Sing Me Forgotten

by Jessica S. Olson

  Arlette pushes the hair out of her face. “I can’t.”

  “Did he do that to you?” I point to the marks on her arms. In the light from the fire, the bruises are darker than ever. Giant, purplish fingerprints around her wrists, and more trailing up to her elbow over all of the symbols carved into her flesh.

  She runs her left thumb down the line of marks on her right forearm and nods. “He had a book of illustrations of Les Trois. He was trying to see if mimicking the marks they had would affect my power, as well.”

  “Did they?”

  She purses her lips but does not respond right away. After a moment, she nods. “We never figured out what many of them did, but some of them...” She shudders and closes her eyes.

  “What about the ones on your hands?”

  “Oh, these?” She opens her palms. The symbols scarred there are clumsier and older than the ones on her arms. “My maman did these.”

  Emeric told me as much. “When the police caught you that day in Marvault after the...incident, were you able to use those marks again?”

  She shakes her head. “They made no difference. I didn’t know how to do much of anything back then. I was little.”

  I ball my hands into fists. “Then how did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “When you sucked out the elixir of everyone in Marvault all at once. No one was singing. Did you have a catalyseur?”

  She stares at me. “He kept asking me that, too.”

  “What did you tell him?” My heart is beating in my throat now, so hard I’m afraid I might choke.

  “I told him I didn’t know what that was.”

  My heart jolts to my feet. I press my hand to the wall to steady myself. “You—you don’t know...”

  “I don’t know.”

  The world tips. My head pounds.

  Tick-tick-tick goes the watch in my dress.

  “Maman did mention catalyseurs when she carved the marks, though,” Arlette offers, seeing the distress on my face.

  “What did she say?”

  “Maman said that the marks would make me stronger and the catalyseur would protect me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Arlette shakes her head, tugging the curtains up to her chin again. The brown paper bag and crumbs spill to the floor next to the couch. “I don’t know.”

  I sigh and rub my knuckles over my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Emeric,” I mutter under my breath.

  “What did you say?” Arlette’s voice is sharp.

  “Nothing. It’s not important.”

  “You said my brother’s name. Do you know him? Where is he? Is he okay?”

  “Yes. No. I’m not sure.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Emeric is...a good friend of mine.” Might as well tell her the truth. “He’s been taken by Cy—by him. That’s why I have to figure this out. I have to save Emeric.”

  “Do you know my maman, too?”

  I bite my lip. “No.” My voice sounds distant, as though it has been whisked away by the harsh winds outside. “I haven’t met your mother.”

  Her expression breaks, and she buries her face into the curtains. This time when she weeps, her sobs aren’t hollow or faint. They fill her whole body, shivering down her bony spine, jamming her limbs with each gulp. “She’s gone, isn’t she? It’s my fault. I told them about her.”

  “None of this is your fault.”

  “I hate them,” she sobs. “I hate them all.”

  My chest feels as though it might crack in half, and I move in to encircle the girl in my arms. “I’m sorry,” I murmur as she presses her face into my collar, wraps both arms around my neck, and cries.

  “Why didn’t I listen?” she blubbers. “I shouldn’t have followed Emeric into Marvault. I should have stayed put like he told me to.”

  I stroke her hair and stare into the fire until its crackling embers have branded their white-hot design on my eyes. “You didn’t know what would happen. Not even Les Trois could see the future.”

  She sobs against me until her body grows limp with exhaustion. “Will you sing again?” she asks.

  I tuck her in, stroke her forehead in the way I saw her maman do in Emeric’s memories, and sing the lullaby until her limbs grow heavy with slumber and her breathing evens out.

  I sit there, holding this tiny, starved eleven-year-old in my arms, staring at the fire as the wind continues to beat against the walls and Arlette’s words continue to beat against my soul. Emeric may only have hours, but I know with certainty that he would want me to spare a moment or two to soothe his sister until she has slipped completely into the peace of slumber.

  My thoughts whirl through our conversation, through all of the places in it where I hoped I would find answers and instead found nothing but more questions.

  She doesn’t know what a catalyseur is. I lean back against the couch and let out a slow, tired exhale.

  That was it. She was my only chance at finding a catalyseur in time to save Emeric. The only other place I could find more about it is if I were to locate Emeric’s mother’s resistance group, but that will take far more time than I have. I dig my hand into my dress and pull out the pocket watch. Smoothing my thumb along its glassy surface, I watch the tiny second hand snap methodically around its circle. So unceasing, so relentless, so merciless.

  It is nearly nine thirty, which means I have scarcely more than ten hours left. More than half of my time has been wasted on this fruitless chase. I drop the pocket watch back into place and wind my fingers into my necklace.

  If nothing else, I got Arlette out of that hole in Cyril’s cellar. If I cannot save Emeric, at least I will have saved his sister. That would have made him happy.

  I think of Arlette’s mention of catalyseurs. Maman said the marks would make me stronger and the catalyseur would protect me.

  I frown down at the ballerina in my pendant. What else had Emeric’s mother said? Hadn’t she given them something else that was meant to protect them?

  I twist my fingers through the chain. A sparkle of blue on a leather cord flashes through my mind.

  The stone.

  I gasp.

  How did I not see before now? How did I not put the pieces together? For weeks I’ve been wishing for a catalyseur, and all along it was right there in my crypt with me, so close I could have reached out and snatched it right from Emeric’s neck.

  The marks in Arlette’s palms have to be linked to the stone—when she extracted the elixir from the people in Marvault, those symbols had glowed bright with power. So I’ll need the marks and the stone together in order to do what I need to do.

  Gently, I pull her hands out from underneath the curtains to inspect the scars. They are two matching symbols. Serpentine marks from the base of the thumb to the bottom of the pinky.

  I’ll need to find a blade.

  As I slide Arlette’s hands back into the warmth of the curtains, my eyes catch on the bruises on her arms. I can almost see Cyril’s wiry, slender hands pinching them until the blood pooled under her skin.

  Fury ripples anew in my heart.

  Cyril locked me up underground, imprisoned me in his opera house, and fooled me into loving him. He stole a girl from her family, killed her mother, and turned her brother into a puppet.

  He will pay for the things he has done.

  But not just him. No. This whole world, with its jeering laughs and its disgusted expressions, with its groping hands and its ice-filled wells.

  The world will pay for how it has treated us.

  My beast rears its horned head, fire hissing in its heart as I ease myself out from under Arlette’s slumbering frame, collecting my cloak from where she dropped it before, and cinching it around my throat. I pull the hood over my head.

  I will burn them.

  I will burn t
hem all to ash.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I spend the next two hours searching the entire chapel. Surely whatever priest once ran this place kept a knife somewhere for holy rituals, but all I find is dust and cobwebs and a set of old scriptural records of the God of Memory and his saints. With a growl of frustration, I shove the books back onto their dusty shelves.

  Voices outside make me freeze. Adrenaline pumps through my limbs, and I creep past Arlette, who is still sound asleep. She stirs and rolls over, tugging the curtains closer around her as she snuggles into the couch.

  I reach the window and peek between the boards. Several policemen seem to be surveying the perimeter of our hideout on horseback.

  I curse, then grab Arlette’s shoulder and shake her awake. “Arlette!” I whisper fiercely. “Arlette!”

  She bucks upright, flinging an elbow at me, but I was expecting that, and I dodge it.

  “Arlette. You’ve got to hide. Now.”

  Her eyes register on my face. She pushes the curtains away and swings her bony legs over the edge of the couch. “Is he here?” Panic rises in her voice.

  I shake my head. “No, not him. The policemen that work for him.” I crouch so I can look her straight in the eye. “Listen to me. I need you to find somewhere to hide. A cupboard, a closet, anything. I’m going to go out there and draw them away from here, understand? I may be gone for several hours. Whatever you do, stay here and stay put. I will come back for you when I can.”

  “You promise?”

  I pull her against me in a quick embrace. “I swear it.”

  She wraps her skinny arms around my waist, then turns and bolts across the room to the cupboards and climbs into one.

  Once I’m sure she’s hidden, I charge into the chapel where I left the horse. Footsteps creak on the church’s front porch. I retrieve the bag of vials I stole from Cyril’s basement and latch it once more to my belt. Downing two vials of elixir and chucking the empty bottles behind me, I knot my fist in the horse’s reins and lead him to the front door, thanking Memory that the worn carpet underfoot masks the sound of its hooves.

  With my heart hammering in my throat, I peer through the crack in the door at the policeman on the front porch. He’s angled away from me toward a scraggly bush. I squint to catch a glimpse of what he’s doing and hear the distinct spatter of urine against the ground.

  I slide the door open, hoist myself into the saddle, and kick the horse into a gallop directly past him off the porch and down the walkway.

  The policeman shouts. A gunshot fires from somewhere on my right followed by another one to my left.

  Gritting my teeth, I duck low against the horse’s mane and urge him faster.

  The clouds have cleared and the sun on the snow blinds me, but at least the wind has calmed. Hoofbeats trail in my wake. Bullets whistle past. Barking cries punctuate the frigid air.

  My hood whips away from my head, and the biting cold on my cheeks reminds me that I forgot to put my mask back on.

  My expression breaks into a wicked grin.

  Let them see my face. Let them gasp in horror. Let them feel the fear that I have lived with my whole life before they die.

  Though the world is blanketed in a thick layer of fresh snow, I can tell when I’ve reached the cobblestoned streets by the way the horse’s hooves pound harder and the way his limbs jolt with every step. I swing him to the right and barrel down one road and then another, winding and twisting through Channe, keeping my eyes on the sky to make sure that with every turn, I remember to correct my course west toward the opera house.

  The city is crawling with police. They head me off in street after street. In spite of the elixir thrumming life through my limbs, fear trickles ice along with it.

  When another group of policemen meets me in a marketplace, I spit a string of expletives, yank on the reins, and careen off in the opposite direction.

  Hours tick by as I twist through the city, hiding in alleyways and behind buildings until the coast is clear, then galloping madly away when they catch sight of me again. I pause only a few times to give the horse a chance to gulp up some snow before taking off again, and by early afternoon he is beginning to show the wear. His stride is choppier and slower, his responses to my nudges on the reins clumsier.

  “Come on, boy,” I plead, rubbing his neck as another gunshot echoes on the buildings around us, making him flatten his ears back against his head. “I’ll never make it to the opera house without you.”

  I’ve barely made it halfway across the city.

  What has Cyril done—hired a whole infantry to track me?

  I’m losing precious minutes. With each time I am forced to backtrack, my thoughts snap to that image of Emeric’s hourglass of elixir, the gold liquid burning away to nothing drop by drop. It’s nearly nightfall, which means I have only a handful of hours left.

  I reach into my dress for the pocket watch, but before I can pull it out, another cohort of police clad in black comes around the corner. They raise their guns, shout, and kick their horses into a run.

  I dig my heels into my own horse’s ribs. “I’m sorry, boy. Just a bit more.”

  The gelding wheezes but gallops off the way I direct him.

  Now that the storm has passed, people have begun to trickle out into the streets to shovel snow from their doorsteps. They raise their heads as I pass, but I am gone too quickly to see the fear flicker across their faces.

  The police chasing me seem to be struggling with the crowds. Their voices grow more and more distant with each corner I turn. Their gunshots cease.

  My horse’s breaths come out heavy and winded. I don’t know much about horses, but I do know that he won’t be able to keep this up much longer.

  I slow him to a trot and steer him into an inconspicuous alley. He huffs and puffs as I slide down from his back. “Good boy.” I rub his nose, keeping my attention trained on the alleyway’s opening and my ears perked for any sound of the police. “Easy there.”

  He shakes his head and paws at the ground as his belly balloons in and out.

  I lean against his neck, inhaling his warm, animal scent, and clutch at my chest with my good hand. Though I’ve escaped capture for now, panic courses painfully through my system.

  But with it comes relief.

  At least Arlette is safe. For now.

  I focus all of my energy on inhaling and exhaling until my heart rate slows back to normal and my hands stop shaking. I pull several vials of elixir out of the bag on my hip and gulp them down quickly.

  I might have to leave the horse here and continue on foot. Though making the trek the rest of the way across the city will take more time than I want to even think about, I don’t want to injure the horse. Besides, I might be able to hide from pursuers easier if it’s just me.

  I pull my pocket watch from my dress and nearly cry out.

  It is six o’clock. Only two hours remain until Emeric’s time is up.

  Someone speaks nearby, and I freeze.

  “Red hair, black mask, injured hand. On horseback. You seen her?” the voice says.

  All the blood in my body drains to my feet.

  Cyril.

  Stashing the pocket watch, I creep slowly to the alley’s opening and press my back to the cold brick of the wall on the left. Taking a deep breath, I chance a look around the corner.

  Cyril is across the street, conversing with a young man carting a bushel of apples.

  As I duck back into the shadows, he turns his head.

  And meets my eye.

  He grins.

  Whirling, I yank myself into the saddle and goad the gelding into a run. Cyril yells, and a gunshot splits the sky.

  The horse shudders beneath me and skids sideways to the ground with a scream. I shriek as I go careening off the beast and into the snow. Scrambling to his side, I pres
s a hand to his flank. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper before rolling up onto my feet, and breaking into a sprint.

  “Stop!” Cyril barks.

  I push the elixir in my body to its maximum, flooding my legs with power. Snow skids under my boots as I run. The sun slinks low to the horizon, staining the snow scarlet.

  It’s only me and Cyril and the bleeding sky.

  “Isda!” Cyril’s voice bounces against the walls around me. “It doesn’t have to be like this!”

  I grit my teeth so hard that even the elixir can’t erase the pain in my head completely.

  Of course it has to be like this. He ensured that it would be with every lie and false embrace he gave me since I was five minutes old.

  The farther I run, the more the elixir in my body dissipates. The glow of it is fading from my limbs, from my raging heart, from my injured hand. My pace is lagging. Soon, I will have to stop to drink more. If I do, Cyril might catch me. But if I don’t, he surely will.

  As I sprint past a street, I glimpse a policeman on horseback. Whirling, I lunge down another alleyway before he sees me.

  But Cyril shouts to him, and my body zings with panic. If he somehow calls the rest of his police force out here, I won’t stand a chance no matter how much elixir I ingest.

  I have to make it to the opera house. To Emeric.

  Hoofbeats clatter behind me, and I swing around a corner and dive behind a trash bin. The policeman gallops past.

  I wait only a moment to be sure he’s out of sight before I take off running again. West toward where the tiniest sliver of gold emblazons the outline of the hills. Toward the opera house.

  Always the opera house.

  My plan is flawed and dangerous, but I don’t have time to think of a better one. Somehow I’ll sneak backstage as soon as the performance begins and locate a knife to carve the symbols into my hands. Once I get close enough to Emeric’s stone, I should be able to channel its power.

  Crunch-crunch-crunch. My boots churn snow in their wake.

  Tick-tick-tick. Time disintegrates in my grasp.

  Thud-thud-thud. My heart pounds out a drumbeat.