His next encounter with her is the following week, at an Easter dance. Tithes are notoriously inept when it comes to male/female interaction. Knowing that dating and all that goes with it won’t be a part of their limited future, tithes and their families don’t give boy/girl stuff much attention. In fact, it’s downplayed, since it would create the kind of wistful longing that a tithe should not have.

“These kids are all smart as a whip,” Cavenaugh exclaims at the weekly meeting of the tithe rescue staff, “but they have the social skills of six-year-olds.” It’s a fair description of how Lev was on his tithing day as well, and he’s not all that sure he’s come much further. He’s still never been on a date.

There are about twenty staff members, and Lev is the only one under thirty. Each of their faces are filled with concern that’s so long-lived, it seems burned into their expressions. He wonders if their passion comes from their own experiences with unwinding. Did they, like the Admiral, unwind their own child, and come to regret the decision? Was it personal for them, or did their dedication to the cause come from a general disgust with society’s status quo?

“We shall have an Easter dance,” Cavenaugh proclaims from the head of the meeting table, “and encourage our ex-tithes to behave like normal teenagers. Within reason, of course.” Then he singles Lev out. “Lev, can we count on you, as our goodwill ambassador, to join in the festivities?”

Everyone waits for his answer. It bothers him that they’re hanging on his response. “What if I say no?”

Cavenaugh looks at him incredulously. “Why on earth would you? Everyone loves a party!”

“Not really,” Lev points out. “The last parties these kids had were their tithing parties. Do you really want to remind them of that?”

The others around the table mumble to one another, weighing what Lev has said, until Cavenaugh dismisses it. “Tithing parties are farewells,” he says. “Ours will be about new beginnings. I’m counting on you to attend.”

Lev sighs. “Sure.” There is no challenging of ideas in the Cavenaugh mansion when those ideas come from the man who shares the mansion’s name.

It is decided that the ballroom is in too poor shape for an adolescent gala, so they use the dining hall, clearing away the tables and chairs and setting up a DJ station beneath the portrait. With attendance mandatory, the entire population of ex-tithes is there.

As Lev expected, they gather by gender on either side of the room like it’s a game of dodgeball, boys against girls. Everyone busies themselves drinking punch and eating cocktail weenies while stealing secret glances at the opposing team, as if being caught looking will get them disqualified.

One of the adults does his best impersonation of a DJ, and when encouragement doesn’t work, he demands that everyone form a circle on the dance floor to do the Hokey Pokey. However, ten seconds into the dance, he suddenly realizes how ill-advised it is for ex-tithes to be putting various body parts in and out. The DJ becomes flustered and tries to skip right to the “you put your whole self in” part, but the kids are so amused by all this that they continue singing and dancing part by part even after the music has stopped. Ironically, it ends up being the perfect icebreaker, and when the dance music starts up again, there are actually kids dancing.

Lev is not one of them. He’s more than satisfied to be an observer, in spite of the fact that he can have his pick of dance partners—although he suspects if he actually did ask one of these girls to dance, she might spontaneously combust on the spot.

But then from across the room he spots Miracolina leaning back against the wall with her arms resolutely crossed, and he decides that this is a challenge worth taking.

The moment she sees him approaching she looks away, a bit panicked, hoping he’s headed toward someone else. Then she takes a visible breath when she realizes she is the subject of his attention.

“So,” says Lev, as casually as he can, “you wanna dance?”

“Do you believe in the end of the world?” she responds.

Lev shrugs. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Because the day after that is when I’ll dance with you.”

Lev smiles. “You’re funny. I didn’t think you had a sense of humor.”

“I’ll tell you what. If you run out of girls who worship the ground you walk on, you can ask me again. The answer will still be no, but I’ll give you the courtesy of pretending to think about it.”

“I read your essay,” he tells her, which gets a nice head-snapping reaction out of her. “You have a dancing princess fantasy—don’t deny it.”

“My legs have a dancing princess fantasy.”

“Well, to dance with your legs, I guess I’ll have to put up with the rest of you.”

“No, you won’t,” she says, “because not a single part of me will be here.” Then she glances toward Lev’s portrait, which is now weirdly lit by colorful strobe lights. “Why don’t you dance with your portrait?” Miracolina suggests. “The two of you deserve each other.” Then she storms out. The adults at the door try to stop her from going back to her room, but she gets past them anyway.

After she’s gone, Lev hears the grumbling around him.

“She’s such a loser,” someone says.

Lev turns to the kid with a vengeance. It’s Timothy, the boy who arrived with her. “I could say the same about you!” he snaps. “All of you!”

Then he shuts himself up before he goes too far. “No, that’s not true. But you shouldn’t be judging her.”

“Yes, Lev,” says Timothy obediently. “I won’t, Lev. I’m sorry, Lev.”

And then a shy girl, apparently less shy than all the other shy girls, steps forward. “I’ll dance with you, Lev.”

So he goes out onto the dance floor and obliges her and every other girl there with a dance, while his portrait looks down on them with its irritating gaze of holy superiority.

- - -

The next day the portrait is vandalized.

Something rude is tagged in spray paint right across the middle of it. Breakfast is delayed until the portrait can be removed. There is a spray paint can missing from the storeroom, but no smoking gun as to who could have done it. Everyone has a theory, though, and most of those theories point to the same person.

“We know it was her!” the other kids try to tell Lev. “Miracolina’s the only one here who has something against you!”

“How do you know she’s the only one?” Lev asks them. “She’s just the only one with guts enough to say it out loud.”

Out of respect for Lev’s wishes, the other kids don’t accuse her to her face, and the adults are diplomatic enough to keep their opinions to themselves.

“Perhaps we need more surveillance cameras,” Cavenaugh suggests.

“What we need,” Lev tells him, “is more freedom to express opinions. Then things like this wouldn’t happen.”

Cavenaugh is genuinely insulted. “You talk like this is a harvest camp. Everyone’s free to express themselves here.”

“Well, I guess not everyone feels that way.”

26 - Miracolina

After a day of being cold-shouldered by every living thing in the mansion, there’s a knock on her door. She doesn’t say anything, because whoever it is will just come in anyway; the bedrooms here have no locks.

The door opens slowly, and Lev steps in. There’s a quickening of her heart when she sees him. She tells herself it’s anger.

“If you’re here to accuse me of vandalizing your portrait, I confess. I can’t hide the truth anymore. I did it. Now punish me by taking away all my inspirational movies. Please.”

Lev just keeps his arms limply by his side. “Stop it. I know you didn’t do it.”

“Oh—so you finally caught the naughty tithe?”

“Not exactly. I just know it wasn’t you.”

It’s a bit of a relief to be vindicated, although she did take some guilty pleasure in being a prime suspect. “So what do you want?”

“I’ve been meaning to apologize for the way you were brought here. Tranq’d and blindfolded and all. I mean, what they’re doing here is important, but I don’t always agree with how they do it.”

Miracolina notes that this is the first time she’s heard him say “they” instead of “we.”

“I’ve been here for weeks,” she says. “Why are you telling me this now?”

Lev reaches up and flips his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know. It was just bothering me.”

“Soooo . . . you’re going around apologizing to every kid here?”

“No,” Lev admits. “Just you.”

“Why?”

He begins pacing the small room, raising his voice. “Because you’re the only one who’s still angry! Why are you so angry?”

“The only angry person in this room is you,” Miracolina says, with antagonizing calm. “And there are plenty of angry kids here. Why else would your portrait get vandalized?”

“Forget about that!” shouts Lev. “We’re talking about you!”

“If you don’t stop yelling, I’ll have to ask you to leave. In fact, I think I’ll ask you to leave anyway.” She points to the door. “Leave!”

“No.”

So she picks up a hairbrush and throws it at him. It beans him on the head and ricochets to the wall, where it wedges behind the TV.

“Ow!” He grabs his head, grimacing. “That hurt!”

“Good, it was supposed to.”

Lev clenches his fists, growls, then turns like he’s going to storm out, but he doesn’t. Instead he turns back to her, unclenching his fists and holding his palms out to her, pleading like maybe he’s showing off his stigmata. Well, there might be blood on his hands, but it sure isn’t flowing from his palms.

“So is this how it’s going to be?” he asks. “You’re just going to stew and bitch and make things miserable for everyone here? Don’t you want something more out of life?”

“No,” she tells him, “because my life ended on my thirteenth birthday. As far as I’m concerned, from that moment on I was supposed to be a part of other people’s lives. I was fine with that. It’s what I wanted. It’s what I still want. Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

He looks at her for a moment too long, and she tries to imagine him all dressed in white as a tithe. She could like that boy; still pure and untainted. But the kid before her now is a different person.

“Sorry,” she says, not sorry at all. “I guess I failed deprogramming school.” She turns her back to him and waits a few moments, knowing he’s just standing there, then turns again—only to find that he’s not. He has left, closing the door so quietly she didn’t hear.

27 - Lev

Lev sits in on yet another meeting of the tithe rescue staff. He doesn’t know why they include him; Cavenaugh never listens to what he says. These meetings truly make him feel like a mascot, a favorite pet. This time, however, he’s determined to make them listen.