Sovereign Hope

by Frankie Rose

The ride back to the silo took longer than Agatha would have liked. The number of patrol cars that kept speeding in the opposite direction clearly unnerved her, and we kept to the speed limit. It was pitch black when we turned off the highway onto the invisible dirt track, and we sat in silence for half an hour as she navigated her way in the dark over the rough ground towards safety.

  I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. When we rolled to a stop outside the decaying metal silos, it was Agatha’s hand on my arm that woke me from a dreamless sleep.

  “Daniel’s already inside.”

  Her voice was tired. From the worn look on her face, she’d had way too much excitement for one day. We heaved ourselves out of the car and helped Tess and Oliver towards the entrance of the silo, but when we got inside the hollow metal shell Agatha froze, the beam of her flashlight fixed straight ahead.

  “What is it?” I asked, sensing her alarm.

  “The hatch is open.”

  There was no way Daniel would have left it unsecured.

  “I’m going ahead. You wait here. If you hear shots, get in the car and go.” She handed me the flashlight and the keys and then disappeared down the service hatch.

  “Farley, this is crazy,” Tess whispered. “This woman’s completely out of her mind. I have no idea what’s going on or why you would think I’m in danger because of Oliver, but he’s nearly bleeding to death here. Can you just think about this rationally for one second? We should just get in the car and go.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. Agatha’s not crazy. These people have saved my life more than once. We need to stay here with them where it’s safe.”

  “Safe? They may have saved your life, Farley, but my life was just fine until you came over this afternoon. Since then it’s been decidedly unsafe.”

  “Please, Tess—”

  “Maybe we should trust them,” Oliver broke in groggily. “I get the feeling the crazy pixie lady might know what she’s doing. I’ve never seen a chick drive like that before.” He gave a half-hearted laugh before clutching at his shoulder again and falling into a pained silence.

  “We’re not going down that hole,” Tess declared.

  I gritted my teeth and scowled in the dark. Fifteen minutes dragged by so slowly it felt like time had stopped altogether. I stared at the hatch, pacing backwards and forwards. There hadn’t been a sound from the silo. We shivered in silence a little longer before Oliver’s legs gave out from underneath him.

  “That’s it. It’s time to go get Agatha. She should be back by now, and he’s getting worse by the second.” I tried to make my voice sound stronger than I felt. “Are you going to come with me?”

  Tess struggled to help Oliver up from the dirt and locked her jaw. “No.”

  “Fine. Here, take the keys. Just don’t drive off, okay? Please?”

  The hole in the ground was murderously black. I’d lived down there long enough to know my way around the corridors in the dark, but that by no means meant lowering myself into the nothingness below was enjoyable. I hummed nervously as I made my way down the ladder and through the rabbit warren.

  I was at the intersection, about to head towards the welcoming light of the hangar, when a low wail sounded out into the oppressive silence from the other direction.

  “Agatha?” My voice echoed down the black corridor.

  The passageway stretched out, the bright yellow chink of light under Aldan’s door a beacon beyond. Something inside me itched, and that itch swiftly developed into a stinging bite. It gnawed at me. Go back, it said. Do not go in there. Go back up the steps, out of the hatch…get in the car and drive away. Forget all this. Forget. Do not turn the handle.

  But beyond was Agatha, stoic little Agatha, and her heart was breaking.

  But. Why was there always a but?

  I pushed the door and it creaked open, revealing the nightmare inside. Agatha was slumped on the floor leaning against a bookcase, a few scattered volumes lying beside her. Tears ran down her cheeks whilst she hugged her knees to her chest. She struggled to gasp in a breath as I stepped into the room. And Daniel flinched.

  “Don’t touch him,” she whispered.

  He was wearing the faded purple t-shirt again, the one with the little hole at the neck, and worn blue jeans. And he was on his knees. His hands were locked in Aldan’s, his body rigid, his head thrown back, and his spine bowed. Every muscle was tensed, as though he were being electrocuted. Beneath closed lids, his eyes moved rapidly. Every breath he took looked labored, excruciating. Aldan lay in the bed as serenely as usual, yet for the very first time there was movement in his body, too. His eyes flickered as quickly as Daniel’s.

  “He did it,” Agatha choked out.

  “Did what?”

  She continued to cry, leaving me to stare at Daniel’s contorted body as he gripped tightly onto Aldan’s hand. He was in pain. I had no idea what was going on, but it was something unbearable. I should have listened to that voice in my head. It was trying to spare me from this. I took another step towards Daniel and Agatha stirred.

  “Don’t touch him,” she repeated.

  “Why? What’s happening?”

  She stared down at her hands, tears streaking down her face. Her shoulders shook silently. I collapsed on the floor in front of her and grabbed her by the arms, determined to get some sense out of her.

  “Agatha! Tell me what he’s done!”

  Our eyes met, and through gasped breaths she managed to tell me, “He’s giving it back. He’s giving it back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The talisman wasn’t whole…couldn’t work. He made a deal. To keep you safe. He’s giving it back.”

  An immediate, cold realization overcame me. “You knew about this?” My voice trembled. When I looked over, I could see a flow of blue-white light passing between Daniel’s and Aldan’s hands. It looked like tiny glowing particles of sand flowing from one into the other, their hands a linked hourglass.

  “Yes. He wanted him to… said Aldan had agreed, but I thought… I thought…” She couldn’t go on. Her sobs took over, turning into television static inside my head.

  “No. Aldan wouldn’t do that. He promised him. He promised…” My chest was a hollow drum, just an empty space where my beating heart should have been. The emptiness grew and grew, all consuming, as the life seeped out of Daniel. “How long? How long before…?”

  As if in answer, Daniel shuddered. The metal bed frame that supported Aldan rattled.

  Agatha shot to her feet. “You better get back. I don’t know how this plays out.”

  I remained a lead weight on the floor beside him, afraid to move away. Aldan began to tremble, too, and suddenly the light between their hands grew in intensity until it was almost too bright to look at.

  “Farley, get back!”

  I couldn’t move. Daniel’s face was distorted into a mask of agony. “What’s happening to him?”

  It took everything I had not to reach out and touch him, to try and take the pain away somehow. My head spun and the edges of my vision grew hazy and dark. I released my breath and sucked in a shallow gasp, but the air in the room was impossibly thin.

  “I can’t breathe,” I croaked. White pin pricks of light burst in my eyes, and suddenly I was on the floor. Agatha was on all fours on the other side of the bed.

  “It’s them,” she gasped.

  A crushing weight pushed me down to the ground. I had to get to Daniel. Somehow, I fought against the pressure and edged towards him. It was when I reached his side that I noticed something was changing. The light was fading, and the tension in Daniel’s body along with it.

  “It’s stopping. Agatha, it’s stopping!” I cried, just as Daniel sagged forward. A single thought stabbed through the panic: Is this it?

  I watched him breathe. Every exhalation seemed like it was his last, like his chest wouldn’t rise again. Finally, it didn’t. Daniel collapsed to the floor in slow motion, like a marionet
te with its strings cut. He lay on the floor beside me, his eyes closed.

  Dead.

  A high-pitched buzzing noise cut through the silence. How can he be dead? The hollow of my chest was suddenly full. Full of searing, terrible pain that threatened to swallow me whole. To make me forget why I was ever alive, why I would ever have wanted to live in the first place. The only physical signs of it were the tears that rolled down my face onto the cold concrete, leaving wet pools that mixed in with all the dust and someone’s blood. Maybe mine.

  I wanted to take his hand in mine but I could barely lift my arm under the lingering pressure. I struggled to reach out and touch him, to feel his hand in mine at last. I had almost made it when out of nowhere the pressure trebled, like a boot smashing down onto my spine, pinning me to the ground just an inch from his fingertips.

  Then the room flooded with light.

  Brighter than before and packed with electricity, the power of it prickled and snapped on my skin. I squirmed, desperate to get away from the unnerving sensation. I heard Agatha, distant and wild, the noise coming out of her a strange gurgle. It was impossible to see if she was okay from where I lay.

  I could see Aldan, though. He was moving on the bed. He’d done it. He’d killed Daniel. Why did he get to live? He said it himself—he had no right to take life. He’d broken his promise.

  The old man rose vertically a clear foot from the bed, stiff as a board. His long white hair fell loose beneath his head, and his arms and feet hung at his sides so that they almost rested on the mattress. At that point, his back bowed just as Daniel’s had.

  The electricity in the air grew. The crackle of it bit at me until I could feel the current of it running through my whole body. This wasn’t right. I had to get out… away.

  The light pulled at everything just like it had on the highway, the sky and the ground distorting towards Daniel as his fist met the ground. Except now it was me. I was being pulled towards the bed. The ceiling was falling down on top of us, the floor rising up in greeting.

  When the light came again, it burst out of Aldan’s eyes, his nose, his mouth. Great forks of white electricity that snaked savagely into the room, searching. It didn’t take long for them to find their mark.

  Daniel convulsed as the spears of energy hit him, punching into his body. All of a sudden, his fingers started scrabbling at the floor. The pressure on my chest instantly vanished, and the air rushed back into my screaming lungs. I scrambled back as Daniel’s head twisted side to side, and his arms and legs flailed around him.

  And then I saw: his eyes were open. I choked out a cry and pulled my knees up to my chest, wanting to hold on to something. All the while, the light kept coming.

  It was a long time before it began to slow. Eventually Daniel went limp, the last few snaps of energy pushing their way into his body. His head fell still, his eyes open, staring straight at me. And they were filled with tears and pain.