“A face appears next to mine,” Nikolas said. “We frighten each other and we laugh. He has the dirtiest cheeks and bright blue eyes. He’s on the curb on tiptoe looking in. I have an apple in my hand, and I see him stare at it. I give it to him. I hear Father clear his throat, and I wave the boy off. I hope Father didn’t see what I did. He doesn’t say anything, so I think he didn’t. When we return home, I go to my room to play. Father walks in with a riding crop. He comes at me, swatting my legs and backside. He chases me. He doesn’t say a word, but I know why he’s there. Then he hits me on the thigh and on my hip and the worst one lashes my side and I fall on the ground and curl in a ball and I see him raise his arm again but he walks away. Doesn’t say a word. Walks away.”
“How do you feel?” Harmyn asked.
“How do I feel,” Nikolas said. He picked up a glass from the table and dropped it on the floor. “Like that.”
“Don’t go near him,” Harmyn whispered, grabbing my wrist as I tried to stand, a cry thick as sludge in my lungs.
“Don’t go near me. What, are you afraid? I won’t hurt you. I’m a good boy. A bad prince but a good boy.” For several minutes, he paced the room with the boat cradled in his arms. When he returned to the table, he picked up a cane. “That was the first time Father hit me, but there were others. Rare, but I remember them all.”
An ominous stillness was the only warning before he tossed the boat into the air and hit it with the cane with all his might. In one swipe, he struck the glasses. He beat the table, screaming with every blow. When the cane broke, he upended the table and kicked it until the boards cracked. With a piece of that, he pounded the bed, the wardrobe, the walls.
“Stop him, Harmyn. He’s going to hurt himself,” I said.
“This is the shadow. He has to release it,” she said.
Her calm vigil infuriated me. She did nothing to ease his pain, although I knew she could. Her grip on my arm didn’t soften, even as my tears streamed out for what he’d suffered, then and now.
At last, he dropped the cane. His keen gored straight through my heart. He held his side, collapsed on the bed, and wept, inconsolable.
“He’s about to come back,” she said, loosening the hold on my arm.
I crawled up next to him, tugged his shirt away, and pressed my hands against his ribs. The bruise on my face pounded in time with my furious pulse. His pain flooded me, swirling to my center, toward the black hole yawning within. He started to shake, like an animal that barely escaped being prey. As the movement became more intense at his hips, tremors ripped through the rest of him, ceaseless.
“He’s having convulsions. Do something,” I said.
She sat across from me with her palm on his forehead. “He’s all right. The shadow is breaking apart. Nikolas, I’m watching from the gap. It’s within your reach. Get it back.”
His entire body relaxed. As Harmyn hummed, I laid my hands across his bare chest to embrace the lilt of his good heart.
WEEK 21
DIARY ENTRY 12 NOVEMBER /38
Charlotte’s parents hired caregivers, but she’s returning to help. “Her duty” as the only daughter among four children. Latest from Muriel—her father tried to have her tuition refunded to force her to return and care for them, but the conservatory refused. She wrote, “They have a houseful of servants. They don’t need me. This is a battle of wills. I fear what would happen if I capitulated. Please don’t think badly of me. You above anyone understands my wish to have a life of my own, narrow as it is.”
Every night, Harmyn sings everyone to sleep and takes Nikolas into that room. Whatever she’s doing to him seems sinister, even if it is necessary. Since the first time, he won’t allow me to go. He doesn’t want me to hurt, too. A part of me wants to be with him, but he’s right, I can’t bear it. It’s awful enough when he comes to me afterward to lie on my lap. His need, so open, I want to shrink away. But I sit there stroking his head while he cries, and I cry from the wordless pain welling up in me, until we physically can’t anymore.
Although he seems on the verge of fury or tears, he tends his responsibilities as usual. To some minds, he overstepped his bounds last week. I’m certain what Harmyn forced him through has much to do with this. He declared an act of seizure, usually done only in a time of war, of several dozen buildings throughout Rothwyke. The banks cannot claim them now. No one can be evicted, and the vacant apartments will be used as shelters. Nikolas decreed in writing the owners will regain possession once Ailliath—not only Rothwyke—is free of the plague. All the more reason now he can’t sleep in the next phase. He’s angered quite a few powerful men who don’t possess his compassion.
Julia and Lucas are restful. The Misses seem very frail. Dora’s office will close next week. Everyone is so tired, she said, so tired.
WEEKLY POST.
8 November /38. Page 1, Column 2
SHELTER REGISTRY FORMED; ALL RESIDENTS MUST VISIT AREA OFFICES; VOLUNTEERS TO ARRIVE SOON—Per the King’s decree, Rothwyke residents who have been evicted or otherwise find themselves without homes will be granted shelter through the plague’s duration. Those in need must register with his respective Aid and Relief League area office and will likely receive assignments within the same day. To conserve wood and coal, the apartments will be shared, such as a space meant for four will now hold eight. The discomfort of the overcrowding will be temporary, if the plague’s sleep falls upon the rest of us as expected on 21 December.
Residents who shall remain in their own homes must register their households with the area offices by 30 November to indicate whether they will have family or hired help. At this time, the Aid and Relief League, ward leaders, and town officials have not decided whether to require location to group shelters for those without care or to arrange daily visits from volunteers.
Regarding our young ones, they are expected to recover on 6 December. In conference with parents, ward leaders, and Aid and Relief League workers, certain walk-ups and houses will be designated as group shelters to care for them while the adults sleep. Efforts will be made to keep children with their siblings and friends within their own blocks. Families will receive assignments no later than 15 December.
Within the next two weeks, residents should expect to see many new faces as volunteers move to Rothwyke to assist with daily tasks and municipal services. Most will be assigned to group shelters. All others will be housed in buildings under the King’s decree or be accommodated as guests by our residents. The majority of volunteers will travel from other towns in Ailliath; some will be visitors from nearby kingdoms.
From the Plague of Silences Recollection Project Archives, Selected Excerpts
Diary No. 293. Male, 36, luminotypist
Delivered portraits. Beautiful, if I say so myself, even of the homely ones, uglier still with the withered arms and legs and sunken chests. This plague. Not sure who was more grateful for the barter. Relieved now, but won’t be if I’m pissing pins and needles next week. Had a glass at The Toothless Manticore, got a gash stopping an indecent assault, carried a fellow home too weak to stand on his own two feet. Taverns and teahouses open, almost every shop except for dry goods closed. Walked until nightfall, nothing else to do. Noticed on several street corners, sculptures of fanciful beasts. Made of wood, paper, fabric, and metal, very colorful and expertly crafted. Some have cranks, which when turned, animate the beasts’ heads, jaws, tails, and limbs. Waved to a man in a dashing blue coat who was repairing one.
Diary No. 468. Female, 9
Awake must write fast. In dream I was in Rothwick but it wasn’t Rothwick in that funny way you know a place but don’t in a dream. I was with many cildren standing on a gold road and these very big weels were turning and making music chimey and tingely. We had just begun to sing toghether the song from the big weels and I heard screeming. I turned to see people running toward us and smoke rising from the huts in the distens. And then I saw men with swords chopping and grabbing as our people ran away but some toward them w
ith axs and shovles. A little girl with light purpl eyes who was Harmin but not Harmin stepped out from our group and turned to us and said We will come back another time and right then as a sword came at her head I woke up.
Diary No. 307. Male, 54, physician
Periods of wakefulness now, lasting seconds in some cases, others half an hour or more. Children will respond to names. Said they’ve been dreaming, pleasant ones and nightmares. Odd how many have mentioned dreaming of dragons and gold, objects such as chalices, rings, coins, and crowns. Not all rest so easily now. Incidents of quaking fits and violent outbursts (kicking, punching), which require some children to be bound. Sadly, last week, the death toll doubled. Thus far this week, although not confirmed, it appears the toll will double again. After speaking with parents and examining bodies, no cause seems clear. The children simply stopped breathing. Why? The registrar promised to give us tallies with sex, age, ward of residence, but he said there appears to be no concentrations. Total dead from 11 Oct, start of second phase, to 4 Nov: 341.
Interview No. 7. Female; age during plague, 11; current occupation, children’s health advocate
Probably not many admit they thought about not waking here. I did. Weren’t only because I saw what might be, working my fingers to the bone until I was long in the tooth. There’s worse things than being poor, and that’s feeling like you can’t live with what happens in this world. How old was I? Eleven. Old enough. By then, I paid attention to the newsboxes. The horrible things happening in other kingdoms, that dragon menace burning villages, all sorts of trouble in Rothwyke. Among the people I knew. My dearest friend’s mother was blind in one eye because her father beat the woman senseless. Everyone knew. No one did a thing. He stayed. She never left. But she had no choice then, right? I had another friend. She was older by two, three years. We saw her belly grow. She said she was getting fat, and then the fat was gone, but her parents took in a baby nephew, they said.
And then. My grandfather, he was good as gold. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. He liked his drink some, but he was never mean. He worked every day of his life. He loved me, called me his Little Bird. If ever I was sad or afraid, I could go to him and he’d make me feel better. Then one day, he was dead. Walked to his job one morning and fell like a heap. How could he leave me as he did?
So when I slept, I saw where I could go. You saw them, too, didn’t you, the other places you could be, still you, but different. I thought to do it, never to wake up again where my grandfather wasn’t, never to know again the terrible things that happened and happened, over and over, everywhere.
Why did I wake? I remember, I was in and out of dreams, searching like, to find where I might want to be. In one, there was Grandfather. He took my hand—oh I remember how happy I was to touch him—and said to me, “Little Bird, there are people you don’t know yet who need your tender heart. What I gave you, give to them.”
More than thirty years on, I still cry when I think of this. I still cry when I think how the children who woke up were never the same again. Those who didn’t wake, well, how great their suffering must have been here, and how good they went to their peace.
WEEK 22
THE TWENTY-SECOND WEEK, I went to the woods alone. The garden required tending, the cottage some dusting, wood some chopping, but I couldn’t muster the vitality. For several nights, I’d dreaded sleep. Once I slipped in, I fell into the lair of the ogress, with her filth and feral stink, where she boiled children alive and ate them, bones and all. I awoke each time unable to breathe, clawing the air.
I left Harmyn and Nikolas with the promise I’d return in three days. Alone, I walked among the skeletal trees. When I was hungry, I foraged mushrooms and the last apples. When I was tired, I slept where I found myself, with a creature to keep me warm. For hours, I wept as Aoife had early in her exile—for every reason why. For all that happened, all I suffered, all the pain I’d caused.
The second morning, a crow alerted me to the approach of two men on one horse. I stood near the garden as they arrived. Hugh helped Nikolas from the saddle and nearly dragged him into the cottage. Their intrusion angered me, and Hugh could tell.
The moment Hugh placed him on the bed, Nikolas wrapped in a quilt, turned to the wall, and curled into himself.
Miss, Hugh wrote in the notebook I handed him, phosishen said plage simtons bad. Harmin told me to bring him said you will know what to do.
Tell her I don’t know. She must come, I wrote.
Please something is very wrong, he wrote.
Hugh patted Nikolas on the shoulder before he left. When I brushed the hair from his face, Nikolas cringed away from my touch. I fed the fire. I made tea he wouldn’t drink. I looked around the cottage. On the high shelf where I’d put it months before was Aoife’s manuscript. As he slept, I sat with paper, pen, and ink and began to translate her words, compelled to do so at last. The ink’s smell, the paper’s texture, and the whir of clear thoughts made me cry. When I found the white flower Egnis gave me pressed within, I cried more.
Near twilight, I went to the stream. I set the full pail aside to watch the sunset through the trees. A fox drank, then raised her head, looking to my right. Nikolas shuffled toward me and dropped at my side. When I took his hand, he felt ghostly, more form than substance. His pupils were dilated, the irises eclipsed. I wrapped my arm around his back, almost expecting it to slip through his flesh. I couldn’t tell if he breathed.
A stag crept along the water’s edge, his majestic antlers held high, the setting sun behind him. He moved as a silhouette, without dimension, still beautiful. I pointed to him, Nikolas’s favorite among beasts, but Nikolas observed him with indifference.
I pulled my notebook from my pocket. Nikolas took it from me. He studied the bruise on my cheek. As he scrawled on a blank page, I expected him to ask, why is it there? who did this to you? Instead, I read,
Veins are strands in the rope of fate & we cannot untie the knots which bind us.
I leaned away from him. His body was near me, but his voice, as I knew it, was not inside.
Oh the burden of knowing the good & evil your blood has done, fathers kings mothers queens
I tried to take the notebook, but he wrenched aside to scrawl,
Oh the horror you will repeat their deeds, war without, war within, war on innocents strangers & kin
With a swipe, I snatched the pages and threw them as far as I could. I knelt in front of him and clutched his icy hands in mine. “Where are you, Nikolas?” I asked aloud. He cocked his head as if he’d detected a noise. “Are you lost?” I asked. His eyes met mine. “Please, come back to me,” I said.
He blinked, then stared as if he couldn’t figure out who I was. My fingers thrust through his hair and I kissed him, breathing him in. He drew back to look at me. His pupils contracted with a glimmer. When I moved to sit on his lap, a stagnant energy broke free, spiraled into an ascendant flow, and released into another kiss, this one returned. As his hands swept under my skirt and found the warmth of my skin, I knew I had been lost to him, too. We tore at each other, searching for the heat of our bodies, that moment, now.
ON THE TRAY ALONG WITH our breakfast was a note from Dora Thursdale, addressed to Harmyn and me. “Please come to the Elgins as soon as you can,” she’d written.
We skipped our meal and took a horse from the stables. Along the route, few people were outside enduring the cold. At one corner, a young man sat on a stack of longsheets and puffed clouds into the air. Two blocks from the walk-up, a bearded man with a blue scarf hurried to a bread box carrying a cozy-covered teapot and several cups. The bread box attendant served loaves with gloved hands, and the man poured steaming tea for the attendant and three customers.
When we reached my old building, a group of people were gathered near the front steps, their faces mournful. We hitched the mare and went inside.
The Misses Acutt stood in their doorway, clutching handkerchiefs. Short Miss pointed to the stairs. Harmyn rushed
ahead of me.
Not Julia, please, I thought, appalled that I did.
The Elgins’ door was open. Neighbors and garden volunteers stood in groups of two and three. Dora handed me a card which read “They lost their Lucas.”
On a board near the window was the boy’s body. His mother, vacant with shock, slumped in a chair nearby. Her hands dangled into the clutches of women who knelt on both sides, one of them Jane.
In the children’s room, Harmyn sat cross-legged on the bed. Julia was awake. Her eyes held mine as I approached. I shifted Flowsy to lie on her shoulder. On the pillow next to hers was Lucas’s wooden sword.
My mother’s voice came to me: “Your brothers Noose and Knot, dead before they were alive, spared you the grief of their loss, if you had loved them.” Hearing this again infuriated me. That I thought of Duncan and Riley deepened my sorrow.
“I’m so sorry,” I said aloud.
She wants to talk to you, Harmyn said.
She knows what you can do? I asked.
By now, all the children know, she said.
I heard an avian whoosh and a snap and then Julia said, “I begged him not to go.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“When you sleep, you’re going to dream of things that happened, things that didn’t, and things that could,” Julia said. “You’ll see people you know. Sometimes they’ll be the same as you know them, but not always. They might be younger or older, or nicer or meaner.”
I remembered Harmyn’s letter with the overlapping circles. “You and Lucas saw each other in these dreams?”
“We played and had good times, and we visited each other when we were grown.”
“Then what do you mean, you begged him not to go?”
“When you sleep, you find out you don’t have to wake up here. You can go into another dream and stay there. He said he didn’t want to come back.”
The Plague Diaries Page 40