Flicker and Mist

by Mary G. Thompson

  Nolan pulled me around the side of a building.

  “Flicker,” he said. His voice, his breath, were above mine.

  “No!”

  “We’ll both be caught.” The warmth of his body radiated toward me. Even so close to him, I could see nothing. He no longer smelled like a beast stall. Now he smelled of a rainstorm.

  “Leave, then,” I whispered. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine now.”

  “Not after allowing yourself to be rescued by me.” He shook my shoulders. “Those were guardsmen who attacked you, Myra.”

  The other guardsmen were coming. Their footsteps pounded on the hard turf.

  “I don’t know how,” I said. “Go!”

  “Damn it!” He let go of my hand.

  The guardsmen turned the corner and found me standing calmly in the alley, facing them.

  “Oh, thank the Waters,” I said, stepping forward. “It was terrible!”

  As I spoke, Brach and the other man who had attacked me approached. They were both bloodied, but moving well. They hadn’t been seriously hurt.

  “There was an invisible person,” I said, bringing tears to my eyes, which was not difficult. “He attacked all of us. He would have kidnapped me if you hadn’t given chase. The Waters know what would have happened then.”

  Brach stared at me from the shadow of the overhang. I couldn’t read his expression. I could only hope that his attack on me wasn’t authorized, because if it was, then I was destined to join my parents—​and attacking an officer was a true crime.

  “We’re glad you escaped, Miss Hailfast,” said Brach. He met my eyes, and I nearly gasped with relief, but I held myself steady.

  “This is no time to be out, Miss,” said one of the new guardsmen. “We’re enforcing a curfew until the perpetrator of the explosion is found.”

  “I didn’t mean to be out,” I said. “I was only going to see Porti—​Portianna Vale.” At once it all rushed back to me, the look in Member Solis’s eyes, the door slammed in my face. I looked at the ground.

  “Let me escort you home,” said Brach.

  “Of course,” I said. What else could I do? It was as if I could hear Nolan yelling at me, What are you doing, Myra? Flicker and run! But I couldn’t flicker, and I had nowhere to go but back to the Deputy’s. Surely Brach wouldn’t attack me again after promising to protect me in front of those other guardsmen. I couldn’t convince myself that I was safe, and yet I went with him. I didn’t want to look at him, so I sped ahead. Perhaps I had injured him enough that I could outrun him. We were in the courtyard before he came up next to me. He put an arm around me and leaned down.

  “That was a wise choice, lady Leftie,” he said.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said. An image of a younger Brach smiling at the child me flashed into my mind. How could a person change so much?

  “That kick was not so wise,” he said.

  I stopped cold and pulled away. “Why attack me?” I asked. Blood flushed my cheeks, and I knew speaking my mind was unwise, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What have I done? I was in the Council box, you know. Many witnesses. I’ve lived in New Heart City my entire life. I have no connection to the Eye whatever.”

  “You are the daughter of a traitor,” Brach said. “A mongrel. And a friend of a fugitive Flickerkin, obviously.”

  “I don’t know who that was,” I said. “As for me, I’m a citizen of New Heart City as much as you.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” said Brach. “No Leftie should be allowed to live among us.” He spat on the ground, narrowly missing my left foot. “Except to carry away our trash.”

  I could think of nothing to say to such hate. It was beyond argument. I could only hope that the man cared more about preserving himself than about hurting me. “It’s still a crime to attack me,” I said. “The Deputy himself wishes to care for me.”

  “For now,” he said. “We’ll find your Flickerkin friend and get rid of the rest of you.” He put a hand on my back and turned me toward the entrance to the Deputy’s building, then pushed me forward. We walked the rest of the way in silence. Hate radiated from him like a flame, and my mind sped over what he had said. How many others were there like him? Was it truly not safe for me even to walk in my own complex? How could I live in a city where this was true? Should I tell the Deputy what had happened? Would he take my side, or would he do nothing and let them have me?

  Brach knocked on the door, and the Deputy himself answered immediately, as if he’d been standing right there.

  “Myra!” He grabbed me and pulled me inside. “You should not have gone out alone. I don’t know what my son was thinking, failing to accompany you. Thank you, Brach. You’re a good man.”

  “Your Excellency,” said Brach, bowing. Without another word, he turned and walked down the passage.

  “Your Excellency,” I began, the honorific sticking in my throat.

  “You may call me Mr. Ripkin,” he said, pulling me into the sitting room.

  “Father—” Caster got up from a chair.

  “Quiet, son,” said the Deputy. I couldn’t address him by his name. He was still the Deputy, the man who spoke with the Waters. I didn’t truly believe that, and yet somehow at the same time, I did. “Sit,” the Deputy said.

  I sat on a large, stiff sofa.

  Caster sat back down in his chair.

  The Deputy remained standing. “Do you think this is a game?” He looked from one of us to the other. I didn’t think he wished us to respond. “There has been an attack by persons unseen. Your friend is dead, ripped to pieces before your eyes.” His eyes were no longer sad; they were ice. “We do not know who; we do not know why. We know only that someone gathered a large amount of prezine, prepared it in a way no man is supposed to learn about, and buried it in the arena. All without being seen, without triggering an alarm.”

  I hadn’t considered what someone must have had to do to place the explosive. I hadn’t thought of anything but how the attack had affected me.

  “We don’t know when they might strike again, or against whom. You”—​he pointed at Caster—​“you leave my side without a word. And then you”—​he pointed at me—​“you leave this apartment alone as if all were normal.”

  “Father—”

  “Quiet! I must keep all the citizens of the Upland safe, and I can’t do that if I must worry about the two of you. I can’t spare guardsmen to watch two children; we are stretched thin. You must police yourselves. By the Waters, Caster, do you not like this girl? What possessed you to let her go?”

  “He lets me do nothing,” I said.

  “That’s the Leftie way, isn’t it?” the Deputy raged. “Women wear pants and mine ore, and always their first word is no. Your mother may have taught you how to rule a home, but she has not taught you how to survive.”

  “Father, that is out of line!” Caster said, standing.

  The Deputy ignored him. “You were very lucky tonight,” he said to me. “The Waters can’t protect the foolish.”

  The chime of the sitting room voicebox rang through the sudden silence.

  The Deputy picked up the receiver. “Ripkin.”

  Caster and I waited, the fight paused, both of us afraid of what news the Deputy was hearing.

  “Then find them!” he yelled. “Throw them in a cell and toss the key to the rising ocean.” He slammed down the receiver. Then he became quiet. “Three thugs have just beaten a Leftie garbage collector. It is not known if he will survive.” He turned to me. “Now do you see why I ask you to be careful?” He shook his head and strode out of the room. In the silence that followed, Brach’s attack flashed before me. I couldn’t believe I was thinking this thought, but the Deputy was right. I was a fool to have believed I could simply walk through the courtyard.

  “I’m sorry, Myra,” Caster said. “He had no right to say that. He acts as if the great burden of leadership allows him to face the world with his ass.”

  “No,” I said. I saw Brach’s fac
e, the hate in his eyes before he spat. “Caster, you must tell no one.”

  Caster sat down next to me on the sofa and took my hand. “Why? What is it?”

  “Your father . . . he isn’t wrong. That guardsman, Brach . . .” I was about to tell him the story, but of course I couldn’t. I couldn’t betray Nolan. No one could know he was still in New Heart City, much less that he was watching out for me, that he knew I could flicker. But I couldn’t be completely silent. “He is full of hate,” I said. “He called me a mongrel. He said all Lefties should leave the city. Spat at my feet.”

  “No,” said Caster. “Myra, that’s awful. But it doesn’t make my father right. You can’t live like a prisoner.”

  “How did Brach come to be that way?” I asked. “Why would anyone beat a poor worker nearly to death?”

  “I don’t know. There’s much about today I don’t understand.” He stared ahead at the wall where an ornamental cloth hung, depicting a scene at the cliff’s edge. In the scene, the water rose up, nearly pouring over the cliff and onto land. It was an event that hadn’t occurred since the Flicker Men had breached our shores, 150 years ago. Caster took a deep breath, as he stared at the cloth. “Orphos didn’t deserve this.” Tears burst from his eyes, rolled down his face. “He didn’t deserve this.”

  “Caster . . .” I reached out to him.

  He leaned down, buried his face in my hair. I wrapped my arms around him and let my tears fall with his. I thought of Orphos, torn apart. I thought of Porti, lost and alone. Of Shrill, Orphos’s innocent beast, dead with him. Of my parents, in cold cells. And of the world, which had changed forever.

  Sixteen

  I LAY IN BED THAT NIGHT UNABLE EVEN TO CLOSE MY EYES. What had Brach and his friend planned to do to me? How many others wished me the same harm? When would they try again? What would happen to Nolan now that he’d exposed himself and the guardsmen knew there was still a Flickerkin in New Heart City? Could I count on Brach’s self-interest to keep him from talking about how Nolan had rescued me from their attack? What was Nolan to me, anyway? I could tell the Deputy what had happened, and maybe he could protect me. But if he knew I had seen Nolan and not reported it, he would throw me in jail too. He only cared about my safety so long as he thought me innocent. If he changed his mind, I would have nowhere to run.

  I thought back to that moment in the alley. Flicker! Nolan had told me. If I had done so, we both would have escaped. But the very thing I was persecuted for, I couldn’t do. What if Brach and his friends attacked me again? What if the Deputy found out my secret? How could I protect myself?

  The answer was obvious but terrifying. I could flicker. I could disappear and escape just as Nolan had. Despite the entire Guard looking for him, he was still free. But if I learned how to flicker, I could never go back. I would be a Flickerkin—​an outlaw, a spy, an enemy of my own people.

  If you cause yourself to flicker, the Ability will take control, I heard my mother say. You will be required to suppress it at every moment. Her cold blue eyes stared into my five-year-old face. You must never try to flicker. Do you hear me, Myra? I would have to be like her, to hold back everything I felt. Strong emotions, a fall from a beast, even hearty laughter might cause me to flicker. I didn’t know if I could live that way. But if I didn’t learn to, I would be helpless. I couldn’t fight Brach and his goons and whoever had attacked the garbage man—​and every citizen who had jeered at me—​with sharp words and a ladies’ boot.

  What would my mother say now? Before they took her, she would have told me not to learn. She had let herself be locked up when she could have used the Ability to escape. But now she might be sentenced to Judgment. She had been wrong to submit.

  I sat up in bed. I couldn’t let myself be a helpless victim again. If I had to control myself, then I would. I was not a weak damsel, crying for a man to save her. I was a rider, and I would have been a champion.

  I dug through the chest the Deputy’s servants had brought over and found my riding clothes. There would be no ladies’ boots for me tonight. Tonight I was taking back my own destiny. The Deputy would think me foolish, and perhaps I was. But I couldn’t go another night without a way to escape, should it come to that. I would be back before he found me gone, or I would withstand his shouts. I would withstand his shocks, if he gave them. I wouldn’t let him keep me prisoner.

  There was no one in the hall or in the courtyard—​not strange for the time of night, but strange for me. I was never out this late unless I was at Porti’s. The whole city was odd and sinister in the darkness, the streets lit only by widely spaced prezine lamps that shed little light. I saw two guardsmen but slipped out of their sight. Soon I was at the stables, which, for the first time in my experience, were locked. As a beast owner, though, I had a key. I prayed as I turned it that they hadn’t changed the lock to keep me out, but my key worked. Inside I went, plagued by the loud creak of the hinges and the crunching of my steps on the turf. I was lucky. No one else had thought to visit the stables for a midnight ride, and Hoof’s stall was far enough from the arena to be unaffected by any guard at the blast site.

  I slipped into Hoof’s stall to find her asleep standing up, snoring softly. How nice to be blissfully unaware of all that had gone on today.

  I patted her back gently as I slipped past her.

  “Nolan,” I whispered. There was no answer. “Nolan.” I kneeled down where I had last seen him and put out my hand. It touched bare skin. I nearly shrieked with surprise—​I had expected a shirt—​but I stopped myself and touched his back again. “Nolan!”

  He stirred.

  “Wake up,” I said, shaking him.

  “Myra!” he whispered, suddenly wide awake. “What are you doing here? What if someone sees you?”

  “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” I said. “I can’t be seen, and yet I can’t not be seen.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s your problem.”

  “So you must teach me how to flicker,” I said.

  He popped into view. It was so dark that I couldn’t see the expression on his face, only his bare chest, wide and muscular, and his dark trousers against the light-colored hay.

  “I think that’s a good idea, Myra,” he said. “Those men aren’t going to give up. You’re one of us—​it’s not such a bad thing.”

  “I’m what I am,” I said. “A citizen and a mongrel, not one of anyone.”

  “Myra—”

  “No, never mind that,” I said. “No self-pity tonight. I just want to learn how to protect myself.”

  He sat up. “Yes. All right.” He patted around the hay pile and found his raggedy once-white shirt. “You can take your clothes with you,” he said. “Anything that’s touching enough skin. So you can’t bring a building or a chair or something, but you can take a wallet or a teapot or a feline.”

  “A whole cat?” I asked, shocked.

  “Sure,” he said, buttoning his shirt, “long as you carry it inside your blouse.”

  I stared at him, unsure what he meant by that, but his expression was matter-of-fact.

  “You don’t know anything about yourself at all, do you?”

  “I did until they took my mother,” I said.

  “It didn’t bother you when they tried to take me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But you weren’t like me.” We sat in silence, both hearing what I hadn’t said. He was a worker; I was privileged. He was a Leftie; I had been living as a Plat.

  He stood up. “You have a lot to catch up on, then.” There was a coldness in his voice, and my heart dropped. I knew now that I had been wrong, but to say so would be hollow, and would be wasting time I didn’t have.

  “We should go out to the arena,” he said. “It can be unsettling, especially if you learn as an adult. You might wake your beast, and who knows, the whole place could be a din of moos.”

  “All right,” I said. I wondered what he meant by unsettling, but it didn’t matter now. I hadn’t given up riding because
people were thrown—​Hoof had thrown me many times over the years. I didn’t give up on calculus because limits made me dizzy, and I wouldn’t give up now. The only thing that gave me pause as we climbed over the locked arena fence—​right over a brand-new set of sensors that made me shiver but that Nolan didn’t react to—​was the thought of my mother, who had told me never to do this, who had not done it even to escape. But she had also taught me to take care of myself. Surely she wouldn’t want to see me hurt because I had failed to learn.

  Lost in thought, I nearly bumped into Nolan when he stopped suddenly.

  “This is where the stone throw is held,” he said. Sure enough, I recognized the spot where he was standing—​a raised patch of short grass. I had watched his throw last year, when things were so different, when I had been stewing over my second-place ribbon. I was about to open my mouth to say that he had deserved the first-place ribbon—​any fool could have seen that—​but he turned to face me.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said.

  “I never thought you did,” I replied. “I may not know you well, but I don’t see a monster.”

  “They’ve done it,” he whispered, his voice hard and ragged. “So they can blame it on a Flickerkin and occupy the Left Eye. So they can force our labor and take our prezine. So they can be free of looking at our pale skin. So they can win all the stone throws and feel strong!”

  I presumed that by “they” he meant the Council and the Deputy. I didn’t believe they had done it—​I couldn’t believe they would kill Orphos, the son of a Council Member, and put the Deputy’s own son in danger. But I saw that Nolan was not rational on this point, and I had no other theories to offer. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would do such a thing.

  “I hope whoever did it is brought to Judgment,” I said.

  He turned away from me, as if collecting himself, then turned back. “All right. The first thing you must do is block out the rest of the world. You must be able to concentrate on yourself—​as if you are the only thing existing in the entire Upland.”