Firebrand

by Antony John

  “Yes, I can feel you have,” he said.

  The pride in his voice crushed me. I didn’t deserve it, and I didn’t want it—at least, not for my element. “We have to let our elements go now, Father. We all discussed it.”

  “Well, I didn’t. And I never would’ve agreed to it.” He looked confused. Winded, even. Hands still connected to mine, he furrowed his brows in concentration. He was trying to summon his element—to return power to me, and show me what we shared—but there was nothing passing between us now.

  He loosed my hands and gave a melancholy smile. “All those years I kept wishing for it to go. Now it’s gone, and I feel empty.” He leaned closer. “Elements peak early, Thomas. You have power now, and you need to use it.”

  I felt Rose watching me. “No. Not here.”

  “Especially here.” His face hardened. “You know nothing about these people.”

  “And I know nothing about you. If my element is so important, why did you hide it from me all those years?”

  He sighed. “I made a promise. They were going to make us leave the colony, Thomas.”

  “But why?” I was almost shouting and couldn’t stop myself. “Why?”

  Marin produced a humorless laugh. “Go ahead and tell him, Ordyn. How we’re godless. How we’ll die for our sins, every last one of us.”

  “That’s enough,” Father muttered.

  Rose’s mother was undeterred. “No, it’s not. It’s time everyone knew what we are, what we’ve done. Just don’t leave anything out, Ordyn. Especially not the story of the boy you killed.”

  My heartbeat flew, as sudden as a sail catching the wind. I waited for Father to deny it. He didn’t, though. Just tugged at his tunic’s bloodstained cuffs.

  Silence fell over us. Then, to my surprise, my father spoke: “It happened just after you were born,” he said softly. “The boy was a refugee from the mainland. About Griffin’s age. Probably got left behind when his family evacuated.” He opened his mouth, then closed it. Once again, a conversation that he’d had years to prepare for seemed to have caught him by surprise. “We still had some working machines on Roanoke back then. One of them was a saw. It was a great big powerful thing, could slice through lumber in no time. The boy was playing with the blade, trying to make it start.” His jaw twitched. “And I panicked.

  “I grabbed him. But it was the blade I was worried about. My heart was pounding and—” Father stopped as his eyes welled up suddenly. “My energy went straight through him. The blade turned, pulled him in and sliced straight through him. He bled out so fast, I’m still not sure he realized what was happening to him. But I did.” He shook his head, trying to shake the image. “I saw his life slip away.”

  More silence. I handed my father a water canister. He took a sip.

  “The colony was larger back then,” he continued. “Not just elementals, but regular folk too. None of the non-elementals knew what happened. They thought it was an accident, and we were used to tragedy. Life moved on.” He blinked away tears. “But I knew. And so did the other elementals. You’d just been born, Thomas, and revealed the same element as me. Everyone warned me I could hurt someone again. Even worse, you might, without realizing it. I had to ask myself: How would I feel if you had blood on your hands too?”

  I thought of Joven, and what my element had done to him. “It was an accident.”

  He swallowed hard. “Doesn’t matter, son. When you see something like that, blame is irrelevant.”

  Griffin was sitting on the end of our father’s bed, his attention fixed on us, just like everyone else. Ananias had been signing for him, but I’d have to tell him everything later. There weren’t even signs for some of the things my father was telling us.

  Seeing Griffin reminded me of something. I grabbed his bag and pulled out the two journals. “Who is Virginia Dare?”

  Alice’s mother, Tarn, turned white. “Where did you get those?”

  “From your dune boxes.”

  “Where’s the third?”

  “Kyte’s box was left on the beach at Hatteras.”

  Tarn sat on the floor and hugged her legs. I couldn’t tell whether she was distraught or relieved.

  “Who is Virginia Dare?” I growled.

  No one answered.

  “Who is John White?”

  Still no answer.

  “Just tell us the truth!”

  In the silence that followed I felt everyone watching me. Ananias, Alice, Rose, Griffin, and even Dennis. But I also felt their expectation, their need to know who we were at last.

  Tarn walked over to the door and closed it. It didn’t fit the frame and there were gaps around it. As she returned to her place, she moved slowly, not at all like the proud, confident woman I’d known back on Hatteras. The loss of Joven and Eleanor was weighing on her like it weighed on Alice, and it was hard to imagine anything that might lighten their loads.

  “The truth,” Tarn murmured. She made the word sound ugly. Deceitful. “The truth is that hundreds of years ago, white settlers crossed the oceans in search of new colonies. They built the first on Roanoke Island. But they weren’t self-sufficient. They didn’t understand the land and the climate and the native tribes that already inhabited the region. They needed additional supplies, so their leader returned home to request help. His name was John White.”

  She licked her dry lips. “Back in his home country, everyone was preparing for war. By the time it was over, years had gone by. White brought a supply ship to Roanoke, but most of the settlers had left by then. And those who remained weren’t the same.”

  She paused as wind nudged the door. She didn’t want us to be overheard.

  “The youngest children had developed the ability to control the elements,” she continued. “White was amazed. He’d gone in search of a new world, and he’d found one—a land in which the accepted laws of nature no longer applied. But he also knew that others would see things differently. He suspected that the other colonists had left because they were scared of these elementals. He was afraid his crew would accuse the children of witchcraft, and attempt to free them of evil spirits by drowning or burning at the stake, as was the custom. So White lied to the members of his expedition; he said he’d found no one on the island. The crew returned home, and a legend known as the Lost Colony was born. It’s a legend we’ve maintained ever since.”

  I wanted to feel something—relief, maybe. Our long-kept secrets were out in the open now, but as I looked at Griffin, I knew the biggest question still remained: “Why is Griffin the solution?”

  “We’re all solutions,” explained my father. “Or the descendants of one. It’s just the name given to the first person who reveals a new element.”

  “Why solution, though?”

  He rubbed his chin. “When the first colony faced extinction, they received the gift of the elements—earth, water, wind, and fire—to keep them alive. When the world changed, driven by engines and machines, our power emerged—yours and mine, Thomas. And when the world was consumed by Plague, Griffin was born.”

  “So why aren’t I a solution too?” asked Dennis.

  “No one knows. Elements are passed from parent to child. I passed my power to Thomas, and my secondary element, fire, to Ananias. Their mother was a seer, and so is Griffin. I can’t say why he’s the solution, though. I suppose it’s a kind of evolution, just like the way some elements that existed in the past have died off.”

  “What kind of elements?” Ananias asked.

  “All sorts. Back in the era of steam-driven machines, there were people who could boil water with just their hands. It sounds like a water-fire hybrid, but it wasn’t really. It was a unique element. And then the machines changed, and those elements naturally phased out.”

  “Except for earth, water, wind, and fire,” said Alice, speaking up at last. She sat in the corner of the room and
rested her head against the cold stone wall. “Just before he was shot, Kyte said: Four boys, four elements. How did they get the first elements?”

  Father adjusted the blanket pressed into the small of his back. He’d been lying down for days, and it showed. “No one knows for sure. Legend says the boys visited one of the tribes on the mainland. They stole food and other goods. Someone sounded the alarm, and in their haste to escape, the boys destroyed an idol of the god Kiwasa. The natives gave chase, followed the boys to their Roanoke Island colony. A battle seemed inevitable. But as tribesmen neared the shore, one of the boys caused a wave that overturned their canoe. Another summoned a wind that pushed them out into the sound. The third boy created a flame, and in the light the natives saw the final boy touch the earth and make it shake.” He shrugged, as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe it himself. “Some say it was Kiwasa’s revenge. From that day onward, the boys were outcasts, as was every one of their descendants. They had the power to survive almost anything, it seemed, but they were destined to do so alone.”

  Marin cleared her throat. “So now you know.” She sounded disappointed, as though the fault was with us for wanting answers, rather than with her for keeping them from us.

  “No, Mother,” said Rose. “You still haven’t explained why you kept this a secret from us all these years.”

  Marin’s eyes flickered to me as if I had spoken, not Rose. “You have no idea how hard it used to be for us. When we were young, people were as superstitious as they’d been in John White’s time. We lived in constant fear that one of us would reveal an element.” She took a calming breath. “When the world changed, we had a choice: Tell you that you’re nature’s mistake, or allow you to be the perfect humans you are. We gave you the one thing we’d always dreamed of: a colony free from non-elementals, where we could be truly ourselves.”

  She sat up straighter now, confident in the truth of her words. “But now we’re living with non-elementals again. And while the world may have changed, attitudes haven’t. If anyone finds out what we can do, they’ll kill us without hesitation, simply out of fear. Which is why we’ve promised to put our elements behind us.”

  “No.” My father smacked his fist against the blankets. “They need to practice.”

  “So someone can give our secret away? Or maybe Thomas’ll accidentally kill someone else.” She stood and placed a claw-like hand on Dennis’s shoulder. “Think we’d survive that, do you, Ordyn?”

  “The elements are more important now than ever,” he insisted.

  “Not to us, they’re not.” She nudged Dennis toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” demanded Rose.

  “Our colony is no more. Your father is dead, and our elements are done. Chief has found a different room for us, Rose. If this is home now, we should be looking forward, not back. We should be joining our new family, not staying with the old.” She picked up Dennis’s bag and paused beside the door. “Come along.”

  Rose seemed frozen in shock. There was no ignoring the finality of what her mother was doing. Dennis sensed it too, and hesitated, torn between the people he’d always known and the mother he trusted above all of us.

  My thoughts returned to the conversation with Chief. When he’d asked me if Marin was happy, he already knew the answer. Which meant that he wasn’t really asking for my opinion at all. He was trying to work out if he could trust me.

  “Rose?” Marin said her daughter’s name without enthusiasm, a question she didn’t much care to have answered. When she received only silence in return, she didn’t even seem disappointed. “Your father would be ashamed of you.”

  She left without a backward glance. The door swung shut behind Dennis. In the quiet of the room I counted seven people. Our colony—fractured and decimated—was no longer a colony. It wasn’t even a cohesive group, just the residue from centuries of lies.

  CHAPTER 21

  I claimed two portions of dinner and carried one to my father, grateful for a reason to avoid Chief. Father was sleeping, so I ate one bowl and left the other beside his bed.

  Outside, I climbed the metal staircase that ran against the battery and wandered across the roof. Beyond the roof was the esplanade, a large area on the same level. The flat grounds were covered in rows of plants. There was grass too, brown, worn thin by the long summer. A stone monument rose a yard above it all.

  I took a seat on the monument and surveyed the harbor. It was dark now. Stars glittered to life above me. Waves brushed against the tiny island, soft and hypnotic.

  Footsteps on the staircase broke the quiet. It took me a moment to recognize Dennis’s figure, and longer for him to recognize mine. He stopped a few yards away, and turned to leave.

  “Don’t go,” I said. “Please.”

  He hesitated, then shuffled onto the stone beside me. “My father made me promise not to talk to you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why I said that, but I meant it. Dennis had lost his father. Maybe his sister too, if things didn’t get resolved between Rose and Marin. “Your father was probably trying to protect Rose. You’ve seen what I can do. Or maybe it was because Dare was my uncle.”

  He raised his hands. “So? You never knew that before. It’s not fair.” He dangled his legs from the monument. His feet bounced against it. Seeing him like this reminded me how young he was—still only nine.

  “How’s your new room?”

  “Weird. Mother was so pleased to get away from you all. But no one in that room will talk to me. They smile and nod, but . . . something’s not right.”

  “They’re probably just not used to you yet.”

  “No. It’s more than that. Chief made two of the adults give us their beds. It doesn’t make sense. If this is home now, why should I get a bed? Why should adults sleep on the floor?”

  “It’s strange,” I agreed. “Do you want to move back to our room? It’s all right if you do.”

  He thought about this. “No. I want my mother to stay with you. Then I’ll come back too.” The answer seemed to satisfy him. “Do you like Rose?”

  I hesitated. “Yes. Although . . . it’s more than that. It’s kind of difficult to explain.”

  Dennis nodded sagely. “That’s okay. You can try now. She’s standing right behind you.”

  I spun around. Rose met my eyes, flushed red, and looked away again just as quickly. As Dennis left us alone, she wandered over to the perimeter wall, tiptoeing the edge.

  “Planning to jump?” I asked, joining her. The sheer wall plunged into stacked boulders. Waves lapped against them.

  “No. Just realizing how much water there is in the world.” She crouched down, hair blown about in the wind, and tightened the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “It’s strange, but I’ve never really thought about water until now. It just existed, like my element. Now I realize what I’ll lose if I let it all go.”

  I suspected this wasn’t just about water and her element. “Dennis is going to be all right.”

  “Only if my mother comes around. And I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  She raised a hand and I helped her up. We wandered past the rows of plantings. When we reached an open area, she laid her blanket on the ground. “Stay with me?”

  I put my water canister down and lay beside her. Side by side we stared at evening sky.

  “Do you trust the Guardians now they’ve told us everything?” she asked.

  “If they’ve told us everything. That’s the problem, I guess. We’ll never know.”

  “True. I heard Alice and Tarn arguing outside the main gate during dinner. They stopped when they saw me, but I don’t think Alice trusts her mother anymore.”

  “I’m not sure she trusts anyone anymore.”

  “You’re probably right.” Rose sighed. “Do you trust Chief?”

  Maybe it was the way she asked, h
er voice uneven, but the question felt awkward. “Why are you asking?”

  She glanced toward the battery steps before continuing. “As soon as you all left today, he stopped what he was doing and disappeared. One moment, he was tending to the goats. The next, he’d gone. I kept an eye out for him, but didn’t see him until a couple strikes later. He was coming out of the room that Jerren says he’s never seen.”

  “The gunroom, he called it.”

  “Exactly. It might mean nothing,” she added hurriedly. “Or it might be important.”

  I almost wished she hadn’t told me that. “I don’t know who to trust, Rose.”

  She tilted her head toward me and smiled. “Yes, you do. You can trust me.”

  She’d rolled up the sleeves of her tunic, revealing her bare arms. The skin was slightly pink, sunburned, but perfectly smooth. I ran a finger along her right arm and she stiffened momentarily, then let out a long breath. I was relaxed for once, and the discomfort she’d braced for wasn’t there. She shuffled closer to me so that our bodies were touching.

  “What does it feel like, your element?” Her words were tiny breaths punching the air. I felt them as much as I heard them.

  “Like tiredness. Like ache.” I propped my head up on my arm. “Used to, anyway. It’s not as bad now, but I wish it would fade faster.”

  Rose didn’t hide her disappointment. “I don’t want to lose my element. When we were on the ship, I couldn’t tell for sure that the water was fresh. We might’ve gotten sick. Someone might’ve died. And I would’ve felt like it was my fault.”

  “You can do other things—”

  “Anyone can do other things, Thomas. That’s not the point. I don’t see what’s so wrong about being special.”

  I let my finger slide off her arm. “Being here with you . . . I couldn’t have done that at Roanoke.”

  “I guess so. But you could learn. Like you learned to channel your element.” She bit her lip. It looked nervous and cute all at once. “Would you do it to me? Take over my element, I mean.”

  Just thinking about it sent me back to our last night on the ship—how I’d seized control of Ananias’s apologetic sparks and propelled them into flames. How I’d sent a man to his death.