It was a long narrow room, rambling beneath the eaves of the little shed addition. Pushed against the far wall beneath a steeply sloping roof were a pair of wobbling chairs, an iron bedstead, a monitor with cracked screen, a bad reproduction of a Second Ascension metal sleeping cabinet, and a small cabinet filled with moldering books. The air smelled of cold dust and mice. There was no fireplace, and only a single tiny window overlooking the barn, so caked with filth, it let in neither light nor view. Giles cracked it open, and the heady scent of warm clover crept inside, and the sound of the little creek burbling behind the house.
“Here, now,” Giles said. He crossed back to the little doorway, nervously smoothing his hair from his forehead. He’s really frightened, I thought, and swallowed hard, thinking of Jane. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with some food. All of you just sit tight, and try not to talk very loudly—try not to talk at all, if you can. Fossa knows what to do, he’s been through this before.”
“I hope they don’t stay long,” fretted Miss Scarlet. “Do you think they’ll be here past the morning?”
In spite of his worry, Giles smiled. His face had grown worn over the years, with lines and sunspots a Paphian in the City would never have borne; but at that moment he seemed more beautiful than any number of young courtesans. “No, cousin. I don’t think so. Aviators are all business—these two have been sent out on some mission from one of the elÿon bases in the Gulf. They’ve been charged to stop everywhere within two hundred miles of the City and do a thorough search. They’ll take a look around downstairs and be gone before you know it.”
Miss Scarlet blanched at the word search. “But won’t they find us—oh, I wish Jane—”
“Hush! No, they won’t find you. Seven Chimneys is known and trusted as a favorite stopping point for members of the Autocracy. This is a mere formality, that’s all. Now be still and wait—I’ll be back soon.”
We waited. Miss Scarlet fidgeted, pulling the end of her shift through her hands over and over again, until it grew creased and stiff. Fossa leaned against the wall, his head bent to accommodate the sloping roof, and stared at the floor, his yellow eyes narrowed and thoughtful. Giles had shut the window before he left, but I cracked it open again, peering through the little slit at the barn and thinking Jane, Jane…
When the door creaked open again, we all jumped.
“Only me. No sign of them yet,” Giles said with false heartiness. “Here’s supper.”
“Jane?” Miss Scarlet asked in a quavering voice.
Giles put down a small tray, tipped his head, and sighed. “Not yet. Probably she’s still in the woods somewhere, in which case she’ll be fine.”
“As long as she stays there,” I said grimly.
Giles was silent, finally said, “Yes. As long as she stays there.” Miss Scarlet and I stared after him with sinking hearts as he crept back out again and locked us in for the night.
For Miss Scarlet and me Giles had made a compote of last year’s dried apples and the first wild strawberries, tiny fruits no bigger than a drop of blood squeezed from your fingertip. For Fossa there was lamb, cooked very rare, and a bottle of wine for us to share. We sat in a circle on the floor to eat, and again I thought of my life at the Human Engineering Laboratory, stealing food with my friends and holding impromptu parties in the middle of the night. Only now dread choked all my thoughts, as the night wind rose up outside, and the first tentative cries of whippoorwills echoed from the woods.
We drank the wine slowly, me taking rather more than my share, until finally the nearly empty bottle remained in my lap. As I ate, I perused the label curiously. It was printed on the same kind of grayish, pulpy paper that adorned the packets of cigarettes Giles doled out, with gold lettering and a colored drawing of what appeared to be some sort of darkened chamber set about with spikes of red and yellow and blue.
Iχocpυσ
Free Take of Cassandra
“Cassandra again,” I said, frowning. Miss Scarlet looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Where the cigarettes come from. That place in the mountains.” I shifted the bottle between my knees and pointed to the arcane symbol of the pyramid and the word beneath it. “What does that mean?”
Miss Scarlet squinted at it. “I don’t know. It’s ancient Greek, I think. But that—” One black skinny finger tapped the image of the pyramid and the eye. “ That I recognize. It was on currency in the United States—we used some once as a prop in Our Town. ” She pursed her lips and peered more closely at the label. “And this here, this other picture—that’s a cave.”
“A cave?” I took the bottle and squinted at it. If I looked closely, I could just make out several tiny, tiny figures within the darkened chamber. They seemed to be holding up something in their hands, staring at the spikes hanging around them.
“Yes,” said Miss Scarlet with certainty, nodding so that the dark fur rippled on her shoulders and scalp. She glanced over at Fossa. He stared back at her with slanted eyes and nodded.
“Cave,” he growled.
“I’ve seen pictures of them,” Miss Scarlet went on. “When we did that version of Macbeth. And at the Zoo there was a habitat for bats. It was supposed to be a cave. It looked somewhat like that,” she added doubtfully. But the mention of the Zoo seemed to remind her of Jane. She bowed her small dark head and said no more.
“A cave,” I repeated. I tried to imagine what Cassandra must be like—a place where people still grew and processed tobacco and grapes; a place with caves. “Trevor’s daughter lives there.”
“And others,” muttered Fossa. He stretched like a dog, his powerful knobbed paws clawing at the floor, and yawned, uncoiling a long pink tongue. “Very wise and strong—if they were here now, nothing to worry.”
I preferred not to think about those others. Miss Scarlet sighed and stood, crossing her spindly arms across her chest. “I—I think I will try to sleep,” she said softly. She looked exhausted, but slightly shamefaced: as though I might think less of her for not staying up with me to worry over Jane.
“Of course,” I said. I smiled wanly. I wanted to embrace her, hold her small warm body to mine and tell her not to worry; but I did not.
Fossa, however, did. He followed her to the small narrow bed and crouched beside it, watching as she climbed in and not lying down until she was safely settled. Then he sighed noisily, muttered something I could not hear, and sank down, resting his heavy head on his hands. In a few minutes his snores nearly drowned out Miss Scarlet’s even breathing.
I finished the wine and stood, walked somewhat shakily to the little window, and pressed my face against its narrow opening. Outside, above the barn, the darkening sky had a pale greenish cast, the same color that the new leaves had been a few weeks earlier. But now the trees had burgeoned into full growth. I could just glimpse the edge of the meadow where they stirred fitfully in the night breeze, and if I crooked my neck back, I could see the first stars pricking at the velvety sky. From the marshes came the ringing of frogs. I felt a sudden pressure in my chest, as though a hand had seized my heart and squeezed it.
Emma Harrow came to me then. Dr. Harrow, who had been my protector and torturer at HEL, the woman who by forcing me to relive her own occult memories had somehow imprinted them upon me. It was on a night like this that her twin brother had first seen that figure that had haunted me for so many months, the shining figure of the Boy in the Tree, the Boy whose name is Death. I rested my head against the windowsill, heedless of whatever prying eyes might be scanning for us.
There was no Boy there within me now. A terrible loneliness came over me: first Justice and now Jane…I had been so cold to her lately, so caught up in my own misery. At the thought of her, tears filled my eyes and I swore angrily beneath my breath.