Elysium Girls

by Elysium Girls (retail) (epub)

  “So what do we do?” Cassandra asked.

  “Sal had the idea of creating a kind of spell that would allow us to power all of them up at once,” said Susanah. She pulled small five white stones from her pocket and handed one each to Cassandra, Olivia, Mowse, Asa, and me.

  “These stones are connected to the others around the horses,” Susanah explained. “It’s a trapdoor spell, basically, or so Sal said. So what you do, theoretically, is just… uh… Sal, could you explain this?”

  “You just will all the spells you’ve learned into your stone,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out another stone that was almost identical, but a bit larger. “This is the Master Stone,” I said. “It channels all the magic from each of you… hopefully. I’m going to give it to Asa, and after you all… do your thing… Asa should be able to power up the horses.”

  I put the stone in Asa’s hand, and he held it like a boy about to skip a rock over a pond.

  “What do I do?” Olivia said.

  “Copy Sal’s magic, if you can,” Susanah said. “Maybe we can get a double dose of it.”

  “Well, here goes,” I said. I stepped forward and, with the stone in my hand, chose all the spells I’d memorized, all the ones that would power the horses and their weapons. I felt a glow, a buzz, a thrum as the magic flowed from me and into the horses. And then it was over. I stepped back, feeling drained. The horses’ eyes had begun to flicker.

  Cassandra went after me, Olivia third, and Mowse last, powering what seemed like an almost explosive amount of power into the horses. But still, their eyes flickered. We needed Asa’s magic to anchor our magic to the horses.

  Asa took a deep breath and stepped forward, juggling the stone from hand to hand. He clapped his hands together over the stone and closed his eyes. I felt a wave of power surge from him, making my ears ring. It rumbled out in a dark blur, wrapping around the horses like fog, and disappearing into them.

  Asa sank to his knees and flickered for a moment, as though he’d disappear. But he stayed whole, and when he rose and came back to us, the horses’ eyes glowed so brightly it almost hurt my eyes.

  The guards stood back in awe at the monsters they’d be riding. They looked like an apocalyptic cavalry from machine hell, silent and spear-spined, living metal weapons brimming with infernal magic. But they were ours. And looking at them there, so quiet and formidable, I could feel in the very cells of my blood that these were our best chance of winning. Of breaking the Game once and for all.

  Lucy Arbor took another bucket of rags to the fire out back and tossed them in. They had been white but were now covered in mud and blood. All day she’d been running back and forth from the hospital to the jail, to the wells for water rations, and back to the hospital, trying to keep her own symptoms at bay. But now, she allowed herself to sit and breathe just for a moment, shakily and carefully, praying she didn’t cough.

  “Oh, there you are!” said Nurse Gladys, pushing open the back door of the hospital. “You’d better come back in. We’ve got another one.”

  “More Dust Sickness?” Lucy asked. “Because I already got the water. It’s on the back desk.”

  Lucy had not told anyone about the spell, that Mother Morevna was behind it, though in every part of her, she ached to do so. It would only cause panic, outrage, and that was the last thing Sal and the girls needed. But seeing the Sick every day, watching herself deteriorate, feeling the sense of doom grow inside her, the seed of anger and injustice had taken root and would grow out of control if she let it. And she couldn’t allow herself to become that angry. Not yet. Not when so many people needed her.

  “No,” said Nurse Gladys. “Another one of those marks.”

  Lucy nodded. “I’ll be in in a minute.” Coughs racked her body. She bent, double, wheezing, unable to catch her breath. Nurse Gladys ran to her and pounded on her back, shoved a glass of water into her shaking hands and forced her to drink until the coolness of the water drowned the pain.

  This will kill me soon, Lucy thought. This is going to rise up in my chest and fill my lungs with mud and I’m going to die. Panic flared inside her and set her heart racing. It seemed that the huge, unbearable darkness of mortality opened before her like a gate and Lucy stood in front of it, waiting to be swallowed whole. And for what? Because the leader of Elysium saw her life as worthy of forfeiting.

  “Lucy!” said Nurse Gladys.

  Lucy shook herself. “I’m all right,” she said, wiping the bloody mud from her lips. “Give me a minute. I’ll be in in a minute.”

  “God bless you, child,” said Nurse Gladys. And she closed the door.

  Lucy stared into the fire again, feeling the pain in her chest die down. Lately, there had been seven cases of strange, bloodred bumps appearing on the backs of people’s hands. Probably some new desert malady brought by the changing winds or the dark, groaning sky here in the final days of Elysium, or so was the consensus among the doctors and nurses. They were painless and didn’t seem to cause any harm (Nurse Ada herself had one), but they appeared so quickly and looked so strange that they frightened people. So several times, Lucy had been sent to calm people down, do a quick examination, and send people on their way, telling them to thank their lucky stars that it wasn’t Dust Sickness.

  Lucy felt another cough coming in her chest, but she took a gulp of well water, wiped the mud off her brow, and rose, thinking, This might kill me. But it sure as hell isn’t going to kill me before all of this ends.

  The defense spell consumed us all day and all night. And by the time Olivia, Cassandra, Asa, and I had finished writing it, the sun had set and we followed the light of the torches back home. We walked in silence, none of us talking about the spell that filled us with dread, the spell we’d tried for what seemed like ages to avoid. But it loomed in our thoughts anyway. And how could it not when the spell required such sacrifice? Now all there was was to tell the others. To see what they said.

  The rest of the girls were already eating dinner (corn bread and beans) and Mowse was trying to explain to Rosa about the difference between a kingdom and a phylum, but when we came in, everyone turned to us as though they could tell the weight of the news we had to bear.

  “Um, can I talk to everybody for a second?” I said, and the room grew even quieter than it already was. I gulped and continued. “We created a spell today, a last-ditch spell that can protect the city from the Dust Soldiers if the cavalry lines are broken. It can be cast by any one of us, no matter if we have magic or not.”

  “That’s great,” said Judith, looking to each of us in turn. “So why doesn’t it feel great?”

  “There’s one problem,” I said. “If we cast it, there’s no way all of us will get out alive.”

  The girls went quiet, their faces emptied of the humor that had been there only moments before. I continued.

  “Unlike Dust Dome, it can’t be cast with the caster in the middle of it. It’s designed for keeping things out… and we couldn’t figure out a way to make it accept the caster after it had been cast, or for the caster to cast the spell from inside the range it’s meant to cover.”

  “What does that mean?” Zo asked, leaning forward in her chair.

  “Someone has to remain outside the gates in order to cast it,” I said. “And once it’s cast, the caster will be stuck outside with the Dust Soldiers, unable to get back in.”

  “So dead, basically,” said Zo, her voice loud in the quiet kitchen.

  “There was no way around it,” Cassandra said, even her airy-fairy voice serious and flat as a stone. “It won’t work unless someone agrees to be left behind.”

  “Well, who’s it going to be?” Judith asked. “We gonna draw lots or something?”

  “There’s no use deciding now, since there’s no telling where any of us is going to end up in the battle,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out seven black stones, each with a smear of Asa’s blood on it. “These are for each of you. This means that, if it comes down to it
—and I hope it won’t—any one of us can close the spell over the city. All you have to do is place it at the gates and say ‘Pulvarem spiritum.’”

  “Pulvarem spiritum,” they repeated quietly. Each girl looked at the stone for a moment, then put it in her pocket, hoping to never have to bring it out again.

  “There’s no guarantee we’ll use the spell,” I told them. “Hopefully the cavalry and artillery will be enough.”

  Susanah nodded. “They will. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure of it.”

  The kitchen went quiet again, and I knew we were all pushing the spell to the back of our minds, hoping that it would not surface again. I saw Olivia put her arms around Rosa and kiss her forehead. I took my plate and ate quietly, my brain aching from the long day of spell writing.

  “Mowse, what’s that on your hand?” Zo asked.

  “I dunno,” said Mowse, showing a bright red bump on the back of her hand. “But it doesn’t hurt or anything. Three other kids at school have it.”

  “Looks like you gave it to me already,” Judith said, raising her own hand, where a similar red bump was already forming.

  “And Rosa,” said Olivia, taking Rosa’s hand into her own. “This better not be ringworm, Mowse.”

  “Schools,” Susanah said, shaking her head. “I forgot what disease factories they can be. Don’t go wiping that on anybody. Keep that to yourself. Now what were you telling us about school today?”

  “I played five games of marbles against George Arbor and won all of them,” Mowse was saying. “And for all of that I won this!” She pulled something small and golden out of her pocket, and behind me I heard the sound of a glass breaking on the floor. Asa stood over the glass, white-faced and ashen.

  “Wh-what?” Asa said, stumbling toward the table. “Let me see that!”

  Confused, Mowse handed her small trophy to Asa. With a crazed look on his face, he held the tiny golden thing into the light. It was a small piece of amber with something suspended inside it. I squinted. Yes, a cricket. The thing Asa had been sent to return. The thing he had put from his mind forever, or so he’d thought.

  “George Arbor?” I asked Mowse. “Lucy Arbor’s little brother? How did he get this?”

  “He said he picked it up when y’all were kicked out of Elysium.” Mowse shrugged.

  “Of course,” Asa said, his voice sounding strange in the silence of the kitchen. “Of course this would come to me now, when I am bound to be ripped apart in a matter of days.”

  Suddenly, maniacally, Asa started to laugh.

  He laughed and laughed, a cold, harsh, hopeless laugh, and we all turned our eyes away until he stopped.

  “Well,” he said bitterly. “I suppose no one can accuse the Sisters of not having a sense of humor.”

  CHAPTER 26

  1 DAY

  REMAINS.

  By the evening before our judgment, the sky was so dark that there was barely any difference between day and night. But the clouds that rumbled and threatened overhead were not lined with blue, but an angry, supernatural green. The pile of supplies for the substitute Sacrifice had grown to nearly the height of the first one, and the great clock of panic was ticking faster and louder.

  It was on the last day that I went to see Mama for the first time since I’d been back.

  “Hey, Mama,” I said to her name on the wall. “I guess I’ve got a lot to tell you about.”

  I reached out and brushed the dust out of the engraved letters, wondering where to begin. I could start with the witchcraft, how I’d been a witch the whole time and not known it. I could talk about the Sacrifice and how Asa and I had destroyed it. I could talk about Olivia and the girls, Mother Morevna, the Dust Sickness that had killed her and would soon kill Lucy. I could talk about our plan to fight our way out, to defy the Goddesses. But what I said was, “I don’t know if I’m ready, Mama.”

  Saying it, hearing how easily it came, surprised me. And it was true, I realized. Sure, we’d practiced every day. Sure I could call down lightning, summon a whirlwind, breathe fire, but when I thought of the Dust Soldiers, my heart still beat like a rabbit’s heart must beat.

  “Everyone is counting on us,” I said. “We’re in charge. And… it’s just… so much.”

  Once I said that to her name there in the wall, it seemed like the words wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. A dam of uncertainty had burst somewhere inside, and everything threatened to flow out of me and into the dust at my feet. Tears came then, hot and stinging, and I let myself cry them there in the silence.

  As my tears began to cease, I reached out and lay my palm across her name, wishing she were there to hold me, to stroke my hair, to help lessen everything for me. At that moment, so faintly in the back of my mind, I felt a sense of warmth, smelled a familiar but unplaceable scent. And as I closed my eyes to try and keep it just a moment longer, I could hear a sound like black feathers falling.

  When I finally took my hand off the wall and wiped the muddy stains from my face, I took a deep breath, clearing my mind, readying myself for the task that awaited us tonight.

  “Goodbye, Mama,” I said. And I rose and left her for the last time, knowing finally what I’d always known: No matter what happened, I was born for this.

  Asa sat at the kitchen table in the Robertson house, holding a cigarette between his teeth. They were long again now, pointed and black, and his spines protruded between the spokes of the chair he sat in alone, trying his best to conserve a last, small amount of magic for the fight. The cricket in amber sat on the table, throwing a small amount of honey-colored light on the wood around it.

  Suddenly, for the first time since She sent him down to Elysium, he felt Life there with him, a trickle like a bright stream through his brain. There is still time for you to be the Card I needed! Don’t just sit there! You are letting Her win the Game!

  “I have a new strategy now.” Asa lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

  And it is madness! She said. She will win! Especially now that M—

  “You don’t even care about them, do You?” he said, sending up a long, thin cloud of smoke.

  What do you mean? She asked with an edge to Her honeyed voice.

  “I mean, why put the people through this?” Asa said. “Why use Your power to create a world like this? Do You care about the beings You’ve trapped here, who could be living lives with dignity and health? Do You care about the creatures You created who will be destroyed when the Game ends, one way or another? Or do You just love to gamble?”

  How dare you speak to Me so! She said. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Mother. I gave you life! I gave you everything you have, and I can take it away in an instant!

  “I don’t think You can,” Asa said. “I’m already on the board. If You could, You’d have done it already. No. This time, we’re making the decisions. And we are going to win.”

  What has happened to you? She asked. Why are you like this? Because of the girl? You know that a human could never truly love a daemon, Asa. And a daemon can never truly love a human.

  “Maybe,” said Asa. “But as far as I’m concerned, I’m not a daemon anymore, no matter what I look like. I am more than that now.”

  No daemon has ever done this before, She said. You have broken from Us completely. You know that the punishment We will arrange will be spoken of for eons to come. The very atoms of the universe will weep for you.

  “I know,” said Asa. He took another drag on his cigarette and let out a long, indulgent cloud of smoke. “But it’s been one hell of a ride while it lasted.”

  Angrily, Life trickled out of his mind like a flow of diamond dust and was gone.

  Asa finished his cigarette as the ground rumbled and pitched beneath him, knocking over a vase nearby. Not long now, he thought. He closed his eyes and thought of Olivia, of Rosa, of Sal.

  Asa put his cigarette out in a dish. Then he slipped back into his human form—what of it he had left, anyway. He flexed his fingers and pulled on his glov
es.

  He pulled the cricket out of his pocket and looked at it.

  “Too late now, I’m afraid,” he told it.

  And as he slipped out into the streets of Elysium, he let the cricket drop into the dust outside the Robertson house. He didn’t even look back.

  When I returned to the house, the other girls were in the kitchen, sitting around the table, already holding their weapons. They were completely silent, feeling the gravity of tonight pull at them like the moon.

  An earthquake sent us grabbing for chairs and walls. The lights flickered. Rosa had been so frantic that Mowse had had to put her under a sleeping spell, and Olivia sat, holding her hand for hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

  “What time will they get here?” Judith asked.

  “After sunset,” Zo said. “Like an execution.”

  “Don’t think of it like that,” said Cassandra, her usual dreamy voice suddenly serious.

  “I’m just being realistic,” said Zo.

  “No you’re not,” said Cassandra. “You’re being gloomy and a pessimist, and that is the very worst thing to be right now.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “We can’t afford to think we’ll lose, or we will. All we have to do is hold them off until morning. And the horses are splendid. We will win. And none of us will die.”

  “Okay, then, Pollyanna,” Zo said, but there was a softer, more apologetic tone in her voice that hadn’t been there before. “You’re right. We’re going to be fine. We at least got a fighting chance.”