Short Stories from the Network Series

by Katie Cross

  Soon, Angelina thought. She’ll be hungry enough to be angry soon.

  Darkness seemed to descend all at once, casting a dreary, chilly blackness over the manor. Candles flickered in the windows of the school, ringed by a wrought iron fence and held captive by the circle of trees surrounding it. Angelina ducked when a shadow walked by the attic window, but it didn’t matter. No one could see her. Certainly, no one would be looking for her, a lost soul in the woods. The very idea that she had returned was ludicrous, but she remained hidden all the same.

  She leaned down until her lips nearly brushed the babe’s ear. Strands of ragged, unwashed hair fell into the scrunched face. The baby stirred.

  “I love you, little one. But I cannot keep you alive. I am not sure I will survive myself. If I abandon you to an orphanage, I may never find you again.” Her eyes flickered to the house. A dark edge crept into her voice. “Your grandmother will keep you alive. Celia will find you on the porch and take you inside. May will not send you away; it would harm her reputation too much. No. You will survive here until I return.”

  All of Angelina’s insides seemed to shrivel as she hurried up the path the moment the moon slid behind a cloud. My child, she thought. My daughter. I promised I would be a better mother than my own. How can I abandon her?

  The scent of fresh bread floated on the air. Happy squeals drifted through the door as Angelina hesitated, listening. Such joy. Such youthful mirth. Did they realize how blessed they were?

  As she untied the makeshift shawl anchoring the babe to her chest, her heart shrank in fear. I cannot do it, she thought. I cannot leave her.

  A cold wind whipped by in a heartless reminder of what awaited her. A frigid death, likely. The cursed life of a vagabond in Letum Wood. Angelina peered back into the forest. Her arms felt limp, like an old rope. Her insides still cramped. If she knocked on the door, May would turn her away, baby and all. Celia would have to listen to her employer.

  But May would take just the baby. Angelina could feel it. In the wake of your failures, May had said, I will find my real daughter. Somehow.

  With one last kiss on the tiny, wrinkled cheek, Angelina swaddled the baby as tightly as possible and set her on the woven mat. She knocked hard, then dashed away, flittering back into the safety of the trees. Once out of sight, she whirled around, digging the tips of her fingers into the rough bark of a tree trunk.

  “Answer it, Celia,” she pleaded. “Answer the door!”

  The baby stirred. A thin cry reached Angelina’s ears. She bit her bottom lip until the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Just when she could bear it no longer, the door opened. A crack of light spilled onto the porch. The baby cried in earnest now. Celia stepped out, a hand pressed to her face. She reached for the small bundle, pulling it into her arms. Celia glanced out into the forest. Angelina shrank back.

  I cannot keep you, little one, her heart cried. I may not even survive this last, desperate spell into a different Network. But I will always care for you.

  With a choked sob, Angelina gathered the last of her energy and transported away.

  Angelina landed in a puddle of mud.

  She groaned when a sharp rock stabbed her ribcage. Darkness swamped the edges of her vision. Her arms gave way when she pushed up with her hands. Her fingers sank into another pocket of mud. In the distance, a horse whinnied. Everything appeared dim here, in the deepest forest. When she shoved her hand forward, gravel grated on her fingertips.

  Yes, she thought in relief. A road.

  Through bleary eyes, she could just make out a dreary fog lingering in the only open space nearby. She’d transported herself to a road. Or had she walked here? Her mind whirred, unable to remember. Using the tips of her shoes, and digging her fingers deep into the soil, she pushed forward. Her elbows snagged on a rock. Her knee scraped an exposed stone. The clop of the horse’s feet drew nearer.

  Must get to the horse and rider.

  Movement by movement, she inched forward until she lay across the middle of the mud-slaked road. Exhausted, she pressed her cheek into the wet soil with a sigh. The sound of the horse’s approach increased. She could almost feel the vibrations of the hooves. They’d run her over. They wouldn’t see her in this fog.

  But it didn’t matter. Because only seconds away lingered sweet, sweet oblivion. Where the pain didn’t hurt so much, and the darkness wasn’t quite so unfriendly.

  Just before Angelina slid into the welcoming chasm, she heard a voice call out.

  Angelina woke to the feeling of sweet, heavy warmth.

  She stirred beneath a pile of soft, thick blankets. Her legs felt deliciously refreshed, as if she’d slept for days. She luxuriated in the feeling for several long moments, marveling that her stomach didn’t throb any longer. When she’d fallen asleep, she’d been stretched across a muddy—

  She sat up with a gasp.

  Sunlight streamed into a single room cottage with bright, white-washed walls and an open window. A salty tang filled the air. In the distance, a bird trilled a distant call. Was that the ocean? She touched a hand to her hair. Washed. Brushed, even. It fell around her shoulders in loose brown locks. Slowly, Angelina slid her legs off the mattress of downy goose feathers and to the floor.

  Did she dare hope her plan had worked?

  “Ah,” a voice said from behind her. Angelina’s head jerked back to see a woman step into the room. She had rich black hair—just like hers, but this woman’s eyes were as deep and dark as her hair. Pools of ebony. They studied each other in uncertain interrogation. Firewood levitated in the air behind the witch as she stepped toward a small fire in the hearth.

  Dark hair and eyes, she thought. A promising sign.

  “Merry meet,” Angelina managed, her voice croaking. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  The witch responded with a string of unfamiliar words. The distinct, husky accent gave the witch away. Angelina suppressed a rush of joy. I’m here, she thought. The Central Network is behind me. Let the plan begin.

  Angelina switched to the common language. “Do you understand me?” she asked.

  The grooves in the witch’s face smoothed out. “Yes. I understand and speak the common language. My name is Marcelina. My husband is Roberto.” She inclined her head. “Welcome to our humble ocean home.”

  Marcelina. Roberto. Ocean home. Angelina had arrived in the Eastern Network on her last dying breath.

  Fate, she thought. The good gods are finally smiling down on me. I’m destined for greatness here. I can already feel it.

  Angelina’s shoulders slumped in relief. “My name is Angelina. Thank you for helping me. Am I in Cupertino?”

  Cupertino city sat just across the border from the Central Network, near the old dirt road she’d transported to. Or meant to, anyway. In her hazy, post-birth state, she wasn’t sure where she’d landed.

  The witch sent a pile of firewood to the hearth. It clattered, but gathered into a perfectly stacked pile. Marcelina clapped her hands together to shake the dust free, then reached down to grab a bucket near the door. “Lark,” she said, propping it on her hip. One hand went to the doorknob, as if she meant to leave already. Angelina felt a stab of panic. She leaned forward.

  “Wait. Please don’t leave yet. Lark?” she repeated. “Where is Lark?”

  Marcelina regarded her with narrowed eyes. Her chin lifted. “A little village off the southern coast, near the Southern Network. My husband found you on the road. He thought you were dead. When he brought you here, so did I.”

  Angelina sat back. “Oh.”

  “Feeling better?”

  “Yes.”

  Marcelina’s jaw tightened. “Then where’s the baby?”

  Angelina’s breath caught. Marcelina didn’t give her the chance to ask the obvious. “I’ve seen birth and blood like that before. You were drenched in it. One doesn’t have to be a mother to know what happened.”

  A sudden wave of fatigue rushed back through her. Despite her heavy sleep, she
felt as if she could rest for several days more. The sound of the baby crying on the doorstep rang back through Angelina’s mind, but she shoved it away to think about later.

  Angelina didn’t realize how long she’d let the silence go until Marcelina’s eyes narrowed.

  “You didn’t abandon it on the roadside, did you?” she asked, her eyes flinty. “My husband said he looked, but—”

  “No!” Angelina recoiled. “No, I didn’t leave my baby to die. M-my mother has her.” She turned away. “The baby is safe.”

  I hope.

  Marcelina softened infinitesimally.

  “Sleep more if you need to.” She reached for a loaf on the table and handed her several slices thick with butter. “When you feel better, you can eat again, but then you need to go. We’re too busy to stay at home like this, and we don’t have enough to feed another mouth right now.”

  With that, Marcelina disappeared outside.

  Angelina stared at the bread on her lap, blinked, took a bite, and then lay back down, pulled the covers up, and fell back into a deep sleep.

  The first weeks wandering through the Eastern Network slid by in an obscure fog.

  Angelina let the days go, content to lose them like sand through her fingers. Life as a vagabond wasn’t new; she knew how to hide from patrolling Guardians, avoid small villages, and dash into the bushes when wagons rattled by. She stole bread from windowsills, pulled water from private wells, and slept in the forests that occasionally dotted the coast. The gulls lulled her to sleep. She stayed warm with her shawl and bathed in freshwater streams as she found them.

  Her days roaming the Eastern Network soothed her like a balm. Months passed. A year. Angelina’s olive skin blended in like she’d always been there. She kept an eye on the headlines of their newsbooks—not even a newsscroll in her strange new world—and waited for her plan to fall into place.

  She committed everything about this new world to memory, spending most of her time memorizing the language. The dialects. The way Eastern witches spoke with their hands instead of words.

  She thought of her daughter daily. Was she eating bread and milk yet? Did Celia raise her as her own? More than her little girl, Angelina thought about the delicious wisp of darkness she’d felt in May’s office. Oppressive. Distinct.

  And very, very forbidden.

  One mild day in the early spring, she strolled down a market along the pier in Temi, a sprawling city known for its fresh fish and hand-painted figurines of the legendary merfolk. Silvery, wet fish lay in piles on wooden crates. Limp, veiny shrimp filled a low pallet with their wiggling, translucent bodies. Nearby, a witch with a twisted mustache skinned a shark with the head still attached. The smell of decaying fish didn’t bother Angelina anymore. She closed her eyes, drawing it deep into her lungs.

  The ocean, she thought. The ocean sustains us. It is part of us. We love and serve the ocean.

  The witch with the sprawling mustache smiled.

  “You understand,” he said, his words thick and heavy, like the knife he used as deftly as a knitting needle. Angelina smiled and moved on. At the end of the market, she turned to leave when a newsgirl caught her eye, waving the latest newsbook. Her tiny ankles looked so thin, Angelina feared she’d collapse.

  “Isobel!” the girl cried, running to Angelina’s side. Ah. Sweet Sera. Angelina hadn’t seen her in months. Sera called over her shoulder. “Abelie! Lia! Come quickly. Isobel is here!”

  A group of newsgirls flocked to Angelina’s side, murmuring her name over and over under their breath. “Isobel. Isobel,” they said. “The bringer of joy. She has come again!”

  Angelina bestowed her brightest smile on them. “Yes!” she said, laughing. “I have brought you more good things. Your dear Isobel never forgets you.”

  She’d chosen her Eastern Network name carefully. The superstition ran deep in their culture that the meaning of a name foretold great or terrible things. Isobel, Bringer of Joy, would suit her long-term purposes admirably.

  Using her favorite—and most popular—incantation, Isobel produce one small piece of candy for each child. Grasping with greedy, dirty hands, the girls snatched all the candy away, scattering into the nooks and crannies of the bustling market with giggles. Magic didn’t create very delectable food—it always tasted bland and porous—but these poor street urchins didn’t know the difference. Only Sera remained behind, sucking on the treat with a broad grin.

  “What news do you have today, Sera?” Angelina asked, reaching down to brush the girl’s hair out of her eyes. Like all newsgirls, she wore it chopped short, shorn as a symbol of her status. Orphans, most of them. Scraping by with barely enough to eat. But they were a proud lot. Angelina liked them immensely.

  Sera brandished a newsbook. The thin pages flapped, trilling a soft song. “Something wonderful! The High Priest’s son, Diego, has finally decided to search for a wife! The whole Network is talking about it.”

  Angelina’s heart fluttered, borne away on wings of shock. Had it come? Her long-awaited purpose. She blinked. “Oh?” she asked, feigning disinterest. “Why is that wonderful?”

  Sera’s face fell. She dropped the paper back to her side. “But Isobel! The lucky peasant girl he chooses could be you. They even have a list of places he’ll appear to meet with the peasants. You must go meet him.”

  Angelina ran the tips of her fingers down Sera’s face. Whenever she saw Sera, she loved to imagine the little urchin belonged to her. That Sera was the daughter she’d left behind. That the empty ache of love inside her could be filled with Sera’s adoring gaze. But, no. A mere dream. An illusion. Sera’s beautiful green eyes, the exact shade of sea foam, were not her daughter’s.

  Sky blue, Angelina recalled, the image a wisp of memory.

  “I’m a vagabond, Sera. Magnolia Castle is no place for a witch like me. When would I sleep under the stars? I would have to wear nice dresses and have food served to me.” She pulled a disgusted face.

  Sera giggled, then frowned. “But Isobel! You would have all the food a witch could want.” She pressed a thin hand to her stomach. “Surely, you must want to try?”

  Angelina put a hand under Sera’s chin. She’d tried to take care of the little girl in the past—give her a cloak, some food, even new shoes—but the girl adamantly refused help. Newsgirls cared for themselves.

  “Darling Sera, you are a special girl. Here’s ten pence. May I keep this newsbook? Thank you. Go on. Sell many, many more and earn yourself a warm dinner tonight.”

  The girl accepted the currency with a nod, a sparkle in her eye. “Come back to see me, Miss Isobel?”

  “Of course, Sera. Of course.”

  She watched the little witch scamper away, bellowing the headlines in the newsbook with an arm waving wildly. Angelina’s eyes narrowed on the bolded headline. The Impegno Begins. Dates listed beneath it in order of appearance, ending in her favorite little hideaway of all. A sly smile stole across Angelina’s face.

  The Impegno begins … and so does my ascension to power.

  While resting in a pocket of sand, tucked safely into her favorite copse of trees along the coast, an unusual sound struck Angelina’s ears. She smiled to herself, steeling herself for a short wait. After months of tracking the Impegno, her moment had finally come.

  A bright sun still infused the sky as it sat on the edge of the horizon, spilling glowing white and yellow beams. She pushed up, the sand shifting beneath her hands. A few paces away, slinking along the trees, was a broad-figured shadow. Groping blindly, she felt for the stray branch she kept nearby and closed her fingers around it. The looming figure tripped over a vine, nearly tumbling to his feet.

  “Lacce,” a deep voice muttered. Angelina straightened. The stranger might not be the High Priest’s son—but she doubted that. This would be his last stop in the Impegno. After weeks of traveling throughout the Network, any witch—highborn or not—would seek escape from the teeming crowd of females awaiting him in the plaza on his last stop. Even a woul
d-be High Priest needed time to think. Angelina’s extensive knowledge of the area made it obvious that if the young royal were to escape, he’d come here. The only isolated stretch of beach in the area.

  Yes, she thought. Come this way.

  The male witch stumbled into the small clearing only a few paces away. As if drawn there by a magnet, his eyes drifted to hers. Angelina’s breath caught.

  She’d spent over a year wandering the Eastern Network; enduring all four seasons without permanent shelter, working only long enough to earn currency to wander again. She knew each village on the coast by name. Had glimpsed the tantalizing Magnolia Castle and smelled the sweet, deep blooms of magnolia flowers that never died. She’d poured over books in libraries, memorizing historical facts, names, accomplishments. Committed the flowering language into the deep center of her heart. Sometimes it felt as if her integration into the Eastern Network had been so complete that she’d met every witch on the coast.

  But never, in all her many wanderings, had she seen such eyes.

  Arrested, the male witch stopped. Long, curved lashes, dark as coal, blinked once. He tensed, hands held out in front of him as if he were about to shove her. Angelina leaned back, away from him. She tightened her grip on the cudgel. Showing fear didn’t prove to be that difficult. A witch of this size could get whatever he wanted by force.

  Play it right, Angelina, she thought. And you’ll be a High Priestess before you know it.

  The long silence became almost unbearable as they sized each other up. His gaze drifted from her face, to her shoulders, to the exposed portion of her lower legs. His shoulders straightened, and he drew to his full, rather impressive, height and put his hands on his hips.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.