Chapter 13 – The Perils of Eavesdropping
I am literally in a nightmare of the gods. Both Tornado and Blue Hair seem to have Father’s face. They are stalking me through The Glass Palace, intoning the words, “You are a failure,” over and over again. I can only watch in horror as they butcher everybody they come into contact with. I try to stop them when they take hold of Brian, but I don’t really have my heart in it. They look like my father and I can’t hurt them. So they snap Brian’s neck and hurl him aside like a sack of rubbish.
“Only adults can be mayor,” says Tornado.
“I am an adult!” I shout, pulling at Brian’s still body, hoping he will move. “I’m not a child!”
The gods advance upon me. Tornado puts his hands around my neck, and with my father’s face he spits on me.
“Kill him,” orders Blue Hair.
I wake up, and I can still hear the snapping of bones ricocheting around my quarters like an echo. I can’t go back to sleep now and let the nightmares ensnare me again. I need to do something practical until I make my mind up. Not that I have much choice in being mayor when Father leaves. I just need to make sure I have accepted it as well.
I wash my face with lukewarm water left in a bowl and get dressed. When I come out of my quarters, I find Flynn and Tara talking outside, giving me the evil eye. I want to ignore them but I just can’t do that. Flynn and I will be neighbors, and members of this House, for a long time to come. I have to clear the air between us.
“Hello,” I say to them.
Tara crosses her arms and says, “We’re not speaking to you.”
“Flynn, I’m sorry about what I did.” What words can convey how guilty, how sorry, I am? “Are you both not speaking to me?”
Flynn’s eyes bore into me like he wants me dead. Tara’s nose, where I’d hit her, is as purple as a plum.
“Fine,” I say. I’m walking away when I hear Flynn shout, “Stop.”
I stop and turn towards him. I suppose I had better hear what he has to say. I owe him that much at least. “What?” I demand.
“We deserve to know what’s going on,” says Flynn, stepping up to me. He doesn’t come anywhere near me in height but I admire his audacity. “Your father indicated we might be in serious danger.”
“It’s none of your business.”
Flynn laughs. “My home and my family being in danger is not my business? I don’t think so.”
I sigh. So we have to go through all this again, do we? Except this time I know why Father thinks we are in danger. I don’t think I’ll be able to punch my way out of this situation.
“We’ve already been over this.”
“I told my parents what I overheard and we’ve organized a gathering for later today in the hall,” says Flynn, defiance in every syllable. Even Tara looks smug, which isn’t a good look for her. “Everyone who wants to know what threat we’re possibly facing is going to be there. We want your father to come and tell us the truth. If not, we’re going to make him tell us.”
I don’t like to be threatened. I certainly do not like it when a member of my family is given threats. I so want to punch Flynn in the nose again. Breaking a bone might be a possibility.
“My father is the mayor and if he thinks we’re really in danger then I’m sure he’ll let the House know,” I explain rationally, trying to talk Flynn down in a way my father might use; diplomatically. “If we were targets and he knew about it, he wouldn’t just sit back and allow us to be attacked. You all know him better than that.”
The twosome goes quiet. I need to finish this. I am going to see Harold, but there is a part of me that yearns to talk to Brian. I can’t stand him hating me, and I need to try and explain things again.
I carry on, “Mayor Casper thinks of the House as his family, not only those who are blood related to him but the whole House. He would not keep his House from knowing the dangers that threaten them, but in order to attack every problem rationally he needs time to figure out a strategy.”
Tara looks at Flynn and says, “He does have a point.”
“Maybe you do, Ben, but the people have a right to know and we won’t be swayed in this.” Flynn’s bravery at standing up to me is impressive. “We will find out what’s going on whether you or your sainted father like it or not.”
“Flynn has a point, too,” Tara adds with a nasty smirk.
Flynn does indeed have a point, even though I’m too stubborn to admit it to him and his odious girlfriend. My parents are part of a group of people out to kill the gods. They just ooze danger. Who knows what trouble this could bring to the House? Then there is also the matter of Harold’s missing hand. I mentally scald myself for not asking how he ended up that way. Is this god slayers group already being hunted? Is that why Father has made Uncle Rooster put out every guard to keep watch on the House?
We really are in danger. The House needs to know so they can flee or prepare themselves for what’s to come. Maybe Harold hadn’t been followed here but could we gamble with everyone’s lives like this?
“I’ll talk to him,” I offer. I loathe agreeing with Flynn but he’s right. I just wish I could’ve come to the same conclusion without beating him up the other night. It would’ve saved us a whole lot of hassle.
“Really?” says Tara. “I’d like to see that.”
“I mean it,” I assure them.
Flynn looks suspicious. “How can we trust you?”
“Because you’re right,” I say, my insides knotting up. I feel like I’m betraying my father and it’s almost a physical pain. “We could be in serious danger and the House needs to know.”
Tara clutches Flynn’s arm in terror and says, “We really are in danger?”
“Maybe,” I say, slightly warming to Tara. Her fear makes her seem less shrewish. “I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think I’ve been told everything either.”
“But you do know something,” says Flynn.
I nod my head. This is the right thing to do. Father will see that. I’m not really betraying him, am I? “If father won’t reveal what he knows to everyone then I’ll have to inform the House of what I do know.”
I do something next that I’m not proud of. I know there are things that Father, Phylida, and Harold have purposely left out of their story from last night. My intuition tells me that. The three of them live such a secretive life that there’s bound to be something they conceal from me, whether it be out of forgetfulness or not wanting to bombard me with too much information at once. I wanted to know it all, now. So when I arrive at the infirmary and find the three of them chatting away like old soldiers, I hide behind the corner of the room and listen in. I figure I might learn something that they otherwise wouldn’t tell me.
At the moment, Father is speaking. He doesn’t sound angry as such, just a little unsettled.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of you know,” he says to Harold, who is sitting up in bed, looking a little fresher. “You did what you had to do to survive. We’ve all done it.”
Harold harrumphs. “I consider myself a master thief. At the best of times I can steal a horse from underneath a person riding it without their notice! I’ve stolen so much over the years, I’ve lost count.”
“That’s nothing to brag about,” says Phylida.
So Harold is a professional thief. The job seems to suit him, though I have to wonder why he didn’t tell me last night. I’d stolen stuff when on my Journey but it had been to survive, not because I enjoyed doing it. Maybe Father doesn’t want me to know that Harold is a thief?
“Why are you complaining now then?” Phylida wonders.
He waves his stump at them both. “They chopped my hand off!”
Father looks tense. “The Order of Power?”
Harold laughs. “They wish they did, that bunch of pathetic ignorant cultists! No, it was the mayor of Rowan and his cronies who did this to me. Curses on the lot of them!”
I’d met the mayor of Rowan and “his cronie
s”. They were decent folks who had zero tolerance for crime, though their punishments were quite antiquated. They wouldn’t have chopped off Harold’s arm without good reason. As for the Order of Power, his reaction says it all. They aren’t really much of a threat. All they do is hand out leaflets and preach a bit.
I don’t like Harold patronizing Rowan. I had liked that House, and my Aunt Nicki loves it so much she lives there now. Come to think of it, she is a judge there, so she’s probably one of the mayor’s cronies that Harold’s just been complaining about! I wonder why Father didn’t say anything.
“So let me get this straight. The House of Rowan caught you stealing and chopped your hand off as punishment?” asks Father.
“Something like that,” says Harold, still sulking. “Only this time I’m an innocent man!”
Phylida smiles. “You’re far from innocent.”
“I’m a good thief and I never get caught,” brags Harold. I can hear how upset he is. “And this time I was accused of stealing something that I didn’t even steal! Someone framed me. I think it was Kyra.”
Father sighs. “Kyra wouldn’t do that.”
“She still looks at me like I’m the worst thing she’s ever seen,” wails Harold, getting really emotional now. “I don’t blame her for hating me but framing me for theft? I could’ve been hung!”
“They only hang people in the House of Rowan for murder,” says Phylida.
We haven’t had a murder in a hundred years. I’m grateful for that.
Harold says, “She caught me putting flowers on Ethan’s grave. She went ballistic and hit me with a rolling pin and told me to never go there again or she’d make sure she’d kill me. He was my son, too! She has no right to bar me from going to my own son’s grave.”
“I know it’s difficult.”
Harold interrupts my father. “She thinks I did it because I couldn’t be bothered to think of something else but there was nothing else I could do.”
The three of them are silent as Harold’s breathing becomes labored. He performs some sort of breathing exercises to try and get his state under control. I can see his face as I peek from around my corner. It’s bright red and he’s holding his left arm like it pains him.
“Are you alright?” Phylida asks, putting her hand to Harold’s neck. “Your pulse is way up. You need to stop getting so anxious or your heart will give out.”
“I don’t care,” says Harold. “I killed my own son.”
“He was already dead,” says Father. “I just wish I’d had the guts to do the same. Never mind that. Forget this. I believe you about being framed, but Kyra isn’t capable of such malice, you know her better than that.”
Harold wipes tears from his eyes and says, “She’s a kind woman. I love her and I know she wouldn’t do such a thing, even if she thought I deserved it; even if I thought I deserved it. But why would someone in that town frame me for theft? What pleasure would they get out of seeing my hand cut off?”
“I have an idea,” I say. I step around the corner and into their line of sight. They are all surprised to see me bar my Father. I have a tiny suspicion that he’s known I’ve been listening in all along.
Phylida says crossly, “Enlighten us.”
I say, a little guiltily, “You said it yourself. You steal stuff all the time. Isn’t it possible that someone who you stole from just made sure that this time you got what you deserved?”
Harold harrumphs. “Zach, your son has a knack for seeing the truth.”
“I didn’t mean to be so frank,” I say, avoiding Harold’s eyes. All I can think of now is that, for some reason, he killed his own son. “It’s just that I thought the answer was pretty obvious.”
Harold digests the thought that perhaps he has finally reaped what he has sown. Phylida flitters around him like a fly, checking things out, prodding and poking. I wondered what is wrong with his heart, and how Phylida knows such things. It’s not as if we have all the medical equipment that they used to have before the gods destroyed everything.
“Why were you eavesdropping?” Father asks me as he settles me down into a chair. Harold is preoccupied with having his bandages changed.
“I saw an opportunity to learn something and I took it,” I say truthfully. There’s no point in denying it.
“Didn’t you trust us to tell you everything?” asks Father.
“No,” I say.
Father claps me on the shoulder, grinning. “Good. Don’t trust anyone. People hold things back.”
I analyze his words; don’t trust anyone. Does that include him? I think back on the conversation I’ve just overheard and single out something that slipped by me at the time, something Father had said which doesn’t make sense.
“You said something about not having the guts to do the same thing.” I study his reaction. He doesn’t even blink. “What did you mean?”
“You would’ve found out eventually,” says Father. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you for so long. I’m sorry.”
My stomach feels like it’s doing back flips. Father’s face is now torn with grief and guilt. I suddenly wish that I never asked. He’s going to tell me something horrible, I just know it. Should I change the subject? I had come here with a totally different purpose in mind. But what if he never tells me? I’ll always be thinking, wondering what Father’s tragic secret is.
“You have to come NOW!” Flynn screams, racing into the infirmary. His presence makes me jump.
Father’s position as parent vaporizes in an instant. Now he is all leader.
“What is it?” he demands.
Flynn looks a little sheepish. “I know you were supposed to be coming to talk to us at the meeting later but…”
Father cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “What meeting?”
Flynn’s look at me could pierce steel.
“I was about to tell him,” I tell Flynn. “Honest.”
“I couldn’t count on you, could I?” says Flynn.
The real reason for my visit had honestly slipped my mind. I’ve been bombarded with too much information and I still desperately need to know my father’s secret. Still, I suppose it can wait. I can talk to Harold later. Flynn obviously has dire news and my father isn’t setting out to find the God Cannon just yet.
“Tell me,” Father asks sternly. His eyes are afire.
Flynn continues, “Some people turned up to the meeting early, and they started arguing among themselves, and they want you to come right now or they’re going to find you and force you to tell them”
I sigh. If only I’d walked straight into the infirmary and told Father about the meeting straight away. I had to go and eavesdrop. Now Father will think I'm unreliable and Flynn will label me a liar now as well as a thug. I can’t do anything right!
“Come with me, Flynn,” Father orders, storming out. He ignores me, like I’m not worth the effort of reprimanding.
In the distance I can hear a cacophony of shouting. There is a riot.