by L. J. Hatton
Twelve sounds young, but actually seeing her thin face and gangly limbs made thinking of her running scared a million times worse.
At that age, I was playing with my father’s gadgets and imprisoning myself in Zavel’s magic trunks because I wanted to see what tricks he’d hidden inside. My dinner was regularly ruined by epic tours of the circus midway, with all of its popcorn and sweets. Winnie was being experimented on and locked inside real cages she couldn’t escape. The worst I had to deal with were empty threats of a gruel-and-water diet from Mother Jesek, and Nim pilfering Nagendra’s grass snakes to hide in my bed.
Winnie set the frame back on the shelf, fishing a small emergency candle from her pocket to place in front of the picture. I summoned a flame to light it for her.
“It’s not much, but at least it’s something,” she said. “Everyone should be remembered—including Evie, when you decide how to do it.”
The flame on her candle leapt with the mention of my sister; there was no memory of Evie that didn’t involve fire. It danced for her and sang for her, and now it did the same for Greyor as his soul rose off the smoke toward the ceiling and the world beyond what we could see. It wasn’t as dramatic as seeing stands full of candles lit in the church Sister Mary Alban called home, but this point in time held the same reverence. We were calling a star into being and sending it toward the heavens, one minuscule speck of light among the billions waiting to greet it.
I wondered if anyone would notice the candle when they came home or if they’d understand what it meant. No one had mentioned Greyor, but Winnie had been exiled alone, so if he’d fallen out of favor with his family or community, it had happened after she was gone. I imagined him as a runaway, using the same tenacity that kept his sister alive as a tool to find a way to the ground where he could help her. Maybe Baba had dispatched him, knowing that Greyor could hide in full view of the wardens or anyone else.
Maybe speaking of the dead was bad luck on the Mile like it was at the Hollow.
“Winnie . . .” I began hesitantly. She’d always guarded her secrets, and I didn’t want to upset her again. “When you decided to bring us here, did you know how they were going to treat you?”
“I knew most of them wouldn’t be happy to see me.”
“We won’t stay long. I promise.”
“Stay as long as you want,” she said. “I told you, this is my home. Baba and Dev are my family. They’re all I have left, whether anyone else likes it or not.”
She didn’t mention Nola.
“Are you going to ask them to let you stay?”
“I’m not the same girl they kicked out. If they want me off this hunk of metal again, they’ll have to force me, and they know they can’t. I’m not afraid of them anymore. Thanks for the photo.”
She left the candle burning and disappeared back up the stairs, taking her mother’s clothes with her.
CHAPTER 11
The rest of the day was quiet, mainly because everyone stayed away until it was over. The ultra-bright afternoon transitioned into the Magic Hour. Sunset in the clouds wasn’t the same as seeing it from the ground. The colors were richer and more vibrant, made of crushed gems sparkling over the horizon and hosting a kaleidoscope of distant stars not visible from farther away. They didn’t even wait for nightfall to appear. The moon hung huge, with a thin silver line marking its upper limit beyond the crescent rising.
Baba and Nola returned as we edged closer to supper. The meal had me worried; we’d need to expand the kitchen again. If I’d made any miscalculations, they’d show and they’d show big. I tried to get a feel for how things had gone with their neighbors, but they both arrived much as they’d left: Baba perpetually hopeful and Nola fatalistic.
Birch wandered in a few minutes later, covered in dirt that said he’d made the most of his time in the community garden.
“So, how top-heavy did you make this place?” I asked him, envisioning the Mile awash in ivies, every house transformed into a deep-forest cottage from a child’s tale. Birch’s proclivity for covering every square inch with something green or blooming was hardly ever practical, and could have crashed the flying city with a single heirloom oak.
“I did what I could, but there’s something off with the soil,” he said. “I’m hoping your sister can help me out.”
I tried not to take that personally. Anise was completely terrakinetic. She had more experience than I did and a lot more control, but I was having a hard time remembering a single conversation Birch had started with her. He always spoke to me. Something had changed during our talk in my father’s room; I didn’t like it.
I waited by the door, expecting Jermay to appear any minute. Those minutes piled up, and he never showed.
Birdie, Dev, and Anise returned, announced by too much laughter and too many voices to belong only to the three of them. They entered the neighborhood streets with a mob of other kids Birdie’s age, most of whom split off to houses of their own.
“And where have you been? It’s after dark, and I was worried sick. Get in this house this instant.” I did my best impression of an overdramatic Mother Jesek to camouflage my constant looks down the walkways, searching for Jermay.
“There’s a park!” Birdie was beaming. “It’s kind of run-down, but the equipment works!”
“She’s teaching me to walk on a wire!” Dev said.
“Stand on a wire.” Birdie rolled her eyes. “You can’t walk until you learn to stand up straight without tipping over.”
Dev stuck his tongue out at her and gave her a shove, then tore off up the stairs with Birdie in hot pursuit.
“The other kids let her play?” I asked Anise.
We’d had such a chilly welcome from the adults, I expected it to trickle down to their children.
“They’re used to having new kids show up. There’s even a procedure in the play yard to make sure the new faces aren’t left out. This place is amazing, Penn.”
“For some people.”
Winnie descended the stairs dressed in her mother’s clothes and worrying her torn lip between her teeth. Birch met her at the bottom with a variation on a trick he’d done for me. He laid his hand against the banister, turning the cold metal into a cascading vine that sprouted flowers all the way to the second floor. Beneath her hand, the finial opened up into a perfect bloodred rose.
She threw her arms around his neck and hung there, possibly crying again. I looked away before they could notice me.
“Did you see Jermay while you were out?” I asked Anise.
“No. He was still here when we left. Winnie?”
“He told me he was going for a walk,” she said. A pronounced sparkle in her eyes confirmed my suspicion of tears.
“That was hours ago.” I checked the view out the door again.
“Don’t worry,” Anise said. “Where could he go?”
Over the edge. Figuratively or otherwise.
We were all in varying stages of PTSD from what we’d been through, and while Jermay seemed okay most of the time, he kept hitting these speed-bump moments where he changed into something other than the boy I’d grown up with. Of course, I wasn’t the boy he’d grown up with, either. Maybe this made us even.
“If he’s not back in ten minutes, I’m going to look for him,” I said. I was all for letting people have their space, but this was too much.
“I don’t think you’ll have to go very far,” Anise said.
He was coming up the walk, hands in his pockets, head down and watching his feet.
“Hey,” I said, smiling as he entered the house. I held up my pinkie finger.
“Hey,” he mumbled. He shuffled past without looking up; his hands stayed in his pockets.
“What was that?” Anise asked. “Did you two have a fight?”
“Not unless it was while I was asleep.” Which was possible. Sleepwalking would have dovetailed right into the rest of my problems. “He was fine this morning. He was smiling.”
“Give him some
time, Chey-chey,” Anise said.
I wasn’t convinced that time was enough. For Jermay, there had always been a secret hand gesture or a flash of light to get him around obstacles and fool the world into believing his power was more than illusion. There weren’t any magic words to fix what had broken him, and there was no disappearing cabinet or giant top hat that could banish those memories to oblivion.
At supper, the table worked. Everyone’s seat remained stationary, and not a single spoon was displaced by retreating furniture.
Birdie chattered away about everything she’d seen and done at the park to the point that she barely ate a bite. The children on the Mile had invented their own version of dodgeball, specifically for touched kids. No holds barred, all powers allowed so long as you didn’t lose the ball. She was practically bursting with the desire to jump on the table and give us all an instant replay. My little bird was officially back. This was the girl whose feet hardly ever touched the ground because she kept her head in the clouds. The view was better up there.
And Birdie was better off on the Mile. She had the Jeseks at home, but there weren’t kids her age except the ones who came and went for the price of admission. Show life meant practice and routines, not playtime or friends. On the Mile, she’d been included. Being normal amazed her, and I wondered how it felt.
How had it not been years my sister died? It felt like lifetimes. We weren’t even in the same world anymore.
My ghosts stayed buried with the Hollow, but Jermay’s had followed him up.
“Did something happen after I fixed the power box?” I asked him. Everyone else at the table was enjoying Birdie’s reenactment; they weren’t looking at us.
“I couldn’t stand the empty house. It was too much like solitary confinement,” he said. “I thought a walk out in the open would make it better, like I could pretend that I was exploring a stop along the rails. I almost convinced myself a couple of times, but it only made reality worse when I came back to it.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Everywhere. There’s not that much space up here.”
We should have saved Zavel’s hat. Winnie had her mom’s clothes. I had my father’s things up in his workroom. Jermay had no tokens or touchstones. All he had were memories, and when every night came filled with nightmares and flashbacks, happy memories were temporary solace at best. They were too easy to corrupt.
“Jermay, if there’s something you need to say or something you want to talk about—”
“No!” He said it too loud. Everyone looked at us.
Jermay picked up his fork and pushed his food around, but he didn’t eat anything. His hair covered his eyes when he tipped his head down so no one could see his face. But I watched his ears turn red, scalded by the heat of emotion he refused to show. The longer he held it in, the more he converted to anger. Anger became rage, and rage was dangerous. He didn’t look up until Birdie started chattering again.
I offered him my pinkie, and this time, he hooked it with his own and squeezed tight.
“Can I go back out?” Birdie asked. The dishes had been cleared, and Dev was waiting for her by the back door.
“This late?” Anise asked. “Is it safe?”
Our father had always warned us to avoid venturing out at night. He said the sorts of people who lived their lives after dark were the sort doing business that children shouldn’t see. Like the shady Sundown Markets where you could buy, sell, or barter technology that was forbidden by light of day.
We’d lost the train at night, and the stars had covered our escape. To me, this said the people were more important than the hour when it came to being safe.
“Please?” Birdie begged.
“The kids usually end the day with a couple of games,” Nola said. She didn’t treat Birdie or Anise anything like she did Winnie. “They’ll be right outside, in view of the house. She’ll be fine.”
“She’ll be safe with me,” Dev said.
“Okay, but you come back when Dev does,” Anise said to Birdie. “And stay in sight. I don’t care what the rules of the game say.”
“You have to come with us,” Dev told me. “One of my friends wants to see you.”
“Why would he want to see me?”
“He says he knows you,” Birdie added.
The list of people who knew me as a girl was very short. It pretty much consisted of the people in the kitchen, plus a few wardens. Baba said their runners were people who could alter their appearance. Maybe this was Beryl wearing another face. It was possible that Beryl was actually my age, using the stout woman I’d met for another disguise, the way Greyor had aged himself to join the Wardens’ Commission. If it was her, she might know what happened to Sister Mary Alban after our escape from the church.
Supper must have gone faster at the tables with fewer people, as Dev and Birdie were among the last to emerge and join their friends in the street. Without the threat of cars zooming past, there was nothing to keep them from spreading out anywhere they could find space.
Dev and Birdie ran ahead; I hung back, hoping to figure out who had asked for me. I knew him immediately.
“Wren!” I shouted.
Wren was the boy I’d set free from Arcineaux’s Center. He was healthier than when I last saw him, and ten pounds heavier, but it was definitely him.
He sized me up, adjusting my current appearance to what he’d seen before—me with short hair and my father’s red traveling coat fastened over the donation-bin dress Sister Mary Alban had given me as a disguise. I’d had no way to find out what happened to him after my father’s coat transported me from the Ground Center’s fence. Arcineaux and his men had been so close, they could have recaptured him and locked him in another hole, and I never would have known.
“It really is you!” He pounced on me, hugging so tight I would have believed that he’d been touched with superstrength. “I thought you were dead. After everything collapsed, I never saw you again, but then the folks here starting squawking about someone named Magnus and a circus, and I knew they had to mean you. You ran from The Show, yeah? How’d you get away?”
“Never mind that, how’d you get up here?”
“The lady without a face,” he said. “I mean, she had a face, but it kept changing. She brought a whole load of us up here after we busted out. Probably wouldn’t have made it without her. That warden was after us from the start, but she helped us hide—and she told me your name. Penelope.” He drew out the first syllable of my name and laughed at the sound.
“That warden” had to be Arcineaux. My gargoyle had already weathered the mass escape that cost him Winnie and the other girls he’d been keeping prisoner; losing the guys certainly hadn’t done him any favors. Me leveling the Ground Center and freeing the prisoners had disrupted Arcineaux’s experiments and cost him his job.
“I was one of the lucky ones,” Wren said. “A lot of us lab rats didn’t survive. It’s not like we had families to notice we’d gone off somewhere.”
That wasn’t surprising, either. Winnie and I had stumbled into a roaming café set up by the Commission to entice runaways and other people desperate for a meal. We didn’t eat or drink anything once we realized what the place was, but a lot of others did. Whatever was in the food was part of the preliminary stage for the experiments that Wren had survived.
“I’m glad you made it. It’s a lot better up here,” he told me.
“I can’t stay until I find my sisters,” I said. I hadn’t planned on saying “until,” but that was how it came out. My mind was more made up than I’d realized.
“Good luck,” Wren said.
He hurried off to join the others and their game, and I went back to Baba’s porch. Anise was kneeling in that patch of withered grass beside the house. Unlike this morning, tiny flowers filled in the gaps where the lawn had died completely—obviously Birch, but without the vibrance or flair of his usual signature. My sister had her hands submerged up to the wrists in dirt.
“Buil
ding a sandcastle, or ‘I miss the ground’ therapy?” I asked.
“I’m getting a feel for the soil composition. Try it.”
I bent down and touched the ground.
“Feels like dirt,” I said.
“Go deeper.” She twitched her head, bidding the soil to cover my hands.
“Feels like deeper dirt.”
Cold and clumpy, with grains that stuck beneath my nails.
“What’s the point?” I asked.
“Birch asked me to figure out why the plants he makes here won’t take root. It should be obvious to you, same as it is to me.”
“It’s too shallow?” I guessed.
“That’s a problem with the depth. What’s wrong with the soil?”
Anise pulled her legs under her so she could sit. I held out my hands, and she filled them with a scoop of pale earth from the lawn.
“Still feels like dirt,” I said.
She growled “stop it” and told me to try again.
“Concentrate. Your touch keeps going haywire because Papa never taught you what it was or how to use it. I may not be able to tell you how to make it rain inside or how to shift the wind from east to west, but this I can do. Pretend it’s a toaster with bad wiring and tell me how to fix it.”
I sat down and stared at the soil in my hands.
“It should be darker,” I said. “Black as coffee grounds, not gray like dust.”
“What else?”
If the soil had been a toaster, I would have asked it what was wrong by feeling out the wires for gaps or shorts. I tried doing the same with the little heap that I was holding.
“It’s weak,” I said, interpreting something I could only describe as a hoarse whisper.
“Very good,” Anise said. “They’ve overused what little they have. Their terras have been trying to compensate, but there’s nothing more that they can do. No matter what Birch plants, it’s going to die until the Mile gets new topsoil, and I’m not sure it’s feasible for them to arrange that sizable a shipment of supplies. Someone will notice.”
Without decent soil, the Mile wouldn’t be able to sustain its food supply. None of them would accept that; it would mean going back to the ground, where their children would be in danger. Some of them were wanted for their roles in the Brick Street riots.
