supposed she was right. Asa crawled out from under the table and went to the door. He opened it a crack and looked outside. Sal Wilkerson was standing on the porch with her hands on her hips, looking unhappy.
“Is anyone else out there?” he asked, eyes darting. “Are they looking for me?”
“If you mean the crowd of people standing around your soapbox, yes,” she said. “But they’re not around right now. I guess I scared them off. So let me in. We need to talk.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Asa said. “If you’re coming in, hurry.” He opened the door, and Sal hesitated for a second, looking past him into his dark, bloodstained house; then she darted inside.
She looked around, her expression a mixture of curiosity and horror.
“So what brings you around here?” Asa said, doing his best to slick his hair back down. “What do you need to talk to me about? More questions about quarters? Or maybe nickels or dimes?”
“Obviously you weren’t honest with me before, so I’m going to ask you outright, one more time: What is going on? Why did you really come here?”
“Like I said at the gate and in the cell, I am stuck here.” Asa crossed his arms as he’d seen humans do when they were being obstinate. “That’s it.”
“Fine, don’t tell me,” said Sal. “But know that you’ve made my life way more difficult than it had to be. Running up there and fixing everything—”
“Are you… mad at me?” Asa asked. “For saving you?”
“Yes,” Sal said. “And, I mean… no. But—”
“I just wanted to help,” Asa said. “You needed help and I thought I was doing the right thing and…” A sudden, awful thought. “Did I do something bad?”
“It’s not that it was bad bad. It’s just…” She paused, looking for the right words. “It’s not what it’s supposed to be, you know? I don’t know if you know about my past, but I’ve been through a lot. And it’s a really big deal to me that I’m the Successor. That I got the chance for people to trust me again. And then you came along, and you’re new and powerful and… you have no idea how hard I worked only for you to come in and undo so much all at once.”
“But you’re the Successor!” Asa protested. “Surely the people see you as that.”
“That’s what I’m supposed to be,” Sal said. “And I’ve been working so hard to be what they need me to be. What I feel like I need to be. But here, people have one impression of you and you stay whatever that is in their minds forever. It takes a miracle to change minds here.” She looked at Asa. “And when you saved me, it kind of undermined all that. It made me look bad and it made you look…”
“Like a threat,” Asa groaned. “A threat to your power. Oh no… I’ve disrupted everything.”
That’s why the people of Elysium were at his door. They were looking to him as their leader now and not who they were supposed to be looking to. He had really messed things up this time.
“That’s the last thing I intended,” he said. “I’m not here to try and… and usurp anybody’s power! I’m just trying to figure things out right now. Make the best of my situation. And I don’t want everyone at my door, thinking I can do miracles! I don’t want this! What can I do?”
Sal blinked. “So you’re not some messiah sent to lead us out of the desert?”
“Of course not!” said Asa. “I’m as shocked as you are!”
Sal took a moment to digest this; then finally she spoke.
“Look,” said Sal. “I believe you when you say you didn’t intend to disrupt Elysium or whatever. But the damage has been done. Mother Morevna’s authority and mine have been undermined, and I know what that’s like. When the people think there’s some way out of here, they stop focusing. When the people aren’t focused, they can’t be productive, and if they can’t be productive, we can’t produce enough for the harvest, and if we don’t, then everybody dies.” She took a deep breath. “And it’s my job as the Successor to help make sure that doesn’t happen.”
It was a very bleak picture, indeed. Asa felt something that must be regret, maybe mixed with a little bit of shame, wash over him.
“So what do we do?” Asa asked.
“We have to find a way to set things straight again so we can get back