Nightfall

by Jake Halpern

  Marin cursed and returned the rod to the box. The drawer containing the scalpels lifted out, revealing six squat bottles of liquid underneath. Their metal tops were threaded. Marin lifted them out individually and held them to the light. Five of them were dyes—white, blue, green, gold, and black—the colors of her mother’s skin markings. The sixth looked clear.

  She stared at that particular bottle for several seconds, then tried screwing the top onto the end of its hollow rod. It fit. She held the rod as if it were a fountain pen, then ran the scalpel across the rough exterior of the mattress. The sharp blade cut the fabric immediately. Marin blew out the candle. The room fell into absolute darkness, except for a thin glowing line on the bed and a glowing bottle stuck to the end of the rod.

  Marin stared at the scalpels, imagining herself cooped up in some dingy cellar in the Cloister, marking herself with these tools for a whole year. She’d have nothing in common with the other desert girls. They wouldn’t even speak the same tongue. And throughout that time, she wouldn’t see Anton or Kana or Line. Only her mother would be allowed to visit.

  “Never,” whispered Marin to herself. She was filled with rock-solid certainty. “I won’t do it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  A few minutes later, Marin returned to the parlor, standing alongside her mother and Kana, waiting for Anton to finish up. They were all dressed in their seafaring clothing: wool caps, cloaks, waxed canvas pants, and knee-high boots. Finally, they heard Anton’s voice coming from the foyer. “The okrana just ordered us to the loading area.” There was a long pause. “I’ve been told to say that anybody who refuses will be dragged out.”

  “Is that a joke?” asked Kana.

  “No,” said their father as he appeared in the parlor. “Everyone is getting cranky. But don’t worry. This happens every time we leave the island.” Anton grabbed a candle from the windowsill and handed it to Marin. They exchanged glances, and a hint of irritation lingered in his eyes. “No confirmation on Line yet,” he said. “I’m guessing he’s down at the staging area.”

  Marin nodded.

  Together they walked outside and stood in front of the darkened house. Two members of the okrana were waiting solemnly for them. They were both old—not as old as Palan, but from his generation. They each held high a blazing wick torch. Rivulets of sweat rolled down their faces, and they were trembling slightly.

  “This is a new beginning for us,” said Tarae as she put her arms around Marin and Kana, drawing them tightly to her. “The Desert Lands are waiting.” The happiness in her voice was unmistakable. Neither Marin nor Kana replied.

  “Remember the front door,” said one of the okrana.

  “Of course,” said Anton. And very carefully, he closed the door so that it remained open just a crack.

  The okrana helped them pile their luggage onto a small, rickety handcart. And then, together, with Anton pushing the handcart, they walked through the shadows—westward, toward the cliffs. Kana and Tarae brought up the rear. Tarae was walking slowly—she had a nagging fear of tripping in the dark—and Kana guided her gently, draping an arm across her back.

  “You know, the Night is beautiful in the desert,” said Tarae. “The sky is clearer there and the stars are more numerous.” She smiled at Kana and ran a hand through his hair.

  Kana said nothing. Three days of sunlight and three days of darkness. For Kana, this meant three days of vision and three of blindness. His mother had been fretting about this lately, as if she were personally responsible for the habits of the sun.

  “Don’t worry, Mother—it’ll be fine,” Kana said. “It’ll be easier than the years of daylight that I had here.”

  “I know you’ll miss all this,” said Tarae, gesturing vaguely toward the darkness around them. “But I think a change of scenery might be good for you . . . you’ll sleep better once we’re off the island,” said Tarae with an air of certainty.

  “Really? Why is that?” He sounded unconvinced. His mother was trying her best to tiptoe around his feelings, but somehow this extreme tactfulness made it worse.

  She glanced at him sideways. “Just call it a mother’s intuition.”

  Several minutes later, they arrived at the cliffs. The area was always busy with people coming to and from boats, but today it was crowded with people, boxes, suitcases, sacks of flour, rolls of fishing nets, caged chickens, and other supplies of all kinds and quantities. Children ran wildly, caught up in the excitement of the moment, and dogs chased them. The noises—shouting, crying, talking, barking—were overwhelming.

  Only the faintest pinprick of orange remained in the western sky. Marin walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Several men were descending to the pier via a spiderweb of ropes secured to the cliff face. Nearby, a series of makeshift wooden cranes had begun lowering loads of crates. Down below, several dozen ships with bright yellow sails were moored along Bliss’s docks.

  “LOOK FOR YOUR FLAGS!” yelled a burly, gray-haired okrana. He wore a leather vest and the dark green clothing of a woodcutter. He spoke through a large, cone-shaped speaking trumpet. “CALMLY WALK TO YOUR FLAGS!”

  “Which way is Glimmer Glen?” a woman called out, her long white hair escaping in strings from her shawl. She was cradling a suitcase to her chest.

  “ALL THE WAY AT THE END,” boomed the man through his speaking trumpet.

  Cloth banners were tied to the end of slender flagpoles, which were stuck in the ground at regular intervals throughout the staging area. Next to each pole stood an okrana with a bound codex in hand.

  “Where’s our flag?” asked Kana.

  “Night Fire is down this way,” replied their father, pointing to a distant blue flag with two red swirling lines. “They always put it down there.”

  Where is Line? Marin looked around anxiously for any sign of him, or of the okrana who had been searching for him. “Excuse me,” said Marin, tapping a gray-haired okrana on the shoulder. “Have they found Line—the boy who went missing?” The man just stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign tongue. It was maddening. If Line’s parents were alive, they would be raising hell.

  She grabbed her father’s arm. “I don’t see Line—I’m going to go look around.”

  “No,” replied Anton firmly. “Wait until we get to the flag, and then we’ll make inquiries.”

  It took several more minutes before Marin and her family arrived at the grassy knoll where their flag was fluttering. Standing rigidly next to the flagpole was one of the okrana’s youngest members, a thin teenage boy with kinky black hair and crooked teeth. The boy nodded at Marin’s parents solemnly, then opened up his codex and began flipping through pages of vellum until he found what he was looking for.

  “Four of you?” asked the boy. He frowned. “It says here there are three.”

  “No—it’s four,” their mother quickly replied. She glared at the young okrana boy.

  “Shadow House?”

  “Of course,” she replied, glancing at Anton. They exchanged a look that Marin found hard to decipher. Fear, anger, annoyance, fatigue, sixteen years of marriage—perhaps all of it at once.

  “That’s your luggage?” asked the boy. He frowned again.

  “Yes.”

  The boy paused. “You may have to leave some behind.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no further information—these are my instructions. Please be patient,” he replied. The words coming from his mouth sounded dutifully rehearsed.

  Their neighbors, young parents with a sleeping baby, approached the knoll, and the young okrana turned to them. Marin’s mother moved several feet away and collapsed to the ground with an exhausted sigh. She called to Marin and Kana but was interrupted by the sound of shouting.

  “They’re coming!” someone yelled. “The furriers have climbed up from the cliffs.”

  Similar shouts rang out along th
e cliffs.

  “Stand up!” hollered the teenage okrana who stood by their flag. “On your feet now!”

  CHAPTER 15

  All around them, townspeople were rising to their feet and shouldering their bags. A group of furriers had arrived and were stalking through the crowd. They were fierce-looking men, with sunburned faces, chiseled jaws, and eyes the color of shallow water. Several of them brandished rifles with gleaming bayonets. It was odd to see the furriers so well armed. Nobody in Bliss had guns except for a few of the okrana, and theirs were ancient muskets.

  As the furriers walked past, one of them—a small, wiry man with blond hair—stopped to stare at Marin and Kana, then walked toward them. Anton frowned and stepped forward, blocking the furrier. The surrounding area grew quiet and all eyes were drawn to this sudden face-off. Anton said nothing. His face was a mask, showing neither bravado nor weakness.

  “Your boy,” said the furrier, pointing to Kana. “He has our eyes.” And it was true. Kana’s pale blue eyes were a rare trait among the people of Bliss.

  Anton seemed unsure how to respond. The furriers rarely talked with townspeople.

  “The boy,” repeated the furrier. “He is yours?”

  “Yes, of course,” Anton replied. He stepped forward, took his hands out from under his traveling cloak, and looked the furrier square in the eyes.

  The furrier raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that, old man? His eyes mark him as one of us.” He laughed hoarsely. Tarae walked over to Anton and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  The furrier leered at Tarae, then winked. Anton’s hands balled into fists. Marin studied her father closely, wondering what he would do. But he did nothing. The unanswered insult was too much for Marin. “His eyes are different because he’s blind,” she called out. “Does that mean you’re blind, too?”

  The furrier stared at Marin with open interest. “You have a wild spirit,” he said. “I will watch for you on the boats.”

  Marin forced herself to glare back at him—she refused to give him the satisfaction of appearing scared.

  Anton turned around and shot her an unmistakable warning with his eyes: Keep out of this. Meanwhile, the furrier laughed and walked away.

  Tarae yanked Marin to her side.

  “What’s wrong with you, child?” she hissed. “Don’t even look at those men.” Everyone in their area was staring at them. Thankfully for Marin, it only lasted a few seconds, and the nervous energy of the departure returned.

  Marin continued to watch the furriers as they walked away. She felt her father’s presence next to her and, rather suddenly, she felt ashamed of herself. Marin had been so concerned about the loss of her own independence that she’d missed the larger truth. They were all at the mercy of the furriers.

  In the distance, she could see the furriers speaking with the mayor. The conversation didn’t seem friendly. The mayor’s face grew red and pinched, and his hands curled into fists. He rocked back and forth and shook his head vehemently while the furriers stood there, impassive. Marin couldn’t make out the words, but she registered the mayor’s change in tone. It shifted from annoyance to pleading. And then it was over. The furriers walked away toward the cliffs, their guns glinting in the last dregs of sunlight. The mayor and the townspeople watched them go.

  Not long after this, the teenaged okrana with the kinky hair pushed his way back into the center of their gathering and, once again, stood ceremoniously by the flagpole.

  “Attention, Night Fire!” he yelled. “The furriers collected more furs than they expected. There will not be room for all of your provisions.”

  “What about people?” one of their neighbors shouted. “Is there room for all of the people?”

  “I think so,” replied the boy. He paused for a moment to consult his codex, as if the answer might be hidden away in its pages. Then he looked back up. “Truth is,” he said, “I don’t really know.”

  Suddenly, everyone was talking at once, asking questions, shouting accusations, and demanding answers. The same thing was happening at the other flagpoles. The wind came up suddenly and added to the general cacophony. In the distance, the man with the speaking trumpet was trying to reestablish order. “EVERYBODY SIT DOWN!” he called. “ONLY THE ELDERLY AND INFIRM ARE BOARDING NOW. THE REST OF US WON’T BOARD FOR FOUR MORE HOURS. AT LEAST FOUR MORE HOURS!” But his voice only seemed to raise the overall volume of the crowd. It was amid this pandemonium that Marin caught a glimpse of a little boy collapsed on the ground.

  Without a doubt, it was Francis. And he was alone.

  Marin shook free of her mother’s grip and pushed her way through the crowd. Francis lay on the dusty ground, curled up on one side, his eyes half open and brimming with tears.

  “Francis!” said Marin, kneeling down and placing a hand on his back. “Where’s Line?”

  He just whimpered and kept crying.

  She forced herself to sound calm. “Francis, just a few hours ago, someone saw Line down at the bog. Where is he?”

  Francis shook his head. “It was a mistake. Some other kid—he wasn’t even stuck.”

  “Who said it was a mistake?” demanded Marin. “Ivo?”

  “The mayor,” said Francis. Tears streamed down his dirty face. “I knew it wasn’t Line at the bog,” he said, still proud despite everything. “Line never gets stuck.”

  “Francis—you have to think hard,” implored Marin. “Was there anything else he wanted to do before he left? Something he hadn’t done?” Marin was conscious that her voice had begun to sound harsh, but the panic in her stomach was coursing through her body.

  Francis shook his head no, but then stopped suddenly. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard. “A few days ago, he told me that he wanted to do something for you but probably wouldn’t have time. He had lost something of yours in the woods.”

  Marin’s heart began to race. Damn it.

  She turned back to Line’s little brother. “Francis, listen to me,” she said. “Do you see your neighbors over there?” She pointed to a nearby group of children clutching at a woman’s skirt.

  He nodded.

  “Stay with them,” she said, rising to her feet. All around them, people were still shouting heatedly. “I’m going to find Line, but you need to help me. When my parents ask about Kana and me, you tell them you saw us helping the old people board the boats. It’s just a little lie, and it will help us find Line. We won’t be gone long. Understand?”

  Francis nodded.

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise,” he replied, his eyes round and scared.

  “We’ll find him,” said Marin. She patted his forehead, stood up, and weaved her way through the crowd until she found Kana. He was standing a few feet away from their parents, who didn’t notice that she’d come back.

  “You were right about Line,” she said in a low voice.

  Kana turned, his mouth opening in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “We have four hours to find him,” she said. “Francis is going to tell Mom and Dad that we’re helping board the boats. We’ll be quick. There and back shouldn’t take us more than two hours.”

  Kana stared at her. “It’ll be dark,” he said. “Much darker than before.”

  “I know,” replied Marin. She leaned even closer, until she could feel his breath. “That’s why you have to come with me.”

  They stared at each other. Finally, Kana nodded. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Kana and Marin sprinted through the empty town, hugging buildings and avoiding open spaces where they might be spotted by the okrana. The only living creature they saw was a mangy old dog that someone had tied to the front post of a one-room house. The dog was barking mournfully, as if he understood that he had been left for dead.

  “I can’t leave him like this,” Kana said, stopping for a moment
to undo the knot on the dog’s leash. As soon as he was free, the dog scurried through the front door and back inside the one-room house where he lived.

  They ran through Bliss, past their old home, Shadow House—now silent and empty—and followed a faint path only Kana could see. In this direction, there was just one dwelling closer to the woods than Shadow House, and it was often forgotten. It was a ramshackle cottage whose flimsy walls and roof were supported by the gnarled, twisting limbs of several willow trees.

  “You think the hermit is still there?” asked Marin.

  “Why would he be?” asked Kana, shaking his head. “I doubt anyone else is as stupid as we are.”

  Stupid or not, Kana felt better running along the path than sitting with the rest of the town by the cliffs. If anything, he appreciated these last, stolen few moments on the island—the cold air, the scent of evergreens, the glimmer of dew trapped in pinecones. This is almost worth the risk, thought Kana. Almost. He didn’t even mind his sister being here with him because, for once, she seemed contrite and agreeable. She needs me now. That was the crux of it—so she was simply following his lead, silently. This was something to be savored.

  The path faded even more as they passed the hermit’s cottage, and at the edge of the forest the path simply disappeared. Kana picked a stick off the ground and used it to poke around the thick underbrush until he found the opening he was looking for. It was hidden by a tangle of dead branches and covered with a thick, gauzy curtain of spiderwebs, which he tore through with his stick. It was strange how spiders were now everywhere, in these months before departure. Some of the largest ones, with legs that were colored a bizarre motley of green and gray, turned up in pillows and blankets. In the school yard, many kids claimed that during Night, every square inch of the island was crawling with spiders. But Kana knew this was just speculation. Everyone is an expert on the Night, thought Kana. Even though no one’s seen it.