A Shrine to an Unknown God

AMERICAN SOIL

WHEN WE FIRST LAND IN AMERICA, in the place called Boston, we are too busy rushing to our next flight for me to fully comprehend the fact that I am on American soil.

Only once we land in West Palm Beach do I fully realize where I am. I bask in it, this strange country, the warmth caking over me from the sunlight dripping through the windows.

"What does it smell like?" Marisol asks.

"Freedom?" suggests Ezra.

Dahlia crosses her arms over her chest. "More like hundreds of years of colonial oppression, slavery, and genocide marketed as freedom."

Ezra frowns. "That's not how we learned it in Texas."

"You can say that about your country?" I ask. "Back home you'd be arrested for treason."

"I mean, it's not like it's some radical opinion. It's just the facts."

"Welcome to America!" Ezra grins, thrusting his fist in the air.

We navigate our way back through customs, where a machine scans my passport and then my face. It has me select my language and then asks me several questions: have I been to a farm recently, am I bringing any food into the country, am I carrying any weapons or explosive devices? I answer no to all of them, even the ones where the answer should be yes. It feels like what I'm supposed to do. Next I am shepherded into a line, where a woman in uniform scrutinizes my passport and looks at me with raised eyebrows. She asks me a question in English.

For a moment I forget how to speak in Greek. I look at her, my eyes bulging, and shake my head. "No," I say, because I've picked up that one little word so far. "No... angliká, no angliká."

The woman looks at my passport again, then gestures over a coworker and mumbles something to him. Their exchange is quick, thoughtless, just the tiniest of blips in their day, but it has my teeth chattering. Her coworker comes over, red-haired and white-skinned, and asks me, in my own tongue:

"Greek?"

"Yes, yes, I'm Greek, I speak Greek."

"She wanted to know how long you will be staying and where you will be traveling."

"Ninety days." We rehearsed this bit on the plane. Ninety days is just enough to not raise any suspicions. "To stay with... a friend. I will remain here in Florida."

He relates this information to the woman, and she tells him something else in return.

"Very well," he tells me. "That's all she needed to know."

I'm dismissed. Dahlia instantly appears out of nowhere, grabs me by the strap of my bag, and drags me over to the bench where Ezra and Marisol had been waiting.

Apparently, this was our last test, and we passed it, and now, we're free to leave the airport. Together, we find Marisol's parents—who are here to pick her up—by a place I'm told is called the baggage claim. I'm instructed to stay out of sight. Because she doesn't want her parents to know that I exist. When we find them, Marisol, Dahlia, and Ezra leave me, hidden behind a crowd of people. I watch them, though I can only look and not listen, trying not to seem too suspicious.

Marisol flings herself into her parents arms, all three of them sobbing. Beside them stands a boy of about twelve or thirteen years old, shifting his feet, looking at the floor. Dahlia—who towers over all three of them, but especially this young boy—hugs him warmly and ruffles up his hair. He rolls his eyes at her.

Once Marisol has detangled herself from her parents, she tackles the young boy in a hug. Her parents move on to hug Dahlia, holding her as if she was their own kid, and then, strangely, they do the same to Ezra. Once everyone has hugged everyone, they stand around for a moment and talk. There is a lot of serious expressions and head nods. Even if I could hear them, I doubt I would be able to understand. Since I can only assume they're speaking in English.

They all hug one last time before breaking up, Marisol and her parents and the young boy heading off in one direction, Dahlia and Ezra standing in the same place for a moment, waving, before returning to me. We all just stand there, staring at each other, none of us seeming very sure of what we're supposed to do next. So I decide that it's Question Time.

"Was that boy Marisol's little brother? What's his name? How old is he?"

"Yeah, that's Jaden," Dahlia replies. "He's twelve."

"What about her older brother?"

"Oh. Kennedy." She pales. "He was, like, twenty-seven? They've all got a pretty big age gap."

"Why didn't he come?" Ezra asks.

"Don't talk about this with Marisol, okay? She was really close to him. And don't tell her I told you," Dahlia insists. "He was in the crash."

Ezra's hand flies over his mouth. "He didn't make it."

Dahlia nods, her lips pressed together. "Yeah. So just don't bring it up around her, okay?"

"She's in denial," I say. "She doesn't think he's dead."

"It's the first stage of grief," Dahlia agrees. "Homegirl's gonna need a lot of therapy. And even more love and support. We all need to be there for her, okay? In whatever ways we can be. I mean, we went through this together. All of us being there for her will be important for her recovery."

"Count me in," says Ezra.

"Me too," I reply.

I'm supposed to kill one of them. At this point, I don't know which one it is. At this point, I don't think I even want to know. But what other option do I have?