Tar

by Taylor Hohulin

  The car fell silent. It seemed Samson had finished explaining himself. His temples bulged as he clenched his jaw, a physical manifestation of his desire to speak no more.

  But he’d cracked open, and Krystal had seen inside. As she had so many times with Brendan, she hooked an emotional finger through the crack and pried Samson open a little further with another question:

  “You burn part of your mind? What does that even mean?”

  Samson’s jaw clenched tighter, but the silence didn’t last much longer.

  “Memories,” he choked, his voice suddenly thick. “Perhaps there are other parts of my mind this power has hollowed out, but memories are the most noticeable.”

  Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he leaned over the pile of supplies he’d swept off the passenger seat. He withdrew the thin, leather-bound book he’d flipped through as they left Krystal’s house and before they entered the tavern. Two short words adorned the binding, but this was no professional imprint. Someone had carved a message into the cover with a blunt knife and a shaky hand.

  In crude handwriting, the words screamed READ THIS.

  “The Book of Memory,” he said, giving the book an emphatic shake. His voice was almost reverential now. “Everything I need to know is in here: How we gained this power. How we allowed the blight into this world. How we drove it back to Tir Anhrefnus. How to defeat it once and for all.”

  Krystal took a chance on one last question: “You keep saying we. There are more with your powers?”

  “There were four of us in the beginning,” Samson said. For a moment, a hint of emotion colored the gray-haired man’s voice. “One is dead, and one is gone, but the third can help us defeat the blight.”

  “Ansel,” Brendan said, and Samson nodded. “The one we’re trying to find now.”

  But that wasn’t the companion that interested Brendan. He wanted to ask about that second one, the one who Samson simply declared gone. But something about how Samson said it, something about the half-heartbeat pause before the word, told Brendan asking would be a mistake. Asking for any more explanation would cause Samson to rebuild the walls that had crumbled as he spoke.

  But still Brendan wondered what gone meant. He wondered what happened to Samson two thousand years ago, and if that truly was when this all began.

  11

  Samson’s car rolled along the narrow path through an overgrown tangle of vegetation. Bits of loose pavement spat against the undercarriage every few seconds. Sickly trees brushed the roof.

  The road ended in a long parking lot in front of a ramshackle building. Vines crawled up its crumbling brick exterior, and there wasn’t a shard of glass remaining in its windows. If they hadn’t followed the man’s directions precisely to reach this place, Brendan would have suggested they move on.

  Samson killed the engine, and they got out of the car.

  “Is this...” Krystal said, cocking her head.

  Then she threw her door open and rushed out. Samson flinched at the sudden movement, and Brendan reached out with his mod, even stretching the alloy to catch her. But he thought better of it and let her run ahead.

  Krystal paced before the old building, hands on her hips. After a brief investigation, she turned back.

  “It is!” she said. “It’s an old rest stop. They had these back when the highways were still usable.”

  Samson cocked an eyebrow. “And?”

  Krystal deflated. “And...I don’t know. I like to think about the world when it had stuff like this. People traveled enough that they needed these. They didn’t just hole up in a tar-proofed house and ration ancient canned food. They lived.”

  Samson only huffed and continued approaching the building. Krystal shrugged and met him and Brendan at the rest stop’s front doors. Hundreds of years ago, these might have been sliding glass doors, but now the glass was gone. Now layers of heavy wood and rusted nails covered the entrance.

  Samson knocked on the wood.

  First, there was silence. Then, from somewhere far beyond the warped wooden barrier, came a voice.

  “Who is it?”

  It was a woman’s voice, musical and inviting despite the clear efforts to keep intruders away.

  “Travelers,” Samson said, resting his forearm against the door and his head just below it. “I heard you can help me find my friend.”

  “Ah, a friend,” crooned the voice. “It is good to have friends in a world as broken as this.”

  Samson pursed his lips. “Can you help us or not?”

  The voice tittered. “My, but you’re in a hurry, aren’t you?”

  Silence. Muffled footsteps.

  When the voice spoke next, it was so close Brendan imagined its owner leaning against the rotting surface on the other side. “Of course I can help you. Come inside.”

  There was a quiet commotion: the clatter of heavy objects dragged across a hard floor. Samson stepped back, and the wooden barrier slid aside. The gray-haired man turned to his new companions, mouthed the unnecessary words Be careful, and went inside. Brendan nodded at Krystal, and together they followed.

  The interior was in the same state of disrepair as most of the buildings in Newhaven. All the familiar set pieces were there—the crumbling tile floors, the stained walls, the bare shelves, and the mingling scents of must and mold. It was dim, with the only light coming from a handful of kerosene lamps.

  A woman sat against the wall.

  Heavy shadows cloaked her figure, but Brendan caught glimpses of her in occasional flashes from the flickering lamps. Ragged hair hung limp on either side of her face, and she slumped forward in an old wicker chair.

  “It is such a joy to have visitors.” Her sides quivered as her breath hitched. “And it looks like you have come a long way. What brings you here?”

  “I’m told you have a gift for finding people,” Samson said. His eyes darted around the room, seeking potential traps.

  Something in the dancing shadows twisted into a smile. “A gift!”

  The voice was amiable and flirtatious. Even in the deep shadows, the smile was pretty. But something about the woman—her voice, her frame huddled there in the dark—sent shivers down Brendan’s spine. Something about her was wrong.

  She rose from her seat, and Brendan’s stomach turned into a hard ball as she approached. She had a slight limp. Her stringy hair shook and quivered with each step.

  “Who told you of my gift and where you could find me, if I might ask?”

  “No one I care to tell you about,” Samson said.

  “Pity.” The woman moved closer still, not breaking her shuddering stride. “I would have liked to thank him for sending the company our way. We get so few visitors.”

  Now she was a few feet away, fully lit by the kerosene lamps. Krystal gasped, and the hard ball in Brendan’s stomach turned in a loop.

  The woman’s smile was every bit as lovely as her voice, with vibrant pink lips and pure white teeth. The rest of her, however, was not so appealing. She hunched forward, some injury twisting her shoulder up and back and pinning one bony arm to her side. The ragged hair that hung around her face was thinning, revealing a liver-spotted skull. Her cheeks sagged from exhaustion, and a milky film covered one of her eyes.

  Samson was unfazed by her appearance. “Can you help me? It’s urgent.”

  “Urgent. Of course it is. Everything is so very, very urgent these days.” The woman tittered, a hideously beautiful sound. “Oh, we can help you. Follow me.”

  She reached for the lamp nearest Brendan, making a point of pressing her body against his. A cloying smell that wasn’t quite decay wafted off of her. Brendan resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose.

  She limped toward a darkened corner of the building. The bad arm hung by her side, useless fingers quivering with each step. As she walked, Brendan noticed there were no mods on her body, though she could’ve used them. It was rare
to find someone without some form of modification, yet here Brendan stood with two such people—Samson and this strange woman.

  They reached the far wall, and the woman turned. “My name is Myra.”

  Neither Samson, Brendan, nor Krystal offered their names in return.

  Ignoring the silence, Myra lifted her lantern, illuminating a map that took up most of the wall. Roads crisscrossed stained paper, with bodies of water and other landmarks annotated with handwritten messages.

  Myra set the lantern on the floor, and their shadows grew into monstrous, misshapen giants. With her good arm, she jabbed a finger into the center of the map.

  “You are here,” she said. “To the edge of my map is a...” She paused, calculating. “...two-day journey.”

  “We travel faster than most,” Samson said, folding his arms.

  A smirk twisted Myra’s lips. “I know about your gas-car.”

  Krystal couldn’t hide her surprised expression, and Myra caught the look of shock. The woman giggled, lifting her good hand to cover her mouth as she did.

  “I see more than you know.” Something dark glittered behind the milky film of Myra’s bad eye. “I see the power you’ve brought into this room. Your power makes the gas-car look like a child’s plaything.”

  Her eyes danced back and forth between Samson and Brendan, surveying them hungrily. Samson stiffened.

  “Oh, don’t act so surprised.” Myra chuckled. “You aren’t the only ones in this world with power.”

  “There were only four of us with this power,” Samson said, regaining control of himself. “You are not one of us.”

  Myra only smiled. “I never said our powers were the same.” Her smile stretched wider. Her good eye sparkled with a dash of madness. “I am a refugee from another world, cast out through a multitude of realities many years ago, but the Breath of the Cloud has traveled with me.”

  She smiled, beautiful and hideous, and returned to the map.

  “But knowing that will get you no closer to your destination. As I said, my calculations account for your gas-car. For a bio-powered car, it could take as long as a week to drive to the edge of my map.” She turned back to them, that beautiful and hideous smile splitting her face. “But for you and that machine outside? Two days.”

  “Can you or can’t you help us?” Samson said.

  Myra clicked her tongue and shook her head. “What? No time to chat with a lonely woman on the side of the road? You aren’t even a little curious about the Breath, and how I came to your world?” When Samson gave no answer, she heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Yes, I can help you.”

  Samson remained impassive, unmoved by her demeanor. “How much?” he asked.

  “There will be time to discuss payment later, if we require it at all.” Myra turned her gaze deeper into the shadows and clapped her hands. “Alicia!” she shouted. A note of harshness entered her voice. “Alicia, come here!”

  From the darkness came a thin girl no older than ten. Her clothes hung ragged from her frame. Every single one of her bones was visible. Her face showed deep hollows under her cheekbones, and dark smudges marred her skin. Thick film glazed one of her eyes, much to the same effect as Myra’s. She looked at the floor as she walked. She grasped one sharp elbow in her skeletal hand.

  “Alicia,” said Myra, stooping so her face was level with the girl’s. “These people need our help. They’re looking for someone.”

  But Alicia’s eyes remained on the ground. She still clutched her elbow.

  “Don’t be dense, Alicia.” Myra maintained her plastic smile, but there was a growing bitterness in her voice.

  Myra grabbed Alicia’s chin between her thumb and forefinger and jerked the little girl’s face to meet her stare. Alicia whimpered, but didn’t resist. They held that pose momentarily, and then Alicia nodded.

  “Okay.” Her voice quivered, barely over a whisper.

  “Okay?” Myra put her good hand on one twisted hip. When Alicia nodded once more, Myra gestured at Samson. “Give her your hand.”

  Samson obeyed, but not without hesitation. Alicia took his hand and lifted her wide eyes to meet his.

  “Who would you like me to find?”

  “His name is Ansel.”

  “Think about him,” Alicia said. “Hold a picture of him in your mind. Imagine the sound of his voice.”

  Samson nodded, but he did not close his eyes, as Alicia likely wanted him to do.

  Alicia’s expression grew distant. Miles passed over her eyes, and she swayed in place. Brendan got the sense Alicia wasn’t in the rest stop anymore. Not really. The thing before them was no girl, only a shell.

  Myra broke the silence, her voice just above a whisper. “This is her gift. This is what the Breath has done for her.”

  “What’s she doing?” Brendan asked, matching the woman’s volume.

  “Projecting.” Myra paused. “It is difficult to explain to someone like you, someone without the Breath.”

  “Try,” Brendan said.

  Myra’s lips twisted into that terrible smile yet again. “Your friend’s power is over the world around us. He speaks, and it obeys. Alicia’s power is over souls, over the worlds within us. She has untethered her soul—that deepest part of who she truly is—and sent it out from her body.” Myra pointed at the map as if in explanation. “Even now, she is gliding all around the world, faster than her physical bindings would normally allow, in search of the soul your friend has shown her.”

  Krystal leaned closer to Alicia, staring at her glazed eyes. “That’s not so complicated, I guess.”

  Myra’s smile grew wider. “I have only explained a fraction of a fraction. There is more, but to hear it would drive you mad.”

  Brendan believed her. Samson hadn’t cared to ask, but Brendan couldn’t let go of the phrase she’d uttered—I am a refugee from another world, cast out through a multitude of realities—and what it meant. How many other worlds were there? How many were like Tir Anhrefnus?

  With a jolt, Alicia blinked and snapped to attention. Myra crouched at the little girl’s side. “Did you find him?”

  Alicia nodded.

  Myra patted Alicia on the head. “Tell me.”

  Alicia leaned over to the woman beside her, and she began to whisper.

  12

  “Your friend is in a town called Black Falls,” Myra said when Alicia had finished. “Do you know it?”

  When Samson shook his head, Myra smiled, as if she’d been hoping for that response all along.

  “Then I will show it to you.”

  She hobbled to the counter and fished for a scrap of paper and a pencil. She squinted at the map on the wall before scribbling on the paper.

  Myra rattled off directions and drew up a crude route as Samson and Krystal peered over her shoulder, but Brendan’s attention wandered. Samson seemed to understand Myra’s instructions, thanks to his grasp of the roads that crisscrossed the ruined world, but to Brendan, the lines and symbols were a confused jumble on yellowing paper.

  Besides, someone was watching him.

  Alicia hadn’t moved away from the map, but she had turned to watch as everyone followed Myra to the counter. She wasn’t staring at the floor anymore, either. She was looking at Brendan. Even her bad eye gleamed with keen interest.

  Brendan glanced at Myra. She continued her crooning and scribbling and plotting. He looked back at Alicia, who hadn’t dropped her stare. She said nothing, but something about her called to Brendan. He read it in her eyes. He saw it in the creases of her face, and the tension in the bony hand gripping her elbow.

  She wanted to speak to him, but outside Myra’s earshot.

  Satisfied he wouldn’t be missed, Brendan crossed the room to where Alicia waited. He didn’t know why he did it. He owed her nothing. Myra ran the show here, though Alicia did the real work. Brendan had seen this arrangement a thousand times before. Someone ch
arismatic had found someone powerful but lacking in confidence—and used that power for herself.

  Alicia looked used up. With her slumped posture and soft voice, she was only an empty shell. She probably didn’t do a thing unless Myra told her to. When she did act of her own free will, it was only when Myra wouldn’t catch her.

  And so if she wanted so badly for Myra not to notice her gestures at Brendan, he had to pay attention. Brendan couldn’t help but come, if only because his curiosity was so strong.

  “What is your name?” she said.

  Even a few feet from the little girl, Brendan barely heard her over the murmuring tones of Myra’s conversation with Samson and Krystal.

  Brendan dropped his voice to match her soft tone. “I’m Brendan.”

  “Brendan.” She said his name carefully, as if testing it out. “You have great power.”

  “Yeah, you could say that. Samson and I both have some powers.”

  Alicia shook her head. “That man has power, but he is nothing compared to you. I have never felt power like yours.”

  She spoke so softly that Brendan leaned in without realizing it. He crouched to meet her eyes.

  “You’ve never seen anyone control the tar?”

  “That is not what I meant.” She grabbed his wrist. Her hand was cold. “There is a place you can go.”

  Brendan gaped at her, uncomprehending.

  “The place where the black things come from.”

  A light switched on. What had Samson called the place? Tir Anhrefnus.

  “No, I think you’re confused,” Brendan said. “All I can do is control the tar. I can’t go to its world.”

  “But you can. At least, part of you can.” Alicia slid her fingers down Brendan’s wrist to his palm. “Let me show you.”

  She enclosed Brendan’s hand in both of hers. With a rush, Brendan felt something he’d never felt in his life, though he recognized it instantly.

  Power.

  Whatever power this girl possessed was flowing into him. It wouldn’t stay—he knew this as instinctively as he’d known what the sensation was—but as long as Alicia held his hand, he shared her power. They became one body holding two souls. She rummaged around inside him, and he reached out with that newly discovered part of himself and did the same inside her. A scary thought, rooting around someone else’s soul, but Alicia had no such qualms. Her psychic presence roamed his mind, poking around his thoughts and sifting through his instincts.