake and forced her eyes to open, looking down at the sturdy little girl holding her up as she gripped her bony shoulder.

“Are you all right, my darling?” her mother called up.

“Yes,” she said, straightening and releasing her tight grip on the girl. “Does this happen a lot?” she asked, pointing at the water moving beneath them.

“Every eight hours,” Ted said. “For ten minutes at a time.”

“Filtration cycle,” someone else added.

“When you see the ghosts, is it during these times?”

Some of the people looked to each other, but the majority were nodding.

“But it wasn’t running when they died,” the mother said. “Their death ... it had nothing to do with the water.”

April’s mother was giving her a very pointed look and April quickly clasped her hands together, resuming her rigid stance. “This is the time to act, when they will appear,” April said. “Quickly, form a circle. Hold hands.”

Ted helped his wife out of the sleeping bag, and the others left their blankets to gather in a tight circle inside the space of the royal blue blanket. Melena took Carmen’s other hand but April was on the other side of the circle from the three of them, where she had a view of the platform above. The quiet little girl was clinging to her hand, her face carefully serious.

“Do you play up there, sometimes?” April asked in a whisper.

The girl considered, then gave a tiny nod.

“Don’t. It’s a bad place. Not because of the ghosts, but something else. Something that hurt your friends. Don’t go up there, OK?”

The girl nodded gravely and April gave her hand a tight squeeze.

“I see them!” someone called out and others in the circle gasped. April felt something like a chill running up her spine, but the others were lifting clasped hands, trying to point without breaking contact with each other. Then the pointing coordinated until they were all focusing on the sole catwalk that connected their platform with the others.

April kept her head down, murmuring meaningless words the others couldn’t hear. She didn’t turn to look. She was afraid she’d see the same thing she always saw, the thing that haunted her, that had driven her to quit doing this work entirely years before. The thing she feared she would still see every time she summoned the spirits of the dead.

Nothing.

“Do you see them?” Melena was asking the Vasquezes.

“Yes,” Ted said breathlessly, but his wife was weeping silent tears, unable to speak.

“Call to them,” Melena said. “It’s time to say good-bye.”

The mother let loose one wracking sob, nearly crumpling to the ground. Then, straightening and looking directly at the catwalk, she let loose a tidal wave of rapid Spanish out of which April could just discern the names Serena and Mariposa. Then she fell silent again, slumping against her husband’s shoulder with another sob, like a festering wound that is finally induced to bleed again so it can heal.

April ceased her chanting, putting the little girl’s hand into the hand of the man on her right, closing the circle once more as she stepped out of it. She usually did this veiled; she felt exposed standing barefoot on the catwalk in only her shalwar-kameez. She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing what the two twin girls must look like. The feeling of something pressing down on her chest was stronger with her eyes closed, like someone was bear-hugging her from behind, fists locked on her sternum, long bear-beard tickling her spine. She could believe that something otherworldly was standing behind her. It didn’t even require belief; she could feel it.

Opening her eyes, she turned to face the catwalk. The empty catwalk. Her chest constricted tighter than ever, the overwhelming sadness pressing down on her, but still she saw nothing. Yet she knew from the murmurs behind her that the others did, just like every other time she had done this. She raised her hands and threw her head back, her tired back protesting at the formal posturing.

“Serena, Mariposa,” she said to the nothingness before her. “It’s time to go on. Your mother is going to be all right now, you can go. She’s going to be OK.”

She stayed in that pose for what felt like far too long, and she worried yet again that her “skill” had failed her. But then the filtration system cut out and the pipes grew quiet, the water below them returning to dark stillness.

“They went on,” Carmen said, her voice thick with tears. “Did you see them? They waved good-bye.”

“I saw,” Ted said, kissing the top of her head.

“It was beautiful,” one of the neighbors said, her face filled with bright happiness despite the tears running from her eyes. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

April returned to the edge of the blanket, gathering up her mountain of veils and slipping her feet back into her battered slippers. The others started to close in around her, wanting to thank her or tell her about what they had seen or simply touch her. She quickly replaced her layer of veils, her only protection against what always felt to her like an attack. Her mother knew this and left the Vasquezes’ side to stand between the clamoring crowd and her daughter.

“Please, my daughter is quite drained by these encounters,” she said. “It is tiring, communing with the world of shadows. And we have not yet found a place to stay.”

“You’re welcome to stay among us,” one of the neighbors offered, but his wife elbowed him sharply.

“Look at how they’re dressed. They will already have a place up above,” she hissed at him.

April’s cheeks reddened at her words. When her mother had forced her back into this wardrobe before leaving the shuttle, she had protested every article of it, from the too-small shoes to the faded colors and unraveling stitchery of her shalwar-kameez. And yet to these people she still looked rich and fine.

Ted stepped up to Melena, his hands twisting together. “I don’t know how to thank you. My wife...” His voice dropped off, but Melena and April both knew what he was trying to say. Carmen, who likely had not left that cocoon of a sleeping bag since her daughters died, was hugging and crying with the friends she had neglected and talking of her daughters finally in the past tense, with warmth in her words and not cold, bitter loss.

“It’s what April does,” Melena said.

“I have nothing to pay you with,” he said. “I was on the docks looking for work, but it’s scarce...”

“Please,” Melena said, laying a hand on his arm. “We don’t do this for the money. Although we do accept humble gifts.”

April was glad she was hidden once more behind the veils. No one could see the look on her face as her mother accepted anything the people who lived on blankets in the bowels of a space station saw fit to give her. Even their meager offerings were far more than she deserved.

April Nguyen had done nothing. She was a fraud. Worse, she had betrayed her own self. She had accepted when she was twelve that she was never going to see the ghosts everyone praised her for communing with, and she had sworn that never again would she pretend she could see them, could send them on their way, could end the hauntings that tormented people like the Vasquezes who had more than enough torments in life.

All it had taken for her to go back on her own word was a little poverty.