Cosette looked at him in surprise. She couldn’t imagine killing anyone, couldn’t imagine silencing the beat of their red crow’s wings, spilling their dreams and blood. Not even a monster such as Rushkin.
“Have ... have you ever killed anyone?” she asked.
John hesitated, then slowly nodded his head.
“I don’t know if I ... if I could do it,” Cosette said.
“They mean to kill us,” John said.
“I know, but—”
“They mean Isabelle harm. They mean us all harm. You and I. Rosalind and Annie Nin. Bajel and Paddyjack. All of us who are left. There’ll be no more gathering in the birch woods to sing and dance then, Cosette. There’ll be no more chance than we can ever learn to dream. We’ll all be gone.”
Cosette gave him a strange look. “You’ve been to the island?” she asked. “You’ve seen us dancing?”
John nodded. “And listened to the stories that Rosalind tells. I’ve watched you paint. I’ve read Bajel’s poems and heard Annie sing.”
“Why did you never make yourself known? Why didn’t you join us?”
“I didn’t feel I belonged.”
“Paddyjack was always talking about meeting you in the woods but I thought it was just another one of those stories he likes to tell. You know, the way he makes something up because that’s the way he wishes it could really be.”
“I remember,” John said, smiling. But then his features grew serious once more. “I’d give my life for him. I’d give my life for any of you, but especially for Isabelle.”
“Even though you don’t feel you belong with any of us? Even though Isabelle sent you away?”
“None of that changes the way I feel,” John said. “Knowing you are safe makes my exile bearable.”
“But you never had to be an exile.”
“You don’t understand, Cosette. You’re more like Isabelle is. All of you are. You sing and dance and paint and tell stories. I have only one talent. I’m a hunter, a warrior. When Isabelle sent me away I realized there was no place for someone like me in your lives. But I could still watch over you. I could still protect you.”
“That’s what you’ve done all these years?”
“Partly. I’ve also tried to teach myself gentler arts.” A sad smile touched his lips. “I haven’t been particularly successful.”
“But neither have I,” Cosette said. “With my painting, I mean. We need the red crow to be any good.”
John shook his head. “A red crow will let you do what Isabelle and Rushkin can do—bring others across. You don’t need it for your art to prosper.”
“You can’t have looked very closely at my pictures then.”
“What you lack is patience, Cosette, not a red crow.”
Cosette ducked her head so that she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“But none of that matters now,” she said without looking up. “Not with the dark man’s return.”
“I won’t let him hurt you,” John assured her. “I said I would give up my life for you. I would also take a life.”
Cosette lifted her gaze until it met his.
“Me, too,” she said, surprising herself because she realized it was true. She didn’t feel any braver than she had before. If anything, she was more scared. But she knew she would do it. Isabelle and the others were the closest she had by way of a family. They were bound by deeper ties than blood and dreams. She would do anything to protect them.
“It really is true, isn’t it?” she added hopefully. “What Rosalind always says. We
John nodded. “The lack of a red crow only makes us different.”
“If we weren’t real, we wouldn’t care so much about each other, would we?”
John gave her a long thoughtful look. “I think that’s what makes us real,” he said finally.
He stood up and wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans.
“How will we find the dark man?” Cosette asked.
“Isabelle will know where he is. He left a piece of himself in her when he went away. It’ll tell her where he is.”
They closed their eyes, waking their own connection to Isabelle. Cosette opened her eyes in alarm to find a similar worried expression in John’s. “She’s already found him,” Cosette said.
“Or he’s found her,” he said grimly.
Cosette’s newfound courage faltered. “We really have to kill him, don’t we?”
“We have to try,” John said. “Though I don’t know if it’s possible for us to actually kill him. He’s a maker and makers will always wield a certain power over our kind—even if he didn’t bring us across himself. Maybe only Isabelle can kill him.”
Cosette shook her head. “Isabelle could never hurt anyone.”
John gave her an odd look. Then, without waiting to see if Cosette would follow, he set off down the alleyway at a brisk pace, heading north toward the burnedout tenements and abandoned buildings that made up that part of Newford known as the Tombs. Cosette hesitated for only a moment before hurrying off to join him.
Across town from her numena, Isabelle was as frightened as Cosette, but for another reason. She had no idea where her captors were taking her, or what was going to happen to her. All she knew was that it would involve Rushkin, and seeing him again made her feel even more afraid.
Cowardice, she remembered Rushkin telling her once, was a crime like any other. “The difference is,” he explained, “is that it’s boring. You don’t so much commit cowardice as surrender to it. We live in a world that seems to celebrate cowardly behavior, Isabelle, except we call it compromise. We call it getting along. Not making waves. We don’t stand by our convictions anymore because we’re too busy trying to make sure that we don’t upset anybody. I don’t care if it’s with our art, or confronting injustice, nine out of ten times the average person will let the world run roughshod over them because they’re too intimidated to make a stand and stick to it.”
“But where do you expect people to find that kind of courage?” Isabelle had asked. “This is the world we live in. If we didn’t get along with each other all that would be left would be chaos.”
“Who wants to live in a world where you have to be a coward to get along?”
“The world isn’t so black and white,” Isabelle had said.
“No, but it could be if we stopped compromising our values. We have to confront evil, no matter where we find it, and then stand up to it.”
Isabelle had shaken her head. “The world isn’t like that. People aren’t like that. How are they supposed to become brave when the best most of us can ever seem to to manage is to avoid a confrontation?”
“By not surrendering,” Rushkin replied. “It’s that simple. If you believe in the truth of what you’re doing, why in god’s name would you want to compromise?”
“But—”
“We owe it to our art to face the truth without flinching. We owe it to ourselves. Every so-called advantage that evil has can also be used against it. The world isn’t fair, in and of itself. We have to make it fair.”
Rushkin had always remained true to his ideals, but at what cost, Isabelle had remembered thinking more than once when she saw the way he lived. Alone and friendless, with only his art.
Kathy had always remained true to her ideals, as well, though unlike Rushkin, she was willing to compromise when necessary. Still, there were some things that remained forever sacrosanct to her.
She’d fought injustice wherever it confronted her; she’d never compromised the vision that drove her to write; she’d created the Newford Children’s Foundation and worked on its front lines, dedicating herself to what she called the four C’s necessary for successful guerrilla social work: cash, contributing, counseling and consoling. You gave what you could. Money, if you didn’t have the time.
Kathy wouldn’t have found herself in her own present situation, Isabelle thought. They’d both taken a self- defense course, but here it was, the first time Isabelle had found herself confronted with actual violence since taking that course, and she’d surrendered. Kathy wouldn’t have. Kathy would have booted Bitterweed between the legs and made a break for it. She wouldn’t be sitting here, allowing herself to be driven to god knew where.
Isabelle sighed. But she wasn’t Kathy, was she?
