Чарли Андерс - The City in the Middle of the Night

I don’t know what happened to that teapot. My old memories haven’t gotten any clearer thanks to my gift, and I only remember what I remember. So the teapot only lives in that one moment, and a few others. Maybe we broke it, maybe it got lost, maybe it’s still in a cupboard at the Gymnasium somewhere. In my recollection, it had green cornflowers painted on it, and a thin crack where the lid connected.

I take refuge in the very hottest part of town. Corroded corrugated aluminum, hot to the touch, right next to my face. I huddle there, sweating and suffocating, during the twelfth bell, the recessional chimes, and, at last, the shutters-up warning. My shoulder still burns, and I worry it’s infected. I’ve been so stupid. The Gelet are counting on my help, but I can’t stop throwing away my life for Bianca. It’s all I ever do.

Mouth probably died at the Palace. Even now that Bianca is lost to me, the idea of Mouth being dead cuts deeper than I could have expected. I remember her story of the blue wings, and the way the Gelet recoiled when I conveyed it to them. I should have helped Mouth find another name, one that didn’t remind her constantly of bones and lost chances.

My love for Bianca feels like a feature of the landscape that recedes farther into the distance the longer I stare. I wonder how much she’s sleeping now that she’s home, and whether she dreams of me.

I need to leave my hiding place to find some food, and that’s when I spot the symbol. Painted in yellow on the peeling stucco wall of an empty shoe factory, the glyph twists in on itself, with the shape of wings and one long tooth. I stare awhile before I remember where I saw it before: on some of the books in Hernan’s study, at the Illyrian Parlour. I hesitate one moment longer, and then push open the tiny door.

Jeremy crouches in a wide-armed chair next to a coffee urn in the style of Old Zagreb, with a cloudy ancient copy of a Mayhew tract in both hands. Cyrus the marmot stretches out on one arm of the chair, grumbling. Jeremy looks up and smiles at me. “You made it. I saw your picture all over town, so I tried to leave a message that only you would understand. I’m so glad you’re here.”

He gives me food, and clean water, and a place to sit, and then he sets about tending my shoulder.

Jeremy talks twice as fast as before, now that we’re a long way from the Parlour. And meanwhile, Cyrus seems even more languid than ever, though he cozies up to Jeremy the same way he used to with Hernan. Jeremy says Hernan kept the Parlour open for a while, and things seemed to quiet down after I left. But some time later, there was another crackdown on anti-Circadianist elements, and Hernan had to close shop after all. This all happened ages ago. I keep being shocked by how much time passed while I was away. It’s already 4 Silence after Crimson, according to the calendar on the wall. Hernan ended up on the run, and eventually died of an infection that spread to his blood.

Besides Cyrus and the samovar, Jeremy has saved a few other things from the Parlour. He digs in a wooden crate until he pulls out a scrap of wax paper: my mother’s painting of me standing near some barley stalks. “Hernan told me to give you this, if I ever saw you again.” I stare at the tiny figure, whose face is turned away, and the light, from somewhere out of the frame, that limns her cheek and the tips of the newly harvested crops. I count every brushstroke, as if I could see my mother’s hand if I concentrate hard enough. And then I roll it, tenderly, and tuck it inside a pouch in my cloak.

Then I sit with Jeremy, and he tells me about the new Uprising: he and his friends are working to unseat our new vice regent and her foreign allies. This dusty storage room, scorching even with the shutters closed, is one of his hideouts.

“All of that training Hernan gave us.” Jeremy shakes his head. “Turns out it’s quite helpful for politics. I know how to fire people up, by doing more or less the opposite of what you and I used to do.”

I start to try to explain about Bianca, how I still believe she never wanted to hurt anyone, even now, and Jeremy hushes me.

“I don’t need you to tell me anything,” he says. “I want you to show me.”

I just stare. His face, lit by a single beam from an old handheld light, looks like a landscape of arid gullies. Cyrus is peering up at me too; maybe he recognizes me, or wonders what’s going on.

“You want me to…” I whisper.

“That’s why I made all this effort to find you. I’ve been hearing rumors, from someone who works at the Palace and heard her talking to Dash after you got away. They say that you can show people the things you’ve seen, and that’s why the vice regent is scared of you. You know all her secrets, you know the whole truth about her, and anyone who touches you can experience it, as if they had been there in person.”

I hesitate, fingering the sides of my cloak.

“Please, show me,” he says again.

I open my cloak. When I bring the tendrils closer to his face, he lets out a slow breath, like steam escaping the coffee urn. I show him Bianca speaking to the Progressive Students, then try to take him through the glimmering parties in Argelo, Bianca flirting with these oligarchs, and the fleet of armored vehicles. Forcing myself to revisit these things feels like a whole new kind of memory-panic, except with crushing sadness instead of anxiety.

Jeremy untangles his face from my tendrils, and I realize after a moment that he’s shaking with happiness.

“This… this is amazing. You could be the single most effective recruitment tool in the history of political organizing. People will want to try this for themselves, and once they do, they’ll be on our side forever. I can see why the vice regent is scared out of her mind.”

I step away from him, all my senses heightened as if danger could arrive from anywhere. This storage room feels both too claustrophobic and too exposed.

“I didn’t come back home to be some living piece of propaganda,” I say.

“She’s trying to destroy you,” Jeremy says. “You have to destroy her first. That’s how it works.”

“Thanks for the food.” I move away from him, climbing the half stairway toward the blinding glare coming through the doorframe. “And for tending my shoulder. I feel much better. Please take good care of Cyrus.”

Hearing his name, Cyrus growls and stretches his pseudopods.

“Please stay here. I have an extra bedroll. We can talk more later. You don’t have to rush into anything. But this is a way for both of us to get our lives back. Now that I’ve experienced your power, I…” Jeremy rushes behind me, hands raised, but makes no move to stop me. “You can control the thing that most of us are controlled by. We could do so much together.”

I pause at the door. “If you want to become like me,” I say, “climb the Old Mother and just wait at the top. Go alone, no weapons. They’ll come and find you.” Then I walk outside, shielding my face against the sunbaked heat, and hurry back to my hiding place before the shutters open.

My shoulder still burns, and I don’t know whether to curse myself or Bianca against the pain. I needed to run away from Jeremy, because I was afraid I would end up agreeing to let myself be used again. Maybe I’d have tried to share the story of Bianca in a way that made people want to forgive her, even as they rise up against her. And that might be the only way I’ll ever get to share my abilities with anyone, without them reacting the way the Glacier Fools did, or Bianca. People can stand things for the sake of politics that they would never endure for love or profit. But even if I could do that to Bianca without loathing myself, I know I couldn’t stand to deliver that story to people, over and over. I would turn to ice if I even tried.