The Better to See

Chapter 1: Vermeille

In history class, Vermeille Greene had learned about the time before the fall of the United Empire. The nation and her people had relied on selfishness and luck, looking out for themselves and never thinking of the reasons or consequences. Then came the long, slow economic crash, which left whole cities skeletal and abandoned. People learned to build things carefully, sometimes alone, but more often cooperatively. They traded only in what they had, and not in hopes of a better time ahead. The seeds of new civilization that grew out of the old were all about Unity and Community.

But, said Vermeille's teacher at Jane Marston's prestigious School for the Daughters of the Empire, the wars across the ocean began shortly thereafter, and the influx of immigrants brought an end to the brief utopian dream. European refugees came seeking an escape from the fighting. Many settled in the empty cities, renaming them after their homelands and rebuilding them to the best of their ability. Vermeille didn't see what was so wrong with that, but the rest of the girls were Wall heiresses and shuddered in disgust.

A tiny group of stubborn tinkers and gearists, among them Vermeille's grandparents on at least one side, took hold in the bones of what had once been a factory town on the shore of the Mississippi. They were joined there on the muddy shores by a settlement of French families. They itched under the onslaught of mosquitos in the summer, and shivered in the cold rains of winter. Together they built up a few ramshackle shelters and coaxed reluctant gardens out of the dirt with pure force of will. The growing town was renamed New Laon. The coppery tang of mud and fish in the air was joined by the more appealing aroma of baking bread. Gearists teamed up with jewelers to create fantastical sculptures that moved and glittered in the sun, the whirr and sproing of their mechanisms attracting a constant audience of children. Even the old-money families behind the Wall on the eastern coast took an interest in the excellent craftsmanship that came out of the marriage of makers and mercenaries.

Into this idyllic scene, a baby girl was born to Edina Greene and a man whose name was never mentioned in Vermeille's presence. Edina was young, and had dreams of someday living behind the Wall herself. She followed the fashions of the old families with the same cheerful stubbornness that had served her parents well in the founding of New Laon. So she named her child in French. "To give her a head start," she liked to say.

"A head start on what, I'm sure I couldn't say," Vermeille usually muttered when the story of her birth came up.

Two years after Vermeille was born, French abruptly fell out of fashion. The first dead body was found right outside the French quarter. Savaged as though by a wild animal, but hung deliberately from a wolf sculpture, it started a panic throughout the town that only grew worse when more people died and were found in similar conditions. First the townsfolk stopped trading with known French colonists. The tourists, with predictable obliviousness, took longer. But then there was another murder, this time of a much beloved travel author, and the tourists began dwindling. The magnificent hotel C'est le Monde, which had for a decade stood open as a paean to progress and cooperation, closed its doors for the last time. The heart of New Laon moved to the dockyards and airstrips, where goods were still shipped out. French-made goods were traded only by those who were desperate, or had very good personal guards, or were extremely foolish. Those who, like Edina Greene, had previously kept well-established homes and businesses in the Creole district began to find lodging elsewhere.

Still, as the years went by the grisly murders continued, and no perpetrator was found. The investigative interest in the mystery waned as the wealthy chose to move elsewhere. In absence of reasonable explanation, old stories and remedies were revived. "It's an evil monster, a man turned wolf" said the more excitable, and though not everyone listened, enough did. People began to carry twigs of mistletoe and rowan, slips of rye. They kept silver close to hand. Collars grew higher, sleeves grew longer. The ones who lived closest to the French quarter wore veils and gloves. No one wanted to present an attractive target.