Jay Lake - Green

But a life.

It made no difference that she had been awful to me. I was slave and animal and work to her. Never a real girl. Never a person.

Then I’d killed her. That had made me real, at least for the span of her last moments.

We moved quickly for being Below. The passages were close-walled and low-ceilinged, slimed over as happened mostly near the surface. The Dancing Mistress held a snatch of coldfire in her hands, which was enough for me to follow. Beyond that, I paid no heed to anything but my own misery.

She stepped through a doorway into some larger gallery. I followed, only to have someone clutch at my arm. I shrieked as I was startled out of my reverie.

The Dancing Mistress whirled. Whatever had been on her lips died there.

Mother Iron held me pinched in a grip that seemed tight enough to shear pipes. I looked into her eyes. They gleamed with the orange white of the hottest coals.

“So it begins.” Mother Iron’s voice was rusty as a grate. Her breath gusted like a wind from a great distance, and reeked of stale air.

“We move swiftly,” the Dancing Mistress answered softly. “To stay ahead of the hunt that is even now being summoned.”

The old woman-thing-I was mindful of Septio’s sleeping gods-squeezed my arm again. “Be true and hold your edge,” she told me. Then Mother Iron was gone, vanished like mist before breaking sunlight.

The Dancing Mistress took my hand. “I had not expected that. Are you well?”

I tried to answer, but could only laugh.

Her eyes narrowed to gleaming slits as she shook me slightly. “Stay away from that clouded place in your mind, Girl.”

That sobered me quickly. “My name is Green,” I snapped. Hot, hard anger filled my voice.

“Green, then. I see that you are back.”

Our flight ended with a climb of a wooden ladder screwed to a brick well. The Dancing Mistress led. I followed, stewing in anger rather than lost in despair.

How dare they snatch everything away from me? I knew my thoughts held no logic at all, but I cherished the burning spark. Guilt and fear lay not far behind it. I would much rather have my path lit by fire than wrapped in gloom.

We emerged in a large half-empty building. A bit of moonlight leached in through wide windows set high on the walls to make solid, silvery shadows of stacks of crates. I glanced around the room, seeing as I had been trained to do. Eight of those windows on each side, some accessible by climbing the stacks before them. One end was swallowed in deep shadow where a dozen horsemen could have waited invisible. The other end gleamed with the cracks of a large doorway lit by gas lamps outside.

A warehouse, of course.

“What is in the shadows?” I asked, mindful of the Dancing Mistress’ earlier words about the hunt being called.

“What do your nose and ears tell you?”

I closed my eyes and sniffed. Dust, wood, oil, mold. The scent of the two of us. No horses. No sweat-stink of soldiers. Likewise the noises. A cart rumbled past the other side of the doorway, paced by the clip of hooves on cobbles. Within were only the sounds of an old building, wood settling and the whistling scurry of rats.

There might be a lone, quiet person in the darkness, but no more. I said as much.

“There might be anyone, anywhere,” she agreed. “Here in this moment, we are probably safe. Now we hide some more.”

The Dancing Mistress began climbing an array of boxes toward one of the grease-smeared windows. I followed her. I wondered where we were going, but did not ask. She reached the window, then stretched tall to touch the ceiling above it. A section of slats slid away to the noisy squeal of wood on wood. I winced at the sound and looked back down for our mythical assassin.

No one was there. Above me, the Dancing Mistress hauled herself into the ceiling. I followed to find us in a much darker space with another ceiling so low that I nearly struck my head.

The roof of the warehouse, I realized: a very low-angled attic. The texture of the shadows suggested that this space was used for storage. Objects bulked dark within deeper darkness. A single window gleamed at the far end, barely brighter than the shadows, as it was so obscured with dust and grime.

“The stairs were torn out fifteen or twenty years ago,” the Dancing Mistress said. “They widened the doors to admit heavier cart traffic with a turnaround, and were forced to give up this space in the process.”

“A waste.” I was focusing on the trivia of where we were.

“Everything has a reason. Right now we are in a hidden location above a building that no one has ever seen us enter. We are safe while we consider what should happen next.”

“Safe?” The panicked laughter began bubbling up within me once more. “I will never be safe again. I will always be trapped by what I have done. I-”

She smacked the top of my head as my voice rose. “Whisper. Even better, think before you speak at all.”

Anger rushed back fast as flame on oil. Mistress Tirelle hit me constantly. Now the Dancing Mistress did the same. Who was she to raise a hand to me?

“You must eat, then sleep,” she continued. “Your fears and regrets are carrying you away.”

“I am afraid of nothing!” I shouted.

Her voice was so soft, I had to strain to hear it. “Right now you are afraid of everything. Or at least you should be.”

I flopped to the floor. Finally still, I realized how badly my body ached. The slip coming off the wall of the Factor’s house had bruised my hips and jarred my back. The run had stretched and warmed my muscles, but here we were quiet and I could feel myself cooling down already. My foot stung where it had clipped Mistress Tirelle’s chin.

“Everything hurts,” I told her quietly.

“Then sleep.” She offered me a piece of crumbling cheese and a wad of leaves.

I took them. The cheese had a deep ammoniac scent, overlaid with salt and the veining mold of a blue. The leaves were dry-cured kale with lard smeared amid the rolled layers.

It all smelled like paradise to my rumbling gut. I ate quickly, then just as quickly was starved with thirst.

“There are water barrels near the window,” the Dancing Mistress said. “They are filled with rainwater collection, and might taste of the roof.” She bent close again. “I must go out and be seen. There can be no suspicion that I am part of what is still happening in the Factor’s house. Will you remain here and keep absolutely quiet?”

“Yes,” I said around a mouthful of kale.

“No matter how angry or despairing you may feel, do not stamp your feet or throw things. Men will be working downstairs on the morrow, and they may hear you.”

I looked at my hands, full of half-eaten food. Mistress Tirelle would never eat again. “No, Mistress.”

“When I can safely do so, I shall return. Probably tomorrow night. Federo may be here as well.”

My heart leapt at that; then I wondered why. Even my friends were trouble for me. “I will remain silent.”

“As best as can be hoped for.” She ran a hand through my hair. “We will do what we can to see that you are well-served. I am not sure how much is left to us, though.”

“Good night,” I said, and then she was gone.

Sleep brought only the memory of death. My relationship with my dreams continues uneasy to this day, but that night was the worst I have ever known. I don’t recall my dreams when Federo first stole me away from Papa. The dreams of small children are said to be as unformed as their thoughts, but that cannot be true. My thoughts were well-formed even then. I knew what I wanted and did not want.

Later I dreamed of the past, Endurance and my grandmother and my little life among the ditches and fields of Papa’s rice. Those were about loss and regret. As I grew older and my training became more complex, I often dreamed of the sorts of things one does then-endless loaves of bread spilling from the oven, or reading a book that bred new pages for itself faster than I could turn them.