Freakling (14 page)

“Not one person has crossed the mountains in all those years?” Taemon asked.

“So far’s I know. And no one has a mind to cross the ocean. We don’t have the resources to build such a ship, and I don’t know that the psi folk have the desire. Remember that Nathan was on the receiving end of a whole arsenal of persecution, and nobody wants to relive that.”

Geography wasn’t something that was taught in the city; it wasn’t safe to travel much beyond the city walls, and everything they could ever need was close at hand, so Taemon had never really given much thought to what lay beyond the Republik. But suddenly he found himself curious. “Are there other countries, other republiks, out there?”

Drigg shrugged. “No way to know.”

Taemon fiddled with a gear. “So anything could be out there. Doesn’t that bother you, not knowing?” Taemon asked.

“Not a lick. If it runs, don’t fix it — that’s the tinker’s creed. Now hand me that chain right there. And be careful!”

Taemon hurried toward Amma’s house, dodging the first few drops of a rain shower. He’d promised to help Amma and Vangie with a puppet show for the schoolchildren, and Drigg had agreed to give him the day off. They’d been working on the byrider for a week now and making slow progress.

Outside Amma’s place, Taemon saw her and Vangie struggling with a large box. He ran to help, taking the porch steps two at a time.

“Let me,” he said, reaching for the box.

“No, I’ve got this,” Amma said. “You go inside and get the other one. It’s bigger.”

Taemon stepped through the open door. Inside, the room was homey and warm. A fireplace on one side, handmade braided rugs on the wooden floors, and furniture that looked well worn. But there was stuff everywhere. Potted plants in homemade ceramics. Children’s toys. An abandoned art project, complete with colored pencils scattered around it. Two, no three, musical instruments. And books. Several of them lying here and there, some stacked, some still open. Even one book on the floor, for Skies’ sake. Taemon had only laid eyes on a half dozen books in his lifetime. In the city, books were kept locked up in the guilds. Only a person studying for a specific profession could look at them. Even then, tradesmen were only allowed to see the books the guild leaders deemed necessary.

Taemon couldn’t help picking up the book on the floor. Right on the cover was a picture of the inside of a human body with each part labeled. Heart! So that’s what it looked like. Lungs! Those were the breathing sacs he’d figured out in the sea cave. Esophagus! Did every home in the colony have books like this?

A feeling of guilt filled his chest. Only healers should see these things. He placed the book facedown on the table. Quickly he found the box Amma needed, grabbed it, and rejoined the girls.

“Great. Thanks,” Amma said. The three of them headed toward the school to set up the puppet show.

“Want to hear some juicy city gossip?” Vangie said. “You won’t believe it. I didn’t believe it. But my cousin swears it’s true.”

“What?” Taemon said.

“The high priest is going to start trading with the Republikites. They’re going to send the True Son to meet with them,” she said in a rush. “Imagine! Trading with the Republik. I wonder what they wear. What exotic foods they eat. It’s so exciting!”

“Hold on,” Taemon said. “When is this supposed to happen?”

“Soon,” said Vangie. “They’re preparing things now.”

Could it be true? Was Elder Naseph sending Yens into the Repbulik?

Amma stopped. “Wait! Vangie, did we get the jungle backdrop?”

Vangie frowned. “Didn’t you roll it up? I thought it was in the box.”

“No, it wouldn’t fit.” Amma sighed and set down her box. “We’ll have to go back and get it.”

Taemon glanced back at the house. “I’ll go get it. Can I use the back door? That’d be a lot closer.”

“There is no back door,” Amma said.

“Yes there is. I saw it.”

“Oh, that.” Amma waved her hand like she was shooing a fly. “It hasn’t opened since before I was born.”

“Is it locked?” Taemon asked.

“No, just broken.” She frowned at him. “This isn’t the city. We don’t lock things up around here.” She looked at Vangie. “Can you carry this the rest of the way? It’s probably easiest if I go grab the backdrop.”

“Sure,” Vangie said, taking sole hold of the box she’d been carrying with Amma. Just then, the rain started picking up. Taemon and Vangie quickened their pace.

By the time they found the stage and started pulling puppets out of the boxes, Amma arrived. “Vangie, can you get this jungle backdrop up right away? Taemon, help me move this table to the center,” Amma said. “We’re on first.”

Taemon picked up his end of the table. Together they shuffled toward the center of the stage, just behind the main curtain. “Maybe I could take a look at that door sometime,” Taemon said, watching Vangie hook the backdrop in place. “I bet I could fix it.”

“That’s okay,” Amma said. “We never use it, so it doesn’t matter that it’s broken.”

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Amma dropped her end of the table with a loud thump. “Would you forget about the door already?” She blew her hair out of her face. “Come on, we’ve got to finish setting up.”

Taemon and Vangie exchanged a look. “Sorry,” he muttered. Taemon tried not to think about the door. He had other things to worry about, like why the high priest would send Yens to trade with the Republik.

They arranged the puppets under the table and then checked the backdrop one last time. On the other side of the curtain, the announcer called for quiet. The program was about to begin. More quickly than Taemon expected, the room quieted down.

The curtain parted.

“We’re on,” whispered Amma.

The puppet show was an animal version of a story told in the scriptures. A jaguar gets caught in a trap, and none of the other animals want to help him. Amma was the narrator while Taemon and Vangie did the animals’ voices. He’d had great fun with the animal voices during their practices, but now he couldn’t concentrate. Why would Elder Naseph all of a sudden decide that trading with the outside world was a good idea? What did he expect Yens to bring back? Amma nudged him. “The jaguar,” she whispered.

“Brother Turtle, surely you can help me,” Taemon said in a gruff voice.

“Did I hear something?” Vangie made the turtle’s voice deep and lilting. “Must have been the wind.”

Why would the high priest suddenly decide to trade with the Republik? What did he want that he didn’t already have?

“Sister Serpent, please help me,” Taemon made the jaguar say.

Vangie hissed. “What can I do? I don’t even have armsss.”

Da wouldn’t take kindly to making contact with the Republik. He’d have something to say about that. Had he spoken out? Was that why he and Mam hadn’t been at Yens’s ceremony?

Another nudge from Amma. “Brother Mouse, please help me,” Taemon said for the jaguar.

Suppose his da and mam
had
disappeared. What did that even mean? Where had they gone? Were they all right? If only there were some way he could know what was happening. “Flame it all!”

Skies! Had he said that out loud? Loud enough for people to hear? It was a mild curse, but definitely not within the range of appropriate. Not for a kids’ puppet show. And a religious one at that.

The audience roared with laughter.

Taemon felt his face redden. He was supposed to do the mouse voice, too. What was the mouse supposed to say? He couldn’t think what came next.

Amma glared at Taemon.

For all the Great Green Earth, he couldn’t remember anything they’d practiced. He’d have to make something up. He turned the mouse puppet to face the audience.

“What do you think I should do, boys and girls?” Taemon asked in his squeaky mouse voice. “Should I help Brother Jaguar?”

The kids clapped and yelled in the affirmative.

“I don’t know,” Taemon made the mouse say. “He has awfully sharp teeth. You really think I should help him?”

“Yes!” the kids yelled.

“Are you sure? Have you seen the size of his claws?”

“Yes!” Each response increased in volume.

Amma wasn’t glaring anymore — she even laughed. Going along with Taemon’s improvisation, she made up silly lines for the narrator. By the time they finished, even the teachers were chuckling. The show ended to thunderous applause.

When the curtain closed, Vangie took down the backdrop while Taemon helped Amma move the table to the back of the stage, behind the last row of black curtains. He could still hear the clapping. He looked at her face, shadowed and gray, and she had that familiar look about her again. As if he had known her from a long time ago.

That was impossible. She had never lived in the city. He shook the thought from his head.

They set the table down. Taemon started gathering puppets.

“You were wonderful!” Amma said, beaming. “We do that puppet show every year, but it’s never been that much fun. Come on, it’s time for our bow.”

She reached out and took his hand. He dropped the puppets. She was holding his hand. With her hand. No one had ever done that to him before. It was the strangest, most fascinating feeling, warm and comforting and tingly all at once. Then she led him toward the front of the stage, where Vangie was. The three of them stood in front of the curtain now while everyone clapped.

Before Taemon even knew what was happening, Vangie took his other hand. Skies, he was standing in front of an audience holding hands with two girls. They bowed. That is, Vangie and Amma bowed as Taemon stood there, paralyzed. The audience was smiling and clapping, the two girls were beaming and bowing, and Taemon had to remind himself to take another breath.

The rain had stopped. On the way back to Amma’s house with the boxes, the mood was light and sunny.

“You know what I think?” Vangie said when they got to the porch. They set the boxes down and sat on the steps. “I think we need to plan our next frivolics.”

“Yes!” Amma said. “What should we do this time?”

“I picked the last one,” Vangie said. “It’s your turn.”

“Okay, I can come up with something.” Amma smiled. “Are you in, Taemon?”

“I’m in,” he answered. “Just don’t make me memorize any lines. And no more trips to the city.”

They chatted on the steps until it was time for Taemon to go home. Vangie was spending the night at Amma’s house, so the two girls went inside. When he left, Taemon paused on the side of the house and stared at the door that didn’t open. He bet he could borrow the tools from Drigg to fix it. Colony doors were pretty simple things. How broken could it really be?

He studied the door, wondering if it was the doorknob that was broken. There were all sorts of doorknobs in the colony, from smooth round things to simple hooks and latches to more complicated contraptions, but they were all rather simple from a mechanical point of view. In the city, on the other hand, all psi doors had the same latch. If you wanted anybody to be able to open a door, you had to have the standard door latch. Everyone knew what this latch looked like and could envision it well enough to lift the lever and open the door. In school, one of the first things they taught you was how to open doors. The teacher had a model door latch — without the door around it — and the kids had to study until they could open it with psi. Very simple. As long as you had psi.

If it wasn’t the doorknob that was busted, though, what else could it be? Were the hinges rusted? The door
was
exposed to the elements.

As he stood there wondering what was wrong with the door, Taemon felt his mind itching to wander into that door and figure it out. He hadn’t tried mind wandering in a long time — not since the sea cave. But almost without realizing it, his body relaxed and his mind traveled out toward the door.

And saw inside it.

Saw that the doorknob was a fake.

Saw inside the wood, which concealed a layer of thick steel.

Saw what was really keeping the door closed.

Deep inside the heart of the door was a psi lock — the most complicated psi lock he’d ever seen. If he studied it long enough, he might be able to open it. Automatically, he reached out with psi to move one of the lock’s pins.

Be it so!

But nothing happened. He almost laughed at himself. What had he expected? That just because he could still do the mind-wandering thing he’d be able to use psi, too?

Besides, it was better this way, Taemon told himself. Without psi, mind wandering was pretty harmless. Useless, even. But still weird.

Weirder yet — what was an old psi door doing in a powerless colony?

One month had passed since Taemon became Drigg’s apprentice, and the byrider’s engine was still in pieces. They’d fixed the body — that had been easy. Getting the corn-fueled engine to work was a different story. It seemed that every time he and the tinker got one part of the engine to work, a different part didn’t work anymore. Taemon had lost track of how many times he had delivered and retrieved parts from the smithy’s shop. And today he was headed there again.

The weather had warmed up, and even though the air felt a little nippy, people were happy to be outdoors.