Vega Jane and the Secrets of Sorcery

by David Baldacci

  He immediately sat down. I put down a small tin cup pulled from my tuck and poured some water into it from the cork-stoppered pewter bottle I carried. There was a tree above to provide shade. I figured if he were still out here when I finished work, I would worry what to do about him then.

  I left Harry Two and walked into Stacks. After I put on my work clothes, I walked out on to the main floor and approached my workstation. I eyed the stairs up. Ladon-Tosh was no longer guarding them. He was probably felling trees along with all the other hardy Wugs. I was actually one of the few Wugs left at Stacks. All but three of the Dactyls were gone, using their muscle to bring down the great trees and strip them of their bark. The ones who were left had to do the work of many Dactyls, to whack and gong metal into the requisite shapes and thickness for straps. There were a few Mixers left, who were using all of their energy to ready the metal for the Dactyls. From the Dactyls the still-hot metal moved to the Cutters, who made the strips into the necessary lengths and widths. And then it was left to me to finish them. There seemed to be an infinite number of straps required for the Wall. That was testament enough to the enormity of the project.

  During my meal break, I went outside and was heartened to see Harry Two still lying in the grass where I had left him. I went over and petted him.

  ‘No beasts in Stacks,’ barked a voice.

  I turned to see Domitar behind me. I thought it ironic that he would not allow a canine in Stacks when jabbits were permitted to run freely.

  ‘He’s not in Stacks, is he?’ I countered.

  Domitar drew closer. ‘Is he your canine?’

  ‘Perhaps. We’ll see.’

  ‘I had a pet once,’ said Domitar. I was stunned when he squatted down next to Harry Two and rubbed his ears.

  ‘You had a pet, Domitar?’ I wondered if it had been a jabbit.

  He looked embarrassed. ‘When I was a very young of course. It was also a canine.’

  ‘What did you call him?’

  He hesitated, perhaps afraid that I might consider him soft by naming a beast.

  ‘Julius,’ he finally answered.

  ‘Your given name?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. You think that’s peculiar, do you?’

  ‘No. You can name a canine whatever you want.’

  ‘What is yours called?’

  ‘Harry Two.’

  ‘Why Two?’

  ‘I had a canine named Harry when I lived with my parents, but a garm killed him.’

  Domitar looked down. ‘I am sorry for that.’ And he indeed did look truly sad.

  ‘And Julius?’

  ‘He died when I was still a very young.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? Not much matters any more, not really.’

  When I looked down into his face, I was surprised to see his eyes gazing out listlessly over the terrain in front of Stacks. He was a Wugmort who seemed totally lost.

  ‘Times are changing and Wugmorts must change with them, Vega,’ he said. ‘But we must carry on here. No bodge jobs ever at Stacks. Quality work through and through, so long as I’m in charge.’

  I looked over my shoulder at the entrance to Stacks, my curiosity, always close to the surface, compelling me to ask a question. ‘Domitar, what did this place used to be?’

  He didn’t look at me, although I saw his body stiffen with the query.

  ‘It has always been Stacks,’ he said.

  ‘Always?’ I said sceptically.

  ‘Well, since I have been alive.’

  ‘But you haven’t been alive as long as this place has been here, Domitar. I bet it’s hundreds of sessions old, maybe more.’

  ‘Then what good would an answer to your query be?’ he replied.

  The words seemed harsh, though truthfully his tone was one of resignation.

  ‘Do you think the Wall will hold the Outliers back?’

  Now he glanced up at me. ‘I am certain it will.’

  The way he said it troubled me greatly. Not because I didn’t think he believed his own words, but because I could tell he absolutely believed them to be true.

  ‘Mealtime is over,’ he said, his usual harsh tone back in full force.

  I headed back to Stacks. But when I turned around, I saw Domitar was still squatting next to Harry Two and petting him. I saw him pull out a piece of bread and some cheese and feed it to my canine. I even thought I saw Domitar smile.

  Times indeed were changing in Wormwood.

  21

  HOME AGAIN

  When I arrived back at the Loons with Harry Two, Cacus Loon met me at the door. He took one look at my canine, and his response was as coarse as it was predictable.

  ‘That ugly, foul beast is nae comin’ in these proper digs,’ he cried out.

  I looked down at Harry Two, who was by far the most handsome creature of the three of us, his face far cleaner than Loon’s, his coat far more reputable than mine.

  I said, ‘He’s a canine and they are acceptable inside Wug homes. I’ll take care of him, and his food, water and cleanliness will be my responsibility.’

  ‘There ain’t a chance of that beast staying in me home.’

  ‘It’s not your home. It belongs to Roman Picus.’ I knew this would provide me no help, but Loon made me mad just by breathing.

  He swelled up his chest. ‘Oh, so you think Roman Picus will allow that thing inside his digs, do you? Well, you clearly don’t know him as I do.’

  ‘I can talk to Morrigone about it,’ I ventured.

  ‘You can waggle to any Wug you want, and the answer will be the same.’

  He slammed the door in my face. I looked down at Harry Two, who gazed up at me with complete adoration, unaffected by Loon’s angry words. I stood there thinking and then decided that perhaps a silver lining had appeared unexpectedly from the darkness.

  I went inside, marched up the stairs to my kip, collected my few belongings and stamped back downstairs. Loon looked at me dumbfounded, while a puzzled Hestia gazed at me from the kitchen doorway, wiping her coarsened hands on her dirty apron.

  ‘Where you be going?’ Loon asked when he saw the bundle representing all my possessions slung over my shoulder.

  ‘If my canine isn’t welcome here, I have to find other lodgings.’

  ‘’Tain’t none,’ he barked. ‘Other digs are full up. Stupid female!’

  ‘I know of a place,’ I shot back.

  ‘You won’t find a kip on the high street.’

  ‘I will on the Low Road,’ I countered.

  Loon gazed at me darkly. ‘Are you meaning what I think you’re meaning?’

  Hestia meekly came forward. ‘Vega, you’re too young to live on your own. You’re not yet fifteen sessions. That’s the law.’

  ‘Well, I’m not giving up my canine, so I don’t really have a choice,’ I said. ‘And I’ll be fifteen sessions soon enough.’ I aimed a warm smile solely at her. She was totally under Loon’s rule, but she had always treated John and me decently. ‘I thank you for your hospitality over these last sessions.’

  Loon spat on the floor, and Hestia turned and went back into the kitchen.

  He said, ‘We’ll see what Council says about this.’

  I stared him down. ‘Yes, we will.’

  I walked out and Harry Two obediently followed me down the cobblestones. Wugs here and there watched us go. I guess with a bundle holding all my possessions over my shoulder and a young canine playfully nipping at my heels, I made an unusual sight.

  We reached the Low Road and turned down it. It was so named because it was apt to flood when the hard rains came and it was also old and worn down.

  The plain wood-fronted home was tiny, nondescript and weathered, but to me it would always be beautiful and warm and inviting. I knew it well. I used to live here with my mother and father and John. John and I only left and moved to the Loons when our parents were taken to the Care.

  I stopped and looked at the small front window. There was a crack f
rom when John was a baby and threw his cup of milk against it. Glass was hard to come by in Wormwood, so we had never fixed it. I moved closer and looked through the window. Now I could see the table where I used to eat with my family. It was scuffed and covered in cobwebs. In a far corner was a chair I used to sit in. In another corner was a stack of family belongings that we never took with us because we had no room for them. Against another wall was the cot I used to sleep in.

  I tried the door. It was locked. I took out my pieces of slender metal, and the lock was quickly sorted out. I opened the door and Harry Two and I went inside. I was immediately cold, colder than I had been outside.

  It was said that the spirits one leaves behind are always cold, because they are alone, with nothing to warm them. We had left much behind here. Here, we were a family. Here, we had something together that we would never have apart. That we would never have again, in fact.

  I shivered and pulled my cloak closer around me as I walked the space. I squatted down and picked up some things in the pile while Harry Two sniffed around his new home. In the stack were odd bits of clothes that would no longer fit me. I passed over the clothes and turned to some drawings that I had done as a young. Among them was a drawing I did of my brother.

  Then I saw the self-portrait I had sketched. I did not look happy. That was because I’d drawn it on my last night here.

  I unpacked, found some wood out back and managed to build a decent fire using one of my two remaining matches. I opened my tin and had my meal at the small table. I shared my food with Harry Two, who gobbled his portion down hungrily. Now that all meals were my responsibility, I would have to work harder on collecting, bartering, selling and hoarding, especially with Harry Two and John—

  I stopped my thought. It was just my canine and me now.

  I ran some water into a bowl for Harry Two from the set of pipes out back. At first the water came out dark, but it quickly cleared. That was good because this was the water I would drink as well. After Harry Two gulped down nearly the entire bowl, I let him out to relieve himself in the dirt behind my new lodgings.

  I pulled a chair up close to the fire and stared into its flames as Harry Two settled next to me, his snout on his front paws. This place had belonged to Virgil Jane, and then it had passed to my father. I felt I had more of a right to it than any other Wug.

  A knock on the door disrupted my thoughts. I turned to it with trepidation. Was I about to find out that our old home had been confiscated by Council? Or that because I was too young to live on my own, I would have to leave?

  I opened the door to see Roman Picus standing there.

  ‘Yes?’ I said as casually as I could.

  ‘What’s got into ya, female?’ he said.

  ‘What’s got into me about what?’ I asked innocently. ‘Loons to here is what, o’course.’

  ‘Loon wouldn’t take my canine, so I had no other choice.’

  Roman looked down at Harry Two, who stood next to me. His hackles were up and his tiny fangs were bared. I could see he was an excellent judge of character, because his negative opinion of Roman was completely in line with mine.

  ‘Givin’ up good digs over that beast? What rubbish.’

  ‘Well, at least it’s my rubbish.’

  ‘You’re too young to live on your own.’

  ‘Do you really think Cacus Loon looks after me? And John doesn’t live with me any more. I can take care of myself. If Council doesn’t think so, they can take it up directly with me.’

  Roman appraised me with a cunning look. ‘Speaking of, ya heard ’bout your brother?’

  ‘He’s living with Morrigone now.’

  ‘Old news. Talkin’ ’bout his promotion o’course,’ he added triumphantly.

  ‘Promotion?’

  ‘Oh, ya mean you didn’t know?’ he said with glee.

  I wanted to know what Roman was talking about of course, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of begging for it, so I said nothing.

  ‘So, his promotion,’ Roman began, taking an infuriatingly long time to spit it out. ‘His promotion to be special assistant to Council o’course.’

  ‘He can’t hold a position with Council until he’s much older.’

  Roman replied in a condescending tone. ‘Well, now, Vega, that’s why they term it special. Parchment done and everything. Oh, it’s official all right. Thansius pushed it through with Morrigone’s blessing. Council had no choice, did they? Not with them two Wugs behind it. Even Krone went along, and he don’t agree with nothin’.’

  ‘And what does a ‘special assistant’ to Council do?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, you musta seen John going over plans for the Wall with the both-a them.’

  ‘I haven’t really been involved in the Wall other than making straps.’

  Roman drew a bit closer but retreated slightly when Harry Two started to growl. ‘Well, now they’ve enlisted him to oversee the whole thing, haven’t they?’

  I looked askance at him. ‘I thought Thansius was doing that.’

  ‘I hear John’s thinking ’bout the Wall and such. A great mind, so’s I’ve been told. Good thing one of the Janes ended up with something up here.’ He tapped his forehead.

  ‘You’re saying Virgil Jane didn’t have a strong mind?’

  ‘Just down to you and John now. You make an honest living at Stacks, but no more’n that. Reached your limits, haven’t you? Now, John, well, he’s got possibilities, ain’t he? After this special assistant job, with a bitta spiffin’ up, I could see him one light sitting on Council, I could.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that?’

  Now Roman looked stunned. ‘Sitting on Council? Why would he want to do that? Are ya out of your mind? And you and your brother, the last of the Janes. Sad business. Sad business indeed.’

  ‘My mother and father are still alive!’ I said through clenched teeth.

  ‘Show me the difference ’twixt them and the dead,’ he said. ‘Corpses under sheets I call ’em.’

  I could tell that Roman wanted me to take a swing at him, so I decided not to take the bait. But I went a different route to the same destination.

  ‘You know, it might be a good idea for John to sit on Council,’ I said abruptly.

  ‘Glad you seen the good sense in that. Mebbe you have a bitta brain after all, though I doubt it.’ He laughed heartily.

  I continued, ignoring this. ‘He told me he thinks Council should run all lodgings because there are some Wugs who take advantage and charge too much. I’m sure he’ll share that idea with Morrigone – and with Thansius.’

  Roman stopped laughing and his jaw fell.

  John had never said any of this. This had been my idea, but since I was ‘merely’ a female, it would never be taken seriously.

  ‘You have a good night, Roman,’ I said, closing the door in his face. I smiled for the first time in a long while. But that wouldn’t last. I could taste it in my spit, as they said in Wormwood.

  I put another small log on the fire and then gazed around my new, old home. My eyes went again to the stack of odds and ends in the corner. Harry Two sat next to me on his haunches and watched patiently as I methodically dug through what amounted to a history of my family. There were coloured images of my grandparents: Virgil and his mate, Calliope. They were a handsome couple, I thought. My grandfather’s features were vividly distinctive. There was a lot going on behind those eyes. Calliope was kind and bright and seemed to take great pleasure in seeing her family happy. I was quite her pet. Yet her time was to be cut short. My grandmother had succumbed to illness a session before Virgil suffered his Event.

  I finally put all of these things away and stared into the dying embers of my meagre fire. I envisioned John, now firmly part of Council and, with it, the hierarchy of Wormwood, reading contentedly in front of a blazing fire in Morrigone’s beautiful library after having had a sumptuous meal.

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Vega,’ I said out loud, causing Harry Two’
s ears to prick up. ‘Fancy meals and fancier titles do not really matter. And be happy for John.’

  Yet as I sat there, I began to consider something that I had never seriously contemplated till now: namely using Herms’s map and leaving Wormwood behind for good. I’d always felt too responsible for John to consider it before.

  Well, John no longer needed me, which meant there was nothing keeping me here any more . . .

  Later, unable to sleep, I rose and put on my cloak. Harry Two rose obediently and stood beside me.

  I did have something left in Wormwood – something of great importance to me.

  22

  TRULY ALONE

  I stared up at the hulking doors to the Care. It was long after visiting time, but I wanted to be with the family I had left.

  Non was probably off patrolling as part of the Carbineers for I didn’t see him. I drew my tools from my cloak pocket, inserted them in the lock of the huge door, and I was soon on my way down the corridor.

  I pushed open the door. For some reason, the mysterious source of light at the Care was dimmer in my parents’ room at night. Maybe it was that way in all the rooms. However, I could still make them out as they lay in their beds. I stood between their cots because I wanted to address them at the same time. I was soon pouring out my heart to them, complaining of wretched injustice, poor Quentin, fiendish jabbits, walls of blood, lost brothers, insufferable Council members like Jurik Krone, vile Outliers, and Wormwood simply going mad on me. I told them I wanted them back. No, I needed them to come back to me. Then I ran completely out of words and just stood there, tears running down my cheeks as I stared at the two Wugs who had brought me into Wormwood.

  A sliver later I was rubbing my eyes because I could not believe what I was seeing. My father’s cot was vibrating. No, my father was vibrating. In fact, he was shaking so hard that I was afraid he would simply fly apart. When I looked at my mother, the exact same thing was occurring to her. I rushed forward to seize them, to try to stop whatever was happening to them.