Flicker and Mist

by Mary G. Thompson

  Another Flickerkin came at us. This one I recognized. Perhaps I would recognize him anywhere now. What we had shared meant that I could see him as I could see no one else. He raced for Member Solis’s back.

  “Nolan, no!”

  He stabbed her, right between the shoulder blades. Her eyes met mine as she fell. I could feel her gaze searching and see her confusion. Who was I? Who was this man Porti had saved? Who had stabbed her? It all ran through her eyes until she reached the ground, and her head fell forward, and she lay still.

  “You’ve killed her!” I cried.

  “Myra, she would have killed you,” he said.

  “I took her sensor,” I said. “I took it. She had no weapon!”

  “Father, Father,” Porti was saying, over and over. He was on the ground now, alive but visible, his breathing heavy.

  Nolan and I ran to them. I hated depending on him, but he could help Porti’s father. “Porti, Nolan’s here. We’re going to take him to safety.” I put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Not without me,” she said. She gripped my hand. “Myra, I must go with him.”

  “You’ll be seen,” I said. “You’ll give away his position.”

  “I can’t leave him like this,” she said, tears pouring.

  “We can take her,” Nolan said. “And the beast. We have cloth back at the camp.”

  No, I thought. She can’t leave me. But I rejected my selfish thought. “All right—​Porti, step back,” I said. Nolan took her father’s shoulders and I his feet, and with Porti’s help, we hoisted him on top of Nice Boy.

  Porti leaped on in front. “Thank you,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  I reached out a hand to her, and she grasped it. There was so much I needed to tell her, so many ways to say thank you for everything she had done, but no time to say any of it.

  “I’ll find you,” I said.

  She nodded and let go of my hand.

  “Follow me!” Nolan cried. He pulled a dagger from his jacket and let it hang visible so she could see him, and then he ran along the cliff’s edge, toward where the Flickerkin were now encamped.

  Twenty-Eight

  NO, NO, NO. I COULDN’T LOSE PORTI. BUT I COULDN’T follow her and leave my parents and Caster behind. Member Solis’s body lay face-down near the cliff’s edge. Even she didn’t deserve this. Her crime was hatred, not murder.

  A wave crashed over the edge of the cliff, covering her.

  I jumped back. How could the waves have risen this high since Orphos’s funeral? Another wave crashed and took Member Solis’s body with it as it receded. For a few seconds, I could only stare. We had made the Waters angry, and now they would envelop us.

  Hoof nudged me with a horn.

  More waves crashed over the cliff’s edge. But I didn’t care if the Waters were angry. They would not take my parents. They would not take Caster. They wouldn’t take anyone else if I could help it.

  I had to get my parents out. “All right, Hoof,” I said. “Get ready.” I stepped back into the puddles left by the waves and took a flying leap onto Hoof’s back.

  “Poppa!” I cried. “Where are you? Poppa!”

  An arm became visible. He had tossed off a piece of the cloth so I could find him.

  “Poppa!” I rode to him.

  A visible guard grabbed him around the waist.

  “Let go!” I called. At that moment, I saw a ghostly figure behind the guardsman raising a dagger. “Behind you!” I cried. The guardsman turned and grabbed the attacker. He still had one arm around my father, but my father broke free and ran toward me.

  “Get on!” I reached down a hand.

  My father was not an expert rider, but he had ridden beasts before. As he climbed on, the cloth covering him slipped, and his head came into view. It hung in the air, disembodied, until he managed to pull the cloth back.

  Suddenly I realized that Brach had to be here somewhere, and he wished to kill Caster. Caster was waving a kitchen knife around wildly. Monster’s hooves were in water, getting splashed by each wave. And my mother was here as well, likely on Brach’s side.

  I didn’t want to believe that, but I had to. She had nodded when Brach asked to talk to me. Like the rest of them, she didn’t wish to give me a choice. When she was safe, I would disown her.

  “Momma! Momman! Poppa, where is she?”

  I saw the green sensor beam too late. I didn’t see who sent it. It hit Hoof in a thin strip from her rump all the way to her shoulder. She screamed and bucked. I clung to her. My father clung to me.

  The sensor beam cut again. It hit my father’s arm, which shielded me. It didn’t hurt him, but it cut a visible strip in the cloth, making us an easy target for sensors. Did my mother not hear me calling? Did she care more for killing Plats than for our family?

  I pulled Hoof around. She was still jumpy, mooing in pain.

  “Rhonda!” my father cried. “Rhondalynn!” He reached out a hand, and a shimmering outline took it. It must have been my mother, as she truly was.

  I leaped off Hoof. “Momma, get on!”

  My father pulled her up. She was still a blank, ghostly figure.

  “Come, Myra,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “Caster—” As I said his name, I heard him shout. A Flickerkin twisted the knife from his hand. He tottered at the cliff’s edge, about to be enveloped by an angry wave.

  I raced toward him. I pushed aside a Flickerkin woman. She might have been my grandmother. I didn’t care.

  The Deputy was fighting for his life. He looked over at Caster just as the invisible man pushed Caster into the roiling water.

  “No!” I leaped for him, landing at the edge of the cliff. A wave swirled around me, pushing me back. No, he doesn’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. Do not judge us, I prayed. I had doubted the Waters many times in recent weeks, but they couldn’t be this cruel to us. We were good people. We wanted only to live peacefully and do what was right. We wanted only to love each other. That was not wrong. We were not wrong.

  Hands grabbed the front of my jacket. “He’s gone,” said a male voice. Brach’s voice.

  I squirmed and kicked. “Let go of me!” I screamed. But he pushed me to the ground and held me down.

  “This is your last chance, Hailfast,” he said. His breath was sour on my face. His hands tightened on my arms. “Are you a Flickerkin or are you a Plat?”

  “I am a Plat!” I yelled, and I spat. I had never done such a thing in my life, but my mouth got the job done. The ball of spit landed between Brach’s eyes.

  He lifted a hand to hit me, a blow surely meant to end my miserable halfsie life, but I was faster. I thrust upward with the dagger. It hit in the same place Caster’s blow had landed before. He screamed, still holding me down with one hand. I twisted the blade. He released me, and he flickered in. He fell on top of me, struggling to lift himself.

  I pushed him off, and he rolled onto his back. His face was bruised and bloody; he had been hit by many blows. I still held the dagger. I could have finished him with a single thrust, but he was still human. I didn’t want to kill anyone.

  The Deputy was beside me, looking down at Brach. “You tried to kill my son,” he said.

  “I have killed your son,” said Brach.

  The Deputy reached down and lifted Brach up, holding the man against his body. Blood soaked from Brach’s midsection into the Deputy’s fancy black overcoat.

  “Let the Waters judge you,” the Deputy said. He stepped to the edge of the cliff and pushed Brach into the water.

  A wave crashed into us. Even though the Deputy couldn’t see me, he grabbed me and pulled me by my jacket away from the cliff’s edge.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  The Deputy didn’t answer. He wrapped an arm around me and held me close, his grip strong and tight.

  “He can swim,” I said. “He’s an expert at the moat obstacle.” But the ocean was roiling. No one could survive out there for long, whether or not he could swim, whether or
not he was judged worthy. My renewed faith in the Waters faded. Without help, Caster would drown along with Brach.

  “Let me go,” I said. “I can save him.”

  “You will be pulled under,” the Deputy said, still holding me.

  “I won’t,” I said. I would use my Ability. This was what it was good for.

  “Myra, no,” he said. “You’re only human.”

  “I’m human,” I said, “but I’m also something else. I can save him.” I flickered in. I twisted around in his arms. “You knew about me all along. You needed me then, and you need me now.”

  “I need you to live,” he said. “Some of our children have to live.”

  I flickered and then pushed beyond. I broke into a thousand pieces, slipped from the Deputy’s arms, and rose into the air. He grasped for me, grasped through me.

  “Myra!” he shouted.

  I’m sorry, I thought. But I had lost the power of speech. He ran toward the water, grasping as if I were still solid and within his reach, and a wave washed over him. He shook it off, drenched. “Caster!” he shouted.

  I was growing bigger. I saw not only what was directly in front of me, but everything at once. There were solid people, Plats and wounded Flickerkin. And ghostly people who now took on clearer shapes.

  Hoof was farther away than the wounded people, my father still on her back. She mooed loudly. My mother was no longer with them, but where was she? I even saw beyond Hoof, down the cliff’s edge to where Nolan and Porti and her father had gone. There were a few Flickerkin down there, and Nice Boy, covered in cloth. Someone was tending Porti’s father. Porti was crying, holding on to her father’s hand.

  Member Solis’s body floated atop a wave. The Deputy cried out and reached toward it. But where was Caster? I rose higher, pushed myself out over the ocean. Focus, Myra, I told myself. I had to control my vision, find Caster in the waves. He was a strong enough swimmer to have survived this long. He had to be. I propelled myself above the waves, sending my strange long vision over the water, searching. There! A hand, and then a head. Caster spat water, flailing to stay afloat. I flew to him.

  He went under, then surfaced again. Without arms, I couldn’t grab him. Nor could I just float above him and watch him die. Pinwin had somehow become half solid, so there was a way. I pushed back against the flicker and stopped the mist. One arm became solid, then the other. But I remained invisible.

  I grabbed one of Caster’s hands.

  He looked up.

  Caster. I had to make him understand that it was me.

  He grabbed my other hand.

  I pulled, but I had no strength. I was floating against nothing. I was arms with no leverage. The waves pulled him under again.

  I flickered in and dropped like a stone into the water, still holding his hands. I kicked with my feet. A wave crashed over me. This was nothing like swimming in the calm moat. The water seemed to be attacking me from all sides.

  Caster clung to me, shaking his head. He tried to speak, but another wave caught us. I flickered without meaning to, then tried to lift my body again, but I wasn’t misting. I was invisible, but solid and heavy and vulnerable as before. We were both going to die here. We would find out if there was another plateau beyond this one, with oceans that rose and fell on expected tides. We would find out if Plats and Lefties could be together.

  Hands grasped my arms and pulled me up. I could see nothing but a blur and had no idea how they had the strength. I held on to Caster. The misting people, whoever they were, would have to save both of us. We rose above the water. Caster coughed up water, still clinging to me.

  I wrapped my arms around his chest. Misting people surrounded us. We flew back to shore, over the Deputy, who stood shouting at us.

  The fighting was over. Orphos’s father was on his knees, Gregor’s father helping him. Another Council Member appeared to be dead. I spotted three dead Flickerkin, their pale faces covered in ocean spray. My new cousin Terta was among them, but my mother wasn’t. Perhaps she was among those holding me now.

  The misting people dropped us on top of Hoof. Caster listed to the side, but I caught him before he fell. My father was in front of me on Hoof’s back. He twisted around and grabbed me, and the three of us teetered there.

  The misting people sank to the ground and regained their human shapes. I recognized Nolan. The other two were women.

  “Momman? Mommanan?” I asked.

  “Drop the boy and head for the others,” my mother said. She pointed far off, toward Porti and her father.

  “No, I’m not leaving him,” I said.

  “Myra,” Caster said, coughing, “leave me. They’ve all seen you.”

  “You used the triggering rod on me again,” I said to Nolan. “I told you not to do that. I should have turned from you the first time, exposed you to the Guard that moment.”

  Two guardsmen were approaching us. I saw a few others, but at least three of the ten were missing. Had they been taken by the Waters? Had my so-called kin killed them? The two guardsmen held sensors, but the beams weren’t on. The Deputy hobbled behind them, blood streaming from an injured leg.

  “Myra.” Nolan grabbed my arm, and I broke to pieces. I fought the misting, but I saw myself through his eyes. I saw myself turning with my hand to my neck at the moment when I told Hoof I had been stung by bees. I felt us running from the courtyard with Brach in pursuit, my hand in Nolan’s, our hearts beating, our faces close as we hid, as he urged me to flicker. And when he let my hand go, left me to go back to my life, I felt how he felt, I felt the emptiness, the unfairness, the anger.

  I thrust myself into solidity but remained invisible. I hated to be like him, but I wanted to be able to see everyone.

  Hoof mooed and reared. In the distance, Monster mooed back.

  Caster laughed, a loud, desperate sound. I felt the same wild relief. Monster was alive. He would help us get through this. Then there was another moo—​Nice Boy, calling from far away—​and then another. It was not the sound of a workbeast, the kind that would draw a carriage, but that of a purebred. Was it Brach’s beast, the one that had spooked us on the practice day that seemed so long ago? It mooed again, a long, heart-wrenching wail. The beast somehow knew its rider was dead. At the thought, tears sprang to my eyes. But Nolan must have known about this beast all along. He had pretended ignorance about so many things. They all had.

  “Myra, we must go now,” said my mother. “You aren’t safe here. We have done all this to keep you safe.” I was sure she believed it. She had lived her life in fear of being discovered and didn’t believe there could be another way. But I was no child. I knew right from wrong, and their way was as wrong as the Deputy’s.

  “Lopa,” my grandmother said. Come.

  Caster let go of me.

  “No.” I grabbed his arm. “Poppa, you must decide. I wish to stay and work for peace, for a world where Plats and Lefties and Flickerkin can live together. Where there will be no more fights and no more death. You understand this. You can help. Stay here with me.”

  It was a terrible thing for me to ask. It was a terrible thing the Flickerkin had asked of me. I didn’t want them all to be caught; I wanted them to be safe. But I couldn’t be with them. They had tried to take away my choice.

  The Deputy’s guardsmen raised their sensors.

  “Leave now,” said the Deputy. He pointed at the invisible Flickerkin, and his finger led straight to my mother’s nose. “You have saved my son, so I’ll give you one minute before they fire.”

  “I’m staying,” I said. My father looked at my mother, but in her invisibility, she couldn’t return his gaze. If he stayed with me, he would be breaking with her. All these years of defying custom and even the Waters to be together would end now.

  “I gave you my word,” said the Deputy. “Donray, if you had no part in this, you too will be safe.”

  Nolan lunged for the Deputy.

  “Watch out!” I cried.

  The Deputy raised his arms.r />
  Caster leaped from Hoof’s back and landed on top of Nolan.

  The guardsmen shot sensor beams that hit Caster harmlessly.

  Caster and Nolan wrestled, but Caster didn’t have a chance against someone who was stronger, who hadn’t been in the ocean drowning.

  “Nolan, leave!” I shouted. “I will point you out to them. I will ride over you. I will trample you with these hooves. I will kill you!”

  Nolan pushed Caster away and came toward me.

  I pulled Hoof around.

  Nolan stopped. I could almost see his eyes in the flicker, asking me one last time to forgive him and come, to forget everything he had done.

  “You were with Brach!” I cried. “You helped kill Orphos!”

  “We fight for our lives!” he shouted back. “Our families, our kin.”

  “You are as bad as they are!” Tears rolled down my cheeks. I should have seen it from the beginning. It must have been him in that room at Porti’s party, terrorizing children to begin the panic, turning the city against all who were like us.

  “We aren’t the enemy,” he said. “You’ll see that.” He reached out a hand. Did he really believe I would take it after all this?

  “I will kill you!” I shouted.

  He took one last look at me, and then he ran. My mother and my grandmother had become mist. My mother hovered next to Hoof, a tendril of mist reaching for my father’s hand.

  “I’m sorry, Rhonda,” my father said. “We need peace.” He put an arm around me. “Myra and I will work for that.”

  Another tendril reached out from the mist and touched my face. Tears spilled from my eyes, but I said nothing. I had nothing to say to her but angry words, and I didn’t want to say them if she was leaving us.

  Her mist rose up into the air and floated along the cliff’s edge toward the others. My grandmother went with her. She had not even tried to say goodbye.

  “Father!” Caster cried. As I turned to watch, the Deputy collapsed in Caster’s arms.

  “I’m all right,” he said. But he couldn’t stand under his own power. Caster gently lowered him to the ground. For the first time, I saw that he was bleeding from his side as well as his leg.