Hyena, maybe: carrion-eater, grinning jut-toothed over the carnage he had wrought.
She didnt know how he had found out about her People with secrets , she recalled with a shudder, shouldnt make enemies but she did know that only he could have accessed the encrypted photos. Did he even know what he had done by exposing this gravesite to the world? The real question was: Did he even care? Hed been smart, though, and kept himself invisible in all of it. She could just imagine him, flipping his bangs off his too-high forehead as he set catastrophe in motion.
Dr. Chaudhary took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A stalling tactic, Eliza knew. They had come into the nearest of the tents at the bottom of the hill, and the death smell was ripe around them, even in the chill of the refrigerated air. Dr. Amhali had shown her the broadcast on a laptop, and she was still trying to process it. She felt sick. The pictures. Her pictures, seen like that, without proper context. They were horrific. What was the response, out in the world? She remembered the chaos in the National Mall two nights ago. How bad was it now?
When
Dr. Chaudhary lowered his hand, his look was direct even if his eyes were slightly unfocused without his glasses. Are you saying you didnt do it?
Of course I didnt. I would never
Dr. Amhali butted in. Do you deny that they are your photographs?
She swung to regard him. I took them, but that doesnt mean that I
And they were sent from your e-mail.
So it was hacked, she said, an edge of impatience coming into her voice. It was so obvious to her, but all the Moroccan doctor could see was his own furyand his own culpability, since he was the one whod brought them here to drag his country into infamy. That message was not from me, said Eliza, stalwart. She turned back to Dr. Chaudhary. Did it sound like me? Unholy ignominy ? Thats not I dont She was floundering. She looked at the dead sphinxes behind her mentor. Never had they seemed unholy to her, and never had the angels seemed holy, either. That wasnt what was going on here. I told you last night, I dont even believe in God.
But she could see the shift in his eyes, the suspicion, and realized belatedly that reminding him of last night might not be the best strategy. He was looking at her as if he didnt know her. Frustration welled up in her. If shed merely been framed for leaking the photos to the press, he might have believed in her innocence and been willing to support her. If she hadnt had an apparent depressive episode on the roof terrace and cried enough tears to flood a desert. If she hadnt been unmasked as a dead child prophet. If if if.
Is it true, what theyre saying? Dr. Chaudhary asked. Are you her?
She wanted to shake her head. She wasnt that blurry girl with the downcast eyes. She was not Elazael. She might have changed her name more decisively when she ran away and shed that life, but in some way, Eliza had felt true to her. It had been her name of secret protest as a child, the inner normal shed clung to in games of pretend and mental escape. Elazael might have to kneel in prayer until her knees were white-hot, or chant until her voice was as rough as a cats tongue. Elazael might be forced to do many thingsmany and morethat she did not want to do. But Eliza?
Oh, she was outside playing. Normal as pie and free as dandelions. What a dream.
And so shed kept the name, and lived it as best she could: pie and dandelions. Normal and free, though in truth it had always felt like an act. Still, from the age of seventeen on, it was Elazael who was the secret self locked inside, and Eliza who lived in the openlike the prince and the pauper who switched places: the one elevated, the other dispossessed. Of course, the prince and the pauper, she was reminded now, had eventually changed back. But that wasnt going to happen to her. She would never be Elazael again. But she knew that wasnt what Dr. Chaudhary meant, and so, reluctantly, she nodded.
I was her, she corrected. I left. I ran away. I hated it. I hated them . She took a deep breath. Hate wasnt the right word. There wasnt a right word; there wasnt a big enough word for the betrayal Eliza felt, looking back at her childhood with an adult understanding of just how seriously shed been abused and exploited.
From the age of seven. Home from the hospital with a pacemaker and a new terror so big it blotted out even her fear of her mother. From the first moment her gift made itself known, she had become the focus of all the cults energies and hopes.
The constant touching. So many hands. No sovereignty over her own self, ever. And theyd confessed their sins to her, begging forgiveness, telling her things no seven-year-old should ever have to hear, let alone punish. Her tears were collected in vials, her fingernail clippings ground into a powder and mixed into the communion bread. And her first menstrual blood? She had to avert her thoughts from that. It was still too sharp a shame, though it was half her life ago. And then there was sleep.