I glanced skyward. “It’s waning. The new one is several days away. We could wait another moon cycle, or two, or—”
“It’s decided, isn’t it? No need to wait for another one, assuming you find the child who must drink the first vial. How are we supposed to figure out who that is?”
“I already know,” I said.
* * *
I. Leit, pronounced lite.
II. Ciaran, pronounced keer-ahn.
III. Wei, pronounced why.
JANUARY /38
YEARS BEFORE, I’D ENCOUNTERED A child who was invisible to adults. Literally invisible, perhaps not, because one can easily overlook what one doesn’t want to see, but invisible enough that the orphan was trampled and ignored by passersby in the streets. The child lived with an aunt and uncle, or so I was told, and stumbled around Rothwyke chirping like a bird. Small, with light hair and yellow spectacles, Harmyn wore mismatched clothes, and because the orphan wore trousers, I assumed Harmyn was a boy.
As I traveled home from the quest, I believed I knew the child who was meant to take my mother’s place. Harmyn’s unsteady gait, peculiar revelations, and hidden eyes made me wonder if the orphan was a Voice. Although generations before, a rare boy was born a Voice, I expected what was to come required a child with great powers—a girl.
Before the new moon, I told Old Woman about Harmyn and asked for her help. I had neither the means nor experience to care for a child, especially one like Harmyn. For months, or longer, we’d need a place to stay until we knew what the vials unleashed.
On the evening of the new moon, the fifth of January, I called the animals to guide me. A rat escorted me from the woods to a walk-up in Elwip, an impoverished southeast ward, and scurried to a door on the musty third floor. I knocked. As I waited, I thought of my apartment in Warrick, the modest but tidy building, and my neighbors, whom I hoped were safe and well. When I knocked again and received no answer, I tried the knob, and it turned. Inside, the apartment was dark, cold, and cluttered.
I called Harmyn’s name.
Scuffling noises came from another room. A child emerged.
“Do you remember me? My name is Secret. Several years ago, you gave me a flower, and an old bronze cogwheel you found in Old Wheel, and—”
“I remember. Why are you here?” Harmyn asked.
“I’m here to ask for your help, and in return, I will lead you somewhere safe,” I said. I held the amulet out on my fingertips. “I believe this is meant to be yours.”
Harmyn walked closer and touched the symbol. I slipped the cord over the waif’s head. Her hands reached to clasp the gold circle.
“Wait here,” she said as she left the room, then returned wearing a wool coat and a knitted cap and carrying a little bundle.
“Will your aunt and uncle look for you?” I asked.
“I’ve left for days and they never cared that I came back. They won’t now,” she said.
Once we stepped outside, a mare clopped her hooves to get my attention. I hadn’t called for any animal’s aid, but a volunteer arrived anyway. I helped Harmyn onto the saddle and climbed behind her. She seemed so small when she leaned against me, no more than eight or nine years old. “How old are you?” I asked.
“Twelve, last month,” she said.
We didn’t speak again as we rode through town and into the woods.
When we entered Old Woman’s cottage, my elderly friend greeted us.
“You can see me?” Harmyn asked, shocked.
“You’re taller than a rabbit and shorter than a ram, wearing a cap and coat,” she said.
Harmyn smiled as she accepted a mug of cider and a seat at the table.
“I need to see your eyes,” I said. “Please.”
Hesitantly Harmyn removed the yellow-tinted spectacles. Behind those lenses, her eyes had always appeared brown. Without them, her irises were a perfect shade of violet, circled with indigo.
My entire body ached, skin, muscle, bone, blood. A veil within me slipped, and there was a baby in a man’s arms, her black hair softly tufted, her eyes . . . her eyes violet.
Sing for your ahpa, Wei, the man said, his voice straining to find the notes, the infant answering with the sweetest trill, the first song of a Voice.
Old Woman gasped. Harmyn turned toward the sound.
“I’m going to ask you a question in an unexpected way. I want you to answer if you can. When you look at me, from where on your body do you see?” I asked in the Guardians’ language.
Harmyn touched her forehead, which was covered with scratches and scars.
“Have you always been able to understand any language you heard?”
She nodded.
“Have you ever been able to know people’s thoughts or feel their feelings as if they were your own? Did you ever help someone with the sound of your voice or touch of your hands?” I asked.
Harmyn trembled. “Who told you? I was wicked once, and I don’t do that anymore.”
“You were not wicked. If you had lived among people who accepted you, you would have been called a Voice. You would have been thought of as very special. My mother was like you. She was punished, horribly, for the things she could do.”
Harmyn wiped away a tear. “They said I was lying. They said I was wicked and I had to be quiet, stop singing. I tried so hard, but sometimes, I can’t help it. The words stream out and so does the poison that gets inside and makes me sick.”
“What poison?” I asked.
“You won’t believe me,” she said.
“I will. No matter what you say.”
“A poison that comes from other people. Sometimes I can hide and it doesn’t find me. Sometimes, I can’t, and when I can’t, I get very sick,” she said.
“I don’t know what the poison is,” I said, “but I was told there’s a pestilence—like a grave disease—already among us. I don’t know if the poison has anything to do with it, but I do know there are helpers, like Old Woman, and you, who might be able to make things better.”
As well as I could, I explained what I learned in the realm and why I’d sought her. I reached for the vial. “The child who wears the amulet must drink this.”
“What will happen to me?” she asked.
“I don’t know, only that it must be done first,” I said.
“Do I have to keep hiding my—gifts?”
“Never again.”
“Do I have to go back to Aunt and Uncle?”
“Old Woman will keep you safe here.”
The orphan nodded. I touched a lit match to the wick in the vial’s wax seal. A tiny elliptical flame leapt as its heart burned violet.
Harmyn tasted the liquid, smiled, then finished the rest. Seconds later, her skin flushed. Her limbs palsied. Before Old Woman could reach her, she crawled into a corner. When we tried to touch her, she cried, shrieked, kicked, and punched. For hours, bruises and cuts appeared on her face and hands, and raw bloody marks circled her wrists. All of the wounds healed before our eyes. As if insane, she babbled in a deluge of languages. Memories of my muttering mother, lost in tongues, streamed back to me. This, I endured as long I could until I had to escape outside and let the cold numb me to the bone.
In the moments when Harmyn was quiet, we offered water and food, which was refused, as well as comfort, which was rejected.
The next afternoon, Harmyn finally settled. Old Woman led her out for a short walk. When they returned, Old Woman tucked the child in bed.
Through the rest of the day and night, we kept an uneasy vigil. We had no explanation for what had happened. Harmyn slept without a stir, her breathing so slow and shallow, it seemed she was near death.
Not long after dawn, Harmyn rose from the bed with her arms outstretched, as if feeling her way through the dark. “Everything is a blur. I can’t see anymore! Take me outside!”
Old Woman draped her in a blanket and led her through the door. I watched as Harmyn smacked her forehead with both palms. Old Woman whispered to her
, and the child began to wail.
As I started to panic, afraid of what was happening to Harmyn now, I thought of what Aoife taught her gifted daughter. “Breathe,” I said. “Stand still and feel your feet on the ground. Press them down. Breathe.”
Harmyn did, then peered from left to right. The sky was a flat plane of muted blue. The ground was a dull brown where the snow had melted away. A lone pine stood out green behind a copse of bare trees. On a high branch, a black crow with a bald chest cawed.
Suddenly, she touched my face and hands. “You seem as solid as you feel.” Harmyn did the same to Old Woman. “And you.” The child stepped toward the distant trees. “It is so beautiful. Is this what you see? I’ve known light and shadow and shapes and thinness, as if everything were made of ghosts. But look at this!” She turned to face us. For the first time, she looked me straight in the eyes. “I have to match what I see with what I feel.”
The rest of the day, we witnessed her discovery—touching everything—furniture, linens, pots, tools, Cyril, the sheep, goats, and hens, water trickling in the stream, rocks on the bank, dead leaves, dry bark, the bones of a rabbit.
Whatever pain the vial’s liquid had inflicted, there was a gift, too. Harmyn could at last behold the world through her own eyes.
DIARY ENTRY 10 JANUARY /38
Poured the second vial’s contents into a bowl and left it in the glade. It’s a foul dark liquid which reflects the sun. Fragments of rainbows appear when I look at it from certain angles.
Later: the liquid is gone.
DIARY ENTRY 13 JANUARY /38
Is this because of the vial? We can’t leave her alone or something ends up spilled, torn from its roots, or ruined. She threw my carved stag into the fire and laughed as she held me off with the iron! I wanted to slap her. No food is pleasing, no pillow soft enough, no kindness accepted. Such as, I offered to buy her new clothes because all she has is what she brought with her, and wouldn’t she like some clothes that look like what other children wear (she dresses, well, like an orphan—from another century!) and she went rabid, screaming I can’t make her wear anything she doesn’t want. Old Woman calmed her with a promise to sew tunics and trousers from old dresses.
While that’s infuriating enough, Harmyn unleashed one of the Voices’ gifts on us—knowledge of the past. All day, I hear barbs. I know what your father did to you. Snip, snip! I know what you did at the ball. Oh, oh! I know what happened to your brothers. Gasp, gasp! I know lots of things you want no one to know, my little fungus. Once she hissed at me and told me to go in the corner. Turned my blood hot, then cold.
She does this to Old Woman, too. I try to remember what I learned from Aoife—pause, breathe, be kind—but sometimes it’s impossible! I’ve lashed out several times, which meant Old Woman had to calm me and Harmyn. Old Woman doesn’t raise her hand or voice, but I can tell the restraint she shows is sometimes almost beyond her limits.
If this is how she acted with the aunt and uncle, they must have lived every single day at their wits’ end. What was I thinking when I brought that child here? Oh no—what was I thinking when I agreed to heed the call? Or when I agreed to see where the symbols led? Yes, move backward, where did it all begin?!
When I know Old Woman is watching her, I run off into the woods. Better than losing my temper.
WITHIN A FEW DAYS, HARMYN’S unpredictable frenzies gave way to silent obstinacy.
I could hardly stand to look at her.
One night after Harmyn was asleep, Old Woman told me to meet her outside near the vegetable garden. She confronted me about my disappearances and how cold I’d been toward the child. She listened without interruption as I told her I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sorry I’d taken Harmyn there—I despised her—and wished I’d never found her much less given her the vial.
“What I’m about to ask of you is something you will find painful because you so rarely received it,” Old Woman said. “Harmyn needs your attention. To be ignored is a torment for every child, and for some, it is torture. Whatever was between you and your mother, I could sense it. You never had to tell me. You appeared at my door clean and well fed, but that didn’t mask your loneliness.”
I took a step aside. She grabbed my arm.
“You will listen, but you don’t have to speak. My assumptions are, you spent untold hours alone, even when you were in her presence. You learned to hide when you were sad or frightened, because you weren’t likely to be comforted when you were. You wanted affection and kindness, but you received indifference instead.”
A knot seized within my navel and wrenched the root of my tongue. My sight blurred.
“I am sorry, Secret,” she said. “You were a precious, gifted child and you suffered. I did my best to give you what I believed you needed, but I could never make up for the lack. Still, I know you love and trust me, otherwise you wouldn’t have returned here. And no matter the behavior you see now, Harmyn trusts you and wouldn’t have followed you, or taken the vial, if not. For you to disappear as you do, and refuse to look at or speak to this child, is an act of abandonment.
“You do hate Harmyn, but not for the reasons you think. Another part of you loves this child, even though the feeling leaves you confused. I’m here for you both to give the patience and understanding I can. I’m having a difficult time, too, because none of the children I’ve known was as troubled as Harmyn, or as exceptional. I’m grateful we have Aoife’s manuscript. It’s the only guide we have to help this Voice.” Old Woman looked at me as if she had something else to say but kept quiet.
I knew what she held back. As no one helped your mother.
Old Woman released my arm. I turned to the comfort of the woods, as I always did, this time dizzy with rage.
DURING THOSE FIRST WEEKS OF January, Nikolas and I exchanged letters on slips of paper, delivered back and forth by birds. He told me what occupied his days, and I apprised him of Harmyn’s condition.
Harmyn remained silent and sullen, but in the evenings, when I read aloud from Aoife’s manuscript, she was completely attentive. She listened to the story and to Old Woman and me when we talked to her about being respectful with her gifts, such as not intruding on people’s thoughts.
The night was late when Nikolas visited without notice, the nineteenth of January. When he stepped inside, Harmyn looked up but didn’t move from her pallet.
He knelt near her. “We haven’t been formally introduced. My name is Nikolas.”
Harmyn’s fixed scowl vanished. “You can see me.”
“Oh, am I not supposed to? Is this a game? If so, you are the worst hide-and-seek player I’ve ever met,” he said.
“I’m Harmyn.” She stared into his eyes. “You knew that. Secret has written letters telling you how awful I am.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Old Woman cut me a stern look. I held my tongue.
“You look quite ordinary for a monster,” he said.
Harmyn pressed her lips together but failed to stop the grin. “What should I call you, because you’re the prince.”
“My true friends call me Nikolas.” He slipped a satchel from his shoulder, reached inside, and held out a package. “Cookies, which of course you won’t share.”
“Thank you, Nikolas,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” He lifted the satchel to the table. “Pastries for you all, and staples. With three people to feed, I thought you might need more supplies. Secret, I brought books, too, as you requested.”
“I, we, are most grateful,” Old Woman said as she moved to store it away. “Tea?”
“Don’t bother. I came to speak to Secret.”
As I gathered my scarf, mittens, and cloak, I watched Nikolas talk with Harmyn, awed and jealous of his ease with her.
Once we were on our way to the stream, Nikolas said, “You told me she’s twelve, but she seems much younger. From her appearance, I would have thought her a boy.”
“I thought so, too, until I knew she was a Voice. Old Woman
said to let her dress as she wishes, although I think that will make trouble for her she doesn’t need. Regardless, we have bigger concerns with her than that.”
“She’s still being difficult?”
“Harmyn spoke more to you in those few minutes than she has in a week. No tantrums lately, only a quiet that seems sad, but also near to explode. None of the chirping she used to do, and she hasn’t sung once, even though I know she can.”
“More time, then,” he said.
“I suppose. Why did you come to talk?” I asked.
“Several reasons. First, your father came to see me. He’s afraid you’re dead.”
My chest tightened. “Understandably. He hasn’t heard from me since June.”
“He said he placed longsheet ads in several kingdoms, but received no legitimate responses, and then appealed to my father for aid—a favor, considering their dealings through Fewmany. My father said he’d look into the matter, but in all these months, no information has come. Your father hoped I’d be willing to help.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I promised to have our messengers and envoys inquire about you at their stops. I’ll keep my word to him, but I think you’ll have to send a letter soon to assuage his fears, if you intend to keep hiding.”
“I’m not ready to deal with him.”
“Secret, he cried in front of me.”
I shrugged.
“That’s harsh.”
“He betrayed me. He knew all along what Fewmany wanted. My father used me to gain his favor, to gain something for Fewmany as much as himself. If I was promised a library, Father was promised a prize, too,” I said.
“Well, then, Fewmany. We were both at a meeting this week—ongoing contention about the wall—and he asked about you,” Nikolas said.
“Did he?”
“He asked if I knew you were attending an assignment on his behalf. I said you told me at my banquet that it had to do with an acquisition for his library. Then he wanted to know if I’d heard from you because he’d received no word himself.”
“What did you say?”
The Plague Diaries Page 21