Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) (24 page)

“Hello,
Cordeeeelia
,” he says, bending his head.

The child smiles, but says nothing.

“This is Eyelet. From this morning.

Her fingers move in a tiny wave.

“Is there something you wanted to tell her?”

Cordelia blinks.

“Come on over here, then.” Urlick motion, but the child doesn’t move. “It’s all right. She won’t bite. I promise.”

Cordelia sucks on her lip a moment, then bounds across the room, all legs and arms like a brand new puppy, stopping just short of colliding with me. She slings her arms behind her back, though it looks like she’d rather throw them around my waist in a hug, and stares up at me with big round eyes. She’s a tiny waif of a thing, with sunken cheeks and dark circles under her eyes. How long, I wonder, has she suffered from my same affliction, with no mother to comfort her, to help her cope with the ordeal?

“I’m sorry,” she whispers in the thinnest, sweetest voice. “I don’t mean to scare people.”

My heart melts. I bend toward her. “There’s no need to be sorry.” I run my hand through her hair. “Such a pretty bow.” She grins. “And what’s this you’re wearing?” I touch the locket she wears around her neck. Silver in color, with an angel’s wing etched into the front of it. “A gift from a secret admirer?” I tease.

“No,” she giggles. “It’s Iris’s. It used to be her sister’s.”

“Her sister’s?” I look to Urlick.

He drops his chin. “Iris had a twin,” he says. “Her name was Ida. She passed away last spring.”

“I’m so sorry.” My hand floats to my chest.

“Don’t be. It happens to everyone, eventually,” Cordelia says matter-of-factly, followed by a broad grin.

I look back at Urlick, a lump in my throat. “Yes, I suppose it does, doesn’t it?”

“She was born with spina bifida,” Urlick continues. “From which she suffered terribly. Her passing was somewhat of a blessing in disguise.”

“Oh, I see.”

“She spent most of her time in her chair,” Cordelia says, opening the locket, flashing a photograph of her my way. Her features are those of a picture flick starlet’s.

“She was beautiful,” I say, ashamed at the shock in my voice. “Could she speak?”

“Aye,” C.L. laughs. “Quite the chatterbox, that one. Good day if you could get her to shut up.”

“Iris must miss her terribly,” I say.

“Oh yes, Mum.” C.L. speaks up. “We all do.” His grin fades.

Urlick lowers his head and twists his hands together. I sense his pain without even seeing his face. Ida must have been very special to all of them.

“Iris is going to be upset if we spoil her soup,” Cordelia sings, breaking the mood. “It’s not half as good when it’s cold.” She reaches up and takes me by the hand. My heart beats warmer in my chest.

I grin and squeeze her fingers in mine, and we head for the stairs, my life richer than it was when I woke this morning.

T
wenty seven

Eyelet

We pop through the back door of the kitchen like corks from bubbly bottles of champagne. But our happy mood is short-lived. The Vapours bear down on the house, even harder than before. The noise is enough to stop your heart. No rain. No lightning. Just furious wind. Moaning and clashing against the sides of the Compound like incarcerated lunatics against the bars of their pen.

Nothing could have prepared me for this...this spiraling hurricane of all-consuming death. I never could have imagined anything so raw, so powerful—so unstoppable—it makes no sense. It’s horribly unnerving the way the winds come from all directions at once, slamming different sides of the Compound. There’s no pattern to their assault. It’s random. We can’t prepare ourselves.

Everything’s so dark and seamless; not even a slice of light to take the edge off the terror. It’s as though the house has been wrapped in the undertaker’s shroud. Smothered in it, really.

I feel my way along the chairs into the center of the kitchen, shuddering at the thought. The once-blackened window over the sink that seemed so daunting would be a welcome sight to me now.

I turn my face to it, staring through the black abyss of the room and hug myself, imagining the giant booms at the edge of Brethren working furiously to protect its people. Growing thick with toxic muck as they hold back the destructive fumes of the Vapours from all those lucky enough to live behind them. My heart aches to be back in Brethren, safe within our apartment, held tight in the security of my mother’s arms. Her graceful fingers looping through my hair the way they used to when she’d soothe me. The warmth of her eyes. The breadth of her smile. The creamy pattern of her voice as she’d comfort me.

I should have said more often how much I loved her. I should have told her how much she meant to me. It’s a horrible thing when you lose the chance to express your love, and you realize how much time you wasted.

Urlick strikes a match and I jump at the scratch. He reaches up, steadies the aether chandelier in the center of the room, and lights it for the third time. He lets it go and it swings, flickering, slowly igniting into a weak uncertain glow.

“You all right?” He moves toward me, his eyes wide and sympathetic. “I know it’s hard to stay calm the first time.”

The winds pick up, rushing the walls, rattling the dark window in its pane. I’m somewhat glad I can’t really see what’s going on out there.

“How long does this insanity last?” I shout, cupping my ears to block out the roar.

“Hard to tell! It could last a week, or it could be two months!”

An explosion rocks the hillside, jolting the floor beneath us, and I’m dropped to a knee. Urlick steadies himself on the back of a chair.

“Two months of this?” I shout, as he helps me up. I grab for the table as another ripple shimmies the footings of the house. The aether chandelier sputters and spits, then slowly flickers out.

“Two months is better than two years, isn’t it?” Urlick grins, striking a match and lighting it again. His face glows ghost-like in contrast to the rest of the dark room. The sight of it makes me shiver. “They say the very first time the Vapour storm hit, it lasted two years.”

“Two years!” I swallow, bringing a hand to my chest. “I can’t fathom tolerating this madness
that
long.”

Iris shifts to the center of the room looking startled, her eyes two giant agates bursting from their lids. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Iris so far off her game before. Not even when I nearly lopped off her thumb.

She tries to serve the soup with a trembling hand, her head cranking back and forth, monitoring the activity beyond the blackened window. The look on her face implies she senses something even worse is about to happen.

“What’s the matter?” I say. And then it happens. Another explosion hits and Iris launches the soup. It douses out the swinging chandelier. Its dripping crystal droplets slap hard against the ceiling. Iris’s gaze snaps up, chin wagging.

“Well, at least now we don’t have to worry about it getting cold,” Cordelia shouts, gripping the table.

“Don’t worry Mum, by the second day you’ll be used to it,” C.L. assures me, reading the expression on my face.

“Or, if you’re like Iris, you never will.” Cordelia chirps. C.L. scowls down at her. “Well, it’s true,” she defends herself.

Something flares on the hillside. The first streak of light we’ve seen through the window in hours. A shot of steam follows, traveling straight up into the air. Iris’s near-empty soup pot leaps from the stove to the floor.

A pair of hands hits the window and my head snaps around. First one pair. Then others follow.

“What is that?” I reach for Urlick.

“The Infirmed.” He pulls me close. “They’ve scaled the rock. They’re trying to get in.”

“But they can’t, can they?”

“The Guardian’s activated. We should be safe—”

“Should?”

Another pair of hands hits the windows. Nails claw at the glass. Iris screams, burying her head in her arms.

“They’re circling the Compound.” Urlick leaves me, and dashes across the room. “As long as the light stays on,”—he checks the Guardian—“we’re fine.”

“And them?” The room fills with the sounds of nails and slaps and screams. Iris lets out a gruesome wail. I throw my hands over my ears to drown out the sound, willing them away. “They won’t survive it, will they?”

“Some don’t. Some do,” Urlick says, returning to my side. I reach for him, my fists full of his biceps. His wide hands fall warm across my ribs. “
How?”
I pull back. “How could anyone survive this?”

“No one knows exactly,” Urlick pulls me back. “They’re known as the Turned. The ones that survive. They emerge from the fog at the end of the storm, like forgotten ghosts on the tails of the Vapours. Forever genetically altered. It is
they
we fear the most.
They,
we designed the door locks and the Guardian system to keep out.
They
who are doomed to spend eternity feeding off others’ souls.”

“Souls?” The word escapes my mouth before I even know I’ve said it. I see the pit beyond the footing of the Compound in my mind.

“Yes. Once turned, they are transformed into Vapour-like, wandering, lackwit souls, camouflaged by the rolling cloud cover. Cannibalistic killers on a never-ending quest to suck out the brains of the living, in an attempt to replenish their damaged minds. They feed off the Infirmed and the criminals dumped in the woods, but they’ll feed on others too, if they cross their path. Some believe the officials of Brethren intentionally discard the dregs of their society here, to keep them from wandering into the city to feed. That way, the Turned remain a threat only to those who live in the woods. In the annexed part of the Commonwealth.”

My eyes shoot to the map in the study. He must know more about it than he’s let on. I pull back, staring up at him wide-eyed, my heart pounding in my throat. “And the Turned, how long do they live?”

“Forever.” I swallow. “That’s why we don’t dare break the seal of the Compound until well after the Vapours have retreated. Until we hear the whistle of a steamplough delivering new Infirmed and criminals to bait the woods. No one must leave the Compound until the Turned have had a chance to feed, or we risk becoming their dinner.” He lifts my chin and stares into my eyes. “That’s why I was so intent on you following the rules.”

I lay my head on his chest, breath heaving, thinking how close I came to risking it all when I ran away.

“What do they look like? How do you know they’re there?”

“Some say they look like mist. Others describe them as smoke. Some claim to have seen their faces, while others say it’s only a mirage.”

The winds pick up, stripping the clinging hands from the windowsills. I wince at the sound of their screams as they fall away. I cling to Urlick, bones trembling inside my skin, considering myself lucky to be alive.

“What do you say we try to take our minds of things?” Urlick says, raising my chin.

“How on earth are we going do that?”

“We dance,” Cordelia says, appearing between us.

“We do what?”

“She’s right,” Urlick says. The corners of his lips curl up into a smile. “There’s nothing better than music to drown out the sound.” He crosses the room in two quick strides, his gait almost as giddy as Cordelia’s laughter. “And to lift the spirits.”

He presses a button on the wall, unveiling a secret alcove with a shelf holding a phonograph. He affixes the horn and cranks the handle on the side. Even Iris breaks a smile when he sets the needle down on the cylinder.

It crackles at first then finally breaks into song. The soothing sounds of string instruments permeate the kitchen, softening the horror outside.

Urlick steps across the room as lyrics begin. The singer’s voice spreads like sunshine across the room.

After the ball is over, after the break of morn,

After the dancers’ leaving, after the stars are gone,

Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all—

Many the hopes that have vanished, after the ball…

C.L. reaches for Cordelia and they spin around in an animated circle. Cordelia shrieks with excitement. He lets her go, moving on to Iris, leaving Cordelia to giggle, launching Iris into an unsuspecting dip at the end of the verse. Iris fans him off, laughing, as she returns to her soup.

“Will you do me the honor?” Urlick appears beside me, his eyes glinting in the fractured aether light. He tucks his arm across his chest and bows to me, and I melt. Never before has anyone danced with me. Never before has anyone even asked.

“I can’t,” I say. “I don’t know how.”

Urlick smiles and nods his head. “Not to worry,” he says. “I’ll lead.”

Another explosion rocks the floors, sending me toppling into his arms. His breath pulses down over me, twisting with the scent of his sweet vanilla and his favorite peppermint tea. My favorite, too, now. He presses a firm hand to my back and we’re away, his heart beating over mine. Together we spin in tight safe circles, inside the storm, as if nothing else in the world existed.