Butler, Octavia - Fledgling

was already beginning to. But she refused to accept the judgment against her. She preferred death. She said she was just sorry she couldn’t take you with her. Her sister Sophia accepted the judgment on behalf of the Dahlman family. Preston says that means we won’t have to worry about them coming after us.”

“Good. I hope that promise is as good as the Gordons think it is.”

“I asked Hayden about that. He’s kind of the Gordons’ historian. He said we shouldn’t worry, that not many people want to risk sacrificing the lives of their whole adult family to violate a judgment. It’s supposed to be a matter of honor, anyway. He said the Dahlmans aren’t a likable family, but it seems that they are, by their own standards, an honorable one. Sophia Dahlman is the oldest of them now, and she’s given her word. They’ll keep it.”

I sighed. “I wonder how you can be honorable and still kill the innocent?” “Don’t know,” he said. “They’re your people.”

I looked up at him. “We’ll have to learn about them together.” “Well,” he said, “Katharine was the guilty one, and now she’s dead.”

He was right. That’s what mattered Theodora was avenged and the rest of my symbionts were safe. What about my mothers and sisters, my father and brothers? What about my memory?

They were all gone. The person I had been was gone. I couldn’t bring anyone back, not even myself. I could only learn what I could about the Ina, about my families. I would restore what could be restored. The Matthews family could begin again. The Petrescu family could not.

“All the Council members have gone home,” Wright said. “Joan and Margaret Braithwaite left you a

letter and their addresses and phone numbers. They’re okay with us spending a year or two with them after you’ve straightened out your parents’ affairs and talked to Theodora’s family. Joan says if you’re going to survive on your own, you’ll need good teachers, and she’s willing to be one of them. She also said she thought you’d make a damn good ally someday.”

I thought about that and nodded. “She’s right. I will.”

About the Author

OCTAVIA E. BUTLER (1947–2006) was the first black woman to come to international prominence as a science fiction writer. Incorporating powerful, spare language, and rich, well-developed characters, her work tackled race, gender, religion, poverty, power, politics, and science in a way that touched readers of all backgrounds. Butler was a towering figure in life and in her art and the world noticed. A critical force, she received numerous awards, including a MacAuthur “genius grant,” both the Hugo and Nebula awards, the Langston Hughes Medal, and a PEN Lifetime Achievement award.

About herself, Octavia E. Butler once wrote: “I am a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. I’m also comfortably asocial—a hermit in the middle of Seattle—a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”