by Burke, H. L.
“Today needs to be a dream,” she said when Leilani brought it up. “I don’t have time for nightmares.”
Leilani’s aide uniform consisted of a red tunic with a high collar and black leggings. Zeb had gifted her with a leather messenger bag filled with “tools of the trade” and helped her put her hair up in a bun with copper pins. Leilani tried to return the favor by braiding Zeb's hair, but the strands were already escaping from the ribbon to fly about her friend's face.
Leilani assumed there would be some housekeeping involved, but Zeb informed her there was a staff specifically assigned to cleaning and the like.
“Don’t worry. If you need to do something, I’ll let you know. For now, just keep me company. We meet Fellow Brash right after breakfast.”
Zeb gushed about her assigned mentor, Fellow Brash, during their communal table breakfast. “He’s young for a senior fellow. Last year his team oversaw the installment of sensors around the manor ring to measure the strength, volume, and variety of the Strains.”
“Perhaps he’d know something about the dead . . .” Leilani began, but Zeb’s eyes stopped her. For a moment the blood drained from the young Highmost’s face, and Leilani feared she would collapse again.
The girls finished their meals in silence, Zeb picking at her porridge. The serving staff cleared the girls’ plates away, and Zeb rose.
“Brash’s workshop is in one of the exterior buildings.” She avoided Leilani’s questioning gaze. The girls started down the hall. They passed a small, iron gateway held in place by an inch-wide silver ring. Leilani stopped. Behind it descended a dark stairway.
“What’s in there?” she asked, not used to seeing barred doors in Highmost areas. Between the guards and the Strains, locks were unneeded.
“Oh, that’s a Strains-proof lock. I’ve never seen one before.” Zeb touched the ring and rotated it to reveal a tiny keyhole. “Normal locks can be picked using the Strains, so most people don’t bother with them. This is silver. Imbued silver if I’m not mistaken. Research found a way to prevent the Strains from influencing objects by encasing them in silver . . . like the wristbands the guards wear to protect from Strains attacks.”
Leilani raised her eyebrows. “You can use the Strains as weapons?”
“Not directly, but have you seen how the Strains can help to lift and throw things? Imagine someone using them to hurl boulders at helpless guards, or to throw the guards themselves. Anyway, those wristbands repel the Strains.”
Leilani squinted at the lock. Could it somehow be involved with the dead spots? She could hear the Strains just fine, even standing next to it. “Why is it locked?” she asked.
“Maybe it's dangerous down there. I think it goes to the tunnel network that connects the manors. Father says they are like a maze and people have been lost down there for weeks at a time, having to live off mushrooms and puddles. I wouldn’t get lost, of course. The Strains could lead me out.”
Leilani and Zeb walked out into the gray, rainy day. Zeb whispered to the Strains and created an umbrella of swirling air that kept the drops off them as they ran across to the small, brick building that was their destination.
Inside, Leilani couldn’t decide where to look first. Before her stood a wall covered in gears, wind-wheels, and glass orbs filled with light. A table sat in the middle of the room, holding an apparatus of twitchy arms tipped with pens. These made shaky lines on a long strip of paper. Glass tubes ending in funnels hung from the ceiling. A few young people stood about the room, writing in notebooks.
“Welcome. You must be my new junior fellow.” A man with a short, golden beard and bright green eyes strode around the table and put out his hand to Zeb. He wore a brown leather vest and trousers with a white, button down shirt. “Calia . . . Mistress Straight, that is, said she had assigned me the most talented of the new juniors, and she is hard to impress.”
“My name is Zebedy Brightly, sir, and this is my aide, Leilani Weaver.”
He shook Zeb’s hand then Leilani’s. “I heard you requested a specific aide. That suggests a special kind of attention to detail. Most juniors don't give it a second thought, but a skilled aide can make all the difference in your early career. It's good to have someone you can trust.”
“I do.” Zeb beamed.
Fellow Brash motioned towards the table behind him. “Let me show you where we will be focused today.” He stepped up to the armed device.
Leilani counted six arms, one for every manor, each writing in a different color of ink.
“This is the audio-strain-o-graph. It measures the strength of the Strains across all the manors.” Zeb touched the edge of the device.
“Yes.” Brash raised the brown table skirt, revealing bundles of wires disappearing into a hole in the floor. “Each of these runs through the tunnel systems to the sensor I have in place under each manor. The data is relayed back to my instruments via vibrations. The jumps in the line indicate the strengths of the Strains at any given time.”
Leilani glanced over the graph. Sometimes the line had only gentle ripples, other times extreme peaks. However, there were no segments of “flat line”, no indication of dead spots.
Zeb motioned towards the lines. “Research, Healing, Civics, Art, Weather, and Industry. You know, the Strains are the strongest in the silence of the country. Have you ever measured them there?”
Brash grinned. “No, but only because the machine is near impossible to move, and I haven't devised a way to stretch the lines that far. I am working on a smaller version. Hopefully that will be more portable. Do you want to see it?”
“Oh yes! Leilani, can you take notes?”
Leilani reached into her messenger bag filled with everything Zeb had insisted she would need. She dug past measuring tapes, light tubes, tightly capped bottles of colored ink, and other assorted odds and ends, and found a thick, cloth- bound notebook and a black markstone writing stick.
When Zeb had explained that taking notes made up the majority of an aide’s responsibilities, Leilani had been relieved. Her grandmother had schooled her in both calligraphy and shorthand, and she often wrote down orders for her father. If she could keep up with the fast talking master of the tailor shop down the street, she could handle Zeb.
Brash pulled out a small service cart from under the table. Upon this rested a brown leather case with a long strap. Several black enameled knobs and two dials with twitching hands protruded from the top. A hose with a funnel on the end snaked out of it.
Zeb’s mouth formed a silent “o.”
Leilani squinted at the thing, carefully but quickly sketching the outline into her book. She supposed it was interesting, but this seemed like such a technical way to think of the Strains, measuring and monitoring rather than interacting with them.
Zeb, of all people, should know they were so much more than scientific data. However, that didn't stop her from gasping in delight when Brash exhibited his invention. “Look, Leilani, it reads both pitch and volume. You use the extension to narrow the data, right?”
“Yes. If all the Strains in any given space rushed into this tiny machine, it would shatter a tube. It only analyzes what comes through here.” He swung the funnel tip towards Zeb.
The Strains warbled. The hands on the dials vacillated wildly then buried themselves against the far side of the scale.
“By the Strains,” Brash whispered. “It's like they are bouncing off you.” His brow furrowed then his eyes lit up. “Miss Brightly, I have never seen anyone show such magnetism where the Strains are concerned. This will be a very profitable fellowship for the both of us.”
Zeb blushed.
Leilani resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The last thing her friend needed was to have her ego stroked.
Zeb fiddled with her braid. “The Strains are the main reason I joined Research. I’m fascinated with all the music they make, the way they seem to sound differently to everyone I speak to. I sometimes wonder if this is because we are different or if the Strains are different to us. H
as there ever been a study about what various sorts of people hear?”
“As a matter of fact, I worked on something similar to that last year.” Brash looked around then called out, “Kasan!”
A young man, nearer Leilani’s age than Brash’s, hurried forward, carrying a notebook. He had dirty blonde hair, so fine and limp it almost appeared gray, and wide-open dark eyes.
“This is Kasan Morgan. Like you, Miss Brightly, I handpicked my aide. Trust is everything in the manors. Kasan, could you show Miss Brightly the study we did on Strain audiology and acoustics? Just take them into the file room.”
Kasan bowed at the waist then motioned for the girls to follow him.
The file room turned out to be a glorified closet packed from floor to ceiling with large metal drawers. Leilani squeezed close to Zeb to allow Kasan to roll one open.
“It's alphabetical by subject. Brash’s interests span a great number of topics, from Strain detection to the migration patterns of birds.” Kasan laughed. He had a high, quaking voice, and his slight frame quivered as he spoke. His fingers danced over the files before lighting on one and drawing it out. “Ah, his study on the growth of the Gelian feather fern. This was the first project we worked together. Did you know that the feather fern reacts to the Strains?”
Leilani didn’t, but didn’t particularly care. Her eyes wandered over the file and settled on the date, not even four years before.
“You haven’t been Fellow Brash’s aide long, have you?” she asked.
Kasan’s cheeks flushed. “No, but we’ve known each other since . . . forever. My brother was assigned to be his aide. When he died, Brash wanted to make sure I was looked after. He’s been like a brother and father as well as an employer.”
“That’s sweet,” Zeb said. “It looks like you’ve done some interesting studies together.”
Interesting is relative, Leilani thought, glancing over the plant growth statistics.
“Yes, I'm quite fortunate in my employment. It's an honor for one of the Common like me to be an aide. Here are the files you want, a study on the different sounds reportedly made by the Strains.” He handed her a folder from the back of the drawer.
Leilani winced. An honor? I don't know if I'd call it that.
Zeb opened the folder, and Leilani peered over her shoulder. The report consisted of pie and line graphs tracking various sounds. Some were familiar–like male voices, female voices, birdsong, instruments–and some, like laughter and shrieking, Leilani had never heard of.
“Can you imagine the Strains screaming at you? That would be maddening,” she whispered.
Zeb’s fingers tightened on the file until the paper wrinkled. “Not as maddening as not hearing them at all. There isn’t anything here about who reported which sounds, however. Like male or female, division by age or choice of manor.”
Kasan nodded.“That is correct. The study participants were guaranteed anonymity.”
Zeb closed the file with a sigh. “It isn’t exactly what I was looking for. Maybe that study has never been done.”
“Yet.”
The girls turned and found Brash smiling at them from the doorway.
“That's the good thing about research. Eventually everything goes under the magnifying glass.”
Chapter Nine
After dinner that night, Leilani wandered the halls of the manor. She flexed the fingers of her right hand over and over again. Who knew writing could be so painful? When they had finally retired to their apartment, Zeb had complimented her note taking. Leilani had chosen to use Rynaran shorthand, a lettering system she found to be more efficient than the wispy, curly Gelian script. Zeb had learned it within the few months of their friendship, so they could pass “secret” messages.
“I love it. No one else will be able to read my notes,” Zeb chortled. “I want to read them all now!”
Leilani furrowed her brows. “Why? You were there. I didn’t write down anything you didn’t hear.”
Zeb rolled her eyes and pored over the book anyway.
Watching her friend read had swiftly grown boring, so Leilani explored. Perhaps she could find another of those mysterious dead spots. She wanted to know what caused the one they had encountered.
She wandered up and down the halls, reading plaques, peeking through open doors, passing a few servants and some Highmost. The Strains accompanied her the whole time, sometimes quiet but never silent. If not for Zeb’s virulent reaction to the dead spot, Leilani would’ve dismissed it, but the memory of her friend’s stricken face still chilled her.
The hallways formed a wide circle about the Observatory. Other passages crossed through them, radiating outward like spokes on a wheel. She passed the locked gate from earlier and stopped. Approaching the closed stairway, she touched the silver lock. Strain-proof. Perhaps the cause of the dead spot involved imbued silver. Leilani shook her head. Speculation was Zeb’s expertise. Leilani liked certainties. While coaxing the Strains to prod at the locking mechanism proved futile, they still danced about her, unaffected by its presence.
No, this silver was not the cause of the dead spot. Not on its own, anyway.
The challenge of the Strain-proof lock still intrigued her. Her grandmother had grown up without the Strains and knew how to complete many tasks without them. Tasks like picking the cupboard lock when she had lost the key.
“Never use the Strains for something you can learn to do with your hands, my little bird,” she often said.
Looking about and finding herself alone, Leilani slipped a long, copper pin from her hair. A few strands fell from her bun into her face. She blew them out of her eyes and poked around in the keyhole.
The Strains hummed like angry bees, but for once she ignored them.
“I’m not doing anything wrong. No one will get hurt, anyway.” Leilani tried to soothe them like Zeb did. “I just want to see if I can do it. That's all.” Their buzzing went up in pitch. Placing her ear to the lock, she listened to the clicks as the pin nudged at the tumblers. She could do this!
The Strains shrieked, an atypically discordant note. Leilani dropped the pin and turned on her heels. Her gaze met the wide-eyed stare of the young deaf guard from the day before. He stood, half in, half out of a doorway about a dozen feet away, his body in shadow but torchlight revealing his youthful face. Leilani’s cheeks warmed. He was watching her. The young man fled.
Heart pounding, Leilani took off in the opposite direction. What if he told someone? Picking a lock had to be against the law. Oh, she couldn’t go to jail, and her parents couldn’t afford a fine. What had she been thinking?
She reached her quarters, darted inside, and slammed the door behind her.
Zeb looked up. “Oh, you’re back.” She closed the notebook, but not before Leilani had seen the lines of script in Zeb’s cramped shorthand. She had been expanding on Leilani’s notes. Ink stained her fingers and a pen lay behind her ear. “Your notes are good. Very detailed. I knew you’d have a knack for this. Anyway, you remember how Fellow Brash said the Strains reacted differently to me? It got me to thinking, perhaps they react differently to everyone. I mean, we are all trapped in our own heads, like islands trying to communicate by carrier pigeons . . . or something.
“What if the Strains work uniquely with every individual? How would we even know? It's like colors. Do you ever wonder if everyone sees blue the same way? What if blue is green to you, but you never knew because to you green has always been blue. Blue could be different for everyone, and we’d never know. The Strains could be the same way.”
Leilani exhaled. She didn’t want to talk about this. She knew Zeb didn’t understand, but it irked Leilani thinking about how many beautiful voices Zeb could hear that she couldn’t. Still, she made herself answer calmly. “Well, of course the Strains are different for you. You’re Highmost. You hear voices. I just hear . . . sounds.”
Zeb frowned. “I know, but you hear all sorts of sounds, and some people only hear one sort.” She slipped her fountai
n pen from behind her ear and bit the end of it. She started to write again. A black smudge remained on her lower lip.
Leilani hid a laugh with her hand. “Here.” She fished out a handkerchief and reached down to dab her friend’s mouth.
Zeb put out her tongue, touched the smear with it, and grimaced. “Oh, I did it again. I am glad you're here. Imagine if you weren’t. I’d go around with blacked out teeth and twenty pens stuck in my hair.” She giggled and flipped through her notes. “I wrote a lot. How long were you gone?”
Leilani shrugged and sat cross-legged on her bed. “I don't know. A while. I wanted to explore.”
Zeb opened the book to a sketch Leilani had done of the portable-strain-detector-thing. “This is a good drawing, but your labeling is ridiculous. ‘Twitchy hand dial A and twitchy hand dial B’? Seriously? This is volume and this is pitch.” She put a line through Leilani’s labels and added her own.
Leilani cleared her throat. “Zeb, have you considered mentioning the dead spot to Fellow Brash? If anyone knows anything about it, you’d think he would. He studies the Strains.”
Zebedy bit her bottom lip. “But if he can’t explain it . . . Leilani, people can lose the Strains.”
“You mean like if you kill someone? Like the Wordless?”
“That is the usual way, but there are others. Sometimes as you get older your hearing can suffer and effectively rob you of the gift.”
Leilani forced herself not to chuckle. “Zeb, you are not going deaf. I couldn’t hear them in the dead spot, either, remember?”
Zeb avoided her friend’s eyes. “It's different for you. The Strains are everything to me. I’d go mad without them.”
Zeb’s words poked into Leilani’s chest like needles. “So because I am Common I can’t understand?”
“No, because you aren’t me. Not every Highmost befriends the Strains. Most just use them and don’t give it a second thought. The Strains are my family, Leilani. They are an extension of my soul. I've never met anyone who understands that, not even my parents. Fellow Brash does, though. What if he won’t work with me because of the dead spot? Because I couldn’t hear them for a moment.”