Freakling

by Lana Krumwiede

“Amma, fetch me —”

  “Here it is, Da,” Amma said, handing her father a book she’d slipped from a nearby shelf. Mr. Parvel passed the book to Taemon.

  “Understanding the Atom,” he read from the book’s spine.

  “Everything in the world is made up of tiny building blocks called atoms,” Mr. Parvel explained. “Trust me when I tell you this: if you knew what an atom is and how it works, and if you had psi, you could rip the entire planet to shreds.”

  Taemon thrust the book back toward Mr. Parvel. “Okay, but why would anybody want to rip their planet to shreds? That’s pretty stupid.”

  “It is indeed. But humankind has done some pretty stupid things throughout history. Just think of the Great War and all its devastation. Think of how Nathan was treated. Just because someone has knowledge of how something works doesn’t mean he or she fully understands it. That person might destroy the world accidentally. Or maybe try to rip only part of the planet to shreds. The part where their enemies live.”

  Taemon’s eyes grew wide. Mr. Parvel’s point was beginning to dawn on him.

  “This room is only a part of the library,” Amma explained. “There are twelve rooms, most of them bigger than this. Deep in caves of this hill. We have thousands of books here, some collected by Nathan himself. Actually he created the library first, even before he started the city and before he created Mount Deliverance. Since then, my family has been collecting and cataloging books, many of which have been smuggled into the colony from the city. Knowledge from every age.”

  Mr. Parvel nodded slowly. “Imagine for a moment that the psi wielders gained access to this. They would have unlimited knowledge to combine with their unlimited power. What do you think would happen?”

  “Chaos,” breathed Taemon. “Ruin. Disaster. But there aren’t any psi wielders in the colony, except for you and Challis, right? So the library is safe?”

  “For the most part, yes,” Mr. Parvel said. “Only people who truly need the books are allowed access. And even then, only people we know we can absolutely trust. The temptation to spread rumors about the library or to sell the information to the priests in the city is too great for many to resist.”

  Amma took the book from Taemon and placed it back on the cart. “That’s my family’s job: to keep the library safe.”

  “I thought . . . you made pottery.”

  Amma laughed. “That’s my mom’s job. The rest of us protect the library. The stone walls and the psi lock help keep the library safe. No one but my family knows the combination. And we’re sworn to guard it with our lives.”

  Taemon swallowed. Technically, he was a psi wielder. Because of his clairvoyance. He glanced over at Mr. Parvel, who was studying his reaction to all this. They had trusted him with their secret. He should probably trust them with his. “Listen, there’s something I —”

  Mrs. Parvel came bursting into the room. “Challis is here and wants to talk to you. She says it’s urgent.”

  Mr. Parvel sighed. “What now?”

  The three of them filed back through the psi door, which either Amma or Mr. Parvel locked behind them, and found Challis nibbling a slice of sweet tuber tart at the kitchen table.

  “Ah, Thayer. I came to collect you. You will have learned enough for one night, yes?”

  Came to collect him? Challis seemed to be orchestrating this entire evening.

  “I was hoping to talk to Mr. Parvel a little more. I still have a lot of questions.”

  “Yes, yes, but not tonight. Trust me. Auntie knows best.”

  The next frivolics were set for six days later, and Taemon welcomed a little diversion. He still hadn’t been able to find a way to tell Amma about his psi. How would he explain it? Would she even believe him? If he could talk to her alone today, he would try.

  Amma hadn’t told him anything except to meet her, Vangie, and Jad next to the fountain in the square at five o’clock that evening.

  At the square, the first thing Taemon noticed was a boat floating in the water that surrounded the fountain. It was a child’s boat, only big enough for two people, maybe three if you sat down and let your legs dangle over the sides.

  Taemon laughed. What had Amma cooked up this time?

  He looked around but didn’t see his friends. That was okay. He was a few minutes early.

  Taemon sat on the cement bench that surrounded the fountain and pulled out his journal. Maybe if he sketched the workings of the psi lock, he would have proof of his clairvoyance. As he drew the pins and wheels and bolts, the unlocking sequence began to come to him. He was only a squinch away from solving the sequence to that lock.

  He drew the psi lock once again.

  Even if he figured it out, he wouldn’t be able to open it. But he still needed to solve the puzzle, to crack the code. His mind wouldn’t let it alone. When he drew it a third time, he saw it. The only sequence that made sense. Skies! He’d never seen anything like that before. He had no way to test it, but he was certain he’d found the right sequence. He could feel it.

  “Hoy, Taemon.” Vangie startled him as she sat down. He dropped his journal, and she bent down to pick it up. “What’s this?”

  Before he could answer, she was thumbing through it. He felt panic rise through his spine. The library’s lock was in there!

  “Cool,” Vangie said, twisting her body so that the journal was out of his reach. “Wow, what’s this one? A byrider with one wheel? It uses psi, doesn’t it? So flaming cool!” She flipped forward a few pages. “Oh, Skies. Look at that! But what is it?” She stared at his drawings of the psi lock, her brow furrowed.

  “It’s nothing,” Taemon said, snatching the journal back and stuffing it into his jacket pocket. Time to change the subject. “Have you seen Amma yet?”

  “Cha. She’s headed this way.” Vangie pointed across the square.

  Amma walked up and handed him an old-fashioned sailor’s jacket and cap. Only the Good Earth knew where she’d dug those up. She saluted. “Ahoy, Captain! Let me introduce you to the mighty Sea Flea. We’re giving free boat rides today.”

  “Me? Captain?” Taemon asked. “How can I move a boat without psi?”

  Amma rolled her eyes. “Ever heard of an oar?”

  “Or? Or what?”

  Vangie and Amma laughed, but Taemon shrugged. How under Blue Skies was he supposed to know these things?

  Amma walked over to the boat, reached in, and pulled out a stick, the bottom half of which had been flattened. “This”— she held the stick high and shook it —“is an oar. You use it like so”— she waved it next to her side —“to move the boat forward.”

  Taemon grimaced. “Can’t someone else be the captain?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Vangie said. “That jacket’s navy blue. Thoroughly not my color.”

  Amma snorted.

  “What?” Vangie asked. “I’m a Flower. Appearances are important to me.”

  “I was really hoping you’d do it. Come on, Taemon. It’ll be good for you. Look, the water’s only a few inches deep, so you can use the oar like a pole and push off the bottom to move the boat. It’s not that hard.”

  The water did seem pretty shallow. And unlike the ocean, there was no current in the fountain. He pushed aside his reluctance and forced a smile. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”

  “Great!” Amma said. “Put on the jacket and cap.”

  Taemon took off his own jacket, patted the pocket to make sure the journal was still there, then rolled it up and tucked it under the bench. Slipping on the captain’s jacket, he nodded as Amma explained in more detail what she wanted him to do. By the time she had finished, the square was filling up with people. It was the time when people milled around the square, talking and relaxing between work and dinner.

  When Jad finally showed up, Amma held a big cone-shaped thing up to her mouth. “Ladies and gentlemen! May I have your attention, please? This evening we are pleased to present the newly christened Sea Flea, with Captain Taemon at the helm.”

&n
bsp; Taemon stood in a stoic posture, one foot in the boat and the other on the rim of the fountain’s pool. With what he hoped was a manly look, he saluted the crowd.

  Amma grinned at him. “Captain Taemon will be taking passengers on a boat tour of the colony. You haven’t seen the colony till you’ve seen it from the water!”

  Vangie was the first passenger, and Jad’s role was to give a short safety lecture, which included the proper use of something called a life jacket.

  Each time Taemon sailed his wobbly course around the fountain, he felt a little more confident. Amma was right. It wasn’t so hard. Once he had relaxed a bit, he even added a little narration. “In the distance, you will see the majestic Mount Deliverance in all its glory, and to your right, Manchee’s Shoe Shop.”

  Finally there was only one more child in line. It was the little girl who had come from the city just a couple of weeks ago. Her name was Kivvy. Taemon remembered how happy she’d been when she’d seen the hooks he made. Between that and the fact that they’d both been kicked out of the city, he found he had a bit of a soft spot for little Kivvy. She’d waited a long time in line, and Taemon wanted to give her a nice ride.

  “My tuhn?” she asked.

  Taemon nodded and helped her into the boat. “Do you want to go fast or slow?”

  Kivvy smiled. “Fast. Vewy fast.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Here we go!”

  Taemon pushed off, and around the fountain they went. Kivvy laughed, and that warmed him all the way through. “How are things at Marka’s house?” he asked. “Is the dog behaving himself?”

  Kivvy nodded. “I used to have a cat. In my psi house.”

  “What was her name?” Taemon asked.

  “Boodle. Mam said she ran away, but I think the bad men took her just like they took Mr. Allet. And Mrs. Murney.”

  So people really were disappearing. Who was taking them? And why?

  They were back where they had started. Taemon tried to think of something that would end Kivvy’s ride on a happy note. As Amma helped the little girl out of the boat, Taemon removed his hat and attempted an elaborate, silly bow. But he lost his balance, wheeling his arms in an effort to stay in the boat. He lost the contest with gravity and fell backward into the water.

  The water was deep enough to cover his face. Sunlight broke through the surface in splinters of rainbow, then his vision went dark. He was back in the sea cave. He couldn’t breathe. He was trapped. No, this wasn’t the sea cave. This was someplace different, someplace much, much worse. Someone was about to kill him. No, wait. It wasn’t Taemon that was about to be killed. It was Yens. The Republikites had Yens, and they were going to kill him. You must decide, someone was saying. Think carefully. You must decide.

  Two hands reached through the water, grabbing his jacket and yanking him upward. “Are you okay?”

  He sat up, wiped the water out of his eyes, and looked up to see Amma’s face.

  People were staring at him.

  He couldn’t remember why he was in the water.

  Kivvy giggled. “Funny Taemon. Do it again!”

  Everyone laughed, and the tension broke. Taemon remembered now about the frivolics and the boat rides.

  “C’mon, Kivvy,” Amma said. “We’ll let funny boy dry off. I’ll give you another boat ride, if you’d like.”

  Taemon fished the hat out of the water and sloshed out of the fountain’s pool. He took deep breaths. What had happened? Some kind of anxiety episode?

  After Kivvy’s second ride was over, Amma tied up the boat and came over to Taemon.

  “You scared me,” Amma said. “When you fell in, you didn’t move. You just lay there with your eyes open.”

  Taemon ran a hand through his wet hair. “Cha, sorry about that. I, um, had a bad experience with water not too long ago.”

  Amma stifled a laugh. “Sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, but you know, my birth sign is Water.”

  “Never boring.” Taemon smiled and looked down at his shoes, which were creating rivulets on the cobblestones. He peeled off the wet captain’s jacket and handed it to Amma, then retrieved his own jacket. He wasn’t ready to talk to Amma about clairvoyance just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

  Taemon woke up early the next day, determined to find a way to talk to Amma. He’d show her the drawings in his journal and explain everything. She had trusted him enough to tell him about her abilities, and he should do the same. Taemon dressed quickly and grabbed his jacket. If he hurried, he could be back before Drigg even got out of bed.

  When he reached in his pocket for his journal, he felt nothing. Maybe the other pocket? It wasn’t there either. A quick search of his room yielded nothing. Had it fallen out on the way home yesterday? Skies, now he had two things to confess to Amma: one, that he had a strange form of psi called clairvoyance. And two, that he’d drawn her family’s psi lock but had lost the drawing somewhere in town!

  Taemon started off toward Amma’s house. If he was able to convince her that he had clairvoyance, perhaps she would help him look for the journal. Thankfully, anyone who found it wouldn’t be able to make head or tail of his sketches and notes. Not without psi.

  Standing at the front door, Taemon hesitated. He knew how hard it had been for Amma’s da to trust him. How much harder would it be once he heard what Taemon had to tell him?

  Taemon raised his hand to knock, which was a rather painful thing psiless people had to do when they wanted to enter someone else’s home. But before he could knock, Amma opened the door.

  She looked worried. “I was just going to get you,” she said.

  Behind her came the sound of loud voices. Upset voices.

  “Why?” Taemon asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Vangie. She’s run away.”

  Amma led Taemon into the kitchen, where her parents, Vangie’s parents, and Hannova sat around the table. They all looked tense and worried.

  Vangie’s mother wrung her hands. “She’s obsessed with psi — psi fashion, psiball, temple gossip. She wanted to be an innocent in the temple with her cousin, but I wouldn’t let her. I’m sure she’s gone to the city.”

  “If that’s true,” Hannova said, “we should be able to find her. I can talk to the priests. We can bring her back.”

  Amma frowned. “She’s talked about running away before. I never thought she was serious. Why would she leave now?”

  “Our little Flower,” said Vangie’s mother. “Skies watch over her.”

  Hannova put her arm around Vangie’s mother. “I’ll send a runner. We’ll set up a meeting with the priests. Temple innocents are required to get parental permission. And there are fees for room and board. They won’t take her in without that. Did she take anything valuable with her?”

  “No,” Vangie’s father said. “Not that I can tell.”

  A terrible thought was forming in Taemon’s head. What if his journal hadn’t fallen out of his pocket after all? He recalled Vangie grabbing his journal from him, flipping through the pages with obvious interest. Staring at his drawing of the lock . . .

  Taemon spoke up. “Did Vangie know about the —?” He stopped. Mr. Parvel was glaring intently at him. He realized that Vangie’s parents were not supposed to know about the library.

  “About the what?” Vangie’s father asked.

  Taemon hesitated. “About the pain she would cause everyone by leaving?” he finished lamely. Mr. Parvel relaxed slightly, and Vangie’s mother burst into tears. Mrs. Parvel tried to comfort her, while Vangie’s father started ranting about city life and the allure it held for impressionable young kids.

  Taemon took advantage of the chaos to slip off his stool and whisper in Amma’s ear: “Can I talk to you outside?”

  “What?” Amma whispered. “You still have psi and you didn’t tell me? How could you?”

  “It’s not real psi. Not the useful kind. And I was going to tell you. I just —”

  Amma paced a few steps away, then turned and came back. “Let me get this straight. Y
ou actually drew pictures of the psi door and its lock? Holy Mother Mountain, Taemon! What were you thinking?”

  He wished there was some way to explain why he’d done it. Nothing he could think of sounded logical. “It’s just something that I —”

  “My da’s going to kill me. Then you. Skies, if I’d known you had psi, I never would have . . . My da’s going to kill me.”

  “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you,” Taemon said. “I was afraid you’d treat me differently if you knew I had psi. And I was right, wasn’t I? You think of me completely differently now.”

  “That’s not the point. You should have told me.” Amma said. “Okay, let’s think. Just because the journal is missing doesn’t mean Vangie has it. And even if she does have it, maybe they’ll find her before she shows it to anyone. Maybe it will be okay.”

  “Maybe. But we should still tell your da.” Taemon tried to look her in the eye but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No,” Amma said. “The library is my responsibility. Mine and my family’s. And we’ll honor it.”

  Taemon watched her walk back into the house.

  After a miserable day and a restless night, Taemon had finally fallen asleep, only to be caught up in a nightmare. He was in the middle of an earthquake, and it wouldn’t stop. He heard rumbling all around him. The ground trembled. He started awake, only to realize that the trembling wasn’t part of a dream at all.

  He threw on some clothes and ran in his bare feet through the tinker’s shop and out the door. He saw Drigg standing in the street and stopped next to him.

  “What is it? An earthquake?” Taemon asked.

  “No. Haulers. Very large haulers,” Drigg said, as if in a daze.

  Half a dozen large vehicles were being driven into the colony. Much too large for the colony’s small streets, they barreled over mailboxes, flowerbeds, bicycles — anything too close to the edge of the street.

  “Why are they here? Are we being invaded?”

  Drigg said nothing. He wouldn’t even look at Taemon, but kept his eyes on the road.

  “Shouldn’t somebody do something?” Taemon said. He and Drigg were some of the only people on the street. Everyone else seemed to be hiding in their houses.