The pain you feel today is an echo of the heartbreak I have experienced, having to witness the downfall of the man I most admired and, hardest of all, having to keep the truth from you, my own community.
Looking back, perhaps I should have seen it sooner, but what I now know to have been delusions of grandeur, I believed was simply the confidence of a great man. He would tell me he believed himself to be immortal and I believed in his purity of heart as surely as I saw the ink on his skin.
I am ashamed to admit that I helped him. I can only wonder that perhaps I was so willing to trust him, I didn’t listen to my own conscience. I have learned that lesson in the most painful ways possible. Intelligence had come telling us that the blanks intended to find an opportunity to assassinate the mayor, and I confess, I aided him in manipulating our enemy to play into our hands. We fed the blanks information; we knew they were coming – we had practically invited them. We worked to orchestrate the entire thing. The waistcoat Mayor Longsight wore that day had an inner lining that protected his body from the full force of blade – his was only a surface wound. In his pockets were pouches of blood. The mayor had commanded me, and I obeyed. I let you believe he had died. For that I am truly sorry. But our deception didn’t stop there. During the times you came to see his body in state your mayor was merely sedated.
You may ask why I agreed to be part of this, but to that I can only say, you knew him too – don’t you remember how easy it was to be tied up by his words? I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. The truth is, I still trusted him – I believed he had a good plan and that I would see its meaning as it unfolded.
Of course, I had not prepared myself for his illness. That is the only way I can describe it – an illness – as though his mind was taken and his sense all but gone. I wept when I realized that something had changed in him – that at some point when he was playing dead for the crowds, he began to believe his own lie.
The doctor I consulted was sworn to secrecy – I could not bear for you to know that this great man had been so utterly broken. The doctor recommended that I play along – he felt that disagreement and conflict would only harm the mayor’s mind even more. Dan Longsight’s only hope for healing, the physician told me, lay in my allowing his delusions to play out. We hoped it would cause everything to click back into place once he saw his own madness for what it was.
His marks were fabricated, a miracle staged, and yet still he didn’t see reason. He stole a blank, allowed her into our town. He had her marked, believed he could change the truths we have always trusted in. He thought he was authority enough to decide her fate.
He refused to let me enact our revenge on the blanks for their heinous attacks and he heard your hurt and rage. He did not think it necessary. He believed he was a god.
Yesterday, he went too far. He tried to flay a young woman, Leora Flint. Those convicts, Obel Whitworth and Connor Drew, are heroes for their actions. I held back the guards who would have stopped them acting. As a mark of honour to them, they have been freed from the prison.
I assure you that Dan Longsight is in the best of hands – he is receiving the highest care in a private section of the hospital. We must pray for his ancestors to show him mercy.
I hope you will see that finally we can stand together. For I understand your fear and hurt, your bewildered mourning echoes my own. You are not the only victims of Dan Longsight’s strange reign. I offer my services to you as an equal. It will be my honour to lead my community into peace and justice.
I tear the letter to pieces. There is no justice – the liars always win. I pull the covers over my head and hide away from a world that is worse than I ever could have believed.
Chapter Forty-one
Day and night are meaningless. Hours don’t matter. Days pass and weeks do too. A relentless cold has got into my bones and all through summer I stay in my room. Mum brings me food and cups of tea. Seb tries to tempt me with cake.
Verity visits me faithfully – she just sits on the bed next to me and holds my hand. Those are the moment I feel the permafrost could melt, but by the time I think I might speak to her, she’s gone. Until one day, the silence breaks.
“What happened to us?” Verity sighs. “You were my sister and I let you become my enemy.” She takes my hand and squeezes it. “Leora, I was so afraid of you – and afraid of believing you. Because if what you said about the blanks was true then I was living for a lie. And, yes – I see now that it was a lie. Longsight wasn’t the good man I wanted him to be, and whatever spell Jack Minnow cast that entranced me has broken. You were right that there was more than I could see and I was too scared to open my eyes.”
I can’t speak, but her words are balm. Verity touches my bare foot with her own and our tattoos are side by side.
“We got these marks because we wanted to be the same – we wanted to stay together and be entwined.” Her seed mark is still bright and clear – the vines she has inked since are flourishing. “But we weren’t in control, were we? We couldn’t hold the future.” With her brown toes she strokes my mark – the egg with its cracked shell – and I reluctantly smile at the tickle, taking a quick glance at her face. Tears stream down her cheeks.
“Just look, Leora. Your mark compared to mine.”
The difference is plain to see. My ink is already growing fuzzy at the edges and the colour has faded to grey. The egg looks like it has been broken many times from all the walks through the woods, the barefoot adventures with Gull, the times I had to run or to wade through water – the times I had to scramble away from danger.
“I will never know all you have been through,” she says. “I am sorry, Leora. One day, I hope that you might be able to forgive me.”
I squeeze her hand. The thaw has begun.
Minnow is leading like he wanted to all along and there is something like peace, for now. I think about Longsight sometimes, and wonder whether he knows that it was his friend Jack who sent him mad. For I don’t believe a word of that letter. It was Minnow, all Minnow, I know it. Longsight was just his puppet, a vain man manipulated by a clever one.
I hear snippets of news.
Gull is staying with Verity’s family. Penance, I think, for Simon’s deceit; because he was the doctor – the one who operated on the mayor, the one who sedated him, the one who let him be marked with ink that vanished in a week. Some days I think he was just foolish, but on others I think of him like a conductor – the small movements of his hands creating whole swells and shrieks of discord. He stayed away from Mum not because he was fearful of her, but because he could not bear to face her.
There is no word of Mel. Karl is trying to solve that mystery, but he has to be careful. I hope that he is being careful.
I know everyone dreams. I like to believe our dreams unite us when nothing else will. It comforts me to think that we all know that feeling when you wake up, and the world feels as though it’s shifted or been painted a different shade.
Maybe the dreamer dreams of kissing someone they shouldn’t, and for days after, they watch that person when they talk and their heart races at the way their lips caress each word. They had never seen that before.
Or, the dreamer dreams their friend betrayed them, and even though the daylight tells them it was only in their head, they still find they need to forgive them for hurting them, and for ever after the dreamer knows that they could – the seed has been sown and the dreamer believes their friend has it in them to break their heart.
The dreamer dreams and wakes in terror, feeling that the danger has not left with sleep, and they try to tell someone in the hope that they will offer comfort, but instead they look as though the dream has revealed some hidden madness. And the dreamer doesn’t know whether it’s the dream or the friend’s response, but the taste of fear never quite leaves their tongue.
And every dreamer has been the one to hold another and whisper, “It was just a dream.” A five-word lie we are all desperate to believe.
Dre
ams have magic deep within them – and my dreams feel like the most real thing in my life at the moment. And the stories too – they comfort me. I read the final story Mel received over and over every day, wondering if there’s something there that I’ve missed.
Until, towards the end of the summer Jack Minnow makes a new pronouncement. Mum tells me about it, sitting on my bed.
News has come to Minnow, he says, that the blanks are readying themselves for new attacks. This time, they threaten the one thing our people still have left: their marks.
Minnow has warned people to avoid being marked for the time being. Intelligence says that the blanks intend to poison our ink stores. They have already discovered one tainted batch, and Minnow says that it is indisputably the work of the blanks. Now that I know Jack Minnow likes to play around with people’s ink, I don’t know if I believe him when he blames Featherstone. I do know that all of this hurts the people of Saintstone horribly. They still have their books in the museum and now they lose access to new ink. Whoever is responsible for the latest ink ban, I have to admit it does have the flavour of one of Sana’s plans: her exquisite knack of pressing right where it will hurt the most. The only thing is, in Jack Minnow, Sana finally has an adversary that will fight back as dirtily as she does.
For Minnow has a solution.
He asks the new storyteller, a young man called Noah, to tell the story of the sisters. Mum says he told it badly; she doesn’t like the sound of his voice. At the story’s end Minnow comes forward.
“They spread like gangrene, the ways of the blanks. A doctor doesn’t treat a patient’s gangrene – they chop it out, for they know the only other option is death. Our first leaders knew how to deal with opposition. They were no fools when there was a threat to their way of living. I propose we return to the old ways. The blanks won’t leave us alone. They insist on attacking, in spite of our years of patience. They pollute and ooze their evil ways into our lives. No matter. The time has come for us to cut them off. Saintstone … beginning tomorrow, we will build a wall.”
Brick by brick, my defences rise. There is no point fighting fate – history only repeats, and the winners are all the same.
Chapter Forty-two
I am dropped from the heavens into deep water. A stone that sinks, leaving only a circle of ripples. Although the water is cold, it does not shock me – I am only embraced by a lovely darkness. At the bottom of the water, on the silty ground, are white stones and white bones – skeletal remains of the souls that have been passed over in this place. Lives that were not worth saving, sacrificed for their own good. The claws of a ribcage beckon like loving arms waiting to embrace me, and I plunge deeper still.
I feel the hands of the dead reach out and tug my arms and I gladly submit. Only, the hands pinch my skin with warmth and instead of sinking I feel my body rise up. I want to clutch hold of the grinning skulls beneath me and lay my body on theirs, femur to femur, radius wrapped around rib, metacarpal on spine.
The water wants me: it sucks at me while tugging hands force me along and out. I feel the surface like an umbilical slicing and I cry out, lungs clear.
A baby cries.
I must still be dreaming. I sleep again.
I am held in their arms and wrapped in blankets, brought into their cottage where the fire is lit. One blank, one marked, both with love and concern in their eyes.
They tend to me, feed me, nourish and heal me. The fire melts the ice within me and through the thaw a bud of hope begins to rise.
The sisters coax me back to life with tea and soft singing.
They tell me that I am safe – even when I cry they do not stop saying it. You are safe, you are safe, you are safe.
They show me the candle that has been constantly burning on the table next to where I lie.
“Just a little light,” they say, putting a taper to the candle flame, letting it fizz to life.
“Just a little light,” they say, taking the taper across to the hearth.
“Just a little light,” they say as the kindling singes and smokes.
“Just a little light,” they say as the wood crackles and spits.
“But, oh what a great fire a little light can bring.”
And the fireplace glows with warmth and bright, dancing fire. And I know I’m ready, although I am just a little light.
Chapter Forty-three
My dream makes me urgent this morning. I emerge on the landing, the first time I have left my room in weeks. I wonder if I am hearing things when a rumble of chatter whips up the stairs. I draw my dressing-gown more tightly round me and step down into a kitchen full of people. Full of blanks.
Oscar catches me when I lose my footing – my body so weak from my time in the cocoon. When he wraps his arms tightly around me and draws me in, my head against his chest, I let myself cry. And I sob for the first time since the day Longsight tried to flay me. I sob for the girl I was who worked so hard, who wanted to be brave and thought that doing the right thing would be enough. I sob for the fractures in all my relationships and for the people I have lost. I still have love for them clinging on to me with nowhere for it to go. I cry too because his strong arms and his warm body remind me of the dream and I weep because I love those sisters who drew me up from the depths and showed me the light.
When I move he lifts my chin and kisses my tear-jewelled eyelashes, making me cry harder still.
Finally, with everyone squeezed into the small space, I ask them their tale. And, although they must have told the story many times, they begin again: Solomon, Tanya, Kasia and Fenn, Penny and Blake and … a baby.
“Another wall? We could not stand it. We saw marked workers digging out the ancient stones – the original bricks of the wall Moriah called for – and we knew what was happening.”
“Why didn’t you come sooner? We would have gladly welcomed you.” It is Mum.
“It was dangerous.” Blake speaks up. I never knew him well in Featherstone, but he was always courageous enough to ask questions and to stand up for what his pregnant wife Penny needed. “We knew the baby could come any day – I refused to take the risk. I didn’t want Penny to have to give birth in the middle of the forest with no help, no support.” Penny takes up the story.
“Of course, had we realized what would happen, we might have chosen differently.” She gives a small smile and her cheeks are pink now that everyone is looking her way. “Sky was born in the evening, during the community fireside time.” She pauses to let her words sink in but when she sees confusion on Mum’s face, Penny explains. “According to tradition, a baby who is born during the fireside meeting is destined to be either a great blessing, or…” she swallows. “A curse.”
“No prizes for guessing what Sana’s conclusion was.” Fenn’s voice is gruff, and I can tell from his eyes that he has seen too much – being a spy and acting as one of Sana’s closest followers has scarred him. “There was no doubt in her mind. Because you had the gall to challenge her from time to time, she declared immediately that you were the source of another curse.” He looks grim. “There was nothing else for us to do but run.”
Penny reaches out to him, puts her hand over his. “You saved us, Fenn. You are a good man and so brave.” Tears spill from her eyes and Tanya buries her head in her hands. Solomon is not ashamed of his tears and the look in his eyes is one of utmost pride and admiration.
Kasia continues the story.
“Those of us who could no longer bear Sana’s rule fled too. Although Sana and her companions despise the marked for beginning to rebuild the wall, their solution is simply to fight more, shed blood and scream all the louder. They have no sorrow at the deepening of division between our communities. We know that coming to Saintstone is foolish – we don’t expect to stay – but we could not stay in Featherstone any longer.”
Oscar leans into me, lips tickling my neck. No one else can hear him whisper just to me, “I missed you.”
The day passes like a dream and ends with Obel, Seb
and Connor joining us. Connor simply nods at his son, who smiles briefly and then intently cleans his glasses. It is a stark contrast to the reunion between Obel and his parents. Regrets, memories and apologies are held out and passed around, and by the time the food Seb has brought is bubbling on the stove, the kitchen is filled with laughter. Oscar and I stay close together, our fingers entwined. I don’t want our hands to ever break apart but later, when Penny asks me to show her to a place she can change Sky’s clothes, I let go of him and take her and her tiny baby to my room.
Penny unwraps the blanket from Sky’s sweet, small body and lays it on my bed. Placing Sky gently on top of it, Penny sings to her as she eases off her little knitted socks. I stand a way back, half enchanted by those tiny toes and the small snuffles she makes, and half scared, wondering who taught Penny how to be a mother, how she knew how to love a stranger so fully and tenderly. I am about to ask whether she needs water to clean Sky with when Penny, kneeling at the bedside, tickling Sky’s feet, looks up to me.
“Nobody knows, Leora,” she says with a small, exhilarated smile. “Only me and Blake.” Untying the knot that holds Sky’s wrapped cotton suit closed, Penny touches Sky’s nose with a tiny kiss. She moves the clothing apart and sighs, looking up at me with awed, eager eyes. I take a step nearer but have to stop. Something bubbles at my throat – tears or laughter, I don’t know which – but all around us is the perfume of joy: daisies and spring water and toast and Seb’s best biscuits. There on Sky’s beautiful, perfect tummy, which rises and falls at such a tremendously alive rate, right there I see two sisters, hands clasped, faces close enough to kiss.
The stories aren’t pointless. History is not repeating. The sisters are, again, writing their message and promising that all things can be new.
“I knew you would understand,” whispers Penny when I fall on my knees and weep and giggle at this small miracle, who lies on a blanket on my bed.
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