Strange Fire

by Tommy Wallach

Wrong. Arrogant and melodramatic and wrong.

  “I loved my father more than anything,” he said, trying the alternate opening line.

  But that was even worse, as trite as it was saccharine. Maybe he should cut the line altogether. Or why not just cut the whole damn thing and simply stare at the audience for twenty minutes? He’d spent the last few days agonizing over this speech; or more accurately, agonizing over two speeches, and which of them he ought to give. Almost funny how often he’d thought, I should really run this part by Da. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? There was no longer a Da to run things by. He was on his own.

  “I loved my father more than . . . than . . .”

  Someone knocked on the door of the sacristy: a welcome interruption.

  “Come in,” Clive said.

  Gemma was dressed all in black, her hair artfully braided and tied back with ribbon. The tiny crystal earrings Clive’s mother had given her last Landfall Day dangled from her earlobes, sparkling in the candlelight. She shut the door behind her.

  “Evening, Clive.”

  He’d been expecting someone from the Church hierarchy, not the soon-to-be fiancée he’d been neglecting ever since he got back to the Anchor. It was the last thing he needed right now, but he did his best to appear pleased to see her.

  “Evening, Gemma. How are you?”

  “Okay, I guess, aside from, you know, everything.” She stayed by the door, as if unsure whether she should come closer. “I thought maybe we’d see you yesterday.”

  “Yeah, there’s just been—”

  “Or the day before.”

  Clive glanced down at his notes. “I’ve been busy.”

  “I know.”

  “Between getting this service ready and making the house a place we can actually live—”

  “I know, Clive. And it’s fine. I just miss you is all. You doing all right?”

  “Sure.” He straightened the bottom edge of his papers on the table. “What about your sister? How’s she?”

  “It’s been hard. She cries herself to sleep most every night. But the days aren’t so bad. And we’re lucky my granddad’s so generous. At least we got a comfy place to stay.” She laughed a little, and Clive laughed in sympathy, but neither of them were quite sure what was funny, so their laughter trickled off into uncomfortable silence. “Your brother brought a few of your ma’s dresses over this morning, but I couldn’t even bring myself to touch them.”

  “They’ll look pretty on you, though.”

  “Thanks.” Another awkward silence. “And how’s Clover holding up?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “He’s never known how to talk about what he’s feeling. Neither of you are much good at it, to be honest. I was thinking just yesterday, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you cry. Not since we were little, anyway. Why do you think that is?”

  Strange, how all it took was her asking that to bring a lump to his throat, a sting to the back of his eye. He swallowed it down, blinked it away. “Somebody has to be strong.”

  Gemma smiled at him, almost pityingly. “You think it’s weak to cry?”

  “Of course it is.” And had she noticed the catch in his voice just then? Best to change the subject. “Anyway, I know Ma woulda wanted you to have those clothes. You know how much she loved you.”

  Gemma started to speak, then stopped. That one word—“love”—had left little ripples in the air between them.

  “I don’t think I could stand to see myself in them,” she finally said. “It just wouldn’t feel right. Would you mind if I gave them to Irene?”

  “Of course not. They’re yours to give.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How is she, by the way? Irene, that is.” Just saying her name, Clive felt his heartbeat quicken, as if he were doing something wicked.

  Gemma looked surprised. “You haven’t spoken to her?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “Well, because she and Clover always seem to be together these days. I figured you’d be seeing her all the time.”

  A pinprick of jealousy, quick and keen. “Like I said, I’ve been busy.”

  “She went off with him when he came by to drop off the dresses earlier today.” Gemma put a hand over her mouth, as if she’d just had a revelation; her voice took on the playful cadence of the schoolyard gossip. “Do you think he likes her? I mean, in a romantical sort of way?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want him to get hurt. Lord knows he’s been through enough.”

  Damn it all—that lump in his throat was back. And this time, Gemma could tell. She took a couple of steps toward him.

  “You all right?”

  He tried to smile. “You already asked me that.”

  “I know, but people are always saying that sort of thing, just because. I’m really asking. I really wanna know.” She reached out and placed her small, cool hand against his cheek. A hand he’d known practically all his life. He could feel his eyes starting to burn again. If she didn’t leave soon, she’d see . . .

  “I really should focus on this,” he said huskily, holding up the sheaf of papers.

  “Of course.”

  She stepped away, embarrassed. He could tell he’d stung her, and he wished he knew the words to make it right again, to make everything right again. But he suspected there were no such words, and anyway the bells of Notre Fille had begun to chime, signaling that the service was about to start, and there was no time left for apology or atonement.

  Gemma hurried out the door a moment later, with a wave and a mumbled “Good luck.”

  Bishop Allen delivered the opening prayer, then launched into a brief, rote sermon on the subject of the sacrifices required of true men of God.

  “He coulda put a little effort into it,” Clover whispered.

  “Quiet,” Clive said.

  After the speech was over, Allen led the congregation in a few of Honor Hamill’s favorite hymns. Throughout, Clive kept glancing between his two speeches, so deep in thought that he didn’t even notice when the singing stopped. Only after everyone around him had already stood up did he do the same: the Archbishop had arrived, stepping lightly down the aisle between the pews, his golden robes sparkling celestially in the light from the chandeliers. His wrinkles were deep as trenches, his hair cloud white, but the way he carried himself belied his years. It wasn’t exactly that he looked healthy, but more that he looked to be beyond the very notion of health—ageless as a bronze statue.

  “You may be seated,” he said. “We are gathered here today to commend Honor Hamill and his wife, Ellen, to the care of our Lord and his Daughter, who rule eternal in the great below. Amen.”

  “He didn’t mention Eddie or Michael,” Clover muttered.

  “Daniel Adams Hamill was born sixteen hundred and fifty-four years after the founding of the Descendancy,” the Archbishop said. “He married Ellen Ali Andrews twenty-one years later, right here in Notre Fille, and soon after, was ordained as an Honor. Since then he has been responsible for overseeing a critically important traveling ministry. Daniel and Ellen had two children, Clive and Clover, aged eighteen and sixteen respectively, who are both here with us today. It is to Clive Hamill, who plans to one day follow in his father’s most noble footsteps, that I now cede the floor. Please join me in welcoming him.”

  Clive stood up and was struck by a wave of dizziness bordering on nausea. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to commend his father’s spirit to the Lord. He wanted his father to be alive again. He wanted his family back. But his shaky legs were carrying him forward, as if on the current of time itself, and suddenly he was standing face-to-face with the Archbishop, waiting in front of the ambo with his arms open. Clive allowed himself to be enfolded in the old man’s embrace, redolent of scent and tobacco.

  “Do your duty,” the Archbishop whispered, just before releasing him.

  Clive hadn’t the slightest idea what that
meant, so he could only nod in response. A moment later he found himself standing at the ambo, where a small scrap of paper was waiting for him:

  Clive Hamill,

  You will tell this congregation that what happened to your family was a tragic anomaly, and that it would be wrong to vote in favor of empowering the Protectorate to engage in any form of reprisal. It’s what your father would’ve wanted.

  Clive ran his finger over the red wax seal at the bottom of the note. Something began smoldering in his chest—the fathomless fury he’d been suppressing for the last month. How dare the Archbishop try to manipulate him like this, and at his father’s memorial service no less. Besides, it didn’t matter what Honor Hamill would’ve wanted, because he was gone. And in his absence, Clive would have to navigate by his own compass.

  He clenched his fist, crumpling up the note. There was no question now what speech he would read.

  The room was a black mass of pity and boredom, dusty with whispers. Clive waited, staring dead-eyed at the congregation until they quieted out of sheer nervousness. He let the silence build, like the pressure you felt diving deeper and deeper into a lake.

  “I loved my father more than I loved God,” he finally said, and enjoyed the small thrill of consternation that ran through the audience. “I think most children do. They can’t help it. If someone had told me that only one of them could continue to exist, God or my father, I would’ve chosen my father in an instant. I know that was wrong. I know it is wrong. But it’s the truth.” This was the point of no return. Clive looked to his brother; if he went through with this, things would get even harder for Clover—but could that be helped? Num custos fratris mei sum ego?

  He slammed both his palms down on the angled surface of the ambo. “My father was killed in cold blood!” The word “blood” echoed around the room, like a bird seeking escape. “So was my mother, Ellen Hamill. And Eddie Poplin, who was like a second father to me, and his little boy Michael, who was like my brother. They were cut down by a cult of violent infidels who spit on the laws of God, who use the anathema to kill.”

  Clive scanned the faces in the frontmost pew: bishops and Honors only just beginning to understand what was happening; Gemma and Flora wiping tears from their eyes; Clover watching him with a wary, censorious expression; and Irene, so ravishing in her hand-me-down mourning clothes it was almost profane.

  He put all of them out of his mind. It was time to bring it home. “And ever since that day, the day I lost the two people I loved most in this world, there’s something I’ve been trying to understand. We’re all taught that the Lord desires peace above all things. Our Protectorate is tasked only with defending us in the case of attack. Yet when the Daughter came, she did not come peaceful.”

  “Amen!” someone in the congregation shouted.

  Clive raised his voice, allowed himself to fall into the fiery rhythms of the preacher he’d never be. “She came in smoke and fire and blood. She burned the wicked and the innocent alike, because that was the only way this world could be cleansed. And so I honor her when I say that there is no other way forward now but the way of smoke and fire and blood.” The congregation was a pot coming to a boil—bubbling over now with cries and curses, hisses and hurrahs. Clive saw the Archbishop rise from his pew and begin walking briskly toward the ambo. Time was running out. “My father was the best man I ever knew, but I realize now I can never be what he was. I plan to honor him in the only way I can, by fighting for what he believed in!”

  “That’s enough,” the Archbishop whispered angrily.

  But Clive wasn’t quite finished. “Those who would seek to destroy the Descendancy must be stopped by any means necessary. For the Father, and the Daughter, and the Holy Force of Gravity. Amen!”

  “Amen!” The response sounded as if it had come from every mouth in the room. Clive swept past the Archbishop, through the raucous commotion of the crowd, and out onto the street. He felt terrified and exhilarated at once. He’d done it. He’d finally chosen his own path.

  First thing tomorrow morning, he would enlist as a soldier in the Descendancy Protectorate.

  6. Clover

  THEY LAY BACK ON THE grass, staring up at the sky.

  “What makes it blue?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Irene said. “But I know that the ocean only looks that color because it’s reflecting the blue of the sky.”

  Clover tried to remember the ocean, but he’d only seen it once, and that had been almost a decade ago. Hadn’t it been black? Or silver? Certainly he’d been able to see right through it up close. How could something be blue and black and silver and colorless all at the same time?

  A flock of starlings wheeled about overhead in an ever-shifting constellation of brown and cream. “I wish I could fly,” Irene said, then smiled mischievously. “Don’t tell the Archbishop.”

  “It wouldn’t be so great.”

  “Oh no?”

  “People think it would be easy, just gliding around with the wind in your hair. But have you ever tried to lift your body off the ground just by flapping your arms?”

  “I’d need wings, obviously.”

  “Even so. It’d be work. A lot of work. Like you were running really hard all the time. And if you ever got tired out, Gravity would be right there to pull you back down again. And then you’d die.”

  The birds disappeared behind the trees. “You know, there’s a difference between being smart and ruining a perfectly nice daydream,” Irene said.

  Clover grimaced. If he had a copper shekel for every stupid thing he’d said to Irene, he’d be the richest boy in the Anchor by now. Yet she insisted she enjoyed spending time with him.

  Why? he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t about to draw her attention to the utter implausibility of their affiliation.

  It had all begun that day she’d caught him praying at Notre Fille. They’d started talking, and not ten minutes later, he was showing her around the city, starting with the church itself, then leading her through the familiar side streets of the Eighth Quarter, pointing out all his favorite landmarks along the way: the house with the conical roof on which a single pigeon always seemed to be sitting, as if the house beneath it were an egg that refused to hatch; the pub with the broken sign that was called the Broken Sign; and best of all, the topmost spire of the Library, where the Epistem was said to reside.

  Since then, they’d explored almost every corner of the city, though they never failed to return to the Library at some point during the day, just to look at it and talk about what went on behind the walls. His one complaint was the way she kept asking to be snuck inside. He felt bad saying no to her, especially because he still didn’t have the slightest idea why she wanted to be his friend in the first place. After all, he was the kind of boy who talked about how terrible it would be to fly.

  “It could still be nice, though,” he said, “soaring around like that. Even if it was a lot of work.”

  Irene smiled. “There you go. Was that so hard?” She sat up, brushing a few stray dandelion seeds off her skirt. “Let’s keep walking. I want to see the sights.”

  “Okay.”

  It was Irene’s first time in Portland Park, and the weather was nearly perfect—bright and clear, chilly only when the breeze picked up. They walked close together down the wide gravel pathway.

  “You see your brother this morning?”

  Clover shook his head. “Training starts before sunrise every day.”

  “Are you still angry with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Clover said, though that wasn’t quite true. Of course he was mad. Clive had turned his back on the Church, on everything they’d been raised to believe in. Worse than that, he’d turned their parents’ death into a cause. “I guess he did what he had to do.”

  “Just means you’ll have to spend more time with me, I guess,” Irene said, threading her arm through his. “Say, what’s this?”

  Just next to the small lake at the center of Portland Park, an elder
ly couple with a little clapboard stand were selling prepackaged picnic baskets—two egg sandwiches, two pears, two sugar cookies, two bottles of apple beer.

  “Shall we?” Irene asked. “I’m starving.”

  Clover hesitated. This was the kind of thing boyfriends and girlfriends did together. Irene wouldn’t want people thinking the two of them were a couple. “Maybe we should just eat at home.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’re right here.”

  “Okay. If you really want to.”

  “I do.”

  He handed over eight bronze shekels to the woman behind the counter. “There’s a blanket in there, just at the bottom,” she said. Then, so quickly that he almost missed it, she gave him a knowing wink.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  They crossed a bridge that arched steeply over the Tiber, which flowed out of the city beneath the portion of the Anchor wall that bordered Portland Park. A sign pointed the way toward the Maple Garden. In that direction, the gravel pathway became a tunnel, delving through a perfect bower of golden maple trees.

  “Let’s go in there,” Irene said.

  Clover held his ground, pulling her back by way of their linked elbows. “We really shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He could feel himself beginning to blush, so he looked up and away, toward the oddly feminine curves of the cumulus clouds overhead. “The Maple Garden is where people go . . . I mean, where boys and girls go . . . when they want to . . . be alone.”

  Irene gaped. “You mean they . . . ?” She left a pause that became more and more translatable as it went on.

  “No!” Clover finally said. “No, of course not!” Then, because he wasn’t completely sure of that: “I mean, I don’t actually know. I don’t think so. It’s just, well, the place has a reputation.”

  “Why doesn’t the Church do something about it?”

  “They’ve tried, but it never works. You see, there’s this rule—everybody in the Anchor knows about it. If you’re in the garden and you spot someone on the hunt for, uh, misbehavior, you give a holler. Anyone who hears it gives a holler too, and pretty soon everybody knows to clear out.”