I walk past the posters quickly. Yet the images burn in my mind. They’re all lies, and surely everyone sees it. The words that my seed said aren’t true. The gagargi doesn’t have Papa’s blessing, no matter what he claims.
Stairs. I’m relieved to reach the second and last flight of stairs, to leave behind the posters, and soon this house altogether. I run down the stairs with my companions. I slow my pace only when I enter the hall.
“Shh!” Irina hisses at me.
I turn around, holding the mirror at an arm’s length. Ghosts. Where are the ghosts and what are they doing up this time of the night? There, Irina hovers before the library with Olesia, behind the mute Millie, who has her ear pressed against the door. She keeps her finger raised to her lips. What. What can possibly be happening inside the room?
“What does it mean?” Beard’s rough voice is low, dimmed by the door and the wall no doubt, but I’d recognize it anywhere. “Read it again. Will you?”
“The great Gagargi Prataslav.” Someone chants, and many voices join the chorus. It’s almost as if both the train guards and Captain Ansalov’s soldiers were gathered in the library. But usually the guards and soldiers avoid each other! What can be going on? “The Gagargi of the People.”
Then I recall, there was a rider earlier today, one of Captain Ansalov’s men. We’ve grown used to seeing riders come and go to the garrison, but it seems this one bore a message in addition to the new set of posters. A thought occurs to me. Maybe this is why the magpie woke me up, to hear whatever is happening in the library. Or maybe I’m supposed to both hear this and then go out? That must be it.
I pad to stand next to Millie. The ghosts make way for me, but the servant doesn’t notice a thing. Maybe she’s turning blind in addition to being mute already.
“Did it say when it’ll take effect?” Boots asks when the cheering ends. I know it’s him because the words are followed by the heavy stomp of his feet. Though I’d want to, I can’t make myself forget what Elise told me about him. To grow up in a mine, so deep underground, no wonder he’s hesitant to ever enter a room first. “And was it mentioned if it affects children who are already on their sixth year? My Marisa…”
“My compeers, you heard the same words as I did.” Scythe. The mellow voice that hides a scythe interrupts him, and I’d recognize it anywhere. Captain Ansalov. Does this mean that all the guards and soldiers are indeed in the library? That would be so very convenient. “The machine knows everything. The machine cares for us all. This is the end of injustice.”
Injustice? The word burns me, and if I weren’t out on my own, in the middle of the night, I’d march in the room and confront him. The gagargi’s men are the ones who shot Mama dead and broke the rules that had been set in place for everyone’s benefit. It’s them that dragged the lords and ladies out of their houses and herded them before the gagargi to be judged for crimes that don’t even exist so that he could apparently justly feed their souls to his machine!
“For every soul we selflessly share, two more are guaranteed a good life.” It’s the utter agreement in Captain Ansalov’s voice that frightens me the most, the willingness to serve the gagargi regardless of the orders. But then again, Elise says that he’s the kind of man that likes breaking things, people, too. “No price is too great for such freedom. No price is too great for a better world.”
The ghosts shake their heads. They’re not believing a word said either. How could a coup like this, Mama’s murder, possibly lead to peace? How could anyone ever forget all the death and those dead? Even if Celestia will at some point claim her throne from the gagargi, how can the people continue on from where they left, as if no hand had ever grabbed a weapon, no soul was ever pulled from an unwilling body!
“I shall read the manifest once more and address your questions, one at a time.”
Mufu nudges the back of my knee. I should go. Outside, the magpie—or the witch—and Papa must be already waiting for me. But I need to hear with my own ears the gagargi’s plan. How can I otherwise protect my sisters from him?
“On this first day of the fourth month, with the greater good of the Crescent Empire and the Equal People in mind, I—Gagargi Prataslav, the Gagargi of the People, thus appointed by the Moon himself—degree a law to be equally shared with every subject of the Crescent Empire, effective immediately.”
Shiver. I do shiver, despite Rafa and Mufu huddling against me. Now I understand why the guards are so confused. Evil. Evil lurks beneath the tide of words.
“Together we have glimpsed the new Age of Equality and Progress, and the Great Thinking Machine shall forge us the brightest future. But as all machines need fuel to continue functioning, so are we also privileged to together provide for ours. My brothers and sisters, my fathers and mothers, I humbly appeal to you to let every other child become a part of the empire.”
Surely he can’t mean! From the corner of my eye I catch Irina and Olesia shaking their heads. They don’t want to believe it either. Because it’s a whole different thing to yank a grown man’s soul from his body than…
“A parent may choose which of their children with an unanchored soul to honor with this privilege. It is to be noted that families with one child only may choose whether they wish to grant their child the ultimate opportunity of fueling the greater good.”
Captain Ansalov sounds happy to deliver this horrid news of a tax that demands every other child to be fed to the machine! My heart jolts as I think of Alina… No, my little sister is over six already. She’s exempt.
“As we are all equal before the Moon, no title or rank shall be a reason for exception.”
The words. Then I think of the words and the man who wrote them and the man who read them aloud. That day in the pavilion, when he first presented his machine to Mama, he fed it a grown man’s soul. Since then, he’s been stealing souls from the people loyal to my family. His evil knows no limit. There’s nothing preventing him from falsifying Alina’s age and saying that we lie about the naming ceremony ever having taken place, though he himself performed it.
“The machine belongs to us all and benefits every one of us.”
Leave. Alina and I must leave the house now that it’s still possible. The gagargi, he will be back, and he shall demand her soul. Papa must know of this. Yes. That must be why the magpie knocked on our window this night of all nights.
As Captain Ansalov continues reading the gagargi’s manifest, I tiptoe to the back door with Rafa and Mufu right behind me. Both Millie and the ghosts are so concentrated in eavesdropping that they don’t notice me leaving.
I slowly push the door open. The spring night, alight with a half Moon, greets me with moist, warm air that tastes like upturned soil and new grass. There’s not a hint of cigarette smoke, none of liquor or horse sweat either. As all the guards are really in the library, the hounds must be locked in the stables.
I slip out, leaving the door ajar.
Magpie. On the porch’s railing perches a magpie as black as the night, as white as winter Moon’s light. It stares at me, beady eyes glinting with a shrewd savviness that is very familiar.
“Witch at the End of the Lane?” I dare to barely voice the question, for the air smells of freedom, so sweet I must lick my lips.
The magpie nods.
Mufu rises to her hind legs, leans against my knees, and pokes me with her nose. Rafa turns to stare at me expectantly. They want me to hurry. I ask the witch, “What do I do next?”
A thick beam of the Moon’s light sets the path leading away from the house ablaze. Didn’t Celestia once say that the Moon and the magpie—the witch—are old allies? Yes, she did say that. And the witch helped us once before already, when Alina got sick during the train journey.