Root (40 page)

“
You’ve had the power to help her
all this time and you did nothing? That girl’s surfing on the edge
of suicide. How long can she keep that up?”

“
Hmm … perhaps indefinitely. There
is an art to persisting. Comes a point every weaver must decide
where to stake their claim on existence. But anyone who finds
himself in Root is already an earthly failure. Weaving offers a
second chance at something indistinguishable from
immortality.”

“
But not if you die …
here.”

“
Perhaps. Perhaps not. It is rumored
there is a way to sever all earthly connections … to die, so to
speak … and keep one’s soul in Root. That is my quest … my Holy
Grail. So far, I have come to believe it requires complete
commitment to Root, with no earthly distractions. Alas, my dear
Luther may prove my ball and chain, unless….”

“
Why would you ever give up on life
on earth? There’s nothing in Root that compares. Everything in your
‘Burg is just a cheap replica. Why not hang on to the real thing,
for as long as you can?”

“
Famous last words of the Reaped.
You’ll get nowhere in Root with that attitude, boy. My advice? If
you want to find Karla, don’t waste your time in Inverness. Find
your way back to Root. Wait for her to come to you.”

“
But you’ve sealed off the ‘Burg.
What if she’s stuck in a tunnel somewhere?”

He shrugged. “Oh well. I make no exceptions
for relations. She’s going to have to earn her way in.”

“
And if she’s Reaped in the
meantime?”

The old man pursed his lips. “Then it wasn’t
meant to be. So sad, but … my Luthersburg only has room for the
strong and the clever.”

A fire stoked in my belly. “She’s your
granddaughter!”

“
She’s … Edmund’s
daughter.”

“
What is that supposed to
mean?”

“
She’s … a mess, that one. Her head
has never been and may never get right. Her soul, I fear, is
atrophied.”

“
What are you talking about? She’s
fine.”

The old man’s smirk sharpened. “You haven’t
met her on this side, have you boy?”

An urgent fire rose up and consumed me. “No,
but you’re gonna tell me how to find her. You’re gonna tell me
exactly where she lives.”

“
I … don’t like your
tone.”

“
And … you’re gonna open up your
walls.”

“
Oh I am, am I?” His smirk deepened
even more. “Sorry. Not possible.”

I looked around the complex, hearing voices,
but at the moment no staff or residents were in view. I slipped the
knife from the pocket of my hoodie and snapped open the blade. I
had never pulled a knife on anyone before.

He laughed, weakly. “Oh, don’t be foolish,
boy. Put that thing away.”

My hand shook. “You’re gonna open those walls
or I’m going to take them down for you.”

“
That’s impossible.”

“
Oh? What would happen to all your
fancy weavings if you weren’t around to tend them? They would all
fall apart, wouldn’t they? Everything you’ve ever created, all of
the ‘Burg would revert back to roots. Am I right?”

The old man’s smirk vanished. “You
wouldn’t.”

“
Try me.” I rolled the handle of the
blade in my palm. “What do I have to lose? What better place to
surf those waves of depression than in prison?”

He stared at the knife and studied my eyes. I
probably looked feeling pretty crazed. I was hyperventilating. My
eyes were pegged wide open. That blade felt potent in my hand. And
suffice it to say, I didn’t have the warmest feelings for this man.
The bastard had a hand in screwing up both sides of Karla’s
existence.

“
Where would your soul go, I wonder,
if it didn’t have Root?”

Arthur slumped back on the bench, closed his
eyes and let out a long and raspy exhale.

“
You don’t even know, do you? You
have no idea if it would be better or worse.”

His eyes flickered open. “Alright. What do you
want from me?”

“
Open your walls,” I said. “Let
anyone who wants to go, go. Let anybody in who wants
in.”

“
That could be arranged … in time …
but only for a short time. There are threats.”

“
And one other thing….” He looked at
me and sighed. Only the ghost of his smirk remained. His eyes
rolled up to the empty balconies. “I want that address in
Inverness.”

Chapter 36:
Detour

At Cornavin, I bought an almond croissant and
the cheapest train ticket to Paris. Once we got underway, we were
basically a hop, skip and a jump from the border with France. Now I
knew why everybody in Geneva spoke French.

My future was inscribed on a precious scrap of
paper in my hip pocket:

#6 Ardconnel Terrace, Inverness,
Scotland

I treated it like a holy relic, taking it out
now and then, smoothing it, staring at it, feeling my adrenalin
kick in, revving my heart until I was forced to put it
away.

Luther/Arthur was unable to give me a phone
number but that was fine. I had what I needed. And this way my
arrival would be a complete surprise. Our first contact would be
face to face, with no room for evasion.

The old man promised that things would be
different in the ‘Burg the next time I visited, but he wouldn’t
promise how long it would last. He was deathly afraid of Victoria,
even though if anyone could lead him closer to his ‘Holy Grail’, it
was someone like her—a weaver of superior skills. It seemed to me,
a few more manners and a little more tolerance would have given her
a far better impression of Luthersburg and brought the old man a
heck of a lot closer to his ‘Holy Grail.’

When we passed the border into France, the
train picked up speed. Thanks to a little thing called sunlight,
there was a lot more to look at out the window than during my
traverse of the Alps. Who knew that France had so many farms?
Before coming, I guess I had this idea that Europe, aside from a
few parks, was basically paved end to end.

I gathered that all this space had something
to do with the towns and villages being all clustered together.
That opened up the landscape big-time. There was none of that
sprawl I was used to in Florida.

When you thought about it, it made sense, this
kind of living. You got to know your neighbors well, and when you
wanted to get away from them, a short walk in any direction would
take you somewhere peaceful.

So this cracker boy was a European at heart.
Go figure.

***

It was still light out when I got to Paris. A
nice lady helped get me pointed in the right direction. I was at a
station called the Gare de Lyon and I needed to get to the Gare du
Nord. She insisted I needed to take the bus or Metro, and I nodded
politely but it didn’t look that far on the map and I was itching
for a good walk, so I hoofed it.

Man, was that a mistake. Paris was
enormous. I went down block after block after block without ever
seeing anything I remembered from the tour guides—no Eiffel tower,
no Notre Dame, no Arc de Triomphe. Just masses and masses of
prettified apartment buildings,
crêperies and boutiques.

Night fell. I had to check
every bus shelter map to keep myself moving in the right direction,
but there was no missing the Gare du Nord. I crossed this narrow
street about a block away and there it was— a cathedral of rail
with an ornate and monumental façade that told you it had been in
the business of people moving and for ages.

I went inside, and with more help from some
kind and helpful people—who ever said that Parisians were rude?—I
booked a Chunnel train to London leaving early the next morning.
The idea of going under the English Channel made me a little
nervous for some reason. One would think I would be used to tunnels
by now.

My dinner that night was a hotdog from a push
cart. But this was no ordinary hotdog. The dang thing was crunchy
and a foot long and tucked into what seemed like half a loaf of
crusty bread. With some spicy mustard, it really hit the
spot.

There was no way I could afford a hotel here,
so I washed up in a washroom, changed my shirt and went back out
and roamed around to scout for a likely place to rest without
getting hassled.

I made my bed in a heap of flattened and
bundled boxes behind an electronics shop. That cardboard made a
decent mattress, a little firm but not too bad. I stuffed a paper
sack full of packing peanuts to make a pillow. Newspapers were my
blanket. It turned out to be one of the coziest nights I had since
leaving Florida.

Luckily, nobody tried to recycle me during the
night. The only close call came when a back door squealed open and
someone tossed another batch of bundled boxes onto the pile. I kept
as still as a corpse while they had a leisurely smoke, until they
went back in and latched the door.

I got up at first light, a few hours before I
had to catch the train. I wandered a bit, looking for a bakery,
finding one in an area full of shops selling fiddles and sheet
music. I bought a couple of berry-studded rolls, stepped outside
and almost dropped them in the gutter, stunned by what I saw down
the boulevard.

A white dome gleamed on a wooded hill. It
seemed to hover above the rest of the city and there was this
glowing mist floating about it that made it seem even more magical,
ethereal, heavenly—pick an adjective describing something that
didn’t belong in this world. I couldn’t stop staring at
it.

“
Excuse me,” I said to a young man
passing by. “What is that?”

“
That is the Basilica of the Sacré
Cœur at the Montmartre.” He said, smiling. “You like
it?”

“
Yeah.”

He hurried off on his way, while I stood there
all agog, stepping out into the street for a better view, almost
getting run down by a girl on a bike. I wanted to walk there, but
didn’t have enough time. Who knows, seeing the place up close might
have only ruined its mystique. I would have discovered the
warts—the inevitable Starbucks or McDonalds. Nothing could do
justice to the view from afar on a misty morning.

So that was my only glimpse of Paris’
potential beyond the mundane. I didn’t need any Louvre or Notre
Dame or La Tour Eiffel. I went back into the train station, and
almost missed the train because I didn’t realize I had to go
through customs first to reach a special, secured platform. I was
switching countries again. If this is Tuesday it must be
England.

It was a bit startling how quickly I got to
London on that Chunnel train. I ended up at some station named
after a digestive organ. Saint Spleen or Gall Bladder or something
like that, bought a ticket to Inverness and found myself at THE
King’s Cross Station. Like any tourist, I couldn’t help looking
around the platform for evidence of young witches and
wizards.

I didn’t see any Harrys or Hermiones but there
were some more of those solitary young men I had been noticing
everywhere. I imagined them belonging to some secret fellowship of
the miserable. I was probably a member myself.

I went outside the station for a bit to get
some air. From what I could see of London, it lacked the pizzazz of
Rome and Paris, but the street seemed pleasant enough. Lots of
brick, but enough greenery to make it feel livable.

This clean-cut looking guy in black sweats and
an Arsenal jersey saw me looking around and he sidled over, sizing
me up.

“
You … eh … looking to buy,
mate?”

“
Buy what?”

“
Guess not.” He started to walk
away, but he did a double take and paused.

“
What’s your name?”

“
My name? What’s it to
you?”

“
Just curious.”

I turned and walked away.

“
It’s not James Moody, is
it?”

A jolt shimmied through me. “What the
fuck?”

I freaked and ran. How could some random
stranger in London possibly know my name?

It seemed impossible that those guys in
Cleveland had a long enough reach to track me here, but who knows
how vast their network was and how far they had spread my image.
Maybe they had some kind of cooperative enforcement pact against
runaway mules. Maybe there was a bounty on my head.

I ran straight through King’s Cross back to
the other station—St. Pancras, winding in and out of the crowds
until there was no way anyone could track me. I went into a book
shop and lingered in back, peering over the magazine rack, counting
down the minutes until my train left. I had to avoid the train
platform as long as I could.

They couldn’t possibly know I was headed to
Scotland. The best they could figure was that I had arrived in
London. I just needed to get to onto that train
unnoticed.

Five minutes before departure, I pulled up my
hood and left the store. I stormed through St. Pancras, out the
door, across a drive and into King’s Cross. The tight quarters in a
construction area made me nervous. I didn’t dare look up. I thought
for sure I’d be waylaid.