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Summary
Part Three: The Old Guard and the New Order, Chapters 18-19
H.S. Curie journal entry
Curie ponders the motivations that other scythes have for taking on apprentices. She assumes many are flattering their egos, fulfilling a desire for children otherwise forbidden to them, or placating themselves in their twilight years. Regardless, she notes that if she were ever to take on an apprentice, it would likely be for other, undisclosed reasons.
Chapter 18: Falling Water
Citra arrives at Curie’s home to start her apprenticeship. Her home is a surprisingly expansive mortal-age home called Falling Water, which Citra openly disapproves of. Curie argues that living there ensures the preservation of the historic home. Despite Citra’s temper, she is pleasantly surprised when Curie cooks her an excellent dinner.
The next morning, Curie makes them breakfast and takes Citra gleaning. Curie instructs Citra to look for people who seem stagnant. Citra struggles to pick up on the cues Curie sees and quietly questions whether this method is fair. Horrified by the sudden way in which Curie gleans, Citra openly criticizes Curie in the streets. Curie demonstrates a rage that terrifies Citra as Curie demands she apologize. In private, Curie explains that her rage was largely a show for public witnesses. She understands Citra’s reaction and asks her to invite over the family of the gleaned so they can receive their immunity. Curie cooks a tasty dinner for them, allows them to share memories of their gleaned relative, and offers them a chance to take revenge on her. None of them accept, but they seem consoled.
After the family leaves, Citra asks why Curie accepted her as an apprentice. Curie explains that Goddard asked for both Citra and Rowan, and she knew that he only wanted to toy with them to satisfy his cruel bloodlust. Curie also explains more about her methods, explaining that she always gleans publicly and suddenly to mimic the ways in which natural death was often experienced. Despite her openness to Citra’s questions, Curie becomes distant when Citra asks about her infamous gleaning of the president and his cabinet, and she tells Citra that she no longer always gleans with a higher purpose.
H.S. Curie journal entry
Curie recalls mortal age cartoons about Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. She complains that people now act like cartoons since they know revival centers can easily bring them back to life.
Chapter 19: A Terrible Thing to Do
Feeling more comfortable with Curie, Citra asks how she knew she was lying during her Conclave test. Then Citra confesses that she had actually shoved someone in front of a truck rather than down a flight of stairs. Curie tells Citra that she needs to make amends, and Citra and Curie track down Rhonda Flowers, the girl Citra pushed years earlier, so that Citra can apologize. Rhonda had always wondered if someone shoved her and feels vindicated when Citra apologizes. Otherwise, she is indifferent about the conversation and Citra’s offer of a chance at revenge. On the way home, Curie and Citra talk about how the incident would have been handled differently during the mortal age. Citra argues she would never have done what she did if Rhonda would have remained dead. Curie informs her that people once called what she did murder. After Curie comments that the Thunderhead undoubtedly saw Citra’s actions, Citra starts to wonder if the Thunderhead also witnessed Faraday’s death and if she can use this data to figure out what happened to him.
Analysis
Citra’s new, disorienting setting reflects her inner turmoil as she adapts to her changed circumstances. Citra admits to having difficulty reading people in general, but she finds Curie particularly unfathomable. Curie’s methods and lifestyle seem entirely at odds with what Citra experienced under Faraday’s tutelage, and even the knowledge that all scythes operate in their own independent way does not make the differences any less striking to her. Citra’s difficulty navigating her new scythe’s home, a maze in which she gets lost just trying to find the dining room from her bedroom, vividly symbolizes this struggle. However, this conflict with Curie does not last long, as Citra soon appreciates Curie’s methods and begins to feel comfortable enough to do household chores with her. It is while they make a bed together that Citra confesses what she had lied about. After stridently arguing with Curie and insisting on initially interpreting every one of her mentor’s actions in the worst way possible, Citra’s decision to make herself vulnerable and share this revelation with Curie indicates that she has accepted Curie as her new mentor and Falling Water as her new home.
Rhonda Flowers’ indifference to Citra’s revelation that she had intentionally pushed Rhonda when they were children illustrates the validity of Curie’s complaints about the stagnating effect this post-mortal culture has had on people. Citra’s apology to Rhonda contains a confession of what was once a terrible crime, murder. Though Curie and Citra recognize this fact in their discussion on the way home, Rhonda does not particularly care one way or the other. Rhonda is not even particularly surprised, having long suspected that someone shoved her, but her response is muted and apathetic. She frames her thoughts more in terms of how annoying she finds the entire conversation and the experience of being dead, rather than with any sense of true outrage at what occurred to her. She refuses to pursue Citra’s offer for revenge, not out of any sense of magnanimity but simply because it is inconvenient. Because death is largely meaningless in this world, made significant only through the presence of gleanings, Rhonda perceives her own attempted murder as merely an inconvenience. Rhonda isn’t able to respond in a more profound way because her life experiences have rendered everything, including death, less meaningful.
Curie’s profound interest in and knowledge of mortal-age culture and history sets her up to stand out sharply from Faraday, and hints at the fact that she has changed profoundly since becoming a scythe. Though Faraday had clearly admired mortal-age art, his day-to-day asceticism would have seemed unusual to most people from that period. Curie, meanwhile, lives a life that seems quite disconnected from the advanced technology of her world but right at home with early-twenty-first-century mortal-age culture. Rather than eating synthesized, prepackaged food, she delights in cooking and serves hearty homecooked meals for Citra and other guests. In her journal entries and conversations with Citra, Curie also reveals a profound knowledge of both the trivial and darker components of mortal-age culture, referencing everything from cartoons to crimes. Curie’s cryptic response when Citra mentions her most famous gleaning, which essentially destroyed mortal-age forms of government in MidMerica, suggests that Curie’s attitudes have changed over the years. As she has become more disillusioned with the futuristic society she lives in, she has become more intrigued by the very past that she once tried to destroy.
