Elysium Girls

by Elysium Girls (retail) (epub)

  “Well, that’s the end of lunch,” said Lucy. She got up and brushed off her skirt. “Don’t worry, Sal. She’ll come around.”

  “Let’s hope so,” I said.

  “She will if you keep trying and do your best. Don’t be so negative.” She straightened her kerchief and dabbed on a bit of lipstick. “Thanks for the pie,” she said with a smile. Then she set off toward the school, and I headed back to the church and the five pages of unfinished Futhark on my desk, the penny in my pocket glowing just a little brighter.

  That night, after dinner, I pulled the Booke out from under my pillow, flipping to the place I’d left off the night before.

  DOWSING: also known as divining. A form of divination employed for the finding of objects, elements, or spirits. Though some types of witches are stronger dowsers than others, dowsing can be done by most types, to some degree. All that is needed is an Imbued Object.

  I pulled my penny out and held it in my hand, where it thrummed quietly, simmering with my own unidentified magic.

  First, you must form a method of communication with your Object. Simply ask it to show you yes and no. Then use these commands to find lost objects. Dowsing is something that can only be perfected through trial and error, so practice is vital to its success.

  All right, I thought. Here we go. I took the penny in my hand and asked it, “Um… could you show me a yes?” To my surprise, it gave one short pulse of power in my hand. My heart raced. I was communicating with it.

  “What’s a no, then?” I asked, sitting up on the bed.

  It pulsed twice, two bumblebee buzzes in my hand.

  I asked it a few questions, just for practice. Am I a girl? (Yes.) Do I have black hair? (No.) Are there three dresses in my closet? (Yes.) And every time, the thrum of magic was strong and sure and effortless. Dowsing, unlike the other spells I’d attempted, was coming easily to me.

  If used as a pendulum, an Object can indicate direction as well as any dowsing rods, I read.

  I remembered how Mother Morevna had found the Dowsing Well, how she had taken the black pendulum and it had pointed to exactly the place the Well stood now. I remembered how that same black pendulum had pointed at me out of everyone in Elysium. The tiny whirlwind and the flames and the quiet shoes were fun, but Dowsing was something that had real, practical use. I fumbled through my chest of drawers until I came out with a piece of twine. This I tied around the penny and hung around my neck, a sad, cheap imitation of Mother Morevna’s pendant.

  “Show me left,” I told it, and it swung immediately to the left.

  “Now the right,” I said, and it swung to the right.

  “Um… how about north?” I asked, and, sure enough, it swung outward toward the north, holding itself outward from my chest.

  “Can you… can you find the thieves?” I asked, my voice soft and hesitant.

  Suddenly, the penny shot straight out from my chest, straining its twine like a bloodhound on a leash. It pointed toward my door as though leading me, pulling me downstairs.

  “What, really?” I asked it. “You can find them?”

  It thrummed once. Yes.

  My heart sped. I can do this, I thought. I can really do this. I can find them. And then she’ll have to take me seriously. I tore open the curtain and looked outside. The sky was clear and dark over the walls, and one by one, I saw the lamps in the windows of each house wink themselves out. I threw a dress on over my nightgown and put the Booke in my pocket. I pulled on some stockings and slid into my boots. I sneaked downstairs, boots magically quiet over the planks, and went out into the night, the penny around my neck softly pulling me onward.

  Through the empty streets, I followed the penny as it led me this way and that, toward the northeast. It pulled me forward, glowing brightly in the dark, and eagerly I followed. But just as we approached the wall, the penny started to go wild. It began to move in short, hesitating jerks, first one direction, then another, as though it were confused. As though it had lost the scent. Then it stopped altogether and dropped against my chest, where it hung still. It didn’t move again.

  “I thought you said you could find them?” I asked it, but it was quiet and dull against my chest.

  It was worth a try, I guess, I thought. But the more I thought of dowsing to find the thieves, the more foolish I felt. Surely Mother Morevna had already tried this. It was pretty obvious, after all. Besides, she was a much better dowser than I was. And what was I supposed to do? Go outside the walls?

  I shuddered, thinking of all the things that were supposed to live out there. But part of me, a part of me that I’d never been able to talk sense into, was curious. What all did live out in the desert? What horrible, unseen creatures had been created just to populate the world of the Game? We’d all heard stories of fire coyotes—once I’d even seen their glow and heard their howls on the horizon. But what else was there? In the back of my mind, I remembered the shadow on top of the wall on Mourning Night, just before the vision of the rain came.

  What if…? I thought suddenly. What if Mother Morevna and Mr. Jameson were wrong? What if the thief was someone from outside the walls? Someone still out in the desert?

  We all knew that there were people in the desert. Very, very few people, but they were there, farmers who had chosen to stay with their land, mostly, although what child in Elysium hadn’t heard stories of the terrifying cannibal men who roved among the wreckage in the desert? What if one or more of these people had grown brazen after Asa escaped them? What if they planned to attack?

  I had to go back and tell Mr. Jameson. But as I squinted into the darkness, I saw his porch light was off. He must still be in his office, I thought. I headed back toward the church, toward its sharp black shape jutting into the sky. Nearby was the hospital, the second-tallest building in Elysium, a second monolith looming in the dark. But as I watched, a light came on in the hospital office.

  Only the overnight nurses were supposed to be there, in the wings with the patients. Why was someone in the office?

  I heard footsteps and, without thinking, ducked into the shadows of a nearby windmill. A man was walking toward the steps of the hospital, where one of the nurses opened the door and held it for him. I couldn’t tell who the nurse was, but the man’s Stetson hat was as distinctive as my blond braids. In his arms he held what looked like a stack of water rations.

  “Well, if it isn’t Sallie Wilkerson,” said a voice that sent a flash of fear up my spine. I turned and Trixie Holland was standing there with another girl from school, Mae, one of the ones who had chased me only a week before Trixie broke my nose. “I’d say I missed seeing you at home, but that would be a lie in so many ways.”

  The penny around my neck began to grow hot against my breastbone. I took a step back.

  “Your nose looks better,” Trixie said, coming up to me and looking me up and down. “And look at you! You’re clean. Looks like you finally learned how to take a bath.”

  “Leave me alone,” I said, my hands balled into fists.

  Trixie put up her hands. “Lord, I was just making conversation. You going to magic me into the ground or something?” She laughed and took out a homemade cigarette. “We were just out here catching a smoke. We didn’t expect to run into the Successor herself.”

  Mae smirked, her already lit cigarette glowed.

  “Mother Morevna’s teaching you all kinds of magic, huh?” Trixie said.

  “That’s not what I heard,” said Mae. “Mrs. Winthrop told her son that Sal’s just been sitting around, reading. She says that Sallie can’t even do magic.”

  “Awww, how sad,” said Trixie. “Imagine being made to feel special all of a sudden only to find out that you’re not. You must have really believed it this time, huh? I feel for you, Sallie. I really do.”

  “I can do magic,” I said.

  “Let’s see some of it, then,” Trixie said. “Turn Mae into a mouse!” They laughed uproariously at the very thought.

  I wanted to turn them both
into mice and their cigarettes into traps. But I couldn’t.

  “What’s that around your neck?” Mae asked. She pointed at the penny. I took a step back.

  But Trixie came forward and pushed my braids out of the way.

  “Awww, would you look at that?” she said. “Sal’s made herself a necklace like Mother Morevna’s! How sad. How pathetic!”

  Before I could do anything, Trixie reached out and grabbed the penny, to pull it off my neck and throw it into the dust, probably. But the second she touched it, Trixie’s whole body went stiff. Simultaneously, a wave of nausea rolled through me. Not the rain… not right now…

  But the rain was not what came next.

  “Trixie?” Mae said.

  Trixie’s eyes were wide in shock. Then they went white.

  The darkness was rising over my own vision. And suddenly…

  Something was wrong. I was not myself. I felt disembodied, a ghost floating in a house that wasn’t my own. A small, brown-haired girl was sitting under a kitchen table, watching a man shouting through a doorway. This was Trixie, I realized. Trixie right after the walls went up… and the man who was shouting was her father, now dead like my own.

  “Get your fat ass up, Molly!” he yelled. “It’s always something with you. Always making something up. Headaches, fevers, back pains… you’d better get your ass up, or I swear to God…”

  Trixie’s mother said something from her bedroom, and her father went in. There was a struggle, and he dragged Trixie’s crying mother out into the kitchen and shoved her into a chair. Trixie scooted farther back, out of reach, against a box of water rations, half-empty. All of them had a black smudge at the corner, which I’d never seen before.

  Trixie’s father bent down and sniffed her mother as she wept in her chair.

  “I don’t believe this. You’re drunk. You’re blind drunk, and I’m out there working all day—all day, Molly! To try and get out of this place! To try and feed our goddamn kid!”

  Trixie sobbed, then quieted herself as well as she could. But her father had heard her. He bent down and in a gentle voice said, “Are you okay down there, honey? Are you okay down there in all that dust?”

  Trixie raised her arms and let herself be picked up like a baby, though I knew somehow that she was seven. Her father brushed the dust off her face and hair, then turned back to her mother, sobbing and slumped in the chair.

  “She’s got dust all over her, Molly! She’s gonna get Dust Sickness. She’s gonna get Sick!” he shouted. “And…! And…!”

  He turned to Trixie. “Have you eaten?”

  Trixie shook her head.

  He turned back to Trixie’s mother.

  “Dammit, Molly! What good are you? I can’t even trust you to keep the dust out of my house or off my kid! I’m covered in it all day, breathin’ it in, feelin’ it scratch the skin right off my arms. All day, Molly! While you’re here, saying you’ve got headaches when what you’ve got is a belly full of booze! Can’t even keep this shit out of my goddamn house!”

  “That’s enough!” Mae’s shout broke like thunder over the memory. I felt Mae wrench the penny out of Trixie’s hand, and immediately, I woke from the memory as though cold water had been thrown on me.

  “What the hell did you do?” Trixie hissed. There were tears in her eyes. “What the hell did you do to me?!”

  “I don’t know! I—I didn’t mean to!” I took a step forward, but Trixie pushed me away.

  “Want me to hit her?” Mae asked, her eyes on me, sounding somehow meek and threatening at the same time.

  “Nah…” said Trixie, wiping tears away with her fist. “Mother Morevna will have our hides. Come on, Mae.” And with Mae following like a confused puppy, she disappeared into the night, a trail of cigarette smell following her.

  I had seen into Trixie’s past, somehow, and it had not been a pretty one. Both her parents, dead now of Dust Sickness. But how had I done it? And what exactly had I done?

  I looked over toward the hospital, but the light had gone out, and Mr. Jameson was gone. Quickly, I headed back to the church, thinking of nothing but the memory, what had happened leading up to it, what that meant—if it meant anything.

  I tiptoed over the hardwood floors as quietly as I could. But as I approached the stairs, I saw a sliver of light cutting across the hallway: There was a light on in Mr. Jameson’s office. I had to pass through it to get back up the stairs. I took a deep breath and darted over it, quiet as a shadow in my spelled shoes. But as I did, Mother Morevna’s voice stopped me just on the other side of the light.

  “… she must be monitored to be useful.”

  “This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach,” Mr. Jameson said. “And to have her right above me while I work?”

  Who? Me? I thought. But I wasn’t above him.…

  “Would you rather her…” Then her voice faded and came back again. “… on the walls with the guards?” asked Mother Morevna. “No, it’s best for us… keep her close. At least until we catch them.”

  “What happens once we catch ’em?”

  “We shall see when we do so,” she said. “Until then…” Her voice quieted again, too quiet for me to hear the rest.

  I could tell that the conversation was drawing to a close. I slipped up the stairs and down the hall. But just before I snuck back into my room, I noticed something odd.

  The door across from mine, the one that had always lain empty, now had a padlock.

  CHAPTER 7

  3 MONTHS

  AND

  18 DAYS

  REMAIN.

  The next morning, through the window, I watched Asa Skander set himself up a soapbox and a sign: ASA THE GREAT! MAGICIAN EXTRAORDINAIRE! I watched the crowd gather around as he performed all the usual magician fare. Colored handkerchiefs from his sleeves. Coins from ears. And all the while the workmen applauded. It was shocking, really, how well he seemed to be fitting in. I’d expected him to be blamed for the robbery, but the opposite was true. He was well-liked, and no one seemed to have anything bad to say about him. I was a different story. Who knew what rumors might be going around about me today, after what had happened with Trixie? I thought of Trixie’s eyes, blank white, her body rigid.…

  “I said, what is the difference between spodomancy and haruspication?” Mother Morevna’s voice snapped me out of my daze.

  “Sorry!” I said. “Spodomancy is… telling the future with soot? The patterns and so on?”

  Mother Morevna nodded. “And haruspication?”

  “Telling the future with… animal bones?” I asked.

  “Entrails, not bones,” she said, peering over her reading glasses at me, half-interested. After all, this test was only pretense. Only to appease me and Mr. Jameson.

  “Entrails, then,” I said.

  She grimaced, her wrinkles deepening around her eyes and mouth as she gritted her teeth and put a hand to her abdomen.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “It’s the… illness,” she said. “It’ll pass… in a… moment.”

  And it did. After a few minutes, her wrinkles smoothed, and gingerly, she sat up straight.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I just… have a lot to deal with as of late. The Sacrifice and the thieves and all that nonsense. Now then, where were we?”

  “Actually, Mother Morevna…” I ventured. “I have a question. About the thieves.”

  “Yes?” Mother Morevna raised her impatient gaze to meet mine.

  “Are you sure they’re from here in Elysium?” I asked. “Because I… I think that maybe they’re not. They might not be, I mean.”

  Mother Morevna was silent for a moment, but when she spoke, it wasn’t to address my question. “What’s that around your neck?” she said, an edge to her voice.

  I realized too late that my penny, my Imbued Object, was hanging out of my blouse.

  “It’s… uh…” I fumbled. “It’s nothing. I was just doing a little… extra research—”


  “Let me see it,” she said. Obediently, I did. But having her hold it and examine it, I felt strangely exposed, vulnerable, powerless. She looked at the penny again, then at me. “Now, what all have you taught yourself behind my back?”

  “Er… not much, ma’am,” I said. “Just… um… a wind spell, a fire spell, and a… a little bit of dowsing.”

  Mother Morevna rose to her feet. “Come,” she said. She strode across the room and opened her door. She led me down the stairs, and I followed her, trying not to step on her long green skirts.

  “Show me,” she said when we reached the sanctuary. “The fire spell. Show me.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pinch of dust. She put it and the penny in my hand and took several steps back, watching me intently.

  Faintly, I heard Asa Skander’s voice outside. “Pick a card! Any card!”

  I took a deep breath and put the pinch of pepper to my lips.

  “Entflammt!” I said, and blew. A tongue of flame the size of my palm leapt out into the air. It burned there above the ground for a few seconds, then burned to ash and drifted to the floor.

  “The accent was wrong,” said Mother Morevna. “It is Ent-flahm-t. Try it again, the right way. Keep your back straight. Blow hard.”

  I stood still, my heart pounding. A tiny spark of anger lit and began to spread in my mind. What right did she have to demand me to do magic like this, to correct my pronunciation, when she couldn’t be bothered to teach me in the first place?

  I put the pepper to my lips, and, focusing all my energy, all my frustration, all my anger on the spell, I said, “Entflammt!” and blew.

  Immediately, there was an orange flare of heat and light. I nearly fell backward as fire rocketed outward from my mouth and hand, like a circus fire-breather. It hung there in the air, a tongue of flame almost as big as me. Then it began to dwindle, until it was only a solitary shred of ash drifting to the dust at my feet. I turned to face her, my eyes as steely as hers.

  Mother Morevna’s brows were furrowed, her wrinkles deep. My magic had impressed her, I could tell. But not in the way I wanted. I wanted her to welcome me into the fold, to really teach me like I knew she could. But the look on her face was one of concern. She opened her mouth to say something to me, but before she could, a high, screeching sound wailed out over Elysium.