Mystic City

by Theo Lawrence

  So this is Violet Brooks. The mystic who’s running against Garland. Something about her is familiar to me, though I have no idea why.

  Finally, the narrow street opens out onto a major road where a series of bridges crosses the wide canal, leading into what must be the Magnificent Block. The canal circles the Block like a moat around a castle, flimsy-looking tenements peeking out from behind a massive stone wall.

  Now I can see the numbers on the buildings. I pick up my pace, wiping the sweat from my forehead. Number 477. Bricks that might have once been red are brown with filth. Number 479 is a building with a ratty blue-and-white awning. And the next building should be 481—

  Only, the number reads 483. What’s going on here?

  I step up to the wooden door—it looks two or three knocks from falling apart—and peer through the window next to it. I can’t see anything at first, so I wipe a tiny circle with my hand—dirt immediately greases my fingertips. The inside is completely empty, flooded ankle-deep with water. No one home here.

  I go back to 479. The door is hidden behind an iron gate. On the gate is a buzzer with one bronze button. I push it. Maybe there was a 481 once upon a time, but it’s certainly not around anymore. Did Tabitha give me the wrong address?

  I feel utterly defeated. I’ve come all this way and risked so much in the hope that Lyrica can help me. And now it’s as though she and her home don’t even exist.

  I pace in front of the buildings one last time and press my fingers to the space where 481 should be. The brick is rough beneath my hands. With my index finger, I draw an imaginary line and sigh.

  And then the buildings begin to part.

  There’s no noise, really, only a gentle groan as the bricks start to separate smoothly, slowly, until another much shorter, warmer-looking building appears. No one, not even the homeless people nearby, is paying any attention. I wonder if they can even see what’s happening.

  The tiny building has orange stucco walls and two large windows that face the street. They’re lit with red candles that flicker against the glass. A metal door swings open, and a woman who can only be Lyrica is standing inside.

  She opens her mouth and I can see that she is missing a few teeth, her gums more black than pink. “You rang?” she asks.

  The house smells wonderfully of cinnamon.

  I follow Lyrica past a large wooden staircase, down a zigzagging hallway, into a sitting room on the left. Oriental tapestries adorn the walls, and yellow and green Chinese paper lanterns hang from the ceiling. What look like hieroglyphics are etched in charcoal onto the painted walls.

  Lyrica, in her embroidered silk robe, motions for me to sit on a low sofa. “I have not met you before,” she says, taking a seat opposite me. There is a strange beauty about her: her gray hair is in thin braids woven with colored beads and gold threads. Her skin is toffee-colored and mostly smooth; her only wrinkles are crow’s-feet that spread from the corners of her eyes and a few laugh lines around her mouth.

  I am still in shock from the magic I witnessed. “How did you—”

  “This place is protected,” Lyrica tells me. “From those who have hunted me before. Not just anyone can seek my help.” She stares deeply into my eyes. “Only those who are truly in need.”

  “I am truly in need.”

  She nods in agreement. “But of course! You’re here! What is your name?”

  “Beth,” I say. I feel uncomfortable being dishonest, but I want her help—and I doubt that anyone who lives in the Depths wants to help the daughter of Johnny Rose. I take off my cap and place it beside me.

  “Beth,” Lyrica says slowly, as though she has never heard the name before. “Why have you sought my aid?”

  “My memories,” I say. “I seem to have … lost them.”

  Lyrica raises her thick eyebrows. “How does one lose one’s memories, child?”

  I tell Lyrica about my overdose, waking up with no memory of my affair with Thomas. About my trip to the doctor and the strange sensations that followed, feeling suddenly in love with Thomas, then out of love just as easily. I tell her about the dream I’ve been having, the boy whose face I cannot see. About the love letters. “I just want to remember that I love him before we marry,” I find myself saying. “And I have nowhere else to go.”

  Lyrica, whose eyes have been trained on me the entire time I’ve been speaking, glances at a glass orb that hangs from the ceiling. After a moment, her eyes seem to brighten—and the orb suddenly swirls with light.

  “May I touch you?” She scoots closer, so that we are only inches from each other. “That is how I work best.”

  “Yes, if it will help.”

  She stretches out her fingers and leans forward. As soon as she touches my temples, a jolt of energy passes through my body. It shoots down my legs and up my arms, kicking me backward.

  “Whoa!” I jump from the sofa. Lyrica looks startled and gathers her hands in her lap. “You haven’t been drained.”

  Lyrica looks at me as though my statement is the most obvious thing in the world. “And?”

  I sit back down, pressing my knees together. The touch of a mystic has the potential to kill a human, I remind myself. “Be gentle. Please.”

  Lyrica instructs me to close my eyes. Again she presses her hands to my temples; I feel the same initial jolt; then it fades to a dull warmth that flows through my limbs.

  As her energy washes through me, flashes of memory fracture and spin in my mind: images of friends and family, of Thomas, of my parents, of Hunter and Turk and the drained mystics in the Depths, and of my dream of the mysterious boy.

  “Open,” Lyrica commands, and I raise my eyelids.

  Her hands are out in front of her—a green glow emanates from each of her fingertips. It reminds me of Hunter, when he fought off the boys who were trying to hurt me, when he healed my wound with his touch. The light seems solid enough to reach out and touch, only I’m afraid of what might happen if I do.

  Just when I grow used to seeing this strange vision before me, Lyrica snaps her fingers. The glow disappears, and a calm washes over her face.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asks suddenly.

  “Um, sure,” I say.

  She walks to the back of the room, through a doorway covered by champagne-colored curtains that drape down from the ceiling, and returns with two ceramic mugs. She hands me one—bits of tea leaves and tiny twigs are clumped together at the bottom of the mug, swirling in the water.

  “Here,” she says, dipping her finger into my tea. I watch as the water begins to heat and bubble. Then she does the same for her mug. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I washed my hands.”

  “You can heat water with your finger?” I ask. Not that I’m surprised, really—it’s clear that she can perform magic.

  Lyrica chuckles. “You are thinking this is not so useful, eh? This same finger, child, can burn a hole right through your skin, into your skull, and singe your brain within a matter of seconds.” She takes in my shocked expression. “I can also grill a panini by pressing it between my hands. You’d be surprised how useful that is.” She sips her tea and I sip mine. It tastes good, like oranges and mint.

  “So,” I say. “Did you see anything, erm, interesting? In my head?”

  Lyrica sets down her mug. “I will be direct with you. That is the best way.” She inhales dramatically, and a few of the candles in the hallway flicker. “Someone has tampered with your memories. But whoever did it has performed an incomplete job.”

  Tampered with my memories? “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You went to the doctor and had an operation. Is that correct?”

  “Not an operation, exactly.” I think back to my visit with Dr. May. “But I went through a machine and was given a series of shots. I did remember a little bit afterward, but the memories I had were … strange.”

  I think of that dinner out with Thomas, the strange voice inside my head, the intense feeling of being in love with him, wanting him.
Then I think of how that feeling vanished. I think of being in Thomas’s bedroom, of the story he told me about us being together in the gondola. Of how I began to see a picture in my mind—but his image was distorted. The colors were all wrong, and nothing felt natural.

  “But that happened recently,” I say. “I’m still missing memories as a result of my overdose. I don’t understand the connection between the two.”

  “Maybe you only think you’ve been to the doctor once, or had one operation,” Lyrica says, pursing her cracked lips. “Down here we call that tampering magic. Tell me more about this overdose.”

  “I don’t remember,” I admit. “I OD’d on Stic. I’ve been told that I nearly died, but that the doctors managed to save me—”

  She cuts me off with a vigorous head shake.

  “You have never ingested Stic,” she says. “I can tell that from the way your body works. Everything inside you speaks, you see, and I just spoke to your body. I read your organs and your blood, and there is no trace of mystic energy there.”

  “Are you sure? I was told—”

  “Whoever has told you this is deceiving you,” Lyrica says. “I suppose you had at least two procedures—the first to wipe away the old memories, and a second to put in the new ones.”

  My breath feels caught in my throat. I didn’t overdose on Stic. A medical procedure was responsible for removing my memories.

  Thomas. This explains why I can’t remember anything about our relationship.

  “The elimination of these targeted memories was successful, but the planting of the new memories—that was not. That is why the second procedure was performed,” Lyrica says. “Only, seeing you now, I do not believe that worked properly, either.”

  What was it my mother said to Dr. May? The last time was such a failure.

  Why would anyone want to remove memories simply to implant the same ones a few weeks later? And why would my parents lie to me about my overdosing?

  “Is it possible for me to regain those memories? The ones that were removed?”

  Lyrica purses her lips sadly. “Not unless they were saved when they were removed. There are ways to contain memories, to fold them up and tuck them away in case they are needed in the future. But that is not medicine—it is magic. And complicated magic, at that.” She picks up her tea and takes another sip. I glance down and realize that I’ve finished mine. “But it is possible. If you were to find the container for those memories, you might be able to release them. But even that is a delicate procedure. And quite a dangerous one.”

  My heart sinks. I was hoping there would be some easy way, some quick fix.

  “But here is the question I have,” Lyrica says, her dark irises glittering with something otherworldly. “What kind of memories did you have that were so important someone would want to risk your life to make them go away? And who would do this to you?”

  A silence seems to strangle the room. I know the answer to her question, but I don’t want to speak it aloud: My family is risking my life to make me forget.

  I hold out my empty mug. How long have I been here? Minutes or hours? I have no idea.

  “Thank you for your help.” I dig into my pockets for something to pay her with, and set the gloves beside me on the couch. “I don’t know what you charge, but—”

  “Where did you get those?” Lyrica snaps. Before I can stop her, she reaches over and grabs Davida’s gloves. “You’re using these to travel the rail undetected? Is that how you got here, child? Who gave these to you?”

  “I have no idea what you mean,” I say, snatching them back from her.

  “These gloves,” Lyrica says, “are enchanted.”

  Why would Davida have enchanted gloves—and where did she get them?

  “See the fingertips?” Lyrica points to the curious whorls I noticed when I first saw the gloves. “The tips are layered with fingerprints, thousands of them—fictional people, people who have died years ago, whoever. Their prints are there, stitched into the very fabric, and they cannot be scratched away. Anyone who wears these gloves can use the rail or the PODs and go unrecognized by the scanners. You’ll register as someone other than yourself, and your identity changes every time you use them.

  “Be careful with those, child.” She turns her head. “It is time for you to go.”

  At her front door, she touches my shoulder. “Goodbye, Aria, and good luck.”

  I leave 481 and don’t look back. It’s only once I’m gone that I realize Lyrica knew me all along.

  • XII •

  I should be getting home.

  There’s so much to process. Thomas, my parents, Dr. May. But I’m distracted: sounds are coming from up ahead, inside the Block. I lift my cap and strain to see over the brick wall that encloses the area—sparks of colored light are shooting into the air like fireworks. What’s going on?

  Fragments of blue and red and pink light cut through the misty clouds, crisscrossing in a dazzling display. The colors make the area seem more welcoming; I feel drawn to it. The roar of a crowd fills my ears, a mixture of laughter and yelling and applause. Something incredibly festive is going on.

  But what?

  I wipe the moisture from my palms onto my pants. A few quick, purposeful strides and I’m on one of the bridges. The wall around the Block is massive and imposing, but there’s a man-made break I pass through, and just like that, I am inside. No scans, no fingertouch. I guess people down here aren’t so concerned with folks trying to break into the Block when so many are dying to get out.

  Unlike the rest of the Depths, where at least some of the city pavement is walkable, the inside of the Block is mostly water. In order to cross it and still allow gondola access, mazelike steel walkways have been erected. The railings are slick and grimy, but I hold on to them anyway, scared I might topple over.

  The walkway is wide enough for three or four people. I move slowly away from the Block entrance, toward … I don’t know. There are other walkways parallel to the one I’m crossing; they seem to lead to the very center of the Block, though I have no idea what’s at the center. From what I can tell, though, that’s where the celebration is occurring, where the light is coming from.

  I gaze up into the windows of the tenements as I walk past, but they seem to be deserted. The buildings in the Block are constructed on stilts, high enough to clear the water, and they continue far into the distance. A few people shuffle by me, paying me no heed. Then someone grips my upper arm and a surge of energy passes through me, like I’m being electrocuted.

  “Whoa,” I say, leaping backward and wrenching myself free. I turn to run but the hand grabs me again. Oh God. I’m about to die.

  The figure wears a hood that covers his or her face. All I can see is sparks in the eyes as the figure leans close to me and says, “You shouldn’t be out here.” Then he shakes back his hood and I see that it’s Hunter.

  I sigh with relief. He looks even better than I remember. His sun-streaked hair is messy and he brushes it back with his hands. Under his cloak are a tight navy V-neck and a torn pair of jeans. His blue eyes glisten in the darkness.

  “Why do you care where I go?” The question comes out more harshly than I intend.

  “I don’t. Not really.” He bites his bottom lip and looks away. I can tell he’s lying. Instead of making me mad, however, it sort of … flatters me. I remember Turk telling me how cryptic Hunter is, how difficult he can be to understand.

  I glance ahead, into the Block. “Where are you going?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Through the Block?” I can tell he doesn’t think this is a good idea. “Let me help. You look like you could use a tour guide.”

  “I can make it on my own.”

  Hunter shakes his head. “I’m not taking any chances with you. Come on, let’s go.” He pulls his hood back up, takes my hand—I feel a delicious tingle—and we’re off.

  At first, I’m surprised by Hunt
er’s stealth—how he moves like a cat, how with his hood covering his face and his hands in his pockets, he practically blends into the night—but he is a rebel, after all. Used to hiding, disappearing. No wonder he hasn’t been caught and imprisoned.

  We’re mostly silent as we move farther into the Block. I look up; on either side are ramshackle mystic homes with roofs that look like they might cave in at any second. The green-black water below gives off a salty, overwhelming smell. I can tell we’re on a slight incline. We must have trekked a mile by now, though I don’t know where we’re heading.

  The shouts up ahead seem to be getting louder. “Come on,” Hunter says, glancing over his shoulder. “Slowpoke.”

  “I’m not slow!”

  “You’re like a snail. If we were in France, they’d cook you up.”

  “Oh, please.”

  Just when I least expect it, the walkway ends. Suddenly, my feet are on something soft—a mass of land has risen out of the water. I’m guessing we’re at one of the highest points in the Block. “What’s this?”

  Hunter looks down. “Grass.”

  Oh! I’ve read about this in school—we don’t have it in the Aeries. I stop and reach down, running my hands over the flecks of green and brown.

  “Aria.”

  I jerk my attention back to Hunter. “Yes?”

  “If you like the grass, you’ll love the trees.”

  I flick my eyes up—as far as I can see there is land, more land than I have ever seen, sprinkled with real, live trees. Trees! They are thin and sickly and nothing like the plush plants in the Aeries greenhouses, but here they are. I’m surprised that no one in the Aeries seems to know this all exists.

  “You know, it wasn’t always like this,” Hunter says. Walking next to him makes me feel protected. I can’t help but notice the muscles in his arms, bulging against the cotton sleeves of his shirt.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “So run-down and tired. The Block used to be beautiful—the hub of the city.”

  I look around and scrunch up my nose. “What happened?”