Ignite

CHAPTER 1

Her.

               It’s raining, suddenly. I can hear the soft tapping of drops on the roof as the rain arrives, first just a few little sounds, then more. It’s not long before there are so many that the sounds cannot be distinguished from one another. If I were to look out a window, I’m sure that I would see driving sheets of water coming down from gray skies hitting the glass, and I could watch as the individual drops separated themselves again to slide down the clear rectangle and fall down to the waiting ground.

               I’m not watching the rain, though. I’m sitting on my bed upstairs watching the wall opposite me, waiting for something even I can’t remember.

               We, as the family of the deceased, were given notice this morning that today was to be the day of our father’s funeral, as it is the third day since we got word of his death. As is law.

               Now, I have a half an hour to be ready to walk through a rainstorm at the head of a processional made up of me, four of Gallagher’s Gentlemen at Arms who will carry the casket, and my sister. If Fera ever decides to show up.

               She disappeared the day the Police came and told us our father had been murdered.  I had been at school when it happened. They came to me during class to collect me to identify the body. Fera had been at home. We were told it was a robbery. A mugging. That some desperate soul had tried to take from my father, that there was an altercation, and that my father was stabbed.

               This fooled no one.

               Everyone in the city knows my father. Everyone knows that they have but to ask and he will share what he has with those upon whom Gallagher’s laws have come down harder. But what I know something no one else does that makes the Police’s story impossible. The knife that killed him would never have gotten anywhere near his heart had his attacker been a common criminal. No. My father was too skilled for that.

               Even without mentioning the fact that the two most valuable possessions my father carried—his and my mother’s wedding rings—were still on his body when he was found, the story already had too many holes to be even close to true.

               Everyone in City 37 knows what happened, and the Police know that we know. It’s just another layer of their arrogance that they can tell us a blatant lie and we have to swallow it as the truth. No dissent, no retaliation. They will come, and they will carry the casket of the man who’s heart they stopped. They will lay him in his final resting place, imprison him in the soil of an unmarked grave.

               I feel sick. I am sick. Heartsick. I cling to small things to take my mind off my impotence. Standing. Walking, one foot in front of the other, to the closet. I have to get ready for the funeral. I have to be on time. It is law. But as I stand before the closet I shared with my sister that held our few hanging clothes, I lose the will to do anything at all.

               Then I see what I’ve forgotten was in the back of this closet, hidden carefully in protective sheets of wrapping paper, and I know what to do.

………………..

Him.

I get to City 37 on the morning of the funeral. In the Numbered Cities, a funeral takes place three days after the person’s death, by law. For Foxx, that’s today.

               My arrival to the City goes unnoticed. 37 looks much like home—dirty grey streets lined with tumbledown buildings, Gentlemen of Arms milling around with guns, homeless people in doorways, a huge wall lining the parameter. No one looks at me as I pass. They don’t even look at each other.

               I look up at the sky. It’s color matches the city. Gray. Rain coming. Bad day for a funeral. Is there ever a good day for a funeral?

               I keep my head down. Just because no one looks at you doesn’t mean they don’t notice you. It was Foxx who taught me to always be on my guard.

               Why am I here? I don’t know. Or maybe I do know. I think that I would prefer not knowing. But I can’t think about that right now. If I think of the past, I am lost, and I can’t afford that. I have a job to do, and I cannot fail. I owe too much to Foxx.

               I push the thoughts back to the back of my mind. I pass a huge clock mounted on a post. It’s face is riddled with bullets, bits of old glass clinging to the edges. The hands are stuck at quarter to four. I look to the sky for a more reliable time. It’s almost eight.

               Funerals always happen in the morning. Because starting the day with death is a lovely idea. I could try and find Foxx’s house, but it’s easier to just find the City’s main street and wait there. If things here are the same as at home, then the funeral procession will pass down that road soon enough to the cemetery in the center of the city.

               It will be the first time I’ll see Foxx since that night in the woods. It’s odd to think that only three days ago, he was alive. Now he’s in a box.

               It starts to rain. Not too hard, but steady. If I close my eyes, it’s the same. Raindrops hitting the leaves, spongy forest floor under my boots, and Foxx’s silent feet beside me. He always walked silently.

               I open my eyes and I’m alone in a run-down city, getting rained on.

               I sit on a bench to wait. The thing looks ready to collapse, but I probably do too, so I don’t judge it for its appearance. As I wait, I tick off in my mind what I’m looking for.

               Two girls--you’ll know them when you see them, he’d said. Whatever that means. Mina, age nineteen, brunette, family resemblance. Yellow eyes. That last detail struck me as odd, but I didn’t have time to question. Fera, twenty, red hair, green eyes. Both live in a white townhouse on Campton Street. No matter how hard I try, I can’t fit the Foxx I knew into this life.

               My hair is sticking to my forehead now, soaked. I push it off. A GA walks by, gives me a look, and passes on. I look down the street. Something is happening. A little ways down to my right, a small crowd is gathering.  Lots of men and women dressed in black, but I don’t see any children. It must be eight, if the funeral is starting.

               People pass me, walking toward the gathering crowd. Everyone is in mismatched black clothes, or the darkest things they can find. Brown or navy blue or grey. All of them are soaked. The crowd starts to get bigger.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crowd for a funeral before, much less in the rain. According to law, only direct relations are allowed to walk in the processional and be at the actual burial. Anyone else close who wishes to attend the funeral can look on from a few yards away. This number is usually only a few.

This crowd is huge, and the people keep coming. People stretch from somewhere down the road almost to my bench.  It feels like all of 37 turned out in the rain for this. They line the street. I feel black-clad people pressing in behind me. No one talks. The silence is so heavy it’s suffocating.  I stay put. Maybe if I don’t move, I can make it look like I planned this.

               The line of people stretches down the street and around the corner when I hear the Police horn. One blast, obnoxious and effective. Anyone in the street instantly moves to the curb parting the black sea. I strain my eyes. I still can’t see anything through the rain, but I’m not really in a hurry to face this. I sit back and wait for the show to come to me. I don’t wait long.

               I see the girl first. At a distance, through the rain, but I can just make her out.  Behind her, four GenArms carry Foxx’s box. It’s not a coffin. It’s solid wood painted black held together with nails, nothing else. It’s a box.

               They put Foxx in a box. It even rhymes. I fight nausea.

               The crowd on either side of the road is moving as the girl and the box passes. It’s a small movement, but a unified one. I can’t tell what they’re doing until the processional is about ten feet away.

               They’re bowing. I don’t believe it. Every person. The whole damn city. On bended knee. In the rain.

               I feel oddly grateful to these people, these strangers. Foxx deserved so much more. But I’d expected much less.

               I’m so caught in watching the people of 37 that I forget to watch what I came to see. I don’t realize at first that the procession has stopped. When I turn, she is right in front of me.

               She wears black like the rest, but actual black, not mismatched or faded. The long coat hangs to her calves, limp with water. Black boots hide her legs. Her body is slender. Black-gloved hands clutch the jacket shut at her chest. Her hair is in braids circling her head. In the rain, the dark brown looks as black as the fabric. Loose strands stick to her forehead and neck. Her neck is long and pale.

               Her face is arresting.

               She’s looking forward, not at me, but I can still see the eyes. They were described as yellow. This is incorrect. They are not yellow, they are gold. Strange and lovely, but disfigured by obvious pain. She stands tall, her chin high and her shoulders set. She looks solid. She wants to look whole. But she isn’t. One look at those eyes and it’s obvious.

               And she is so beautiful.

               Her steps are sure, almost measured, with her feet planted strongly on the ground. I know the walk well. It’s the walk of someone who has lost much. So much that their feet on the pavement is the only thing left that grounds them.

               I am unprepared. I was given a description and told what to look for. I was not told what I would find. I feel, suddenly, like I’ve been running full tilt toward a ledge and stopped at the last moment, looking down at the ground far below. Vertigo? Fear? Hate? I don’t know the word for it.

               Those eyes. Those broken-glass eyes. No. broken mirrors. I see myself in them. My instincts tell me to run, get away. My mind forces me to stay. I sit still and watch.

               Her chest rises and falls. Deep breath. Her eyes face the sky. Her jaw sets. She turns to the four GAs behind her. The men look anxious. Angry, maybe, but more anxious than anything. It doesn’t make sense. Half of them are looking around at the bowing crowd, unsure. The rest are looking back at the girl. A moment passes. The rain keeps coming. Then her voice rings like a shot in the silence.

               “Could you do me a favor, Sir?” She is addressing one of the GAs. Her voice is polite, but not genuine. The man looks confused and says nothing. Then she whips off her coat. Water flings everywhere. The crowd gasps. I blink.

               Underneath the black coat, she is wearing a red dress. Bright red. The fabric looks blood soaked as the raindrops sink into it.

               “Could you hold this for me?” she flings the coat at the Officer with all her strength. It hits him in the chest, just missing his face. He nearly drops his end of the box.

               The following silence is deafening.

               I close my eyes. I don’t want to watch her die. In my mind I see the officer lunge, the box drop. The shots ring out. Within seconds her blood is washing away in the rain.

But this does not happen. Nothing happens. When I open my eyes, the Officer is staring at her in disbelief. She is staring back. Accusing. Where there was broken glass a moment ago, now there is fire. Unexpectedly, pride surges in my chest. I want to laugh out loud. I’ve never seen anyone call out the Police before. I’ve never seen anyone hold them accountable for anything. This girl just did that without saying anything. She is Foxx’s daughter without doubt.

               After a tense moment, the processional moves on. I stay where I am. As people start to file away, I go over everything in my mind. The red dress had been corseted with a full skirt. It was made of some kind of shiny fabric. Silk, maybe. Old-fashioned. Very old-fashioned. Probably from generations ago. A family heirloom. And very expensive.

               It’s illegal to pass possessions from one generation to the next. It’s also illegal to wear any color other than black to a funeral. And to stop a funeral procession. I’m pretty sure it’s frowned upon to throw wet clothing at GAs, too. Mina Foxx had her father’s courage. And a death wish.

               I let my face fall into my hands, overcome with delayed fatigue. The vertigo feeling hits me again when I think of her name. Mina Foxx.

               Nothing is ever simple.