“Do you know some secret way to avoid that big bad Ward?”
I shake my head again.
“Then what good are you to me?”
“That’s not fair. We can tell the New Charitans the truth about the City. It’s diplomacy, right—” The air in the bathroom is heavy and too close and I want out.
“They don’t want to hear it, Syd. Don’t you understand?”
“Let me help.”
“Here’s how you can help me: get your shit together, and get ready to move whoever you need to out of New Charity when I give you the signal.”
“They’re my friends, my family, and they aren’t going to just pick up and go with me without question. I won’t see them hurt.”
Nelle stamps the floor. “These people don’t deserve your pity. Where were they when everyone around you was dying? Where was their compassion? Their assistance? That’s right: there wasn’t any. So why give them yours? They reap what they sow.”
Someone knocks at the door, louder this time. “Hurry up in there!”
“Wait a goddamn minute!” I yell, banging on the door in return. I catch my breath, trying to reel in my fear. Is this what Cas feels when she has a vision? Something unstoppable? It makes more sense when I see my own blundering self in the woman standing in front of me, calmly explaining how she’ll spend her last breath opening the reservoir. “Look, we can learn more about the Ward. Maybe there’s a way to disarm it somehow.”
“I don’t care, Syd. I’m tired of maybe after maybe. It has been years of maybe.”
It’s only been three short days, and I’m not sure how I no longer belong to anyone’s side. “I don’t want to be your enemy, but I’m not sitting this one out.”
“Come on. This is what your old man would want. You safe and sound. I promise I’ll make sure his dream didn’t die with him.”
Someone is knocking again, twice as loud this time. Nelle yanks the door open and a man falls into the bathroom at my feet. I step over him, trying to follow her, but the crowd closes in too quickly. My mind is spinning. What does Nelle know about my dad? What did she mean his dream didn’t die with him?
I look for Pi in the crowd and find him beneath the Bishop’s hateful scowl. Pi is almost cowering, the fiddle tucked protectively under his arm. He won’t be of any use until I can talk to him in private.
I can’t find Troy either. In fact, the room is a sea of faces I barely recognize. A few butterflies of panic break out before I hear the twins. Cas and Len each grab one of my hands and lead me out a back door. It’s cooler outside, and darker while my eyes adjust. “What did Nelle want?” Cas asks.
Len glances at the door. “We should talk about it later, somewhere else. It’s getting chippy in there, and Syd should get home before someone tells the Bishop this was her idea.”
The three of us have spilled out under the dim, generator-fueled light of the diner’s front windows. Only Tess is inside, wiping down tables, oblivious to the chaos next door.
“Nelle said something about my dad. She said something about his dream dying with him. What do you think she meant?” I shake my hands out at my sides, wondering how the two of them can stand so still.
When we were younger, Cas and Len would at times retreat into a language only they shared. It was a twin thing or a sibling thing—either way it wasn’t something I understood literally or figuratively. It was noisy gibberish back then, and I got used to ignoring it. But it has morphed into a sort of body language, a look, a tilt of the head. They are talking about me, and I can’t understand them.
“Do you know something I don’t?”
They exchange another glance.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Cas makes a placating gesture with her hands. “I don’t know. Honestly. I’m sorry.”
Len waves a hand at her and turns away.
“Fine. Screw you both. And screw this place.” I duck into the shadows and break into a trot. I don’t know if it’s tears or sweat running down my face and I really don’t care.
The people of New Charity can’t even follow their own hearts for one whole night. Maybe Nelle is right. Maybe New Charity deserves everything it’s got coming.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cas
Len lit a cigarette, and gestured after Syd. “Well, go get her.”
It was easy to catch up, Syd stumbling like a newborn foal in her cowboy boots. She stopped halfway down the block to take them off.
“Syd, please just tell me what Nelle said to you.”
“Fine. Start by explaining to me how Nelle knew my dad.”
I shrugged in what I hoped was an innocent way. But I watched her gauge my reaction and knew I’d failed at my years of training to be unreadable.
“I thought you wanted to have a conversation,” Syd said, waving her hand between us. “That’s where both people talk.”
“If your father knew the Survivors in the camp, it’s news to me.” Unwelcome images came seeping in, the Bishop, creeping through the dark corridors of my mind, Cal’s voice turning into Syd’s. I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my fists over them to try and darken the vision.
“Are you having some kind of mental break?” Syd crossed her arms in front of her. A light wind had picked up the edges of her skirt, but she made no move to smooth it down.
I didn’t tell her I was busy avoiding a vision. “I’m starting to think that Nelle being here is more dangerous than we know. Be careful around her, Syd. It’s your life I’m talking about.”
“You act like that matters somehow.” Syd’s face is reckless with loss. “My life is already over. It was over the day they declared a national emergency. It was over the day the Company went on hiatus. It was over the day my mother died. Pick a time—any time—before now.”
I shook her shoulders. “Stop it.”
“Tell me what you know, or I’m done with you. For good.”
“Syd, don’t. Just give me some time.”
“Thanks to Nelle Harris Mangold, time is a luxury we no longer have.” She turned her back on me and receded into the black night.
Would the Bishop have killed Cal for his involvement—whatever it was—with the Survivor camp? Or was there more to the story? What did the gust of wind in my original vision have to do with anything? Worse, what if I wasn’t really seeing the past; what if I was wrong?
Regardless, I needed to figure out a way to protect Syd once she found out. How would I protect Len and Troy and myself from the revelation? What would the Bishop do to me, to us? I had to talk it out with Len one more time, and then I vowed to tell Syd, no matter what.
I trotted back to where I’d left Len, but he wasn’t there. Looking around, I spotted his white shirt in the dim stretch of light from the diner. He was moving fast toward the gate at the other end of the block. There was some sort of commotion there and loud voices were changing to screams. The guards at the gate—the ones who’d replaced the elemental magic once it was added to the reservoir’s Ward—were pacing, anxious, as metal met metal from the outside.
“Syd, the gate!” I yelled, hoping she’d stop. Hoping she’d follow me. Hoping she wouldn’t go anywhere alone.
She stopped. And when Pi’s voice rose along with the others, she began to run.
Len stood behind the Governor’s body man, the Governor himself, the Bishop, Pi, and Troy. Bootless, Syd had caught up, coming to a halt a few paces behind me.
There were maybe ten men on the other side of the gate. Survivors from the camp, by the rough look of them—bedraggled and thin. One stood in front, speaking directly with the Bishop as the Governor tried to interject.
“Dr. Mangold,” the Bishop said, “I assure you Nelle is here and safe.”
“You drag her in here, your power goes out, and you just expect me to believe she’s fine?” Dr. Mangold poked through the bars at the Bishop’s chest. “I know all about your trickery, about your big Ward. Give me back my wife, and I’ll ask my men to stand down.”
“The power problem is quite another matter, unrelated to your wife’s presence here. And as far as we’re concerned, your wife is simply visiting a friend.” The Bishop opened his hands expansively. “Let’s talk on this at a more civilized hour, shall we?”
Mangold fired his pistol into the air. “Now.”
The Governor, by the looks of things, was getting nervous, his shotgun hanging open on his arm. Mangold had, at best, five shots left in his little revolver, but my father wasn’t one to take unnecessary risks, and he wasn’t the fastest loader, even if he had more than blanks in his coat pocket. He snapped his fingers at his body man. “Cedar, find her.” The strongman nodded and sprinted back to the darkened social hall, where candles still flickered in the windows. Pi was walking along the gate, blessing each Survivor with the warmth of the Spirit. If Len and I had been able to do anything but beat back the nausea of mounting visions, we might have tried to help him.
“There we are,” the Governor said, still looking over his shoulder. Mangold gasped. Len and I wheeled around to see Cedar escorting Nelle and Perry to the gate. Nelle held one of the candles Syd brought from the City.
“We’ve even provided illumination,” said the Governor. “I trust you’ll find she’s in good working order.”
“Open this gate,” Mangold yelled.
“That will not be possible, Doctor,” the Bishop said. “We’ve shown you that your wife is safe and well.”
“Nelle!” Mangold called. “I saw the power go out, and I—”
She broke away from Cedar, and my father held up a hand to let her approach the bars. “I’m okay,” she said. “I promise.”
Perry paced, distraught, but said nothing. The Governor gave him a few strong pats on the shoulder, and Perry dropped back to wait near Len.
Nelle lowered her voice. “Perry and I are old friends, Mace. I know it’s not what we planned. Don’t do anything yet. I’ve agreed to fix the power and then I’ll work on coming home. It’ll be a few more days, but they’ll send word when you can meet me.”
The Bishop looked at my father as if he were an ant under a magnifying glass. “Handle this.”
“I think we’ve been more than cooperative,” the Governor said, “considering we’ve weathered your false accusations with good nature. Cedar, escort Nelle and Perry to the mansion. We’ll head to the station to assess things at daybreak. I think we’ve all had enough for one night.”
Mangold was looking at the candle in Nelle’s hands. “They have those in the City. How did it—”
“She brought it with her,” Nelle said, using her free hand to point to Syd.
Syd was standing a little ways apart from us. I could see the willpower it was taking not to demand answers about her father. She met Mangold’s glare. “The letter M,” she whispered.
“What?” I said, reaching for her. She shook me off and stepped forward to meet Mangold’s glare.
“Are you proud of yourself, Survivor?” Mangold asked. Troy started toward the gate, but Len held him fast.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Syd said.
“In there, enjoying the rich life while the rest of us starve. Cozying up to whoever you need to? Must be nice, is all.”
“Mace,” Nelle said.
“I hope you’re comfy in there,” Mangold said. “New Charitan whore.”
It was hard to say who hit who first. The Deacon rushed the gate, wild uppercuts connecting through the bars. Rocks and sticks followed back and forth. Mangold’s gun remained mercifully unfired, which revealed a bit about their ammunition situation.
The Governor had Len and Troy by the arms, trying to keep them from joining the fracas.
Syd stood, unflinching.
She was still standing there when my father ordered the gate guards to accompany Nelle, Perry, Len, and me back to the house. Troy, too, though he was the last holdout, trying to get Syd to talk to him. She pushed him away gently, her eyes never leaving the gate.
I watched her until the dark of distance overtook the scene. Syd, barefoot in her party dress, gently pulling the Deacon up from the ground, ducking her neck under his arm, and limping the long road home.
The Bishop and the Governor argued as they led the procession back to the house. The Bishop’s voice was low and firm, and at one point he pushed a finger into my father’s chest and said, “This is why you were chosen. Do it.”
I felt an exhausted sort of pity for my father, the man beneath the Governor mask. While I wasn’t sure if I liked or even respected him, I did love him. I could remember a time when we were just a family, a group of people doing our best to be happy, a time when he was just a young man trying to please his own father.
Now with all four of his children under bodyguard, and the Bishop, his political sidekick, pulling rank, the Governor had to get things back on the rails and fast. Which meant Len and I had to do our part.
“Everyone into the office,” the Governor said, as we all shuffled into the foyer. Cedar flipped up his coat to remind us about the Taser. Len let his shoulders sag and he lifted his chin for me to lead us through the chaos. I stole one last look toward the door and the darkened world beyond.
Troy gave a feeble plea in our defense. “Father, they’re tired. They had services. You can’t make them regurgitate visions like this.”
“Silence.” The Governor whispered in the ear of Troy’s escort, and the pair veered left into the bedroom wing, where Troy was no doubt reminded not to interfere. I wasn’t sure who to be angry at—the Governor, for his bullying display of power, or Syd, for the dominoes she’d brazenly set in motion: the power outage, the party.
It had been a few months since the Governor had forced us into a vision. I wasn’t sure if we could tell him anything useful about Nelle, but he wasn’t always in it for the information. Sometimes he just wanted to reassure himself, or someone else, of the sort of power he had—or rather had access to. He wasn’t pleasant or patient, and he insisted on pageantry.
In keeping, my father’s office was really more of a secret lair. It had no formal entrance, instead accessible from a hidden passageway in the library. Everyone jumbled up in the hallway so that Len and I could enter first. Cedar pushed the worn copy of Joyce’s Ulysses toward the wall and the shelf slid open. My mother was already waiting on a couch in the sitting area. Without exchanging greetings, Len and I stepped behind our respective screens to change back into our robes. The office wasn’t a holy place, but my father felt costumes loaned a modicum of authenticity to his forced proceedings.
Len and I had been here many times before, trying to explain that the Spirit’s blessing of Foresight couldn’t be turned off and on like a faucet. Len had taken to bolting when he was younger, but now escape was met with the use of Cedar’s slick black Taser. Somewhere along the line my father had become a weak version of his former self, hiding behind bodyguards and handshakes and living in fear of his own shadow. Or maybe just the Bishop’s shadow. I hadn’t put it together until I’d seen them walking: My father was no governor, only a puppet. And the strings stretched to us, as well.
Through a space in the screen, I watched the Governor loosen his tie, a frenetic glaze over his eyes. Cedar escorted a newly uncooperative Nelle to a chair, sat her down, and zip-tied her hands behind her.
I hadn’t had the chance to study Nelle that closely before. Her dark eyes shone with defiant tears, though she still sat straight and composed. “Please,” she was saying. “I just want to rest. Lock me in a room, okay? Whatever this is, I don’t want to see it. Are you listening to me?”
The Governor snapped his fingers. “Casandra, Len.”
I smoothed my robe and walked out to meet Len in front of the fireplace. His face was ashen. “You know before,” he whispered, “at the party?”
I nodded.
“I drank a flask. And there was beer.”
I nodded again. I was on my own.
Thankfully, my father missed the exchange. His back was turned, d
istracted by a very animated Perry.
“Unbind her,” he was yelling. “She’s our equal, not one of your prisoners.” He pushed Cedar away and severed Nelle’s bindings with a pocketknife. Nelle positioned herself behind Perry, clutching his arm. My father threw his hands up, and signaled Cedar to close the door.
“Go ahead,” the Governor said. “Tell me what this woman is doing here.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. At best we needed a silent room. I didn’t have silence or Len’s assistance, and the day had been so long. Our visions were clearer when we were fresh, better still when we worked together, and even then, at times, they diverged. With Len half-drunk, he would have to pull off the acting job of his life. We ran through the rituals as well as we could, fumbling words and matches.
I hung my head and waited, as Len did the same. We’d made things up before when we hadn’t had a choice. Sometimes it was easier when my father asked about a certain topic, as he had about Nelle. Sometimes it made things even murkier. And sometimes—with both of us cold sober—nothing came at all, even after we’d waited.
This vision—the question of Nelle—slammed into me like a runaway stallion. New Charity was in flames. Vivid pools of blood lay in the streets. People in tatters, begging for help that wasn’t coming. I stood inside the vision, paralyzed. If I focused on staying still, sometimes I could limit what I saw. But this vision was too strong. The scene turned, and I struggled against waves of nausea. The wall around the town was crumbling and our house had been razed. I passed the lifeless bodies of my family one by one, Troy, then Len, the Governor, then Mama. Tess and Becky. Bill from the mercantile. The Bishop was standing in the doorway of the Sanctuary with a ball of lightning in his hands. Sheriff Jayne was on her knees. Huddled together in shining white stood Perry and Nelle.
I opened my eyes. “Get her out of here. Out of New Charity,” I gasped. I couldn’t keep ahold of myself, and I began to dry heave. “Now.”
Nelle met my gaze from the other side of the room, her expression pure terror.
Perry continued to object to the proceedings at hand. “Father, why don’t we just ask her what you want to know? Have a rational, adult discussion instead of this theater.”
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