Fawkes

by Nadine Brandes

  I took a deep breath and the world righted itself a bit. I clomped down the stairs to the cellar. Voices sounded from the darkness. Was Wintour already here digging? Did I sleep through his entrance?

  A mumble—that was Father.

  A response—Wintour.

  A word: “. . . outbreak.”

  I entered the cellar, squinting against the torchlight. My body swayed. I should have remained in bed. But I’d made it this far.

  Father and Wintour stood by the tunnel entrance. Father had a foot propped on an overturned crate. By their bent postures and severe tones, I could tell something was wrong. They must have seen that I’d dug in the tunnel and they were displeased.

  I steadied myself on the wall and cleared my throat. Both their heads snapped up. Father reeled back and Wintour let out a cry, reaching a hand toward me.

  I frowned, or at least tried to. My skin prickled. Stiff. Oh . . . no. My hand drifted up to my brow. Fingertips touched stone. Plague blossomed from my left eye patch up beyond my eyebrow and over most of my forehead.

  “No.” My plea came out as a croak. I splayed my palm. More plague along my temple and hairline. “No!”

  It had spread. The dizziness, the headache, the unsettled stomach. Plague.

  “Thomas . . .” Father took two steps toward me. “There’s been an outbreak—”

  “What do I do?” I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  “His patch won’t cover that now.” Wintour backed into the tunnel.

  My gasps came faster and faster.

  Was the plague in my throat? Closing up my air?

  “Just . . . just hold on a couple months, Thomas,” Father said. “We’ll get a Keeper on the throne.”

  A couple months? It had spread overnight! I gripped Father’s shoulders. “Give me my color power!”

  “That won’t help—”

  “You have to!” My screech echoed and I cared not who heard me.

  “No color power is strong enough to remove the plag—”

  I shoved him away. “Do you even want me to live?” I stumbled up the stairs and yanked my cloak from the peg. Father stumbled out of the stairway as I pulled on my boots.

  “Thomas, you shouldn’t go out in your state—”

  I pulled my wide-brimmed hat low on my head and swept from the house, slamming the door. Snow swirled from the sky, bringing joy to those celebrating Christmas and giving the impression of a clean, pure London.

  All the snow did for me was keep a temporary record of my disjointed path away from the Whynniard house. Perhaps it was the shock of the cold, but my vision cleared a bit and the headache settled to a dull throb.

  I was going to die. If the plague spread from my eye to half my forehead overnight, it might not be finished. I could be dead by supper! Father didn’t seem to care.

  No matter what he said, I knew the colors could cure me. They just needed to be commanded by someone powerful enough. My pace doubled. If Father wasn’t going to help me and wasn’t even going to enable me to help myself, then I’d have to take matters into my own hands despite my involvement in the plot.

  So I set out to find the strongest color speaker I knew . . . if she’d forgive me.

  My hour walk to the Monteagle house in Hoxton was nearly as chaotic as my morning. Plagued people littered the streets, some clothed for the elements and others without shoes and still in nightshirts, thrown out of their lodgings at the first sign of petrified skin.

  My plague had been exposed.

  I hurried across London Bridge, catching cries from behind the closed doors. How many lives were rocked by the outbreak? And how far would the outbreak spread?

  Most concerning was what had caused the outbreak—Igniters? Keepers? White Light?

  I passed piles of stone rat carcasses, pigeons, and even a cat—plagued overnight. Some people threw them over the edge of the bridge into the Thames. And that was why no one drank the water. One old man sat by the bank, tossing crumbs of seeds to the surviving pigeons.

  Two children poked at a stone rat with sticks until their mother caught them by the ears. “Annika! Gabriel! Do you want to turn to stone?”

  Once I turned from Old Street Road onto Hoxton, I breathed freely. What would Emma say? I’d been cruel yesterday. And she’d come to give me belated condolences. Norwood had told her she could trust me—though I wasn’t sure why she’d need to or if she really could trust me. But if Norwood had truly written her those things, it must mean I could trust her too.

  Even with her being an Igniter.

  I needed help, and she was the only one I knew who would hear me out.

  The Monteagle house came into view and I sagged. Part of me had wondered if I’d collapse before arriving. But what was I doing? I had come to an Igniter family for help.

  My plague could be seen. One glimpse from the Baron and I’d be dismissed. Reported. Quarantined or perhaps imprisoned for lying to a Parliament family.

  But I had to know if Emma could help me. I was dying. And I was equally as desperate as those barefooted plagued people in the streets. My head pain blinded me for a moment. I pressed my blistered palm against my forehead and the cool touch calmed the throb enough for me to think. I’d go to the back—to the kitchens—and ask for Emma there.

  I passed through to the garden. Snow covered the ground like a freshly lain sheet. The evergreens glistened beneath the dawn sun, sparkling with an innocence and beauty so contrasting to the day’s events.

  An iron bench beckoned to me. I resisted the urge to sit and think all this through. What would Emma really be able to do? Snow crunched deep into the pebbles underfoot. Then I saw her.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it had not been to see her sitting in a cushioned upright chair in the middle of the garden, wearing a fur cloak with an easel before her. I slowed and stepped off the loud gravel path. Her hood kept me from view, so I took my time approaching.

  Her right hand hung suspended in the air, a palette of paint resting in her left. The different colors of paint floated in the air, like rainbow snowflakes waltzing with the wind—three shades of blue and grey and green . . .

  The paint drops aligned themselves on the canvas, then spread as though pushed by a brush. But Emma did not hold a brush. She didn’t even whisper instruction. Only little sentences came forth as though she and the colors were friends. “Oh, that’s very nice. Yes, you two blend splendidly!”

  The painting came into view and I stilled.

  It was me. My face. I stood with my back to the viewer, looking over my shoulder enough to reveal my eye patch and a glare from my good eye. This painted likeness looked so . . . alone. It made me want to help him—this angry, lonely Thomas who seemed to be looking back with both longing and anger, and moving forward with reluctance.

  Was that how Emma saw me?

  A brown drop danced in front of her face. She giggled. “Oh, Brown, you rascal. Find your spot.” It splashed against my painted hairline and then wiggled itself to form the brim of a hat, yanked low to hide the eye patch.

  The painting bore a talent that demanded to be acknowledged. To remain silent would be an insult to the very core of creation. “This is exquisite,” I whispered.

  Emma spun so fast, her elbow knocked the canvas off the stand. I shot out my hand and caught it before it hit the snow. My thumb smeared the newly painted hat.

  “You startled me.” Her hands trembled as she took the painting from me and returned it to its spot. She coaxed the brown paint off my thumb and back to its spot, then covered the art piece with a small cloth.

  “I . . . I paint portraits. I was . . . I was just practicing from . . . from memory.”

  Was she embarrassed? “I don’t mind.” It gave me a glimpse into her heart and, in the meantime, cracked my own. I got to see my brokenness from the outside. I hadn’t realized how lost I truly was—consumed by my desire to cure myself and kill King James—until I saw myself through someone else’s eyes.

&
nbsp; “I can’t help it. I see people. Their pain. Their burdens. And they press upon me until I release them to canvas.” When Emma faced me, her hand flew to her masked mouth. “Oh, Thomas.”

  I wanted to cover my face the way she’d covered her canvas, but her painting already proved she saw more than I could block with a low hat brim or a hand over my face. I gave a pathetic shrug. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Her gloved fingers grazed my forehead and moved my hair out of my eye. I felt like a weak fool, but she didn’t treat me as such.

  “Can you help me?” I didn’t tell her my ideas about her using her Grey speech or White Light speech or whatever she did. She would know if she could help me or not.

  “I am powerless.” Her hand dropped to her side, but I snatched it with my own.

  “No, you’re not. You are the strongest and—and kindest Igniter I know. If anyone has the power to help me, it’s you.”

  She rose from her spot on the bench, glancing toward the house. “My power comes from White Light.”

  My chest tightened, but I forced a swallow. “That’s how you painted just now, using all the colors. With White Light, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me more. You said White Light could stop the plague. How do you know? If that’s true, why won’t you command it to heal me?”

  “You don’t command the White Light.” She squeezed my hand and I realized she was the only person who had ever shown me affection. “You ask.”

  I released her hand. “I can’t.” If I spoke to the White Light, that would go against everything Father and the others and I had been striving for. It had taken months for me to silence that annoying nag.

  Only Igniters dabbled in White Light and killed innocent Keepers.

  That was the one line I couldn’t cross.

  “It’s the advice I have for you, Thomas.”

  I let out a long breath. I should have known better. She was too set in the Igniter way. I wanted her to be on my side, to be with me through the plot to kill King James. Because her presence filled me. When I was with her, we felt like a team. It was so different from how things were at St. Peter’s.

  Well, if I was going to die from the plague, I might as well show Emma the kindness I’d previously denied her. I held out my arm. “Care to take a turn around the garden?”

  She didn’t move. “Can I trust you, Thomas?” Her concern bled through her muffled voice, so I forced myself to really analyze what sort of man I was.

  Trustworthy? Perhaps. Norwood thought so. Catesby and his men trusted me. “I hope so. Or at least, I strive to be worthy of your trust.”

  She took my arm and we headed deeper into the trees. The winter chill seemed distant with her arm in mine. We entered the orchard, though the bare branches provided little cover from the snow.

  “You’ve been painting the masters at the Royal Exchange. Why?”

  “Because I want them to see that they are more than shop owners. They are more than their trade. And of course I’d hoped they’d see my skill.”

  “Did you secure an apprenticeship?”

  She laughed a beat under her breath. “The Baron forbids it. He has sent letters to the masters. He still allows me to paint in the home . . . as a lady does.”

  “That’s absurd. He can’t stop you from pursuing a future!”

  “You might be surprised at how much he can stop me. And it’s not about stopping me from pursuing a future. It’s about directing my pursuits toward a future of his approval.”

  I wanted to know more, but I remembered how worn she seemed yesterday. There was no way to gauge her health. Not for the first time, I wondered if she had the plague.

  I brushed snow from one of the apple tree branches, fighting my headache. “You once said you believe Keepers and their followers caused the plague.” Emma remained silent. “In fact, there’s a rumor that for each Keeper who dies, one plague victim is cured.”

  “Now that I don’t believe.”

  “Other Igniters do, though. And you call yourself one of them.” I tried not to sound accusing. “It’s hard not to lump you in. How are you any different from those who so passionately hunt Keeper followers—like Norwood—and turn them in to the Tower for a shilling?”

  Her brown gloves stretched over her clenched knuckles. “You can’t judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few.”

  The throbbing behind my eyes increased. “They set fire to Norwood’s prison cart and then pushed it into the Thames.” I leaned on the trunk of a plum tree. “I was there. Your people cheered as he died.”

  She rounded on me. “And your people hid White Light from everyone for centuries! When it is the source of all color powers and the only color that speaks to us.”

  “Why is White Light so important to all of you?” Were all Igniters just power hungry?

  She seemed to take several calming breaths. “It changes everything. Our forefathers spent their whole lives seeking to bond with a single color, to control it. But White Light spends years seeking us out, to bond with us. None of the colors would exist without it. Wouldn’t you rather connect with the source?”

  Wintour’s voice echoed in my head. “Seek the source.” Would he encourage such a thing in this setting? “I’d rather be alive, not perishing from this blasted plague.” Color power or White Light, Igniters or Keepers . . . What did it matter if I was only going to die?

  “Ask White for help, Thomas. Give it a chance.” She plucked at a piece of peeling bark.

  I studied her face—or rather her mask. Even in the morning light and snow, I could barely make out her shadowed eyes. Before I realized it, I’d placed a hand at the side of her face—half my palm on her mask and the other in her dark curls. She stiffened.

  “How can you expect me to trust your words about White Light when you won’t even trust me enough to reveal your true self?” I said softly.

  Her hand flew to her mask as though she was afraid I’d tear it from her face. She straightened her shoulders. “My true self has nothing to do with my face, Thomas Fawkes.”

  Interesting perspective. The world had associated my worth with my plague for the past two years. “Why do you hide?”

  She swallowed and her voice came out thick. “For the same reason you want to.”

  I wanted my mask because I was ashamed of what people saw when they looked at me. I hated being defined by my plague and I was sick of being helpless. I wanted a future.

  “Are you plagued?” Why did I want her to say yes? So I wouldn’t feel alone?

  She pushed my hand away. “Forget it, Thomas.”

  “You say you want to trust me. So trust me.” My desire to see her face made it hard to breathe. I needed something real. “You did not shun me. Give me the opportunity to show you the same height of character.”

  She stopped, her head down. “I need time.”

  “I may not have time.” Now I was begging.

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  As she picked up her painting and went inside, I whispered, “Me too.”

  Then she was gone and I remained immune to the cold, staring at her back door with my good eye.

  That was probably why I didn’t see Henry Parker stalk up to me until he’d grabbed the collar of my shirt. “So this is why you wear the eye patch?”

  Blast! I thought he was on the Strand! I shoved him off me. “Leave me be, Henry.” I brushed my clothes straight. My secret was out.

  “No, you leave Emma be.” He matched my stride as I left. “She doesn’t need to associate with Keeper caddies who can infect her with more than a plague.”

  I stopped to face him. We were eye-to-eye. I’d grown taller. “What are you implying?”

  He got right in my face. “I’m telling you that she’s spoken for. And if you overstep that, I’ll make sure you’re a participant in the next hanging.”

  Emma was spoken for? What was going on?

  My brain caught up to the rest of his sentenc
e—that I’d hang if I interfered. Was Henry part of the crew turning in Keepers to the Tower? “I’m finished here, Henry.”

  “Are you resigning?” He sneered.

  I held myself tall. “I’m plagued. Do I have a choice?”

  He stepped back. “I’m sure we can make an arrangement.”

  The way he said it made me even warier. What did he want so badly that he would risk his health and the health of his family? “Explain.”

  “You never took me up on my offer of supper on the Strand.” When I frowned, he added, “With your father.”

  There it was. He wanted to meet Father for reasons I didn’t understand, but his desire was strong enough that he’d risk the plague. I didn’t need employment that badly. What more information could I gather from the Baron that would even help the plot? My time here was done. “I’ll take my final payment, please.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Thomas Fawkes. You’ll receive no other employment with your spreading plague. Not even your father’s great name will get you work.”

  “I am my own man. I can make my own way.”

  “You are no man without your mask.” He raised an eyebrow. “Why doesn’t your father give you a mask? Isn’t that why you came to London?”

  “That is not your business.”

  He sneered. “Perhaps your name isn’t Fawkes at all and you aren’t related to the cad.”

  “My father is not a cad.” The sword at my belt reminded me of the new side—the generous side—of Father I’d recently witnessed. “He is a good man.”

  Henry’s sneer faded and he seemed to force civility. “Your father is a courageous color soldier and mine a coward. I suppose I envy you.”

  His humility was an act. I’d seen him perform in front of the headmaster at St. Peter’s before, though not quite as well as he was doing now. I didn’t buy it, but I mustered up my manners all the same. “And I, you, with your mask. I suppose we both must be content with what we’ve been given.”

  “I suppose.” He dug in his pocket and then flipped me a coin. With a nod, he returned to the house. “Good day, Cyclops.”