by Natale Ghent
“I don’t get it. Why are we in such a hurry?”
Francis snuffed through his moustache. “We’re going back to a unique place in time.”
“But … I’ve done that before,” Skylark said. “A bunch of times. It’s easy.” Her eyes widened when she realized she’d just given herself away.
Francis gave her the fisheye but let it ride. “Not like this. This is different. We have to make sure we don’t disturb the energetic imprint of the event so as not to alert anyone to our presence. The portals allow us to enter the moment unnoticed. But it’s very precise. If we’re late, or cause a ripple in the imprint, we miss the train—or derail it altogether.”
“I thought time was of no consequence here. Everything is simultaneous.”
“It is, sure. But things that happen on earth affect us here, and vice versa. If you change events, the consequence of those changes affects everything. That’s what the Speaker is depending on.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. He spun on his heels and tromped in the other direction.
“Time is simultaneous and unique, but never both at the same time,” he explained. “It depends on your perspective. What seems like forever here is just a heartbeat on earth. It’s like particle/wave duality, or the old woman and the lamp—it’s both, but you can only perceive one or the other at any given moment, never the two simultaneously, and points of contact can cause smears in the paint.”
Skylark puzzled over this. “Paint?”
“Just forget that,” Francis said.
More confusion. Skylark shook her head. “Okay, whatever. Why didn’t they just wait to make sure we were ready?”
Francis stopped pacing. “Once they get the intelligence, they have to line up the crosshairs for that point in time. If we wait, the information is corrupted and the bad guys will be all over us. As many of us as there are here, there are twice as many of them out there. They work overtime to mess with the works. They’ve got nothing else to do. They’re just waiting for us to screw up.” He started tromping again, working his way over to the cutting table like a persistent dog.
The silver beings shooed him away. Francis continued to pace until finally, they were ready. With more than a modicum of fanfare, they presented a breastplate, front and back. It was gold, with silver seams piped in the tiniest stitches.
“You’ll have to put it on yourself, I’m afraid,” the silver being with the measuring tape said to Skylark. It cast a cautious look at the Ephemeral.
She took the breastplate and started to put it on, but Francis stopped her.
“It has to go over your true form,” he said.
Skylark reverted to her robe state. Nudging the bow and quiver to one side, she slid the breastplate on. The plate held itself in place while she secured the back. When the armour was fitted, the silver being used a small handheld implement to fuse the seams with a thin beam of light.
“How does that feel?” it asked.
Skylark shifted around to test the comfort level. “It’s a little tight.”
“It will stretch a bit as you wear it.”
She fidgeted some more, adjusting the Ephemeral so that it rested comfortably on her back again. It whirled through its array of colours and assumed the texture and colour of the armour. Skylark returned to her human form. It took more energy to accommodate the breastplate but she managed to do it. The Ephemeral changed its colour accordingly, matching the black of her shirt.
When she was comfortably back in her civvies, Francis stepped in. “Great. We should get going.” He tossed the indignant mouse on her shoulder and saluted the silver beings.
“Wait!” the one with the measuring tape said. “To whom do we send the paperwork?”
Francis and Skylark left it hanging without an answer. They landed in the Hall of Records, inches from The Book.
“Are you sure about Kenji?” Skylark asked. “Won’t he be angry if you go without him?”
Francis clamped his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t be nervous. You’re going to be fine.” He sent a thought message, dialling The Book of Events to the appropriate date, location and time.
“Here we go,” he said, and they jumped.
UNFORGIVEABLE SIN
The Dreamers joined voices. The note was a rain-filled cloud hanging over the room. Poe and Caddy lay side-by-side, fingers almost touching. April lay on the other side of Poe. Through the humming Caddy heard soft, deliberate footsteps. Opening her eyes she saw Hex kneeling beside Poe. He stood robotically and followed her from the room. What was happening? Was Hex taking Poe away? Caddy raised herself on one elbow and saw Red looking back at her. He shook his head in warning, causing her to lie down again.
The note opened, tapping a persistent rhythm on Caddy’s skin and seeping into her veins. Her eyelids drooped and she slipped beneath the membrane of her consciousness. Her concern for Poe, for whatever was going on between him and Hex, slid from her grasp and she joined the others inside the dream. Caddy generated Light with her hands to push back the Dark. She’d relaxed into it, making good progress, when she abruptly jumped. She wasn’t in the dream anymore. She was in the rundown hotel room again—in the vision she’d seen before.
Her father was on the bed, gun in hand. The man in the expensive suit stood beside him. But something was different. There were more people there—a young girl with black hair and the most beautiful violet eyes, and an old cowboy. They looked on as the man in the suit held the small funnel to his lips. His mouth moved, and once again the dark tendril twined from the funnel into her father’s ear. Caddy forced herself to watch as her father pressed the gun to his temple. Finger trembling, he squeezed the trigger, and the cowboy shouted, “Now!”
In a brilliant flash, the girl and the old man transformed into strange beings with flowing robes and hair. The girl drew a bow and arrow. She aimed at the man in the suit, then suddenly turned her violet eyes on Caddy. The girl could see her!
Time stood still. Caddy was certain she saw recognition in the girl’s eyes—and more than just a little anger. The girl curled her lips as if to speak but the old man yelled, “Shoot!” Then everything happened at once. The girl regained her composure and fired. The man in the suit returned volley, striking the girl down with her own arrow. A beam of light flew from the old man’s hands. And Caddy’s father pulled the trigger.
Caddy screamed, breaking the vision as before. Only this time she punched from the dream straight into the Emptiness. The wind howled around her. The faces of the dispossessed thickened and formed. “No … please,” she begged. “I can’t help you!” There was the sound of a giant sheet ripping in two, and she fell through the void, back into the house in the field.
Caddy crashed into the now with a gasp. The humming had stopped. The silence was crushing. The Dreamers were gathered in a nervous half-circle. How long had she been out by herself? Had they seen what she’d seen? April pointed furtively to the front of the room. Hex and Poe were sitting there. Poe looked like a man about to be hanged. Red was hidden in the shadows to one side of them. Hex had her glasses off. She raised her hand and the Dreamers held their breath. Her words were daggers, cutting through the quiet.
“There has been a transgression,” she said. “Someone has broken the code.”
No one spoke. No one moved. Caddy tried to get Poe’s attention. His head was bowed, his face hard, resolute. Her mind raced as she anticipated what was coming next.
“There has been murder,” Hex said.
Poe clenched his jaw.
“We all know the code,” Hex continued. “There can be no blood. The sin of the one is the sin of the many. We are all equally guilty. We must vote.”
The Dreamers shifted anxiously. Poe kept his eyes to the floor. If only he would look at me, Caddy thought. Shame and anger seized her. She should be up there next to him. He’d spilled blood for her—the Company man’s life in exchange for her own.
Poe stood. She could tell he’d made a decision.
Hex agreed without hesitation, and Caddy suspected that this is what she’d hoped for all along. She wanted Poe to leave. She wanted to tear her and Poe apart. They were too strong together, too unpredictable. Poe cared more for her than his allegiance to the Dreamers and Hex’s code. And now a Company man was dead. If Poe were allowed to stay, how many more Dreamers would be tempted to fight back? Maybe Hex wanted the Dreamers to die—Caddy’s father included. Maybe she wanted them to fall passively on the Company’s knife. Caddy’s blood boiled. She would not sit idly by while Poe was made a scapegoat.
She moved to stand and April stopped her.
“Please,” she said. “You can’t intervene.”
Caddy refused to listen. She stood. “I’m the one who should leave. It was my fault. Poe was protecting me.”
The temperature in the room dropped. Hex tilted her head like a raptor.
“Your hand did not guide the blade.”
“It was my mistake that put Poe in danger. My actions forced him to make a decision he should not have had to make.”
Hex’s voice was ice. “Thou shalt not kill. It is a law as old as time. The Dreamers are committed to peace at all costs, even at the sake of our own lives. Killing diminishes us. Killing diminishes the Light. We cannot save the world through violence. Murder makes us the same as them. It opens a rift in the Light and lets the Dark in. The blood will come back on us in ways we can not begin to comprehend.”
“I can’t allow Poe to suffer for my weakness,” Caddy said. “I take sole responsibility. Banish me.”
The sky in Hex’s blue eye narrowed and Caddy was sure she saw a darkness gathering there. Hex hadn’t expected her to protest. Caddy had thrown a wrench in her plans. She could see Hex’s mind working as she searched for a way to turn the situation around. Poe beat her to it by moving toward the door. One of the Dreamers hastily wrapped some food in a cloth and handed it to him, along with a blanket roll tied with string. The others lowered their eyes. Caddy followed him but Hex intercepted her with a hand on her arm.
“You can not interfere with the judgment. Your role is here, with us.”
Caddy pulled her arm away in contempt. “Your judgment holds no weight with me.” She ran from the house and across the field, chasing after Poe. When she reached him, he spurned her.
“Go back, Cadence. You’re not responsible for my offence.”
“I want to leave with you.”
“Your place is with the group. They need you.”
Caddy grabbed his sleeve. “I don’t want to stay with them. I don’t trust Hex. She’s trying to pull us apart. She wants the Dreamers to fail. She’s the reason why we can’t succeed—I know it.”
Poe smiled patiently at her earnestness. “Hex has given everything to the cause. All she’s trying to do is keep you safe. There’s blood on my hands, Cadence. The Company knows me now. They won’t stop until they find me, and when they do … they’ll kill you too.”
Caddy wanted to scream. How could she make him understand? “Have you ever wondered where she goes? Why doesn’t she stay with us? Why is she never there when the Company men attack?”
“She has her reasons,” Poe said. “We can’t afford to lose her.”
“She’s trying to find my father. That’s the real reason why she abducted me. She wants him dead.”
Poe squeezed her hand. “Caddy, stop …”
“I think Red suspects her too,” she continued. “He told me in the beginning that he was trying to protect me. Why would he say that?” She gripped his arm. “Please, Poe … you have to listen to me. Hex can’t be trusted. She has the darkness in her.”
He removed her hand. “The Dreamers need you, Cadence.”
She choked back a sob. If only she could make him see. But what did she have to go on? A feeling? A perceived darkness in Hex’s blue eye? She had no real proof. Nothing concrete. No wonder he didn’t believe her. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned to leave.
“Poe, wait …” Caddy pulled his necklace from her pocket. Balancing on her toes, hands quaking, she fastened it around his neck. “Be safe.”
“Dream well, Cadence,” he said, lifting the blanket roll to his shoulder. He walked across the field, his silhouette blurring in the sunlight. With every footstep, Caddy’s heart grew heavier, until she thought it would break in two.
The Dreamers were waiting when she returned to the house. Hex and Red were gone. Caddy hadn’t seen them leave though she was sure Hex had witnessed her exchange with Poe. April made space for her in the circle, taking her hand as she sat. A woman across the room straightened and cleared her throat. She faced Caddy.
“Tell us where you go when you dream,” she said.
A BIG MESS
Skylark lay on the hotel room floor, clutching the shaft of the arrow, ice filaments creeping up her hand. Things with the Speaker hadn’t gone as the cowboy had planned. She’d let the old man down. If she hadn’t allowed jealousy to get the better of her, if she hadn’t hesitated when the girl showed up, they would have had the advantage. Her obsession with Poe had caused her to screw up the mission. She was so focused on Cadence that she gave the demon an opening. And he took it. Now she might never see Poe again. What was Cadence doing there anyway? What was her connection to the Speaker?
But there were more pressing things to worry about. Like Timon. He was going to be furious, that was for sure.
Skylark’s teeth started to chatter. She must look ridiculous, she thought, lying on her back in some sleazy dive, her own arrow through her shoulder, freezing to death. At least the arrow had hit her left side. It shouldn’t affect her shooting much—if she survived.
She lifted her head, just long enough to see the Speaker dissolve into a shapeless form that receded like the signal on an old tube TV. Someone pounded on the door.
“I’m calling the cops!” a man yelled.
Francis leaned over her, his blue eyes blazing, face crimped with worry. “Aw, hell, Skylark.”
She shivered uncontrollably. “I’m cold, Fran.” She saw the mouse lying next to her. His mouth was open, and his whole body was blue with frost.
“Sebbie …”
Swift as a sparrow, Francis pocketed the mouse and gathered her in his arms. She tried to tell him she was sorry, but the cold stole the words from her mouth. He wasn’t in a mood for listening anyway. He lifted her from the ground and they jumped, landing in front of two gleaming doors. Francis didn’t bother to announce himself but simply kicked the doors open with his cowboy boot and hurried in.
The building was all glass and glimmer like every other place in the city. And it was packed. There were beings of every Frequency and animal totems everywhere. They loomed past as Francis raced with her down the corridor. She wished he would slow down. He was making her dizzy. The pain in her shoulder spiked and she cried out, causing Francis to hustle even faster. He veered into an empty room and placed her lovingly on a stretcher, then put the mouse on his own stretcher beside her.
“Hold on, sweetheart,” he said.
Several Healers and their falcons glided into the room, radiating compassion and calm. Two of them wheeled Sebastian away. The others gathered around her bed. Skylark could feel ice filaments crawling across her face. Her chest felt so heavy. She coughed, and a thick black ooze sputtered from her mouth. This upset Francis, and a Healer had to escort him from the room. She could see him standing in the hallway, worrying his beard. She felt awful for causing so much trouble.
The pain was growing in her shoulder, triggering small starbursts across her vision. Was she going to die? The Healers poured their emerald energy over her, concentrating on her wound. Several tried to remove her armour. The Ephemeral was being difficult, refusing to let go. Such a beautiful, loyal thing. Skylark would have told it so, if only her teeth would stop chattering.
> By the time Timon arrived, the Healers had managed to remove her armour, and the Ephemeral was hovering in a cloud of its own mist beside the bed. A laser beam of green light was being trained on the arrow, with little success. It seemed to absorb everything. Skylark watched what was happening from a remote seat in her mind. The more the Healers tried to remove the arrow, the deeper its toxin crept through her body. At one point her soul light began to falter, and more Healers hastened into the room. Poor little light, she thought, though she was more concerned about Timon. He was glaring through the glass, disapproval pouring from every molecule in his being. His brow was permanently knit and he wouldn’t even look at Francis. Skylark strained through her agony to hear their conversation.
“What’s the prognosis?” Timon asked.
The cowboy shook his head. “They don’t know. They’ve never seen anything like it before. They think there’s some kind of poison in her system, messing with her energy.”
“You’ve made a grave error in judgment this time, Francis. It’s going to cost us dearly.”
“She was ready, T. He pulled a fast one. Even I didn’t see it coming.”
“Meticulous fieldwork, Francis. We lost so many good men to acquire the information I gave you.”
“We almost had him. Skylark severed the cord like a champ. We didn’t know he’d learned some new tricks. He infected her arrow—turned it all black and evil. We’ll get him next time.”
Timon’s eyebrows jumped. “I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation. There may not be a next time. We’ve run out of options. It’s as simple as that. If you’d taken Kenji instead of Skylark, as per orders, this may have ended in our favour. Now the Council will have to be involved. We will likely lose the assignment altogether—and Skylark.”