Burning Kingdoms Page 22

  “Maybe not,” I say.

  “Maybe not,” she mimics. “Oh, Morgan. Do you never tire of this delusional optimism about your poor decision making?”

  “Don’t take this out on her,” Judas says. I have no idea how long he’s been standing at the bottom of the stairs listening to us. “If I recall, you’ve done your share of things to contribute to this mess. The reason you’re here at all is because you attempted to murder Prince Azure with a rock.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill the prince,” Pen says.

  It’s a weak argument and Judas ignores it. “You’re the one who figured it out about the phosane and the glasslands to begin with. So you must be smart enough to see that if you hadn’t nearly gotten yourself killed, Morgan probably would have kept your secret. But you were too intoxicated out of your mind to see what was happening to yourself, much less what was happening to the rest of us.”

  “Judas, that’s enough,” I say.

  “She dove in after you, you know,” Judas tells Pen. “She saved your life. There aren’t a whole lot of people in either world who would do that. If words must come out of your mouth at all, they should be ‘Thank you.’ ”

  Pen’s arms are folded, and she can’t seem to raise her eyes, and she mutters, “You weren’t even there,” before she hurries off in the direction of the kitchen, hitting his shoulder with hers as she goes.

  “Judas,” I hiss. I try to go after Pen, but he grabs my arm.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” he says. The anger in his voice is lessening now that we’re alone.

  I pull myself out of his grip. “So talk.”

  He glances into the lobby, where Marjorie and Annette are snuggled against Alice, who is reading aloud from a storybook.

  “Can we go someplace?” he says. “Outside?”

  “That depends on whether you’re going to snap at me, too.”

  “Not at you. I don’t know what it is about your friend,” he says. “She irks me.”

  “We’re all caught in trying times,” I say.

  “I know,” he says. He holds the door open for me, and the doorway frames a painting of a day that is rain-dampened but bright with greens and whites, and everywhere flowers sneaking up from the dirt. It’s irresistible. I follow Judas away from the house, to a tree whose trunk is wrapped in vines and leaves.

  I fold my legs in the grass. It’s wet but I don’t mind. Judas fidgets before he sits next to me.

  “When Amy told me what you’d done, I thought you’d lost your mind,” he says. “Trying to go back to Internment after all that city has put you through—put all of us through. I was all set to write you off as irrational.”

  He wouldn’t be the first, I’m sure.

  “But I saw what was happening to your friend Pen, and how it affected you. And I didn’t know what exactly the princess hoped to gain from her trip here, but I suspected that you were trying to help her, too.”

  I run my fingertip over a yellow flower that grows wild among the grass. “If you’re going to tell me what a mess I’ve made of everything, I already know,” I say.

  “Just let me talk,” he says. “I don’t give a lot of compliments. This is weird for me.”

  I look at him. Compliments?

  “That night you pushed me into the lake to hide me from the patrolmen, I wondered what your game was. And ever since that night, I’ve been waiting for you to collect on that favor. But you aren’t going to, are you? You just wanted to help me.”

  I shrug. “They were after you. You were innocent. It was the right thing to do.”

  “You’re the only one who believes I’m innocent,” he says. “Besides Amy and the professor, that is.”

  I fall back against the grass. “Unfortunately for you, nobody takes me seriously,” I say.

  “I do.” He props himself on his elbow. His shadow shields my eyes from the sun.

  “Why?” I say. Every nerve stands to attention as I watch him rub his chin and the side of his neck. There’s sunlight through his fingers, long shadows are ovals that cling to his knuckles, and I want him to touch me.

  “You are a rare spirit,” he tells me.

  “I’m not anything special,” I say. The words float up into the sunlight, where they burn away. Everything burns away, and all I see is him, all angles like a prism held to the light.

  “You don’t even know what you are,” Judas says. The words hum in my ears. He’s closer, and I reach for his shoulder. It’s jagged with bone, and I’ve wanted to touch it since the night he pinned me against that tree in the moonlight. Now I’m finally brave enough.

  He leans closer, and my eyes close, and he kisses me. My heart is like this world’s rain hitting against the window. I can’t breathe. I had thought all kisses were like the ones I’ve shared with Basil, that they started out timid and uncertain. But this one goes through the skin. He’s so confident, a different boy from who he was a moment ago.

  Yes. Daphne’s voice. The words she wrote on paper that led to her death. My betrothed asked me to marry him, as we lay in the grass . . . Yes.

  Is this the way he used to kiss her?

  I pull back. It is all my strength to sit up. A leaf is caught in my hair and it’s crinkling against my ear. “Judas, I—”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, but I don’t believe him. His eyes have taken on a sleepy delirious quality, and for all my guilt, it thrills me to think I am the cause.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” I say. “I don’t belong to you. You don’t belong to me.”

  He plucks the leaf from my hair. “We don’t belong to anyone, you and I.”

  The insects are singing in the grass and in my blood. I want to tear away the ground around us like a drawing on a piece of paper. Then we can float away in the sky, leaving behind an empty space that bears our shape. I want to live forever in this little place we’ve created without rules or consequences. I want him to kiss me again.

  But memories of the smoke at the harbor are pervading my senses, and back at the hotel a window has opened on its track, and someone is calling my name.

  “Morgan?” In the distance, Celeste is leaning out the bedroom window. “Morgan? Are you out there?” She doesn’t see me.

  “I have to go,” I say. My legs are numb, and I stumble. Judas rights me. “Thank you,” I say.

  He lets me go. I move for the hotel as fast as I’m able. I feel Judas watching me, and, standing behind him, the ghost of the girl he was meant to love.

  Celeste is staring through the open window when I enter the bedroom.

  “I’ll miss the rain most of all,” she says. “And the big creatures—elegors, giramos. I never saw a whale, though, or a mermaid. Fish with human hair. Imagine.”

  “Though, if it’s on a fish, can it be called human?” I say.

  “I’ve been wondering that, but I’ve never asked Nim. There are many things I haven’t asked him.”

  “You’ll be back,” I say. “The reason I told you about the phosane was so that you could help us all get home.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that.” She turns away from the window. “When that jet leaves the ground, I don’t know what’s to become of me or any of us. But I want you to know that I’ll keep my promise. I’ll tell my father all you’ve done to help me, and he needn’t know that Pen was the one to hurt Azure. I’m sure he wouldn’t have told either, if he’s still alive.”

  “You must be worried for him,” I say.

  “There’s wind between his ears, my brother, but I am rather fond of him.” She tries to smile. “Every generation, a prince is born. A prince who will grow to be the king, who will bear the burdens of a city and be the one to speak to the god in the sky, and to hear the god in the sky speak back.” Despite her sorrow, there’s a flicker of excitement in her eyes. “But that’s wrong. This time, it’s me. Even if I never wear a crown, and whether I stand in the sky or on the ground, I’ve always felt that, of my brother and me, I was meant to do som
ething important.”

  She came here thinking she could unite two kingdoms, and she’s leaving as a political tool. Her eyes are sad, but I can see her spirit shining ever through. She’s going to give all she has, even if all she has are a few honest words.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” I say. “And when you come back, we’ll ride the ferry and use beads and pearls to lure the mermaids up from the depths. After we’ve saved our world, of course.”

  “I’d like that,” she says.

  “And, Celeste, I have a favor, if I may be so bold.”

  Her eyes are misting and she dabs at the tears with her fingertips. “Of course.”

  “My father may still be alive. I don’t know if he’s your father’s prisoner, or if he’s in hiding, but if you could just—just tell him that I’m sorry I left him behind. Let him know I’ll try to come back for him. I know it may not be in your power to set him free, but if you could tell him I wouldn’t have left him behind if I’d known.”

  She sniffs. “I will. Morgan, I’m so sorry.”

  I put my arms around her, and she tenses, surprised, before she embraces me. “Look at me,” she says miserably, “falling to pieces like this.”

  “Anyone else would have fallen to pieces long before this,” I say. “I’ve lost my wits about a thousand times since we’ve touched the ground.”

  She draws back just enough to look at me. She shakes her head. “You could have been royalty,” she says. “You have the steel of a king and the heart of a queen.”

  I crinkle my nose. She gives a feeble smile. “Really,” she says. “I would know.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right, then,” I say. “I’ve a feeling I’ll need both of those things for what’s to come.”

  “I’ll take care of the sky, and you take care of the ground, then,” Celeste says. “I’ll look for your father, and I’ll do my best to convince my father that there’s an alliance to be made. But you have to look after Nim while I’m gone, and keep Pen from burning this place down.”

  I laugh. “I will do what I can,” I say.

  Celeste puts her forehead to mine. “We haven’t seen the last of each other,” she says. “You’ll see. Something big is going to bring these worlds together.”

  Dinner is silent. Jack Piper doesn’t join us; the door to his study has been closed since Celeste was taken away. I can’t be certain that his absence is connected to hers; for as long as Riles’s and Gertrude’s seats at the table have been empty, he has looked upon his son and daughters with great difficulty. His children all bear a strong resemblance to one another, as though they can sit around the fireplace and exchange expressions the way they trade trinkets and cards. A brother’s quirked brow, a sister’s toothy grin. The youngest girls know this, and they also know that their resemblance to their dead brother and ailing sister cannot be helped; they duck their heads when their father passes through the room; they do not giggle or welcome him home or ask him their new questions about death. I suspect that this is the only way they know how to love him. With contrition and penitence.

  Nim, however, is bolder. He will raise his eyes that have seen explosions, and cross arms that held his dying brother and were stained with his blood, and he will stare at his father as though to say that he can see through him. This was your doing, the eyes say. And you can hide for only so long.

  “I’m not hungry,” Annette says.

  “It’s hotcakes for dinner,” Nimble says tiredly. “Your favorite.”

  “I’m not hungry, either,” Marjorie says, following her sister’s cue.

  Nim rubs his eyebrows. “Okay,” he says. “What would you like to do instead?”

  “Ride an elegor,” Annette says.

  “It’s dark now,” Nimble says. “The elegors are sleeping, and the rentals are closed.”

  “I want to ride it to the hospital,” she says. “I want to see Birdie.”

  “She’s sleeping,” Nimble says. “Remember? We talked about this.”

  “I think you’re lying,” Annette says, her voice rising. “I think she’s dead and you don’t want to tell me.”

  If I hadn’t heard it myself, I wouldn’t think a little girl in ringlets was capable of such a dark thought. But she is frustrated with Nimble, because he is the only one left to provide her with any answers, and she knows that the answers are incomplete. He and Birdie were a team, caring for the younger ones, shielding them from their world’s horrors, making sure they were happy and healthy and dressed in time for breakfast. Birdie’s presence was gentle and quiet, but her absence is violent. The pristine portrait the younger children knew has crumbled to dust, and now they see what was hiding behind it all along.

  “That isn’t true,” Marjorie says. “She isn’t dead. Right, Nim?”

  “No,” he says. “I’ve told you the truth. She’s asleep. But it isn’t a normal sleep where she’ll wake up in the morning. She’s having a very long dream.”

  Marjorie has started to cry. “I want to have a long dream, too,” she says.

  “No you don’t,” Annette says. “You won’t wake up.” She sweeps her arm across the table, knocking her plate to the ground. Nimble closes his eyes to the sound of it shattering. She runs off, and he doesn’t try to stop her.

  Marjorie whimpers. Her face is red. She throws her plate on the ground, too, though it seems an act more of solidarity than of anger. Annette is younger, but she’s the leader of their little duo. “I’m sorry,” Marjorie says. “Nim, I’m sorry.” She climbs onto his lap and worms her way into his arms.

  His eyes are red and weary. “It’s all right,” he tells her. She’s wrapped around him like a vise, and she’s still clinging to him when he pushes himself from the table. “I think it’s time for you and Annie to go to bed,” he tells her. “And you’ll have normal dreams, and things will look much better in the morning.”

  We all watch him carry her from the room. Judas looks at me, and my cheeks are burning. Whether it’s guilt or desire, I can’t be certain; I only know I want to be rid of it. I push myself away from the table, and I kneel down to pick up the shards.

  “Don’t,” Basil says, kneeling beside me and taking my wrists. “You’ll cut yourself.”

  “I’ll get a dustpan,” Alice says.

  I stare at the porcelain on the floor. This is what it’s all come to. Pieces. Even a child can see that.

  21

  That night, I’m kept awake by the ticking of the clock on the night table. It’s the sound of time moving away from me, drifting up into the sky in ribbons of jet fumes. Celeste’s bed is empty. Pen tosses and turns. Floorboards creak. The youngest Pipers have taken to wandering the house at night. I think they’re afraid that they won’t wake up from their dreams. They whisper and play with their toys by lantern light. Tin biplanes and helmets like the ones that fuel this war. The other morning I found Annette asleep in the claw-foot tub, hugging Birdie’s kaleidoscope. She said she had spent the night hunting pirates. “More gold than you’ve ever seen in your life,” she told me, “but the money’s all bloody.”

  Everyone in the hotel has fallen into a kind of madness. There is nothing to do but wait and be restless. Wait for news of bombs or jets or alliances. Jack Piper, unwilling maestro of this wayward order, makes himself scarce. I’ve begun to dread any evidence of his presence; the rustle of papers behind a closed door, the clearing of a throat, or hard shoes against the floorboards. Something awful happens whenever he’s around. Someone goes away or is dropped into a hole in the ground.

  He has also taken away the transistor radio that the cooks kept in the kitchen. We aren’t allowed to go far from the hotel. The ferry and elegor rentals have stopped. The city has finally gone to sleep, and we aren’t made to know anything about what’s happening, or what’s going to happen.

  The clock is always ticking, louder than ever.

  Pen sits up with a gasp. “Morgan—” Still in her dream she reaches for me, but then she sees where she is and collapses bac
k against the pillow.

  “Bad dream?” I say.

  “I heard a bomb falling,” she says. “I didn’t want you to get killed.” She yawns. “I’m losing my mind. I still hear it.”

  I sit up. “I think I hear something, too,” I say, but she has fallen back to sleep, if she was ever awake at all.

  I go to the bedroom window, but there’s nothing but a placid spring night. The sound is coming from the other side of the building.

  Pen doesn’t stir as I walk past her bed and turn the doorknob. She’s able to recover more quickly from her nightmares about the harbor.

  The sound is louder once I’ve descended the stairs. Nothing at all like the bombs at the harbor, but more of an engine’s rumbling.

  I step outside, crossing my arms against the chilly night air, and I make it around the corner of the hotel just in time to see Nimble back his car into the fire altar. The tires dig into the earth and there’s a grating sound as the back of the car is forced onto the stone platform.

  Even from where I’m standing, I can smell the fuel, as though the car has been coated in it. Nimble climbs out of the driver’s side, and a moment before he does it, I realize what’s happening. He draws a match from the breast pocket of his pin-striped pajamas and strikes it, and in an instant the car is burning.

  He stands as close as he dares, arms folded.

  Head bowed, his lips move to form what can only be a prayer of offering.

  “Oh, Nim,” I whisper, even though I’m too far for him to hear me. He loved that car. This hotel is his floating city, his father his oppressive king. That car was his only freedom in this world.

  I approach slowly, in the tracks the tires burnt into the grass. My eyes are watering from the stench of the rubber and the smoke.

  When he’s finished with his prayer, he turns toward me.

  “When Birds and I were kids, we used to look up at the floating island and hold our breath when a big cloud passed under it,” he says. “It was a game we had. She could always hold her breath for longer than I could. I feel like that’s what she’s doing now, holding her breath until a dark cloud has passed over us.”