Flicker and Mist

by Mary G. Thompson

  “Don’t worry, I’ll mind my dirty Leftie paws.” He made a show of wiping his hands on the sides of his pants.

  “I don’t think he’s dirty just because he sleeps in a beast stall,” I said. “Beasts are very clean creatures compared to humans.”

  There was something I needed to ask Nolan. If he hadn’t placed the explosive, then who had? Was the murderer in my grandmother’s group? Had they helped him? The thought cut through my giddiness and nearly brought me back to earth. I put my hands on Hoof’s back, and her calm breathing steadied me. I was not ready to ask that question.

  “Boost me, will you?” I said, keeping my voice light. “Someone has stolen my stepladder. A muck-eating, filthy Plat, I believe.”

  Nolan laughed, presenting clasped hands for my boot. “But who will boost me?”

  “A man so strong needs no boost,” I said. I landed hard on Hoof’s back and grasped her neck. I was not back to myself after all. “There we go. There we go.”

  Nolan clambered on behind me.

  “That’s the clumsiest mount I’ve ever seen!” I said.

  “Myra, you must be quiet,” he whispered. “Hoof is escaping of her own will, recall? Do you need a minute of visibility to steady yourself?”

  “Of course not,” I whispered. “I must get used to this state. ​I must learn to control it, mustn’t I? You know, I flickered in front of Porti and Caster—​let’s go, Hoof.” We left the stall, entered the passage, and headed for the practice arena.

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell about you.”

  “Myra, you aren’t safe there.”

  “Nonsense.” We entered the practice arena, and I paced Hoof at a slow warm-up speed walk. “Well, my mother says so, of course. She says they’ll never accept me if there’s a war. She thinks there’s going to be another war. Do you think so?” I suddenly felt Nolan’s arms around my waist. They must have been there all along, ever since he’d mounted the beast. They were strong arms, warm. And they were around me, which Caster’s were not. I pushed the thought back.

  “Maybe there should be,” he said. “Head for the door.” He pointed to the small gate in the practice arena, the one that led outside the city walls and into the network of training trails. “I don’t know anymore,” he continued. “First the Council taxed us triple what they took from Plats. Our shop was the best in the city, yet we barely survived. They tested us, and we tortured ourselves. Then they put us through torture we couldn’t endure, and now I’m sleeping in a beast stall. What more can we let them take?”

  I hadn’t known that Nolan’s family was barely surviving. I hadn’t thought about what the taxes meant. “But war, Nolan. That means death.”

  “Stop,” said Nolan.

  We were at the gate that led outside the arena now. I was about to let Hoof push the door open with her horns, as I normally would, but I stopped her.

  “Not invisible,” he said. “The sensors are thick outside that door. We must flicker in until we pass them.”

  “Visible,” I whispered. “Visible blood.” Pinpricks rushed through me. At once I felt exposed, naked in the open air.

  Hoof, as if feeling what I felt—​and probably actually feeling it, we were so aligned—​pushed the door with her horns. It opened outward without any kind of key; one was needed to get back in.

  Nolan jumped off Hoof’s back and placed a rock at the bottom of the door so that it didn’t close all the way. It was a smart move. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. The invisibility was still muddling my brain. Nolan’s hair was long, falling in his eyes, and his shirt had been torn in the back. He climbed on again, just as clumsily as before. This time, when he wrapped his arms around my waist, I had no trouble feeling them. His chest was hot against my back. I hadn’t even realized I was cold.

  “Myra, flicker!” he whispered.

  I flickered out in an instant, the pinpricks coming when I called them. Green beams spread across my vision. They were all over the front of the door, and only when I looked very carefully could I see the tiny protrusions of the mechanisms that controlled them. They were the smallest sensors I had yet seen, easy to miss.

  “Now get us out of the open before someone sees and comes after the errant beast.”

  We rode toward the trees that began not far from the ocean’s edge and covered the sloping landscape away from the city. The forest went for miles, until the trees receded into the plains of the Neck, where most of the Upland’s food grew. But among the trees, riders had cut paths, and it was along one of these that I took us, going faster than the simple walk now. It was a little odd to have the extra weight of Nolan with me, but at the same time, it was nice. It gave us a substance I was not sure I had.

  “Myra, we need to go south,” he said.

  “What, toward Heart’s End? Have you seen the ocean? It’s going to sweep us away, isn’t it? All this gone. Never mind whether the Deputy kills our parents, because the Waters will do it.” I sped Hoof faster.

  “Yes, I’ve seen it. Breathe, Myra. You’re acting drunk again.”

  “Yes, I am, aren’t I? Is that why I don’t care about the dip and the End and the water and the Waters? What’s the difference, anyway? Is there one? When we drink water, are we ingesting the gods? Don’t you find that a bit rude?”

  “They say our bodies are water and Waters both,” he said. “They’re all around us.”

  “Shall we go to the End then, throw ourselves on their mercy? Let them sweep us away now?” I took a turn in the path, one that led downward, toward Heart’s End. We would come out of the trees to the west of where we’d had the funeral. I could feel the sea breeze already.

  “No one is getting swept away tonight,” he said. “This is where your mother wants me to take you.”

  “My mother wishes me to run,” I said, patting Hoof on the head. “She wishes me to banish myself. To be a Leftie, like you say. I heard there’s a lot of mist in the Eye. Is mist holier than non-mist? I suppose it’s more water.”

  “There’s a difference of opinion,” Nolan said. “My father says it’s holier there.”

  “Your father speaks?” I asked. “That man doesn’t speak. He nods.” I laughed. This was incredibly funny. I couldn’t stop picturing Mr. Drachman nodding, nodding, nodding, holding a pin and nodding at me.

  Nolan gave a small laugh, behind me and far away. “He speaks when he has something to say.”

  Suddenly, I flickered in. There was almost an audible pop. The colors in the woods seemed to change. I forgot for a second where I was. I couldn’t see the arms around me. Instinctively, I tried to throw them off.

  “Myra, it’s all right,” Nolan said, holding me tighter.

  “Nolan?” I recalled seeing him, his ghost anyway, as I first walked into the stall. The rest was blurring as I tried to remember. “Hoofy? What’s going on?”

  “You were affected by the flicker,” Nolan said. “You would be drunk one minute and all right the next. But you had several good minutes. Things are improving.”

  I didn’t feel improved. I felt as if I had been knocked over the head with something large and heavy. The night was very cold. I should have brought a coat if I was going to leave the city after dark. I was perfectly visible when I forgot to do that.

  “You must get used to it,” Nolan said. “Soon it won’t affect you this way.”

  We were at the edge of the forest. The trees were thinning, giving way to grasses. The salt air blew in. The wind was not as strong as it had been earlier, but still it pushed my hair back, blew it out of its ponytail and around my face.

  “There may be guardsmen out,” he said. “You must flicker again.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Of course you can. I’ll be here.” Almost imperceptibly, he pulled me closer. I wished Caster were here to pull me closer. Only he wouldn’t, I remembered. He wouldn’t touch me, ever since . . .

  “I wish I had never learned to flicker,” I said.
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  “Don’t say that.” He spoke into my ear. “It’s part of who you are. Your parents took that away from you. You just need to practice.”

  No matter how I felt, I needed to flicker again, to hide in case anyone else was around. “I wish I could take Hoof with us,” I said. The whole adventure seemed so foolish that I wondered why Nolan had agreed to it. He would have been safer staying in Hoof’s stall and leaving me to find my grandmother alone. Why should someone like him help someone like me?

  “Myra, if I tell you something, will you swear secrecy?” he asked.

  “I’m the best at keeping secrets,” I said. “Of course.”

  “It is possible to make a beast invisible, in theory.”

  “What? But you said I could only take a cat.” My mind turned to our battle-of-the-sexes race, to the supposed invisible rider. Even the Deputy hadn’t seemed to believe that he was real—​but that was before Orphos.

  “Just like we interbred with the Flicker Men, the Upland beasts bred with the beasts from beyond the oceans,” Nolan said. “The Flicker Men brought many animals with them.”

  I found myself speechless. What could the world of the Flicker Men be like?

  “But they don’t flicker on their own—​they’re said to require a human companion,” Nolan continued. “What we know is more rumor than fact.”

  I thought of Porti’s father, the beast rancher. Could he make a wetbeast flicker? Goose bumps sprouted down my neck. No, it couldn’t have been Porti’s father. The man she believed in could not be a murderer.

  “What do you say, Hoof?” I asked. “Shall we find out if the rumors are true?” My control was returning to me. I wanted to try now. I could hang on to my senses this time, I was sure.

  “Perhaps you should lie over her head, like when you race,” he said. “As close as you can.”

  “And you as close to me,” I said, poking his chest with my elbow.

  “I know the lady has a boyfriend,” he said.

  “No,” I admitted. “I think he’s scared of me now that he knows.”

  “Ah, he isn’t so unlike his father.”

  “He’s nothing like his father,” I snapped. “He’s kept my secret.”

  “I’m sorry. Never mind that, Myra. Shall we try?” The whole time, his arms had remained around me. I had had many opportunities to shake them off, but I hadn’t done so. I wasn’t being fair to Caster, perhaps. He had had only one day to get used to the idea.

  “All right, Hoofy,” I said. I leaned over her head and wrapped my arms around her neck.

  Nolan laid his head on my back, his arms still solidly around me.

  Pinpricks raced through me. Faster. Prickly. And we were all ghosts, Hoof, Nolan, and I.

  “By the Waters, Hoof. May they hear me, Nolan. By the Waters.” I couldn’t believe it. Hoof was invisible. I giggled.

  Hoof mooed softly.

  “Myra, you did it!” Nolan was practically jumping behind me.

  “Are you surprised?” I found myself puffing with pride. I was at least the second best rider in the Upland, after all.

  “No, but Myra—​by the Waters—​I wasn’t even sure it was true. My father can tell a story when you get him going.”

  “I would like to see that,” I said.

  “Perhaps you will someday,” he said. “When this is all over.” He gave a laugh that was perilously close to a giggle. “Myra, you’re amazing.” He patted Hoof’s rump. “You too, Hoof.”

  Hoof didn’t seem bothered by the change in state. I could feel her beneath me as before, her heat, her muscle, and her heartbeat. She was steady as ever, much steadier than I was. But I was feeling a little better. I was still a bit giddy, yes, but that was as much from this turn of events as from my state of being.

  “Head for those tents, Myra, can you see them?” Nolan pointed a ghostly finger.

  “Tents?” I looked where he pointed. Past the end of the tree line, where the grasses began to turn to sand, only a few yards from the cliff’s edge, sat three large, ghostly tents—​tents that had not been visible a minute before.

  Twenty-One

  “CLOTHMAKER,” I WHISPERED. “YOU MADE THOSE TENTS.”

  “Mostly my parents,” he said.

  “But how? I thought it took life’s blood—​that’s what we learned in school.” Horror filled me as I recalled what we had learned about the Flicker Men’s invisible ships. Anything not living that flickered was said to be infused with blood.

  “There’s no human sacrifice involved, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Nolan said. “Plats made that up to spread hate.”

  I stared at the tents. They were not supposed to be possible, yet to Nolan they were nothing new. Out there was the edge of a world I didn’t understand. I felt sober now, a cold return to reality. A dull headache pounded through my skull. I had one more question. I didn’t want to face the answer, but I could no longer wait to ask it.

  “Nolan, tell me the truth,” I said.

  Hoof pawed the ground. She didn’t like standing still.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Is the murderer hiding there? Do you know him?”

  “No,” said Nolan. “We don’t want to hurt anyone. We don’t want Plats to fear us. We want them to see that we aren’t a danger to them, that we can live with them and have our shops and our families.”

  “I want to believe you,” I said. And I did. I wanted to believe that neither Nolan nor my mother nor my grandmother nor anyone in the Upland could be capable of murdering an innocent boy, capable of trying to murder someone as good as Caster just because of who his father was. But if these people were truly honest, and we had nothing to fear from them, then why did they hide? Why did they not come to the gate and protest, as my mother had said they would? They would not need to reveal themselves as Flickerkin to demonstrate on behalf of all Lefties.

  “If you ride forward, Myra, you’ll see what kind of people we are. You’ll see that we aren’t what the Deputy claims.”

  “I know that,” I said. Of course Flickerkin should be allowed outside the Eye; we were not all dangerous. We lived our lives just like anyone else.

  We? I shook my head. I should not identify with these people, even if we shared the Ability. But I rode forward. It made no sense to turn back, to give up on this quest that I’d already risked leaving the city for. I owed it to my mother to at least see what this other world was like.

  As we left the cover of the trees, it was as if we entered a swirling storm. Sand whirled around my feet. The tops of the tents bent in the wind. My ponytail flapped in my face. And the moon hung above the ocean. Water crashed against the cliffs. I couldn’t see the waves hitting from this far back; the water wasn’t quite high enough for that. But I could see them falling back into the ocean.

  Hoof mooed.

  “I know,” I said. I had thought I would never see the oceans like this, at least not until I was an old lady. But the Waters returned when they willed it—​to reward or to punish or simply to join their creations for a moment, nobody knew. Even the Deputy, who was supposed to speak to them, had never claimed to know why they were rising.

  We rode up to the tents, and I dismounted. Nolan came after me clumsily, landing hard in the sandy grass. Hoof nudged him with a horn.

  “Sorry, girl,” he whispered.

  Sand whipped into my face, and ocean spray covered me. The tents were looking more and more attractive—​anything to get out of this weather.

  An insubstantial figure peeked through the tent flap. I couldn’t tell much about the person except that he or she was shorter than I was.

  “Pinwin, ponton Myra,” said Nolan.

  The figure, my grandmother, stepped outside the tent. The edges of her body seemed less than solid; they flitted this way and that in the wind. I was sure my body was not doing that, and neither was Nolan’s.

  “Lopa tartar,” she whispered. “Lopa tartar.” She flitted back through the tent flap. I had no idea what sh
e had said.

  “ ‘Come inside,’ ” Nolan translated.

  “Doesn’t she speak our language?” I asked.

  Nolan stared at me. “Yes, she speaks Plat,” he said. “But we’re all Lefties.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve never been among Lefties. I didn’t think.”

  Nolan turned away and patted Hoof’s hide. “Don’t worry about her. I’ll keep her company.”

  “Stay, Hoof,” I said, rubbing her head. I knew I had offended Nolan, but I didn’t have time to fix it now. “She’s still invisible. Will she stay that way?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, still looking away from me. “If there’s a problem, I’ll call you.”

  I didn’t like to leave Hoof with Nolan, who probably couldn’t restrain her should she take it in her mind to run, but there was nothing to be done. She couldn’t have fit inside the tent.

  I pushed my way in. The woman stood next to a pile of blankets, baskets of food, and a bag that might have held clothes or other supplies. It was all perfectly visible, shielded somehow by the cloth Nolan had admitted he’d helped make. A small prezine-powered lamp in the center of the tent gave off just enough light to see by.

  Pinwin flickered in. She looked younger than I’d imagined. Her hair was part white-blond, part white, as curly as my mother’s. Her eyes were light gray-blue, the same as my mother’s and Nolan’s and those of many Lefties. She was thin, though, without the curves my mother and I had. If you had looked only at her body, you might have seen a short Plat.

  “I supposed you’re more comfortable this way,” she said. Her speech was heavily accented, much more than my mother’s. I had to concentrate to understand the words.

  I flickered in. Somehow, being visible made me colder. And it made my headache stronger. I wasn’t sure how to reply. This was not what I had expected. Perhaps I had thought she would run forward to hug me, or pinch my cheeks, or tell me how much I’d grown, as one expected grandmothers to do.

  “So you’re my grandmother,” I said.

  “Mommanan. Ti.” She held her hands together, as if she didn’t know what to do with them.