Silence: Book One of The Queen of the Dead

by Michelle Sagara

  Margaret was the oldest of the four who’d been trapped along one wall in Amy’s ad hoc dancing room. Her hair was an austere blend of gray and brown, and her eyes were the same noncolor, the slight odd glow, that the eyes of all of the dead seemed to be; she wore clothing that would have suited businesswomen thirty years ago. Or more.

  She looked at Chase. “It was not,” she said, in a deep and precise voice, “a simple figure of speech. But you may tell your hunter that one of those Necromancers is Merrick Longland.”

  Chase looked back. Margaret was visible to him, even though Emma couldn’t touch her. “How do you know?”

  One gray brow rose. Emma had seen teachers with less effective stares.

  So, apparently, had Chase. “How long do we have?”

  “Minutes,” Margaret answered. “Possibly ten.”

  “How many?”

  “I can be certain only of Longland. And Emma.”

  “Then you’re not certain there are more.”

  “There are more. At least one other, possibly two. I can’t tell you who they are, but I can tell you they’re with Longland.”

  “Fine. Eric, you still there? No, it wasn’t a figure of speech. Yes, we’re screwed. You still don’t want backup?” The silence lasted a minute too long, and Chase flipped the phone shut. “Emma—go. Whatever you need to do, do it now.”

  “Chase—”

  “Because if the fire doesn’t kill us, the Necromancers will. Eric’s our best,” he added. “But even Eric can’t stand against more than one Longland. Not alone.”

  “Then go. Help him. You can’t do anything here anyway.”

  Chase hesitated. “He’ll kill me.”

  “Probably. And I’d like him to be alive to do it.” She turned only her face—her body was aligned with her hands—and added, “Maria’s children are out there. Allison and Michael. Skip and Amy. You were right,” she added, her voice dropping. “Go.”

  Chase shoved the phone back into her pocket and then sprinted for the door. Smoke billowed in when it opened, and the air seemed to be sucked out, into the hall. He slammed the door shut behind him, for all the good it would do.

  “I’m of two minds about that boy,” Margaret told Emma. She then glanced at Andrew, whose screaming had quieted. It hadn’t stopped; he’d just lost volume as the minutes passed. “But I think you’ll win him over, in the end.”

  Emma clenched her teeth. She’d met women like Margaret before, however, and she forced herself to speak politely and clearly when she trusted herself to speak at all. “Margaret, if we don’t manage to reach Andrew, we’re—Maria and I—not going to leave this place. Not alive.”

  Margaret nodded, and her expression softened; it added years to her face, but those years weren’t unkind; she had the bone structure that made a lie of youthful beauty. “Can you bind him, Emma?”

  “Can I what?”

  “Bind him. Bind him the way we’re bound to you.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “How did you bind us?”

  “You were already tied to a wall. I just—I broke the chains around you and they kind of stuck to me.”

  Margaret closed her eyes and shook her head, and Suzanne gently touched the older woman’s shoulder. “Well?” Margaret said, opening her eyes and looking to Suzanne. Suzanne glanced at Andrew, who was standing and shuddering on the bed. “I don’t think so,” she said, after a pause. “He’s too young, Margaret, and too new.”

  “He is very, very powerful, though.”

  “He is.”

  “Emma, can you touch that power at all?”

  “I can touch him. I—no.” She gave up on excuses. “No. I can’t.”

  “Well, then.” Margaret turned to Maria Copis. “I’m sorry for my lack of manners, but the situation is somewhat dire,” she said, speaking slowly enough that the words seemed to run counter to their content. “I’m Margaret Henney. You are Andrew’s mother?”

  Maria managed to pull her glance away from her son. Her face was streaked with trails, and those trails were now dark gray. “I am. I—”

  Margaret lifted a hand. “I know, dear. My son drowned in a crowded lake at the height of one summer. I understand guilt. And loss. I also understand that you wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for Emma.

  “But neither would we. I am about to suggest that we try something that may not work. And it may leave some permanent scars.”

  Maria Copis laughed. “You think I care about scars?”

  Emma, listening, shook her head. “She’s not talking about that kind of scar,” she told Maria. “I think she means it might change you somehow.”

  “Will it get my son out of here?” Maria said, still looking at Margaret.

  “It might. It’s the only thing I can think of that has any chance, unless you’re willing to wait another ten years.”

  Maria’s eyes widened. Answer enough. “Emma, what is she suggesting?”

  “I’m not sure.” Emma hesitated, thinking. It was hard, because Andrew had found a second—or third, or tenth—wind. “Is it something you can do, Margaret?”

  “No, Emma. Not I.”

  “Me, then.”

  The older woman nodded. “What do you see, when you look at us?”

  “The dead.” Emma shook her head. “No. Truthfully, you wouldn’t look dead to me at all if it weren’t for your eyes.” And the fact that they could appear out of thin air.

  “What do you see when you look at Maria?”

  “I see Maria.” Emma started to describe her, and stopped as Margaret’s words finally came into focus, over the endless wails of a bereaved four-year-old boy. She swallowed, coughed. “Margaret—”

  “Look at her, Emma. Look carefully.”

  Emma shook her head, almost wild. “She’s alive, Margaret.” She glanced at the door, as if seeking some kind of guidance from Chase, who was no longer in the room. “I can’t—” pause. “Do Necromancers—can they—”

  “What you are, and what they are, are not yet the same. You can become them,” Margaret added, in her crisp, clear voice. “Or you can become something different. But, yes, Emma. If they were willing to pay the price, they could touch the living.”

  “What price?” Maria asked Margaret. She was pale, the way old statues are pale.

  Margaret looked at Maria, and her expression gentled again. “You cannot pay it for her, although you may suffer in the process. You are willing to suffer; I don’t doubt it, and in the end, neither does our Emma. But Emma is afraid of losing what she is.”

  “Will I?” Emma asked starkly.

  Margaret didn’t answer. But Georges came to stand by Emma’s side, and he wrapped his arms around her, briefly. Catherine did the same, looking first to see whether or not Georges’ gesture was met with disapproval.

  “Margaret, will it kill her?”

  Margaret said nothing for a long moment. When she did speak, she said, “Trust yourself.” Which was so far from comfort, she might as well not have bothered. “Catherine, dear?”

  Catherine detached herself from Emma. “Yes?”

  “Please. The young boy?”

  Catherine nodded. “He’s very loud,” she said. But she walked over to Andrew Copis, and she put both her arms around him, as if she were his older sister. He started, looked at her, and then screamed MOM at the top of his little lungs.

  The world slowed, then. The smoke seemed to freeze in place.

  Margaret looked at Emma again, as if this had been some sort of proof, at the end of a long theorem. In a way, it was. Because Emma now thought she understood exactly what Margaret hoped she could achieve. She took a deep breath, nodded, and then let Andrew Copis go.

  Maria darted forward and stopped. She took deep, deep breaths while she stood rigid.

  Emma looked at Maria Copis. She saw a woman who was not quite thirty, in a sooty shirt, baggy jeans. Her hair was dark, her eyes were dark, and her face was that kind of gaunt that makes you feel like a voyeur just se
eing it. Emma shook herself, took a much shallower series of breaths than Maria had, and looked again.

  Her eyes were dark, yes. Her cheeks were stained. This wasn’t helping. She was alive, her son was dead; they were divided by that state. Just as Emma and her father had been divided, as Emma and Nathan had been divided. Death was silence, loss, guilt. And anger.

  But life led that way, anyway. From birth, it was a slow, long march to the grave. Who had said that? She couldn’t now remember. But it was true. They were born dying. If they were very lucky, the dying was called aging. They reached toward it as if they were satellites in unstable orbits.

  And when they got there, they were just dead. Like the unfamiliar student in the cafeteria. One moment in time separated the living from the ghosts. Emma looked for that moment now.

  She tried to age Maria in her mind’s eye, the way she avoided aging her mother. It didn’t help, and she discarded the attempt, wishing—briefly—that she’d brought Michael with her. Michael, with his rudimentary social understanding and his ability to see beyond almost all of it, would have had a better chance of arriving at something useful than she did.

  Michael would have asked her the important questions. What is death? What are the dead? Why are they here? Do people have souls, Emma? Can you prove it?

  Well? Did they have souls?

  She glanced at Margaret, at Suzanne, and at the two children.

  Did it matter? They looked as they must have looked in life. Not in death; the death itself didn’t seem to define them. But the life they’d lived? That did. In the clothing, the names, the style of their hair, the way they spoke to her. They remembered what they had been; it was, in essence, what they still were.

  If Maria Copis died now—today, here—this is what she would look like, to Emma. Because this is what she would look like to herself. It was there. It was in her. People couldn’t predict death most of the time. Maybe ever.

  “Maria,” Emma said. “Give me your hand. Just one.”

  Maria held out a hand. She hesitated for just a moment, then firmly gripped Emma’s in her own.

  Emma looked at her. Not at her face, her hair, or her clothing; not at her expression. “Georges,” she said, not taking her eyes off Maria, “come here and take my other hand.”

  Georges shuffled along the planks, and then she felt his hand in hers. It wasn’t cold, but she knew why. Her father’s gift. She used it now, without pause for regret or guilt.

  When she touched the dead, the living could see them. Eric had said this was because she was using some of their power—some very small part—to make them visible. To give them a voice. But now, just now, she tried to see how she was taking that power. What she was actually touching when she reached for what looked like a hand.

  She closed her eyes, because actually looking wasn’t helping her to see at all.

  She heard Maria say, “Hello, Georges.”

  She heard Georges reply. Where, in his words, was Emma’s power? Where, in that quiet, child’s voice, was some evidence of her work? There. In the palm of her hand. A small tendril, a string, a chain. Something that bound him to her, but something that also bound her to him. It went both ways.

  It was cool; the way ice was cool when touched through thin gloves. Colder when she pulled, because she could pull at it if she concentrated. She tried, and Georges said, “Yes, Emma?”

  She hadn’t built it. It had existed before her. But she’d used it. She was using it now, in some ways. She let go of Georges’ hand in the darkness, and whispered, “Dad.”

  She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his sudden presence growing. With it came memories, some good, some bad. They were hers, but they were his as well, seen on opposite sides and from different angles.

  Sprout.

  “Dad, take my hand?”

  He did. She heard him say, “Hello, Maria. I’m Brendan Hall, Emma’s father.”

  She touched her father. If she tried, she could feel the cold—but it wasn’t as sharp as Georges; it was the difference between a winter day and solid ice. She tried to pull at him in the way she had pulled at George, and it was harder. But it was—barely—possible.

  But his power had flowed into her when he wanted it to.

  We’re bound, Em, he told her, and she could hear the affection in his voice so strongly it almost hurt. I love you.

  She looked at him, then, and her eyes teared. She started to tell him it was the smoke, then stopped and smiled instead. It was a weak smile, and she added, “I’m fine, Dad,” before she could stop herself. “I miss you.”

  He touched her face for just a second, and his smile deepened.

  She looked, last, to Maria. Maria, whose chain she didn’t hold; Maria, whose love she didn’t have. The only thing they had in common was the desire to save a four-year-old boy from decades of terror and pain—and Emma knew her desire was nowhere near the equal of Maria’s.

  But the desire to try was as strong, and that would have to do. She took a breath, and she tried to reach for Maria Copis. All she felt in her hand was Maria’s hand.

  She reached for her father again, and she felt the cold. This time, she was more careful. She approached the fact of his death slowly, as if he were not, in fact, dead at all. She could see him. She could speak with him. She could, if she wanted, hug him. He still loved her. He still worried about her.

  What he couldn’t do, she didn’t think about—not now.

  She felt the cold. But instead of shying away from it, she reached into it, and then, as if it were a wall, she pushed beyond it. For a moment, the cold was sharp and cutting, and then she felt a slow and steady warmth. She opened her eyes and stared at her father, who said, and did, nothing.

  “I think,” Margaret said in the distance, “she might have it, Suzanne.”

  “He’s dead,” Suzanne very correctly replied. “The boy’s mother is not.”

  “No. You make a point. But still.”

  Emma let go of her father’s hand, and the warmth receded. She wanted to call it back, because in it, for a moment, she felt safe. She felt safe in a way that she couldn’t remember feeling, even as a four year old; what pain could touch her, there? What worry, and what loss?

  “Maria,” she said, and she held out her free hand.

  Maria took it.

  “Think,” Emma told Maria, “of the good things. The good things about Andrew. Not his death, not his loss, but all the reasons you feel the loss so strongly. Can you do that?”

  “I…I don’t know. I’ll try.”

  Emma had never doubted it. She watched Maria’s face, and after a moment, Maria grimaced and closed her eyes; she’d been staring at the spot in midair where Andrew stood because she could no longer see—or hear—him. And this was probably for the best, because there was no way she could have done what Emma asked, otherwise. As it was, climbing Everest with toothpicks for pitons would probably have been easier.

  Emma watched Maria’s face. Her eyelids flickered and trembled, and her lips turned at the corners, tightening and thinning. The smoke was thick in the room, and Emma sat; she wanted to lie flat across the floor, remembering her elementary school lessons about moving in fires. But she crouched instead, waiting, and trying not to feel the passing time.

  Bit by bit, Maria’s expression relaxed, her lips losing that tight, pained look, the lines around her closed eyes slowly disappearing as she bowed her head toward Emma. Emma, both hands locked around Maria, just as they had previously been locked around her son, closed her eyes as well.

  She reached out for Maria Copis the way she had reached out for her father; she didn’t move her hands, didn’t open her eyes, didn’t try to physically grab anything.

  And doing so, she remembered the first night that she had seen—and touched—her father. Her body had been in a chair, beside Michael. But she had been standing in the middle of the waiting room in front of Brendan Hall, her hands outstretched, her palms and fingers splayed wide to catch him before he vanis
hed.

  That part of her—it was inside her now, and had been ever since that first night. Maybe it had always been inside her. Maybe what she saw, somehow, was not actually what was there. Maybe it wasn’t something eyes could actually see—but her mind was doing the translating and giving her images that she could recognize and hold.

  Eyes closed, she looked for her father.

  And she saw him, standing in the darkness, limned in light, his face bright with that smile that meant she’d done something that made him proud. She looked for Georges, and she saw that he was standing beside Catherine; they were holding hands, and where their hands met, the light was bright and unfaltering.

  She nodded at them but didn’t speak; instead she moved on, searching now for Maria Copis.

  She saw Andrew first, his face tear-stained, his hair matted to his forehead, his eyes wide and wild. He wasn’t solid; he wavered in her vision like a—like a ghost. But he stood in the way, and she felt that if she could move past him somehow, she would reach Maria.

  Instead, for the first time in this darkness of closed eyes that had nothing at all to do with her living, breathing body, she held out a hand. Or at least that’s what it felt like she did; when she looked, she couldn’t actually see her hand. Or her arm. Or anything at all that looked like Emma Hall.

  But for the first time, Andrew seemed to sense her. Chase had called him powerful, and maybe he was—but not here. Here, he was weak, wavering like a heat mirage in the air before her; here he was so damn lost it was hard to see him at all. She held out her hand again.

  This time, he reached for it.

  Come on, Andrew, she told him, as gently as she knew how. Let’s go find your mom.

  “AMY. SKIP. GRAB THE LADDERS. They’re not coming down any time soon.” Eric turned to speak to Allison; he turned back when he realized that the ladders weren’t coming down. “We need to move. Quickly.”

  “And if they need to come down in a hurry?” Amy’s hands lodged themselves on her hips, and she shifted her stance.

  Eric resisted the urge to point out that she was not, in fact, holding the ladder at this moment. “Skip,” he said, over her, “it sounds as though your friend Longland is going to make an appearance. I’d suggest you get ready to hightail it out of here with your sister, if you can get her to leave.”