The Broken Circle (The Book of Sight 2)

by Deborah Dunlevy

  Dominic looked sheepish. “I kind of want to read it again.”

  Adam grinned again. “I know. I read it three times in a row last night. It’s okay. Those guys have already read the story. They’ll understand. We’ll see them tomorrow.”

  “Do you want to stay? I can read it out loud,” said Dom.

  Like Adam really needed to answer that.

  They were just going to read it once, but when they had finished and started talking about things, they realized that they remembered some of the details differently, so they read it again. They were still discussing why they could read it now and not earlier, when Adam happened to look out the window and see that it was completely dark.

  “Oh no,” he said, bolting up. “My mom’s going to kill me. Kill me. Like, I’m already dead. You might as well just bury me right here.”

  Practical as always, Dominic just handed him his glasses, which he had chucked on the bed at some point, and opened the door.

  Adam pounded down the stairs and was halfway out the front door when Mrs. Hernandez put her hand on his arm. He stopped, trying to be polite and yet very, very brief.

  “Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Hernandez. Sorry to go so fast, but I’m really late.”

  “No, no. I call. I call,” she said, patting his arm some more. “I call your mother. I tell her you spend night. She say no problem.”

  “Really? You called my mom? She said I could spend the night here?” Adam was unsuccessfully trying to picture that conversation, Mrs. Hernandez with her limited English on one side and his mother with her impatience on the other.

  Dominic’s grandmother smiled her sweet smile and gestured to the kitchen. “She say no problem. You come eat now. Dominico, es hora de comer. Ya pasaron suficiente tiempo escondidos en esa habitacion.”

  “Mrs. Hernandez, you are a life saver,” said Adam. “Seriously, you are my hero.”

  She just smiled and set a huge platter of her famous tamales on the table.

  • • • • •

  Adam was in a deep sleep, so far under that when something hard smacked his face, his yell was more about fear and confusion than pain. For the first minute. Then the throbbing on his cheekbone drove away all the questions of who and where he was. He was sitting in the dark, in Dominic’s room, and someone had just punched him.

  “Dom?”

  “Sorry, sorry, man, I didn’t mean to hit you. There was this thing… I thought there was this thing… I guess I was dreaming, but it was…”

  “Dude, you’re not making any sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. It was totally weird. I think… I don’t… Get your shoes on. There’s something we need to check out.”

  “It’s like four in the morning! This can’t wait?”

  “No. You can stay if you want. I can just go. It’s not far. I guess I was dreaming, but it was so... I just need to see.” He already had his shoes on and was rummaging for a flashlight.

  Adam’s head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, but he wasn’t going to miss out on anything just because he’d barely slept in two days. “Hold on.”

  Dominic said nothing, but he waited by the door for Adam to catch up. Then he led the way down the stairs and quietly out the front door. It was a cool out, but not cold. There were enough stars to dazzle him, but no moon that Adam could see. He followed Dominic through the garden and down the hill into the woods.

  “Where are we going?”

  Dom didn’t answer. He slipped through the trees, directly to the place where he had found a small village in amongst the roots. Adam had been here several times. The place was fascinating. They had all poked around the little houses and noticed what had once been gardens and a meeting hall. They had speculated endlessly on who or what had lived here and why they had left.

  Interesting as it all was, Adam wasn’t really in the mood to investigate this mystery tonight. Dom didn’t look around at all, though. He went straight to a gnarly old tree in the middle of the village. He knelt down and began to pull away leaves and debris from the foot of the tree. He dug for a minute and then sat back with a loud, “HA!”

  “What?

  Dominic was holding up something small and round, like a silver dollar only made out of wood. “It wasn’t just a dream. I knew it.”

  “You dreamed about this thing?”

  “Not just this.”

  Dom brushed the disc off on his shirt and then turned to look at the nearest row of little houses. He chose the third one from the right hand side and stepped over the little gate. If they got on all fours, the boys could crawl through the tiny door and into the house. There was barely room for both of them in the cramped inside. No matter how small the previous occupants had been, this couldn’t have been a very big house. Adam waited while Dominic blew some dust off the back wall.

  Under the dust was a pattern, apparently painted right onto the wall. And right in the middle of the pattern was a slightly hollowed out circle.

  “No way,” breathed Adam, all tiredness forgotten.

  Dominic fitted the wooden disc into the little hole that was obviously made for it. For a second there was nothing. Then the whole back wall opened. The boys were both holding their breath as they waited for the dust to settle.

  Dominic shined the light into the room beyond the wall. It was also very small and seemed to be empty until they saw the round pool dug into the floor. It was filled with water, water that even in the dark they could see was perfectly clean.

  Adam felt cold all over, not afraid exactly, but dead certain that this was about to change everything. A part of him was curious and excited. Another part wanted to back out of the little house and pretend they had never seen that circle of water.

  If Dominic felt any of this, Adam couldn’t tell. Without hesitating, he inched forward and looked into the pool. Adam could hear him suck in his breath. That was all it took for his own curiosity to win. He crept forward and looked at what Dominic was seeing.

  For one second, all he saw was the reflection of their two faces. Then, as if millions of tiny fingers were quickly rearranging the image, the reflection changed. There were no longer two boys looking back at them but a single strange face, not human, not Gylf, not like anything that Adam had ever seen.

  It was more like an animal than anything. Hair covered the entire face, including the small ears that lay flat against the head. Yet it wasn’t an animal. The mouth looked serious, the eyes intelligent, the expression decidedly human. Then it started to talk.

  Talking might not have been the right work actually. No sound was coming out, but the creature was obviously saying words, and Adam found that he could understand them perfectly. It was a bit like lip reading, only Adam had never been able to read lips before. Instead, the words just seemed to echo in his head, voiceless but very clear.

  ““If you have found this place and can see this record, then you are a Sighted One indeed. No one else could have discovered it. The Circle of Sight, our protectors, has been disbanded, we must flee or be discovered and eradicated, but our Recorders believe that some day a new circle will arise, whenever the time is right, and it is not in us to abandon you to ignorance and therefore defeat. We have decided upon the anemone to transfer the most critical information. These anemone will hold our message as long as is necessary, but I must be brief. They only have the capacity to record a short time. Not enough time for all that must be told, but all other methods were deemed too dangerous. Listen carefully, for this message will only replay one time.

  “The Other has sent you the Book of Sight, or you would not be able to see as you do. You will have begun to see many things and to experience changes in yourself. Do not be afraid. The Book of Sight is a gift beyond price, and what it offers is life as it was meant to be. The Book can be trusted when nothing else can, and the Other would not have chosen you if you were not able. But there are enemies who will stop at nothing to keep you from seeing what you see. The Counsel is enormously powerful and has
many evil servants as well as lesser tools that can be twisted to their purposes. It is critical that you find other Sighted Ones and stand together. Without a Circle, no one can stand against the Counsel. It will not be long until the Counsel knows who you are and what you can do. It is impossible to hide if you keep reading. Be on your guard. They will attempt to strip you of the Book and prevent your eyes from being further opened. They will be intent on stopping the spread of Sight. They will desire above all things to break the circle. Beware of traitors, beware of divisions among you. If you survive long enough, they will send Breakers among you, to destroy the Circle. These Breakers appear human and even your sight will not help you see otherwise, but they are not human in spirit. They are spirits akin to the counsel who have taken human forms. There is no time to relate their story, but fear them. Their hatred for humans consumes them, yet they are able to be patient and work their schemes slowly. They may smile, but no mercy is in them. They are assassins at heart. The only defense against them is to stand together. They will not strike while the circle is united. They will attempt to lure away individuals and end them in private. This is how you will know them. Those who sow seeds of division, those who encourage lone acts of bravery, those are your enemies. A true Sighted One will want unity, will want to make the circle grow.

  “My time is almost done. There is much we must tell you. You must find us in the place to which we flee. The travelers will know the place. Come to us. We can teach you what you need to know. That has ever been our task. May your eyes grow in light, Sighted One. May the Circle of Sight endure.”

  7

  Working by Touch

  Inside the circle of trees they had named The Redoubt, Alex stared at her friend. “You dreamed the whole thing and then when you went out there it was exactly like your dream?”

  Dominic’s face was as unreadable as ever. “Yeah. Well, not the message. Just the other stuff. In my dream I walked down there, I found the little wooden circle, I went to the house and saw the design on the wall. The circle fit right in and the wall opened up. It felt real, like I was really there. Only when the wall opened in my dream, a shadow seemed to come right for me so I swung my arms out to block it.”

  “-and pegged me right in the face,” Adam broke in. “It was an awesome way to wake up.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Dominic.

  “So you were there, too?” asked Logan. He had been listening in total silence until now.

  “Yeah, I was spending the night. It wasn’t really planned. It’s a long story,” said Adam. “But crazy as it all was, the craziest part is the message.”

  Adam didn’t seem to notice, but Alex saw Logan’s shoulders hunch up. She thought maybe the sleepover thing was a bigger deal to him than it was to anyone else. She knew he felt left out of things sometimes. They all did the best they could, but there was no way around the fact that he had responsibilities that the rest of them didn’t have.

  Dominic was talking again. “He said that if we had found the message, we definitely had the Sight because no one else could have found that place…”

  “Wait a minute,” interrupted Eve. “This place was super secret, which means we probably need to keep it that way. Has anyone checked for muxen this morning?”

  “We did when we first got here,” said Dominic, “but that was a while ago.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” said Eve and she let out a piercing whistle.

  Sure enough, there was an answering squeak as something florescent pink dropped from nowhere right onto Logan’s head. Before anyone could react, the lizard-like creature had leapt to the ground and was streaking away through the grass.

  “Did he do it?” asked Adam, when the pink spot disappeared.

  “I’m not sure,” said Alex. “I think so.”

  “Do what?” asked Eve. “Is he doing something besides the obvious spying and gossiping to everyone he meets?”

  “The last time we caught him here Adam thought he saw him turn back after he had supposedly run away. Like maybe when the pink fades, he is sneaking back to listen again.”

  “Why would he do that?” asked Eve. “I thought we agreed he was mostly harmless now that he doesn’t have that pilpi thing to report to… Oh, I see what you mean. Maybe he has a new boss now.”

  “I didn’t think much of it until after the explosion,” said Adam. “But then I told Alex about what I had seen. I mean…someone had to bring in those bugs. Plus, when you hear the message Dom found…”

  “Which we obviously can’t talk about here, now,” said Dom. “Not without dealing with the muxen.”

  “Let’s just leave him for now,” said Alex. “We can just walk while we talk, right? It’s at least 900 degrees outside, so pretty much everyone but us in inside.”

  “And you think it would be fun to walk around while it’s 900 degrees?” asked Adam.

  “Not fun. Smart,” she said.

  “I know, just joking. Lame joke.”

  “So let’s walk,” said Eve. “I can’t be the only one who is dying to hear this message.”

  When Dominic finished retelling the whole message (with a few reminders from Adam), they all walked in silence for a while. Then Eve and Alex both started talking at once.

  “I just can’t…”

  “Who are these…”

  Alex laughed. “You go ahead.”

  Eve took a second to let out a shrill whistle. When no one saw pink, she started in, “I just can’t believe that after we get these books with no explanation at all, we spend all this time trying to figure things out with no help at all, or at least basically no help, no help that can really answer all the questions for us, suddenly here we find these…things…and they are just waiting somewhere to tell us everything? I mean, where were they a year ago? Or at least, I know that they said something about having to hide and I know they left this message, but it’s just like going from nothing to everything overnight or something. Or it would be if we actually knew where they were. Okay, I just realized I’m not making much sense. I should have just let you talk, Alex.”

  “I know what you mean. It does seem too good to be true, but I guess…I mean, Dom dreamed it. That’s pretty… that seems like something that would come from reading the book. How else could you dream something like that? Maybe it’s like the stories. Maybe it was just time.” Alex paused when Logan snorted, but he didn’t say anything. “Anyway, what’s freaking me out is this Breakers thing. People who hate us? Who’ll do anything to break us up? I mean, we knew someone must be trying to cover things up with those Red Spots, but this is pretty freaky. And it’s a person or… people, and could be anyone around us. I feel paranoid already. How are we supposed to find them?”

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to find them,” said Adam. “The message just said to watch out for them. As long as we don’t let anyone come between us, we’re fine. What we’re supposed to look for are these Travelers, who can take us to find the…creatures…that left the message and get the whole story. Getting the whole story sounds pretty good to me.”

  “So we’re just supposed to ignore the part where there are some assassin people who hate humans but look human and are probably hunting us?” Logan stopped walking. Alex was worried by the look on his face.

  Eve immediately moved into smoothing over mode. “I don’t think he means we ignore it. It’s more like there isn’t anything we can do about it.”

  “Why not?” Logan was actually raising his voice. He never raised his voice. “We can try to figure out who it is, can’t we? Am I the only one who remembers those Red Spots? There has to be at least one person who knows about us and brought them here. And now something just as horrible or more horrible maybe could be set loose on us any minute. We should be figuring out who would do that. It’s not like we know who these travelers are either, so if we have to run around chasing down more things we don’t know anything about, it seems like it should be the dangerous thing that’s trying to kill us all.”

/>   “It didn’t actually say they wanted to kill us,” pointed out Adam.

  “I’m sorry, ‘end us.’ You’re right, that’s so much better.”

  “Logan, we’re all worried about this. You’re right, it’s scary, but getting mad isn’t going to help.”

  Looking at Logan’s hunched shoulders, Alex could tell something else was bothering him. “Logan, what’s wrong? I mean, other than the obvious. Did something happen?”

  Logan’s eyes shot to hers defensively. Alex just looked steadily back until his shoulders relaxed a bit. “Yeah. I don’t know. It’s…when I got up this morning, there was a mark painted on the side of my house.”

  “A mark?”

  “Yeah, like…” Logan stopped and grabbed a stick. In the dirt on the side of the road he drew what looked like a big dot between two parenthesis. “It was right next to the front door.”

  Eve had her head cocked to the side. “What’s it supposed to be?”

  “The first thing I thought of was a Red Spot,” said Logan.

  Eve grabbed his arm. “That’s awful.”

  Logan’s voice was steady, but his eyes were still on the drawing on the ground. “I think someone is marking my house.”

  Alex felt a cold chill. Eve sucked in her breath.

  “Oh man,” said Adam, “But you don’t know that, right? I mean, it might just be graffiti.”

  Eve nodded. “Yeah, just kids playing around.”

  Alex studied the drawing. It looked sinister there on the ground, but she knew Eve and Adam were trying to make Logan feel better. And for all she knew, they might be right.

  “There’s other graffiti around there, right? I mean, why would someone mark your house and not the rest of our houses?”

  “Oh right,” said Logan, eyes blazing again. “I forgot. Graffiti is common in my neighborhood. So yeah, I shouldn’t worry about my family at all.”

  “That’s not…”

  “He didn’t mean it like that,” said Eve. “We just don’t want to jump to conclusions. There’s already enough to be scared of.”