I looked to Taema for guidance, but she only shrugged, the movement pulling against the skin of my chest. I rested my face against my sister’s, our cheekbones touching. My knees were shaking with excitement. Taema’s shook too, but more with fear.

“Should I search for conjoined twins?” I whispered. We’d never seen any others. How did they live in the cities? How many were there?

You might wonder if our condition hurt, or if it was awkward, and the answer is no. It never hurt being attached to Taema. Though I could get so mad at her I could spit—and I had before but then she’d spit back and we’d be staring at each other’s spit-covered faces and then usually burst into laughter at the stupidity of it all—I couldn’t stomp off. There was no way for either of us to have the last word on anything.

Taema looked resolutely away. “Let’s not.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t, OK?”

I was tempted to push her, but then we’d have fought and she’d have been even more pigheaded than before. “Fine.”

I stared at the tablet again. Please state your search terms clearly, the screen reminded us. How did it even do that? Our parents told us about the internet and radio waves, how they floated through the air. Dad said that within the compound, the internet didn’t work, but the tech dampeners only worked so far in the forest. If this place was meant to be so Pure, why hadn’t Mana-ma stopped service out in the woods, too?

Taema’s cheekbone grazed mine. She kept trying to look away but couldn’t help herself. Even though we had the whole world at our fingertips, we didn’t know what about the world we should learn.

That’s it. I’d start with what I did know.

“Tablet. Search for Mana’s Hearth,” I said.

Information came up immediately: a list of some kind. I touched the first one with my fingertip, tentatively, and more information loaded. I felt Taema turn closer to the screen. She couldn’t resist. We read, side by side.

Mana’s Hearth—The Infamous Cult of the San Francisco Bay Area

“What’s a cult?” Taema whispered.

I shook my head, confused. “I don’t know, but they seem to think it’s bad.” I read through an origin story of the Hearth, written by someone called Tobias Diaz, which fitted mostly with what Mana-ma had told us in sermon:

Not much is known of the secretive commune set where Muir Woods was once open to the public. The First Mana-ma was Elspeth Foley, a mistress of a prominent politician who was also a member of the Bohemian Grove.