The Semaphore

The next morning they continued along the ravine northward, and within an hour the Lowoods gave abruptly to the high plains of Rapidan.

The three stood motionless in the sunlight. An endless expanse of brassy hills of flaxen grass shimmered in the wake of a breeze. Massive terraces of billowing white clouds drifted through the rich blue sky. There were some structures toward the western horizon—maybe smokestacks, maybe the skeletons of fallen buildings—that leaned sharply and precariously. Nearer by, a small totem of rocks, taller than Pontis, stood from the swaying grass, perhaps an old signpost, long wind-smoothed and featureless.

The ravine continued from the Lowoods and across the plain, tearing a gash through the dry, golden hills. Its ubiquitous vegetation of ferns and shrubs was replaced by the truth of its dark gray rock.

A hundred yards from where they emerged was a small white house reminiscent of the simple farmhouses on the outskirts of Lowood Den. Adjacent to the house was a structure—nearly twice its size—that reminded Pontis of an enormous blue cake. It took him a moment to discern that its blue color was the result of its glass surface crisply reflecting the sky.

“I guess that’s it,” Varia said, starting toward the house.

Pontis looked back at the Lowoods as he followed. He had never looked at them from the outside. It was a strange out of body dissonance, like looking at himself from far away. A brace of sparrows rose up from the tree line, circled once overhead, and then alit onto the canopy.

The white paint of the house’s front porch was chipped and peeling. A single old rocking chair sat on one end, facing the Lowoods. The windowpanes on either side of the front door were scuffed, and drawn curtains obstructed a view into the house. The door itself was green, with a flimsy screen door attached to the outside frame that whined on its hinges as Varia opened it.

“Should I knock?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Laszlo, breaking a silence that had followed him since the previous evening.

Varia rapped on the green door.

Pontis leaned over the porch’s railing to look at the cylindrical glass structure. It was attached to the white house by a rickety wooden walkway. Pontis could see himself reflected in its surface, as clear as if he was looking in his bathroom mirror. It had a flat roof made of a shiny black material crosshatched with wire-thin gold lines. It and the aging white house were so incongruous that their enjoinment seemed almost accidental.

“Maybe he’s not living here anymore,” Varia said, pressing her ear to the door. “But there’s music…” She knocked again.

“What’s that?” Laszlo pointed to the flindering corner of the porch over Pontis’s head, where a fist-sized object of white metal with a glass aperture was bolted. Pontis stepped back and peered into it. The aperture opened and contracted.

“I think it’s a camera,” Varia said. “Or something.”

A hissing sound issued from the camera, and then a voice.

“Who are you?”

Varia and Pontis stepped back. Laszlo placed his hand on the hilt of his knife.

“Go on, speak.”

Varia cleared her throat. “My name is Varia Longley,” she projected. “This is Laszlo Ferrir and Pontis Inoue. We’re out down from Lowood Den. Here to see Doctor Coden Hummel.”

The camera hissed and crackled. Enough time passed that Pontis started to assume there would be no response.

“Inoue, you said?”

“Yes.” Varia placed her hand on Pontis’s shoulder. “He’s the son of Doctor Fiorla Inoue. She’s the one sent us.”

The camera sputtered again and then went silent. The three looked at one another. A cool breeze made its way along the plain, jostling the screen door so it clattered against the frame. A minute rolled by, and then another. Laszlo stood at the top of the porch’s steps, his hand still on his knife. Varia chewed her lip. Pontis picked a twig from his hair and tossed it over the railing.

Then there was a click, and the house’s green door creaked open. The three gathered outside the screen and looked inside, though it was too dark against the back-glare of the sun to see anything.

“What do you make?” Varia asked quietly, as if to herself.

“I don’t know,” said Laszlo.

Pontis thought about Harper and Ien and his Ma, waiting, depending on them. He thought about the girl on Laszlo’s back. He opened the screen door and went inside.

#

The door shut behind them on its own, plunging them into total darkness. They gathered together, their hands seeking one another’s shoulders. There was an odor of old paper and stale proof. From nearby, a floorboard creaked, and a hand—either Varia’s or Laszlo’s—tightened on Pontis’s shoulder.

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“Alef, light,” said a voice from the dark.

The room flared with blinding white. The three shielded their eyes.

“Alef, lower! For god’s sake...”

The light dimmed to a soft glow.

Pontis squinted around. There were lanterns mounted to the room’s walls, each emitting a low flame that did not flicker. The room was packed with old furniture: a low wooden table with a bronze clock atop it; a red upholstered chair; a paisley rug on the wooden floor, worn from decades of trampling; oil paintings portraying scenes of forests and rivers and mountains. The wallpaper was floral and faded. Hallways branched from the room.

There was a narrow staircase along the wall, and on its lowest step stood a man. He was short, and older than anyone Pontis had ever seen. He wore thick spectacles that magnified his eyes, and a tattered bathrobe fastened tightly around his waist. He peered at the three as they continued to cling to each other just inside the door.

“Sorry to startle you,” the man said, his knobby hand feeling along the staircase’s banister. “I like to keep it dark in here during the day. The sun can be so garish on the plains.”

Varia chuckled with nerves. Laszlo smoothed his shirt where Pontis had seized it.

The man shuffled off the stairs, his robe trailing on the floor. “I have not had guests in a long time,” he said. “In fact you are the first people I’ve seen in some months…” He cleared his throat of phlegm. “Which one of you is Fiorla’s child?”

Pontis stepped forward.

Hummel tapped the outside of his thick glasses and his eyes enlarged. He studied Pontis’s face. “Mhm. I see it. Though I’m sorry to say you look more like your father.”

Pontis pulled his voice pad from his pocket. ‘You knew my Pa?’

Hummel took the note but did not look at it. “Unspoken, I see. Good, there is too much chatter in the world.” He glanced at the page. “Yes, but not well. He came to stay here for a time, during your mother’s tutelage. A perfectly fine young man, though he could never sit still.”

Varia extended her hand toward Hummel. “My name’s Varia,” she said. “I’m the daughter of Lowood Den’s mayor.”

Hummel placed his knurled fingers in her palm.

“Thank you for taking us unannounced,” Varia continued. “We wouldn’t have come like this if it wasn’t important.”

“I’m sure.” Hummel chewed something around his wrinkled mouth.

“We need your help,” Varia went on. “And we’ve got something to show you.” She unfastened her bags, placing each on the floor until only the satchel remained. Then she paused. “Pontis, the letter. From your Ma.”

Pontis fished out the letter, carefully folded between two unopened voice pads, and handed it to Hummel.

Hummel held the letter close to his face, tapping his glasses until his eyes were nothing but two big pupils. He cleared his throat wetly as if about to read aloud, but then said nothing. As he read, his face darkened—and so, Pontis thought, did the lanterns on the walls.

After a minute, the old man lowered the letter and tapped his glasses until his eyes reappeared in the frames. “Where is she?” he asked, grave.

“Here.” Varia adjusted the satchel from her back into her arms.

Hummel regarded the satchel. “The foyer is no place for this. We will take her to my study. But first I imagine you three are tired, and hungry. And you certainly smell bad. You may bathe, and eat, and rest awhile if you want.”

Varia looked back at Pontis and Laszlo. “We’ll bathe,” she said. “And if you’ve got some food, we’ll eat quick. But we don’t need rest. The girl needs your help, urgent.”

“Very well.” Hummel looked up at the foyer’s ceiling. “Alef,” he said. “Run three baths for our guests, one in each washroom. And prepare them some sandwiches. Something hearty.”

The three blinked up at the ceiling, and then at Hummel.

“Who’re you talking to?” Varia asked.

“Alef.”

“Who’s Alef?”

“My house,” said Hummel, casually, as if she’d asked him the time. “She’ll see to whatever you need while you’re here. Though she only answers to my voice, so don’t think you can go on bossing her around.”

Pontis eyed the walls. There was nothing unusual about them other than their gaudy floral wallpaper and the overabundance of artwork.

Varia indicated the lanterns on the walls, and their strange unflickering flames. “I’ve never seen fire be so still,” she said.

“Hm?” Hummel frowned, his wrinkles multiplying. “No, those aren’t…” He trailed off, then nodded slowly. “That’s right. Lowood Den. A century-long experiment in primitivism—and a successful one at that. I’m afraid I’m not as disciplined. I use electricity in abundance. Without it, I would be quite out of my element.”

“They taught about electricity in school.” Varia turned to Laszlo, who nodded in agreement. “But I’ve never seen it true.”

“Well you’ll see plenty of it here,” Hummel said.

Pontis eyed a lantern. Where there should have been flame there was instead a glass sphere, and inside the sphere was floating, unwavering light.

He heard his Ma’s words: There is nothing not of this world.

Hummel snuffed. “Go ahead and clean up,” he said. “There are two washrooms upstairs, and another down that hall. The kitchen is through there. Alef will have lunch prepared by the time you’re done. After that, bring the girl to my study.” He turned and shuffled down a hallway, disappearing through a red curtain that barely fluttered against his meager frame.

The three shared a look, and then without speaking each headed to a respective washroom. Pontis and Varia went upstairs. As they climbed, Pontis noticed that Varia smelled like sweat and damp cloth, and he imagined he must smell the same, if not worse.

He found his washroom halfway down the upstairs hall. It was dark, and he opened the curtains on the window over the sink, letting in the golden midday light. There was a towel on a rack that smelled like lavender. Pontis removed his clothes and went to run the water on the claw foot tub, but was surprised and delighted to find it already full, and steaming hot.

#

It was difficult for Pontis to rouse himself from the bath, but he managed to force himself out after only a few minutes. He dressed in the cleanest clothes he could find in his bag and went downstairs to the kitchen. It was small, with sleek gray walls and tiles. The drawers and cabinets were flush, with no handles and no other indication of how to access them. The sink had a curved faucet but no taps. There was a section of counter that seemed opportune for a stove, but all that was there was a glass surface with four neat circles, one at each corner.

There were three sandwiches on a table, meticulously composed, erupting with lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers on generous slices of fluffy oat grain bread. But there was something else on the sandwiches, something that at first Pontis did not recognize. Thin slices of a white, marbled substance. He tore a strip from the edge and smelled it, and though the smell was unfamiliar he knew instantly what it had to be.

Meat. The flesh of a dead animal.

He knew that people consumed it—even in Lowood Den there were those who ate venison on Madock—but Pontis had never. His saliva turned sour. When Varia and Laszlo entered, he was staring at the sandwiches, unsure what to do. Laszlo shrugged and simply removed the meat, setting it on the plate and devouring the rest of his sandwich in a few voracious bites. Varia did the same, and after hearing the snap of the cucumber and the mush of the tomato and bread in their teeth, his nausea passed, and Pontis ate.