Edgeland

by Jake Halpern

  Wren gave him a wry smile. “I guess what I’m asking is, how’d all this start?”

  Irv stood up and walked over to Wren. He peered down the descender. “I reckon it’s because Edgeland’s a place for the dead, or the nearly dead. Old folks don’t like to be reminded of youth. And graylings are a combination of the two worst things: being a child and not following the rules of th’ all-powerful bone houses.” His kindly face creased into a smile, and he patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Wrennie, you won’t be young forever.”

  Wren wondered whether she should tell Irv she was about to leave Edgeland for good. After all, he was probably the closest thing she had to a parent. Well, not a parent exactly. Maybe a weaselly old uncle? In any case, she got the sense that he actually cared about her. So long as she paid her rent, of course.

  Wren smiled at Irv and gave his hand a quick squeeze. It felt like a bunch of bones covered in dry paper. That would have to suffice as good-bye for now.

  Wren walked over to the descender that led down to her lair. She pushed herself into the smooth tube, propping her back against one side and her feet against the other. A slip would mean death, but she wasn’t scared—she’d been clambering in and out of these pipes for years. No one knew every twist and turn, but Wren could enter the descenders at Irv’s shack and emerge easily anywhere on the island.

  About ten feet from the bottom, Wren jumped. The bronze hummed when she landed, sending a number of rats skittering. She stood up easily in this massive tube. The walls were caked with dirt, ash, and crude chalk drawings of boats, knives, and coins. Wren had drawn some of the pictures herself. Others were from the distant past. There were sections of the descenders, deeper down, with ornate renderings of three-headed wolves, flying rats, and giant snakes with claws and scissor-like tongues. Graylings competed with one another to create the wildest graffiti.

  Irv had hung lamps every ten feet in this section. They swung from bronze hooks jutting from the ceiling. There were always drafts in the descenders—air rushing from one network of pipes to another—and the lanterns creaked rhythmically. Irv had also built gates that restricted access to this specific descender. For these services he charged Wren a copper a week. He was robbing her, of course, but given that she was a thief, it was hard to complain.

  Wren walked past a stack of several dozen metal urns that held Irv’s stockpile of black-market lantern oil. After another thirty feet or so, she came upon the nest of blankets that she used as a bed. Next to it stood a wobbly little table with a few candles, two rusting knives, and some half-eaten bricks of life.

  Home.

  She shuffled the blankets. Two large, shiny cockroaches ambled away. Wren watched them go with a disinterested air. She had long been accustomed to their presence. The only thing she didn’t like was when they crawled across her face at night. Even the rats that lived in the descenders respected her personal space better than that.

  Wren sat down cross-legged and rested her back against the cool metal of the descender. She glanced at the scars on her forearms. Graylings fought often in the descenders. They used knives, or whatever jagged shards of metal they could get hold of, while scrapping for food, coins, and territory. Wren had been in more than a few such scuffles, and had the marks to prove it.

  She absentmindedly rubbed the wooden figurine that was strapped around her wrist. The figurine was smooth from years of handling. Her mother, Alinka, had carved it just before she’d died. Wren could still picture the cottage they’d lived in: blackened fireplace, wood rafters that smelled like smoke, and clay walls that went muddy in the rainy season. Out front was a porch, with three rocking chairs.

  Wren had been sitting in one of those chairs when two elderly women from the Sisterhood of the Suns came to the house. They explained that Alinka had drowned when her boat capsized. It was a small ferry. Her mother took it every Sunday, on her weekly trip to the market.

  After that, everything was a blur. The women from the Sisterhood asked if she had any family—aunts, uncles, grandparents. Wren shook her head. For as long as she could remember, she had no other family but her parents. Eventually, like so many orphans, she was shipped off to Edgeland to serve at one of the great bone houses.

  Wren was soon reciting prayers, polishing amulets, and writing DROWN THE SERPENT OF FEAR on funeral rafts. She met Alec, Ellie, and the other apprentices. She studied the Common Book. She settled into her new life. And then the bearded man—her father—had come for her. Only they missed each other. When she couldn’t find him on Edgeland, Wren was determined to chase him back to Ankora. But that would cost money, which she didn’t have.

  So she took a risk.

  Late one night, she broke the most sacred rule at House Aron: She stole a diamond ring from the finger of a dead woman. Sami Aron found out and banished her.

  Wren had been living in the descenders with the rats and cockroaches ever since. It was a lonely life. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep at night, she lay in the darkness and talked to her dead mother, recounting her day—what she’d eaten, where she’d gone, whom she’d chatted with—boring stuff, the kind of talk that only a mother really cared to hear.

  Wren used one of the blankets to wipe the bloodstains from her sandals. Then she stood up and reached high toward a hole in the wall: the opening to a small descender, no wider than two fists. She jumped and pulled out a hefty burlap satchel hidden inside. Within the satchel lay several hundred coins of different sizes and denominations, along with loose jewels she’d pried from stolen amulets.

  A shout broke the silence of the descender.

  “ANSWER ME!”

  The voice was coming from the other side of the nearest locked gate. Wren put the gold dinar in her satchel and returned it to its hiding place. Then she grabbed one of the rusting knives from her bedside, put it in her robe pocket, and walked over to the gate.

  “ANSWER ME!” repeated the voice. “ARE YOU THERE?!”

  Wren unlocked the gate and continued along the descender. She snaked her hand into her pocket and clutched the handle of her knife. She was good with a blade and never ventured far into the descenders without one.

  Wren kept walking until she came upon Joseph, a grayling with pale white skin and sunken eyes. He was staring into the Plunge—a ten-foot-wide descender that dropped straight down into the earth. Wren had thrown rocks into it without ever hearing them hit bottom. Three months ago, Joseph’s older brother, Oscar, made a rope hundreds of feet long and climbed down to search for the treasure that was rumored to lie at the bottom. He never returned. Since then, Joseph had been inconsolable.

  A steady current of warm air rose from the Plunge as Wren walked toward Joseph.

  “You should go to the surface,” she said. She released her grip on the knife. “Take a little food break.”

  Even in the dim light, Wren could see that Joseph hadn’t been eating. His skin was loose along his jawline, and his eyes gleamed yellow.

  “I forget to eat,” Joseph replied with a shrug. “And I can’t take any more bricks from you—it ain’t right.”

  Wren had met Joseph and Oscar soon after she’d been kicked out of House Aron. Back then, they’d all been part of a pack of graylings who nested in descenders beneath the Coffin District. The leader of this pack was a thick-boned brute of a girl named Mira. She took a dislike to Oscar because he was big for his age, and it was clear that someday he’d pose a threat to her. Mira eventually decided to give both brothers the boot. Wren decided to leave with them, but she opted to live on her own so she’d only have to worry about herself. Even so, she stayed friendly with the boys. They shared water and bread. And, in a pinch, they fought together. On one occasion, three older graylings attacked Oscar in a remote descender, and Wren—who’d been nearby—jumped into the fray to help him. It was how she’d gotten some of the scars on her arms.

  Wren turned her attention back to Joseph, who was staring at her with glassy, vacant eyes.

  “Listen,”
said Wren. “You need to eat.”

  “Oscar’s coming back soon,” Joseph said. “I know he hears me …” He ran the dirty rag of his shirt across his nose. “We’re a team, you see? I can’t pick pockets on my own.”

  Wren nodded sympathetically. Life on Edgeland was cruel to graylings. She hurried back to her stash, grabbed a handful of silvers, and pressed them into Joseph’s hand.

  “Take these,” she whispered. “They’ll keep you for a few months if you’re careful.”

  Joseph stared at the coins in his hand, then nodded solemnly. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll share these with Oscar when he comes back.”

  Wren turned away, ashamed of the tears filling her eyes. Oscar was likely dead, and Joseph might soon be as well, if he didn’t start eating. Edgeland chewed up graylings and spit them out. She had to leave—soon.

  Then, rather suddenly, she thought of Alec. Earlier in the day she’d planned on saying good-bye to him, but now—with everyone looking for her—the idea seemed rather foolhardy. But this was Alec. She couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.

  Alec stood on a raised wooden platform at House Aron’s pier, facing the furrier’s ship. He’d pulled it off. He’d done something just as glorious as returning home from the Jagged Teeth Mountains with chests of gold. People all over the world revered the bone houses of Edgeland. To have a child working at such a house was a blessing for the parents—especially if that child succeeded grandly, as he’d just done.

  Alec glanced back at the crowd that had come to gawk at the Polar North’s legendary voyagers. They watched in openmouthed astonishment as the magnificent furrier vessel moored alongside House Aron’s dock. Several were friends from other bone houses, and he felt their envious glances as he stood at the middle of the platform, doing his best to appear dignified.

  Even though his velvet funeral robe fit him well, beneath it Alec still looked young and scrawny, which was deeply embarrassing to him. Luckily, his fine golden hair contained no trace of red, so he couldn’t be mistaken for a whiff. His hair was braided close to the scalp in straight, orderly rows, highlighting his soft, smooth face.

  A loud clank rang out from the ship, and the crowd fell silent. Moments later, a wooden crane on the deck swiveled, and its winch boom swung out toward the pier. Alec’s eyes were on the cargo that dangled from the crane’s rope—a net holding a ten-foot cube of solid ice. The sea ice was cloudy and pale green, but Alec could still see the shape of a dead furrier entombed inside. He might have died ten months ago or ten years ago—either was possible.

  Despite the heat, Sami Aron wore his splendid set of rabbit-fur funeral robes. His expression was appropriately grave, though his eyes twinkled with the cheer of imminent wealth.

  It took nearly an hour for all the blocks of ice to be lowered to the pier. When this was done, Alec began to recite the Sun Requiem. All eyes were on him, House Aron’s shining star. Alec could read a hymn once and, like magic, know the words and melody by heart. In addition to speaking half a dozen languages, he was able to decipher ancient hieroglyphs. In theory, Alec would return home to his family at eighteen, but Sami Aron had no heir, or siblings, which meant that Alec was a candidate to inherit House Aron. Alec thought about this possibility at least once or twice a day.

  When Alec finished the chant, two rows of bare-chested, thickly muscled pallbearers marched through the crowd. They were the Blind and—in Edgeland—they were the people who carried the dead. It was believed that the Blind were immune from the temptations of the devil because they could not see. In order to join the Blind, they agreed to sew their eyelids shut. In the absence of sight, many of the Blind developed a keen sense of smell. It was said they could detect the scent of pickles on someone’s breath from across a crowded room.

  It was fortunate that there were so many Blind on hand: It took six of them to lift each block of ice. Drawn by the prospect of hefty payments and the prestige of carrying furriers, nearly two hundred had come to work at the pier. Slowly they began marching back to House Aron. As they walked, the Blind made a series of shrill, birdlike squawks. Like bats, they navigated by listening to the way sound traveled. Alec and Sami followed, along with other workers from House Aron.

  Alec glanced at the furrier’s ship one last time. He frowned. The funeral scows lashed to the side were at least thirty feet long. Scows longer than the twenty-foot vents beneath the Ramparts could get lodged sideways and stuck. Alec would need to discuss this with Isidro.

  The funeral procession snaked through the narrow cobblestone streets. As Alec and Sami rounded a corner, a small black cat darted across their path. Seconds later, two graylings, dressed in ashen-colored rags and wielding knives, scampered after it. One of them turned, bared its teeth, and hissed at them before disappearing down an adjoining alleyway. Seeing this grayling made Alec think of Wren and the wretched way she lived in the passageways beneath the city. It gave him a pang of guilt. He could do more for her. He should do more for her.

  “The graylings grow bolder,” said Sami Aron, shaking his head. “They used to come out only at night—the Shadows’ problem. Now something will have to be done.”

  Alec nodded gravely. Something will have to be done. What did that mean?

  “I’m sure you’ve heard that Fat Freddy was murdered,” continued Sami. “On the Ramparts. Of course he deserved it, but there’ll be trouble.” He sighed. “A filthy grayling killed him.”

  Alec stiffened, but still he managed to utter the response that Sami Aron expected: “The young have no wisdom.”

  “Except for you,” Sami said, stepping closer and placing a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “Fortune has smiled upon you. I always believed that you’d bring me luck.”

  Alec shrugged slightly, embarrassed but pleased by the praise.

  “Well done with the furriers,” Sami Aron said. “Keep this up, and who knows how high you may rise.”

  Warmth flooded Alec’s face as he took this in.

  Suddenly, a whooshing noise came from a descender that jutted out from a nearby wall, followed by a gust of smoky air.

  Sami Aron jerked his head toward the smoke. “Hmm,” he said. “Perhaps the Shadows are hunting for that grayling—trying to smoke out the rat.”

  Alec did not reply. What if Sami is right? Wren might be down there right now.

  The Blind carried the furriers to House Aron’s basement, a cool, cave-like room large enough to house a hundred bodies. Today, the room was so cold that Alec could see his breath as he walked among the ice slabs. Massive candles lined the walls, revealing the words etched into the stone: DROWN THE SERPENT OF FEAR.

  On the far wall, there was an ornate painting of the Sunlit Glade, the name for the Sun heaven. Alec’s mother and his nursemaid both talked about this mythical place. Supposedly it was full of dangling vines, tall grass, and sumptuous fruit. All Sun children grew up on these tales. Be good and you’ll go to the Sunlit Glade one day.

  Shadows called their heaven the Moonlit Beach. It was a separate paradise, reserved only for Shadows. The two religions insisted on dividing everything up—even the afterlife. Of course, Shadows believed the Moonlit Beach was far superior to the Sunlit Glade. They said the beach air smelled of juniper and just a touch of its sand provided everlasting joy.

  But first, everyone had to go to purgatory.

  In the Common Book, the islands of purgatory were described as desolate and empty isles where the dead waited until they were ready to enter heaven. There were two separate islands within a stone’s throw of each other: one for Suns and one for Shadows.

  “Don’t talk too much about purgatory,” Sami Aron had told Alec and the other apprentices. “If clients ask, just say they won’t be there for long.” Instead, Sami Aron urged everyone to talk about the Sunlit Glade and the lush, green heaven that awaited them. “Give them lots of details. It’ll give them comfort.”

  Ember Aron—the founder of their house—was famous for saying: In the face of the unknown, give them comf
ort.

  Alec walked slowly through the basement with a lantern in hand. He paused in front of a piercingly blue-green slab of ice—so solid and massive it could have been hewn directly from an iceberg. The man inside was holding up his right hand, as if warding off attackers. On his wrist was a hefty gold bracelet, which appeared to be encrusted with diamonds. Alec smiled, congratulating himself again for leading the furriers to House Aron.

  He peered closer. There were water bubbles in the ice around the man’s arm—a telltale sign that the ice was melting.

  Alec moved up to get a better look at the furrier’s face. What he saw almost made him gag. The furrier’s eyes were bulging and his mouth was open, as if he’d been frozen midscream. In the middle of his mouth, a purple tongue stuck out like a limb.

  “I killed that one.”

  Startled, Alec whirled around. Isidro stood in the shadows several feet away, looking older and grayer than he had on the ship.

  “He was a thief,” said Isidro, nodding at the furrier. “Stealing is a grave dishonor to our ancestors. Murder can be explained—the heat of passion, and so on. But stealing …” He shook his head. “Stealing merits a more painful death.”

  Alec turned away from the body and stepped toward Isidro. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. “But as we left for House Aron, I saw that your funeral boats are long enough to get stuck in the vents. It rarely happens, but … still … we can provide shorter ones.”

  Isidro considered this for a moment. “That is fine, but for one exception. My body must be in the scow I built with my own hands. I dreamed that I will need it in purgatory.”

  The furrier motioned for Alec to follow him and walked to a slab that was larger than the others. Alec raised his lantern and saw not one, but two figures encased in ice. One was a woman; the other was a child. The woman was holding the child tightly to her chest.