Julia Vanishes (12 page)

It gives me an odd little thrill to hear him say this in such an ordinary way, as if we were talking about the weather. You can go to prison for invoking those deities.

“But when scientists such as Girando were able to see the heavens, they recognized how small we are, merely a part of something far greater, something we cannot see or comprehend or name. Worshipping the elements of the world was revealed to be terribly naïve.”

I shake my head, not understanding him but not knowing what question to ask to make it clear.

“Look, I'll show you.” He leaps up and pulls a few large books off the library shelves. When he opens them, I see pictures of variously sized spheres around one giant sphere with flared edges. Lines curve out and away from the smaller spheres, encircling the larger one.

“What is it?” I ask.

“That is the sun,” he says, pointing at the large flare-edged sphere in the center of the picture. He points at one of the smallish spheres. “That is our planet, Earth. Do you see? We are not even the largest of the planets circling the sun. Here is the moon, circling us. This nearest planet to us is Merus, the Red Soldier. And here is Valia, the Silver Princess, Earth's twin.”

Of course I know that the earth circles the sun, along with a number of other planets. Though I have not been formally educated, Esme has made sure we are not ignorant. But I have never seen it laid out in this way.

“Where is Spira City?” I ask, peering at the small ball that is meant to be our entire world.

“You would need a larger map,” says Frederick. “Spira City, on this scale, is so small as to barely exist. Look at this.”

He takes down another book and opens it before me. I don't understand the illustrations I am looking at. Great spirals of…what? Something that looks like a giant eye, with dust swirling out around it. Tendrils of light.

“The heavens,” he says in a hushed voice. “We cannot even find our own sun in this vastness.”

I point at the thing that looks like an eye. “What is it?”

“Millions of stars,” he says. “Planets too, probably. All impossibly far from here. It is unimaginable, Ella, unfathomable. The great mystery of it. The enormity of it. Once you have seen it, the very idea that the water here, or the air here, might have any significance whatsoever in that great realm is simply absurd. It is awe-inspiring. It feels like looking into the face of the Nameless One.”

Frederick is full of surprises today.

“What religion are you?” I ask.

He smiles easily. “I am Rainist, like you,” he says. “I can appreciate, on an artistic level, the calligraphy of the Simathists, the music of the Baltists, the poetry of the Lorians. But on a spiritual level, only the Rainists understand that all the decoration and fuss is mere distraction from contemplating the vast mystery of the Nameless One. Only through deep, undistracted meditation can we hope to reach Him. I consider my studies a form of worship also, in the sciences, in any case. In seeking to know the universe, I seek to know its maker and be closer to Him.”

“So you agree with the king,” I say slowly. “But you think he shouldn't have banned folklorish religions?”

“I have never met the king,” says Frederick. “Not every Rainist is Rainist for the same reason. But there is a great deal of beauty in the folklorish ways that is lost to us if we stamp them out. It is
ignorance
we should be doing away with. Not beauty.”

I consider this.

“Mrs. Och must think so too, if she has this book,” I say, pointing at the white stag on the cover.

“Yes,” says Frederick. “I believe she does. Mrs. Och is very open-minded. Perhaps she would let me take you to the university to look through the telescope there. I'm sure we could get in some clear night—I still have a few friends there, even if they don't approve of my decision to leave.”

“Why
did
you leave?” I ask boldly. “It's the best university in Frayne, isn't it?”

He nods slowly. “People come from all over New Poria to study there,” he says.

“So?” I press him. “You didn't like it?”

“I began to see that if I continued on that path, my studies could only follow a very narrow, prescribed course. Many of my questions were…unwelcome, to say the least. History is being rewritten, Ella, and it is crucial that some of us preserve the truth.”

“What truth?” I push. “How is history being rewritten?”

He hesitates, and I think, he doesn't know if he can trust me.

“My primary area of study is the Old Porian kingdoms, before the Magic Wars and the Purges and the New Porian alliances. The facts as they are taught to children in school…the key players and so on…there are a great many inaccuracies. The truth isn't necessarily…convenient. I see my role as preserving the history that everyone used to know and which hardly anybody knows anymore.”

I almost want to laugh and ask him if it is possible to be any more vague, please. But then, the truth is that if Frederick's secrets might put him in danger, he is quite right not to trust me with them.

“I see,” I say.

“With Professor Baranyi, I can think and work freely, and I believe very much in the work he is doing,” continues Frederick, relieved. “That is more important than a fine career and everybody tipping their hat to you in the streets.”

“Then you made the right decision,” I say, rather impressed in spite of myself. “How did the professor come to work for Mrs. Och, anyway?”

“I'm sure you have noticed she is unwell. He helps her with her, ah, philanthropic projects, and she funds his work in exchange. She is a generous patron, and she admires his work very much. Professor Baranyi is responsible for the preservation and translation of a great many rare, important texts that would be lost to us by now if not for him. He is still well respected abroad. He has given lectures in Yongguo, you know.”

I had no idea the professor had traveled so far.

“Didn't he spend some time in prison?” I ask. I think I am pushing it too far now, but Frederick answers as if it were quite natural for me to be asking him such things.

“That was a grave injustice. He published an article…perhaps it was unwise, but this was before the Lorian Uprising. He was trying to educate the Fraynish intellectual class about Yongguo policy….In any case, his findings were not welcome and the punishment unduly harsh.” He peers at me anxiously over his spectacles. “Have I shocked you with all this, Ella?”

I smile up at him. “No, not at all. It is very interesting.”

“I'm very glad to hear it.” He smiles back warmly. “You have a keen intelligence. That is clear from how quickly you learn. But more important, your mind is
open
and curious. There is no need to let your position here interfere with educating and elevating yourself. I wish to help you. We all do.”

I am so startled by this, I don't know what to say. Frederick has got a rather soft, silly look on his face. He is so overwrought with sympathetic feelings for me that I think if I were to cry now he would be all but a slave to me.

I have ways to bring on tears when I need to. Half-reluctantly, I push myself to the dark place. I imagine the drop toward the cold water as the crowd roars; I imagine that struggle at the bottom of the Syne, before she cannot hold out any longer, before the black river fills her lungs. I am again the girl on the low path, half-crushed in the cheering crowd—understanding fully for the first time that the world is my enemy, not my friend, that nothing is safe, that nobody can protect me. I bring it all back, merely another tool for opening doors, now.

“Oh, don't cry!” Frederick protests. “Why are you crying?”

“You're all so kind,” I sob. “To help a poor girl like me!”

He looks dazzled and unhappy and pleased all at once. Cautiously, he puts his hand on mine. He has very clean fingernails.

They
are
kind, it's true. But I am not kind. I'll find their secrets, turn them over, and be gone. How they will all hate me then. For a moment, I am terribly sorry for what I'm doing here. They are nothing but good to me, and whatever else they are doing, they are
helping
people too, people like my mother, long after the rest of Frayne has given up on opposing the brutal laws of the land. And here I am, a spy in their house, working for some mysterious enemy who may mean them great harm.

I banish the thought. I think, instead, of silver, cakes, and coffee, a pair of fur-lined gloves, sitting in a fine café overlooking the parliament gardens with Wyn, until I am myself again. The six silver freyns we got up front are spent already. It's no use going soft now. I close the book on Heaven.

I
've missed you.
I say it in my head, propped up on my elbows in the bed, watching him sleep. The dark curve of his brows, that beautiful mouth, his cheeks rough and unshaven.

It is Temple Day, the day I am finally to meet the mysterious client. I left Mrs. Och's before daybreak and let myself into Wyn's room to surprise him. His breath smelled like stale wine, but I didn't care. He's gone back to sleep now, and I am hungry, so I creep out and go down to the room I share with Dek to cook some eggs on the griddle. Dek is awake or perhaps never went to sleep. He is poring over some designs spread out across his desk, and looks up in some surprise when I come in.

“Didn't realize it was morning,” he mutters, then crumples up one of the papers in his fist and tosses it into the corner of the room with a great many others.

“What are you working on?” I ask.

“Something for you, actually,” he says, with a hint of a smile.

“My lockpick?” I ask.

“No, I'll have that for you tomorrow. It just needs assembling. I'm going to the Edge this afternoon—I've had to change the size, and need some new metal.”

“Well, what's this, then?” I peer at his papers, but he turns them over and gives me a wicked grin.

“Patience, dear sister. You'll like it, don't worry. Listen, was it still dark when you left?”

“Darkish,” I reply, knowing already what he is going to say. “Cusp of dawn.”

He gives me a long, hard look.

“I know,” I say. “I'm
careful,
Dek.”

“
Three
murders, Julia. What are you thinking, going out alone in the dark with a madman on the loose?”

“There's no shortage of madmen in Spira City,” I argue. “This may be a particularly gruesome sort of killing, but you end up just as dead even if you're killed by a more run-of-the-mill murderer. I don't see the need for extra caution.”

“How about
any
caution? You think you're untouchable because you have a knife in your boot?”

“No,” I say. “I think I'm untouchable because I can be invisible.”

He sighs and shakes his head at me.

“Well, not invisible, but as good as,” I say.

“It scares me that you aren't scared,” he says.

I change the subject abruptly. “Dek, what if I told you that Mrs. Och helps witches? Gets them out of the country?”

His one eye bores into me. “
Does
she?”

I nod.

“Is that what the client wants to know about?” he asks.

“I don't know. I'll find out today, I suppose. Gregor's taking me to meet him, soon as he and Csilla get back from temple. It might be to do with the houseguest, or something else. There are plenty of strange things going on in that house. But it got me thinking.”

“Ah.”

“I mean, I was thinking about Ma.”

His gaze shrinks, his lips thin, his whole body seems to tighten and withdraw, but his voice is mild when he says, “Thinking what?”

“That she was…nice. I mean, she was nice to us, wasn't she? And people liked her. She was good to our dad, for all that he didn't deserve it. She never harmed anybody, not that I know of. Even when I knew what she was, I never believed she was evil. Did you?”

He shakes his head, once. “No. She wasn't evil.”

“Well, suppose none of them are? Suppose it's all bunk about witches worshipping the Dark Ones, witches out to rule the world?”

“Who knows?” he says. “There are plenty of witches who've done harm, though, this Marianne Deneuve being the latest—”

“If it's even true, the story about her,” I break in.

“Well, and we've read about the Eshriki Empire, the Parnese Empire. Those were witch empires, and regular folk didn't fare well at all. Or the Magic Wars, all those covens competing for control of Old Poria. There were plenty of witches then that thought they ought to rule over the rest of us.”

“So the Purges were all right, then? Tossing witches into the sea by the hundreds?”

“That's not what I'm saying. I mean that a witch who wants to do harm is a very dangerous creature indeed. They are capable of so
much
harm, and how are we to know their hearts? I'm not saying I like to see them drowned. I'm saying I understand why they are feared. If you knew that a neighbor of ours could just write something down and make things happen, unnatural things—wouldn't you be scared?”

“It would depend on the neighbor,” I say. “If witches can do such terrible things, couldn't they also do wonderful things, if they were kind? Cure illness and such? Ma saved you. She saved you with witchcraft.”

We've never said these things out loud, and the air in the room feels strange and alive.

“She did,” he says slowly. “And maybe there are others who are good, as she was. But what do you do about the likes of Sybil the Bloody, who murdered her enemies with her pen? Just sat quietly at home, writing down who should choke, whose hearts would stop, and so on? Hundreds dead, and it was years before they could pin it on her.”

The case of Sybil the Bloody, ten years back, was a particularly horrific one, and public support for Agoston Horthy's witch-hunting campaign rose quickly after that.

“I don't deny there are some evil witches,” I say. “But d'you remember old Ma Rosen? She couldn't even read or write! Some said she'd no idea she
was
a witch, that she was as surprised as any at the raid when she didn't burn.”

“Not sure I believe that,” says Dek. “Even if she couldn't write, wouldn't she have noticed sometime in her life that she couldn't
burn
?”

“Well, I don't know, I just mean that if she couldn't write, she couldn't do any harm anyway.” We are silent for a minute, and then I say, “I've been to every Cleansing since she died.”

“I know,” says Dek.

That shocks me. “You do? I've never told you.”

“I know when there's to be a Cleansing,” he says. “You go off, and when you come back, you're odd and jumpy for days. It was obvious. I can't fathom wanting to see it myself, but I thought it best to let you be.”

I ponder this. I hadn't thought myself so transparent.

“Well, I go to see the witches,” I say. “And they seem ordinary, most of them. Just ordinary and scared.”

“I can't tell you the answer, Julia,” says Dek. “For all that I loved our ma, still I fear witches. I fear what they can do, but I don't know what ought to be done about them.”

“I'd like to know what Mrs. Och thinks, if she's helping them,” I say. “They're an odd bunch in that house. They think differently than most.”

The truth is, in spite of being the daughter of one, I know no more than what everybody else knows about witches: that somehow they have the power to bend the world to the will of their pen, and that history is full of murderous, power-hungry witches trying to overthrow honest kings and queens. But then, Frederick said history was full of untruths. Again and again my mind throws up the image of him in the hall with Jahara Sandor on his arm, knowing what she was and still bent on helping her. Somehow the sight of it changed everything, thrust all my secret questions and doubts into the light, and I've no desire to push them aside anymore, as has been my habit. If there is any place where I might learn the truth about witches, about what my mother was, surely it is in Mrs. Och's house.

“What if the client asks you about it, this business with witches?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know who this Mrs. Och is helping, or why,” he points out. “Could be she wants to help witches like Ma, who never did anything to deserve drowning. But she could have other reasons for helping witches too.”

“I guess I'll have to find out,” I say, and he sighs.

“I'm not sure I like this job of yours.”

“It isn't boring.” I grin at him. “Gregor'll be back soon. Make me breakfast?”

He pulls himself up, hefting his crutch under his arm, and sets about lighting the stove. Soon our room smells of frying eggs and sausages. I curl up in his ragged chair and watch him, feeling I might burst with love. He used to make me breakfast when we were small. I always woke early, and hungry, and he'd fry some bread in butter if we had it or boil me an egg while our mother slept and our father was who knows where. He hums while he gets the food ready, and I doze right off in his chair, into a sudden, dreamless sleep, waking only when he sets my plate in my lap.

Gregor finds a motor cab to take us out to West Spira. I knew the client must be rich, so I shouldn't be surprised. It's intimidating, though, chug-chugging down the broad avenue with all the quiet electric hackneys, not a horse-drawn in sight. Gregor seems unusually jittery. We stop in front of a great white monolith of a hotel.

Gregor is wearing his temple-best suit, and he looks all right here, if a little shabby. But I look plainly ridiculous in my leather boots and heavy gabardine coat that barely reaches my knees, my hair tucked untidily into a wool hat. Gregor hands the doorman a slip of paper. A porter comes and takes us straight into the hotel lobby. It is gigantic. I try not to gape around me like a village girl. The ceiling is as high as that of a temple or opera house. Great crystal chandeliers hang from it, and the carpet is so thick I long to kick off my boots and dig my bare toes into it. The porter hustles us along to the elevator, pulling the gate closed after us. I wish Dek could be here. He is obsessed with elevators but has never ridden one. It jerks and clanks and then moves up. And up. And up. I cannot believe how high the building is, and that we are moving through its belly in this way. I want to ask Gregor if elevators ever fall, but the porter is right there and I don't want him to know I've never been in one. Though I don't know why I care what the blasted porter thinks.

At last we jerk to a halt and he pulls the gate open. We step out, facing a large white door with a gold embossed number
10
on it. Gregor tips the porter and then murmurs to me, “Listen, the client's…a bit odd-looking, all right? Just keep your game face on, my girl. Ready?”

He knocks on the door. I tilt my head back, trying to look confident and not cowed by my surroundings.

The door swings open almost immediately. I drop my attempt at composure entirely and stare. There before us stands the strangest-looking woman I have ever laid eyes on. She is clad in dark trousers and boots, like a man (though certainly not like the men in West Spira), and she wears a fitted, brown leather jacket with matching fingerless gloves. Her black hair is so sleek it looks like a helmet, framing her paper-white face and ending in a sharp line at her chin. Most bizarre of all, a pair of metal goggles with protruding lenses that adjust and readjust all by themselves are fixed over her eyes, seeming to emerge from the flesh of her face. In plain view, at her hip, she carries a long, cruel-looking knife.

She looks at me with those alarming goggles. The lenses swivel and focus.

“This is Julia?” she says. Her voice is high, clear, and sharp as breaking glass.

“This is she,” says Gregor with a little flourish.

“Come in,” she says to me, swinging the door wide open. To Gregor: “Wait outside.”

He opens his mouth as if to protest, then closes it again and puts his hands in his pockets. I want to protest too; I do not want to be alone with this woman or whatever she is, but I am whisked inside, and the door shuts on Gregor.

The room is like a miniature version of the lobby, with a high ceiling and a chandelier. White curtains are pulled back to reveal two glass doors leading out onto a balcony. The woman taps her long fingernails against her knife, looking at me. I think about the murders, the newspaper clippings in Mrs. Och's desk, and for a moment I am certain that I am standing before a mad killer. I feel a scream rising up in my throat.