A Chorus Rises Read online

  SilverSchalem: Totally get what you’re trying to say, but it does diminish the brutality of what was done to her if we comment positively on this. That’s not what it’s for.

  Anon: I wouldn’t put it past the siren being involved. [upvotes: 43]

  WyteKnight [silver/28]: Nobody can tell me this wasn’t a vendetta. [upvotes: 45]

  Nutting4Naema [no shield]: Sirens are trash but they don’t have this kind of power.

  NaemasNobleman: Why are you so sure you know what they can do? We don’t even know how many there are. [upvotes: 120]

  Anon: And you can’t ignore the timing and the victim. All the others were decoys to get to Naema. [upvotes: 99]

  WyteKnight: Zero dispute here. It came directly after the livestream. [upvotes: 100]

  Anon: Not a coincidence. [upvotes: 40]

  TheCavalry [bronze/9]: Our girl’s such a rockstar. You can still see the collar she wore, in the stone. She has every right to stand her ground and make a statement about the dangers sirens pose. [upvotes: 120]

  NaemasNobleman: And some siren comes and proves her point. They’re dangerous, period. [upvotes: 145]

  SilverSchalem: And now the siren’s supposed to be a hero, like Naema’s suffering and her rights don’t matter. [upvotes: 120]

  Anon: Beyond tired of that siren being praised. [upvotes: 35]

  Lancelot: #Justice4Naema [upvotes: 5]

  Lancelot: #Justice4Naema [upvotes: 1]

  Lancelot: #Justice4Naema

  Chapter XVII

  NAEMA

  I call myself Sheba503 when I finally make an account on the Knights forum.

  I’d been meaning to investigate the Members Only subforums anyway, and it occurred to me that our dear producer friend, Leona Fowl, claimed to have mentioned my Stoning because of something she’d seen on the site—and yet I’ve seen nothing of the sort. Nor immediately do I when I’ve returned to the solitude of Little Bit’s room, whose full bed feels much fuller when I’m not sharing it with a nine-year-old cousin, no matter how adorable she is.

  After the cousin outing, the young ones decided to have a slumber party, which means Little Bit, Didi, and the rest are sleeping at my cousin Patrice’s house. Apparently they didn’t get enough of trampolines because the plan is to sleep on the outdoor one in her backyard, under the stars. Carnivorous southwestern bugs, scorpions, and snakes be damned, I guess.

  In Little Bit’s bed, I starfish, sheets askew. I’ve been down here long enough not to be considered a guest anymore, which means Aunt Carla Ann’s thermostat is no longer hovering around a comfy cozy 65 F. I’ve got the bedroom window open, with an oscillating tower fan running on high, but it’s still barely enough to cut through the humidity.

  I wasn’t nervous perusing the latest posts in the main area, but when I return to the subforum that requires a membership, I hesitate. I’m not sure what to hope for, what could warrant this extra, if ineffective, layer of security—and the things that leap to mind aren’t great. The site’s Community Commitment To Avoiding Child Pornography Charges is all well and good, but this is my body we’re talking about, and if there’s anything worth hiding behind a second access point, I’d like to know how it exists and where it came from.

  The last thing I want to find out is that the only group of admirers who don’t have to attach some sort of disclaimer or criticism to their adoration, who don’t see my time in the stone as some sort of redemption arc, are actually smut-peddling incels.

  When I land in the subforum, I’m not prepared for what I find.

  In Little Bit’s room, the only light is coming from the laptop screen balancing on my lap, and yet I swear the bedroom around me dims. Whatever ambient sound I’d grown accustomed to quiets.

  All I see is gray.

  That’s not a trick of my subconscious, either. I’m not post-traumatically slipping back into my prom night memory.

  I am seeing myself. Imprisoned in gray.

  Literally.

  That’s me in the photo, standing in the courtyard of Beckett High, stone eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

  Stoned.

  The expression on my face must be the one I had when I heard Tavia give the command, and when I saw Effie’s gorgon eyes train on me, her gargantuan tail coiled endlessly beneath her body.

  Someone stood in front of me before Tavia returned, and they took this picture.

  They took several.

  Close.

  My eyelashes.

  The siren-silencing collar, and my collarbone, and the rise of my breasts.

  My hand and my phone, which wouldn’t survive the stone grip and would have to be replaced.

  The gray is porous, and it’s … beautiful. If looking at beautiful statues makes bile hurtle up your esophagus, and burn the back of your throat.

  It’s a foggy morning kind of gray, with flecks of white, and sudden flourishes of something like periwinkle.

  Worse, it’s me. It’s what I look like when my skin isn’t skin anymore, and my hair isn’t soft and healthy, despite being relaxed. The beautiful and unexpected hints and transitions of color spell out my face, and my form—but I’m not there. I wasn’t standing there, still as stone.

  I remember those six hours, and there may have been silence, but there was no peace.

  Nothing about these pictures is true.

  On Little Bit’s bed, I’m cold now. There’s a sickly kind of chill that doesn’t match the temperature in this room or in the night outside the window. Because I was only Stoned for six hours, but whoever took these pictures knew where to find me. Which probably means they watched my livestream that night, and that they’re subscribers, or were before my deactivation. More than that, it means they’re probably Portland-local, or within six hours’ driving distance at the most.

  I don’t know why that frightens me, and maybe “scared” is too strong a word. The Knights of Naema haven’t given me any reason to think that proximity should worry me. The photo is even captioned #Justice4Naema.

  Still. No one asked me whether or not I wanted pictures of my darkest moments plastered on the internet, even behind a flimsy authorization wall, even for the sake of remembrance.

  I read their uncharacteristically serious discussion below the photos, and my breath hitches.

  I’m conflicted, and part of the reason for that is the way the Knights know the truth. They’ve figured it out, even if to an outsider their discussion would sound like a paranoid conspiracy theory.

  They know Tavia had something to do with what happened to me. And they know the heroine worship she’s getting isn’t fair.

  There’s something else, too. Something new framing a few of the Knights’ avatars, in gold or silver or bronze. There’s what looks like a shield on the bottom right of the frame, and a number. The highest belongs to the Knight who started this subforum, interestingly, and I can click a + or - under the avatars if I want to contribute, apparently.

  I leave the new shields and ranks alone, but I’ve got my Sheba503 cloak on, so after a moment’s hesitation I do upvote the comment about Tavia being responsible for what happened to me.

  It doesn’t change the other hitch I’m feeling, the queasy confliction. I don’t know if that’s the Ancestors trying to rise up inside and tell me how they feel, but I resist. I push it back down by liking another comment, the one about my Stoning not being coincidental, because I don’t want to hear that I can’t have any support. I don’t wanna hear—or feel!—that this is an intrusion. That no considerate admirer would do this.

  I don’t want to catalogue the myriad possible red flags.

  After everything I finally said, that I said it to Priam, and the fact that the cost of saying it was so immediately apparent—and foreign … I don’t wanna wonder how much of it applies to the Knights.

  Because those pictures do serve a purpose, unlike the movie and the articles and the infotainment discussions and faux academic research. At least now I know what the world has seen. The static, immo
bile, hardened shell. The stone that looked like me exactly, not like a replica or a wonky wax statue, but like I was changed. It’s worse than I thought back when I was trapped, because I was gone, and I forgot that there was something left in my place.

  They could see me, or a facsimile, anyway. Something was there, my shock and unmaskable fear entirely readable on a frozen face. A form of me was standing there, the whole time. My punishment, public and humiliating. She left me there, exactly where I’d been when I recorded her, exactly where my viewers would know to find me, could gawk at my comeuppance, and she went about her business for six hours. Everyone who’s attacked me since, belittled or diminished me—they all know what was done to me, and they did it anyway.

  I wish I hadn’t seen the photographs. I wish they didn’t exist, and that just makes me angrier. She isn’t going to take away the comfort of this community when she’s had hers all along. When I got expelled from hers, and she gets to stay no matter what she does, because she’s The Whole Point.

  Thank gawd for the Knights. I thought saying Tavia Philips Stoned me was gonna sound like slander—and it probably would’ve, coming from me. Claiming that she hurt me would sound like retaliation, I was aware, given that her story got told first, and with the benefit of an emotion manipulating score, and tasteful merch, and a publicity strategy that was better executed than the movie itself.

  It matters that someone else—quite a few of them—thought Tavia was the villain from jump.

  I can’t resist. I make a modest post, and I don’t blather on about being a first-timer or tell them what it means to me in excruciating detail; I just say, I’m so glad this forum exists. It means a lot.

  And when I get my first upvote, I smile like a true Pretty Bird.

  * * *

  Why did only Priam get an invite? Jamie texts, and to her credit, she waited until the visit was done to do so. He’s been home a day now, and at least I can tell by her questioning that he didn’t immediately go back and blab everything I told him he can’t talk about.

  Jamie’s feelings are really hurt, Gavin informs me like he’s taking that previous, heat-induced phone mishap to heart and thinks I’ll read his message but maybe not hers. He is now not only my conscience, but also my liaison.

  I’m opening everybody’s texts now anyway. I miss my friends. I miss light and carefree. I miss the way the worst thing that happens in our group is Jamie thinking I’m playing favorites.

  I thought you wanted me and Priam to make up … I say via group text, and then I lock my phone. I go back to my quiet time in Aunt Carla Ann’s backyard, with my hand wrapped around the chain. In the shade of the back porch, the links had been cool but eventually the heat from my hand transferred. It’s not quite refreshing anymore, but it’s better than swampy.

  “What’s up, Pretty Bird?” Courtney finds me, and drops into the bench swing beside me, setting it in motion. “You look real unsocial out here,” he says, tugging on his blond coils like the shape got flattened and he’s plumping it back up, no mirror required. He nods at me. “Cross-legged, straight-faced. Quiet enough that Little Bit gave up and went inside. She’s watching TV, Sheba. That kid never watches television except as a last resort.”

  “There’s something wrong with quiet now? Is it very uppity of me?”

  “Everything all right?” he finally asks.

  I nod, slow and steady, the way we swing.

  “’Cause you can talk to me if it’s not.” He clears his throat and it’s obviously more serious than he intended to play this, so he nudges the porch with his foot and sends us swinging with a bit more gusto. “I kinda wanted to talk to you anyway.”

  “Oh yeah?” And it sounds exactly as enthused at the prospect as I feel.

  “Yeah. Just about Little Bit and like. Just how much she looks up to you, you know?”

  He tilts his head as though to elicit my formal agreement, but I don’t budge. I’m watching the sky burn. I swear they live under a completely different sky down here, and this one bleeds and burns and combusts. It brings the drama, consistently. Today, there are clouds and they started out fat and side by side, like the biscuits on Aunt Carla Ann’s chicken pot pie casserole. When the sun started to set, it’s like they deflated, losing their form along with the day’s heat—only it looks a lot more destructive. But like. In a gratifying, calming way. Now the clouds are a thin duvet above our heads, still all the wild and reckless colors of flame, but accompanied by the smell of impending storm. I plan to stay right here on this back porch until it breaks.

  “Naema.”

  “Little Bit looks up to me, and that somehow resulted in you interrupting my alone time. Did you know I have a whole suite to myself back home?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s bigger than it was when you were there. And the amazing thing about that suite is that people don’t barge in. Or knock while simultaneously opening the door.”

  “Great, you’re used to more privacy than we are.”

  “Mhm.” I haven’t taken my eyes off the sky, and it isn’t because I’m trying to snub Courtney. I just really cannot get over how perfectly it reflects … well, everything. I’m not much of an artist, but if I had to paint an autobiographical sky that captures where I’m at right now—with Upside-Down Portland, with Leona Fowl, with discovering the Ancestors, with my boyfriend knowing about the network, and the Knights having a subforum with pictures of Stone Naema and as much as I decided it’s not gonna be a big deal, I keep getting the feeling that it’s a big deal—this is the sky I would choose.

  “Can we be serious for a sec?” he asks, a little too delicately.

  “How exactly am I giving you the impression that I’m not serious, Courtney? Is my disinterest too jovial?”

  “Oh my God,” he mutters under his breath. “I try to be nice to you—”

  “Maybe that’s where you’re running into trouble.”

  “Okay.” He’s getting exasperated for some reason. Like, what does Family Whisperer And Literal Golden Boy Courtney have to be exasperated about. Honestly. “You don’t seem to have an issue with folks being nice to you, Sheba, let’s not lie.”

  My head snaps in his direction.

  “Oh, now you’ll look at me,” he mutters again.

  “Wasn’t that the point? Getting my attention?”

  “I mean, I was kinda just telling the truth, you do really like attention as long as it’s the kind you want.” He says the whole thing through a face-contorting grimace, like it’s just the undeniable facts and they can’t be helped.

  “Being accustomed to attention and needing it are two different things—”

  “Why do you get all formal and tert when you tryna cut somebody down—”

  “Did you say ‘tert’? Because it’s terse. The word you’re looking for is terse.”

  “And the function of language is communication, so if you know exactly what I meant, I guess I did it right.”

  I stop and narrow my eyes at him. “You got real formal just then, Courtney.”

  He pauses. “You get on my nerves.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  “You don’t need it.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. So whatever you came out here to say, just say it.”

  “Why’d you make Little Bit take off her siren toy?”

  I feel my brow come crashing down. “I told you—”

  “Right, ’cause some white lady was clutching at her pearls or something—”

  “And looking at your little sister in a way I didn’t like.”

  “The rest of us get looked at like that sometimes, Naema.” And we both stop. “I’m not tryna say anything by it, I’m just letting you know. We don’t go around on tiptoe. I don’t, anyway. And I don’t want my sister doing it, either.”

  “’Cause you don’t codeswitch.”

  “What?”

  “No, I forgot. Nobody codeswitches but Naema. That’s why you think I’m putting on airs on my livestream, or
maybe down here, I don’t know, because it’s weird for me to speak differently to white folks than I do to my cousin, I guess. I invented codeswitching.” I’ve been talking with my hands, and now enthusiastically shrug, my arms comically high. “Courtney’s always his Blackest self, and does nothing for comfort or self-protection!”

  “Why are you like this, that’s not even what I’m saying, but if you wanna talk about codeswitching, I don’t think calling yourself Eloko first is that.”

  I’m actually laughing now, because it’s ridiculous. This is ridiculous. For someone who’s spent the majority of my visit thus far trying to put me in my place or haze me, or whatever he calls it, Courtney is real certain of his moral high ground. The thing he isn’t is informed. But I don’t need to tell him what I’ve been going through, everything I’m processing, anything I’ve come to realize. Not when he’s still convinced he’s better than I am.

  “I wonder why I would embrace being Eloko. Why would I lean into that, do you think? When really all it entailed most of my life is popularity and a bell.” I tilt my head at him, one side, then the other, and I probably actually look like a bird at this point. Between my gestures and rhetorical questions, he can’t make eye contact with me, so it’s working. “Good. Be embarrassed. But that doesn’t mean I’m letting you off the hook.”

  “Okay—”

  “Yeah, it is okay,” I say, and then I watch him cross his arms over his chest. “Because have you ever heard of an Eloko being strip-searched at school for being too giddy? Have you ever heard of an Eloko being body-slammed by a school liaison officer?”

  His eyes creep back toward my face, even though they never quite make it.

  “Why exactly am I getting judged for identifying with something that can shield me? Or do only sirens get protection.”

  He looks up, and Courtney and I are eye to eye again, at last.

  “I’m not apologizing for finding armor. And real sirens have people like me,” I say, because the way he was completely unfazed by my mention of siren protection makes me think Courtney already knows. Even if he’s not allowed to tell me. “So before you let Little Bit pretend to be one, remember that they have something she doesn’t.”