I hate crying. My eyes get heavy like dripping stones and my teardrops stick. It hurts. Not the tears, but what comes after them. Brick's fist, like a slamming into my ribs like a lance. His anger explodes out of him whenever I so much as sniffle, so I always try and hide my tears, like an ocean underneath my eyelids.
But Brick is not here right now.
Around me there is only the stone and the shadow, and I tremble like a leaf within them. A bit of crying would not hurt. My cheeks glisten with sticky saltwater and the drops pitter-patter on the ground, washing away little clean circles in the coating of grime. It does not matter anymore. I will never see Brick again.
Another thing that I hate is the dark. My cell is bursting with it, infected with it. The gloom slams down on me, crushing my brains and slithering down my throat, choking me. My eyes are shut tight because it does not matter whether I have them open or not: either way, I cannot see anything. I can only hear the drip-drip-drip of the sludge-water sobbing along walls of my cell. Cold sweat prickles on my skin, drenching my tunic all the way through. The dark is stirring like there is a dark-beast prowling all around me, staring with his glowing eyes. There is a sudden yelp and it takes me a second to realize that it is mine. I wrap my arms around my legs and hide my face in my thighs, hot teardrops slithering down my breeches. Brick would hang me for this. And Butch would be laughing right beside him.
Hisses crawl through the murk. There is a monster; I just know it! Ragged gasps wrack my lungs as the blackness clouds around me—I can almost feel the scrape of monstrous scales as they slide past. My heels rock me back and forth, back and forth. Nothing. Just nothing. There is nothing in my cell.
There are no monsters in the dark, Butch had told me many fortnights ago. But fear the sea serpents, Boomer! They will cleave your liver and spit out thy bones! And then the gulls will pick them clean!
Skeletons and fangs and blood reek through my mind in a sudden blaze of terror. Hot breath puffs down my throat and I scrabble away on my knees, my arms flinging unseen about me. I have to get away, far away. I am unable to think. Ice snaps over my brain. My knees slide out from under me and the ground punches the breath from my chest. The monster, he will surely eat me. But I deserve it, every last wretched second.
I should not have listened.
I should have ignored him and just walked away. Brick had to have known; he must have known what the punishment is for that kind of stealing. And yet he ordered me to take them anyway—the diamonds. They had been glittering like stars in the jeweler's window, rainbows of light shattering off of them in a fiery dazzle. I had never stolen anything like them before: I have taken biscuits and scraps of salted pork for supper, but never anything like a diamond. When I held them in my hands they sparkled in the sunlight like a pair of golden suns, smattering my skin with their delicate bursts of glitter. The most beautiful things that I had ever seen. Out of nowhere the jeweler stepped in front of me, reached for my throat. I whipped out my silver dagger and slashed. He fell. My blade was red and dripping in my hand. I hadn't meant any harm. I hadn't meant to kill him. But I am still a murderer, a murderer all the same. I deserve to rot away in this cell until the end of time.
A flare of light suddenly stabs into the blackness surrounding me. The brilliance dazzles my eyes and the demon retreats.
"Hello! How fare thee?" chimes a new voice.
There is a girl standing in front of my cell door. In her hand she holds a small cresset, its flickering flame throwing shadows trembling over the prison walls. On her face there is a smile like a sunny morrow. Her golden head of hair is pulled back into two small ponytails, her aquamarine eyes peeping at me from between the bars. Her gaze covers me like the sky, and suddenly I realize how very large her eyes are. Stretched like oceans and speckled with light. Her hand clutching the cresset is without fingers. She is lacking a nose. Ears. Toes.
A mutant. She is a mutant, kin of my brothers and I. I know naught the name of any other human being like her.
My mouth moves wordlessly. I cannot speak.
"What be thy name?" the girl asks.
I stare at her with wide eyes.
"Can you speak? Or are you a mute?"
"Nay…not a mute…"
"Then what be thy name?"
"My name is Bennet."
It is a lie. I cannot tell her about my actual name. Boomer.
"Nay," laughs the girl, shaking her blonde head.
"Aye, it is!" I splutter in protest. "Bennet. My name. Ask the Majesty: perchance his records will put y' right!"
The girl giggles again, her eyes twinkling.
"The Majesty's records will not tell me thy true name."
I just stare at her.
"I will not tell a soul," she whispers, her breath like spring puffing past me. "No matter whither I go, I will seal my lips up tight."
I recoil from her, the glow from her cresset glittering gold in her flaxen locks.
"If y' tell me, I will give thee a secret as well. My real name. My secret name."
I do not reply and so she replies to herself.
"They call me Bertrada, out thither on the streets. But y' can call me Bubbles."
"Bubbles?" I ask, not believing what I am hearing.
"Bubbles," she repeats, her arm extending through the bars for a handshake. The flame twinkles in her eyes like the sun on the sea. Gingerly, I lift my hand up to hers and she grasps it, shaking merrily. My hand is warm in hers.
"And so who art thou? Bennet y' art not."
"Boomer," I say, my name escaping from my lips like a poison. "Y' may call me Boomer."
"Many thanks, Boomer. Thou art most kind."
She looks at me and I look at her. My cheeks flush with heat and I jerk my hand away.
"Why do y' speak to me?" I suddenly blurt out to her. "I am a murderer! I am evil! Of the Devil! Are y' not afraid? Do thou not fear for thy life? I killed a man and the guards shut me away in this prison! I am condemned to death—this will be my…my final day."
My throat closes and suffocates my words, teardrops dripping down my cheeks. Her eyes hover over me for a minute, her eyes clean like the first light of dawn.
"Thou art not evil, Boomer," Bubbles whispers. "I am sure of that."
She is like an angel come down to earth, her eyes and her hair aglow in the soft firelight. Try as I might, I cannot take my gaze off of her. She smiles, gathers up her cresset, and then disappears, the firelight bobbing behind her and fading out the door.
And she is gone.
As suddenly as she had come.
Gloom presses down overhead again, but I hardly even notice it. The monster has retreated somehow, sunken down through the ground where it can haunt me no more. I think of Bubbles and my head is filled with sunlight.
There are footsteps tap-tap-tapping outside my cell. My head snaps up, the darkness shifting around me. My blinded eyes flit towards my cell doorway and for a second I expect to see her, Bubbles, standing there again with her cresset and her smile. There is nothing but blackness.
Keys rattle and the bars groan open, a dark figure pushing into my cell and seizing my collar, yanking me up onto my trembling legs. His head looms far above me, his marble fingers gripping me while his knuckles pound into my flesh. Stars of pain wink in my eyes the stone floor closes over my head. My skull crashes into the ground with a dull ache. It feels as though all of my bones are shattered. Sticky wetness burns in my mouth, the blood dribbling down my chin and splattering my tunic. A groan escapes my lips. The man's stone arms encircle me, wrenching me from the floor and twisting my arms behind my back, my muscles shrieking in protest. He speaks and his voice is like death in my eardrums.
"Speak, wretch! What do thee call thyself? Thy name, I require thy name!"
"Benn..Be…" I choke, unable to speak over the blood on my tongue.
The man plows his foot into my back, crushing my ribs into the cold stone.
"Speak, wretch!" he hisses again. "Name?"
"B…Bennet."
A harsh cry of mirth erupts from his lips.
"Thy last name, half-wit—I have no need of thy first."
"I…I have but naught. No last n…name. I have no mother. N…no father."
Curses drip from the man's tongue as he forces me up, his face snarling in mine. His eyes are twin blades, glinting in the dark as though etched with silver.
"Then thou shall perish nameless, worthless whelp of a villain," he growls, his spittle peppering my skin. He grips my elbows and shoves me down, sharp cords winding around my wrists and biting my flesh. The man knots the bindings and yanks me upright. My head spinning and my muscles throbbing, I stumble along after him, steered by his iron hand clamped on my shoulder.
I will die. I will die today.
Tears run sore down my cheeks. My eyes are clouded with saltwater.
I will die. I will die today.
There is rotten dungeon stone all around me. Our footsteps ring through the dark. Other prisoners peer at me through the bars. Lamplight trembles overhead. I cannot see their faces.
I will die. I will die today.
We drift outside and I stagger into the sun. My eyes are stabbed full of dazzling shards of light. The grass is sweet underfoot. Warmth like Heaven touches my skin and I tremble at the knees, only for my captor to grunt and wrench me forward. Tears sparkle down my cheeks. I will never see the sun again.
I will die. I will die today.
My feet scrape over the cobbles of the road, the wheels of carts spinning up clouds of twinkling dust as they quake by. The street is thronged with people. People in a dense, writhing, clamoring mass. The air explodes with curses. Angry faces. They are clamoring for my blood.
"Hang 'im high!"
"Hedge-born filth!"
"Horeson!"
"String 'im up!"
"Whey-faced varlet!"
The crowd trails after us. Ice envelops my brain. My eyes are completely dry. There is no escape.
I will die. I will die today.
I lift up my head and look down the street. Before me looms the shadowy skeleton of the gibbet. There it broods, lurking beyond the smithy and the shops and the stands—the gallows. My death. The rope swings dark against the blue of the sky and a frosty blade of horror suddenly skewers my heart.
I will die. I will die today.
Desperately I thrash in my captor's grip, the bonds digging at my wrists as I squirm to work them free. The guard's iron fingers close around my throat, forcing me to the ground as I gasp for air. My lungs are ablaze. The sky tilts overhead. Sunbeams flare and his fingers relinquish their hold. He heaves me over his stone shoulder and carries me away. It is no use.
I will die. I will die today.
I am deposited in the shadow at the foot of the gallows. There are two more guards here, and they drag me upright and glisten in their fine armor. With their swords they force me up the scaffold, the crowd bulging before me as I climb. My feet totter onto the platform and I look out.
I keep my eyes wide open. A single missed second would destroy me.
The hangman knots the noose round my neck.
The wind whispers in the oaks.
The sun glares.
The crowd, it is silent. I cannot even hear it anymore. The breeze ruffles through my hair. The swallows twitter in the trees.
I breathe. I wait.
Something silver blazes over my head.
And suddenly I am falling, pitching off of the platform to crumple on the grass below. Air flows wonderfully over my tongue. I realize that I cannot be dead.
Not dead. How am I not dead?
My eyes catch something beautiful and I turn my head to look. There is a golden-haired girl in the crowd. She is dashing through the grass towards me, her skirts flowing at her ankles. Something dazzles silver in her hand. A dagger—just like mine. Her arms are around me, propping me up off of the ground. She stares over me and my spirits leap. Eyes so blue that I could fall into them.
Bubbles.
Her lips move and the Heavens sing.
"NAY! Ye cannot kill him!"
She is screaming and the hangman screams back, pulling one of her silver daggers from the neck of the gallows.
"Lass?" splutters the hangman, holding it out to her. "This be thine? This knife?"
She remains silent, her ponytails tickling my chest as she leans over me, dragging her blade through my bonds.
"Pray y' answer me, lass!" demands the hangman, once more shaking her knife. "This blade be thine? It is thou who has interrupted the hanging?"
She looks up. Crooks back her arm and releases. Her dagger flares across the sky, piercing the hangman's throat in a deadly glint. He collapses, and then the crowd explodes. She grasps my hand and we run. It is as if we have grown wings, and our shoes seem to soar over the grass. The afternoon pulses with the roar of the mob. Stones, arrows, lances and fire, raining down over us.
My hand is warm in hers.
My gaze catches a glitter of metal, tearing at us through the air. Its wicked tip winks at me as it descends, launched from the hand of a man in the mob. A flash and the spear has pierced me. Iron juts from my stomach and my knees give way, Bubbles slumping against my back. It has skewered through the both of us, pinning us together. The earth smells alive under my head, and our blood spreads wet crimson over the grass. I feel Bubbles' breath on my neck, dying puffs of spring against my skin. I find her hand and gather it up.
"Thank y'…" I manage, looking into her eyes. A smile colors her lips and together we slip away.
The Townsville cityscape gleams and hunches all around me as I sit, my legs dangling off of the skyscraper's edge. Traffic flows like the tide beneath me. Horns sound. Tires shriek. The harbor glitters in the distance, sea breeze whipping cold through my hair.
I really hate Brick sometimes. Everything is wrong with me, Brick had yelled. I cry too much. The dark terrifies me. I don't understand how to steal. I wouldn't take the video games.
Tears sparkle from my chin and I swipe them away. My ribs ache were he had punched me. Maybe I'll never be good enough for him. I'll never be good enough for anyone. I turn and suddenly there is someone standing next to me. A girl. Her pigtails flapping in the wind.
Bubbles. She smiles and I can only stare.
"Hi!" she squeaks, waving at me. I shudder away, horror ripping through my lungs.
"GO! Get away from me!"
"Why?" Her voice sounds sweet, like sugar.
My fist launches at her but she catches it, smiling. My other arm falls limp at my side. Her eyes shimmer and I can't move.
My hand is warm in hers.