My grandfather wriggles in the chair, trying to speak. “What’s that? What do you want to say? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Soon you will forget what you wanted to ask me. Because, of course, the real question, the question we are dying to answer here in Fell, is this: Without your books and stories, will you still remember who you are?”
The officer rises up and plucks off his gloves. “Stop squirming now and tell me, Mr. Hartley. After all, we are giving you a gift. What memories would you like to keep?”
My grandfather screams under the mask. “Errrthhhh! Errrthhhh!”
“Earth?” the officer says, puzzled. “Are you saying earth?” He turns to the man in white. “Is he saying earth, Giles?”
The other man shrugs. “I don’t know, sir. Perhaps it is a name. Many of them say a name.”
“Ah yes, good thought.” He turns back to my grandfather. “Are you saying a name, Mr. Hartley?”
My grandfather nods furiously as a single tear rolls down his cheek. He swallows and tries one more time to say it clearly.
“Edddddiiiithh!”
“Ah yes. Your wife’s name is Edith, is it not?” My grandfather indicates yes.
“And you would like to keep her?”
The man in white nods and brandishes a final syringe.
“All right, Giles, we are ready to begin.”
The needle sinks into my grandfather’s arm as the display beams into the air, his memories flickering, alive, as if being painted before him. The officer swipes left to right, left to preserve the memory, right to destroy it. He swipes right many times. My grandfather’s eyes begin to grow blank.
My grandmother’s face appears in full color. Grandpa’s eyes glow with sudden recognition. “Leave me her!” he yelps. “Please, I beg you!”
I want to look away, but I can’t. The officer swipes right, casting my grandmother’s memory into oblivion. Her name trembles on my grandfather’s lips as Edith disappears like a ghost in the light.
NOELLE
THIRTY-FIVE
Open your eyes. open Them!
A match is lit. A candle burns in front of me. For a second I think I’m still trapped inside the vision. That is, until Lady M reaches out and touches my hand.
“It’s all right,” she whispers. “You passed out during training. Ledger brought you back.”
“Where is he?”
“He wanted to fight alongside the others.”
Another match. Another candle glowing softly, illuminating Grandpa’s face in the dark. I see the volumes before him on the floor. “We’re hiding,” he says softly.
I hear raised voices, the sound of gunfire nearby, screams of horror as the shots land, as bodies fall.
“We can’t just sit here while they are out there!” I say, standing.
“No!” Lady M pulls me back down. I’m surprised by her strength. “You must stay here! If they find us, they will kill us all.”
I recognize the bear rugs beneath me on the floor. We are in the room I slept in, the room that locks from the inside. The curtains have been drawn. I hear the sniffles of children. Banquo and Duncan.
“There, there, darlings,” Lady M coos. “You must try and close your eyes. You must try and sleep. Perhaps you’ll dream of something.”
“But I cannot sleep, Grandma,” Duncan cries. “I don’t want to hear the scary sounds.”
“No, no,” she says softly. “You won’t hear them. Wear your earplugs like I told you to, and you won’t hear them.”
“I’ll help you put them in,” Banquo says. Another match lights a candle at the bedside, where Banquo sits, helping Duncan with his earplugs.
“Now go to sleep,” Lady M says when they are finished. “By morning it will be all over.”
“What happened to fighting back?” I whisper to Lady M and Grandpa. “Isn’t that what the training was for?”
“The training was for you,” Lady M says. “To help prepare you.”
“But I can help. I can convince Fell to leave us alone!”
“And show yourself to them? My dear, that is what they want. If you reveal yourself now, you’ll just be playing into their hand. They think we will simply give you up to stop the invasion.”
“Lady M is right,” Grandpa says. “We must stay hidden, let the army bear the brunt of Fell’s attack. They’ve been training for this.”
“You must consider the bigger picture,” Lady M says. “We must make sacrifices for the good of the whole. That is what Prospero did for us, after all. There will be a time to resist—when the Archive has been recovered and can be protected.”
“And for now, what am I supposed to do? Just let more people die on my account?”
“No,” Lady M insists. “You must honor their sacrifice and do what only you can: fulfill the legacy that has been left to you.”
“But I wasn’t even supposed to have this book. It was an accident. It belonged to Miriam, John’s grandmother.”
Lady M looks puzzled, then shocked. She stares at my grandfather. “William, you have done us a great disservice in not telling your granddaughter who she is, who her family is.”
Grandpa sighs, tears pooling in his eyes. “Perhaps,” he says quietly. “But I did it out of love. To keep her safe. To keep my whole family safe in the Vale.”
“Your safety in Fell was an elaborate illusion, a cage made of glass and mirrors,” Lady M answers. “And it must be shattered.”
My grandfather motions me over to him. I crawl beside him and find his eyes in the dim light. He holds my hands in his. They are shaking. I see a lifetime of worry, of tragedy in his every tremor. “Noelle, we have roots in the Rising. They are deeper than you ever imagined.” He sighs deeply. “There’s a reason the Risers all knew me. You see, Prospero was my sister.”
I feel the earth move beneath me as every image, every picture shifts in my mind.
Prospero, the statue. Prospero, the rebel. Prospero, the brave leader. That would mean she was . . .
“My aunt?” I blurt. “Prospero was my aunt?”
“Your great-aunt,” Grandpa says. “Before she died, she entrusted her volume, Volume I, to me.”
My grandfather had been a Riser! A Riser who chose to give himself up to Fell. To hide in the Vales. “But you had to give it up,” I say, piecing it together. “You gave the volume to Miriam.”
“That’s right. Miriam was my most trusted friend. She understood the choice I was making.”
“You chose Fell,” I say to myself quietly. “You were a Riser, and you abandoned the cause. For a life . . . in Fell?”
“We thought a life in Fell could be different, better. Edith and I thought we could raise a family there. Without fear. You must understand, the world was thrown into chaos. We chose peace. Rather, we chose what we thought was peace. We didn’t know what they were doing to us.”
“But they took everything from us! Once you knew that . . .”
“There was no going back. I did what I had to do to keep my family together. Edith was everything to me.”
“But they took her from you. They erased her, just like the words.”
Grandpa’s eyes mirror his distant pain. “Edith loved me enough to stick by my side, even when I couldn’t recall who she was. It took us many years of new memories, but eventually I found my way back from the emptiness. It was your grandmother who inspired me to teach myself how to read again.”
“And even then you stayed in Fell,” says Lady M. “A rebel inside the heart of the enemy.”
“Sometimes the very best place to hide is in plain sight.”
*
The coldness sits between us as we wait out the night in darkness. Outside, Fell’s troopers overrun the fields of Killem. The muffled sounds of their gunfire can be heard even from a distance.
Prospero and I share the same blood. I wonder now as the gunfire sings through the night, as the chemi-tasers set fire to the air, whether any of her courage, her devotion to the books found its way into me. What would she
think of me—the leader who gave her life for our cause—holed up here in Killem, seeking asylum from our enemy? What would she feel knowing I had made a deal that could put her life’s work at risk?
A thunderous blast hits the side of the great house. Grandpa stands to look out the window. “They’re coming!”
“The room is secure. They won’t get to us. Not here,” Lady M says.
The whites of my grandfather’s eyes enlarge in the darkness as another loud blast hits. “I think they already have.”
The door shudders violently. Sparks fly around the hinges. In seconds, it falls to the floor in front of us. Two Fell troopers in chemical suits push aside the debris. Scythe enters, eyes ablaze, searching for me. I freeze in the dark, paralyzed by fear. I didn’t think the moment would come so soon. And I’m not prepared. I’m not ready.
I rise shakily to my feet. Grandpa takes hold of my wrist. “Elle! Don’t!”
“Grandpa, it’s okay,” I say softly. Scythe surveys the room. “You’re early,” I tell him. “We had an agreement.”
“This is a checkup. And a reminder,” he sneers. His eyes roam the length of my body. I feel like screaming.
“Interesting clothes.”
“It’s a uniform.”
“Mmmm, I can see that.” He steps close. “I can see a lot of things.”
“Don’t you dare touch her,” Grandpa shouts. “You piece of Fell filth!”
Scythe points to my grandfather. Two soldiers surround him and hold their Tasers to his head. He grows still under their guard. Scythe nears me. “Why are you wearing it? You planning on fighting?”
“Do I look like I plan on fighting?”
“You know what you look like?” Scythe inches toward me. I can count the black hairs on his chin, the flecks of his dark pupils.
“You look like a scared little girl who’s thinking about forgetting the promises she made.” He runs his finger from my navel along my torso and up to my chin. “And we can’t have you forgetting just yet. Not until Cadge takes a look at you.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I say, slapping away his hand. “But I remember perfectly. From the scene outside, it looks like you are the one who has forgotten our deal.”
“Oh, we didn’t forget,” Scythe laughs. He whips out a knife from his pocket. I recognize the long, curved blade, the distinct blue glow of the chemical compound held in the fatal edge. A Never Blade. One cut and Fell’s signature poison will enter the bloodstream. I’d be dead in a heartbeat.
“You like my little toy?” he jeers. “Let me show you how it works.”
He moves for my grandfather, but before I can say a word, Lady M dashes in front of him, her face stoic and sheet white, her eyes charged. She fixates on the Never Blade as she steps in front of Scythe.
“Come, you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts!”
She tilts her head to the sky and opens her eyes wide. I kneel beside Grandfather and grab his hand. Banquo and Duncan cry quietly as Lady M spits words of fire.
“Unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!”
“What is this boolo garbage? Out of my way, old woman.” Scythe shoves her back onto the bed, but it does not stop her. The troopers turn on her as her words infiltrate the air.
“Make thick my blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between the effect and it!”
“What is she doing?” I whisper. But Grandfather just holds his index finger to his lips, silencing me.
Lady M inches to Scythe, the words spilling from her as if she’s said them a thousand times. “Come,” she beckons him, “come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers . . .”
Scythe and the soldiers cover their ears. “Enough!” Scythe bellows. “Make her quiet!”
Her eyes enlarge with the words, big and vibrant, as though someone else is speaking through her. “Wherever in your sightless substances you wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes . . .”
Lady M nears, reaching out for the knife as though it were her own. She hovers above the Never Blade, willing it to find her in the dark.
Scythe is held in her gaze, motionless, his eyes wide with anticipation. “What are you doing, boolo?” he shouts, shoving her back against the wall. “Stop this!” But Lady M does not cease. The Never Blade lowers, as if guided by her words, insistent, transcendent, impossible to resist.
“Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry ‘Hold! Hold!’” She is upon him, clutching her stomach and gasping for breath.
Scythe unsheathes the Never Blade from her abdomen, pulling a rush of blood out with it. Lady M reaches up to the heavens. “For you, Prospero,” she whimpers before plunging to the floor. We rush to her side, stopped by the sound of charging clicks of chemi-tasers.
“If you help her, we will kill all of you,” Scythe warns.
The blood spills from her, coating the floor and the bear rugs in its crimson thickness. I look away as she convulses, the poison making its way swiftly through her body. In just seconds, there is not a breath left inside her.
“You murderous bastards!” cries my grandfather.
“Consider yourself lucky,” Scythe says. “That blade was meant for you, old man. But perhaps it still can be.”
He stoops down, dipping the edge of the Never Blade in Lady M’s blood. The blood that’s laced with lethal poison.
“Scythe, don’t!” I shout. “You don’t have to do this. I told you I would honor my deal, and I meant it. You have my word.”
“Your word?” Scythe tilts his head to the side, perplexed. “Your boolo words? They mean nothing to me. It is all about deed, girl. And this deed will make you mine.”
Only now do I actually hear Duncan and Banquo screaming. “It’s all right,” I whisper. “It’s going to be all right.” But they know I’m lying.
It’s not going to be all right. Not now that Scythe has my grandfather by the throat and the Never Blade pressed to his face. I can’t get to him fast enough to stop it. The blade moves in slow motion along my grandfather’s cheek to his neck, smearing Lady M’s blood across him. “Let’s see, where should we cut you, old man?”
“Scythe, please! I’m begging you, don’t do this. We have our deal. I will honor it.”
He turns to me slowly, his eyes reflecting the redness that is everywhere now. “Oh, I know you will,” he growls. “And do you know how I know that?”
“Wait! Stop!” I yell, charging him, but Scythe shakes his head, and it all happens painfully slowly yet impossibly fast: me rushing to him, unable to stop the blade pressing against my grandfather’s throat. Scythe smiling strangely as he urges the fatal poisonous edge just deep enough to break the skin, to kiss his skin with death’s cold lips. And there it is, my grandfather’s whole life upended on a tiny wound. It’s just a scratch, but this is all it will take to kill him.
Grandpa cries out and falls to his knees, panting, the poison already working through him.
“You’ve killed him!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “You’ve killed him!”
“Calm down.” Scythe wipes his blade on his trousers, leaving just a smear of red across his thigh. “You want his life? You may have it.”
“What are you talking about?” I spit at him.
“There is an antidote. Bring me all nine volumes, and the old man will live.”
“He doesn’t have that long! Look at him!”
“I’d say he has about fifty hours, give or take.”
“The volumes will take several days to get at least!” I shout.
Scythe takes one long look at me, his eyes smiling like sickles. “Well, I suggest you get moving, then.”
I watch out the window as the fighting slows and the bullets cease. Hordes of Fell troopers retreat, and the army of Killem whoo
ps in celebration. But they don’t understand. It isn’t a victory. Fell got exactly what they came here for. Me.
I look at my grandfather, the blood soaking through the white towel I gave him as he explains to the boys about their grandmother lying dead on the bedroom floor. His words are slow, his voice low and calm. They nod with understanding, gazing into his eyes. But it is not enough that they have seen what they’ve seen. I will have to ask more of them now, I know, as the last Fell troopers disappear over the hills.
“Boys, listen to me. I need your help.”
Banquo and Duncan nod, wiping their tear-stained cheeks. They look intensely afraid, so I try to bolster their confidence and not show my own fear. “We have to leave here and find your father. Do you understand?”
They nod in unison and look at each other, their little eyes holding back tears.
Banquo helps my grandfather, while Duncan walks with me hand in hand.
“Is your grandfather going to die?” he asks me. The question shakes my insides and nearly shatters me.
“No,” I tell him and keep walking.
When we get outside, the smell of fire and burning flesh makes me gag. The boys hold their noses. The stench of death fills the air, as bodies are found and cleared from the field. In the distance torches blaze and move along the horizon. The Killem soldiers pass by us, some with stoic, unfeeling faces, others wrapped in a blanket of celebration and denial. They don’t know yet that this is just the beginning.
If Fell would invade the whole Sovereign just to get to me, what will they do if I don’t honor my promise? But I will not let that happen. I won’t let another person die at their hands while I stand back and do nothing.
It’s simple: I belong to Fell now.
PROSPERO
THIRTY-SIX
Winter 2055—The Oath of the Nine of the Rising.
As given by Prospero. As recorded by Amanuensis.
Blood, Ink & Fire Page 33
