My mother is one of the leaders, he says, proudly. A feeling he’s never dared claim about her before, and saying it feels like standing full height after years of crouching.
The librarian gives him a look. A wry look, as if he’s about to tell her a joke she already knows.
Your mother, she says.
Bird clears his throat. Margaret, he says, his voice cracking just a bit on the M, a hairline fracture. Margaret Miu.
It is the first time he’s said her name aloud in as long as he can remember. Maybe ever. It feels like an incantation. He waits—for what? Earthquakes. Lightning strikes. Bolts of thunder. But all he sees is a half smirk at one corner of the librarian’s mouth. He’d thought it would be a password that let him through the secret entrance into sparkling rooms beyond. Instead he’s smashed his nose into a wall.
Oh, I know exactly who your mother is, the librarian says.
She studies Bird, leaning in closer to him, so close he can smell the morning’s sour coffee on her breath, and he sags under her gaze.
You know, I didn’t recognize you at first, she says. The last time I saw you, you were a baby. She used to come in, with you in a sling. But when you asked me about her book, I realized who you reminded me of. Why you looked familiar. You look a lot like her, actually, once I made the connection.
Bird has so many questions he wants to ask, but they all jam together in his mind and fall in a muddled heap. He tries to picture it: his mother, here, among these very shelves; himself, snuggled small against her chest.
She used to come here? he repeats. Still processing the idea that once his mother stood in this very spot, touched the same books that stand all around them.
Every day. Borrowing books, back when she was still writing her poems. Before she became the voice of the revolution.
The librarian laughs, a short laugh edged with bitterness. She closes her eyes and recites in a singsong.
All our missing hearts
scattered, to sprout elsewhere.
Bird sits with this, lets it soak into him like rain into stone. Leaving a wet dark patch. Not just a book, but a poem, too, and a line in the poem as well.
I’ve never heard the whole thing, he admits.
The librarian settles back against the wall, hands at her hips. All those posters and banners with her slogan on them. Such good branding. All those viral photo ops.
She sniffs.
I guess it’s easier, she says, to write brave words than to actually do the work.
So that’s what you do, he says. You find the children and bring them back home.
The librarian sighs.
It’s not quite that simple, she admits. There’s so much fear around it all. Most people won’t even publicly say their children have been taken. People are told if they stay silent, they can get their kids back. But—
She stops, pinches the bridge of her nose. We try to convince them, she says. We keep a list: name, age, description. And if we hear about a replaced child, we try and figure out who it is. Sometimes the leads pan out, sometimes they don’t.
Unconsciously, her hand touches her sweater pocket, and the man’s note crinkles inside.
It’s risky, you know—a lot of people just don’t want to get involved. But we try to find people we can trust, here and there.
Like that man, Bird says, and she nods.
A lot of times no one knows where the children have been taken. Some of the younger ones, at least, are replaced. But some of them are given new names. Some are so young they don’t even know their parents’ names. And usually they’re replaced far away from home. Not accidentally.
Bird thinks of Sadie, the hundreds of miles between Cambridge and her parents in Baltimore. How impossible it would be for a child to retrace that distance alone.
Then what, he asks.
For now, then nothing, she says, and he can feel how bitter the words are on her tongue. There isn’t anything we can do yet, to actually bring them back home. Not as long as PACT is in effect anyway. But we’ve matched up a few and I think it helps the families, letting them know at least their children are safe, and where. We’re just trying to keep track. Of who’s been lost, and who’s been found. As much as we can.
We?
A handful of us, she says carefully. All over the country. We share notes. She half smiles. It’s part of our job, you know: information. Gather it. Keep it. Help people find what they need.
All this time a question has been flickering inside Bird.
But why, he says. When it’s so risky. Won’t they punish you, too, if they find out?
The librarian’s lips tighten.
Of course they could. Me, and everyone else who’s trying to find these children. That man and anyone else who passes us information. Of course it’s a risk. But—