Snakeroot

by Andrea Cremer

  Charlotte hesitated a moment too long. And he saw her.

  Cranking hard on a wheel, which made steam spout from the machine’s shoulders, the operator turned the iron man to pursue them.

  “Go!” Charlotte shoved the boy away from her. “Run east! I’ll catch up.”

  “What are you—” he started to ask, but began to run when she pushed him so hard that he almost fell over.

  When she was certain he wasn’t looking back, Charlotte reached into her skirt pocket. Her hand found cool metal, and she pulled a small object from within the folds of muslin. It only took a few winds of the key before sputters and sparks leapt from her palm. She sighed and regretfully set the magnet mouse on the ground, pointing it at the encroaching machine. The little creature whirred and skittered away, its spring-anchored wheels accommodating the rough path she’d set it upon.

  “Come on.”

  When Charlotte caught up with the boy, she ignored the puzzled look on his face and grasped his hand, forcing him to run with her into the dark western wood, away from the now bloodred haze of early sun that stretched through the forest canopy.

  Between gasps of breath, his fingers tightened on hers. She glanced at him.

  His tawny eyes had sharpened, and he peered at her like a hawk. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  Charlotte dropped his hand and gathered her skirts to accommodate her leap over a moss-covered log.

  “Charlotte.”

  “Thank you for not leaving me back there, Charlotte.”

  She looked away from him, nodded, and ran a bit faster. Behind them she heard the explosion she’d been waiting for. Though they were hardly out of danger, Charlotte smiled, feeling a surge of triumph. But a moment later, a single thought chased her giddiness away.

  Ash is going to kill me.

  2.

  THE LAST BEAMS of sunlight were cutting through the forest by the time they reached the tree.

  “Bloody hell!” Charlotte groped through the tangle of roots in search of subtle tactile differentiation. Her companion gasped at her outburst, and she spared him a glance. Not that he could tell. She’d tied a kerchief around his eyes when the sounds of the Gatherers seemed far off enough to risk slowing down.

  The boy’s face scrunched up, as if he was thinking hard. After a moment, he said, “Girls shouldn’t use that kind of language. Someone told me that . . . I think . . .”

  Though he appeared to be running from the Brits, she couldn’t risk letting a stranger learn the way to the Catacombs. The Empire’s attempts at finding their hideaway had been limited to Gatherer sweeps and a few crowscopes, none of which had been successful. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they’d stoop to sending a real person out to hunt for them. And someone like this boy, who seemed so vulnerable, would be the perfect spy. If he was and this was a trap she’d sprung, Charlotte would never forgive herself.

  “Well, you may not know who you are, but apparently you were brought up in polite society,” Charlotte said sourly, her mood darkened by new suspicions about who he might be. “If you’re planning on sticking around, you’ll find girls here do a lot of things they aren’t meant to do.”

  He simply turned his head in her direction, puzzled and waiting for an explanation. Charlotte’s answer was an unkind laugh. Perhaps she should have been more compassionate, but the consequences of revealing their hideout were too dangerous. And Birch was almost too clever with his inventions. She’d never been able to locate the false branch without effort, and delays could be very costly. The Rotpots might have been stopped by her mouse, but nothing was certain. A slowed Gatherer was still a threat.

  “I . . . I . . .” Beside her the boy was stammering as if unsure whether to apologize.

  “Hush,” she said, keeping her voice gentle, and he felt silent.

  Her fingers brushed over a root with bark harder and colder than the others.

  “Here it is.”

  “Here’s what?” He waggled his head around pointlessly.

  “I said hush.” Charlotte stifled laughter at the boy’s bobbing head, knowing it was cruel given his helpless state.

  She found the latch on the underside of the thick root, and a compartment in the artificial wood popped open. Quickly turning the crank hidden within the compartment, Charlotte held her breath until the voice came crackling through.

  “Verification?”

  “Iphigenia,” Charlotte said with a little smile. Birch and his myths.

  The boy drew a sharp breath. “Who is that? Who’s there?” He sounded genuinely afraid.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered and leaned closer to the voicebox. “And there are two of us, so you’ll need to open both channels.”

  There was a long pause in which Charlotte’s heart began to beat heavily, once again making her question the decision to bring the strange boy with her.

  “The basket will be waiting,” the voice confirmed, and a little relief seeped through her veins.

  The pale boy was still twisting his neck, as if somehow doing so would enlighten him as to the origin of the voice despite his blindfold.

  “What’s happening?” he asked, facing away from Charlotte. Rather than attempt an explanation, Charlotte grabbed his wrist and tugged him toward the roaring falls.

  As the pounding of water on rocks grew louder, the boy resisted Charlotte’s guidance for the first time.

  “Stop! Please!” He jerked back, throwing her off balance.

  “Don’t do that!” Charlotte whirled around and grabbed his arms. “We’re about to cross a narrow and quite slippery path. If you make me lose my footing, we’ll both be in the drink, and I don’t fancy a swim, no matter how hot the summer air may be.”

  “Is it a river?” he asked. “Where are we?”

  Charlotte couldn’t blame the boy for his questions, but she was close to losing her patience. Hadn’t she already done enough to help him? All she wanted was to get inside the Catacombs, where they would be hidden from any Gatherers that might still be combing the forest. What did Meg always say when she was fighting with Ash?

  Meg’s warm voice slipped into Charlotte’s mind. Try to see it from his point of view. It’s a horrible burden, Lottie. The weight of leadership.

  Charlotte looked at the pale boy, frowning. His burden wasn’t that of her brother’s—a responsibility for a ramshackle group aged five to seventeen—but this boy bore the weight of fear and, at the moment, blindness. Both of which must be awful to contend with. With that in mind, Charlotte said, “I’m taking you to a hiding place beneath the falls. I promise it’s safe. The machines won’t find us there. I can’t tell you more.”

  The boy tilted his head toward the sound of her voice. He groped the air until he found her hands.

  “Okay.”

  She smiled, though he couldn’t see it, and drew him over the moss-covered rocks that paved the way to the falls. As they came closer, the spray from the falls dampened their clothing and their hair. Charlotte was grateful the boy had decided to trust her and ask no further questions because at this point she would have had to shout to be heard.

  When they passed beneath the torrent of water, the air shimmered as the native moss gave way to the bioluminescent variety Birch had cultivated to light the pathway into the Catacombs.

  Charlotte wished she could remove the boy’s blindfold. Entering the passageway that led into the Catacombs delighted her each time she returned. Not only because it meant she was almost home, but also because the glowing jade moss gave light that was welcoming. Seeing it might ease the boy’s mind, reassuring him that she led him to a place of safety rather than danger.

  She turned left, taking them into a narrow side passage that at first glance would have appeared to be nothing more than a shadow cast by the tumbling cascade. Within the twisting cavern, the shimmering green moss forfeited its place to mounds of fungus. Their long stems and umbrella-like tops glowed blue instead of green, throwing the cavern into a perpetual twil
ight.

  The boy remained silent, but from the way he gripped her fingers, Charlotte knew his fear hadn’t abated.

  “We’re almost there,” she whispered and squeezed his hand, garnering a weak smile from him.

  The passage abruptly opened up to a massive cavern—the place where the falls hid its priceless treasure: a refuge, one of the only sites hidden from the far-seeing eyes of the Empire. While from the outside the falls appeared to cover a solid rock base, several meters beneath the cascade, the earth opened into a maze of caves. Some were narrow tunnels like the one from which they’d just emerged. Others were enormous open spaces, large enough to house a dirigible. Far below them, the surface of an underground lake rippled with the current that tugged it into an underground river. A dark twin that snaked beneath earth and stone to meet its aboveground counterpart some two leagues past the falls.

  They were standing on a platform. Smooth stone reinforced by iron bracings and a brass railing that featured a hinged gate. On the other side of the gate, as had been promised, the basket was waiting, dangling from a long iron chain that stretched up until it disappeared into a rock shelf high above them. The lift resembled a birdcage more than a basket. Charlotte opened the gate and the basket door, pushing the boy inside and following him after she’d secured the gate once more. The basket swung under their weight, and the boy gripped the brass weave that held them.

  “You put me in a cage?” Panic crept into his question.

  “Shhh.” She took his hand again as much to stop him from ripping the blindfold off as to reassure him. “I’m here too. It’s not a cage—it’s an elevator.”

  With her free hand, she reached up and pulled the wooden handle attached to a brass chain that hung from the ceiling of the basket. Far above them, a bell sounded, its chiming bounced off the cavern walls. A flurry of tinkling notes melded with the roar of the falls for a few moments.

  Charlotte shushed the boy before he could ask what the bell meant. Now that she was out of the forest, away from the Gatherers and a short ride from home, she was tired and more than a little anxious about what awaited her on the upper platform. Not so much what as who, she had to admit.

  As the clicking of gears and the steady winding of the chain filled the basket, they began to move up. The swiftness of the lift’s ascent never failed to surprise Charlotte slightly, but it caught the boy completely off guard. He lurched to the side, and the basket swung out over the lake.

  “Stop that!” Charlotte grabbed him, holding him still at the center of the swaying basket. “If you don’t move, the lift won’t swing out.”

  “S-sorry.” The boy’s teeth chattered with nerves.

  Peering at him, Charlotte felt a creeping fear tickle her spine. She’d assumed his awful colorless skin had been a result of his fear, but looking at him closely, she thought it might be the natural state of his flesh. And it struck Charlotte as quite odd. Flesh so pale it had an ashen cast. She forced herself to hang on to him so he wouldn’t unbalance the lift again, but she now worried his wan quality was a harbinger of illness. And that it might be catching.

  Her nagging thoughts were interrupted when they passed the lip of the upper platform and the gears slowly ground to a halt.

  The first sight that greeted her was three pairs of boots. The first was black, thick-soled, and scarred with burn marks. The second pair was also black, but polished and trimmer of cut and heel, showing only their shiny tips rather than stretching to the knee like the first pair. The third pair made her groan. Faded brown and featuring an array of loops and buckles that held knives in place, this pair was soon joined by a grinning face as their owner crouched to peer into the basket.

  Jack, clad in his regular garb of leather breeches and two low-slung, gun-heavy belts, threaded his fingers through the brass weaving of the basket, rising with it until he was standing. “Well, well. What a fine catch we have today, mateys.”

  “Cap it, Jack,” Charlotte said.

  He pushed stray locks of his bronze hair beneath his tweed cap and continued to smile as he opened the platform gate. “A mermaid and a . . . what?”

  Jack’s mirthful expression vanished as he stared at the blindfolded boy.

  Charlotte swallowed the hardness that had formed in her throat. Jack turned to look at the wearer of the polished boots. Charlotte was looking that way too.

  The boots were mostly covered by black military pants, close fitting with brass buttons from knee to ankle and looser to the waist where they met with a band-collared white shirt and burgundy vest with matching cravat. The owner of the boots carried an ebony cane tipped with a brass globe.

  Ashley wasn’t wearing his usual black overcoat, but its absence did nothing to impede his air of authority.

  “Pip called in that two were arriving instead of just one,” he told Charlotte.

  She glanced over to the wheelhouse where a slight girl wearing goggles was mostly hidden by pulls, levers, and cranks. Pip gave Charlotte a quick, apologetic wave and then ducked out of sight.

  Throwing her shoulders back, Charlotte exited the basket, dragging the boy with her.

  “The Rotpots were after him,” she said, meeting her brother’s stern gaze. “I had to help him.”

  “Of course you had to.” Ash tapped a shiny boot on the stone platform.

  She didn’t offer further explanation but refused to look away. Charlotte didn’t want to quail before her brother because rumors of her unexpected guest seemed to have spread throughout the Catacombs. From the mouth of the caverns that led to their living quarters, half a dozen little faces with wide eyes peeked out, watching Charlotte and Ashley’s exchange. The children should have been at their lessons or chores, but Charlotte knew well enough that when something this unusual took place in their mostly cloistered lives, it was irresistible. When she’d been younger, Charlotte had snuck away from her responsibilities many a time for events much less exciting than the arrival of a stranger. Ash had always chided her for her impetuous behavior. Her brother had been born a leader, all sobriety and steadfastness. He was never tempted away from duty the way Charlotte so often had been.

  Ash frowned and walked up to the blindfolded boy.

  “And what do you have to say for yourself?” Ash asked him. “Who has my sister brought us?”

  “I . . . I can’t . . .” The boy strained toward the sound of Ash’s voice.

  Ash put the brass tip of his cane beneath the boy’s chin. “I know you can’t see, boy. If you’ll tell me how you came to be in the forest, perhaps we can show you a bit more hospitality.”

  Charlotte stepped forward, hitting the length of the cane so it thwacked away from the stranger. She jerked the kerchief down so the boy blinked into the sudden light.

  “Leave him be. You weren’t the one being chased by an iron beast with a cage for a belly.”

  Ash stared at her, his dark brown eyes full of incredulity and budding fury. He didn’t speak to Charlotte, though, instead turning his hard gaze on the faces peering out from the cavern opening. Ashley didn’t have to say anything. The children bolted away, the pitter-patter of their speedy steps echoing in the cavern like sudden rainfall.

  “Do you know if he’s hurt, Charlotte?” The boy wearing the burn-scarred black boots scampered forward, peering at the new arrival.

  Jack, who’d taken a few steps back as if to survey the unfolding scene from a safe distance, answered as he threaded his thumbs into his wide belt loops. “He looks fine to me. Are you sure he was really running from them?”

  Charlotte ignored Jack, instead smiling at Birch, who trotted over to the boy’s side.

  “Let’s have a look.” The boots weren’t the only pockmarked part of Birch’s wardrobe. From his thick apron to his elbow-length gloves, the tinker’s brown leather clothing boasted enough black marks to rival a leopard’s spots.

  The boy was shivering, but he nodded and didn’t object when Birch inspected him.

  “No injuries I can see. He’s not
feverish. If anything, I’d say he’s a little clammy.” Birch scratched his thatch of wheat-colored hair.

  A tiny head capped by large round ears peeked around one side of Birch’s neck. Its wide black eyes stared at the strange boy. The boy stared back as the bat climbed from Birch’s neck onto his shoulder. Its minuscule claws fastened to one of the straps of the tinker’s leather apron, never losing its grip as Birch moved.

  “There’s, there’s something on you,” the boy said, his tone wary, but also curious.

  “What?” Birch glanced at the shoulder the boy pointed to. “Oh. That’s just Moses. He’s usually crawling somewhere on my apron. Doesn’t like to roost anymore, understandably. Fell when he was just a baby and broke both wings. I found him floating in the river one day when I was collecting guano to make gunpowder. Had to rebuild his wings myself.”

  Birch coaxed Moses onto his hand and then gently stretched out one of the bat’s wings, which produced a soft clicking sound as the appendage unfurled. The underside of Moses’s wing glinted with silver.

  “The key was creating a new bone structure using hollow tubes,” Birch explained. “Light enough so he could fly.”

  “What proof do you have that he was trying to escape?” Ash was still watching Charlotte instead of looking at the boy.

  Charlotte’s charge seemed content conversing with Birch, so she gave Ash her full attention.

  “Only that he was alone in the forest and running from Rotpots.” Charlotte thrust her chin out. “That was good enough for me.”

  “How reassuring,” Ash said. “And you failed to notice that he’s dressed in clothes from the Hive?”

  Charlotte’s eyes went wide. She turned to look at her companion, feeling blood leach from her face. Her brother was right. While the trio waiting to meet them wore a mishmash of clothes cobbled together into outfits favored by each, the boy wore gray tweed pants and a matching fitted jacket with button and chain closures. His wardrobe marked him as belonging to the Hive: the artisan caste of the New York metropolis.