They set out for Ada, which put Faye into a very sour mood.
There was nothing but dirt for miles. The trees were all dead. The only other feature was the telephone poles running alongside the road, and it was so desolate that there weren’t even any birds sitting on the wires. The afternoon wasn’t too hot, but the wind was harsh and dry. She had to hold onto her hat to keep from losing it. Whisper’s fancy umbrella got turned inside out in the first mile. She complained about that, called it her favorite parasol, and ended up chucking it into a ditch.
Ian made an attempt at conversation. “So, this telephone call that Jake Sullivan supposedly took…”
Faye was about worn out with this guy’s attitude. “What do you mean ‘supposedly’?”
“I’m not saying it didn’t happen, just how do we know it was the Chairman’s ghost?”
“Because Mr. Sullivan said so.”
“Maybe it was a trick. I mean, Sullivan’s a Heavy. Everybody knows Heavies aren’t very bright.”
George realized the hole that Ian was digging for himself much faster than Ian did, and tried to intervene. “Normally, when I hear someone say ‘everybody knows,’ what follows shortly after tends to be wrong.”
“Sullivan’s only been in the Society for what, less than a year? But because he’s had some dream about actually seeing the Power, we’re all supposed to hop to when he tells us something crazy?”
“That’s not true at all,” Faye snapped. “Mr. Sullivan is super smart. He’s just not a show-off about it like some folks.”
“We’re taking the fall for an assassination attempt, but instead of spending our time figuring out who set us up, we’re spinning our wheels trying to talk to Iron Guards about some being that probably doesn’t even exist.”
Faye stopped abruptly. The others made it a few more steps before they realized she was no longer keeping up. She waited while they turned back to her. Faye put her hands on her hips and gave Ian the look normally reserved for people she was about to murder. “You better shut up.”
“Hey, wait a sec-”
“No. You listen, and you listen good. This big critter is real and it isn’t messing around. When it shows up, nothing else is going to matter. If you don’t believe that, then you’re the stupid one.”
Ian’s face turned red and he started to respond, but Whisper cut him off. “But how do you know this, Faye?”
How could she explain? “It’s right there, right outside of the real world. It’s pushing on the door, getting heavier and heavier, and pretty soon the hinges are going to give and then it’s coming inside. When I listen, when it’s real quiet, like when I’m trying to sleep.. I can hear it.”
Ian threw his hands in the air. “You’re off your rocker.”
George put one hand on Ian’s arm to shush him. “Faye, how come you didn’t say this to the elders?”
“I did… They didn’t believe me either. I don’t know how I know. I don’t know how come my Power is different than yours. It just is. I just do. I can feel it, okay?”
“But-”
Faye was frustrated. She didn’t want to argue with a bunch of people who just couldn’t understand. She checked her head map and scouted the road for danger, clear, and Traveled. The soles of her shoes hit asphalt a hundred yards away. It was about as far as she could manage lately, a frustratingly useless little amount of distance compared to what she’d done before. She stood there in the dust and waited for the others to catch up. It gave her a chance to collect herself.
Of course the others didn’t understand. Nobody else had a connection to the Power like she did. They got drips of water coming out of a faucet and she had a mighty river… or at least she had before. Now she was down to a small stream, but on the Tokugawa, it had been a river. She didn’t know how she’d gotten so strong so fast, though the elders had kept poking and asking questions, trying to figure it out. They had seemed more worried about how she’d managed to Travel the entire Tempest than they were about the Enemy coming. They tried not to show it, but she could tell they didn’t trust her. It was shaking Faye’s confidence.
It was this place. Ada made her upset. Just being close to her old house made her feel like crying angry tears.
I’m stronger than that. I’m better than that. When she was a little girl, she’d had to live inside her own head, because it was the only safe place. But she wasn’t a scared little girl anymore, that nobody loved because they all thought she’d been possessed by the devil. She was Sally Faye Vierra, knight of the Grimnoir. She’d saved lives, battled the Imperium, and been a hero. She’d thought that she had put the miserable sad part of her life behind her, but apparently it was still there. It would always be there until she buried it once and for all.
She knew what she had to do.
Ian got to her first. “What’s your deal?”
“Fix the car. I’ll catch up.” And then she Traveled away.
Ian Wright watched the Traveler blink out of existence. He looked around the wastes, but Faye was nowhere to be seen. “Well, damn it all to hell.”
George and Whisper caught up a moment later. “Where did she run off to?”
“Personal business, I imagine,” Whisper said. “You should not have insulted her.”
Ian grunted. “Yeah, I was pretty dumb.”
“You were rude,” George pointed out.
“Not that. I wish I would’ve realized that she could’ve just Traveled back to town and saved us the walk.”
It took many long hops to reach home.
The old homestead was smaller than she remembered. She hadn’t realized it would seem so tiny. Maybe she’d just gotten used to being in cities with buildings that absolutely towered overhead, or maybe she’d spent too much time living in homes that made this place look like the shack it was… Or maybe she’d just gotten taller over the last four years.
The fences had been made out of scrap lumber and weaved-together branches. They’d been too poor to buy good wire even before the dust had come. The pigs had gotten loose all the time, but they had never wandered too far. Then they had all died when the air turned to poison and everyone had taken to wearing masks to protect their faces. The outhouse had collapsed into a heap of splinters.
The ground was a lifeless grey color and the entire yard had been smoothed perfectly flat by the constant wind. There were two metal poles in front of the old shack. Ma’s clothesline had run between those. Faye remembered running and playing between the hanging clothes. Whenever she’d forget herself in the moment and accidentally Traveled, she’d receive a beating. Traveling had been so much fun, though, that it had still been worth it. Now, one of the clothes poles had fallen down. The other stuck out of the ground at an angle, like something had crashed into it.
The house itself was also at a slight angle. She’d like to say the wind had done that, but more than likely, Pa had been a little drunk when he’d built the place. The front door was missing. Probably taken by a neighbor to use for firewood. The doorway was a black, gaping hole. She couldn’t do it. Faye told herself she was being silly. She’d fought the Chairman, why was this so difficult?
It took her nearly half an hour of standing in the yard before she screwed up enough courage to walk inside.
Beams of sunlight came through the tiny windows and a few holes in the wall and roof. There was no glass in the windows, but then again, there never had been. In the winter they’d just hung old canvas over the narrow slits to hold in the heat. During the dust storms, they’d tried that, but nothing could keep out the choking silt. The floor was dirt. Faye remembered using her fingers and drawing pretty designs in that dirt. It used to make her mad when the others would walk on them, but since there was only the one room to share, it was to be expected.
It was empty except for spiderwebs and trash. Their cobbled together furniture was missing. She hadn’t known why she’d expected otherwise.
There was lots of broken glass left over from Pa’s bottles. She kicked those out of the way and made some space. Not worried about getting her sturdy dress dirty, Faye sat cross-legged in the middle of the room. She closed her eyes and sat still and quiet for a long time.
The memories came flooding back. When her eyes turned grey and her Power showed up, people had become scared of her and what she could do. Her pa had hated her for it. Her ma was always wringing her hands and crying. Life had already been mean and hard, and her becoming different had just made it worse for everyone. Any
