Terra Nova

by Shane Arbuthnott

  She came out onto rolling hills, so unlike Terra Nova that she felt dizzy. The stars glimmered in the sky, and clouds that pulsed with light sailed overhead, streams of blue and purple winds wending through them.

  Legerdemain was there, lying on the ground just behind her, and her connection to the spirit flared up again as she came through. She could feel the pain of his wing in her own body, but his panic had gone. She heard his wheezing breath passing evenly in and out of his great lungs.

  “I wish I could stay with you,” she said. “But this isn’t over yet.” The spirit trilled slightly and fluttered his unbroken wing at her, sending winds spinning around her.

  She pulled the font apart and wrapped some of its winds around her. She gauged her direction—difficult, with all the buildings gone—and retraced her steps, turning where the alley would end, running across the hills until she stood where she thought the airship would be. She aimed for the cabin where Arkwright sat and brought her winds forward to form a new, smaller font. With one last look back at Legerdemain, she stepped through.

  Her head banged against something, and she fell a short distance to the ground, colliding with a metal ladder. Molly looked around. Her font glimmered in the middle of a metal passageway with no windows. She was at the foot of a ladder that led up to a hatch.

  She had missed the cabin. But at least I’m inside the ship. She pulled the font apart and climbed the ladder, turning the wheel on the hatch at the top and pushing it open with a bang. She could see the wreckage of the cabin on the other side.

  Good. Then Arkwright should be—

  Hands suddenly reached down and grabbed hold of her, yanking her up into the room. She started to yell, but the breath was knocked out of her as she was slammed down onto the floor, just beside Arkwright’s broken chair.

  “Yes, hold her there,” a soft, sputtering voice said somewhere near her head. “Now the machine.”

  Molly looked up into the faces of two black-clad Disposal agents. She struggled against them, but they were too strong. And a third one was moving in now, pressing something cold down on her chest—Arkwright’s machine from the sanatorium. She fought harder, and lightning crackled across her skin. But the agents were protected, their hands gloved.

  “Keep her steady,” said Arkwright’s wavering voice. She could see him now, pulling himself up with difficulty. His legs clearly couldn’t hold him, but he was crawling toward her, and she couldn’t move.

  “Ariel! Loam!” she screamed. She knew the terric spirit must be just outside, still holding the other agents down. If she could get its attention, it could help.

  The machine on her chest whirred to life. Molly tried to concentrate through the rising panic, focusing the lightning that flowed through her, willing it toward Arkwright. But one of the agents swiped a gloved hand through the electricity, and it dissipated. She tried to bring it back, but all she could manage was a small crackle across her arms.

  Arkwright had reached her, his trembling hands on her arm, her stomach, climbing the machine to the grips. He was making adjustments on the machine now, preparing it with his palsied fingers.

  Molly rocked herself back and forth, and the machine tipped, but it was quickly steadied. “Hold her still, damn you,” Arkwright hissed to the agents. They pinned her arms and legs down with their knees. She could feel the machine beginning its work, pulling at every emotion inside her.

  Molly searched the room desperately, looking for something she could use. The two agents held her arms in their gloved hands, while the third, who had brought the machine, pinned her legs, but…

  The third agent wasn’t wearing a helmet or the thick jacket the others were. Or gloves.

  She closed her eyes and breathed. The machine was tugging away her panic, her fear, her worry for her family. She wanted to lie down, not move, let it be over. And then she didn’t want at all. But she was still angry, beneath everything, and before that too could be stolen, she focused all her anger and sent it down to the clammy hands that held her ankles.

  The agent yelped and convulsed as lightning coursed into him, and before the others could respond, Molly brought her knees up hard. The machine and Arkwright both tumbled away from her, and Molly gasped as she felt her emotions flowing back into the void the machine had created. She kicked at the other agents until they let go, then pulled herself to her feet, hobbling for the door on legs that prickled as if they were still half asleep.

  She turned the wheel on the door and pushed it open. It banged against the outer wall.

  “You know we won’t let you run,” she heard a soft voice say behind her. She turned to see Arkwright standing on his own two feet. He hadn’t finished feeding, but it looked like he’d gotten enough. As she stared at him, the two agents with protective gear came to her side.

  “Not…running,” Molly panted and reached out for the wind.

  It came thundering into the room. The agents raised their hands, swiping at the streams of wind to break them up, but Molly hadn’t been trying to hit them in the first place. The winds came in across the wreckage in the room and sent it all flying through the cabin, fragments of machinery filling the air. The agents went down under the onslaught, and Arkwright tumbled backward.

  The wind stilled, and Molly stepped forward, weak and panting. She could see Arkwright struggling to stand on the far side of the cabin. “You’re going to come with me,” she said, stepping over what must once have been the wheel of the airship. “We’re going to show everyone—”

  The third agent—the one she had jolted—climbed up out of the wreckage and leapt at her. She tried to move, but she was too slow, too weak from what they had done to her. The agent brought her down hard on the wheel and gripped her arms, pinning her.

  Her forehead was pressed into one of the spokes of the wheel, and she looked through to the detritus beneath. Four wood-handled cylinders lay on the floor, and Molly stared down at them.

  Flares! She wrestled harder, twisting and turning until she got a hand free to reach down and grab one of the wooden handles. She pulled its cap off with her teeth and then ground the head of the flare against the ship’s deck with as much force as she could muster, closing her eyes at the same time.

  The flare ignited, and she raised it above her shoulder. The agent on her back shouted and fell away, either blinded or burned. But Molly didn’t wait to find out which. She stood quickly and looked to where Arkwright had been.

  He wasn’t there.

  She searched the cabin. There were the three agents, one lying nearby with his hands over his eyes, the other two struggling out from under heaps of broken machinery. Arkwright was gone. She looked back to the doorway and saw a slim figure sliding away down the side of the hull.

  “Oh no, no you don’t.” She ran after him, the flare in her hand turning the world red around her. She ran to the end of the deck and looked down. There he was, running away from the umbilical, from the crowds, from the spirits and from Loam and anyone who might stop him, faster than she thought he could move. He turned a corner and vanished.

  “Arkwright!” Molly shouted and gave chase. As she ran, her heart beat faster, and it seemed like the harder she pushed, the less tired she felt. Her legs stopped prickling, her breath came easier and her muddled emotions came back one by one—fear, anger, hope, exhaustion. He won’t escape. He won’t get away with this anymore. She called the wind to her, and it urged her faster until her feet barely touched the ground.

  She rounded the corner and saw him ahead of her. He was no longer alone. He stood in the middle of the street, not fleeing, someone held tight in front of him. Molly slowed, her wild heart lurching in her chest.

  No. Oh no, please don’t let that be who I think it is.

  But as she drew closer and the red light of the flare illuminated the scene, she saw that it was indeed Brighid. A blade glinted in Arkwright’s hand, pressed to her sister’s throat.

  “Arkwright, what are you doing?”

  “Ensu
ring that I will not be stopped. Ensuring that I can continue my work, keep humanity moving forward.”

  “Molly?” Brighid said, her voice transformed by fear. “Molly, what’s happening? Is this a spirit? What is he?”

  Molly let the wind fall away around her. She stepped forward, and Arkwright raised the knife. The red glow of the flare glinted off its tip.

  “Don’t think I won’t kill another Stout.”

  “Molly?” Brighid said. She seemed to be struggling against him, but Arkwright was holding her easily, despite the strength Molly knew Brighid had. It’s because he fed on me, Molly thought. That’s mine. That’s my strength you’re using, my strength you stole. With one hand, Arkwright held both of Brighid’s wrists tight.

  Molly stopped and considered. No one else was close enough to help. Brighid was right in front of Arkwright, so Molly couldn’t hit him with lightning. Perhaps a wind around his back, to knock the knife away—but she had never been great at fine control.

  “What do you want?” she finally said.

  “You, of course. You to sustain me, and to stop all this ridiculous fighting so we can resume my work.”

  “And you’ll let Brighid go?”

  “She is of no use to me. Not once I have you. You know I am a practical man.”

  Molly sighed. Her skin crackled with lightning, but it had nowhere to go. Brighid’s eyes were on Molly now, full of fear—fear of both Molly and the blade at her own throat. Molly roared in frustration and took another step.

  Brighid cried out, and a rivulet of blood flowed down the pale skin of her throat. Molly froze.

  “You wouldn’t want to kill her now,” Arkwright said. “Would you?”

  “Don’t you put that on me,” Molly said. “You’re holding the blade.”

  “All the same, I am waiting for your decision.”

  Molly bounced on her heels. “Why should I want her? She’s been of no use to me either.”

  “That’s true enough,” Arkwright said, as calm as if they sat at a table with a cup of tea. “But you want her all the same, don’t you? The Stouts always were more sentimental than was healthy.”

  She curled her hands into fists and considered rushing him, but he was right. He had her sister. The only choice Molly had was whether to trade herself for Brighid’s life.

  She didn’t remember ever seeing Brighid afraid before. Angry, petulant, sad, but never so baldly afraid. She looked at her sister, and her sister looked back at her.

  What happens if I give up here? What happens to Da and Rory and Ariel? What happens to the spirits?

  But how can I let him kill my sister?

  Molly groaned, and her head fell forward. “Yes,” she said softly.

  “Pardon?” Arkwright said. “I couldn’t quite—”

  “Yes, okay?” Molly shouted. “I’ll go with you. Just let her go.”

  A tight smile split Arkwright’s lips, and Molly wanted to retch, but she dropped the flare and spread her arms in the air beside her, plainly visible, and began walking slowly forward.

  “I have a length of iron wire in my pocket,” he said. “When you are close enough, you will bind yourself with it.”

  He released Brighid’s arms and reached into his pocket. Molly waited for her sister to act. But she didn’t. She stood there, like she was stuck on the point of the knife, no fight in her.

  And then a dark shape burst out of a nearby alley and bowled both Brighid and Arkwright over.

  “Get! Off! Her!” Molly’s father roared, tumbling with Arkwright to the ground. Brighid rolled away across the cobblestones.

  “Da!” Molly shouted. She started running as her father raised his fist. The fist didn’t come down.

  Arkwright’s blade flashed in the red light of the flare, and Molly’s father toppled sideways. Then Arkwright was standing, turning to Molly, his face illuminated by the sickly glow of his own veins. Molly leapt at him, but he braced his legs and plucked her from the air, holding her by her neck out in front of him. She pulled at his hands, but they wouldn’t budge. She was too weak, her strength taken and turned against her.

  “You know, when I was trapped in all those machines, I never realized I could be like this. Strong and capable in more than my mind. I thought time had taken this away from me. Perhaps you did me a favor.”

  Molly stopped fighting. She felt helpless and afraid, and she could feel tears running down her face. She didn’t know how to fight anymore. It had all come to this, the struggle of so many people, so many spirits, to bring her to this man who had twisted the world around him to keep himself alive, and she couldn’t even hurt him. And she was so very, very tired.

  But there was her father on the cobblestones, and her sister sobbing behind her, and Legerdemain lying broken on the other side of a font, and Toves ground to dust, and the city, all around them, fed by the lives of countless spirits. And she was angry. From the bottom of her soul she felt anger, pounding away under her skin like the fierce winds of a storm. She could hear the rumble of thunder inside her ears.

  She stared into Arkwright’s contented eyes, and she let her anger out. Lightning arced between them, her chest to his, and for a moment he looked surprised. But then he calmed, and the lightning began to bend away, around him and down, to disperse against the ground. The lightning still didn’t want to touch him.

  But the lightning was not like the wind. The wind went where it wanted, and Molly could only ask it for help. The lightning came from inside her, from the storm that had been boiling beneath her skin for as long as she could remember. Since she had been born without a mother, with a father who could hardly see her through his own pain. Since her sister had stopped singing, and Molly knew there was no one taking care of her anymore. Since she’d found her only friend in Legerdemain and been told he was a demon who must be caged. Whatever change the spirits had wrought in her had given it a way out, but the storm was hers. The storm was her.

  It found its way back to Arkwright, and it did not falter. The lightning flowed between them, and Arkwright’s lips shivered and pulled back across his teeth in a rictus of pain. His arms trembled, and she pulled herself free.

  She did not stop. She kept pouring her anger into him until he fell to his knees, then to his back, and he lay steaming on the cold cobblestones, curled into a tiny ball. She stood over him and finally let the lightning go. It flowed back into her with a snap.

  She watched him for a moment. He was still moving slightly, whimpering, but she did not think he would rise again. She turned away and went to her father.

  “Da?” she said. “Da, are you…”

  She knew the answer before she finished the question. Because there was the knife’s handle, just beneath his ribs, and the blade was hidden inside him. She stepped forward into the pool of blood that was flowing out of her father onto the cold street. She knelt in the blood, not caring, and put her hands on her father’s cheeks, turning him toward her. There were his eyes, already empty. He was gone.

  “Da,” she said. “Da. Da. Da.” Over and over, as if she might call him back. But her words could not travel to where he was. Still she said his name and pressed her cheek against the rough skin of his forehead, feeling him still warm, trying to soak it up as if she could carry that last warmth away with her.

  “Oh, Da. I love you,” she whispered into his beard. She wanted him to say it back, more than she had ever wanted anything. But his lips were still, all their words spent.

  “Is he dead?”

  Brighid was standing beside her. Molly didn’t look at her, didn’t answer.

  “Why did he do that?” Brighid asked. She sounded like she was speaking from a million miles away.

  Molly raised herself, wiping her face with her sleeve to clear some of the tears and snot and then wiping the tears she had left on her father’s face.

  “If you had ever paid attention to anyone but yourself, maybe you would already know the answer,” Molly said. She stood and turned, keeping her back to Bri
ghid, and looked down at Arkwright.

  The storm was roiling inside her, but she didn’t let it out. She called the winds, and they came rushing down around them, more than she had ever called before. Great torrents of wind swirling around them all, buffeting them until Brighid almost lost her footing. Molly brought the winds in under Arkwright, lifting him off the ground, spinning him through the air, and she and the wind carried him forward, down the street, toward the base of the docks and the melee there. She hardly saw Loam as she passed, or the Disposal agents still held down by the spirit’s gravity. She walked past them all, unseeing, until she reached the stage and let Arkwright drop onto the wooden platform with a bang. She jumped up next to him, regathered the winds and wove them in front of her the same way Ariel had to amplify her voice.

  “Stop!” she shouted, her voice so loud it hurt her ears. “Look!”

  They stopped, Disposal agents and rebels, human and spirit eyes turning to look at Molly, shocked into stillness by her voice. She bent down and grabbed Arkwright. He was heavy in her arms, but she gritted her teeth and forced him up, one arm around his waist, her other hand holding his hair so that his face could be seen.

  “This is Charles Arkwright!” she shouted, the winds still carrying her voice. “This is what we’ve been fighting about all this time! This man, who didn’t want to die and thought he could spend other lives to keep his own!” At her feet she could hear cameras whirring, and the eyes of the crowd all pressed in on her. “He did this, all of this, for himself! He killed Haviland Stout and demonized the spirits, and now here we are, and here he is, still alive after all he’s done! Look at him! See what he is!” She found the strength to hold him up higher, and Arkwright groaned. His eyes were open now, Molly saw. He was staring out at the crowd, though his body still seemed to be trying to curl itself back into a ball. He looked so weak, for one who had done so much damage.

  She let Arkwright slide to the ground, and she sat down herself. “Enough. Enough of all of this. Just please, make it stop.” As the last word left her mouth, she realized that the wind was no longer carrying her voice—the amplifying winds sat just above her head, where she had stood. The crowd couldn’t hear her anymore. But she didn’t think she could stand. She looked out at the people, who looked back at her as the tears started flowing down her face. She searched for Kiernan—but no, he wasn’t there, he was still healing somewhere far away from here. But there was Rory, camera pointed at her. When her eyes met his he stepped forward, jumping up onto the stage.