The Semaphore

The sun rose over Rapidan, warming the hills from gold to yellow. Breeze danced through the low grass, carving, it seemed, secret messages for only the birds to read. The sky was speckled with cirrus clouds that drank in the sunlight, turning first orange and then red and then dissolving into blue. A single white house sat atop a hill overlooking the Lowoods to the south. It was in need of a coat of paint. The house’s photovoltaic generator hummed quietly as its platelet drank in the day’s first rays of sunlight. A robin who built her nest in the eaves of the house took off toward the tree line in search of breakfast for her newly hatched chicks. All was quiet on this morning at the southern edge of Rapidan.

Then there was a burst of green light on the hillside, and Pontis Inoue appeared from nowhere, his face stricken with panic, his sister bleeding to death in his arms.

He raced to the house at the speed of the wind. He was too distracted to notice that his feet never touched the ground. Nor did he pay it any mind when the front door of the house opened before him, despite the fact that it used a locking mechanism capable of withstanding 5000ft/lbs of force and regulated by a system that responded only to the voice of Coden Hummel.

He landed in the foyer. The house was quiet and dim.

Help! he thought.

‘Help!’ Varia called in his ear.

Doctor Hummel! Help!

‘Help!’

Help!!!

“HELP!”

The voice exploded from the coat as loud as thunder. It was Varia’s voice, but also another deeper voice that neither Pontis nor Varia recognized. It shook the house, sending loose papers scattering and the brass clock toppling to the floor.

Pontis blinked, startled by the sound.

‘Did we just…’ Varia started, unsure of what to say.

Hummel appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing a long nightgown and fumbling to set his spectacles in place.

“What on earth!” he exclaimed, peering down. He tapped the spectacles twice, their glass reflecting the green glow of the coat. His eyes widened and his mouth drifted open. “What is… How did…” His voice trailed off, his hand trembling at the banister.

Then he noticed Harper bleeding in Pontis's arms, and his face darkened. “What happened?” he asked gravely, starting down the stairs.

She needs help! Pontis thought.

‘She’s going to die!’ Varia shouted in Pontis's ear.

The coat was silent.

Hummel reached the bottom of the stairs. “Oh dear,” he said, standing over Harper. “Bring her.” He headed down the hall with surprising speed. “Alef,” he said. “Prepare the study for triage.”

Pontis carried his sister.

“Place her on the table,” Hummel instructed.

Alef’s arms were busy sweeping books and papers from the tabletop onto the floor. Pontis set Harper down gently, his hand beneath her head. Her eyes were closed, her face nearly peaceful. If it wasn’t for the bluish tint of her skin—and the open gash at her throat—she may have been merely sleeping.

“Move aside,” Hummel said, guiding Pontis away.

Pontis stood back. He watched helplessly as a bar of light emitted from the tabletop and scanned the short length of Harper’s body. A metal arm appeared and inserted a needle into her thigh. Another arm curled up and poised over her neck. It was still for a second, and then a harsh beam of white light shot from its tip, directly into the wound. A third arm appeared with a length of gauze, which dabbed at her bloodstained skin.

Hummel oversaw the procedure, his hands folded behind his back. He went to the cabinet and switched on the monitor, studying the rows of letters and numbers that flashed across it.

“She needs blood,” he said without looking away from the monitor. Then he turned to Pontis. “Do you happen to know your blood type?”

Pontis shook his head.

“Hold out your hand,” Hummel instructed. “Alef, check Pontis's blood type.”

One of Alef’s arms emerged from the table and extended toward Pontis.

“Open your hand,” Hummel instructed.

Pontis did so. A short needle emerged from the tip of the arm and descended toward his index finger.

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There was a hiss of static electricity and a flash of green. Pontis shielded his eyes. When he looked back, the arm was gnarled and shredded, a thin tendril of black smoke coiling from it.

Hummel’s mouth again fell.

‘That wasn’t me!’ Varia said in Pontis's ear. ‘It just happened!’

Pontis grimaced and held up his hands in apology.

“Perhaps you should take off the… coat first,” Hummel said.

Alef dragged its injured arm back under the table.

Pontis removed the coat and tossed it on the seatback of a nearby chair. It was the first time he had taken it off since escaping the tundra, and he found that he did not like not having it on.

“Alef, blood,” Hummel said, his large pupils locked on the green coat.

A new arm extended from beneath the table. It hesitated as it neared Pontis's outspread hand, then quickly pricked his finger—this time unimpeded. A bead of blood appeared from Pontis's skin, which the arm dabbed at before quickly retreating back under the table.

Hummel turned to the monitor. “Good,” he said. “Universal donor. Have a seat, Pontis. We are going to work to save this girl’s life.”

Pontis sat on the edge of the table.

Another arm emerged, this one with a longer needle and a clear tube that coiled down its length. The needle went into Pontis's forearm, and purple blood filled the tube. At the same time, purple blood filled the tube attached to the needle in Harper’s thigh.

Pontis watched Alef work on closing the wound in his sister’s neck. It moved deftly, sealing the skin with the beam of white light and placing layers of gauze across it, followed by a thick bandage and strips of surgical tape.

Five minutes later, the needle withdrew from Pontis's arm.

“We will have to wait,” said Hummel, turning from the monitor and standing over Harper. “It is up to her now.”

Pontis rose from the chair and placed his hand on Harper’s bare foot.

“Why don’t you go to the kitchen and have something to eat,” Hummel said. “Alef will make you whatever you want.”

Pontis did not move.

“I will let you know how she is.” Hummel adjusted his spectacles. “But there is nothing more you can do for her now beyond what you already have.”

Pontis took a slow breath. He took the coat from the seatback and carried it from the study and into the foyer. He had no appetite—though it had been days since he’d eaten—so he walked out through the front door and stood on the porch and looked out at the Lowoods.

After a minute, he put the coat back on.

‘Pontis!’ Varia said at once.

I’m sorry, Pontis thought. I had to take you off to help Harper…

‘No!’ Varia exclaimed. ‘I’m glad you did. It gave me a minute to figure out how we did that thing we did before.’

What thing? Pontis thought.

‘How we spoke,’ Varia said. ‘I think I can recreate it. Do you want to try?’

Pontis watched a pair of birds dance up from the canopy of the Lowoods, flitter together through the sunlight, and then descend back into the leaves. He blinked slowly, his body weighted down by some unseen force.

Yes, he thought. But I need a minute.

He sat on the old rocking chair, stretched his legs in front of him and folded his arms across his chest, and was asleep before Varia could respond.

#

He awoke when the screen door whined open and Hummel stepped onto the porch.

“You got her here just in time,” he said, looking out at the three line. “She’s stable, and Alef is keeping a close watch.” He turned to Pontis, who rose from the rocking chair. “You keep showing up here with wounded girls,” he said. “Where did you find this one?”

She’s my sister, Pontis thought, reaching for his voice pad.

“She’s my sister,” said the voice from the coat, both Varia’s and another. It was scratchy, like a phonograph in need of cleaning, and far quieter than the explosive cry for help that had come from it earlier.

Pontis blinked down at the coat, and then nodded at Hummel, confirming its assertion.

Hummel’s magnified pupils reflected the coat’s soft green glow. For a long time he did not speak, his face expressing a deep train of private thought. Then his brow furrowed and his jowls creased. “If what I’m seeing is what it appears,” he said slowly, “then perhaps we are not as doomed as I suspected.”

Pontis frowned. What do you mean? he thought.

“What do you mean?” the coat asked, its voice creeping forward as if from far away.

Hummel turned toward the door. “Let’s sit inside,” he said. “We have a lot to discuss, and the sun is too garish for my eyes.”

They relocated to the sitting room, the same in which he, Varia and Laszlo had sat less than a week before. The room’s curtains were drawn against the midday sun. A half-charred log lay across the andiron in the mantle.

Hummel sat in the same high-back chair he had the last time, and Pontis sat across from him. For several minutes they were silent. Hummel appeared to be thinking about what to say. Pontis was unsure where to even begin thinking.

“Where did you find it?” Hummel asked, finally.

“Find what?” came the voice from the coat. Pontis knew what Hummel was referring to, and he wondered why Varia was being coy.

Hummel said nothing, his black pupils fixed on Pontis.

Pontis shifted uncomfortably. Just tell him, he thought.

Another moment passed. “It’s a long story,” the coat said, its pair of voices growing clearer with each word.

“Then get to telling it,” Hummel said.

The coat told Hummel what had unfolded since they left his home a week ago. It told him about their trek across Rapidan and their encounter with Mondagreen; it told him about Arborvale and the trail of footprints; it told him about the hole, and their descent; it told him about the white tower and the naked, eyeless man with the leather collar; it told him about the strange life-sized dioramas of rooms that appeared from another world; it told him about the man in the long mask, who cast them by some means into a bleak, frigid tundra; it told him about Varia’s death, and her return; it told him about their escape from the tundra, and what happened in Lowood Den; it told him every detail it could recall leading up to the present.

Hummel listened intently to each word, unmoving and hardly blinking. He took a long, slow breath and ran a knurled finger down a crease in his face.

“So Varia is with you?” he asked finally.

“Yes,” said the coat. “I’m right here.”

Hummel nodded. “I am sorry for what befell you, Miss Longley. Though you should take solace in knowing that your death has been profoundly distinct from most. All, in fact, but one other that I know of.”

What does he mean? Pontis thought.

“What do you mean?” asked the coat.

Hummel peered at them. “So you do not know what you have,” he said, not a question but a statement.

Pontis leaned forward.

Varia was silent.

Hummel cleared his throat. “Then it is my turn,” he said, “to tell you a story.”