The Storm of Echoes

by Christelle Dabos

  “Second notable fact: their number varies according to certain conditions.”

  “I noticed that in the cellar. I was almost deafened.”

  “Third notable fact,” continued Thorn, as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “their number also varies according to people. The echoes’ frequency observed in the immediate vicinity of the powerless is weak. That frequency increases close to people related to a family spirit—and consequently, a family power. It increases considerably close to inverts. I would go even further: the greater the inversion, the more echoes there are.”

  Over the drawer pulled out before him, Thorn suddenly directed a steely look down at Ophelia.

  “Fourth and final notable fact: you hold the record. Of all the inverts on the Alternative Program currently assessed, you are the one who induces the most echoes.”

  Ophelia thought of Helen, in that stand at the amphitheater. Of what the giantess had seen. Of what she had said to her. “They are everywhere, young lady, and around you even more than anywhere else.” At least that made more sense than the cage, the turning back, and the fingers she had mentioned to her.

  “I’ll recap,” she said. “We all possess a shadow that we can’t see. With inverts, this shadow is mismatched, and the worse the inversion, the greater the mismatch. This particularity attracts the echoes, for some reason. The Other is himself an echo—a very rare echo, capable of thinking for itself. The observatory thus uses inverts to lure him, to obtain from him the secret of the Horn of Plenty that he, formerly, would have delivered to Eulalia Gonde. Have I missed anything?”

  Ophelia was about to clean her glasses, hoping that would give her more clarity of thought, when she noticed that they had never been cleaner. Thorn’s fastidiousness had something to do with that.

  “I had to limit my research to the last five years,” he said. “The archives older than that have either been moved, or destroyed.”

  Ophelia opened a random file that Thorn had only just returned to the correct place in its cabinet. It belonged to a subject from the standard program, whose shadow perfectly surrounded their entire body. So what was it made of? Why wasn’t it visible to the naked eye?

  “The black lenses,” whispered Ophelia. “So that’s what they use them for. To make our shadows visible. Perhaps even the echoes, too.”

  She thought back to that slap the lizard man had given her on the day she was admitted. He had then seen “something” surrounding her. Had he seen her claws instinctively reacting to such aggression? Ophelia was starting to think that he had even deliberately sought to provoke them, the better to observe them. Nothing seemed to be left to chance here; it was alarming.

  As she was going through all the photographs in the file, searching for new evidence, she was suddenly struck by the subject’s smile on each one. Attached were more traditional portraits, in which they posed sometimes with a musical instrument, sometimes with a piece of pottery. She came across a group photograph, of the other subjects of the standard program, in which they were all having fun making faces for the camera. Even the members of the observation team, with their dark pince-nez and yellow-silk saris, joined in with their laughter. There were no collaborators in habits, or nanny-automatons there. Only radiant faces.

  Ophelia thought of Cosmos’s fit of rage. She thought of the old man who kept hitting his ear. She thought of Second confined to her gibberish. This observatory had the means to help them, but preferred to exacerbate their deviations, the better to use them.

  “And meanwhile,” she muttered, feeling her anger rise, “they watch us struggling within our own bodies.”

  “One word.”

  Thorn hadn’t spoken loudly, but something in his tone made Ophelia switch her attention from the photographs to him. He was veering toward her, fist leaning on a table, eyes intently searching her own. Had she the ability to see the shadows, she would have seen the one, bristling with claws, growing all around him. He was probably unaware of it, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him, but he was hurting her.

  “Just one word from you,” he said, “and I will get you out of this observatory this very night. We don’t have much time left, but it is still feasible. We will find a place where you won’t have to fear either being deported or even located.”

  “You want me to go? To run away?”

  Thorn’s expression became hard to read, due to the nightlights.

  “What matters is what you, yourself, want. You have, and will always have, the choice.”

  The dice of my own existence, thought Ophelia.

  “The Pole . . . do you miss it sometimes?”

  Thorn seemed thrown by the question, but his fingers tightened instinctively around the fob watch. A present from Berenilde; Ophelia knew that from when she had accidentally read the dice he’d owned as a child.

  “I left several items of unfinished business back there. None has priority over the one I am dealing with here and now.”

  This response was devoid of sentimentality, but Ophelia felt moved. Of course Thorn feared, as she did, never seeing his family again. Except that he no longer had the choice. He couldn’t return home without first reporting to the Genealogists in Babel, and then the law courts of the Pole. He had sacrificed his dice a long time ago.

  And he never complained.

  Ophelia wouldn’t complain, either.

  “Same here. I want to finish what I have started.”

  The ambivalence became even more marked on Thorn’s half-lit face.

  “I can tell you, now: I was hoping that you would make that choice.”

  “Really?”

  There was a pounding inside Ophelia’s chest. She calmed down as soon as Thorn placed in her hands a plan of the observatory, and pointed to a particular location.

  “A visit to the collaborators’ quarter would be highly instructive. I wager we will find more than one answer there: the true nature of the shadows and the echoes, along with their link to Eulalia Gonde, the Other, the landslides, the Horn of Plenty, and the decoding of the Books. I don’t have the right to inspect any of that work. I am not even authorized to set foot in those laboratories, due to so-called medical secrecy. We will find a way for you to go there instead of me.”

  Ophelia examined the plan close up. She wasn’t particularly sentimental, but that was, by far, the least passionate declaration Thorn had ever made to her.

  “When?”

  The long, bony finger slid across the paper.

  “I have taken in the schedules of all the collaborators. I know where they are at all times. There is just one gap in the timetable when they are all occupied outside of their quarter: between the third and fifth afternoon gong.”

  “I managed to get out secretly tonight, but it will be less easy in daylight.”

  “I will help you with that,” Thorn assured, calmly. “Tomorrow, I’ll go on the offensive. The electricity meters I checked earlier don’t tally with the readings that were supplied to me. In other words, there is something within the containment zone demanding a considerable consumption of energy. Something extremely well hidden.”

  Ophelia thought of the lamps always only half-working, and the carousels breaking down.

  “The Horn of Plenty?”

  “Precisely. I’m going to use that discrepancy to proceed with a more rigorous inspection of the containment zone. The observatory may not be run by the Lords of LUX, but it owes its smooth operating to their subsidies. Those in charge will just have to submit to my technical checks. In short,” Thorn concluded, folding up the plan, “I will draw the general attention to myself for the two hours when the collaborators’ quarter is empty. You will be able to go there without worrying.”

  The more Ophelia listened to Thorn, the more she realized how much he was still the Treasurer of old. In fact, it was the entire North that he carried within him. He even look
ed so little like a Babelian, with his sun-resistant pallor and polar-bear manner, it was a wonder he was seen as an authentic Lord of LUX. The Genealogists really must have influence to expose him to the public like this without it ever raising any questions.

  “What if they send me down to the cellar before then, what should I do?”

  “Get yourself out of it. I don’t know if that experiment really is to establish contact with the Other, but if so, we must, at all costs, avoid attracting his attention. Whether we are talking about him or Eulalia Gonde, we are not yet ready to stand up to them.”

  Ophelia hoped it wasn’t too late, after her stupid act of bravado on the telephone. She forced herself, above all, not to think of what she had seen, thought she had seen, at the glazing-and-mirror store.

  “Fine. Tomorrow, between the third and fifth gong, I’ll go to the collaborators’ quarter. With a bit of luck, the Horn of Plenty is to be found there.”

  Thorn’s lips flinched slightly.

  “The most important thing is to understand the principle. If we discover how Eulalia Gonde freed herself from her human condition, and how the Other freed himself from his condition of being an echo, then we will, in turn, be able to liberate ourselves from them.”

  Ophelia suddenly felt as if she could breathe easier. Thorn sometimes had the manners of a paper-knife, but his lack of doubts swept her own away. She banished from her mind the glazing-and-mirror store, Second’s drawing, the blood, and the void. The only reality now was him, was her, was them.

  Thorn pulled on the chain of his watch, which opened and then closed with a wink of its cover.

  “Right,” he said, sounding businesslike. “Since you have chosen to remain, we are left with time to spare.”

  “Time for what?”

  Ophelia feared the outlining of a new mission. She was already uncertain of fulfilling the one for the following day without getting caught—with the disastrous consequences that would ensue. She realized, after the event, that her question had had an unexpected effect on Thorn. His whole face had hardened, from the tension lines on his forehead to the muscles in his jaw.

  “For us.”

  Ophelia raised her eyebrows. In those two commanding words, there had been possessiveness; and then, a second later, in the hastily lowered eyes, shame. As if Thorn had disappointed himself. It wasn’t the first time Ophelia encountered contradictory emotions in him.

  She felt herself being drawn to him by an irresistible impulse. Thorn kept her carefully within his field of vision. His eyes were like ice: cold and burning at the same time. Ophelia would have so loved to soften that intransigence . . .

  She sensed the claws’ galvanic current on her skin, making her a live wire. She raised herself up on tiptoe and, with fumbling but determined movements, tried to undo the golden buttons of his uniform. To release him from this false skin. To return him to himself, if only for one night.

  Thorn’s attention had become all-consuming. Usually so reluctant to eat, he suddenly seemed ravenous.

  As he enfolded her with his entire body, Ophelia made herself a new promise.

  She would change the way Thorn looked at himself in the mirror.

  THE COLLABORATORS

  The day began normally, as far as the Alternative Program was concerned. Feeling groggy from being up all night, Ophelia struggled to get her foul breakfast down; feigned interest in the screened ballet of geometrical shapes in the big top; did the routine gymnastics in front of the team of collaborators; and endured the endless photographic session, which, she now knew, would highlight the increased gap between her body and her shadow. Next, the usual carousel circuits. Ophelia had to write with both hands on a revolving stand, and then run backwards on a treadmill. She finally dozed off while staring at a toy windmill attached to the handlebars of her velocipede.

  The cellar with the telephone no longer featured at all.

  Ophelia dodged Second whenever she was approaching her, with her white eye wide open and a new drawing. She found it hard to ignore her crestfallen expression, but she couldn’t face seeing herself covered in red pencil again. As for Cosmos, it was he who kept his distance from Ophelia, even if, several times, she caught him looking at the bite mark he had left on her hand.

  The third strike of the gong cut through the stifling heat of the afternoon.

  Wiping the sweat from her neck, between two carousels, Ophelia glanced anxiously at the hazy gray figures ambling languidly across the cloister. All the collaborators had left their quarter as expected, but still no sign of Thorn. If she tried anything at all right now, she would be noticed before doing ten steps. She was starting to think the diversion had failed when, finally, something stirred among everyone around her. The same murmur—“Sir Henry’s here!”—flew from mouth to mouth, crossing the containment zone like a paper dart.

  The nanny-automatons stopped all the activities and led the inverts back to the residence, apart from Second, who remained alone on her carousel horse. The rest they locked in their rooms with a tray meal.

  “IT’S JUST AN INSPECTION OF THE ELECRICAL FITTINGS. WE’LL GET BACK TO THE GAMES TOMORROW, CHÉRIS.”

  As soon as the key had turned in its lock, Ophelia didn’t waste a second. She put on the gloves and glasses she had hidden under her bed, and then removed the shutter, now hanging on just one hinge. Her first escape had gone unnoticed; she hoped that luck would again be on her side.

  She slid through the window. Walking on that wall at night was one thing; doing it in broad daylight with an unrestricted view of the void and a searing wind in one’s face quite another. When she reached it, the roof of the residence burnt her feet.

  Thorn’s surprise inspection in the containment zone was having the desired effect. Like miniature figurines, the gray-clad figures were all gravitating around his dazzling uniform.

  Ophelia descended, terrace by terrace, until, with some acrobatics and almost as many bruises, she landed in an orchard. If she had got the itinerary right, she had reached the collaborators’ quarter. The hardest was still to come. She had barely more than an hour to extract this place’s secrets. She went through an infirmary, a scriptorium, a library, and a kitchen that smelt shamefully good—clearly not where the inverts’ meals were concocted. All of the quarter’s rooms had no windows, as on the plan Thorn had made her memorize. This could work in her favor. The flickering light from the bulbs made the shadows shudder. At least the diversion had worked: Ophelia met no one on the way.

  That was true up until the hub of the quarter. She hid just in time, in a blind spot: two collaborators were on guard. Ophelia risked a quick flash of her glasses at them. They were pacing along a corridor toward one another, habits brushing as they passed, gray hoods pulled over faces, completely silent. One was going forward, the other going back. After several steps, they wordlessly switched roles. The one going back started to go forward, and vice versa.

  On the opposite side of the corridor, there was a small closed door. For it to be guarded like this, it must allow access to the laboratories. Ophelia couldn’t reach it without being seen, for the moment at least. She and Thorn had envisaged this scenario. Crouching in the dark, she waited, hoping it wouldn’t take much longer. Every minute spent here was eating into what little time she had.

  At last, all the lightbulbs went out. The power outage promised by Thorn. The windowless quarter was plunged into darkness. There was the sound of bodies colliding, and then two weary whispers:

  “Another power outage?”

  “Another power outage.”

  Ophelia darted into the corridor, on tiptoe, hugging the wall to avoid any contact with the pair of collaborators. Having located the door to the laboratories, she felt her way to open it. Quick, hurry up before the light returns! Her hands fumbled around the handle, confusing left and right—the simplest of actions had become exasperatingly difficult. Finally, a
click. She slipped through the half-opened door and closed it behind her, centimeter by centimeter, so the wood didn’t creak.

  She had made it to the other side.

  Leaning against the door, she took in the darkness in front of her, with her eyes, with her ears, with all her senses. What if Thorn had got it wrong? If some collaborators had remained in the laboratories? If the return of light betrayed Ophelia’s presence among them?

  The lightbulbs came back on all at once. There was no one there.

  The room was vast, divided into compartments separated by thick partitions, like the cells of a beehive. The ceiling fans restarted with the electricity. The air was more breathable. On the walls, unused pegs clearly awaited the collaborators’ hoods.

  Here, as in the entire containment zone, there were piles of boxes overflowing with faulty objects. Combs without teeth, fake jewelry, pots with holes, bent spoons, wasted food, and still nothing remotely resembling a Horn of Plenty. It was so frustrating never to find anywhere a cause, the effects of which were clear everywhere.

  At the bottom of a trash can, Ophelia found some pince-nez, in a pitiful state. A collaborator must have accidentally sat on them. The only lens still dangling from the frame was cracked. And black.

  Ophelia stuck it over one eye, under her glasses. Her perception of the world instantly changed. Every partition, every lamp, every object was surrounded by the finest white vapor, endlessly disappearing and then reappearing around it. The fans, like propellers on a boat, projected theirs far and wide, in great concentric circles.

  “What the . . .”

  As soon as this muttering left Ophelia’s lips, it, too, turned into mist and dispersed.

  She tried snatching at it. Her own hand instantly appeared to her in duplicate. One was as black and solid as the lens stuck to her eye; the other white and vaporous, overlapping the first.

  Ophelia had more surprises to come.

  With every gesture she made, and even those she didn’t, she projected a little of her shadow all around her. And sometimes, before completely dispersing, it would come back to her diminished, like a returning wave, so slight it was barely detectable, despite the special lens.