Emmi Itäranta - The City of Woven Streets

Shadows grow denser and wrap around me, and I am theirs.

Then someone is pulling me up, into the air where my body weighs like a thousand stones, and my chest stings and I vomit salty, salty tears of the sea.

I lie on the deck, too heavy to move. A meter or two away Moth is pressing Mirea’s chest repeatedly with her hands. Mirea’s head lies in a pool that is not just water. She is the colour of bone coral, and her chest is not heaving.

Octopus, who stands next to them, points at the hourglass. The final grains of sand drop to the bottom. Moth must have been trying to revive Mirea since they last turned it.

Moth’s face is a darkening sky as she places Mirea’s arms next to her sides and leaves them there. She closes Mirea’s eyelids with her hand.

‘Cover her with something,’ Octopus says. ‘We are leaving for the day.’

I hear another voice. My neck does not turn enough to see, but I recognize it as Stingray.

‘There are still many hours of daylight left,’ she says.

A short silence. Then, ‘We are returning.’

It is Octopus. Her boots are heavy on the boards as she walks away.

The boat with blood-red branches resting in it is hauled to the deck and we are ordered down into the hold. Moth takes me into the cabin. At first I think it is to make me feel warmer. Then I realize it is because they want to isolate me from the rest of the prisoners. I already know that when we return to the House of the Tainted, I will not be taken to my cell, but somewhere colder and smaller.

I see Mirea’s unmoving face before my eyes, and think of the images I drowned her with. I am ice and bitter water, and things that sting in dark crevices between stones.

I am taken out of the ship last, and when I walk along the deck, I see the horizon. The sea is smooth and almost without movement, and the shoreline is bare, like the waves are holding their breath. Everything is calm, like the dead are.

The only light in the cell comes from a glow-glass pipe above the door. It hovers on the walls, a blue-white flow that does not tell me if it is day or night. The floor is cold stone under my back. If I straighten my legs and place my arms over my head, I can touch the walls with my toes and fingers. There are no blankets or bunks here. In one corner there is a stinking hole in the floor. In another, a jug of water that tastes of mould, and a piece of bread with white stains growing on it.

Brine has dried on my skin, leaving it tight and itchy even where it is not covered in rash. I am still in my diving clothes. I think of Mirea, of her unmoving limbs and still face, and water and salt pour from my eyes again. My nose gets runny and blocked. I wipe it on the back of my hand. My chest is full of sharp stones. I wait for someone to come and ask about the rumours I have been spreading, the ones I really did start spreading, but longer ago than they realize: when we believed we had a plan. Before Valeria vanished, and I walked through the shadows.

No one comes.

A blue algae-mist floats in the glass pipe. I sleep for a moment or many. I dream of Valeria lying next to me, warming me. A singing medusa swims across the room and lands on my face, but instead of soothing, it stings. I wake up to the burning sensation on my brow and chill in my limbs. I scratch my forehead. Skin peels away in grainy patches that stick to my fingertips.

I do not know how long I have been here, when the flood bell begins to toll.

In a flash my mind-map of the House of the Tainted is before my eyes, and I am scanning it. The solitary confinement cells are not underground, but they are several flights of stairs below the other cells and dining halls. In any flood, they will be among the first to fill with water.

My legs tremble as I stand up. It is as if the very weight of the air is pressing me down, resting on my shoulders. I listen. Somewhere in the distance I hear people shouting and stomping, metal bars rattling. Footsteps run past, but they do not stop.

I begin to bang on the door.

‘Help me!’ I cry. ‘Let me out!’

The noises above and far away continue, but none of them draw nearer. I hit the door until my fists hurt, then turn around and kick it with my heels. I scream until my throat aches and my voice is half-gone. I do not know how long the water will take to reach here. I have only ever seen floods from the hill of Webs, and from my parents’ house. I slide to the floor, close my eyes and wait for the silence and depth of the sea to swallow me. I should have known it would not allow me an escape after taking Mirea.

A key turns in the lock.

I scramble to my feet as the door opens. Moth looks in. I take a step backwards. Breath tangles in my chest.

‘Quick,’ she says. She throws me a pair of boots, a pair of wide trousers and a brown, hooded jacket. ‘Put those on, and then follow me.’

I stare at Moth’s smooth, unreadable face, at her tall and angular frame. She has not approached me since the laundry. But I have caught hold of her eyes now and then in the dining hall, in the changing rooms, on the ship. I remember the strange demand in her voice when she asked me about the House of Webs.

Warily I grab the jacket, not turning my gaze from her.

‘The flood will rush in soon,’ Moth says, more than a tinge of impatience in the tone of her words. ‘And then we’ll have no way out.’

Whether it is a threat or warning, I cannot tell, but I do not doubt that it is true. I put the clothes on as fast as I can. At least they provide some warmth and coverage.

‘This will be much easier if you come without resistance,’ she says.

Staying here means a certain end. I step out. The corridor is dim and narrow, and locked by gates at both ends. We walk through the first gate and climb two flights of stairs. Moth stays a few steps behind me. Screams and footsteps are now closer, echoing off each other, twisting and turning in the deserted corridors. When we reach the top of the stairs, Moth stops me by grasping my arm. Her fingers are hard, her expression intent.

‘Listen carefully,’ she says. Her hand moves, and for a moment I think she is going to pull out her whip. Instead, she presses a key into my hand. ‘This will open the gates you will need to pass through. Follow this corridor, turn right and open the small door hidden under a set of stairs. Follow the passage behind it until you come to a narrow spiral staircase, then climb as far up as the stairs will take you. At the top there will be three doors. Go through the left one. That is the safest route. Don’t let anyone see you.’

My mind-map shifts its shape, expands: I see the corridors and stairs. They fit with what I already know about the house. I repeat the instructions in my mind, until I can see my path marked on the new map. Moth stares at me. I stare back, study her face. I try to see if her dark eyes are hiding things. I do not read insincerity in her, but I have been mistaken before.

‘What about the other prisoners?’ I ask.

‘The house is being evacuated,’ Moth says. ‘This is not the first flood to strike here. Will you find your way?’

‘I think so,’ I respond. And because the only thing I understand is that I have been misreading her all along, I ask, ‘Why are you helping me?’

Swift thoughts come and go on Moth’s face. She almost smiles.

‘I know who you are,’ she says. Her face turns serious. ‘I know what your house-elder did. You shouldn’t be here.’

‘But I carry the dream-plague,’ I say.

‘You and I both know that is not true,’ Moth says. ‘Go and find the one you came to find.’

‘How do you know that is why I came?’

Moth’s eyes flicker.

‘I heard you talking about her in the laundry room,’ she says. ‘You said her name. She’s not here. Go.’