Madding’s face was solemn as he nodded, accepting my decision. I liked that he did not smile. I think he knew what the decision cost me.
Instead, after a moment, he sighed and glanced at Kitr, who had carefully paid more attention to the street than to us for the past few minutes.
“I’m calling everyone in,” he said. “I don’t like this. No mere scrivener should be able to hide from us.” He glanced back, in the direction of the splashes of blood. “And I can’t sense Father anywhere. I especially don’t like that.”
“Nor can I,” said Kitr. “There are some of us with the power to hide him, but why would they? Unless…” She glanced at me, assessing and dismissing in a single sweep of her eyes. “You think this has something to do with Role? Your mortal there did find the body, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“Wait. There’s something…” This came from the other side of the street. I followed the voice and saw the sigil-etched outline of Madding’s scrivener. She stood looking up at the buildings nearby, holding a sheet of paper in her hands. A series of individual sigils had been drawn at the corners, with three rows of godwords in the middle. As I watched, one of the godwords and a sigil in the upper right corner began to glow more brightly. The scrivener, who apparently knew what this meant, gasped and took several steps back. I could not see her face, for she had no godwords written there, but terror filled her voice. “Oh, gods, I knew it! Look out! All of you, look—”
And suddenly hells filled the street.
No, not hells. Holes.
With a sound like tearing paper, they opened all around us, perfect circles of darkness. Some lay along the ground, some on the walls; some must’ve hung unsupported in midair. One of them opened right beneath the scrivener’s feet, practically the instant the last word left her lips. She didn’t have time to cry out before she fell into it and vanished. Another caught Kitr, who had turned to run to Madding’s side. It opened before her between one step and another, and she was gone. The racing dog cursed in Mekatish and darted around the first hole that opened at his feet, but then another opened above him. I saw his short fur stand on end, pulled upward, and then with a yelp he was sucked in as well.
Before I could react, Madding suddenly shoved me away from him, into the doorway of the house. Stumbling over the doorway’s raised step, I turned back, opening my mouth to speak—then saw the hole opening at his back. I felt the pull, its force powerful enough to jerk me forward a step even after I stopped.
No! I caught the door’s elaborate handle in one hand to brace myself and used that leverage to raise my walking stick, hoping Madding would be able to grab it. Madding, his eyes wide and teeth bared, strained toward me. The sound of jangling chimes was barely audible, sucked away by the hole.
He mouthed something I couldn’t hear. He ground his teeth, and I heard him in my head this time, in the manner of gods. GET INSIDE!
Then he flew backward, as if a great invisible hand had grabbed him around the waist and yanked. The hole vanished. He was gone.
I fumbled with the door handle, my breath wild and loud in my ears, my palms so sweaty that the stick slipped loose to clatter on the ground. I could hear no one else on the street; I was alone. Except for the remaining holes, which hovered all around me, darker than the black of my sight.
Then I got the door open and ran into the house, away from the holes, toward the clean, empty darkness where I was blind but where at least I knew what dangers I faced.
I got three steps into the house before the air tore behind me, and I flew backward off my feet, and a sound like trembling metal filled the world as I tumbled away.
“Girl in Darkness” (watercolor)
MY DREAMS HAVE BEEN more vivid lately. They told me that might happen, but still… I remembered something.
In the dream, I paint a picture. But as I lose myself in the colors of the sky and the mountains and the mushrooms that dwarf the mountains—this is a living world, full of strange flora and fungi; I can almost smell the fumes of its alien air—the door to my room opens and my mother comes in.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
And though I am still half lost in mountains and mushrooms, I have no choice but to pull myself back into this world, where I am just a sheltered blind girl whose mother wants what’s best for me, even if she and I do not agree on what that is.
“Painting,” I say, though this is obvious. My belly has clenched in defensive tension; I fear a lecture is coming.