The cat watches me, as if amused, from the open window. It hops down gracefully and rubs its side along my leg, arching its back high. It purrs softly when I pet it behind the ears. Sitting back, eyeing me, it suddenly leaps up into my lap. That’s when I notice the thin collar hidden beneath the thick fur of its neck. The collar is leather, not metal like mine. I feel around it and find two capsules and a tiny roll of paper. I lay them gently on the table, marveling at them.
The capsules are no bigger than my thumbnail. I open the first and press my finger to the white powdery substance. It smells and tastes plain, and I wonder if it’s baking powder. The next capsule has a white, granular substance. I taste it hoping for sugar and get salt.
The paper unrolls delicately and fits easily in my palm. The tiniest, most exquisite handwriting fills every blank space. As I begin to read, I expect some description of the capsules, some instruction, but not this.
Cipher, move to the shadows. Do not read this in the light. Move now. Stop reading.
I glance nervously around the hut. It is quiet. Sunlight streams through the window, but it does not touch the table or me. I am in shadow. Still I move to the straw pallet, sitting in the darkest place in the room. I try to steady my shaking hands and read on.
Sorry it had to be this way. Daniel warned me. I couldn’t tell you. Your shock had to be genuine, to keep my father’s guard down. Darkness shadows him. He monitors all the light, even the stars. Do not try them again. Follow the normal path. Our leaders, Elijah and the Widow, are missing, but they told me before there is always a purpose in the stories that lead to nine grains. Find that purpose. Bake the bread. Then we will fight together. We defeated Baron. Now we must defeat my father. Destroy this paper now and tell no one. This is all I can risk now. It is everything I risk. - E
Emma.
She wrote this. Only she would know these things.
I lean back against the wall and set the note gently in my lap. It means she didn’t betray me. She had a reason for not telling me. She wanted my shock to be genuine. It was.
And now, apparently, her father’s guard is down. But how does he monitor the light? And how are Yellow’s leaders missing? Whatever the answers, Emma and I will work together again. I still wish she’d warned me, but I shouldn’t have doubted her. I should have trusted her all along.
I read the note again, then a third time. I commit the words to memory. I roll the paper and move slowly across the hut, avoiding direct sunlight. The tiny scroll feels stuck to my fingers as I hold it over the embers in the hearth.
It is the only piece of Emma I have. It is a great source of hope. I don’t want to destroy it, but her warnings leave me no choice. I drop it and watch it blaze and burn to ashes.
The mottled cat curls at my feet beside the hearth. I kneel and pet it, watching the embers for a long time. Eventually I move back to the pallet of straw. I lay on my back, eyes open, thinking.
Emma couldn’t tell me, because she wanted her father, the boy-king William, to think I was a normal captive. And Daniel warned her, but what exactly did he warn her about? How does darkness shadow her father? Is it because Yellow’s leaders are missing? Could it be the Colorless One?
The door creaks.
I spring to my feet, back against the wall.
The door pushes open and my heart races. I summon the wind, ready for anything.
A dog pokes its head inside the hut, tongue lolling. Its tail wags as it enters. The door swings shut.
The dog moves casually past the cat, like an old friend, and comes to me. It has chestnut brown fur and its back stands higher than my knees.
“Is anyone with you?” I ask softly.
The dog pants. I move silently past it, listening for anyone outside. There’s no sound. I form a shield of air around me and step cautiously through the door. There’s no one in sight. I release the air and wipe a sheen of sweat off my forehead. Then I laugh. There was no threat. It’s just me and a cat and a dog in a little hut. The Yellow Tower is an odd place.
I return to the dog, who has plopped down on my pallet. It wears a collar as the cat did. Petting it softly, I feel around until I find a pouch tied tight to the underside of the collar. I undo the slender laces.
The pouch holds liquid inside and has a cork on one end. Taking my empty jar, I carefully open the cork and pour out the pouch’s white contents. I sniff and taste it: milk.
“Good boy,” I say.
This time I know better than to down the milk all at once. Emma’s note said I have to follow the normal path, to bake the bread. I might as well practice. There was cornbread before. It can’t be so hard. Smash the corn and cook it, I figure.
So I pour half the corn back into the jar and use a dull rock to smash the rest into a fine dust. I mix a little of the milk, salt, and the white powder in with it, then slide the pan into the hearth and let it cook. As I step away, I glance down at the jar of corn and freeze.
The jar is completely full again.
Drew was right. An everlasting supply.
Once the hearth has the hut smelling pretty good, I pull the pan out by the handle. It cools a while, then I scoop out a handful of the sloppy mixture. It’s not cornbread, but it’s better than nothing. I finish most of it and give the rest to the dog, who licks the plate clean.
“Kernel,” I say. “Mind if I call you Kernel?”
The dog comes to me and paws at my leg. I rub his back. He pants approvingly. Kernel it is.
Outside there’s a gentle pattering sound. A steady rain begins to fall. The soft sound of running water leads me to an upper corner of the hut. A groove is set into the stucco wall, and water glides down through it from the roof. At the foot of the straw pallet there’s a wooden plank I hadn’t noticed before. I pull it aside and see a small well, a few feet deep, with the fresh water pooling inside it.
I lie back again on the pallet. Kernel settles close beside me, breathing deeply, sharing the warmth of his thick chestnut fir. The rain slows and eventually stops.
So I have food and water, a cat that brings me ingredients and secret notes, and a dog that brings me milk and lies by my side. I see what Drew means. If I didn’t know all the things I know, this could be heaven. But I do know. Emma has not betrayed me. She wants me to help her. To fight the darkness that somehow shadows her father. This is another prison of the Five Towers, and I have to find a way out.
6
I STAND IN the middle of the operating room. I wear my white coat and have a surgery team around me, a scalpel in my hand. There’s a brain on the operating table. It’s only a brain, no body. This doesn’t affect my focus. Nothing could. My team is breathless. My first incision is perfect. I carve into the grey mass with my gifted hands, perfected by countless surgeries where one millimeter separates life and death. I prepare the spot in the frontal lobe. Someone hands me a microchip. I give it only a passing glance, enough to confirm its size and fit. Then I place it delicately in the spot, where the circuitry of silicon and carbon can connect. I proceed to the next site, the parietal lobe. I make the next cut, focused and tense. The operation stretches on and on. Hours pass. I implant more and more chips. I’m holding the scalpel ready for another cut when, suddenly, the brain moves. Yes, yes, I think, it’s working. It moves again and someone screams.
I bolt upright, shocked out of the dream. I rub my eyes, remembering where I am. My hut in the Yellow Tower. It’s a relief. I’d rather be awake here than stuck as Dr. Fitzroy in a never-ending surgery on a living brain. It seems too weird to be true. It reminds me of Drew’s story. He scrubbed hallways in an office building. I operated on a brain. And our dreams locked us in our work without any explanation of why. But was this dream showing me something that really happened?