by Laure Eve
She knew what was said about hedgewitches. They kept to themselves. Never mixed with the common folk. They fancied themselves special because of what they did. They were arrogant. Weird. Bad-tempered. She understood the reasons why. Fernie had explained that being able to birth babies and help the sick and know how to do things that other people couldn’t gave you power. And power always made everyone twitchy.
Rue passed a patch of deep yellow flowers nestled underneath a craggy tree. Just Butter flowers; no good for herbing, but nice in soup and salad. She’d have been tempted to pick some for tea if they hadn’t been sat underneath a Pestler tree. Fernie always said Pestlers were mean. Probably make the flowers taste bitter just to get you back for taking what was theirs. You never picked the plants or broke the branches of a Pestler tree. She’d always made fun of Fern when she started talking like that, saying they were all living things and had characters of their own. In the privacy of her own head, though, she thought it sounded mysterious and right. Pestlers always made her nervous when she walked past them.
Pake’s face flashed through her head, earnest and coy.
Maybe she should have said yes to him. Things would have got a lot easier for her around here if she had, that was for sure. Pake was no pack leader, but he was well liked.
But he’s not what you want.
Her experiences with boys so far had been less than satisfactory. They did nothing to dampen the dreams she sometimes had, which she kept locked in her mind and only revisited on her own, when she felt ugly, or boring.
In Rue’s dreams, when men touched her (not always a specific man, merely a presence), it was electrifying, almost frightening. It was being possessed, and giving up everything, and not being afraid to do that. It was being gripped by a man who could properly see her, see all the things she hid from the world, could guess the pieces of herself that no one else could guess. If she could find a man like that, he would rule her. But she hadn’t yet, because no man had yet passed the tests she set them. Because they were ordinary, and she knew that. Ordinary people couldn’t measure up, and she was beginning to wonder if the whole world was just ordinary, made up of people just like the ones she’d met in her life so far, people that would never measure up.
And what was the point, she thought, of settling for that?
She came to her favourite clearing. It was packed with blood herb, which Fernie had that morning directed her to gather. She could stay here a while, just to relax, and still bring back enough to satisfy her mistress a little later.
Rue liked the feel of dry summer soil on her skin. Sitting in the clearing, protected from the worst of the prickling heat by the cool, silent trees that stood sentry duty around her, she traced patterns with her fingertips and felt herself slip away on the gentle wave of bird hoots from above.
Things were better like this. Simple. Sometimes she thought it would be best to live in a forest and have the world fade away, doing what it liked in her absence. Sometimes it seemed such a stupid, impractical idea; other times it was the only thing that sustained her.
She unravelled a stuffed champig left over from last night’s supper, peeling it delicately, laying the greased pieces in her mouth and sucking until the vegetable’s juices ran down her throat. She let her gaze wander around the clearing, thinking of nothing much and enjoying it. After the last of the cold champig had wormed pleasantly down her throat, a comfortable lethargy started to seep through her.
Fernie wasn’t expecting her back for another hour or more. She could probably lie down. Just for a moment.
She stretched out on the grass, spots of sunlight dappling her skin. It was warm, and hazy, and gentle. She closed her eyes.
And then opened them.
Oh gods, the light had changed. It was no longer cool and yellow green, but a foreboding shade of dusk. Panic charged her and she sat up, wondering how long sleep had overtaken her.
It took a moment, but then realisation sank into her, relief and apprehension rolled up together. It was a dream.
More than that, it was another one of those dreams; it had to be.
She stood in an unfamiliar landscape. It was a street, she supposed. Buildings lined each side of it, sat close together, uniform and seamless. The ground under her feet was smooth and grey. The stone, if that’s what it was, that made up the walls of the buildings surrounding her, was grey. She looked up at the sky. It was clouded, she decided, though it looked too neat, like it wasn’t made up of clouds at all but simply painted a mottled off-white colour. It felt like a place that didn’t quite exist, as if it was waiting for its final injection of life.
She lingered for a while, hesitant to move. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to go to. Everything was bare, and still, as if the whole world were contained in a glass jar. She was outside of the proper world where everything existed, in a strange nothing place where no one liked to come.
It’s the skeleton.
This place is dead and this is its skeleton.
But then something flickered at the edge of her sight.
It came, slowly and slowly, moving around the far corner of a building, antlers first.
It was almost a person.
The antlers grew naturally out of its forehead, a set of graceful, twisting bones. It had hair, pushed back and hanging long behind its ears. It was hard to tell whether it was male or female. Its face was angular and sharp with huge doe eyes.
Walking beside it was a boy with a tail and tufty cat ears. He had a button nose and the sweetest face, an unreal kind of sweetness.
Sprites. They must be sprites.
More joined them, walking along the street as if it happened all the time. Some of them had glittering blue-green-yellow-gold scales for skin. Others strange purple eyes and hair that looked more like fur.
Or gods, or animal spirits. Spirits wasn’t right, though; they looked so real. They looked like they smelled and sweated.
Rue watched them mingle, fascinated. They didn’t even look at each other as they chatted, instead throwing their laughter and words casually out into the air, seeming for all the world like they were talking to themselves. She didn’t understand the language. They didn’t seem to see her at all, as though she were just part of the fabric of their background.
They lived here. Breathed here. This was normal. This was their home. What was this place? Things that looked like that had fascinating lives, like ancient gods, of course they did. Nothing looked like that and had a job or ate biscuits and slept like normal people.
How could she become one of them?
A cry of surprise came from somewhere in the crowd. A man with tiny white feathers carefully sprouting from his neck was pointing straight at her.
Several turned to look.
They can see me.
She woke.
Light hit her face, and warmth slid over her skin.
She was in the woods. Her woods. That faint, grey world with its strange people lingered with her for a moment, then faded like a ghost, bleached out of her by the smell and sound and brightness of the real.
Rue rubbed her face, her confusion melting away.
Just another dream. She was used to it. It would pass, as always. Definitely just a dream, as there was no way anybody looked like that in real life. Another fantasy world conjured by her mind for her to escape to for a little while, that was all.
She shook it off, getting up from the ground.
Fernie would be waiting.
CHAPTER 11
ANGLE TAR
White
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Wren, and threw his history book across the room.
It bounced off the wall and landed in a sad flump, its pages curled.
They both watched it.
‘It is not the fault of the history book,’ said White.
‘No, it’s the fault of the stupid class. A book is a book. But Mussyer Dronerie actually manages to make history physically, painfully dull.’
‘His name is
Mussyer Fromerie.’
‘Gods, White, it’s a joke. You know? Drone? A dull noise? Forget it.’
Wren leaned his head back against the side of the bed.
Even after a few weeks of getting used to him, White found Wren hard to keep up with. Areline thought it funny to compare them both; said they couldn’t be more different. Wren was the one who sparkled with energy and wit. White was silent and dull, and he had already known that about himself. It was just tougher to deal with when he was constantly sized up against someone so very opposite to him.
Wren led the pack. Mussyer Tigh, their almost useless Talented tutor, had all but given up trying to control him in lessons. He bated the rest of the group, taunting them with jibes about their abilities, but doing it in such a way that it charmed instead of irritated. Even White, infected by Wren’s confidence, found himself voluntarily showing off. Occasionally classes descended into a Talent contest between them both, surrounded by voices and faces urging them on.
Every so often, White caught Wren’s face frozen between a broad smile and something else. A twist of the mouth that could be anger. But Wren was his friend; someone who had rescued him when he hadn’t known he’d needed rescuing. Someone who irked him and pushed him and made him laugh and had shut the door so firmly on his loneliness, he had trouble remembering the taste of it.
He had his moods, though, and this was one of them. An urgent, spiky restlessness. Usually he disappeared when it came on him, and sometimes for hours on end. When White asked him where he went, he always said that he’d gone into the city to explore for a while.
‘We are supposed to read this section on the Territorial Wars by tomorrow,’ he tried, watching Wren’s expression carefully.
‘Hang the Territorial Wars. And hang what’s written in that stupid book. And hang whatever Fromerie says about them. It’s all opinion, anyway. Just because it’s written in a book, doesn’t make it fact. History is written by the winners. Didn’t some famous person say that?’
White was silent. He actually loved reading about history, but he’d heard this rant before, from his sister Cho. She’d always been passionately dismissive of Life and its endless information banks, saying that no one should believe a word on there. Which was patently ridiculous, considering that was where the entirety of World got its information from. To say it was all lies was to say that World and everyone in it just didn’t work properly. More than that, it flirted a little too much with radical speak. The sort of things that Technophobes and conspiracy theorists spouted. Cho had had a habit of making some very questionable friends. Sometimes he wanted to know how she was. But then he reminded himself that he couldn’t afford to miss her, or worry about her.
‘It’d be as useful for me to ask you about the Territorial Wars, actually,’ Wren said. ‘We could compare notes. You could tell me what you were taught, and I could tell you what I was taught, and then we could see which was the more unbelievably stupid.’
White shrugged. Cho still floated about his mind. He wondered how school was going for her. ‘All right,’ he said absently.
‘Actually, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you tell me about World?’
Cho disappeared from his mind. His bedroom came sharply back into focus.
‘Oh, sorry,’ came Wren’s voice. ‘Sorry. If it’s hard, you know, we don’t have to talk about it. I just thought it might be interesting.’
White shifted, uneasy, though trying hard not to look it.
‘It is not a problem for me,’ he said. ‘What do you wish to know?’
Wren mused for a second.
‘Do you have cherries there?’
‘Cherries?’
‘The little sweet dark red fruits on stalks. We had them at breakfast the other morning.’
‘No. Or at least, not where I am from.’
‘You have machines that make your food, don’t you?’
‘Machines is not the correct word, but I do not know a better one.’
Wren grinned, his eyes dancing wickedly.
‘What are the girls like?’
White closed his history book, resigned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What do they look like? Are they loud, soft, do they wear dresses? Are they beautiful?’
‘They are all those things. And they wear many styles.’
Wren sighed. ‘That’s not quite what I meant.’
White could see he was disappointing him again, so he forced himself open, just a little.
‘I was never good with them,’ he said. ‘So I cannot tell you much. They all found me too strange. I did not … like the same things other boys my age liked. I did not talk the same way. I avoided everyone because of my … talent. I did not change my hair every month or try face horns, or wear clothes that everyone saw on GameStars. So girls did not talk to me.’
‘GameStars?’ said Wren. He seemed utterly fascinated.
‘A Life thing. A …’ White searched, his hand circling wildly. ‘An entertainment. These people, they play games. Other people watch, and vote, and such. It is hard to explain.’
He saw Wren’s body strain forward a little.
‘What’s Life like?’ he said, eager. ‘Do you miss it? I heard you can get really addicted.’
‘I am not addicted!’
‘Sorry.’
White squeezed his hand into a ball; the left one, the one Wren couldn’t see. He dug his nails into the palm until his flesh stung.
‘No,’ he said, his voice mercifully level. ‘It is fine. I know someone who is addicted. It is a very hard thing.’
Wren said nothing, and the moment grew heavy and awkward.
‘Our cities are very different to yours,’ White started, with an effort.
Wren looked up. ‘Really? What are they like?’
‘Yours are … haphazard. The streets, they make no sense. Your cities are like wild plants, confusing and illogical. Ours are structured, carefully planned. They are easy to navigate. Your maps make no sense.’
‘Oh god, map-making here is as much storytelling as it is fact,’ said Wren. ‘You just have to learn your way around.’
‘Well, I know that now. When I first came here I was very lost. Also, you do not have domes here.’
‘What on earth are domes?’
‘Environmental domes. I …’ White searched. He was sure ‘domes’ was about the best translation. ‘They are invisible, but they sit over a city. They protect us from airborne disease, from weather. Like a shield.’
‘Weather?’ said Wren, amused. ‘You don’t have weather?’
‘Not like this. Not all this wind and rain. And the air! It smells so strongly here. The air inside a dome is pure. Nothing can get through a dome.’
He felt the words pouring out of him, eager to have someone to confess his dislocation to. Explain why he was so different here.
‘You take so long at meals, also,’ he said, spreading his hands as if he held a pot roast. ‘People work for hours, so many hours, just to make a dinner! Your furniture is heavy and dark, and impractical. The buildings are all so different. They sit beside each other as if they should make sense together, but they look odd. And you walk everywhere. You walk so much!’
‘Are you telling me you don’t walk? How do people get where they want to go?’
‘We have Life,’ said White simply. ‘We do everything in Life. We shop, work, meet in Life. We do not have transport between places. There is no need of it. But you have horse coaches and trains. It is so … so different.’
They stared at each other, tangled in mutual fascination. White could feel Wren’s excitement, a pulse from him.
‘What about you, and your life here?’ said White.
Wren laughed. ‘Gods, mine is dull as that history book. I grew up in a little city by the sea. Nothing ever happened there. Save sometimes you could see the foreign trading ships at the docks. No one except the sailors and merchants are allowed down there – they have heavy security, and fences, and wal
ls. But everyone knew there were foreigners. We even had a handful of foreign settlers in the city, from different parts of World. So I suppose I grew up knowing more than most about what was beyond our boring old borders. And I remember thinking about the hypocrisy of what we were taught in school, that everything outside of Angle Tar is a mess, full of backwards cultures. And yet standing there in our midst, walking along our streets, were people who were so clearly more advanced than us, who could tell you about the fantastical things they’d left behind, things that you could only ever dream of. They’d only tell you if you got them drunk enough or paid them nicely, of course, and if you went where no one would see you breaking the law and shop you to the police. And some of them did get arrested, sometimes.’ He paused. ‘Worth it, though,’ he decided. ‘What? You’re looking at me strangely.’
White shook his head. ‘Not strange. But it is strange that you think that is boring.’
‘Nothing like your childhood, I bet. All the incredible things you had around you.’
White considered. ‘They were just normal things,’ he said at last. ‘Angle Tar was the thing that was incredible to me.’
‘Even now?’
‘Still.’
‘You poor fool,’ said Wren fervently.
White laughed.
Wren stared at his lap for a while. ‘I used to wish with every piece of me,’ he said, ‘to find a way into those docks. I used to sit for hours, trying to make it so reality was different, or that I were in a reality where I was on one of those ships, bound for World. And I used to get so angry that it never came true. What’s the point of a reality you can’t change?’
‘You could not Jump then?’
‘No. I wasn’t like you, Jumping before I could walk.’