Petra K and the Blackhearts (21 page)

“This must be it,” said Deklyn when we arrived. The pipes rose into a tunnel, along which ran a ladder. He took a deep breath, then hoisted himself up. He climbed, then I heard a metallic grinding, a creak, then light poured into the tunnel.

“Come on,” he said. And up into the Palace we went.

E
vil is comfortable in silence.

While the city suffered outside, while dragonka were sliced open and children worked in mines, while Jozseftown mourned one of its own, the Palace was quiet. But despite all the time I had spent in the Palace, I was not familiar with its passages and grand rooms, which we slunk through one by one, all unoccupied. Only now and again did we have to hide from servants, though, who moved through the space as though sleepwalking. Then, from the end of the corridor that we had let ourselves into, a noise erupted. It was a howl, like a yell of battle, only more pained. We rushed toward the sound. There I discovered the same door through which Archibald had led me, the one that opened on the stairs to the cellars. We descended, and again the yell sounded. It was Deklyn who held me back when we reached the door from which it came.

We peered around the frame. There was Wormwood, leaning over a table, upon which Archibald the Precious lay.

“It aches,” groaned the dictator.

“Hold still,” commanded Wormwood. “The heart is winding down. But the time is near when you will need it no longer.”

“I don’t want this,” cried Archibald. “I don’t want to be monarch anymore.”

“Don’t say that!” retorted Wormwood.

“I had a friend, and you sent her away! All I wanted was just one friend.”

“You have plenty of friends here with the Haints. They care for you. And soon you will have your very life to thank them for. What could be a better bond of friendship?”

Archibald groaned. “But they don’t even know how to play.”

“And the Youth Guard. You play with them all the time,” said Wormwood.

“They are the worst!” spat Archibald. “The are so mean, and they never play by the rules.” Suddenly Archibald’s eye caught mine watching him. He gasped.

“My old friend,” he said.

“Hush, now,” said Wormwood. “You are imagining things again. Just breathe into this cloth. Soon you will have to worry about this faulty heart no more.” Wormwood held a cloth up to Archibald’s face and the dictator rose in a fit. He fell unconscious. Wormwood laid him flat on the table, then pulled a blanket over his body.

Deklyn and I backed away from the door and crept quietly back down the corridor.

“Can you take us to where the dragonka laboratory is?” Deklyn asked.

“I think so. In fact, I’m pretty sure.” Suddenly everything looked familiar. I knew exactly where I was. I quickly guided Deklyn down the corridor, then to the iron door that led to the dragonka laboratory. We opened the great door slowly, then thrust it open when I could see that the room had been emptied. The dragonka were nowhere to be found: the cages had been
removed, the beasts cleared from their displays. But beyond the next door were living dragonka, I was sure. I could feel Luma’s strange energy. He was alive somewhere.

“Welcome, young visitors,” came a voice from behind.

Wormwood strode into the room, followed by a troop of Youth Guard: my former classmates.

“You are so busy with what is ahead of you, you never look behind your own backs,” said Tatiana. “We could have tapped you on the shoulder.”

“Number One Play Pal finds that noon and midnight are equally observable, though opposite times of the day,” said Margo. “If you had learned that, you would have known that which is in front of you, is as it was behind you.”

“You have no idea what you are talking about!” I said. “Don’t you know that Number One Play Pal is so sick he can’t even move? That they are about to implant the heart grown in a dragonka into his body?”

“More dirty Half Not legend,” said Sonia.

“It is not,” I countered. “Ask Wormwood.”

They all turned to their superior. “She is right,” said Wormwood. The girls looked at him apprehensively. “Only it is not exactly as she says. It is just that Number One Play Pal has given so much of himself that his heart has simply given out. He is indeed sick. But with everybody’s good wishes and help, he will soon return to his full strength. But it is not merely a dragonka heart. It was one fashioned by myself, with materials from the spirit world. It needed a life support system, and dragonka prove an ideal source of nourishment. Indeed, the materials were furnished by Petra K’s father. Did you know that, Petra K?”

At that moment I knew he was right: the black caped figure at the bridge who tried to do away with Luma; the fluttering scarf that felt so familiar as it guided me to the laboratory. That was the spirit of my father, trying to guide me, to help me to save Pava from the Haints.

“But he stole the beast when he realized the experiment would be a success. He hid with it in Jozseftown, before trying to kill it, once the dragonka fever broke out. And, as I understand, you saved Luma,” said Wormwood. “It is why you are alive right now. We are grateful to you, in our way.”

“Where are the dragonka?” shouted Deklyn. “I am here to free them!”

“Ah, yes,” retorted Wormwood. “The leader of the Blackhearts is used to making demands. Well, they are here. In this room even. They are everywhere, just look around.” With that, he extinguished the lantern. Above us shapes began to form. You could see them emerging and disappearing from an oil-colored circle in the ceiling that looked like a huge water stain. They were the shapes of dragonka, flying round the air above us. Only that they were transparent, like colored mist. The spirits of the murdered dragonka had remained in the Palace. Above them, an enormous swirling cloud spread across the ceiling. No, I realized, it wasn’t a cloud at all: it was a hole, and beyond it was the deepest blackness I had ever seen.

“It was an oversight,” said Wormwood. “The same ancient sorcery that kept the Haints here, keeps the dragonka spirits as well. We had to get rid of their stuffed bodies, unfortunately. They were too attracted to them, crying all night long, unable to reclaim their living forms. Above them is a gateway to the spirit world, torn open by centuries-old black magic. They should pass through it, but they refuse to depart. Perhaps your spirits too will be trapped here, after we are finished with you. Then you will understand our attachment to this world.”

“You can’t keep doing their bidding,” said Deklyn.

“I can’t?” replied Wormwood.

“You don’t have to. Let Archibald die, as he should have long ago.”

“Why would I do that?” said Wormwood. “When I am one of them?” Before our eyes, Wormwood became translucent. It
was true: he was the same as the Haints, whom he was in the service of. “Besides, your efforts—no matter how valiant—are of no use. Luma is being readied for me right now. So I must leave you.”

“No!” I cried. But I knew it was true. I began to feel the pull toward sleep, and felt the pastel colors of Luma’s dreams begin to infect my sight.

W
ormwood left us to oversee the operation, so it was the troop of Youth Guard who marched us to our holding cells. I kept quiet, stung by their betrayal and use of me. I should have known, even in my days as a Youth Guard, that I would never be one of them. But as we walked, I sensed an unspoken tension arising.

“You didn’t tell us that the dragonka were being murdered,” I heard Bianka say to Tatiana.

“That is because I didn’t know it,” she responded.

“Who cares,” said Sonia. “It is what the Number One Play Pal wants.”

“I care,” said Margo. “Or I would have never gone undercover in Jozseftown. The festivals are wonderful. You had a dragonka once, too, Tatiana.”

“I know. But be careful what you are saying,” said Tatiana.

“Everybody should be careful,” said Sonia, not without threat. “It isn’t our job to say what is good and right. It is our job to do what we are instructed to do.”

“Well, I am tired of playing along,” said Bianka, out of nowhere. “I am done here. I don’t want to participate in killing dragonka. I
love
dragonka. There, I said it. And Petra K, I’m sorry if I tricked or betrayed you. I always liked you.”

Tatiana turned and looked Bianka in the eye, her lips tight with rage. Then she struck her. Bianka appeared stunned, then struck Tatiana back. Sonia and Margo jumped between them, trying to pull one from the other. A glance passed between Deklyn and me, and we both set off running.

“Now look what you’ve done!” shouted Tatiana. “Go after them!” But her command took some seconds to follow, during which time we were able to disappear behind a closed door, using a chair to prop it closed. But instead of even searching the room, we heard their arguing voices travel past the door.

“Luma!” I said. Soon it would be too late.

“Quiet!” commanded Deklyn. “We can’t help him from the dungeons.”

“No!” I shouted. I felt a tear in my chest. It was like I was being cut open as well. I went sprawling on the floor. Deklyn knelt down and held me in his arms. The pain was too much for me to keep quiet.

“Go!” I yelled at Deklyn. “Go now! The operation is beginning!” He looked torn, his face tight with fret. He bent over and kissed my forehead. I could just see the top of the black heart poking from the top of his blouse. I concentrated on the image—holding the broken black heart there in my mind—to try to calm myself, to keep it in my head and push the pain out. By the time I opened my eyes, Deklyn had removed the chair from the door and had fled the room. I let my head fall back, and cried out in pain. It was too much. I took the dragonka voice machine from my pocket and cranked the handle. The soft song lulled me. Soon, I was asleep.

In a place in my dreams the dragonka song found me. A figure appeared to me momentarily, its form transparent, like the outline of a body emerging from the fog.

“I cannot stay long,” the shape said. I could see that his outline was vague, blending into the wall behind him. “The spirit world has a claim on me, and it is difficult to hold my form.”

“Father?” I said, startled by my sudden realization. I started to get up, but he halted me with a wave of his ghostly hand.

“It will do no good,” he laughed. “Your touch would go right through me.”

“There is so much I want to ask,” I said.

“We don’t have time now,” he replied.

“But … what happened to you … Mother said—”

“Petra K, listen to me,” said Jozsef K. “I want to talk to you and tell you everything that happened. My life was complicated, and ended too soon.”

“Ended?”

“Like I said, I live in the spirit world, Petra K.”

“But you are here now,” I said. “Are you one of them? Do you work for the spirits?”

“I did. I had no choice. There is a gateway in the Palace to the spirit world. I steal in, I steal out. I
steal
. The Haints needed help in attaining materials for their experiments, so I helped. I am not proud. But I quit when I discovered their real purpose.”

“You tried to drown Luma,” I said. “How could you do that? You don’t go deserting helpless things to their fates. It’s not fair!”

“I can’t explain it all,” he said. “Besides, you saved him. Now the entire responsibility is on your shoulders.”

Then my father began to fade. He waved his arms around in front of himself like a blind man.

“Are you there? Are you there Petra K?”

“Yes, Father,” I said.

“I am sorry, Petra K.”

“Goodbye,” he said. “I am fading, for good right now. But if you play the dragonka song, you will be able to call my presence, if not in shape, then in feeling.”

“Goodbye,” I said, and then he was once again lost to me.

W
HEN
I
WOKE
, I
WAS ALONE
. The door was wide open, and the pain had disappeared from my chest. I ran my finger along the spot where the attack had been, but felt nothing except smooth skin. It was as though the cut had healed. Luma was safe, I could feel it: I still felt his presence. Deklyn had succeeded.

I heard footsteps coming from the other end of the hallway, approaching. It would be Deklyn, I was sure, come to retrieve me. We would return to Jozseftown, and I would go home, to where I belonged, with the dragonka free from harm. We would have festivals, and I would invite the Blackhearts to live with us in the spare rooms of our house. We would live happily.

A child’s shape crossed into the doorway. Archibald appeared neither young nor old, but ageless, his face looking like a shrunken apple. He was beatific. Now that he had the heart of a dragonka, the heart of Luma.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“I should ask you the same thing,” I said bitterly.

“The Haints are waiting in the ballroom. We are going to have a celebration. Every child in the Youth Guard had a birthday, and now it is my turn. We did not want to start without you.”

I ignored the invitation. “So all this dragonka fever, all the quarantine was about finding the dragonka that was growing your heart?”

“It was the Haints’ doing. It is what they have worked on for so long. For longer than either of us have been alive. But look! We are both alive now! Let us go and celebrate. You can live here with me. I already asked the Haints. They say it is OK. They are not mad at you at all. In fact, Wormwood is quite fond of you.”

“I would never live here with you,” I said levelly, but not as cruelly as I had hoped. I could feel that the attraction to Luma now had me confused about Archibald. He was so familiar in his presence, with Luma’s heart.

“Don’t say that. I feel that you could do good in the Palace affairs. You could have a whole muse of golden dragonka to yourself. As many as you want. You wouldn’t even have to care for them, it would all be done for you.”

“Where is Deklyn?” I said.

“Your other friend?” he asked, and not without jealousy.

“My
only
friend,” I said.

Archibald looked stung. “He and his organization are still a threat, or so say the Haints. He is going to be sent to the mines. It is out of my control.”