The Mark of the Dragonfly

by Jaleigh Johnson

  When they finally reached their room, Anna collapsed in bed still holding her precious books and immediately fell asleep curled up around them. Piper climbed into bed as well, but tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep. She lay awake, thinking about what she’d said to Anna, and what Gee and Trimble had told her earlier about her power with machines. During all the upheaval and worry surrounding Gee’s sickness, Piper had been able to forget temporarily what had happened in the mail car’s vestibule. But now, in the quiet darkness, she could no longer hide from her thoughts.

  Were Trimble and Gee right? Was it more than just a talent that made machines work for her? And if it was magic—Piper’s heartbeat sped up with fear and bewilderment at the thought—then what did that make her? What was she? She tossed and turned in her bed, the questions haunting her until she finally fell into an uneasy sleep, unable to escape her thoughts even in her dreams.

  Sometime before dawn, the 401 pulled into Phirimor for supplies. Piper woke up when the train stopped. She got out of bed and dressed quietly, careful not to wake Anna, then slipped out of the room. A few minutes later, she stepped off the train into the predawn darkness. The air was dry and thick with dust clouds.

  Trimble had said they could test her to find out if she really was a synergist. At first Piper had been terrified at the prospect. Suspecting she had magic was one thing; having the possibility confirmed was something else entirely. But she’d gone over it in her head for most of the night, and she’d realized she wanted to know one way or another—she had to know. She’d been the one to tell Anna not to be scared of who she was, after all. It was time to follow her own advice.

  Piper walked along the line of cars until she reached the mail car. She realized she should wait for the fireman’s help—goddess knew it would be safer that way—but she didn’t want to wake him, and besides, this was something she needed to do on her own.

  She found the slit in the canvas between cars and—now that she knew what to look for—the pressure plate that would trigger the fire defenses.

  She’d dealt with the alarm before getting off the train. The warning bell was fastened above the vestibule door. Piper didn’t want to damage the mechanism permanently, so she had decided to keep things simple and removed the clapper from inside the bell. Without that crucial piece, the alarm wouldn’t sound when she triggered it. She’d reattach the clapper later, after her experiment.

  Carefully, Piper climbed the ladder and braced herself with a hand on one rung; then, trying to ignore the scorch marks on the train’s exterior, she stretched out her other hand to the fire vent. Piper took two deep breaths, counted to three, then brought her foot down firmly on the pressure plate.

  The vents made a shrill squeaking as they opened, and a rush of heat blasted Piper in the face as the igniter fired. In a few seconds, the pipes would spray the flammable liquid across the igniter, sending a sheet of flame straight at her.

  Piper kept her hand over the vent, though everything in her was telling her to yank it away. “You’re not going to fire,” she said, her voice trembling with fear. “You’re going to close.” The heat intensified, beading sweat on Piper’s forehead. Her heart beat furiously. And nothing happened. She slammed her open palm against the vent. “I said you’re going to close, do you hear me?” Still nothing. A liquid rushing sound filled Piper’s ears. Every muscle in her body tensed to jump, to throw herself to safety on the ground.

  “Close!” she commanded with all her will.

  The shriek of grinding metal shattered the air like a banshee’s wail. The vents slammed shut, and the igniter sputtered and died.

  Piper’s face was slick with sweat, her palms slippery. Dimly, she became aware that her hand had slipped from its grip on the ladder. Then she was falling, her body weightless in midair. Angling her head, she saw the bare ground rush up to meet her. She landed on her back, knocking the wind out of her lungs.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Piper lay on the ground, trying to breathe, staring blankly up at the stars. Nausea and weakness fluttered through her. It was as if an invisible hand had reached inside her and yanked out her energy, leaving a hollow sensation behind. She thought back to the times she’d worked on other machines and tried to remember if she’d ever felt such a weakness. Often she’d work late into the night fixing a machine, so of course she was tired afterward, but could it be possible that the toll working late into the night had taken on her was greater than it should have been? Could it depend on the machine? A big effect cost a lot of energy, but keeping the antique watch running cost only a little? No matter what, one thing was certain: she definitely had magic inside her.

  A thousand questions swirled in Piper’s mind at this revelation. She’d never known that magic existed in the world. Had she been born with it, or did it come from somewhere else? And how many others might there be in the world with similar gifts? Were they keeping them a secret, like Trimble, or were they ignorant—as Piper had been until now—that they even possessed anything special? If Gee hadn’t told her, Piper might have lived the rest of her life without discovering it. And now that she knew the truth, Piper knew she would never look at herself or the world in quite the same way again.

  With an effort, Piper brought her thoughts back to the present. She had to get up. She’d disabled the alarm, but the guards might have heard the grinding of the vents opening and closing. If they came to investigate, Piper didn’t want them to find her here. How could she explain to them what had happened, what she’d done—twice?

  Piper rolled onto her side and pushed herself up from the ground. A thread of fiery pain went up her leg. She’d landed on it harder than she thought. Limping along the line of cars, Piper worked her way back to the station entrance where she’d gotten off. She held on to the handrails as she climbed the steps onto the 401. The guard at the door recognized her and nodded.

  Piper moved slowly through the passenger cars, keeping as quiet as she could so as not to disturb the other passengers. She hoped she wouldn’t run into Gee or Jeyne or Trimble. She wasn’t ready to tell them what she’d discovered about herself, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it if they stopped her. Piper opened the door to the suite and was relieved to see that Anna was still asleep. She undressed and climbed back into the upper berth, careful not to jostle her aching leg.

  Serves you right, Piper chided herself. You wanted to know the truth, and now you do. She opened the small cabinet behind her pillow, where she’d stored her satchel. As quietly as she could, she lifted the flap and drew out her tool belt. Wrenches, a pair of small hammers, screwdrivers, glue, and a pocket of nails and screws—they’d all come from Arno Weir’s general store. Her father used to buy her a new tool anytime he could afford it, even if it meant he had less food for a few days. He never complained.

  “I’ll bring you the broken things, and you fix them up,” he’d told her. “We’ll be a great team.”

  Piper had happily done her part, and together they had salvaged the broken things that came from other worlds, making them into machines that worked, that people valued. Her father had been proud of her talent.

  Now all of that felt like a lie.

  Piper bit her lip, folded up the tool belt, and put it away. All those years she’d spent working with machines, learning their insides and seeing how their parts worked together, making Micah’s music box sing, even that stupid watch that wouldn’t keep time when it wasn’t with her—had she fixed any of those things with her own talent? Or had it always been the strange magic inside her that the machines had responded to? What was she? Where had this power come from?

  Piper pressed her forehead against the window and stared out. Moonlight spilled onto rocky, barren ground. The area they were in now was remote, cleared of trees and plant life, choked with dust. She’d expected scenic coastlines and fragrant orange trees once they got to the southern territories. None of it had turned out the way she figured.

  The train blew its whistle, and soon
after, the big steam engine started moving again, pulling away from the station and continuing its stubborn push southward. Piper lay down on her side and listened to the rattle of the wheels on the tracks. The sound lulled her, but before she drifted off to sleep, she rolled over to look down at Anna, asleep in the lower berth. The girl slept deeply, and if she dreamed, it must have been a good dream, for she looked at peace—so different from the night they’d first met.

  Gee was right about one thing: her power had helped her and Anna survive. Without it, she would have been burned to a crisp or swallowed a bullet. She couldn’t argue its usefulness, but what would happen if people found out what she could do? Would they call her a monster, as they’d done to Trimble? Was it too much to hope that she could start a new life somewhere, one where she wasn’t a poor, starving scrapper or a freak with strange powers? Where she wasn’t alone?

  Piper fell asleep with that thought in her head, and she dreamed. In the dream, she was flying, or it felt like flying. She stood on the roof of a train car and glimpsed the black mass of the 401’s engine reaching out into the distance, blasting clouds of steam into the air that drifted back to curl around her, so thick she could almost cup it in her hands.

  Above her flew a dark shadow with leathery wings and glowing green eyes, and all around them spread a vast field. Hot dust tickled her nose, and her eyes burned in the dry air. Despite that, Piper’s heart pounded with excitement. Her father’s coat snapped in the wind behind her. She was afraid and exhilarated and at peace, all at the same time.

  Lifting her arms in the air, Piper jumped. The wind caught her up and bore her alongside the winged shadow. The land below raced by at dizzying speeds, a whole world spread out before her.

  This is where I belong, where I’ve always belonged, she realized.

  She felt certain of it in her heart.

  The next day, Piper’s thoughts were still a confused jumble, but she tried not to let it show in front of Anna. Breakfast helped distract her and revive her at the same time. The girls sat at the table eating oatmeal sprinkled with brown sugar and sliced strawberries. Piper had never thought a fruit could be so juicy, sticky, and sweet.

  They’d been eating so well on the train that Piper noticed Anna had started to gain weight around her face; she no longer had that gaunt look. And when Piper examined herself in the washroom mirror, she noticed a similar transformation. Her cheeks were more rounded, and her hair seemed thicker, shinier. She’d started tending her hair every morning, so her spirals were actually spiral and not tangles. Seeing her new image reminded Piper again what it meant to have food and security, a place where she could thrive. Living in the scrap town, especially after her father had died, she’d never cared about her appearance. What was the point of arranging your hair every day if there was no one to see? And dark circles under the eyes were just a fact of life when you were hungry, and thus tired all the time.

  Piper again wished that the train could just keep traveling on and on forever, that it would never reach the coast or the capital. This time between destinations had been some of the best of her life.

  It was going on midday before Piper worked up the courage to find Gee to tell him what had happened with the fire vent. She left Anna in the library again, surrounded by her books. Piper had never seen the girl so happy as when she was there, which was just as well. Piper didn’t think she could talk to Gee with Anna listening. She wasn’t ready for anyone else to know about her power.

  When she knocked on Gee’s door, she had to wait a moment before she heard his muffled voice say, “Come in.”

  Piper slid the door open, then shut it behind her. The door at the other end of the car was ajar, and Gee stood out in the open air on a short observation platform at the end of the last car. A hot wind blew from the doorway. Tentatively, Piper crossed the car and stepped outside. An iron railing enclosed the platform, with metal gates to her right and left, but she still felt odd, weightless standing at the end of the train while the barren land flew out from under her feet.

  Gee wore his usual rumpled shirt and overalls. He had one bare foot propped against the railing, and he leaned out so far that Piper felt dizzy watching him. A healthy flush had returned to his olive skin, and his eyes were bright and alert when he turned to look at Piper.

  “You’re better,” Piper said by way of greeting. The relief she felt at seeing him well again distracted her from her own worries.

  “Looks that way,” Gee said. “I think in the future I’ll try to stay away from slavers, though. Trimble told me I was pretty far gone.”

  “You were.” Piper didn’t like to think how close they’d come to losing him. She stood next to him and leaned against the railing, letting the wind tease her hair. Glancing at Gee out of the corner of her eye, Piper noticed the familiar soot mark smudged across his jaw near his right earlobe. She couldn’t help smiling.

  “What is it?” Gee said.

  “Nothing.” Quickly, Piper turned away and the wind blew her hair across her face.

  I can see why he likes you. Trimble’s words rang inside her head, followed by a warm sensation spreading through her chest.

  Oh, no. No no no no and no. Piper bit her lip. It was nothing. So what if she liked looking for a soot smudge on his face every time she saw him? And just because she’d been driven half out of her mind worrying when he was sick, it didn’t mean she had a crush on Gee. Her life was too complicated already.

  “Are you all right?” Gee asked. She felt his gaze on her, though her hair obscured him from view. A tingling sensation worked its way along Piper’s scalp.

  Who was she kidding? Piper thought. She couldn’t even look Gee in the eye without blushing. Of course she had a crush, she just hadn’t been able to admit it.

  Oh, this is going to be all kinds of trouble.

  “I’m fine,” she said. Piper cleared her throat. She forced herself to peel her hair back from her face and look at him. “I’m glad you’re better—I mean we all are. Jeyne is, and Trimble too, and Anna … everyone …” Stop talking, she willed herself. Please, just stop.

  Gee nodded. “Yeah, Jeyne already put me back to work. We hit Cutting Gap tomorrow.”

  Piper jumped on the change of topic. “What does that mean?”

  Gee swept a hand to encompass the barren landscape, the rock hills, and patches of scrub grass. “We’re traveling through mining country. Nothing grows out here. People used to farm this land, or hunt on it, until the king’s people found rich iron deposits here. Strip mining sucked every bit of life out of this place just a few years ago.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Piper muttered. The landscape was yet another casualty of the factories. “What happened to the farmers and the hunters?”

  “They became sky raiders,” Gee said. “Cutting Gap is a narrow pass through a canyon dotted with caves. The raiders attack on gliders that they hide in the caves. They always hit us on this route, especially when we’re loaded down with cargo, like we are now.”

  Piper’s stomach did a little flip. “Wait a minute—you’re saying we’re going to be attacked? By sky raiders?” She couldn’t believe it. First Doloman, then the slavers, and now raiders? No wonder the passengers had been tense yesterday. They knew the train was coming up on dangerous territory.

  “But with all the guards you’ve got, you’ll be able to fight them off—won’t you?” Piper said anxiously.

  “We always have before,” Gee said. “I’m still a little weak, but Trimble says the train’s defenses are working perfectly—well, all except for the alarm by the mail car.” Gee shot her a look. “He told me someone disabled it. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  Piper blushed. “Actually, yeah.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out the clapper from the alarm bell. “I decided to test myself like Trimble said, but I didn’t want anyone to hear.” She handed the clapper to Gee and caught him fighting a smile. “You’re laughing at me!” she accused him, though she wasn’t
really angry.

  “Sorry.” Gee smothered a chuckle by pretending to clear his throat. “It’s just you look so miserable about it, but I think it’s incredible.”

  “You do?” Piper said. She’d never expected that reaction. “Why?”

  Gee shrugged. “Why not? You have a power that no one else has—at least, I’ve never heard of anyone who could do what you do with machines. Ever since you and Anna came onboard, the 401 has never run smoother or faster. You’ve been like a lucky charm for us.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Piper said in disbelief. “We’ve been nothing but trouble for you. And now that you’re protecting us, the train could get shut down. Where exactly is the luck in that?”

  Gee tilted his head in consideration. “I’m not denying you’re a lot of work, but Anna saved my neck, and she’s under King Aron’s protection, so we owe her as much as we owe Doloman—more, actually, because Doloman betrayed his duty when he hired the slavers.”

  Piper could see where it did make sense. In many ways, Anna belonged on the train. She was from the capital, marked by the Dragonfly. But Piper was still the odd girl, the scrapper who didn’t belong. She remembered her dream from the night before, when she’d stood atop the train while Gee’s dark shadow flew over her. She had felt like the 401 was where she was meant to be, but it was, after all, just a dream.

  No, that wasn’t all, Piper thought stubbornly. She had something to contribute—her magic. She didn’t know how her power worked, but she made machines run better, and when she needed to, she could make them stop running. That was worth something, even if it set her apart or made her strange.

  Piper gripped the iron railing tighter. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself. If having this magical talent meant she could help the 401’s crew, well, that was worth exploring.

  Gee nudged her. “What are you thinking about?” Piper blinked, coming out of her thoughts. “You look … determined.”