by Jodi Meadows
My flute whispered at first, evidence of my fear, but I’d played this before, and I could do it again. At home, I’d practiced with Sam, him humming the chords he’d play on the dark piano, because he’d listened to my music and gazed at me with such wonder that I might have flown.
I’d played it a hundred times with Sam correcting my posture and reminding me that cold air would make me sharp. Now on the stage, I pulled myself straight and let my flute sing.
Melancholy melody drifted across the stage, the deep piano chasing after it. I played loneliness and fear, yearning for things unnameable and shining. The sound caught around people, pushed through tents, and heated the air as I gained confidence. My flute stretched, warm and full and silver, and I played as I never had before.
Music grew, shifted into the richer sounds of courage and hope and desire. The piano provided foundation, encouraging my playing, lifting it and somehow revealing new layers of the flute’s voice.
I played of sunsets and snow, the way leaves shifted and fell, and the anticipation of a kiss.
Music moved around the market field, raining from speakers to make people look up, look around. Friends and teachers smiled. Councilors tilted their heads, expressions unreadable. Strangers wore a range of emotions, some I didn’t want to see, so I turned back to my music, back to Sam, and he smiled.
The music gasped with a kiss, surged with fear, and loomed long and low and lonesome where I’d written my experiences in the temple. Heavy chords were billowing smoke across the stage, and I ended with the four notes that began the waltz Sam had composed for me when we met, a haunting echo of blossoming love.
I lowered my flute, and no one in the market field moved.
They were waiting, which was exactly what I’d hoped, but it was much scarier when it was actually happening, all their eyes trained on me.
I’d played. I could do this, too.
Heart thumping, I stepped around my music stand and up to the microphone. I lifted my chin and found the words I’d practiced; it wasn’t much, because others would do most of the talking. I only needed to make an impression.
“I am Ana, a newsoul. The music you just heard is mine, and this”—I held out my flute, which gleamed in sunlight—“survived in spite of someone’s attempt to destroy it and stop me from playing for you today.”
A few people in the crowd shifted. Some went back to shopping.
“I’ve been attacked,” I said, lifting my voice. “People have thrown rocks at me. Beaten me. Spread rumors about me. All in response to one transgression: I was born. The same is going to happen to Lidea’s baby, and Geral’s, and maybe some of yours.
“The reactions to our new knowledge—that more newsouls will be born—have been varied and complicated. Some people have been welcoming. Others have not. I can’t ask that everyone accept us. I know that won’t happen. But this is my plea to you, the people of Heart, and the Council: protect newsouls. Before dismissing us as inconsequential, give us a chance to prove that we are worthwhile.”
I smiled—sort of—and walked toward Sarit, who waited by a column, wearing a wide grin. Sam got up to speak, and I tried to relax. My part was over. Everyone else would do the rest.
“You were great, firefly,” Sarit whispered. She took my flute and headed inside to put it away while I listened to Sam.
His words came like a song. “I met Ana when she escaped a swarm of sylph by leaping into Rangedge Lake. That was the first thing I knew about her: she would rather choose her own destiny.
“The next day, we encountered another sylph. In order to rescue me, she burned her hands, even after having been told that any significant sylph burn would grow and kill the victim. A lie, as we all know. But that didn’t stop her. That was the second thing I learned about Ana: she is selfless.
“Ana taught herself how to read, memorize music, and survive. Many of you have had the privilege of teaching her and have seen how quickly she acquires new skills. Her very first night in Heart, I left her in my parlor while I cleaned up. When I returned, she was sitting at my piano”—his voice cracked—“and she’d already figured out how to read music. Not long after, she composed her own minuet. The beautiful piece you heard today is only her second composition.”
My face ached with heat, from the people staring at me. He wasn’t supposed to brag about me, just encourage discussion. This was embarrassing.
“Yet when she arrived in Heart, she was not welcomed. In her absence, a law had been made to keep her from living as an adult, though she was already three years past her first quindec. She wasn’t allowed farther than the guard station until she agreed to lessons and curfews and progress reports, as though she were less than human. Less than everyone else simply because she is new.”
I wanted to find a cozy rock to hide under. If it were possible for a face to glow with so much blood rushing upward, mine did. People kept looking at me and hmming.
“During Templedark,” Sam said, his voice deeper, “when Menehem told her his intentions, Ana did everything in her power to save souls. She warned everyone of the price of dying during those hours. She sought me out when I’d gone to fight—and she rescued me again, this time from a dragon.
“Have any of you ever seen me not die when a dragon was trying to kill me?”
A few people chuckled nervously.
“That is what I want you to understand when I tell you we need newsouls. We need them to have privileges and rights, just like the rest of us. We need to encourage their talents and growth. No one will deny education is necessary, but Ana has proven ten times over that she can be trusted, and she will do anything in order to protect our community. It’s her community as well.”
Just as Sam finished speaking, screams flashed throughout the crowd. A commotion pushed its way between tents, coming toward the stage. Men in black coats dragged something behind them.
I walked back to Sam and the microphone to get a better look. “What’s going on?” My voice carried from speakers everywhere as screams grew louder and people hurried to get out of the black-coated men’s way.
One was Merton; his huge frame was impossible to mistake as he crashed up the half-moon stairs. Deborl hurried after him, and between them…
Meuric.
The reek of his putrid wounds heralded his appearance, all broken and seeping like he’d been before.
I staggered back. Sam caught me, arms tight around my waist.
“Is that Meuric?” His tone was incredulous, and the microphone dropped it all across the market field. People rushed like colliding waves, many away from Meuric’s decaying body, and even more toward because they couldn’t see the horror; they’d only heard Sam’s words.
Meuric did not move by his own power. Merton carried him, while Deborl made a show of assistance. Other Councilors rushed in, though I couldn’t guess their intentions. They wanted to help him? Keep people away?
“Where’s a medic?” Sam leaned toward the microphone. “Rin, we need you on the stairs.”
“Don’t bother.” Deborl shoved his way to the microphone. “Meuric isn’t going to live. His bones have been shattered. His eye was carved out. He’s been starving for months.”
“How is he still alive?” Councilor Frase scrambled up the steps, gaping at the mess on Meuric’s clothes and the way his body drooped. “Oh, Janan. Give mercy!” At the top of the steps, Frase bent over and threw up.
I gagged on the miasma of decay and vomit, backing toward the columns and piano like they could save me. Sam turned gray, trying vainly to hide my eyes, as though I hadn’t seen this before in the smothering quiet of the temple.
Screams crescendoed as Merton positioned Meuric’s fading body where everyone could see it. The crowd pushed around to the front of the steps, leaving tents and stalls untended. Shouts of disgust rang out.
Deborl spoke into the microphone and motioned at Meuric. “This is what the newsoul has done. She obtained a key to the temple, to our temple, and took Meuric inside,
where she all but killed him. To mock Janan, she left him there, broken. I know such beliefs have fallen out of favor, but Meuric was once called Janan’s Hallow. And to leave him there in this state is one of the highest insults.”
The screams became cacophony, deafening. Sam grabbed my hand and tried to pull me toward the Councilhouse, but I felt like stone. I couldn’t look away from Meuric, and from Deborl, because he was right. I had left Meuric there. I’d stabbed him, kicked him into the pit, and then abandoned him. And even when I found him in the temple again, I did nothing.
“Ana!” Sam yanked me, and I stumbled into his chest. “Come on. We have to go.”
Go where? But I followed, glancing back to see Meuric crumple to the stage. His head lolled, and as Deborl raged and the crowd surged, I caught one last look at Meuric: the black rot between his teeth when he grinned at me, and the awareness fading from his good eye as he finally died.
I ran with Sam, not sure there was anywhere safe to go, but it was better than watching this.
Sam reached for one of the glass doors, and just as it swung open, I saw the reflection of dozens of people pressing close behind me.
Someone grabbed my shoulders and ripped me away from Sam. I shouted and jerked my elbow behind me. Bone hit soft tissue—a stomach?—and I started back to Sam, but more people appeared.
Hands grabbed from every direction, taking my arms and shoulders and hair. They found Sam, too, and immediately I lost sight of him.
I struggled, but so many bodies created walls around me. I couldn’t get away as they push-dragged me somewhere I couldn’t see. Above everything, Deborl’s voice thundered.
“This is what newsouls do! This is what they will keep doing to us: killing us, destroying us, replacing us.”
The bodies blocking me moved aside, revealing me to the mob below. Tents had been thrown on their sides, tables knocked over. People pushed up the stairs, reaching.
I screamed for Sam, for Sarit or any of my friends. Where were Lidea and Geral with their newsouls? What would happen to them?
Someone kicked the backs of my legs and I dropped. Bone slammed on stone, and it felt like my knees shattered, but I could still move my toes. I blinked and breathed through dizziness.
“My friends,” Deborl cried, “we cannot accept newsouls. They will rip us apart. For her crimes, the newsoul will be punished.”
Cheering rose up. Someone shouted against it, but that voice was quickly silenced.
Fingers gouged into my skin, keeping me on the ground as Deborl approached. He leaned close, whispering into my ear. “You might have thought you could stop Janan. You can’t. Nothing can stop him. Meuric failed, but Janan has chosen a new Hallow. I will be the one who welcomes him when he ascends on Soul Night.” Deborl gripped my chin and yanked my face around. His eyes narrowed. “And you will be where you belong, trapped where you should have stayed before you were born.”
I tried to wrestle away from the people who held me, but they were too strong. Bruises formed under their fingers. I wanted to scream, to make some kind of response, but the noise and heat and rage overwhelmed me.
Deborl shoved me away as he stood. “Take her to the temple wall. I’ll put her with the others.”
My captors hauled me up, carrying me awkwardly so I couldn’t fight or flail. Every time I struggled, their grips got tighter and my existence grew fuzzier.
People banged against me as Deborl’s friends carried me through the crowd. No matter how I fought, they kept hold, and nothing I did led to freedom. We left the worst of the crowd soon, and moved between tents. I saw cobblestones, shoes, and trash on the ground. Never my captors’ faces.
Until they slammed me against the temple wall, and then I looked up to see Wend. Lidea’s partner. Anid’s father.
I choked. “You?”
“I do love Lidea,” he said, “but the newsoul is not right. He’s not natural.” Wend backed away, but before I could think about running, I found the blue targeting lights on my chest. The others had laser pistols aimed at me.
“Why not?” I asked. “Other animals live and die and are never reborn.”
“We have souls,” Wend said.
One of the others chuckled. “Some of us, anyway.”
I wanted to be horrified at how Wend felt no attachment to Anid, that he didn’t care at all that Anid’s existence was partly his doing. But I remembered Li, and how she hated me, how she resented me because I represented everything that terrified her most: the unknown.
“We have Janan.” Deborl came around after us, drawing the silver temple key from his pocket. “Janan gives us every life.”
“What about phoenixes?” I couldn’t stop staring at the key as he pressed the symbols I’d only guessed at.
“Janan is only for humans. For souls.” Deborl sneered and nodded at Wend. “Get her.”
Wend grabbed my arm as a door misted into existence on the temple. Did they all know about the temple? Was that how Wend knew what symbols Cris and I had been talking about? And how they knew what to take from Sam’s house?
Deborl dragged open the door, and reality hit me. They were going to throw me in.
I struggled, squirming away just long enough for someone to shoot the cobblestone in front of me. Stone sizzled as Wend grabbed me back.
“I’d like to break your bones and gouge your eye before putting you in there.” Deborl shoved me into the doorway; I stood half in and half out of the temple. “That way you can feel the pain you put Meuric through. Unfortunately, I only have time for this, but it will do.”
He reached back, and Merton slapped a laser pistol into his hand. To shoot me? To burn me just enough so I suffered forever inside the temple? I didn’t have a key this time. There’d be no way out.
I searched for a path between the men. Deborl, Wend, Merton, and strangers were too thick. There was nowhere to go.
The targeting light flashed on my shoulder.
Wend lurched forward and shoved me.
Just as gray veiled the outside, I saw Deborl turn and shoot Wend. For saving me the pain of being injured inside the temple?
Wend’s body crumpled.
I fell backward into the temple.
27
SKELETONS
I TUMBLED INTO the white chamber, all painful glow of everywhere-light and the deafening throb of Janan’s heartbeat. I skidded to a stop in the middle of the floor, clutching my head and groaning.
“Ana?” The heavy air smothered the deep voice. The human voice.
I looked up to find Cris and Stef sitting together on the far side of the chamber. Their clothes were ripped, and scrapes crisscrossed their hands and faces.
“Oh. I’ve been trying to find you two.” I struggled to stay upright. “For days.”
“Days?” Cris climbed to his feet and started toward me. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been missing.” I took a deep breath and tried not to think about where I was, but souls began to whisper and cry. The truth was impossible to forget. It was all around me: the incredible nothing that should have swallowed me, too.
“Not days, though. Deborl and some of his friends grabbed me,” Stef said, following Cris, “but that was just this morning.”
I shook my head, but decided not to burden her with the truth just yet.
“Do you have your SED?” Without my permission, she dug into my pocket.
“It doesn’t work here,” I warned, and checked to see where we were. Not that it made a difference. Most places in the temple looked alike, all big white chambers and archways. Whispers and murmurs rippled, souls cried. There were no words for how much I didn’t want to be here.
“How do you know?” Stef tapped the SED screen like it’d do magic.
Cris offered me a hand up. “I could have sworn they shoved us into the temple, but there’s no door.”
“This is the temple. Sorry. I’ve been here before.” I bit my lip. “This is my third time.”
They both stared at
me, confusion bright. “How is that possible?” Cris asked.
The weeping and unsilence surrounded me, heavier and thicker for no reason except that we were trapped without the key. It would be impossible to tell how long we’d been in here, or what was going on outside. The everywhere-light glowed with ever-unwavering determination.
“Meuric had a device. Right before Templedark, he tricked me into coming here, then followed with the intention of leaving me locked in so I wouldn’t cause trouble. I took the key from him.” And then trapped him in here, caught between life and death. Now he was out, finally dead on the steps of the Councilhouse.
Stef raised her eyebrows. “And you’ve been coming and going since? Why?”
“Not because I like it here. I need to learn what Janan’s trying to hide. I came here before because I thought I could find answers.” I almost wished for ignorance again; it had hurt less than the truth. “Now I have even more questions.”
“Oh.” Stef shifted and handed back my SED. “Well, feel free to start explaining things to me any minute. Even the questions.”
“Okay.” I stuffed my SED into my pocket, wishing I’d brought my knife instead. It was at home, since my dress had only one small pocket, but if I’d known I was going to get shoved into the temple again… “Have you been exploring?” As much as I hated moving around the temple without the key, especially when I wasn’t sure if they’d throw Sam in after us, it would give me the illusion of doing something.
“A little,” Cris said. “But it’s empty.”
They clearly hadn’t reached the spherical room, or the sideways-gravity room. Lucky them. “Stay close, then.” We headed toward the nearest archway, and I began telling them the truth about Templedark, my disappearance since then, and the books I was trying to translate.
I told them what Janan was doing to newsouls.
“No,” Stef whispered. “Surely no.”
Cris’s eyes widened with horror. “Why? How? How could that possibly be?”