Burning Kingdoms Page 3

  “You’d do that?” Gertrude says.

  “Back home, I used to sneak out all the time,” Pen says. “There was this little cavern in the woods. Remember, Morgan?”

  Remember? How could I not? It was only last week and a lifetime ago. All I can do is nod. I suddenly feel that I’ll cry if I utter a word.

  Gertrude smiles. It is a sincere, girlish smile, one that’s unaffected by her heavy eyeliner and blood-red lips. “Well, thanks,” she says. “I should get washed up before Father wakes us for breakfast. I must look like a ragamuffin.”

  She’s a shy girl in a rebel’s garb. The ground is her home, but it’s still a big place, and I think she must be like Pen and me—trying to figure out this strange world as it reveals itself, bit by bit.

  I think Pen was right, and that Gertrude Piper—Birdie—will have little insight into her father’s political dealings, but I would still like to get to know her.

  After she’s gone inside, Pen looks at me. “What’s a night owl?” she says.

  I shrug.

  By the time we’re summoned for breakfast, Birdie is as fresh-faced and bright-eyed as her brothers and sisters. Not a drop of cosmetics on her face. After a night of no sleep, I’m not sure how she manages it, but no one suspects a thing, though I see Nimble elbow her as she takes her place beside him.

  The plates are laid before us. Something yellow and fluffy, accompanied by little gray-brown cakes. “Eggs!” Annette says happily.

  Pen can’t hide her skepticism. “The eggs of what?” she asks. We’ve never heard of eating something in egg form.

  “Chickens,” Annette says.

  “Chickens are birds,” Nimble says, watching to see our reaction.

  I tuck my hands under the table. I was already having difficulty forcing an appetite, but now there’s no hope for this meal passing between my lips.

  “We don’t eat a lot of plants,” he adds.

  “Can it, Nim,” Birdie says under her breath. She clears her throat. “Where’s Father?”

  “Otherwise engaged,” Nimble says. “He’s with a few of the king’s finest, trying to talk that crazy old man out of that ramshackle plane.”

  “You should talk to that little girl—what’s her name?” Celeste says. “His granddaughter.”

  “Amy,” Judas says. “And she hasn’t woken up yet. The trip exhausted her.”

  “How exhausted could she be?” Celeste says. “We’re all recovered by now. Except for your brother, Morgan.”

  At the mention of Lex, my hands turn to fists. She speaks so casually of people she doesn’t know at all. She doesn’t understand what it’s like for Amy and Lex. She doesn’t understand blindness or crippling fits or what it means to be anything but royalty.

  “Is Amy all right?” Basil whispers to me.

  I shake my head at my plate of strange food. I don’t know. “I’ll go and check on her,” I say.

  “You have to ask to be excused first,” Annette says.

  “May I be excused?”

  “Yes. You may.”

  When I open the door to Amy’s room, I find her standing at the window, her hair tangled from sleep.

  “Here we are,” she says.

  “Here we are. I went outside this morning. Didn’t realize how cold it truly was until I came back inside and the feeling started returning to my fingers.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” she says. Her voice is subdued, though, and when she turns to face me, her eyes are cloudy.

  “Would you like something to eat?” I say. “The food is strange, but the princess seems to like it. Pen has sort of been using her as a poison tester.”

  Amy shakes her head. “My stomach is still recovering from the trip. I am getting restless, though.”

  “Well, then, how would you like to go outside?” I say. “They could use your help talking the professor out of the bird.”

  Her eyes brighten at that.

  “And speaking of birds, I saw a real one today,” I say. “It flew straight across the sky and disappeared.”

  “You didn’t,” she gasps.

  “There are bound to be more. Maybe we’ll see one. Hurry and get dressed.”

  “Will you come too?” she says.

  “Sure, if you want.”

  “And—could you tell Judas not to tag along?”

  “I can talk to him, but—”

  “If you want me to try and convince my grandfather to come out, those are my terms,” she says. “Let me get dressed.”

  She shoos me from the room and closes the door.

  “Glad you’re feeling better,” I mutter to the knob.

  Judas doesn’t take kindly to being left out, but it’s enough of a relief to see Amy up and about that he concedes to her demands, though not without grabbing my arm at the door and warning that he will kill me if anything happens while she’s in my charge.

  It isn’t the first time he’s threatened me in this way, but it is the first time I believe him. Now that his betrothed is dead, Amy is the only thing he has resembling family. Her frail health and stubborn bravery give him good reason to be concerned.

  “I’ll guard her as if she were my own,” I say.

  “If you had given birth to me when you were five,” Amy says snidely. Her way of reminding us that she isn’t a child.

  “Don’t worry,” Nimble says. “I’m an old pro at driving in this weather.”

  He drives slowly, glancing back at us in the mirror every now and again. “I couldn’t help noticing the tracks outside this morning,” he says.

  “We’ve never seen snow before,” I say.

  “Then this must be a real shock,” he says. “What do you get? Rain?”

  “Rain?” I ask.

  He laughs, turns the wheel against his open palms. “Oh boy.”

  No matter how far we drive, we never seem to get any closer to the city in the distance. We do pass the field of strange machines I noticed when we landed, though. “What are all of those?” I say, nodding to the machines outside my window.

  “Rides,” Nimble says. “That’s the theme park. Roller coasters and biplane rides to give you the sensation you’re flying higher than airplanes. For a penny you can get a look at the underside of the magical floating island through a telescope.”

  “The magical floating island?” Amy says, scrunching her nose. “That’s what people call us?”

  “What do you call it, then?”

  Amy says “Internment” at the same time I say “Home.”

  “Internment,” Nimble repeats several times, testing the word on his tongue. “As in ‘confined.’ Creepy.”

  “It isn’t creepy at all,” I say.

  “Maybe it is,” Amy says. “Not at first. You’d have to be there a while to see it.”

  She’s quiet after that.

  We pass what appears to be a sort of garden made of rocks, and Amy’s breath catches. Her chin snaps up attentively and her eyes are sharp.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Do you feel another fit coming on?”

  She climbs onto her knees and watches through the back window as the garden gets smaller.

  “That place gives me the heebie-jeebies too, kid,” Nimble says.

  “What is it?” I say.

  He raises his eyebrows at me in the mirror. “Where do you put your dead on Internment?”

  Amy’s voice is small and fading when she says, “We burn them. Until they’re nothing and nowhere.”

  I try to explain the tributary to Nimble, how we burn the bodies of our dead so that all the bad in them can fall away, while all the good becomes a mass of colors in the sky that can’t be seen by the living. I’ve believed it all my life, but now that I’m on the ground, it doesn’t make as much sense as it once did.

  Down here, they bury their dead. Mark the spot with a stone, with dates and names. Leave flowers to remember.

  It must be nice to have so much space to squander.

  “Have you ever buried anyone?” Amy asks. />
  “Can’t say as I have,” Nimble says.

  That must be nice, too.

  “Here we are,” Nimble announces, stopping the car. The bird is several paces away, surrounded by men in coats who appear to be convening.

  “Morning, boys,” Nimble says, and opens the door for Amy and me. “We all figured you wouldn’t have much luck talking him out, so I’ve brought someone to help. This here’s the old man’s granddaughter.”

  After a brief discussion, Jack, who seems to be heading this unsuccessful operation, agrees to let Amy inside. “Go with her,” he tells Nimble.

  “No,” Amy says. “It won’t do any good unless I go alone. He’s quite stubborn.”

  The men all exchange glances. Jack hesitates. Amy nods to the red metal funnel that’s in his hands. “May I?” she says.

  He’s so perplexed by her straightforwardness that he hands it to her. She holds the funnel near her mouth. “Grandpa, it’s me. Amy.” Her voice is magnified. “I’ve come to talk to you.”

  She hands the funnel to Jack. “Thank you,” she says.

  Nothing happens for a few seconds, and then there’s the unlatching of locks. Amy breezes past us and opens the door, disappearing into the darkness and then closing it behind her.

  The men are all astonished. With a few words she’s managed to do what they’ve been trying to do all morning.

  Nimble folds his arms. “She’s a real firecracker, isn’t she?”

  I don’t know what that means, but it sounds apt. “She’s hard to stop . . .” My voice trails as I step back and look at the bird. Just as the ground looked like a patchwork quilt of land, the bird is a patchwork of metal in varying hues. It’s at least three stories high, it tilts to one side, and it stands on legs that are made of blades for burrowing through the soil. The wings are folded now, like a beetle that has fallen dead.

  It doesn’t look like it would fly so much as hurtle through the sky and then destroy the ground it hit. But I am still astounded by the sight of it. Astounded that such a thing could be designed, assembled, welded, and created in secret, quite under the king’s nose. It was a refuge for us. It’s the embodiment of our rebellion, our liberation. It’s the thing my parents and Amy’s sister and countless others died for. It was nearly a lifetime in the making.

  I understand why the professor won’t leave it.

  In my observing, I’ve wandered away from the others, but Nimble has followed me. “I’m impressed that it flew,” he says.

  “Me too,” I say. “I might not have boarded it if I’d had much of a choice.”

  I shut my mouth immediately. I’ve said too much. What will Jack Piper and his family do if they realize we’re all fugitives? All of us but the princess, anyway, and Thomas, who was dragged along as her hostage.

  Then again, what would it matter to anyone down here how the people carry about on that tiny floating rock so very high above them?

  “Sounds as though there was some trouble in paradise,” Nimble says.

  “Paradise?”

  “Your perfect little island,” he says, nodding upward. I follow his gaze, hoping for a glimpse of Internment. But there’s only a sky heavy with clouds. These clouds are not like the ones I know—light airy things that soared around and over me every day. These clouds are burdened and gray, and I sense that they are grieving.

  “There are no perfect places,” I say. The clouds move away from the sun just enough for the light to blind me, and I shield my eyes.

  “You know that and I know that,” he says. “Try telling our king, and you’ll be run out of the kingdom. He thinks that if we plan an aerial attack over the right places, once the ashes clear, we’ll be in our own utopia.”

  I don’t know the capabilities of a bomb, but surely it wouldn’t take much to destroy a small city like Internment.

  “Firecrackers, bombs,” I say. “You people sure do like things that burn.”

  “I imagine there aren’t many fires on Internment?” he says.

  “Even a small one is cause to panic,” I say. I suppose something like the fire at the flower shop would be nothing to the people down here, but it was enough to throw all of Internment into upheaval.

  I can feel his gaze on me as I look for a trace of Internment in the sky. I know what he’s thinking. That we were foolish to come here. We left our safe little island and descended straight into a kingdom at war. But while they fight with explosives down here, different battles are being waged in the sky. Silent revolutions. Equally silent murders.

  “You don’t know anything,” I whisper. I’m not sure if the words are for him, or for me.

  The door of the metal bird creaks open and Amy descends the ladder alone. She’s talking to Jack and his men, and by their disappointed expressions it becomes clear that her attempt to lure the professor out wasn’t a successful one.

  “All right, all right. It looks like there will be another storm coming. Let’s reconvene once I’ve spoken to His Majesty. Nim, please see our guests home.”

  “Can do, Father.”

  Once we’re back in the car, Amy says, “My grandfather will come out in time. He’s just got an awful lot of love for that metal bird. He’s afraid they’ll destroy it if he leaves.”

  “What makes you so sure he’ll come out, then?” Nimble asks.

  “He’ll run out of food soon. He asked me to bring him some more just now, and I told him that if he wants to eat, he’ll have to come out.” She dusts the snow from the shoulders of her plaid coat.

  “But if he’s so stubborn, what makes you sure he won’t starve to death rather than come out?” Nimble says.

  “He won’t. He’s far too curious about this place. He’ll be taking a magnifying glass to the insects and collecting soil samples soon enough. You’ll see.”

  The car starts to move. Overhead, the sky has begun to darken. The sun is behind the clouds like light trying to hatch from an egg. I feel as though I’m being smothered.

  Amy seems better now, though. Her eyes are their usual blue and her mouth hangs open as she watches the city in the distance.

  “What did you call that place where you bury your dead?” she asks.

  “A graveyard,” Nimble says.

  “Can anyone visit?”

  “You want to visit the graveyard?” he says.

  “If I can.”

  “I guess it can’t hurt,” Nimble says. “It’s not much to see, though. People go to visit their loved ones, and kids go at night to spook each other, and that’s all the action these places get.”

  “Do you always bury your dead?” I say, trying to hide how appalling I think the whole thing is.

  “Not always,” Nimble says, his tone cheery to the point of sarcasm. “Sometimes we cremate. I’m guessing that’s what your kind does up there, with so little land.”

  “It makes the most sense,” I say.

  “It isn’t that we don’t like to burn stuff down here,” Nimble says. “Most homes have a fire altar. There’s one at the hotel, in fact. Even guests use it.”

  “You burn bodies out on your lawn?” I say, my stomach beginning to turn.

  “Not bodies. Offerings,” Nimble says. “If there’s something you really want to ask of our god, you burn something that’s of equal importance to you.”

  At last a ritual I don’t find wasteful. It seems poetic, even. “We have something like that on Internment,” I say. “Once a year we burn our highest request and set it up on the wind to be heard.”

  “Once a year.” Nim whistles. “You could burn things all day down here if you wanted. People have no shortage of things to ask for.”

  “So you burn things often, then,” I say.

  “I don’t, personally. Don’t take much stock in it.”

  As soon as the car has stopped at the graveyard, Amy is gone, leaving the open car door behind her to fill the car with cold.

  “We won’t be long,” I say apologetically. I don’t expect him to understand a girl like Amy. H
e can’t appreciate what the edge has done to her.

  I expect some sort of judgment or another remark about how odd she is, but “I’ll keep the car warm for you,” is all he says.

  The graveyard is framed by hedges, and the entrance is through a pair of elaborate iron doors ingrained with flying children holding some sort of stringed instrument.

  Amy is knelt in the snow when I find her. She clears away the brambles until the words on the headstone before her are revealed. “Lila Pike. It says she died the year she was born,” Amy says.

  “That’s miserable,” I say.

  “I wonder what happened.”

  I don’t.

  I look up from the stone. It is only one among hundreds of untold stories. Names, dates, flowers in vases left to wilt under all this white.

  There’s so much land on the ground that they can make a garden of all their dead. It’s no matter whether anyone ever comes to visit.

  Amy looks over her shoulder at me. Her brow is raised. “What do you think happens when they bury you here, and years pass, and everyone who knew you is dead? Who comes to visit? Or do they mow this down and start over?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It seems like such a waste—all of it.”

  “Maybe not,” Amy says. “If there were a place I could go and visit my sister, talk to her—I think I’d like that.”

  “I don’t think I could visit my parents in a place like this,” I say. “There are no spirits here. Only stones.”

  “There are spirits,” Amy says with certainty. “But these spirits aren’t our spirits.”

  I don’t know what she means. She’s a peculiar little girl who says peculiar things, but her outlandish remarks are different from the kind that other children tell. She speaks assuredly. And when she awakens from her fits, there’s real sadness, and that sadness lingers with her for days.

  And though I don’t entirely believe in the things she claims, I don’t think it’s all her imagination. A normal girl would want to imagine happy things.

  A breeze disturbs the bare branches and I hug my arms when it reaches me.

  I’d much like to leave now, but Amy may well miss out on much of the exploring, due to her fits and Judas’s overprotectiveness, and if this is all she wants, she should get to see it.