FROM CASITA TO HIGH RISE: CONSTRUCTING A NOVEL by Alexandra Sedikov-Burda A project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Ogden, Utah April 14, 2026 Approved ​ ​ Signature of Committee Chair​ ​ ​ ​ Dr. Siân Griffiths Name of Committee Chair _______​ ​ Signature of Committee Member​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Dr. Courtney Craggett Name of Committee Member __ ______________​ Signature of Committee Member​ ​ ​ ​ Laura Stott Name of Committee Member Sedikov-Burda 2 ​ In the rudimentary first draft of my untitled novel, I focused mainly on describing what brought a seventeen-year-old schoolteacher out of a rural Cuban village and back to the American country she was born in—or, rather, the place her country became. The latest version of my novel-in-progress is now my creative writing thesis project, a major rework of years' worth of writing. Set in the not-so-distant future, Solána takes a job as a nanny in the Virginian countryside for a privileged political family. She is unaware that someone she loves helped place her there and that they harbor an animosity that unfolds only after she has grown accustomed to and fond of her new life. Solána returned willingly, wishing to help rebuild the American Dominion: the sovereignty of Southern states that seceded from the United Network of Nations years prior. I struggled with how to share key scenes from my main character’s backstory, wanting to show how her past molded and shaped the present in which we find her, as well as the future I hope to lure readers toward. I sought insight into how to balance the intimate, feminine sphere in which Solána discovers truths about her surroundings with the vast worldbuilding shown simultaneously through the third-person point of view. Attempting to create a single narrative and comprehensible timeline felt like haphazardly sticking little homes, or casitas, into the floors of a high-rise residential building. The scenes and perspectives I wished to share—Solána overseeing children in stark, clean uniforms inside a single-room schoolhouse outside Havana, returning to the Dominion fighting sickness from mosquito bites on the bus ride out of her home state of Florida, then discovering camaraderie in the rolling hills of Northern Virginia’s wine-and-horse countryside—were culturally rich and informative. They depicted the general comfort Sedikov-Burda 3 zone my character was leaving. Like glimpses into a humble home, they offered a powerful perspective while also contrasting the new place and lifestyle we learn she has grown to protect. I hoped Solána’s backstory would evoke a sense of compassion and intrigue, helping others understand how she became complacent in accepting the loss of her old life. However, her life in a fictional Virginian rural town is the one I immerse readers in from the very first chapter—it is the modern, cloud-kissed building on the block, looming over any casitas around it. Readers of the project will not want to leave the fancy new place once they are inside. My readers will reside in this building out of comfort and ease. Taking them out of it, I learned, will only distort their travel experience to the world I created. As the sole architect, I had to figure out how to best integrate the story’s required details, particularly in the first chapters. I discovered that once you have a story, you must write it down, then begin the hard work of truly building it through revisions. The foremost step for me was addressing and nurturing the tension presented in the first chapters. I will discuss the process of refining the beginning of the story to serve as my thesis project. Regarding stories set in a world different from our own, readers must become acquainted with new history, rules, and a cast of characters while also learning about their daily lives. Expecting readers to consume this information constantly is a big ask. The experience is more likely to yield negative results than positive ones. If the pages include too much exposition or infodumping, the reader will become bored, overwhelmed by details, or worse, soon lump the work into a did-not-finish pile. I set a key goal while Sedikov-Burda 4 editing my project: strip the fiction manuscript down to scenes that keep readers entertained and invested. My laborious worldbuilding made the process more taxing. I had to decide what to share and what to scrap. As I turned to writers whose worlds inspired my project in the first place, I found Margaret Atwood alluding to a similar frustration when she describes the desire to aim for writing a story with a blueprint so structured that any of its struggles go undetected: The hardest part about writing fiction is the part that you know you have to put in [exposition]... it’s like the parts in a stage play where you have to get the characters on and off the stage… the parts when you know there’s stuff the reader has to know, but it’s not very interesting stuff for you to write. Those are the parts that I don’t like and if you’re competent enough, they won’t be able to tell which those parts are. (Atwood) Atwood highlights a storytelling skill that is valuable when outlining a narrative. For example, to refine my project, I took a step back from the scenes I wrote in the first few chapters and considered them as puzzle pieces. Together, they constitute the work, and each chapter contributes to my understanding of the fictional world and its characters; however, the pieces making up my second draft were still not in the right place, and the larger picture remained unfinished. The problematic parts stood out due to my narrow focus on explaining my main character's backstory. Worldbuilding is a precarious art. If a reader struggles to grasp everything I present on the pages, the result is a monotonous, overwhelming experience. Here, variety can serve as a savior for whatever prose survives editorial cuts. Utilizing past and present tenses and experimenting with points of view allowed me to introduce memorable voices and lyricism into the chapters. Sedikov-Burda 5 In a first draft of my second chapter, my main character, Solána, stress-dreams about the family she left behind while en route to the foreign place she will now live and work. The scene is in third person, like most of the novel: “She dreamt of her family. She had a mother and three sisters, and they used to live inland, which was safer in Florida.” I wrote the scene in the past tense, which varied from the rest of the novel’s present-tense narration; the scenes from Solána’s subconscious mind depicted both Florida and Cuba, leaving readers to guess at the timeline and the forgotten current-day action. As a reminder, the rest of the novel takes place somewhere else entirely. Switching to second person in my next draft allowed Solána’s descriptions to come to life, rooted in a clear voice: “You dream of your family. You have a mother and two sisters, and you all lived inland. The safest part of Florida.” However, at times, early readers were confused in the fundamental chapters of my draft because I placed the novel’s building blocks alongside experimental backstory. In Poets & Writers Magazine, Benjamin Percy eloquently addressed the valuable momentum I ruined by upending my first chapter this way when he wrote that “stories are about forward movement, and by interrupting yourself to explain history you have effectively yanked the gearshift into reverse. The story is no longer rushing forward--it's sliding back” (Percy). Lovely prose will assuredly not be a reader’s takeaway when there are glaring structural problems in the overall narrative; it is like a beautiful building that cannot be thoroughly appreciated if architectural problems prevent one from going inside. My analogy alludes to a quote from Celeste Ng, whose acclaimed novels are indebted to her skill with tense and multiple points of view: Sedikov-Burda 6 When structure is done well, it should be like architecture: you sense the overall feel of the building—tall, or airy, or strong—but you’re not looking at the buttresses that hold it up or the seams where parts are fastened together. (Stameshkin) In workshopping the second draft, this fissure in my first chapter became clear, leaving the novel's structure unstable in its most vital part. The backstory was prudent for me to know and create, but as Atwood said, “too bad”—it is not necessary for readers to have it, too. “Omission is also an art,” author Karen Russell writes: You want to anticipate the kinds of questions that are going to occur to your reader, but it's good to remember that readers don't necessarily need or even particularly want answers to all the questions that occur to them. (214) ​ While editing further, I prioritized good pacing to ensure the plot's flow was not interrupted. Even in a novel’s nonlinear construction, readers expect rising, climactic, and falling actions within a clear arc of the plotline. If the reader does not know what Solána’s childhood in Florida was like, drip-feeding the information throughout my project’s narrative will provide readers with a better opportunity to step into her mind when the right moments arise. Solána returns to her home country after many years away as a refugee. If she is uncertain about what awaits her, why not let the reader feel the same? Such play of omission, along with my switching of tense and points of view, reflects my consistent desire to write an entertaining story. Moreover, in the earlier draft, I left my first chapter on a cliffhanger. It was provocative but left readers with questions they needed answers to, which they did not receive until the third chapter. The right plot points were in the wrong places. Sedikov-Burda 7 ​ By reuniting the first and third chapters of my project’s second draft, I was able to expand on the very first scene–my story’s first pillar. In this scene, I introduce three young siblings and their relationship with Solána, along with concrete details about the world they inhabit. Education is no longer valued by most due to safety concerns, so the kids have never seen a school, among other places we take for granted today. They are the military-governor's children and are privileged enough to have a nanny. The governor nostalgically insists on someone who speaks Spanish due to his childhood in Texas. His children’s only lessons are during bilingual activities with Solána, squeezed into the afternoons she watches them. That is how the reader meets them: atop a Virginian hill on their countryside army base, just before a drone approaches. Drones had not been seen since American Dominion closed its borders after a ceasefire deal. How did one get past authorities and find their peaceful spot on acres of governorial land? Everything in her life changes after Solána discovers a vintage phone on the drone, delivered to her in a place where anything that connects to the internet is illegal. She keeps the cell phone anyway. The scene is nearly the antithesis of the backstory I indulged in writing for the now-redacted second chapter. I prioritized the present-day scene instead so readers can soak in the everyday details of Solána’s job and her relationship with the children; everything readers learn is then threatened in real time alongside the characters. They experience the upheaval of Sol’s life along with her. With this in mind, I consider the introductory chapter a building block or pillar because, to borrow a filmmaking term that Percy details in his book, Thrill Me, it is a set piece. Percy describes set pieces as “the most interesting moments and so they demand a slowness, an elongation” to achieve what Alfred Hitchcock refers to “as crescendos… a heightening, a Sedikov-Burda 8 swelling” (46). As a visual writer, it is not unusual for me to picture the details peppered throughout my first chapter as stage props to one of the story’s most memorable scenes. Reorganizing allowed me to rewrite the scene’s end as a more profound cliffhanger and to achieve a smoother transition by the time the characters exit the stage, to use Atwood’s allusion to a play. Readers know a trap has been set for Solána when she takes the phone, but will she take the bait? Combining the first and third chapters to achieve the final draft of my first chapter prompted contemplation of what authors omit from their successful first chapters—or rather, how they construct a plot in a manner that does not require disclosing every detail. Terah Shelton Harris’ debut novel came to mind, a story that embodies genres I am fond of and consider when writing my manuscript, such as suspenseful romance, Southern and domestic fiction. At the start of One Summer in Savannah, we learn that the protagonist, Sara, left her home state of Georgia with her child. She is an exceptionally protective mother. The following details then close the chapter, hinting at a clue in her past as to why, while also introducing most of the novel’s cast of characters, including her sick father, Hosea: Sylvia continues, her voice shaky with the effort of holding back tears. “I’ve been begging him to let Jacob help him, but you know your father.” …My mind, seconds before stagnant from the shock, snaps to with questions: Why didn’t he tell me about the expansion? How is he paying for it? Who is Jacob? The weight of Sylvia’s tears keeps these questions tamped down in my throat, leaving room only for the pertinent one. “Where’s he now?” Sedikov-Burda 9 …I want to remind her, of all people, why I left in the first place. That even my ill father can’t make me step foot back in Savannah. But all I say is “I’ll leave in the morning.” (Harris 17) I enjoyed escaping into Sara’s thought processes and emotional decisions without fully knowing the life-changing events that shaped her. Being partially in the dark motivated me to keep reading, and I devoured the novel. Harris further drew me into her story by crafting the narrative in two voices. The first-person prose shifts to the point of view of the aforementioned Jacob in the second chapter to introduce the lushly described environment of Savannah and his integration into the community, where Sara will return. Their stories eventually intertwine over alternating chapters. Such a form works for the same reason it is an experimental tool in contemporary poetry: “So much of good writing matches the right form to the right occasion,” David Biespiel writes in the introduction of Exaltation of Forms (4). Harris actually experimented with form further by writing most of Hosea’s dialogue in poetry verses, inspired by her own grandfather; he “suffered a stroke, and lost his ability to speak. But that didn’t stop him from finding a way to communicate… and for us to learn how to understand him” (441). As readers, we attempt to best understand a novel’s characters over the course of our time with them. Harris revealed that a plot unfolds in her mind before she begins developing the characters. As a result, Jacob’s chapters came to fruition in Harris’s later drafts. She admits, “as I began to write, I realized that I was missing an entire side of the story. That’s where Jacob comes in. Jacob’s perspective allows the reader to see and understand the complete picture” ( 441). Naturally, Harris is drawn to the most solid Sedikov-Burda 10 architecture for her novel, much as a poet aims to draft the most organic form possible for their verses. Similar to experimenting with tense in my first chapter, I considered the forms used throughout the novel as I rewrote and organized my project to introduce the world best. The story unfolds as Solána turns on the phone and discovers that two anonymous partners from the political organization AmeriOps are contacting her to request support for an undercover mission already underway. The group aims to reach the ear of her boss, the military-governor of Virginia. By employing forms familiar to the reader today, such as text messages and emails, I aim to heighten the story’s tension and stimulate readers’ memories and anticipation. My second draft of the project exaggerated that purpose by weaving a chat between the unknown contacts alongside Solána’s outdoor lesson with the kids, where the plan will unravel via drone: “Vámonos,” Solána waves them toward their older sister. “Bring your baskets.” Wednesday, August 24th, 2039 at 13:26 NEW CHATROOM CREATED > disciple: Pyrite 14:05. > disciple: Remember, if Flor won’t spark, Pyrite goes to the Serpent. > stlr: oh she'll start a fire > disciple: Well, we lit the match. Once gathered in their makeshift classroom, Sol points to the square Cecilia is making from what she collected. She insists on being told the day’s activities in advance, as if she needs to approve them first. Her creation already looks like the Sedikov-Burda 11 walls of a dollhouse as she repeatedly stacks a stick onto another, mastering latticework for stability. Plastic wooden logs inspired Solána, who played with them as a child. Her parents bought them from a box department store, but George and Alicia have never been inside one. Although I describe their world as an unpoppled bubble, the reader learns, through the strangers' chat transcriptions, of actions that have long been at play before my main character does. The AmeriOps contacts speak in code, and the unknown enhances a sense of impending trouble. However, the form did not seem to fit in the middle of a scene otherwise focused on characterizing the children Solána tends to. Juxtaposing this with a glimpse of strangers in action was like filling a casita to the brim with housemates. Amid the unruliness, too many questions arise, and the scene’s focal point drifts. Karen Russell’s 2025 novel, The Antidote, provided a lesson in worldbuilding in its first essential chapters; alternating each chapter with a different point of view allows for greater storytelling potential through their voices. The prologue begins with a second-person narrative of dryland farmer, Harp Oletsky, and ends with an exchange that summarizes youthful fear that is undoubtedly foreshadowing for the tale of a darker world to come: “‘Here,' says Papa. ‘One is still living. You cannot be softhearted, Harp.’ Your father puts the club in your hands. And after that, you’re always afraid” (Russell 4). The intimate portrayal of six-year-old Harp’s disdain and general repulsion to the town massacring infestive jackrabbits with a “festive feeling in the air like a penny rubbed between two fingers, like blood shocked into a socket” complements the next chapter from the perspective of “The Prairie Witch” (Russell 3). As she narrates an Sedikov-Burda 12 experience, locked in a jailhouse in fictional Uz, Nebraska during Black Sunday of the real 1930s Dust Bowl phenomenon, the chapter eventually reveals the Prairie Witch is sharing her tale with a son: “Chained to the cot, dirt inflaming my nostrils, I smiled in the dark. I believed I’d lost everything, but I hadn’t after all. I remember You. Hope grew inside me then. Unstoppably, as You once grew” (Russell 12). The chapter first informed us that she lost “everything in an instant” once before, when she was a “fifteen-year-old fugitive from the Home for Unwed Mothers” (Russell 7). The love she expresses for her son contrasts with the harshness seen in the first chapter of Harp as a child, but fittingly weaves a narrative of caring characters as we then meet the teenage niece that Harp cares for in his later years. Later in the novel, the witch will come to this girl’s aid as well. By first leaving us with these pieces of an unfinished picture, Russell not only practices her lesson on omission while still introducing characters, but also sets expectations for the novel’s structure by propelling the reader forward for more information without leaving them tangled in details along the way. I plan to apply this reading experience to the final draft of my novel-in-progress. Since I wish to incorporate multimedia forms as a tool to expose the AmeriOps plot, I will rearrange the narrative so that those scenes appear only when readers truly question who is behind the plan to contact Sol. Reframing the initial chat introduction as a cold open before the first chapter will better introduce the mystery to readers while also setting the stage for the novel’s experimental narrative form. Creator of worlds, Ursula K. Le Guin, has written on the shape of novels, specifically in the science fiction genre. Her theory involves rejecting a standard build, especially the claim that “the proper shape of the narrative is that of the arrow or spear” and, overall, a “reduction of narrative to conflict” (Le Guin 169). While I Sedikov-Burda 13 argue in the above reflections of close readings that the benefit of experimenting with narration in this method is mainly engagement, Le Guin’s conclusionary point returns to her main subject at hand, which is crafting stories that redefine “technology and science as primarily cultural carrier bag,” her titulary concept that involves picturing “the natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel” as a sack of words. She argues, “science fiction can be seen as a far less rigid, narrow field, not necessarily Promethean or apocalyptic at all, and in fact less a mythological genre than a realistic one” (170). Le Guin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” adequately encapsulates why I consider worldbuilding most when drafting my project. I aim for realism when writing this story, not quite wanting it to be science fiction, with a near-future setting instead, and not yet dystopian, with a steady stream of light moments rooted in freedom. Daily hope and kindness within the constant chaos of U.S. political and economic spheres inspired me most, despite drafting a similar what-if apocalyptic question that sci-fi texts answer for us. What would life look like years after a second secession in the United States? I posed this question six years ago when I began crafting the narrative for the first few chapters that now comprise my project. My chapters offer some answers to that original question: the wealthy would still hold the most power, children would still need an education, both sides would maintain a military-industrial complex, and dissidents would still shape the land, no matter which flag flew over their heads. I am reminded of the words of author Celeste Ng again as she researched for her 2022 dystopian novel, Our Missing Hearts: “everything that's in the book has its roots in something that's happened in our past or elsewhere in the world or a lot of times, things that are happening right now” (Ng). No matter the genre of my story, I never had to look Sedikov-Burda 14 far for inspiration when drafting. Ng considered Atwood writing her hallmark dystopian novel, too, after which she reflected on, stating, “If I was to create an imaginary garden I wanted the toads in it to be real” (327). If readers are to believe the world I built in my project, I now turn to the work I am doing to present it in its final form. It might be surprising that I wrote the story’s first draft in chronological order with an unfinished ending. Returning to the novel-in-progress years later was like setting off a firework that scattered the scenes about. My genre studies at Weber State University motivated me to experiment further with voice and form as I dissected the story; my passion for reading and studying poetry in the English literature program also further enamored me to the beauty of “how deeply poetic form and culture reflect and require each other” and how a symbiotic relationship of content and form is arguably found in all art forms (Biespiel 4). While following and learning from women writers whose work is similar to mine, I also draw on personal experiences as the daughter of Dominican and Cuban American immigrants to further situate the project in a fictional world with realistic, everyday themes. It is a story about caring for one another despite circumstances that naturally drive us apart. I believe it is a novel the world needs to read because I needed to write it to self-soothe after consuming too much negative news and media and observing one too many acts of violence too close to the many places I’ve called home throughout my twenties. At the root of the story remains the emotion of homesickness, the feeling that inspired me to write it for the first time while working in Prague, Czechia, during the global COVID-19 pandemic. I am able to complete my manuscript thanks to my master’s education at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. Sedikov-Burda 15 I continue the hard work of composing the story with the aforementioned lessons on worldbuilding and the literary tools that require them in mind, building the narrative brick by brick to craft un mundo nuevo for all to read. In that place, anyone can find a room to stay. Sedikov-Burda 16 Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. “Learning to Hide the Exposition.” Big Think, 21 Sept. 2010, https://bigthink.com/videos/learning-to-hide-the-exposition/. Biespiel, David. "Introduction: The Exaltation of Forms.” The Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, edited by Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes, University of Michigan Press, 2002, pp. 1–14. Harris, Terah Shelton. One Summer in Savannah: A Story of Trauma, Healing, and Forgiveness (pp. 16-17). (Function). Kindle Edition. —. “One Summer in Savannah: Reading Group Discussion Guide.” Sourcebooks Landmark/Together We Read, 2023, https://static.od-cdn.com/TWR_US_OneSummerInSavannah_DiscussionGuide.p df. Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.” 1986. Community of Writers, https://communityofwriters.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/The-Carrier-Bag-Th eory-of-Fiction.pdf. Ng, Celeste. “Celeste Ng on Her Latest Novel Our Missing Hearts.” Interview by Ayesha Rascoe. WLRN, 2 Oct. 2022. —. Our Missing Hearts: A Novel. Penguin Press, 2022, pp. 327. Percy, Benjamin. "Don't look back: the problem with backstory." Poets & Writers Magazine, vol. 40, no. 6, Nov.-Dec. 2012, pp. 31+. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A337370430/LitRC?u=anon~f6e86ae8&sid=googleSchol ar&xid=ada37018. Sedikov-Burda 17 —. Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction. Graywolf Press, 2016, pp. 46. Russell, Karen. The Antidote. Alfred A. Knopf, 2025. —. “Engineering Impossible Architectures.” The Writer’s Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House, edited by Dorothea Lasky and Michelle Wildgen, Tin House Books, 2018, pp. 197–216. Stameshkin, Anne. “Sometimes Taking Things Out Counts as Writing: An Interview with Celeste Ng.” Fiction Writers Review, 18 Jan. 2022. https://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/sometimes-taking-things-out-counts-as -writing-an-interview-with-celeste-ng/. Sedikov-Burda 18 Wednesday, August 24th, 2039, 13:26 NEW CHATROOM CREATED > disciple: You there? > stlr: yeah > stlr: is it time > disciple: Pyrite 14:05. > disciple: Flor’s still in the zone? > stlr: yup flor & the buds > stlr: >_< > disciple: It’ll be okay. > stlr: i know > disciple: Remember, if Flor won’t spark, Pyrite goes to the Serpent. > stlr: oh she'll start a fire > disciple: Well, we lit the match. 18 Sedikov-Burda 19 CHAPTER ONE The blades vibrate with anticipation, but in vain. The dry prairie grass is nearly the height of the eldest child. A gust of late-afternoon wind picked up, but it’s almost September, so summer storms are beginning to taper. Solána notices the sudden wind as the sun takes shelter behind a cloud. She gazes up at an otherwise clear sky and winces, knowing the long days well enough to guess her activity will be cut short by rain. The Trinity kids can never be uncomfortable. Sol tries to briefly enjoy the breeze as it brings nearly 100 acres of land to life. The tall golden stems wave back at her in unison. She’ll miss the storms. She searches across the billowing field, then watches as the three Trinity children stumble and fight their way through long grass. The youngest remains closest to Solána while her two siblings seek the colors nature offers. Flimsy, bunched purple and mustard-colored floral weeds, a jutted pebble—which turns out to be a rusty bolt—molding to copper brown, a smoothed rock reddening with pink. Alicia holds her latest discovery high up above her blonde head as she steps on Solána’s toes. Tangles of wild hair disrupt Ali’s vision, but she doesn’t mind. She holds a shard of faded, almost-aqua glass, reminiscent of vintage Coca-Cola bottles and rounded to dullness over time. The soiled find enthralls Alicia with its brilliant mystery. “Green, green!” The patches of dirt under their feet paved all four years of Alicia’s life with yellowed afternoons of aimless exploring toward nowhere. 19 Sedikov-Burda 20 Her excitement doesn’t faze Solána. “¿Y cómo lo dices?” The girl’s little face drops with defeat. Alicia doesn’t know the Spanish word for green. “No sé.” She always knows I don’t know. The girl’s typical honesty causes Sol to grin. Her older brother is already eavesdropping, so Solána calls to him. “George?” “Verde. I found a snail,” he says without a glance. He then peers at his baby sister, as if to assure she remains where he last saw her. “Is that broken glass, Alicia? My snail is dead. Alicia?” Despite his seven years, George Junior often checks adults and rivals their intelligence. Solána could practically hear the Texas drawl of George’s father, remarking on the Virginian territory he presides over as its appointed military-governor: ’Specially in these parts. The Trinity siblings are a handful and fascinatingly different from one another. Solána quickly learned that each of them has a preferred learning method. Alicia responds best to games, and Cecilia craves independence ever since she turned ten and often wanders off to work on her own. George expects discipline and strict parameters, reflecting the world he arrived in. “Tranquila,” Solána coos. Alicia stiffly extends her tiny hands so Sol can carefully pry the glass from her palm. “No pasa nada.” Solána tries to only speak Spanish during their lessons, especially with George. He memorizes most of the week’s vocabulary before she can pronounce a syllable aloud with him. He’d benefit from advanced conversations, but they’d distract his sisters. 20 Sedikov-Burda 21 George needs specialized tutoring. He isn’t like most, but like everyone else these days, he simply needs more. Sol isn’t a full-time teacher—she’s a nanny doing what she can to teach the children something when the opportunity arises. Her duties expand the longer she stays. Last summer, Governor Trinity’s wife Bonnie surprised Solána by revealing they were trying to have a fourth child and wanted her to sign a two-year contract to be their nanny until 2040. Sol had already been with them for 18 months, longer than she imagined possible. She stayed. The much higher pay they offered allows Solána to daydream about where she wants to go after Trinity House. It also makes her a larger target of envy. She has long made enough to wire some money back to her family in Cuba, where the cash goes a bit further. Despite Bonnie being due this November, Mr. Trinity began sacrificing time with his kids to run a superfluous presidential campaign. Any competition against him is for show. He is beloved in the American Dominion, and Solána loves his children. “I used to find glass like this on the beach in Florida when I was little,” Solána continues. “We call them cristales de mar. Sea glass. It would be different shades of verde. Sometimes brown, marrón, and sometimes blue—” “Azul,” George finishes correctly. “Broken glass hurts my fingers. The glass will hurt Alicia.” He isn’t whining, Sol knows. He could be right. “This is like sea glass,” Solána says steadily. “It won’t hurt anyone, I promise.” “There’s no sea here. No beach. No Florida.” “You’re right, we’re not in Florida,” she nods. “We live in Levitan.” 21 Sedikov-Burda 22 “Levitan, Virginia.” Again, correct. Solána waits for George Junior to catch his breath. He repeats cristales de mar to himself with perfect pronunciation under his breath. Almost begrudgingly, like she wasted his time with talk of her childhood, and Sol knows George is right again. Those days are like the fairy tales he recently outgrew at bedtime. Happy memories in the United States, like a bygone era, she thinks. They don’t live there anymore. Solána decides she can only praise him. “Muy bien, Jorge.” Sunlight emerges from its hiding spot, and Sol shields her eyes to check on Cecilia. She spots her chocolate-brown head of hair and confident gait. Cece strayed over to their usual spot on the hill beneath a tree, underneath its airy canopy. It’s only a hill because the surrounding military base is otherwise flat. It is a honey locust tree, George once shared. A fitting name since its green leaves resemble lace and blaze golden in the fall. “Vámonos,” Solána waves them toward their older sister. “Bring your baskets.” Gathered in their makeshift classroom, Sol points to the square Cecilia is making from what she collected. She insists on being told the day’s activities in advance, as if she needs to approve them first. Her creation already looks like the walls of a dollhouse as she repeatedly stacks one stick onto another, mastering latticework for stability. Plastic wooden logs inspired Solána, who played with them as a child. Her parents bought them from a box department store, but George and Alicia have never been inside one. “Now we’re going to build our treasure chests,” Solána explains. “Once you make your box, pon tus cosas adrento.” Sol takes a white-flowered weed that Cecilia picked 22 Sedikov-Burda 23 and places it in the center of her twigged walls. “Ponlas así dentro de tu caja,” she repeats as she glances between George and his little sister. Alicia giggles: “Ponlas.” “Dentro,” George echoes. “Inside. We put them inside.” “Si, ponlas—put them. Put your treasures in your box, Ali.” A breeze rustles branches above them as Solána creates a makeshift rectangle of wood for Alicia. The wind sways the tree’s drooping clusters of pale green ribbons until one falls to the ground beside Cece. Her brother grabs the tender pod before anyone else sees its silent arrival. It’ll soon harden and darken to protect seeds throughout autumn, but today the leathery pod crushes in George’s eager palm. “My treasure,” he says. “Mine. Mío.” Sol smiles. “¿Y qué color es eso, Jorge?” “Verde.” “¿Duro o suavecito?” Knowing next week’s words while he does not, Sol presses George about how the object feels. His beautifully murky green eyes practically pulse with fresh concentration. “¿Duro?” Solána punches the ground. “¿O suave?” She gingerly pets the thin, dry stalks of lower grass around them, and Alicia starts giggling again. Cecilia joins her, twirling one of the ribbon-tied braids that always swing restlessly at the sides of her face. Ali’s hair is cut close to her chin, bangs barely tickling at her eyebrows. The texture is so thick and wavy that it protests conformity with its curling ends. By keeping it trimmed short, Sol has less to fight with the comb. Alicia likes accessorizing with clumps of dirt and flowering weeds, but the afternoon’s activity 23 Sedikov-Burda 24 is successfully distracting her. The four-year-old’s honeyed blonde hair shines abnormally clean. George pinches his nose in thought. Solána gazes across distant, endless rows of corn as she waits for his answer. She’s sure it’ll be correct. The countless sun-dyed stalks blanket the gently rolling land with a bronzed hue. Patches of big bluestem grass highlight the muted green promise while reducing runoff in the crop field and fostering biodiversity. Sol takes in the shades of verde, amarillo, and marrón, overwhelmed by her own activity. “I’m thinking,” George tells them before switching to Spanish. “Esto… es…” Mr. and Mrs. Trinity worry about George’s development, but Solána is sure their middle child is one of the few intelligent people for miles. He’s easily overwhelmed by his senses and emotions. He overloads when he perceives them simultaneously. There’s a name for this that they won’t say, and coping strategies I don’t know about, Solána once wrote in her daily field notes. Schooling hasn’t been mandated since the influenza pandemic seven years ago. Before that, kids became scarce due to the Twenties Recession. The education George would benefit from hasn’t existed in what feels like forever. Today, lucky children are homeschooled for their safety. The few parents left can only complain—even the Trinitys. The governor is running for president and promising to change that with a system of military schools. Solána hates the very thought of the idea. In another time, George could have competed nationally in quiz bowls with his smarts. His country decided to compete against itself instead. 24 Sedikov-Burda 25 “The thing is suave,” Cecilia proclaims, triumphing over her little brother in answering. She squints her bright blue eyes around the group as if to encourage a challenge. Solána quickly snaps out of her head to look at George with a jump. She prepares to block his hand from yanking at one of Cece’s cocoa-brown braids, but as his skinny crossed legs bounce, it’s clear he’s jittery for another reason. He starts rubbing his ears. “Georgie, ¿qué te pasa?” Sol asks. “What’s that sound?” His walls of sticks are already stacked higher than Cecilia’s, but the lesson no longer has his attention. “What’s that noise? I can’t think. Because of the sound. The noise.” “You hear something?” Solána learned the hard way to support George’s observations even if she doesn’t see what he does. He is tuned to a different frequency. “I can’t focus! The noise, maybe insects. Bugs are coming.” “In-sect?” Alicia’s gentle green orbs practically pop from her small head. A ray of sunlight reveals they are a mirrored, mini version of her mother’s hazel eyes. Solána’s brows pull together as she stares into the girls’ blank faces and then at the relatively quiet property around them. She tries to divert George’s focus enough so that he’ll return to them. “Jorge, you have very good hearing,” she says. “What does the wind sound like? El viento.” From where they sit, sprawling Trinity House is the size of a toy. A shed and a barn house are closer. On the outskirts of the land-turned-compound for the military-governor, Sol couldn’t hear milk cows chewing on lunch. The chain-linked fence 25 Sedikov-Burda 26 of Fort Levitan encircles the property. Solána studies the branches over her head for a moment and, for a few seconds, imagines building a treehouse with the kids. George would be safe from the world in such a space. “The buzzing,” he mumbles. “There’s buzzing.” “¿Cómo suena el viento, Jorge?” Sol tries again. “Suena. Sound. What does the wind sound—” George locks onto her with a rare glance. Sol recognizes the frustration swimming in his swampy green eyes, blackening them. Her heart clenches before throbbing in her chest without a clear sign of danger. Solána wishes to wrap him in a warm, protective hug. Merely thinking of harm sends her skin ringing like a current across invisible armor. She immediately reaches out to hold Alicia’s hand through the shock. Cecilia sees the gesture, and her full lips press together tightly to hide her jealousy. Then Cece leaps to her feet. “Do you hear it, too?” The words fall from Sol’s mouth with dead weight. Cece’s head bobs up and down before rotating on a swivel. Slowly, her studying fixates on a spot behind Solána. The girl’s stare begins widening like a sinkhole. Solána finally hears the mechanical noise and stands. Her knees threaten to buckle. She tries not to shake. A black disk races through the air, and nothing stands in its way. Sol could mistake the object for a bird if it didn’t suddenly halt in place before changing course in the open sky. They watch in stillness as the saucer continues to approach, descending toward them through the highly monitored area steadily without wobbling or dipping. 26 Sedikov-Burda 27 Although her fear looms like a swollen mist obscuring flashes of lightning, Solána grits her teeth and calms the children. “I think we should make our treasure boxes inside.” “It’s not gold,” Cecilia says, pointing at the drone with a slitted gaze. She was only six when she last saw a gold one, but not much happens in her small town. “Dorado,” George translates softly. “Gold.” “Excelente, Jorge,” Solána whispers. Before they were prohibited, an allied group calling itself American Operatives used golden drones to deliver goods ordered in the Dominion. Levitan and its much larger army base are less than 20 miles from the border of the United Network of Nations state of Maryland, far closer than the Dominion capital. Ceasefire stipulations with the UNN changed everything. All 13 states imposed a no-fly zone to deter surveillance by the nation we seceded from, the president-general announced during his second inaugural address. American Dominion is officially closed to the United Network, the country it once belonged to. Nothing flew over their heads anymore. President-General McAllen’s jet hardly even leaves the First District, formerly Washington, D.C. Solána’s training prepared her for the next steps. “Cecilia, take your brother and sister to the Green Bunker.” “Bunk? Down to the bunk?” Alicia is immediately eager, but Cece grimaces toward the green-painted shed blocking the view of cows still polishing off whatever grass patches they found. The order irritates George. “I don’t want to.” 27 Sedikov-Burda 28 “Are you sure?” Cecilia poses with her hands on her hips like a miniature version of her father. “Claro que sí,” Solána replies. “It’s buzzing. It’s buzzing!” George grows louder, threatening to yank his earlobes off. The drone sounds like a wailing baby in the distance. “¡Ahora, Jorge! Green Bunker. Now.” Sol remembers who she is talking to and, kneeling, holds him still by the shoulders. “It will be very quiet inside—dentro. Remember when we napped there?” He nods. “¿Y qué color es?” Solána probes. “What color’s the bunk?” “Verde.” “Verde wins, then. Let’s all go there.” Sol pushes on a smile as George helps Alicia off the ground, forgoing auditory irritation for the task as he revs into action. “Verde,” George mutters, and Alicia says the color, too. They repeat the word again and again to each other, her brother perfecting Ali’s pronunciation as they set off. Solána is too afraid for their lives to be prouder. As the noisy whizzing bites into her brain, the sound buries a headache fathoms deep. Sol ponders distractions. She only recently included Spanish in her unofficial curriculum. The language is a long-awaited milestone for Sol, who has been in Levitan for four years. Governor Trinity sought a bilingual nanny, but the children didn’t pick up Spanish easily. She wasn’t surprised; they barely knew English. When Sol arrived, Cecilia had not started learning to read. No one was caring for her or George since Alicia’s premature arrival took precedent. Now, even George is ready 28 Sedikov-Burda 29 for chapter books, but there hasn’t been much to read since Sol and her family fled to Cuba—probably around the last time a golden drone flew above Levitan. That was when signs of war were merely whispers. UNN abandoned D.C. for New York City, and the capital was left to be partially burned down during riots. American Dominion citizens often find that the few pages they recover from dilapidated libraries and bookstores make great tinder. Their leaders regularly debunk rumors of censorship in response to the very choosy folk on state payrolls who order books. Solána snaps back into action when she notices the eldest Trinity stalling. Despite showing no desire to run after her siblings, Cecilia sighs before dragging her dirt-caked fabric shoes downhill. “Cece?” Sol calls. “Yeah? ¿Qué? What?” “Get them in safely,” Solána says. “Then come back with a shotgun.” Cecilia’s rapid steps are hushed on the grass. She never followed orders so well before she got her period, Sol thinks. Cece didn’t want to tell her mother. It was a night of sweat and tears as Solána explained why she must bleed as a girl, but that she is still just that. A girl. Solána breathes heavily now. She has no time to wonder if the drone is dangerous. Soon after she arrived in Levitan, DATA was created and tasked with confiscating devices and enforcing technology-related laws in partnership with local law enforcement. Anything that connects to the internet is banned. What she has to do next is expected of her. Common sense. 29 Sedikov-Burda 30 It’s the same reason Solána hasn’t turned her back on the drone—why she let a child retrieve the firearm instead of getting it herself. She has to make sure it doesn’t fly near the children. While she keeps a stone from the many they foraged clutched in the white-knuckled fist of her non-shooting hand, the morbid, weighted reminder of the others sags in her skirt. A drone can’t come near the Trinity property. Cece returns with the shotgun, and Solána swiftly grabs and pumps it, her jaw tight. It’s been a while since she gripped the oddly warm, sleek wood under the barrel. Her nose crinkles at the gun’s subtle nutty scent of linseed. The Trinity family’s head groundskeeper, Harry, must have recently oiled the guns. They weren’t used much lately. The drone has slowed, but its buzz whirs louder. Solána aims the gun’s muzzle at it. Cecilia hides behind her. “Cece,” Sol says, almost in a monotone. “Before it moves again. Run to your siblings.” “But—” “Vaya. It’ll be okay.” Sol knows multiple emergency procedures for any unauthorized technology that falls in her lap, or, in this case, drops out of the sky. They collectively instruct destroy it. The device’s probable origins are numerous; the sender might wish to endanger innocent lives. The tragic possibilities were nailed into Solána’s brain by the Domestic Anti-Technology Authority. One of their Action Agents taught her to shoot clay pigeons with various guns. 30 Sedikov-Burda 31 Solána can’t let it take pictures or send off any signal or message. She definitely can’t let it land. The fewer people who see it, the better. It can be carrying a bomb. It could be hauling nails and rocks, one blow away from tearing skin. She’d seen the scars on the townsfolk. A glance toward the green shed confirms that Cece is inside. Then Sol aims at the target only yards away. The buttstock digs into her shoulder as she thumbs the safety forward. A single shot snaps out toward the drone’s body. She points the hot barrel down and paces backward for cover behind the locust tree. Ears ringing, Solána doesn’t hear a crash. The brief gunsmoke is faint, metallic like a struck match, and stings the back of her throat until she swallows. She counts the seconds as she learned to do before a detonation—for official documentation, in case of survival. The mouthed numbers soothe her slightly. Her adrenaline skyrockets, anxiety warning her of the worst to come. Sol always thought she’d recall the faces of her loved ones before her death. How much more has Mami’s hair grayed, she wonders. Was her older sister, Pilar, busy in a cubicle? She can’t remember which side of her face Vanessa moves her lips to when she’s chasing or cleaning up after her kids. Are my sisters still happy in their marriages? Four years are enough to forget details that don’t fit in letters. Solána’s hearing returns when the high whine thins out after a minute. She checks around the trunk and up at the empty, profound blue sky to see where the drone has gone. The twitter of birds in the distance sends a chill through her. Fear pricks her legs numb. Miraculously, she can move, blood thumping vigorously in the sides of her neck. Another minute of scarce breathing follows. Then she steps forward and finds the 31 Sedikov-Burda 32 pieces. Standing a few feet from the drone, Solána can tell it’s cheaply made. The plastic body is covered in spiderweb cracks like shattered glass, and its bottom fan popped off. She immediately rules out the device belonging to anyone in the UNN like nearby Maryland or West Virginia. Their president’s United Network party keeps the nation’s imports flooded with the latest inventions. The drone seems to have nothing in common with the sleek army of gold drones that AmeriOps used to fly in, either. Solána hovers over the thing, her chest still heaving as phrases from the DATA Training Handbook come to mind. Foreign objects discovered must be reported and surrendered… She kicks it. The pockmarked drone slumps over on its literal last leg as if in defeat. That’s when she sees what’s stuck on the underside: crime scene tape. Her heart skips. A torn piece of the black-and-yellow keeps a device secure against the drone’s belly. It’s a relic from the past, but one she recognizes instantly. A flip phone, untouched by the birdshot. Something tingles in Solána’s fingertips, fuel coursing through her body. Energy, excitement? Her days are so predictable that, for a short, concerning moment, she worries her body will overwhelm and shut down from the chemical change. Her vision flutters with black spots. They clear, and she forgets the rules, kneels in the dry grass, and peels the phone off the drone. Only to hold and squeeze it in each hand. It’s authentic, smooth, and designed to fit perfectly in her palms. A mobile phone for convenience—the purpose of technology. It’s the same model her father owned when she was a child. She’s only taking a peek, 32 Sedikov-Burda 33 well aware a drone wouldn’t drop off anything she can look at for long. Still, Sol finds herself smiling. She never forgot the little things she used to do for a thrill. Conversations via text message with childhood friends on her sister’s cell, under a comforter, after dark. Playing videos she shouldn’t watch until the stale, sauna-like blanket air ran out. The steady clomping of a horse’s gallop stirs Solána back to her place. Her nerves firework louder than when she heard the drone coming in like a cloud of furious bees. Her heart thumps, glancing down across the field in a panic. She sees nothing yet and, still curious, sighs shakily at the chunk of plastic before flipping it open. How can she resist peeking at a screen? Solána’s mouth drops when she sees the note against it. A thin, tiny shred of paper nearly falls to the ground. Black computer font printed on it states a single word: Solánita Tears tickle her eyes as if Alicia accidentally punched her in the stomach mid-dance. As the sound of the horse nears, she doesn’t think twice before tucking the phone and its note deep into her skirt. She brushes dirt from the polyester and stands facing Trinity House. Her vision is still water-full and blurred, but she knows it sits there in the distance. She blinks back a cry as the snorting horse approaches. “Sunny,” Handyman Harry shouts at her from the saddle. He tosses an apple core behind him, then wipes his wet pink mouth. “What’s goin’ on? Where are the kids?” Harry wipes his forehead with a dirt-caked sleeve. He doesn’t have to mention the gunshot he heard. Solána watches his tired eyes dart from the pump-action on the ground to the remnants of the small aircraft at her boot heels. 33 Sedikov-Burda 34 “Someone’s messing with us, Harry.” “I’ll go get those damn officers.” He mutters a curse and squeezes his leg against the horse to turn himself toward the center of the army base. Solána goes to get the kids. 34 Sedikov-Burda 35 CHAPTER TWO Wednesday, August 24th, 2039 at 18:00 Solána shot down a drone and, as a result, hid something illegal to carry in the Dominion on her person. Now she walks around Trinity House with her pocket sinking, and the weight of the cellphone leaves her light in comparison. She floats about the property feeling oddly unbalanced. The impressive residential building formerly belonged to the mounted unit of the Virginia State Police. Sol swears she sometimes hears trotting around the property. She can hear hooves pounding dirt, but her pulse races faster. It’s dinnertime. Practically tiptoeing around the house, Solána wakes Alicia from her nap. She overslept and frowns and grunts her way into the only dining room chair with a seat cushion, which barely functions as a booster. “A big table all to yourself,” Sol tells her in a too-high tone. Ali rests her forehead against the table with contempt and stretches her mouth from a yawn to another scowl. A housemaid nearing the end of her shift will watch the girl, so Solána kisses Ali’s forehead and joins the rest of the employees under the outdoor pavilion for her own meal. A late-afternoon thunderstorm has scattered off. Some of the humidity dissipated, but the air remains claustrophobically thick, settling over them like dew. Solána can’t enjoy the wet weather she loves with the heat of the day still burning the back of her neck. “Miss Sol,” the cook Lisa starts. “Heard you had quite the day.” Lisa is well into her 40s, but her dark, tightly coiled curls are wrapped in a 35 Sedikov-Burda 36 bleach-stained scarf that reminds Solána of her grandmother’s timeless, impeccable style. Her coconut-brown skin still perspires from preparing the dinner they’re about to share. “And I don’t wanna talk about it,” Solána replies, hoping her coworkers will drop the subject. “You think that drone was a prank?” Harry speaks between nibbles on a bare-looking chicken bone. Like the scraps of food he manages to find throughout the day, he’d never drop what is likely going to be the topic of the week. Shrugging, Solána pauses thoughtfully to find honest words. She points at a glob of Harry’s meal still stuck in his scraggy, grayed beard and sighs, watching his dark brown fingers fumble futilely at the mess. “Who knows these days?” Sol shovels the powdery pile of room-temperature mashed potatoes around her plate. “We’ll have to see what DATA says tomorrow.” “What’d you first think it was?” asks Lisa’s daughter, Kimberly, the youngest housemaid. Sol sheepishly glances away from her lit face. Kimmy practically shoves Harry’s face in with a napkin before adding, “I would’ve been scared it was, like, a bomb.” “Kimmy,” Lisa scolds. “I was scared,” Solána replies. “I thought the Network was finally invading.” In the silence that follows, Sol’s mind goes to the note she discovered. Solánita. A diminutive name she’s heard only from her family. Thanks to the authority her position in Levitan supposedly grants, no Spanish-speaker in town would dare call her that—but Solána shrinks a bit at the idea anyway. Forever the baby to her loved ones, she’s used to feeling small. 36 Sedikov-Burda 37 “Finally,” Harry repeats with a snicker. “Sol wasn’t here during the war,” Lisa reminds him, like she isn’t at the table, either. “It’s like a… whadya call it? An urban myth to these kids.” “Not to me,” Kimmy pipes in. “I was here. I was 9.” “You say that like you 90 now,” Harry laughs louder and starts pouring himself another glass of the mead he makes at home. He carries that bottle around like it’s a damn cell phone, Sol thinks. “And she acts 19,” Lisa adds, shaking her head. “I’m almost 19.” “You should enjoy 14,” Solána says, smiling at Kimberly. “What’s so bad about 19?” “21’s better,” Harry winks at Solána while he pours her some of his concoction. Kimmy rolls her eyes. “If I was 21 like Sol, I’d have wine instead of that witch brew of yours.” “Mead is wine,” Harry hiccups. “Hush, child,” Lisa tsks. “‘Fore I take away your Communion grape juice.” Solána smirks knowingly as both Harry and Kimberly recoil from the threat. The local church offers a free sip of one of the sweetest treats around. Losing a gulp of it would be a shame in this economy. “You guys heard the Network’s pushing to lower the drinking age to 18 in some cities? That president said some crap about the Network and its brother nations all harmonizing or whatnot.” “Not my president,” Lisa scoffs. “Just what this world needs. More drunks. 37 Sedikov-Burda 38 Maybe all the teenagers in the Network’ll go drinking with the AI robots that count their votes and deliver their groceries.” “I bet our General would love my mead.” “I bet McAllen would drink anything,” Solána says under her breath. Lisa and Harry laugh in sync. “Almost got mead out my nose,” Lisa wheezes. “I bet Harry’s mead tastes like pee-pee,” Kimmy giggles about the alcohol Sol tries to drink without spitting. “Sure looks like it.” “Kimmy Magdalene Pierce—” Harry can’t stop laughing. “I bet Mister General-President McAllen would drink—” “Howdy, ladies,” Governor Trinity emerges from around the house holding hands with his boy. Solána loses control of swallowing mead and nearly spits it. It seems everyone pauses to study her before George tips his hat. “Harry.” “Evenin’, sir.” Harry shakes hands with George Junior. “How’d the boy like his rifle oiled up? Nice, ain’t it?” “Junior, tell Harry how well you did today at the range now.” “I hit all the cans.” “Very good, Georgie.” “It’s still loud,” he continues, blinking at Solána. “The headphones didn’t work. The gun is loud.” “I’m sorry, Georgie,” Sol can’t help but reply. “Why was it loud if—” 38 Sedikov-Burda 39 “That’s enough, Junior. Let ‘em eat now.” Solána exchanges sorry looks with Lisa before dropping her head. Swallowing hard, she forces a ridiculous lump of potatoes into her mouth so she doesn’t have to speak. Her cheeks balloon in the effort. “We’re gonna set up the Fall Festival soon,” Kimberly croons to the Trinitys. “Are you staying around to perform this year, Governor?” “Oh, how lovely would that be?” Her mother claps. “I’m sure the campaign trail can wait.” “I bet the campaign’ll benefit from some good ol’ fashioned crooning,” Harry adds with a chuckle. Mr. Trinity puts his hat back on, a satisfied grin melting across his soft features before he speaks. “Well now,” he says, almost comically slow. “I’ll have to see about that. Things’ve been a bit busy lately, haven’t they?” Solána studies the military-governor’s relaxed shoulders as he peers across the sun-kissed horizon at his countryside property. She fails to understand why he would want to run for president in the first place. Harry starts ranting about the field corn and how it’s nearly dry enough to harvest—how the animals in the region might rejoice at the sound of the combine with feed running low. Solána reluctantly looks up at her boss when he doesn’t respond. Mr. Trinity’s smile spreads again. “Georgie,” his drawl sharpens in a directive. “Why don’t you go and see if Mama’s got your bath ready?” 39 Sedikov-Burda 40 George walks away without a single word. He’s only so obedient with his father, and no one knows what spell Governor Trinity casts on him. Solána likes that he’s mostly affectionate with his son. She takes a long swig of her drink, waiting for him to leave. The overwhelming sweetness of the homemade wine can’t overpower her concern about a secret getting out. The phone she never turned on practically sounds out in the night, and she tastes the ringtone in her mouth. “Miss Solána,” Mr. Trinity speaks steadily. “May I borrow you for a moment?” Following him farther from the house, Solána tries to count how long it takes George to speak. The numbers don’t comfort her as they had earlier on the hill. The governor takes his time. Sol tries to occupy herself with the art of the golden hour, the sun touching everything with honey hues. Same color as the drink bubbling in her gut. “I’ve been fully briefed by the sheriff on what happened this afternoon,” he begins. Her spirit flies from her body, and Solána briefly watches above their heads. They walk over to the corral. The horses beside them enjoy grain among shadows stretched out on the ground like fingers. “Fully?” Sol can’t help but repeat the word, hardly concentrated, knowing what it may imply. “I know I don’t need to ask if you’ve kept the incident under wraps,” Mr. Trinity’s steady voice brings Solána back to her senses. She leans against the splintered oak fence posts as he says, “You’ve always been a bright girl.” Solána fights to keep her composure. “Of course, Mr. Trinity.” She turns to pet his stallion as it greets them, seeking carrots. The top of its long muzzle is softer than worn 40 Sedikov-Burda 41 suede. “Harry and Lisa mean well, but it’s best not to scare anyone.” “Agreed.” “And they treat you like one of their own,” he smiles tightly. “Yes, sir.” “I hope you feel the same about my kin. I want to thank you for serving us today with caution and bravery.” His voice stiffens with formality, and his mouth, still upturned, quivers from the effort. “Just doing my job.” She tries smiling back, but fails. “It was a great deed you did today.” Mr. Trinity holds eye contact throughout his speech. When Solána finally looks back, she soon tears her sight from the laugh lines that crinkle his clear blue eyes. It’s rumored he can take the temperature of a room with a mere greeting. The governor was also said to have single-handedly taken out a meeting of Network politicians in neutral Canada only five years ago at the peak of the Second Civil War, supposedly knowing they planned to execute him and his staff. It was why he left Texas for Virginia before his new title. He’s probably still on lists. “My children aren’t only safe,” Governor Trinity says. “They spoke of this mishap with no fear. I appreciate you protecting them so.” “They’re very brave. But thank you.” Mr. Trinity lifts himself to sit on the top of the wooden fence with an exaggerated sigh. He maintains perfect balance. In his mid-fifties, his wavy hair is a muted silver with warm tufts of brown stubbornly clinging to his temples, rugged and uneven in color like 41 Sedikov-Burda 42 the washed bronze of his belt buckle. He’s a decorated war veteran. Back in Texas, when the state was part of the United Network, he was the youngest to command a state National Guard unit. He balances confidence and caution with magnetism and hospitality, drawing influential figures to him with ease throughout his many decades of service. As the military became the American Dominion’s most powerful industry, George led the change as a politician. Seceded states had mutinous National Guard units occupy former UNN military installations within Dominion territories before they were deserted. Eventually, those soldiers called themselves the Dominion Home Guard, and George served as their first chief for a brief time before upgrading to governor. People liked and trusted him. He’s credited with stabilizing the country during its tumultuous birth. Solána lowers her voice and adds, “Has DATA figured out where the drone came from?” “As you know, Sunny,” the governor answers carefully with the nickname he coined, “I must discourage any talk about what’s been banned for our greater good.” Solána only gawks in response. George Trinity is nearing his second term limit as Virginia’s military-governor, and he won’t even say the word technology. President-General McAllen backed George in the elections. He was an asset to Virginia’s high-priority security, given its proximity to the First District. No one bothered challenging him in last year’s election, and his current run for president might as well be unopposed. He’s a part of the District’s inner circle. They refer to him as McAllen’s right-and-left-hand man. “I can see there’s something you seem to be holding on to.” 42 Sedikov-Burda 43 A beat. Solána’s chest aches as she squeezes out, “I don’t know what you mean, sir?” Governor Trinity leans toward her and claps his hands over his knees in a buoyant display of laughter. “What are you afraid of, girl?” Solána slowly crouches in the dirt as Mr. Trinity pulls a baby carrot from his jacket like a magician. From an open window to the kitchen, she hears the kettle whistling. Mrs. Trinity likes a cup of mint tea before bed—hot water, and picked leaves muddled from her garden. She always refuses help in the kitchen. As the governor’s prized wife, and because she is his second and 25 years younger, Bonnie values and flaunts her independence. Sol admires her. She wonders what Bonnie would do in her shoes, contraband in possession, sitting in the dirt underneath one of the most powerful men in the Dominion. But Solána can’t picture women like Bonnie being in such a position. She can’t imagine what kind of woman she wants to be instead, either. “You know, Solána… in the long years I’ve been a military man, I’ve learned one major lesson. Never question a good thing.” She peers up, face expression wrinkled with little understanding. George practically smirks. “Whatever came on our property could’ve hurt someone, but it didn’t. The police could press the matter more, but they won’t. And we survive another day. What matters most is how today’s actions will best serve you.” “I don’t—” 43 Sedikov-Burda 44 “You’ve been a beacon to this community,” Mr. Trinity nods. “After today, wrangling some of the only children for hundreds of miles into safety… Well, don’t think you have to try and prove it anymore.” “I just want to understand what happened the best I can,” Sol manages, shoving the words like sludge through her mind before they rush out of her mouth. “So that DATA can… find who did this. So it won’t happen again.” Solána straightens her back. Mr. Trinity flashes her his notorious porcelain veneers before wiping the lick of his horse off on his jeans. She knows so many folks missing a tooth. Though the governor’s appearance suggests he’s about to do yardwork, he has more in common with the politicians who starred on television before they were in office. Maybe it’s an art of war strategy he mastered. She can’t help but feel at ease in his presence. “You’re always ready to lend a hand, Miss Comprés,” he grins. “Not too bored out here, are ya, Sunny?” Sol’s eyes glisten wet when George says her last name with a perfect accent. He speaks Spanish quite well, having grown up in a Texan border town. He refined his skill with Hispanic squadron mates during active duty, and it later helped him climb the ranks in his Air National Guard years. “No, sir.” Mr. Trinity stretches his long legs out with a slight huff before leaping off. They stand side-by-side in silence for a moment, hearing the laughter of Lisa, Kim, and Harry carry from the side of the house. Those three are a makeshift family. Crickets started their evening songs, but the orchestra is tired and subdued compared to earlier that summer. I 44 Sedikov-Burda 45 guess we’re all some slapped-together family, Solána thinks. The amber light is fading, but the air remains too sticky to call it a day. “I know you’re old enough to find that DATA and their policies can be rather… daunting at times,” Governor Trinity speaks to the ground. Sol nods. Her throat somehow closes further. “But your government, we’re servicemen, same as you. We cater to the safety of our people. That drone you saw just proves how hard we work to only be worrying about some bored older kids building and flying toys these days.” Mr. Trinity cringes. Perhaps he said too much. The Sheriff’s Office is as strict with disclosures as DATA—oftentimes even more so, since they’re all ex-military. If there isn’t a life-or-death need for information, citizens of Levitan remain in the dark. But a prank? Solána reaches into her skirt pockets, and a hand closes around the phone. A flood of countless ideas washes over her. Solánita. A note she was meant to read. The message can only have come from someone who knows her—the old her. Her sister Pilar lives within the United Network’s closed borders. Pili sends a letter, addressed from Washington Heights, New York City, every two months. She describes her tedious office job in customer relations for one of the telecom companies that halted services in the Dominion. She adopts a kitten whenever she can and currently owns at least four. She loves her husband, who aspires to be a chef. Solána realizes she had hoped the drone was somehow Pili trying to contact her. It wasn’t until Mr. Trinity crushed the idea that it plays out like the fantasy it is: a prohibited phone call. Turns out, she’d risk everything just to hear the voice of a family member. Is he lying? Or does he really not know about the phone? Solána burns with the 45 Sedikov-Burda 46 temptation to tell him. Is that his plan here? She watches George stroke his spotted Appaloosa. The robust horse nestles his brown-speckled white head into the governor’s shoulder with uninhibited love. “I hope it really is a prank,” Solána says about the drone, then more clearly, “I appreciate you keeping me in the know.” “You’ll be questioned by DATA tomorrow,” he says. “I told Sheriff Sherman it wasn’t necessary to bother you today.” “I appreciate that.” Solána shuffles her feet, wondering to what extent George stood up for her. The governor’s kindness suggests she is further in his debt than she would like. The almost-interrogation with the police that afternoon caused her to throw up her lunch. And it’s why I still have the cell phone, Solána insists. She swore to turn the device in, but the detective never came. So she changed her mind and kept the device. “It’s necessary to close the investigation,” Mr. Trinity says. “You know how it is in the First District. They’ll want all the information to double-check for contradictions, mistakes, the like.” As the former Chief of the Texas Military Department, George is quick to declare his loyalties. And it’s slowly starting to seem I am somehow in the clear, Solána muses. She shudders in the heat again and wraps her arms around herself. Mr. Trinity stoically glances out at the blackened cast of shrubby-topped honey locust and boxelder trees that shade his home. He no longer wears that infamous smile. “Can I get you anything?” Solána asks. 46 Sedikov-Burda 47 Governor Trinity ignores her. “You must be strong, Sunny. DATA has many objectives, and you can’t show ‘em any fear. We don’t want to lead anyone astray. Understand?” Solána feels she doesn’t understand a single thing anymore. She only has a sudden wish to see her family. Her throat dries from the urge. She recalls her mother’s disconnected mobile phone number. Each numeral occurs to her in a reflexive act of fear. 5-6-1. “Yes, sir,” she replies, steadying her breath and steps. 7-2-6. “Have a good night, Governor.” She gives a two-finger salute out of near-playful habit and rushes toward his house as if trying to escape the fog of recollection and dusty memories. 2-7. 3-8. 47 Sedikov-Burda 48 CHAPTER THREE Wednesday, August 24th, 2039 at 19:30 During Alicia’s night bath, she holds up her tiny thumb so Solána can see the small cut bothering her—a wound from the afternoon’s action. The slit’s the size of a thumbtack pin and ringed pink from irritation. The youngest Trinity child pouts as Sol empties another plastic cup of almost-warm water in a steady stream down the child’s unblemished back. “Bunker,” Alicia explains. Solána initially feared she had nicked herself on the sea glass. Turns out, young George had a bit of a meltdown when they struggled to find a light switch in the Green Bunker’s basement. His shouting somehow led to her splinter. Even though it was circumstantial, hearing of the incident dips Sol’s heart in remorse. Ali got hurt. As if the small cut won’t heal itself, Solána can’t help imagining the worst-case scenarios that caused what she already survived. Someone in town has it out for me, she guesses. The people of Levitan certainly get bored. After one too many on Friday nights, it isn’t unlikely for her to swap stories from her past down at the bar. Someone could’ve overheard her say Solánita. She slipped into Spanish sometimes, especially to nail her mom’s Miami-Cuban accent. Working for the Trinitys, one of the wealthiest families in the state, easily turns others jealous or spiteful, too. Her best friend blames something called the evil eye. But if Daisy ever heard me say Solánita, she’d probably call me that, Sol reasons. Weeks of routine flare up nostalgia far too easily. Testy, long years living in the 48 Sedikov-Burda 49 Dominion are enough to drive pranksters to extremes. Solána has seen it happen to average Joes: one day, the jokes turn violent. Since she’s no longer surprised, her imagination flourishes with malicious plots. She whispers into Alicia’s palms. “I know a secret Spanish magic spell I’m going to share with you.” She kisses her miniature hands before Ali cannonballs the fists in the water and giggles at the splash. Solána longs for it to be true, so much so that the girl’s small, sparkling eyes cut her. She sings, Sana, sana, colita de rana. Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana. Then she lets Alicia play in the tub a little longer than usual. The child swishes around, repeatedly filling the half-empty water cup and singing her original tunes. Sol watches and listens wistfully until she fades from the room. Her sisters are much older—Sol had been a surprise for her parents—and they often cleaned her like this. As she got older, they had to share bathwater. They taught her the contradictory nature of beauty secrets: how to deep-condition the thick hair on her head, then how to use a razor blade to remove it everywhere else. Now she thinks of them even when she and Daisy use tape and hot wax to rip hairs off each other. In no less than three months, Mrs. Trinity will bear the fourth child expected of her. Alicia will soon bathe with a younger sister, and Solána imagines she’ll still be sitting beside the tub. She smiles, half-present now, as Ali babbles to herself. She and George grew up in a sheltered, isolated world that struggled to recover from a global pandemic. The Trinity children have never been on the internet or set eyes on a screen in their home. They might never know the tense fear of live news updates of tragedy, nor the pleasure of switching off mental exertion to indulge in the endless options on 49 Sedikov-Burda 50 flat-screened entertainment. Solána considers Mr. Trinity’s promise to protect his people. He’s repeating it on the campaign trail, and Dominion citizens believe him. Once she grew accustomed to the sacrifices of knowing less, she understood how lucky they were. In many ways, they are freer. Present. Every interaction on their countryside haven is in person, and until that afternoon, Sol never seriously considered foreign enemies or harm despite living on a military base. But will Alicia remember her childhood like this? After drying her off and taping a bit of bandage around her cut, Solána carries the girl to her wardrobe. The child curls into the towel like a newborn animal licked clean as her wet mess disappears down the drain. Solána dresses Ali in a frilly nightgown and doesn’t deliberately leave it half over her head. Sol’s sisters used to leave her trapped in folds of fabric for a laugh. She was never afraid of suffocating. The nausea of homesickness drifts in and out with each tapped memory. What follows is the swift sting Solána feels every night as she leaves Alicia in her mother’s lap. George is already tucked into bed, and Bonnie is reading him “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” from a collection of his favorite Arthurian tales. Solána takes one last sore glance at the three of them before walking to her cabin with a swelling purpose. 50 Sedikov-Burda 51 Wednesday, August 24th, 2039 at 20:27 NEW CHATROOM CREATED > stlr: flor is in the sunshine > disciple: Right now? > stlr: sorry she’s just entered the garden > stlr: give her some mins > disciple: She’s not gonna get in the sun. > stlr: lost your faith already huh > stlr: even after the eagle kept flor from being questioned? proves everything, he’s protective of her > stlr: and luckier for us it wasnt lights out with the pyrite > stlr: told u she strikes well > disciple: She’ll still be too scared. > stlr: she’ll be desperate, we all are > stlr: she kept the light source didnt she > disciple: You seem nervous? > stlr: im fine > stlr: viruses changed their course today > disciple: Expecting company? > disciple: We can postpone our replies. > disciple: Say the word and we’ll reschedule. > disciple: Stlr? 51 Sedikov-Burda 52 > stlr: sorry im here & shes in the sunlight > disciple: Shiiiiittttt ! > disciple: Okay lemme know how Flor grows. > disciple: I’ll be ready to… pour the water? > stlr: lol we fuckin did it > disciple: We wait for her light. 52 Sedikov-Burda 53 CHAPTER FOUR Solána approaches her log cabin in the yard around sunset. The structure sticks out of the dirt as sturdy as an ancient tree, built for her by a future president off his humble garden. Mr. Trinity ordered the place to be furnished like a studio apartment. Plumbing was still being installed when Sol first arrived, so she stayed in one of the two guest rooms in Trinity House. The family had plenty of space for her to reside there permanently, but they valued their privacy and offered her that, too. The space is like the college dormitory she never had. Solána deeply inhales the sagging porch’s pine-resin scent as she skips up its steps. Throughout the humid summer, the wood perfumes the air. She discovers a thin piece of notebook paper wedged in the doorframe as she often does: Missed you—let me know if the apples are mushy enough. Still early in the season, but I wanted pie. Love you lots, Daisy The slice of dessert is sealed by one of Daisy’s signature floral handkerchiefs. Sol grabs it off the windowsill and practically smushes the pie in a hug, rushing inside like she’ll be caught dead in the twilight. She inhales the baked good’s honey-coated crust, which further sweetens the air. The floorboard creaks as she steps in. The room is smaller than a one-car garage. A tidy but bleak stone fireplace makes up the far wall, last lit in late February. Her full-sized bed is the highlight; the plush luxury rightfully takes up most of the single room. Solána exhales in the familiar humid air and walks over to the dresser. She lights a candle as darkness settles in, opens one of 53 Sedikov-Burda 54 the two drawers, then rifles through her few printed pictures until she finds the creased photo. She’s squeezed into a shower with her older sisters, the three of them not yet ever apart. Solána was a toddler, naked, shrieking, innocent, unknowing. Pilar and Vanessa beamed proudly at the camera as they washed her. One held a sponge, the other liquid soap. The wholesome scene paused in time as they posed, their gestures loving for a lifetime. Solána lets herself cry. Then she locks the door and flips on the standing battery-powered fan. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she reaches for the flip phone and holds down its power button. The small black rectangular screen lights up bright, blinding white. Sol loses her breath and shields the light against her dress before glancing around in a mild panic. There aren’t many hiding spots, but she swears she hears another body’s heartbeat. She tries to stop her limbs from trembling as she swipes at her wet cheeks. Sol checks that all the thick curtains are drawn entirely over the windows and even peeks behind the flimsy lace one that separates the bathroom’s tub, sink, and toilet from the rest of the room. She strips to her panties and slips on the satin-like robe that Bonnie Trinity gifted her last Christmas. Before crawling underneath the sheets with inexplicable care, Solána slides the cell phone under her long pillow. She plans to use the heavier comforter she’s already laid out for fall to obscure the phone’s brightness in the fading light. The flaxen wooden walls are practically onyx already and licked to life by the flickering unscented candle. Solána’s hands stiffen as she reaches for the device. The last 54 Sedikov-Burda 55 time she saw such an outdated cell phone was when she was 15, right before her father died. He’d been a chatty business owner. Her older sisters made fun of his prized possession since the phone was already two decades old. Her father claimed its calling capabilities were all he needed to run the landscaping business he was second-most proud to have after his girls. Then he got sick, and the family quickly learned just how much of nothing they really had. Solána cannot call Papi now. She can’t even call his widow, her mami, who’s alive and well, if she wanted to. “Coño,” Sol cusses to herself. She inspects the thin, metallic flip phone and dares to open the device a second time. The glow of a home screen and the laser-cut keypad daze Solána, and she must physically shake off the disbelief. She fumbles with the arrow buttons to familiarize herself with the forbidden fruit. As she navigates a grid of applications, she recognizes most of them and slowly begins to understand why. The vintage technology was modified to include more modern software. These features reflect the smartphones of her youth: an app with a live GPS map (live location not found?) and another for an email client. Either would be found in any of today’s app stores. They are on every personal device in the Network, but the opposite is true in the country where she currently holds the phone. Its cellular data and WiFi network signals are turned off. Her heart rate picks up as she ponders the settings, but she doesn’t dare switch them on. Solána can’t help but smirk as she browses. The smallest moments of relief always brought her joy: a too-warm afternoon’s sudden drizzle, slipping socks off before 55 Sedikov-Burda 56 bed, a sip of cooled water in the sunlight. Why can’t I enjoy this mind-numbing, scrolling habit for a night? If she were to consider the consequences instead, she might hold her breath until she blacks out. So she stares at the list of games she opened in her previous life. Sudoku, Tetris. She cannot begin to even fantasize about play before her smile drops. After mindlessly clicking on an application for note-taking, her chest tightens. There’s an entry. Without opening it, she sees it was created that early morning. The drone was prepared in the last 24 hours. It flew from nearby, Sol thinks. But if the drone was remote-controlled or powered using the internet, she knows that only DATA or authorities on base could fly such a craft. “Fuck,” Solána mutters again. She’s sweating underneath the thick blanket. How could I be so stupid? It must be a test, but of what? She imagines dark-clothed snipers outside her window, or a bomb squad unable to stop the comfortable bubble she’s been living in from popping. Her mind files through each threat before she thinks, Screw it, and opens the untitled note. Connect to this WiFi network, it reads, followed by credentials for the settings. The password to the network named Superior is easy to remember: flow Solána hesitates when she sees the names of the public, encrypted networks available. They are all for DATA officials. What do I have to lose? Everything she has is already at risk and on the line. So she types to connect, then shoves the open phone back underneath her pillow, wheezing in the soggy air of her room. She can’t steady her breath. The pillow vibrates and she gasps. 56 Sedikov-Burda 57 It’s been too long since she heard or felt that buzz. Haptic feedback is still a lullaby for most on Earth, but her skin alights with sharpened apprehension. What the hell was I thinking? When the phone vibrates a second time, she pictures someone tracking it. Whoever wanted to test me’s already doing it, she figures. And I’m failing. Solána keeps as still as roadkill, staring up at the pine planks that make up the ceiling. The missing slackened energy that typically rolls over her at the end of a workday confirms she won’t get any sleep. She wishes she were back on the hill with the children. She wouldn’t shoot anything. She would run and hide in the bunker with the kids, and George wouldn’t have a meltdown, and Alicia wouldn’t slice her finger, and she would be Cecilia’s role model. She could have been the best servicewoman, no, guardswoman that Governor Trinity has ever seen. But she didn’t do any of that. She sits up and holds her stomach as it twists with dread. She throws off the quilt and perspires with uncertainty. The physical discomfort is another aching confirmation of all she’s lost, and the heavy knowledge that she has to lift the boulder up the tall mountain again. Solána blows out her candle and creeps back underneath the comforter, almost naked and fully exposed. She grabs the phone. There’s a text message she received over the WiFi minutes ago, sent from an email address. UNKNOWN (disciple@stlr.org) 20:45 What did the note you found on the drone say? Wednesday, August 24th, 2039 at 20:47 PM 57 Sedikov-Burda 58 > stlr: she’s not responding > stlr: why does she need to repeat what the note says again? > disciple: We have to make sure it’s really her. > disciple: She’ll respond to the demand, be patient. > stlr: women dont like demands > stlr: definitely not this one > disciple: The longer she takes, the better our approach. > disciple: We can’t be sure what’s happening in that room. > disciple: She could’ve left to get someone. > disciple: DATA cam on the back property? > stlr: i got the live feed open she hasnt left > disciple: What if you missed her, and she’s running in the dark… > stlr: i know u love to be right but youre wrong > disciple: Fine, send this for me: UNKNOWN (disciple@stlr.org) 20:50 We mean no harm. We made sure that only we know you have the phone. No one else sees you online. We want your help. The texts couldn’t have come from the only person she knows in the Network. Sure, Pilar would call her Solánita, what the note read—but no one Sol has ever typed to or received a message from writes so formally. She goes immobile and damp with indecision. Minutes pass with more internal ominous pangs before she can glance at the third message. UNKNOWN (disciple@stlr.org) 20:53 58 Sedikov-Burda 59 We want your help. The texts arriving via email leave her feeling scammed. Solána surprises herself when she begins typing, taking too long to press the phone’s keys multiple times to get the correct letters, deleting and re-deleting again and again when she doesn’t. -​ we? & how u kno i am S -​ Because I can see where you are. -​ how DATA ? this illegal -​ You don’t have to be afraid of DATA when talking to us. -​ drone from UNN? -​ Don’t worry about the Network. We’re Americans. The word means nothing to her. Americans, as far as she’s concerned, live all over the continent. There are the rebellious Americans and the abandoned ones in the Dominion; certainly, Americans are in the United Network of Nations, which still calls itself united despite its losses. The other half of Americans refer to themselves as full-blooded Americans: the Alaskans, the Californians in the new Californian Republic, the Californians still in the Network. Americans remain stationed in territories like Guam and in states like Hawaii. Americans are the Americans in adjacent territories and countries who speak languages other than English and are ignored by the Americans who don’t understand them. Solána further tenses, her neck on the pillow as stiff as if she were in a casket. Her heart beat sputters staccato as she grows faint. She fights off vomit from rising and nearly passes out. When she heaves air through her body to pass the feeling, she fights with the keypad to respond with capital letters: 59 Sedikov-Burda 60 -​ me 2 but WHERE r u -​ who is WE When the contact lulls in replying, Solána has to break from the blanket and squeeze her eyes shut. She hyperventilates prayers, calls to angels for sleep—ángel de mi guarda, dulce compañía—a way for her to wake and find her mistakes were stress dreams. She wishes for another head, one straight on with a clean conscience and better instincts. The phone vibrates. Sol unlocks her jaw and reads. My partner and I work with AmeriOps. We want your help preventing a catastrophe from happening in the American Dominion. AmeriOps? Sol’s knowledge of the political movement is limited. She knows that less than half of the Network territories supported the president’s United Network party since well before the Second Civil War. Federal authority enforced law over the land anyway—emphasis on force. Dissatisfaction festered in these states, nearly all of them in the west, and AmeriOps was born. Inflammatory theories flared for how AmeriOps operates, what the group stands for, and why it’s easy for them to turn average citizens into urban guerrillas. No one has claimed responsibility for AmeriOps since its founding leaders were supposedly assassinated almost five years ago during the war. During that time, the Network officially designated AmeriOps a domestic terrorist group, blaming them for the disorder. Protest demonstrations prolonged suffering with bloodied police-state responses. The second and third waves of influenza were still taking bodies. Rumors of mass graves first came out of Kansas City, then snow-piled Minneapolis, and flooding New Orleans. The Dominion turned its back on AmeriOps despite their aid during the civil war. 60 Sedikov-Burda 61 Little proof existed to legally tie most violence to AmeriOps, but the scapegoat tactic worked in favor of both warring countries after the ceasefire. Since then, AmeriOps is considered a terrorist group here, too, Sol remembers. Approval ratings were the priority of Dominion and Network leaders. Whatever AmeriOps is up to now is illegal throughout most of America. Solána returns to thoughts of her family. She refuses to entertain worst-case scenarios until her mother’s frown lines appear on the back of her eyelids. Then the possible punishments for her treachery begin to cycle through Sol’s mind. I can’t rack up charges, imprisoned to never hear from Mami, Pili, or Nessa again… Solána finishes laying out the past like tinder in her mind until her brain fries. What if it’s already too late? She takes her time sending two messages, less sure of her future: -​ if true -​ y i help u After 17 months of the Second Civil War, the word catastrophe no longer scares Sol. She ruminates on where the recipients of her messages could be. Missouri, a state always fighting its Network administration, might still house AmeriOps headquarters. The state conveniently separates the Network’s Iowa and Arkansas within the Dominion. During the war, members vehemently denied that their ‘American Operatives’ were destroying cities in both countries. Fatalities rose alongside the group’s popularity. Since then, as far as Sol knew, there’d been radio silence. The AmeriOps contact responds. The same reason you worked at that schoolhouse in Cuba. The same reason 61 Sedikov-Burda 62 you took an 18-month gig in the Dominion and stayed for 4 years. The kids. Solána’s hands tremble as words continue to appear on the screen. You’re the employee closest to Governor George Trinity and his family. By all accounts, they are affectionate and trustworthy of you. We believe you can assist us in warning him of an attack on the First District. He would listen to you. Her tears come back with baggage. Solána isn’t sure she believes what the stranger is saying. She cries more, crushed by the weight of wishing the words to be true, but having no faith. Yet if there’s a threat to Levitan, shouldn’t I report it? She’s lived years with what catastrophe brought her to, and it’s not a life she’s ready to distrust and abandon. And sure, Mr. Trinity might listen, she agrees, but a question remains, and Sol tries to type it quickly. -​ y would he care Maybe this is what Governor Trinity means when he says we’re all servicemen now, Solána thinks. She glues her attention to the screen as she once did underneath blankets, talking to a childhood crush. She awaits words with bated breath. Nothing could prepare her for what they would disclose next. Your relationship with the Trinity children will convince and mobilize the governor. The Network wishes to take back the capital, and Dominion youth could be collateral damage. The president-general’s office does not take our intel seriously. Governor Trinity can help us be heard. While eagerness drove her sentences to form in a flurry, she now freezes, rereading until she understands what they are saying. The Network plans to invade. The 62 Sedikov-Burda 63 war will continue. Sol can’t believe it. When she tells them so, they address her doubts once more. -​ how can i trust u -​ We understand your suspicions. With your blessing, our contact in Levitan will brief you further on the mission. Solána scoffs at the word: Blessing. Maybe the rumors of religious zealots running AmeriOps are true. Paving a better future is grueling work for anyone. Add babies born dead or unhealthy, a mass of sick and miscarrying mothers, and desperation can ignite strange action. Faith always reassures. Solána continues to dream of becoming a mother one day. It’s a fantasy she’s held since she was little; her sisters would brush her hair at night, and she’d brush the strings on the head of the dolls she reared as a child. She doesn’t like to ruminate on the grim realities around her. The lack of medicine, vitamins and vaccinations, the crumbling resources. She grapples with her hope and whether it’s enough. Whether anybody can convince her so. Then Solána dwells on our contact in Levitan. DATA dutifully guts the town of guilty persons. The technology sweeps also root out any covert missionaries, like those that attempt to deliver medications labeled contraband if the Dominion Home Guard does not distribute them. Everyone knows when an arrest is made in Levitan and whether the person in custody aligns with groups like AmeriOps. For the most part, everyone believes these systems exist as a safety precaution. Whether it’s in town, with its dirt roads and postcard downtown square, or Fort 63 Sedikov-Burda 64 Levitan’s mass army depots, dormitories, and hangars, everyone is watched under strict security with the military-governor in residence. Police raids were common during the war, but died down in the four years since. A Levitanian habit is keeping your head down. Most folks serve the Dominion, so slaps on the wrists are common from the Sheriff’s Office to avoid a show and get back to work. It’s been a while since DATA pinched anyone, so Solána assumes Levitan’s clean. Her fingers fly as they press into the buttons with warming fervor. The responses fire back at unbelievable speed. -​ i dnt think any1 here helps u -​ And why is that? -​ we r not dumb hicks we care n kno every1 -​ I understand where you’re coming from, Miss Comprés. But don’t put so much faith in your comfort. Especially not with DATA. Seeing her last name, Solána shuts the phone. She can no longer control herself. Tearing herself from the cocoon she’s made, her body coils primitively as she begins weeping into the quilted fabric. It’s been a while since she properly sobbed. After all, she can’t say she’s unhappy. She’s lucky. She eats three meals a day, bathes regularly, and even gets paid in American dollars. Little things go a long way in the Dominion. Her eyes sting after she gathers the guts to peer at the phone again. She wets them with each blink as she tries not to suffocate under the comforter, taking hot, shallow breaths. The mysterious Americans texted Solána during her breakdown, which the timestamps indicate lasted five minutes. 64 Sedikov-Burda 65 What do you say, Solána? Are you willing to listen to us? She can only bring herself to send five letters: why me The contact responds to her emotional ask with a list of cold facts: ◦ You’re the governor’s only employee cleared to live on base. ◦ Your position is unique, as they’re one of the most powerful families left in the Dominion. Gov. Trinity will likely be the next Dominion president. Mrs. Trinity regularly travels to the Network for philanthropic missions. ◦ The family is protected, making it easier for us to ensure your safety. ◦ Our local contact is certain you’re perfect for the job. The matter-of-fact statements don’t help dissipate the lump in Solána’s throat, threatening to choke her. She starts crying again. Not knowing who aids AmeriOps in the town she felt safe in until today swells her sorrow once more, the fatigue of heartbreak as persistent as a mosquito bite. Another message. Trinity might be our last hope. Isn’t that why you returned to your homeland, why you’ve stayed all this time? Don’t you have any hope left of repairing America? Seeing your family reunited in the United States, where they belong? When the Twenties Recession ended, so did the country Solána was born into. She never considered the possibility of seeing the U.S.A. restored. The country was rebuilt from the ground up to form the United Network in the 2030s, and she never looked back. She remembers the 50 stars on reliable blue; then she was eleven and asked questions no adult had answers to. The memories aren’t what fuel her to reply more hastily than ever. A rush of feeling reminds her why she pocketed the phone in the first 65 Sedikov-Burda 66 place. The note. Her longing throbs, her breath hitches. Solánita. -​ how did u get my fam nickname -​ If you join our efforts, there’s more information. -​ can u help me call my mom -​ 2 talk 2 her -​ plz The waterworks will not stop flowing. Their answer takes longer than any message before, and for some minutes, Solána expects DATA to burst through her cabin door. She hears a drone, no, the pounding of officers’ fists splitting the cracked pine. She wants to scream out until the reply silences everything. No. It’s too dangerous. A brief moment when three dots appear on the screen to tell her that the stranger is still typing. And then, simply put: im sorry She throws the phone at the wall. It shuts by itself, and Solána is left in the darkness she’s learned to love. She used to be a crybaby like this; even the slightest sign of kindness brought her to tears. The American Dominion hardened her. She always thought it was for the best. The locals started saying Weakness’ll carry ya to the grave during the pandemic. Sol never understood how one could be lifted by anything so vulnerable until that conversation. A floodgate opened, and she is drowning. She doesn’t know how to keep from floating away with the tide—how to remain fixed in bed, sadness trickling through 66 Sedikov-Burda 67 her, instead of sinking from the water-weight. How to stop longing for what doesn’t exist anymore? She doesn’t care about the device’s light seeping through the curtains anymore. The phone’s screen is scratch-free when she picks it up off the hardwood floor. Like a damn brick, she thinks, hearing sardonic Pili’s teasing voice. A damning smile crawls onto Solána’s face in a crazed crash of sentimentality that nearly convinces her she is having another out-of-body experience. She looks at herself standing half-naked in the candlelight, holding a phone in her custom-made cabin in the American Dominion. She laughs at herself. While Sol barely grips the edges of reality, the person on the other end of the connection becomes desperate, sending three separate messages. -​ We’ll reach out to the governor with or without you. -​ Your participation would ease the process and leave other lives undisturbed. -​ You’d be doing a service to your community. Solána thinks of the so-called partners behind the crafted reasons advancing their cause without answering the question that stabs her most. Why did they disturb my life? She isn’t stupid, or at least she doesn’t want to be dumber than she’s been since their drone fell from the sky—but their empathy entraps her. The sorry. With a single word, Sol fears that the AmeriOps mission could resurrect her faith. She thinks of one way they can prove themselves and fast. -​ i dont want this cell 67 Sedikov-Burda 68 The response arrives late, when Solána has already resigned to the idea: If a threat is coming, I’ll do what I can. She slumps over on her side. For now, she is tired, and she wants to toss the phone into the drawer of glossy family photos, a place for her past, for whenever she allows herself to shatter again. Her family is far away. Levitan is the shelter she has in the storm. She must stay whole even if the weather threatens to blow her away in bits. We wouldn’t have contacted you if this weren’t secure. You’re not in any harm, and we will do what we can so that remains the case going forward. The small screen beams on her face in the stuffy room like a full moon after the summer day’s heat. She closes her eyes, heedless of time passed, until the phone vibrates again. The meticulous composition of the messages changed. Sol studies the words as if they’re homework from Cecilia or George. The texts arrive hurriedly and scare her as much as their earlier warnings of war: -​ battery’s on the back of the phone -​ press down the latch to slide off the metal cover -​ separate them, u can reuse the battery -​ loose floorboard outside the front door to hide them both -​ give urself a few days -​ if u dont change ur mind, the battery will disappear too The spray of messages stops, and, after some grueling minutes, the horror: -​ We will be in touch? Solána does what she’s told, but refuses to reply. She taps the rectangular battery 68 Sedikov-Burda 69 into her sweaty palm before stepping with care to the door of her cozy cottage. She only plants her feet once toward the dark of the Trinity property until she hears a squeak. The cry of the plank never stopped her before. She plants the objects and, sleepless on her mattress, stares at the entrance until it’s framed with piercing sunlight. Sometime between phantom vibrations underneath her pillow and waiting for an enemy, she falls asleep. The sun is working on rising higher when Solána bolts out of bed and bursts onto her porch. After a quick glance around for bodies, she drops hard to her knees and gasps as blood rushes to leave bruises. She goes breathless at the sight. Underneath the plank, the flip phone is gone. The battery was slipped inside a burgundy velvet drawstring bag she’s never seen before, embroidered in gold with the word, Jewelry. Her hands release it with disdain before she reaches for an impossibly thin, translucent strip of paper, inked with two computer-printed sentences: Thanks, Solána. Run this message under your sink until it disintegrates. 69 Sedikov-Burda 70 CHAPTER FIVE Trinity House sits on raised land that rolls endlessly from its back porch. One would have no idea the pleasant view is on a base until roaming military utility terrain vehicles and barracks come into view half an acre below. Closer, the American Dominion flag flies atop a pole. The young government adopted a dark blue color similar to the former United States’ naval jack. Centered on the flag are 13 white stars arranged in a circle; in the middle of them stands the emblem of a modern minuteman, posed defiantly with his M4 rifle. During the early morning hour, Solána’s thoughts ring louder than they’ve been since she moved to rural Virginia. She sits on the swinging bench and listens to mourning doves converse in coos, and the few pasture-kept horses exchange hungry huffs of acknowledgment. Sol hears the soft clucking of chickens in the distance and soon, the heel-heavy shuffle of Lisa’s feet in the kitchen as she arrives for the day. The clatter of bowls and trays fills the air. The slams of fridge and oven doors as she places dough rolls to bake follow. Solána waits to smell the buttery proof. She spots a few groundskeepers before Harry, like a long-bearded man who moves along the fencing line beside the grazing horses. He’s a John or a Jake who’s never had the chance to introduce himself formally. He now waves at Solána with open-mouthed surprise. They’ve never seen one another since she usually isn’t awake so early. She watches him for a while, spine stiff with the paranoia of not knowing who’s been lurking in and around her cabin. Worse, she thinks. What if I do know them? Lisa joins Solána on the patio swing with two mugs of black coffee. Sipping the 70 Sedikov-Burda 71 bitter roast, Sol misses her café con leche but doesn’t dare voice the ache aloud. “Enjoying your peace and quiet ‘fore them agents come?” Lisa smiles kindly, but her lips purse together knowingly. Solána senses her curiosity about yesterday. Unsure what’s happening herself and hearing the governor’s warning knocking against the walls of her head, she shrugs. “I just want to get it over with.” She sips her robust coffee before raising the cup in appreciation. “Thank you.” “Just get your story straight, and you’ll be fine, honey.” She begins peeling a mandarin. “‘Sides, they’re out of their minds if they think they can come up here and harass the TriniNanny.” They share soft chuckles. Lisa has mastered how to cheer others up—using Solána’s town nickname that she isn’t crazy about is one of them. “I heard Daisy’s hubby’s working the case,” Lisa adds with a juicy citrus slice in her mouth. “You’ll be fine. Else Daisy’ll finally kill ‘im.” “Sam?” Solána nearly shouts the name in relief. That nerd? If Samuel is filing the report, she’s sure what she thought would be an interrogation is yet another bureaucratic check off the to-do list he’s always whining about. Sam is one of the few DATA agents overseeing Levitan’s security. He prefers remaining in his assigned cave, lording over comings and goings on what’s likely the best and only computer setup for hundreds of miles. “Lisa, it’s barely seven in the morning!” Solána can’t help but laugh, failing to rein herself in and drop her volume. “How’d you possibly hear this already?” She asks, but already knows: hired hands in Levitan maintain a word-of-mouth network that runs as 71 Sedikov-Burda 72 efficiently as communicating by email or text. Being employed by a family on base hasn’t slowed Lisa's gossiping one bit. Before Solána can get a response, Governor Trinity appears by his chicken house to talk to a farmhand she’s never seen before. Sol’s back straightens again like she’s been tossed against a wall. Here I am, she bemoans. Afraid of the nicest boss I’ve ever had. After the recession, Solána cleaned houses with her mother for wealthy families living in her hometown part-time. They removed layers of dust from forgotten belongings more than once before polo season. When she hears the governor laugh, Sol breaks into a needling sweat the way she had as a teen when lectured about streaks on windows. It’s as if a cell phone is ringing in her clammy hands. “I’ll go see if Bonnie wants anything before she wakes the kids,” Lisa says, slowing her departure after noticing Solána leap at her voice. “You good? You want anything else?” She pauses to look down at the peeled, halved mandarin sitting untouched in the folds of Solána’s sundress. Only after noticing her concerned expression does Sol see it too, and presses her palm around the fruit. “No, thanks,” she says as nonchalantly as she can. “I have a nervous stomach.” “Well, you ain’t got nothing to hide, do ya?” Lisa almost giggles. “Mornin’, ladies,” Mr. Trinity interrupts, stepping onto the porch. “Morning, Governor,” they reply in unison. “Miss Lisa, why don’t you treat our newest employee to some of your fruit salad?” George audibly pats the back of the young man he was speaking to out in the field. “Lisa’s our lovely chef. She’s gathered quite the reputation around here for the 72 Sedikov-Burda 73 miracles she makes for us.” “Least that’s what they say,” Lisa half smiles, half smirks. Solána was so distracted before, fading into an apparition, that she didn’t pay much attention to the guy until now. His blonde hair is closely buzzed short like most guardsmen and highlights the pinched-pink tips of his rather small but cute ears. His sunburnt cheeks redden further from touch and attention when their boss adds, “Solána, this is Rich. He’ll be working as one of our handymen now. Got bored with his post.” Rich appears around her age or a bit older, with similarly full cheeks. Solána smiles reservedly at him in a way that makes him return the expression to his feet, having studied her long enough. Lisa animately glances between the two of them, bugging her eyes and obviously enjoying the exchange a little too much. “Nice to meet you, Rich,” Lisa nearly sings. “Lord, do I love that name. Rich. Richie, if you don’t mind. Love the name Richie.” “Aren’t I lucky some bastard let me have a farm?” The governor poses heroically, hands on his hips as he peers around. His face moons with pride until Lisa snorts in response. “If only they’d let you stay out here longer, Governor.” Being subjected to life on an army base doesn’t stop George Trinity from getting what he wants, and the advantage helps him build a compound to retreat into. His financial means allow him to pursue several hobbies for the few days he happens to be in town. Fishing, chopping wood, rabbit hunting. Sometimes it seems he’ll do anything that isn’t the administrative duties required of him. Everyone on the compound relishes each 73 Sedikov-Burda 74 break he takes before hitting the road again. The governor is no exception, so sometimes it seems someone is forcing him into the position of Dominion’s most powerful leader. “Nice to meet you, Miss Lisa,” Rich speaks out determinedly in a stunningly deep, mature voice. “Solana.” When he butchers pronouncing her name (So-lan-uh, a variation she’s used to in Levitan), Rich is punished by blushing a deeper color of pink that almost makes Sol wince with pity. He’s adorable. “Oh, Richie,” Mr. Trinity grins at the women like he’s withholding a group secret from the newcomer. “Everyone calls our sweet nanny Sunny.” It isn’t exactly true. The governor coined the nickname for his son’s sake. Solána met George Junior when he was Alicia’s age; he struggled to learn her name. His attempt, “So-so,” was much funnier and stuck with others more. Sunny is mainly uttered when Governor Trinity is around, as if to stroke his ego. “Nice meeting you,” Solána nods. Her voice reflects his, a bit husky as she remains half-awake. “Come on now, Richie,” Kimmy waves, rescuing the young man from having to speak again. “When’s the last time those guardsmen gave you grapes or strawberries? Here in Trinity House, we’ve got the luxury of choice…” Their voices fade into the home, and Solána is left alone with her military-governor. The morning air is muggy and suddenly thicker. Mr. Trinity studies Solána carefully, but unlike with Rich’s gaze, she doesn’t want to lock eyes. She wants to shrink down, dissipate, and disappear like water down a drain—like the secret note she got rid of an hour ago. 74 Sedikov-Burda 75 “Looks like your eyes are gonna fall out of your head, Sunny.” “Sir?” Sol wants to melt away. “Forgive me,” he chuckles, fingering a paisley-printed bandana tucked in the pocket of his long-sleeved shirt. “I lose my formality out here in the country.” The governor wears clean blue jeans to match his top, like a denim tuxedo paired with his favorite polished leather ankle boots. The governor clearly isn’t going to the First District anytime soon, which explains his relaxed mood. The silence between them stretches out like the sloping land behind him. Solána nods politely and decides to finish her coffee before it cools. She doesn’t cease gulping until a little bravery hydrates her. As she wipes her chin from the dribble that escaped during her chugging, Mr. Trinity notices, amused. “The DATA agents should be here around ten or so. I figured you’d want them to come early and not interrupt the children’s afternoon.” Solána nods again. He can’t know she didn’t sleep more than an hour and was more than ready for their company. Her clandestine movements in the night frayed her nerves; the rest of her is numb on the swing bench, which seems to move on its own beneath her. “Bonnie’s got the older ones sewing with her before lunch, so don’t worry about a thing,” he smiles wider. “She needs a break from making calls for that fair, anyhow.” Sol obediently moves her head up and down robotically. She watches the governor tilt his head, as if with a worry similar to the one Lisa shared. She blinks back to life after noticing her own oddly repetitive behavior. “Thank you for telling me,” Solána croaks. 75 Sedikov-Burda 76 George nods like her mirror before adjusting his fluffs of dark gray hair and putting his gaudy Texan cowboy hat back on. When she forces a smile up at him, her face feels like it has a screw loose, lost through her pins and needles. Solána busies herself with swinging her limbs. Sharp bull horns on the buckle of her boss’s hat continue gleaming back at her in the rising sunlight. “I’m off for a meeting with the sheriff,” he shares. “Sherman suspects that drone you saw’s similar to recent incidents in the Network.” “Incidents?” Solána’s stomach somersaults with dread. “No worries. If it’s got anything to do with that drone business out west, it’ll be a case for the Capital to deal with.” He’s practically mumbling to himself. “Should be out of our hands soon enough.” Solána remains taut. Why is he telling me all this, she frets loudly. Then again, Mr. Trinity has always been a talker. It’s part of his charm. Talking someone into submission was probably how he flourished from the military and into politics. Sol draws her knees into her chest and attempts a steady breath. Her voice comes out small: “Will I have to go to the First Capital and be questioned?” Solána didn’t wish to see how former D.C. had been rebuilt, for better or for worse. The somewhat flattened, smoky skyline she saw on television years ago still haunts her. She recalls where she was—rural Cuba, in a bar—and why. She’d witnessed her dad’s lungs fail from influenza; her family left the Network after the South was slowly left without its resources. She embraced resignation once more when she saw the District of Columbia aflame. She had visited once on a fifth-grade field trip and 76 Sedikov-Burda 77 remembered the swelling admiration she had for a city that could keep order of something bigger than itself. Her head swells from emotion as she considers returning to the scene of so many crimes. The moving seat she sits in nearly triggers motion sickness. “Now, don’t you worry,” Mr. Trinity says, hawkish as she steps off the swing with shaking legs. She avoids his attention, bowing her head. “You just be thorough with the boys today.” “I will,” Sol nods to the floor. She wants to assure him that his don’t worries are working. The governor surprises her with two thumbs-up before he starts walking off. “Tell that Samuel I said Hi, you hear?” He tips his hat with the call. “I’m still waiting for that boy to plant some seed in this town.” It’s Solána’s turn to scrutinize Mr. Trinity as he scrambles to leave. Perhaps the fear pulsing in her neck’s artery crept out of her throat. George seems unsure where to go next, but heads off for anywhere away from her. He isn’t any good with other people’s feelings. Whenever one of his children has a tantrum, he has the privilege of handing them over to the nearest woman. Sol figures the horrors of war he saw and likely spawned taught him to zone out. His earned medals are framed in Trinity House, across from a wall lined with dusted brown liquor bottles in his office. They each have a story she hopes she’ll never hear. Whatever the reason for his haste, Solána’s eyes go to the unbearably perfect, clear sky as she tries to breathe her way out of a panic. The vividly blue morning teases her with opposition as she regrets waking. Sol forgot about the pulpy mandarin now crushed in her pocket. The fruit flies from her sticky hand and into the fenced pasture as 77 Sedikov-Burda 78 she rushes to her cabin. There, she throws up her liquid breakfast. She isn’t composed like a Dominion Home Guardswoman until her gut unclenches and she can gasp in strength. She flushes her face with frigid water and brutishly brushes her teeth with the same disdain she once had for a dirty toilet bowl that wasn’t hers. I have time, she realizes, knowing how to best unwind. Solána heads to the access gate nearest to the Kolman family property off base to find her best friend, Daisy. 78 Sedikov-Burda 79 Four Years Earlier August 2035 “Cookie,” George cried out, tugging on her hand. “There’s cookies!” That Friday morning marked Solána’s first fall festival and the first time she left Fort Levitan to accompany the children into town. Their shopping list was short. Sweet potatoes from South Carolina. Peaches, and, ironically, Virginia pipe tobacco from North Carolina, which Governor Trinity special-ordered. Another custom pickup purchase for Mrs. Trinity was a baby basket of imported goods. Alicia was a newborn, and George was three. He threw a fit when they left the house because he was forced to stop playing with his toy soldiers. His mother begged for a break from his noise, unable to comprehend his stormy challenge. Even Cecilia understood how important it was to appease her brother with his dessert demands. She and Sol exchanged wide-eyed looks of understanding as the perfect distraction presented itself to subdue his mood. “What kind of cookie?” Solána asked. “A cookie,” George shrugged, confident his answer was self-explanatory. “Daisy’s cookies,” Cecilia offered, shooting her steady, clear blue eyes up at Sol. Her poise always made her seem wiser than her six years. “Daisy,” George clapped in agreement. The girls grinned victoriously along with him. They let Georgie drag them toward a stall with a purple flag. Each vendor had a booth waving one, though sometimes it was a torn piece of cloth. Each flag’s color implied a message about what they offered. The kids were too shy 79 Sedikov-Burda 80 to explain their meaning to Solána when she inquired. In their silence, she began taking mental notes of Spanish words related to greetings and money to teach them. I guess I have to start with colors, she thought. No, I have to get permission first, then begin with their English. It was too early in their acquaintance for Sol to know how much work she had cut out for her. “Hi there, babies,” Daisy greeted them as she turned away from her last sale to face the incoming rush of customers. Solána was stunned by her brilliant smile and the thin, black, curled braids that stylishly dripped past her earlobes. She looked to be a handful of years older than Sol, but wore age like another needless accessory to her natural beauty. She quirked a thin eyebrow toward the leopard-printed scarf she tied into a headband. “You kids finally got a new nanny?” Daisy stared back, waiting for Solána to introduce herself. One of her dark eyes did not follow the other. Cecilia broke the awkward pause. “Yes. This is So-so.” “Nice to meet you.” Solána’s eyes nervously jumped around Daisy’s booth before she shared her real name and extended her hand. “So-so, ‘huh?” Daisy snickered like she hadn’t heard her. She put a batch of her homemade cookies in Sol’s open hand. “Hope you don’t find my cookies so-so. That’s pretty much my thing around here.” She explained how she always saved a stack of blackberry oatmeal cookies for the Trinity children. They watched Daisy’s mouth form each word, so quiet they were angelical. Sol eventually learned that when they took home her baked goods, Bonnie 80 Sedikov-Burda 81 ordered another batch to satisfy her children’s sugar cravings and ravenous fits. They watched as Daisy paused to hand out pre-wrapped challah rolls to a passing elderly woman. They were bun-shaped versions of the braided bread and had already sold out. There were two Jewish families in town; Daisy worked for one of them, and she married into the other. She started baking challah loaves in bulk after learning how simple and affordable the dough was to make. Her boss joked that the taste of her bread warm out of the oven was reason enough to become more religious. Most of the town stopped for a loaf as if they were going to observe the Sabbath, too. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to bake,” Solána confessed, attempting to recover from her first impression. The children were chewing cookies in a satisfied silence, sitting with their legs crisscrossed in a shadow. “My sisters can cook and bake. But I was never any good. They weren’t the best teachers.” “Never?” Daisy repeated the word like she didn’t believe it. “I bet I can teach you something. That’s all you gotta know, really. Master a recipe, impress your future husband.” Daisy was teasing a bit. Sol had only been in Levitan for a month or two, but everyone already heard about each armed soldier who asked her out to no avail. They were getting creative with date ideas in the nothing-town: birdwatching, guitar lessons, a bonfire-roasted dinner. Skipping rocks. With every visit to the base’s commissary with the children and the errands that brought her to town, Sol turned men down left and right. Women started calling her prissy. Daisy imagined more exciting explanations: maybe she preferred women, or there was some archaic Trinity rule against fraternization. She pored over the new girl in her 81 Sedikov-Burda 82 Trinity-funded sundress and noted the appeal that had men acting as if she were for sale. Solána was too sweet for her own good. “One great meal will fool your house guests, too, and you’re golden,” Daisy droned on half-heartedly. She waved off a gawking Dominion Home Guardsman; he was feigning interest in baked goods to approach them and was shooed away like a fly. Daisy flashed her an inviting smile before following Solána’s line of sight to the gold on her ring finger. Even in the shade, the band glittered against Daisy’s dark brown skin. Maybe she’s a romantic, like my Sammy, she thought. “I’m a newlywed,” Daisy explained, heat overcoming her at the thought of Sam's loving whims. She grinned, knowing she’d probably be knocked up and raising kids born a breath apart if she could ovulate. Reminded of last week’s argument with Samuel about applying for fertility medication, she frowned. “Congratulations,” Solána smiled back shyly with sparkling eyes. “We should hang out,” Daisy exclaimed. “I need a good excuse to get outta the bedroom in my free time.” Solána choked on a laugh and blushed. The sound made Daisy lose control of her laughter, and together they erupted in girlish giggles. Cecilia and George gazed up at them from the dirt, their mouths stained a comic purple from the blackberries. Solána reached out to smooth out the boy’s tousled locks maternally, and Daisy found her heart fluttering at the moment she shared with them. Daisy knew there’d be more memories to make with Sol, thanks to the Trinitys. “I’d like that,” Solána said, voice shrill with thoughts of the future. She wrapped her arms around herself as her voice dropped in pitch, trying to contain the excitement 82 Sedikov-Burda 83 physically. “If you teach me a thing or two in the kitchen, I can teach you something, too. Like Spanish, or… do you know how to ride?” Discounted riding lessons had been an employee perk for Solána. One of the equestrian champions caught her, aged twelve, helping her mother clean the porcelain toilets in their mansion. Most helpful when Mami’s arthritis flared. Maybe out of pity, but probably boredom, they encouraged her to meet one of their proud creatures from time to time. Sol enjoyed completing slow circles around the ring with the aging school horse. Her family paid what they could for those afternoons when she could let something else do the work for her just once. In time, Daisy would give up trying to inspire Sol to memorize and perfect a simple egg dish. Solána’s sisters weren’t to blame for her bad luck in the kitchen after all. Instead, the Trinity kids started picking berries for Daisy during their improvisational outdoor lessons with Sol. The influx of foraged fruit inspired what Daisy dubbed Amethyst Challah: a twisted loaf speckled black-purple and glistening with a honey glaze. Daisy refused to sit on a horse again after the first time. Her struggle to control Carmen somehow left her as stubborn as the retired, rejected racehorse Solána was still learning to bond with. The Trinity staff thought it laughable that the girl was given the disinterested mare with a joint disease. The offered gift gave Sol déjà vu for a reason she couldn’t place. On the other hand, Daisy was fascinated with how her new friend coaxed the horse into friendly submission with a spell of fused gravity and gentle touch during patient rides that seemed to oil the creature’s brittle, rigid bones. 83 Sedikov-Burda 84 “Take your time, take your time,” Daisy practiced what she told Carmen, but soon tired of slow progress. “I don’t get why we bother riding her if she clearly doesn’t want to move.” She mumbled from atop the horse, whose hooves planted in place when she refused or, in the best-case scenario, hesitated during the consistent turns. Solána merely smiled back, leaning against the post-and-board fence and shrugging her shoulders as she watched the females in their stalemate. It was Harry who informed her that unrushed strides would help melt the stiffness worse on the mare’s left side, which she guarded. “Carmen doesn’t know it’s good for her,” Solána replied. The girls forged a strong friendship by valuing each other’s time, and sharing energy, creativity, and joy. Daisy didn’t have that combination in her fiery relationship with Sam and his forgivable hands. Neither of the girls expected to create such a connection in the upside-down world they lived in. Daisy sure as hell didn’t expect to become so fond of Solána after hearing her speak of Carmen, whose limbs were no longer as tight under the saddle. Instead, it was Daisy’s stomach that clenched when she felt that first wave of remorse crash over her. She doesn’t know it’s good for her, she repeated to herself, looking over her unknowing companion. Her future bestest friend. Over the years, Solána and Daisy found that the Earth continued spinning, and, like the bees still working among the flowered fields that the girls wasted time in, together they could turn toil into sweetness. 84