Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

Marco spun around and strolled toward the cemetery. Cole glanced back at the kids in the far grass, then hurried after Marco.

“There’s not a kid in here who didn’t come from the streets and move through the orphanage. Since we all lived on the streets, we all know each other’s secrets, do you get what I’m saying?”

“I wasn’t a criminal,” Cole said.

Marco stopped in front of the wrought iron gate leading into the cemetery. He pulled Cole’s book from under his arm, flipped it open, and riffed through the pages.

“I hope you really mean that,” Marco said. “It’s a lie, of course, but I hope you really believe it.” The older kid looked up at the packed rows of aged and stained headstones.

“There’re two kinds of slumrats that tunnel their way into the Church,” Marco said. “There are the ones who don’t feel anything, who can do whatever they want without remorse. Those are the scary ones. Then there’s the slumrat like I imagine you see yourself, the one who can rationalize a crime as necessary.” Marco snapped the book shut. “Maybe even rationalize a crime as just.”

He handed the book back to Cole. “Is that how you see yourself, slumrat?”

Cole took the book and began automatically thumbing for his place. “I usually just did what I was told,” he said quietly. He was pretty sure that was the right answer, in more ways than one.

Marco turned and beamed down at him, then laughed. “The nuns must’ve eaten that shit up,” he said. He slapped Cole on the shoulder and pointed at the astronomy book, which Cole had re-opened. “The one part of your act that I actually believe is that bit. You really like reading that stuff?”

Cole nodded.

“So you’re really some kinda bookworm?”

He shrugged. “Reading lets me escape the barrio, I guess.”

“In your mind, maybe.” Marco tapped his temple, his hand in the shape of a gun. “But don’t get any delusions, slumrat. There’s no getting out of the barrio for you and me. Just ask my friends here.” Marco swept his hand over the gate and toward the listing and tilting pale faces of marble beyond. He laughed some more, then noticed Cole had turned his attention back to his place in the book.

“Hey, I’m teaching you a valuable lesson here, kid. Reading up on those stars and dreaming about being someplace else ain’t gonna get you far. In fact…” Marco snatched the book away and flipped roughly toward the back. “I’ve read this book, and the only thing worth studying in it is black holes.” He found what he was looking for and shoved the book into Cole’s outstretched hands. “That’s your barrio, slumrat.” He tapped the image on the page. “That’s your point of no escape, right there. You read up on black holes for me and come tell me what you learned. Consider it your first assignment as part of my crew.”

And with that, Marco spun away from the black gate and swished through the gardens, leaving Cole alone with all the quiet tombs.

But Cole didn’t mind.

He sat down on the cobblestones and started to read. Black holes sounded more interesting than stars, anyway.

8 · The Church

The next morning, at the first breaking of bread, Cole was sitting with his fellow initiates when Marco arrived with a tray of food. One look, and the bench of boys opposite Cole parted like the Red Sea. Marco’s tray landed with a clatter. He sat down, picked up his roll, and dunked it in Cole’s soup.

“You learn anything about the barrio yesterday?” Marco chewed while soup trickled down his chin. The other young boys, all in identical white and blue uniforms, sat motionless in some form of awe mixed with fear.

“I read all about black holes,” Cole said. He pulled his soup closer and stirred it protectively with his spoon.

“And what did you learn about escaping them?” Marco’s voice was muffled, his mouth full of a second large bite of roll.

“That it’s possible,” Cole said nonchalantly. He sipped soup from his spoon but kept his eyes on the older boy.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s called quantum tunneling. It can happen when a single atom is near the event horizon and has something real random happen to it—”

Marco reached over and dipped his half-eaten roll back in Cole’s bowl. When he pulled it back to his plate, he left a trail of soup between their two trays, a constellation of sticky dollops. Cole watched it happen and fell silent.

“What else did you learn?” Marco smiled and took another bite.

Cole grabbed his own roll and kept it in both hands while he thought about what to say.

“Is there any chance of a black hole coming to the barrio and whisking you away?” Marco stuffed the remainder of his roll in his mouth and chewed around a smile. The other boys still hadn’t moved. Some stared into empty spoons and some clutched their trays in both hands.

“Maybe,” Cole said, still trying to act calm. “There wasn’t much in that book on black holes to be honest, but I found a ton on the web.” He took a bite of his roll and smiled at Marco. “Did you know a black hole might’ve passed through the Earth hundreds of years ago? One could zip through us right now, maybe suck us and our breakfast right up, and then zoom off straight through the roof.”

Cole lifted his roll over his head, and the other boys around him looked up after it.

“We’d be dead, of course, but it would happen so fast, we’d never know it. And we’d all be the same,” he added. “Us, our trays, our spoons, all pressed together into a tiny space the size of an atom. We’d travel like that forever, zipping through space and sucking down more and more and more, leaving craters and burning rings of fire behind.”

Cole smiled and took a large bite out of his roll.

Marco laughed. “What kooky site did you read that load of crap on?”

Cole shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“You’re making that up,” one of the other kids whispered, his tone one of more wistful hope than accusation.

“It was called the Tunguska Event.” Cole turned his attention to the other boys his age. “It was the largest explosion of its kind. It took place in Old Russia, back at the turn of the twentieth. For a long time, scientists thought it was a meteor impact, even though there was no crater. The blast rocked people and houses for miles and miles, and all the trees were pushed over, just snapped off and leaning away from the center of this massive fireball.”

“And it could happen here?” one of the boys asked. “At any time?”

Cole nodded. He looked to Marco, only to find the boy smiling in a different way; he seemed genuinely pleased.

“How do they know it was a black hole?” another boy asked.

Cole turned to address the kid, suddenly feeling quite older than the other boys his age.

“They finally found the spot where it entered the Earth,” he said. “At first, they had looked directly opposite the blast, down in the Indian ocean, but what were the chances that the black hole passed directly through the center of the Earth? It was silly to look there.” He stirred his soup. “But then, in the middle of the twenty-third century, some guys were digging for bones in Africa when they found charred rock that only looked two hundred years old. They thought it was meteor rock, so they called these astronomers in, who took one look and realized a black hole had passed through.”

“How would you stop it?” the boy beside Cole asked. “There has to be some way to protect ourselves.”

Cole took a sip of his soup, ignoring the fact that it had grown cold and that there were soggy crumbs from Marco’s roll in it. “You can’t stop them,” he said. “They can come anytime and from anywhere. There are probably billions or trillions of the things roaming the universe since the time of Creation. They’re like cosmic cattle, grazing on everything.”