Flicker and Mist

by Mary G. Thompson

  “Orphos?” I teased. “Orphos who? Oh, that Orphos?” I batted my eyelashes and fluffed my hair.

  She knocked into me with one shoulder. “Oh, stop.”

  “It’s only fair,” I said.

  “I just want you both to be happy,” she said.

  “What will make me happy will be to win the ride,” I said. “That’s what’s important. You know”—​I glanced at her slyly—​“Member Solis will most certainly pay your way into University, whether you place first or second. There’s no need to compete so hard.”

  “And your father, Member Hailfast, will pay your way whether you ride or sit on the sidelines in a fluffy gown.”

  “Perhaps I’ll just sit and cheer on my man,” I said, pretending to fan myself like a fancy lady. We both laughed. Porti would enjoy the fluffy gown, but nothing would make either of us sit on the sidelines. That was one reason we got on so well. Porti knew what truly mattered.

  “The next question, of course,” she said, “is what will you wear to the winners’ ball? You’ll want to look extra beautiful while celebrating second place.” She grinned at me and then took off at a run, trailing her wrapped new gown behind her. I followed.

  “You arrogant scallywag!” I cried. We were both wearing ladies’ boots with two inches of heel and dresses that fluttered around our legs, but we didn’t let that stop us. We dodged workbeasts pulling carts and leaped puddles from a recent summer rainstorm. We passed from the merchant quarter through the low-lying apartments to the State Complex, where the families of the Council Members lived in larger, fancier apartments. We raced through the courtyard that separated our two homes and reached the door of her apartment together, panting and muddy and feeling grand.

  From A HISTORY OF THE UPLAND

  These Flicker Men landed on the north end of the plateau, at the top of the region called the Head. Their footprints were masked by the fall rain, and their ships were as invisible as they were. Stories of ghosts appearing and disappearing spread from village to village, stories of food stolen out of kitchens, crops cut from fields. For many months they were a fable, a supernatural curse upon the Head. Until one day, in the high plateau-upon-a-plateau called the Left Eye, a man materialized out of nowhere.

  Three

  IT WASN’T REALLY PORTI’S APARTMENT, OF COURSE; it was the apartment of Council Member Anga Solis, her new foster mother. Member Solis was always on the lookout for the best athletes from the far reaches of the Upland, whom she could sweep up and bring into New Heart City society. It wasn’t just any champion who made the cut. The lucky winners of instant entrée into the elite had to be smart enough to make it at New Heart City University, poised and articulate enough to converse with the Council and their associates, and of course, Plat. Member Solis claimed she took on these charges as a solemn duty to the state. Those who were admired by the people must be appropriate objects of admiration; it would not do for the winner of the women’s ride to go back to shoveling beast manure. In reality, I suspected she wished to relive her glory days, when she herself had won the ride.

  Member Solis’s habit of adopting the best athletes was the main reason Porti had begun to ride the beasts she raised. She had dreamed of New Heart City and the University and the life she now had. To her, gowns and ladies’ shoes and extravagant parties and state politics were new and exciting, not the uncomfortable tedium they were to me. She had been raised in coveralls and work boots; I had been raised with money and privilege. Yet I wouldn’t have been invited to tonight’s party if not for her.

  Member Solis greeted us at the door. She was also a fixture on the New Heart City social scene and loved hosting parties for the entire population of elite children. She had to show off her entitlement to the finest apartment in the State Complex, aside from that of the Deputy, since she was the longest-serving Member of the Council.

  “Good afternoon, Member Solis,” I said.

  She stared down at me. She was short for a Plat, not much taller than I was, yet she had a way of looking at you as if she gazed from a great height. “Hello, Myra,” she said. We were not familiar enough for first names. Most people treated me as a Plat, at least to my face, but Member Solis had no such courtesy. She was even worse to my mother. My mind churned with unwise replies.

  “Miss Hailfast!” Member Solis’s eight-year-old daughter, Bricca, raced out from behind her mother and grabbed my hand, pulling me inside. “Have you bought a gown for tonight?”

  “Yes,” I said, glad for the rescue. “Miss Portianna Vale picked it out, so of course it’s perfect.” I couldn’t help but smile when I was around Bricca. She entirely made up for her mother’s rudeness. Like Porti, she was interested in both riding and ladies’ fashion. Someday, she would be the darling of the whole city and a champion besides.

  We went up to Porti’s room, the only one occupied by a foster child at the moment. It was more lavish than my own room, with velvet curtains and an elegant four-poster bed. The closet was filled with gowns. Porti still lit up when she walked in.

  “Miss Hailfast, are we going to dance tonight?” Bricca asked.

  “You will be with your friends,” said Porti. “You’d find the things we do boring.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Bricca said. She stuck her head into Porti’s closet and riffled through the gowns. “Which one are you wearing?”

  “This one,” Porti said, pulling the new gown from its wrapping.

  Bricca ran over to it and slid her hand along the delicate fabric. “Ooh, can I have one like it?”

  “I’m sure you can,” said Porti. “Now leave us while we dress. We’ll see you a little later.”

  “See you tonight, Miss Hailfast!” Bricca raced over and hugged me. Then she grinned up at me and ran from the room.

  Porti and I laughed.

  “You’re lucky,” I said. “It’s like having a sister.”

  “Perhaps you’ll still get one,” Porti said.

  My mother’s voice filled my head, her words evoking the terror of that long-ago night. I never wanted a child. I understood that she worried about producing another child with the Ability who might reveal us all, but the words still stung. I shook my head, my good mood fading. But then I thought of Porti, and how her parents hadn’t lived to produce another child, and I felt ashamed of my selfishness. At least the three of us were together.

  “Your father would be proud to see you,” I said.

  “Yes, he would.” She pulled on the gown she had just bought. “Perhaps he will be here this year.”

  We didn’t speak of her real father, who was dead, but of the man who had raised her on the beast ranch. She didn’t say much about him except that he had pushed her to ride, to take the opportunity to come to New Heart City. I knew there was something she couldn’t tell me about why he didn’t come to watch, something more than simply having beasts to care for.

  “One can be proud from a distance,” I said.

  She sat down on the bed. “We joke and poke each other,” she said. “But I hope you know it isn’t a game to me. This is my future. It’s true that Member Solis will pay my way to University if I place second, but I want to win for my father. I want to win so I can tell him it was all worth it—​me being here and him being there.”

  “I know,” I said. And why did I want to win? My reasons seemed smaller. I didn’t need the prize to support myself, nor did my parents care whether I won, apart from what happiness it would give me.

  “But, Myra,” Porti continued, “if you win, that will be all right too. The Waters won’t flood the Upland because I carry the second ribbon. Nor will I be sent back to the Head to shovel beast dung. My father will still be proud. Your parents will love you, Caster will still want you, and Orphos will pursue me like a starving man pursues a scrap—​all whether either of us wins or not.”

  “Yes,” I said. As usual, Porti had hit on what was important. Though that might change in the moment, she always knew what the moment took.

  She wrapped
her arms around me. “Promise that no matter what happens, we’ll remain friends.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You know I’d be nothing without you.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “You are the reason for all my friendships,” I said.

  “They only needed a chance to see you for who you are,” she said, letting me go.

  Later that afternoon, there was a knock on the door. A servant stood holding the burgundy dress that the Drachmans had altered for me. Porti seized it and pulled it over my head.

  “By the Waters,” I said. “Was the neckline always this indecent? My father will be livid.”

  “Since when does your father attend our parties?”

  “But Member Solis—” Surely that woman would be the first to gossip about me. She and my father butted heads on every issue. She would probably take the opportunity to make some comment on my Leftie features. Doesn’t she look just like her mother? I imagined her saying.

  A bell rang in the distance.

  “Perhaps that’s Caster now,” said Porti, pushing me toward the door.

  “Perhaps it’s Orphos,” I countered.

  “Come,” said Porti, flipping her long, dark, perfectly straight hair. “Whoever it is, the party is beginning!”

  Soon the apartment was full of the children of the elite citizens of New Heart City: the Council Members, those who worked for the Council, and the senior guardsmen. There were some as young as Bricca, playing together in the sitting room, and even some who had already begun at University. I weaved my way among them, trailing behind Porti as she played hostess, sometimes blocked by the mass of tall people around me. There were no other pale faces, no one who had so much as a drop of Leftie blood—​except Issa, Bricca’s nanny, who stayed well out of sight.

  So far as I knew, there were no others in the entire Upland who had one Plat parent and one Leftie. A marriage between the races was as unheard of as a beast with four horns. The law didn’t prohibit it, but there was no need for an official ban. People believed that my parents would not be together after they died, in the land beyond the oceans, where the Waters kept the races separate. Both Plats and Lefties believed this, even the Leftie priest who had married my parents. My mother had told me that this priest took my father’s money and signed the papers but refused to actually perform the ceremony, saying they were sure to be split apart at death. They had truly married themselves, at the edge of a cliff, high up in the mists of the Left Eye. What all this meant for me, since I couldn’t separate my two halves, was unclear.

  Until Porti had ridden into the social scene with me on her coattails, people had treated me with distant politeness, as if the Waters would disapprove of their coming too close. By the miracle of her personality, it was now as if people our age were forgetting. Sometimes I would hear a snickering comment about Lefties—​how their faces were pale and their hair curly or their bodies thick—​as if they didn’t notice they were insulting my mother. I couldn’t forget, though, especially at times like this when people were packed together and I stood out like a beacon.

  I was separated from Porti for a few minutes, and when I found her again, she was in conversation with Caster Ripkin. He leaned down to hear her speak, his soft, nearly black hair falling into his eyes. The outline of his profile was sharp and strong. He wore a black suit of expensive, shimmering fabric—​it must have cost his father a small fortune.

  “Four inches this month,” said Caster, half shouting over the party’s din.

  “Goodness,” said Porti. “Really?” They looked perfect together, both tall and thin and with sharp angles to their features. That feeling rose in me before I could suppress it—​which was ridiculous, knowing that Porti was pushing me toward him as hard as possible.

  “At four testing sites,” said Caster.

  I slipped on a wet spot on the floor as I approached.

  “Why, hello, Myra!” Caster caught me as I narrowly missed knocking Porti’s fruit punch into her gown.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Hello. Sorry.” I couldn’t help but notice that his hand was still on my arm.

  Caster laughed. “I should be so lucky again.” He grinned down at me. Was he looking where Porti hoped he would look? Do not blush, I commanded myself. Do not blush.

  “Oh, look at the time,” said Porti, though she carried no timepiece. She grinned at me and slid away through the crowd. Suddenly, I was no longer jealous and wished she would come back and take his ear. It was easy to talk to Caster at school, but here, in the dark, in a fancy, indecent gown, I found that my tongue was wrapped around itself.

  “I was just telling Porti about the latest survey,” Caster said. “My father says they measured four inches.”

  “This month?” I asked, thankful he had picked a topic to speak on.

  “Yes,” said Caster. “He is reporting to the Council as we speak. The oceans are really rising now. It might be a high cycle beginning early—​and coming fast.”

  The oceans that surrounded the Upland had been low since the end of the war, when the last of the Flicker Men had left, back when my grandmother was just born. And before that, we had had four generations of low water. It was too soon for another cycle.

  “A whim of the Waters,” I said. I frowned. This was not idle party talk. If the oceans rose, they might stop at the top of what were now high cliffs, creating warm waves lapping sandy shores. Or the water might cascade over the edge of the plateau and flood the Upland, taking all of us with it—​as The Book of the Waters threatened, should we defy them. And if the oceans rose enough to support ships, they might carry the invisible people back from their faraway lands, people who might hold a grudge over how they were chased off all those many years ago.

  We stood in silence for a few seconds, contemplating this. And deep down, below what I knew I should be feeling, a twinge of excitement rose up. If they did come across the oceans, then I could meet them, these strange, exotic, invisible people who didn’t have to hide. I shook my head. My mother had warned me against even thinking about the Ability. If I were to make any effort to become invisible, I would trigger something deep inside me, and then I might be undone by almost anything: strong emotions, injuries, surprises. She herself, having used her Ability all her life until she met my father, had to hold every emotion back. But I would never try to become invisible. Perhaps I had destroyed the Ability for good.

  “Myra,” Caster said, “are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s a shock—​the oceans rising.”

  Caster leaned down to me. “Perhaps we could build ships of our own, see what else is out there. Find out why the oceans rise and fall as they do.”

  “Caster Ripkin!” I exclaimed. “By the Waters!” To travel on the Waters was a great sin. But I had thought the very same thing myself. If only we could find out what caused the oceans to rise.

  “Do you really believe the oceans have minds inside them, Myra? I don’t. I think it’s all nonsense created by ancients who had no care for knowledge—​and held now by those who fear invisible people who are long gone. I think we should explore the world while we have the chance.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from the son of the Deputy to the Waters,” I said. “Blasphemy.” His face was close to mine now, him leaning down and me stretching up. To speak of ships was sacrilege. The Waters would rise up faster upon hearing themselves disrespected. And Caster’s father was supposed to be doing their work.

  “Come,” Caster said, and he took my hand. It was a perfectly natural gesture, not awkward at all, as I’d imagined it would be. He was very tall, yes, but he was no giant. Why did I make him even larger in my imagination? His hand didn’t awkwardly envelop mine, but fit as if he had taken my hand a hundred times. After this year of friendship, did it mean something? He led me through the crowd, using his height to make way through the people, heading for the sitting room. He pushed through the door, and we were suddenly free of the crowd, only to fi
nd ourselves in a room full of children watching a photobox production. They stared at us as we came in, all except Bricca, who smiled and waved at me.

  I waved back.

  One of the boys whistled. I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. This was one more problem with my pale skin. It showed emotions that a full Plat could have kept hidden. But Caster didn’t seem to notice.

  “Ah, the future leaders of the Upland,” Caster said, leading me around the kids, who were lying on pillows on the floor.

  “It’s the halfsie rider,” a boy said. It was a little boy, maybe eight years old, among the youngest in the room.

  “Shush,” said Bricca. “That’s not nice.”

  “Thank you, Bricca, but it’s all right,” I said, blushing more. It was only a child who didn’t know better. I shouldn’t let it bother me. Yet Caster seemed to loom taller, and I seemed to shrink away.

  “A rare beauty,” said Caster. “The luckiest woman in New Heart City.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of the Waters?” the boy asked.

  “The Waters have no care for how a person looks,” said Caster. “It’s no crime to be a beauty.” He winked at me.

  The boy stared up at us. He was too afraid of Caster to contradict him. But I could read his thoughts as if he had spoken. The Waters wished the races to be separate. They did not wish me to exist.

  “Have a good night, children,” said Caster, a slight edge to his voice. I gave Bricca the best smile I could manage, and Caster led me through another door, into a hall that led to the stairs up to the family’s private rooms. Mercifully, the hall was empty. “I’m sorry about that,” Caster said.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I don’t hear it often.”

  “Because it isn’t true,” said Caster. “The boy will learn that.”

  I pulled my hand away. Why did the boy have to say it now? I could stand an occasional reminder, as long as I had my friends. But I didn’t want Caster to be reminded that I was different, that I would never be tall or have straight hair or look as a lady should in the fashions Porti loved to play with. That if he were to choose me, he would face the stares as well.