I – I had done that? That had been me? My thoughts went back to the first time I fell into the ravine, when the ambassador had advanced upon me like any other specimen of prey until she caught hold of me, noticed something unseen about me, and considered the bridge behind me, as if it had been related.
Apparently, it had. And why not? If I could build an entire fortress, why not a bridge?
“What...” I began, and then the breath seeped out of me, wearily. Was there even any point to asking the questions? They would never all be satisfied. “What is it for?”
“Crossing,” the ambassador said as if I were dimwitted.
“But why?”
“I am not here to be at your inquiring disposal. You have a head on your shoulders. Figure it out for yourself. I am here because we made a deal. Are you not interested in hearing the terms?”
“I brought you what we agreed.”
“Yes. And now I will grant what I am obligated. But, I might warn you, this second lost soul you seek to save will not be so easy as going to the ends of the earth and back. The piece of him that you seek is not kept conveniently in any house of yours. There are much deeper, darker houses to breach now.”
“Tanen has already opened the door to me,” I said, and for some reason, it sounded ominous.
“There are many secrets in any one person. Every secret is kept behind a new door. Just be sure to check for windows, Avante. If you can build fortresses out of the rubble, how easy do you think it would be to dig your own grave?”
It was a fair point, to be sure, but I was not to be dissuaded, not after coming this far. “You're the Ambassador for the Angel of Death,” I said. “What do you care if I get in too deep?”
“Being his ambassador means I speak for him. That can mean I issue warnings on his behalf.”
Swallowing, I nodded. “I'll be sure to leave a window open. Tell your master I appreciate his concern. It's very kind.” There was a wry lilt to my voice, but she did not seem to care about my flippancy. I'm sure it was irrelevant to her.
“Then you have two months,” she granted. “Two months, and then he's mine.”
*
When I returned home to Manor Dorn, they all rose and looked at me as if I were some kind of ghost, wandering in from the throes of death. I realized, then, that I did not know precisely how long I had been gone. I knew it was long enough to set them worrying, but the days had blurred together after the first few.
“Oh, my minda,” Letta breathed, frozen where she stood. “Where have you been?” She came forth then, and touched my hair, looking me over. I did look a bit like a ghost, I found as I followed her eyes. I hadn't thought to take stock of myself until then. I was covered in ash and powder, and thin from not eating, and I could only imagine the icy depths of the dark circles under my eyes.
I had similar reunions with the rest of them – only Ombri gave me some sort of knowing look from the door frame, and a small smile. It was the extent of her welcome. As one well acquainted with the city, she could see the nature of what I had been through.
After a bath that Letta insisted on drawing and dispersing with her own two hands, I sat beside Tanen's sickbed. During my bath Letta's gaze had poured questions over my body as surely as all the rivulets of water, but once again she had practiced discretion and held her tongue for a better time, perhaps thinking whatever it was, I had surely been through too much to be expected to dish it all out until I was allowed some semblance of recovery.
I had been gone for a week and a half. Thankfully, Ombri was here to whistle the weedflowers awake. They had feared me dead.
Tanen was not dead. That much I knew, but he had yet to come out of his fever. He had not stirred since I left, they said. Because he's been suspended in limbo, awaiting a signature on his second chance, I thought. He would come out of it soon. I did not know how long it took for the release to take effect, but I knew the ambassador had released him. For two more months.
The stress of what I had to accomplish in that short amount of time hovered over me, but I would not allow it in. I couldn't afford to let it tamper with my resolve.
When he opened his eyes, I smiled tentatively at him. Maybe he wouldn't remember the incident with the wardog. In my hands I held the book he had tried to show me that day. I had been studying the charts, tracing the lines with my fingers, and now I held it as a peace offering as he returned to me. “Hi,” I offered gently. His lashes blinked at the room like disoriented spiders. “How are you feeling?”
It took him a moment to answer, trying to put all the pieces back together. After all, he'd been out for a week and a half. “Stiff,” he said at last, and my smile broadened.
“That's good.”
He rolled his head my direction on his pillow, looking confused.
“You could be many more worse things than stiff,” I explained, unable to stop myself from going through the list in my head: dead, dying, damned, decaying... I blinked the rest away, looking down at the book in my lap. I ran my hand over its textured cover. “I've been thinking about what you said. Regarding dimensions. And reading about them. You could be right.”
“You...understood it?”
“Well enough,” I confirmed, but blazed onward to avoid touching on my gift. “But I was surmising – it could be something else, too, you know. Something a little different than what you said. Maybe it isn't different dimensions causing all this. What if the shifts of rubble are so destructive, so full of mischief that they have created other dimensions this way,” I suggested. I didn't really know how valid such a theory was – though where mischief was concerned, it was probably as valid as anything – but I had developed it simply as a peace offering, as a way to reconnect. Hopefully he would appreciate that I had made the effort.
He blinked slowly, as if trying to sort through my theory, having trouble digesting it. And perhaps it was a bit much to spew that into his head straight after awakening, but then the slightest smile touched his eyes, tweaked his lips. Relief cut through a knot in my stomach. The sentiment had caught on.
“Oh,” I blurted in afterthought. “Are you thirsty? Hungry?”
“Both.”
“I'll get you something. We should change that shirt, too. Here, this is from Dashsund.” I reached for the garment where it was draped over the back of my chair, and put the book aside to help him with it. His weakness showed as he tried to prop himself up. I shooed away his efforts lest he exhaust himself, offering my own support. Swiftly, I had his fever-stained shirt stripped off, and could not help but notice he did not bear the same scar that Victoria and I shared. He had others, and many still scarring-over that I recognized from his scuffle with the wardog, but not the one that came of surviving the Fever. An uncanny wave roiled through me, knowing it was significant.
Shaking the feeling off, I concentrated on the task at hand. It was tempting, oh so tempting, to touch his bare skin while I had the chance. There were secrets hidden in the shadows of his muscles, rivers of secrets that ran in currents down the chiseled channels of his body. But now was not the time. I had two months. Everything had to be timed perfectly. If I rushed and scared him away, there would be no hope.
“There,” I said when the new shirt fell into place, as much to myself as to him, closing the possibility of my fingers having a mind of their own. I curled them into subtle fists so as to quiet their deprived protests. Never had I thought I would itch to touch a man so. It was maddening.
To cleave myself from the urge entirely, I had no choice by to see about rustling up that sustenance that he craved, taking myself to the kitchen where his radiant body was no longer within reach. I breathed a sigh of relief, there, wondering how I was going to contain myself around him. Having stimulated my fingers' appetite during my braille journey through the city, and given the weight of my undertaking with Tanen, I found myself in the odd position of being hard-pressed to keep my hands off him. My newly piqued senses wanted more, and when it came to changing a person, kn
owing the extent of their deepest, darkest secrets paid. I wanted those. I needed those. But I had pridefully and spitefully kept my distance from him thus far, at least enough that changing my tune so hungrily would surely come across as a fluke of character.
And it was, truly. Tanen was beautiful, but I could never deign to wanting someone with his outlook and subsequent mannerisms. I would never compromise my own staunch character that way. At least not outside of the pretense of possessed fingers. And if I had any dignity, hopefully not extensively inside of that pretense, either, if I could help it.
But putting oats on to boil saw me slip into a love affair with the grains and from whence they came, and after delivering the meal to Tanen I found myself out in the field, strolling amongst the stocks, hands outstretched to trail through the feathery grasses. They whispered to me, seducing my eyes shut, and I listened to their stories of painful childbirth, raw, green muscle evolving from prison seeds, soil cocoons that choked and nurtured them at once, and the glory of unfurling to the tainted winds above ground.
Learning the stories of things was becoming a compulsion I could not control. The hunger for it was becoming a great vortex inside me that needed to be fed, as surely as my own body needed to be fed. If I didn't know any better, I might go as far as to say it was the undeniable feeling of a calling – that charge of purpose and obsession which could not be sated, because it was your reason for being.
And since Tanen was far more compelling an entity than any grain in a field, it seemed unlikely I could hope to prevent this new calling from messing with any preconceived personal convictions I might have for much longer than a stubbornly drawn-out heartbeat.
T h I r t y - F o u r –
The Casualty Pattern
Tanen's recovery was not hampered by the turbulence of the lungs that had bullied the rest of us. The others saw that as a sign of fortune, but I knew it was simply because he had been temporarily plucked from the midst of his condition by an almighty hand. Granted a temporary pardon. So while others patted him on the back, congratulatory, I privately lamented the truth hidden to their naivety and sheltered my own sense of foreboding at the illusion of his good health.
It was strange, having brought a man back from Death's gates. All the stranger because he didn't know it. There was an inevitable, misplaced sense of intimacy blossomed between us, disjointed because only one of us was aware, but forged as surely as the deepest sentiments known to pass between two people. There was nothing more intimate than delving soul-deep into another's affairs.
It occurred to me: he would never believe I had done such a thing.
I eyed him out in the field, thinking this, as I retrieved the paper from the porch. He was helping Dashsund with some task or other – I did not have the presence of mind to distinguish what, my thoughts revolving around the more weighty causes for him being here.
I tucked the scandalous knowledge away, however, and turned to the paper to get up-to-date on that front. Only one dire matter at a time, I told myself. So what evolution of mischief was in the headlines today? It only took a glance for one of said headlines to catch my eye;
Manor in South Hempton Swallows Masters
Struck by a chord of all-too-recent familiarity, I skimmed the article, wondering at the like occurrence.
Several days ago, the Capers of South Hempton
discovered their long-time neighbors the Baltanes
unresponsive to a routine knock on their manor door.
When at last a resident slave responded to the call,
it was confirmed that the Baltanes were missing
from the premises. Accusations of an uprising
amongst the slaves were quick to fly, suspecting a
group of them had finally taken advantage of their
huddling superiors and betrayed the dependance
established therein, abusing their freedom and the
fiercely-cultivated mannerisms of this age of survival
to overthrow their masters.
Has a new age dawned? One ripe for slave
overthrowing master?
Details of what actually occurred emerged, however,
when Newsboy Eevie encountered Sir Aphram Tophurst,
fleeing over the rubble. Sir Aphram was a guest in the
Baltanes manor, who confirmed the slaves' own claims:
that the Baltanes met their end by way of the manor's
own wrath, one by one disappearing into the very
walls of the place until Sir Aphram recognized a pattern
of disappearing whiteskins – reinforced when a fellow
guest was taken as well – and therefore fled for his life.
His observation should not go unheeded.
It remains a compelling fact: not a single
slave was taken. It seems whatever beast
possesses Manor Baltane has no interest in
victimizing the lesser kin beneath its roof.
I glanced up from the piece, considering. Considering its implications and the ways it rang true, the thought-provoking consistencies it proposed. Because we sheltered a consistency right under our own roof. That upstairs room that was supposed to serve as a haven to the Masters had turned on Mr. and Mrs. Dorn, swallowing them up same as the fated Baltanes. At this rate, if such a pattern was to continue, there would be no need for any slaves to rise up against their Masters, if such was in their hearts. The job was being done for them.
Brooding there on the porch a moment longer, I took in the men working in the field once more, and then turned to wander in. I found Letta in the kitchen.
“I don't think we should continue delivering the paper upstairs,” I said.
She looked up. “No? What inspires this disinclined nature?”
I stared thoughtfully at a crude loaf of oat bread she had managed to bake, where it sat cooling on the counter, absently handing her the paper. She wiped her hands on her skirt, then accepted it and skimmed what I had just finished reading. When she was done, she let the paper rest against her skirt, thoughtful.
“There's no sense feeding their horror if Falicity isn't going to let them out,” I said.
“On the other hand, this could be what spurs her to do just that,” Letta pointed out.
“And if she doesn't? That's no way to live, knowing something like that may very well be coming for you. That's no way to die. And anyway, depriving Felicity of her awareness might draw her out just as effectively. If we blind her sources, she'll have no choice but to crawl out of her den to get a handle on developments herself.”
“Or do something madwomanly and endanger the others as hostages until we deliver.”
I sighed through my nose, lips pursed. “And what would she do if we all died down here? Scream her demands, shout out her threats, and murder them all one by one, until there was nothing left to barter with and she was forced to wander out herself, only to discover she'd done it all for nothing?” I said it a little challengingly, not wanting to believe it, but in truth I knew it could happen just like that. The image haunted me.
Letta looked at my a little sympathetically, and I let it go, changing my tune;
“They're all going to be taken anyway. Except Vandah.”
“We don't know that.”
“We do,” I insisted, a bit more forcibly than I meant to, looking at her. The absence in my eyes had turned sharp. Putting a hand on myself, I softened and finished more gently, evasively half-hearted; “I do.” And with that I would look at her no more, unwilling to elaborate. I could feel her staring at me, wondering what I meant, where it came from. But I closed myself to her.
Closed myself and turned away. Maybe she was right. If I was being honest, I really had no idea. My call was no better than hers. What good was being privileged with insight, if it didn't also tell you what to do with it? It was just a burden, knowing what was coming. It did not make me wiser. It just made me the middleman charged with knowing.
I left the p
aper with Letta to do as she willed. She didn't understand, yet she had always been wiser than I, so let her decide what she saw fit. Surely no more disaster could come of it than the disaster that already had a hold of the land. Fate was going to be fate. The only fate I ought to be concentrating my efforts on ensuring was an exception was Tanen's, because that was the one I had been granted a say in. I ought to be running with that – not neglecting it for some other cause I didn't know how to redeem.
I only had two months, and the clock was ticking. It had been two days already.
Insight into other matters was just going to have to be a privilege. One that sat on the mantle of my heart.
T h I r t y - F I v e –
The Prime of So Many Summers
I kept thinking about the Baltane's manor, though. I couldn't help it. Had there not been other things weighing on my conscience, I would very much have liked to visit it. To feel for myself what had taken place there, and how it related to what had become of the Dorns. I still longed to make connections with the insight that had been granted my fingertips, even if I could do nothing to change fate with that understanding.
A short time ago, I would never have dreamed of wanting to stray from my strict routine and staunch course just for the sake of exploring, but having survived my recent combing of the city in all its vastness and terror, visiting a neighborly manor seemed like child's play. Maybe even the stuff of vacations. I could have a quaint little stay there. Ombri would take care of the weedflowers, and I could feed my new muse. Become a sort of traveling hobbyist.
It occurred to me for the first time: I was no longer afraid of the mischief.
I had never been terribly meek in that arena anyway, but a soul would have to be completely blank to sail through indifferently. It would be inhuman not to suffer a healthy amount of distress in the face of such destructive unknown. But I had been through it and back, now, and felt as though we understood each other, the mischief and I. It was no longer the stuff of nightmares, to me.
A Mischief in the Woodwork Page 24
