When George and Yuri and Chloe and their baby had gone home, Anya went to her room and sat on what she called Scholar's Chair. She sported newly dyed black hair, thanks to Aunt Chloe's assistance. Bond followed and sat obediently beside her. She idly fingered her rocket ship as she looked at the drawings and paintings lining the walls, mostly stick figures and silhouettes. One, framed and studded with ribbons, showed a pink-haired girl with a hole in her chest and a face dissolving in a torrent of her own tears. Another frame held a magazine cover featuring a panel of her most famed creation, with a visible rip where she had torn the butcher paper canvas down from the hospital wall.
Then she turned to a desk that bore a building set the size of a small checkers board. It was a model of the Founder's Hall of Eden, now the best-selling kit in the history of Ostania. She swung the red and black rocket over the set. "Here comes the rocket," she said. "Is it Papa? No, it's only pretend! It's really the mean bad Octo People! Here's Becky in her jet, an' Damian on his griffin! Go away, Octo Man! Now here come Mama and Papa! He has a super spy jet pack, an' she has wings 'cause she's an angel in disguise! Papa says, I would never be on your side because you make children cry! Mama says, I can stabby you dead, but I won't, because you're so lame an' I'm too cool! Oh no, I'll just have to go back to the sea lair and tell the Octo King we should just be nice!" She pulled back the jet and let it zip off the desk. The set followed it to the floor. She buried her head in her hands and cried.
Finally, she looked at Bond. "We killed Cousin Yuri," she said bluntly. "Or we made him never born. That seems worse, doesn't it? And if it happened to him, we did the same thing to lots and lots and lots of people."
She scratched between Bond's ears. "But we did it," she said. "We can't undo it. Even if I went back, I wouldn't make things the way they were, I'd just change things again. Yuri and Chloe might not even get married. And we don't know if I can go back."
She looked up at approaching footsteps. Aunt Sylvia looked through the open door. "Are you all right, Anya?" she asked. Aaron came sniffing around her. When Anya was slow to answer, she added, "Can I come in?"
Anya nodded. Sylvia came in, and sat down on the bed. "I miss Mama," Anya said.
"I know," Sylvia said. "I saw how your Papa felt about her." She made a sound close to a laugh. "I knew how he felt better than he did."
"Did she really save everybody like Yuri says?" Anya asked.
"She cleared the mines from half the courtyard," Sylvia said. "That saved hundreds, at least. The rest… we don't know what she could have done." She rubbed Anya's shoulder. "So what's really on your mind?"
"I keep thinking whether I could have saved Becky," Anya said. "Would she have lived if she had gotten out from under Bill in time?"
"That's something else we don't know," Sylvia answered. "There was testimony at the tribunal; your Papa didn't let you see it. They had to use a scanner on the concrete slab she and Bill were buried in. She might have lived, if a grownup had been there. But she was hurt badly, and in a lot of pain. She couldn't save herself. Neither could you." She put an arm around Anya. "You know what I think really mattered? She got to hold her best friend's hand."
"When she died, I was sure I felt her soul leave," Anya said. "For a moment, it was like she was pulling me after her. I think she let me go."
"Of course," Sylvia said. "Wherever she is, she would want you to live your life."
"But what if I could have stopped everything?" Anya said. "What if I could save everyone at Eden, or even just Damian or Becky or Bill? Could that really be wrong? Even if it meant someone else was never born?"
"Well, I can tell you this," Sylvia said. "I had a family before the war your Papa and I fought in. If I could go back and stop that war, I would save them. But I wouldn't be there to teach your Papa to be a spy. He wouldn't train people like Fiona. All the bad people they stopped would be free to do what they wanted. And yes, you would never have been born."
"That makes sense," Anya said. "But people like Fiona would live and have their own kids. And maybe some of the bad people would be good."
"We don't know," Sylvia said. "There's no way to know all the things that could have been."
"But what about souls?" Anya said. "If someone isn't born who should've been, do they still have a soul that goes to heaven? Or do they get born, only as somebody else?"
Sylvia smiled. "Nobody knows that, either," she said. "Some people say every soul starts waiting for a body to be born in. Some of them think souls are born and live and die over and over again. Some people think the soul is just something that goes away when everything else stops. But people decide whether or not to have a child every day. Nobody says it's always wrong, or always right. Besides, you remember what it was like. Papa says he used to worry about you being scared. If Westalis hadn't won the way they did, the whole world would have been at war."
Anya bit her lip. "But what about Mama?" she said. "Did she have to die just for a dumb war? What about Becky and Bill and Henderson and Damian and everybody? What about me? I didn't want to have to see them die! I didn't want to feel Becky die!" She began to sniffle.
"It's all right," Sylvia said. "It's all right to cry. Nobody says it needed to happen. All we can do is try to make things better now. You did that, just by telling everyone what Mama and your friends were like and how brave they were. You made people want to live like they did, helping each other instead of hurting each other. You make people want to be like you, too. Look at what they call you." She took a scrap book off the shelf, with the title EDEN GIRL on the cover. Anya smiled at the headlines: Eden Girl and Boy confirmed unhurt… Eden Girl and Boy reunite at memorial art show… Eden Girl painting on display at national museum… "They would be proud of you. Now, just let it out as long as you have to. Papa and I will take you out later, if you're up for it."
When Sylvia had left, Anya turned to Bond. "You heard her," she said. "We can't change what matters. If we did, it could just make things worse. We probably can't do it again, anyway." She cupped Bond's jaw. "But what if I could? What if I could go back just a little further? I could tell people. Even if they didn't believe me, I could save someone. Becky. Damian. Master Henderson. Wait… Henderson said the alarm should have gone off earlier. What really happened? And… why was the sewer grate open when they were working on the gutters?"
Bond whimpered and closed his eyes. He shivered like he did when he pooed. "You can, can't you?" Anya said. She started at the sound of Sylvia's voice.
"Anya?" Sylvia said. "Would you like me to come back in?"
"It's all right, Aunt Sylvia," Anya said. She rubbed between Bond's ears.
The door flew open. Sylvia stared sternly. At her side, Aaron growled. "Stop, Anya," she said. "You still don't understand."
Anya looked at Sylvia. Her mind was like a steel ball, but she had a rare glimpse beneath the surface. "Watkins was right!" she exclaimed. "You planned it all!"
"Let's say he wasn't entirely wrong," Sylvia said. "Me, personally? I evaluated a proposal." She drew what looked like a pen from her pocket. "Now let go of Bond."
"Bond, go!" Anya cried out. Sylvia frowned, and then lashed out. She caught hold of Anya's wrist, just before the world faded into white. Anya gave one final cry: "Bond, it's the wrong way!"