The Fire Chronicle

by John Stephens

  “She needs clothes,” he told the girl. “Boy’s clothes. The Imps’re looking for her. The more hidden she is, the better.” As the girl was leading Kate away, he called after them, “And a cap for her hair!”

  “I know, I’m not stupid!” the girl yelled back. “He acts like I’m stupid.”

  The girl brought Kate to a room piled high with well-worn clothes. She literally dove into the mound of clothes and began flinging out wool pants and shirts, socks and sweaters, all of which Kate had to catch as they flew toward her.

  “Just try on stuff till something fits,” the girl said.

  The girl was the same one whose hand Kate had pulled from the fire. Kate wondered if the girl remembered and thought about asking, but she had a feeling the girl would say of course she remembered, and then accuse Kate of thinking she was stupid.

  And, for a moment, Kate was reminded so vividly of Emma, and how much she missed her sister, that her whole body clenched into one great sob of sadness.

  “You all right?” The girl was holding up a pair of pants that Kate and four or five other people could’ve all fit into at once. “You look like you’re gonna cry. Don’t worry. We’ll find you stuff.”

  Kate wiped at her eyes and tried to smile. “I know. Thanks.”

  Eventually—after rejecting what was too big, too small, too holey, too smelly, and anything that had been home to an animal—Kate stood dressed in a pair of thick wool pants, a wool shirt over a softer cotton shirt, a short canvas jacket to go under the coat she’d bought in the Bowery and had become attached to, and a pair of heavy wool socks. The girl, who seemed never to stop moving, was kneeling at her feet and jamming on a succession of boots, tossing the unwanted pairs over her shoulder into a large, disorderly pile.

  “Perfect!” the girl announced.

  Kate saw that the boots didn’t match; but as they both fit and the heels were more or less the same height, she let it go.

  “You just need a cap!”

  The girl went back to digging in the pile.

  “So that boy, Rafe. Who is he?” Kate asked.

  “Rafe? He’s the best!”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard. Besides that.”

  “He’s the one brought me here.” Only the girl’s legs were visible as she plowed through the pile of clothes. “My parents both died from the consumption. Then I was working at this factory downtown. Awful place. There were a bunch a’ us girls. The owner kept us locked up, sewing day and night. Beat us. Fed us like dogs.”

  “But”—Kate was shocked—“they can’t do that! There’re laws!”

  “Laws? Ha! When you’re a kid and you got magic in you, the normal humans grab you quick and put you to work. No one cares. The stuff we make is special, see. The shoes or cabinets or whatever. They got magic in them. Like the clothes we sewed made folks look prettier or taller or not as fat. Then the owner’d sell ’em for lots a’ money. Give money to the cops. No one cares.”

  “Why didn’t you escape?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” the girl said in exactly the way Emma might’ve. “Just ’cause you can do some magic don’t mean you can shoot lightning outta your nose.” She returned with a handful of cloth hats. “Anyway, Rafe found us. He gave that man, a grown man, a terrible whipping. He told us, ‘You can go your own way, or you can come with me. You’ll have to work, but there’ll be no beatin’ and you can leave when you want.’ He done that to every kid here. Saved ’em. Same way Miss B saved him when he was a kid. You heard that story?”

  Kate shook her head, and the girl lowered her voice ominously.

  “Don’t say I told you, but Rafe killed a man. He was only six years old, and he stabbed this man right through the heart.” The girl, with a good degree of relish and an uuuugggghhh sound, pantomimed stabbing Kate in the heart. “Right, so then this mob a’ humans was hunting him down. Miss B got in front a’ them. They could see right away she was a witch, and she said she’d turn the first man who touched Rafe into a pig. Then she done it to one fella just to prove she could. That’s when the Savages got started. With Rafe. And he found the rest a’ us.”

  The girl took one of the caps and tried to yank it over Kate’s head.

  “I think it’s too small,” Kate said.

  But even as she said it, the hat seemed to expand so that it became a perfect fit. The girl threw the others away.

  “Great!”

  Then Kate glanced down and saw that her boots, which a moment ago had looked nothing like each other, now matched. And her clothes, which had been sort of roughly her size, now looked as if they had been tailored for her. Was this how the children’s magic worked? It leaked into the things they touched or made?

  “Let’s get supper.” The girl smiled brightly. “ ’Fore it’s all gone. Oh, my name’s Abigail. ’Case you were wondering.”

  And she skipped out of the room.

  Kate stood there, her mind spinning. Who were these children she had fallen among? And who was this boy? At six, he’d killed a man. Then he’d set about saving other children? None of it made sense.

  And—this troubled Kate most of all—how did he know her?

  At that moment, the boy was a dozen blocks to the south, hurrying down a street that would soon disappear from every map of New York. Night had fallen. Large white snowflakes drifted out of the darkness. The boy turned in at a shabby tenement, climbing down a set of stairs to knock three times at the basement apartment.

  An old woman—a crone—shawl pulled tight over her bony shoulders, opened the door. Rafe passed a few coins into the mottled hand, and the woman stepped back to let him pass. The boy moved quickly through the dim rooms. The air smelled of boiled radishes, sweat, and tobacco. Men and women sat on the floor or against the wall and whispered in languages from lands far away.

  He stopped at a door at the back of the apartment. Wavering candlelight shone under the sill. He raised his hand to knock, then a voice said:

  “Come in.”

  He stepped into a small room lit by a single candle. A dark-haired, dark-eyed girl no more than fourteen sat at a table, an empty chair opposite her. Besides the candle, the table held a shallow clay bowl, a knife, and several small jars.

  The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of cloth. He opened it, displaying a single blond hair, and handed it to the girl.

  He said, “I want to know who she is.”

  The boy sat, watching as the girl filled the clay bowl with water, sprinkled in oil, then singed the hair on the flame and dropped it in the bowl. The liquid turned cloudy. She watched the surface for a few seconds. Finally, she looked up, and her eyes cleared.

  “She has come from the future.”

  “Why? What’s she doing here? What’s she want?”

  “She wants to go home. But in coming here, she has changed things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The girl stared at him for a long moment. “You’ve seen her before.”

  It was not a question. The boy nodded. “I saw her in a dream.”

  The girl held out a hand, and the boy reached up and pulled out one of his own hairs. She singed the hair and dropped it in the bowl. It was a long time before she looked up.

  “You are being hunted.”

  “By who? The Imps? I killed one of theirs today—”

  “That is not why they are hunting you. You are the reason they are here. The reason they have come to this country. To find you.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You have something they need. Something their master wants. Had it not been for her, they would have found you today. Your path would have crossed with the giant’s. But the girl’s coming changed the course of events.”

  “Changed them how? Would I have been killed?”

  “No, you would have joined them.”

  The boy laughed. “Me, join the Imps? You’re crazy.”

  He started to rise, but the girl said, “The giant would have offered you power.
Power to protect your friends. Power to punish your enemies. He would have promised you the answers you crave. You could not have resisted.”

  The boy sat back down. “So what happens now?”

  “That is not clear. The girl is the key. Through her, you will understand your destiny. But you know that already. Your dream has told you.”

  When the boy spoke again, his voice was strangely quiet. “And the rest of my dream, what about it? Will it come true?”

  The girl nodded. “Yes. She will show you who you are. And then she will die.”

  As they pulled away from Malpesa, it was pandemonium inside the aircraft—Emma crying that they had to go back for Dr. Pym, clutching now at Gabriel, now at Michael, yelling at the pilot to turn the stupid plane around, both children soaking wet and starting to shiver from being plunged into the ice-cold water of the canal. In the midst of this, Gabriel quietly took charge: wrapping the children in blankets, giving them clothes to change into—the pilot had packed extra shirts and pants; luckily, he was a small man, though not so small that his clothes weren’t comically large on the children—and soon Michael and Emma were dry and dressed, their shaking had stopped, and Emma seemed to have accepted that the stupid plane was not going back for Dr. Pym; they were going on.

  Gabriel checked them both for injuries, taking time to dress Michael’s various cuts and scrapes. With the man kneeling before him, Michael studied their friend. So much about him was the same: the old scar ridged along his cheek, the unreadable, granite-colored eyes. But Michael also noticed the streaks of gray in Gabriel’s black hair, and the lines on his face, and it occurred to him that unlike Dr. Pym, Gabriel was just a man, and it had been fifteen years since their adventure in Cambridge Falls. He still looked almost impossibly strong and powerful. But—and perhaps it was just the lines around his eyes or the gray in his hair—Michael sensed a new slowness, not in movement but in manner.

  “How are you?”

  Michael shrugged. There was no way to answer the question. Too much had happened. Also, he felt silly in the enormous clothes.

  Gabriel said, “You will see the wizard again.”

  “And Kate?”

  “Her too.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know them.”

  Michael had told Gabriel what had happened on the rooftop, how the wizard had stayed behind to prevent Rourke from following them, or at least to slow the man down, and how he, Michael, was charged with finding the Chronicle. Not surprisingly, he’d mentioned nothing about how he’d nearly broken down and pleaded with the wizard that he wasn’t ready for the task being given him. Ashamed, Michael was already burying the memory in a deep, dark place where he’d never have to look at it again.

  The plane didn’t have seats, just benches that folded down, and the children were sitting side by side, wrapped in blankets, with their backs to the wall. Emma had taken one of Gabriel’s hands and was holding it in her lap, half for comfort and half, it seemed, to ensure that her friend did not disappear.

  “Tell me,” Gabriel said, “what did you learn about the book?”

  Taking a deep breath, Michael told them—for Emma had not yet heard the story—about crawling into the chamber with the skeleton, how he’d realized the inscription in the tunnel was a riddle, how he’d drunk from all three jars and had suddenly known where the Chronicle was hidden—

  “That’s what you were doing in there?” Emma punched him in the arm. “That was so—stupid! Don’t ever do anything like that ever again, you hear me? Ever!”

  “Okay.”

  “You’d better not.” And she hit him again for good measure.

  Michael rubbed his arm and, despite himself, smiled.

  “What do you mean, you know where the book is hidden?” Gabriel asked. “You had a vision?”

  “Not exactly. It was like I remembered where it was. Like I’d been the one to hide it. That probably sounds crazy.”

  “Yes,” Emma said.

  “No,” Gabriel said. “Such a thing is common in the magical world. The dead man somehow placed his memories into those potions, and they were transferred to you.”

  “But I see it all in pieces,” Michael said. “And I can’t point to anything on a map.”

  “Be that as it may, the pilot needs a heading. Where should I tell him to go?”

  Without thinking, Michael said, “South. Tell him to go south.”

  “There is nothing south of Malpesa.”

  “Yes, there is,” Michael said. “There’s one thing.”

  And Gabriel looked at him, nodded, and crept forward to tell the pilot.

  Michael burrowed down inside his blanket, letting himself feel the buffeting and rocking of the plane. Gabriel returned and said that they had enough gas to reach an outpost on the Ronne Ice Shelf on the coast of Antarctica. Once there, they could refuel, get clothes for the children, and plot the rest of their course. The journey to the outpost would take most of the night.

  “Your sister is right to sleep.”

  And Michael glanced over and saw that Emma’s head was on his shoulder and her eyes were closed. When Michael turned back, Gabriel was studying his face, and he knew that the man was gauging his strength for what lay ahead.

  “I’ll be okay,” Michael said. “I’m just tired.”

  But his voice sounded so feeble that even he didn’t believe it.

  Gabriel put his hand on Michael’s arm. It was a strangely gentle and eloquent gesture. Then Gabriel went forward to the cockpit, and Michael rested his head against the humming wall of the airplane as Emma shifted about. He glanced out the window, but all was dark. They were headed south, to the bottom of the world. He closed his eyes. It was a long time before he drifted off to sleep.

  Michael dreamed of snow. He dreamed of fields and valleys, plains and mountains, all covered in snow and stretching to the horizon. He was flying over it, floating. He was alone, but not afraid.…

  A pair of giants crouched in the distance. He flew between them, passing through the teeth of a dragon.…

  Then he was in a long tunnel. A red glow throbbed all about him. The heat was incredible. His skin crackled like dry paper. Each breath burned his lungs. Suddenly, he was standing beside a bubbling lake, and the heat was much, much worse. He stared at the fiery surface—

  “Michael! Michael! Wake up!”

  Emma was shaking him. He opened his eyes and had no idea where he was. Then he recognized the interior of the plane, saw Gabriel moving about, getting their things together, and he remembered.

  “Are you all right?” Emma asked. “You were making noise.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Not so much words. More like mmmrrrraaaaggghhhhh.”

  “Oh.”

  “Get ready. Gabriel says we’re landing soon. And Michael …”

  “What?”

  “He says we might see penguins!”

  Michael rubbed his eyes and looked out the window. In the dim predawn, ghostly white cliffs rose up before them. Michael watched as an enormous ice shelf cleaved off the cliff and collapsed, almost gently, into the sea. Then the plane passed over the wall of ice, and there was nothing but whiteness below them and before them.

  I brought us here, Michael thought. Whatever happens is my fault.

  He set about pulling on his boots.

  “There! Look! Don’t scare him!”

  The penguin waddled toward them, flat wings held out wide to balance its wobbly, bowling-pin body. The penguin came to just past their knees, and its webbed feet went thop-thop-thop … thop-thop-thop on the hard-packed ice and snow. Michael and Emma stood perfectly still as the bird maneuvered by them and disappeared around a building.

  “That’s the best thing I ever saw,” Emma said. “Ever.”

  It was nine in the morning, and the sun had yet to rise. The temperature was only ten degrees below freezing, which was apparently quite warm. The plane, whose pontoons doubled as skis, had landed on a runway
of compacted snow beside the outpost. The outpost itself seemed like something you might find on the moon: nine or ten low metal buildings, domed roofs studded with antennas, half-buried tunnels snaking here and there.

  It looked like a space station, Michael thought, or a giant hamster run.

  Gabriel had made the children wait in the plane till he returned with new cold-weather gear and their own clothes, which he’d run through the dryer at the outpost laundry. It was fortunate that Dr. Pym had given them warm clothes before going to Malpesa since the outpost store did not cater to children. Gabriel had simply bought the smallest sizes he could find, and Michael and Emma both got long underwear, heavy parkas with fur-lined hoods, insulated snow pants to go over their normal pants, thickly padded mittens, liners to go inside the mittens, face masks, hats, goggles, and shell-like boots that fit over their old boots. “Like boots for our boots,” Emma said. “Cool.” Michael’s parka and pants just about fit him, but Gabriel had to cut some length off the sleeves of Emma’s parka and the bottoms of her pants, the edges of which he then sealed with heavy tape. When both children were finally dressed, Michael felt as if he were embarking on an undersea expedition or a journey into deep space. Emma looked at him and giggled.

  “You look like Mr. Sausage.”

  “So? You’re dressed the same.”

  Then she tried to punch him, lost her balance, and fell over.

  Even dressed as they were, when they stepped out of the plane, Michael’s breath was ripped away by the cold. It was a kind of cold that the children had never experienced, and they stood there, taking short breaths, getting used to the cramped feeling in their lungs. It was then they saw the penguin, whom Emma immediately named Derek, and this put them in a good mood as they headed to the outpost café to join Gabriel for breakfast.

  The windows of the metal hut were steamed with heat, and the floor was a steel grating through which the snow that people tramped inside could melt away. There were a dozen tables, perhaps half of them full. Gabriel and the small pilot sat in the corner. Gabriel got the children trays and plates and let them place their orders—scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, toast, hash browns—with the man at the grill. As Michael pressed the button to fill his hot chocolate, he noticed the stares he and Emma were getting. Gabriel had told them that the outpost was a way station for scientists, oil workers, explorers, and traders from all over Antarctica, but that children here were rare.