by A. W. Cross
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Father shook his head. “You’re my inspiration, Belle. Always. I’ll start on the calculations right away.” He sighed, looking at something beyond as he mused out loud. “I think it’ll need a lot more testing, and even though it’s not a proper substitution for the guards protecting the wall, not at first at least, it could help in case there’s ever a full-on attack staged by the Tainted.”
“Why would they ever do that?” I frowned at him. “The Tainted are terrifying and horrible, sure, but they’re also extremely stupid. They can’t think anymore. We’ve never had any of them work together in any way to try and assault us. Why do you think they would even be capable of doing this?”
Father didn’t reply for a second as he further inspected the device’s wiring. “It’s just a precaution,” he said eventually, but it seemed to me as if he’d waited a tad too long to reply. Maybe he’d just been distracted by the cables, but…
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I leaned over until my head was blocking his sight and he couldn’t pretend to be gazing at the apparatus anymore.
“No, of course not.” Father waved my concerns away while he moved away from the workspace and took his goggles off. “It’s just, I rather be safe than sorry. And if the Tainted do ever make it to the Wall…”
“Then the Wall will stop them, like it always has,” I said, finishing the sentence before he had the chance to. “It has stood for a hundred years, protecting us from the Blight, and it will stand for a hundred more,” I stated our town’s mantra. Every Sunday in church, we all said it, practically chanted it.
The Wall will stand for a hundred years to protect us from the Blight, and it will stand for a hundred more.
Maybe we only believed it because we’d said it so often.
“Of course, sweetie.” Father wrapped his arm around me to hold me in a half-hug. “Of course. The Wall is infused with magic. Every Tainted who comes true, will burn to a crisp. The devices are just a precaution, just like the guards on the Wall. But I rather kill the Tainted three meters away from my town than one meter away from it, do you understand?”
“Yes, I do. But the guards have been doing fine on their own, for years. There’s no reason to believe the Tainted will suddenly learn to work together and attack us in a coordinated assault.” Now I almost sounded like I was starting to believe that they would. “Right?” I asked, hoping Father would confirm what I just said.
“Right.” He nodded, but for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I didn’t believe him at all. “Now, if you don’t mind,” he continued, “I’m starving, so I’ll get started on that breakfast. It smells delicious, by the way.”
Most days, he was so preoccupied that his eggs were cold by the time he got around to eating—why was he suddenly so eager to start eating? I was more convinced than ever now that he was hiding something from me. But what?
I sighed and tried to figure out why he would think an impending Tainted attack was a real possibility, but I hadn’t heard any reports from the Hunters or anyone else that could back this up.
Meanwhile, Father pretended to enjoy the breakfast while it was blatantly obvious he was just trying to distract me from worrying about a possible Blight assault.
Suddenly, my house was filled with liars and secret-keepers, me being one of them. I hadn’t told Clarice the truth about my nightly escapades from the get-go, and now she had forced the truth out of me. Clarice was lying to herself about Charles, convincing herself he would be a good husband when we all knew he wouldn’t be, but none of us quite knew how to make her realize that. On top of that, Clarice had acted strange all morning, and I thought she was keeping something from me. Now, Father was keeping secrets too.
“You don’t have to stay to watch me eat,” Father said, disrupting my thoughts. “Don’t you want to do something else?”
I opened my mouth to protest, realizing full well he was trying to get rid of me. He’d said too much, and he knew I was on to him, but whatever his secret, he didn’t want to tell me at all.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, and I hate secrets,” I told him, barely able to keep the frustration out of my voice. Father and I usually shared everything, and I felt hurt that he couldn’t tell me this, when it was obviously such a vital thing.
“I’m not keeping—” Father paused, scratching his hair. “I can’t tell you. It’s not mine to tell.”
“You shouldn’t keep secrets from me.” With those words, I promptly turned around and headed outside. Frustration could barely begin to describe what I felt when he didn’t call me back; not when I opened up the double doors leading to the world filled with sunlight, and not even when I closed them again, shutting my Father back into the darkness of his workshop, alone with his secrets.
4
“Don’t look so annoyed,” Clarice scolded me while we walked into town, our arms linked. She smiled from ear to ear, and I probably looked like a good imitation of the grumpy dwarf in the fairytale of Snow White that Mother used to read to us as children.
“But I am annoyed,” I countered. “I hate going into town, and I would much rather be at home, reading mother’s journals, or practicing some spells.”
Clarice cringed; maybe it was still a sore spot for her that she hadn’t been the one to inherit Mother’s grimoires. Per tradition, a Sorcerer’s grimoires went to their oldest heir, but none of us had realized that grimoires also tended to have a mind of their own, and after Mother’s death, her grimoire started chronicling the spells performed by me as opposed to Clarice’s spells. For reasons unexplained, the grimoire had chosen me, and skipped Clarice.
I glanced at her with pity, wanting to hug her. If I had the choice, I would’ve gladly given all the books to her, but once a grimoire is connected to a Sorcerer, the connection is for life.
“It’s busy today,” Clarice noticed.
All around us, the town was buzzing with activity. The baker rushed out of the shop with a plate full of pastries, nearly dropping them when he half-slipped on a cobblestone. The tavern, the only one we had in town which was thus unimaginatively called “Tavern” had already opened its doors and the innkeeper’s wife was sweeping the entrance with a broom almost bigger than her. She nodded at us as we passed, but I caught her glance at my arm—the one not interlinked with my sister’s—before she quickly looked away.
“This’ll be fun, you’ll see,” my sister promised, sounding way too cheerful. “I miss spending time with you. We barely do anything together anymore, just the two of us.”
“That’s not true. Half of what we do, we do together. Like reading—you sit on the armchair close to the fireplace and I sit on the windowsill, and we read. Or we make puzzles together—”
“But none of that requires communication,” Clarice interrupted me. “I want to talk to you. Understand what’s going on in that head of yours.” She stopped and pointed ahead. “Why don’t we head into the dress shop?”
I groaned. “That’s probably the last place on earth I want to be. Besides, did you find a hidden treasure somewhere that I don’t know about, and you’re suddenly the wealthiest person in town?” I frowned at her. We weren’t exactly wealthy, and Clarice was usually quite cheap.
“No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a look, at least.” She poked my side with her elbow. “Come on, I want to look at some scarfs and ribbons.”
Grunting, I followed her while she skipped toward the dress shop. At least one of us was happy. All I could think about was how much work I had left; helping Father with his invention, skimming through the last of my mother’s diaries and trying to make sense of her writing, all of which sounded infinitely more interesting than going to the dress shop.
Mother’s first diaries were written in normal language, but the last few were in code, and back when she was still alive, she told Clarice and I that once we were old enough, she would share the code with us so we could read them. Unfortunately, s
he’d passed away before she could ever do that.
Thinking about Mother made me realize I was being selfish. I glanced at Clarice as she held open the door to the dress shop for me, her smile so radiant it could light up a room. She wanted a nice day out with her sister, and I was ruining it by being all doom and gloom.
Try to act happy, for her sake, I told myself.
“So, what are you looking for?” I asked Clarice once we stood inside the dress shop, trying to sound enthusiastic.
The walls of the dress shop were lined with fabrics in myriad colors, all the way from virgin white to the darkest of blacks, and every possible color in between, with an obvious focus on pastel colors. I saw so many pastels they made my head spin. It had been years since I’d gone inside—I only had three dresses, and whenever they needed patching up, Clarice usually took care of that—so I had no idea the shop was that… colorful.
On the left side was a closet adorned with ribbons, belts and scarfs, all the accessories a girl could ever need or want, in an equally overwhelming amount of colors.
A door opened from behind the counter, and the shopkeeper appeared. I recognized Blanche, a heavy-set woman in her early forties with so much make-up plastered on her face that her skin had turned an unnatural, pearly white, a stark contrast to her bloodred lips. She also wore a wig of at least a meter high, a grey abomination that looked like it weighed a dozen pounds.
“Hello dearies.” Blanche clapped her hands. “Clarice, so good to see you again! And you brought your sister.” She smiled at me, but it didn’t feel very genuine—I guess she treated all her customers in this over-the-top way, greeting them as old friends, and her gaze stayed on my mechanical arm for longer than I liked.
“How can I help you two lovely girls this morning?” Blanche leaned over the counter, which made her ample bosom nearly tumble out of her bodice.
“I’d like to buy a ribbon that compliments my hair,” Clarice explained, tossing her hair in the air. “And for once, I managed to drag my sister along.”
Blanche took this as her cue to study me meticulously, moving on from my face to my arm rather quickly, but then at least having the decency to focus back on my face. “We hardly ever see you in town, Belle. And I think it’s been easily five years, if not more, since I’ve seen you in my shop.”
“I’m not very fashion-minded. More of a bookish type.” I shrugged, but Blanche looked horrified at my statement.
“It’s true, she’s always buried with her nose in one book or another,” Clarice said with a smile. “She has almost devoured the entire town library.”
“Reading.” Blanche huffed. “I never understood why anyone would learn to read. What is the use for it?”
“I—” I was about to start a tirade about why reading was practically the most important thing in the world, but Clarice grabbed my arm to stop me.
“Can we see the ribbons, please?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Oh sure!” Blanche clapped her hands again. She nearly jumped from excitement while she headed over to the closet showcasing ribbons in all colors and sizes. “It’s for in your hair, you said?”
“Yes.”
“I think red or pink would look great.” Blanche moved Clarice in front of a full-length mirror and held the ribbons up next to her face. “Those colors always compliment blonde hair wonderfully.”
“Hm. I like both of them.” Clarice turned her head from left to right, looking at each side to see which color fit her best. “Belle, which one do you like the most?”
I hadn’t expected her to ask me, so I was a bit taken aback. “Uhm… I don’t know… Uhm…” I focused on her face, her blue, sparkling eyes, her hair… “Red, definitely.”
“Okay.” Clarice smiled at me and nodded, agreeing with my choice. “I’ll take the red one.” She moved away from the mirror and patted me on the back. “Now it’s your turn, Belle.”
“My turn? But I don’t need…”
“It’s my treat.” Clarice pushed me in front of the mirror. “Let me do something sisterly for you, for once. Come on.”
I couldn’t say no to that, even though I didn’t want or need a ribbon at all. “Okay, fine.” I turned to Blanche. “Which color do you think would suit me best?”
Blanche looked as if she’d rather fall through a hole that led to the core of the earth and burn in the smoking magma than offer me advice. “Blue or green, I guess. Brown hair is always a bit duller.”
Agonizingly slow, she walked over to the closet and got out two ribbons in the colors she had indicated, handing me them. Although I stood with my mechanical arm closest to her, ready to take the ribbons, she reached out all the way to my regular arm to hand me the items.
I tried to ignore the anger boiling inside me and smiled at her while she handed me the ribbons. I held up the blue one first, then the green one.
“I like the green one.” Clarice’s voice sounded so soft that I’d barely recognized it at first. She moved behind me, rubbing her hands along my shoulders. “You look beautiful, Belle.”
I wanted to say something snarky, but the moment felt too precious for that, too special. It felt strange, almost as if she was… saying goodbye…or something. But that was absurd. I was probably imagining things.
“Thanks,” was all I could say before she guided me back to the counter and, under the guidance of some cheery words from Blanche, she paid for my ribbon and hers. Once outside the shop, I was glad I could breathe again – the myriad of fabrics lined up against the shelves, and the overwhelming amount of different colors in the shop, had almost been suffocating.
“Come on, let me put your ribbon in your hair.”
I turned around so Clarice could tie my hair into a ponytail using the green ribbon.
“Now, do mine.” She turned around too and I, albeit clumsily and having to restart a few times, the fingers in my right hand still itching from this morning, managed to tie up her hair.
“I really like the gift. Thank you.” I liked it because it was a gift from Clarice, but if a world without ribbons existed, you wouldn’t hear me complain about it for one second. “Where to next?”
“Didn’t you say you needed to stop by the library?” Clarice asked.
“Yes, well, if you don’t mind. Contrary to Blanche’s belief, I do think reading makes all the difference in the world.”
Clarice offered me her arm, and we strolled toward the library. I had to admit receiving the gift from her had made me happy. Maybe I should get her something as well. Not right away, though, or she’d think I did it just so we could be even, but in a few weeks. Something thoughtful. Maybe I could embroider something for her—she knew how much I loathed that, so she’d really appreciate the gesture.
“Unfortunately, half the town thinks the way she does. And I can’t really blame them. Books make me sad sometimes.” Clarice sighed. “When reading books, especially those romantic books about Theseus and his beloved, or about the Greek heroes of old… They make me think of the world that once was. The world that is gone now. All those magnificent cities of marble and gold, all those civilizations lost. The world used to be so grandiose, so enormous, and now it’s been reduced to nothing. Our town is all that is left, and it’s so small, so insignificant.”
“I never looked at it that way before.” I hopped over a toppled-up cobblestone on the road. “For me, reading is an escape. It allows me to live a life beyond the confines of our town. It allows me to dream of faraway adventures, of princes and castles—”
“But doesn’t it make you sad too, though?” Clarice asked. Obviously today was the day she had allocated to ask all the hard questions. “Doesn’t it make you sad that you can never have that life? That you can never go beyond the Wall?”
She looked to the end of the road we were following. The road went on for a good mile, flanked on both sides by shops and houses, but then nothing stood on the side of the road for half a mile, and eventually the road stopped a good ten meters before
the Wall.
The Wall with its double purpose: to protect us from the Tainted, but also to serve as the confines of our prison.
“Clarice…”
“This is all there is, Belle.” Her voice broke and she stopped in the middle of the road. “I think that’s why most of our town’s people don’t read. They don’t want to. They don’t want to imagine the possibilities if our world stretched on beyond that border. Because it’s too painful, to imagine a world out there only to realize you’ll never be able to be part of it.”
“Clarice, what’s going on?” I squeezed her hand, trying to get her to look at me and tell me what she was really thinking. It wasn’t like her to be this emotional.
She wiped her eyes. “It’s nothing. I just had this weird nightmare this morning, and I’m feeling a little weird. Come on.” Without saying anything else, she strode ahead.
I stared at the Wall, at that cursed Wall that pretended to be our savior. I had always thought Clarice was happy living in our town. Maybe ‘happy’ wasn’t the right word, but I at least thought she was… satisfied… with life here. And maybe if I’d misjudged her, then I’d misjudged everyone else in town. Like with Blanche, I’d immediately blamed her reluctance to read on ignorance, but it could be something else too, as Clarice had suggested.
Maybe I was too stuck in my own mind, too focused on myself and my own thoughts to fully see other people as they really were. Maybe I was too judgmental.
I hurried after Clarice, to the library filled with all those adventures I would never be able to have myself.
5
“Belle!” The librarian, Francois, came over to hug me. Whenever I visited, he acted as if he hadn’t seen me in ages, even though I’d visited him only a week before. The sole reason I ever wandered into town, besides groceries, was to visit library, and the librarian and I had spent many an afternoon discussing works of ancient philosophers, history and theology. I was pretty sure that no one besides me visited the library, and the old man was often lonely.