Mommy and Daddy were at Miss Patty’s fu­neral. Miss Patty had also been in the se­cret Bud­dha club, but they all had to pre­tend she be­lieved in God and the Holy Trin­ity of Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses. Peo­ple who didn’t be­lieve went to jail. That was why Miss Patty’s of­fi­cial fu­neral was at the gov­ern­ment-sanc­tioned church where Jes­sica’s fam­ily went three times a week, as re­quired by law.

  Jes­sica knew where the church was. She also knew it was a long way to walk, but Lind­sey was hurt re­ally bad and Nicole had dis­ap­peared. It would be up to Jes­sica to get her par­ents so they could go to the doc­tor.

  Hold­ing onto the shift­ing boards over­head with her good arm, Jes­sica stepped up on the rim of the bath­tub. She could fi­nally see out­side, and pieces of their pretty lit­tle cot­tage scat­tered as far as the eye could see. Jes­sica saw their re­frig­er­a­tor ly­ing on its side nearby, its for­merly blame­less white sur­face pock­marked with dents. The rest was just so much rub­ble.

  Jes­sica re­al­ized the only way to climb out meant she’d have to use both arms. She sobbed anew, afraid of the pain.

  But she was on her own. Big sis­ter or not, Lind­sey needed Jes­sica to look out for her this time. Jes­sica thought Lind­sey might die like Miss Patty had. Then her sis­ter, who knew all the best jokes and some­times let Jes­sica play with her doll­house, would have to have a fu­neral in a church they didn’t be­lieve in. They would put Lind­sey in a hole in the ground with a stone marker bear­ing her name. If those things hap­pened, it would be Jes­sica’s fault. Worse still, she would never see Lind­sey again.

  Grit­ting her teeth, Jes­sica planted both palms on the de­bris-strewn ground. Scrunch­ing her face up in an­tic­i­pa­tion, she jumped and lev­ered her­self up.

  The wood skew­er­ing her chest caught and dragged against the edge of the rub­ble pile. Jes­sica shrieked as pain ripped through her up­per torso. Fresh blood oozed warmth down her chest and belly. Her el­bows threat­ened to buckle as she strug­gled to scrab­ble out of the bath­tub, but she some­how forced her arms to hold her.

  Jes­sica gained free­dom and fell on her side. Bro­ken shards of glass and splin­tered wood dug into the ex­posed flesh of her cheek, arm, and leg. The last few drops of the dy­ing storm splashed down on her. She barely no­ticed in the agony of her chest and back.

  Af­ter a few end­less mo­ments of hell, the pain eased enough for Jes­sica to sit up. She blinked at the alien land­scape that sur­rounded her.

  It was as if a bad-tem­pered gi­ant had stomped on the lit­tle McIn­ness cot­tage, ground it un­der his foot, and kicked the pieces around to scat­ter them like so many tooth­picks. So com­plete was the dev­as­ta­tion that noth­ing be­sides the tipped-over re­frig­er­a­tor and the half-buried bath­tub were iden­ti­fi­able.

  Jes­sica looked for the air­plane she’d heard, still un­aware the mas­sive roar had been the tor­nado it­self. She saw no crashed plane, but a path of churned-up earth cut across the land­scape be­yond the re­mains of her house, dis­ap­pear­ing into the next block over.

  She got to her feet and picked her way care­fully over the shift­ing pile of de­bris to­ward the street that ran in front of the prop­erty. She ground her teeth in pain. Ev­ery move brought fresh waves of agony, and tears flowed unchecked down her grimy cheeks. The stave of wood jut­ted be­fore her like a javelin ready to joust.

  Jes­sica felt sure a board stick­ing out of her chest qual­i­fied as one of those lie-down-and-rest times. When­ever she got sick, Mommy al­ways made her lie down to rest. Grownups seemed to think ly­ing down to rest made things bet­ter. Be­ing stuck in bed with no dis­trac­tions only made Jes­sica more aware of dis­com­fort.

  There was no bed to lie down and rest on. She couldn’t do that any­way. It was now her job to look af­ter Lind­sey. She had to find Mommy and Daddy.

  The McIn­ness cot­tage was – or had been – the last house on the street. On Jes­sica’s left, the road ended at a long, pri­vate path­way cut into a thick stand of palm trees. The path, never used by the elec­tric-run cars preva­lent in Jes­sica’s neigh­bor­hood, led to a coun­try club. Nice hover shut­tles passed through sev­eral times a day. Nicole said the club was for lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, the low­est tier of the up­per class. She called them ‘Wannabees’, men who as­pired to reach the loftier aus­pices of West Palm Beach with its man­sions and ser­vants.

  The coun­try club’s path had a sign at the en­trance. Jes­sica, who al­ready knew how to read, saw the sign hung askew from its post. ‘Pri­vate For Mem­bers Only – Tres­passers Will Be Pros­e­cuted’ it pro­claimed in red let­ters. Jes­sica wasn’t a mem­ber. She couldn’t go in there, but Mommy and Daddy weren’t play­ing golf with the Wannabees any­way. They were at church.

  Across the street was the neigh­bor­hood play­ground. It had been un­touched by the storm, and Jes­sica was dimly glad to see that the wooden play­cen­ter, shaped like a pi­rate ship, was still there along with the swings and teeter-tot­ters.

  She turned right to­wards the other houses on her street. She stopped short to see her next door neigh­bor’s house. Mrs. Goodall, the wid­owed teacher who lived there, was away for the sum­mer while stay­ing with her mother in North Car­olina. Jes­sica’s par­ents had been keep­ing an eye on her house while she was out of town.

  Half the house was gone. Jes­sica looked into the guts of the din­ing and liv­ing rooms and a hall­way that led into the still in­tact por­tion of Mrs. Goodall’s home. She won­dered if her neigh­bor would be mad they hadn’t taken bet­ter care of the house.

  Her con­cern was only tem­po­rary. Shock dulled the hor­ror of the de­struc­tion around her, and Jes­sica started walk­ing down the street. Even see­ing the un­touched part of the neigh­bor­hood, so star­tlingly nor­mal com­pared to the de­stroyed land­scape she stag­gered through, ex­cited only mild cu­rios­ity.

  Fig­ures ap­proached from the un­af­fected houses. Mr. and Mrs. Lanier, the re­tired cou­ple two houses up, were joined by Joe and Ian Hunt, the 13-year-old twins from near the end of the block.

  There was no sign of Mommy and Daddy though. Jes­sica wished their lit­tle elec­tric car would ap­pear.

  A woman screamed. It was Mrs. Lanier, her hands clapped to her plump cheeks in car­toon­ish hor­ror as she stared at Jes­sica. Mr. Lanier broke into a run, his spare body still in good shape from the end­less hours he spent land­scap­ing his lawn. As Jes­sica crossed the line be­tween de­struc­tion and the nor­mal world, he reached her, the twins right be­hind him. He bent over her, his strong choco­late-brown arm cir­cling her waist.

  “Call for an am­bu­lance,” he called to his wife, who scrab­bled in her pocket for her cell phone.

  “It’s okay, sweet­heart. Let’s get you where you can lie down and rest,” he soothed Jes­sica, keep­ing pace as she walked past the owl-eyed twins, their sun-bleached hair stand­ing up in spikes on top of their heads.

  Mr. Lanier was a very nice man, though not part of the se­cret Bud­dha club. He thanked Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses for ev­ery­thing, in­clud­ing the toma­toes he shared with Jes­sica’s fam­ily. He grew his own in a lit­tle gar­den in his back yard, and Mr. Lanier’s toma­toes tasted bet­ter than any­thing avail­able at the gro­cery store.

  Not want­ing to be rude to her kind neigh­bor, Jes­sica used her best man­ners. “I gotta go get Mommy and Daddy. Please ex­cuse me, but it’s an emer­gency.”

  Mrs. Lanier joined them, yelling at her phone to call emer­gency ser­vices. She smelled like fresh-baked cook­ies. “The child’s out of her head,” she whis­pered loudly to her hus­band as she waited to be con­nected. Then she yelled on the phone. “Hello, emer­gency? I need you on Cam­den Drive right away. A tor­nado just tore through here, and I got a lit­tle girl with a board stick­ing out of her chest!”

  “Hold up, child.” Mr. Lanier’s grip on Jes­sica tight­ened, stop­ping her. “We’ll find your par­ents for you. You’re hurt and you need to wait for the doc­tors.”

  “Yes, she’s alive. She’s walk­ing around cov­ered in blood.”

  Jes­sica sighed at the de­lay. Ex­haus­tion dragged at her, and she still had so far to go. She made her­self be pa­tient with Mr. Lanier. “Lind­sey’s in the bath­tub. She’s hurt and I can’t wake her up. Mommy’s got to take her to the doc­tor so she won’t die and be buried like Miss Patty.”

  At her words, Mr. Lanier’s head jerked up to look to­wards the ruin of Jes­sica’s home. “The other baby’s in there? Oh help us Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses.”

  Mean­while, Mrs. Lanier was get­ting mad at who­ever she spoke to on the phone. “Don’t tell me to calm down! This baby’s got a two-by-four stick­ing out of her chest! Get some­one here now!”

  Mr. Lanier knelt be­fore Jes­sica. He gripped her shoul­ders and made her look him in the eye. “Sweet­heart, think hard for me. Who else was in the house with you?”

  “Nicole was babysit­ting us, but she went away. I think the plane hit her.”

  Mr. Lanier let her go and snagged the gawk­ing twins by their arms as he hur­ried to­ward the zone of de­struc­tion. “Joe, Ian, you boys come with me. There’s two more girls in there! Be care­ful, I don’t want any­body else hurt. Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses, please keep us safe!”

  With­out him re­strain­ing her, Jes­sica was free to find her par­ents. Her head hung wearily as she set off again. She con­cen­trated on putting one foot in front of the other.

  Ap­par­ently done with yelling at the emer­gency op­er­a­tor, Mrs. Lanier took Jes­sica’s right hand in her soft brown paw. The smell of cook­ies washed over Jes­sica again. She loved Mrs. Lanier’s cook­ies, es­pe­cially her peanut but­ter choco­late chip ones, but for some rea­son the sweet scent nau­se­ated her to­day.

  She wanted to get away from her grand­moth­erly neigh­bor, but Mrs. Lanier was tug­ging her to­wards her pretty yel­low house. “Come in here with me, sweet­heart. You can lie down and rest in my house while we wait for the EMT’s.”

  Jes­sica pulled against the woman. Why didn’t she un­der­stand Lind­sey needed help right away? “I got to get Mommy and Daddy. I got to take care of Lind­sey.”

  “We’ll call your par­ents when we get in­side, okay? You can talk to them on the house vid. Mr. Lanier and the Hunt boys are go­ing to help Lind­sey. See?”

  Jes­sica turned around, re­al­iz­ing that maybe she didn’t have to walk all the way to church to find her par­ents. See­ing her neigh­bors crawl­ing over the rub­ble gave her a surge of hope, but…

  “They’re look­ing in the wrong place. You call Mommy and Daddy. I have to show Mr. Lanier where to find Lind­sey.” Jes­sica jerked away, and her sneak­ers slapped against the wet pave­ment as she ran to her shat­tered home.

  “Jes­sica, come back!”

  But Jes­sica had to help Lind­sey. She ran and the board in her chest bobbed as she went. For­tu­nately the pain in her chest had faded, be­com­ing unim­por­tant in her de­ter­mi­na­tion to do her duty.

  “Lind­sey! It’s okay! I’m com­ing!”

  * * * *

  Cla­jak stared at his beloved in shock. Had he not seen Jes­sica’s scars or soothed her many nights from a bout of night­mares, he might not have be­lieved such a tale of strength. He knew his spit­fire of a mate had courage, but this was be­yond any­thing he’d ever imag­ined. His heart swelled with love and ad­mi­ra­tion.

  “I could have waited for res­cue as Nar­pok did, hop­ing for a mir­a­cle,” Jes­sica told Ra­jhir and the as­sem­bled coun­cil. Her eyes streamed with silent tears.

  From his seat on the dais Cla­jak could see her shak­ing. It took ev­ery ounce of his self con­trol to not run to her side.

  “I was just a child and badly in­jured. I had no train­ing in sur­vival. Yet de­spite this—” she yanked the neck­line of her dress aside to show the puck­ered scar from her im­pal­ing, “—and my lack of prepa­ra­tion for such a sit­u­a­tion, I went for help. I didn’t do it only for my­self, but for my sis­ter as well. If I hadn’t, Lind­sey would have been just as dead as Nicole, whose body they found half a mile away.”

  Cla­jak swal­lowed against the heav­i­ness in his throat. To think of what his Matara had suf­fered at such a young age broke his heart, even as he burned with pride. The help­less agony in Jes­sica’s face let him know bet­ter than any­thing how much she still suf­fered. Her eyes were far away, see­ing a hor­ror he couldn’t imag­ine.

  With a catch in her voice, Jes­sica said, “They barely got Lind­sey into surgery in time to save her. It was so close – in only a mat­ter of min­utes, it would have been too late…”

  She fi­nally broke. Her voice ended in a wail, and harsh sobs burst from her lungs. Her legs buck­led. Even as he jumped from the dais, Egilka and Be­vau at his side, Cla­jak saw Ra­jhir catch Jes­sica be­fore she hit the floor. The clan sur­rounded her less than a sec­ond later. Ra­jhir im­me­di­ately trans­ferred the ag­o­nized woman to them.

  Govi and Flen­cik gen­tly moved Egilka and Cla­jak aside so they could at­tend Jes­sica. They left her in the arms of the pro­tec­tive Be­vau, know­ing sep­a­rat­ing the Nobek from his suf­fer­ing mate could in­vite in­juries.

  Govi spoke sooth­ingly. “It’s all right, Jes­sica. Lind­sey sur­vived. You saved her, you did a good job.”

  Flen­cik pre­pared a seda­tive. “How much, Govi?”

  Jes­sica’s chok­ing sobs con­tin­ued un­abated. Her hands cov­ered her face, as if she could hide from the over­whelm­ing ter­ror of the trauma she’d suf­fered. She shook vi­o­lently in Be­vau’s grip.

  Govi gave up try­ing to com­fort her. “Put her un­der. She’s too over­wrought to calm now.” He turned to­ward the silently watch­ing em­per­ors. “Matara Jes­sica must be ex­cused from fur­ther tes­ti­mony.”

  Wag­nox protested, “I haven’t had my op­por­tu­nity to ques­tion her about this mat­ter.”

  Cla­jak whirled to snarl a warn­ing at the coun­cil­man, and he heard his anger echoed by his clan­mates, Ra­jhir, and sev­eral other coun­cilmem­bers. Growls sounded from the gallery where spec­ta­tors watched.

  Over the sound, Flen­cik’s voice was firm. “She is done tes­ti­fy­ing, Coun­cil­man Wag­nox.”

  Zarl spoke up. “In­deed she is. For the pro­tec­tion of mother and child, the de­bate is over.”

  Sec­onds af­ter Flen­cik’s in­jec­tion, Jes­sica faded into blessed un­con­scious­ness. Cla­jak prayed she wouldn’t dream. He brushed his fin­ger­tips across her cheeks, try­ing to erase the tracks her tears had left in her light makeup.

  Govi and Flen­cik stepped away, qui­etly con­vers­ing be­tween them­selves. A heavy hand fell on Cla­jak’s shoul­der, and he looked up to see Ra­jhir look­ing down on him. The usu­ally stern Kalquo­rian looked as dis­tressed as Cla­jak felt. “I am sorry I put her through that.”

  “She vol­un­teered it,” Cla­jak said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “If it’s any con­so­la­tion, she may have very well won the vote.” Ra­jhir’s gaze darted to Jes­sica’s face, still drawn de­spite her sense­less state. “I hope her hon­esty was worth the pain.”

  Be­hind them, Zarl’s voice was heavy with emo­tion. “The peo­ple of Kalquor will now vote for their choice of fu­ture em­press based on the tes­ti­mony given.”

  “My em­peror, may I speak?”

  Cla­jak’s head snapped around at the sound of Nar­pok’s voice. She had come out from be­hind her podium, stand­ing in the cen­ter of the coun­cil floor. She still dis­played no sign of her usual haughty de­meanor, a strange blank­ness hov­er­ing at the edges of her ex­pres­sion.

  Ra­jhir was quick to say, “Matara Nar­pok com­pleted her tes­ti­mony, my em­peror.”

  Zarl con­sid­ered, his face wor­ried as he re­garded Nar­pok. He sighed heav­ily. “No doubt the peo­ple of Kalquor will want to know what she has to say. Go ahead, Matara Nar­pok.”

  Nar­pok’s mouth opened and shut. Con­fu­sion crossed her face for a mo­ment, as if she’d for­got­ten what she wished to dis­close. She looked around, her gaze roam­ing over Cla­jak, Ra­jhir, and fi­nally Egilka and Be­vau tightly em­brac­ing Jes­sica. Her ex­pres­sion cleared. She turned back to­ward the dais.

  “I re­tract my bid for the throne. I con­cede my claim as the in­tended Matara of Prince Cla­jak’s clan to the Earther Jes­sica McIn­ness.”

  Shocked ex­cla­ma­tions burst from the coun­cil­men and the spec­ta­tors in the gallery above. Cla­jak gawked at the Kalquo­rian fe­male in shock.

  Pwal­dur was at Nar­pok’s side in an in­stant, his face bel­liger­ent as he grasped her arm. “I ob­ject! Nar­pok is up­set by the strain of these pro­ceed­ings! She doesn’t know what she is say­ing!”

  Wag­nox and Sty­tyn hur­ried to the fa­ther and daugh­ter, also reach­ing for Nar­pok. She bared her fangs at them, her face bes­tial.

  “Don’t touch me, gurlucks!” she screamed.

  Gasps rang out among the as­sem­bled. Wag­nox and Sty­tyn fell back, sud­den fear in their ex­changed glances. Nar­pok hissed at her fa­ther, wrench­ing her­self free from his grip. She ran to the dais.

  “My em­per­ors, I beg your pro­tec­tion from my fa­ther Pwal­dur and Clan Wag­nox. I don’t care if you lock me in a de­ten­tion cell or send me to an­other planet. Please, keep them away from me!”

  Yuder jumped to his feet, mo­tion­ing to the Royal Guards. Five grim-faced Nobeks in red form­suits, mov­ing faster than the eyes could fathom, ar­ranged them­selves in a line be­tween Nar­pok and the three el­der Kalquo­ri­ans.