by E. E. Holmes
“It’s not my bloody job to schedule hearings at the convenience of the accused,” Catriona spat at me, just as the two Caomhnóir and Elin arrived back at the door of the cell. “It will be scheduled at the convenience and pleasure of the Traveler leadership, and not a moment before. If you’re unhappy with these consequences, then you might next time consider not trifling with their laws.”
I was not capable, while drowning in my current swamp of emotions, of manufacturing a retort. I simply shook my head, trying to look disgusted, and sank down upon the edge of the bed, dropping my head and looking down at my feet. Luckily, this response seemed adequate.
Catriona gave a convincingly exasperated sigh, and tossed the plastic bag with all of my clothes into the arms of the nearest Caomhnóir, who caught it deftly. “She’s all yours, gentlemen,” she said sardonically. “I don’t think she’ll give you too much trouble. She makes a show of being feisty, but there’s not much fight in her. I expect she’ll be out of here in a week or two. The Traveler Council wants this dealt with quickly.”
“Very good,” the taller of the Caomhnóir said. “Have you any other business to attend to while you’re here? Will you be visiting your cousin?”
Catriona bristled at the mention of Lucida, as though the question were some kind of veiled insult. “No, I don’t think I’ll subject myself to that on this particular trip. Perhaps next time, when I’m feeling just a tad more masochistic. But by all means, pass along my well wishes to my darling traitor of a cousin. Give her a kiss for me.”
The Caomhnóir looked at each other in slight confusion, and seemed to be silently asking each other whether that was a direct order, or sarcasm. Catriona did not bother to help them figure out which one it was.
“We’ll be in touch with the hearing date,” she said, tossing the comment over her shoulder at me casually, barely meeting my eye. “Until then, try to stay out of trouble, won’t you?”
I did not reply, keeping my eyes fixed on my feet, feeling my heart thunder in my chest as I listened to her steps exit the cell along with the others. At the very last moment my head shot up. I was just in time to watch her disappear on the other side of the door. I caught her eye, and she gave me the shadow of a wink. It was all she could do in the moment, but I knew it was her way of wishing me good luck. And one thing was for sure, I thought, as I stared around the cell: I was going to need all the luck I could get.
16
Walking
IT WAS HARD TO SAY what the worst part of that first day in the príosún was. It might’ve been the isolation. From the moment Catriona’s face disappeared on the other side of the door until the time that the sun went down, I heard only ten words spoken to me. “Step away from your door!” was twice barked at me by a Caomhnóir whom I could not see, who then proceeded to shove a tray of food through the slot at the bottom of my door. It was possible the food itself was as bad, but I honestly couldn’t say. I took barely three bites of the cold pile of mashed potatoes and gravy only when I started to feel a bit faint, but my mouth felt numb, and I tasted nothing.
It might have been the disorienting sense that I had absolutely no idea how much time had gone by. I had left my phone behind at Fairhaven, not that the guards would’ve let me keep it anyway. I had no watch, and could see no clock. My only points of reference were the shadows in the outer courtyard, which I could see from between the bars of my window. I watched them shorten until they all but disappeared around midday. It might’ve helped to watch them lengthen as well, but a deep gray bank of clouds rolled in from over the water, and all the shadows, and therefore all concept of time, faded away. At some point, when the darkness of clouds had turned to the darkness of evening, a deep voice shouted down the hallway, “Lights out!” And the single, flickering overhead light in my cell went out, along with what I could only assume was every other light on the cellblock, with the exception of a few bare bulbs that illuminated the corridor for the Caomhnóir who would be patrolling it on the night shift.
Then again, it may have been the noise. I’m not sure why I expected the príosún would be silent. Perhaps, because I was desperately trying to take in as many details of my surroundings as I could, I half-expected other prisoners to be doing the same. But instead, I was met with a constant and grating soundtrack of utter misery. All around me, close by and distant, from above and below me, was an endless symphony of sniffing, sobbing, shrieking, and moaning. I soon learned that the approach of the Caomhnóir making his rounds was accompanied by an upswing in volume and frequency of the sounds. All along my cellblock, I could hear voices pleading to be released, offering to trade favors, or else begging for sympathy. Others chose these moments to show their disdain and disgust for their captors by hurling insults and curses at the passing guards, banging on the doors, and chucking food trays against the walls, or else spitting through the tiny windows.
Throughout it all, I felt as though every cell in my body was tensed for some sign, some signal, that Finn was nearby. I knew that our encounter in the courtyard had shaken him even more badly than it had shaken me. And I knew, too, that he would find a way to get to me, even if it was only for a moment, and even just for a look, even if we could not exchange a single word. But I knew nothing about how this place worked. I did not know if he was free to come and go through the different parts of the príosún. I did not know if he would be allowed into the cellblock where I was being held, or at what time he might be able to slip away. Each time I heard a pair of boots in the hallway, I flew to the door. I watched figure after figure pass through the small sliver of the courtyard that I could view through my window, searching desperately for that familiar gait, the long hair, the proud bearing. But, he was nowhere to be seen, and the absence of him felt deeper, more gnawing than ever before, knowing that he must be very close by. I had not been so near to him since the wedding, and the thought that any moment might bring him into view made me feel like a walking bundle of exposed wiring. More than almost anything, the moment I could not stop reliving was the look upon his face. Such shock, such horror. And such agonizing worry. If absolutely nothing else, I needed to be able to tell him that I was okay, that I was not really in trouble, and that I was only here to help him. And even though I knew that he’d be angry that I had put myself in harm’s way, at least he would be able to stop torturing himself over hypotheticals. But the hours ticked by, and there was not a trace of him.
We had all agreed that it would be best to keep the connection between Hannah and Milo and myself closed unless I really needed it. Catriona did not think that there would be any way for the Caomhnóir to discover and therefore stifle the connection, but it seemed best not to leave it open just in case. Once in a while, though, I could not resist opening that mental door just a crack, just to let some familiarity seep its way in. In these moments, I could feel Hannah and Milo reach through with unspoken questions, like tangled tentacles made of question marks. Each time, I simply sent a message back through to them. Everything’s fine. Just wanted to know that you were there. Once it was nighttime, and it was truly safe to talk, I would pull the door wide, and filled them in on all of the details. But not yet.
As the hours ticked by, one of my fears was slowly dissipating. From the moment we had first formulated this plan, I had harbored a fear that the Caomhnóir would somehow know, somehow discover, that the charges against me and my subsequent arrest were all just a ruse, an act designed to get me inside the príosún walls. Even as we walked in, and my paperwork had been processed, and all had seemed to go as Catriona expected that it would, that creeping fear had continued, that perhaps the Caomhnóir were just playing along until Catriona had left. But as the hours passed, it became clear that I was being treated no differently than the rest of the prisoners in my cellblock. Indeed, the Caomhnóir seemed to be doing their best to ignore me as thoroughly as they were everyone else. This felt like a good sign. The longer I was treated like a normal prisoner, the more convinced I became that the Caomhnóir believed I really wa
s one.
I waited for what was, in my best estimation, several hours after the lights in the cellblock went out. Over that time, the sounds around me lessened and quieted, until I was surrounded by a silence that was only occasionally punctuated by a moan or a cry. Somewhere very far off in the distance, on one of the floors below me, a woman was singing, though I could only catch snatches of the tune, and none of the words. The Caomhnóir who patrolled our cellblock seemed to do so with less frequency, and so I believed that perhaps the night shift had begun. It was, it seemed, as settled as a place like this was likely to become. Just as a sliver of moonlight worked its way down through the clouds, and across the wall of my cell, I opened the connection wide, and felt the warm embrace of familiar, welcoming energy.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Hannah said, and her voice felt like the fiercest of hugs. “How are you holding up?”
“Honestly, I am more bored than anything else,” I told her. “There’s nothing to do, and no one to talk to. But I think, in this particular case, no news is very good news.”
“I think you’re right. Hang on,” Milo said. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go get Catriona.”
“What time is it?” I asked Hannah. “Apparently, no one uses clocks in prison.”
“It’s just after ten thirty,” Hannah told me. “We’ve been waiting to hear from you for hours. I’m sure the waiting’s been awful for you, but believe me, it was pretty terrible here, too. What’s… what’s it like?”
“Medieval. Isolating. Absolutely mind-numbingly dull,” I told her honestly. “I can’t imagine having to spend more than a few days here. I’m pretty sure I’d lose my grip on reality if I did. And a lot of people here have been here for years. That’s probably why I keep hearing so much disjointed moaning and shouting.”
“Did you… have you seen Finn?” Hannah asked, with the kind of hesitancy that suggested that she was afraid to know the answer to the question.
“Yes,” I said, and braced myself mentally for her gasp of surprise. “I saw him almost right away, before we’d even come in from the courtyard. He was on his way out to do some kind of training exercise and he spotted me coming in with Catriona. But obviously, with the courtyard full of people, we haven’t had a chance to speak yet.”
Hannah groaned. “Oh, God. You know he’s absolutely losing his mind right now.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’ve been trying not to think about that, actually. I’m sure he’s trying to find a way to figure out where I am, and how to get to me. I just hope he doesn’t get himself into trouble in the process.”
“Oh, hang on,” Hannah said, and I felt her pull away from me slightly before plunging back into the connection. “Okay, Catriona’s here. I can relay everything that you’re saying.”
“Where are you right now?” I asked Hannah.
“In the Tracker office,” Hannah said. “It seems like the most logical place to hang out and wait for you to get in touch with us. No one’s going to be suspicious of Milo and me hanging around the Tracker office all day, not after your very public and very controversial arrest. We put out the story that we’re here to figure out how to get you released.”
“That was a good idea,” I said. “How is everybody taking my dramatic exit?”
“As you would expect,” Hannah said with a guilty sigh. “Karen is absolutely beside herself, even more so after we told her the real reason that you’re at the príosún. When she promised to accept that being a Tracker was a dangerous job, I don’t think she was anticipating anything like this. I’m pretty sure she’s ready to go back on that promise right about now.”
“Well, to be honest, I never anticipated anything like this either,” I said. “She’ll be okay, I’ll talk to her when I… when I get back.” My casual tone fooled neither of us.
“I promised her that I would update her every time I spoke to you,” Hannah said. “She’s been stalking me ever since.”
“What about Savvy?” I asked.
“She’s… well, she’s pissed, actually.”
“Pissed? Why would she be pissed?” I asked in surprise. “I mean, okay, yeah, it sucks a little bit that we didn’t warn her ahead of time, but it was only so we wouldn’t blow our cover. She’s got to understand that, right?”
“Yeah, she understands that part, but that’s not what she’s pissed about,” Hannah explained. “She’s… well, she hasn’t really articulated it, but it feels like she’s angry that you didn’t ask her to come along.”
“Come along? This isn’t a goddamn field trip! I don’t want to put her in danger. Why the hell would I have asked her to come along?”
“That’s just the thing,” Hannah said. “I think she does want to put herself in danger. I think she’s desperate to do something—anything, really—to avenge what happened to Bertie. I don’t think it’s going to be enough for her to sit around and wait for the feelings of grief to subside. I don’t know, Jess. The hair, and now losing the access to her Gateway… she’s not dealing with this very well. I’m afraid she’s going to do something reckless.”
I didn’t know what to do with this new, unsettling piece of information. I had to put it aside for now, however. It was entirely too much to negotiate, and too much to think about without worrying about Savvy, too. I just had to trust that she would be okay until I got back.
Hannah interrupted my thoughts. “Okay, Catriona wants to know what you’ve noticed so far. Anything unusual?”
“Well, yeah, I mean, everything’s unusual,” I said impatiently. “This is my first time in the slammer, remember?”
“She says to curtail the attitude, and just tell her what you found out so far,” Hannah said in a small, apologetic voice.
I sighed. “Okay, well, nothing too alarming, as far as I can tell. I don’t have a watch, but the guards seem to be coming by at regular intervals. They’ve been practicing the same kinds of drills out in the courtyard that Catriona saw when we got here. I’m assuming those are routine, regardless of anything weird or underground or political that might be going on. All of the prisoners seem to be remaining prisoners, the meals are coming at regular times, and the guards seem to be completely ignoring my existence. Does that all seem like business as usual?”
“Yes,” Hannah relayed to me. “Catriona says that all sounds as it should be. So, are you ready to go have a look around?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. I knew it was useless trying to fake any kind of bravado for Hannah’s sake. Every anxious feeling I had was playing across the threads of the connection like a bow on a fiddle. But I could at least make a show of bravery for Catriona.
“Here we go, then,” Hannah said. “I’m just going to repeat all of Catriona’s instructions verbatim from now on. Just pretend you’re talking directly to her, okay?”
“Okay. So,” I said. “Where am I going first?”
“I think the first crucial step,” Hannah said, speaking for Catriona, “is to ensure that the Necromancers are still locked away as prisoners are supposed to be. It will give us a much better sense of how closely they and the Caomhnóir might be working together at this point. Remember, your drawing could have been showing us an eventuality that was a good long distance into the future. Understanding the role of the Necromancers at this point will give us an idea of just how far away that vision might be, or if we are dealing with an imminent danger.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” I said in a stoutly logical voice. “And then what?”
“If you don’t notice anything strange going on with the Necromancers, then our next step is to spend some time following the Caomhnóir. See if you can determine who amongst them is shirking their responsibilities and slipping away when they’re supposed to be on the clock, as Finn described. This will be a bit trickier, as there’s no one specific place that I can send you to look for clues. You’re just going to have to wander a bit, tail a few different Caomhnóir, and see if you can’t s
moke them out. I’ll direct you to their barracks first, then maybe a few of the common areas.”
The second, more nebulous part of the plan made me much more nervous. It left, in my opinion, far too much to chance and luck. Catriona could easily tell me the area of the príosún where the Necromancers were locked away, and it would be fairly straightforward to check that they were still in their cells. Simple enough. But the second objective? There seemed to be hundreds of Caomhnóir under this roof. Discovering which if any of them were bucking their usual duties, especially when I didn’t know what those usual duties were, would be decidedly more difficult.
“Fine,” I said, all the while wishing fervently that we had a more solid plan than just “float around and see what you find.” From the jittery energy zipping around between Hannah, Milo, and me, I knew that I wasn’t the only one.
“Why don’t you move into your Walker state,” Hannah told me, “and then Catriona can talk you through where to go once you leave the cell.”
“Here goes everything,” I muttered to myself, taking a deep breath to steel myself. “Hannah, do me a favor, okay?”
“Of course,” Hannah said quickly. “Anything. What do you need?”
“Keep everyone quiet while I do this,” I said. “It takes a lot of concentration. I can’t have anyone else’s feelings or thoughts running through my head while I’m attempting it, okay?”
“No problem,” Hannah said. “Milo, did you get that?”
“I’ll be quiet as a mouse in here,” Milo said solemnly.
“Okay,” I said again. “Here we go.”
I pulled back from the connection—not closing it completely, but disengaging so that I could concentrate all my efforts on what I had to do. I crossed the cell and sat down on the edge of the metal-framed bed. I kicked off the odd, laceless shoes that were part of my uniform, and tucked them carefully under the bed. Then, I pulled back the scratchy wool blanket that comprised my only bedclothes, and slid myself underneath it, rolling my body toward the wall so that my face would not be visible to any Caomhnóir who were patrolling the hallway and might choose, for whatever reason, to peek into my cell. I curled myself into a ball, rested my cheek upon the thin, mildewed pillow, and reached around toward the nape of my neck, where my fingers found one of the braided soul catchers.
