Scarecrow

Okafor didn’t call the map room.

She stood in the door of it, at dawn, with Dot stooping behind her and the heavy young’s words still in the air, and looked at the big map on the wall for a long time. At all of Avalon. At the rails going out like spokes. At Garnet’s small map on the table, with three circles crossed out.

Then she turned round.

”Dask,” she said. ”Get the Scarecrow ready. Marlo and every light-bender who isn’t asleep. The Drenn queen, if she’d like to come.” She looked at me. ”We’re not going to do anything. We’re going to look.”

”And if they hurt her?”

Okafor didn’t answer at once.

”Then we’ll be there,” she said.

The heavy young sent word again at noon.

Through the iron of the Ground. Through the hello. Through Dot. Very slow. It had never done it before the night before, and it was learning, Dot said, the way the iron had learned to be a ship. A word at a time.

Three. From home. Not Hands. A ship. Grey. Smooth. No fingers. Like a seed.

A long pause.

They have faces.

Another.

They are standing at the top of the world. Round my mother. Round my brother. Looking.

”Brother,” said Okafor. Very quietly. In the map room. ”It said brother.”

”The keeper,” I said. ”The one grown in. It’s the heavy queen’s. The first. So it’s—”

”I know who it is,” said Okafor. ”I’m saying it said brother. It’s never said that. It’s never said anything.” She looked at Dot. ”Have they done anything?”

”Looked,” said Dot. For the heavy young. ”Only looked. They do not understand. The benches are empty. The keeper is humming. The queen is resting her head on it.” A pause. ”They have asked the keeper what happened. It did not answer. It hums.”

”And the queen?”

”They have not asked her,” said Dot. ”Yet.”

We left at dusk.

Not the whole fleet. The Scarecrow. Light. Fast. Marlo and eleven light-benders, every one he could find awake, with their hands already on the hull before we left the ground. Juno with the seed. Safi flying. Aster. The Drenn queen in her room, door open, arms folded.

And Hana.

Okafor had looked at her for a long time in the map room, and then at me, and then written it on the slate without saying anything. Osei. Air. Because the ring was a long way from anything. Because the small grey world under it had no sky, only grey, and if we had to go out onto it, someone would need to make sure there was something to breathe.

Luna came too. Operations. She said Okafor could do without her for one night and Okafor said she’d manage, and Luna said you won’t and Okafor didn’t argue.

The crossing took an hour.

The Drenn queen sang toward the Ground. Toward the iron that knew its name. And the iron answered at once, the way it always did now, slow and heavy and very glad. And under it, very faint, a hum. The keeper. Humming. The way it had hummed since its mother rested her head on it.

It wasn’t heavy at all.

Halfway through, Luna sat down on the deck beside Hana.

They were by the forward window. Hana had her hands in her lap. She’d been very quiet since the map room. She always was before a crossing. She said she liked to feel the air in the ship before she had to do anything with it.

Luna looked at her for a while.

”Can I ask you something?” she said.

”Yes.”

”On the ice,” said Luna. ”When the young came up through the holes. You held air round them. Every one. Hundreds.” She was looking at Hana’s hands. ”Cold air. Thin air. You held it there so they could breathe it.” A pause. ”That wasn’t water.”

Hana didn’t say anything.

”And under the ring,” said Luna. ”In the halls. You moved the air. A wind. Through every hall. That smelled of bread.” She turned her head and looked at Hana properly. ”And on the Ground. When the children came up the ramp and some of them couldn’t breathe because they’d been breathing through grey for years. You stood beside them and they could.” She was quiet. ”Since when can you give people air, Hana?”

Hana looked down at her hands for a long time.

”I don’t know exactly,” she said. ”Since the twins. Somewhere after.” She turned her ring. The iron one, with her own thread of water through it. ”I thought it was water. All my life. Papa turns rivers. I lifted the sea over the wall on the coral world. I brought the lake up through the green. I made the coral pool. I thought that’s what I was. Water.”

”And it isn’t?”

”It is,” said Hana. ”But it’s not only.” She held up one hand. Palm up. Between them. ”Watch.”

Nothing happened.

Then, very slowly, just above her palm, a drop of water.

Not from anywhere. Not from the air the way Efua filled cups, pulling the damp out of it. From nothing. It formed in the air above her hand, very small, very clear, and hung there.

”That’s water,” said Hana. ”Two of one thing and one of another. Very small. Smaller than anything. Genny showed me, in one of her chemistry books. Hydrogen. And oxygen.” She looked at the drop. ”I used to think I was asking water to come to me. I wasn’t. I was asking the little things that make it to come together.”

She moved one finger.

And the drop came apart.

Not dried. Not evaporated. Came apart. There was a very faint sound, like a breath, and a tiny flicker in the air where it had been, and it was gone.

”And now I can ask them to come apart,” said Hana. ”Or not come together at all. Or just one of them.” She held her palm out again. ”Breathe in.”

Luna breathed in.

And stopped. And looked at Hana. And breathed in again.

”That’s—”

”Oxygen,” said Hana. ”More of it. Just round you. Just for a moment.” She closed her hand. ”That’s what I did on the ice. And in the halls. And on the ramp. They couldn’t breathe because there wasn’t enough of the right thing in the air they were breathing. So I put more of it there.” She looked at her hands. ”I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. Not at first. I just knew they needed to breathe, and I asked, and it came.”

Luna was very quiet.

”Since the twins,” she said.

”Since the twins,” said Hana. ”Edda says it happens. Sometimes. With the women who were finished. After the first child. Like the silver gets told there’s more room. Like it grows into the space.” She smiled, a little. ”Ruth says it’s in her white book. Under What we don’t know yet.”

”Does Lucas know?”

”Lucas,” said Hana, ”was on the ice folding towers. And under the ring. And at the halls.” She looked at me, across the deck, where I’d been listening and pretending not to. ”He sees inside everything. Except his own house.”

Luna laughed. Very quietly. Into her sleeve.

”What else can you do?” she said.

Hana thought about it.

”I don’t know yet,” she said. ”I’m finding out. A little at a time.” She looked at her hand. ”I made a lamp burn twice as bright last week. Just by giving it more air. Sera nearly fell over.” She was quiet. ”And I can take it away. The air. From somewhere. Just a little. So a fire goes out.” She closed her hand very slowly. ”I haven’t tried that on anything that breathes. I don’t want to.”

”No,” said Luna. Very quietly. ”Don’t.”

We came out of the page under the ring.

Black sky. Stars like dust. The ring across it like a blade. Two suns, low, blue and red. And under them, the small grey world. With its cracks still open, all over it, from where the grey had been leaned on. With its halls still empty.

And at the top, where the ridges met, the keeper.

Humming.

And the heavy queen with her head on it. And beside her, on the ridge, the Ground, with her ramp down and her name in gold on her side.

And beside the Ground, something else.

A ship.

Grey. Smooth. Very long. No fingers. No palm. No fins. Like a seed. Like the pale seed on Juno’s chain, but grown huge, and polished until it shone. It lay on the ridge at the top of the small grey world beside the Ground and it didn’t look like anything the Sorn had ever built that I’d seen. It didn’t look like a cage.

It looked like something that had never needed to be one.

”Marlo,” said Luna. Very quietly.

”We’re not here,” said Marlo. ”We’re not here. We’re not here.” His hands were flat on the hull. So were eleven other pairs. ”Anyone looking at us sees the stars behind us. And if they look very hard, they see the stars behind the stars.”

The three keepers were at the top of the world.

Round the heavy queen. Round the keeper. Standing.

I looked at them.

Tall. Taller than the Overseer. Taller than the keeper in the box on the north shelf, the one I’d unfolded just enough to have a face. They had faces. All three. Long grey faces with pale eyes, two each. Not many, like the one grown into the world. Two. The way the keeper in the box had two.

And under the grey, all the way through, silver.

Born whole.

The way the keeper in the box had told us. Most of what’s at the top of us was once a child like yours. They’d been children once. On some bench. In some hall. Under some ring. Taught. And grown up. And sent home. To the place where the keepers come from. Where the voices like this one come from.

And now they’d come back to see why the benches were empty.

They were speaking.

Not to each other. To the keeper. The one grown into the world. All three of them, standing round it, pushing. The way the keeper had pushed into me. What are you. Not loud. Not hard. Just certain. The way something speaks that has never once in its life not been answered.

What happened here.

The keeper hummed.

Where are the taught.

The keeper hummed.

Report.

The keeper hummed.

”It won’t answer them,” said Luna. Very quietly. At the forward window.

”It’s not answering anything,” I said. ”It’s just humming. Since she rested her head on it. It hasn’t stopped.”

”Do they know what the humming is?”

I looked at the three keepers. At their long grey faces. At their pale eyes, looking at the enormous thing grown into the top of the world with all its eyes closed, humming.

”No,” I said. ”I don’t think they’ve ever heard anything hum.”

Then one of them turned.

Slowly. Its long grey face coming round. Away from the keeper. Down. To the small grey shape on the ridge beside it. With her head resting on the edge of the keeper’s grey.

The heavy queen.

You, said the keeper from home. What are you.

The heavy queen didn’t lift her head.

She didn’t move at all. She lay there on the ridge at the top of the small grey world, small and dense and grey, the shape of a stone that walks, with her head resting on her first young. And for a long time, nothing happened.

The keeper from home pushed.

I felt it. Even from the Scarecrow. Even hidden. The same push the keeper under the ring had pushed into me, the day it looked down. What are you. Into everything with silver in it. Into the heavy queen.

Nothing happened.

Then the heavy queen answered.

Very slowly. A word at a time. Every word a long time coming. Not pushed out of her. Not because she’d been told to. Because she’d been asked a question, and she was a queen, and queens answer questions when they want to.

I am its mother.

The keeper from home went very still.

All three of them did. Standing at the top of the world, round the keeper and the heavy queen, very still, with their long grey faces turned down toward her.

It has no mother, said the first one. Very flat. It is a keeper. Keepers are taught. They are not had.

It was had, said the heavy queen. On my world. Where everything is very heavy. The best of mine. Born whole. A long pause. You took it. A very long time ago. Before I was a pillar. I stood at the top of my world every night and listened this way. I never heard anything.

Another pause.

I hear it now.

The three keepers didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then the second one spoke. Not to the heavy queen. To the other two. I felt it. The way you feel two people talking in another room.

A queen. Not collared. Not held. Speaking.

Here, said the third. Where the taught were.

She has made it stop teaching.

She has made it hum.

A pause.

Take her, said the first.

I was moving before I’d decided.

Luna’s hand on my arm. Hard. Cold. ”Lucas. Wait.”

”They’re going to—”

”I know what they’re going to do.” Her voice was perfectly calm. Her father’s. ”Wait. Okafor said look. Not do. If you go out there, they’ll know we’re here. They’ll know what we are.” Her fingers tightened. ”Wait. One more minute.”

I waited.

It was the longest minute of my life.

The three keepers reached for the heavy queen.

Not with hands. With the push. The way the Hands held queens. The way the collars held young. They reached for her with the thing that holds, and closed round her, and lifted.

And nothing happened.

The heavy queen didn’t move.

She lay on the ridge with her head resting on her son, and the push closed round her, and pulled. And pulled harder. And the three keepers from home stood round her with their long grey faces very still, pulling.

And she didn’t move.

Not one hair’s width.

I have always been too heavy, said the heavy queen. Very slowly. Not to them. To nobody. I could not go to it. I was too heavy. I stood at the top of my world every night. I could not leave.

A long pause.

Now I am here. And I am still too heavy.

You cannot lift me either.

The keepers pulled harder.

I felt it. The whole of the small grey world felt it. The ridge groaned. The Ground, beside her, groaned in her iron. The cracks in the grey down the sides of the world, from where the dog had lain, creaked. Something was pulling at the top of the world with everything it had.

And the heavy queen lay there.

Very still. Very heavy. With her head resting on her son.

Not holding on. Not fighting.

Just there.

And then the keeper opened its eyes.

One.

Very slowly. At the top of the world. The one closest to its mother. A single pale eye, in the enormous grey, opening for the first time since she’d rested her head on it.

Then another.

Then all of them.

All round it. Every pale eye. Opening. Not looking down into the halls. Not looking out along the ninth line. Looking at the three keepers from home. Standing round its mother. Pulling.

And it stopped humming.

The three keepers from home stopped pulling.

They turned. All three. Toward the keeper. Toward all its open eyes.

Report, said the first. Very flat. Very certain. The way something speaks that has never once in its life not been answered.

The keeper looked at it.

For a very long time.

And then it spoke. Not to its mother. Not humming. Out loud. Down through the grey of the whole small world, into every empty hall, into every open crack, into everything with silver in it, into me, hidden at the forward window of the Scarecrow with Luna’s hand on my arm.

One word.

No.

Nobody moved.

Not the three keepers from home. Not the heavy queen. Not me. Not Luna. Not Hana, beside us, with her hands half raised and the air in the forward deck very still.

The keeper looked at the three keepers from home with all its pale eyes.

No, it said again. Slower. Heavier. The way its mother spoke. You will not take her.

The first keeper from home took a step back.

I saw it. A long grey shape at the top of the world, stepping back. From a keeper. From one of its own. From something that had been taught exactly what it had been taught, and taught others, for longer than humans had been standing up.

That had just said no.

That is not how it’s done, said the keeper from home. Very quietly.

The keeper at the top of the world looked at it for a long time.

I know, it said. I taught it.

A pause.

I would like to stop.

The three keepers from home went back to their ship.

Slowly. Not turning their backs. Watching the keeper at the top of the world with all its eyes open, and the heavy queen with her head on it, and the Ground beside them. They went back down the ridge to the long smooth grey ship like a seed, and up into it, and the ship closed round them without a seam.

It lifted.

Very fast. Faster than anything I’d ever seen leave anywhere. Up off the ridge. Away from the small grey world. Under the ring. And out. Along a line that went out past every star I could see, nearly off the edge of anything.

The ninth line.

Home.

”They’ll tell,” said Luna. Very quietly. Her hand still on my arm. ”Everything. What they saw.”

”Yes.”

”A queen they couldn’t lift,” said Luna. ”And a keeper that said no.” She took her hand off my arm. Slowly. ”They’ve never seen either of those, Lucas. Ever.” She looked out at the ring. At where the seed-ship had gone. ”They’re going to be very frightened.”

The heavy queen lifted her head.

Very slowly. Off her son. For the first time since she’d laid it there.

And looked up at him. At all his pale eyes, open.

You spoke, she said.

The keeper looked down at her for a long time.

Yes.

You have not spoken since they took you.

No.

A long pause.

You should go, said the keeper. Very slowly. Heavily. Like her. They will come back. With more. They will try again. And I cannot move. I am the top of this world. If I let go, it falls. Another pause. But you can.

I am too heavy.

Not for the iron ship, said the keeper. It knows your name. It will carry you.

The heavy queen didn’t answer for a very long time.

I would like to stay, she said.

I know, said the keeper. Go anyway.

She went.

Down the ridge. Very slowly. One step. Then a long time. Then another. Toward the Ground, with her ramp down, and her young waiting at the top of it. And she stopped at the bottom of the ramp and turned and looked back up at the top of the world.

At the keeper. With all its eyes open. Looking back at her.

I will come back, she said.

I know, said the keeper.

I will hear you, she said. From Avalon. Every night. I will listen this way.

A long pause.

Hum, she said. So I can.

And the keeper closed all its eyes.

And hummed.

The Ground lifted.

Very slowly. Heavy. With the heavy queen in her room in the middle and her young beside her and the door open. And the Scarecrow came out of nothing beside her, as Marlo let the light go, and the two ships turned together under the ring, and the Drenn queen sang toward home, and the heavy queen sang under her.

And under both of them, very faint, from the top of the small grey world behind us, the keeper. Humming. Steady. So its mother could hear it all the way home.

Okafor was at the foot of the ramp.

At dawn. On the red glass. With her slate. She’d been there all night. She watched the Ground come down, very slowly, and the heavy queen come out of her and stop at the bottom of the ramp and lie down on the red glass, flat, heavy, with her head turned back toward the sky.

Listening.

Okafor looked at her for a long time. Then at me.

”Tell me,” she said.

I told her. All of it. The seed-ship. The three keepers with faces. The pull. I have always been too heavy. The eyes opening. No.

I taught it. I would like to stop.

Okafor didn’t say anything for a very long time.

Then she took her stylus out. And on the back of Garnet’s map, beside 10 and Now, she wrote something very small. I read it upside down.

A keeper said no.

She looked at it.

”That’s going to change everything,” she said. Very quietly. ”For them. Not for us.” She put the map back in her breast pocket. ”We’ve always known they could stop. The Overseer stopped. Tally stopped. Reed. Fifty-eight thousand children stopped.” She looked up at the sky. ”They didn’t know. They thought keepers were the top. They thought nothing above the taught could ever say no.”

”And now?”

”Now three of them have flown home,” said Okafor, ”to tell the rest that one did.” She looked at the heavy queen, lying on the red glass with her head turned toward the sky, listening. ”And they’re going to start wondering which of them is next.”

The Overseer came down from the hollow at noon.

It didn’t go to the map room. It went to the plain. To where the heavy queen lay on the red glass beside the Ground, flat, with her head turned toward the sky. It stopped a little way off. With its bread. With the dog.

And stood there for a long time.

”It said no,” said the Overseer. Not to anyone. To the sky. ”The one at the top. The one that taught the ones who taught me.”

The heavy queen didn’t lift her head.

Yes, she said.

The Overseer looked down at the loaf in its long grey hand.

”I did not know it could,” it said. ”I did not know any of them could. I thought I was the only one who stopped.” Its thin dry voice went very quiet. ”Because of a girl. And bread.”

It stopped because of me, said the heavy queen. Because I rested my head on it. And did not move.

The Overseer was quiet for a long time.

Then it knelt down. On the red glass. Beside her. Very slowly. All its long limbs folding. And broke the loaf. And put half of it down on the glass, beside her head.

”For when it comes home,” it said. ”If it ever can.”

The heavy queen looked at the bread for a very long time.

It is the top of a world, she said. It cannot come home.

”I know,” said the Overseer. ”Neither could I. I was made to stand over a world.” It put its long grey hand on the dog’s head. ”I am still standing over one. I just do not tell it anything.”

Dot came to the plain at dusk.

She stopped beside the heavy queen. Very large, very quiet, all her hands folded. And she opened the small soft door in her side. Where the nine had been, a long time ago. Where the heavy queen reached down every morning, now, to touch.

”This unit would like to ask something,” she said.

Ask, said the heavy queen.

”This unit has carried your words to the Major every morning,” said Dot. ”And the young’s. Across the dark. Through this unit’s side.” Her grille dimmed. ”This unit has never heard what you hear. When you listen that way. Toward the ring.”

The heavy queen was quiet for a long time.

Would you like to?

”This unit would like to,” said Dot. ”Very much.”

The heavy queen reached out. Very slowly. Through the red glass. Into the soft door in Dot’s side.

And Dot went very still.

All her hands. Her grille. All of her. Still. The way she’d gone still at the foot of the steps of Scarecrow, every evening, at the end of the count, waiting for one more.

Then her grille went bright. Brighter than I’d ever seen it. Brighter than the night she counted me up the steps after the ring.

”This unit hears it,” she said. Very quietly. ”Humming. Very far. Very slow.” A pause. ”This unit has heard a world sing.” Another pause. ”Operator. This unit has heard a world sing.”

”I know, Dot.”

”It was not soon,” said Dot. ”But it was.”

Sera wanted to see.

That evening. At the forge. Father’s forge, the copy, where Odell had built the engine. She came in with Hana by the hand and Liam behind them and Genny behind him with a notebook, and stopped by the big furnace, which was banked low, glowing dull red.

”Luna told me,” said Sera. ”On the ice. And on the ship.” She let go of Hana’s hand. ”Show me. The lamp thing. With fire.”

Hana looked at the furnace.

”It’s very hot,” she said.

”I know,” said Sera. ”I’m a Calder.”

Hana put her hand out. Flat. Toward the open mouth of the furnace. And didn’t do anything I could see.

The fire changed.

Not bigger. Brighter. It went from dull red to orange to yellow to a hard pale white I’d only ever seen when Sera drove it past two thousand degrees for the kiln, a long time ago, the day Dot sealed the doors. Then past that. Blue. At the edges. A clean hard roar.

Sera stood very still.

”I’m not doing that,” she said.

”I know,” said Hana. ”I am.” She held her hand there. ”More of the right air. That’s all. Fire wants it. It always wants more than it’s got.” She closed her hand slowly. And the fire went back down. White. Yellow. Orange. Dull red. ”And less,” said Hana. Closing it further. And the fire in the furnace shrank, and shrank, and went out. Just like that. In a forge full of heat. Out.

Liam stared at the dead furnace.

”How,” he said.

”I took the air away from it,” said Hana. ”Just from the fire. Just from inside the furnace.” She opened her hand. And the coals, very slowly, began to glow again. ”It’s like putting your hand over a candle. But from far away.”

Liam looked at his own hands. At his forearms, faintly bright, the way they always were when he felt something and didn’t know what to do with it.

”I spent my whole life,” he said slowly, ”learning to put fire back. Into myself. Because I couldn’t stop it any other way.” He looked at Hana. ”And you just—take its air.”

”Yes.”

Liam was quiet for a long time.

”Could you teach me?” he said. ”Not to do it. I can’t do it. To—” He stopped. ”To know where it is. The air. Inside the fire. So I know what I’m putting back.”

Hana looked at him. Then at Sera. Then at Genny, at the back, writing everything down.

”I don’t know,” she said. ”Genny?”

Genny looked up from her notebook.

”It’s chemistry,” she said. ”Fire needs three things. Heat, fuel, and air. Calders do heat. Hana does air.” She turned a page. ”If you knew where the air was, you’d know where the fire was going before it went there.” She looked at Liam. ”You’d be able to put it back before it got out. Not after.”

Liam didn’t say anything for a long time.

”Every night,” he said at last. ”After supper. Here. If you’ll show me.”

”Every night,” said Hana.

Genny wrote it down. Then, underneath, in very small letters, she wrote something else. I read it upside down.

For Ruth’s white book. What we don’t know yet: how many of the finished grow after their first child. And into what.

Hana found me on the porch that night.

She sat down in the other chair. With Kwame asleep on her chest. Efua was asleep inside, with every cup in the kitchen full of water because she’d been happy before bed.

”Luna told you,” she said.

”I heard. On the ship. I was pretending not to listen.”

”I know you were,” said Hana. ”You’re very bad at it.” She looked down at Kwame. ”Are you cross? That I didn’t tell you?”

”No.”

”I didn’t know how,” said Hana. ”It happened slowly. And then I was on the ice holding air for a hundred young coming up through holes, and I thought, oh, this is what it is.” She smiled a little. ”It’s strange. Finding out you’re something more than you thought. After your whole life of thinking you knew.”

I looked at her. At the iron ring on her hand, with her own thread of water through it.

”The keeper found out today,” I said. ”At the top of the world. After its whole life.”

Hana was quiet for a long time.

”What did it find out?” she said.

”That it could say no.”

Kwame stirred on her chest. He opened his eyes. He looked at me, very calmly, the way he looked at everything. As if he was counting.

Then he opened one small hand.

And the air on the porch, very faintly, for just a moment, smelled of rain.

Hana looked down at him.

”Oh,” she said. Very softly. ”Not you too.”

But she was smiling.

Kwame looked back at her, very calmly, and closed his hand again, and the smell of rain went away. As if he’d only wanted to see if he could. As if he’d been counting something, and now he had the answer, and could stop.

”Edda’s going to need another page,” I said.

”Edda’s going to need another book,” said Hana. She put her hand on his head. ”Efua fills cups. This one makes the air smell of rain. And they talk to each other in the dark all night and never tell anyone what they said.” She leaned her head back against the chair and shut her eyes. ”Your mother warned me.”

”She warned all of us.”

”She did,” said Hana. ”Nobody listened.”

Days 2676–2682. Too heavy.

Three keepers from home, in a smooth grey ship like a seed, stood at the top of the world round the heavy queen and her first young; the heavy young sent word that its brother hadn’t answered them. We went to look, not to do. On the crossing Luna asked Hana since when she could give people air. Hana: it isn’t water, it’s hydrogen and oxygen; it grew after the twins; she can put a drop together or take it apart, or put more of the right air round someone. She hasn’t tried taking it away from anything that breathes and doesn’t want to. Under the ring the keepers from home asked the heavy queen what she was. I am its mother. They tried to lift her and couldn’t; she has always been too heavy. Then the keeper opened every eye and said no. I taught it. I would like to stop. The keepers from home flew back along the ninth line to tell the rest. The keeper told its mother to go, since it can’t, and to listen for its humming every night. Okafor wrote: a keeper said no. That night Kwame opened his hand on the porch and the air smelled of rain.