A FAINT SENSE OF HESITATION PRESSED BETWEEN US before Aaru said, “Allies?”
“What?”
“Us. Allies.”
Oh. He wanted us to be allies. That was better than enemies, but not as good as friends. Still, I wouldn’t turn him down. “Allies have a shared goal. What is ours?”
He shifted closer to the hole, blocking all light from his side. The word puffed in like a cloud of wishes. “Freedom.”
The word echoed around the small place beneath my bed. A promise. A hope. A dream. Just hearing the word aloud sent a pang of longing through me. I wanted freedom in the same way I wanted my next breath: an unspoken but constant desire.
“Mira.” A note of annoyance skewed the way he said my name.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I was just thinking. About freedom.”
He made a noise like he hadn’t been aware I’d been capable of such an act. “Escape?” A series of taps on the floor accompanied the word. What was the tapping?
“You want to escape the Pit?”
“Yes.”
“No one ever has.” At least, as far as I knew. And I didn’t need to escape. I just needed to survive long enough for the Luminary Council to realize their mistake and send for me.
Besides, he was an Idrisi boy who spent all his time under his bed. I was a Daminan girl with no practical survival knowledge whatsoever. What made him think we could get out of this place alive?
“Oh.” Through the hole, I could just see him turning away, but not his expression or anything else useful. “Understand.” He rolled onto his back and sighed. Then, like he wasn’t quite aware of it, he beat a pattern onto his ribs. It didn’t take long before he gained speed, the sounds coming so quick I could barely keep up.
There was almost a desperate quality to the rhythm, like he was trying to explain something but couldn’t find the words.
“What is that?” I scooted toward the wall until I could peer through the hole, catching only suggestions of a strong nose and prominent brow. He was still drumming on his chest, the same pattern over and over. He gave no indication whether he’d heard me. “Aaru?”
He stopped in the middle of a repeat, slamming his hands to his chest and holding so, so still. Like he was waiting to get caught.
I spoke gently. “What is that? The tapping, I mean.”
A long breath heaved out of him. “Strength through silence.”
“I see.” But I didn’t really. I knew that tense feeling of dreading trouble. I knew the compulsion that drove strange behavior. Counting. Thumping. But “strength through silence.” I’d heard that phrase before. When?
During a (very short, curt) speech from a visiting Silent Brother. He’d been talking about the Mira Treaty and how it shouldn’t just unite the islands against threats like the Algotti Empire, but encourage everyone to embrace their individual histories and cultures. On Idris, he’d said, the people found their strength through silence.
Aaru hadn’t moved. “Idris’s holy words.”
“Oh.” I hesitated.
“What?”
“I don’t understand how silence can be strength.” Mother always said our voices were power, and it was our duty to use them.
There was a pause where he might have muttered about my confusion being so typical for a Daminan, but he didn’t. “There is strength,” he said slowly, “in knowing when to speak, and when to listen.” His hands stayed on his chest, motionless. “And when to say nothing at all.”
There was something in those words, some kind of pain, but it would be rude to keep digging. So I went back to his tapping. “You don’t always do that pattern, though.”
His fingers curled slightly, long arches over the fabric of his shirt. “You hear it?”
“Of course. These walls aren’t soundproof.” Everyone down the cellblock had probably heard.
“No—” He tapped twice, a long then short. “The patterns. You hear them.”
“Of course,” I said again.
His hand lifted just off his chest, like he was about to thump another pattern but then thought better of it.
“What is it? Why do you do it?”
“Quiet code.” (Two slow, one fast, one slow. Pause. Slow, fast, slow, fast.)
“A code?” My sister had wanted us to share a secret code when we were younger, before she decided to hate me, but I’d never been good at remembering which letters exchanged for other letters.
“Idris language.”
A language made of drumming different rhythms? That seemed complicated. “It’s so you don’t have to talk out loud?”
More tapping. (One slow, one fast, two slow.) “Yes.”
How interesting. The benefit to using a tapped code on an island where silence was valued most of all—would be enormous. Maybe that was why Father had assumed no one spoke, not even to one another. They could have been communicating in a different way.
“I wish I could learn something like that.”
“Not supposed to teach others.”
That hadn’t been what I’d meant.
“Already in prison.” He turned his head—the tendons in his neck shifted, but that was all I could see—and sighed. His chest moved up and down. “What else can they do?”
Plenty, but suddenly I couldn’t risk him changing his mind. It seemed ridiculous, wanting this code. It would take me ages to learn it. I wasn’t smart. But I’d never gotten to have a secret language with my sister, and learning the quiet code would give me somewhere to put all my anxious energy.
“Allies need communication,” he went on. It was the most I’d ever heard him speak, and it was definitely for my benefit. This was a negotiation. The quiet code in exchange for an alliance.
“That’s true. And we are allies, right?”
He made a short, pleased noise. “We both escape?”
“We both escape.” I didn’t know what he’d done to get here, so maybe this was a huge mistake, but I needed help. I needed an ally. When my parents had me freed, I’d make sure they had Aaru released, too.
“Ready to learn?” he asked.
“Right now?”
“Have something better to do?”
I supposed not. “I’m a terrible student,” I warned.
“I’m a good teacher.”
Hopefully patient, too.
“Taught four little sisters, brother, and neighbor. Can teach you.”
He seemed really sure of himself. “All right,” I said.
“Get comfortable.”
I grabbed my blanket and pillow and scooted toward the hole again. It wasn’t remotely comfortable, but after a day of cleaning, nothing less than my own bed, with its feather mattress, silk sheets, and cloudlike pillow, was going to satisfy my aching body.
“It’s very old. The code.” As he spoke, he thumped his fingers against his chest, using both hands as though his ribs were a drum. But in spite of telling the story in two ways, he seemed to settle into it. Like he’d told it a hundred times. “Older than the Fallen Isles.”
Then it was ancient. People had settled on the Fallen Isles over two thousand years ago—at least, that was what we’d learned in school. The mainland had a much longer history, but it was hard to fathom something so big.
“Two parts: long and short. Drag finger for tapping longs. Combinations make letters. Pause between letters. Long pause between words.”
“One letter at a time?” It seemed like a lot to keep up with, from the first letter to the last of a long sentence. I couldn’t imagine keeping track of all that.
“Seems intimidating?” He almost sounded amused. “Toddlers learn quiet code and spoken words. You can, too.”
“Idrisi toddlers can spell?”
He made a soft, almost chuckling noise, and quickly drummed his fingers against his ribs. Not in the code, but maybe like a laugh. “No. Little ones learn entire quiet code words with corresponding spoken words. When they’re older, they learn to spell. Same as spoken words and reading.”
That made sense, I supposed. Just, reading seemed a lot faster than listening to a series of sounds. But maybe it would be easier with practice. “Why do you use the quiet code?”
He hesitated.
“Do you have to? Is it a rule there?” Why did they even teach spoken language if they had a quiet code? Well, to communicate with the rest of the world, probably, but— Idris is isolated. That was the first thing we learned in school about the Isle of Silence. Most people there—with the exception of political figures and people who worked in shipping—never saw the outside world.
I added prisoners to that list of exceptions.
“Sometimes it’s choice. Communicate without others knowing.” He thumped the words against his chest. “Quiet code doesn’t need sound. Flashes of light. Blinking. Movement. Before my—” His voice caught. The thumping stopped.
I waited.
Nothing.
“Aaru?” If he’d been Ilina or Hristo, I’d have reached through the hole and touched his arm. But we were strangers, so I huddled by our shared wall and whispered, “It’s all right. You can skip it, if you don’t want to talk about it.”
A shiver ran through him. “Sorry.” (Three quick taps.)
“Skip the bad parts.”
He gave a jerky nod. “Parents held hands. Tapped on fingers. Wrists. They talked about my siblings and me. In front of us.”
Had my parents ever held hands? I couldn’t remember. But I imagined what it must be like to share that with someone. What an intimate mode of communication.
“That sounds nice,” I said, not quite smothering the longing in my voice.
“Yes.” (One long, one short, two long.)
“You said sometimes using the code isn’t a choice.”
“Rules. Many rules.”
“Like what?”
“I love Idris. And hate it.” His voice grew even softer. “Rather just teach.”
“All right.” If anyone understood loving and hating something, I did. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“It’s fine.” He waited a few moments, as though gathering his thoughts. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
“First letter.” He tapped twice: short, long.
I repeated. That wasn’t so bad.
But he quickly moved on to the next letter, and then the one after that, and through the entire alphabet. I struggled to mimic him, to make my letters just like his, but there were so many to remember.
Still, the one thing my counting habit had given me was a fair memory for numbers. Not adding or subtracting them, but I knew there’d been fifty fishing boats out the day my life changed, fifteen columns in Lex’s cave, and fourteen total noorestones in this cellblock. I could remember what I counted.
“Now,” Aaru said, once we’d been through every letter five times. “I say a letter, you tap it.”
“Are you sure?” I frowned. This was moving awfully fast.
“Am sure.” Without giving me a chance to ready myself, he began naming letters randomly.
I searched my mind for the appropriate combination of taps and drags. It was harder than just going through the alphabet, and he didn’t bother to tell me whether I answered correctly, but at least he wasn’t criticizing my every move.
Still, it was only a matter of time before he realized what a failure of a student I was.
“Moving on,” he said.
“Already?” Didn’t he believe in breaks?
“Common words and phrases,” he said. “Yes, no, I don’t know—those get shortened. First letters usually.”
That actually made sense. “All right. But what if phrases have the same first letters?”
“Context.” Like that had been obvious.
This was more complicated than I’d expected, though I should have known when he’d called it a language. Two years ago, Mother had enrolled me in an Ancient Isles language class, but had been forced to pull me out the first day when I’d shown no talent.
Just remembering her disappointment made the shame burn through me again. The last thing I wanted was to shatter this tentative alliance with Aaru because I wasn’t smart enough. I had to get out of this. “I was wrong about being able to learn the quiet code. I’m just wasting your time.”
“Prison, Mira. I have time.” He turned onto his side, blocking most of the light as he faced me. Even in the near darkness, there was something gentle about the look in his eyes. “You can do this.”
His encouragement made everything worse. “That’s quite the declaration from someone who doesn’t know me at all.”
He drummed his fingers on the floor, just once. Like a faint chuckle. “Will prove it. Tap the letters.”
“All of them?”
Four taps: one long, one short, two longs. ::Yes.::
Slowly, with long pauses between each letter, I tapped the alphabet onto the floor.
“Now Mira,” he said.
“Now Mira what?”
“Tap your name.”
My whole face felt like it was on fire as, even more slowly, I tapped out my name. ::Mira.::
“Yes,” he whispered. “Want a challenge?”
As if this whole thing hadn’t been a challenge. “All right.”
He rolled onto his back again. There was just enough light that I caught the way his mouth lifted in the corner. “Islands.”
“The islands? All of them?”
“All seven,” he confirmed.
Which meant he wouldn’t let me count Darina and Damyan as one. That was a lot of tapping.
When I didn’t start right away, Aaru said, “And attributes.”
I hadn’t registered the knot of anxiety fading, but it slammed back into my chest like a punch. My hands twitched, and my face and neck burned, and my heart raced so, so fast. Aaru was trying to shame me. To show me how awful I was at his quiet code. This was my own fault. I should have known better than to think I might be able to learn something so complicated.
“Mira?”
I didn’t remember pulling back and curling my whole body into a ball, but I must have at some point. My head pounded as I looked up.
Aaru peered through the hole, his fingers bent over the sides. He was so close to the wall, blocking the light. Only the whites of his eyes showed. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this. I’m not smart enough.”
He studied me while my heart pounded in my ears. Loud gongs only I could hear. This was humiliating. Here I was in prison, curled up on the floor under my bed, and making a fool of myself in front of some boy who’d taught his little sisters the quiet code but couldn’t teach me.
“Islands, Mira.”
“I—”
“Mira.”
And now I was frustrating him. How wonderful.
A giant hole opened inside me. If only I could fold up and fall in.
“Mira.” He didn’t leave room for argument.
I could hardly breathe around the panic building. How was I supposed to focus enough to tap all those letters? But it would be dark soon. And the screaming man would scream. And Aaru wouldn’t be able to hear if I finished the islands and their attributes or not.
I pressed my palm to the floor, imagining I could push all the small jerks and twitches of panic into the stone. Out of me. Away from me. One breath. Two breaths. Three.
“All right.” My voice was ragged and hollow. “I’ll try.”
“When you are ready,” he said, as though nothing embarrassing had just happened. As though he hadn’t just witnessed a minor meltdown because of a secret code.
His kindness made me want to try harder—to get this right—so I cleared my thoughts as best I could and began.
The letters came slowly. Haltingly. I counted out each letter as I tapped the floor.
::Anahera asks answers.
Bopha bleeds blackness.
Darina and Damyan dance duo.
Harta hates harm.
Idris is isolated.
Khulan can kill.::
My heart thundered as I finished the final letter. I didn’t really want to know, but still I asked, “How did I do?” He’d watched my face the whole time. I’d watched my hand.
His voice came warm. Kind. “Good, Mira.”
That was hard to believe, but I caught a sliver of his expression as he pulled away from the hole. He was smiling. At me. “Really?”
“Very good,” he whispered.
Just as I was registering those words—very good—again, and how strange they sounded when directed at me, the noorestones went dark.
Complete blackness flooded the cellblock, as ink-thick as the first night and the night before. I closed my eyes against it, my whole body tensing in anticipation.
Down the hall, the screaming man whimpered.
In the cell next to me, Aaru scrambled. For his blanket, maybe. Some way to cover his ears. That was a good idea. I wrapped my threadbare blanket around my head once more, over the thin layer of silk covering my hair.
Just as I tied the first knot in the blanket, the man began to scream into the darkness.