The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow Page 0,107

her mama was a Georgia slave that run up north.” He sounded rather proud, as if he’d personally invented her.

“So none of you are actually from here. From this world.” Jane was listening from Solomon’s other side with her eyebrows drawn together.

Molly answered. “When my grandfather first found this place it was empty except for eagles and bones. Not a single living soul, and not much food or water—but no white men, either. It suited him just fine.”

“Although a few of us white fellas have slipped in sideways, since then,” Solomon stage-whispered. Molly swatted at him without looking backward and he dodged, and something in the ease of their motions made me think they’d been friends for a very long time.

We ate outdoors, seated at a series of long tables made of weathered wood that looked suspiciously like it had once belonged to the lighthouse floor. We were too stunned and exhausted to do much more than chew, and the Arcadians seemed content to leave us be. They chattered and argued like a great, untidy family, laughing as they exchanged heaping bowls of food: dark bread the approximate texture of unleavened bricks, baked yams, unidentifiable meat on skewers that Bad heartily approved of, and something alcoholic served in tin soup cans that only Jane dared to drink.

My shoulder leaned against Samuel’s as the sky blackened and the wind chilled, and I found myself entirely unable to pull away. It was so warm, so familiar in this foreign world. Samuel did not look at me, but I saw the corners of his eyes crimp.

We slept that night in one of the unclaimed houses, lying on the clay floor in a nest of borrowed blankets and quilts. I lay staring at the stars glimmering through the missing hunks of thatch, at all the constellations I couldn’t name.

“Jane?” I whispered.

She made an annoyed, half-asleep sound.

“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here before the Society gives up on us? When will it be safe to go look for my father?”

There was a brief silence. “I think you should go to sleep, January. And learn to live with what you have.”

What did I have? My father’s book and my silver coin-knife, both wrapped tight in a stolen pillowcase. Bad, snoring lightly beside me. Jane. Samuel. My own unwritten words waiting to change the shape of the world.

Surely all that outweighed what I didn’t have: a mother, a father, a home. Surely it would be enough.

I woke abruptly, feeling like something that had washed up on the shore and been left to cure in the sun: salty, sweaty, sour-smelling. I might’ve forced myself back to sleep through sheer force of will, except that Bad yipped in greeting.

“Morning to you, too, dog.” It was Molly Neptune’s slow, graveled voice.

I sat up. So did Samuel. Jane made a pathetic flopping motion, like a beached fish, then pressed her face deeper into the blankets.

“That was Sol’s brew she was drinking last night. She’ll survive.” Molly stepped across the threshold and settled herself cross-legged on the floor. “Probably.” She produced two jars of plums and a half loaf of dense bread. “Eat. And we’ll talk.”

“About what?”

Molly removed her stovepipe hat and considered me gravely. “This is not an easy world to survive in, January. I don’t know how much your father told you”—far too little, as usual—“but it’s dry, harsh land. We can’t say for sure what happened to the original inhabitants, but my grandfather had a theory that this was the original Dawn Land our stories talk about, and that our ancestors communed closely with these people. Perhaps, then, they suffered the same sicknesses and evils that came to us. Except they didn’t make it.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, really. But it means that everyone here must do their fair share to keep us from going the same way. We need to determine what your fair share might be.”

I felt a queasy pang of doubt—what could I contribute to these tough, practical people? Accounting? Latin lessons?—but Samuel was nodding comfortably. “What work is there to help with?”

“Oh, all kinds. We haul water from a spring to the north, we farm what we can, we hunt prairie rats and deer… We make everything we need. Almost.” Molly’s eyes on us were sharp, watchful, as if testing our cleverness.

I didn’t feel clever. “So… what do you do? If it isn’t enough?”

But it was Samuel who answered. He held the jarred plums up to the light and ran his