I’ve just been sitting here the last few hours, trying to think of what to write next. It’s dusk outside now, and the stars are coming out one by one in that little patch of sky by the window. It reminds me of the fireflies Taema and I used to chase in Mana’s Hearth when we were little. We were good at catching them. We walked sideways then, like the lake crabs, but we never slowed each other down. One of us would reach out and sweep the fireflies into jars, take them back to the house to light our bedroom, and let them out a few hours later. I miss those days.

It was after I left the Hearth I learned the fireflies had only recently come to California, introduced to the area a few years after the Great Upheaval. How strange, that if that hadn’t happened, those memories wouldn’t have existed.

Out there, I think Taema has been trying to help. The lawyer’s dropped a couple of hints. Plus, I know her. Obviously. She’s not going to sit around, playing with her VivaFog machines, waiting for me to die. Or basically die.

She’ll be trying to follow a trail, to piece together what happened. I hope she doesn’t, and that the trail goes cold. I don’t want her to find out what I did that I shouldn’t have, and what I didn’t do that I should have. How I lost my innocence while she still has hers—but she might have to lose it, if she wants to save me.

Yep, that’s cryptic as hell. But remember: no confessions. Not from me.

Since I’m not going to write my last will and testament, and I’m not going to confess, I figure maybe I’ll write a different sort of testament, or a different kind of confession. It won’t be a beautiful story. Taema has a way with words, not me. She’s the thinker, following the rules, lost in her machines and books. I’m the unpredictable artist, always wanting to do things on the spur of the moment. Guess that’s why I’m here now.

I don’t even know who I’m writing to. The general masses, maybe, if this somehow leaks to the press. Or maybe I’m writing to my sister.

So this is the story of Taema and me, the life we had. Maybe, while writing it, I’ll figure out where it all went wrong.

4. Taema

FOUR

TAEMA

The first thing I do when I’m home is turn on the bots to clear up all the broken glass and to dry the carpets. I order a new door from the replicator, which will be ready by the morning, and draw the curtains against the breeze.