Fawkes

by Nadine Brandes

  How ought I to move forward? Should I expose Dee and risk everyone’s life?

  But what if I let it play out? What if I kept my silence and allowed Dee to complete the plot? Then Catesby and the others would see that King James played no part in the plague. But . . . three hundred men would still die.

  I knew in my bones White was against the plot.

  Could I even do anything?

  I saved you for a reason.

  I stopped in my tracks. The voice of White Light shook me no less than the first time I heard it. But this time instead of the voice sending the chill of fear into my veins, I warmed from the inside out.

  Why didn’t it do anything? Why didn’t it obliterate the plague on its own?

  What, do you expect me to do everything?

  I resumed my slow walk back to the Whynniard house. And I made the choice to engage. I don’t even have a mask. What do you expect me to do, oh vague one?

  Hope in me.

  How dare it speak of hope? I was blind.

  White Light claimed to have saved me, but it had left me helpless. What cruel trickery was that? What power do you have?

  I caught the echo of a low chuckle in my mind. It iced my skin. Watch closely, oh doubter.

  And then . . .

  I saw.

  A pinprick of light interrupted the blackness that consumed me. My tired, unused pupils couldn’t focus. The light blurred but grew like an approaching lantern. And as it drew near, I caught a shape. Not just a ball of light, but a figure. Like a human.

  His hands spun in circles, as though painting the darkness. And colors came. Brown. Yellow. Blue. Grey. Green. Red.

  Speak my language, Thomas.

  I stared at the silhouette. What is your language?

  Pick one.

  Was I about to receive my color power? Was the White Light doing what Father was supposed to have done?

  Pick one.

  “Grey.” The moment the word passed my lips, a flash of visuals popped into my sight. Cobblestones on the ground, the rocks of a cottage to my left—I recognized that cottage. Rain clouds above, a rat slurping at the gutter, the swish of a grey skirt passing me by.

  Then the scene faded. Back to blackness, leaving the White Light figure in my vision.

  I just saw grey. Grey items all around me. I licked my lips. Tasted stone dust. This time my voice croaked. “Grey.”

  Again, the flash. The visuals. I caught the cloak of a man walking across my path. The abandoned pail in the dirt, the coal-like water sloshing in the gutters. The scene lasted a ten count at most.

  Again. The White Light sounded amused. I was playing into its hands, but the hunger for sight compelled me to obey.

  “Brown.” A flash of dirt road winding away from the cobbled path, mud on my boots, breeches hanging from wooden clothespins in the air, the trunks and branches of three trees to my right, the wood beams of a wattle-and-daub house beyond the trees.

  It faded, but my clarity grew.

  White had given me sight . . . through colors. How . . . ? How?

  No answer. I hadn’t moved an inch. And I remained that way for another hour. “Red.” A tunic, a sunburned scalp, a cardinal. “Blue.” The Thames, the sky, a patch of flowers, a woman’s head covering. “Green.” Grass, leaves, the jerkin of a dockworker.

  I spoke the name of every color and every time I received a flash of scene. A flash of sight. Bizarre. Unheard of. The White Light was mocking the Stone Plague by using the colors. It wasn’t a cure, but it was what I needed to rejoin the plotters.

  They wouldn’t understand the change, but Emma would.

  And now . . . now I could read her letters.

  Thirty-Four

  “How is that possible?” Father stopped in the street and the waves of shoppers in the market flowed past him like an unbroken river.

  “Black,” I whispered and caught a flash of his mask facing me and his wide-brimmed hat illuminated by the autumn sun. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I had to. I had to let him know that I could see bits and pieces so that he would convince Catesby to let me rejoin the group.

  But I shouldn’t have lied.

  And I definitely should not continue lying. “I think the plague is receding a little. But I can see as though through a narrow tunnel.”

  “Are you sure? I’ve never heard of the plague receding.”

  He sounded uneasy. I didn’t blame him. Up until me, the plague had been predictable. Someone got infected, and either they died within a few weeks or the plague went dormant on their skin forever.

  I was an anomaly.

  I was unpredictable—in more ways than my plague experience.

  I was the only one who knew how the plague spread, and who spread it. “So do you think Catesby will take me back?” I ended the question with a whispered, “Black,” to see his reaction.

  Father looked me up and down. “I will demand it myself.”

  30 July 1605

  Thomas,

  You weren’t at our meeting place last night. I know there was a plague outbreak last week. Are you well?

  Emma

  6 August 1605

  Thomas,

  Henry’s been going out every night—I know he’s training with someone. He used his mask for the first time. I think he has color power now. And it’s growing.

  Emma

  23 August 1605

  Thomas,

  I haven’t heard from you, so I’m not even sure if my letters are making it out, but Henry has confined me to the house.

  The Baron gave his consent for us to marry.

  Emma

  I had told her to forget me. I had deserted her because I was embarrassed and helpless in my blindness. What a fickle man I was, that I would abandon Emma after we finally established a friendship and a trust that transcended our differences, fears, and secrets.

  She had joined me in my weakness, in my struggle for truth, in my secrets, and never once abandoned me.

  I pulled on my cloak, tugged down my hat, and strode out the door, whispering, “Brown,” to reveal the path before me.

  Where are you going, Thomas? Somehow I sensed that White Light asked it less out of curiosity and more out of an invitation for me to include it.

  I’m going to Emma. No more secrets.

  And I would do right by her.

  Thirty-Five

  22 September 1605

  “I don’t know what to say.” Emma and I stood on the edge of the Thames around a small bonfire contained in a metal basket elevated on a pole in the ground. She wore servant clothing with her mask tucked beneath the apron about her waist.

  I hadn’t gotten through everything. I’d told her only of the plot.

  “You were going to let the Baron die.” Her breath quickened, but her voice lowered. “You were going to kill him and leave me to Henry’s whims.”

  The fire crackled loudly enough to cover our voices, but it wouldn’t be long until night fell and others joined us against the oncoming fall chill. We should have met somewhere more private.

  I shouldn’t have told her.

  I needed to tell her more.

  “Yellow,” I whispered to continue staring at the flames so as not to be consumed by the blindness. I couldn’t bear to stare at darkness while listening to her voice. I felt separated. Distant. “I’m not going to let the Baron die.”

  “You can’t promise that.” Lower. Deeper. Darker. For the first time I wondered if Emma could actually reach a place of anger that could not be overcome by acceptance and forgiveness.

  She might actually turn me away.

  She might turn me in.

  A chill clenched my heart that no bonfire could warm. “I want to help you, Emma.”

  “You can’t. And I don’t need your help.” Something changed in her tone—a cold hardness that I had suspected was coming. “You’ve been committed to these plotters the entire time that I’ve been vulnerable with you. I shared my secrets and you increased yours.”


  “Yellow,” I whispered again. Flames nearly blinded me. “Emma, I’m telling you now. You were bolder than I was. You were willing to trust me and it just took me longer to know how to do the same.”

  “It took too long.” She backed away. Her voice grew distant.

  I reached after her. “Please listen. Extend your grace one moment longer. Don’t leave me.”

  She sighed. “I’m not that fickle.” What she didn’t say was that I was that fickle. “Is there more to this plot I should know about?” The tiredness in her voice made me want to keep it to myself—not to burden her any further.

  “No. But there’s more to me.” I drew my rapier, trying to still my trembling. Then I sliced the blade across my palm.

  I didn’t need to speak a color name to see the thread of White flowing from my hand. It commanded a presence of its own that transcended my blindness. Like a snake of light across my stage of black.

  Emma gasped and her two hands wrenched my bleeding one to her. “Thomas!” Her voice spiked into a squeal so fast I almost forgot her anger from moments ago. “When? When?”

  My throat burned. I swallowed several times before I could share the most intimate part of my story. I had bonded with White Light and felt like I’d finally . . . arrived. Arrived at my full potential as a person. She was the only one who could understand.

  So I told her.

  I told her of White reaching out to me the day of the Color Test, and then on the road to London, and then in the prison cart. I told her how it led me to her and how it annoyed me to no end with its sassiness, yet beneath it all was a depth I’d seen in only one other person.

  Her.

  I told her about Dee. The daggers. The plague.

  “White saved me. It’s the reason I can see. When I speak color names, it shows me all the items of that color surrounding me. So when I say, ‘Brown’”—a flash of skin and freckles and earthen hair—“I see you.” Those final three words came out as a whisper.

  She still held my hand, her demeanor resuming the Emma I knew. “Thomas . . . White is letting you see and letting you survive because you are meant to stop this plot. Only you can do this.” She exclaimed this with a longing, as though I had a clear purpose that she envied.

  But I had no idea how to go about stopping the plot. I was the least important and least respected member. I was no one. “I’m only trying to fix the things I allowed to happen.”

  “They would have happened with or without you. But you’re on the inside. This is why White Light got you to London.”

  My visit with Emma was the final straw.

  Something on your mind?

  There seemed to be genuine concern in White’s voice. It knew my internal anguish. What do I do?

  If I gave you advice, would you take it?

  How should I know? It depends on the advice!

  I was just curious. You don’t have to be so snappish.

  I’m in a foul mood.

  It probably won’t help if I say you brought it upon yourself.

  So much for that conversation. And Emma liked having this voice in her head?

  Emma’s not snappish.

  Would you stop? Just give me your advice.

  Well, I never said I’d give you advice. I was just curious if you would take it.

  Blast it all—

  It’s nothing I haven’t already told you.

  And what would that be?

  That this plot is not of me.

  Tell Catesby that. He’s doing all of this for you.

  A lot of people do things “for” me, but without my guidance. I have never asked for murder. I have never asked for force or blind rage. I’ve only ever asked for people to respond to my voice. To color-bond with me and let me show them what I can do.

  And that was enough.

  Catesby planned this attack to free Keepers and return balance to our interaction with White Light. But even White Light was against it. For once, I desired to follow White Light’s instructions—no matter how sassy or sarcastic—beyond the temptations of someone else’s.

  Thirteen days until Parliament

  Coward.

  Traitor.

  Liar.

  Igniter.

  These would be my new names . . . once I abandoned the plot.

  White Light didn’t want to be caged anymore by the Keepers. I could understand that. I didn’t want to be plagued or maskless or cowardly anymore.

  When I looked at Father, I wanted to please him. But when I looked at Emma, I wanted to be her. There was a life and fullness and rightness about her color skills that came from White Light.

  This war between Keepers and Igniters was complete chaos.

  But it wasn’t my role to stop the chaos. My role was to enter the chaos and bring restoration in the midst of it.

  And blowing up three hundred Parliament members and the king of England wasn’t restoration. It was death with no phoenix to rise out of it. Catesby thought this scourge of England would free us to be us. But what if the action of pursuing freedom actually changed us into something we didn’t recognize?

  Did murder ever free anyone?

  This plot was a revolution built on corpses. It wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

  With a thick dose of conviction but no plan, I headed to Bread Street for one of the final plotters’ meetings. I had no idea how to tell Father, how to confront Dee, how to inform Catesby that I was no longer in support of this plot . . .

  That I had now become their greatest threat.

  Thirty-Six

  “Gentlemen, the plot is upon us.” Catesby’s voice echoed like the stroke of midnight.

  Five of us sat at a table in the Mitre tavern under the guise of a supper party. I muttered through the colors—Grey, Yellow, Red, Blue, Green—until I found the one that showed me the most of the scene. Brown.

  Table, chairs, floor, hair, and some bits of clothing. On either side of me sat Father and Wintour. I knew their forms and postures well enough. Across from me were Catesby and a figure I’d never seen before. A stranger?

  “This is my cousin, Francis Tresham—recruited a couple weeks ago.” Catesby’s arm gestured to the new form on his left. “His recent inheritance will pay for our escapes after the explosion.”

  Another plotter added with Parliament only two weeks away? “Gentlemen,” Tresham said.

  I knew Tresham’s name but didn’t say anything. He was the Baron’s brother-in-law. Surely Catesby knew this. As we sat in discussion, I contemplated Catesby’s irrationalism. How had I not seen it before?

  He conducted himself as a powerful and wise leader, but no one else recruited new men. Only Catesby knew our stories and we blindly trusted him. Here he was—mere days before the plot—adding another man.

  I allowed my view of the scene to settle into darkness so my ears would focus more on Catesby’s words than the distraction of Tresham’s presence.

  “Guido, you will light the fuse.” As though the entire tavern had heard the finality of Catesby’s declaration, the building went silent—one of those spine-chilling moments when everyone takes a breath at the same time.

  My hair rose, but before a panicked thought could form, the ruckus picked up again. The creak of Father’s chair told me he leaned forward. “It would be my honor.”

  “You have experience with setting explosives. And your dwelling near Parliament is the perfect situation.”

  “And what after that?” Wintour asked. “How shall Guy escape?”

  A sip of mead. A swallow. A clunk of tankard on wood. “Once the fuse is lit, you need to flee beyond the explosion,” Catesby said. “You and Thomas will take a boat along the Thames to a ship hired by Tresham. It will take you to Flanders, where you will be Guido Fawkes once again. You will report the news to the Keepers there.”

  Father’s sharp inhale was the closest thing to joy I’d heard from him. I whispered, “Black,” to see his mask, as if it would hold an expression. Though the mask remained
as mysterious as always with its painted half smile, his energized posture gave the impression that he would leap from his chair to do Catesby’s bidding.

  “Thomas, you shall be with the skiff and have it ready to row Guido to your escape ship.” The scene faded, but not before I saw Catesby’s black hat swing to face me. “You can pretend to sleep in it that night—with your plague evident for any passersby to see so they will think you are a street dweller.”

  I swallowed hard, thankful—for the first time—that my face could show no expression through the plague. It was a good plan, but I wouldn’t be enacting it. Hopefully, before Parliament in two weeks, I could convince Father to abandon the plot.

  If Father refused, I would go to Catesby. And likely hang.

  “Will this plot condemn us all?” Tresham asked in a low voice. “How do you know this action is the right course?”

  A fellow doubter? I was glad it was he who asked, not me.

  “It must be done.” That was all Catesby said, and it seemed to be enough. The way he said it implied there was no alternative and we were England’s last hope.

  And everyone accepted it. Did they have no thoughts of their own?

  Supper progressed as a few other details were laid. Catesby would join a contact of his—Everard Digby—for a hunting party in the north. That disguised party would gather Princess Elizabeth from her dwelling in the Midlands.

  “Dee will meet us back at Whitehall once the king and Parliament are dead,” Catesby said.

  “You do realize my brother-in-law, the Baron Monteagle, will be in Parliament that day.” Tresham’s statement struck the table like a battering ram.

  I wanted to hear Catesby’s response. I had told Emma the Baron would not die in this plot. Tresham just might help me ensure his safety. A niggling hope rested in the back of my mind—that one of Catesby’s new additions would prove unfaithful and stop the plot. That they would do the dirty work for me.

  “None of us desire innocent deaths,” Catesby said gravely.

  “Admirable sentiments, but to what end?” Tresham said.