Dandelion Fire

by N. D. Wilson

  Zeke hopped out and shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.”

  Sergeant Simmons opened his door and levered himself out. His face was pale.

  “Keep an eye,” Frank said. “I'm steppin' inside.”

  Simmons nodded, and Frank and Penelope walked to the front steps.

  The house was rank. Wet carpets are bad enough, but carpets swamped with seawater are worse. Penelope held her nose and squelched toward the bathroom.

  “Don't flush, Pen,” Frank said.

  Penelope stopped and looked at him. “Why?”

  “No water. No sewer. No electric. It won't work.”

  Penelope sighed. “Right. I forgot.”

  She went into the bathroom, and Frank crossed his arms and looked around. The last light of the day still hung in the sky outside, but in the house, it was little better than a cave. If the windows hadn't all been smashed wide open, it would have been worse.

  Frank walked through the dining room to the kitchen and dug in the junk drawer. It was crammed with pencils and batteries, broken rubber bands, and manuals for appliances they had never owned. At the bottom, he found a little rectangular flashlight. He flipped it on and stared at the small orange spot he'd created on the wall.

  The toilet flushed.

  “Pen!” he yelled.

  “Sorry! I forgot. But it all went down.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But down where? Tank's not gonna refill, either.”

  He met Penelope in the dining room.

  “Okay,” he said. “Tell your mother I'll be right back out. I'm gonna have another look upstairs.”

  They walked to the front door, and he left her on the porch. Then he turned and climbed the wet flight of stairs up to the second-story landing.

  “Frank!” he heard Dotty yell.

  “Back in a minute!” he yelled, and walked into Grandfather's room.

  The windows were empty. Curtains and glass and wood trim lay on the floor and on Grandfather's bed.

  The cupboard was shut. Frank walked straight to it, pried it open, and crouched down with his dim orange light. He saw nothing.

  He eased his head and shoulders in and propped himself up on his elbows, squirming forward slowly, inch by inch, with his flashlight in front of his face.

  His head was through, inside a cupboard in some other place. A thick layer of dust had mounded in the corners and around the husk of a mouse carcass.

  But in the middle, the dust was scuffed up and scraped away. Someone could have come this way. It could have been recent, or it could have been weeks ago. He slid back out and sat on the end of Grandfather's bed. Henry or Henrietta could be through this doorway. Unless someone had changed the combination in the attic. The crazy wizard had closed them out of Kansas. The compass knobs might have been spinning for all Frank knew.

  “Right,” Frank said. “Let's go look in the attic.”

  The attic, with only the round window at the end to smash, was stuffier than the rest of the house. Frank stood in Henry's doorway and spotted the cupboards with his dying light. He lost track of the smell of sea-water as his senses strained after other things.

  Muffled laughter. Heavy footsteps. A dog barking. Wind, coughing, and breaking glass. And through many of the doors, nothing but a black and ancient silence, long unstirred. On the left side of the wall where the ceiling coved, firelight flicked through a rectangular door. He could just see smoke curling out of its open mouth.

  “Friendly locals!” someone yelled. “Burn mine, too.”

  Frank slid down, leaned over the head of Henry's bed, and shut the door quickly. Fire would be a lot more permanent than water.

  Straightening back up, he focused on the compass door, open like the others, in the center of the wall. This door was the problem. Was it still set where it had been? Or had Darius's commands respun it? The door was open. It could be set to itself.

  He swung the door most of the way shut and looked at the knobs. One of its hundreds of combinations would lead him to his daughter. One of them would lead him to his nephew. Unless they were together. But he didn't think they were, not with what Richard had said, and not with how they'd been interacting before all this had started.

  He knew that he and the others couldn't stay in the grass land. But he knew very little else.

  Frank turned the right knob one place and clicked the door shut. He tugged on it to see if it would open again, but it was as solid as the wall. He turned the knob back and pulled again. The door swung open easily.

  He put his knee on Henry's wet mattress, reached into the opening, and felt around. In the corner, his fingers closed on something dry and wrinkled. He pulled his hand back out. The dried body of a mouse lay rigid on his palm.

  Tossing the mouse into another open door, Frank stepped back. Now he knew. The compass locks were set to their own combination. He'd never thought of the central cupboard as another destination.

  Shutting Henry's bedroom doors, he walked quickly back down the attic stairs.

  Dotty's voice came through the empty windows. “Frank? You okay?”

  “Yeah!” he yelled. “Back in a minute.”

  He'd have to be. His feeble flashlight was dying fast, and the house was getting darker by the second.

  Back in Grandfather's room, he fished his body into the cupboard.

  The mouse was gone, and he could see his finger tracks.

  He pulled back out and crouched on the floor. It might be right. It might be wrong. It felt both.

  A shape loomed in the window.

  Frank spun, standing. “Gosh, I'm jumpy,” he said, and swallowed.

  The raggant stared at him, flaring its nostrils. After a moment, it looked down and dropped to the floor. Without hesitation, it limped to the cupboard, hopped in, and disappeared.

  “There you have it,” Frank said. “I trust you more than me.”

  Henry woke, and his body tensed, stretching, arching, filling his limbs with morning life. He felt good. His bed felt wonderful. A wisp of mind fog told him that he'd been dreaming. He didn't know if it had been pleasant, but he didn't care. Pleasant or unpleasant, it was gone now. He filled his lungs with warm spring air, and, kicking off his blankets, he sat up.

  Sitting there, with his feet on a cold tile floor, his mind stopped.

  He had no idea where he was. And he was wearing a dress.

  The room was long, with white walls towering up to a black-beamed ceiling. The wall across from Henry was made entirely of windows that rose up from the floor and ended in tall arches. All of them open. Transparent curtains ghosted slowly on the breeze, and golden light flowed through them. The bed he'd been sleeping on was at least as large as his entire room in Kansas, and on the floor in front of him, an enormous porcelain bowl sat on a thick rug. Blue designs and figures were interwoven over its surface, and it was full of cloudy oil spotted with bits of leaves and sticks. He leaned forward and recognized the smell of cinnamon. And cloves. His backpack lay on the floor beside it.

  Henry stood and breathed again. His dress was made of tan linen, had no sleeves, and hung to his knees. He didn't see his clothes anywhere.

  He walked to the closest window and pulled away the curtain.

  A balcony spread out in front of him. It ended in a low wall, and beyond the wall, the earth dropped away into a deep valley. In the distance, far below him, was a mat of smoke and buildings and silently belching pipes. But where he stood, the sky was a stranger blue than he had ever seen, and the wind was newborn.

  A man and a woman with white hair sat on a low bench beside the wall, eating fruit. The man turned and smiled above his beard.

  “Join us, pauper son,” he said. “There are other refreshments than sleep.”

  Henry shifted on his feet. “Where are my clothes?” he asked. “I'd like to get dressed first.”

  “You are clothed already,” the man said. “And we have both seen you in your skin-clothes. My wife bathed you twice already, in the night, an
d I was her assistant.”

  Henry's ears went hot. He hoped he wasn't as red as he felt.

  “Not a good assistant.” The woman laughed, and her voice was low and rich, like soft earth. Her skin was smooth and dark next to her hair. “Come,” she said to Henry. “Sit with us and talk. There are things we would ask you.”

  Henry stood, not wanting to sit beside either of them. The man slid off the bench, walked across the balcony, and returned with a wooden chair and cushion, placing them near the stone balustrade before moving back to his wife. Henry followed slowly after him and sat awkwardly in his dress, unsure of how to hold his legs. The two faced Henry, with a tray of fruit across their laps. Long, dark grapes, peaches, and things Henry didn't recognize were jumbled together.

  Henry took a small tangle of grapes and sat down. “Where am I?” he asked.

  “You,” the man said, “are in our house. Once we lived in the underworld”—he nodded at the valley below— “but now we live in paradise. We sit up here and watch the great city stew in its own flatulence.”

  “But who are you?” Henry asked.

  The man pulled gently at his near-white beard. “You may call me Ron.”

  “And I am Nella,” the woman said. “What may we call you?”

  Henry slid the first grape into his mouth and tucked it into his cheek. “My name is Henry York.”

  Ron sat up. “Your name?” he asked. “You have been named?”

  Henry stared at him, blank. “Why wouldn't I have a name?”

  “Well”—Ron pointed at his stomach—”the ritual cuts you have only serve one purpose, and a rather dark one. Before you flew away, a bloody naming rite had begun, or been prepared. It can only be performed on the nameless. The named would die.”

  “I closed them up,” Nella said. “The skin is sealed, but I'm afraid that man's adopted mark will be in your flesh forever.”

  Henry's right hand drifted to his stomach.

  Ron leaned forward, and his eyes sparkled. “Your own mark,” he said, “is far more interesting. Rare, and one that I am fond of. I have seen it only once before, when I was young, and it was dancing on the flesh of my cousin. Hold out your palm.”

  Henry pulled his hand away from his body and stretched it out toward them. He watched their faces as they looked. Their dark, unblinking eyes narrowed, and then suddenly sparked with light, each pupil painting a reflection of the dancing fire in Henry's palm.

  “You can see it?” Henry asked. But they didn't answer, and his eyes were drawn as well.

  The burn had been blurred and damaged by Henry's pipe slide, but as he stared, what looked at first like a scar took shape. And it moved, like a snake beneath his skin. Only it wasn't beneath his skin, it was above it, below it, and through it. And it was every color blended into gold.

  Henry's head began to throb.

  He heard Ron pull a deep breath in through his nostrils. Then the man spoke. His voice sounded distant, like a pronouncement to be obeyed.

  “Henry York,” he said. “Dandelion fire mingles with your blood.”

  A soft hand touched Henry's chin and lifted his face.

  “Look away,” Nella said. “It is too much for you still.”

  He looked at her face and felt his mouth fall open. She was a poem, a history. One hundred songs were moving in her eyes, and more spirited through the air around her mouth, crawling like vines, like threads of life. It was beautiful. Terrible.

  Nella put her other hand over his eyes and fingered his eyelids closed.

  “Enough,” she said. “Live to see all the world's songs, or go mad now.”

  “But there's more,” Henry said. “Just another minute.”

  “No.” Nella's voice hardened to clay. And then she laughed. “If you run off the cliff of madness now, then we shall have to keep you here. And I shall always have to bathe your shallow chest. I do not relish it.”

  She pulled her hand away, and Henry blinked.

  “That was really weird,” Henry said.

  Ron nodded. “The current might carry you away before you learn to swim.”

  “The whole world is made out of this …” Henry didn't know what to call it. “This stuff? With the dandelion, it just looked like one living word, but with you—” He turned to Nella. “There were so many more, all tangled. Thousands of vines growing and turning and changing and talking at once. What part is real?”

  Ron smiled. “Which part is real, your skin or your sinew? Your breath or your lungs? What you see is real. What you saw is real. You are a seventh son. You have the second sight. You can see a thing and see its glory. Call it a soul if you want, or a story, or a poem. If you live to an age, you may even learn to shape a thing's glory, to give to it and draw from it in return.”

  Henry had forgotten his grapes. They dangled from his left hand.

  Ron laughed. “It is hard, I know, comprehending this new depth in the world.” He held up his hands. “Do you know, Henry, that sounds ripple the air before they strike your ear and you hear them? Imagine seeing the ripples as well as hearing them, sensing every sound twice, in two ways. That is like the second sight. You see things twice, and both are true.”

  “You both could see my burn,” Henry said. “So you have the second sight, too?”

  “I have six older brothers, though none still in the flesh,” Ron said. “For a woman, it is different.”

  “Yes,” Nella said. “What we see is not always the same, but I have the twain sight as well. It does not come to a woman by birth, but as it wills. And it comes without the violence and spasms.”

  Ron put his hands on his knees and straightened up on his bench. “I am glad you flew to me, Henry York, and you must tell us the story of your escape tonight. We will have guests who would hear it as well. But now I will find you some clothes. There will be time for stories in days to come. You still have need of much rest.”

  “Oh,” Henry said. “But I really need to get home. I should go today. I'm feeling fine. I need to get to the post office.”

  Ron stood. His brows furrowed. “You said that to me when you fell. I checked inside your bag and found nothing that needed posting. Your hand, and the cuts on your stomach, show you are no mere messenger.”

  “I'm from someplace else,” Henry said. “There's a doorway in the post office. I don't know how I'm going to get through it, but I have to try.”

  “We know,” Nella said. Her eyes were worried. “You forget that we can see. But your spasms are fresh, your eyes are still fragile, and your mind is not used to its sight. We have done what we can to strengthen you, but there are some things only time can heal, and others even beyond its strengths.”

  “What do you mean?” Henry asked.

  Nella reached out and touched his face. She ran her fingers along his jaw, over his old burns, and then looked at her fingertips and back up into his eyes. Deep into his eyes. After a moment, Henry thought she was going to cry.

  “You are fatherless,” she said. “Unnamed. Here you are safe. Leave, and you walk toward an old enemy gathering strength like a whirlpool and a new enemy who wields it. You walk toward destruction. Your blood father is—I can see nothing but a blade spinning toward him. The mother of your birth is strong, like a deep-rooted tree, but she bends beneath a wind that could split stone. Moments of joy await you, but beyond them lie betrayal, fear, rage, and horror. Believe your dreams. Yours tell you no lies. There the threads tangle. I can read nothing more.”

  Nella sat back up and wiped her eyes.

  “I don't understand,” Henry said. It sounded hollow. “I do have a name,” he added.

  “You are unchristened,” Nella said.

  “But I have a name.”

  Ron's arms were crossed. “We'll find you clothes,” he said. “And fill your belly. Do not let us tempt you any more with rest. If you know your path is true, then we will help you on your way.”

  Henry stood and walked to the low wall. Ron stood beside him. Henry looked down at t
he clouded city and back to the old man. His beard was rustling in the breeze.

  “My fathers built this city,” Ron said. “It was mine to defend. I could not fight off the rot.” He glanced at Henry and then back over the valley. “When Darius came, I pitied him. He was lost, without direction and without an anchor. He babbled on about his own inadequacy and wretchedness. He could not speak without hurling insults at himself. He begged to call me father, and I was fool enough to let him. He reached his strength. But he never could control it. He fed off the fear of others and confused it with respect. He is the influence in my city now. His fingers drift through the streets like the smoke.” He sighed. “I will not pity you, Henry York. My pity is a destroyer.”

  “Is your name really Ron?” Henry asked.

  The old man laughed. “I was christened Ronaldo Thomas Xavier Valpraise, seventh son of Justinian Valpraise, Lord Mayor of Byzanthamum. I was a hospitaller and architect, patron of pauper sons and orphans. My hospitals are now morgues and factories. I have outlived all my children, and my patronage has created a den of wizardry and darkness. Why have I been left alive? Perhaps only for this moment, Henry York, to wander into the city after years away and catch a falling star before it lodged in hell.” He turned and looked Henry in the eyes. He was smiling. “Can you be the redemption for my life?”

  “I don't know what you mean,” Henry said. “You already saved mine.”

  Ron didn't say anything. Henry looked back over his shoulder. Nella was gone, and the balcony was empty.

  “Why were you in the city?” Henry asked. “Why did I fall at just the right time and land on just the right spot?”

  The wind suddenly picked up, swirling around Henry's limbs, rustling in his hair.

  When Ron spoke, his voice was somber.

  “Nella was given dreams,” he said. “She dreamt of your falling. She dreamt of Darius, wielding more power than even he could have imagined and spreading his rot through worlds. Your blood, in you and others, was all that stood against him. She did not want it spilled in our streets and wasted.”

  Henry's burnt palm itched. He rubbed it with his thumb. “I don't think I like that dream much,” he said. “What happened to Darius? Did he lose?”