She paused, praying, it seemed, upon hearing her name. In a whisper, she replied, “You . . . you knew her, yes? Was she as beautiful as she appears in her pictures?”
“You’ve got to be k—” Dara kicked me, a clear reminder not to speak from the top of my head, as was my way. “I mean, yes, beautiful. Sure. We’ll go with that.” I mean, in bar light, dim as it was, she was, well, pretty. From a distance. And after a few strong drinks.
Soon enough, we arrived again on solid ground, on Ellis Island. Here the buildings had been converted to apartments, the gardens to crops, a veritable city springing up from what was once a museum. Funny, because here now were the last remaining immigrants on an island that had once been dedicated to just that. It was, I thought, a testament to humanity. We did seem to cling to life. Even I did, however much you could call it that anymore—life, I mean. Then I turned to Dara and smiled. Guess we clung to love as well, I quickly realized. And hope.
Dara tapped our hostess on her silvery shoulder. “Why did we end the tour here?”
Topaz nodded. “You wanted answers; here is where you will find a great many of them.”
She pointed to one of the main buildings, its fa? ade now painted in a rainbow of colors, much different how I remembered it from my one and only visit during a trip out east for Gay Pride. My stomach suddenly knotted. Something about this place sent a wave of foreboding through me, despite its cheerful appearance.
Topaz helped us out of the golf cart and led us up the short promenade to the entrance of the building, those knots in my belly tightening, strong enough to dock a tanker with. She opened the door, and we entered. The room was large, with high ceilings, window-lined and bright. The purpose it had originally served, either for the immigrants themselves or the museum that followed, had long ago been forgotten, altered.
“Wow,” said Dara, craning her neck to take it all in.
“No,” I managed to squeak out, so much dread running through me that it was a wonder I was still able to stand, despite the rigor mortis keeping me locked in place.
From one end of the great hall to the other, a mural had been painted in the same rich and vibrant colors as the building itself, reading from left to right. I had started from the right, hence my no, while Dara had started from the left. A heavy groan rumbled through her once her neck finished moving across.
I knew it before I saw it. Felt it before we even entered. Perhaps, as someone who had been long dead myself, I was connected to it, to death. Though, for some, it appeared to have been more final.
“The goddesses,” said Topaz, her voice barely above a reverent whisper, her index finger moving in an arc across the great expanse of the room, our eyes following, the mural recounting the story.
“So this is why you worship them,” said Dara.
Topaz remained motionless. This, I knew, was holy ground. You could feel it all around us. It was as if the air itself was charged, like you were standing in a great cathedral. “To a degree,” she replied. “In and of itself, what they did was enough to be venerated.”
And, as I looked from left to right and back again, as I played the scenes out in my head, almost imagining them turning from paint to flesh, I understood—understood why this place was the way it was, why the Libetians were the way they were.
“My friends,” I said, my face again turned to the left side of the room, to the beginning of the mural. “They overcame great obstacles to arrive here. They helped build a new civilization, one of equality, it looks like, of peace and beauty, until—”
Dara took up my story, the remaining words suddenly lodged in my throat. “The zombies, they attacked this place. Destiny and Kit and Blondella fought to save it, and, as a result . . .”
She couldn’t finish it, so Topaz did it for her. “Yes,” she said, the word like a prayer, or like an amen at the end of one. “They gave their lives to save us all.” She pointed to the glass cases that were spread around the room. “From what I know of this room, it once contained the clothes of the people who came here long ago. The early Libetians wore these clothes. It was easier than raiding the mainland in those early years.”
The cases now contained my friends’ clothes, the ones they apparently fought in, ratted and tattered, the rhinestones still sparkling though, beads and sequins gleaming as the light flickered over them. I smiled, remembering my cohorts as they looked in these impossibly old outfits. “But now you dress like . . .” I pointed to the remains. “Like they once did.”
She nodded. “They were brave, your friends. My ancestors honored that and still do so today.”
And, in a way, I suppose they were brave. They certainly lived lives outside the norm. They were, in fact, larger than life. And now they were even larger than that.
Dara smiled. “By dressing like them, by taking on their, well, affectations.”
Topaz also smiled. “I do not know of the old ways, of what life was like before the goddesses. That life didn’t seem to work anymore, not in this place. It’s not taught, never spoken of. All I know is what you see today: fabulousness.”
Hence that word they all bandied about: the beginning. For them, my friends were just that: Adams dressed like Eves. And now all there was were Eves. Nice work, if you could get it.