He smirks, nods to us, and turns into the crowd.
She shakes her head. Strange thing, him.
Hes just a little old-fashioned, I say.
And you! she says. Dont think I didnt see what you did as we were getting off the train. Well be talking about that some other time when were not being manhandled by patrolmen.
Move along, please, the patrolman says from somewhere behind us. Move along, toward your own buildings.
It is wildly inappropriate that Internment is crumbling around me, but all I can think about is the warmth of Basils skin lingering on my lips.
Move along, please, the patrolman says from somewhere behind us. Move along, toward your own buildings.
It is wildly inappropriate that Internment is crumbling around me, but all I can think about is the warmth of Basils skin lingering on my lips.
Alice is frantic. When I open the door to my apartment, shes got her arms around me before I know whats happening. Shes home, she calls to Lex, whos got an unfinished quilt draped across his lap and a spool of thread in one hand and a needle in the other. He does his best work when hes anxious. But he drops all of these things and starts making his way to me.
Alice is holding me by the shoulders now. Are those bruises?
Shes hurt? Lex says. He rarely seems to regard me at all, much less show concern. Normally Id appreciate it, but right now it only adds to this feeling that Internment has gone mad.
Its cosmetics, I say, reaching my arm out to Lex so he can find me. Im perfectly fine. Where are Mom and Dad?
Dad has been patrolling all day, Lex says. Mom was at the market. We came down so someone would be here when you got back.
Theyre making everyone go home, I say. The trains are running slowly. The cars are all overcrowded, so they want to make sure everyone has time to get off at their stops. I thought I was doing better, but theres a stone in my stomach at the thought of my mother and father out in all that chaos. And I can still smell the burnt air, though maybe its just clinging to my dress.
Alice sets me in a kitchen chair, moves to the sink, and returns seconds later to wipe the cosmetics and sweat from my face with a wet cloth. My tears are only from the abrasiveness of the ashes, but they still earn her sympathetic touch.
Lex, sitting across the table, still has his hand over mine. He keeps pressing his palm into my knuckles like I might vaporize into nothing if he doesnt hold tight. Sometimes he hides in the darkness of his blindness, and other times he fears it will swallow everyone up and leave him alone.
Alice dabs the cold cloth to my forehead and then drapes it across the back of my neck, still fretting that Im too red.
Thomas thinks it may not be cause to panic, I say, trying to reassure her. He said the flower shop still uses flame lanterns and it was probably an accident.
There will be a broadcast tonight for sure, she says. Thank goodness youre safe. We heard the fire was near the theater and weve just been all over the place about it.
Lex is squeezing my hand. I close my eyes, trying to pretend that Im blind, trying to understand what it means to be in this world without seeing any of it, not knowing where anyone is, if theyre safe.
I can see the red of my eyelids, but its still horrifying. It isnt simply that I was missing in that chaoswithout the sound of my voice, to him Id disappeared into that darkness entirely. I could have fallen over the edge of Internment.
Im sorry I made you worry, I say. I lean over the table so that Im closer. Ill never disappear. I promise that every time I leave, Ill always come back.
Not coming back wouldnt be the worst thing, he says. For any of us.
None of that talk, Alice says. Youre going to scare her.
She should be scared, Lex says.
Im not, I say, but I am.
Everything is going to be fine, Alice says. Well know more when the broadcast goes up. And if there is no broadcast, then it cant be too serious, now, can it? Shes handing me a cup of tea, ushering Lex and me to the couch.
Soon, I feel myself falling asleep under the unfinished blanket, as Lex works skillfully at its edges. Some distant part of me understands that theres cause to worry and that Im frightened, but its safe and warm inside, and Alice is moving about the kitchen, cooking up the smell of something sugary sweet. She asks me a question, something about my hair, and though I dont hear her I nod assent, and in the next moment shes peeling off my velvet gloves and gently unclasping the wooden barrettes in my hair.
When I was small, my brother would let me follow him on the train for entire afternoons without a destination. We would ride until we were hungry or had to find a water room. The train would always be crowded and Id stay so close to him that I could hear his murmurs as he wrote on scraps of paper. He never spoke to me, always writing or looking at the city passing by. But it didnt matter. I knew the honor of having been invited. We were two parts of the same set then, our skin as pale as the sunlight that washed over us through the glass, both of us silent and blue-eyed in the bustling crowd. On these trips I began to feel we were the same. I would catch our reflection in the window and fancy myself a perfect miniature version of him.
The train that circles Internment couldnt carry him far enough, though. My brother, the peripatetic, the sage, was too restless to stay in one place, but one place is all were given. The only one who could quell this restlessness was Alice, always Alice, who swears she was born already in love with him. When she wasnt allowed to have their child, something fell apart and they lost themselves for a while.
The train speeds past the apartment, rattling the walls, and I dream that Im riding it in my theater dress. Im on my way to meet my betrothed waiting for me on the platform. I dream about the other passengers, and I wonder whos waiting for them. I wonder what keeps the conductor conscious as he navigates through the night. I dream about the murderer, out there somewhere, and wonder where he is when the train passes him by.
6
Break the sky. Look up. Look down. Beyond what is familiar. If youve never been afraid, you havent had your moment of bravery just yet.
Intangible Gods, Daphne Leander, Year Ten
IN THE MORNING, I AWAKEN WITH STIFF muscles and the notion that something is wrong. But it isnt until I realize Im still on the couch, Lexs unfinished quilt replaced with the heavy blanket from my own bed, that I remember.
Good morning, love, my mother says, setting down her sampler when she sees that my eyes are open. Would you like breakfast? I brought home some fresh strawberries.
Thats right. She was at the market when the fire happened. Are you okay? I sit upright. When did you get home?
There was a broadcast, she says by way of an answer. Your father wanted me to wake you for it, but you seemed so exhausted. Shes sitting on the edge of the couch now, smoothing back my hair. When Lex grew too old for her affections, she lavished me with double, and to make up for his absence Ive always welcomed them.
What did the broadcast say? I ask.
The kings investigators are looking into the cause of the fire. He just wanted to reassure us that everything will be fine. While my father is trying to introduce me to a more honest view of the city, my mother is still trying to coddle me.
Investigators? I say. I didnt know the king had investigators.
He does. For incidents like this.
I dont like that word, incident. Three years ago I was pulled from my classroom and told my brother had had an incident, and I was brought to see him at the hospital, where he lay unconscious and within a sliver of his life.
I think of what Basil said yesterday on the train, and the worry clouds into panic. Something is happening, isnt it?
My father has never been one to lie to me, but the same cant be said of my mother. Now, though, perhaps because Im old enough to wear my betrothal band, she says, Its possible, love. Were all waiting to find out whats happened. Theyve stopped the train for today; nobody is supposed to leave home. The shops will stay open late tomorrow so people can do the rest of their weekend shopping after work and class.
Ive always wanted for her to be honest with me. When I was little, Id try on her dresses and fantasize about the day when they would no longer pool around me. The highest honor was when shed sit me on her overstuffed red stool and brush colors onto my eyelids and lips and cheeks. I wanted very much for us to be equals.
Now, suddenly all I want is to put my head in her lap, for her to tell me its going to be okay and this feeling that Im trapped in my own city will pass. I want the mother I had before Lex became a jumper. I want to stop pretending that I dont need her, that Im not a child.
Instead, I ask for strawberries. We eat breakfast and make meaningless talk about nothing importanthomework and what should be for dinner.
Your father wont be eating at home tonight, she says. I do hope he doesnt work himself too hard. He was barely able to take a nap before he was called in this morning. Shes staring past me, through the window that overlooks the city.
She has been a bit distant these days, my mother. There has always been a little worry in her eyes. I follow her gaze to the city and I can still taste the smoke on my tongue no matter how many strawberries Ive eaten. A girl with glittery eyes was found on the train tracks with a slashed throat. Saying nothing, I stand, go to my mothers chair, and put my arms around her.
What was with that strange little girl in the theater? Pen asks. As she walks, she holds her hand over her head, watching the way her betrothal band fills with light where there will one day be blood.
I think shes Daphne Leanders sister, I say. I caught her putting up passages of Daphnes essay.
Really? She stops walking and swirls to face me, eyes wild with excitement.
Basil looks sharply at me.
Keep it moving, ladies, please, the patrolman behind us says.
Being herded into the academy like animals to slaughter, Thomas complains, appearing from nowhere, as is his skill. I feel like were in section seven with all the beasts.
Pen makes some comment about his smell resembling that of a cow, and he artfully retorts with a compliment about her redolence-dabbed wrists. Basil leans close to me and says, You didnt tell me about Amy being the murdered girls sister.