Pantomime (14 page)

  But relations as of late had become strained. If something did not change so that Ellada had what it needed, war would break out again, and it would be messy. Cyril and I recently had several impassioned discussions, naively proposing different solutions, convinced that we, young children, could solve the problems of the land that the men in wigs in the council could not.

  "Next question, Gene," Cyril said, shocking me from my musings.

  "Ah, right. What is the current political system of Temne?"

  "That's a trick question," Cyril said. "Northern or Southern Temne?"

  "Both."

  "Northern Temne is a democracy and Southern Temne… um," Cyril faltered.

  "Southern Temne is also a democracy, you nitwit, though their leader has more power than Northern Temne," Oswin cut in. "Remember what Professor Holly said? 'The south has power and pomp.'"

  "Well done," I said, setting the book aside. "You're all set to pass. Now what?"

  "I think we deserve cake," Cyril declared.

  "I agree," I said. "I'll go ask the cook."

  I scurried to the kitchen and asked Vach, the cook, for tea and any cake or biscuits that were lying around. He brought out most of a sponge cake that had been prepared for Mother's visitors the previous day, and filled the silver tea set.

  "Lia will bring it up," Vach said. "Run along."

  "Thank you, Vach," I said.

  I returned to the study. Cyril, Oswin, and Rojer were discussing sports. Not terribly interesting, but I joined in where I could. I relaxed into my chair, the heavy book of history by my side. We laughed, and we joked, and we ate cakes and sipped our drinks. It was like a very informal afternoon tea.

  Mother walked past the door and paused in the open doorway. Our laughter and chatter drifted to silence. She looked at my stocking-clad feet dangling over the arm of the leather chaise, the lace of the skirt hiked up enough to show my legs midway up the calf. She took in the empty tea cups and the crumbs on the table. I pushed my skirt down and scooted off of the chaise.

  "What are you boys up to this afternoon?" Mother asked, smiling sweetly.

  "Just studying, Mother," Cyril said. "Gene was testing us."

  "Oh? And how did you fare?"

  "They did very well," I said.

  "That's wonderful. Oh, Iphigenia," she said, as if she had just remembered something. "How was that embroidery you were working on coming along? You did promise to show it to me this evening, did you not?"

   "It's nearly done." I muttered, a faint blush creeping into my cheeks. Oswin was undoubtedly stifling a snigger behind me.

  "Why don't you run along and finish, darling?"

  My teeth squeaked together, I ground them so hard. "Of course, Mother," I said. "Good day, Oswin, Rojer," I gave them a little curtsey and left.

  My embroidery lay on the bed where I had left it. I had tried stitching a dandelion, which had turned out rather lopsided. I spent the afternoon cutting each stitch out of the fabric, one by one.

 

"Let's go climbing," Cyril said to me that night.

  "What? Now?"

  "Yes. I need to get out and breathe, and you always say I should ask you to come along. This is me, asking."

  "All right," I said, and we changed into the threadbare clothes we wore in the Emerald Bowl, where the family estates were. I tucked my long hair up into a cap.

  We snuck past the servants and down the stairs. One of our neighbors, Lady Elm, was in the hallway as we passed, but did not really
see
us. We were just two scruffy kitchen hands, or not-too-sooty chimney sweeps. Beneath notice.

  We slipped out of the servants' entrance. The night was warmer than it had been, but still a bit chilly. I gestured for Cyril to follow me as I navigated my way through the familiar streets.

  I wanted to take Cyril to my favorite place to climb; a tenement in a nice part of the Gilt Quarter. The building had suffered structural damage and repairs had so far taken most of a year with no near end in sight. The tenement was right next to a large Penglass dome. Residences that faced the Penglass were especially dear, as, though the view of the Emerald Park was obscured, on a sunny day the rooms were bathed in swirling blue light.

  I tried to climb as often as I could get away or as often as I felt the need to escape. Climbing made me feel in control. I could decide how high to climb and I was never afraid to look down. At the top of a building or a church spire, my day-to-day troubles felt insignificant. Below me stretched buildings and Penglass as far as the eye could see, and any people walking below were as small as ants. They never looked upward.

  I climbed the scaffolding. The sun was setting, tingeing everything the pink and purple of growing dusk. The blue light of the Penglass shone against the sandy stone. I stopped and looked down. Cyril had hesitated at the bottom, but he grasped the metal and followed me, his face determined. I smiled and stopped at the fifth story.

  The top of the Penglass dome was close enough that I could step across to it, and I did, very carefully. Penglass was notoriously slippery.

  "What are you doing, Gene? That's so dangerous," Cyril called quietly, mindful of the curtained windows behind him. We were careful to not climb directly in front of any windows. A human-shaped shadow would frighten anyone inside terribly, and many inside carried firearms against intruders.

  "Don't be a baby. Just be careful," I said. Cyril took a deep breath and stepped onto the Penglass dome, his fingers pressed white against the cerulean glass. He carefully navigated his way and sat beside me, just in time to see the sun disappear over the horizon. This was arguably the best view of the city. The Penglass dome crested a hill, and below us was the green island of the Emerald Park, the sooty buildings and the church spires falling away toward the open sea and the sunset. Clouds darkened to grey, like charcoal smudges on a watercolor painting.

  The purple of dusk faded to the bright yet dark blue of early night. I sighed, content in the moment.

  "Um, Gene?" Cyril asked.

  "What is it?" I said, almost dreamily, still staring at the horizon and the half-moon.

  "Look at your hands." His voice was frightened.

  I looked down and was so startled I nearly fell off of the Penglass dome. Where my hands rested against the dome, the glass
glowed.

  I snatched my hands away from the glass. The outline of my hands remained, in a white light tinged with blue, purple, and green. It looked incandescent, almost like when the sunlight hit a crystal or a dragonfly's wing. Cyril's hands did not change the glass at all.

  "What is this?" I asked.

  Cyril's wide eyes were my only response.

  "Maybe we should go. What if it's going to explode?"

  Cyril shook his head. "I don't think so." He trailed his fingers against the glass. Nothing. No light at all.

  My handprints began to fade, the light dimming to dark blue.

  "Try it again," Cyril urged.

  I stretched my hand toward the glass, my fingertip hovering above the glass before I set it down. Light radiated from the single point. I glanced at the curtained windows of the tenements, afraid that someone would see.

  "It's so beautiful," Cyril said.

  "It is, but it's also damned terrifying," I said, taking my fingertip away. I had spent more time atop Penglass domes than most. I had watched countless sunsets and sunrises from them. Maybe that was why this one glowed at my touch. I spent more time on this Penglass dome than any others. Had it grown… used to me?

  I told Cyril my theory.

  "That must be it," he said, and I was relieved. I did not want to think of another reason why the Penglass should react to me and not Cyril. And why now? I had spent years touching Penglass, but this had never happened before.

  I touched the dome again, mesmerized. I trailed my fingertip along the glass, and a trail of light followed. Cyril and I both laughed in pure delight and amazement. I swirled my fingertips, creating beautiful glowing spirals, like the aurora borealis.

  "Can I try?" Cyril asked, reaching for my hand.

  He held my index finger and wrote "MAGIC," with stars surrounding it. He let my hand fall.

  "It is magic, isn't it?" my brother asked.

  I took my hands away from the glass again, watching the light slowly fade. "I don't know. It might be. Alder magic."

  "Maybe you could open the domes," Cyril said, excited. "Imagine if you did. You'd be famous and you'd go down in the history books forever. The girl who solved the mystery of Penglass."

  My eyes widened with the daydream. I tried knocking on the Penglass, half-expecting a little door to open to let us inside. But I heard nothing but the dull tap of a fist on glass. "What do you think would be inside?"

  "I always imagined they were the home of the Alders," Cyril said. "So maybe they would be filled with tons of Vestige. We'd be rich beyond imagining!"

  I licked my lips. "There could be dangerous things in there as well. Maybe the domes are prisons, filled with monsters."

  His smile wavered. "Maybe it's filled with Chimaera."

  I gulped, wondering what was inside what we were sitting on. I lay down and pressed my ear to the glass, but I heard no scrabbling of claws from within. The imprint of half my face and my ear remained when I sat up.

  In a fit of silliness I wrote "GENE'S PENGLASS. NO TRESPASSING." The light of the day was well and truly gone, and my name glowed like a beacon. I swiped my open palm over the words in a swathe of light.

  "I've never seen anything like this," Cyril said.

  "We shouldn't tell anyone," I said, watching the last of the light fade from the Penglass.

  "Why not?"

  "Because it means more tests. I've had enough tests, don't you think?"

  He swallowed. "Of course." He peered at me. "You think this might have something to do with how you were born, don't you?"

  "No," I said, my voice sharp as a knife. "It's only because I've touched this dome so much. I bet if I touched another nothing would happen. It has nothing to do with me."

  "We should head back," Cyril said, wisely changing the subject. "Before someone sees us." He glanced over his shoulder at the curtained windows. He stood. "I also have that damned exam tomorrow, but I've no idea how I'll sleep tonight after this."

  "You and me both–" I started.

  Cyril teetered on the smooth Penglass. He half-smiled as he reached out for me to steady himself. But the act of reaching unbalanced him and his feet slipped out from under him. My hand snatched out, but I only caught the cuff of his coat. My brother slipped from my fingers.

  And he fell.

  Without thinking, I followed him, sliding down the blue Penglass, cold and smooth beneath my hands. I controlled the slide, whereas Cyril scrabbled as he fell, his clutching hands not slowing his tumble at all. I could only watch in horror as he headed directly toward a tree in the Emerald Park. At the last moment, he managed to swerve, but he still hit an outstretched branch with a sickening crack before landing in a bush.

  I landed on the grass in a crouch and rushed toward him.
Please don't be hurt,
I prayed.
Please, please, please.

  "Cyril?" I asked, barely able to breathe.

  He groaned.

  I went to his side, afraid to touch him. "Cyril, are you all right?"

  He breathed hard. "My shoulder. And – my arm," he managed. Even within his coat I could tell the arm was bending in a way it should not.

  "Can you walk? We're not far from home? Should I call the Constabulary? Oh, Cyril, I'm so sorry."

  I heard muffled shouting from up above. Several people in the scaffolded tenement and the building across from it had opened their windows. They were gaping at the two long swathes of light left by my hands as I slid down the Penglass. Oh, Styx.

  "Cyril, I don't think the Constabulary is an option anymore," I said. "We have to get out of here."

  My brother sat upright and gasped with pain. I put his good arm around my shoulders and hauled him upright, thankful that I was stronger than I looked. We hobbled home, Cyril grunting in pain. At one point, he staggered, and I fell against another Penglass dome.

  I knew before I pulled my hand away that it would be glowing beneath my touch.

 

 

UNPUBLISHED MEDICAL NOTES, DR LEONARD AMBROSE

 

"I feel like I'm going to be sick," I said, bowed over my breakfast.

  "How much did you drink last night, Micah?" Arik asked, poking me in the shoulder.

  "I don't remember," I said, covering my eyes with my hands. I barely recalled the bonfire.

  "I've had more than my fair share of sore heads the next morning. You should eat something, drink plenty of water, and go into town and have a beer or two," Arik said. "Works every time."

  My stomach clenched at the thought. "Maybe some water," I said. I drank a glass of water, managed one spoonful of porridge, and staggered to my cart to lie in darkness until practice began.