Chapter 15
Chapter 15
“Have I ever shown this to you?”
I stand in my house in Emgarden. Salki and Casnia are visiting with another loaf of bread, because Salki “hasn’t seen” me lately and I’ve “seemed ill,” which is an understatement. Moseus probably wonders why I left so suddenly. I didn’t go back last cycle, and it’s already the sun of the next.
I dug up the little machine from my floorboards right in front of Salki. I have nothing to hide from her, but as I show her the framework and equilibrated sphere with my self-proclaimed symbol carved into it, she slows her darning and shakes her head. “No, you haven’t! You made that?” She touches it. “What does it do?”
Disappointment pulls at my shoulders. “Nothing.” I toss it onto the table, then steady it when a five-second earthquake passes beneath the house. “Nothing.”
“Yellow,” Casnia demands, holding out her hands without looking up. She’s drawing on the back of previous artwork. The process of pulping bark to make parchment is tedious, and Salki often doesn’t have time. I usually help, but as Salki stated, I’ve been away, and yes, ill. Just not the kind of ill I can explain.
I see Heartwood’s scars every time I close my eyes. I can feel them under my fingers, though he never let me touch him.
Salki sets aside her bundle of emily-root threads and searches through her satchel. She finds a nub of yellow chalk. Hands it over. Casnia draws all three of us this time. I only recognize Salki and myself because I’ve seen Casnia’s interpretations so many times. I only recognize Casnia because she’s blended colors together into a semblance of her violet eyes. Her proportions are wildly off, but she’s occupied.
“Are you eating?” Salki asks, poking my stomach. “You look a little thin.”
I scoff at the insult. Salki doesn’t mean it as one, but I’ve never liked the word to describe me. Thin and strong are not synonyms. “Yes, I’m eating.” To make a point, I pinch off the corner of her perfectly executed bread loaf and shove it into my mouth. It tastes amazing, and I take a minute to savor it.
Okay, I haven’t been eating good food, only quick food, but that’s beside the point.
“Have you seen any strange people around here?” I ask suddenly.
Salki picks off thread where it’s caught on her brooch. “Strange how?”
“Like pale. Tall. White hair.”
She blinks. “Entisa had white hair.”
Because she was old. “Never mind.” I rub my temples. “I think I had a weird dream last mist.”
Salki thumbs at her metallic, misshapen brooch, then changes the subject, interesting me in gossip. One of the farmhands was caught peeing in the well, so Maglon banned him from the alehouse for the next hundred cycles. Maglon, who Salki thinks is sweet on Frantess, which I find laughable.
“They’re too different,” I point out, and my chuckling fades. Different. Like me and Heartwood.
“You’d be surprised,” Salki says. “At least he contaminated the far east well, so we’ll only use it on the plants.”
“Because the farmers never get thirsty on that end.”
She sighs. “I think it’ll be clean soon enough, with all the water we take. He regrets it, at least. Took my shift for me.”
“That’s something.”
“Honestly, I’d be more upset if it weren’t for that rover.” She beams. “It’s really so helpful, Pell! If we had a few more ...” She retrieves her sewing. “I can’t even imagine.”
I’m happy the rover is helping. I’d love to make another, once I have the pieces. And to make the present one faster. Maybe give it a track to follow. I have a few ideas. But while the compliment was meant to bolster me, I don’t feel it. Too much else takes up space in my chest.
They stay and chat a little longer, then excuse themselves when Casnia needs to use the privy. Alone, I turn back to my piecemeal machine, tracing my hands over it. I carefully dismantle a few pieces of it, just to peer inside. The frame seems just that—a frame. No special wires or wiring or hidden parts. I’d thought the translucent orb at the center couldn’t pull apart without breaking, but I notice a seam on it that’s similar to one on Machine Three. The right amount of pressure and a twist gets the two halves apart.
The acrylic halves are lined with glass inside, thin and carefully blown. One half sports hard wires jutting out of its bottom and branching out across the concave surface. Silver leaf lines the other half. I fit the halves together, watching those wires. Pull them apart again. The wires obviously need to connect to something. Nothing works with free wires. But connect to what?
As I piece the thing back together, I notice a hinge on the acrylic outer shell. It’s made to peel away, like it’s only there to protect the glass within. I return the orb to its weighted nest. Examine it a little closer.
“If I had to make a guess,” I mutter, “I’d ...” Well, it’s stupid, but I’d think this was a light.
Why else would the orb be translucent, with that glass? And the frame resembles the frame of a lantern, though it’s not freestanding. No chimney, but I can’t guess what else the machine would be used for. There’s no reasonable intake for oil, but I don’t think it’s meant to be lit. Not with a flame.
My stomach hurts, followed by my head. Another unanswered question. I still don’t know why someone left it for me. Or why it’s marked like I created it myself.
I’m aligning the pistons on Machine Four when another flash overtakes me.
“It’s better that I—that we—don’t involve ourselves with Emgarden,” Heartwood says, glancing at the tower’s door. “We are too ... different.”
I shrug. “Well, you’re already involved with me, aren’t you?”
Deep breaths steady me as the vision fades. I shoulder the piston into place. I had to bring a stool up here to do it, and eventually I’ll need the ladder, too, though it won’t fit in the lift. I might just set the keepers to building something new. No reason I should be doing all the work.
As I check the last piston, my eye catches on the tension cables behind, and the components holding them in place. “I know you.” I point a finger at the trapezoidal frame. “And you,” to a spine.
Abandoning my work, I move to floor three, find the parts, and assemble them on Machine Three as I saw them in Machine Four. The tasks go quickly, minus those involving the heavier bits, and by mid sun, the internal parts of the machine are all set for a trial run. It feels ... off, to piece it together so swiftly, but the guts are so similar to Machine Four, which is intact.
To be sure, I bring up my turning rod and set it up as I did on Machine One. Machine Three stands easily three times the size of Machine One, so it takes some sweat, but I manage to crank it twice, and the parts turn, puffing out a gentle, dying tone.
I pause, listening to it. That tone ... it harmonizes with Machine One. I’m not positive ... I’d have to be able to hear both at the same time, and I only have one turning rod and an entire story between the two machines, but I think—
I catch movement from the corner of my eye. Heartwood approaches, wearing his leathers. He’s either about to head out or he’s just returned. His thick white braid falls over one shoulder, dusting his lowest rib.
My gut clenches. I see those markings in my mind’s eye, branching like a tree over his broad shoulders. Feel his breath on my face as he says, I broke it because it took you away from me.
His eyes aren’t sharp. The color, I mean. I thought them unnatural, even acidic, once. But now that I’ve seen his garden, I’ve reassessed. They’re merely alive, whereas so much on Tampere is not.
I find myself suddenly self-conscious of my sweat- and grease-stained clothes. I wipe my palms on the sides of my trousers. “Yes?”
He glances at the machine. “It’s nearly done.”
I pat the turning rod. “It doesn’t have all its outer structure, but it functions as well as the first does.” Heartwood pauses two paces from me, studying my face. Searching for something. That self-consciousness grows. “What?”
He hesitates. “Do you know my name?”
What kind of a question is that? “Heartwood ...”
“And the name of the other keeper?”
“Moseus. What is this about?”
He raises a hand, asking for patience. “How do you get to the fourth floor?”
I narrow my eyes but play along. “Through the lift. Which is attached to Machine Two, for some reason. Which also has a hidden door behind it.”
He shifts. “There’s a door?”
“Moseus didn’t tell you?”
He shakes his head. “It must have slipped his mind.” He examines the machine again. “Thank you, for your work. It means a lot to me. To us.”
“You’re wel—”
The sun hits Heartwood’s eyes, shrinking his pupils, brightening the green. There’s a deeper green, a star in the center of each, and I lean in, trying to better make out their edges. Yet as I do, they transform before my very eyes, forming the shapes of tall, needle-covered trees and thick boughs, of distant mountains capped in white. A glistening stream of water crinkles past lush grasses, where an animal—a deer?—grazes with her fawn.
I gasp. Blink the images away. I see Heartwood’s chest. He’s in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, his face close to mine. This time, though, he doesn’t instill terror. My heart pounds anyway.
“What’s wrong?” He searches my face.
“I ...” I don’t know how to answer. I told him I’d been seeing things. Does he understand now? Seeress, he called me. It sounded like an excuse.
I look into his eyes, wondering if they’ll change for me again, if I’ll see a far-off place too wonderful to recognize. He sees me searching, feels our closeness, and releases me, his countenance stricken.
“Forgive me,” he says, more to the floor than to me, and leaves.
“I don’t,” I murmur at his back, but he doesn’t hear me.
I halfheartedly piece together the exterior bits of Machine Three before slipping away to my room to nap. I manage to sleep, but it isn’t restful. I change my clothing, throwing the soiled pieces into the corner to wash later, and pull my short hair into a flared tail at the crown of my head. I need to think, and I can’t think the way I need to at the tower.
So I trek to Heartwood’s garden, winding down the way I’d first uncovered in the mists. The rest of that disintegrating copse has crumbled. What portions of its umber dust that haven’t caught on the breeze have mixed with the red-tinted soil, leaving a mark like a burn. I avoid crossing it, still unsettled by the trees’ strange demise.
Salki hates feeling enclosed. She dislikes tight spaces. Said she’d rather be burned and join the sky when she dies than buried like her mother. But here, in the winding red passageways of the slot canyons, I feel safe. Protected. Private. The canyons project a natural calm that imbues my body with peace.
I smell the garden before I pass through the stone arch guarding it. I’m greeted by succulent trees and the buzz of insects. The desert wrens are out. I only make it a few steps before I see a shift of white against the green. Heartwood stands from a crouch, that water pail in his hand, and meets my eyes. My gut clenches again.
“S-Sorry,” I offer.
He glances at the roses. “I was just finishing. You are welcome to stay.” He comes up the path, giving me space as he passes, and returns the bucket to its place by the spring.
“Stay,” I blurt. “I mean ... you can stay. It’s your garden.”
“I understand if you want privacy.”
“Just ... stay, Heartwood.” I’m not used to being embarrassed about much of anything, and I hate the heat climbing my cheeks. He studies me, then the arch, as if debating. I roll my eyes. “I’m not that bad of company. I promise I won’t ask you to take your clothes off this time.”
That catches him off guard, and I laugh at the chagrin enveloping his features. I’m grateful for it; it puts me at ease. I walk up the path a little way. Heartwood stays where he is, probably still debating whether to leave.
I point to a short bush with tiny yellow buds. “What is this? I don’t recognize it.”
“Retalia,” he answers softly. “It grows natively in these canyons, in the more shaded parts.”
“This big?”
“No. Tampere is too harsh for that.”
He says it like there’s another option.
I gesture to the deep pink flowers. “And these?”
“Soft hearts.”
“I wouldn’t say I have one, but thank you.”
His lip quirks a little. He joins me on the path. “That is the name of the flower.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I eye him, unsure what he means. “And these are desert roses.”
“Yes. My favorite. That is why there are so many.”
“Mine, too.”
He follows me up the path. “Do you know this?”
He refers to the cluster of spiky leaves with long tongues at their centers, upon which sprout small purple flowers. “No. Should I?”
“They’re rare. Particular about soil and light.” I feel his gaze on my face, but when I turn, he refocuses on the plant. “Chrystanus. Beautiful, but poisonous.”
I blink at the seemingly harmless plant. It has no thorns, bark, or particularly bright coloring to warn creatures away. “Poisonous?”
“The root only, but yes, very much so. A dermal poison.”
I study the garden with a renewed eye. The green vines are fairy wisps, and the succulent trees have a name too long to remember. I was right about the sage, in that it’s a variety of sage.
“But not edible,” Heartwood adds.
“And this”—I sweep my arms broadly around the garden—“is your animus thing?”
Heartwood lowers himself onto a large boulder. “Moseus told you about that.” It’s not a question.
“More or less. It’s like what you’re named after, or something.”
He tips his head. “Mine is more for the forest, but this is the best I can make.”
Forest.I know the word, but when I try to picture it, all I see are the images from Heartwood’s eyes, and that wasn’t real.
No, it was real. Because the scars are real. Right?
Lifting my right hand, I trace the scar across my palm. “I want to talk about Machine Three.”
Heartwood immediately rises to his feet. “I should go. Moseus will be expecting me.”
“You don’t get to say things like that and then refuse to explain yourself.” My voice is quiet, but my tone isn’t.
Heartwood slows, stops. “I shouldn’t have spoken.” He looks away, his jaw tight again. He blinks a few times. “I’m sorry.”
I walk up the path to meet him. To block him from the exit, though if he wanted to, he could easily displace me. He’s slow to meet my gaze, but he does. He has a strong nose, broad cheeks, full lips. Trees and deer in his eyes, somehow.
“Give me your hand.” I hold mine out expectantly.
Heartwood hesitates, then lifts his right hand and places it in mine. The little zip that rushes up my arm at the contact, like I’ve touched the steam chest on an engine, makes me uncomfortable, to say the least. Or rather, I want it to be.
I close his hand into a fist and press my palms against his knuckles. “That beam you wrecked. It’s a good thing it’s not critical to the function of the machine.”
He doesn’t reply, only watches our hands.
“What are you, Heartwood?” I release him gently, as though his hand is a bird learning to fly. When he presses his lips together, I add, “You have to tell me something. I deserve something.”
He exhales slowly. I think he will refuse to answer again, but he grinds out, “I am not from here.”
“Obviously.”
“No, Pell. Nophe.” He takes a step back and surveys his garden. “I am not from Tampere.”
I wrinkle my nose. “And I thought I was the crazy one.” Yet my heart quickens, as though warning me. My jest stalls him. Emboldened, I lift my hand and press it to his chest. He tenses, but doesn’t move away. His heart beats nearly in time with my own. “Heartwood,” I murmur, meeting his eyes. “What are you?”
He places his hand gingerly over mine. “Moseus and I both. We are gods.”