His skin shudders an jumps beneath my mouth. Stop, yer gonna kill me, he whispers.
I ain’t even started, I says.
I won’t ask why he stays, why he touches me. What’s changed in his mind since his coldness last night. I cain’t risk runnin up aginst my shames, my lies. I’ll jest take this fer the moment, fer the gift that it is. The heartstone burns fer him, strong an fierce. Like it did from the start. When it seared him fer always to who I am.
Our shadows move together in the starfired night. But we’re gone to sunlight, him an me. We’re gone to sweet grasslands beyond the horizon. To high skies an merciful days of gold. Where, fer one bright moment, I truly am what he once told me I was. Somethin good an strong an true.
We’re skin to skin. Breath to breath. My sins roll away to the beat of his heart.
There’s now. There’s here. There’s him an me.
In this broken world that’s enough.
As the red line of dawn bleeds blue night into mornin, Jack halts Hermes by the blasted thorn. Here, we’re a safe distance east of the Lanes. I press myself tight to his back. Kell stands quietly, tied on behind. From a birch copse nearby, a blackbird spills a full-throated welcome to the light. Somehow it knows that each dawn’s a rare wonder to be praised. That’s the only sound. A hush lies deep in the bones of the world.
We’re still. To move would break this shimmer on the edge of time. I beat my heart with Jack’s heart. I breathe my breath with his breath. The morn blooms slowly, silently around us.
He speaks, softly, An behold, this day I go the way of all the earth.
We ain’t said a single word from the tower to here. Like we might be able to slip past our lives unnoticed.
The woman who raised me, he says. Sometimes she sat night-watch on the dyin. That’s what she’d say when she closed their eyes.
It’s beautiful, I whisper. Say it agin.
An behold, this day I go the way of all the earth. This ’ud be a fine moment to go, he says.
We listen to the blackbird. The air tastes sweet, like a pineforest stream. Nero croaks from his perch on the thorn tree. A humble crow song to the sunrise. No less heartfelt fer bein so plain.
The day starts to wrap around us. Jack slides down from Hermes an unties Kell. I take off his coat an hand it to him. Our moment outta time is done.
That’s the first he’s made mention of his childhood. I’d like to know about the woman who raised him. Her name, if she still lives, if she was kind to him. I’d like to know what happened to his folks. He knows so much about me. I know so little of him. No matter. What difference would it make?
He lays a finger on the heartstone at my neck. He smiles his crooked quirk of a smile. The one that makes my knees weak. Surprised it ain’t burned itself out, he says. So. Edenhome? Tonight?
I think so, I says. I’ll send Nero.
I reach down my hand. Fer what, I dunno. A last touch, a last kiss, a last word.
He takes it in his. He bows his head to rest his lips on my palm. G’bye Saba, he says. Then he swings onto Kell an turns fer the north. An I head to the Lanes, where time awaits me.
Before first light, Emmi climbed the tall bull pine next to the fence. A garden patch stood just the other side. She hid herself deep among its branches, tucked herself close to the trunk. She’d watch and listen and learn. To find out what the something was that only she could do. Then she’d wait for her chance, for the right moment to do it.
She watched the boys and girls stream from the bunkhouses in silent single file to the long, low building. She counted at least fifty kids. All ages. The littlest looked about four. The biggest ones, twelve or thirteen. Some of the girls had chests. She’d never seen so many children together before. Every one had been snatched from their family. She knew what that felt like. She heard the clatter of spoons on eat tins. Breakfast time. She ate her nettlecake while she waited for them to finish.
Then they filed back outside and a man—not a Tonton—blew a shrill blast on a tin whistle. He shouted at them to get into their work groups. After they all did that and cried, Long life to the Pathfinder! they were soon busy with their chores. Tending beasts, climbing ladders to mend roofs, checking for eggs in the duck house by the pond, filling buckets of water at the well to wash floors, working on the half-built barn. There were black-robed Tonton moving about, but she didn’t see too many of them. There were other grown-ups, too, like the man with the whistle. Working with the kids, showing them how to do things the right way.
One group headed for the garden patch below her, carrying hoes and shovels, rakes and buckets. Without a word, they set to work. Hoeing and pulling weeds. Digging the earth, turning it, raking it smooth.
After a bit, she watched one girl in particular. Studied her closely. About her age, strong and sturdy, with numbers tattooed up her arm like all the others. Fiery red hair in a long neat plait, and dark eyes that kept looking, looking around her while she worked. Looking for what? Maybe her chance?
The girl paused, frowning. Her head turned towards the woods and she scanned the trees. As if she knew she was being watched. Slowly, she hoed her way right to the fence. Making sure nobody was looking, she picked a clod of couchgrass from her weed bucket and tossed it through the mesh of barbwire.
It landed with a thud beside the bull pine. In the safety of its branches, Emmi held her breath. Was this the right moment? Or a trap? She twisted off a pine cone and held it to her chest, clutched it to her hammering heart. What would the Hopetown Emmi do? That smart survivor of hard knocks and fear? She tossed it to land at the girl’s feet.
The girl stared at the cone. Her eyes flicked up to the tree.
Emmi tossed down another cone.
Who’s there? the girl whispered.
Me, said Emmi. My name’s Emmi. I’m here to help you.
I’m Nell. The girl started hoeing again, talking quickly in a low voice. There ain’t nobody lookin. They won’t hear if we’re quiet. I gotta git outta here, Emmi, she said. I gotta try an find my folks. Can you really help me?
I’m gonna help all of yuz, said Emmi.
She looked along the fence. A cage for the kids, that’s what it was. High and tight and wicked barbwire to rip anybody climbing it to shreds. In Hopetown, Saba climbed the bars of the Cage to escape. She fought her way out from the inside.
That arm tattoo, said Emmi. Did it hurt when they did it?
Not so bad I couldn’t stand it, said Nell.
Okay, she said. Spit on the devil an swear me yer true. That you won’t say nuthin to nobody. No matter what.
Nell spat. I swear, she said. What’re you gonna do?
You’ll see, she said.
Emmi shinned down the pine and slipped a silent way through the trees, staying out of sight but always skirting the fence. It landed her at the road. She walked its cheerless song to the front gate of Edenhome.
There she stopped, her boots still hanging around her neck. The Tonton on guard duty was walking the fence, away from her. She grabbed the gate bars and rattled them. As he came running, shouting, with his firestick aimed, she raised her hands in the air. They were trembling a bit. Her stomach had the jitters. She was only a kid, they’d expect her to be afraid. She wasn’t afraid. She was nervous. And excited.
She’d been a prisoner of the Pinches at Hopetown. A prisoner of the Tonton at Resurrection. She’d survived, become stronger and escaped, both times. She wasn’t just the sister of the Angel of Death. She was a Free Hawk. A warrior for freedom and justice.