by Posey, Jay
It was Chapel, Wren’s sole remaining guardian. The voice was kind but firm, warm in its command. Wren didn’t have a grandfather that he knew of, but he imagined Chapel’s voice was how one would sound. The boy lingered, the idea of a final surrender not yet entirely dispelled. But after a moment he drew a breath and without any sort of conscious choice felt his heart resign itself to life. Chapel had said it before; many good men and women had given their lives to preserve Wren’s. It would be a mockery of their sacrifice to simply give up now.
Wren wiped his eyes and stood up straight.
“I wasn’t going to jump,” he said.
“I would not have let you fall.”
The people streamed about below, oblivious to the doom that hung over them. The doom that haunted Wren and brought ruin wherever he fled. If Morningside, the great shining city of the east, could fall, what hope was there for any of them?
“Don’t you ever think it might just might be easier, though? If I were... you know. If I wasn’t around anymore.”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“Because I believe your life has purpose yet unfulfilled.”
“Yeah, well...” Wren said, his mind suddenly flooded with images of faces. “Maybe that’s not such a great thing to believe. Everyone else who has ever thought that is dead.”
“You seem certain.”
Wren turned to face Chapel. The old man seemed to be staring right at him despite the blindfold that covered his eyes. He was closer than he’d been a few minutes before, now nearly within arm’s reach, though Wren had never heard the man move. He realized that even if he had tried to jump, Chapel would have snatched him back from the edge in an instant. Wren sat down on the dusty roof, his back against the short wall.
“It’s most likely.”
“What does your heart tell you?”
Wren shook his head and looked down at the ground. Traced a meaningless design in the dust. Probably Mama was dead. Probably they all were, from what he remembered and from what Chapel had been willing to tell him of the night they’d escaped. Asher’s incomprehensible power. The overwhelming numbers of Weir. Painter’s betrayal.
And Mama choosing to give Wren over to Chapel, so that she could go back and fight. Only once in his life before had she ever entrusted him to someone else; the first time she had done it because she knew she was near death. And the man who had taken charge of him then too was now dead. But no matter how much Wren’s mind tried to imagine it, or how strongly he willed himself to believe that she was gone again, his heart couldn’t accept it. Not this time. At least, not yet.
“That she’s alive,” he said. And then shook his head. “But I think it’s just what I hope.”
“Hope is a powerful gift. It should not lightly be cast away.”
Wren shrugged. He’d heard grownups say hope against hope before, but he’d never really understood what that was supposed to mean. Maybe he was starting to figure it out. Even when everything else told him all hope was lost, something down deep held on anyway. Something so deep it almost felt like it might not even be part of him, but rather something Other, forced in from the outside. Or maybe he just didn’t want to accept how near the end was, and how in real life the good guys didn’t always win. In his case, it was starting to seem like they never did.
The door leading out on to the roof eased open, drawing Wren’s attention. Behind Chapel, a familiar face peeked through – Mol.
“Hey,” she said, quiet and careful in her speech, like she was concerned about intruding.
“Hi, Mol,” Wren answered.
“Mind if I come out there for a sec?” Her gentle hesitance was highlighted by the fact that it was her roof in the first place.
“No, ma’am, not at all,” Wren said.
She slipped out onto the roof carrying her daughter, Grace; six months old, sleeping peacefully in her mama’s arms. The nerve-rig that enabled Mol to walk whirred and clicked softly, stirring strong emotions in Wren. It was a beautiful thing to see; Mol with the baby her body should never have been able to produce. Her own little living miracle. But it raised in him a dull panic as well, knowing that his presence put such a precious thing at risk. Indeed, even if he left today, the mere fact that jCharles and Mol had taken him in again might still invite Asher’s eye and vengeance.
“There’s someone downstairs,” she said. “Down with Twitch.” She looked concerned, or puzzled. Maybe both. “Twitch wanted to see if you might feel up to coming down to see to him?”
“Me?” Wren asked.
“Mm-hmm,” Mol nodded.
“Who is it?”
“I...” Mol said, and then stopped, her brow furrowed. She shook her head. “I don’t even know how to explain, sweetheart. I think maybe Twitch should.”
Wren glanced over to Chapel, who stood impassively, head raised slightly like someone catching a scent on the wind.
“OK,” Wren said, getting up off the ground. “I guess so. Down in the apartment?”
Mol shook her head. “The bar.”
Wren dusted his pants off and moved to the door. Chapel fell wordlessly in behind him. They made their way down the stairs past the apartment where jCharles and Mol lived. Where jCharles, Mol, and Grace lived, Wren reminded himself. On the floor below was the Samurai McGann, the bar, or saloon, or whatever the business was that jCharles owned and operated.
There was, in fact, much more that jCharles was involved in, as Wren had learned when Three had first brought him here. It wasn’t exactly clear what all jCharles did, but Wren had come to understand that most of the citizens of Greenstone either feared or respected him, or both. Wren also guessed that whatever his other business was, it might not be strictly legal. Then again, the definition of “strictly legal” changed a lot from town to town, and Wren had the impression that in Greenstone there were rules and there were laws, and they could be very different things depending on where you were standing at any particular time.
jCharles was waiting for them at the bottom of the narrow staircase, and he dropped down to a knee as Wren approached.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, and placed a hand on Wren’s shoulder. He smiled slightly, but it didn’t soften the hardness in his eyes. He was either shaken or suspicious, and neither was a good sign to Wren. “There’s a guy, just showed up a little while ago.” He paused and scratched his upper lip with his thumb. “He’s out here asking some questions. I think maybe you’re gonna wanna talk to him, but that’s up to you, OK? My fellas are all in there, and I’ll be there, and I’m sure Mr Chapel will be there, so it’ll be safe, we’ll make sure of that. But you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to, OK? You don’t even have to go in, unless you want to.”
“What kind of questions?” Wren asked. Mol’s manner had seemed a little strange, but the way jCharles was acting was starting to make Wren genuinely nervous.
“He’s uhh...” jCharles’s eyes narrowed and he took a moment before he answered. “He’s asking about Three, Wren.”
Suddenly the grownups’ reactions started to make sense. Maybe there was cause for concern after all.
“We haven’t told him much of anything,” jCharles added. “But he already knows about you.”
“Is it someone you know?” said Wren.
jCharles shook his head. “Never seen him before. Just rolled in, and he’s not saying a whole lot. I got some of my guys checking around, but so far nothing’s showing up.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Right now, it’s just a thing that is.”
Wren nodded, thought it over. He hadn’t much felt like talking to anyone about anything lately. And he knew questions about Three might lead him to remember things he’d been trying to let himself forget. Still. There was something of a mystery there that he might be able to help solve.
“You think I should talk to him?”
“You do what you want,
Wren.”
“But I’m asking... you think I should?”
jCharles hesitated, worked his jaw. Then, finally, “I think so, yeah. Normally, someone walks in poking around like this, I’d just blow him back out the door but this guy...” He trailed off, then shook his head. “I don’t know. This one, I wanted you to have a say.”
Wren rolled the idea around. Whoever it was, jCharles didn’t seem to think he was dangerous. Or rather, maybe jCharles thought the man was a kind of dangerous that could be handled. But what did he want to know? And more importantly, why did he want to know it?
In the end, it wasn’t courage or any sense of duty that decided it. It was simple curiosity.
“OK then,” he said.
jCharles nodded and stood, squeezing Wren’s shoulder as he did so. He took hold of the door handle, but paused before he opened it. “Any time you wanna leave, you just say so. Anything you don’t wanna say, you don’t say it. You’re in control here, ’kay?”
“OK.”
jCharles glanced up at Chapel, gave a quick nod, and then pulled the door open and ushered Wren through.
The Samurai McGann wasn’t particularly crowded this early in the day, but the dim and hazy atmosphere had a way of making everything feel close no matter how few people were around. A small knot of men was gathered near the middle of the bar, a little closer to the storefront than to the back hall. Five, maybe six, of jCharles’s “fellas”; mostly large, bruiser-looking types who were either employees or the most regular patrons anyone could ever hope for. Their collective mass blocked Wren’s view of whoever was at the table. Nimble, the bartender, was at his usual place behind the bar, leaning over it slightly and keeping an attentive watch. His eyes flicked over as the three of them entered and then back again at the group.
Wren walked towards the table with jCharles just behind him, at his left shoulder. Chapel lingered by the door near the back hall.
The man was sitting there with his back to the door, but before Wren could make out any features someone came in off the street. The white light of day shone dazzling through the dusky bar and its radiance masked both the man at the table and the newcomer at the door in silhouette.
Whoever it was at the door must have taken a quick survey of the situation, because he hesitated there in the entrance for a few seconds and then promptly backed out and left. In those few moments, though, Wren’s heart nearly burst in his chest. Even though he knew it wasn’t so, that it would be impossible, the silhouette of the man sitting at the table was so familiar that hope unbidden leapt forth and for a fleeting second told him that this man was not simply asking about Three, but was in fact Three himself, come back from death and desolation.
But no. An instant later the illusion faded, and even before the front door had swung fully closed, Wren saw that the man was shorter than Three had been, stockier in build, skin tone darker. Still, the shock lingered with a wisping trace of disappointment and a renewed sense of loss. Cruel that one’s own mind could play such a bitter trick.
And yet there remained a hint of familiarity that he couldn’t completely dismiss. Something vague and elusive that seemed to flutter at the edge of his thoughts, like something seen out of the corner of the eye and gone when looked upon.
Wren’s vision readjusted to the dim light and he took in the scene. The man was the only one sitting. For his part, he seemed entirely at ease despite being surrounded by a number of tightly-wound, rough-looking men. His deep eyes were bright and piercingly alert, set in a wide, round face. A dark stubble of hair dusted his head, a few days’ growth after a clean shave perhaps. His thick-fingered hands were clasped before him and rested atop what at first appeared to be some sort of thin box. As Wren reached the table though he realized it was not a box at all, but was instead a thick book; leather-bound, battered, dusted with the grime of travel and use.
Wren hovered at the edge of the table, hesitant to sit. He was aware of the others in the room, but his eyes were drawn intently to those of the man across from him. The man gazed back unblinking. For a span, no one spoke; hardly anyone moved.
“Hello,” the man said. His voice was warm and vibrant, not particularly deep or loud, but full and rounded.
“Hi,” Wren answered.
“I seem to have alarmed your friends,” the man said. A gentle smile spread across his face at a speed like that of a man holding up his hands to show he was unarmed.
“I don’t think that’s wise.”
“Neither do I. Nor was it my intent.”
Without understanding why, Wren felt some of the tension start to melt away. There was something wholesome about the man; he emanated a kind of steady peace, a quiet strength. Even so, Wren had learned not to trust too readily. He slid into the empty chair directly across from the man, reminding himself to guard his words.
“They said you had questions,” Wren said.
The man inclined his head forward.
“I’m looking for someone. A man,” he said. “Judging from the reaction, I suspect I’m correct in thinking it was a man you may have traveled with some time ago.”
“I’ve traveled a lot,” Wren said, trying to sound casual. “With a lot of different people.”
“I suspect this particular individual might stick in one’s memory.”
“What do you want with him?”
“Nothing insidious,” the man answered, raising his hands slightly to give a clearer view of his book. “I’m a chronicler. A historian, of sorts. I know something of his past, but I’m a bit behind.” He smiled again. “Just trying to fill in the gaps.”
“You knew him? Before?”
The man nodded.
“Then I guess you know how he’d feel about people asking questions about him.”
For the first time, the man’s eyes left Wren’s and flicked down to his own hands. His smile shifted, more inwardly focused. He nodded again. “I do, very well.” The man looked back up at Wren. “I see you also knew him well. And that you wish to protect him.”
Wren held himself still, but in that moment the vague sense of familiarity snapped into focus. It wasn’t a single feature or trait about the man that reminded him of Three, but rather the sum of many ethereal qualities taken together; the man’s utter stillness, the fluidity of his few movements, the almost surgical gaze.
The man glanced around at the ring of men that had him surrounded and took a deep breath, then nodded seemingly to himself. He looked back to Wren and leaned forward, as if sharing a secret.
“My name is Haiku,” he said. “Of House Eight.”
He said it as though it should have more meaning to Wren than it did. He must have read Wren’s face, though, because after a moment he leaned a little closer and said something that hit Wren with a fresh storm of emotion.
“Three was my brother.”
THREE
Cass focused her attention back to her immediate surroundings. The moon carved a channel of soft light through the darkened room, stark as it spilled across the dusty floor and over the scattered piles of debris. It was odd to see such clutter; much of the area surrounding Morningside had been so thoroughly scavenged over the years as to be almost clean. She wondered just how far out from the city she was now. Or if perhaps there was something about this particular building that had marked it off-limits. Cass tried not to think about what that might mean.
The Weir were still near and active, though their calls to one another were trailing off, coming less frequently. They hadn’t seemed to be searching in any organized way, but after a minute or two Cass decided to move out of the front room. If she could get higher up in the building, she might be able to get a better sense of what was going on out there.
There was a door in the back wall, flat grey, slightly recessed. As quietly as she was able, she edged her way to it and found it led to a narrow passage that ended in a stairwell. Cass moved in cautiously and after a moment’s consideration, pushed the door nearly shut. There was a handle on thi
s side of it, but she didn’t feel quite confident enough to close it all the way.
When Cass reached the base of the stairs, she was relieved to find they were concrete. A cheap, rough cast, they were uneven, chipped, and cracked. But they weren’t likely to creak when she put her weight on them. She ascended. The second floor appeared to be laid out much like the one below it. There were slit windows here though, and the gloom lay less heavy. The slant of the ceiling above the steps suggested another staircase. A quick glance through the nearest window revealed little more than the faces of the surrounding buildings, so Cass climbed the next flight.
The third floor didn’t deviate from the established floorplan, except that there were no stairs leading further up. A thin metal railing ran around the top of the stairwell; a rusting mesh clung to it with haphazard welds. With each passing minute, Cass became more confident that the building wasn’t harboring any Weir, and after a brief search of the upper rooms, she allowed herself to relax ever so slightly. For the first time since she’d entered the building, she lowered her weapon and let it dangle from its sling. She kept one hand on it.
As on the floor below, slit windows perforated the thick outer wall at even intervals. Cass moved to one at the front right corner, close to the stairs, where she could keep her back to the adjacent wall while she tried to get her bearings. She didn’t have much of a vantage from the narrow window, and she’d gotten so turned around she wasn’t even exactly sure where she should be looking anyway. It took her almost a minute of scanning to find the building where she’d left Wick and Able. When she did locate it, the distance surprised her. It seemed farther away than it should have been. But even from this far out, she could see the flickering moonlight glow dancing within the hole in the front of the building.
The Weir. They’d taken the building.
Maybe Wick and Able had made it out. Or maybe they, like so many others before them, had given their lives to save the rest of the team. Cass tried not to think about the likelihood that they were all dead, and that she was now truly alone. But whatever had happened, she was on her own, if not for good, at least for now.