“That,” she declared, “was decidedly less than enjoyable.”
“What did you expect,” Joel asked, “spying on a crime scene?”
“They let you in.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She looked up at the sky, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just … well, it’s frustrating. It seems like every time I want to be involved in something, I’m told that’s the one thing I can’t do.”
“I know how you feel.”
“Anyway,” Melody said, “thanks for vouching for me. I think you kept that vulture from ripping me apart.”
He shrugged.
“No, really,” she said. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
“I’m … not sure if I want to know what that will entail.”
“Oh, you’ll enjoy it,” she said, perking up. “I’ve got an idea already.”
“Which is?”
“You have to wait!” she said. “No spoiling surprises.”
“Great.” A surprise from Melody. That would be wonderful. They neared the station, but didn’t enter, instead sticking to the comfortable shade of the trees as they waited for Fitch. Melody tried to get Joel to talk some more, but he found himself giving uninvolved answers.
He kept thinking of that hurried picture with the frightened words beneath it. Charles Calloway had known he was going to die, yet he’d left notes on as much as he could figure out. It was noble—probably more noble than anything Joel had ever done in his life.
Someone needs to stop this, he thought, leaning back against a tree trunk. Something needs to be done. It wasn’t just the students, not just Armedius, who were in danger. Ordinary people had been killed. And if what Fitch and Harding said was true, these kidnappings were threatening the stability of the United Isles themselves.
It comes back to those strange chalk drawings, Joel thought. That looping pattern. If only I could remember where I saw it before!
He shook his head and glanced at Melody. She was sitting on a patch of grass a short distance away. “How did you do it?” he asked. “With that chalkling, I mean.”
“I just lost control of it.”
He gave her a flat stare.
“What?” she said.
“You’re obviously lying, Melody.”
She groaned, flopping back on the grass, staring up at the trees. He figured she was probably going to ignore the question.
“I don’t know how I do it, Joel,” she said. “Everyone in classrooms always talks about instructing the chalklings, and about how they are completely without will themselves, like clockwork. But … well, I’m not really that good at the instructional glyphs.”
“Then how do you make them obey so well?”
“They just do,” she said. “I … well, I think they understand me, and what I want of them. I explain what I want, then they go do it.”
“You explain it?”
“Yeah. Little whispers. They seem to like it.”
“And they can bring you information?”
She shrugged, which was an odd gesture, considering that she was lying down. “They can’t talk or anything. But the way they move around me, the things they do, well … yeah, sometimes I feel like I can understand what they mean.” She rolled her head to the side, looking at him. “I’m just imagining things, aren’t I? I just want to be good with chalklings to make up for the fact that I’m bad with the other lines.”
“I don’t know. I’m the last person who could tell you about chalklings. As far as I’m concerned, they probably do listen to you.”
She seemed to find that comforting. She smiled, staring up at the sky until Professor Fitch arrived. Apparently Harding was going to stay at the mansion to investigate more. Joel found himself glad to be returning to Armedius. He hadn’t eaten anything all day, and his stomach had begun to rumble.
They walked into the station and climbed up onto the empty platform, waiting for the next train.
“This adds some very disturbing elements to our situation,” Fitch said.
Joel nodded.
“Wild chalklings,” Fitch continued. “Unknown Rithmatic lines … I think that, perhaps, I shall need to have you begin helping me look through some of the more obscure Rithmatic texts. There has to be mention of things like this somewhere in the records.”
Joel perked up, feeling a surge of excitement. Yet it was dulled by the realities of their situation. He glanced at Melody, who stood behind them, probably too far to hear; she obviously felt sheepish around Fitch since she’d been caught spying.
“Troubled times,” Fitch said, shaking his head as the track began to shake, a train approaching. “Troubled times…”
A short time later, they were riding back across the waters and toward Armedius.
CHAPTER
The first European encounters with wild chalklings are the subject of some debate, the book read.
Joel sat with his back to the brick wall of Professor Fitch’s office. “The subject of some debate” was a terrible understatement. So far—despite a week of studying—he hadn’t been able to find two sources that agreed about when the first wild chalklings had been sighted.
This is because of the poor recordkeeping practices maintained by many who traveled westward across the oceans after initial contact was made between Aztek ships and the Old World.
Though many of these early explorers—such as Jacques Cartier and the infamous Francisco Vásquez de Coronado—worked on the behalf of European nations, they truly sought personal fame or fortune. This was a time of expansionism and exploration. The American Isles presented an unknown landscape to conquer, control, and—hopefully—use.
There were already rumblings of war in Asia at this time, and the JoSeun Empire was beginning to flex its muscles. Many an enterprising man realized that if he could get a foothold in the New World, he might be able to establish himself as independent, freed from the oppression—either perceived or actual—of his European masters.
After being rebuffed by powerful South American empires—which had been galvanized by centuries of warfare and struggles against the chalklings—the explorers turned to the isles. They were never told what dangers would await them. The Aztek nations were very xenophobic and reclusive during this era.
The Tower of Nebrask is, of course, a central feature in early records. Of obviously ancient date, the Tower was one of the wonders of the islands, as it was the only freestanding structure of apparent human design to be discovered there.
Numerous explorers described the Tower. Yet these same explorers would swear that the next time they returned to Nebrask, the Tower would be gone. They claim that it moved about the island, never quite being in the same place as it was before.
Obviously, these reports are to be taken with skepticism. After all, the Tower now appears perfectly stable. Still, there are some legitimate oddities. The total lack of human life on the isles should have been a clue that something was wrong in America. Someone built the Tower of Nebrask; someone once occupied the islands. Had it been the Azteks?
They would not speak of Nebrask, only to call it an abomination. So far, their records provide no insight. They used an acid made from local plants to fight the chalklings that tried to gain a foothold in their lands, and they accepted refugees from the islands, but they themselves did not explore northward. Of those purported refugees—now some five hundred years integrated into Aztek culture—their stories are completely oral, and have deteriorated over time. They tell legends and speak of terrible horrors, of bad luck and omens, and of nations slaughtered. But they give no details, and each story seems to contradict its fellows.