The Iron Bells

by Jeanette Battista

  Chapter Fourteen

  I stand in front of the phone, staring at it like it is an alien that will twist around and attack me if I take my eyes off of it. The hallway is quiet right now, but it won't be for long. It's almost supper time; if I don't call Patrick's mother soon, the place will be too busy for a quiet conversation. I know I should probably go by and talk to her in person, but if I do that, she'll be able to tell when I'm lying.

  I pick up the receiver and dial Mrs. Bowen's number. I'm hoping I can leave a message for her to call me, but after four rings she picks up. "Hello?"

  "Hi, Mrs. Bowen. It's me. Amaranth." I keep my voice low in case anyone walks by.

  "Amaranth! Have you any news about Patrick?" Her voice has an edge of hope to it, and I suddenly find it hard to swallow around the lump in my throat.

  "I may," I hedge, my voice tentative. I don't know what to tell her or what will be more painful. "I need to check it out, but I may have a lead on his location."

  "Do you know if he's been…" she can't finish the thought.

  I close my eyes, steadying myself. "It's likely." I hold my breath, listening intently for her response. I hear a sigh and then nothing else for a few moments.

  She's almost inaudible when she speaks. "I thought that might be the case." A pause. "Have you seen him?"

  I chew my lip. "No." It's a lie, but I can't bring myself to let her know what I've seen, especially not when I don't have a clue about how to get him out. I need more time to come up with a plan. "I haven't. But some people that I trust think they have."

  Again the small sigh, like air escaping a balloon. I wait a beat, willing her to say something. When she does, it isn't what I expect. "Thank you so much for this, Amaranth. I know it can't be easy for you."

  I open my mouth to respond, but I can't think of the words. If she knew what I knew, I doubt she'd be so thankful. I have seen her son and I know where he was being held; I just have no idea what to do about it. There's part of me that wants so badly to tell her, to have her make the decision and leave me out of it completely. But then I think of how cruel that would be to just dump this mess in her lap without any kind of hope for a solution.

  The sound of voices and the gallop of footfalls on the stairs let me know that I'm almost out of time and privacy. Time to get off of the phone. "I have to go, Mrs. Bowen. I'll call as soon as I find out anything." I hang up before I can say anything else.

  I knock on Dham's door, nerves making me shuffle. He's been spending more time with Cat since her arrival—and our ill-fated night out—so I haven't gotten to see him much. I hope he’s not mad at me for haring off after the Inquisition. He hadn’t seemed angry, but I’m not terrifically good at reading people, either. And Cat's been around him a lot lately; maybe she's helping him with the ringing problem. Every time I try to talk to her though, she finds an excuse to leave fairly quickly.

  Still, there is something that I've been wanting to show Dham and now seems as good a time as any. It seems like a proper way to make amends ruining dinner.

  Why I want to is something I'm not comfortable delving into. Since that first night on the roof of the boarding house, I've felt awkward around him. I'm not used to revealing parts of myself to people. Patrick is probably the only person I've felt at all close to, besides my mother and Ryland, and we've grown apart as the Resistance has taken up more and more of my time and studying for university takes up more of his. Dham is nothing like Patrick though. He seems lighter, brighter than anyone I've known, even if he is prone to small bouts of darkness of mood. There are definitely certain topics that are off-limits with him, but then again, the same holds true of me. I can't be too upset about it.

  The door opens and he stands in the threshold, blinking owlishly in the light. His room is dark, and his hair is a haystack mess of dark blond. He bites down on a yawn. "Hey Amaranth."

  "Sorry I woke you. I didn't realize you were asleep." I duck my head. I feel embarrassed, although why I don't know. "I can come back later." I move to leave.

  He grabs my hand before I can get out of the doorway. "It's fine. I needed to wake up anyway." He lets go when I turn back around to face him. "What'd you come by for?"

  He stretches. I see his t-shirt ride up as he raises his arms and note the smooth, muscled skin on his stomach. I can feel a flush creeping onto my face, but I can't seem to stop watching him as he twists and cracks and pops. I might miss a flash of his flesh. "Um…" I wrench my mind away from the thought of his skin beneath my hands and try to focus. "I wanted to show you something. If you're up for a little walking." I look at his face, but he's rubbing sleep out of his eyes. I'm hoping that means he didn't notice me staring at his body.

  "Sure. Give me five."

  "Meet you out front." I turn away as he closes the door.

  It's bright outside, the afternoon sun warming the air to the point that I almost don't need a sweatshirt. Almost. I take a seat on the front steps and wait, idly watching the sparse foot traffic that passes by. It feels good to have some time to do nothing but what I want to do. There's a pull to check with Ryland to see if he has any news of Patrick, but I do my best to ignore it. I don't want to be underground on an afternoon this nice; sometimes I'm afraid I'll turn into one of those mole people that shriek and run from sunlight if I spend any more time belowground.

  I hear the door open behind me and stand up, ready to be moving. "I thought that we might…" I stop in midsentence as I turn to see Cat standing beside Dham.

  "I ran into Cat coming down the stairs. Thought she might want to come along with us. You don't mind, do you?" Dham's face is perfectly serene.

  I hope I manage to school my features into something resembling a pleasant expression. Cat's wearing a strange little smile that makes me feel like I'm the intrusion, but I try for calm and say, "Oh, not at all. This wasn't a private excursion or anything like." I manage to tamp down some of my irritation. It wasn't meant to be just Dham and me to the exclusion of everyone else, not really anyway. I tell myself that it doesn't matter one way or the other whether she comes with us or not.

  It also doesn't matter that Dham is quite possibly oblivious to the fact that Cat and I clearly aren't meant to coexist in the same place too often.

  Then I see his half-hidden smile. And I realize there's a very good chance he knows exactly what he's doing. The ass.

  I zip up my hoodie, even though the weather doesn't particularly call for it, and put my hands in my pockets. Dham is wearing a t-shirt in the mild weather. Cat has on a long-sleeved shirt with a vest over it. Her long blonde hair is down for once, causing me to grind my teeth at how girlie she looks. I suddenly miss my long hair.

  "So where are we going anyway?" Cat's voice has an edge to it that puts my back up. I have to remember to control myself so I don't snap at her. I can't help but feel like she's some kind of interloper.

  "It was going to be a surprise," I manage to get out, plastering a false smile on my face.

  "I hope it's not somewhere stupid." I'm glad I'm in front so neither Cat nor Dham can see my expression at her comment. I ignore the rising need I feel to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until her head pops off.

  I hear Dham mutter something to her, but don't bother to make out his words. I'm trying too hard to resist the urge to push her in front of a bus. My hands are even twitching. Wasn't it a medical fact that people didn't remember the last ten minutes of a near death experience? Even if she survived, she might not remember what actually happened and I could get away with it being a horrible accident. The idea does have a certain appeal…. I rip my mind away from this train of thought before I go too far down it.

  "Is it far?" Dham's trying to be a buffer, a human Switzerland. If he wanted to avoid the unpleasantness, he could have not invited Cat.

  I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak politely. I know I'm being petty. Cat isn't bad--I hardly know her. I'm just angry that Dham chose to invite her along, and I'm taking it out on her. It's no
t her fault. As much as I might wish it were.

  Eventually I get tired of being separated from their chatter, so I drop back on the other side of Dham. Cat shoots me a look that could wither greenery, but I ignore her. I do notice that she's touching Dham an awful lot: brushing his arm with hers, putting her hand on his arm when she's saying something, bumping shoulders with him. Cat's talking up a storm, although Dham doesn't seem to be paying much attention. He nudges me in the ribs when I fall into step beside him. "Are we almost there?" he whispers while Cat chatters on.

  "Getting there." I spare him a sideways glance. He's smiling at me.

  "Do I even get a hint about where you're taking me?" His voice is teasing.

  "You'll just have to wait for your surprise," I answer, leaning forward so that Cat won't hear.

  "Will I like it?" His eyes are a very pale green in the sunshine, almost like the sunlight bleaches the color a bit.

  "I hope so." I think he'll like where I'm bringing him. The largest bell in the British Isles once rang there.

  When I feel the ground rise beneath my feet, I know we're getting close. Ludgate Hill was once the highest point in the city. And on it once stood St. Paul’s, one of the most spectacular cathedrals in all of Britain. Even the ruins are astonishing. It's funny; the demons, once they took power--or rather the bodies they possessed took power--set about destroying all of the holy sites on earth. Temple Mount, Mecca and Medina, the Blue Mosque, Notre Dame, St. Peter's—you name it, it was blasted to dust and ruin. But there is still something here, something that speaks to the worship that went on at this location. It's peaceful. And powerful. Maybe you couldn’t completely eradicate centuries of faith.

  "Oh, great." Cat looks around in mild disgust. "More mouldering ruins." Where has she been hanging out?

  Dham is quiet, eyes wide, drinking in the sight of the wreckage that was once St. Paul's Cathedral. I ignore Cat in favor of watching him. His face is a marvel: completely unguarded in surprise and pleasure. The planes and angles of his face are strong and form a very pleasant looking whole that I find I enjoy looking at. I'm very glad I brought him.

  The great architect of London, Christopher Wren, rebuilt this church after the Great Fire five hundred years ago; it survived the Blitz during World War II. But it didn't survive the second Inquisition.

  "Welcome to St. Paul's Cathedral." I draw close to Dham so I can speak softly, without interrupting his reverie. "Or what's left of it."

  "I…it's amazing." His voice is hushed, reverent. Cat rolls her eyes at the two of us.

  "I thought you might like to see this. St.Paul's had seventeen bells, including Great Paul, the biggest bell in all the Isles."

  "Will we have to run from the cops if we take a look?" Dham smiles slightly when he says this, as if at a fond memory.

  I find myself grinning. "Not here. I think they've given up trying to keep people away from this place. But we still have to be careful." I try for a light tone. "Nothing too rowdy."

  "Rowdy?" Cat's voice cuts shrilly through the quiet. "Who'd want to get rowdy here? This place is like a bloody tomb!" But she begins to follow us as we pick our way deeper into the rubble.

  Large portions of the cathedral are still standing—probably more than any other church in London, maybe in all of Britain. The domes are all gone, as are the towers, but the transepts are in decent shape and the nave is still standing in most places. All of the furnishings and glass and gilding are gone, as is the roof in most places, but you can still stand inside the quire and be shielded from prying eyes. And the crypt is still intact, protected as it is by being underground. Obviously, services can no longer be held here, which seems to be all the Inquisition wished to accomplish with its destruction. And, if Dham’s father is correct, remove the threat of the bells too.

  We walk in slowly, cautiously feeling our way. Just because this is the most visited—and allowed—of all of the ruined cathedrals, doesn't mean it's exactly safe. Huge stones can become unstable and crush you in an unexpected fall if you're not careful. The rubble of the domes is scattered about, some of it higher than our heads.

  There's a hush as we walk into the cool darkness of what remains of the nave. Bars of sunlight filter in, illuminating the dust motes and other detritus that dances in the air. There's a feeling of peace, of deep, abiding quiet here. Even Cat seems more subdued than usual. At least she's no longer complaining and the sour look on her face as been replaced by something much more benevolent.

  Dham stops suddenly, so suddenly that I bump into him since I'm looking around the room. "What is it?" Even my whisper feels loud in this place.

  "What's over that way?" He's pointing in a southwesterly direction.

  I try to remember what I was able to look up on the cathedral. It's been a long time since I did any real reading on the place; I did most of my research on St. Paul's after I took my first trip here when my mother brought me on a holy day when I was maybe nine or ten. Where Dham is pointing once held some of the bells.

  "Do you feel something?"

  Dham shrugs. "I don't know, maybe. It's hard to get a read with all this other stuff around." When I look at him, his eyes are a little unfocused.

  "What? What is it?" Cat demands from where she's inspecting some shattered wall ornamentation. She walks up on the opposite side of Dham.

  "The bells are over that way,” I say. “At least some of them once were." Dham is already moving, almost as if he's pulled on by invisible threads.

  "What's wrong with him?" Cat has her head cocked and is watching Dham cautiously. Maybe she's having second thoughts about whatever it is she's trying to be to him.

  I hurry to catch up to him, afraid he might fall into a hole or walk into a rockslide without realizing it in his distracted state. Cat follows. "Sometimes he can feel the bells if they're still around."

  "He can feel the bells?" Cat shakes her head in disbelief. "That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard."

  "You can't?" I guess it's not a skill inherent in all Ringers then. I need to find out more about how they do whatever it is that they do. “It doesn’t work that way for you?”

  "Nope." She glances at me out of the corner of her. "I just swing a bell because I was the only one in my town that could—that it worked for. I don't have any extra feelings about it." Her gaze shifts to Dham's back. "I wonder if it means anything."

  I shake my head even though the question is rhetorical. I have no idea if it means anything, but it would be curious if that talent is something that only runs in Dham's family. Still, talking with Cat rather than at her is not that bad. "How did you get stuck with bell ringing?"

  Her blue eyes flash in annoyance. "I just told you—I was the only one the bell worked for."

  I grit my teeth. Okay, maybe it isn't all just me. I try again because I am curious about her. "What, did you just wake up one day and think, hey I should really try swinging a huge iron bell because it might be a nice change of pace?" I let the sarcasm flow freely. That seems to be the only kind of answers Cat responds at all well to.

  She turns her head in my direction so quickly that her hair almost whips my face. Her eyes are narrow, searching my face for what I don't know, then she answers in a surprisingly reasonable tone. "My town was attacked by night shamblers. They'd raided the cemetery looking for fresh bodies. Very few people get buried anymore in our village, even though the Inquisition has outlawed cremations, but those that can't afford the fee get planted." I nod. We've got the same issues in London.

  "It was a mess. People running and screaming in the streets, houses being broken into, then burned, sometimes with the families still in them. The local Ringer was trying to drive them away with the Deid bell—I could hear the tone of the bell below all of the screaming, but it wasn't doing anything. Then the shamblers attacked him. Someone else grabbed the bell out of his hands and tried to ring it, but it still didn't work. A few more of the men tried, then some of the women." She's looking down at her feet while she tal
ks to me. I can only see the top of her head, her scalp showing pink through the white-blonde of her hair.

  "And then I just walked up and grabbed it away from whoever had it. I remember being angry, so angry that they had dared come into my town, my home and kill my people. I didn't see anything really, just focused on the bell. It was heavy—it's made of old iron after all—and then I lifted it like it was a feather. I remember pouring all of my anger into my arms so I could swing it." She looks up at me finally and her eyes are a fierce, blazing blue. "The bell rang out, louder than any of the others had been. It rang true too. I remember the shrieks when the shamblers heard it. I just kept ringing it until someone took it from my hand."

  She took a deep breath. "From that day on, I was the town ringer."

  I stare at her, in awe. For all of her unpleasantness, Cat doesn't lack for courage or fierceness. "That's amazing." I wonder if she’s told Dham about it and what he makes of her story in relation to his father’s theories.

  She shrugs. "It had to be done. I wasn't going to let them hurt my family or friends. They have no right to it."

  "Is that why you came here?"

  "Nah." She flips her hair back over her shoulder and for a moment I miss the weight of my long hair. "One of your folks came and talked to me. Told me what was going on, told me that I was needed." Cat frowns, pink lips turned down in a sour pucker. "I had no interest in it, not at first. But my mam talked to me, and my da. And my friends. I didn't want to leave them without protection, but they all said this was the best chance for everyone. So here I am."

  "Come over here!" Dham's shout interrupts anything else I might ask. We scramble over to him. The broken stones are deeper here. We have to climb over them to get where he is. I can feel some of the smaller stones shift beneath my feet and I move upwards quickly.

  I stand next to Dham, winded from the climb, and stare down at what he's looking at. I can see the curve a giant bell, most of its bulk hidden beneath the rubble. Most of the smaller bells have been melted down for scrap, but the really big ones are too heavy to move and are usually too badly damaged to ring anyway. Dham crouches and puts his hand on the metal. "Can we move some of this rock off it?"

  Cat begins chucking loose stones off of the bell. "I'll take that as a yes." Dham levers up a large chunk and pitches it over the side.

  I proceed a bit more cautiously. No need to start a small rockslide and wind up with a broken or crushed arm or leg for our troubles. I pick up manageable pieces and try and put them somewhere out of the way. I don't know what else might be buried under here or how unstable the foundation is that we're standing on so I'm not quite as enthusiastic in my clearing as the other two.

  We work in silence for several minutes. More of the bell is being revealed, but all that we can really tell about it is that it is enormous. But most of the sides of it are buried by rock. Even if we could get the top cleared, we'd still have a ton of debris to clear away from the rest of it to be able to see the whole thing.

  Dham must have had the same thought because he calls a halt. "Holy crap. How big is this thing?"

  I sit down gingerly on a fairly clear part of the metal, my arms tired and hands scraped from hoisting and throwing stone. "It might be one of the really big boys. Maybe Great Paul or Great Tom even." Not for the first time, I regret not being able to see the cathedral in its glory. "Can you feel anything?"

  Dham nods emphatically, sweaty hair flopping in his face. "Oh yeah. This one is practically humming beneath my boots. It wants to wake up."

  Cat plops down in a graceful heap. "It wants to wake up? Is it talking to you?" She pulls her hair up off the back of her neck, fanning it with her hand.

  "Not like that," Dham answers, annoyance in his voice. "It's just this thing almost everyone in my family has. We can sense which bells are...live--I guess that's the best word for it--and which ones won't ring, no matter what you do to them."

  I turn a little, so I can see the two of them. This is the best Dham has ever been able to explain what it is he feels or does or whatever. I've always wanted to understand more about his bell sense. "What do you mean by the ones that won't ring? I don't get it."

  He runs a hand through dark blond hair. "I can usually put my hand on any bell and tell you whether it will ring true--whether it's live or not. The ones that aren't just feel like metal--there's no...presence?" He shrugs. "We'll go with presence. There's nothing you can do to wake those bells. I think they'd need to be recast or something, and as far as I know, there's no production company still in operation anywhere."

  "So the ones that are dead just stay dead." I try not to shudder. It's weird talking about inanimate things like they're alive, especially when you're sitting on top of one that could easily crush you if it had a mind to.

  "Pretty much, yeah. They'll just clank and clunk until they drive you crazy." He looks out over the horizon. "My dad has been collecting those old bells for years and storing them away. I guess he's hoping he can find some way to melt them down and recast them or find some other use for them."

  "Your da can feel the bells too, then?" Cat has been watching Dham from beneath lowered lashes. I notice she's also crept closer to him.

  Dham nods, but I can see the muscles in his jaw ratcheting down. His expression from where I sit is unhappy and tense. Cat can't see it from where she's sitting, but I have a clear view of him. "He can't ring, not as well as me and my sister, but he feels them better than either of us. He's got a knack for it."

  He fiddles with the small pebbles and rocks that still decorate the surface of the metal. The conversation, or lack of it, stretches out awkwardly between us. I remember the last mention of his family when we were eating supper and how well that went. Any mention of his family is a conversation killer, but Cat doesn't know that.

  "What about the ones that are awake?" Cat asks, and I'm almost grateful to her for ending the silence.

  Dham starts, as though coming back from some place only in his head. He was very far away for those last few minutes. I wonder what he'd been remembering. Whatever it was, it didn't look like it had been particularly pleasant. His face is drawn and his color is a bit paler than before. He shakes off whatever the funk was to answer her question.

  "What about them? It depends on the bell--some are more awake than others."

  "How about this one?" I put my hand on the metal, stroking it lightly. Good bell, nice bell.

  "This one is pretty lively. Most of the ones I've come across have been sluggish, slower, their hums infrequent. It's like they're sleeping and they need to be woken up. I know how weird that must sound." He pauses, as if making up his mind to continue. "But this guy here, well, he's awake, more awake than any other bell I've ever touched."

  "I wonder why that is." I'm brushing off the faint layer of rock dust, trying to feel something beneath my hands, but all I feel is hard metal.

  Dham lays his hands flat against the bell's surface and closes his eyes for a brief moment. "I don't know," he breathes. "But he is. He wants to be cleared, to be heard."

  "Can you communicate with it? Like tell it things?"

  Dham turns his head to Cat, but keeps his eyes closed. "It's not like that, Cat. It's more one way communication. I can't tell it anything. It's not even speaking in words--it's just a feeling or more like a sensation."

  "You just know it," I offer.

  Dham opens his eyes and smiles at me. "Exactly. Trying to explain it is like trying to explain what love is or the color blue."

  "You keep saying he." I tuck the stray hairs that have escaped their tail behind my ear. "Why?"

  Again, a smile paired with a shrug. "Because the bell is male. Or its energy is."

  "You mean to tell me that bells have genders?" Cat sounds incredulous.

  "Sort of." Dham slews around on his knees to survey the rest of the ruined landscape from our vantage point. "Again, it's more of a feeling. Some bells feel male and some feel female."

  "You're just sayin
g that because this one's so bloody huge." Cat sounds miffed. I have to bite back a snort of laughter.

  "Since neither of us can exactly prove him wrong, we'll just have to take his word for it." I cut my eyes at Cat.

  "Oh sure. Of course the big ones are male. Think he might be overcompensating for something, Amaranth?"

  I burst out laughing and can't stop, especially when I see Dham's offended look. Cat's laughing too, falling backwards and pointing at Dham as she convulses. "You should see the look on your face," she howls.

  He looks at me. I try to control my laughter with limited success. "She's right. You look like you just swallowed something, and it moved in your mouth."

  He shakes his head. "You two are impossible."

  "Don't be mad," Cat teases. "All in good fun. You want me to tell Amaranth what a sour stick in the mud she is? Will that make you feel better?"

  My laughter stops, but Cat's continues, growing in hilarity. "Now you look just like him!" She rolls over, holding her stomach.

  "Think we should push her off?" Dham asks.

  "You have no idea how tempting that is." I wipe the rock dust from my hands onto my jeans and stand up. I tilt my head back and stretch, getting a look at the sky. It's late afternoon now. We should be getting back. I begin to climb down. Dham follows me.

  "Come on Cat," he calls.

  She finally collects herself, still letting out the occasional chuckle. She slides down the last few feet, landing unsteadily. Dham steadies her. "Where now?"

  "Anyone feel like Indian?"