The Harp and the Ravenvine

by Ted Sanders

  At last his gut stopped heaving. The world began to right itself. He wiped his chin on his sleeve and sat up, slipping the Fel’Daera back into its pouch. He crawled away and propped himself against a nearby tree. He found Chloe’s eyes.

  “What did I do?” he said.

  “You survived. You did it.”

  “But I—”

  “No. No buts. You’re safe. Everyone is safe.”

  Mr. Meister limped over, his eyes on the Fel’Daera. “It is true,” Mr. Meister said. “You did well. Everyone did well.”

  But Horace wasn’t so sure. He’d broken just about every rule there was for the Fel’Daera. He’d used it in a way he now felt sure had never been intended. And worst of all, he’d uttered those two simple words—despite the Fel’Daera’s predictions—that had saved the life of his worst enemy. He felt miserable. A failure. And judging by the foul expression Mrs. Hapsteade wore at Mr. Meister’s side, she seemed to feel much the same.

  “Chloe,” said a voice. “Chloe, is that you?”

  Horace looked up. Isabel. No matter what anyone said, she was the one truly responsible for saving them all. But how did she know Chloe’s name?

  She’d found her feet and was now approaching, almost drunkenly, clutching her shoulder. The older Wardens backed away silently, faces creased with concern, Mrs. Hapsteade clinging to Mr. Meister’s arm. Isabel reached out for Chloe with a trembling, hesitant hand.

  Chloe rose to her feet, scowling. “What?” she spat.

  The woman’s eyes fell on the dragonfly gleaming in the hollow of Chloe’s throat. “It is you. I found you. Chloe. Oh my god . . .” She was crying.

  Chloe took a step back, studying the woman’s face. Her own face became a breaking dam, a wall of furious confusion beginning to crumble. She took another step back, then a half step forward. Her voice, when she spoke, was as fragile as a flower, full of wonder.

  “Mom?”

  PART FOUR

  The Departed

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Reunion

  CHLOE SLEPT A HORRID SLEEP, AND FOR ONCE, IT WASN’T BECAUSE of the god-awful mattress that smelled and felt like a giant moth-filled sock. Her muscles ached with a deep, all-over ache. Her mind was a nest of surly bees. The bed in her little room at the Mazzoleni Academy rustled and creaked beneath her restless sleep, spilling her from dream to troubled dream—into the tiny prison cell in the Riven’s nest, or back to her own bedroom before the fire, or to brightly lit places she scarcely remembered. Her mother roamed them all, red hair ablaze.

  Chloe woke slowly, raggedly. She shed her dreams and slipped messily through the wreckage of yesterday’s memories. The riverbank, the Mordin, the filthy, miserable Auditor—a creature who deserved to be exterminated if ever there was one. And then, of course, her own mother. Returned against all odds or expectations. Returned not from the dead, but from something like it.

  Chloe hadn’t seen the woman in seven years. There were a few pictures, of course—or at least, there had been before the fire. That red hair was unmistakable. But now Chloe felt sick at having uttered the word that had risen to her lips in that harrowing moment: “Mom.”

  Isabel had tried to embrace her, calling Chloe’s name over and over, but that wasn’t going to happen. No way. Chloe had instinctively gone thin, her mother’s arms going right through her. And then Mr. Meister took control, issuing commands in that infernally smooth voice. Immediately Mrs. Hapsteade had whisked Chloe and Horace away, leaving the others behind with the old man.

  They’d stumbled along the riverbank, Neptune guiding them from above. They’d crossed a wooden bridge, and then a damp, lumpy meadow. More trees, darker this time, and then a loose and crumbling wall of brick. A cloister. Once inside, Chloe spotted the requisite leestone, flat on the ground and half buried in leaves, this time in the shape of a brownish bird with a splash of blue on the wing. Around the leestone was a motley circle of cabbage-sized stones embedded in the earth. All cloisters had these circles, and Chloe hadn’t given them much thought, but now Mrs. Hapsteade and Neptune stalked around the stones intently, clearing away forest debris and examining each curiously shaped rock, Neptune murmuring apparent nonsense: “Wren’laddon . . . Aarnin . . . Navendrel . . . where is it?”

  At last Mrs. Hapsteade stopped beside a stone shaped like a half-buried armchair. “Here it is—San’ska.” She waved at Horace and Chloe. “Come and see.”

  Chloe had no idea what she was talking about, and she didn’t care. Her mother had returned. Her mother was a Tuner. Not only that, but her mother and Horace’s mother had actually known each other as children. Impossible. Chloe was so full of rage and confusion—and yes, fear—that she couldn’t speak. She thought she might set the air on fire if she opened her mouth.

  “Let’s go,” Mrs. Hapsteade said briskly. “We have to get back to the Warren immediately. Now. The others will meet us there.”

  The others. Isabel too? Chloe couldn’t move her jaw to ask.

  Horace asked, “What are these things?”

  “This is a falkrete circle,” Mrs. Hapsteade replied. “One of only a dozen or so in the city that still work.”

  Horace, ever curious, stepped forward to examine the chunky stone. “What does it do?”

  “It’s a transport system. Each of these stones is a gateway to another cloister.”

  Horace gave Chloe an incredulous look, but she was only half listening. “You mean we’re teleporting?” Horace said.

  That word got her attention. Teleporting? What?

  “If you like,” Mrs. Hapsteade said. She nudged the stone with one black-booted foot. “This particular falkrete stone leads to San’ska. That’s the name of the home cloister—the cloister nearest the academy. But there’s a trick to getting there. Neptune, this is your specialty. Would you explain, please?”

  Neptune stepped forward, her tourminda in hand. She crouched over the stone, holding her Tan’ji just above the jagged surface. “When you’re ready, hold your instrument against the falkrete. You’ll immediately split in two, and then—”

  Shoving thoughts of her mother aside, Chloe spoke at last. “I’m sorry—what?”

  “You won’t physically be ripped in two, of course,” Neptune explained. “Actually what happens is you’ll be in two places at once—you’ll be here in this cloister, but you’ll also be in the destination cloister.”

  “How does that work?” Chloe said.

  “It’s a quantum state,” Neptune said. “Like Schrödinger’s cat.”

  Horace shook his head. “No way. That’s not possible. That only works with, like, atoms and stuff. Really small things.”

  “You could be right, of course,” Neptune said calmly. “We could just be jerking your chain.”

  Chloe frowned, thinking hard. She’d read about Schrödinger’s cat once but hadn’t totally understood it. Something about a sealed box with a cat inside that was either alive or dead. And supposedly, according to some crazy law of science, the unobserved cat could be both dead and alive at the same time. The moment you opened the box to look at the cat—to observe it—then the cat would turn out to be either definitely dead or definitely alive. But before that, it was both. Thinking about it gave Chloe a headache.

  “But how do you get through?” Horace asked.

  Neptune said, “The trick to moving on through is to decide—to believe—that you are in the next cloister. In a way, you have to sort of observe yourself being there, not here. And then you will be.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. Hapsteade. “Once your Tan’ji touches the falkrete and you see both cloisters, be decisive. Move through quickly. We’re only doing a single jump tonight, but it will still be disorienting. And the longer you hesitate—the longer you straddle both cloisters—the more disorienting it will be.”

  “Okay, here’s a question,” Chloe said to Neptune. “You touch your Tan’ji to the stone, and you’ll be in both cloisters at once. But we’ll observe you here. Isn’t that a pr
oblem with the whole Schrödinger thing? Won’t you be stuck here?” Horace glanced at her and nodded approvingly.

  “Actually . . . ,” Neptune teased.

  They were silent for a moment, and then Horace said, “We can’t watch.” His voice was dreamy, a sure sign he was geeking out, sucking down this new knowledge like it was candy.

  “That’s right,” said Neptune. “A girl needs her privacy.”

  Mrs. Hapsteade bustled forward. “Remember which stone it is. We’ll go one at a time, while the others wait outside the cloister. I’ll go last.”

  “What about on the other side?” said Horace. “Can we watch people arrive?”

  “It can be done, but observing people from the other side yanks them through immediately, and hard. It makes the arrival much more painful. Better to let each traveler come through under their own force of will.”

  They’d stepped outside the cloister then, giving Neptune a minute or two. Horace had gone next. While they waited, Chloe focused all her mental energy worrying about Horace, even though she was pretty sure he didn’t need it. Meanwhile Mrs. Hapsteade eyeballed Chloe steadily. Chloe knew what the woman was thinking, and stupidly took the bait. “Do I have something on my face or something?”

  “Chloe, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Hapsteade said gently. “We should have warned you.”

  Chloe shrugged. When she spoke, she tried to keep her voice calm, her tone indifferent. She practically trembled with the effort. “Warnings are overrated. I mean, come on—what’s life without a terrible surprise now and then?” She drew on the Alvalaithen’s power, letting its song drown out the sound of some of the few words Isabel had managed to say in those few moments on the riverbank: “I found you. Chloe. Wait, I found you.”

  Chloe stepped into the cloister, feeling the chill of the thick brick wall as she passed through it. Horace was already gone. She slipped the dragonfly from its cord and approached the small, armchair-shaped rock. Part of her hoped that Horace was still in the cloister at the other end, that he would observe her and therefore yank her through without her having to exert a bit of will. She hoped it would hurt.

  She tapped the dragonfly’s head against the stone. Immediately the world doubled. She was in the city—a sudden canvas of lights overhead, and thin but jarring sounds of traffic—and yet the forest was still here too. The city cloister was cleaner and totally empty; she recognized it as the one where Gabriel had met Horace and her just a few days ago, a couple of blocks from the Mazzoleni Academy.

  She looked down at her hand, flexing it. Two versions of her fingers opened and closed, one disorientingly ahead of the other by just a fraction of a second, as if she were watching herself on a video screen. She almost said “Crazy,” out loud, but then caught herself—what if Mrs. Hapsteade heard? Wouldn’t that count as an observation, of sorts, snapping her back fully into the forest cloister? After her embarrassment with the oublimort, Chloe wasn’t going to screw this one up.

  She concentrated on the city cloister. In her doubled vision, the leestone there—the black-and-white bird—overlapped the brown leestone in the forest cloister. The other day, she’d joked that the black-and-white bird was a penguin, but now its true name popped into her head. It was a magpie.

  She stared at the magpie, willing it to grow clearer even as she let the brown bird fade from her sight. She could only be in one place, and it had to be there, in the city. It had to be. Suddenly a great cramp seized every muscle in her body, and the forest cloister dropped away completely. She fell back onto her rump. Overhead, no longer a forest canopy but skyscrapers soaring high over a single tree. A ginkgo. She’d done it. She’d come fully into the city cloister. But her muscles ached and she felt lightheaded, scattered—as if she’d had a dream in which she stayed in the forest cloister. It felt so real that she had to collect herself for a moment before she felt fully present.

  Afterward, once Mrs. Hapsteade had followed, the little group had trekked back to the academy. Without a word to anyone, not even to Horace, Chloe had gone up to her dingy room on the academy’s deserted top floor. Her father’s room, at the opposite end of the hall, was dark. How long would it be before he found out his wife had returned? What would happen to them now?

  An hour later Horace had come to her door to announce that he was leaving, that the others had returned and Beck was taking him home.

  “Is she with them?” Chloe had asked. “Tell me he didn’t actually bring her back here.”

  “He did—back to the academy. But not down to the Warren. And he took her harp away.” He paused and said, “Are you okay?”

  “That’s a stupid question, Horace,” she’d replied, and rolled away from him.

  “For what it’s worth,” Horace said after a while, “I don’t think my mom knew that Isabel was . . . you know.”

  “Of course she didn’t, Horace. Your mom would have told me if she knew. Your mother, unlike some, is a good person.”

  Another long pause. “Isabel saved us tonight.”

  “Did she?” Chloe had said, and after a painful minute of silence, Horace had left her. Once he was gone, all that was left was a short night filled with long, terrible dreams.

  Now Chloe opened her eyes and stared at the water-stained ceiling, lit with sickly morning light. She went thin and stuck her hand outside, her muscles complaining faintly. Even now, the day was already muggy and hot, and promising worse to come. She groaned and rolled over, then opened her eyes wide.

  There, sitting silently on the other bed, was her mother. Isabel. The woman made no effort to smile, just gazed at Chloe as if half expecting Chloe to ignore her. Chloe sat up, surprised at the blaze of hurt and rage and doubt that flared up all at once. She corralled it all, finding every bit of braveness she could muster.

  “I was beginning to hope I’d imagined you,” Chloe said.

  “I’ve had similar thoughts myself,” Isabel replied.

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ve been sitting there for a long time, just watching me.”

  Isabel sighed wistfully. “Not nearly long enough,” she said sadly. “Or maybe my whole life. I don’t know.”

  The sorrow in her voice was grating, unbearable. Chloe felt herself bristling but couldn’t tear her eyes away from that face, so foreign and familiar, the ghost of a ghost. Isabel’s hair was even redder than Chloe remembered. Her clothes were travel worn. Isabel worried a brown ring she wore on her right pinky. On her left hand, meanwhile, she still wore her wedding band. Chloe was about to make a nasty remark about that when she noticed the absence of Isabel’s harp.

  “I heard they took your harp away,” Chloe said. “Good for them.” She tried to forget what Horace had been trying to tell her—that Isabel’s power might well have saved them all last night.

  “They didn’t take it,” said Isabel. “I surrendered it.”

  “Willingly, I’m sure.”

  “I knew Mr. Meister would want me to give it up, and I did. Besides, it was the only way.”

  “The only way to what?”

  “To come home.”

  Chloe made herself laugh, sharp barks that she hoped sounded cruel.

  If Isabel flinched, it was hardly noticeable. “I talked to your dad last night,” she said.

  Chloe stopped laughing, unable to resist imagining it. Isabel had been talking to her dad, just down the hall from here. Had they been reconciling? Crying? Hugging? Possibly all of those things, if she knew her dad. The thought made her boil. “I don’t want you talking to him.”

  “That’s not your decision to make. There’s a lot for him and me to talk about.” Isabel sighed again, and Chloe could hear the exhaustion in her voice. That voice—it registered in some deep pocket of remembrance Chloe hadn’t even known she still had. How had that voice sounded to her father?

  “If my dad was glad to see you,” Chloe said, “it’s only because he’s been alone this whole time. He’s been through more than you can imagine.”

  “Don’t p
resume to know how much I can imagine,” Isabel said low. “But you’re right. He’s being too kind. He’s showing me more forgiveness—more love—than I deserve.”

  “Spare me,” Chloe said, hardly able to stomach the idea. “What about Madeline? Does she know yet?”

  Isabel’s eyes grew shiny. “Not yet. I so want to see her. How is she? Dad said she’s strong, and happy.”

  “She’s the best of us,” Chloe said firmly. “No big surprise, though—she knew you the least.”

  Isabel looked away. She got up and wandered over to Chloe’s desk. There wasn’t much to see—library books, her stash of wintergreen mints, a chunk of charred brick from the wreckage of the fire. There was also an intricate black key, entrusted to her by Mrs. Hapsteade. It unlocked the elevator that led to the Great Burrow.

  If Isabel noticed the key, she didn’t comment. Instead she hefted the scorched brick, examining it. “The fire,” she said. “Dad told me. I’m so sorry. You lost everything.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Not everything, no. Not the most important things. But I’m sorry, Clover.”

  The all-but-forgotten nickname shocked Chloe, actually knocking the breath from her. “Do not call me that,” she spat.

  Isabel dipped her head. “Old habits die hard,” she said apologetically. “I’ve missed you plenty.”

  Angrily, Chloe swallowed the unwanted knot that rose in her throat. This woman had no right to be here, to be saying these things. You shouldn’t be able to toss something away and then whine about it being gone. “You’ll get over it,” Chloe said. “I did.”

  “Yes,” Isabel said lightly. “You really seem over it.”

  From the desk, she picked up an oversized marble, clear as glass. Like all raven’s eyes, this one had started out black, but as it safely absorbed the unwanted attention of the Riven, it had faded from black to purple to transparent until its protective powers were exhausted.

  “What a souvenir this is,” Isabel said, frowning at it. “A raven’s eye, all used up. I wonder how.”