Waterfall

by Lauren Kate

  At the end of the waterfall, Ovid's screenlike face became bright white and bubbly. Soon, the bubbles cleared and the water turned a deep turquoise. Then Ovid was swimming, a strong and rapid breaststroke, the shield strapped to its back with an orichalcum band.

  A version of Eureka was inside the version of the shield. It was like watching a movie of herself in a dream. Someone sat beside her, but the image was too small to see who it was.

  The vision faded from Ovid's blank face. Solon's sculpted features returned.

  So the waterfall was how Eureka would get to the Marais. She looked down at her crystal teardrop and prayed her thunderstone still worked.

  "Ovid is adept at open-sea swimming," Solon's voice said, "but within these caves the currents are capricious. The angles of the tunnel-like flumes that lead to the outside world are deadly sharp. Your journey will be smoother once you clear them."

  "How do I do that?" Eureka asked.

  "How do we do that," Ander corrected her. "You must time your departure between three and four in the morning, when the moon draws the tides high, and the flumes' currents flow toward the egress of the caves. You already practiced how to enter the waterfall when you fetched the orchid. Do it again. Filiz will join you; I always promised I would take her with me. All others who wish to accompany you must run with you into the fall. And then, like love itself, Ovid will lead you where you need to go."

  Again the robot's features shifted into their bland, attractive, neutral state. It closed its eyes. It whispered: "Rest."

  During the long electric moment that followed Eureka became sure of three things:

  She could not take her loved ones with her. They would not let her go alone. She was going to have to ditch them.

  24

  FLIGHT

  Wind spun Eureka's hair as she staggered to the edge of the veranda. She tried to find Diana's star, but there was no sign of a universe beyond the rain.

  Since Diana had died, it was like an organ had been removed; Eureka's body didn't work the way it had before. How could Diana, the sparkling woman Eureka had treasured, have descended from darkness?

  And yet Diana had abandoned her family. She'd slapped her daughter so roughly it turned Eureka's emotions inward for a decade, until they nearly killed her. Diana held deadly secrets behind her brilliant smile.

  Selfish. Heartless. Narcissistic. When her parents divorced, Eureka heard people in New Iberia call Diana these things. Eureka had dismissed it as bayou gossip. She'd convinced herself these attributes belonged to the accusers, that they projected their failings onto Diana's absence.

  Eureka considered that the woman she aspired to be was also the woman who manipulated, lied, then disappeared. Diana had been a ghost in Eureka's life, filling her with feelings while telling her not to feel. She had raised a daughter who ran cross-country, treasured the twins, fell in love too easily--and was a murderer. Once you put murder on your resume, no one saw anything else. Eureka was as full of dark contradictions as Diana. She was moments away from abandoning everyone she loved, leaving them to unknown, watery fates.

  Ander and the others had been sleeping when she left. She'd never seen him so peaceful. She'd pressed her lips to his for just an instant before she'd gone.

  The Tearline pond was rising. She could reach over the ledge and touch it. Soon she would be in the Marais. She would have to face Atlas, stop the Filling, and rescue Brooks at the same time. Solon said she would know what to do when she got there, but Eureka couldn't fathom it yet.

  Her fingers danced along the water's surface. After Diana died and Eureka swallowed those pills, when all that was left was a panicked, catatonic void, Brooks was the only person she could be near. He hadn't wanted her to snap out of anything. He'd loved her as she was.

  But even Brooks must have a limit. Even if she saved him, even if she brought him back, could he love this darkest side of her?

  Lightning flashed. It would keep raining. The water would keep rising. Soon her tears would swallow the Bitter Cloud.

  Eureka had to move. She couldn't wait for the tides to be right. She had to get to Ovid, to disappear before the others woke.

  Hands on her shoulders made Eureka jump.

  "Go back inside, Ander."

  "If I see him, I'll be sure to tell him that." Warm breath tickled Eureka's neck. She turned and gazed into eyes brown and bottomless.

  Brooks.

  Atlas.

  His touch was familiar, yet somehow older than their bodies. His eyes flashed with something bright and mesmerizing she'd never seen before. It pulled her closer.

  How could a monster's arms feel so good? Why did the thrill of his chest against hers make her pulse with excitement? She should pull away. She should run.

  He lowered his head and kissed her. Shock immobilized her as his lips parted hers. His hands rolled through the waves of her hair, then over the waves of her hips. Their lips locked again and again. It wasn't like any kiss she'd ever had before. Her body throbbed. She felt like she'd been drugged.

  "We can't--"

  "Don't be afraid," Brooks said. Atlas said. "It's only me now."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I got rid of him. It's over." His eyes shone like they had when Brooks visited her in the psych ward after she'd swallowed those pills, when he'd brought her pecan pralines and she'd told him, melodramatically, that it was the end of the world. She'd never forget his response: no big deal, he'd promised; after the end of the world, Brooks would be there to give her a ride home.

  "How did you do it?" Eureka masked the suspicion in her voice.

  A raindrop glittered on his eyelashes. She brushed it away instinctively.

  "You don't have to worry about that anymore. You don't have to worry about anything. I know what he wants. I know his weakness." He caressed the back of her head. "I can help you beat him, Eureka, as soon as we get to the Marais."

  The water on the veranda was up to their ankles. She lifted his T-shirt to examine his back. The dual set of deep red slashes had faded to pale scars. Did that mean Atlas was gone? She turned him around and brushed the hair from his forehead. The ring-shaped wound was less glaring, but it was there.

  A smart girl would assume Brooks was lying....

  A smarter girl would keep that assumption to herself.

  Even Atlas thought he was the bad guy, the gossipwitches had said. That meant Atlas didn't know Eureka's true lineage. He didn't appreciate her darkness.

  "Someday I'll tell you the story of how we met and how we parted." He turned away and the wound on his forehead glowed. "I will never forgive myself for the things he made me do. What happened with the twins--I can't--"

  "Let's not talk about it." Eureka wasn't so heartless that she could think of William and Claire, whom she would soon abandon.

  When he faced her, she felt how much she had missed Brooks like a punch in the stomach. Then she saw something behind his eyes--a ragged, foreign mania--and she was certain the boy before her was lying.

  "You believe me, don't you?"

  "Yes," she whispered. She would make him believe she did. She would get close enough to Atlas to learn how to win. She would stop the flood. She would save Brooks. She flung her arms around him. "Don't ever go away again."

  She felt him stiffen in her embrace. When she pulled away, he was beaming.

  "I'm going with you to the Marais." He eyed the crystal teardrop dangling from the orichalcum chain. "We don't have a lot of time." His fingers reached for the pendant.

  Eureka leaned away from him. Her facade and Brooks's facade could bump up against each other's--hands and eyes and lips and lies--but the necklace was hers.

  "This trip must be only you and me," he said. "It's not safe for the twins or Cat or--"

  "You and me. That's how I want it."

  Brooks's eyes lit up like they did when he saw her round a corner at Evangeline, or when she got dressed up for the honors dinner and broke a high heel stepping from the car.

>   A giggle filled the air, curved the rain. Eureka looked up, expecting to see gossipwitches gliding toward her through the clouds. Instead, one vast pair of wings, aglow in soft amethyst, beat gently overhead.

  The wings were shaped like a butterfly's. They beat with graceful strength and lowered in the sky until they were thirty feet above Eureka's head. Then she saw a creature's graceful silver body between the huge wings. It had a long neck, four hooves, a thrashing white tail.

  The horse was stunning. It had stockings of white on its front legs and a white star between its eyes. It neighed, raised its neck, and extended its shimmering M-shaped wings. They spanned a hundred feet on either side and were composed of a multitude of tiny flying things--bees, moths, fireflies, and black-and-white-striped baby hoopoe birds--beating their own wings in unison. Iridescent violet seams near the horse's shoulders bound the wings--cruelly, beautifully--to its body.

  A rustling came from the center of the horse's left wing. Slender fingers wriggled through the layers of wings, followed by a palm, which glided forward as if parting a curtain. Esme's face filled the gap.

  "What do you think of our Pegasus?"

  "Pegasus Two!" an unseen witch shouted from the top side of the wing.

  "Yes, yes, we created one before. He was sacrificed to progress, like Icarus, or Atari," Esme said. "We will call this one Peggy to distinguish." She reached into a silver satchel strapped to the base of the horse's neck and tossed down a ladder made of moths. "A stolen horse is not our preferred way to travel, but when Solon ran out of wings ... No matter. We will be home soon and everything will be as it should long have been."

  Brooks reached for the ladder. The moths reorganized, drawing together, then tapering to stretch a little lower. He stepped onto the lowest rung, turned, and extended a hand to Eureka.

  "You always said you wanted to fly away. Here's your hallelujah by and by."

  The words were from her favorite hymn. She'd sung it with Brooks in oak boughs when they were kids, the bayou below snaking into the distance until it disappeared. "I'll Fly Away" gave Eureka hope. Atlas wouldn't have known about it. He was using Brooks's memories to bait her, as Solon said he would. If there were memories to steal, there was still a Brooks inside, somewhere, to save.

  "I don't know--"

  Could she fly away from the twins, Cat, and Ander? Would they drown if Eureka left with Brooks?

  Brooks smiled. "You know."

  She didn't have Ovid, and she couldn't go back for it now. Could she trust that the gossipwitches wanted to get home badly enough to take her to the Marais? Was this voyage what Esme had said she owed them?

  Thunder cracked overhead. Eureka ducked. Brooks was still holding out his hand.

  "Come on," he urged.

  Maybe he was lying about everything else, but he was right about Eureka. She knew she had to go. She knew her loved ones couldn't come with her. She knew there wasn't any time. She knew she had to save the world. And she knew that the only way to get there was with the one she had to destroy. She took his hand.

  "Eureka!"

  Ander sloshed across the flooded veranda as her feet lifted from the stone.

  Water streamed from her running shoes. She dangled a few feet in the air. The hurt in Ander's eyes pierced her.

  Rain soaked his shirt, flattened his blond hair across his forehead. He looked so ordinary and beautiful that Eureka thought if things were different, if every single thing were different, she could fall in love with him from scratch.

  "Wait!" she shouted up at the gossipwitches.

  Eureka heard what sounded like a whip. The ladder bounced as Peggy's wings flattened overhead. The silver horse neighed in protest.

  "There's no time for this!" Brooks shouted at Esme.

  "There is time for a single goodbye," Esme said from the gap in Peggy's wing. "We will wait."

  "What are you doing?" Ander shouted.

  "I'm sorry!" Eureka called over the drone of a million wings. Her heart raced wildly. She imagined it bursting from her chest, sending fragments of chaotic love onto the two boys she was caught between. "I have to go."

  "We were going to go together," Ander said.

  "If you knew the things I know, you wouldn't want to go with me. You'd be glad I was leaving. So be glad."

  "I love you. Nothing else matters." Ander blinked. "Don't go with him, Eureka. He's not Brooks."

  Brooks laughed. "She's already chosen. Try to be a man about it."

  "Eureka!" Ander didn't look at Brooks. His turquoise eyes were trained on her for the last time.

  "Eureka," Brooks whispered in her good ear.

  "Eureka!" the middle gossipwitch shouted from above. "It's time to make a choice. Close your eyes and say goodbye to someone. Do not burden our beast of burden with the burden of your beastly heart."

  Eureka met Esme's eyes and nodded. "Let's go."

  A million pairs of wings beat in unison. Peggy climbed in the sky.

  "Ander!" she shouted.

  He stared up at her, hope in his eyes.

  "Take care of the twins," she said. "And Cat. Tell them ... tell them all I love them."

  He shook his head. "Don't do this."

  I love you, too. She couldn't bring herself to say it. Instead, she would take it with her, packed inside her heart. She would take all of them with her in her heart. She didn't deserve them, but she would take them. Cat's life-affirming humor. Claire's strength. William's tenderness. Dad's devotion. Rhoda's stubbornness. Madame Blavatsky's intuition. Diana's passion. Ander's love. They had given Eureka their gifts and she would take them with her wherever she went.

  "Goodbye," she called through the rain as she flew away.

  25

  THE MARAIS

  Eureka watched the world shrink beneath her. Peggy climbed a thousand feet and leveled off below wispy dregs of clouds. Eureka and Brooks rode her bareback, gripping her glossy silver mane. Two dozen gossipwitches rode atop the horse's wings. They held the beating fabric like children on a sled.

  Below, rivers burst from their banks. Red mud spurted across the land like blood from a wound. Where towns had stood a week ago, buildings sagged and highways buckled, sideswiped by water. Flash lakes drowned former valleys. Forests rotted black. As they flew south, great white waves tumbled into altered shoreline, leaving miles of mud in wakes that once were neighborhoods. Houses floated down streets, searching for their owners.

  Eureka vomited over the side of the horse and watched it arc toward the ravaged earth. There had been nothing in her stomach but acid. Now there was even less.

  "Are you okay?" Brooks asked. Atlas asked.

  She rested her cheek on Peggy's velvety neck. She stared ahead until her eyes found the horizon. She imagined every devastated thing below sliding over that horizon like a waterfall. She imagined the entire broken world flowing into fire at the end of everything.

  Brooks leaned in to her good ear. "Say something."

  "I didn't think it could be worse than my imagination."

  "You'll fix it."

  "The world is dead. I killed it."

  "Bring it back." He sounded like the old Brooks, like someone who believed Eureka could do anything, especially the impossible. She was angry with herself for letting down her guard. She wouldn't do it again. She had to be careful, confiding in the enemy.

  "How did you find them?" Eureka nodded in the witches' direction.

  "I didn't," Brooks said. "They found me. When I freed myself, it was like I was waking from a coma. She"--he nodded at Esme, who lay like a sunbather on Peggy's wings--"was standing over me when I opened my eyes. She offered me a ride. I said I had to find you first. She laughed and said, 'Mount the mare, stud.' Then they brought me to you." He looked around. "I never thought we'd top the time we hitched to Bonnaroo in that convertible van. But we've topped it."

  That trip was one of Eureka's fondest memories. The driver had started in L.A., in one of those homes-of-the-stars tour buses. There were brochures in
the seat pockets with maps of the Hollywood Hills. He picked up hitchers across the country, until all the seats were filled. They spent the trip squinting into the rolling hills of Tennessee, pretending to see movie stars hiding behind poplar trees. It was another thing Atlas couldn't have known without Brooks.

  Esme flicked an amethyst whip against Peggy's wing. The beast banked west. They were flying over water now. All land had disappeared.

  "You don't want to hear this," Brooks said, "but I learned things from Atlas."

  "Like what?"

  "The story of Atlantis is the longest cliff-hanger in history, but someone will finish it...." As his voice trailed off in the rain, Eureka thought of Selene's words in The Book of Love:

  Where we'll end ... well, who can know the ending until they have written the last word? Everything might change in the last word.

  It was Selene's life story, but everyone talked about their life as if it were a story: leaving out the boring parts, exaggerating the interesting sections, crafting a tale as if everything had inevitably led to this very moment on this very day, saying these very words.

  Somehow, Eureka would finish this story. Future tellers of the tale could embellish what they wanted, but no Tearline girl would enter the scene after she exited. Delphine was alpha; Eureka was omega.

  It was nearly dawn, the end of another sleepless night, five days until the full moon. Thunder cracked. Peggy raised her wings. Eureka couldn't see the gossipwitches' faces, but she could hear their jubilation and see where their leaping feet touched down on the wings.

  "We're getting close." Brooks leaned over Peggy and gazed at the surging ocean waves.

  Eureka didn't recognize the white-tipped water; it looked nothing like the oceans she'd sailed, swum, flown over in planes, or navigated from within her thunderstone.

  In the distance, waves thrashed the shores of a desolate strip of marshland coated in an undulating black sheet. Peggy neighed and dipped her head. She began her descent.

  As they drew closer, Eureka saw that the black sheet was made of billions of brine flies that had claimed the marsh as their home.

  Eureka touched her pendant. Its warmth was welcome now in the chilling rain. She imagined that Diana's scrawled Marais had become a cursive sparkle in the diamond. Could Atlantis lie beneath this undistinguished streak of mud?