The Pledge (The Pledge 1)

As vendors, our home had never been fitted for electric lights; they were a luxury well beyond my family’s earnings, so I fumbled inside the door for the lamp that was always there. But this time it wasn’t, and neither was the table it usually sat upon.

Choking on my own fear became an entirely real possibility.

“Stay here,” I ordered softly. But Angelina held tighter, stepping when I did, refusing to peel away from me.

I blinked hard, trying to adjust to the absence of light within the walls of my own home. When I stepped again, glass crunched beneath my foot, and Angelina’s grip grew desperate.

Every step I took over the debris was loud, and inwardly I recoiled from the noise I was making.

I groped in the blackness with my hands, searching aimlessly. I jolted when I bumped into the bulky wooden dining table where we ate our meals, but at least now I had a landmark.

My fingers explored its scarred surface, feeling the familiar blemishes that had always been there, and then relief blossomed when they brushed against the candle, exactly where it should be at the table’s center. I edged around the table, carrying the candle with me to the sideboard and fumbling through the drawer for the matches I knew I’d find.

That pale flame was more beautiful than any sunset I’d ever witnessed. I sighed heavily at the sight of it.

The light gave me the courage I’d needed to try my voice for the first time since crossing the threshold. It only seemed natural to call out for my parents in the language they preferred. I turned in a circle, Angelina still clinging to me as I searched the room. “Mom! Dad—”

The words had barely reached my tongue before I sucked them back down my throat.

My house—our house—couldn’t have been more damaged had one of the bombs found its way inside. But I knew that wasn’t the case. The walls were still standing, still sturdy.

Angelina’s fingers pinched my hand.

“I don’t know . . . ,” I answered on a silent breath.

I scanned every corner with my eyes, every place the light could reach, hoping we were all alone, that whoever had done this to our house had already gone.

I knew now, without a doubt, that my parents weren’t here. That something had forced them away.

The broken lamp beside the door was only the beginning; our home had been ransacked. Furniture was upended. Cushions had been sliced apart and were bleeding stuffing onto the floor. Books Jtoom">house and photographs looked as if they’d been blown haphazardly by heavy winds, and, in some places, even the floorboards had been ripped from their joists.

For what purpose, I had no idea.

My first instinct was to flee, to take Angelina away from here, in case those responsible returned. But this was our home, and we had no place else to go. At least not until I had some answers.

And I was desperate to find out what had happened to my parents.

Angelina was sleeping on the sofa that I’d pieced back together, replacing the cushions and as much of the stuffing as I could. I didn’t want her in our bed; it was too far from where I worked to restore some semblance of order, repairing some of the damage that had been inflicted on our home. And she hadn’t argued; she’d simply curled into a ball, yawning hard and loud, and allowed me to cover her with a quilt to keep her warm. I doubted she wanted to be too far from me, either.

I did my best to put furniture back in its proper place, and then swept away the shards of broken lamp from the entry before gathering papers and books and photographs from the floors. Most of the things I picked up were familiar items, part of our household: written recipes, childhood storybooks that my father had read aloud, first to me as a girl and then to Angelina, and the small pile of family photographs that my parents had been able to afford on our modest budget.

But there were other items as well, things that were less recognizable. A carved box lay in pieces beside a hole in the floorboards, and I knew that I’d never seen it before. There were documents, many of which looked old—older than my parents’ generation—and the papers they were printed on were brittle and curling at the edges, the ink fading with age. I flipped through them but could see nothing significant in their contents. Antiquated land deeds, legal rulings, and personal correspondences, mostly dating from before the Revolution of Sovereigns. But among them were portraits that I didn’t recognize, fading as well. Old, but beautiful. And strangely haunting.

I sat on my knees as I sifted through them, tracing my fingers over the faces that stared back at me.

I knew these people—these strangers. Men, women, children. I recognized their posture, their expressions, their features.

I studied the photo of a man, a smile touching my lips as my eyes moved over his mouth, his eyes, his gossamer blond hair. His face was the face of my father. And of my sister, I thought as I glanced at Angelina sleeping soundly on the sofa.

I reached up and ran my fingertips over my cheeks and my nose and my chin. And of me.

But who were these people? Why had I never seen these portraits before now?

I looked closer, trying to find a clue.

In several of the pictures, the men were wearing sashes of some sort, each bearing a similar emblem. I leaned forward, drawing the photos closer to the lamp on the floor beside me, trying to decipher the wording on the insignia. But the image was too unclear, too faded.

Frustration wept through me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to figure out what it was that nagged me about the image.

I glanced down at Jtoothet t the shattered box. I could make out parts of that very same symbol on it, identical to the one the men wore in the photographs, but now it was splintered apart. I reached down and carefully began piecing it together, like a puzzle, using the photographs as my guide.