The Semaphore

‘It’s hard to explain,’ Varia said when Pontis asked—thought, rather—what, exactly, was happening.

Pontis walked in circles. Walking helped distribute the warm air from the coat across his body. It was so effective that before long he dropped the hood just to cool down—though after a minute he raised it back into place.

‘I don’t remember much after going inside the tower,’ Varia said. ‘I remember pain, in my stomach. And fear. And there are images: A staircase. A chandelier… Were we in a kitchen?’

Yeah, Pontis thought. Kind of.

‘After that there was just darkness. I remember feeling like I was drifting away from my body. Like sinking down into water. Part of me was sad, that my body and I would never be together again. But another part of me was calm. Not happy, but… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like finishing a great meal. You wish it wasn’t over, but you’re glad you got to enjoy it at all.’

Pontis walked in a wide circle over the ice.

‘And for a long time, that was it,’ Varia continued. ‘Just darkness. No thoughts, no feelings. A kind of unending weightlessness. Nothingness. I could’ve been there a second or centuries. There was no way to know. And I didn’t care.

‘But then something happened.

‘There was a green light. At first it seemed to be coming from everywhere. But then it closed in around me, like a cocoon. Though it wasn’t really me that it closed around, because there was no me anymore. I wasn’t anyone. I had no body. No thoughts. Even my memories were gone then. But whatever it was, the green light closed around it, and then kept closing, smaller and smaller until it was the size of a grain of sand. Even smaller. Smaller than anything you could see with your eyes. Then it stopped shrinking, and for a while it just kind of hung there, doing nothing. I didn’t think about it or care about it in any way. It just was. Then at once it seemed to drop, just an inch, onto a hard surface, and to roll like a marble. It rolled for a bit, and then fell again, and plopped into liquid, and just floated there.

‘Next thing I knew there was a hum, which got louder and louder, and then the green cocoon broke apart into a million pieces, and when it did all my memories and thoughts came rushing in, like water rushing in through a broken dam. I felt it all, my whole life—which a second before I didn’t know or care that I ever had—come flooding back. I was scared at first. It was so confusing... But then I heard you. Not your voice, because I don’t know what that sounds like. But your thoughts. And it was unmistakably you, more you than anything else about you. You were thinking about me, of all people. And this helped remind me who I was. I tried to answer you but I hadn’t figured out yet how.

“Then more things started to happen. First, I could see again. Not like I could see before, like how you see, through eyes in the front of a face. I could see in all directions. All directions at once. Right now I can see the sky and the ground, in front of you and behind you and all angles in between—all at the same time. And I can hear. Not just your thoughts, but the rushing of your blood. And the creaking of the earth below the snow. And other things so faint that I never even knew they were there. It’s incredible and confusing. It took me awhile to even figure out where I am.’

The coat glowed faintly, and fluttered across Pontis's body.

‘But once I did, I figured out how to speak to you. It’s so easy now that I know how. And there are other things, too. I know so many other things.’

What things? Pontis thought.

‘It’d take forever to tell you them all,’ Varia said. ‘Each second I’m flooded with more and more. There’s so much in here. Look, watch this.’

The coat stiffened then, its lower half flaring into the shape of a bell. Pontis tensed and stood perfectly still, his hands clenched. For a moment it didn’t seem like anything else was going to happen. But then the green light flared, and the coat shook as if struck by a mallet. It emitted a loud peal like the bell in a clock tower, and at the same instant a burst of invisible energy exploded outward, rippling the air and displacing the snow and the packed ice beneath in a circular crater around Pontis before emanating off across the tundra.

Pontis stood there blinking as the coat’s glow faded and its material relaxed.

‘Full cool, yeah?’ Varia said. ‘That was just a whisper. I think it can be a stronger if it needs. It’s called Tetragrammar.’

Tetragrammar?

‘I don’t know why. There all have names. So many. I’ve barely even scratched the surface…’ Varia’s voice trailed off for a moment. ‘And I think…I think there’s someone else down in here with me.’

Pontis frowned. Who?

‘I don’t know yet,’ Varia said. ‘Their voice is far away. But they’re trying to tell me something, I just need to figure out how to hear them better.’

Pontis resumed walking. He tried to process what was happening. If this was real, if he really was talking to Varia from inside a coat and he was not in the throes of a hypothermic hallucination, then how, exactly, had she ended up in there? Maybe it’s because she died while wearing it, he thought, and then stopped in his tracks and slapped his forehead. Sorry, he thought.

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‘Relax, lovey-boy,’ Varia said. ‘I did die. But it’s not like I’m embarrassed about it. And I think you’re right. Something about my death gave my some way to…to enter this…it’s not a coat. It looks like a coat, but it’s something else.’

Then what is it?

‘I don’t know.’ Varia said. ‘But in the meantime, I think I can get us out of here.’

#

It started to snow. It was slow at first, but the flakes grew larger and the wind picked up to a sustained torrent. Before long, Pontis could see nothing beyond the ring of green light cast around him from the coat.

‘This one’s trickier,’ Varia said. ‘It’s called Fallacy. And I need your help with it.’

What do I need to do? Pontis thought.

A second passed, and Pontis got the sense that Varia was distracted.

‘I need you to think of someplace. Someplace you’ve been.’

Why?

‘Because I think I can put us there. But it’s you who needs to be thinking about it. I can only pedal. You need to steer.’

Pontis squinted against the blizzard. Thoughts scrambled through his mind, people, places and things.

‘Breathe,’ Varia said. ‘Slow down.’

Pontis closed his eyes and took a slow breath. He tried to clear his mind. A place, he thought. A place I’ve been… He saw the pond below the suspension bridge, its surface crowded with lily pads. He heard the constant buzz of the dragonflies, the birdsong in the trees, the swallows swooping toward the surface. Ien was there, standing on the shore. He smiled at Pontis, and Pontis went to him. His skin glistened with pond water, his mess of blonde hair glinting in the sun. He smiled, his perfect, crooked, confident little smile, and leaned toward Pontis, his lips pursed.

‘Whoa there, lovey-boy,’ Varia’s voice brought him back to the frigid, raging tundra. ‘He’s full cute, but I need you to focus.’

Pontis nodded, embarrassed.

‘That was better, though,’ Varia said. ‘Try someplace without any nasty distractions.’

Pontis took another slow breath and shut his eyes gently. The wind howled. He turned his attention inward. He needed a place without distractions. A quiet place. A place he knew well. He focused, picturing himself there, smelling its smell, hearing the small sounds of it.

I’ve got it, he thought.

‘Good. Yeah. I see it.’ Varia spoke urgently, as if she was doing a million other things in the background. ‘Keep it there. I’m trying this.’

The coat fluttered, and then settled against Pontis's body. There was a hum, faint against the raging wind. Pontis shut it out, replacing it with the place in his mind. The coat tightened around his limbs and his torso and his face. He struggled to keep his focus against the wind and the shrinking coat.

‘Hang on now…’ Varia said, her voice suddenly far away.

Pontis put himself in the place. He felt the floor beneath his feet. He felt the warm breeze through the open window. He could smell bread baking in the other room.

‘Here we go!’

Pontis opened his eyes briefly, finding nothing but green. He moved his fingers, feeling only tautened fabric. The coat had closed around him—the hood, the sleeves, the flowing length—sealing him inside.

The wind went suddenly silent. Pontis felt weightless, followed by a faint sensation of falling. The hum grew louder, rising to a high pitch. Pontis gritted his teeth, bracing for an impact he was certain was imminent. But no impact came. Instead, the high pitch suddenly waned, and the sense of falling ceased without the accompanying sense of landing. For a moment all was still. Then the hood opened away from his face like an aperture in a camera lens, and his hands and body were exposed.

A frigid wind assailed him.

He remained on the tundra. The snow blew sideways at monstrous speed.

‘Shit,’ Varia said. ‘I thought I’d had it.’

Pontis rubbed his face. What happened? He thought.

‘I don’t know…We’ll try again, I just…I need to put time into figuring something out.’

Pontis stood amidst the blizzard, the green coat flapping violently in the wind as if it were nothing but thin fabric.

#

Harper awoke standing next to her bed.

She didn’t want to be out of bed; she was sleepy, and she’d been having a good dream about…something. So why was she up? She looked around her bedroom. It was dark, and through the window the faintest sliver of morning was just cresting the horizon. She didn’t have school—it was still summer—and her Mama never woke her up this early, even when she did have school. So why was she out of bed? Who had woken her up? And why couldn’t she remember?

She walked out into the hall. She didn’t want to walk out into the hall, but she did it anyway. The hall was dark, and the house was mostly quiet. Mostly. There were footsteps in her Mama’s bedroom, and a moment later her Mama appeared, her hair unbraided, still wearing her pajamas. Her face was calm, her eyes staring straight ahead. Why was her Mama up, too? Had she been the one who woke up Harper?

Her Mama started down the hall toward the front door and Harper followed. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to go back to sleep. Behind her were more footsteps. She knew it was Ien even though she couldn’t turn around to check. He was staying in Pontis's room while Pontis and Varia were away, and Harper really liked hanging out with him when her Mama went to work. The three of them walked, barefoot, out the front door, down the stairs, and through the atrium into the cool predawn.

There were other people up, too, most of them also in their sleeping clothes. There was her teacher, Emon Graf, and her friends Mina and Lulu. There were people who worked at the hospital with her Mama. There was Mayor Longley and Ien’s family, his brothers in matching pajamas. Harper wanted to wave to Belle Riverwell, who lived in the apartment next to them in the tenement, but she didn’t.

She wanted to ask her Mama where everyone was going. She wanted to turn around and go back to sleep for a little longer. She wanted a sweater for the chilly air. Instead she and everyone else walked silently into the trees of the plaza.

They all walked together, everyone who lived in Lowood Den. When they neared the middle of the plaza they began to form a line. Harper lined up behind her Mama, and Ien lined up behind Harper. The line moved forward, everyone facing ahead. It reminded Harper of lining up in school to get lunch. But they were not in school. They were in the plaza, with its elm trees and its cold ground. Harper wanted to ask everyone what they were doing, why no one was saying anything. But she did not.

She simply followed her Mama, who followed the person in front of her, who followed the next person, and the next, as one-by-one they passed through the doorway of a white tower, standing amid the plaza and as tall as the trees, that had never been there before.