Ashes of Twilight (5 page)

As he speaks I study the blackened skin. Could it be someone I know? Did someone take Alex’s words to heart and attempt to leave without thinking it through? Our community is small and at some time in my life I have come into contact with every shiner. Some I know better than others. Some are friends, some are relations, most are of a like mind and spirit. I slowly move, making my way closer to where the body lies. It occurs to me that I am praying, my mouth moving over the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer without giving thought to their meaning.

He moves. Bile rises once more in my throat. How could he move? Surely he is dead. No one could survive burns such as these. I must be mistaken, so I move closer. Once again I see something, a jerk of what is left of a finger, a tightening around the slash that is his mouth, a flutter around the eyes. I look at the official and search for affirmation of the runner’s death, but his words are lost to me in the nausea that clenches my gut. Everyone around me stares upward, all too shocked and sickened to look down.

As I come as close to the body as I dare, I kneel down, my eyes searching for something familiar as I realize that my prayer is that I will not recognize him. It is a moot prayer at best. If he is a shiner, then I know him. I push my goggles up on my forehead so I can see clearly.

“Alex?” I whisper the name as realization comes to me like a heavy blow.
Not Alex …
I am shocked to see his head turn, painfully and slowly, as if I’m dreaming the moment instead of living it. Alex’s eyes open and the whites are bright red, scorched by the fire. A tear slides forth and disappears, turned into steam by the burning heat of his charred skin. His mouth, nothing more than a deep slash in his skull, trembles as he gathers his words. He stares at me for a moment, and I see in his eyes that he knows me.

“Wren…” My name is nothing more than a hoarse croak. “The … sky … is blue.” A deep sigh rattles his throat and mercifully, he dies.

The sky is blue …
I look up. The official is still talking, the people are still listening. Tears stream down some of the faces. Children cling to their parents with their faces buried in the skirts of their mothers. I look beyond the official and the squad of bluecoats around him, to the ceiling of our world, far above. From here the dome is a chalky gray, bland and without definition, all of it lost in the thick air that hovers around the rooftops.

Blue …

Slowly I rise. My stomach heaves and I fight back the urge to puke. I need to make my escape while everyone is distracted. My back clenches as if a weapon is aimed in my direction. I cannot help but turn. If I am attacked, I want to face it. Quickly I scan the crowd. My eyes are full of tears and I have to blink them away before I find a bluecoat staring at me.

I quickly realize that he is not truly a bluecoat. The double row of brass buttons down the front of his uniform is missing. Instead he wears the red band on his arm, the one that identifies him as a cadet. He is in training and already he has reached the pinnacle of success. He is part of the squad that caught a runner. He stares at me with an intensity that burns my skin, but there is no pain; it’s not even close to what Alex must have suffered.

Oh God, how he must have suffered.

The cadet’s blue eyes widen in surprise. Without my goggles he can see the shine in my eyes. I cannot help but wonder, as I return his gaze, as I wipe away the unbidden tears that stream down my face, what color blue Alex meant when he spoke of the sky. I realize now that there are many different shades of it, and the eyes of the cadet are the bluest I’ve ever seen.

His eyes do not waver as he touches the arm of the officer standing next to him. The bluecoat nods and I know that I am presumed guilty, as always, by association.

So I run.

*   *   *

The city was built long before the dome was conceived. There is no rhyme or reason to the streets; they are just there, spinning away from the promenade as if made by a drunken spider. I am certain they were a cause of frustration to the engineers who designed our world, for they sought to form order in what was sure to be chaos. I consider them to be a blessing as I run because the bluecoats cannot maintain a line of sight on me long enough to conceive of a plan to capture me. I run and they chase. If the luck for either of us changes they will catch me. I know one day my luck will run out. As always I pray that today is not the day.

The streets closest to the promenade are filled with vendors’ carts. They scream obscene threats at me as I dart in and out, using them and their wares as a distraction. Most have brightly colored banners attached to their carts, featuring their specialties. The banners flap wildly in the heavy breeze created by the fans. They shield me.

The bluecoats are not as kind as I am. They shove people and their storefronts aside, tipping the carts and scattering the treasures onto the bricks to be scooped up by the tiny beggars who are always present and always searching for any morsel that will keep them alive. I barely hear the shouts behind me as I run for the fan that is suspended between two buildings. The fan symbolizes a gateway between my world and the royals’. It is an unmarked boundary that keeps the royals’ air cool and clear while leaving the air on the opposite side hot and sticky.

When I pass beneath it I am secure in the knowledge that the people who are tucked in the nooks and crannies of the alleyways will help me. It is not because they care for the shiners. It is because they hate the bluecoats who constantly harass them for the petty crimes they must commit to survive. When our world was made, there were no allowances given for those who managed to hide within before the dome was closed. Some went to the mines, a few managed to find work with the royals. Their descendants, called scarabs, were left to live on the edge of our society and survive the best way they can. Most of the filchers come from this part of our world, as do the beggar children. Their homes are made of bits of wood and canvas and furnished with castaway things saved from the fires. They cheer me on by beating on their pots and screaming taunts at the bluecoats.

I dare not look behind me. I know someone is close, so close I can feel him. I run, even though it is hard to breathe. My lungs labor and I hear the harsh sounds in my throat as I force my body onward. If a filcher steps in my path I am done for, as they will surely ransom me to the bluecoats. My only hope is to reach one of the secret entrances we have made to the tunnels below. I know where each and every one of them is located.

My escape is just ahead. A dilapidated building, used to store broken machinery, is in my sight. The windows are covered with bars but I know of one, in a narrow alleyway, that is loose. All I have to do is make the corner and pray that a scarab will cover my escape. I turn the corner, run to the end of the alley, and jump into the window well. The bar is stubborn and hard to move, but it won’t take much to let me slip through the broken window. I pull with all my strength but I am winded from my run and my lungs scream their protest. I need time to gather myself, to put my body to the task at hand, but there is none.

A yell diverts my attention and I look up the alley. The young cadet has turned the corner. His blue eyes light on me with recognition mixed with something else. Something I do not recognize.

Desperation spurs me on. I cannot help but groan as I pry the bar open enough to slip through. Haste causes me to fall through the window and I land on my back on the stone floor. I can’t breathe. The impact leaves me dazed as all the air is driven from my lungs. I imagine my lungs collapsed upon themselves, flattened, without a passage left for air to return. A shadow darkens my vision and I realize the cadet is in the well and searching the bars to find the weakened one. I don’t think he can move it enough to slip through as he is bigger than me. I barely made it myself.

Finally and most gratefully, I am able to suck air into my lungs and I back away, scrambling like one of the blind crabs we hunt in the tide pools of the underground river.

“Stop!” His hands are wrapped around the bars as he peers through, trying to see me in the dim light. “You must stop.”

I shouldn’t answer. I want to laugh because he thinks I will obey, just because he is one of the bluecoats. I should just go on without a word and make my escape, but Alex’s last words stop me. I have to know what it was he saw, in those last few moments before he burned.

“Were you there?” I stand and move back into the shadows so he cannot see my face. I wipe the tears from my eyes again. How can I still be crying? “When he got out?”

“You knew him?”

I back up another step. He is nothing but an outline, a shadow without features, yet I know his eyes are on me, just as I knew they were when we were above, when Alex died.

“He was my friend.” My voice rattles. I choke on my tears and the agony of what I saw.

“If he was your friend, then you should have told him to stay inside. It isn’t safe out there. Everyone knows it, yet you continually try to break out, only to die a horrible death.”

“Were you there?” I ask again. “Did you see it?”

“No,” he admits. “I didn’t see it. Not until after.”

“After he was burned?”

I hear shouts and the sound of footsteps. He is trying to delay me but I know it will take time for the bluecoats to get inside the building. The doors are barred and chained. Still, I take another step back, closer to the tunnel entrance. The bluecoats will not follow me down—to do so is certain death. Mysterious and unexplainable things happen to those who venture into the tunnels without an invitation.

Another question pops into my mind. One that needs more thought and explanation—both of which I know I will not receive from this boy. I don’t know why it bothers me so much that he was not there for Alex’s capture, except that I need some sort of validation for Alex’s last words.

“He said the sky was blue.” My foot touches the crate that hides the tunnel entrance. “How can it be, if the world out there is full of fire?”

I feel his pause as I dart behind the crate. I know this access will be shut off from below once I am through. I should go now before another bluecoat comes with tools to open the bars, but I don’t. I hide in the darkness and wait for his response.

“Things are not always what they seem.” His answer is slow to come and hard for me to understand.

I do not answer him. I stare into the shadow of his face in an attempt to find the meaning of his words. His hand moves between the bars and stretches out toward me, as if he wants to touch me. A shiver runs down my spine and for some strange reason I take a step forward.

Things are not always what they seem …
I turn away. I push the lever that moves the crate aside and without a backward glance I descend into the darkness. The crate moves back into place with a solid thunk and my eyes adjust to the darkness.

I am home.

4

“Wren!”
My grandfather hurries to me with his eyes shining in the darkness. “I should have known you’d be in the thick of it.” He grabs my arm and holds me against the tunnel wall. Three shiners pass us with their arms full of tools and odds and ends of wood on their way to seal up the hatch I just came through in the hope that it will discourage the bluecoats from following. Other shiners will guard the place for several days in case anyone is foolish enough to try.

“When are you going to learn, Wren? There’s no place for you up there.” My grandfather lectures me as we walk through the tunnel, his words a steady mantra I’ve heard a thousand times before. My grandfather’s words are like smoke. They surround me and then drift away. They are the same words that he regrets not sharing with my mother when she went above. He hopes that by keeping me below he might save me in a way that he could not save her. It is a never-ending battle between us. Like my mother, I cannot stay constant in the world beneath the streets. I am forever reaching for the sky beyond the dome.

“The sky is blue.” I blurt it out without thought to the consequences. They were Alex’s last words. I have to share them. They are too important and his death would be for naught without them.

My grandfather stops. He takes my upper arms into his hands and turns me to face him. His skin is pale as chalk and the lines of his face are full of dirt and coal dust. “What did you say?”

“The sky is blue.”

His eyes widen with shock. His grip on my arms tightens and I am afraid that he might shake me. He leans in with a need to read my meaning written plainly on his face. His eyes, the same color brown with the same exact shine as mine, search my face. “Where did you hear that?”

I close my eyes in hope that it will erase the memory of what I’d seen from my mind. It doesn’t. Tears well up again, or perhaps it’s just that they haven’t stopped. I swallow to keep the contents of my stomach in place. The last thing I want to do is be sick in the tunnels. “From Alex.” It is difficult to form the words. “He’s dead.”

“You saw it?”

“I saw him die.”

A change comes over his face. Where before there had been worry for me, now there is something else. Something I cannot identify. He looks at me as if I am different and he’s not quite sure what to make of me. “You’ll have to tell it.”

I am different. “I will.” No, not different. Changed. As if the fire that burned Alex touched me too. Only I was lucky. I came through it unscathed. Didn’t I?

I follow my grandfather down the tunnel.

*   *   *

As we approach the entrance to the cavern that holds our village I realize the news of Alex’s death arrived before me, passing from one shiner to the next, traveling faster than our passage through the tunnels. All eyes are upon me as we walk through the portal that leads to the village. Alex’s mother stands at the bottom of the long ledge that leads downward, with his father close behind. Her hands twist in her apron as she stares up at me. I see hope and heartbreak intertwine across her face. Alex’s father does not look up, instead he keeps his eyes downward, upon the ground, and I wonder if he’s thinking Alex should be there, below us, working to bring out the coal. It’s where he would be if he had not decided to make a break for the outside. No, he’d be asleep, as I should be, but no one is sleeping now. They are all waiting to hear the news from me.