“Where are you?” Katie shrieked.
But there was no sign of anyone, only the deserted common, the bright lamps swinging in the late autumn wind.
She kicked down the door of Row’s house easily; it was an old house, built just after the Crossing, and the door fell into the front hall with a crash. Katie darted inside, her knife held out before her.
A large painting of Row, done by his mother, dominated the front hall. He was eight or nine in the picture, and it wasn’t very good, but his mother had decorated the frame to a ridiculous extent, embellishing it with flowers and glued-on sprigs of holly. Katie had walked past this portrait hundreds of times, barely noticing it, let alone taking account of what it might mean, all of those flowers dripping down the border, still emitting a saccharine, rotten scent.
She found Mrs. Finn in the living room, sitting in her rocking chair, staring into the fireplace. The house was cold, but there was no fire in the grate, and this fact bothered Katie for no reason that she could understand. Mrs. Finn barely even looked up as Katie entered the room.
“Get out, Tear whore.”
Katie halted, dumbfounded. She had never liked Row’s mother, but they had always gotten along fine; in fact, Katie had hidden her contempt for the woman much better than Row had. But Mrs. Finn’s tone held as much vitriol as her words.
“Where is he?”
“He’s in charge now,” Mrs. Finn replied. “We don’t have to put up with your lot anymore.”
“What lot would that be?” Katie asked, peering around the room. Row certainly wasn’t here, and she saw no clues. Katie wondered whether she was going to have to beat the information out of his mother. Could she even do that? Perhaps not, but every word out of the woman’s mouth made the idea seem easier. Mum was dead—Katie’s mind shied away from the thought, closing it off—but this horrible woman lived on, still making excuses for her son, even now.
“All of you,” Mrs. Finn snarled, “thinking you’re so much better than us. Ignoring my smart, brave boy for that weak nancy over there. All those books, they haven’t helped you, have they? My boy wields the weight in this town.”
“So you’re jealous of Jonathan as well,” Katie remarked, fingering her knife. “Just like Row.”
“Jonathan Tear is a fraud!” Mrs. Finn snapped. “He’s not his father, and why should he be? His cunt of a mother ruined everything!”
Katie drew a wounded breath. Of all of her memories of Jonathan’s mother, in that moment she could only think of the portrait that hung on the Tears’ living room wall: Lily, bow in hand, beatific smile on her face, and her flower-strewn hair streaming out behind her. Though she knew it from books, Katie had never heard the word cunt spoken aloud in her life, and the hate in that single syllable stopped her cold.
“You used to be Row’s friend, girl. I remember, and he remembers too. They just had to crook their fingers, and you dropped him cold.”
“Where is Jonathan?” Katie demanded. It occurred to her then to wonder why she hadn’t been taken with Jonathan, but that answer came easily: Row wanted his crown back, and hoped Katie would lead him to it. She didn’t understand the world that Row and the Tears lived in, jewels and magic and things unseen, but she could recognize that the crown meant nothing but trouble, and in that moment she resolved never to go near it again. It could rot in the soil forever.
Mrs. Finn smiled, spiteful. “My boy doesn’t need you anymore. He has his own gifts. William Tear can’t hurt him any longer.”
Katie narrowed her eyes, trying to make sense of the last statement. So far as she knew, Tear had never paid the slightest bit of attention to Row; indeed, that lack of distinction, the sense that Row had never been valued according to his worth, was the fundamental problem. Row had always thought that he deserved better. But William Tear had neither culled Row nor praised him, not even when it was warranted, not even when he should have, given Row’s intelligence and resourcefulness. Tear had ignored him so successfully that it must have been deliberate . . . and now a horrid suspicion grew in Katie’s mind. She stared at Mrs. Finn, already trying to reverse her thoughts, because she didn’t want an answer to this question, didn’t want to know—
“I have been reading all morning,” Mrs. Finn announced. She reached for the table and Katie jumped forward, so keyed up that she was sure that Mrs. Finn must have a knife of her own. But Mrs. Finn raised nothing more than a book, leather-bound, with a gilt cross on the cover.
“Do you know the story of Cain, child?”
“Cain?” Katie asked blankly. She had read the Bible, of course she had, to make sure she understood what was flowing from Row’s pulpit. But in that moment the name meant nothing to her.
“Cain. Unfavored son, ignored and passed over through no fault of his own. God’s will.” Mrs. Finn smiled again, and the smile was no longer spiteful now, but ghastly, as though she were peering through an aperture toward her own death. “I’ve read Cain and Abel many times. We had a god in this town, unjust and corrupt, but he’s gone now. My son will have his rightful place.”
“Your husband—”
“My husband died four years before the Crossing!” Mrs. Finn snapped. “We were coming here to make a better world, and how does he start? By choosing her! Even before the first boat ran aground, everyone knew!” Mrs. Finn clutched the arms of her rocker, her voice lifting into a scream. “I was four months pregnant and he left me for an American!”
Katie backed away, narrowly resisting the impulse to clap her hands to her ears. Mrs. Finn would never give Row up. But if Katie stayed here, Mrs. Finn would keep talking, and Katie didn’t want to hear any more. She thought of her younger self, sitting on a bench with William Tear in the fading sun. If she had known everything then, would she still have said yes?
“I know my Bible,” Mrs. Finn muttered with grim satisfaction. “We’re godly people in this house. Cain rose up.”
Katie opened her mouth to say something, she wasn’t sure what—possibly that Cain and all of his descendants had been cursed forever for that one irredeemable act—but before she could speak, she felt the hairs stir on the back of her neck. She whirled and saw Gavin behind her, his raised fist coming at her. The blow drove her sideways, slamming her head into the wall. And then she didn’t care about any of them . . . not William Tear, not Mum, not Jonathan, no one.
When Katie woke, she was freezing. She seemed to be in a room of vast darkness, one that admitted neither light nor anything else. Her nostrils stung, and after a moment, she realized that she could smell mold: decay and damp earth, all around her. She reached out and found warm flesh beside her.
“Katie.”
“Jonathan,” she breathed, and for a moment she was so overwhelmed with relief that imprisonment seemed a very small thing. Jonathan was not one for embracing, but Katie didn’t care; she pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around him in the dark. Mum was dead, she remembered now, and Virginia. They were all dead: Tear, Lily, Aunt Maddy. She and Jonathan were the only two left.
“Are you injured?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
The answer chilled her, but Katie did not pursue it. She released him and began to feel around her. Stone floors, stone walls, all of it covered with a thin layer of slimy damp that felt like moss. Some sort of basement. Everyone had a basement, but the Town’s houses were made of wood, not stone. Above her head, far in the distance, Katie heard something that she at first took for a high wind, but a moment later she realized that it was too musical for that.
“Singing,” she murmured, and then, a moment later: “We’re under the church.”
“Yes.”
She cocked her head, listening again. The music had the thick sound of a choir, but it was distant, so distant. They were deep underground, too deep for anyone to hear them, even if they screamed in unison, and this realization, too, made gooseflesh prickle on her arms. Row had built this room, he must have. But for what?
“There must be a door.”
“Don’t bother,” said Jonathan. “It’s padlocked.”
“I can pick a padlock.”
“Not this one.” Jonathan sighed, and Katie heard grim humor in his voice. “Your friend is quite the locksmith.”
“He’s not my friend,” Katie snarled, moving down the wall. Her hand finally encountered wood, the doorframe, and then a door, so thick that even when she pounded on it, hurting her fist, she was rewarded only with a heavy, dead thuck.
She retreated, stepping over Jonathan, and dropped to sit against the wall again.
“Are they dead?” Jonathan asked. “Virginia and your mother?”
“Yes,” Katie replied. Tears were in her throat but she fought them, biting her lip until she drew blood. If she started crying in this dark place, she would never stop.
“Gavin,” Jonathan replied, wonderingly. “Row I knew about, but Gavin . . . I just never thought—”
Why not? Katie wanted to scream at him. Why didn’t you know? You know about every other goddamned thing, so why didn’t you know about this?
She took a deep breath, trying to settle herself. No percentage in panic, William Tear had always told them, and even an imaginary Tear was a calming presence. Gavin was a traitor, and Katie could only assume that the rest of the guard had turned as well. No one was coming for the two of them. If there was a way out, they would have to find it inside this room. Above their heads, the singing spiraled upward, reaching a crescendo on a high note and then dying away.
“What does Row want with us?” she asked.
“He wants my father’s sapphire.”
“Well, why doesn’t he just take it?”
“He can’t,” Jonathan replied. He paused, and Katie sensed that he was framing his response very carefully. Her temper cycled into life again—did he have to keep secrets even now?—but the spurt was short-lived. The Tears were what they were. She had known what she was signing on for, ever since that day in the clearing when Jonathan had grabbed her hand and spoken nonsense. She had no right to complain now about where they’d ended up.
“I don’t understand everything about my sapphire,” Jonathan continued. “Neither did my father, though he certainly knew more about it than I did. Row’s always wanted it for himself, but it can’t be taken. I have to give it away, and he knows that too.”
“What happens if he tries to take it?”
“Punishment.”
“What does that mean?”
“Give me your hand.”
Katie reached out and Jonathan took her hand, then wrapped it around something cold. She had not held Tear’s sapphire for many years, but she still remembered the feel of it perfectly: cold, yes, but alive, almost breathing beneath her fingers.
“They’re all in there,” Jonathan murmured, wrapping his fingers around hers. “Tears and Tears. I don’t even know how far back they go; I’ve barely scratched the surface. This jewel has a mind of its own, but it’s their minds, all of them. My father’s in there, and someday I will be too . . . all of us together.”
Katie closed her eyes, and for a moment she held her breath, wishing she could see the thing as Jonathan saw it, know what he knew, move through that secretive, unseen world. But she wasn’t a Tear, never had been. She would never see further than what Jonathan told her, and while there was sorrow in that thought, there was also relief. Jonathan had spent his life tormented by visions; there was a price attached to Tear’s magic, though few knew of it. Lily had, Katie felt certain, and perhaps Mum. But she sensed that Row might not know. A ghost of an idea flitted through her mind, then danced away.
What can we do? she wondered. She could take Row in a fight, perhaps. But could she kill him? She thought of the thing that had chased her through the woods, white limbs and staring red eyes, a creature that Row had undoubtedly created, operating in the dark while the rest of the Town slept. Could she kill that? She had no knife; someone had taken it off her while she was unconscious. But would it even have mattered? This tangle was too deep for knives.
“Row is powerful,” Jonathan continued. “But not infallible. He’s been playing with things he doesn’t understand, and though he doesn’t know it, that makes him weak.”
Katie nodded, understanding this statement in intent if not in specifics. Row was careful, but not cautious. His reach had always exceeded his grasp, and one of the earliest lessons Katie had learned on Tear’s practice floor was that overreach left you wide open, even if you couldn’t see the vulnerability yourself. It was always easier to see such things from outside the circle; if only she could have stood outside this circle, somehow, assessing the situation as dispassionately as she had then.
Katie.
She jumped. Something had moved in her mind, deliberate but alien, a voice that was not her own.
“What?” Jonathan asked.
She shook her head. The singing had started again upstairs. Her brain felt as though it were splitting in two. Did Jonathan know who Row’s father was? If not, she couldn’t tell him. She had never understood what she felt for this odd young man, but whatever it was, she didn’t have to tell him about William Tear, to undermine everything Jonathan thought he knew. That had never been her role.
The chain outside the door rattled, and Katie heard the snap of the padlock opening. Torchlight flooded the room, and Katie saw that they were in a long, narrow chamber, perhaps twenty feet by ten. The stone walls were slicked with moisture, trickling down from the ceiling.
Who built this? Katie wondered. And when?
Gavin came in, followed by four more men: Lear, Morgan, Howell, and Alain. Katie watched them stonily, wishing she could have her knife back for even five seconds. She couldn’t take Gavin, but the other four would be easy pickings.
“We’ve brought water,” Gavin announced shortly, as Lear and Howell placed a bucket on the ground. Gavin seemed to have read her thoughts, for he had his knife in hand, and his eyes were never far from Katie as he moved across the room.
“How long will we be down here?” she demanded.
“Not much longer, I think. Row’s busy now, but he’ll deal with you when he’s done.”
“Was I not nice enough to you, Gav?” Jonathan asked, and Katie couldn’t restrain a smile at the mockery in his voice. “Did my father not make you feel special enough?”
“It’s not about that!” Gavin snapped back. “It’s about the town we want!”
Jonathan shook his head, an expression of disgust crossing his face, and Katie saw Gavin flinch. He needed so badly to be liked, Gavin did, even by the people he had fucked over. It was a deep weakness of character, and Katie stared at him with so much contempt that he flinched again.
“What sort of town is that?” she demanded. “A town where Row tells you all what to do, and you do it? He’s certainly managed you well enough here.”
“I make my own choices!” Gavin hissed. “And none of us can do that in a town of Tears!”
“So that’s what he told you,” Jonathan mused. “We’re in the way of democracy?”
“You are!”
Katie wanted to contradict Gavin, tell him to shut up, but she could not. For a single, odd moment, she saw Jonathan through Gavin’s eyes, Row’s eyes, and honesty bubbled inside her, a truth as unpalatable as it was undeniable. They were wrong, all of them, but in this one thing, they were right. How could you tell everyone they were equal, when the Tears stood there, bright and shining, different from everyone else? How could anyone build a fair society in William Tear’s town?
But a moment later she shoved the thought away, horrified.
“And what about you four?” she asked, turning to Howell and the others. None of them would meet her eyes except Lear.
“We promised to protect the Town,” he told her. “We have to have a clear direction. We have to cut dead weight.”
“Dead weight. And what does Row plan to do with us?”
Lear looked miserably at the other four, and Katie saw, alarmed, that none of t
hem knew.
“I see. You’re all helpful advisers, until you’re not.”
“Shut up, Katie!” Gavin roared. He kicked at the bucket on the floor, coming dangerously close to spilling it; water slopped over the side to land on Jonathan’s feet.
“This is why I didn’t pick you, Gavin,” Jonathan murmured. “You have a hole inside, and you’ll fill it with anything. Quality not required.”
Gavin raised his knife, but Lear grabbed his arm, speaking quickly. “We were only supposed to bring the water.”
Gavin stared at the two of them, Jonathan and Katie, for another long, furious moment, then pocketed his knife and headed for the door. “Come on. They’re not our problem anymore.”
Katie bared her teeth. Only a moment ago, she had been thinking that Gavin was too stupid to merit anger. But at his words, the dismissal in them, the idea that he might wash his hands of the situation simply because that was what he chose to believe, Katie felt several small explosions fire in her brain.
“I will be your problem, Gavin Murphy!” she shouted after him, as the group of men exited through the door. “You’re a traitor, and when I get out of here, I will treat you like one! Even Row can’t protect you from me!”
The door slammed behind them, but not before Katie caught a glimpse of Gavin’s face, pale and suddenly terrified. She grinned at him, showing every tooth, and then the padlock snapped shut and the light disappeared.
“I admire bravado,” Jonathan remarked drily. “But that’s a tough threat to make good on.”
“I don’t care. He’s scared of Row; he can be scared of me too.”
“He’s scared of everything, Gavin. It makes him incredibly easy to manipulate. That fear ruled the pre-Crossing; my father used to talk about it. Entire countries would close their borders and build walls to keep out phantom threats. Can you imagine?”
“Yes,” Katie said shortly. It had taken only twenty short years to take Tear’s good town and turn it into a wreck. All Row had needed was a church and, perversely, a lack of faith. She could believe anything now. She tipped her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. Somehow it was easier to bear the darkness that way. “How did your father beat them?”
The Fate of the Tearling Page 39