Julia Vanishes (6 page)

Somebody shouts, “Catch it, Agnes!” and a small thin object goes sailing through the air. Whoever threw it is trying to escape through the crowd, but they have him already; they are beating him without knowing yet what he has done.

The giantess and another witch, one of them presumably Agnes but perhaps not, lunge for the object. There is a shot and the giantess staggers, a red stain bursting across the front of the man's shirt she wears. She falls against the rail of the barge. We have drifted so close that we are looking right up into her face, twisted with rage.

“Pen,” she says hoarsely, as if she is asking us for one.

I suppose that's what was thrown. But neither witch got it. The giantess is hauled back into line, bleeding heavily as our man rows us a little farther out. She is unsteady on her feet, but it takes more than a gunshot to kill a witch. Drowning is the surest way, for no witch can swim, or even float. Water is their great enemy; fire their friend.

It is a small bit of drama to liven up the Cleansing. A year or so back, a witch actually managed to snap a guard's neck before being shot three times and hurled overboard. I still remember the look on her face as she twisted his head, the horrible sound it made. Agoston Horthy watches expressionlessly, one hand on his gun, and the holy rambles a bit about the Nameless One showing us grace for doing His bidding while the man who threw the pen is beaten to an immobile, bleeding heap on the low path. I fix my gaze on the young witch again, her eyes and mouth squeezed shut, her fists clenched. Something is building in my chest, some terrible pressure.

The witches struggle, some of them, but there on the ledge with a row of soldiers behind them, there is nowhere to flee to. They are hurled untidily into the water, clothes flapping, screaming or silent. The young witch just holds herself tight and falls. Like all of them, she sinks like a stone. The crowd roars, a deafening sound.

Nine years ago, I watched my mother die like this. I cheer myself hoarse.

This is what I remember: My parents were in love, and they were unhappy. My mother was a washerwoman who did a bit of palm reading too—a dangerous side job, in Agoston Horthy's Frayne. She wouldn't read my palm, though. “It's mostly bunk,” she said lightly. “The lines on your hand might tell your path, but you can surely wander off it.” The brick courtyard behind our flat was always hung with other people's laundry, and when we were very small, Dek and I used to play hide-and-seek among the great white sheets and fading underthings of Spira City's residents. My father was a famous jockey before I was born, but I knew him only as an opium addict.

My mother was pretty, with olive skin and thick hair, but I find it harder and harder to recall her face exactly, its proportions and expressions. I remember better her hands, both the feel of them and the look of them: small, brown, callused hands, deft and clever,
moving
hands. I remember her hands folding paper scraps into little animal shapes to delight us, working a hairbrush through my tangles, cutting bread, pouring milk, reaching to wipe a smudge from my face. I can see vividly, still, her fingers striking a match or pinning laundry to the line. The way she gestured when she and my father were arguing, her hands like twin knives slicing the air asunder. Afterward, the air was in shreds, but nothing had changed.

If anyone asked, we said proudly, “Our mama is Ammi, the washerwoman.” We called her that—everyone called her that—but we all knew she was more than that. Sometimes she'd be gone for days, and when she came back her hands moved even faster than usual, her worried fingers never still. Cloaked figures turned up in the middle of the night to whisper and pass messages that she burned in the stove. By day, the denizens of the Twist tipped their hats to her, gave her a good price at the market, called out “Good day, Ammi!” from across the street. The big men of the neighborhood nodded to her when they saw her pass. The old crones who had seen everything and knew everyone had things to whisper in her ear. She was at the heart of it all, connected deeply to the very pulse of the Twist, the secret and the not so secret, but more than that, people respected her and they
liked
her. They gave my father more chances than he ever deserved, for her.

My father's name was Jerel. I remember him giggling in a corner of the room at nothing, and sleeping in the stairs, and promising my mother, promising us, promising the landlord, promising the cabbies in the street, that he was going to quit and get a decent job.

“Don't believe him,” Dek told me, so I didn't.

My mother believed him, though, for years. Or maybe she didn't, maybe she was just pretending to believe him, but she stuck by him, anyway. I think he was a handsome man once, but there wasn't much left of that by the end.

Dek took care of me most of the time, though he was only three years older. We ran wild with the other children, little bands of troublemakers in the Twist, always getting dragged home by the ear or whipped by whoever we were irritating that day. I learned early on that there was a secret space I could retreat to, sort of out the back of me, a shadowy place like a pocket in the world I could pull myself into, and nobody would see me. When I told Dek what I could do, he told me not to let on. So I was careful, and guarded my special skill. My secret. I liked having a secret, and somehow it made sense that it was dangerous. Maybe it's because my mother was a witch that I can do it, but I am no witch myself. I burn very well and am a fine swimmer. A pen in my hand is just a pen; it wields no magic.

I was still very young when I understood about my mother. I knew what witches were, of course: wicked things wielding their pens to disrupt the natural order, masquerading as human, always plotting to rule over the rest of us, worshippers of the Dark Ones who live under the earth in Kahge. They'd give you boils and eat your guts for supper without the slightest pang of remorse. Fire in their veins, pitiless, soulless.

We were outside throwing stones at rats, of which there were a great many that summer, when somebody hollered out a window, “Raid! Soldiers! Raid!”

We all scattered, making for home. Dek and I ran up the stairs to the little flat our parents kept above the laundry. There was a smell of burnt cardamom. Our mother was sitting at the table scribbling something awkwardly on a piece of paper. I don't know where she learned to read or write, and she didn't do it well, but well enough, as it turned out. Her face was flushed and slightly damp.

“There's a raid,” said Dek, almost angrily.

“Hush,” she said, rising. She fed the paper she'd been writing on into a little fire in the gas stove and turned to me with a pen and inkpot. “Go and hide these out of the building,” she said. “Hurry. Don't be seen.”

I look back on that sometimes and think: She knew.
Don't be seen.
That's why she gave the things to me and not to Dek, who was older.

Proud as anything, I ran out of the building and into the street. Soldiers were coming around the corner, row after row of them, dazzling in their white and blue. They wore long shining boots, swords at their hips, and rifles on their backs. I huddled against the wall, withdrawing into my secret space, so they would not see me. They were breaking off into smaller groups at each building, barging into shops and apartments. Two of them went stomping up the stairs to our flat in those magnificent boots, hat feathers waving. I shoved the pen and ink into a gutter pipe, deep as they would go, and ran up the stairs after them.

The smell of burnt cardamom was now covered by my mother's perfume, which she had sprayed around the room. Our flat looked so small and dreary with the soldiers in it, the white feathers in their hats brushing the ceiling. One of them was short and fat, with a double chin and kind eyes. The other had a mouth like a trap, and he was going through our few belongings.

Dek looked scared and uncertain next to our mother, but she was smiling up at the soldiers and touching a hand self-consciously to her hair.

“Your papers, ma'am,” said the fat soldier.

“Of course.”

Our mother crossed to the other side of the room, where she pulled a brick out of the wall. Behind it was a little tin box, which she took out and opened, handing over her papers.

“My husband's too,” she said. “He's at work now.”

“What does he do?” asked the soldier, looking at the papers.

“Carpenter,” she lied blandly.

“This your son?” he asked, gesturing at Dek. I had disappeared myself near the door.

“No,” she said. “This is Benedek, just an errand boy. I believe he lives the next street over. Who are your parents again, dear?”

Dek gave her an openmouthed stare. She waved a hand dismissively.

“Rosalie Tish,” she said. “I remember now. Two streets over.” She added in a loud whisper, “No father.”

But the soldiers weren't interested.

“Nothing,” said Trap Mouth, having rooted through everything we had.

“Well,” said the fat soldier uncomfortably. “I suppose we could just carry on.”

“We've got to check, though,” said the other, taking out a box of matches.

“I suppose so. Apologies, ma'am. Orders, you understand. Would you give me your hand, please?”

“My hand?” She looked alarmed, withdrawing slightly. “What's going on?”

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” said the fat one, and Trap Mouth went over and grabbed her by the arm. She gasped but did not resist as the fat one took the matches and lit one.

“Oh, please don't,” she whimpered. Trap Mouth gave her a hard yank by the arm, then staggered as Dek went catapulting into him. I ran at him too, wanting to tear his eyes out, but he hurled Dek straight into me, and we both went tumbling across the floor.

“Little beasts!” said Trap Mouth as my mother gave a shriek.

“She burns,” said the fat one, blowing out the match. A red welt was rising on the back of my mother's hand.

“Barbaric!” she cried, clutching her burnt hand to her chest.

“Sorry, ma'am,” said the fat one.

“Where did this one come from?” Trap Mouth pointed at me with his foot.

“No idea,” said my mother angrily. “Scat, both of you!” This at Dek and me. We ran down to the street, me shaking with sobs. The soldiers followed us out, but ignored us, instead joining their company and disappearing around a corner. No witches were taken from our street, though we heard later that four were arrested from the Twist, including Ma Rosen, who sold cinnamon buns in Fitch Square. They were drowned a few days later.

When Dek and I returned to the flat later on, our mother looked even more exhausted than usual.

“What did they want?” I cried, although Dek had already explained it to me.

“Just soldiers up to mischief,” she said.

“I hate them!” I said. She smiled wryly at me and said, “So do I.”

“Why did you say we weren't yours?” Dek wanted to know, still hurt.

Our mother reached out and drew us both close to her in a hug.

“Because,” she said, “when you have an enemy, you must never let them know what matters to you the most. Or who.”

I nestled against her, breathing in the soapy smell of her—soap with a hint of burnt cardamom and perfume. My heart was racing, but I did not say to Dek what he also must have noticed: The blister on her hand was gone, the skin as smooth as if it had never been touched by fire.