“Rally day!” he said, as if that were an answer. Soon it felt like one. Joy radiated from every face, and so many people smiled at them that at last the children found themselves smiling back.
“Rally day is fun,” Kate said.
Susan watched people take their places against the walls of buildings, as if a parade were on its way.
“It is fun,” she said.
All the laughter and cheer loosened the knot in Susan’s chest. Nearby, a man whooped, and the group around him laughed. Someone else yodeled into the sky, and Susan saw it was a grown woman, her mother’s age, doing a little jig.
People applauded, and the crowd whistled in appreciation. Couples turned to look at each other, beaming.
“He’s on his way!” a boy next to Susan said. “He’s coming!”
A woman clapped her hands, and the crowd hummed eagerly. Susan laughed. Her heart rapped giddily in her chest — pop, pop, pop — and she smiled back at the people in the square. This was exciting! Everything was going to be okay!
The creases that had gouged their way into Kate’s forehead for nearly two days had finally been ironed out. Jean hopped on the balls of her feet. Behind her, Nell let out a cheer, and instead of shushing her, Max nodded.
“Rally day!” the red cloaks shouted through bullhorns.
The crowd took up the chant. “Rally day! Rally day!”
The sound of it beat in the courtyard until Susan could feel it in the soles of her feet. The rhythm of it felt irresistible, music demanding a dance.
“Rally day,” she tried.
“Rally day!” Kate said beside her.
They were all saying it now, chanting it, shouting it. Around her, the same words issued from everyone’s lips, all of them thrumming with the same feeling of excitement, expectation.
Susan saw heads turn, and the adults craned their necks. A man lifted a small boy onto his shoulders.
“The Purity Patrol!” a girl said, waving. With a blast of horns, a group of red-sashed children marched into the square as the people whistled and called. Soldiers followed with drums and trumpets, making way for a wagon swathed in crimson and flanked by red cloaks. On it stood a man, waving, a large black dog at his side. At the sight of him, the crowd roared.
“Is it him? Is that the Genius?” Jean asked.
Susan squinted. Though the dog beside him stood out sharp and glossy in the sunlight, there was something fuzzy about the man, something that wouldn’t quite hold still to be looked at. He jumped from the wagon and mounted the platform.
“It is!” Kate said. “It’s the man on the sign!”
Susan’s heart beat faster. Now she saw him. Yes! Yes, he was so beautiful!
Jean bounced beside her. “Let’s go to him! Let’s get up there!”
The crowd was too thick for that. A moment later, the Genius raised his hands, the music stopped, and for a second, there was no sound but the breaths and sighs of the people in the square, the murmurs of small children and the piping the babies made as their parents shushed them.
Hemmed in on all sides, the children beamed up at the wonderful man on the platform.
“I can’t see!” Jean whispered. “Max! I want to see!”
He boosted her onto his shoulders, and Kate nudged Susan. “Could I get up, too?”
Susan hoisted her. She herself could just see the man on the bandstand between the heads of those in front of her, and now she adjusted Kate on her shoulders as the Genius began to speak.
“My friends,” he said, and the smooth richness of his voice enveloped the square, blanketing all of it, the breaths and the sighs and the murmurs. “We meet again in a fateful hour.” He paused and looked soberly down into the upturned faces.
“Fateful, for you must sense, as I do, that we stand at the edge of greatness.”
His voice was more stirring than the music had been. He smiled, and Susan felt he was sharing a secret with her, a gift that was splendid and precious. She only needed to reach for it. She smiled back.
“Already, I see cause for celebration. There’s victory — a hundred victories, a thousand! — in your strong, useful faces. Celebrate that! Celebrate your victories!”
Celebrate! The crowd cheered and the word filled Susan like an expanding balloon. Exuberant, she jiggled Kate on her shoulders, hugging her sister’s legs. How terrific it was! They were strong! All of them!
“Yes!” the man purred. “Congratulate yourselves. Be proud of your city, of this marvelous Domain. Be proud of your broad avenues and the beauty of your buildings! Every one of you is a soldier, marching to battle the change with your busy hands! Each day of usefulness is a skirmish won! Each tall building is your triumph, your victory!”
From Susan’s shoulders, Kate laughed giddily, and Susan looked around, swelling with the pleasure of it all. How had she missed this before? The buildings were so much taller than she’d thought! The crowd cheered and whistled. Why had she thought the city dirty? It sparkled in the sunlight. Even the people were smoother than she’d imagined. What had caused her so much grief? She’d been exaggerating — that’s what. Worrying for nothing. She turned to tell Max and found him squinting, openmouthed, at the polished bricks. She grinned and saw Nell blinking in confusion, her eyes darting from the buildings to the people to the Genius.
Susan had never been in love, but she had read about it, and the thought struck her that this must be the way of it. She had been wrong, all wrong, about the man on the platform, about the city, about everything here, and now she could really see it for the first time. What was it about him? She couldn’t put her finger on it. And after a minute, she couldn’t puzzle it out anymore, because there was nothing, really, but that voice, those words, that powerful rightness that she could feel so strongly it made her
