Soulstar

by C. L. Polk

  “The whole collection.”

  Khe turned to the side table, where a stack of my surgery texts rested, a basket of yarn just below. “I stole your seat. Sorry.”

  “You always had an eye for the best seat in the room.” I moved to the door on the right and pushed it open. “I’ll have to make space for you in the dressers.”

  Zelind set the chair to rocking. “Do you get much time to sit up here?”

  “Not usually. Sometimes, a half hour here and there. I’ve kept busy.”

  Khe turned an ear to the open door, where Ramona played the aria from A Strand of Stars for Your Hair. The performance began with a single melody played in darkness representing the singer moving through the darkness of the Solace, searching for the Amaranthine she loved, and lost, and sought.

  She could have picked something else.

  “It’s lovely,” Zelind said. “It sounds tragic.”

  Khe had never heard it. Had never seen Hyacinthe Chalk on the stage—did they have the wireless, in the asylum? No. They would have heard the news of the outside world if they had, and that could have made them difficult.

  “Is it tragic?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Lost love.”

  Zelind turned kher face away.

  “I have my own bathchamber,” I said, desperate to talk about something else, anything else. “The tub’s tiny, but it’s better than waiting for six teenagers to finish primping in the mirror … and I finished a quilt a few weeks ago.”

  “You have time to quilt, when you have to read all these books?” Khe ran a knuckle up the spines of Richardson’s Abdominal Surgery Encyclopedia. “You have to learn all that?”

  “I already know a lot of it. I’ve watched hundreds of surgeries. Maybe even thousands.” I closed the door to the hall and Zelind tensed. “Are you all right?”

  Khe glanced at me, then turned to my knitting. “I know how to knit now.”

  Kher hands landed in her lap, grasping, tangling over each other and then twisting free.

  “Do you want your own kit? There’s a bushel of yarn in storage. You could make something. You could—”

  “What’s in there?” Zelind asked, nodding toward the door on the other side.

  “That’s a closet. I’ll have to make space—”

  “You have to make a lot of space for me,” khe said. The rocking grew sharper. “I don’t know if I can—”

  Khe settled long, reedy fingers in the grooves carved in the tip of the rocking chair’s arms and squeezed. Khe rose to kher feet and stood in front of me. “I want a bath.”

  “In here.”

  I led kher into the bedroom and gestured to the narrow door. “You’ll want some clean clothes,” I said. “We have a closet of hand-downs. I’ll find you something.”

  That room was too small. Too warm. Overstuffed with Zelind’s unease. I fled down the stairs to a storage closet, where I sorted through canvas trousers and singlets and button-front shirts. I found a collar that barely showed any wear; machine-knitted woolen stockings, and a knee-length pleated bottle green kilt. It was enough to change into.

  When I came back to my suite, the bathroom door was firmly closed. I left the clothing on a nearby chair and shut the bedroom door behind me. What would I want, if I had gained my freedom? I’d want to wash the asylum off me. I’d want to put it all behind me. I’d want to hold the person I loved.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and shut my eyes tight.

  Zelind hadn’t even held my hand, and now khe was in my room. My domain, laid out and designed for my comfort and preferences, furnished with only one bed—a bed khe wouldn’t even look at.

  I didn’t want to have that conversation. I already knew what we would say. I took another trip down the hall, and I had a bundle of canvas, lashing cord, and a folding wooden camp bed. I was still fighting with it when Zelind emerged from the bedroom smelling like my soap, dressed in the kilt and stockings, the much-mended clan sweater worn over a fresh shirt.

  “What’s that?”

  “A cot. I thought perhaps you’d like to use it.”

  Zelind studied the mess I was making trying to fit the pieces together, and then knelt on the rug to help me build it.

  I tried fitting one wooden pole into its brass corner join, but I lost my grip at the last moment. A snap, and a hot, painful line bloomed across my middle finger. I popped it in my mouth, broken nail and all. “Why is this so difficult?”

  “Because you can’t do it alone.” Zelind took the corner join and held it steady. “Try now.”

  We assembled the cot easily once Zelind was there to help, and a narrow wooden frame stretched the laced canvas surface taut.

  I stood up, groaning at the creaky resistance of my knees. “I’ll get some blankets.”

  “It can wait a minute,” Zelind said. “You hurt yourself.”

  “I’ll tend it after,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

  “None of that,” Zelind scolded. “Let me see.”

  I held out my hand, and Zelind bent over it, examining the break. “It’s in the quick. That’s going to sting.”

  And then, gently, khe took my hand in khers.

  Kher hands were dry, the skin tight over the joints, the ridges of kher fingertips textured against my fingers, the back of my hand. Kher touch was so gentle khe could have been holding a butterfly instead of a hand. Like khe touched something that would break with a careless touch.

  “This needs cleaning.” Khe didn’t let go as khe rose and led me into the still-steamy bathroom and guided me to sit at the edge of the tub.

  “Washing first, hm? Warm water and salt.”

  “In the cupboard without a mirror. There’s a little basin wrapped in paper.”

  It crackled in kher grip. “Carbolic soap in the box?”

  Khe didn’t check for my answer. Soon khe knelt beside me, offering the basin, and I hissed as my finger met salty water.

  “Hold that.” Water ran in the sink, and the medicine-herbal smell of carbolic soap rose in the air as Zelind washed kher hands. “Still soaking that finger?”

  I would leave it in the water until it was pruny, if I had to. “Yes.”

  Khe used a fresh towel to dry kher hands, and knelt to tend my wound: washing, dressing in ointment, and carefully wrapping gauze around the tip. Khe focused on my finger, not me, but I sat fuzzed, warm, and aetheric under kher attentions. I had taught kher how to do this, and khe hadn’t forgot a thing. Khe would undress the wound and tend it tomorrow, and the day after that—

  In this way, Zelind could touch me.

  Zelind held my bandaged hand balanced on kher palm.

  “I’ll need to look at it again in the morning.”

  SIX

  Coronation

  Zelind accompanied us on rescues for the rest of the week. Khe slept in the cot we set up each night and broke down each morning, and never got close enough to touch. My broken fingernail healed under kher attention. We sat one on either side of Jean-Marie while she balanced a book on her knees and turned the pages, reading the books we gave to four-year-olds. We brushed elbows at the table. I avoided Aunt Glory’s inquisitive looks. Zelind didn’t seem to notice them.

  But Zelind took the two-day trip to Red Hawk while I stayed behind, riding in the discreet black sled Grace had sent to bring me up the hill to Mountrose Palace. I wore Aunt Glory’s cape and one of Ramona’s concert suits over a pair of sweaters and woolen leggings, prepared to withstand a long outdoor ceremony to crown the King.

  Joy floated beside the sleigh until it stopped at the back of the palace, where portable rising seats were assembled and then draped with violet scrims. She moved by my side until I set foot on the carpeted path, and she disappeared with a gasp. I paused, staring at the carpet. The pile had been dusted with a light layer of salt. Clearly the dead weren’t invited to the ceremony.

  I took my seat before a tall slab of black stone, its weathered face scour
ed by wind for so long that the markings historians believed to be an ancient language were hardly more than scratches.

  No one knew what was written on the stone, but everyone knew what the place was—one of dozens scattered across Aeland where the distance between our world and the Solace was thin enough to pass through. But this one was more special than all the rest, for it was the place where Queen Agnes had accepted the crown of Aeland.

  Grace showed me to a seat in the front row of the rising benches. She moved on to join the colorful display that was the court dress of Amaranthines, clasping hands with Grand Duchess Aife. I glanced at the person sitting next to me in a hand-tailored coat and a green silk muffler.

  Albert Jessup scowled at me. “She invited you.”

  “She invited me,” I replied. “How have you been, Member Jessup? Legislated any good profits lately?”

  “The House session’s been cut short by this.” Jessup flung out an irritated hand at the ring of red roses bordering the stone. “And then we’ll be disrupted again once the crown is on King Severin’s head and we have to hold another election in Firstgreen.”

  “It is the law,” I said. “But I suppose you’ll have to spend a lot of money getting reelected so soon.”

  Jessup went red as a lobster. “What are you implying?”

  I widened my eyes. “Aren’t election campaigns expensive? Don’t you have a great deal of expenses to pay your canvassers, and print handbills, and then woo the eligible voters in your district? There’s about fifty of them, isn’t there?”

  If he could have slapped me, he would. Jessup presided over a riding where about sixty thousand people lived, but most of them couldn’t afford to pay for a permit. The leader of East Kingston–Birdland came from the votes cast by representatives of this business association or that, pooling their money to pay the 250 marks for a permit.

  “Ninety-one.”

  “As many voters as that?” I murmured. “That’s a lot of roast quail dinners and handshake promises, Mr. Jessup.”

  “It’s hard work,” Jessup said. “You and your entitled protesters should try it.”

  I hated this man. I hated his greed, his callousness, and the power he held over us. His family was one of the worst employers in Kingston, and I was going to make a point of advising Grace to do everything she could to knock this man down.

  “What are you doing here, anyway? There’s no rabble here to rouse.”

  I smiled so sweetly at him that anyone watching would imagine that I just pretended not to understand something he’d said. “I was invited. Twice.”

  “Mrs. Thorpe!” exclaimed Jacob Clarke. “My apologies for being late. Mrs. Thorpe. We’re all so delighted that your spouse is returned to you.”

  He took the seat next to mine. “Member Jessup.”

  “Member Clarke,” came Jessup’s curt reply.

  “Chancellor Hensley told me the King is making an announcement at the coronation—”

  I hushed as children dashed into the circle, scattering rose petals. Music swelled from the other side of the stone, where guards and support staff waited to do their parts. We all quieted as Grand Duchess Aife rose from her place on the bench and glided to where a mother and child stood, clad head to toe in colorful wool cut in the fashions of a thousand years past. Aife took the child’s hand and guided her to her place within the circle of rose petals.

  Every monarch of Aeland had been crowned at the foot of this waystone since the founding. None of the coronations had ever been witnessed by an Amaranthine. The little girl held the simple, ungemmed golden circlet made for Queen Agnes nearly sixteen hundred years ago, and we watched a pavilion’s door flap open as King Severin walked out, flanked by his elite women guards.

  Murmurs rose from the crowd. Severin wasn’t dressed in the tunic and robes of Queen Agnes’s day. Instead he wore a splendid morning suit, the peak of formality for daytime affairs, caped by a trailing cloak of white fur lined in violet silk. He had broken with tradition. Was it a signal of things to come?

  Severin didn’t have a daughter to crown him as Queen Agnes had. This had to be one of his cousins, once or twice removed. Severin knelt, and the gaily dressed child carefully set the circlet on Severin’s head. Severin scooped her up, holding her on one hip as if he’d carted around toddlers all his life.

  “I am honored to be your king,” Severin said. “I come to you this day excited for our future, and optimistic for the people of this fine country. My vision is filled with the brightness of new possibilities, with the chance to shape our kingdom for the better. I see a better Aeland on the road ahead. A fair and just Aeland. A prosperous, comfortable Aeland. But the vision needs more than just bright-eyed optimism. We need to work. We need to change.

  “My rule will accomplish that,” King Severin said. “I’ve already begun by righting a terrible injustice done to our own people. I have torn down the lies and manipulation that led to the unspeakable treatment of our own citizens—citizens who were vilified as unstable, dangerous monsters so a few could profit from the many. That liberation was the right thing to do, even if we all have paid the price.

  “But we need aether back. Burning oil has saved many lives in this crisis, but we can’t continue its use in the long term. And so I am pleased to announce that I’m calling for the brightest minds and the cleverest hands to develop a method that generates aether power for the country.”

  Murmurs rose on the frozen air. Severin paid them no mind.

  “This is not a popularity contest. This is a race. The first person who comes to me with an effective method of producing aether without burning wood, oil, coal, or gas will be honored with a Medal of National Service, inducted into the Order of Aeland, and given a cash prize of two hundred and fifty thousand marks.”

  That was a fortune to some, a nice profit for others. But it was enough to get the attention of the attendees, including the curiosity of reporters who scribbled down every word the new king said.

  “But to do that, Aelanders need time. They need time to rest. Time to spend with their families. Time to dream. So I’m announcing the beginning of the Labor Fairness Act—an act that will define the full-time work week as forty hours per week.”

  Was he, now. Severin was getting ahead of Grace and me with this declaration—Solidarity had protested and written to our Elected Members for years, but Grace and I hadn’t yet begun work. Was this a sign that Severin was going to cooperate with us?

  Around me, the murmurs turned to dismay. Plenty of people in the audience owned businesses, and they were the ones who had to figure out how to make their factories, offices, and shops run smoothly when they couldn’t work their employees as hard. The people around me weren’t happy with Severin’s proposals, and I felt no sympathy for them.

  “Employers may decide to structure five days of eight hours of work or four days of ten hours of work. And because the work week has been decreased, naturally, the base wage of the ordinary Aelander has to increase, but with the new work week, the rate of pay will remain the same, so a citizen will take home the minimum of five marks a week.”

  I folded my arms. Five marks a week was chicken scratch. Five marks a week was three people crammed into a one-bedroom apartment just to make rent. I glanced at Jacob. We still had work to do.

  “Finally, I know people have been asking about what compensation the witches will receive for the years stolen from them to endure hardship and horror. Certain citizens have come up with a formula to compensate the imprisoned witches—and in many sad cases, their survivors. But the figures they’ve calculated add up, and Aeland can’t afford that up-front cost.”

  People around me muttered, but they nodded their heads.

  “We need to put this sad time behind us. It’s over. Those of us who actually put the old system into place are dead or dying. We didn’t make the laws that imprisoned our citizens. We are sorry it happened to them. But we are not responsible for that hardship.”

  Beside me, Jaco
b sucked his teeth. A chorus of hisses sounded from the Amaranthines in attendance, and we all looked at them, our faces turned to regard the Guardians of the Dead and their displeasure.

  Severin cleared his throat. “I have an alternative,” he said, his voice pitched over the sound of vexed Amaranthines. “I wish to grant every surviving witch a guaranteed income on the Service pension rolls, the same as we give physically wounded soldiers who went to war. They will receive this pension, the equivalent of Aeland’s minimum wage, for the rest of their lives. Survivors of the citizens institutionalized will receive the usual lump sum paid to survivors of soldiers killed in wartime.”

  That was nothing compared to what they had gone through. It was a token payment. But the Royal Knights and Elected Members around me grumbled at even that pittance. Jacob and I exchanged another determined glance.

  Severin smiled at everyone as if they had cheered his every word. “That is my vision, and I require a sober, orderly government to make it happen. As of this moment, I declare that an election will be held to begin the work of government as swiftly as possible. We must elect a new ministry even sooner than the ninety mandated days. Therefore, Election Day will be Snowglaze thirty-five.”

  That wasn’t enough time for anyone to seriously mount a campaign against incumbent members. It actually made the people around me relax—Severin might have introduced unpopular changes, but the election wouldn’t change anything in government. There hadn’t been much doubt before, but this sealed it. Grace, Jacob, and I needed all the fight we could get.

  “My new government will work hard to realize my vision of a better Aeland, and I look forward to meeting with them. Thank you. I’m sure you’re all freezing. Let’s go inside and enjoy the refreshments and warmth of the palace.”

  Severin walked away, bouncing the little girl on his hip, his opulent cape trailing in the snow behind him.

  Jacob rose to his feet, took my arm, and walked me away from the hearing of others. “It’s as I feared. Too little change. Too comfortable. It’s not good enough.”

  “It’s not,” I agreed. “Let’s get together and draw up our own vision. We can meet with Grace as soon as we have it in hand, and then talk to the media, and—”