“Gabriela, listen to me now.” Despite her weakened state, the iron had come back into her grandmother’s voice. It was a tone Gabi recognized from when she argued over some bit of Unitas doctrine with Sam. “You did not set off that alarm, do you hear me?”
“But Gram, I—”
“No, listen, Gabriela. I know you didn’t set off the alarm, because I did.”
“Gram, what are you talking about?”
“I was going to D Wing on the ninth floor for supplies. We’ve been running low on the Returned wards for a while, and I knew there’d been no staff assigned to D Wing for ages. I figured the supplies there would still be well stocked.” She paused, closing her eyes. Gabi thought she’d lost consciousness, but after a few beats she opened them and continued. “I was in the supply closet when I saw one of the doctors and a Minder rushing into what I always thought was just another rest ward under renovation. But then I… I heard—” Gram faltered. The room became a riot of sounds, bleating her growing distress.
“Stop, Gram, please, you’re hurting yourself.”
“Listen, Gabi! I followed them. I saw…. Oh, honey, I saw…. You have to know. You have to tell.” Gram’s face crumpled, and her eyes grew wet. She shook her head as though to shake the disturbing image that haunted her. What was going on?
Two nurses shouldered their way into the room, forcing Gabi to the perimeter as they checked the machines and prodded at Gram.
“You’ll have to wait outside now,” one of them barked as he pulled an oxygen mask over Gram’s face and took her pulse. The other was Nurse Mehta, the one who’d helped Gabi get past the Minders.
“Visitors Lounge is all the way down toward the elevators and to the left,” she coaxed. “We need to get your grandma calmed down, okay? It’s better if you wait there.”
Gabi strained to see Gram, but the two nurses were huddled over her like mechanics over a broken engine. A weight settled on her shoulder, and she looked up to see the female Minder staring down at her. The imposing woman marched Gabi out of the room and down the hall to the Visitors Lounge, where she urged her onto one of the upholstered sofas and produced a box of juice from a refrigerator in the corner.
“Wait here,” the Minder stated, her opaque stare pinning Gabi to her seat before she lumbered back down the hall to resume her post. Glaring lights bounced off the polished tiles of the empty lounge, leaving no comfort or softness of shadow. Everything had sharp edges, even the cushions that padded the sofa where Gabi sat. With a jolt Gabi realized she had left her whale photo and the passcard lying on top of Gram’s blanket. She leaned her elbows onto her knees and dug her fists into her eyes. What did it even matter? Nothing mattered if Gram died. Gabi curled into herself on the sofa, staring sightlessly across the room.
She didn’t begrudge Mathew the two years he had with their mother before the accident that took her life right after Gabi was born. He needed the cushion of those years to comfort him, but Gabi had always had her gram, for as long as she could remember. She did try to force some sense of connection with the smiling woman in the photos, to see Therese’s face suggested in her own when she examined her features in the bedroom mirror. But she felt as though only the most hidden traits lurking within both of her parents had combined to form the pitiful changeling they’d named Gabriela, in honor of Gabriel, the first true Messenger.
Gram had stepped in to care for Gabi and Mathew after their mother was killed in an automobile accident and had been at the center of their lives ever since. She didn’t lecture Gabi about becoming a council Messenger or give her a hard time about her books. She just listened and told Gabi incredible stories about summer vacations on the shores of Lake Michigan and long family road trips to the West Coast, where mountains sheared right down into the ocean and crumbled into pebbles. Her father didn’t like Gram sharing these stories with Gabi, so it became a secret ritual they indulged in during the quiet afternoons after school when the house was theirs alone.
Gram would bring out the weathered suitcase she kept stored in her room, full of the only things, apart from her clothes and bottles of Naylor’s Pro-Bac, that she’d brought with her when she left her branch. Gabi would plead with Gram to allow her to see inside the case, but Gram always insisted on opening the suitcase a crack and slipping her hand through to choose a treasure to share. Would she withdraw an old favorite, like the handheld rectangular screens people used to use for phones before the networks crashed? Or the creased postcard showing the Pacific coastline before the waters ate it all the way to the foothills of the Sierras and Cascades? There were no true surprises anymore. They’d been playing their secret game for too long, and the suitcase was only so big. Of course there were some objects that Gram refused to share. Some things were sacred, Gram had said the first time Gabi asked to look inside the case.
“Gabriela?” a voice inquired from the doorway of the lounge. It was Nurse Mehta. She was close enough that Gabi could see where the purple lipstick had caked along the border of her pink inner lip and the way the plummy color brought out the circles under the young woman’s eyes. Gabi sat up, shoving a wilted tangle of hair out of her eyes. “Your grandmother would like to see you. We tried to get her to rest for a bit, but she wouldn’t settle down until we agreed to bring you back in.”
Gabi stood and moved mechanically toward the door, but Nurse Mehta
