Flicker and Mist

by Mary G. Thompson

  But he took my hand again and pulled me to him.

  I think I stopped breathing.

  “Myra, I meant what I said. You’re beautiful.” He ran a hand over my hair. “There’s no other girl like you.” He leaned down toward me as he spoke.

  “I . . . thank you,” I said.

  He kissed me. It was a short peck, but he didn’t stand back up to his full height. He looked at me, as if asking a question. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him, and he nearly lifted me off the ground, and we kissed for real. When he let me go, the hall was spinning. It was as if pinpricks radiated from my heart. I couldn’t see his face clearly; I couldn’t think.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, catching me by both arms.

  “Yes,” I said. My vision cleared a little. That was twice I’d fallen into him tonight. I was supposed to be an athlete, not a swooning damsel. But I didn’t pull away.

  “Perhaps you’ve been training too hard.”

  I smiled up at him. He had said exactly the right thing. “Perhaps you surprised me.”

  “Does a man take a lady into a dark hallway for conversation about the oceans?” he said, putting a hand on my waist.

  I giggled.

  He kissed me again, this time pulling me even closer. I closed my eyes and felt it. All I knew was that he was kissing me, really kissing me, and I stood on my tiptoes, trying not to force him to bend down too far, trying to be as tall as I could. We fit together somehow, despite the height difference that I’d fretted so much about. This was the moment I’d waited for. I didn’t want it to stop, and when he lifted his head, I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I pull him back down to me, or would that be too much?

  He ran his hand over my hair again. “Myra, I would like for us . . . for you and me . . . well . . .”

  I had never seen him stammer. Could it be that Caster Ripkin was nervous—​that I made him so? But I was too nervous myself to do anything more than stare up at him.

  “Can we be together?” he asked.

  I was shocked into silence. Yes, I thought. Yes! But my mouth wouldn’t move.

  “I don’t mean to pressure you,” he said. “I’ve felt lately . . . at least I’ve thought . . . that you wanted the same thing.”

  “Yes,” I said finally, my brain working again. “Of course I do.”

  He broke into a wide grin, and so did I. We stared at each other, able to do nothing but smile.

  A crash came from the sitting room behind us, then screams.

  Caster shook his head wryly. “These kids should be in their beds by now.” He pushed the door open. “What is going—​by the Waters, what is going on?”

  I leaned around him and saw a picture of chaos. Three kids were hopping on the couch, and the rest were racing around the room as if being chased. The photobox player was flat on its face, its glass broken in pieces.

  As I entered, Bricca rushed over to me and wrapped her arms around my waist.

  “Bricca, what happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The photobox player fell.”

  Porti raced in through the other door, followed by Orphos. Her hair was in disarray and her faced flushed, as though she had been dancing her heart out the moment before. Orphos wiped sweat off his brow as he took in the scene. Perhaps they had been dancing together. Behind them, the faces of other partygoers peered in.

  “Stop this!” Porti cried.

  The kids did not stop.

  “He’s got me!” a boy screamed—​the same boy who had called me a halfsie. He was flattened against the wall nearest me, acting as if he were trying to wriggle out of a man’s grasp.

  I gently passed Bricca to Caster and walked toward the boy. “What’s got you?” I asked. I figured the best way to end the chaos would be to play along and let the game run its course.

  “He does!” the boy cried.

  I took his hand. “It’s all right,” I said. “There’s no one there.” The boy looked so frightened, I was no longer sure he was playing a game. “See, no one is holding you but me. Shall we take a walk?” I stepped back, pulling him with me. Tears were streaming down his face. But he followed me. We walked across the room, toward Porti. The other kids were calming now, no longer racing around but standing restlessly.

  Porti came over to us. “Jet, have you had a scare?” she asked. “Come, I’ll call your nanny to walk you home.” She took the boy’s hand, and with her other hand she took Bricca’s from Caster.

  “There was somebody,” Jet said. “He had me. But when Miss Hailfast the rider came, he let me go.” He looked up at me. “I hope you win this year,” he said.

  “Thank you, Jet,” I said. “I’ll watch for you in the stands.” I thanked the Waters he had not called me halfsie again. I would have hated to have Porti and Orphos hear that too. I wished they hadn’t heard the boy’s claim that he had been held by an unseen man. There had been a panic over just such nonsense when I was a child, though I didn’t learn about it until later. All the Lefties in the city had been tested for the Ability—​and the test amounted to torture, my mother said. She herself had been subjected to it. How she had passed, she didn’t tell me.

  Porti, Bricca, and Jet disappeared, and so did the others at the door, except Orphos, who came in and clasped hands with Caster. “Playing with the kids, were you?” he asked.

  Caster grinned. “Maybe.”

  I blushed. By the Waters, why could I not stop doing that? “All right,” I said, to defuse the awkwardness. “Who can tell me what brought this on?” I kneeled before the photobox player and lifted it, hoping that no one would see how my hands shook. I didn’t know if it was the boy’s claim or Caster’s kiss.

  Orphos leaned down to help me. “Must have been some game,” he said, winking.

  “Oh, stop,” I said.

  “Portianna insulted my attire only three times and ignored my request for a dance twice,” he said. “I find myself hopeful.”

  “Were you not dancing just now?” I asked.

  “Yes, but only near each other,” he replied. “Her persistence in not looking at me makes me quite happy.”

  “Or delusional,” Caster put in, taking my end of the photobox player from me.

  Orphos laughed. “She’ll come around, won’t she, Myra?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure she will.” They got the photobox player standing, and we began picking up the glass so the children wouldn’t step on it and hurt themselves.

  “See?” said Orphos. “Myra has the inside word.”

  Caster raised his hands in an expression of surrender. “Whatever you say, friend. It’s your dip.” By which he meant that Porti would be the end of him, a dip in the oceans being a synonym for Judgment by the Waters. This was not all bad, if you believed. It was thought that the soul of a person who died in the ocean would be redeemed.

  Orphos, who was shorter than Caster yet still towered above me, only laughed.

  A girl of about ten, the daughter of an assistant to Porti’s guardian, tugged at my arm. “Miss Hailfast, we didn’t do it,” she said. “There was a man here, like Jet said.” She looked around at Caster and Orphos. “There was.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Caster.

  “He knocked the photobox player over,” said the girl. “We were all just watching.”

  “Where is this man?” I asked, attempting to make a joke of it. “Where did he go?”

  “How could I know?” said the girl. “He was a Flickerkin.”

  My blood ran cold. If all the children believed this, the rumor would be out in no time.

  “Did this supposed Flickerkin speak?” asked Caster.

  “No,” said the girl. “But I heard him running. He ran after us.”

  “It was someone, Mr. Ripkin,” a boy said.

  “Nonsense,” said Caster. “One of you must have run behind the photobox player and knocked it over. Now, who did it?” He looked around the room. No one said anything.

  Porti
came back in, accompanied by three of the nannies, who had been socializing in the kitchen, waiting to bring their charges home.

  “Come on,” said Porti. “It’s past everyone’s bedtime.”

  The kids filed out, some looking back nervously at the photobox player. After the previous chaos, they were strangely subdued. I had no doubt they believed someone had been there. And they would all tell their parents.

  “Are you all right, Myra?” Porti asked. “You look like you’ve seen a spirit.”

  “It’s just . . .” I didn’t want to say it, but these were my best friends in the world. If I couldn’t tell them a part of the truth, whom could I tell? “The children believe they were attacked by a Flickerkin. What if there’s another panic?” I couldn’t look at Caster, nor could I mention his father by name. “They might begin testing Lefties again.”

  “They won’t test you,” said Orphos.

  I winced. He had heard me in the word Lefties. I was thinking of my mother. But I didn’t know for sure that Orphos was right. I was legally a Plat, yes, but the Ability was passed through the blood and not the law. Perhaps my father had protected me once, but I was no longer a child.

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  “It’s all nonsense,” said Caster, putting his arm around me. “Everyone will see it’s just wild children who’ve watched too many programs on the photobox. I’ll bet it was that boy Jet himself who knocked it over. Besides, there are sensors over every exit.” The sensors sent out invisible beams that were supposed to hurt Flickerkin and make them visible, detecting spies. Like everything that took power, they were made from prezine, mined in the Eye. Though they did nothing to anyone visible, I didn’t like to think of them. I liked to think of our kiss in the hallway and feel the warmth of Caster’s body next to me now.

  Orphos put his arm around Porti. “If there are any Flickerkin, I’ll protect you,” he said.

  “Or I’ll protect you,” she replied. But she didn’t cast his arm off. They looked at each other for a second, and then Porti pulled away.

  Caster kissed me on the lips—​right there in front of our friends. I was sure my entire body was blushing now.

  “Aha!” Porti squealed. “This calls for a toast!” And we went back to the party, the four of us. The music was still going, and the people were still dancing, and I had Caster with me, for all to see. I tried to put the incident with the children out of my mind, and we danced, Caster and I together, closely, Porti and Orphos near each other, never quite able to be apart.

  From A HISTORY OF THE UPLAND

  The Flicker Men settled among the people of the Left Eye. They taught the Lefties to mine for prezine and sell the results to the plateau below. Thanks to prezine, the entire Upland advanced. Every home had electricity, and communication across distances became possible. The trade in prezine brought the peoples of the Plateau and the Eye together, and a government was formed in Heart City, near Heart’s End. But the extraordinary metal was scarce, and some in the Eye did not wish to share what the Waters had given them.

  From THE DECLARATION OF PEACE

  Prezine, being necessary to the lives of all people, shall belong to all people of the Upland. The Council shall manage the distribution of prezine for the benefit of all. There shall be no money exchanged, except that the Council shall pay fair wages to those deserving.

  Four

  MY FATHER HAD BEEN AWAY FROM HOME OFTEN OF LATE, sometimes staying with the Council from dawn until well after I’d gone to bed. After he returned from his ambassadorship in the Left Eye, with my mother and my baby self in tow, my grandfather became ill, and so my father took his seat on the Council. The seats passed by heredity to the son or daughter of the Member’s choice, so long as that person was of age. Some Council Members, including Anga Solis, had attempted to block him because of my mother, but the majority would not discard the law. This didn’t mean he was popular, however. My father didn’t officially support autonomy for the Eye or any loosening of the Flicker Laws—​a fact that caused many fights between my parents—​but he did advocate reducing the triple taxation imposed on Lefties in New Heart City. No one else on the Council supported that.

  He had to thrust himself into every corner of the Council’s business, leaving no issue untouched and attending all meetings. If he let them vote without him, they would most certainly undermine his position at every turn. It didn’t help that the ocean monitors had been showing rises of inches per month, and all those who knew were much alarmed.

  So it was that the morning after Porti’s party, I woke to find my father gone and my mother at the dining table. She sat with her long, tightly curled white-blond hair flowing free, grimly listening to the radio.

  “By my count, that’s four reports,” said the interviewer, an overweening man who went by the name of Sky.

  “Four incidents of speculation,” said the Deputy. I would have recognized his deep, raspy voice anywhere. “An incident with excited children at a party, after those children should have been in bed, is by no means definitive proof that we have a problem with invisible attackers. Quite the contrary, it’s likely to be all in their imagination.”

  “But the other three reports were not by children, were they?” Sky asked. “There was a shopkeeper who reported items going missing from a locked shop, a woman who was tripped in the market by unseen feet, and—​most disturbing, I think—​a workbeast found dead in the street this morning.”

  I sat down heavily in my chair, my thoughts of breakfast abandoned. A dead beast?

  “Is it not true that a beast was found dead?” Sky asked.

  “It is true,” said the Deputy. “But animals, unfortunately, perish often of perfectly explainable causes. There is no reason to believe a Flickerkin is involved.”

  “But this beast was locked in a stall last night. How does a beast perish in the main street, all the way across the city from its stables?”

  “Perhaps the beast’s keeper was not as diligent as he reported,” said the Deputy. “I can assure you, the Guard is investigating the incident, and I’ll report the truth of the matter to the public when I learn it. My advice to the city is: don’t panic. There is no evidence of invisible invaders. The city has been free of them since the end of the uprising, more than sixty years ago. The gates are monitored by sensors, and all those of Leftie blood in the city have been tested. There are no Flickerkin here by law, and the law is enforced.”

  “All right,” said Sky, not sounding impressed. “You heard it from the Deputy himself, folks. Don’t panic. All’s right with the Waters. Speaking of the oceans, I’ve heard a rumor that some new tests have shown disturbing—”

  My mother shut off the radio with an abrupt tap. She didn’t change her expression, but the truth of it was in her tight control. The story had made her ravenously angry.

  “Momma—”

  “Listen to him pretend to be on the side of calm,” she interrupted, her voice even. “He only wants to seem more reasonable when he finally bows to evidence and begins testing.”

  “Everyone has been tested,” I said.

  “There is testing and then there’s testing,” she said. “The Deputy’s father was in office the last time. The younger Ripkin pressed for deeper and longer shocks then but was overruled.”

  I sat, paralyzed. I knew a little of the method of testing, but my mother had never gone into gruesome detail.

  “There are no Flickerkin left outside the Eye, but that will mean nothing once a few more paranoid citizens hear rats in the night,” she continued. “Rats who just happen to scurry when the citizens of the Eye demand their rights.” Neither of us commented on the fact that there were Flickerkin in New Heart City—​us. Sometimes we could almost believe our lie.

  “Momma, what’s going on in the Eye?” I asked. I knew my mother kept in contact with my grandmother by voicebox, but they spoke only in the Leftie language. My mother had taught me a few words and phrases when I was a child, but she had stopped teac
hing me after the testing. She felt forced to keep me apart from her past, and I wasn’t sure she would even answer me.

  My mother paused for a few seconds, but then she spoke. “There is agitation among the prezine miners,” she said, “and during the protests, one of the miners displayed a dagger.” All weapons of any kind had been banned in the Upland since the war, when invisible Flickerkin had murdered Plats with concealed daggers, and Plats, in turn, had murdered Lefties with swords. The guardsmen were not armed now, and even kitchen knives were assigned to licensed cooks. To brandish a dagger was an offense suitable for Judgment by the Waters. My mother owned one, though, something I wasn’t supposed to know. One day as a child I had been snooping and found it in a locked case inside her bedside drawer. The key had been easy enough to find with her apartment keys. I had never asked her about it, never wanted to admit I had gone through her things, or to confront why my mother had something that I had been taught was evil.

  “What are they going to do to him?” I asked.

  “I haven’t heard word yet,” she said. “News is slow, and my mother fears to speak over the voicebox. Even if they don’t dip him, we all know the miners are dangerously overworked. The Waters apparently forbid putting Plats in harm’s way but allow them all the prezine. ‘For the benefit of all,’ they said in their Declaration of Peace. But ‘all’ meant Plats and always will.”

  “Are things that bad?”

  “The Plats have been demanding more,” my mother said, “and they won’t say why. They take so much prezine that power relays in the Eye go unrepaired. Does that ever happen in New Heart City?” She waved an arm at our fully lit apartment. “The people of the Eye protest, and so the Deputy takes it out on Lefties here in the city.”