The Storm of Echoes

by Christelle Dabos

  “This isn’t my home,” Ophelia reproached her reflection, as if they no longer understood one another. “I am not her.”

  The obvious truth hit her just as she spoke these words. When she had first visited this place, she had seen Eulalia facing her own reflection in the mirror, a reflection that Eulalia had herself directly addressed, a reflection that, today, Eulalia no longer possessed.

  What had she said to it, again?

  “‘Soon, but not today,’” Ophelia recited.

  It was then that she understood something very simple and completely insane. Something she had to speak to Thorn about.

  She dived back into the mirror, with as much attention and as little intention as possible. She tried her utmost to be open to all destinations without choosing one in particular. She felt herself tipping into a space that was hard to put into words; within it, shapes and colors fluctuated, like those one sees when pressing hard on one’s eyelids.

  The in-between. The narrow space within mirrors. The Other’s prison, she now understood, from which she had released him.

  She had accidentally visited this “bidimension” when she had found herself consigned to the Good Family’s isolation chamber. Right now, she was starting to understand, instinctively, how to slip into it. It seemed almost possible for her to detect from here the resonance of all the mirrors in the world, however far away they were.

  Ophelia chose one without a second’s hesitation: the mirror hanging in Lazurus’s atrium. And yet, when she reemerged above a sideboard, awkwardly placing her sandals between the censers, she wondered whether she hadn’t somehow got it wrong again.

  She found Thorn having a tête-à-tête with a doll.

  THE MESSENGER

  “You’re here at last, mademoiselle!”

  A joyful Ambrose had suddenly appeared, in his wheelchair, upon hearing Ophelia tumbling off the dresser. His eyes, shaded by long antelope lashes, shone out against the darkness of his skin. The scarf lay, rolled in a ball, on his knees.

  “We heard about the census. They didn’t give you too hard a time?”

  Helpfully, Ambrose held out both hands to Ophelia—a left hand that was on the right and a right hand on the left. The adolescent suffered from a serious inversion himself, but his couldn’t go unnoticed.

  Ophelia’s was invisible, concealed. Malignant.

  “My false papers did the trick,” she replied. “I couldn’t see the usefulness of the whole procedure.”

  “It was anything but useless.”

  Thorn had spoken these words in a deep voice. He was seated on the edge of the impluvium, which was brimming thanks to recent downpours, and he was staring hypnotically at the doll seated on the bench in front of him.

  “In any case,” he said, slowly, “it certainly won’t go unused. The Lords have a plan.”

  “Which is?”

  “I don’t know. All that is LUX about me is the garb I wear.”

  Ophelia made a move to retrieve the scarf, but it instantly wound itself around Ambrose, ending up coiled on his head like a tricolored turban. Seeing someone else wearing it disturbed her. Since they had been separated, because of her, their relationship had changed.

  Looking guilty, Ambrose offered Ophelia a bowl of rice.

  “You must be famished; I asked our kitchen automaton to prepare something for you to eat. Désolé,” he sighed, seeing her eyes water after the first mouthful, “he’s a bit heavy on the spices. What happened to your forehead?”

  “The Memorial was short of paper,” Ophelia replied, ironically.

  She rubbed at the stamp mark, peering into the mirror she had just emerged from. Not only could she not remove it, but now she had added a yellow curry streak to it, too.

  “It’s Alchemist’s ink, mademoiselle,” Ambrose explained to her. “It only fades away on the date and at the time designated by the Babel administration. Be patient.”

  This boy was sweetness personified. He in no way resembled Lazarus, his eccentric and dynamic father, who had chosen to be the pawn of a god rather than look after his only child. Ophelia couldn’t bring herself to reproach Ambrose either for his relation or for the scarf’s favors. She returned his smile.

  He indicated Thorn, who hadn’t taken his steely eyes off the doll’s glass ones.

  “Your husband arrived with this new guest. I’m très curious to know more, but he didn’t wish to confide in me. I’ve passed the time coming up with thirty-four theories that might explain what such a serious man could be thinking of doing with this toy.”

  Thorn let out a snort of irritation.

  “He came up with all of them out loud.”

  Ophelia gobbled up her rice with gusto, suddenly aware of how hungry she was. The pressure weighing down her stomach had just diminished. Home, that was here.

  “May I?”

  Thorn went from staring at the doll to staring at Ophelia. He agreed, while knowing that she wasn’t really asking his permission to sit beside him.

  It was an agreement between them. Ophelia must never do anything that might take him by surprise.

  She sat on the edge of the impluvium and, in turn, looked at the doll on the stone bench. With her lovely black fringe, porcelain face, and oriental features, she reminded her a little of Zen, her old friend in the Forerunner division.

  “Is it a present from the Genealogists?”

  “Their messenger,” said Thorn, “They never address me directly with their instructions. They have a questionable sense of humor.”

  “I wasn’t that far from the truth with my nineteenth theory,” commented Ambrose, approaching them with a tea tray balanced on his lap.

  In Babel, the hotter the weather, the hotter the beverages. Ophelia blew on the cup she had just seized. The smell of her mint tea was soon overpowered by the strong, camphoric smell of disinfectant coming from Thorn, beside her. Even the rainwater filling the water-lily pool behind them reeked less. Ophelia was used to his odd habits, but this one had assumed worrying proportions since he had become Sir Henry.

  “What did the message say?”

  Thorn unfolded his arm to take the doll from the bench. He uncovered a mechanism concealed under the little kimono, on the doll’s porcelain back.

  “I don’t know. It’s a voice recording that can only be played once. I was awaiting your return to find out.”

  Being invited to listen to a doll wasn’t among the conjugal scenes Ophelia would have imagined experiencing one day. More than at the doll itself, she gazed at the long, bony hands holding it. The rolled-up sleeves revealed a few of the fifty-five scars that riddled Thorn’s body.

  Ophelia had seen every one of them. She still felt awed. And privileged.

  As soon as he noticed her looking, Thorn cleared his throat. He pushed back the only lock threatening to escape from his strictly regimented hair, and added, in a voice even more stilted than usual:

  “Together.”

  Ophelia nodded.

  “Together.”

  Ambrose’s eyes darted from the one to the other, and then he put his chair into reverse.

  “I . . . eh bien . . . I’ll leave you two alone. Call me if you need anything at all.”

  “Best to be careful,” warned Thorn, when the sound of the wheels had faded between the colonnades. “Simply because this kid has to know most of our secrets, or because he opens the doors of his home to us, doesn’t mean he is our ally. I wouldn’t be surprised if his father asked him to keep an eye on us in his absence.”

  His hard Northern accent had returned. Ambrose knew Thorn’s true origins, but all the same, Thorn only took off his Sir Henry mask in private. Ophelia glanced at the uniform jacket that he had meticulously folded in a corner; he had shed it like someone else’s skin. Pinned on the white-and-gold fabric, the LUX insignia of a sun gleamed in the light from the electr
ic lamps.

  Night had fallen as fast as a theater curtain. Looking up at the open roof, Ophelia couldn’t see a single star. A fresh tide of clouds had risen over the city and its fog reached right into the atrium.

  “Let’s listen to the message,” she suggested, putting her cup down.

  Thorn turned the wind-up key on the doll’s back for a long time. As soon as he released it, a shrill sound rang out from the porcelain:

  “Greetings, cher ami.”

  Ophelia pushed her glasses up on her nose. If it was the voice of one of the Genealogists, it had been so distorted in the recording that it was unrecognizable.

  “You have now been promoted to chief family inspector,” the doll continued. “Tomorrow, at dawn, you will be welcomed into the Deviations Observatory, which will accommodate you within its walls . . . its walls for the weeks to come. Officially, you are appointed there to check that the generous subsidies granted by the LUX patrons are being put to good use. Your expertise in accountancy makes you the perfect official for this inspection. It is a très lengthy procedure, which will allow you the time to carry out another inquiry . . . inquiry alongside it.

  “The Deviations Observatory was founded to study and correct certain pathologies, but we know that that is but a façade, cleverly constructed, almost impossible to penetrate. Despite all of our influence . . . influence, we found ourselves being refused on-site access, under the pretext of medical confidentiality. For a long time now, we have suspected the observatory of carrying out behind-the-scenes activities. One of our informers succeeded in infiltrating the premises. In his last report, he brought to our attention a project being secretly run by the observatory.

  “It has been named PROJECT CORNUCOPIANISM.

  “The informer didn’t get a chance to reveal any more about it to us; he has since disappeared without a trace. We have every reason to believe . . . believe that the answers to our questions, and also to yours, are linked to this project.

  “You fulfilled your first mission by providing a name to us, cher ami. We have carried out some minor research in some very old archives to which the public are not permitted access. The Deviations Observatory was formerly a military base, much before those words were condemned by our Index. That military base was also working on a research project that was highly . . . highly confidential.

  “Guess which name features on this old register.

  “Yes. That very one.

  “You understand, cher ami? The secret that made this woman what we know her to be—the power of having all the powers, including that of thwarting death . . . death and of saving our world from the great collapse—this secret is to be found at the Deviations Observatory.

  “Those who really are in charge of the observatory are well ahead of us. It’s for you, cher ami, to reverse the trend. All your belongings are already packed, and they await you there. We won’t insult you by explaining to you what will become . . . become of good old Sir Henry in the event of failure.”

  With a final resounding gurgle, indicating that the vocal mechanism had just disintegrated, the doll went quiet.

  Ophelia did her best not to show the intense emotion that had overcome her as she listened to the message, even if the darkening of her glasses gave it away. She realized how much she hated the Genealogists. Much as they opened doors to Thorn that would otherwise have been closed to him, they showed such pleasure in using him, in playing with him, as if he were the real doll, that she was disgusted.

  Thorn appeared not to attach any importance to it. On the contrary, his eyes narrowed in concentration, glinting with a certain satisfaction. He put the doll back in its place on the bench, and immediately took out, from a pocket, his bottle of surgical spirit to disinfect his hands.

  “The Deviations Observatory,” he repeated. “If the Genealogists are right, if it’s over there that Eulalia Gonde became God, then we have a highly significant lead.”

  Ophelia focused on the disturbingly realistic almond-shaped eyes on the doll’s porcelain face. So, that observatory once again! She thought back to what the doctor had told her, at the Memorial, on the subject of her malformation: “They won’t be able to do anything for you, but they will undoubtedly be interested in studying you close up.” Just remembering this triggered a spasm in her stomach. It was a subject she had to broach with Thorn.

  “I’ve already been to the Deviations Observatory,” she said, instead.

  She hadn’t been any further than the visitors’ conservatory. Mediana, her most formidable rival during her apprenticeship as a Forerunner, had been interned there after being petrified by the old sweeper at the Memorial. Ophelia had wanted to question her but had managed to get almost nothing out of her, so traumatized was she.

  “It’s an impressive establishment, taking up a minor ark all to itself. I must admit, they are pretty enigmatic over there. They told me they had a file in my name but answered not one of my questions. Oh,” she let out, suddenly struck by a thought. “So that’s where they want to send Elizabeth? The Genealogists mentioned an observatory, but I didn’t make the connection.”

  “The Genealogists?”

  Thorn was forever frowning, but he had a certain ability to modulate that frown according to his degree of irritation.

  “I came across them at the Memorial.”

  “As long as there was no interaction whatsoever between you.”

  Ophelia went cautiously silent, which deepened Thorn’s frown, drawing together the two parts of his scar until they formed just the one.

  “I didn’t cause any disaster,” she assured him. “In fact, they were only interested in Elizabeth. It’s not as if they had appointed me Vice-storyteller.”

  “Why were they interested in her?”

  “They wanted her to accept the offer of a job at the observatory. They told her that by doing so, she would be helping not only the city, but also Lady Helen. I didn’t understand a thing.”

  Thorn leaned his elbows back on his knees and rested his chin on his linked fingers. His eyes traced the geometric patterns of the floor tiles before him.

  “They are positioning their pawns.”

  “It ended badly for one of them,” Ophelia recalled. “The Genealogists’ informer did, after all, disappear while investigating that Project Carno . . . Copra—”

  “Cornucopianism,” Thorn corrected. “It’s a reference to the ‘Horn of Plenty.’”

  Ophelia was baffled. The Horn of Plenty? She specialized more in history than in mythology, but she had, of course, heard of this legendary object that furnished endless food. Different arks had different versions of it. On Anima, where practicality ruled, it was represented in the form of an inexhaustible shopping bag. What did it have to do with Eulalia Gonde and the Other? Neither had spread plenty around them. They had sacrificed lands, seas, and lives.

  She wished she could listen to the Genealogists’ message again. The untimely echoes had distracted her, and she didn’t have Thorn’s memory.

  “‘The power of having all the powers,’” she recited, carefully handling the doll as she searched for another vocal mechanism. “Can something so important be studied in a renowned observatory without anyone knowing about it?”

  Ophelia shuddered on spotting a mosquito on Thorn’s wrist: the insect had barely landed before an invisible little blade cut it in two with surgical precision. As he studied the pattern of the flooring, deep in thought, Thorn hadn’t even noticed. His claws lashed out indiscriminately at anything in the dead angle of his conscience, whether the threat was real or not. A primitive, uncontrollable hunting instinct of which he was ashamed. Ophelia couldn’t really fathom what could have caused such a defect in him.

  “Eulalia Gonde created twenty-one immortal family spirits,” Thorn declared. “She described how each one of them functioned in a Book unchanged by time. Directly or indirectly, she caused
the Rupture of the world. She disseminated the family powers across all the arks. And finally,” he concluded, with a disdain that suddenly altered his steady tone of voice, “she elevated herself to the rank of a divinity who, today, has a stranglehold on all the families. And yet, who knows her name? For posterity, she remained but an anonymous author of tales for children—mediocre ones at that. If such an insignificant human was able to accomplish so many feats, it is not unreasonable to think that others can do so today.”

  He clenched his linked fingers so hard that his nails dug into his flesh. Ophelia understood his reaction when she noticed a flaw in the atrium’s flooring, which broke up the harmony of the whole design. Thorn had a pathological need for symmetry. His stare intensified, as if he were seeking to correct the problem tile through sheer willpower.

  “The Genealogists made out that the observatory contained the answers to my questions,” he said, separating each syllable. “I have a considerable number of them. How did Eulalia Gonde become God? What is her true share of responsibility for the Rupture? Why endow the family spirits with free will and a memory at first, if only to withdraw it from them afterwards? Why does she possess all the family powers today, except that of the inhabitants of LandmArk? If she really did create the family spirits with her own hands, why wouldn’t she possess all of their capabilities? And by what right does she pass herself off as God? How does she dare to claim concern for the good of humanity when she has lost the essence of all that constituted her own humanity?”

  His voice had gradually intensified, shaking with suppressed rage, and Ophelia could feel her own skin quivering under the galvanic effect of the claws. She was hoping not to end up like the mosquito. Every time Thorn said the word “God,” he did so reluctantly and barely audibly, but she still cast her eyes around the atrium to reassure herself that they really were alone. Lazarus’s automatons had been designed to transform themselves into a prison of blades when that word was spoken in his home. There were so many machines among the antique furnishings that it was difficult to determine which might be traps. That graphoscope, on the marble desk, was it as innocent as it seemed? And that chronometric teapot? And the statue-fountain, in the center of the impluvium, with its cymbals clashing on the hour?