The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century)

by Cherie Priest

  “He could’ve walked out of here anytime,” Rector marveled.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. The other lock was in better shape, and he’s pretty weak right now.” Zeke backed away farther, to the door’s edge, to the spot where Rector was stuck as if there were nails holding his feet down to the hard-packed earth floor.

  The sasquatch followed him, wobbling and scratching at the seal around his neck.

  “Oh … boy…”

  “Hush up, Rector. He’s doing fine.”

  Out through the front doorway where there wasn’t any door left to close, and into the deserted streets where there wasn’t any fire anymore, the inexplicable followed Zeke. Stalked him, even. His legs weren’t very stable and his head looked ridiculous inside that globe, but he didn’t pry the mask off, and he didn’t tear Zeke’s head off. Rector didn’t have anything to do except look out for rotters.

  Rector brought up the rear, watching the sasquatch strive to keep his head up. Sometimes he tipped and toppled, then jerked up straight again. “The mask is heavy,” Rector observed. “It must be hurting his neck.”

  “Must be,” Zeke replied, glancing backwards and around, keeping track of all the rocks and debris in his path. He avoided the clutter where he could, and climbed over it where he couldn’t. All the while, he kept his arms up and out, showing he meant no harm, and asking the sasquatch to follow.

  Please come with me. Please let me help.

  Up the hill a few more blocks, not very far. There weren’t any people there yet, but the previous night’s battle was increasingly evident. Zeke shuddered when the way was blocked by a pair of mutilated corpses. (Mutilated by what? Neither of the boys looked too closely.) Walls were burned and charred pieces of clothing billowed in the Blight as it moved on its usual currents. Pieces of hair and flannel with burned-off edges rolled into the gutters in clotted clumps.

  Rector thanked God he couldn’t smell a damn thing.

  The breach in the wall was not yet repaired, and might not be for a while yet. But it was covered, down at the base, by a great flap of burlap and wax, stitched together hastily and imperfectly and strung across the crevice like a curtain.

  “Better than nothing,” Rector breathed. How much better, he couldn’t say.

  By now, Zeke was prepared to trust that his strange ward wouldn’t run away or take to violence. He turned his back and climbed the lowest rocks to reach the curtain. He fumbled with the ties that held it, and the sasquatch watched with his vivid, unblinking eyes.

  Those bright eyes widened when the flap came aside, revealing a hole. It was large enough for Zeke to walk through, almost, so it’d be large enough for the sasquatch to crawl through.

  Light came through on the other side. Not brilliant light, but a creamy, soft glow that was far more mist than Blight.

  Through the hole, Rector saw trees, and the edge of an old building, and part of a road that nobody but the tower men had used in years. He saw the rest of the world, away from the Station and the Vaults, and out of the Blight (or it would be, when they got this hole fixed); he saw a portal to someplace else a million miles away. And it was right over there, a handful of feet on the other side of those huge, rumbling rocks.

  He could’ve climbed through it as easily as the sasquatch.

  Thirty

  The next day, Rector found the old jail again without too much trouble. He had a compass and a lantern, though it was daylight and he hoped he wouldn’t need them. He also had his ax, some extra filters, a canteen of water, some dried cherries and pemmican, and a number of other just-in-case supplies in the pack he wore on his back. A pack kept his hands freer, and his balance was better in the event he needed to run or climb.

  He was no great fan of running or climbing, but in the walled city he never knew when it might be called for. There were rotters, after all.

  Not as many rotters as there once were, no. Still, their ranks had plumped overnight for reasons everyone knew but nobody talked about. He didn’t like them, but he knew the city needed them, after a fashion. So he learned to take precautions and tried not to complain too much.

  This was his first jaunt alone through the city since the day he’d arrived.

  He didn’t yet know his way around as well as he’d like, but he had one of Mr. Miller’s hand-drawn maps and he’d been up and down the hill enough to know some of the landmarks. He knew where the wall was, anyway—and if you found the wall, you could find your way almost anywhere.

  If you had enough filters. If you didn’t die of thirst.

  Every trip to the surface was a risk even once you got used to it, like most of Seattle’s residents had. Even if you were ready for anything, and in tip-top physical shape, the rotters could still get you. The gas could still get you.

  Rector thought maybe this was the only place in the whole world where you could die just from standing still. But he wasn’t standing still. He was on his way to the old jail.

  Dark, cool, and spooky, it was a relic of a place. Rector could feel it: Here was a spot where a story happened … a real story, not something made up and fed to small children so they’d sleep, or be proud, or behave.

  Not every place had a story like the jail, or Maynard. Or the sasquatch.

  It was brighter inside the jail today.

  The sun was up above the Blight, burning clear in a vivid blue sky for the first time all year. If Rector was lucky, it’d be dry and bright for a couple of months—and even warm, for a while. If he was less lucky, better weather would come in fits and starts, without settling in until September, at which point summer would vanish one afternoon as if it’d never been there at all. Since it hadn’t.

  But for now, while the brilliant sky worked hard to cook off the ever-present fog, everything was kind of all right.

  Dust specks and dirty air polluted what sunlight made it inside the old jail. The bits of abandonment floated smoothly, silently, stirred only by Rector’s presence. His foot kicked against something that clinked.

  When he looked down, he saw the jailer’s key ring, cracked and crumbled almost to dust. It’d been discarded by the door and forgotten for almost as long as Rector had been alive, but it was a token. A relic more than an artifact.

  He picked it up because it seemed rude to leave it. Maybe he’d give it to Zeke. Maybe he’d put it on a saint’s card.

  “He’s gone.”

  Rector whirled around. He knew the voice, but it nearly stopped his heart since he’d thought he was alone. “I know the inexplicable’s gone. Me and Zeke took it outside yesterday. What are you doing here, Miss Angeline?”

  She leaned against a brick support post, arms folded and gas mask showing nothing but her eyes. She wore what she always wore: menswear that had been tailored down to fit her. Her silver hair was braided and coiled back, and today it was mostly covered by a scarf, except where snowy tendrils peeked out around her ears.

  Rector looked back and forth between the woman and the empty cell.

  “Where are Zeke and Houjin?” she asked.

  “Still in bed, I expect.”

  “Everyone’s had an exciting couple of days. Some more than others. But I’m glad you boys are all just fine. I’d have felt pretty bad if any of you’d gotten hurt. I’d feel responsible, a little bit.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I was the one who helped you learn your way about, and roped you into helping with the sasquatch. I urged you to poke your noses around the tower. Everything worked out for the best, I reckon, but even so, you don’t want anyone to get shot up over it.”

  Rector had been wondering something, though it only just then sprang to his mind. And since the princess was standing right there, he went ahead and asked. “Where were you that night at the tower, Miss Angeline? I didn’t see you anyplace, once the fighting got started.” Quickly, he amended the question to include, “I’m not accusing you of chickening out or nothing—’cause I’m real sure you didn’t. Or wouldn’t. I just didn’t see you, that�
��s all.”

  She smiled inside the mask, her eyes crinkling up tight. “Funny thing about being an old lady … sometimes, it’s like being invisible. I was there, honey. Trust me on that one. And I saw you and Zeke up on the old governor’s mansion. You two did a real good job.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He figured he wouldn’t get a straighter answer out of her, so he didn’t press for one. It was easier to change the subject. “Where do you think the sasquatch went, once he got outside the wall? Do you think he’ll be all right?”

  “Where’d he go?” She unfolded her arms. She stepped forward and came to stand beside Rector, staring into the empty cell right along with him. “If you forced me to give you my best guess, I’d say he had a long nap and woke up feeling better—feeling clearer, and stronger. I’d say he pulled off the mask, or his lady friend pulled it off him. He’ll have to eat and drink. One of ’em will take care of it.”

  “You think they’re that smart?”

  “I think instinct is an interesting thing, for all the things it can tell a body. What are your instincts telling you, these days?”

  He frowned at her. “What?”

  “You heard me. What do your instincts say about being here, staying here? You going to hang around the Vaults, or go to the Station? You going to stay inside Seattle, or seek your fortune someplace else?”

  “I’m gonna…”

  He thought of his small room in the Vaults, not unlike the room he’d had in the orphanage a few weeks before. He considered the Station and Yaozu and Bishop, and Zeke and Houjin, and earning an honest living or a dishonest one, but earning something, somewhere.

  “It looks like you folks need a few good men around here.”

  “We do,” she replied too solemnly to imply anything.

  “The place is falling apart. Yaozu’s got money, but not as many people as he needs. And those docks—the ones the captain’s setting up at Decatur—he’ll need people to man them. The patch job where the wall’s broke—what’d they use, canvas? That won’t hold anything, and it’ll take a lot of fellows a few weeks to fix it, at least. Never mind all the tunnels falling down and the buildings rotting where they stand, if they still stand. There are jobs in here, that’s all I’m sayin’. And there aren’t any jobs out there, in the Outskirts. Not for someone like me, unless I want to go back to selling.” He said it offhandedly, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

  Angeline went ahead and asked. “Do you want to go back to selling?”

  Why lie? “Yeah, I do. It’s easy, and everyone’s always happy to see me.”

  “But?”

  “But,” he paused. “I can’t handle the sap anymore. That’s not to say I don’t want it, but I know I can’t have it. It’ll kill me.”

  Which didn’t stop him from promising himself, in the back of his head, that next year, on the anniversary of leaving the orphanage, he’d treat himself. On his birthday, he was allowed; that’s what he’d decided. That was the only thing that held his cravings at bay, the prospect that this lull was only temporary and it couldn’t possibly last. He hoped maybe he’d be strong enough, come next birthday, to put off any indulgence until the birthday after that … and then the birthday after that. Each year it might get easier, or it might not.

  But for now … for now he needed to think. He needed to figure things out. He’d resolved to survive another year, and he’d need his brain if he wanted to make that work.

  So. Yes. Just for now. No more sap. Not until next year.

  Next year he’d give it a shot, or he wouldn’t. Next year he’d start seeing ghosts again, or they’d leave him alone. Next year, maybe he’d have a better idea of what he wanted, or where he wanted to be, and what he wanted to do.

  But for now …

  Epilogue

  Mercy Lynch adjusted the electric lantern, propping it atop a stack of weathered, damp-swollen books. The light burned brightly across the desk in her office, in her clinic, in her city; it spilled across her hands, and it cast weird shadows across the woman who stood behind her, overseeing her progress.

  Mercy frowned at the paper and tapped her pen’s nib into the inkwell. “Miss Angeline, how do you spell your name? I’ve got the first part, but I don’t know about your daddy’s.”

  “You could just spell it ‘Seattle’ if you want to.”

  “I’d rather do it right.”

  Angeline smiled, and patted the younger woman’s shoulder. “You don’t have the letters for it, not in English. But when I write it down for white folks, I do it like this…” she said, taking a pencil nub and scratching Sealth on the nearest scrap of unused paper. “And that’s close enough.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. That’ll work just fine. And thank you for keeping an eye on that redheaded boy.”

  “Somebody had to do it.”

  “I’m glad it was you. You’re a good reporter, and now that we’ve got all these notes between us, I’m getting a picture of what sap withdrawal looks like. After a fashion.”

  “You really didn’t think the boy would make it, did you?”

  Mercy shook her head and reached for a large envelope she’d stitched together out of canvas and twine. “No, I didn’t. I’ve never seen anybody that far gone come this far back. Rector’s shown us the outer limits of what can be survived. Of what can be saved. He’s young, and that worked in his favor; but he wasn’t so healthy at the start, and that worked against him. All in all, I think he’s been a real good test case.”

  “Poor fellow never had much of a chance. The children they pulled from the city, especially the ones as little as he was … not all of them lived long enough to grow up at all. And them that did didn’t always grow up right.” Angeline stood up straight and stretched her shoulders. She walked to the edge of the sickbed and sat down on it.

  Mercy paused, then gathered her stack of papers and began to stuff them inside the makeshift envelope. When the package was full, she turned her seat around to face Angeline. “Are there any figures on that? Any numbers, about the things that went wrong with the little ones?”

  “None to my knowledge, unless maybe the orphanage kept track.”

  “But Rector’s the last of them, ain’t he? The last one of that generation.”

  “If he’s not the last, he might as well be. The rest have either growed up and moved on or died. Just like Rector would’ve died, without you looking after him.”

  The nurse shrugged this off. “All I did was let him alone, and make sure he got plenty of water. His own body did the rest. He’s looking brighter now, have you noticed? The yellow under his eyes, I think it’s fading. Might even go away, someday, if he keeps his nose clean.”

  “It might or might not. He might, or might not.”

  “He seems to get on good with Zeke and Huey. Maybe they’ll be a good influence on him.”

  Angeline cocked her head, and nodded to indicate that it was possible. But then she said, “Or maybe he’ll be a bad influence on them. It could go either way.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Mercy tied her package up with twine, being careful to leave the address clear. It was going to Sally Louisa Tompkins, care of the Robertson Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. “Huey’s too smart to fool, and Zeke’s such a gentle thing … I think they can handle their new friend all right.”

  “As long as he keeps his nose clean.” Angeline borrowed Mercy’s expression.

  “Yes, well. There’s that. But you didn’t catch him using, or see any sign that he’d done so?” she asked for the dozenth time.

  “No, dear, I didn’t. And no one out at the Station would give him any—on Yaozu’s orders. If that boy can keep his head on straight, and if he can stay away from the rotters, and if he can keep his mask on, and if he can make himself useful down here somehow or other … he might be all right.”

  The nurse held the package in her lap and absently ran her fingers over the address. The ink had dried, and nothing streaked. “We sure do say might a lot, don’t we?
”

  “The world’s an uncertain place.”

  “That it is,” she agreed. And then, somewhat quietly, “More uncertain than either of us knows. But someone, somewhere knows. And someone, somewhere is keeping everyone god-awful quiet.”

  “You mean, how all those men disappeared? The ones you tried to reach?”

  For a moment Mercy was silent. She stared down at the package. “Not the ranger, not the Union captain, not the passengers I shared the car with. Not the Mexican inspector, and not the Confederates who made it out alive. No one, Angeline. It’s too many people to be a coincidence. Too many people lost, or silenced.”

  Then, as if to change directions, she said, “You know how slow I write, don’t you? I’m not too good at it, and that’s no secret.”

  “You do a real fine job, Mercy.”

  “No, I don’t. But it’s kind of you to say that. And you know that every time I send Captain Sally a stack like this, I write it out again so I have a copy. It takes me forever and a day, but sometimes I feel like I’m mailing these things to a hole in the ground, and I can’t stand to see it lost.”

  “That Captain Sally sent you a message by the taps once, over in Tacoma.”

  “That’s true, she did.” Mercy lifted the package, squeezed it, and listened to the brittle paper rustle within. “But all it said was that my reports arrived, and I should keep sending them. And…” She set the package aside. “And anyone on earth could’ve sent that message.”

  “Now you’re just getting yourself all worked up for nothing.”

  Mercy’s hands fluttered, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them. She picked up a pencil stub and chewed pensively upon it. Then she removed it from her mouth and asked, with deadly seriousness, “Am I?”

  Angeline shooed her worries away with a flip of her wrist. “Of course you are, baby. Your letters are getting through just fine, only it feels like years ’cause you’re mailing through a war zone. Maybe some of your messages get lost, that’s possible, sure. But no one’s stealing them on the other end. No one’s burying them in a hole.”