The citizens of the Outside did not know what hit them. Literally.
When the Bind broke and the wall of ivy exploded forward, the first to be consumed was the Industrial Wastes. The milling horde of stevedores, carefully picking through the debris of the collapsed Titan Tower, were caught unawares; they’d just unearthed the toupee of their beloved leader, Brad Wigman, and were preparing to sanctify it as a relic for a religion of their own future devising, when the tide of ivy crashed through the gravel roads and alleyways of the Wastes like muddy water through a sluice box and poured over them with the force of a tsunami. They were, each of them, frozen in place as the magic coursing through the ivy pitched them into a deep, untroubled sleep. Soon, the chemical silos and web of piping of this forbidden land was covered as if with a furry green tea cozy and the ivy moved on, splashing into the water of the Willamette River.
The rampaging plant bridged the water handily, rumbling into the current, and soon made landfall on the far side. It captured trucks that were idling by the wharves and fishermen as they quietly bobbed their lures from old wooden docks. It gave shape to the Ghost Bridge, that mighty structure that spanned the banks of the Willamette only when its bell was rung; the ivy, being shot through with enchantment, was unaffected by the bridge’s nonexistence, and so those Outsiders who happened to be gazing out at the river in that particular direction for a moment saw the vision of a gorgeous suspension bridge being seemingly knitted out of thin air by vines of ivy—that is, before they succumbed to the wave of the plant too, and then all memory of the vision was erased in their dreamy slumber.
And then it moved on; it went farther afield. It swept along the placid avenues of the neighborhoods that bordered the Impassable Wilderness, up in the hills, and it poured over the cars navigating the looping streets, freezing the traffic in its widespread green cocoon. The power of the Verdant Empress and her thrall over the ivy was such now that those who were unlucky enough to be swallowed were instantaneously slept; reactions were limited to the following fleeting thought, which, oddly enough, was entertained by nearly every Portlander just moments before the wave of ivy overtook them: “What should I have for dinner? That’s strange; it looks like some big green carpet is just about to . . .”
Gaining steam as it covered more territory, the ivy fell in torrents on the downtown, climbing the tallest buildings and filling the lowest basements. Unsuspecting citizens, perched over their coffees, had scarce opportunity to dash off a witty riposte about the coming vegetal deluge on their phones when they were consumed and frozen in stasis, tossed haphazardly into some strange dream. Cats and dogs, swallowed. Bicyclists, swept up. Laundromats, fire stations: blanketed. Parks and schools, civic administrative buildings and carefully restored Craftsman houses in the gridded streets of the East Side—nothing was spared.
The flood covered everything; everything was placed in a fathoms-deep sleep.
Prue looked out on the devastation from the back of an airborne heron and wept.
“Well, that’s a difficult question,” said Esben, in reply to the first query to come from the mechanical boy’s reborn consciousness. “Like, in what sense?”
The boy, Alexei, the mechanical boy prince, the heir apparent to the Pittock Mansion, pushed himself up on his elbows as each joint whined noisily from years of disuse; Martha kindly doused each complaining hinge with the oil can as he shifted. He swiveled his head on his neck, a telescoping metal conduit, and surveyed his new surroundings. He looked at the bear, the boy’s face still betraying no sign of understanding or emotion. “Why did you do this?”
“Do what?” asked the bear.
His eyes, while still being the cold eyes of a machine, caught the bear’s gaze and fixed him with a look of intense betrayal. “Why did you do this to me?”
The bear, clearly out of his depth, stepped back from the table, abashed. Carol moved forward. “We’re your makers, Alexei,” he said. “We made you.” He motioned to Esben, though he’d only managed to indicate the air beside the bear, who helpfully stepped sideways so as to meet the old man’s gesture.
“You did this?” asked the boy. His voice was calm and soft; the slightest tinge of an echo was the only thing to suggest that the sound had originated from a metal container. Otherwise, it sounded like a boy’s voice.
Esben nodded.
“Then you can unmake me,” said Alexei.
“But . . . ,” stammered Esben, surprised. “We went through a lot of trouble. And not just us, but . . . a lot of people.”
“No one asked me,” said the boy matter-of-factly.
“Well, no. But—” said Esben, but Carol interrupted.
“You’re alive, Alexei! Again! Smell the air. Feel the ground beneath you,” said the old man, the emotion rising in his voice. He stamped his feet a few times against the soft turf of the ivy bed, as if to illustrate.
The boy marked the change that had overtaken the landscape. “What’s happened?”
“Your mother,” replied Esben. “She’s, well, she’s gone a little crazy.”
“My mother?” Alexei processed the word slowly, as if having to reconstruct the reality he’d previously lived piece by piece. “My mother.”
“She’s become a part of the ivy. It’s a little messy,” said Carol.
“But not only that—there was a kind of prophecy involved. You were meant to come back and, well, set things to rights.” Saying this, Esben made quick, uncertain eye contact with Seamus and Martha. He was clearly winging it; none of them had foreseen the mechanical boy taking his revival so poorly. “I think I’m getting that all right. You’d have to talk to Prue to get all the details.”
The boy on the table only looked blankly at the individuals surrounding him; they all squirmed a little in his gaze.
“Thing is,” put in Seamus, affecting a quiet and polite tack, “we kind of have to get a move on if we want to stop her. She’s already pretty far gone. And we’re supposed to meet up with the rest of the gang in North Wood. So we should probably . . .” Here he made a kind of sweeping motion with his hands toward the northern edge of the meadow.
A silence settled over the gathering. Finally, Alexei said, “Can I have a moment?”
“Oh sure, sure,” replied Esben.
“Just not, you know, too long,” put in Seamus. Everyone’s glare at the bandit seemed to out-wither one another’s. Martha inked the automaton’s knee and ankle joints with oil, and he threw his legs over the side of the table and, pushing away from his seat, took his first tentative steps. He looked down at his metallic body, all rivets and plating, and said:
“Could I get some clothes in the meantime?”
They all rushed to retrieve his regal uniform, which Martha had folded neatly and laid in a pile at the base of the table. It resembled a strange coronation, this dressing of the Governor-Regent apparent, but soon he was back in his princely costume. He gave a curt nod to his dressers before walking some yards off to an ivy-covered rock, and there he sat, his chin in his hands.
He sat there for a long time.
The rest of the group remained at a polite distance, over by the dimming fire, while the ivy churned around them. They didn’t speak much to one another; occasionally, one of them would glance in the direction of the pensive prince, who, for the most part, remained completely still, staring out at the empty meadow and the far line of ivy-smothered trees. Now a vine of ivy made an attempt for his knee; now he wiped it back with a flick of his mechanical fingers.
Time passed; the sun continued its downward migration. Still, the mechanical boy sat in his place on the rock, his chin resting on his hands.
“You’d think,” said Seamus, the first one to speak for a time, “that after all that time being, you know, dead, he’d be a little happier.”
“I imagine it’s complicated,” said Esben.
The bandit looked up in the sky, at the lowering angle of the sun, and said, “I expect we’ll be needed soon.”
“What’s
he supposed to do, anyway?” asked Martha.
“Search me,” said the bandit. “Something Prue concocted.”
“It was decreed by the Council Tree,” said Esben. “That the true heir be reconstructed.” He looked at Carol and frowned. “We did that much, despite the odds. Don’t know what else we should do.”
“Let me go talk to him,” said Seamus. “I’ve had some experience cooling the heels of some of the younger bandits when they get in a state. I’ll slap some sense into him and we can be on our way.”
The bandit began to stand up, despite the unanimous calls for him to not do this, when Zita, who’d been silent up to now, spoke. “I’ll talk to him.”
“You?” said Seamus. “Not likely. This is all very simple. I’ll just—”
“Seamus, sit down,” said Carol firmly. The bandit eyed the blind man for a few moments before doing as he’d been directed. “Let the girl go.”
Zita flattened the front of her white dress—she’d long ago ditched her father’s Synodal gray robe—and stood. Taking a deep breath, she walked over to where the mechanical boy sat. She paused briefly by his side before sitting down on the ground beside his rock perch.
“Hi,” she said.
The boy didn’t respond.
“I’m Zita. I live near here.” She waved a hand, meaning to point out the direction of her neighborhood, but quickly realized that the landscape had been so transformed as to make it impossible to know which way her house was. “Or somewhere.”
Still no response; the boy’s eyes were fixed on the distant trees.
“I was the May Queen,” said Zita, at a loss for how to proceed. “That was pretty cool. I wore my crown today.” She pulled the thing from her head and studied it. “Seen better days, I guess.”
The boy glanced at the garland in her lap; it was the first sign of his attentiveness, and she tried to capitalize on it. “So, this is all kind of my fault. Bringing your mother back and all. I didn’t know that this other stuff was happening, all this stuff about rebuilding the cog and reviving you. I haven’t even met the girl who was making it all happen. Her name’s Prue. Sounds like a nice girl. She’s from the Outside.” She paused then, trying to find her way forward.
“I guess I’m saying that I can’t really know how you feel, but I know you’re upset. I mean, they said you removed the cog yourself, the first time. I can’t imagine, really, what you’re going through. And I think it sort of sucks that you were brought back to life the first time and you didn’t want it. But you have to understand where she was coming from. Your mother, I mean. She lost you. That’s so huge. And she had a chance to bring you back. What person wouldn’t do that? What person who loved another person so much wouldn’t do that?”
She found she was beginning to cry as she spoke. She fought back the tears, saying, “My mom died. Kind of out of nowhere. She was, like, there one day and gone the next. And I would’ve given anything to have her back. Anything. And when I met this spirit, your mother, and she was so desperate, you know? And it was like she’d experienced the same sort of loss as I had. We were kindred. I had to do what I did. In a weird way, I was bringing back my mom.”
The tears were flowing now. “I get the feeling she’s not back ’cause she wants to be. Like you. I think she’s angry, like you. And I might be going out on a limb here saying this, but I think she might be angry at herself. For doing what she did. And all she wants is to be forgiven. And you need to be that person to forgive her.”
“Why?” asked Alexei, an echo of his first declaration.
“Because she was freaked out. And she lost you. And she’s human.” She paused, then, before saying, “Or she was.”
The mechanical boy prince processed all this for several silent minutes. Zita was about to stand and walk away, her mission failed, when he spoke again. “If I do this, if I go to her, will you send me back?”
“What, like, take the cog out again?”
“Yes. Take it out. Destroy it. Unmake me.”
“If that’s what you want,” said Zita, though she knew she was out of her depth here. It just felt like the right response.
The boy heaved a long, rattling sigh and stared back out at the strange new world he found himself living in.
CHAPTER 31
Wildwood Regina
Their defense had been repelled; the tree had been toppled and the Periphery Bind broken. They all watched from their winged heights and despaired to see the Verdant Empress mount the fallen husk of the Council Tree and revel in her victory, her arms outstretched; she was not unlike a tree herself, with her branchy arms made from vines of ivy. From her new perch, she commanded her soldiers like a conductor beating out the time of a kinetic symphony.
Undaunted, the Wildwood Irregulars lit into their enchanted enemies with as much vigor as their energies would allow.
The gray afternoon gave way to evening; the great battle waged on.
The ivy giants, emboldened by their creator’s success, fought off the Irregulars’ aerial bombardments with increasing skill. Prue, through her tear-blurred eyes, saw each of their fellow Irregulars go down in a shower of vines, thrown from the fingers of Alexandra, battered by one of the giants’ fists or caught in the gripping talons of the ivy birds.
They heard Brendan’s call, followed by a scream of the little girl behind him; they’d been snagged by the ivy and were going down. The plant had wrapped itself around the bird’s wing feathers and cinched tight like barbed wire; the bird had immediately lost control and plummeted in a deep spin into the layers-thick tangle of ivy on the ground.
They fell like meteorites: tangled bales of ivy falling from the sky.
“No!” she heard Curtis shout, seeing the Bandit King plummet. One of the ivy birds, its mouth open in full gape, came crashing toward them and exploded in a flurry of ivy, covering the heron from beak to talon in a mesh of vines. Prue felt her stomach drop out as the heron abruptly lost its glide and began crashing toward the earth.
“Hold on!” Curtis shouted, and Prue held tight to his torso.
The ground came rushing toward them, full force, and they fell headlong into the sea of ivy.
The stuff was so thick and ingrown, here at ground zero of the invasion, that it was not unlike being buffeted about in a surging ocean. Prue, separating from Curtis and the heron in the fall, plunged deep into the plant; her vision went blank for a moment before she opened her eyes and saw that she was submerged in the green sea. She held her breath and waved her arms; her feet couldn’t touch the ground. Kicking frantically, she found she could actually swim through the stuff, and she fought hard to get to the surface, gasping for air as she did so. The vines grabbed at her ankles and snagged in her hair; she screamed and shook, treading through the deep growth, trying to keep her chin above the ivy ocean’s surface. She felt herself moved along by the rush of the ivy; a kind of spiraling mountain was being created around the broken heap that had been the Council Tree, where the Verdant Empress stood, her feet now two solid columns of ivy, her long braids lashing in the wind.
Prue saw Curtis just a few yards off, struggling to stay above the surface as well.
“Curtis!” she screamed. “Stay moving!”
“I can’t!” he shouted back. “It’s pulling me down!”
Using all her inner strength, she commanded the ivy and made a kind of channel between the two of them; she swam over to her friend and grabbed his hand as the motion of the vortex continued to grow in speed and strength. The channel she’d created was soon overcome with new vines, and Prue felt them crawling over her shoulder, pulling her down. She looked to the center of the mountain, where Alexandra stood, her long green arms whipping about her as she stirred the great maelstrom of ivy around and around, faster and faster.
“Children!” Alexandra called over the deafening hiss of the ivy, the first words they’d heard the specter issue. Her voice was both cold and radiant. “Come! Come to me!”
They were being pulled inward
in the maelstrom, closer and closer to the source and the center; the speed of the whirlpool now was nearly dizzying.
Prue looked to Curtis, her hand still locked in his.
“Just go down, Curtis!” she shouted. “We’ll just go to sleep!”
“Sleep?” Curtis yelled back.
“We’ll sleep. Maybe forever. Don’t be afraid!”
“I’m afraid, Prue!”
“I know. I know. But—just relax. It’ll all be over soon.”
She felt her friend’s grip relax in her hand; she felt his fingers slip from hers. She saw his head dip under the surface of the ivy sea. She watched him go down.
Prue then turned her head to the Verdant Empress, kicking and commanding all the while, her every muscle attuned to staying afloat just a little longer. She felt the ivy surge forward in its circular motion toward the broken Council Tree; she could sense that the Verdant Empress was drawing her closer.
Come, said Alexandra, now speaking directly to Prue’s mind, through the language of the plant world. Do not fight. Join me.
NO! Prue’s mind responded. LET ME GO!
But still she was pulled forward. She saw Alexandra reach out her spindly arms; she watched them, all shoots and tendrils, stretch inhumanly out from her long body. The fingers beckoned her. Prue was pulled forward, no longer in control; she felt the ivy embrace her.
She felt a long sleep begin to overcome her.
And then it all stopped.
She didn’t know how long she’d been there, suspended in the ivy. It could have been five minutes; it might’ve been fifteen years. But Prue felt the world fall out from beneath her; the spiraling force of the ivy had come to an abrupt stop. The vines that had entwined her arms and legs, that had twisted themselves into the strands of her hair, all let go. She was dropped, and her feet felt the hard surface of the grassy meadow itself. She collapsed in a ball, drained of her strength. Opening her eyes, she saw that a long passage had been drawn in the ivy bed—a canyon of the churning vines—leading straight up to the hewn tree and the Verdant Empress herself.