The League of Seven

by Alan Gratz

  “Nae. It was—I had a dream. About these two people, a man and a woman. They had these … these insect things in the backs of their necks.”

  Archie sat up. “Were they turning big knobs with letters on them?”

  “Aye! And there were clockworks spinning behind them.”

  Archie got goose bumps. He remembered the clockworks now. “And the floor. The floor was … moving somehow.”

  “Aye! And there was this noise. A great booming sound from below.”

  “Malacar Ahasherat. The Mangleborn. She’s trying to get free. You saw my parents in the puzzle traps that keep people from getting to her. We just had the same dream! My parents are still alive. I told you. We have to get help. We have to rescue them!”

  “But how is it possible for us to have the same dream?” Fergus asked.

  “It’s the Mangleborn. We must share some kind of connection with it.”

  “That green fire,” Fergus said. “That flame Edison used on me. It came from that insect woman. I remember now. I could see her. A great big woman with bug eyes and grasshopper wings.”

  “Yes! And bony arms and legs, like a mantis. I saw her when I reached in to grab you. Did she talk to you too?”

  “Talk to me? Nae,” Fergus said. “She just sat there on that bridge like a throne, lording over a wasteland.”

  Archie shrank back into his hammock. He was sure the Mangleborn had spoken. She had turned to look at him, said “Jandal a Haad” directly to him. But why hadn’t Fergus heard it too? And if Fergus got his connection to the Mangleborn from the ritual on the stone altar, why had Archie dreamed of his parents before that, when Mr. Shinobi knocked him out? And how had he seen the big stone well and all the bugs underground before they’d even flown all the way to Florida?

  “You’re both crazy,” Hachi said, making Archie jump. He hadn’t realized she was awake too. “Go back to sleep,” she told them. “We’ll be in Jersey by morning.”

  Archie turned over in his hammock and pulled his blanket up, wondering exactly how he could be connected to a Mangleborn buried in a swamp in Florida when he’d never set foot there before in his entire life.

  10

  The Jersey territory just beyond the sprawling metropolis of New Rome kept its Yankee name after the Darkness fell, but little else. The countryside was dotted not with Yankee towns but First Nations villages: clusters of Iroquois longhouses, fields, and factories as far as the eye could see. Edison had set up his laboratory outside one of these villages, and it was near there that Fergus had lived with Kanokareh and Joanne Henhawk, his family away from home.

  Mrs. Henhawk was a square-shouldered woman with light-brown skin and a beak-like nose to match her name. She met Archie, Hachi, Fergus, and Mr. Rivets at the door of her longhouse and gave Fergus a welcoming hug. After the introductions were made Mrs. Henhawk ushered them inside, fussing over Fergus’ bandaged leg and the makeshift crutch he’d cobbled together from spare parts on the Hesperus.

  “And your skin! What is this? Did you get yourself tattooed on that trip? Your mother will kill me for it, and I’ll kill Kano in return! But where is he?”

  Archie wanted to be anywhere else in the world right then, but he didn’t know where else to go.

  “Mrs. Henhawk—” Fergus said.

  “‘Mrs. Henhawk’?” she said. “I haven’t been ‘Mrs. Henhawk’ since the day you got here. It’s Joanne,” she told Archie and Hachi. She led them down the narrow central hallway of the longhouse, toward the stone fireplace that rose up through the roof in the middle of the building.

  Archie grabbed Hachi by the arm and held her back. She flinched and twisted, her fist raised like she might hit him.

  “What?” said Hachi.

  “Let Fergus do the talking on this one, all right?” Archie whispered.

  Hachi looked like she might argue, then relented and nodded.

  Along the way to the kitchen they passed small rooms to either side: bedrooms, and living rooms, and pantries filled with food and stores. In one of the compartments was a woven mat with blocks and toys on it.

  Hachi stopped. “You have a child?”

  “Yes. And there she is!” Mrs. Henhawk said in a happy voice meant for her toddler. “There’s my Della!”

  The baby sat in a high chair at the end of a long wooden table in the kitchen, making an absolute mess of her oatmeal.

  “Fungus!” she squealed when she saw Fergus. She kicked her legs in excitement. “Fungus Fungus Fungus!”

  “Hey Della Bella,” Fergus said quietly, though he couldn’t help but smile at her.

  Hachi was all scowl. She glared at Fergus like he should have told them the Henhawks had a baby daughter, though Archie couldn’t understand why.

  “Fergus? Fergus, what is it, hon?” Mrs. Henhawk said, finally gathering that something was wrong.

  “Joanne—Mrs. Henhawk. There’s … something … something’s happened,” he said.

  “Who wants to play, hmm?” Hachi said brightly, making Archie jump. He stared at her as she lifted Della out of her high chair and nestled her onto her hip. “Oh! What a big girl you are, Della! Will you show me your toys?”

  Hachi nodded for Archie to come with her.

  “Go, Master Archie,” Mr. Rivets said. “I shall stay with Master Fergus and help explain.”

  Archie gave Fergus a last sympathetic glance and hurried after Hachi.

  “Why take the baby away?” Archie whispered as they walked back down the corridor. “She’s just a toddler. She can’t understand anything.”

  “She’ll understand,” Hachi said. “She’ll know when her mother cries.”

  Behind them, they heard Mrs. Henhawk cry out once, loudly, followed by a low sob. Archie stared back down the corridor but couldn’t see into the kitchen.

  Hachi set Della onto her playmat and sat down beside her. Straightaway Della tried to crawl off toward the front door.

  “Whoa! A little escape artist already, I see,” Hachi said. “That’s good.” Her voice was raspy as always, but she injected a light happiness into it that Archie knew was all for the baby’s benefit. Hachi snatched Della up and put her back on the mat, but Della just took off again. This time Archie picked the baby up, holding her out away from himself a little nervously as he returned her to the playmat.

  “She’s not a stick of dynamite,” Hachi told him.

  Looking around at the way toys were scattered all over the play area, Archie thought maybe she was.

  “I see we’ll have to do something else to keep you here,” Hachi told Della. “And I know just the thing. Circus, showtime.”

  Hachi’s little menagerie burst out of their compartments on her bandolier and hovered in the air. Della was immediately mesmerized, and so was Archie. He sat down beside Della, and to his surprise the toddler crawled into his lap.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Hachi told her. “Circus, parade!”

  The little brass animals landed, stilling their wings and tucking them back along their bodies. The lion set himself up first, and all the others fell into line behind him: the zebra, the elephant, the gorilla, and finally the lanky giraffe. When they were all in a line, a music-box circus tune began to play from them—not the same notes from each animal, but different parts of the tune played in unison to form one song. Together they marched in a silly high-step around Archie. Little Della clapped and laughed. When the last of them disappeared behind Archie’s back, Della twisted so far out of his lap to watch that he had to catch her to stop her from falling.

  The clockwork animals marched around to the front, but the giraffe lagged behind with its slow, loping stride. Hachi nudged its bottom and it trotted back into place, making Della giggle. The music came to a triumphant if tinny end, and the animals bowed. Della clapped again, and Archie couldn’t help but join in.

  “Do you know what these animals are? Have you seen them in books, Della? My father took me to a circus once, when I was very little, and afterward he made these for me. Would yo
u like to know their names?” Hachi asked. “This is Mr. Lion. He is very brave.”

  The little lion made his little clockwork roar-roar-roar sound again, trying to look so fierce it was cute.

  “This is Zee. She is a zebra. She is very fast, and thinks she is very pretty.”

  Zee pranced and preened, throwing her head back like a real horse.

  “Horsie!” Della said.

  “Next is Tusker.” Hachi made her voice deep and low. “Tusker is an elephant. Boo-boo-boo-boom. He is big and strong.”

  Tusker lifted the zebra with his trunk and set her back in line, then stood on his hind legs and trumpeted.

  “Jo-Jo the gorilla. He is stubborn, but he is very good at climbing things and using his hands.”

  The wind-up gorilla crossed his arms and stood in line without doing anything special. Hachi flicked him on the bottom and he scooted out of the line, turned, and pounded his chest at her.

  “Yes, Jo-Jo. Very impressive. And last but not least is Freckles, the giraffe. Don’t let her clumsiness fool you; she is very sneaky.”

  Freckles bowed her long neck in a graceful curtsy, then tripped over her own long legs trying to stand back up. Della giggled again.

  Mrs. Henhawk, Fergus, and Mr. Rivets came and found them. Mrs. Henhawk’s face was streaked with tears and her eyes were red, but she had a smile for her daughter as she picked her up and hugged her. Della kept watching the wind-up animals, perhaps waiting for them to sing and dance again, but Hachi whistled them back to their places and stood.

  “Mrs. Henhawk said I could use Kano’s workshop, fix up something for my knee,” Fergus said. He sniffed like he’d been crying too. Mr. Rivets helped him walk to the back of the longhouse, where Mr. Henhawk had a private work space of his own. His workbench was neat and tidy, with wrenches and screwdrivers and saws and hammers hung on pegs. Barrels of metal, wood, and wire scrap were arranged along one wall, with smaller buckets of nails and screws along another. Fergus limped over to the barrels and began to fish out thin strips of copper and brass.

  “If I can assist in any way, Master Fergus, please say so,” Mr. Rivets told him.

  Fergus pulled a few tools from their pegs, and added a few of his own—tiny screwdrivers and wrenches from a purselike bag on his belt. Within minutes he had clamped, bent, and shaped the metal strips into a small, hinged cage.

  “Ratchet piston? Do you see a ratchet piston anywhere?” Fergus asked.

  Archie had no idea what a ratchet piston was, but Mr. Rivets pointed. “Here, sir.”

  Fergus took the part and fit it to his cage, lifting it up and turning it this way and that before drilling a hole to attach it.

  “This will be your workshop now,” Mrs. Henhawk told Fergus. A tear rolled down her cheek. “From the day you arrived, Kano thought of you like a son, Fergus. He was so proud of you.”

  Fergus turned his head away so they wouldn’t see his tears. He shook his head. “I can’t stay. I have to go.”

  “Go?” said Mrs. Henhawk. “Go where? Back to Carolina? You’re no farmer, Fergus.”

  “No. Not home. But I can’t stay here either.” Fergus searched through the barrel of metal and found a railroad spike. “It’s too dangerous. Edison may come looking for me.” He looked up, a sudden horror in his eyes. “You and Della might not be safe either.”

  “But—”

  “He’s an awful, awful man, Joanne,” Fergus said. “You have to run.”

  “I—I suppose we could visit my sister. She lives with the Mohawk. But—”

  “Just as soon as we’re gone.” Fergus handed the spike to Mr. Rivets. “Can you heat that end up for me in the kitchen fire?”

  “Of course, sir,” Mr. Rivets said.

  Fergus worked quickly while the machine man was gone, laying out leather straps and hammering grommets into the ends. Archie was amazed. In the short time they’d been standing there, Fergus had built a complicated leg brace out of scraps. Mr. Rivets returned with the glowing hot spike, and Fergus took it from him in a pair of tongs.

  “Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

  “Aye,” Fergus said. “You can bend over, mate.”

  Mr. Rivets’ astonishment subroutine made the Tik Tok raise an eyebrow, but he did as Fergus asked. Using Mr. Rivets’ hard metal backside as an anvil, Fergus hammered the red hot spike to the ratchet gear on the side of his leg brace.

  “Hot—coming through,” Fergus announced, and Archie and Hachi cleared out of the way for him to dunk the contraption into a big bucket, where it hissed and popped. When it was cold to the touch, Fergus attached the leather straps to it and sat down in a chair. He slipped off his left boot, slid the thing up his leg, and buckled it around his knee.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said. Fergus pushed on the welded spike attached to the ratchet gear. Chink-chink-chink-chink. His leg kicked out straight and stayed there, held rigid by the apparatus he’d built.

  Fergus got up with Mr. Rivets’ help and gave the knee brace a test. He was wobbly, but he stood. He practiced walking with his left leg locked straight like a peg leg, then came back to the chair. He sat heavily, his leg still out straight, but with the flick of a catch on the ratchet gear, the brace released and his knee bent freely so he could sit naturally again.

  “Well, it’s not the Emartha Mark IV Machine Man, but it’ll do.”

  “I think it’s rather astonishing,” Mr. Rivets told him. Archie thought it was more than that; it was miraculous. He’d never seen anybody build anything like that so quickly and easily. Fergus was like one of the tinkers in the old stories.…

  Archie gasped, and everyone looked at him.

  “What?” Hachi said.

  “It’s … nothing. I’ll tell you later,” he said.

  “Fergus, come with us,” Mrs. Henhawk said. “I promised your mother I’d look after you. You’re fourteen. I can’t just let you go running off by yourself.”

  “I’m not by myself.”

  “No, you’re with two other children who should be with their parents.”

  Hachi looked away. Archie opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t know where to start. It was Mr. Rivets who finally spoke up.

  “I am the children’s guardian until they can be reunited with their parents, ma’am. I assure you I have considerable experience with young people, having raised four generations of Dents.”

  “I have to go, Joanne,” Fergus said. “Whatever Edison did to me, he’ll want me back. I can’t stay with you and Della. I’ll only put you in danger. And I can’t go home.”

  Mrs. Henhawk didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t argue the point. Instead she pulled Fergus into a one-armed hug, still holding Della in her other arm. Della beat on Fergus’ head.

  “Fungus!” she squealed happily.

  “Ow, Della Bella. Ow. Ow. Ow.”

  Mrs. Henhawk gave Fergus a kiss on top of his head. “At least let me send you with some food. Can I do that?”

  “The airship’s stores are bare, madam,” Mr. Rivets told her. “It would be much appreciated.”

  Fergus collected his few belongings—barely a knapsack full—while Mrs. Henhawk loaded up Archie, Hachi, and Mr. Rivets with sacks of food.

  “One last thing,” Fergus said before they left. He went back to Mr. Henhawk’s workshop and found the blueprints he’d drawn for a new Archimedes Engine, the plans he’d told Edison about that had gotten Kano killed. He stared at them for a moment, then wadded them up and stuffed them into the fire in the kitchen.

  Mrs. Henhawk went with them to the door.

  “I’ll come back one day,” Fergus told her. “And I’ll write. I promise.”

  “I know you will. And Fergus—” She paused and gathered herself. “Fergus, Kano knew there was something wrong with Edison. Knew there was something … dark about him. Maybe bad. But he ignored it. Kano did the work because he loved the science, even though he knew it might be wrong. And now he’s … now he’s…” She wiped her eyes wit
h the back of her hand. Della watched her, trying to understand why she was sad. “I see that same love of science in you, Fergus. That same thrill of knowledge. And that’s good. But you can’t close your eyes to the rest of the world, Fergus. You can’t ignore what’s right for anything. Do you understand? Learn from Kano’s mistakes, Fergus. Be a better man.”

  Fergus nodded, sniffing back tears, and they hugged one last time. Della looked back and forth between her mother and Fergus, frowning at their tears.

  “Zee, I need you,” Hachi whispered, and the little flying zebra leaped from her bandolier to flutter in front of her.

  “Horsie!” Della said.

  “Zee, I want you to take good care of this little girl. Do you understand? She’s yours now,” Hachi told Della, and the little zebra buzzed over and landed in the toddler’s hands. “You take good care of her, and she’ll be your best friend forever.”

  “Horsie!” Della said again.

  Hachi’s eyes watered. “You take good care of each other,” she said, and turned away.

  Archie walked alongside Hachi as they hauled the food back to the Hesperus. “I can’t believe you gave her one of your toy animals.”

  “Della doesn’t understand what’s happened, but she will one day. And then she’ll need a friend,” Hachi told him. “Just like me. Zee and the others were the only friends I had when my father was murdered too.”

  11

  Archie pressed his face against a porthole as Mr. Rivets swung them down close for their approach to New Rome. The sky over the biggest city in the United Nations was filled with airships—hundreds of them—taking off from public parks and docking at skyscrapers like the seven-story-tall Emartha Machine Man Corporation building. Submarines plied the choppy waters of the harbor on ferry routes to Breucklen and Queens County. Giant coal-driven machine men laid cobblestones for roads. Locomotives steamed away on elevated platforms. The city was like one great machine, all its parts working in synchronization. No matter how many times he visited, Archie loved seeing it all.

  Watching over the city with him was the huge statue of mighty Hiawatha out in the harbor. Hiawatha was the legendary founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, the league of nations that had saved the European settlers’ lives a hundred years ago when the Darkness fell. Cut off from the support, trade, and authority of the Old World, the colonists of New England had retreated to the cities on the coast and struggled to survive. Just when things looked their worst, a savior had come—not from the east, over the suddenly impassable waves, but from the west, from the very people the Europeans had been driving off their lands. The Iroquois Confederacy adopted the settlers as a seventh tribe—the Yankee tribe—and invited more tribes to join them, becoming the United Nations of America. The new confederacy stretched from the Atlantis Ocean to the Mississippi River, and was rivaled in power only by Acadia in the north, New Spain to the south, and the Republics of Texas and California to the west.