The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  Isla swallowed hard and stayed silent.

  Joy turned completely around, Void clouding around her feet beneath the ice. “Don’t they, Isla? Don’t they?”

  Quickly, she nodded, said, “Yes. Yes, yes they do.”

  Joy smiled, turned back around. “Say you love me.”

  “I love you,” Isla said as fast as she could.

  The Void disappeared beneath Joy’s feet, and the conjuring continued.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Felix kept tabs on just about everyone and everything he’d met over the course of his life, but when it came to Mother Abbess Justine, he had none of her secrets, because she’d given them up to him so willingly. He wanted to know what she didn’t want him to know. He deserved to know, not because he was the Holy Child, but because she was supposed to be his friend—and she, the White Worm, was something that was never supposed to have friends to begin with. It was a long time coming, but the time had come: He had to spy on her.

  Felix rolled out of bed, literally. He hit the cold tile and lay there like an idiotic fish. It was the best way to wake up on these weekend mornings, when he had nothing to do. Boogers in his nose and at the corners of his eyes, he blew and scratched, and, not thinking, combed the crunchy, slimy mixture into his hair while attempting to tame that matted mess. Realizing what he’d done, he got up, fully aware, and rushed to his bathroom to rinse himself off.

  He came out of the bathroom, dripping. Blinding sunbeams beamed him in the face. Crying out, he covered his eyes and wandered about the room. He used to wear disguises when he spied on people. That was his secret. But Justine already knew that. He’d have to go as he was and hide in that one place she would never think to look.

  To understand a Worm, he’d have to think like a Worm. Justine was the White Worm; the Worm of religion. According to her, it was religion that had awakened her; and for the longest time, that was the only reason she existed—to help the Lillians retake the world. But Justine didn’t want that anymore. And if a Worm wasn’t what it was supposed to be, was it really a Worm?

  Felix dressed himself in the tightest shirts and pants he could find, thinking they’d make him stealthier. Slipping on slippers, he caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked goofy. His arms and legs were too big, and the shirt rode up on him above his hips. These clothes weren’t all that old, either. But dumb as he might’ve appeared, it made him smile. This was fun. What he might learn later probably wouldn’t be, but everything up until then? Just what the doctor ordered.

  Looking like a childish man-child, he went to his desk, grabbed his notebook, as well as his quill and a small inkwell for note-taking. Flipping through it, he couldn’t believe he’d left it out in the open like that. There were some sensitive things inside, weren’t there? It’d sure seemed like it at the time, he thought, as he went through page after page on each Exemplar, quickly skipping over the one that covered the Exemplar of Restraint, Samuel Turov.

  The last two pages: Isla Taggart, and Audra of Eldrus.

  On Isla: Isla Taggart is a twenty-year-old girl. She’s the niece of Augustus Enfield, the Exemplar of Innocence. She’s a hermit and hates everyone. She spends most of her time in the refectory and library. Also, she talks a lot to Joseph Cleon, the Demagogue, about religion and politics. Isla belongs to the Winnowers’ Chapter, an extremist organization inside the Holy Order. She’s pretty, and she seems pretty smart. She’s always looking for something to be mad about. The Mother Abbess thinks we should keep a close eye on her, because she seems to be doing a lot of things behind a lot of people’s backs. The Mother Abbess thinks Isla could do a lot of good in the world, but all Isla wants to talk about is the bad stuff.

  Two years ago, Isla visited me in the infirmary. She was one of the few who knew I was sick. She stayed with me awhile. She said she wished we were better friends. She said we should’ve spent summer with each other. I don’t remember that. I was pretty sick, so I didn’t say anything back. I’ve only just remembered this. I think she’s forgotten, though, because she won’t go near me.

  Today, I watched Isla in her room. It was filled with Old World objects. The book she’s always talking about by someone named Lux was probably in there, but I didn’t see it. Her room makes me sad. It feels cold and empty, like she’s getting ready to run away. But she never goes anywhere. I think life is hard for her. I wish god would help her.

  When I was watching her, she started talking to Audra of Eldrus. Holy crap, Audra of…

  He had never finished his entry on Isla, and his final entry on Audra said even less.

  On Audra: I can’t believe she’s alive. She’s being kept in the unfinished part of the cloister. She looks really bad, like she’s sick. She seems angry, too, but I can’t blame her. How did she get here? Why won’t they let her go? They’re keeping her in a greenhouse, except it’s like a jail cell. She scares me, but I can’t stop thinking about her. I wonder if the Mother Abbess knows about her. I don’t think she cares about herself. I want to let her out, but I don’t know what she’ll do when she’s free.

  That was all he’d managed to write back in Pyra when he’d first met Audra. The details about the Bloodless and the Cult of the Worm, and how Alexander Blodworth had taken Audra after King Edgar killed his entire family to use as leverage wasn’t there. It should be, though. People needed to know those—

  In came Clementine and Will, bearing breakfast.

  Felix hid the notebook behind his back. Then, faking a smile at them, he put it under his shirt and in the back of his pants. He had no reason to hide things from these people. He had no reason to hide anything from anyone. Yet, right now, it seemed like the right thing to do. Clementine was too motherly; Will, too brotherly.

  “Morning, your Holiness,” Clementine said. The silver platter she held had a glass of milk, fruit, and two peanut butter sandwiches. “I’m not much of a cook, but I managed.”

  Will mumbled, “Your Holiness,” but kept his gaze permanently fixed on his feet. He seemed like he didn’t want to be here. He held a platter, too, with an identical meal; except there were two glasses of milk, and two cups of fruit.

  “You made me breakfast? Not the kitchen?” Felix asked.

  “Seemed simple enough. The Mother Abbess said this was your favorite.” Clementine walked past him, set the platter on his desk.

  Will lingered near the doorway. He started to scratch at his side. He winced when he did it.

  “Oh, Will, come here,” Clementine said, brushing past Felix, the fiery ends of her hair grazing his arm. “I’m sorry, your Holiness. He’s a little star-struck.”

  “Felix is fine—”

  Will dodged his mother’s grasping hand. He went to the desk, dropped the platter next to the other one and, still not looking at Felix, said, “Mother Abbess said we should eat together.”

  “Wants us to get cozy,” Clementine.

  She went around the room, gathering up chairs, until there were enough for all of them so sit at the desk, albeit awkwardly and cramped, to eat together. With three in tow, she set them up. She snapped her fingers, and Will sat. Then, nudging Felix gently with her fist, Clementine got him to sit, too.

  “I usually eat breakfast with the Mother Abbess,” he said. They were sitting so close to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat this close with anyone else. Maybe that time with Audra, when they’d been in the empty bathtub, sharing their souls. “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine.” Clementine stared at the food on the platter meant for her and Will, but it didn’t seem like she was really going to eat it. “Truth to be told, Felix, we asked her for something to do. We were with the Cabal because of my husband, but he’s gone now, so… might as well make ourselves useful.”

  Felix grabbed one of the peanut butter sandwiches, hesitated to eat it.

  “It’s not poisoned,” Clementine said, her freckles coming together as she smiled. “Atticus used to say you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference with my
cooking. He’s an idiot, though.”

  “Uh, Felix?” Will asked.

  Surprised, Felix put the sandwich down, said, “Yes, Will?”

  “Does, uh, god ever say anything about my dad?” Finally, he looked at him. “Anything?”

  “I can ask,” Felix said. “I’ll ask for you.”

  “Thanks—”

  The notebook slipped out the back of Felix’s pants, smacked against the chair, and landed with a loud smack on the ground.

  Will looked at him, at the notebook, and back at him, again. Snorting, he laughed and said, “What the heck?”

  “Honey, if you can make a steak fall out the back of your drawers, I’d do it,” Clementine said. “The same old, same old here isn’t much.”

  Felix tried not to blush, but that only made him blush harder. Quickly, he took a big bite out of the sandwich and said, “S’good. S’real good.”

  “Well, I mean you can’t really mess it up, can you?” Clementine grabbed her sandwich and chomped into it. “Adding jelly would do it, wouldn’t it?”

  Felix nodded. Mouth gummed up, he said, “Jelly ish the worsht.”

  “Finally, someone agrees,” Will said. He let out a nervous laugh and took a drink of milk.

  Clementine finished chewing and said, “Mother Abbess said you used to have two companions, Avery and Mackenzie. Said something bad happened to them.”

  Yeah, that’s it. This is just like them.

  “We’re not trying to replace them. We don’t know each other, but I don’t rightly think hanging out with those little kid statues all day is good for anyone.”

  “No,” Felix said, “I hate them.”

  “Me, too,” Will blurted out.

  Clementine shot him a damning look.

  Will ignored her, chugged his milk, instead.

  “What do you think of the Mother Abbess?” Felix asked, digging into the assorted fruit.

  “Well, I don’t think anyone in their right mind thought she was all human,” Clementine said. “Don’t think anyone really thinks you’re all human, either.”

  “Mom, stop,” Will said.

  “Whatever she is, we don’t care. I’m sure Gemma’s gone and flapped her jaws to you about us.”

  Felix nodded, said, “Your husband brought you out of the Membrane, back to life.”

  “That’s right.”

  “With god’s help,” Will quickly added.

  Clementine shrugged. “Nevertheless, we don’t care. My husband’s a bag of bones. We spent time with vampyres and a giant mosquito and who knows what else. It’s hard to keep track. And Will and I? I guess we’re undead, or the re-dead.”

  Instead of taking another bite of her sandwich, she regurgitated what she’d swallowed of it into her hand and plopped it onto the platter.

  “We’re all messed up. Can’t eat or drink. Don’t need to. But we put on a good show.”

  Will coughed up the milk back into the cup.

  “We’re good company. Some would say we’re monsters. Maybe so. Don’t know, don’t care. I think the Mother Abbess wants you to spend some time with real folk. I know a mother when I see one, Felix. That part of her name is there for a reason. She cares about you. Don’t think she’s ready to let the world have you just yet.”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Felix said.

  “Yeah. Marrow Cabal, too. The Holy Order wanted nothing to do with the world for so long. I get it. The Marrow Cabal is the people’s religion, if you will. I guess she thinks we’re ‘the people.’ She reminds me of Atticus. Does things all roundabout-like.”

  Felix took a drink, thought for a moment about what Clementine had said. Then: “You’re a mother.”

  “I’m a something,” she said.

  “Did you let Will be alone with strangers?”

  “In Gallows?” Clementine laughed. “Didn’t have a choice. That was the way of things. Everyone knew everyone. Kids went everywhere. But if you were my boy…”

  If I were your son…

  “… I wouldn’t let just anyone be alone with you. Especially not anyone from some rebel group, who was your enemy not but a few weeks back. You’re the Holy Child.”

  Not really, he thought. I’m not. Not anymore. Not to a lot of people. I’m not as important as I used to be, I guess.

  “But we’re not bad,” Will quickly added. “Mom, stop.”

  Felix stared at the lump of regurgitated sandwich on the platter. “Why can’t you eat or drink?”

  “Because we’re not supposed to be here,” Clementine said, “just like, all things considered, we really shouldn’t be here with you. It might be the Podunk shit-stirrer in me, but the best things in life are the things you shouldn’t be doing. Not killing or things like that. But taking risks. Making changes. Loving. Loving is scary.

  “I was happy when Atticus saved us. And then I wasn’t so sure he should’ve. But now we’re here, and I can’t say where I stand on the subject of god, but maybe this situation that shouldn’t be happening is happening for a reason. So, what I’m rambling about is this: We’re here for you, and not because we have to be or its off with our heads.”

  “Thank you, but you guys don’t even know… me.”

  “You’re the most powerful kid in the world,” Clementine said. “Don’t need to know you to know you got needs. And everyone needs someone.”

  “I’m fine,” Felix said.

  Neither Clementine nor Will looked convinced.

  And then Will said, “You look like you’re wearing baby clothes. And a notebook fell out of your butt. Is that what passes for okay around here?”

  Felix’s mouth dropped open, ready to reprimand him, but instead, he just laughed. And laughed. And it wasn’t all that funny, but even then, he couldn’t stop laughing.

  When breakfast was over and Clementine and Will were gone, Felix changed into an outfit that fit him and put on some shoes that didn’t look like something a fabulous genie would wear. He knew Justine’s schedule well enough to know that right now, quarter ‘til noon, she would be getting ready to leave her quarters, to make her necessary appearances around Cenotaph, before retreating back into her room an hour later to be alone. He didn’t know what she did during this time, but he would soon enough. And thankfully, he didn’t need to break or sneak in, because she’d given him the skeleton key for almost the entire cathedral. It’d been a sign of trust, she’d told him. That’s exactly what he’d tell her, too, if she caught him spying on her. A sign of trust.

  Felix had some time to kill. He picked his notebook up off the ground and, standing at his desk, started a new page. This one would be for Clementine.

  He wrote: Clementine is the Skeleton’s wife. She’s not really alive. She has a son named Will. They were both rescued from the Membrane. The Holy Order of Penance doesn’t recognize the Membrane as part of its teachings. I’ll have to be careful about what I say when they talk about it.

  Clementine is nice. She’s smarter than she acts. I think she misses her husband. She called herself a monster. I wonder what she’s done in the past. She treats me like I’m her kid. I kind of like it, but I don’t know if I should. I barely know her. I barely know any of them. It feels really… forced? I shouldn’t trust them, like she said. Is Justine testing me?

  I don’t want everyone new I meet to be another Audra.

  Felix stopped, chewed on his lip.

  On Will, he wrote: I guess I don’t really have any friends my age. Will seems cool, but I think he’s scared to be himself around me. Me, too, I guess. Yeah, I don’t think I ever talk to people that are as old as me. I didn’t feel like a teenager talking to him. I felt like I was his boss. Is it always going to be that way?

  Realizing he didn’t have an entry on Gemma, Felix flipped to the next page and penned her name there. But afraid of what he might write, he stopped himself, stowed the notebook in his desk, and hurried out of the room towards Justine’s quarters.

  The sounds of Cenotaph swelled around him as he stalk
ed the halls, bouncing back and forth between corners and alcoves, sticking to every shadow, nook, and cranny, afraid that he might cross paths with Justine. No one was allowed in this part of the cathedral but given that parts of the walls opened up and looked out into the main thoroughfare, Felix found himself catching praise as if it were the cold.

  “Your Holiness!”

  “My Lord!”

  “The Voice!”

  “A thousand blessings!”

  All kinds of creatively uncreative spiritual utterances were hocked up from the first floor every time someone spotted him here on the third. He waved and nodded his head and wrote holy symbols with his finger in the air, and they all swooned and held their hands to their hearts, and went down so far on the ground, they might as well have made out with it. But when his back was turned, and he was glancing at them from out the corner of his eye, it was a different story. They leered at him. All of them. All at once. In silence, they stared him down and moved their mouths like angry cows.

  Passing a large window, Felix paused, stared out. He knew what this was all about. Thick condensation covered the pane, but he could still recognize the red, blurred smudge beyond. The Vermillion God. When was he going to do something about the Vermillion God? When was he going to reward his flock for their loyalty?

  Felix balled up his sleeve around the heel of his palm and wiped the condensation away. The Vermillion God was still a red, blurred smudge on the horizon. Like the shapes he saw on the back of his lids when he closed his eyes, It wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe that was how they were going to deal with It. The Vermillion God had always been here, in one way or another. They just needed people to take It for granted again.

  Heavy footsteps from below pulled his eyes from the glass. Narcissus’ soldiers closed in on those who’d given him the stink-eye. He couldn’t hear what the soldiers were saying to them, but it made him smile.