Burning Kingdoms

by Lauren DeStefano

  He climbs slowly, shivering at the cold, under the scrutiny of a dozen men and a dozen guns. The king is not even present for this moment. He has sent his men and his permission and his blessing, but he hides in his castle for the dirty work of the demolition and the moving of the pieces.

  The professor sets one foot on the ground, then the other. And then with a feeble grunt he collapses.

  Celeste does not mind the intrusion on her time with the king. It gives her an opportunity to see the hospital of Havalais. And, as she is quick to remind me, she is all about finding the sunny side of things. The king’s driver gives us a full tour.

  “Isn’t it astounding?” Celeste says.

  “I don’t much care for hospitals, actually,” I say.

  The driver boasts about the top-notch technology of the facility. Blood transfusions and burn units. Something called cancer. He’s surprised that we’ve never heard of it. He says there are so many types, and surely we must have them on Internment but know them by another name.

  Celeste begins describing her mother’s symptoms.

  I try to let the noises of the building drown out the words. I do not want to hear about illnesses or death or medicine. It’s strange how this hospital seems to carry the same memories as the one back home.

  I clutch the history book to my chest. The princess has yet to notice I’m even carrying it, so immersed is she in the workings of this place. That is another cruel thing hospitals bring—hope.

  There are so many open doors revealing the sick and the dying. I focus on the tiles to keep myself occupied, and note all the differences between them and the floors back home. The architecture of these buildings isn’t very different. Only newer and brighter. Jack Piper says they’ve already begun plans to rebuild the banks. There’s no shortage of brick and mortar, even at wartime.

  I can’t help overhearing when the princess asks about fertility treatments. On Internment, this is the most important wing of a hospital. Genders are predetermined to make sure everyone has a match. We have little gray screens that can look inside the womb. But there’s none of that here. Genders are left to chance. Health and growth can be foretold by drawing blood, but there is no way to visually see. Most parents are just happy if their children are healthy, the king’s driver says. It matters only that they’re born healthy, and the doctors see to that. As to the rest of their lives, they’re on their own.

  I’m grateful when we finally step outside the hospital. I don’t know all of what Celeste has learned, but she’s lost her cheer, and the meeting with the king is a solemn one. More warfare. He is not going to retaliate against King Erasmus’s bombs. He would like to wait until the time is right before announcing the arrival of visitors from the magical floating island. When? Perhaps the spring. That’s when all the snow is gone and flowers begin to bloom.

  The king and Jack Piper have been working it out. For now, they’ll tell anyone who inquires that we’re relatives visiting from overseas, from a neutral island known as Norsup. And when the time is right, they’ll announce who we really are. It will be a wonderful bright spot and just what Havalais will need after all this talk of war.

  Celeste hates all the waiting. She speaks calmly and firmly as she proposes idea after idea for Havalais to ally with Internment now.

  “It just isn’t feasible right now, doll,” the king says.

  “There must be something Internment has that you would want,” Celeste says. “Our electricity is a touch more advanced. You have moving picture shows, and we have something like that, but with sound.”

  “When Havalais and Internment meet, it will be a glorious thing,” King Ingram says. “But it will take time.”

  Time. She hasn’t got time. That’s what she’s thinking; a clock is always ticking in her brain. Time is what’s killing her mother. Time will be the downfall of her floating kingdom.

  The driver holds the car door open and we climb inside.

  “Skin cancer,” she whispers, after the door has closed. She looks at me. “That’s what sun disease is, you know. At least, that’s what it seems to be.”

  “Can it be cured, then?” I ask.

  “There are treatments. But we don’t have anything like them in the bloody sky, so a lot of good they’ll do her from down here.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I truly am.”

  The driver gets behind the wheel and we begin to move. She doubles forward and hides her face in her knees. It’s the first time she’s lost her composure at all since we’ve arrived. “I didn’t want to think you were right,” she says, and sits up again. “When you said that my plan might fail, I thought, ‘What does she know? She’s only a girl, not a drop of nobility in her.’ But the list of differences between us grows shorter every day we spend here.” She nods to the shop windows we’re passing. Luxurious fur coats in deep browns and smoky grays. Hats and bags to match. Shoes that would make us tall enough to pluck clouds from the sky and mold them how we pleased. “I have pages in my wallet,” she says. “But they’re useless here. Just paper. Everything I have is just pieces of paper.”

  That’s a good way to put it.

  I take her hand. It’s a pathetic offering, but she squeezes my fingers, and she just seems grateful to have something to cling to.

  She’s quiet for the rest of the ride. There was a time when I would have been glad for her silence, but now it only adds to the weight of those darkening clouds over our heads. Sadness filling up the sky.

  “It sounds like the clouds are growling, doesn’t it?” I say, as we step out of the car.

  She looks upward, nods.

  And then the sky makes a sound that is louder than a growl. A fierce boom that causes us both to flinch. It must be another bomb, I think. I wait for the smoke. I expect the hotel before us to go up in flames. But the driver isn’t at all worried. A short distance away, he’s coming out of the carriage house and walking for the back door that leads into the kitchen. “Better get inside, girls,” he calls to us. “Looks like rain.”

  Celeste and I look at each other, confused. And then her mouth falls open in astonishment and she holds up her palm. I don’t understand until I feel a drop of water land on my face. And then another. And then thousands, pouring all around us as though they’re stampeding from the sky. There’s another boom that shakes the earth.

  I tuck the history book under my shirt to keep it dry.

  Celeste is laughing and she’s got her arms spread out.

  What an unusual world.

  Basil wants to go out and feel the rain for himself, but I stop him from putting on his coat. “You’re still recovering,” I say. “It’s frigid outside. And those flashes of light—what if they’re dangerous?”

  We’re standing at his bedroom window, and he smirks at me.

  “What?” I say.

  “You’re worried about me.”

  “Of course I’m worried about you,” I say. “Things don’t just come falling out of the sky at random where I’m from. I don’t want you standing under it, not with that cold.”

  “It’s the same water as our lakes on Internment,” he says. “Only Internment is above the storm clouds, so the soil must absorb it.”

  “Pen would lecture you and say our lakes were a gift from the god of the sky if she heard you talking like that.” I stare at the city lights in the distance, the ocean leading the way. “I wish she and Thomas would come back. Did they say where they were going?”

  “They didn’t tell anyone. Just stole away somewhere after breakfast.”

  They must be so frightened. The water sounds like tapering applause. Another boom makes me gasp.

  Basil stands behind me and holds my arms. “It’s thunder,” he says.

  “What causes it? Is their god trying to tell them something?”

  “It’s only weather,” he says. “Annette came to bring me tea when I was too sick to get out of bed. She told me all about the types of weather they have.”

  “I wonder what w
ill fall from the sky next,” I say. “Some fish, perhaps, to swim in all this water.”

  Basil laughs. His breath tickles the back of my neck. He kisses under my ear. I close my eyes. “You’re safe,” he says. I believe him.

  When he tries to kiss my skin again, I turn my head and catch it with my mouth. The world outside throbs with a flash of light.

  “Be careful around Judas,” he murmurs, and when he tries for another kiss, I lean away.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re in a different world now,” he says. “It may seem that the rules have changed. But that doesn’t change who we are or what we’ve done.”

  “He was accused of murder, you mean,” I say. I take a step away from him. “What brought this on?”

  “Thomas and I share a room with him,” Basil says, nodding to one of the empty beds. “We’re just not convinced he’s all right. And I know that you’re fond of him—”

  “Fond?” I say. “I don’t think he killed his betrothed. I think the king set him up. That’s not the same as being fond.”

  “I just want you to be careful,” he says. “That’s all.”

  “Careful,” I echo. “Why do I keep hearing that word? Why does no one trust me to be careful?”

  “I trust you, Morgan. Of course I do. He’s the one I don’t trust. I worry that he’s taking advantage of your kindness, is all.”

  “How would he take advantage?” I say. “I have nothing at all to offer.”

  He averts his eyes and a flush of color spreads across his cheeks, and he doesn’t even have to say what he’s thinking. I don’t think that he can. I don’t know whether I should be angry or try to reassure him. This mad world below the clouds has me constantly at odds with myself.

  “I wouldn’t, Basil,” I say. “And I’m a little hurt by your implication.”

  Basil has only ever been right about me. He even knew I was daydreaming about the edge before I worked up the courage to tell him. But this time he’s so wrong that it makes up for all of that.

  “Like I said”—he’s looking at the sky that swirls and grumbles like a ferocious animal, not at me—“he is the one I don’t trust.”

  Alice has turned the thunder into a story. The fireplace is the only source of light in the living room and she makes shadows on the walls. The children are mesmerized. Even Birdie, slumped with her legs dangling over the armchair, has set down her book to hear the tale of the princess who fell in love with a ghost across the lake.

  The children interrupt her to ask for more details—anything to keep the story going longer. What sorts of creatures are in the lake? What color is the princess’s hair?

  I linger in the doorway for a while and listen to the excitement in her voice. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it. It’s been a long time since she could be this good at pretending to be happy.

  Just as she’s telling about the wind full of stardust that obscures the princess’s view of her beloved ghost, she meets my eyes. “Then what happens?” she asks me.

  “Happily ever after?” I say.

  “It can’t be that easy!” Annette pouts.

  “It isn’t,” Riles says with certainty.

  “There was something the princess wanted,” Alice tells her. “Something that the ghost couldn’t give her.”

  I wish I didn’t have to hear what she’s going to say next.

  “A child.”

  Annette and Marjorie are wide-eyed. They want desperately for this princess to have a proper romance, and what sort of happily-ever-after could lack such an important piece?

  I don’t stay to hear how the story ends. By the time I reach the top of the stairs, I’m so sad and angry, I don’t know what to do with myself. It has given me just the bravery I need to confront my brother.

  I don’t knock. I just open the door. He stops murmuring to his transcriber. He knows it’s me. He can listen for a person’s footsteps. For breathing and the way a knob turns. He can listen for everything but words. He doesn’t listen to a thing I say anymore.

  “Why did you do it?” I say.

  “What’s that, Little Sister?”

  “Why did you jump? You had to know that it would hurt you. That it would hurt Alice, and all of us.”

  He shakes his head, turns back to his transcriber. “Not now. I’m in the middle of a tragedy. A man’s about to kill his sister for intruding on his masterpiece.”

  He reaches for the switch that will turn the transcriber on again, but I snatch it away. He reaches for the stream of paper as it moves just out of his reach.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  Slowly, he stands, feeling along the wall. “Morgan, I absolutely will kill you if you do anything stupid with my novel.”

  “Yes, yes, wouldn’t want anything to happen to some gears and some paper. After all, it isn’t something trivial like a living person.”

  “You’re being a brat.”

  “You’re being a ghost,” I say. “Can’t you see that? You’re acting like it’s already over. Maybe you wanted to die when you jumped over the edge, but you didn’t, did you? And it’s no use pretending you did.”

  A flash of light fills the dreary room, but he doesn’t know about it. I back myself into a corner. The transcriber is heavy in my hands. I feel that I am holding his heart and all his thoughts. Pieces. That’s all I ever get of him.

  Softly, he says, “I didn’t go there to die.”

  “What, then?”

  “I didn’t even jump,” he says. “I only wanted to see what was out there. That’s all. Backfired a bit, didn’t it?”

  He sits on the edge of the bed. His knees are shaking. I hold the transcriber to my chest. Its wheels have left black trails on my arms. It’s ruining this dress that belongs to a woman I’ve never met. “You worked in a hospital, Lex. You knew what the edge did to people.”

  He shrugs. “I wasn’t thinking about that. Maybe what they say is true and the winds there really do make a person go mad. I climbed over the train tracks, and I walked for paces and paces and paces. I thought about moments of my life, but the funny thing is, I did it in backward order. I thought about Alice in her wedding dress, and all those red flowers she was holding as she stepped toward me. I thought about opening my eyes underwater and making faces at the trout. I thought about the day you were born. You were too small, you know. I was only allowed to see you through a window. You looked at me, though, and you were so fearless; it was like you knew something I didn’t. Something I’d forgotten because I didn’t know I was supposed to remember. So I mouthed to you through the glass, ‘Don’t forget.’ It’s the first thing I ever said to you.

  “That morning, before I walked to the edge, I came downstairs and I found you at Mom’s dresser. Your face was covered in her cosmetics, and you looked at me in the mirror, and it was that same look.”

  I remember that morning perfectly. I was just barely thirteen, and I wanted to see how I would look when I was older. Only, I made a mess of myself. I scrubbed the cosmetics from my face before going to class, but I could still feel it in my pores, still taste the stain on my lips when they came for me and told me something had happened to my brother. I’ve never much cared for cosmetics since.

  “I reached the edge,” Lex says. “And then I looked up, and the world had stopped. There was no fence. No sound. The grass just . . . stopped. And I had this feeling like the solution to everything would be down there if only I could dig through all those clouds. So I leaned forward to look.”

  There are tears in my eyes. I’m awful for pushing for this. “The last thing you saw was a solution hiding under the clouds, then,” I say.

  “No,” he says. “The last thing I saw was a dream that lasted for days. I dreamed of a gray thing on a screen. I was trapped in the last moment of its life, and I dreamed that I could hear its heart beating. Then one day I woke up, and the only heart beating was mine. It was gone, and there’s been darkness ever since.”

  He lowers
his head. His hands are open and empty in his lap.

  Tentatively, I kneel on the bed beside him. I return the transcriber. He turns it about, smoothes the paper, but it doesn’t seem to matter to him as much as it did a few minutes ago.

  “Nimble Piper wears lenses that help his vision,” I say. “He says he’s nearly blind without them.”

  He shakes his head. “It isn’t that simple, Little Sister. I don’t even see images in my memories anymore. I don’t think I’d know the difference between red and blue. It can’t be returned like flipping a switch.”

  “It’s worth a try,” I say. “There are so many new things worth seeing. It’s a new world.”

  He laughs without humor. “Is there not cruelty in this world too?”

  I lean my head on his shoulder. He musses my hair, but hesitates when he feels the fish tail braid. He wasn’t expecting anything to be different about me. I’m still thirteen years old, looking at him in a mirror.

  “That’s just a part of it, Lex,” I say. “Things are terrible and then they get better, and back again.”

  I climb off the bed. I open the window, and the smell of wet earth fills the room. I grab my brother by the arm, and he actually lets go of his transcriber and doesn’t fight me when I pull his hand out the window.

  Rain fills our palms and splashes onto the window ledge.

  “Storm clouds,” he says. “They can look at them through the scopes.”

  “We haven’t got a scope,” I say. “We have a window, and that’s so much better, don’t you think?”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. He’s smiling and trying to hide it. He doesn’t want anyone to see that he’s still alive in there.

  “Today it’s an open window,” I say. “Baby steps. We’ll work our way to the door, and then we’ll deal with what’s on the other side of it.”

  Pen runs into our bedroom. Her hair is dripping onto the floor, black cosmetics running down her cheeks. At first I can’t tell if she’s distressed or excited, but then she bursts into laughter. “Have you been out there?” she says. “Isn’t it incredible?”