The Fire Children (4 page)

“Hold out your hands,” said Amma. Yulla did, palms up like she was praying to Mother Sun. A moment later a smooth wooden plate weighed them down. Amma rustled away, then came back. Metal
chinked
on stone at Yulla’s feet. “There’s a mug of water on your left.”

It was strange, eating in the dark. Yulla set the plate down on her lap and explored its contents with her fingers. The next few meals would be treats, she knew, as they finished off the last loaf of olive bread Amma had baked up above, and ate the fruit that wouldn’t last the week. Still, she was surprised to find the bread spread with a thick layer of butter. She wolfed it down, amazed at her own hunger after gorging herself at the feast last night, then patted the plate until she found something smooth and squishy that turned out to be cheese.

As she chewed she realized the flavors seemed sharper, the textures more noticeable on her tongue. Before each bite, she brought the morsel close to her nose for a sniff. That took a bit of trial and error—a second piece of olive bread left a buttery smear on the tip of her nose when she brought it too close too fast. She found chunks of mango, orange slices, and sweet dates stuffed with almond paste. Here in the dark, Amma couldn’t scold her for licking her fingers as long as she was careful not to smack her lips.

Even the water tasted different than what they drank up above, though she’d helped draw bucket after bucket from the well. She and Kell had lugged them down the stairs, water sloshing over the sides and soaking their feet if they went too fast. Maybe it had taken on a bit of flavor from the tall terracotta jug; or maybe it was the cellar air mixing in. It didn’t taste
bad
, or stagnant, or sour; only different.

The adults resumed their conversation while Yulla ate. For the most part, it was boring, the kind of gossip that had no effect on her. She found it more interesting to listen to how their voices bounced off the walls than to sit while they speculated on whether Old Moll’s great-granddaughter would have a boy or a girl, or when this person might finally admit they wanted to marry that one, or what the merchants might bring along the trade roads come the end of summer.

She carried her plate and cup to the sideboard and stacked them atop the others without incident. From there she shuffled around the room, counting out her steps, listening to her parents’ and Aunt Mouse’s echoes fade away down the tunnels, or catching the faint murmurs of conversation from other families in other cellars.

She stepped into the tunnel, walking a little way between their house and the next. Her fingers trailed along the rough length of the rope guide as she went, counting the knots that marked off every ten feet so she’d know how far back home was. Right now, households all over the city were waking up to their first day in the dark. Later, they’d visit each other, a roving party nearly as grand as the feast they’d thrown the night before.

What was happening up above? Were the Fire Children already in Kaladim? Where? She imagined them flickering through the Worship Hall, pretending to be shopkeepers in the market, racing up and down the streets. She wondered whether parts of the city were burning—not everything in Kaladim was made of stone. The weeks after the Scorching Days were filled with rebuilding, all the craftspeople lending their time and talents to replacing what had been destroyed. Abba said you could hear hammers and saws from the time Mother Sun rose in the morning until long after she went to bed.

After a while, Yulla turned around and counted the knots until she arrived home. While she’d been outside, Kell had dragged herself out of bed. Yulla followed the voices back toward the cushions. More accurately, she followed the sound of Kell’s chewing. Her sister’s tendency to smack her lips while eating always grated on Yulla’s nerves, but it seemed ten times louder in the dark.

“What time is it?” asked Kell around a mouthful of food.

It was a good question; now that she thought of it, Yulla still had no idea how long they’d slept, or even how long she’d been awake. It might have been an hour, though it felt longer and shorter at the same time.

“A little before noon,” said Abba, just as Amma said “nearly eleven,” and Aunt Mouse said, “no, it can’t even be ten-thirty yet.”

“You don’t... no one
knows?
” Kell’s plate clattered to the floor. “But how will we know when it’s time to do anything? Whether it’s morning, or night, or even what day it is?”

Hearing the worry in her sister’s voice set the alarms sounding in Yulla’s head, too. “How do we know when the Darktimes are over?”

“What if we go up late and miss the Reemergence?” Kell had picked out a dress months ago for the feast that would be held when the people went back aboveground.

Yulla’s fear loomed larger. “What if we go up too
early?
What if the Fire Children are still walking the city?” They’d burn everyone to cinders.

“The Worship Hall,” said Aunt Mouse, as if that explained everything.

Kell’s outraged mewling became a grunt. “Uh?”

“Think of its floor, right in front of the altar.”

Yulla closed her eyes, imagining it. Or, at least, she thought she closed them; she still couldn’t be certain. The Worship Hall was huge, open on one side, and spacious enough to fit all the citizens of Kaladim within its stone walls. The interior was open, the floors covered by brightly-woven prayer rugs where families knelt during ceremonies. Carved limestone arches spidered overhead, supporting the glass roof that let Mother Sun keep watch over her mortal children. In some places, the glass was melty from where the Fire Children had climbed up and touched it in the past.

Above the altar was a circular opening that let in the sky. Directly beneath it, a glass panel had been inlaid into the floor. Couples knelt upon it when they said their vows; babies were set atop it in their prism-decked baskets when their parents presented them to Mother Sun for the first time.

“The Sunglass?” Yulla got an elbow to her ribs for being first to answer. She jabbed Kell back and said, “There’s only stone underneath.”

“Most of the time, yes.” Aunt Mouse imposed herself between the girls. She did this often when they were ready to snipe at one another. “But don’t you think the Worship Hall has its own cellar?” She couldn’t see them nodding, but she paused for it anyway. “The stone beneath the glass can be moved away. During the Darktimes, it can be opened to let the light in so the priests can look up and tell the time.”

“But won’t the Fire Children see? Can’t they use it to come down here and explore?” Kell sounded scared—enough to have been distracted from her beloved dress—but Yulla perked up. Did the priests look up through the chute and see fiery faces peering back down at them?

Could
she
have a look?

“It’s warded the same as the doors above.”

Amma picked up the telling. “Sister Moon might hide Mother Sun’s face, but they still travel across the sky. The priests ring bells to let the rest of us know where they are, what time it is.”

“I haven’t heard any,” said Kell.

Yulla had been awake longer, but she hadn’t heard them either, and said so.

Aunt Mouse laughed. “You haven’t been awake
that
long. Sunrise, mid-morning, midday, afternoon, and sunset. That’s when they ring. And once at midnight. You two lazy-bones slept well past the mid-morning bells. We thought you might dream yourselves right through—” she broke off as a chiming came from the tunnel behind them.

“Well, now,” said Abba. “I was closest. You ladies each owe me a penny.”

“Yes, yes.” Aunt Mouse sounded vexed as she lumbered to her feet. “Go on and get dressed now, girls. We’ll have visitors soon.”

Coins clinked as they changed hands. The sound of banter followed her and Kell. Though her hands and feet were feeling their way towards the bedroom, her mind was busy puzzling out in which direction the Worship Hall lay.

T
HE GIRLS HAD
barely finished dressing when the visiting began. Footsteps pattered down the corridor, accompanied by the trills of their neighbors calling hello.

Yulla could pick out some people by their voices, others from the way they smelled: a draft of yeasty air followed in the baker’s wake; the farrier smelled of hot metal and horsehair; wafts of indigo and lye clung to the dyer. Everyone came bearing something to share. Wicker baskets creaked with their burdens as the visitors drifted in and out of the cellar.

Amma and Aunt Mouse herded them. Perishables like cakes and soft cheeses and goats’ milk went on one table. Infused oils, cured meats, and hard candies went on another. Still a third held other gifts: games that could be played in the dark, yarn and pencils for crafts that would be guided by feel alone, tiny pots of perfume and potpourri, bells and finger-cymbals and teak sticks for music-making. There was some giggling whose cause Yulla couldn’t figure, though she heard jars of sloshing liquid being placed on a high shelf.

There was gossip, too, scandalized whispers as someone—one of Old Moll’s sons?—mentioned how a newly married priest and priestess were off celebrating their honeymoon in the dark. “Ishem worships Anur,” he said. “Maybe even more than he does Mother Sun. I hear they missed all of this morning’s rites.”

Someone made a joke about Anur and Ishem performing rites of their own, and the group burst into laughter that they quickly hushed. “Shhhh,” said Aunt Mouse, “the girls are listening!” The chagrined silence lasted all of a few seconds before they burst into another round of snickering.

After a while, Yulla lost count of how many visitors had come and gone. She and Kell sat together at one end of the cluster of cushions, out of the adults’ way. Every so often someone would come by and make polite conversation with them, asking how their first day in the dark was going. They exclaimed a bit over Yulla, regaling her with their memories of her own birth—how they’d heard her first cries, or how they’d come to check on Amma and wish her well.

It got awkward after a while. The stories began blending together—how many different ways could you say
I heard your mother howling, and I stumbled through the dark to say hello after she stopped and you started?
At least they couldn’t see the way the indulgent, slightly bored smile had frozen on her face.

Sometimes Yulla heard Abba or Amma or Aunt Mouse slipping away to go visiting, their familiar footsteps drifting away down the tunnels. One of the three always remained behind to play host, greet guests, and offer them morsels from both the family’s stores and the gifts others had brought. When Amma was gone, Yulla noticed, Abba and Aunt Mouse would take those sloshing jars down from the high shelf and pour thimblefuls for whoever had come calling. It smelled of fermented plums and anise, and was sharp enough to make Yulla’s eyes water even from a distance.

By the time the afternoon bells came chiming through the tunnels, Abba, Aunt Mouse and their guests were giggly and gregarious.

Kell and Yulla were merely bored.

“Can’t
we
go visiting?” asked Yulla.

“Soon.” Kell didn’t sound like she believed it, though. “When Amma comes back and says we can.”

It was both a disappointment and a small consolation that no one their own age had come passing through with their families: while it meant the girls weren’t missing out on any fun, neither were their friends having any.

It might have been a half hour after the bells when Amma returned; it might have been an hour. Yulla kept trying to count off the minutes and losing her place. But return Amma did, nearly as tipsy as their father and Aunt Mouse. An old tune came warbling from her throat, and beneath her perfume was the sharp scent of whatever was in those jars.

“Kell, Yulla, you’re still here?” She laughed and kissed them each on the forehead. “When we were your age, your Aunt Mouse and I would have snuck off as soon as no one was paying attention.”

“We raised
good
girls,” said Abba. “There’s the difference. Oof.” There was a double
thwack
as Aunt Mouse and Amma swatted at him.

“Go on then.” Amma pressed baskets into each of their hands. Yulla felt around in hers: candies, mostly, plus some little bells and a set of knucklebones. “Plenty for sharing. Come home when you hear the bells ring sunset. Kell, watch over your sister.”

Yulla wanted to protest—she was fifteen; didn’t need watching over—but fighting now risked destroying Amma’s good mood. That was never a good idea, especially not their first day down in the dark. Instead she hefted her basket and followed Kell into the tunnels.

K
ELL DID AS
she was bade, at least at first. She guided Yulla through the tunnels, one hand on the rope guide, the other stretched back to draw Yulla along in her wake.

They ducked into other families’ sitting rooms as they went, murmuring polite hellos and trading bits of candy with the families there in a smaller version of what the grown-ups had done earlier. In each home, Kell asked politely after the other children. For a while, it seemed, everyone said her friends and Yulla’s had gone off in the same direction.

Until they inevitably hadn’t. Kell’s friends had gone eastward, Yulla’s west. “There’ll be other kids your age with my friends, too,” said Kell. It was her
be
reasonable
tone, the one that said she was getting what she wanted anyway, but she’d try convincing you it was For Your Own Good while she was at it.

“I can find my way back. I know how the rope signs work. And if I get lost I can ask.” She wasn’t entirely sure about the first two claims, but that’s what the third was for. Even in the houses where they didn’t find people, you could still hear voices echoing down the tunnels. Either she could follow the sounds to someone who’d help, or she could stay put and shout until someone came to find her. Aunt Mouse always said Yulla’s voice could be heard a hundred miles away.

Kell wasn’t swayed. “You’ll get to see your friends later.”

“But your friends are
boring.
” As soon as the words escaped her lips, she knew it was the wrong argument to make. She ought to have figured out something to trade, offered to do Kell’s chores, hand over her dessert for the next couple of days, anything but insult her sister’s friends.