Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) (26 page)

A frazzled Iris appears in the space over his shoulder, pantry door thrown open wide.

“What do you think you’re DOING?” Urlick shouts. He tosses me aside, embarrassed. I smooth out my clothes and primp my hair, hoping she can’t see the color of my cheeks, which I’m positive are the deepest shade of red.

Urlick tries to step from the pantry and Iris pushes him back, swinging shut the door and locking it.

“Iris!” Urlick rattles the handle. “Iris! What is this?” He peers at her sternly through the slats in the shutter door. She looks panicked.

A second later, the door pops back open just long enough for Iris to toss Urlick’s pack in at our feet. She brings a finger to her mouth as if to say
be quiet!
, then slams the door again and falls hard up against the back of it, concealing our whereabouts.

“I demand you hand her over!” Flossie’s shrill voice barrels into the kitchen.

“What’s
Flossie
doing here?” Urlick whispers.

“Iris!” Flossie’s voice pelts off the kitchen walls. “There you are,” she growls at the sight of her, back pinned to the pantry door. “Where are they?” she demands, grabbing at Iris. “Stop playing stupid! I know you know where they are!” She pinches Iris by the chin hard until she yelps.

Urlick’s fists curl at his sides.

“Fine. If that’s the way you want it, I’ll go find them myself.” Flossie releases Iris, shoving her across the kitchen. Iris falls backward, stumbling through the chairs around the table, but her eyes warn us not to move.

“Urlick!” Flossie’s voice fills the corridor. “Urlick, where are you?”

Flossie’s boots strike the floors in a circle, stomping through the kitchen, then into the study and back again. Iris follows. “I’m not leaving without her,” Flossie’s angry face reappears through the slats in the door. She turns on Iris. “You either hand her over, or I’ll tear the place apart until I find her myself! The lying little tramp.” She turns, stripping the gloves from her hands, pacing the floor like an angry tiger. “I knew something was wrong the second I laid eyes on that girl. I knew she was no cousin of Urlick’s.”

“What’s she talking about? ” Urlick whispers to me.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head.

“Half of Brethren is out looking for your little houseguest.” Flossie pulls a poster from her jacket pocket and stuffs it up in Iris’s face. “She’s a fugitive, on the run! A Sorceress! Accused of Wickedry—!”

“Accused of what?!” Urlick mouths.

“Her mother was hanged and dipped for the very same thing!”

Urlick gasps. Iris’s eyes pop. Iris stares at me through the slats in the cupboard. I shake my head, hoping she can see me, my expression begging her not to believe it.

Please don’t believe Flossie, Iris.

“They’ve even put a price on her pretty little head.” Flossie points to the poster again. “Eight thousand junipers for her safe return—”

“My
safe
return—” I straighten, shocked.

“You’re a fugitive?” Urlick hisses. “Accused of Wickedry?”

Flossie’s head spins like a cobra in our direction and I freeze. My blood ripples cold beneath my skin.

Iris panics, hurling a plate at the floor. It shatters, drawing Flossie’s attention back to her. “You lack-witted klutz, you!” Flossie shouts. “Clean that up at once!” Iris bends and Flossie starts away. “I’ll find Urlick on my own. URLICK!” She stalks past us into the back kitchen. I wince as her shadow flits past the pantry door. “Urlick! Is that you?” Her voice fades as she enters the hallway, buying us a small window of time.

“I thought you were in danger.” Urlick turns on me. “I thought you needed my help when we met!”

“I was. I did. I do,” I stammer. “I’ve been wrongly accused. You must believe me.”

“Urlick!” Flossie’s voice returns.

I cling to Urlick’s arm. “How much do you trust me?” I say.

“Unhand me, you puddinghead!” Flossie shouts, shrugging a tugging Iris from her arm. She clatters through the hallway toward the kitchen, her heels a crackling storm. “I refuse to leave here without her!” She slaps at Iris. “She’s wanted. And dangerous! Can’t you see?” She gawks in Iris’s face. “Do you know what happens to people who harbor fugitives?” Iris gulps. “They go to jail right along with the wanted!”

Iris backs away.

“Now produce her at once, or pay the price.” Flossie glowers mean. When Iris doesn’t move, Flossie clucks her tongue. “Very well then, we’ll just have to tear this place apart. Coachman!” Flossie shouts, flinging her head to the side. The coachman, henchman, appears.

I shudder at the sound of his breath, exhaling so close to the pantry, his fingers curled into fists.

“Search the basement!” Flossie growls his way. “I’ll head up the stairs. You’re not to stop until one of us finds her. Have I made myself clear?” The henchman nods.

He starts away, Iris clawing at his sleeve. The coachman turns and knocks her to the floor. Urlick drives forward, nearly giving up our hiding place, but Iris’s glare stops him, her eyes demanding he stay put.

I gasp as she scrambles to her feet and lunges after the coachman, throwing the door shut and triggering the lock behind, swinging back the pantry door. Wide-eyed, she shoos us out and stuffs us under the canning table, throwing a tablecloth over top to hide us. she throws a stern finger to her lips then she races away. C.L. appears seconds later.

“’Urry, Sir.” His head pops in under the cloth. “We’ve got to get y’u outta ’ere whilst the gettin’s good.” He tosses our packs in under the table. “Grab those and let’s be gone, shall we—?”
 

“Wait!” Urlick grabs for his shirt as he turns. “But what about the hydrocycle?”

“Not to worry, Sir, Bertie’s all gassed up and ready to go. I took the liberty of preparing ’im as soon as I saw the carriage pull up. Loaded two extra canisters of hydrogen in y’ur saddlebag, too. All you need is a couple of gasmasks and y’ur good to roll.” He sprouts his familiar toothless grin. “Now come on, shall we? Iris can’t distract them dunderheads forever.” C.L. turns to go.

“I guess this is it then.” Urlick turns to me. He sucks in a tight breath and I realize, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him frightened.

“URLICK!” Flossie’s voice crashes down the stairs causing me to jump. I smack my head on the underside of the table. Urlick grabs my hand.

C.L. whisks us out from under and pushes us toward the door. “You two go on a’ead,” he whispers. “I’ll meet you at the cycle.”

“What?” I blurt.

“I’ve just remembered something I’ve forgotten.” He winks at me as if to calm my nerves, but it doesn’t help.

“UUUUUURLICK!” Flossie’s voice rifles up the hallway.

My stomach tightens like a fist.

Urlick lunges forward yanking me with him, snatching a couple gasmasks from the limbs of the hall tree. Together we bolt across the kitchen, the two of us disappearing seconds later behind the main cattle car door.

Together we dash across the yard, using the fog as cover, making our way to where C.L. said the hydrocycle would be. “Bertie,” Urlick gasps when we find him under the trees. “Oh, Bertie, our trusty steed.” Urlick pats him on the handlebars. Bertie groans, then shudders. I swallow down the purge of sick that leaps from my stomach. I should tell Urlick what I’ve done, but what good would it do now? We’ve no other way out of here.

He takes the seat in front, and helps me on behind him, and then we sit and wait. My head swings every time a branch creaks in the trees. My heart bangs in my throat.

“You all right?” Urlick reaches out, taking my hand to comfort me, squeezing it in his grip. His skin is soft, yet he’s so strong. I love the way his hand swallows mine.

C.L. darts out from behind a sheet of fog and I nearly scream.

“’Ere,” he says. He’s out of breath, his pockets loaded down with gear. “You’ll be needing this.” He passes Urlick a couple more gadgets and then a mask, one of the ones I found in the laboratory upstairs, the wax replica of his father’s face. I turn my eyes away, unnerved by the sight of it. I know it’s necessary, but still.

“Can’t risk appearing in Brethren without that on,” C.L. smiles, trying to soften the moment. “And for you—” He pulls a second mask from his pocket. I look down, perplexed, at the face in his hand. The image of a young girl stares up at me. Her eyes flutter open and my heart departs my chest. It’s the girl, Ida, the one from Cordelia’s locket. Iris’s dead twin.

“I only ’ope its ’ad enough time to ’arden,” C.L. says. “I only just poured it last week. Iris urged me to create it for you.” I look at him. “After we all formally met.”

“But how did—”

“She must ’ave ’ad an intuition you’d be needing it.”

I stare down at Ida’s face in his hands. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Please, Eyelet,” he pushes it toward me. “Iris insists. It’s the only way you’ll be safe to travel the streets of Brethren.”

Just a few days ago I cursed Urlick for stealing his father’s identity in order to survive, and now here I am contemplating doing the same. What a hypocrite I’ve become.

“Take it,” Urlick says, and kick-starts the cycle. “And hurry up about it.”

Bertie sputters then purrs.

I accept the gift, weighed down by guilt and tuck it in the side of my pack. “Thank Iris for me, will you please?” I say, leaning forward. Urlick’s feet hit on the pedals and we're off, jerking bumpily up the road toward Brethren, the two of us nearly clacking heads as he switches from foot power to motor. A breath later, he veers off the main road into the forest.

Bertie shudders.

I shudder, too.

Something creepy chatters in the woods.

T
wenty nine

Urlick

I can tell Eyelet’s never ridden second-rider on a cycle before by the way she’s jostling around behind me. Even her breath feels nervous at my back. Truth be known, I’m nervous, too. I’ve never been out in the Vapours this soon after their retreat. I’m not sure what to expect.

“Shouldn’t we stick to the main roads?” Eyelet’s timid voice drops in my ear.

“Not unless we
want
to get caught.”

I shift into high gear and the cycle groans. “Enough, Bertie,” I say. “You know the drill.” Reluctantly, he settles under us. He’s as worried as Eyelet is about my decision, I can tell. But honestly, it’ll be only a matter of time before Flossie figures out we’re gone and comes after us. Taking the main road we’d be caught for sure. At least through the woods we’ll have a chance.

“But what about the Turned?” Eyelet insists. “Don’t they roam these woods?”

“Along with the criminals, yes.”

“I thought you said they strung the criminals in the trees—”

“They do. Trouble is, they don’t always stay put.”

Eyelet’s body stiffens. “Don’t they die in the Vapours?”

“Some do. Some don’t. According to the locals, the ones that don’t take refuge in the old abandoned coalmines up in the hills. If they go underground far enough and block the entrance, they’re able to survive. After that, they travel the woods in bands, slightly deranged and hungry, killing all in their path. Feasting on humans if necessary.”

Bertie shudders.

“So essentially, they could be anywhere, is that what you’re saying? Both escaped criminals and the Turned.”

“That’s correct.” Eyelet swallows and tightens her grip. “But we have a cycle and they’re on foot,” I’m quick to add.

“Well, there’s that, I suppose.” She exhales.

I reach back, take her hand and squeeze it gently. It’s cold and clammy. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan on stopping very often along the way. A canister of hydrogen lasts a long, long time. When we do stop, I’ll be sure to refuel in a clearing, in plain sight. The criminals don’t like it out in the open.”

I glance over my shoulder at her panicked eyes. They sweep the forest, her gaze darting from one snake-like crevasse to the next. Fiery black steam belches up from their jagged lines. Glowing molten rock oozes from the scores of potholes that flank either side. Tar-like sludge bubbles from smaller cracks, like blood from punctured veins.

“What is all of this?” Eyelet whispers.

“The aftermath,” I say. “This is what happens when the Vapours retreat.”

“Will it stay like this forever?”

“No. Eventually the molten rock will stop glowing and the holes will dry up and everything that’s scorched will turn to ash.”

“Then what?”

“Rebirth. The forest is resilient. Much more resilient than man. There’ll be foliage again here in the spring. Not much, but some. ” Bertie groans, then chokes and sputters. “We’d better mask up,” I say. “If Bertie’s coughing, the air’s not safe for us.”

I slow, reach around, pull a gasmask from my pack, and slip it over my head, tightening the straps before helping Eyelet find hers. “How’s that?” I ease it carefully down over her face, secure her straps, and turn both our oxygen packs from filter to purify. Her eyes look like a bug’s through the lens of a microscope in the bubble eye-visors of the mask.

“What’s that?” Eyelet points past my shoulder, her voice muffled by the regulator, her eyes bigger than they were before.

I swing around, somewhat frightened.

Hot gassy steam shoots up from a hole in the ground about twenty meters in front of us. Bertie stalls, lurching to a halt. I throw down my feet to steady us, staring up at the sky. “It’s a geyser,” I shout.

Steam careens skyward for a good thirty meters before spiraling back to earth. It smells of rotten eggs and unlaundered stockings, even through the mask. The pressure of the surge throws Eyelet’s hair back at her shoulders and scorches the exposed skin on my brow.

“Geysers?” Eyelet shouts over the rumble of the spray. “We have to dodge geysers, too?”

“For a about a month after the storm retreats, yes.”

“I thought all the explosions ended when the Vapours retreated.”

“They did. These are new. Every time the Vapours pour down over the escarpment, they disrupt the atmospheric pressure of the Earth, creating a drag on its surface when they retreat. The drag wreaks havoc with the Earth’s geothermal balance, causing it to erupt in this way. Mix that with a hundred years of man poking holes in the ground to mine coal, and whatever went on the Night of the Great Illumination, and voila!” I stretch my hands to the forest. “We get the toxic cocktail you see before us.” I drop my arms. “Or at least that’s my theory.”

Black clouds rise from fumaroles to our left, mud pools gurgle to our right. A smoldering, fast-running river of dark red sand weaves through the center of the forest, bathing us in incredible heat. It smells of rotting flesh and ripe sewage.