The Red Tower (The Five Towers Book 2)

by J. B. Simmons

  “Maybe that’s why you started in Blue,” she says. “Most of us in Red are not so curious. We are passionate. Passion doesn’t want explanations. It wants action. But please, tell me about your life before. I want to know everything.”

  “I saw some of our time together. I saw where we lived when I was a boy, after...after my father left.” I swallow. It’s hard to talk about this, especially with her. “Not many details.”

  Her body has gone stiff, as if gripped by my words. What is she thinking? What does she remember? Maybe her memories could fill my gaps. Or mine could fill hers.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I’ve gazed into the fires many times,” she says, looking away, “for as long as I could bear. You were so smart and so brave. You were quiet and focused. Maybe you had to be, since you didn’t have a father and I was gone working so much. I wasn’t there for you like you needed me. But I tried...I really tried.” She takes a deep breath. Her face falls into her hands and her young body shakes again, as if the past haunts her. “I wanted to give you a better life. But...” Her voice breaks as she turns back to me, tears in her eyes. “I could have done better. I’ve wanted to say this for a long time. I’ve needed to say it. I’m sorry, Paul. I’m so, so sorry...”

  I pull her into my arms as she cries. It’s the only thing I can think to do. We look the same age and sit in the same room. Our past will forever tie us together, but this equal ground makes me feel further apart. We’re crammed full of our own pains and memories and regrets. Familiar questions that I had Blue come back to me. Why have we come here in these young bodies? Why do we have to remember the past like this?

  “It’s okay,” I say, holding her tight. “You did your best.”

  “Not always,” she sighs, “and it hurt you. I know it hurt.”

  I want to tell her again that it was okay, that I turned out fine. But the words will not form on my lips. I didn’t turn out fine. But that was more because of me than her. The right words come to me: “It wasn’t all your fault.”

  A fire comes to her eyes. Her lips press tighter. “No, it wasn’t. And the man who takes most of the blame burns for it.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Your father. He left us. He never came back. He never said sorry—not to me, not to anyone. I have seen him in my visions, in the flames. He will burn forever. He will always feel the pain that he caused you and me.”

  I want to share her anger, but I don’t. Instead her words make my stomach turn, because from the little I remember, I was just as absent to my son as my father was to me. “Why was he punished like that?”

  “It is justice,” she says.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because even though we are broken, we are here together. The fires of the Red Tower burn away the darkness and leave light. The fires where he burns leave nothing but pain. That is what he deserves.”

  “You must have loved him, once.”

  “I’m not sure anymore.” She gazes into the fire burning in the hearth. “Love is not so simple. It’s not just a feeling. It’s a commitment. Love uncontained is wildfire. It destroys everything around it. We didn’t understand that. We chased the wrong passions. I have learned a lot since then. I have been here a very long time.”

  We are quiet again, sitting close and staring into the fire.

  In the flames an image emerges. It is a picture, from my life before. I remember finding it, tucked away in my Mom’s closet. The photo fit in my young hand. Its edges were bent. It showed my Mom, younger, and my father. They were happy together, smiling. It was before I was born, before he left. I’d kept that picture, never telling my Mom. I’d tucked it into my wallet as I grew older. It went wherever I went, a reminder of what life would have been like for them if I’d never been born.

  Mom’s soft voice brings me back into the small room in the Red Tower, out and away from the image in the flames. “My last memory of you was in the summer,” she says. “I had saved up just enough for us to have a weekend at the beach. You were reluctant to leave your friends, and your computer, but you came. We had dinner one night on the sand, just the two of us. We built a fire and I brought a large pot and we boiled two whole lobsters and corn on the cob. Do you remember that?”

  I swallow, thinking of the picture of her with my father, and now this. I can’t stop the tears. Her words bring it all flooding back. I’d been a teenager. I’d told her the trip was a stupid idea, but she’d insisted and we’d eaten the lobster as the sun set and it had been beautiful.

  “I remember.” That’s all I can manage to say. Had she died soon after that? And if so, how? The memories come in isolated bits. I still can’t see the whole.

  “I must have missed so much after that,” she says. “Will you tell me? Did you grow to be a man? Did you marry, have kids?”

  My cheeks are wet. I don’t want to answer. Shame locks my lips. Shame squeezes me like a vice. She doesn’t deserve a son like me, not after how hard she worked to raise me. But she’s my Mom. Of all people ever to grace the universe, maybe she alone could still love me despite my mistakes.

  “I became a doctor,” I say. “I was married. I had a son.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asks. “What happened?”

  She sees right through me, just like she did when I was a child.

  “I was not a good husband, or a good father,” I say, steady as I can. “I worked too much. There was so much stress...and success and pride...there’s still so much I don’t remember. Sometimes I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to know how I died.”

  She blinks away tears. “I know how you feel.”

  “I’m...I’m sorry, Mom, that I didn’t do better.”

  “No, no,” she says. “I’m sorry. I was gone so much.”

  “You loved me. That’s what mattered.”

  “I tried...” She looks down at her hands, folded over mine, covering the scar that I got in the Blue Tower.

  I stand and she stands and I wrap my arms around her and we cry. We hold each other close for a long time. Our past hurts. But now we hurt together.

  8

  MOM AND I talk for hours, maybe an eternity.

  I tell her more about the Blue Tower, and what I remember about my life before. She has many questions. They make me realize how much I still don’t know. My memory is like a few pieces of a shattered stained-glass window. Huge shards are missing, like how I met my wife, my own son’s name, or the city where we lived. My Mom cannot help with those facts. They came after she died. But she assures me that it is okay, that the memories will come. She says she wants to meet her grandson.

  We also talk about her memories. She answers my many questions patiently and gently. She tells me I was the son of Paul Fitzroy Jr. and Rose Gallaway. She was born and raised Chicago, the youngest of a family of seven. She played the french horn and studied psychology. She met my father at a rock concert in college. He played lead guitar in a local band. He had freckles and long sandy blonde hair. They married when she was twenty; he twenty-four. It didn’t last a year, but that was long enough to bring me into the world.

  My birthday was July 12, 1978.

  My father left Mom and me without a dollar or a goodbye. Mom’s family never forgave her for marrying a guitarist instead of a respectable man. They thought she deserved it when he left her, because they’d warned her it would happen. She endured a decade of burnt pink hands from doing dishes and waiting tables to keep a roof over our heads and microwave meals on my plate.

  “While I worked,” she says, “you drew inward.”

  She tells me about the days and weeks and months I spent immersed in books and computer games, and my deeper self knows that this is how I hid the pain of growing up without a father. I traversed other worlds and shoved my own feelings way down. I made myself hard as iron. After Mom died, the last hope of any softening was gone. I was a hammer, and the world was an anvil. Anything caught between us had to be beaten into the s
hape that I desired.

  At some point I lay down on the bed, exhausted from these thoughts. Mom pulls the furs over me. The fire in the hearth burns with the same warm orange glow without any wood being added. Mom tells me that she keeps it going. She says it’s not so hard with a fire this small, especially since she’s been in Red for so long. It sounds like her power over the fire is a lot like my power over the air. The more fire she tries to hold, the harder it is to maintain and control.

  I ask her about why only the girls get to use powers here in Red. She tells me it’s just how it is, that she doesn’t make the rules. She also lectures me, like only a mother can, about how I should obey the rules.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to save you again,” she says. “Rahab is fair, but she’s easy to ignite...”

  I also ask about the different tasks, and about how I’m supposed to bring back a dragon’s tooth. She explains that the tasks are probably like the different levels in the Blue Tower. The longer someone is in Red, the more they can move up. But if someone disobeys or dies, they go back to the bottom tasks, like some form of pig duty or, on occasions, bringing back a dragon’s tooth. She doesn’t know much about this task. It’s very rare. But whenever teeth are brought back, they are taken to the top of the tower and placed around the fire that always burns there. She’s heard that the more teeth the tower has, the more power the girls can control.

  “Can I use my power outside the tower?” I ask.

  “Maybe.” She tells me that the rule, as she’s always heard it, is that no boys can use their powers in the Red Tower. That’s enough of an opening for me.

  When the windows let in the first light of day, I rise and stand tiptoe to see out. The sky looks lavender. The Scouring is far below. The flat grey battleground, with the white circle in the center, makes me queasy. Across the open space a dense wall of clouds obscures the view, except for the tip of a structure jutting out at my eye level. It’s the top of the Blue Tower. And to the left is another one: the tip of Black. They look similar aside from subtle differences in shape and hue. The clouds billow higher and higher until they completely block any sight of these two towers. But the other two towers are still visible to my right. There are no clouds around the giant tree that is the Green Tower. The Yellow Tower sparkles like a golden castle in the morning light. I watch it, mesmerized, when an even more stunning thing happens: the sun peeks over the horizon, directly beyond the Yellow Tower. It never appeared when I was in the Blue Tower. I saw it only once, when I went to Yellow’s walls with Emma. Now the sunlight shines on my face through the window, and the warmth of it almost makes me cry.

  “The sun,” I whisper.

  “Keep watching,” my Mom says beside me. “Here.”

  She has slid a chair for me to stand on. I quickly step up on the chair and look out again. Far to the right of the rising sun, almost directly behind the Green Tower, another source of radiance emerges. It’s another sun. This one is larger, redder, and breathtaking. But when I traveled to the Yellow coast with Emma, there was only one sun. Suddenly, another shining orb rises between the other two. The three of them rise slowly in tandem, casting their brilliant light over the Scouring and the Yellow and Green Towers. Black and Blue remain hidden behind clouds, receiving none of the warmth. The sky above shifts from lavender to orange to blue. The three suns are too bright to keep staring.

  I step down from the chair. My Mom must see my confusion because she answers my questions before I ask them. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen all three suns,” she says. “It happens rarely. Usually there’s only one.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s how things work wherever we are in the universe.”

  I shake my head, trying to understand. “So we’re on a planet?”

  “Seems like it. Orbiting a sun, or three suns.”

  This explanation makes as much sense as any other. But how can a planet orbit three suns at the same time? Or do the suns orbit the planet? My mind recoils from the questions, like a child dipping a finger into a tub of freezing cold water and then yanking his hand away. Better to just enjoy the sunlight streaming through the windows.

  Mom tells me that our time is running short. She retrieves a few slices of salted bacon from an alcove in the room and cooks them on a pan above the fire. It smells delicious.

  “If you succeed in your task,” she says, over the sound of crackling in the pan, “we should be able to pair.”

  The Pairing. Rahab and Seymour talked about this. “Why do I have to succeed?” I ask. “Can’t we pair now?”

  “I am in the Scouring group,” she says, “so I must pair with a boy who can enter the Scouring as well. You will be gone, hunting a dragon tooth. But if you bring one back, you will be able to rise in the ranks. We can pair then.”

  “How does it work?” I ask.

  “No one knows for sure.” She touches the silver collar at my neck. “These links hold the power. A girl chooses a boy, and they pair through the link. The girl can control the boy through it, but also feel whatever he feels. Together they can access new memories. The Pairing unlocks more of the past. The boy and girl also combine their powers. It’s the only way a boy with powers is allowed to use them.”

  The only way? The rule doesn’t make sense. “Wouldn’t the tower be stronger if boys could use our powers any time?”

  “Maybe not,” she says. “Two are stronger than one. Our performances in the Arena help determine our rankings. The girls who are strongest can pick the best pairs. They can fight together. And Rahab usually gives the six strongest pairs the highest ranking and task: the Scouring.”

  At least the process sounds fair. The Blue Tower had its own sorting methods. It used the links for servants. Apparently each tower has its way. I wonder if their different rules relate to their different talents and weaknesses. It fascinates me that Pairing reveals more about our pasts.

  Mom finishes cooking the first batch of bacon. It tastes as good as it smells. The light grows brighter outside.

  We hear the deep bellow of horns, so loud it makes the walls tremble. Mom says this means it is time to go. The day’s tasks must now begin. We leave together and she leads down several halls and stairways to the main hall. To the right is the Feasting Hall, where we were the night before. To the left is a doorway leading outside. She tells me that’s the way and embraces me.

  “I love you, Paul,” she says. “And I always will.”

  I manage to hold it together, eyes barely dry, as I head toward the doorway, where Seymour, Marcus, and Rahab stand waiting.

  9

  “HERE COMES THE LUCKY BOY,” Rahab says as I approach. She has a hand on her hip, wearing the same red dress.

  Seymour and Marcus, like me, are in drab brown leather. Seymour says hello but is unusually quiet. He and Marcus stare at me in wonder. I survived the Arena. My Mom saved me. Of course, they don’t know she’s my Mom. They also don’t know the turmoil inside me, from so many new memories. Maybe Rahab doesn’t know about that, either.

  I stop in front of her. “I heard what you did.”

  “Thank the one who chose you.” Rahab looks past me to the hallway where my Mom dropped me off and said goodbye. “Most boys don’t get picked on their first try, especially not by Rose. She’s been the one of tower’s top girls for a while.”

  “How long has she been here?” I ask.

  “There is no time here.” Rahab shakes her head. “Didn’t you learn anything in Blue?”

  “There are days and nights.”

  “Countless,” Rahab sighs. “Rose has been here long enough to have paired with many more talented boys than you. But, who knows, maybe you will surprise me. Your entry into the Arena showed more passion than I expected. Maybe you will bring back a dragon’s tooth and show some control over that passion.”

  Challenge accepted. My Mom said if I get the tooth, we could pair. Then we could fight in the Scouring together. It seems like that�
�s the only way to get out of here, once and for all. “I’ll do whatever it takes,” I say.

  Rahab steps closer to me, looking straight into my eyes and emanating heat. “You have come to me cold. You are frozen by your past. You have power, but you have no idea why you should use it.” She holds her pale, sleeveless arms out, motioning to the tower around us. “What’s the point of this place? Have you figured it out?”

  These were the questions I was never supposed to ask in the Blue Tower. “To be Scoured,” I say.

  “Oh, if only it were so simple. The Scouring will scrub you of your flaws, yes. But then what? Are we to become clear vases, holding nothing but air? What a shame! The Blue Tower leaves you hollow. But don’t worry, we can fill you up here. You will learn that we are made to be full, harnessing our passion.” She puts her hands back on her hips. “What would Abram do without me?”

  Abram. He wanted equilibrium among the five towers, so that they have equal numbers—144 each and 720 total. And he wanted me to learn about my pride, to have it scoured. But he never talked about passion. So, do we get scrubbed and then filled, moving from tower to tower? Or is it different for each of us?

  I glance at Seymour and Marcus. Not even Seymour has said a word. He gives me a confused shrug.

  “I needed Abram,” I say softly to Rahab.

  “Most do,” she replies. “They need me, too. Especially you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You will see,” Rahab smiles. “If you can steal a tooth from a dragon.”

  She claps her hands and summons fire overhead. The flames spin into a large, vertical circle in midair, like a gateway between us and the open doorway.

  “Go forward and seek passion,” she says formally, as if this is a rite of passage. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it will be with you, in time.”