Flicker and Mist

by Mary G. Thompson

  “Not for him,” I said. “But for my parents. They will want me to go with them.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I want for all of us to stay in the city,” I said. “But that can’t happen.”

  “You can stay here,” he said. “My father will keep his word. He may walk ass first, but he keeps a bargain. You will have your place at University. Surely your parents would want that for you.”

  “What you say sounds so . . . normal,” I said. “Do you really think I can just have my life back? After my parents were threatened with execution and banished? And I was prevented from riding? And the citizens jeered Porti when she defended me?”

  “They cheer you now,” he said. “You’re the lady who saved the Deputy’s son. By the way, I haven’t properly thanked you.” He drew me into a kiss.

  I wiped a tear away. “Is that all?” I asked, trying to smile. “A kiss for a life?”

  “I have more to offer,” he said. He kissed me again and lifted me clear off the ground. I wrapped my legs around him. He twirled me, and it was like I was flying, and I laughed. When he set me down, breathless, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to keep kissing him, and forget.

  “I should go,” he said. “You need your sleep for what comes tomorrow.”

  “Don’t,” I said. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him, and he leaned down to meet me. As good as it had been to have him lift me, it was also good to be on my own feet, to be solid and visible and with him as I truly was, with no more lies. I do not want to be invisible, I thought. I want him to see me. “Stay the night,” I said.

  “If my father finds out . . .” He trailed off, smiling.

  “There’s one more thing I have to tell you,” I said. “I lingered to eavesdrop on you and Porti. I heard her say that the Waters are spiteful. They take what you have before you know you have it. She’s right, Caster. She wouldn’t tell Orphos how she felt, and now he’s dead. I will never let that happen. I love you.” My face sprouted crimson. I hadn’t intended to say that.

  “I love you too,” he said. He pulled me into a hug. “The way you are. You should never have to hide it.”

  But I will, I thought. As long as I stay here. Not from him, though. Maybe that is enough.

  “Help me with these boots,” I said, sitting down on the bed. I couldn’t stop to think about the future. I wanted to have this time with Caster, whatever would come tomorrow. He kneeled to help me with my riding boots, and I took off my jacket. His eyes went to my bosom, and then he looked away. The tiniest of blushes sprouted on his darker cheeks.

  “I’m cold,” I said. “Let’s get under the covers.” Without waiting for an answer, I slipped under the blankets. It was indeed cold in the room, but I found myself sweating. Caster slid into the bed next to me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

  “There’s nothing better than body heat,” he said. He kissed me on the cheek. If Porti knew, she would be giggling, urging me to take full advantage of the situation. I put my hand over Caster’s. Having his arms wrapped around me was enough. With him, I felt more solid than I had ever felt before. For the first time since Nolan had triggered me to flicker, I felt as though I was safe in my own body. It would not betray me now, even if I were to suddenly flicker, because Caster knew all there was to know.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I said. I had never wanted to leave; I was only being pushed toward it. I wanted to have Caster as my boyfriend, to ride in the Games, to be a citizen, even to stuff myself into uncomfortable clothes and go to official events.

  “I won’t let anybody hurt you,” he said. “You’re safe here.”

  “We will have to get you some ladies’ boots,” I said.

  He laughed. “If I have to wear them every day, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  I closed my eyes and let myself feel his arms around me. If I could focus on this, then maybe I could get through what was coming. Perhaps the Waters would not be spiteful to us after all.

  By morning, news of Brach’s capture had leaked, and the Deputy was forced to go on the radio and address it.

  “No, we will not begin testing ordinary citizens,” the Deputy said, in response to Sky’s breathless question. “There is no reason to believe that this man is not a fluke, a sole abomination.”

  “Of course not,” I commented, wiggling into a proper ladies’ gown. “When it’s Plats who flicker, it’s different.”

  “What evidence supports that conclusion, Your Excellency?” Sky asked.

  “He is the only Plateau Person to flicker since the day the Flicker Men breached our shores,” said the Deputy. “The explosion at the Games and the attack on my son are proved by investigation to have been the work of a single man. In the early hours of the morning, the Council met, heard the evidence, and voted. Brach Petraguard will be judged by the Waters at twilight tonight. At the same time, we will meet with a delegation from the Left Eye and release the three Flickerkin and the harborer, Member Hailfast, into their custody. Member Hailfast has submitted his resignation this morning. The man responsible for the attacks will be punished, all Flickerkin will be removed from the city and sent back to their legal residence, and we can begin to move on from these tragic events.”

  “There is talk of continuing protests in the Eye, Your Excellency—”

  “Reports have been greatly exaggerated,” the Deputy interrupted. “Workers are asking for changes, and the Eye is asking for a greater share of the prezine. But there is enough prezine to go around, and I am confident that we will be able to work out an agreement. Anyone who provided Mr. Petraguard with prezine will be found and punished. There is nothing happening in the Eye that cannot be resolved by rational people working together.”

  Caster turned off the radio. “Where will he find these rational people, I wonder?”

  “If my mother were here, she would say that the Deputy speaks of rationality only to provide cover for future insanity,” I said, stuffing my left foot into a ladies’ boot. I hated to be cooped up this way again, but I didn’t expect to ride Hoof today. The Deputy had made it clear that I was to stay within sight of his guards. He no longer needed me as a secret ambassador and now required me to stay silent.

  Caster came up behind me and put his arms around me. “This day will pass,” he said. “Your parents will be free, and so will you. To go or stay as you like.” He kissed my cheek.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “But in case something terrible does happen, shouldn’t we make the most of the time we have?” He kissed my cheek, then my ear, then my neck.

  “We may be doomed,” I said.

  “The Waters may destroy the city,” he said, turning me around.

  “Perhaps the whole Upland,” I said, kissing him.

  “We’re all going to die.” He kissed me back, and I was forgetting it all again. We were so absorbed in each other that we didn’t hear the chanting until it was nearly below our window.

  “What’s that?” Caster asked. He went to the window and peered between the curtains. “By the Waters,” he said. “Look at this.”

  I went over and stood behind him.

  “Test all! Test all! Test all!” the crowd chanted. People were lined up in front of the Deputy’s building, holding quickly painted signs. They were mostly workers, ordinary Plats, but I recognized a few kids from school among them, a few parents with ties to the Council.

  The main door rattled. We heard the pounding even from my room.

  “Where is your father?” I asked.

  “The Council is probably meeting,” he said. “After he pushed the vote through, he’d have to answer to them.”

  “Answer how he came to this agreement with people they were unaware of?” I asked.

  Caster pulled me close. Our joke about everyone dying now seemed less funny.

  “Hello? Are you decent?” Porti’s attempt to joke didn’t sound very light either.

  “Come in,” I said.

  She came in. Her e
yes were red and swollen, as if she had been crying. She didn’t make any comment about my night with Caster. Her failure to give me even a wink was unnerving.

  “Test all! Test all!” the crowd chanted.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She sat down on the bed. “Yes.” She stared ahead at the wall.

  “Did something else happen?” I sat next to her.

  A guardsman pounded on the door. “Miss Hailfast, is Mr. Ripkin in there with you?”

  “Yes,” I called. “We’re all three in here.”

  “Don’t leave this room,” he said. “And don’t stand near the window.”

  “I’m fine,” Porti said.

  “You are not,” I said. “Has Member Solis done something?”

  “You mean besides informing me that I’m no longer welcome? Besides making her vote for the Deputy’s plan conditional on his expelling me from his home?”

  “What?” Caster exploded. “He has told you to leave?”

  “An hour ago,” she said. “I’m to ride tomorrow for the Head. And never to be admitted to University. I’m to shovel beast dung all my life.”

  “No,” Caster said. “He can’t do this.”

  A rock hit the window, shattering it. Glass flew into the room. A shard hit the back of Caster’s head. Instead of ducking, as a sensible person would have done, he turned and pressed his face close to the broken glass. “Stop it, you fools!” he shouted. “My father is not here. If you wish to protest, visit the Council!” He plucked the rock off the floor and threw it back. It caught the edge of the window’s hole as it flew, shattering more glass.

  “I love my beasts,” she said. “I do. I love my father. But I was to live here. I was to . . .” She gripped the folds of her skirt with one hand. “I was to be beautiful.”

  “Porti, you are beautiful,” I said.

  “I was to marry Orphos,” she said. “I wouldn’t kiss him, but I thought I would marry him.”

  “We’ll figure a way out of this,” I said. “We’ll find another place for you to stay.”

  “She has too much power,” Porti said.

  The chants outside suddenly stopped and devolved into shouts. I joined Caster at the broken window. Below us, guardsmen were pushing citizens away from the building, tearing signs out of their hands. There were more citizens than guards, but the people moved away, shouting back but not fighting—​not yet.

  “Test! Test! Test!” The chant resumed. But, as Caster had so helpfully suggested, the crowd headed toward the Council building.

  “Look on the bright side, Myra,” said Caster. “They no longer wish to torture only Lefties.”

  “Our city is tearing itself apart,” I said. “Because they fear people like me.”

  “Because they fear people like Brach,” said Caster, wrapping his arms around me. “Not you.”

  Porti watched us blankly.

  I pulled away from Caster. It didn’t seem right to be happy with her sitting there alone. “Porti, we will figure this out,” I said. “Member Solis is one woman. You have sacrificed your place for me, and I will make it right.” I didn’t know how I would do it; I had no power. But I had to say something.

  “I thought nothing of it,” she said. “I thought, I will do the right thing. But the right thing isn’t always the right thing, is it?”

  “Perhaps Member Solis is a Flickerkin too,” said Caster. “Brach was the Plat with the most hate, wasn’t he? Perhaps we should take the advice of the citizens and test her first.”

  “The right thing now is to protect yourself,” Porti said. “Take what you have and hold on to it. Because if you do not, the Waters will wash what you have out of your hands.” She stared at the window, but her eyes were unseeing. “My beast is not even my own. I will ride back on a workbeast. Member Solis will give Nice Boy to the next girl.”

  “I will buy her,” said Caster.

  At this, Porti burst into tears. “You will?”

  “Yes, I will,” Caster said. He pulled her into a hug. “No one will separate you.”

  “You haven’t left yet ,” I said. Then I had an idea. “Tonight, let’s go all out. Let’s wear our gowns for the winners’ ball. They’ll capture the entire execution on the photobox, won’t they? We’ll look as beautiful as we were meant to look. Everyone will see it.”

  “We’ll dance over that man’s body,” Porti said. She straightened a little.

  “A little gruesome,” Caster said.

  “I don’t celebrate anyone’s death,” I said. “But if this is our last night together, then we’ll do it in style. We’ll have a night to remember.”

  “No,” Porti said. “The winners’ ball was the place for that. What brought us together as friends on the day I rode into the city? What was the most important thing in the world to all of us before the world split apart?” She grasped my hands. “I know you feared me. You hated me at first because of this, but it will always be why you are like a sister to me. And, Caster, it is why you understand me, and why you welcomed me when the other children of the Council were unsure. It is why Orphos and I were meant to be and you are meant for each other.” She looked from Caster to me. “We will dress for a ride.”

  So while the citizens of New Heart City threw stones at the Council building, demanding that all citizens be tortured, and while the guardsmen prepared one of their own to be brought down to the ocean and tossed in, Porti and Caster and I donned outfits that the Drachmans had made for us, designed to withstand wind and water and sweat and movement. Porti and I tied our hair back and neglected to powder our faces or file our nails or don the much-joked-about ladies’ boots. Caster prevailed upon the guardsmen to escort us to the stables so we could retrieve our beasts, and we rode out to meet the Deputy’s carriage: Caster and Monster, Porti and Nice Boy, and Hoof and I. My parents were to be taken in another carriage by another route, and the killer, Brach, by yet another. We rode our own paths, but all of us would reach Heart’s End before the sun began its journey down.

  Twenty-Six

  THE CARRIAGE WITH MY PARENTS AND THE DRACHMANS had arrived first. It sat behind two hefty workbeasts, who mooed softly as they chomped on the tall grass. The photoboxes had also arrived—​five boxes and five operators. Citizens would see the events up close and with the eye of a participant. Sky stood to the rear of the carriage, fiddling with his radio equipment. So the citizens would hear sound from the execution also. A chill passed through me. But then, I thought, what sound would there be above the roar of the ocean? Even now, people had to shout to be heard.

  My parents stood together next to the carriage, their hands cuffed in front of them. Next to them were Nolan’s parents. His mother leaned against his father’s shoulder, her eyes closed. As we rode in, my father shouted my name. My mother only watched me. I had no idea what she had been told, or whether she would be happy about my role if she knew. But I guessed that because I had worked with the Deputy, she would be angry.

  I held up a hand to wave. I didn’t think I would be allowed to approach them until the transfer was done.

  I didn’t know where my grandmother and her Flickerkin were, and I didn’t like the feeling. I couldn’t see them because I was trapped in the limitations of a Plat. Hoof’s heartbeat flowed into mine; we were in perfect sync. It would take only a small push to send the blood flying outward, to cast both of us into that other state. And I missed it—​that feeling that had overwhelmed me and made me giggle or cry now seemed more natural in a way than sitting here on top of a visible beast. What would it be like to ride the course invisible? There was no way of being together like being as one in a great flicker.

  Hoof shook her head and mooed.

  “I know, Hoofy,” I said, patting her head.

  There was no way of being together . . . I hadn’t seen Nolan since he’d appeared in my bedroom, and after that I had been with Caster, who had finally accepted me the way I truly was. But we hadn’t seen inside each other. In her letter, my mother had
spoken of the beauty of our true selves, the wonder and the joy of changing from one state to another. I doubted that anyone who wasn’t a Flickerkin could understand what I’d shared with Nolan. And yet my mother loved my father. She had sacrificed a huge part of her life to be with him, a man with whom she would never share that.

  From our left, a carriage came around the edge of the city wall, surrounded by several guardsmen on beasts. The carriage stopped many yards from us, and a guardsman stepped out, followed by Brach, whose hands were bound in front of him with the thickest prezine cuffs I had ever seen. Brach was unshaven and walked carefully. As he emerged from the carriage, his eyes found me. It was as if he had been looking for me alone.

  Why? I wondered as I stared back at him. I might get some answers now, or he might simply fall into the ocean and sink, and his hate and his story would sink with him.

  Nice Boy reared up on her back hooves.

  “Steady,” Porti whispered. But the beast wouldn’t have reacted that way if she hadn’t felt what Porti felt. Monster also pawed the ground.

  I was glad it didn’t fall to us to bring justice: I didn’t want to be the one to do it. But I did want to see it. I hated death, but here was one person whose death would make me, if not happy, then satisfied. My mother’s dagger was inside my riding jacket. I had checked to make sure it wasn’t visible from the outside, but it took all my energy not to look down and double-check. I hoped to be able to return it to my mother, or if something went wrong, to give it to Caster. I didn’t want to have to use it.

  The guardsmen pushed Brach forward. He came slowly, standing straight and trying to hide the pain of his wound. His eyes stayed on me until the men pressed him toward the ocean.

  The Deputy emerged from his carriage, followed by Member Solis, Orphos’s father, Gregor’s father, and the woman and man who rounded out the Council. Since my father had only resigned early this morning, they probably hadn’t yet appointed an interim sixth member—​a member who would be taking my hereditary seat. The unfairness of it burned inside me.

  There were no spectators apart from the Council, Caster, Porti, and me. And, of course, the guardsmen, who surrounded Brach and my parents and flanked the Council Members. I counted ten of them. As Member Solis stepped out of the carriage, she glared at us. Perhaps she thought we weren’t supposed to be here. I glared back.