Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

endeavoring to initiate face-to-face communication.
    He contemplates ignoring the knock and calling for a bath instead to wash away the offending perspiration. But the bathing liquid has been a bit tepid and a touch malodorous for his liking lately.
    Throughout all these thoughts, the sound persists, gratingly so, and he fumbles for thebuttons, forgetting for a moment which is the one to activate the door, as it has been so long since he used it last.
    The door parts, and Tavil is faced with a woman. He sees no carriage waiting in the corridor, and he is exhausted just thinking of the energy she must have expended bringing herself to his room. She stands just across the threshold and, though much time has passed, he recognizesher: long hair that sways with her subtle movements, legs strong enough to carry her for as long as she could want, dark spots spread across a face browned from the sun.
    She is the one from the surface. An expression of disgust shifts across her features as she takes in his appearance. When she speaks, Tavil is jolted back to that moment on his initial day Underneath when she issued her first,and only, warning:
Tell them nothing about the surface
.
    He struggles to remember what to do in a situation such as this. Whether there is some sort of greeting he is supposed to give, a gesture he should offer. Unable to come up with anything, he merely sits in his chair and stares.
    “The Machine is stopping,” she tells him.
    The statement jolts Tavil, sending a tremor of alarm through him. Hereaches for the Book of the Machine, needing the comfort of its weight, but he has left it behind on the table by his bed. His fingers fumble in agitation, searching for something to occupy them.
    “To say such a thing is blasphemous,” he informs her.
    “No matter,” she says. “I have friends in other cities—they’ve seen the signs. It’s only a matter of time now.”
    Tavil doesn’t want to believe her.“Impossible. No lecturer has touched on such an idea. Besides, the Machine is omnipotent—it cannot stop.”
    Her upper lip curls. “Even so, the Machine was made by men and has escaped the bounds of men’s understanding. There is no one left who knows enough of the whole to repair it.”
    Tavil scoffs. “The Machine will fix itself.”
    She shakes her head. “It will not. The power station is failing andsoon enough everything else will follow. Those left Underneath will suffocate. Now is the time to escape to the surface—it’s the only chance to survive.”
    Drops of sweat drip along Tavil’s cheeks, his desire to reachfor his Book so powerful he is almost shaking. The woman’s words begin to penetrate deeper into his consciousness, attaching themselves to recent events to give them significanceand meaning. All the little ticks and hiccups in the operation of day-to-day life that never occurred before and have been so subtle and pervasive as to be ignorable: buttons not responding as usual, lags in repairs, shudders sometimes felt within the walls.
    All of it supporting the same conclusion the woman has drawn. “Why are you telling me this?” Tavil asks her.
    The woman drops into a squatso that she is facing him head-on. “You’re from the surface, like me. There are more of us down here—we’re the only ones who know how to live aboveground. We’re the ones with the best hope outside the Machine.”
    She reaches forward. “Come with us,” she says as she grasps his hand in hers.
    At her physical touch Tavil recoils, jamming the button to move his chair away from her. “You forget yourself!”He rubs his hand against his tunic as if he can somehow erase the feeling of her flesh resting on his own.
    Shaking her head, the woman straightens. “You’ll die if you stay down here.”
    In response, Tavil presses the button to close the door, sealing himself back into his sanctuary. He wheels to the center of his room but doesn’t disengage the isolation knob. Instead he stares at his hand,