The doctor, Dr. Kim, welcomed her into the delivery room with unsettling enthusiasm.
"It's the big day, Makeda," he said, as if she were getting ready to deliver an important speech instead of a living, breathing, shitting baby. "Let's get to work."
After six hours, Makeda, sweat dripping from her face, looked at Slim, who had been holding her hand the entire time, and said, "Slim. I don't care if they're a boy or a girl. I'm naming them Slim."
He parted his lips and looked like he had just won an Olympic gold medal, maybe for shot put or wrestling; he was a big man, after all.
"Keep going," Dr. Kim said. "You're doing great, Makeda."
It felt like a stone giant was crushing her abdomen, a sensation that only intensified as the time between contractions decreased. She gripped Slim's large rough hand even harder.
"Makeda," Dr. Kim said, looking into her eyes. "Push."
She pushed, and pushed and pushed and pushed. The sound of her racing heart drowned out the world around her.
"Makeda," Dr. Kim repeated, louder now.
She gave one final push with everything in her, and she knew that her baby was here. Makeda, exhausted, smiled up at Slim, who still held her hand, but he was staring at Dr. Kim with a confused look, like something was wrong.
"What is it?" Makeda asked, her heart speeding again. "Let me see my baby, please."
Dr. Kim rose, silent. But there was nothing to see. Just a
baby-sized indentation in the doctor's blue scrubs.
And then: the wailing of a child unseen.
2529
Forest Region, Northwestern Hemisphere
CHAPTER ONE
THIS TIME IT WOULD BE PERFECT. SWEETMINT KNELT DOWN, EYE LEVEL WITH
the crisscrossing of string that hovered above her stove. She plucked it and then clapped her hands together.
"Holy Father," she said, raising her closed eyes to the cabin's ceiling. "Please let this work." With the biogas turned on and everything in place, she grabbed a knife from the kitchen table, took two steps toward the door—carefully ducking under more sets of string—and, in one swift motion, tore through the first string, which ran from the doorknob to the network in front of her.
A pitcher of sun-charged water dipped and poured into the open kettle on her stove, then a crudely carved wooden mallet swung from the ceiling and collided with the stove's red button, igniting the biogas. The weight of the mallet pulled on a group of interlocking strings, causing a spoon with a hole drilled into its handle to fall, dropping a pinch of needle leaf into a metal strainer that sat inside an herbcup. The cup, balanced by two thicker strings, soared toward the stove and stopped right as the kettle tilted and poured boiling water into it.
Sweetmint's nails were already chewed to nubs, but that didn't stop her from obliterating them even further. She turned off the biogas and counted out a full minute aloud. Then, holding the herbcup with one palm, she snipped the two strings that held it in front of the stove, removed the strainer, and took a sip.
"PERFECTION!" she shouted, throwing a triumphant fist into the air. It was the perfect amount of water. The perfect amount of needle leaf. The perfect length of string. The perfect-size herbcup. She took another sip, then ran from her kitchen to the other side of her cabin, careful not to trip on sawed wood, twisted metal, and other inventions-in-progress. She played a beat on the steel trunk that sat between two mattresses; her own unmade to the left, the other neat and untouched to the right.
Sweetmint shook her butt to the beat, but stopped when the sight of the untouched mattress sucked the joy out of her, as it always did. She threw herself on the couch, the sunlight from the window above warming her already warm skin.
"I did it. I did it. I did it," she said half-heartedly.
"Did what?" The voice came from the other side of her door.
"Good morning, Rusty," she said. "Come in."
"Sawukhoob, Sweetmint." The door opened, and his scentprint—rusted metal mixed with something more pleasing, like sweet potatoes roasted until the sap bursts through the skin—filled the cabin. Though she heard his footsteps, smelled his smell, and sensed his rumoya, or "cell spirit"—the life force flowing through all Invisibles, unique to each of them, influencing thought, feeling, and action—she couldn't see any physical manifestation of him. This made it impossible for him to hide the small box floating behind him.
"What's that?" she asked.
