Crown of Oblivion

by Julie Eshbaugh

  What could have made me risk my life? What in my forgotten past provoked me to choose this? You’ll know when you win, I tell myself, but I can’t win until I convince myself to turn enough to look over my shoulder at the wall. Gripping the ledge on either side of my thighs again, I take a deep breath. I want to wait until I feel ready to move, but if I’m honest, I know that moment will never come, so I force myself to twist in place and look behind me.

  I turn enough to see that a candle burns on a table inside. Outside, five letters are written in a column to the left of the window in pale gray paint.

  The shutter on the left is stuck halfway between open and closed, sticking out at a ninety-degree angle to the brick wall. I try pushing on it, but it won’t budge. The hinges must be frozen with rust.

  The letter P is painted at the top of the window, on the wall above the shutter. Below the P is an O. At the top of the shutter is another P, and below it, also on the shutter, is an E. On the wall just below the shutter is an S.

  P

  O

  P

  E

  S

  Popes? As I look out at the level fields of corn, the word seems meaningless. I remember Darius looking north, his hand shading his eyes from the sun, but when I look north I see nothing but green stalks. Corn, corn, and more corn. But Darius is taller than I am. He’d see farther from a sitting position.

  My legs betray me with their shaking as I pull them up beside me and shift onto my knees. Without letting myself think about what I’m doing, I get to my feet and straighten until I’m standing on the window ledge. My hands brace against the walls on either side, and I let my back touch the pane of glass.

  Now I can see beyond the corn in every direction.

  The compact roofs of a few houses stick up along the road, and beyond them, I spot a white farmhouse with a silo and two barns. Beside the farm, a broad field of bright red flowers blooms. The air bends in the hazy heat, making the field of flowers look like a puddle of blood. North of the farm, a village sprouts up. I can see a clock tower rising above sharply pitched rooftops and narrow streets.

  Even farther up the road, I spot a lake. It’s the northernmost landmark I can see. I remember the signpost at the base of the lighthouse: Pope’s Lake, 8 miles.

  P O P E S. The next checkpoint is eight miles away.

  But first I have to get to the ground, and the obvious option isn’t much of an option at all. When I look down, I don’t see the upturned faces of racers gathered beneath the window; I see open jaws waiting to devour me. As much as I fear climbing down the wall, I fear reaching the ground more.

  I turn back to the window. The candle on the table illuminates a small room. I wonder who lit the candle and what they would do if I kicked in the glass to get inside.

  I’m still wondering when a sound startles me and draws my attention away from the candle, out to the fields of corn. A shout, followed by a scream. A scream of a person in pain. Nothing else sounds like that.

  Then again . . . a shout followed by a scream.

  Then again. And again.

  Something in the screams reminds me of the pain of the whip on my back in the only memory I have. With each scream, the memory plays like a recording. You’d think a person with only one memory would want to hold on to it, but you’d be wrong.

  For some reason, despite the bleeding gashes on my own back, the screams shock me. The sounds on the breeze sicken me the way the sight of my own blood might. My stomach squirms like a sack of snakes. Still, I listen. The only sound missing is the crack of the whip. I can only assume it’s carried away on the wind.

  I surprise myself when I sit back down without much fear. The need to escape the screams is more motivating than I would’ve believed. Reaching behind my back, I grip the edge of the window and try to raise the glass, and I’m surprised when it slides up an inch or two. I’d assumed it would be locked. Peering over my shoulder into the room, I’m nudging the window up an inch at a time when a breeze gusts under the sash and blows out the candle’s flame.

  With the inner room darkened, the sun reflects off the glass, turning it as opaque and reflective as a mirror. A girl looks out at me, a pair of dark eyes under thick black bangs, and I realize the girl is me. It’s unnerving to see my own face and not know it. But the shock fades quickly when I notice the letters P and E—the two letters painted on the shutter—in the reflection beside my face. So now those letters are doubled:

  P

  O

  P P

  E E

  S

  Where light doesn’t pass through glass. That’s part of the clue. And light doesn’t pass through glass where it reflects.

  What I’d believed to be POPES is actually POPPEES.

  But what does poppees mean?

  Facing north, I picture what lies beyond the corn that blocks my view again. The farm, and the field of flowers. Bright red flowers in full bloom.

  Poppies.

  I don’t want to go to Pope’s Lake. I want to head to the farm.

  Staring at the reflected letters, I consider my options to hide the clue. I could break the glass. Or, if I can climb inside and find a match, I can relight the candle.

  I look down. The small crowd at the foot of the tower still looks up, and above them, a racer is climbing. A woman, with wind-burned cheeks, dark brown hair, wide eyes, and an even wider smile. “Hello there!” she calls. Her voice is light, almost a laugh. For her, the climb seems even more effortless than it was for Darius. “Stay right there, now,” she says. She has a long thin neck and long thin fingers, and she finds each new handhold faster than the last. “Stay right there, because I’m coming for you,” she says. Her mouth is open in a broad grin, like she’s laughing without sound.

  Watching her rise, coming closer and closer, I grip onto the ledge with both hands. There is very little space on this windowsill. We will not both fit here, side by side. She sees that.

  I twist in place and look into the small room again. I need to get in there, but before I can pull my legs up, those long thin fingers wrap around my ankle.

  “Ready to switch places?” she asks.

  When I turn back to look, for a fleeting moment, her eyes are full of triumph. But then I give my leg a hard shake, just once.

  The fingers of her left hand, still gripping the wall, wiggle loose. A flash of bare truth passes over her face. Her grin goes slack as her mouth falls open.

  Then I shake my leg once more, and she lets go of my leg.

  Her hand swipes at the wall, reaching for a handhold. But her feet are already loosening from their perch. She’s there a moment, almost hovering in midair.

  And then she’s gone.

  Instinct seals my eyes shut and turns my head away before she hits the ground. Below me, a man screams. Keeping my gaze steady on the sill, I raise the window, swivel my legs into the room behind me, and drop onto the floor.

  I shiver. The room is cool and feels soaked in the sea. The wooden table is swollen and warped, and the air smells like sea spray and mildew and a hint of smoke. I shove the window all the way open so it can’t reflect the letters for the next racer who makes the climb, and just as I do, a blast of wind hits me from behind.

  Not from the window. From the opposite side of the room, where a narrow corkscrew stair is visible through an open doorway.

  A floorboard creaks, and a cold gust pelts me again, but now I know it’s not wind. It’s fear that acts like wind, chilling my skin and raising up goose bumps. Not my own fear either, but someone else’s—whoever is waiting on the stairs. I take two slow steps, my shadow crossing the threshold to the stairwell ahead of me. As it does, a girl jumps into the room with so much force she knocks me to the floor.

  She has surprise on her side, but that’s all. Small and underfed, she’s no more than a waif. I lift her off me like I might lift a wiggling dog. Pinning her to the floor is no trouble at all. She overflows with fear, so much that it chills the room.

  St
ill, she fights hard, squirming and kicking and flailing a long time before she finally lies still. I slide away from her slowly, half expecting her to start fighting again as soon as I let go, but she remains sprawled on the floor where I held her down.

  “So I guess you want the clue,” I say.

  “I don’t need your stupid clue.” The words fly out of her mouth, coated in a thick accent from the rural north. “I already read the letters myself, early this morning.” She sits up, running her hands through pale blond hair. “I was the first one here—”

  “How did you get through the locked door?”

  “It wasn’t locked when I got here. I came through the door and locked it behind me.”

  We sit on the floor facing each other, and I watch her glaring at me. She can’t be more than sixteen years old. She looks like a magpie, with shifting, wide-open eyes set over a sharp beak of a nose. And just like a magpie, she’s small but quick, and maybe a little bit dangerous.

  “So if you have the clue, why are you still here?” I ask. “This is a race.” I think about Darius’s words. There’s only one prize. Only one person wins. “Shouldn’t you have been on your way to the next clue a long time ago?”

  “I knew I’d never get past that mob waiting outside. Unlike you, I can’t fight like an Enchanted.” Her magpie eyes dart to the window and back to my face. “I watched you save that other racer. So do you have it?”

  “Have what?”

  “That magic? Do you have Cientia?”

  I hesitate. Could I? It shouldn’t be possible. Every Outsider is inoculated against the Three Unities at birth. And I may not remember my life, but I’m in this race, so I know I’m an Outsider. “I can tell you’re afraid. But I don’t think it would take Cientia to know that. So I don’t know.”

  “Fine, keep your secrets,” the girl drawls, pronouncing the word like sacreds. “But I have water. . . .” She pauses to let it sink in. I try not to react, but I know I fail. If I ever possessed any subtlety, it got left outside on the window ledge. “And I’m willing to share it with you if you’ll get me out of here.”

  Water. Just the thought of it makes my throat burn. “I’ll have to see the water before I do anything for you. I won’t let you trick me.”

  “No problem at all.”

  She scoots toward the doorway to the stairwell and returns with a canteen in her hands. A drip seeps out of the closed spout and splashes onto the stone floor.

  “I’ll help you,” I say, “but you need to give me a drink right now.”

  I expect her to argue, but she hands the canteen to me without hesitating. The water slides down my throat, cool and fresh. “Thank you,” I say, then immediately regret it. I don’t owe her any thanks, because we’ve made a bargain. “Where did you get it?”

  “I stole it from the house next to the place where I woke up. I think the Enchanted woman inside saw me take it, but she let me get away with it.”

  We each take one more slug from the canteen and climb to our feet. My eyes sweep from the girl’s straw-colored hair to her dirty pants, and I try to imagine an Enchanted woman looking the other way as she stole this canteen. She does look pitiful, if you don’t meet her razor-sharp eyes. “What’s your name?” I ask when we get to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Jane,” says the girl.

  “All right, Jane. Let’s go.”

  Eight

  The door is thick and heavy, and its hinges groan loud enough to announce us to everyone outside. There are six racers crowded together—three men and three women—and all of them are looking up at the window when we emerge. My first instinct is to run, but before we can, they’ve boxed us in.

  One of the men—a boy really, sixteen or seventeen, with arms the size of tree trunks—locks his gaze on Jane, and I realize it was a mistake to bring her out with me. He grabs her by the upper arms and flings her to the sandy ground, but before he can raise his foot to kick her, I’m between the two of them, ready to catch him by the ankle. He flies backward, his head connecting with the white brick wall.

  “Stay down!” I manage to bark at Jane, but I never even glimpse her because I’m spinning into a kick. It lands solidly on one of the two women coming up behind me, but the impact stings my foot and makes me fear I’ve snapped my ankle. But I get lucky—she grabs onto the other woman as she goes down and takes her with her.

  I’m set, ready for the next one to come at me, but the third—a pretty woman with the build of a man—signals to the others to stay back.

  “She’s got magic. Can’t you see? She knows what you’re going to do. . . .”

  She’s still speaking but I don’t hear her, because the boy with the huge arms is coming at me from behind. I turn just in time to dodge his fist as it swings toward my face. Ducking under his arm, I grab Jane, drag her to her feet, and push her in front of me. “Let’s go,” I say, shoving her up the lane toward the road. She keeps looking back, but I won’t let her stop.

  “What was that?” I hear from over my shoulder. A ripple of confusion stirs the air, filling my ears with a sound like crashing waves. Maybe it is the waves. Maybe the tide’s come up. But Jane and I are moving fast, and before long we are at the intersection with the road, and I feel nothing but the scalding pavement under my feet and Jane’s constant undercurrent of fear.

  The corn casts shade at the edge of the road, so we walk where the surface is cooler. Jane walks backward a distance ahead from me, her magpie eyes locked on me like I’m something she doesn’t trust. “What am I feeling now?” she asks when she sees me glaring back. “What am I about to do?”

  “Walk up this road,” I answer, rolling my eyes. “Not really a question that requires magic to answer.”

  Her mouth quirks into a momentary smile, but the look of suspicion and hunger in her eyes doesn’t change.

  “The house where you stole the water this morning . . . Do you think we would find food there?” I ask. Dust from the road cakes my feet as we walk. The sun heats the backs of my legs. I can’t remember if my skin tans or burns.

  My lack of memories made me scared at first, but now it just makes me angry. I keep turning toward my memories, the way a person might glance down at their wrist before remembering a favorite watch has been stolen. Each time I notice them missing, I get a little angrier.

  “I’m sure the old lady has food. You planning to steal some?” Jane traces her eyes over my upper back. “You’re bleeding pretty good,” she says. I felt my scabs open during the fight. “Maybe she has some medicine you could steal from her, too.”

  “I thought you said she looked the other way when you stole the water,” I say. Just the mention of it makes me thirsty. “If she was willing to let you take the water, do you think she would be willing to give us something to eat and help me with these wounds?”

  Jane’s whole body clenches like a fist, her shoulders rising up to her ears. Whether I am using Cientia or not, it’s obvious to me she’s growing more frightened with every question I ask. “I’d never expect to get help from an Enchanted,” she says.

  “But you said she—”

  “The house isn’t far. We can figure out what to do when we get there.” The fear keeps rolling out of Jane like it’s pouring from an open tap, so I decide not to talk about it anymore. I decide not to talk about anything, so we walk in silence.

  After a few minutes, Jane looks over at me and hands me the canteen without me having to ask. When I pass it back to her, I try to tamp down the feeling that I’m taking advantage of her. I know she thinks she has the clue figured out, and maybe she does. Maybe she saw the word POPPEES and lit the candle as a way of hiding the reflection and changing the word to POPES. This road leads to both the farm and the lake, so for now, I won’t worry about what level of help and trust I owe her.

  For a long time all I see ahead is row after row of corn, so that despite my hunger, I decide I will never eat corn again. But then finally I notice a gap in the green on the left-hand side of the road—
a driveway marked by a stone pillar about shoulder high, beside a dried-up patch of lawn. The words Heaven’s View are engraved into a sign mounted to the pillar, a title that could be true only if your idea of heaven involved unlimited supplies of corn. “That’s the place,” Jane says. “It’s a little house off by itself. The woman is old and it looks like she lives alone.”

  “You woke up behind that house?”

  “Yay-ah,” Jane drawls. “My map was under an old truck tire in an unplanted field. The first thing I did was spit out a mouthful of dirt.”

  The house is set back from the road at the end of a narrow drive. It’s small but neatly kept, with flowers growing in window boxes that drip like they were just watered. I grab Jane’s wrist to stop her. Behind the house there’s a packed-dirt courtyard overrun by about a dozen chickens, and behind that a small barn. Walking through the barn door is an Outsider farmhand. I can see the blink of his embed from here. He carries a metal bucket with a creaky handle to the back door of the house.

  Jane and I slide out of sight just inside the stalks of corn. A cool mist sprays across my feet from the irrigation system—so soothing after walking so far on the hot pavement—but it’s not enough to drain the tension from my body. Not with this man just feet away. I’m not sure if he’d chase us off or what else he might do if he saw us, and since we’re carrying a canteen that was stolen from this house, I’d rather not find out.

  The back door is slightly ajar, and he calls out from the doorway a name I can’t quite hear. My eyes sweep the property while he waits for an answer. I notice the dusty field with its truck tire beside the barn, and I imagine Jane coming to her senses here. It’s certainly a step up from a rock in the middle of the sea.

  The farmhand calls out again, waits another moment, but then gives up, setting the bucket of milk inside the partly opened door. When he’s safely out of sight, Jane and I creep up to the house, leaving a trail of wet footprints. “Maybe we should just go in and take what we need before the woman comes back,” Jane says. The inside of the house smells like onions and bread. Jane slips through the door and disappears.