Letters From the Sky

by Tamer Lorika

  There! At the end of the hall, a flash of black hair turning around the corner. Jeanne began to move again, feet pounding down the hall and skidding around the corner as well, following the silhouette.

  The hallway headed towards the basement; there was an old staircase, then darker classrooms and storage rooms, places only the janitors knew of, the boiler-room at the end of the hall. It was all dark.

  A flicker—the lights above her head were flickering, and with it, her vision, but surely there was a shadow moving ahead of her, surely that wasn’t a trick of her eyes. The planes grew louder. There were no more shouts of pursuit behind her, though; she had lost them, she thought, turning a corner in the strange, uncouth labyrinth of the school basement. She didn’t know where the staircase out was. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going back. Everywhere was the hum of drones and the taunting of the spectre in front of her.

  A turn, a turn and a half, left or right, it didn’t matter anymore, she ran down the flickering hallway, always chasing, and her vision twitched in and out—what was wrong with the lights? What was wrong with her eyes?

  At the very end of the hall a door stood open, a closet, maybe, but so dark and gaping it could have been covered with black cloth, or painted on, not even a room at all. The spectre stood in the doorway, face in shadow, white body glistening, beckoning, daring Jeanne to follow. She did, running to it, feet pounding and heart racing and God, what is happening? She threw herself at it, crying out.

  The shape disappeared.

  She hit the back wall of the closet hard enough to daze her, unable to gain enough friction to stop before her head cracked painfully against the cinderblock.

  The door on the outside swung closed with a slam of finality. No matter how much Jeanne tugged at it, it would not open.

  Chapter 5

  “The power is out,” Armand said, needlessly. Twenty-nine pairs of frightened eyes focused on him as he trudged back into the room. “I want you to all sit still.”

  The planes had died away, and the quiet was eerie, dead air.

  Madame Bonnefoy, as well as Ms. Milovskaya and Ms. Roma, appeared in the open doorway, similar looks of half-worry, half-crushing relief, painted across their faces.

  Ms. Milovskaya was the first to speak. “Is everyone all right? I don’t—”

  “Jeanne just tore out of here!” Charles yelled. He was the only one not huddled on the floor; he stood straight, agitated. “Someone has to find her. I think she’s ill.”

  Ms. Milovskaya was speechless for a moment, guilt written on her features. “Oh—oh my, Armand, what—”

  “She took off before I could stop her,” Armand explained. “I had to choose between the twenty-nine students in here or continuing after one troublemaker—”

  “Yes, yes, you did the right thing,” Ms. Roma muttered moodily, her freckles wrinkling with a scornful pout. “But now you’ve got a student wandering the halls and it’s dark as pitch out there, so you’d best leave the kids to Madame Bonnefoy and help us find her.”

  Madame Bonnefoy nodded serenely. “Here—there were candles in the administrator’s room.” She carried a bundle of thick, white tallow wrapped in brown paper and a packet of matches. “I will watch the other students; the rest of you, please go look for…Jeanne? Is that the girl?”

  Ms. Milovskaya nodded. “She’s my student. I’ll personally—”

  “I’m coming with you!” Charles said. He had not sat down, nor relaxed. “I’ll look for her.”

  “I don’t—”

  “We’re coming, too,” Paris added, pulling Jedrick behind her.

  “Now, children—” Madame Bonnefoy began.

  “Let them go,” Armand muttered. “You wouldn’t be able to stop them if you tried.”

  “Armand!”

  “We have a student to find,” Ms. Roma reminded them, her voice strident. “Just come on, whoever is willing.”

  Maybe it would not have been so tense had there been no blackout, no planes, just a child who had gone a little mad and run away. But there had been planes; the vibrations still stirred everyone’s bones. And there was a blackout. The halls—windowless, sleeping—were dark and gloomy, grey-lit by the windows of the few classrooms whose doors stood open; but it was clear searching only the main hall would not cut it, not by a long shot. One could see up and down the entire length. Jeanne was not there.

  “Jeanne!” Paris called. “Where are you?”

  Her voice echoed strangely against the walls, bouncing back at them. Where are you—where—where—

  The search continued in silence.

  Charles quickly took the lead, moving to the head of the group of students huddled in the hall who scuttled like a bevy of timid crabs. He strode forward, down the hall in the direction Jeanne had taken, and the rest followed. Ms. Milovskaya fretted quietly, and Ms. Roma’s quick little eyes flickered back and forth as they swept across the empty space. Paris clung firmly to Jedrick’s side as the boy moved with his eyes closed, seeming to listen to the air around them. Armand only frowned, not looking anywhere at all. Perhaps he was used to runaways.

  “She must have gone down in the basement.”

  Those were Charles’ words, immoral and grating in the atmosphere. He turned the corner at the end of the hall ahead of everyone and stared into the school’s grey bowels.

  “There’s nowhere else she could have gone,” he said without meeting anyone’s gaze.

  “You are all being ridiculous!” Armand exclaimed, irritated. “Mincing around like a group of mice.” He ripped a match out of its book and fumbled with both it and the bundle of candles in his arms. He managed to light a candle, with a great deal of cursing and blowing of burnt fingertips, and passed the light to Charles. “You, Master Ancien, light the rest of these and pass them around. Then we will search the blasted halls and find that troublemaker.”

  Jedrick frowned. “Oh, stuff yourself, Armand.” Ms. Milovskaya and Ms. Roma didn’t even have the decency to look shocked. “She’s been sick all week. I don’t know what has happened, but something is obviously wrong. We’ve all noticed.”

  Ms. Milovskaya nodded in agreement. “It’s true. She’s been so quiet all week—quieter than usual, I suppose—she didn’t even pretend to pay attention in class, and she usually does at least that.”

  Charles frowned. “I don’t understand it at all, but…let’s just go.”

  One by one they sidestepped down the damp stairway to the basement. The hall immediately forked in two directions. Without comment, Charles took the left. Ms. Milovskaya took off after him, with Ms. Roma in tow. To be contrary, Armand took the right. Paris and Jedrick followed. “We will keep an eye on you,” Paris remarked archly.

  Jedrick kept his eyes closed the entire time, though he held up a candle for Paris to see by. They passed thick, metal doors on their way, and Armand tried each one, frowning as none opened. They were unlabeled; janitors may have been helpful, but it was late in the day, and they had all gone home.

  They were approaching the end of the hallway; only two more doors stood in the way. With a heave, Armand leaned on the handles of the first, then the second. They were both locked.

  “She’s not in any of them,” he said needlessly, his voice bowing back to the appropriate whisper.

  Jedrick put a finger to his lips. Paris fell silent at his order; Armand had already become quiet in his own huff. Jedrick’s eyes opened with a gasp. “Try the door again.”

  Armand did not look amused at being ordered around. “What on earth are you—”

  “Try the door again.”

  Armand did as he was told, jiggling the handle of the last door. “It’s locked, Jedrick, it’s—”

  Jedrick elbowed Armand out of the way, grabbing the handle in both hands and twisting as hard as he possibly could. With a cry and a rusty snap, it gave and the door swung open.

  “Jeanne!” Jedrick cried.

  A small bundle of sobbing girl tumbled out of the closet and into his ar
ms, her screams suddenly unmuffled by cinder block or metal portal. Her hair was wild and unkempt, her body shaking, her eyes wide and staring blindly. She pushed herself hysterically against his chest. “She’s not here, she’s not here, she’s not—”

  “Jeanne, please, calm down.”

  She sobbed one last time then fell silent, limp and exhausted. Unconscious. Jedrick, unable to support her weight, sank to his knees, holding her in his lap.

  “My God,” Armand murmured.

  The other three were silent.

  The lights in the basement flickered back on.

  * * * *

  Jeanne was cold. She was covered in something heavy, soft, but the warmth did not reach her. She was trapped in her own skin, cold and shivering. Why was she here? She didn’t remember—no, she didn’t want to remember. The fear of memory came back before the memories themselves, and so she strove to think of nothing at all. Instead she listened to the other sounds around her.

  There was a radio. She could tell by the tinny, canned voice sparking in and out.

  “…an attack on the city hit a vital power plant, cutting power to hundreds of scattered rural villages. The death count has risen by at least three hundred in drops today alone. The pamphlets were a mocking commentary on foreign electric production methods…”

  Her father must be here then, bringing up the radio from downstairs. She was in her room, she was sure; it smelled like her room, like her quilt. She was still cold.

  “That Charles was pretty dashing, don’t you think?” a girl’s voice was saying. “Running off to find her like that.”

  Paris, then, it must have been. Only Paris would use the word dashing to describe someone their own age.

  “Well, he didn’t find her, did he?” Jedrick shot back. “He has no idea…”

  Jeanne’s eyes flickered, and suddenly the ice surrounding her body melted at the intake of air and the inlet of sunlight.

  “Jennie!” Paris yelped. Jeanne gasped as someone soft and heavy barreled into her, throwing arms around her neck. “Jennie, you’re awake!”

  “Y—yes, I—Paris, please, I can’t breathe,” she mumbled, not even having the strength to sit up.

  “Oh, sorry, God.” Paris didn’t even take a breath before moving on. “What happened? We heard the planes and then you ran—”

  “Paris, shut up,” Jedrick said. “Jeanne, how are you feeling? You don’t have a fever, but…”

  “Jeanne, honey.” This time it was her father, quietly. “Your mother called me at work. She’s down at the grocers, getting some ginger tea for you.” He didn’t say anything else.

  Jeanne closed her eyes. How did she feel? Empty. She was empty. And still cold…

  “I’m fine. I don’t know what—I mean, I don’t really remember what happened. We were listening to Armand lecture, then…I don’t know. I woke up.”

  Jedrick frowned. “Oh.”

  “You tore out of there when we heard the planes,” Paris piped up.

  Planes. She could hear them now—they’d been the last straw, the last thing she could handle. The memories were poised at the back of her brain but she didn’t dare dredge them up.

  “We found you all the way in the basement, locked in—”

  “We’d better go,” Jedrick interrupted. “You’re tired and we have been imposing on your family for too long.”

  Jeanne had frozen. She couldn’t even reply. They left quickly, Jedrick putting a hand over Paris’s mouth to silence her. Jeanne’s father remained focused on the radio.

  “Papa, there were planes,” she murmured in a monotone.

  “Shh. I know, cher. They were very close to where I worked. That’s why I’m home. I saved a pamphlet for you—a few blew to where I catch the bus.” He waved a piece of crumpled paper vaguely at her. Jeanne closed her eyes.

  She put her head under the blankets and buried her face in the pillow, not even granted privacy. She ran away because she thought Jericho had been there. But Jeanne was only deluding herself. She had been locked away in that closet, dark and scared and trapped, and no one came for her. A guardian—she had been promised a guardian.

  Promises only counted if the one who made them existed.

  How pathetic, a voice inside her mind whispered, but Jeanne did not let it get any further, striking it down as hard as she could. Her anger went right through, didn’t even leave a hole. How pathetic.

  She was exhausted and alone and, for the first time, she realized she had to come to terms with that. For the first time, she allowed herself to believe she was truly alone. She gave up on her guardian.

  The radio faded in and out and she allowed herself to sleep once again.

  * * * *

  Her mother came back soon and, when she heard Jeanne had briefly woken, she took it upon herself to wake her again, pressing hot ginger tea into her and generally making a fuss. No one asked Jeanne why she had been in the closet. Slowly, it dawned on her that her parents did not know at all. Jedrick and Paris had not told them. And…hadn’t Armand been there, too? None of them had said a word, and she realized she had spooked them all. Her state had been so bad when they found her…she couldn’t remember how she had been, but it must have been awful.

  She wasn’t going to allow them to worry anymore. She was going to smile and get over it because she was done mourning over her own imagination.

  The next day at school, she was mostly avoided. What a spectacle it was, no one would talk to her. But no one talked to her much before, anyway.

  Charles was an exception. He politely inquired after her health, how she felt. She smiled and brushed it off, and told him she didn’t remember anything. For the rest of the day, he stared at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. Just…staring. He seemed worried. It made Jeanne sad. She smiled brightly for the rest of the day. She even paid attention when Ms. Milovskaya began to discuss geography.

  Myanmar. A new tree had grown there, months ago. Jericho had spoken of the tree—

  The bell sounded for lunch.

  The rest of the week there were no dreams. Jeanne expected that. She knew it would happen. It didn’t make it hurt any less, though.

  Maman kept an eye on her for a long time and Jeanne pretend she didn’t notice. You don’t need to worry, she wanted to say. You don’t need to worry because I’m okay now. I’m going to be okay. But Jeanne didn’t say anything because if she did, she would have to admit something had been wrong and she didn’t want to do that.

  Jeanne felt bad about lying to her mother.

  She would do it though, did it every day—choked down the oatmeal, hopped off the school, lived, returned home, slept. It was an easy routine. Too easy. She didn’t have to think and so her mind was open to a million things she tried not to wonder about.

  On Wednesday, on the way home, she found a cat.

  It was a small, blueberry tabby. She knew it was a blueberry tabby because, when she was much younger, she had begged her parents for a cat and she had wanted a blueberry tabby. Now here it was, so grey it was navy and so small it could have curled in her spread palm. It was lying on the curb, nose tucked into its tail, eyes closed. There was no collar.

  There was no way to know if it had a home, but somewhere inside, Jeanne knew it didn’t. She didn’t want it to. It was selfish and horrible, but she wanted that cat, she wanted it more than she wanted anything, or at least anything she was willing to admit.

  The kitten sleepily blinked open deep, amber eyes too wise for such a young creature. They stared right at Jeanne’s ash-grey ones.

  Mieu…

  The mewl was pathetic and tiny, and the kitten uncurled itself in a shaking stretch. Standing on unstable legs, it stumbled over to Jeanne, who crouched on the edge of the sidewalk. Then it butted its tiny head against her ankle.

  That was all she needed. Jeanne scooped it into her fingers, curled it against her chest, and brought it home.

  Maman frowned. But Jeanne was smiling.

  “Can it catc
h rats?” Maman asked at length.

  Jeanne’s eyebrows knitted together. “I don’t—”

  Mieu. The kitten blinked sleepy eyes and stared at Maman. Maman stared back and shook her head, then nodded and said, “He had better do his business outside,” as if she didn’t understand the natural willfulness of cats. That was that. The cat was hers.

  Jeanne brought it upstairs and sat on the bed with it, holding a bowl of milk Gramaman had given her once she saw the bundle Jeanne carried. She did not give the cat a name. She just watched it drink, then curl with its nose under its tail and stare up at Jeanne with liquid amber eyes.

  Mieu? it invited.

  Jeanne nodded in response and, setting the bowl on the floor, curled around the kitten and fell into a deep and boneless sleep.

  * * * *

  For the next few days, the kitten slept with her at night, and those nights, while she still did not dream, it was less apparent. Just deepness and exhaustion as she fell off that cliff, and clear serenity when she woke again. It was all right. She could handle that. Maybe the kitten cared. Maybe it did not. It had food, it had attention. Jeanne kept it away from Suzette; she kept it from getting sick with treats from Gramaman. It was a beautiful distraction for her.

  Friday was windy. It was apparent from the moment she woke.

  The mistral was back, twitching and writhing into the room even through closed and tightened shutters. It was dry. It was warm. Jeanne was still so cold, her breath hitched and she froze to stillness, as still and slotted as she had been in Armand’s classroom, so still her muscles ached and her joints locked. The air was so warm and burnt and tight, it felt as if the sky itself would tear open. Something was going to happen; something had to or else it would all just snap.

  Mieu? the kitten asked. It sounded as if it were daring her.