by Lisa Mangum
She was still sitting and breathing when a happy trill interrupted her thoughts. She looked up in time to see Renana’s fluffy tail vanish around the corner of the next hallway down. And like that, the wave of sick passed by her. She pushed off the wall, ignoring the flood of gray at the corners of her vision as she raced off after the cat.
Renana gave a bright mew at Zeriah’s footsteps before darting up the rack of dried beans and lentils stored in tall glass jars in the hall outside the kitchen. She climbed all the way to the top of the rack, to where the shelves ended and a long row of window gaps traced the wall just below the ceiling.
The cat gave one last flick of her tail before she vanished through one of them.
Zeriah set her jaw and scaled the rack, only bumping one glass jar, which she managed to steady before it could smash on the ground and alert the kitchen staff to her troublemaking. The gaps near the ceiling were narrow enough she had to flatten herself like a salamander to fit through. They were meant to let out the heat of the kitchen, not for princesses to sneak through, and she could feel the hot air blast on her face as she wiggled onto the row of cabinets that lined the kitchen’s upper walls.
She was high enough up the staff working below would not notice her, high enough they’d never managed to catch her sneaking oranges and bits of candied ginger from their pantries.
She spotted her cat sitting on one of the cabinets at the far end of the room. Renana gave her a long, slow blink as she crawled in her direction, paying no mind to the glassware rattling in the cabinets below. Renana gave a mew of protest when Zeriah sat down beside her and pulled her into her lap, but she didn’t make any move to resist beyond the noise. The moment Zeriah began scratching under her chin, Renana started to purr and went puddle-shaped in the girl’s lap.
And for a few moments, it was just the pair of them and the sunbeam buried under Renana’s wide purr. Zeriah didn’t even realize she was listening to anyone speak until she heard someone mention the queen. She shook off the last of the daydream and peered over the edge of the cabinet to the kitchen below.
An older woman with her hair done up in a scarf snapped orders at the younger girls, who were all busy filling pots with water and stoking the open flames to boil them. Below her, a pair of girls folded fresh-laundered towels and placed them in large baskets.
One of them whispered to the other. “S’early, isn’t it? Earlier than usual—”
“Not so early. My cousin Abidan was born this far out. He’s a bit shorter than his brothers, but other than that, nothing odd about him.”
“Yeah,” the first girl said, dabbing sweat from her brow with her wrist, “but she’s had such a rough go of it, with the bleeding and having to be in bed like that. And the doulas were supposed to be here, and we’ve missed the last three months’ delivery from the alchemist, and we don’t have enough, and it’s just us—oh, sun and stars, Dalida, I don’t think I can—”
The scarf-haired house matron clapped her hands loud enough to snap the room into silence. Her sharp gaze turned on the girl who had been speaking. “Helpha, I’m not going to repeat myself. I want less talking and more folding. That goes for all of you.” Her eyes narrowed as she swept the room. To Zeriah, she seemed more a general than a house matron.
“Now, this isn’t the first child I’ve seen brought into this world, and I suspect there are others here who can say the same. And if I am speaking of you, I need you to accompany me. Immediately. Your queen needs competent hands who won’t faint on the first push. Now, who will be coming with me?”
Two girls’ hands shot up the moment she stopped speaking. A third in the corner only put her hand as high as her chest, looking much less certain than the first two. The house matron didn’t seem to care and rounded them up and marched them out of the room, leaving the ongoing bustle to continue without her.
All at once Zeriah realized Renana was gone from her lap and nowhere to be found. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud, and the warmth she’d been sitting in had turned cold as stone.
Zeriah shimmied back through the window gap and took off running the moment her feet found the floor, past the fountained gardens, past the ballroom with the open ceiling and the canopies of fine sheer scarves, and up, up, up the stairs to the grand halls above.
Outside Momma’s bedroom there were servants gathered in clusters. One of the girls tried to stop her, but Zeriah was too quick for her. But not for the one inside the room. That girl caught Zeriah while she was steps from Momma’s bed.
“It’s all right.” Momma’s soft voice calmed the scene. “Let her through.”
Zeriah tugged her hand loose, glaring at the servant before hurrying to her mother’s side. Momma was pale. There were drops of sweat collecting on her forehead, and her smile couldn’t seem to stay in place.
“Hello, petal,” she beamed, tugging Zeriah to sit on the bed beside her. “I’m very glad to see you. I have a surprise. Your sibling is going to be joining us a little earlier than we planned.”
“But it’s supposed to be another month,” Zeriah said dimly. “W-we had another month. We had time.” All at once her vision went glassy. “I’ve been trying, Momma, I’ve been trying so hard—”
Her mother pulled her into her arms. “I know, petal. And I’m so proud of you. I need you to be brave, all right? Just for a little while. You’re going to be a sister soon. But until then, I need you to be brave.”
Zeriah didn’t feel like being brave at all, nose running and tears all down her cheeks. She nodded anyway. “I’ll try. I’m trying. I-I’m trying to do magic, b-but I don’t know how to do magic. I can’t think of my Big Happy—”
“Oh, petal.” Momma’s shaky smile held steady a moment as she cupped her cheek. “Yes, you do. I know you do. You just need to find the right inspiration. The right spark—”
Zeriah sniffled and tried her best to stop crying. “D-do you have one?”
Momma smiled. “You, petal. It’s always been you.” She pulled her close enough to press her lips to her forehead and squeeze her tightly.
There was a rumble of sound, and Zeriah looked up to see one of the servants rise from Momma’s bedding with a red towel. All at once the servants were pulling her away from Momma, pushing her out into the hall while others shouted and ran baskets of fresh towels into the room.
Zeriah stood still for a moment, not knowing what to do or where to go. Several servants nearly collided with her, until one finally shouted at her to go stand somewhere else. Zeriah moved like a dream to the next hall over, empty and closed up for the season, and stood there a very long while. She wanted to find Esdras. She wanted to make her magic work and fix everything so Momma didn’t have to be sick when the baby arrived.
She shivered and turned to face the darkened wing before her. She knew where she needed to go. She took off at a run, sandals clattering in the empty hallway and folding back on her until she was enveloped in her own odd rhythm. She stopped outside the same dimly lit room from her nightmares. The door was closed up and it took her a long moment to convince herself to reach for it. Momma needed her to be brave. She’d promised.
Zeriah took a deep breath and stepped into Papa’s room.
It was still strange to see him like this, shut up in a dark room with his arms folded across his chest. It reminded her of the way they’d folded Emaron’s arms for the funeral fire.
Not dead, asleep. She repeated it over and over as she approached the man in bed who looked like her father. It couldn’t be Papa. Papa’s cheeks were never so gray. His hair was never so well-oiled and combed. This was a stranger. But perhaps the stranger could help her find Papa. Perhaps they could find help for Momma. But she had to wake him first. She could help Momma, but only if she could wake him first.
She pulled one of his hands off his chest to hold it between her own. She never realized he’d be so heavy. It was only as she stood there, hand in hand with a ghost, that she realized she was crying. That she’d been crying since she
left Momma’s room and she hadn’t stopped and couldn’t now.
She gasped for air as she tried to call any happiness to mind. Thoughts scattered like summer dragonflies, and she grabbed empty air as she reached to catch them.
Birthday. No.
The Solarium Fair. Nothing.
Holding Renana in the sun. Not so much as a single spark.
It should have been simple: a single spark of happiness. That was the only thing stopping Momma from being safe, stopping Papa from waking up. It was one happy thought and it was hers, and she couldn’t do that one thing for them. And now Momma was going to die. They’d put her up on a funeral fire like Emaron, fold her hands over her chest like Papa. And all because Zeriah didn’t know how to be happy right.
She sobbed so hard she began to cough.
And then someone was holding her, gently tugging her away from her father’s ever-still bed. She didn’t recognize Esdras until he set her down again on a couch in the hall. She cursed and shouted at him to take her back. He ignored the plea, pulling a long, blue handkerchief from the inner pocket of his robe. He dabbed at the tears on her cheeks.
She pushed him away. “Leave me alone! I can do it, let me do it—”
“My princess,” he said gently, holding her by the shoulders until she relented and went still. “This is not the way. This is no way for you to access your magic.”
“But I have to,” she gasped. “Momma is sick. The baby is coming, and no one will tell me anything, and if I don’t wake up Papa, she might …” She rubbed a wrist across one cheek and sniffed hard. “I have to.”
Esdras’s smile was tired. “You have done everything you are able to, my princess. That is all anyone can ask. And what will be will be with your mother.” When she looked confused, he gave a slow shake of his head. “Even if you were to wake your father and lower the brambles this moment, it is a day’s ride to town, and another back. There is nothing you can do for your mother now but be still and be brave.”
“I don’t want to be brave,” Zeriah shouted in a high-pitched rush. “I want to be sad. And angry.”
Esdras considered her for a long, quiet moment, then drew her closer to his side and gave a small nod. “Then be sad. And be angry. And I will sit here with you, my princess.”
Zeriah pressed both hands over her face and began to cry again. She slumped against Esdras with a defeated sound and didn’t shrug off the hand he set upon her back. He rubbed small circles between her shoulders until she stopped crying. The dusk-orange hall had gone dark. She felt like a sun-dried bone: brittle, dry, and overbright. One of the maidservants found them sitting like that in the hall and bundled Zeriah into her arms.
The next morning, Zeriah woke in her own bed, wearing a pair of pajamas she didn’t remember putting on.
Only one servant came to bathe her and braid her hair. It was the same girl who brought breakfast. Zeriah asked if it was because all the other servants were still with Momma. The girl tried to distract her by pointing at the vine that had started to flower outside her window.
The whole day was like that. She’d try to pry information out of the servants, and not one of them told her a thing. So it was on to distraction. She found Renana in the gardens, walking delicately along a high stone wall and joined her for the walk around. She tried not to think of Emaron or Papa or Momma or the baby.
She’d fallen asleep stretched out on the hot stones when she heard a servant shouting for her.
Zeriah’s whole body went fuzzy with hot-cold again. She jumped down from the wall and ran like a streak of light. Her heart beat so loud she could hear it in her ears.
But then she saw that the servant calling for her was smiling.
It was another few days before they finally let Esdras take her to see Momma. It had been a very long birthing, and she was still sick, but everyone said she would be herself again soon enough. She was still ash-pale when they finally allowed Zeriah to visit, but her smile was easy and bright and doubled when she saw her daughter.
“Hello, petal,” she said, shifting the bundle in her arms to let Zeriah see properly. “Say hello to your baby brother.”
Zeriah bent to look. Inside the bundle, there was a tiny face, and one hand curled tight around one of Momma’s fingers. His fingernails were smaller than the daintiest shells she’d ever seen, and when she touched the back of his hand, those tiny fingers wrapped around her own fingers. She drew a small, delighted breath.
“Hello,” she told the bundle, marveling at how hard he held onto her. “I’m Zeriah, your big sister.”
And the fingertip held tight in her brother’s grasp began to glow, dimly at first, then a radiant blue light flickered along her finger like a flameless fire.
Her brother blinked and made a soft, wondering noise, the blue glow reflecting back at Zeriah in his eyes. She looked up from the baby to see her mother, tears streaming down her cheeks, and Esdras staring with his mouth agape.
Zeriah smiled back at them, hiccoughing with tears and laughter. “Look, Momma,” she said, staring down at the tiny fist wrapped around her fingertip. “I found a Big Happy.”
Esdras and Zeriah kept practicing in the days that followed, ensuring she had some measure of control over the power. At least enough to administer the touch.
Once again the dark room was crowded. This time Zeriah didn’t mind. She knew what to do.
She walked to her father’s bedside and took his hand in hers. She felt Esdras’s hand on her back, steadying her, and she closed her eyes, drew a long, slow breath and imagined the still pool Esdras always told her to look for. When the waters were still, she whispered one request to them: happiness. Then she waited to see what came to the surface.
There were no birthday parties this time. Instead, there was the memory of falling asleep in Papa’s lap while he read to her. There was the memory of picnics with Momma and long afternoons talking and laying in the tall grass. And there was the memory of the day she met her brother. She let bright, glittery happiness fill her from toe to brow. By the time she opened her eyes, both her hands were flickering like the southern aurora.
“All right, Papa,” she whispered. “Time to wake up.”
About the Author
Kat Kellermeyer is a loudmouthed punk from Salt Lake City who likes good gin, local music, and art in every medium they can get their hands on. When they’re not writing (or consuming more art), you can find them drumming for Stop Karen, teaching young people music and life skills at Rock Camp SLC, or standing on a street corner shouting about social justice.
The First Problem
Alicia Cay
The tidy kitchen reeked of death. Detective Inspector Charles A. Dupin stepped across the threshold into the neatly kept but ramshackle house. He regarded the scene.
The victim lay on the plank-wood floor. Someone, the officer perhaps, had thrown a crisp linen sheet over her. One of the dining chairs had been knocked over, and a single letter lay unfolded on the table next to a stack of untouched post.
Mrs. Pearcey, the owner of the lodging house, stood in the doorway nearby, wringing her hands. Her abundant body blocked his view into the sitting room, where her lodgers would sit of an evening, smoking, playing cards, or doing their mending while bemoaning the luck that had brought them to this sad place.
Dupin had never been in this house, but he knew them well. Different folk came and went, and different wallpaper peeled from the walls, but they were at their hearts, all the same.
Dupin removed his bowler hat and kneeled next to the deceased woman. He pulled the sheet down to expose her face and upper body. Her face was puckered, swollen with death. She had pale skin and chestnut-brown hair. He removed his magnifying glass from a coat pocket, lifted the woman’s eyelid, and observed the clouded iris; red pinpricks had blossomed on the whites of her eyes. He let the eyelid fall close.
The marks on her neck were fresh and pink—death having rushed in before they could turn to black and blue. He brushed a thumb g
ently across her cheek. What had this woman dreamed of when she had been a small girl? Surely not this end: a lost soul, attacked and demeaned in a lonely doss-house in Shoreditch.
Dupin slid his hand beneath the woman’s and studied her fingers. The nail of her middle finger was cracked, a tiny fragment of wood slid beneath it. He returned her hand to her bosom. A sound, like the rustle of wings upon air, drew his attention to where Mrs. Pearcey hovered.
There, behind the landlady’s wide hips, stood a young child of eight or nine. She had been hiding him. The boy’s shock of dark curls stood distraught on his head, and his deep brown eyes, wide with animal panic, stared back at Dupin. The Inspector rocked back on his heels.
“Terrible sorry, Inspector,” Mrs. Pearcey said. “He’s what found her this way. Came and got me straightaway.” She lowered her voice. “She’s his mother.”
Dupin replaced the sheet over the woman and stood. “This is no scene for a boy. Take him out—anywhere, but not here. Do it now.”
Mrs. Pearcey turned, grabbed the boy, and tried to usher him up the stairs.
The child’s face screwed up as he wailed in distress. His hands clutched at her apron, and he dug his heels into the rug. He was small, but the panic that shone in his eyes also gave him the strength of one far more grown.
Mrs. Pearcey struggled with him for a moment before the officer standing in the kitchen moved into the sitting room. He grabbed the boy’s collar and began to drag him from the room.
“Here then!” Dupin said. He strode through and picked the boy up into his arms. He could feel the child’s heart jack hammering against his own chest. Dupin held him tight, trying to still that animal terror.
The boy’s wails turned to screams, and tears ran freely down his face. He arched his back to pull away.
Emotion built in Dupin’s chest, crying as the child did, to be let out. He held tighter. The child’s hands, clutched into small red fists, beat down on Dupin’s back. Dupin would not let him go.
