Strange Fire

by Tommy Wallach

  Though Bernstein had never been the most poetic of men, there was one metaphor he was particularly fond of: that learning was a kind of illumination. In his conception, every human being lived in an immense mansion of shadowy rooms, each one representing a field of knowledge or understanding. As one learned about a given subject, that room slowly filled with light. It would never be entirely elucidated, of course, and no matter how many rooms one managed to brighten, there would always be thousands upon thousands left in darkness.

  Bernstein also said that revelation was rare; knowledge usually came like the dawn, in gradations so small you didn’t even notice them passing.

  But as Clover read on, he felt a sun rising within him, laying bare the solution to a puzzle he hadn’t even known existed, whose pieces were so myriad and motley that he never would’ve guessed they would fit together so cleanly.

  Before the Descendancy, there had been a grand civilization on Earth—and its corruption had run far deeper than was ever described in the Filia. The first generation of men hadn’t just extracted Blood of the Father and abrogated Holy Gravity; their civilization had mastered technologies Clover couldn’t even begin to fathom. Through these technologies, they had foreseen the coming of the Daughter, and in books like this one, had investigated not only the mechanism of their own destruction, but the world to follow.

  Many of the predictions made in Glickman’s book turned out to be uncanny. Her research pointed to a post-disaster civilization arising somewhere on the western edge of the continent, where various ecological factors would be especially conducive to supporting a larger population. She also guessed this society would be highly religious, and would likely fold the cataclysm itself into some preexisting religious paradigm.

  “If we use Rome as a model,” she’d written, “it could be a millennium or more before the survivors rediscover manufacture, trade, or a system of law more complex than lex talionis. And even this might be wishful thinking, as the post-impact environment will likely present practical difficulties that even the Romans didn’t have to contend with. It is likely that many of the luxuries we currently take for granted will never be rediscovered—not on this planet, at any rate.”

  Clover put the book back on the shelf. He was vibrating with excitement, with fear, with horror. Everything going on outside that room—the results of the plebiscite, the rioting that would follow, the inevitable mission to Sophia—receded into irrelevance. He wanted to shout his discovery to the rooftops, to let everyone know the truth. And at the same time, he wished he could scour that truth from his mind, to retreat to the reality he’d occupied only an hour ago. In that reality, the Daughter was a divine being sent by the Lord, and the Church was the earthly manifestation of his will.

  In this reality, the Daughter was just a rock, hurtling randomly through space, and the Church was built on lies. The Archbishop was a liar. Even Clover’s father had been a liar—well, a liar or a fool.

  But that was the thing about reality: it wouldn’t be denied.

  Clover took down the next book.

  13. Paz

  PAZ HELD HER HANDS PALM up in the rain, watching as the droplets slowly rinsed the blood away into the street. She felt oddly numb. Was this like that moment just after you stubbed your toe, before the pain forced its way into your consciousness like a drunken latecomer to a party? Or was this just what she was like now, the kind of person who could kill someone in cold blood and then go on about her day, remorseless as an animal?

  Either way, it wouldn’t do her any good to hang around the body waiting to get caught. Clive had been summoned to the Protectorate at least ten minutes ago, when the plebiscite results came in, and she’d been standing here ever since. Once she was sure her hands were clean, she went back to the Stag’s Head. Gemma and Flora were alone at the table now, looking demure and delicate among all the drunkards.

  “I thought you left with your friend,” Gemma said.

  “No. He . . . had other plans.”

  “I don’t like it here anymore,” Flora interjected. “Everybody’s shouting.”

  “Shall we go back home?” Gemma asked.

  “Fine by me,” Paz said. It would be best to put as much distance between her and Chuck as possible, just in case he was discovered before morning.

  The three of them forced their way back through the crowd. Outside, a woman was vomiting into a ceramic flowerpot, while nearby, a couple of men were engaged in a spirited fistfight, cheered on by a small knot of onlookers. And only a few hundred feet away, the body of a boy Paz had played tag with as a child was growing colder every second.

  Good riddance.

  The Poplin house was a fifteen-minute walk from the Stag’s Head, nestled up against the Anchor wall. Inside, it was silent and cold.

  “Where’s Grampy?” Flora asked.

  “Probably off protesting somewhere,” Gemma said. “He was pretty upset at the notion the Church might lose the vote.”

  “Shouldn’t we go find him?” asked Flora.

  “Not a chance, little one. In fact, it’s long past your bedtime.”

  Flora put on a sulky expression. “I won’t be able to sleep.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Gemma turned to Paz. “Give me a second to put her to bed, yeah? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Take your time,” Paz said.

  The two girls went upstairs together. Paz threw a few pieces of wood into the stove and stuffed the empty spaces with kindling. Back home, she’d have had to set it alight with flint and steel, but here, there were always plenty of matches on hand. They were kept in a little tin box on a shelf above the stove, and each one was as long as Paz’s middle finger. She struck one and watched it burn. The flame wavered, dancing in the drafts that blew through the chinks in the creaking old house, and ignited crescent embers beneath her fingernails—blood.

  She lit the tinder, shook the match out into smoke, then went to the kitchen and dipped her fingers in a clay pot of wash water, scraping out the telltale corrosion beneath her nails. The half-full bottle of honey wine on the counter was calling to her, promising oblivion. Her hand shook as she filled a glass. She took the drink over to the window and gazed out onto the street, breathing deeply to calm her ragged nerves.

  Footsteps on the stairs behind her. “More liquor? You sure that’s wise?”

  Paz turned. Gemma had changed into a white nightgown; she looked like a ghost, or an angel. “Not at all. Care to join me?”

  Gemma smiled. “Why not?”

  She poured herself a glass and joined Paz by the window. A group of young men went running past, their torches guttering in the rain. A stray cat, its orange fur matted to its gaunt frame, skulked from one shadow to another.

  “Did something happen between you and Clive?” Gemma asked.

  An inevitable question, really. Only how to answer? There were so many stories Paz could tell. There was the truth that soothed and the truth that cut. The lie that illuminated and the lie that obscured. The most important thing was to say something quickly. The longer she hesitated, the more dishonest she would sound. Wait long enough, and there was no point in answering at all.

  “Because it would be all right if it did,” Gemma added. “I mean, it wouldn’t be ideal, of course, but it would be all right, if that makes any sense. He doesn’t belong to me. And you’re so pretty. Really. So I would understand—”

  “Nothing happened,” Paz interrupted.

  “Oh. Okay then.”

  Did she detect a note of disappointment in Gemma’s voice, or was it just that her answer hadn’t been convincing?

  “He won’t be here long anyway,” Gemma said after a while. “He wants to go east.”

  “I know. How do you feel about that?”

  Silence. Then, a solitary sniffle—Gemma had started to cry. The drops slid steadily down her cheeks and pattered onto the wood floor. Paz watched them fall, and as she did so, something primal seized hold of her—that base anim
al longing to comfort and be comforted. She forgot what she was doing in the Anchor, forgot that this girl was the same one she’d been trying to kill three months ago, and opened her arms. Gemma fell against her, a consolatory warmth in the shape of a girl. She was saying something between sobs, gibbering about all the things she’d lost, but Paz couldn’t make out the details. They probably didn’t matter much anyway.

  It didn’t last longer than a minute or two. Then Gemma wiped her eyes against Paz’s shoulder and stepped away, taking the warmth with her. “Daughter’s love, it’s been a bad few months.” Gemma shook her head as if to clear it of sadness. “But you’re right. I need to grow up. I need to figure out what it is I want out of life.”

  “We all do.”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.” She leaned forward and kissed Paz on the cheek. “Good night, Irene.”

  “Good night.”

  Paz watched the girl go, and couldn’t for the life of her summon up even a shadow of her former hatred. Things couldn’t go on like this. The walls were beginning to crack. Between her and Gemma. Between her and Clover. Between her and Clive. Between Irene and Paz.

  She had to get back to Sophia, before she lost track of herself entirely.

  14. Clive

  HE WOKE INTO THE ANTICIPATORY darkness of the wee hours, head pounding. Someone must have carried him back to one of the infirmary beds, many of which were now occupied—casualties of the evening’s riots. Most of the patients were asleep, but a pair of soldiers near the windows were talking quietly, their words drowned out by the patter of the rain against the panes.

  Someone had left a glass of water next to the bed, and he drank it down greedily. There was a low hum of anxiety in the back of his mind, as if he’d forgotten to do something important. But what? So much had happened over the last few hours: the altercation in Annunciation Square, his discovery of Irene and the boy she’d killed, his hapless but ultimately effective fistfight with Burns.

  A strange feeling of melancholy came over him; he realized he’d gone the whole day without thinking about his mother or father once. That was how forgetting began, wasn’t it? It stole up on you, slow as molasses, promising an end to sorrow. But it turned out that forgetting hurt as much as it healed, because memories were a comfort, even when they caused pain. Gemma said she hadn’t been able to picture her mother’s face for years. How far off was the day when he would try to recall his own mother’s smile and come up with only some hazy approximation—somebody’s smile, but not hers?

  He wondered how Clover was coping with the grief. The two of them had scarcely spent more than a few minutes at a time together since Clive joined the Protectorate—he hadn’t even known about his brother’s romance with Irene until this afternoon.

  It was yet one more thing to feel guilty about. One more way in which he’d let their parents down.

  Where had things gone wrong? How had he gone from the happy son of an Honor—his whole life laid out before him like a birthday feast—to this bruised and baffled Protectorate soldier, shirking his familial obligations and infatuated with his brother’s sweetheart?

  The answer came to him—a flash of insight, stark as a bolt of lightning—and immediately he was up and walking, out of the infirmary and the Bastion, striding briskly along the Silver Road. The cobblestones were slick with rain, gleaming in the starlight. Clive passed a party of drunkards, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, singing bawdy parodies of hymns in celebration of the results of the plebiscite.

  Gemma’s grandfather’s house was in the Seventh Quarter, all the way across the city, but that was probably for the best; the long walk in the rain would give him time to think.

  What did he want to say to her?

  That he was sorry.

  For what?

  He wasn’t sure.

  And what would he say after that?

  He would ask her to marry him.

  Just the thought made him laugh out loud. It made no sense, and at the same time, it made all the sense in the world. Somewhere over the course of the past few months, he’d lost track of himself. But he and Gemma had known each other for almost their whole lives. If anyone could help him find himself again, it was her.

  The sun was a tangible threat on the horizon by the time Clive reached his destination. Though the rain had nearly stopped, his uniform was already soaked, pulling heavy on his shoulders. His once shiny black boots were caked with mud. He picked out the attic window and began to hurl pebbles at it. But when no one seemed to notice, he found a slightly larger rock under a hedgerow and threw that instead. As soon as it left his hand, he knew he’d miscalculated; the stone went straight through the pane.

  A moment later the window was pushed open.

  “Gemma,” he shout-whispered.

  But his eyes were playing tricks on him: the same dandelion hair and pale complexion, but the wrong size.

  “Clive,” Flora said, neither surprised nor pleased.

  “Go get your sister for me. I’ve got a question for her.”

  “Come back in the morning.”

  “It is the morning,” he said.

  She glared at him for a few seconds more, then rolled her eyes. “You better pay my grandfather back for what you broke.”

  She pulled the window closed again. Clive ran his fingers through his wet hair, slicking it back. It wasn’t the way he would’ve wanted to propose—clothes clinging to his skin, his breath still sour with ale, no ring to put on her finger—but there could be a kind of perfection to imperfection, couldn’t there?

  Time passed, enough that Clive began to wonder if Flora had actually told her sister anything. But at last the front door of the house swung open. Gemma, dressed in a thin white nightgown, stood in the doorway.

  “Gemma Poplin,” he said.

  “What do you want, Clive?”

  “I want to talk.”

  He took a few steps toward her.

  “Stop there,” she said.

  Clive was hurt. “You’re afraid of me now?”

  “You look like the devil himself. Did somebody beat you up?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I came here to ask you something important.”

  “So ask it.”

  “Come closer.”

  She shook her head.

  “Gemma, how long have we known each other? Give me a little credit.”

  “It’s all muddy, though.” Her tone was more conciliatory now, and when Clive gave her a little smile, she capitulated, crossing about half the distance between them. “That’s as far as I go.”

  “Fine. I’ll just have to do it from here then.” He dropped to one knee in the mud, almost falling over in the process. “Gemma Poplin, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”

  She stared at him hard for a few seconds, and then a smile began to creep onto her face. The smile soon became a giggle. Clive’s heart leaped up in his chest—she was grateful, she was happy, she was going to say yes! He could feel his mother and father beaming at him from the great beyond.

  But laughter can mean a lot of things, and it didn’t take long for Clive to catch the edge of the razor blade hidden away inside Gemma’s; it sliced his hopes wide open.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, standing up. “You’re saying no?”

  “Yes, I’m saying no,” she answered, still giggling.

  “Well, you don’t have to laugh at me.”

  “Oh, don’t I?”

  “No. It’s cruel.”

  It was that last word that finally put a stop to her laughing. Only what replaced it was so much worse: an icy calm, beneath which ran a roiling current of fury. “And it isn’t cruel how you’ve been treating me? How long have we been back in the Anchor, Clive? How many chances have you had to spend time with me? And how many times have you come to visit?”

  “I’ve been busy—”

  “And I’ve got eyes in my head. The whole way back from Wilmington, you were mooning around Irene like you’d never seen a gi
rl before. How do you think that made me feel?”

  “I’m sorry, Gemma. I know I’ve been a damn fool. That’s why I’m here—”

  “I’m not done talking!” she shouted, the anger breaking to the surface. “Don’t you understand? Everything’s different now. I saw my little brother shot right in front of my eyes. I—I killed a man.”

  “You mean at the pumphouse? But it was Clover—”

  “No, it was me. I let Clover lie about it because . . . I don’t even know why. I guess so I could pretend I wasn’t the kind of person who could do something like that. But I did do it, and I’m not sorry. I’m done playing pretend. See, you’re not the only one who gets to change, Clive. I may’ve disappeared from your mind until now, but that doesn’t mean I disappeared. I have my own thoughts when you’re not around.”

  “Of course you do.” He traversed the rest of the distance between them, coming to stand as close to her as he dared. “But this—you and me here—this is meant to be. It’s what our parents wanted.”

  “Is it what you want?”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .” He was thrown off by the question, unable to hide his exasperation. “Because I just do! I mean, what kind of thing is that to ask, anyway?”

  “The most important question there is.”

  “But how can you ever know the real why of something? It’s all so complicated.”

  She shrugged. “You just do, Clive.” There was such a deep sadness in her voice when she said it, a sympathy bordering on pity, and at last he understood his mistake. He’d assumed that whenever he came around to Gemma, she’d be there waiting for him.

  “You don’t want me,” he said wonderingly.

  Gemma shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Did you ever?”

  She turned her eyes upward, that way girls sometimes did when they were trying not to cry. “I don’t know anymore. But I do know this—us getting married, I mean—it won’t bring any of them back. We’re on our own now. So we gotta find our own way.”