Artie reached up with her sleeve—damp by now from the waterfall mist, too, but she found a dry spot on the inside of her forearm—and carefully wiped the statue’s face. There. That was better. The face looked so much more peaceful without the water dripping down it.
Except.
Except it was still dripping.
The light mist hung in the air—barely a breath of water; it would have to build up for some time to form rivulets down the statue’s face. And yet the statue was crying.
The statue was crying.
Tears were coming out of her eyes. What Artie had thought was mist on her face wasn’t mist at all—or rather, it wasn’t just mist.
Artie watched closely as the tears ran down the girl’s face. Then down her neck and chest and torso and leg. The tears ran off her foot and into the water. The tears ran into the stream . . . that eventually fed into the ocean.
Tears!
A wild thought in her head, Artie stepped back into the water. She walked a couple of yards downstream of the statue, dipped her hands into the water, and scooped a gulp into her mouth. Spat it out again. Salt. Salt as strong as could be.
She walked back to the statue and then upstream several yards, where she repeated the experiment. She drank. And drank again.
The water was clean and pure. Upriver from the statue, it was sweet, the way water should be.
* * *
• • •
ARTIE THOUGHT about running back to Putnam to tell him that she’d located the source of the salt. But what could they do to fix it? What would Putnam want to do? Chop down the statue? Destroy it?
No, they couldn’t destroy the statue. It—she—was crying. Artie didn’t know what the right thing would be to do, but she knew that killing the statue wasn’t it.
Because, yes, it felt like they would be killing someone. Artie didn’t know why. No, she did: there were stories on her own island of people who’d been cursed and turned to statues. Fairy tales, she’d always thought. But now, with this weeping statue in front of her, she thought there might be some truth to the stories.
Maybe, just maybe, this statue was once a real person.
If Artie could just get the statue away from the water, then she could keep it from infecting the ocean with more salt while she considered what to do next. She pushed as hard as she could, her shoulder set against the stone, but she couldn’t move the rock. The statue wasn’t fixed to a base, but it was locked in place somehow. She couldn’t even jiggle it.
Exhausted and sore from pushing, Artie flopped down on a big stone that lay partly in the downstream water and rested her head on her elbows. It seemed almost like the statue was looking directly at her face.
It was still crying.
“Why?” Artie said.
She knew the statue wouldn’t answer. She wasn’t stupid. But somehow it felt—like maybe the statue would listen. Like there could be a one-sided conversation that might actually go somewhere.
“We found you,” she said, trying to be conversational, “almost by accident. I mean, my friend was looking for you. But he didn’t know he was looking for you. He wants to fix the salty sea. To change it back to fresh water. That’s why he’s on this trip in the first place.”
The statue’s tears continued to fall. She was expressionless. Studying her, Artie could see how asymmetrical her face and body were. She’d probably never been thought a beauty. Misshapen head. Turned-in feet. And on her arm, a set of claw marks similar to Putnam’s.
Had she also faced a bear, before she found this cavern? Had the tunnel saved her as well?
“Maybe you ran away like I did. That’s how you ended up here.” The statue couldn’t hear her, not really—and definitely couldn’t respond. Artie rolled her sleeve to show the old burn marks on her arms and brushed her hair back to show her face. With her new bruises from the tunnel, she was surely ugly enough to impress this statue. “I don’t have claw marks like you and Putnam. But—I do, kind of.” She’d had her own bear, in a way.
The world vibrated with the not-quite-silence of stream and waterfall and birdsong. Artie looked around. This underworld was good. Maybe this girl had once lived here in peace, long ago. And now Artie was here, safe from all kinds of monsters.
“I’ll figure something out,” she said, half to herself and half to the statue. “I won’t let Putnam destroy you.”
The statue almost seemed to sway. But no, it was Artie, sliding face-first down the wet rock. She stopped herself by plunging her hands into the water and hopping up. It was time to go anyway. Putnam might be awake.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said. It felt nice to talk to the statue. Like she understood. Artie turned and waved before heading back to Putnam.
5
PUTNAM AND ARTIE.
PUTNAM WOKE in the afternoon, his back burning again. He realized that when he’d walked around earlier in the day, thinking his back felt like fire, he hadn’t yet known what fire felt like. Now it felt like fire. By comparison, before had been like the discomfort of a bad sunburn. He was reminded of his father’s cook, who had gone into labor early one morning, before she’d expected to, and the doctor had arrived and asked her how bad the pain was, compared to how she’d felt before labor, and she’d said, I’ve never had a baby before—I’ve never done worse than sprain my toe. How can I compare stubbing my toe to having a baby? It’s bad! But of course, it got worse before the baby was born. He, Putnam, had never been clawed by a giant bear before; how could he know what it would feel like or when it would be at its worst?
Still, he hoped this was the worst.
Artie’s hand brushed his forehead, and he opened his eyes to see her worried face above him in the sunlight and greenery. They were shaded by a large bush, on a blanket in the grass. He was on his side, and his bottom arm tingled like it had fallen asleep. Nothing, though, compared to his back.
“Feverish,” Artie murmured. Her worried expression deepened. Putnam closed his eyes and fell asleep again.
He woke briefly in the almost-dark, Artie curled up on the blanket near him, sleeping. The gypsum walls barely glowed.
When he woke again, it was morning, and the blanket was damp with dew or rain. Artie had rolled him to his stomach and had removed the moss from his wounds—the breeze playing across his back, excruciating, snapped him awake. He groaned.
“This will feel good when I’m done. I hope,” Artie said. And then something cool hit the burning stripes on his back, and her fingers were gently smoothing it in.
“Ice?” he said. He couldn’t think what else it could be. But it didn’t feel like ice. It felt soft.
“Aloe. I found some nearby. Tried it on myself first to make sure it was really aloe.” She paused to squeeze some more of the gel onto his back, and he almost cried with relief.
He fell asleep again, her hands lightly moving on his back. She was singing, quietly, something about mangoes.
The next time he woke up, he was lying on his other side, his back once again packed with moss. Underneath the moss he could feel the aloe at work, though, and his back wasn’t burning quite as sharply as before.
“Artie?” He lifted his head carefully. It must be afternoon by now—though it was hard to tell time in this bright place. Artie wasn’t around—probably had gone to look for food again or something. With the amount he was sleeping, she’d be done exploring this entire underworld by the time he recovered.
In front of him on the blanket lay some more berries and the water sack and a few mint leaves. He propped himself up long enough to eat and drink, finishing with the mint leaves, which made his cottony mouth feel much fresher. He lay down again, chewing the leaves and feeling better than he’d felt since the bears had attacked.
He tried not to think about how they were stuck here.
And how he hadn’t fixed anything.
* * *
• • •
ARTIE REMEMBERED nursing her mom in the final days of her pneumonia—trying to get her to eat, cleaning her up, changing dirty linen, washing her face with cool cloths. How none of it worked. And afterward, when her mother was gone, there was no protection for Artie, no one who cared about what happened to her. No one who loved her.
But this wasn’t then. She kept telling herself that. Putnam would get better—was already getting better. She’d left him after putting another layer of aloe on his wounds and covering them with moss and turning him on his side. She’d laid out food and water in case he woke. And she’d tiptoed off for a little time by herself.
All her old memories were coming back to her here, partly because Putnam’s sickness made her remember her mom and partly because the statue’s clawed arm made her feel her own burned arm more sharply—and partly because she had so much free time and quiet, which bad memories always seemed to want to invade. She’d hoped to escape from everything in her old life, to live away from Tathenn, and to be safe. And instead she was here with someone sick, someone she cared about and didn’t want to lose, and all of a sudden she felt unsafe again. Like the deep memories she’d buried away—the really bad ones—were going to return to her. Like she might get burned all over again. Might burn up until there was nothing of herself left.
Pretty soon she was sitting on the river stone in front of the statue. She didn’t even know how she’d gotten there. And she wanted to talk. She wasn’t sure why.
She’d left Putnam sound asleep—but he wouldn’t come here even if he woke. There was no danger of him overhearing anything she said. And the statue couldn’t repeat anything. This would be the perfect place to say things that she couldn’t otherwise say.
The statue would listen. Or if not listen, it would sit there and cry with her. The statue wouldn’t be surprised by anything Artie said, wouldn’t tell her that things that were done to her were her fault, wouldn’t say she should have stood up for herself better, wouldn’t suggest she should have left sooner than she did, certainly would not say she should move on and put everything behind her. Though tears would drip down her stone face and into the stream, the statue wouldn’t say anything.
What a dumb idea. How could just talking help anything?
The light was waning, slowly moving toward night. She stood on the damp stone. Her clothes, wet with mist, felt clammy and cold and heavy in the half-light.
The statue glimmered and—it looked like it moved.
A hallucination or a trick of the light.
But maybe not a trick. Maybe the statue really moved. A tiny bit?
Its head was tilted in a small bow, as if to say good evening.
“Um. Hi,” said Artie, staring. She felt like the girl could hear her—which was silly—and she wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette was. “I have to take care of my friend. But I wonder if maybe—maybe we can talk sometime?”
In the shadows it looked like the statue nodded again, just a fraction.
Artie bowed, in the formal old-style way of Raftworlders, a style that she’d only heard about in stories. She turned and went to Putnam.
* * *
• • •
PUTNAM WOKE from a dream in which the statue was trying to tell him something but he didn’t want to listen. She was . . . she was telling him to stop. He lay with his eyes closed, trying to remember the wisps of dream before they were gone forever. He had . . . he had an ax in his hand, and she was yelling, Stop. Was he going to chop her down?
He yawned. His back felt much better. It still hurt if anything happened to touch it, and the skin felt tight. Every time he moved, he could feel the wounds on his back stretching and aching. But if he didn’t move, he felt pretty good.
He sat up, slowly, a little dizzy with the exertion of it. He couldn’t see Artie, but he could hear her light, humming voice drawing nearer. She was figuring out a tune; he could tell from the way that she kept going over the same runs again and again. Like an exercise, but much nicer to listen to.
Then he could see her coming up the trail—for there was a trail now, a thin ribbon of matted grass that she’d walked back and forth on, probably leading to the river.
Sure enough, she carried the water sack. “I thought you might want more.”
He nodded his thanks and drank. “The food was good, too.”
“Are you better?” She picked up the remaining aloe leaf, but he waved her away. That could wait.
“Yes, I’m much better. Thanks to you.” He was hungry, actually. But that could wait, too. “Where’ve you been? I mean, besides the river? Anything interesting?” He mostly wanted to know two things: Was there a way out? And what was the statue doing there?
“Oh.” She looked shifty. “Mostly I’ve just been to the river. And to pick berries—they’re on the other side of the hill. And I found a little apple tree with giant apples.” She picked up the sole apple on the blanket and held it out to him. “Go ahead. I already ate one. They’re not poisonous or anything.”
He almost laughed at the idea of checking apples for poison, but she seemed serious. Grateful for the food, he took it and bit in. The fruit was sweet, and as he ate, juice dribbled down his chin. He felt suddenly ravenous, and though the berries and carrots had been good, they weren’t enough to fill his stomach. He wasn’t sure the apple would be enough, either.
She watched him as he ate, a look on her face that he couldn’t read. He wondered if she’d been to the statue again. Of course she had—it was right next to the river. It still bothered him, gnawing at the edge of his brain. “Did you get a chance to study the sculpture?”
Slowly, she nodded. There was something she wasn’t saying. He could tell.
There was something Putnam wasn’t going to say either. In his dream, the statue had looked like him—like a slightly older, girl version of him, or maybe his dad when his dad was a teenager. Like his sister—if he’d had one. She looked so familiar. It was eerie.
“She definitely looks like—well, like Raftworld,” said Artie, as if she’d read his mind. Or maybe she was thinking along the same lines. “She’s been by the river a long time, I think.”
“I don’t like her,” said Putnam. “She’s creepy.” He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something very wrong with the statue. Maybe he was supposed to destroy it. Maybe that was what the dream was telling him. “Can we move that thing? Knock it down?”
“Why would we do that?” Artie asked quickly. “She doesn’t move, anyway.” She looked for a second like she was going to say something more, but she didn’t. “I’ll get you some food.”
She left and came back a few minutes later with more apples. As he ate, Putnam realized what else bothered him about the statue. It was the pulling feeling that had led him all the way here—the feeling that he had to come south, and that once he came south, he’d know what to do—the feeling that had deserted him when he’d felt the intense pain of the bear’s claws.
Seeing the statue had brought that feeling back. He felt the thread again in his gut, pulling him toward—toward her.
6
ARTIE AND PUTNAM.
ARTIE DIDN’T tell Putnam about the statue’s crying or about how the water was sweet above the statue and salty downriver. He already wanted to knock the statue down; what would he do if he knew its secret?
Artie wasn’t stupid. She could read what it all meant. The statue’s tears were running down the river to the sea, turning the ocean to salt. The tears must be magical, saltier than normal tears, to do that much damage to an ocean—even if the statue had been crying for many years. The sleeve Artie had used to wipe the statue’s face had dried, coated in a thick white chalk of salt. Her shoulder—pressed against the statue to push—had also turned white. Only after drying in the sun for several hours had the thick salt patches flaked off like dried
mud.
So why didn’t she just tell Putnam? After he ate, she rubbed more aloe on his wounds. Each of the five angry gutters on his back glowed red and scabby, but none looked infected anymore. As she eased the gel into each long ditch, she considered how easily Putnam could destroy the statue. It was only made of gypsum, so far as Artie could tell, and wouldn’t be hard to break. Gypsum was a soft rock.
Artie couldn’t let him. There was, she was sure, a person in there. Artie had seen her move. Hadn’t she?
But Putnam had been sent on a mission . . .
She cleared her throat, hands still on his back. “What if . . . what if you never find the thing that is making the sea turn salty? I mean, what if you don’t fulfill your mission? Will your dad and everyone—will they be mad?” She didn’t add, And will the ocean become unlivable?
He finished his apple and set the core down on the blanket. Cleared his throat. “I . . . have something to tell you.” He sounded serious.
Artie, finished with his back, wiped her hands on her leggings and moved to sit in front of him. “What?”
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t exactly get sent on a mission.”
“What do you mean? You aren’t trying to find out why the water is salty?”
“No, I’m trying to figure it out,” he said. “And fix it. But I wasn’t told to. No one sent me. I just sent myself.” He picked up the core and tossed it into the bushes, then winced and groaned.
Artie peeked at his back. He hadn’t broken any of the scabs open. “Maybe don’t throw for a while.”
Putnam nodded.
“So. Basically you just ran away from home?”
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