“Great,” Susan said. “How far is it? We really need to get home.”
“Not far,” the girl said, settling her basket of plums in the crook of her arm. “Not too far at all. You just stick with me, and I’ll take good care of you.”
For pity’s sake, when the cry came from the valley, the exile set a bundle of food wrapped in a bright-blue cloth beyond the garden wall, hoping the broken would stumble upon it on their wretched journey. Who else would leave a gift for the lost, the vile, the twice discarded?
But none had ever come. Too bewildered they were, after paying their terrible price. Unknowing, they fled past the last living thing that offered anything with open hands.
On this day, the heat thickened and the afternoon sun glared through the trees. Another shattered soul moaned and screamed through the wood, and the exile listened as it crashed toward the garden. The horror of the thing sent the deer and fox scrambling, until the underbrush snapped with their flight.
When silence descended again, the exile went to the garden wall. This time the gift, at least, was gone. Would it help the wretched one? It had been left hungry for more than food. The thought settled bleakly on the silent wood. To banish it, the exile sought the old words, and found among them an orchard vision.
Let the dark be done.
Have I not kindled the light?
Where stands the dawn?
Why keeps the night?
In an age of madness
Such are the questions of one
Who casts a shroud across the day
And blots the sun.
The exile sat over the verse as the day dwindled and the sun slanted through windows and slipped beneath the door, stirring the glittering dust. The age of madness. A blind year. Eyes long closed had yet seen.
The hot air was full of peaches and plums and the sound of bees as the children followed Liyla out of the orchard. A bumblebee made its drunken way past her, and she bared her teeth at it, then knocked it to the ground with a sharp thwack. For a moment, Susan hesitated, wondering again if it was altogether smart to head into the woods with this girl.
But there were five of them and one of her, and they needed to find the city and somebody who could help them. So they trooped along behind her, past the ruined house and through a break in the vine-smothered wall. The forest had taken whatever road had once been there, and they were instantly enfolded in the deep shade of it again, skipping over thick roots and thorny vines as they tried to keep up. Susan glanced back and couldn’t see the wall at all. The greeny dark had swallowed it so completely she wondered how Liyla had ever found the place.
Max sped up to walk beside the girl, and Susan watched Nell quickly follow.
“So what city is this we’re going to?” Max asked.
Liyla grinned widely. “Oh, you’re in for a treat. It’s the Domain itself you’ve come to. Exciting, right?”
Max stared at her blankly, and her smile dissolved.
“Domain of the Genius! Don’t tell me you can’t remember that!”
He shook his head and she barked a laugh.
“Well, if you really don’t remember the capital, then I’d wager your flat new eyes will pop from your head when you see it, you being a savage from the ruins.”
Both Max and Nell looked like they were going to say something extremely unfriendly. Susan quickly cleared her throat.
“What’s it the capital of?”
Liyla swung around.
“They’ll have to work the kinks out before I get my face turned back, that’s certain. I’d hate to be as empty as you! What a thing that is!” She leaped a humped root and dispersed a cloud of gnats hovering in a sunny spot as she trotted along ahead. “Where do you think you’re standing? Ganbihar!”
Susan blinked at her, trying to be sure she’d heard right. Liyla only shook her head and mumbled to herself.
“That’s savages for you. Greatest city on the face of Loam, and all they do is blink.”
She walked on, and Kate looked up at Susan. “Who’s she talking to?”
“Herself, I guess,” Susan told her. “Seems like she’s alone a lot.”
They kept a little distance from her after that, as Susan silently reviewed all the stories she knew about lunatic kidnappers, mad ax murderers, and phantoms who hid in opera houses or the woods. None of them had been Liyla’s age. At least there was that.
Ahead, Liyla began singing a marching song, using one hairy fist to punctuate the beats:
“Gem of the ea-east, home of the pure,
Our great Domai-ain, it will endure.
The past is dea-ed, see future’s rise,
In progress clai-aim the victor’s prize.
O Ganbiha-ar, where darkness reigned,
All hail the Genius and his Domain.”
A squirrel scuttled across a flat patch of weeds and disappeared under a mound of vines that had overtaken some low bushes. Insects chirped beneath the undergrowth, sounding like they were shaking a can of dry beans.
Even Max and Nell had drawn back once Liyla began to sing. They motioned to the others to hurry up, and Susan jogged toward them.
“Well, she’s cracked,” Max told them. “It’s confirmed.”
“Thank you, Doctor Obvious,” Susan said. “Can you try to keep your voice down at least?”
Nell waved a hand. “She’s singing too loud to hear. Don’t worry.”
A few paces up the nonexistent path, Liyla launched into another verse:
“Scour the ci-ty and clear the farms.
The pure will con-quer with force of arms.
O Ganbiha-ar, your day is here.
The change is go-ing, never fear.”
Max shook his head. “What a creepy song! She gets weirder by the second.”
Kate wiped a sweaty hand across her forehead. “What’s wrong with her face?” she asked.
She was flushed, and Susan could see how tired she and Jean were. She hoped they were near the city; the little girls needed to rest. The forest steamed around them, the air so heavy she could feel the weight of it on
