1503951200

by Camille Griep

  He could paw at me all he wanted. For once, he had no idea who was in front of him. The power of Foresight—my visions—was about as involuntary as powers could be, but elemental magic felt different, like weight and breadth, at various times complex and simple and boundless, and on a third try like a simple tug-of-war.

  The Bishop had made a mistake letting me travel so far back into his timeline, and it had sapped his reserves. He reached forward into my mind, pushing at the edges of my visions, but he was too tired to get very far. Certainly too tired to once again wield the slice of wind magic he’d stolen from Cal.

  He was in better shape in the bodily world. He’d torn my sweater and had me pinned against the wall. It was time to show him that I could best him here, too. I concentrated on every grain of sand in the concrete walls around me, and I pulled. Just slightly. The walls around us flexed.

  He stumbled back from me. Horrible recognition flooded his face. “She didn’t.”

  I could pull the whole place down around us if I wished.

  “She did,” I said. And with the planks of wood beneath our feet at the ready, I threw the boards under his boots up about three feet. He fell down hard. I grabbed his wrist again.

  He raised his free palm to buffet me with wind, using the last of his strength. Even before he could let loose, I pulled the dust from the swirling air, touching it to the candles lining the room.

  There was an explosion like nothing I’d ever dreamed of. It might have been the car. It might have been the Sanctuary.

  There was fire and then there was darkness.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Syd

  Len and I are rocked off our knees by heat and light. Though the blast is soundless, the ground under the gate heaves and the two halves sag open—the steel horses coil in on themselves, the guards confused and injured and bleeding. We waste no time in sprinting through.

  People are running from the square, and there is blood, but not the carnage we expected from Len’s vision. And even stranger, the sculpted Cress is intact.

  I’m trying to study faces, but people have their heads down. Smoke is coming from somewhere. A woman, Becky Purcell’s mother, is lying on the ground, the skin on her arms and legs striped pink as if she’s been hit by lightning. Len dashes away and returns soon after with a hay cart from the courthouse stables.

  Another man helps him load Mrs. Purcell and a few others with similar injuries. Sheriff Jayne arrives and starts a second evacuation brigade.

  “I’m going to find Cas,” I say. Len nods at me gratefully.

  Mangold and Nelle pass us as they head toward the gate. Her hands cover her mouth as she coughs and retches from the smoke. They both look confused, but she’s still looking up at the top of the Sanctuary. Smoke billows from the crippled building, which is sagging like a wet cardboard box.

  I know Cas is in there. I ask more of my legs than I did in a lifetime of dance.

  Pi is standing just outside the Sanctuary. He’s still bearing the trappings of the altercation at the gate, though his arm is loose of his sling, and a bandage on his head flaps in a hot breeze. I grab his hand as I pass.

  I’m about to jump through the busted Sanctuary door when an arm reaches out to clothesline me. I fall hard, the back of my head pounding me dizzy. I look up at James.

  “What are you doing, you crazy bitch? You can’t go in there. It’s on fire.”

  “My friend is inside,” I say, struggling to stand.

  He wrenches my arms behind my back. “I’m trying to help you, Syd.”

  “Let me go.” At first, he doesn’t seem to hear me. And then I feel his arms go slack. I hear him hit the ground with a thud. I turn to see Pi standing behind him, panting, crowbar in hand.

  “You might need this,” he says, handing me the bar and sinking to his knees.

  “Are you okay? I’ll get you some help.”

  “Syddie?” he says. “I’m fine. I love you. Hurry.”

  Time slows in front of me. The word I comes out of my mouth as James struggles to his knees. Love comes as James swings a piece of rubble at Pi’s head. I know I’m screaming as Pi crumples to the ground. I sink to my knees and gather my uncle in my arms.

  James’s arms snake back around me.

  “Why?” I am wailing, kicking. If I could get ahold of his neck, I’d strangle him.

  “He tried to kill me.”

  “Get away from me.”

  “You’re in shock. Out of your mind. I’ll take you somewhere.”

  My foot connects with something, maybe a knee, and he twists my arm hard. I scream. I use every epithet I have. I struggle. His hands are around my neck. A gunshot cracks, loud, and a pink mist sprays. I fall, then he falls, face away from me.

  Jayne drops to my side, tears thick with snot. She cradles Pi’s head in her hands. “Pi, please,” she says. I shake my head and close my eyes. I wish James had killed me. It’s too much. I can’t do this anymore.

  Len streaks past us, continuing toward the courthouse, calling Cas’s name.

  “She has to be in the Sanctuary,” Jayne says, between sobs. “Go, Syd. You have to go.”

  Inside the ground floor of the Sanctuary, the Governor and Perry are breathing, but motionless beneath one of the big entryway pillars. The stairs seem to be intact, but there’s a wall of burning debris in front of them. I knock away as much as I can with the crowbar, but the metal gets hot and I can’t hold it anymore. I still can’t clear the wall.

  An ax falls down on the debris next to me. There stands Becky Purcell, swinging the blade as if her own life depends on it. “I’ll keep clearing this stuff to keep it from going up the stairs, but you have to move. Now.”

  I’m not sure where she wants me to go. I’ll be in flames by the time I crawl over the pile.

  “Look,” Becky says. “You’ve always been a good jumper. It’s what we all hated about you. So jump this goddamn pile and find Cas before this whole place comes down around our ears.”

  Pi is all I can think about. There’s snot all over my face, and I reach in my pocket for my handkerchief. Buster’s tag falls onto the floor. He and Mina would be brave enough to do this. We aren’t finished yet. I have to find a way.

  “For crying out loud, Syd,” Becky screams. “Your father had air magic. It’s in you. Go.”

  I think about the promotional photos the Company took of the dancers. I think about how high I could jump. I think of fire. I think of wind. I close my eyes and leap.

  “Atta girl,” Becky yells.

  And I’m on the stairs, taking them by twos. The door to the Acolyte apartment is open, and inside the fire is blazing in pastel colors: pink and peach and lilac. The smoke is strange, swirling and acrid. Furniture is stuck to the ceiling, scattered around the room, and the countertops are melting like warm frosting. Cas is sitting in a corner. Her arm hangs at a strange angle and though her eyes are open, she doesn’t seem to see me.

  A hand closes around my ankle. I jump with my other leg, landing on the Bishop’s wrist. He cries out as it cracks, but he releases me. I back up into a burning chair, singeing my ass. He is pinned by the couch and a fallen beam, another beam threatening to come down on his head any minute. I have to risk it to get to Cas.

  I reach down deep once more, Becky’s voice in my head, and hurdle the smoking couch. I reach for Cas’s throat to take her pulse and she shoves me away with her good arm, scooting tighter into the corner. “Don’t.”

  “It’s me, Cas,” I say. “I know it’s going to hurt, but I have to get you out of here now, okay?”

  “Syd? Syd, I can’t see.”

  “It’s okay. There’s fire. A strange fire, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Take some deep breaths, okay? I’m going to pick you up, all right, so just hang on to me.”

  “I’m too big. You can’t.”

  “I can too. Will you try and stand?”

  “It won’t work. I tried. Just leave me.”

  “We’ve made it this far,�
� I say. “I love you, and I’m not leaving you.”

  It takes us longer than I’d like to stand her up. She’s broken in a lot of places, and I know she’s in agony as I try to move myself underneath her.

  The beam over the Bishop cracks and shifts.

  “Wait,” the Bishop says. “Free me.”

  “After what you’ve done?” I say.

  “They took my daughter first,” he says.

  “That’s not how people deal with loss,” I say. I pull Cas’s arms around my neck, and she sobs. I look down at his face, unrecognizable with flame. “You think you took everything, but we still have each other.”

  “Save me and I’ll give you anything you want,” he says.

  “Anything?” I ask.

  “Yes. Anything.”

  Cas doesn’t even pick her head up when the beam comes down behind us.

  Becky has made good headway on the debris in front of the stairs, clearing enough in one spot that we can hand Cas over the top. Becky is much stronger than I am, and picks Cas up like she’s a doll.

  “Tell me who it is,” Cas says. “Syd, please.” She’s biting her lip, no doubt to keep from screaming every time the raw ends of bone shift within her body.

  “It’s our friend Becky,” I say. I squeeze Cas’s hand. She squeezes back and then promptly passes out.

  I make one last jump over the jumble of smoldering pews. But I’m tired, and my back foot catches on something and I land sprawling next to Perry’s body. I scramble up, but something is wrong with my leg. It won’t work right. I half hop, half crawl to the doorway. The ceiling shifts and part of the apartment comes crashing down, the Bishop’s body and the couch among the debris. I roll out of the doorway and into the street.

  I will myself to get up and move. I look around for something to use as a crutch. I wave down Sheriff Jayne, and she slides her shoulder under my arm.

  “Don’t look down, okay?” she says. I think she means my injury, and I look anyway. Pi is at my feet, on the ground next to James.

  “Stay with me, Syd,” Jayne says. “You have to help me get you out of here, okay?”

  A tide of grief washes over me, and I don’t want to move. My parents, Pi, Danny, Troy. “Can’t you just leave me?”

  “He loved us, Syd. Now let’s get on. That’s it. Fast as you can.”

  A sound like thunder, with wind and shifting earth, heralds the fall of Sanctuary, raining down around us as we run.

  Downtown New Charity is decimated, so I decide to bring everyone out to the ranch. Len puts me on a horse behind Becky and he takes the hay cart that holds an unconscious Cas, and we start an uneven procession.

  Jayne, Becky, Len, and I set up our base of operations from the kitchen. I sit on the counter as Jayne splints my leg. Severe injuries are to stay on the main floor for the clinic doctor to look after. Small injuries we send to the basement, where Tess is sewing and bandaging. And then there’s Cas, whom I put in my old bedroom. Len tries to keep helping, but after he comes back with a week’s worth of generator fuel in a wagon, I send him upstairs to rest.

  Bill from the mercantile arrives with more food and drink, yet more generator fuel, bandages, and toilet paper. Others show up with folding chairs and crutches. It’s barely controlled chaos, but the community is supporting itself, showing what the Spirit was always meant to be. I wish Pi could see it happening. The Spirit he believed in, at work in the townspeople.

  Becky almost saves me from my tears “Syd, there’s some giant guy out here. Says he’s from the camp and wants to help. Keeps calling me love.”

  His great big orange-haired head peers around the corner behind her. “How would you feel, love, if you got the hell out of here and let a man feed some folks?”

  Linsey tells us that Nelle, Mangold, and Paul arrived back at camp, injured but whole, though Nelle was apoplectic over Perry. She swore to Linsey she’d finish repairing the power station once we were ready.

  Becky helps me upstairs on my crutches. I make her promise to wake me in a half hour, though I can see her fingers are crossed.

  “Say, I left some things on your bed for you,” she says, closing the door to the mud-brown guest room behind her softly.

  My backpack sits on top of the bed. Inside, the miscellany is wrapped in tissue paper with baling-twine bows. The tuna is gone, instead replaced by hand-crimped tins labeled ‘Smoked Trout.’ And a note. After all this time, I figured out the only gift we ever needed was each other.

  For what might be the first time in my life, I can’t stand the idea of being alone. I knock and Len lets me into the tulle vomitorium. We wordlessly crawl into the double bed around Cas.

  It’s then we sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cas

  I dreamt of lilac flames, again, though when I opened my eyes, there was only darkness. And pain, everywhere, like hot knives.

  I tried to shift my body, but there was no room to move. On one side of me, the shape of a brother I’d known all my life, his easy snores in my ear. On the other side, I could feel Syd’s silken hair, cool on my arm. I couldn’t move the arm on Len’s side; it felt as if it was bound to my body.

  I didn’t think about all we’d lost until later. Much later.

  In that first conscious moment of the life I came to know after, I concentrated on one tiny piece of elation: these ones I loved were safe.

  A week passed, then two. New Charity already felt very different without the Bishop, without my father. With the power restored, with the floodgate open.

  Seeing the future had once defined me, defined my perspective, but for the first time my voice was now my own, not a tool for anyone else. And while I couldn’t say I minded the quiet, the darkness was novel. And frightening.

  Len said that, for him, the worst reminder of the explosion was the gate. He told me how it hung open like a jaw. He and Becky led a group out to tear it down. I made them describe the process from start to finish, trying to make pictures in the continued black miasma of my mind. The horses had been twisted into charred serpents.

  Daytime, nighttime, I’d seen nothing, Spiritual or visual, since. Everyone speculated on whether my eyesight would come back again. But I knew I’d given all of my gifts to the Spirit the day of the explosion.

  It had been a worthy exchange.

  Eventually, the time came to start making decisions on how to rebuild. How to manage our resources fairly. Who would be in charge.

  Syd and I hobbled to the hay cart and we let ourselves be wheeled to the social hall, where Linsey was serving up some manner of noodle casserole, which smelled and tasted like heaven. The old ladies of the Sanctuary kept telling me that they were thrilled for his help. There were so many people to feed.

  I joked about Mama seeing me learning to eat once again, noodles all over the table. Len told me that she’d survived, but had been struck mute. Unable to recognize him. He’d sent her to a home in Meadow where she’d be kept comfortable.

  That day there were greetings. I had already started to learn what everyone’s hands felt like—big, small, firm, clammy, warm, calloused.

  “We’ve decided to gather today as a community,” Jayne began, “because it’s time for us to choose new leadership.”

  Len nodded. “Now that we have a better understanding of how the Bishop used New Charity for the purposes of his own personal revenge, I think we—well, you—should make sure the Sanctuary, or whatever you put in place to converse with the Spirit, will be independent of your civic leadership.”

  “What do you mean, you?” asked Tess. “Just where do you think you’re going, sonny?” I could hear the wink in her voice.

  “After discussing at length with my sister,” Len said, “I’ll be returning to the City with Syd in two weeks’ time. We’ll be working to rebuild the road between the City and New Charity, restarting trade, aid, and even art, of the noncombustible kind, of course. I hear there’s a library project, and I’d very much like to be a part of it.”


  “Anyone else who wants to come is welcome,” Syd said. “Rebuilding is needed on both sides of the mountain. Our two communities working together can achieve more together than we can separately.”

  “We can build things back up again,” Len said. “Better. There will be hardships. Eventually your crops will look like they did fifteen, twenty years ago. But with the floodgate gone, the natural waterways will begin to restore themselves. Becky will one day have healthier fish to feed you. For everything there is a tradeoff, but this time we’ll collaborate to solve problems.”

  I listened with pride. My best friends, risen from the ashes, keeping their promises.

  Syd’s chair squeaked on the linoleum as she scooted it back from the table to stand. “Now back to the subject of leadership.”

  Sheriff Jayne was named to the position of Mayor. Becky Purcell became the new Sheriff. Tess was put in charge of the food bank.

  “It’s rare to pick a Bishop outside the walls of the Sanctuary,” Len said. “But since the Sanctuary itself is unusable, and I’m still technically an Acolyte, I’m going to break the tradition here. Casandra Willis, it is the parishioners’ wish that you take the place as head of the Sanctuary. Are you willing?”

  “Wait,” I said. “What, me? I don’t have a gift. I don’t have anything.”

  Len slipped his hand in mine and squeezed.

  A sensation like warm water ran down my spine. The light behind my eyes changed from black to gray. When I prayed to the Spirit in that moment, it showed me the road, paved and used. It showed the Mangolds, training the children of New Charity how to manage the power station. It showed the magic returning to the next generations of New Charity. Becky’s children and Syd’s.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d felt the Spirit since that terrible day, but it was the first time I’d been able to feel its touch on my cheek. And it was then I realized what Len had just done. “Len, you can’t—”