A tree with reddish bark grew out of earth blackened by fires, as if in defiance of the cold air and the desolate park that it sat in. Its branches held glistening fruit that looked like a cross between a pear and an orange, with a slightly translucent peel. They shone tantalizingly in the sunlight, like edible gems.
A line had formed. Despite the shellshocked expressions on the survivor’s faces and many bearing terrible injuries, this vestige of social order had appeared without asking. An older lady came to the front of the line, her head wrapped in a scarf.
Nell nodded to her and reached out. One of the fruits detached and dropped into her waiting hand. She handed it to the lady, who clasped Nell’s arms and shook them up and down before she accepted the fruit.
Not everyone was so willing to accept what, to the uninitiated, must have looked like sorcery. People watched distrustfully from the edges of the park, with expressions ranging from fear to anger and disgust. These were the people I kept my eye on from where I sat on top of a billboard advertising a new housing development.
Rock music still pumped faintly through my heart, amplified across the whole city, like a concert was always in the distance.
Today was day two of life after the battle with Organ. Nell and I hadn’t done much except sleep the first day. We had found an empty house and holed up inside. Nell had wrapped the whole thing in a protective dense gorse.
H.E.S.P. had been too busy communicating and coordinating a city-wide rescue operation to be worrying much about us. Although more than a few soldiers had thanked us for doing our part. Or tried to. Nell had wanted to leave as soon as possible, and I obliged, finding an opportunity to slip away from the operatives. Before we left, the Captain had told me they would be in touch.
Not sure how that’s gonna work. I didn’t exactly give them my number.
“Pardon me.”
I looked down to see a woman craning her neck to look up at me. She held the hand of a child who was munching down on one of the strange fruits.
“You’re with that woman, right?” she asked, pointing over to Nell. “You’ve been watching over her this whole time.”
It took me a second to extinguish the tired thought that she was somehow speaking on a grander scale about our lives, as there was no way she could know that.
“Yes.”
“How’d you get up there?”
“I, uh, jumped.”
Her eyes widened and she smiled wide for a moment before covering her mouth with a hand. “Ah, sorry. This is just so hard to wrap my head around. I keep laughing even though this isn’t funny at all.”
“I get it.”
“I appreciate that you guys are helping. I was worried my kid was gonna starve before help comes. It still isn’t safe out there. Going out to search for food is risky. People are hoarding. Some still get violent.”
“It shouldn’t be much longer,” I said reassuringly. “I saw some rescue teams on our way over here. They seem to be sweeping through the city from the south.”
“That’s good to hear.” The woman glanced back towards Nell. “I don’t want to put more on your plate, but before this all went down, I was friends with a family on Creighton street. When I went there yesterday, I saw that they were waving a flag out their window. If I didn’t have this little one to worry about I would have checked on them…”
“We can go take a look.”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “This has been such a nightmare. Just hearing that is reassuring. I don’t know your story, it’s none of my business, but you seem well-adjusted to this mess.”
“You’re the first person in a while not to ask me how I got my ‘powers’,” I said. “I’ve gotten tired of people thinking I’ve made some pact with the devil.”
“Oh, I’m not in the headspace for that,” she said, stroking her child’s head. “If you did, well, at least you’re doing something to help. The religious folk seem to be too busy waiting to be whisked away to heaven to offer much help to the living.”
The woman waved goodbye and her child waved at me too, mouth sticky with juices.
I waited for Nell to finish with the people in line and then told her about the info I’d been given. We agreed to head that direction to check it out.
As we walked through downtown, we had to brace against the cold gusts of wind that were funneled down the streets by the buildings. The wind brought a strange scent with it, the change of seasons was mixing with the ashes of Sillwood to bring us a novel smell, freshness and decay intermingled.
I imagined not many could say they had walked through the busiest part of a metropolis and not seen a single soul. Empty cars lay across the street like shells on a solitary beach. The wind howled through the shattered windows of skyscrapers.
Nell moved in front, picking her way around broken glass and office furniture that had fallen from above, wide eyed and expressionless as she traveled. She felt so much bigger now. Like her presence was all-encompassing. Large emotions lurked under the surface and I was just feeling each small ripple at the top without really knowing what was deep inside. We still haven’t talked about what Organ’s Witch told me. About her first Wolves.
Where Nell’s feet found the soil of spilled planters and upset baskets once lining the boulevard with flowers, new growths emerged. They coiled and reached for the sun, not caring that they grew over and around artifacts of a broken city. Nell’s hands would move from her sides to briefly touch a flower or stem that rose to greet her.
Nell came to a stop in front of a large unmoving body that lay at the intersection of two streets. It was twice the size of a car with scaly crocodile skin. Patches of human hair were haphazardly scattered across its back. It had been riddled with countless wounds, the blood from which had dried long ago leaving red-black streaks. She touched a hand to the large snout of the dead Aberrant.
The skin of the Aberrant shifted and I tensed, before I realized that Nell was Shaping the body. The flesh swirled and wound upwards into a peak and from the tip came a small sapling with a greenish-grey hue to the bark, the same colour as the creature’s scales. The sapling grew larger and oversized tufts of downy flowers appeared, weighing the branches down, giving the plant the appearance of an umbrella, providing the resting place some shade.
Nell’s head turned upwards and I followed her gaze. In one of the high-rise apartments, maybe ten stories up, someone was waving a white cloth from the window.
“That must be them,” I said.
“Go,” Nell said. “I’ll meet you up there.”
Her voice was enough to Shape my armour into place, legs already storing tension. I glanced at her. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” It pained me to leave her for even a moment, but I didn’t say that.
I eyed the distance to the window. It was too far, right?
“You’ll make it,” Nell addressed my doubts aloud. “You always do.”
“Really? That’s not how I recall it,” I said in a humorous tone. “I remember a lot of sore feet and twisted ankles. And that’s higher than I’ve-”
“You’ll be alright,” Nell said assuredly. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”
I blinked and shut my mouth. It was strange, feeling closer to Nell than I ever had, like our connection had become more nuanced and complex, yet I was having a harder time identifying what those very feelings were.
Alek had once told me that Wolves didn’t have an intuitive understanding of Shaping like Witches did. That’s why Wolves needed to be taught specific Shapes by their Witches, ingraining the technique into their body’s instincts. It made me wonder how often Nell was assisting me in the background, making small tweaks, strengthening weak points. Before this, I was a loner. I did everything on my own. At first I’d felt a deep discomfort at Nell’s interference, but now it felt symbiotic.
Alek had also held that kind of trust in his Witch. And now we had a tailor-made poison for him broadcasting across the entire city, like he was a pest infestation. I didn’t feel sorry for him anymore. But I hoped that at least one of him would make it out alive and start a new life.
Bone cracked against pavement and I flew to new heights.
I’ve been crashing through a lot of windows lately. Hopefully I don’t forget how to use the stairs. I grinned at the thought as I slammed into the open window frame, catching myself. The smile was wiped off my face when I saw the gun aimed at my head. That’s been happening a lot lately too.
Behind the gun was a middle-aged man with glasses that were slipping off the end of his sweaty nose. We stared at each other for a moment, not daring to move. His hands trembled, the gun wavering. The white sheet lay abandoned on the floor.
“Tatay?” a young voice spoke from further inside the apartment.
“Stay there!” the man shouted, his voice cracking in fear.
I spoke low and quiet, “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Monster,” was his response.
I receded the antlers around my face. “No. Changed, but not a monster. I’m here to help.”
He didn’t lower the gun, a haunted look on his face. “Just because you look human doesn’t change anything. The lady in the apartment next door looked human too, until she changed.”
“That nightmare is over. Emergency services are in the city. It’s a lot safer now. You can wait for them if you want but I saw your flag and thought you might need help sooner than they can offer it.”
“How can the nightmare be over when you’re here?” the man asked. “Monsters wearing human skin.” He seemed oblivious to the acidity of his words, but it was hard not to take them to heart. He lowered the gun a fraction. “My daughter. She needs medication. I was going to get her prescription when this all started. We barricaded ourselves in, but I can’t get the door open now.”
“I can help, but not if you’re going to shoot me.”
The father shifted his grip, considering.
“Tatay,” the young girl’s voice called out weakly.
He lowered the gun and walked out of the room. I stepped down from the windowsill cautiously and found the front door. It had been warped by some force, buckling inward but remaining intact. I peered through the crack between the frame and saw rubble on the other side.
I took out my beat up phone that was missing part of the back but, miraculously, was still working.
Nell picked up on the second ring. “Almost there,” she wheezed.
“The hallway’s collapsed,” I explained. “I could try carrying them out the window…” I glanced back at the father who was hugging his daughter while eyeing me distrustfully. “But I don’t think I can carry both at once. So that’s a no go.”
Nell already had an answer for me. “Get all the potted plants they have and put them by the door. I’ll handle it.”
I obeyed her instructions. She kept the call going and I heard her panting as she climbed.
“Holding up okay?” I asked.
“No. This is the last straw. I’m fed up with running out of breath chasing after you.”
I grinned as I set down a large fern next to the door.
She continued, “I’m going to start exercising. Build up my stamina. Like you would have had to do if you weren’t a cheater.”
I chuckled. “You’re the one who gave me the cheat code.”
“Okay, I’m going to start. Keep them away from the door.”
I took a few steps back and stood in front of the room the family was in.
The plants began to writhe and grow and the girl shrieked. Green tendrils snaked into the cracks in the door and I began to hear the rumbling of heavy objects being moved. Dust began to plume into the room.
After a time, the rumbling settled. I gave the door a tug and it came off its hinges. Setting it to one side, I peered into the hallway. Nell’s plants had infiltrated the floor, walls, and ceiling. Collapsed parts of the ceiling had been shoved back into place and reinforced with thick roots. Flowering plants held large pieces of concrete to the sides of the hallway, creating a path lined with colour.
I escorted the family out into the hallway. The little girl’s mouth gaped open in awe as she saw the magical world she had stepped into. Nell reached the top of the stairs and beckoned us forward.
“It’s safe to go down,” she told them.
The father quickly ushered his daughter down the stairs. As they passed Nell, the little girl reached out towards her. Nell’s hand stirred at her side.
“No,” the father said, clamping the daughter’s hand back down and rushing down the stairs. I flinched at the same time Nell did at the words.
She stared after the family until they were out of sight. I waited for Nell to collect herself and then we continued our way up the building, Nell fixing the structural damage dealt by what I suspected was an Aberrant, judging by the level of destruction. That or the Rings had used explosives.
Finally, we exited out onto the rooftop. A loud clang attracted my attention. The elevator box had been blown out of the shaft and in its place was a blossoming tree, which must have extended all the way from the bottom floor. It shaded the roof with branches covered in little white flowers.
I admired Nell’s work. “Good job. Does it feel any better knowing you’re helping all these people?” I asked.
“Mm.” Nell walked over to the edge of the building and dangled her legs over the edge. “Maybe.”
I sat down next to her.
“No, it doesn’t,” she finally admitted. “I could help a thousand of the survivors and it wouldn’t make me feel an iota less guilty for the suffering I caused.”
I looked at her sharply. “You didn’t have a choice. You said so yourself, the Beacon was going to activate anyway.”
“Yeah… but that’s not the true reason I did it.” Nell said, quiet as a mouse. “The Beacon would have been weaker if I hadn’t. It would’ve taken longer to finish. It wasn’t empathy that made me do it. I was just scared that I would never see you again.”
Her tears dripped down her chin and fell like raindrops into the open air. She grabbed my hand fiercely, surprising me. She didn’t often seek physical contact. Now I wondered if she had been holding herself back because she knew I’d shown discomfort in the past.
“Why is it always like this?” she cried. “I do these despicable things just to keep people close to me. I’m so fucking selfish. How could anyone even want to stay near me when I do such awful things?”
I was frozen in shock. Nell’s emotions had stirred the waters, revealing just how much feeling was there. I was scared to dip below the surface. It was so vast and I had so little experience with these things. I was an introvert, a loser with only one friend, and even that one I hadn’t properly talked to since he got married.
The streets below looked tiny. We were at the edge of a very long fall. What if I said the wrong thing? The fear paralyzed me.
Nell withdrew her hand, sniffing up her tears. The waters receded. The emotions withdrew.
I forced myself to speak too late, “Organ forced you into these terrible situations.”
Nell shivered from the cold and didn’t respond. I reached out and hugged her shoulder, extending bone in a wing behind us to shield from the wind. I was at a loss for comforting words and Nell didn’t speak either. We looked out at the expanse of skyscrapers and the Sill, spared from its threatened demolition. A tiny piece of the world, such a small piece of the full picture, yet it felt unfixable.
Further to the south, where the disaster response teams were combing through the city, I could see the buildings, bridges, and street signs that were covered in scraps of fluttering red cloth. Everywhere there had been a death. Soon the entire city would be covered in those ribbons. Red for the bloodshed, red for those who saw the things hanging in the sky.
That thing that I was pretty sure had spoken to me, from the Tree. Not just a Beacon, but a Bridge. A connection point.
Nell reached into her backpack and withdrew one of the translucent fruits. She offered it to me.
“I’m not that hungry,” I admitted. “I absorbed some of your plants on the way up here.”
“When’s the last time you actually ate?” Nell asked. Her eyes, red from crying, bored holes into my soul. “Eat,” she ordered.
I took the translucent fruit and held it between my hands. The sections of fiber and juicy pulp were like facets on a diamond. My mouth, which felt like all it had tasted for so long was metal and dust, began to salivate. I bit in and chewed.
The juices were warm and comforting, like a spiced hearty soup.
Nell watched me, seeing something I could not.
I swallowed.
“It’s good.”