Page 24 of The Verdant Cage
“I do not!” I scoff. “Why would I?”
“Albert!” a familiar voice calls from behind him.
Reatha emerges from the caves, visible annoyance at Albert shifting sharply to shock when she spots me. I can’t say I’m any less jolted to see her. She looks as I remember her: dark brown coils in plaits, eyes slightly tipped up at the edges, and deep-set lines like parentheses encasing her lush nose and mouth.
When Albert’s little sister, Marie, follows, her hair in two cheerful puffs, I grab a nearby tree for support. I’d thought all three were long dead.
Something like resignation flows over Reatha’s face. “Rose,” she says. “How are you?”
I discovered the phrase “cat’s got your tongue” in a dusty novel I once checked out from the library. At the time, its origin perplexed me. I thought maybe housecats used to eat human body parts. I think I understand it now. I cannot form a single word, my tongue pinned in place.
“It’s shocking to see us, isn’t it?” Reatha says as Marie steps in front of her, draping her mother’s arms around her shoulders like a cloak. The girl’s eight, if I’m remembering correctly, with a habit of eating herself to bellyache at ceremonial meals. She smiles shyly, her dimples accenting an overbite identical to Albert’s.
“You’re all dead,” I sputter. It’s a ridiculous thing to say, given the circumstances. “You self-Harvested last month.”
Reatha smiles without showing her teeth. “Why don’t you come inside? I can answer your questions over tea.” She shoots Albert another annoyed look before turning to go back inside the cave she just walked out of.
I follow her, thinking of my mother’s corpse, and the Potter boy, drained and discarded, both killed by someone acting outside the system. Someone who moves too gracefully for human step, who I chased into the woods not ten minutes from here. It dawns on me then…
Albert.
17
The Chemists’ cavern is three times the size of the average Valley cottage, its smell damp and mineral, its walls showing the deep gouges of past limestone mining. Reatha and Marie walk a well-worn path to what looks like a dead end at the rear.
Then they disappear.
Heart thudding, I hurry to catch up and see that they’ve stepped behind an outcropping and through a concealed door. On the other side is a home as nice as any in the village, except for its lack of windows. The living room holds a couch and two chairs. The kitchen is attached, though it currently looks more like a laboratory than a place for cooking. Its stone-carved countertop is strewn with glass beakers, small burners, and technology I can’t identify. Open-faced cabinets holding plates and pottery are carved directly into the limestone, as are the bookshelves lining every wall.
I guess I know what happened to the Chemists’ texts.
A table in the far corner is covered with metal, wires, and machinery the likes of which I’ve never seen. Two door-sized openings appear to its right, both hung with gray blankets. Likely the bedrooms. If I had to guess, the bathroom is outside.
Reatha bustles to the kitchen, calling out, “Is mint tea all right for you?”
I nod, tensing as Albert enters the room, rolling his wheelchair as normal. But I can’t get the image of it hovering out of my mind. “How long did it take to modify?” I ask, trying to remain calm as suspicion roils hot in my gut. Was he the shadow I saw behind the chapel before Jonas was Harvested?
He gives a quick shrug. “Only a couple days, once I got the parts.”
I inhale, about to say something to Albert that I’ll regret, when my father calls out to me from a memory.In medicine as in mysteries, he admonishes me,one must never draw conclusions from insufficient facts.My heart softens. It’s been so long since I’ve heard Dad’s voice. And he’s right: no one’s guilt is a foregone conclusion. Accusing Albert now would only sour the milk, and I don’t even know what I’d be accusing him of. Lurking at my wedding? He certainly didn’t zip in, stab my mother, and zip out unnoticed. His wheelchair might be able to hover, but it isn’t invisible.
“Your chair is wonderful,” I tell him honestly. “I know villagers who would benefit from it.” Like Gran, who can no longer walk far, or Sandor of the Fermenter House, who had both legs amputated at the knee after a terrible accident. At least, Sandorwouldhave loved to have a chair like that, if he hadn’t been Harvested.
“It’s the easiest of the things I’ve created,” he says sullenly. “A child’s science project from the Before Times, scaled up for size.”
“Albie’s a genius at building things,” Reatha says proudly, handing me a warm rag and pointing at her head. It takes me a moment to realize she’s referring to the blood on my face from the wood splinters that rained down on me back in the village. I had completely forgotten.
I clean myself up as she returns to the kitchen to pour hot water into mugs. “Aren’t you, darling?” she says, continuing to praise her son. “He made me a solar-powered centrifuge from one of our charging panels and a micro-scale from salvaged metal springs and counterweights from a broken clock.” She smiles softly. “It makes sense he’s so gifted. Albie’s dad was a brilliant Engineer before he joined the Chemist House. Some of our talents are passed along in our blood, are they not?”
Albert ignores her. He’s staring at me. Warily, I think.
“You wish to build machines, then?” I raise an eyebrow, feeling Reatha’s attention sharpen on me. “The Council listens to new ideas if you did want to pursue Engineering,” I say, when Albert doesn’t respond. “There’s a petition process, isn’t there? The village could really use a talent like yours.”
“When was the last time you heard of anybody allowed to do something other than what they were born or married to?” Albert rubs the back of his hand angrily across his broad nose.
I accept a mug of steaming tea from Reatha. It’s fragrant with a scent I haven’t smelled this strongly in months. “You have honey?”
“We have a hive out back. I developed a process to graft it from the ones that had to be abandoned.” She pauses, clearing her throat. “Due to the animal attacks.”
