EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (35 page)

I heard banging and crashing from within the house as Mother and Father did whatever they needed to fix the mess I’d created. It had been my fault, really. First, Uncle Garrad had said he loved me, and then he attacked me. But he’d never wanted to hurt me before. I didn’t like the way he’d held me down; it scared me. I couldn’t help feeling that maybe it was a good thing he’d died. That horrible disease sprang up and bit him over and over like an angry snake. I began to wonder again if I had been the one to infect him, which would explain why he hated me so much and why he fell sick when he was with me.

After a while, the house had become quiet. I slid under the bedclothes, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, someone was in my room. The lamp had gone out, so I couldn’t see. The person grabbed me and covered my mouth with a foul-smelling cloth.

Overwhelmed by thick fumes, I sank into nothing.

My head throbbed. Remembering the previous night proved difficult. Disoriented, I was almost convinced I’d imagined the whole thing.

Then, my confusion turned to terror when I couldn’t open my eyes. They seemed stuck together. It had to be eye-gunk, a common affliction where the eyes wept and crusted for several days. I’d contracted it before and remembering that calmed me until I traced my fingers over the soft skin. There was no crusty covering, no weeping puss, only strange bumps and pieces of thread sticking out from the corners of my eyes. When I couldn’t pry them open, the fear that I might never see again made me scream.

A door banged against the wall, and someone tried to restrain me. I lashed out with one hand while I picked at my eyes with the other.

‘Stop it! You’ll make yourself bleed,’ Father said.

After a few more moments of struggling, my father’s strong hands secured my wrists behind my back and tied them together with rags.

Mother scooped me up in her arms and rocked me, whispering, ‘You’re safe in your room. Safe with me. Last night. You burned your eyes, remember? You knocked over the boiled water, but it’s all right. One day, your eyes will heal, and you’ll see again. And you will be happy, Adenine. I promise. Always trust your mama. Be strong now.’

‘Where’s Uncle Garrad? Why are you here?’ I said, feeling confused because I was sure Mother and Father had left for Old Bow for a month.

‘Calm yourself,’ Father said, leaning over me so close I could smell his oily scent. ‘Take this.’ Mother forced a spoonful of something that I’d never tasted before into my mouth. It wasn’t my normal medicine.

‘Will that calm her?’ my father asked.

‘Yes,’ a voice said from the other side of the room. Maybe Uncle Garrad was still alive!

‘Uncle Garrad?’ I called.

No answer.

‘Uncle…’ I began but became groggy. He couldn’t leave. He had to wash his hands at least. He couldn’t take my sickness…

The sounds in the room became long and distorted. Time slowed and twisted, and I no longer focused on my discomfort but on the heavy peacefulness in my body.

‘She’s calming. Thank the stars,’ Mother said as I drifted into a dreamlike state.

What time was it? What day was it? I lay in bed listening for the sounds of night, the sounds of day, the sounds of anything. The town below my window hurried with everyday life so it was somewhere between first rise and sunset. My eyes itched, and when I went to scratch them, pain shot through my hands and arms. They were still tied, and I thought back, trying to understand the recent events.
I’m blind
. Mother had said that I would see again one day. I’d burned my eyes with scalding water.

Uncle Garrad. What had happened to him? There was a place in my mind where the memory was, but I couldn’t get there. It was like the feeling of knowing a word but not being able to remember, as if someone kept it just beyond my reach and teased me with it. Who was in my head?

Panic gripped me, and I thrashed and struggled, trying to rip my hands from the ties. After straining for some time, I weakened. My forehead cooled and strands of hair stuck to my face and tickled my eyelashes.

‘Mama!’ I screamed. ‘Mama!’ I stopped to listen.

There were no footsteps moving up my stairs; there was no movement in my house. I shuffled from the bed and thought about the layout of my room. I stood carefully, hobbling forward. When I bumped into a wall, I turned and put my hands on it, then edged toward where I thought my door was. Eventually, I found the slats of oak and searched for the handle. I tried turning it. Locked.

Driven by thirst and fear, I raised my knee and kicked the door. Pain shot up my leg, and I cried out, but the bang had been loud. Somebody had to hear me. I used my other leg and kicked again.

‘Papa!’ My heels and feet throbbed. Finally, I heard footsteps. After the clink of a key in a lock, the door banged into me.

‘Ouch,’ I said.

Hands grabbed me and moved me out the way. One took my upper arm and guided me back to the bed, half pushing, half carrying me.

‘I’ll cut you loose, but don’t touch your eyes,’ Father said.

I began to cry and leaned my head into his chest, looking for comfort. Something sawed at the material around my wrists, and when my hands were free, I flung my throbbing arms around Father and buried my face into his neck. I breathed in his oily scent and felt the warmth of his skin. He hugged me, and I had a sudden flashback to my uncle holding me tightly on his lap in the tub before…

I gasped and reeled from Father. I fell to the floor, banging my elbow.

I remembered. I remembered my uncle on top of me, holding me down as if he were going to drown me. I remembered the streak of blood leading from the tub to the storeroom. Hands found my waist and lifted me onto the bed.

‘What’s wrong?’ Father asked. I heard fear in his voice.

‘Don’t touch me like he did, Papa. Don’t hurt me.’

His strong arms pulled me into a tight embrace. I fought him but I was too sore, too weak.

He won the struggle and whispered, ‘I will never, ever, hurt you. You hear me?’

But how could I ever trust him after he had killed my uncle? How could I trust another adult again?

Chapter V

O
VER
THE
NEXT
WEEK
,
MY
parents kept me locked in my room. After many nights of weeping over having lost my sight, I became used to the darkness. Father visited me for what felt like many hours a day, leaving Mother to run Mystoria. He read to me every day, but I didn’t want him in my room. He scared me because of how he’d hurt Uncle Garrad.

‘I might be going away,’ he blurted in the middle of reading a tale from the northern country of Ruxdor.

I didn’t know if he’d try to hurt me too. I turned my head to hear his words clearer; I didn’t want to miss anything. ‘Why?’

‘Do you remember when Uncle Garrad and I had that fight?’

‘You mean when you killed him,’ I said, angry that he was trying to lessen the badness of what he’d done.

‘Yes.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Well, I shouldn’t have done that. A lot of people didn’t like that we fought. And they don’t want me to fight again, so I have to go.’

‘They hang people. I’ve seen the bodies from my window. The hangings outside that big building. Are they going to hang you, Papa?’

I’d asked Mother about the large building, why it was always surrounded by soldiers and guards. She said it was the council building where powerful men, like the mayor, dealt with complaints of the people, crimes, and approved building and farming, and collected taxes.

‘Promise me you’ll take care of your mama. You promise?’

I nodded, but it took all my might to not wrap my arms around him and hold him forever. My cheeks were wet with tears, and I heard Father sniffle.

‘Now. Mama is going to miss me. But you don’t let her dwell. Don’t ever let her spend too long thinking about what could have been.’ He patted my head.

I jumped up to grab him but stopped. Instead, I screamed, ‘You can’t go! You can’t. Don’t leave me. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault!’

He put his hands on my shoulders and shook me a little. ‘It’s no one’s fault. Blame is a sure way to suffering. Accept, Adenine. Let go.’

He let go of me and walked away. I tried to follow, but he spun me around so I was disoriented. I put out my hands, searching for him, and found only a cobweb in the corner of my room. I gave a little yelp, imagining the spiders it held, and heard the door to my bedroom close. The lock turned.

I ran in the direction of Father’s fading footsteps, found the bedroom door, and kicked and banged on it. ‘Father! Father!’

Later that day, a chanting began outside our house. ‘Murdered, murderer, murderer…’ The voices blended into an unearthly chorus.

About five years before, I heard the same chanting, but I’d been too small to see through my window. I had built a rickety mound of toys and boxes to stand on so I could look at the commons. I’d only seen the legs dangling in the distance, but even then, I knew that was what they did with bad people. I asked Mrs. Moferbury about it, and she said bad people did bad things, and they were sent to the next life earlier than most. The next life was where people went after they died. Really bad people like Father didn’t go there, though. But he wasn’t bad because he’d protected me from my Uncle Garrad.

I heard some banging and shouting.

Mother cried, ‘No! Please, no!’

I rushed to my door, trying not to trip or stumble. Father had said people didn’t like that he’d fought with Uncle Garrad and that they wanted to punish him for it. I pressed my ear to the door, and the sounds deep inside the house seemed to get louder. I heard the shuffle of footsteps against our stone floor, the clearing of throats, and the desperate voices of my parents.

‘He was protecting Adenine, our daughter,’ Mother said.

‘Quiet, Capacia!’ Father snapped.

‘What daughter, Capacia?’ a man asked.

Mother didn’t respond.

The stranger continued, ‘Have you gone crazy? Did you give birth during the night?’ A few men broke into laughter. ‘I’m sorry. Murder is murder. We have to take him.’

‘It’ll be all right, my love. Look after her.’ Those were the last words that I ever heard my father say. At the time, I hadn’t known who he meant.

The voices quieted, and the fading footsteps told me the men were leaving. Mother’s sobs replaced the silence, echoing off the stone walls and making it sound as if the house itself were weeping. Outside, people began to chant. I ran to my attic window and pressed my ear against the icy glass.

‘Murdered, murderer, murderer…’ The cries grew louder and louder, then the crowd hushed.

A man spoke. ‘By decree of King Erageo and Captain Festral, we hereby charge Ardonian of Mystoria with the murder of his brother, Garrad. Ardonian will be hanged at midday on this day.’

Father was going to be killed. Had he washed before leaving me earlier? There were many people who could die out there. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t hurt everyone.

‘No!’ I screamed and banged against the window. ‘No. No. No.’ But then I stopped, knowing that if anyone heard me, if anyone discovered me, they might take me away. And if they touched me they’d fall ill, and I’d be responsible for the death of someone else. Not just one person, but the plague would spread and kill thousands of people like before. I couldn’t do that, but the knowledge that I couldn’t help Father made me feel small and useless.