by Seth Fishman
“You ready?” Brayden asks me as we wade together.
I’m not, not really. I spin Jo around to face me, her skin as white as a Keeper’s, her blond hair scattered around her in the water. I wish I could say that her closed eyes make her look peaceful, but they don’t. She looks hollow, empty. She looks alien to me. Not at all Jo.
“Mia,” Brayden says, softly but with real urgency.
I have to take her. I have to. Mrs. Banner already lost her husband and now her daughter, and I owe it to Jo.
I turn to Brayden, and notice something different about him. I can sense that he’s scared, watching the dwindling water. But there’s more. I don’t fully understand what the source has given me, but I can feel an invisible piece of him trying to cover me, to envelop me. It’s like I can feel his pulse louder now, closer. I can sense it reach out from him and touch me, warm and comforting, wrapping around my shoulders.
I take his hand and then, with Jo in my arms, I suck a deep breath and dive. She’s like a weight at first, making it easier, and I swim down and down, feeling the water rush around me.
I can’t see anything. I thought this would be easier the second time. But already my lungs feel empty and strain against my chest. Even with the source I can’t not breathe. Something moves past me, quick and dark. Brayden, my mind screams, but he’s gone. How did he pass me? How could he pass me?
For some reason, Jo’s hard to move. She’s weighing me down, as if she’s sinking back toward where we came from. Did I get turned around? I shoot out a hand and hit stone. I look up and down and still can’t see anything. Panicking, I reach out with my sense and feel something, a beat, very soft, very far away. I swim for it, frantically, but I’m not getting closer. She’s pulling me back. She snags on something. I’m killing myself.
Before I even admit what I have to do, I do it. And she’s just gone. Like she was never there.
I stare into the blackness below me. I hurt so badly I go numb. I drift, alone, and for a moment I want to stay that way. But then I feel the hearts above me, my friends and others, many many others. And I let go, leaving Jo and my father behind. I follow the sound of my home, beating for me.
EPILOGUE
He takes my hand and pulls me from the well, my clothing soaked, water splashing onto the railing. The water behind me makes a sucking noise and slips away to wherever it goes, maybe forever.
I hug Brayden fiercely. I hold him tight. If I stay like this I don’t have to move on.
“This is Topside?” Lisa asks, her voice carrying a clear note of disappointment. “Looks a lot like my world.” She’s right. The well is situated in the midst of a giant cavern, filled with the same trees she had in her home tower and gear set up to extract the liquid. Those trees will slowly start to die, now that the water’s gone. A long wide orange hose dangles over the railing and leads to a pump that’s still on, its engine grinding loudly now that there’s no water left to pull.
“Yeah,” Rob says, “but don’t worry, it gets better.”
Brayden doesn’t ask me about Jo. No one does. I’m grateful for that.
The soldier shivers on the floor, his hands locked tight around his gun. Water streams down his chin and drips on the floor, and he sucks snot into his nose, on the verge of crying. Brayden lets go of me and steps to him, his hand outstretched.
“Where is everyone? What is happening?” the soldier asks. “Drummond and Winter were supposed to be here.”
“I need for you to be quiet,” Brayden says, and then points to Lisa. “And I need that gun, or I’ll sic her on you.”
The soldier doesn’t need much convincing. This is beyond the pay grade of a gun for hire. He hands over the rifle and slides backward on the ground until he hits the railing. I see, now, that he has a name tag stitched into his shirt. Shoemaker.
“Looks like they still pumped plenty,” Rob says, scanning the room. I follow his eyes, and see the giant blue containers sweating with water. Good. At least Sutton wasn’t dumb enough to use all the barrels to transport weapons below.
Rob sways a little in place, clearly exhausted. So is Brayden. We haven’t slept in forever. The source is keeping me going fine, but it looks like the water isn’t enough to stave off exhaustion from my friends forever.
A ringing thud comes from the elevator, and we all jump. I crouch, as if we could actually hide down here. The elevator door’s jammed open already, probably forced by Sutton’s men, but I can’t see anything inside from this angle. I look back at the well; it’s a gaping black abyss, no longer a place to run to.
“Not after all this,” I murmur. Brayden takes my arm, positions himself in front of me with the rifle raised. I wonder if he even knows how to work the thing.
I hear footsteps like someone’s stomping in place, and I reach out with my mind and feel a pulse. Just one. I’m relieved; just one means we have a chance.
A pause, and then a middle aged man with a semiautomatic steps from the belly of the elevator. He’s big, and wears the same gear Shoemaker has on, though he unstraps a helmet and throws it to the floor. He has a huge smile on his face, like he’s our best friend.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” he shouts, and then lets out a laugh of disbelief.
“Jimmy?” I say. It is Jimmy. His adult self never really seared into my mind. He looks buff and awesome, with hefty facial hair, kinda like a modern Hercules.
“Didn’t recognize old man Jimmy?” he says, walking toward us in big strides.
He slows on seeing Brayden, his expression troubled. “Mia, you need to be careful of—”
“I know,” I say, stepping in front of Brayden, as if to shield him from suspicion.
Jimmy shakes his head stubbornly, tightens his grip on his gun. “No, we saw Sutton send him in. They were on the same side.”
Jimmy doesn’t know what we’ve been through, so I can’t blame him for trying to protect me. “He’s fine. Trust me. What’s happened here?”
Jimmy huffs, but then sees Lisa for the first time. He squints, as if to get a better look, but beyond that he manages to hold it together remarkably well.
“Long story,” Rob says. “This is Lisa. She’s with us.”
“All right then,” Jimmy says. He picks up Rob in a giant bear hug and spins him around. He laughs. We all do.
“Where’s Odessa?” Rob asks, when Jimmy puts him down.
“Where’s Jo?” Jimmy replies, noticing the absence for the first time.
I shake my head, and he doesn’t press further, understanding immediately. His face falls.
“Jimmy,” Rob says again, “where’s Odessa? What happened here?”
Jimmy rubs his head, his big brows furrowing.
“Oh no, did the virus come back?” I ask, my stomach sinking. “Is she okay?”
“Odessa’s fine,” he says darkly. “She’s out delivering water.”
“Then what?” I ask.
“The virus spread.”
“To Fenton?” Rob asks. His parents are there. I feel a shiver up my spine. So are Jimmy’s.
Jimmy shakes his head, staring at his feet.
“Not just to Fenton. It’s gotten to Denver, to New York. It’s all over the place now,” he says, his body racked with sudden sobs. He falls to his knees. As if making a confession. As if he were responsible. “It’s everywhere.”
I try to push away the news, to deny it. But when I reach out with my newfound talent, I can feel Jimmy’s heart, and the ache there. Beyond him there’s the rock face that the map had been dug out from, a perfectly cut square of rock pulled out of the wall and taken to be mounted in the Map Room. Randt wanted the map because of the others. He thought it a guide, but I know better. It’s a prophecy. It tells of Dad’s death, speaks about everything that’s happened. But if I was meant to go below, then I was meant to have found the source. And I was
meant to return here.
I close my eyes and I move my sense beyond the room. But there’s almost nothing. A beat here. A pulse there. A pocket of people aging together. I reach farther and farther into the world and find it dying, crumbling into itself, afraid and alone.
But there’s something more. An insistent buzzing, a vitality I haven’t felt since I stood in the center of the source. And it’s coming from me. I touch my hand to my chest. I’m aware my friends are watching me. That all conversation has stopped. I’m aware they’re confused and growing alarmed. They shouldn’t be. Inside me the water is flowing, thick and loud, pounding like a second heart. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe I carry a sapling inside me, a sprig of the source.
I squat and touch the cold stone of the Cave. A part of me wants to move, wants to drip from my mouth or tears into the ground and take hold. It’s as if the source is begging me to let it go, to release it right here so that it can begin again, Topside.
“Mia?” Brayden asks, at my shoulder.
I don’t answer. I can’t. Instead I spend all of my energy holding myself back, forcing the source to retreat inside, to stay there just a little longer. I smile to myself, and feel the others relax around me. I’m not sure exactly what I can do. I’m not sure what it means to release the source, or whether I can release it more than once. But I feel it, this life stirring inside of me, ready to take root and grow and grow and grow.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A second novel is much harder than a first, for some obvious and some surprising reasons. To everyone who helped me get through the many drafts, I am very much in your debt.
Stacey Barney, I’m not even sure how many times you read this. I know how hard it is to maintain enthusiasm and editorial consistency but you did, and I am entirely grateful for all the support and guidance during the process.
Kirby Kim, my agent in crime, I’ll follow you anywhere.
Kate Meltzer, for your last minute encouragement around the clock.
Brenna English-Loeb and the team at Janklow & Nesbitt.
I want to prethank Emily Pan, Tara Shanahan, Bri Lockhart, and Mia Garcia, my brilliant and creative publicity, marketing, and con team.
To my incredibly diligent, helpful and wise copyeditor team: Ana Deboo, Cindy Howle, Rob Farren, and of course Chandra Wohleber—thank you (I hope the punctuation inthis paragruph isnt two problem-atic!?!).
To Zarren Kuzma and Dana Bergman, my paperback editors, I couldn’t be happier to have (or have had) you on the team.
And big thanks to Jennifer Besser, Richard Amari, Vanessa Han, Eileen Kreit, Erin Dempsey, and all the incredible Penguin evangelists who hit the road around the country and are such advocates for The Well’s End and The Dark Water.
Extreme gratitude to everyone else who’s played a role in these books, the bloggers and mountaintop shouters, family and friends, but most especially the readers who came back to find out where the hell Mia went when she fell down that well.
To Michelle Kroes, for my west coast translator.
And to my clients, for their incredible and generous enthusiasm.
Finally, my wife Marget. Your support, your kind words, your patience; I couldn’t have done this without you, especially not this year, when our lives changed forever.
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