Earth & Sky (The Earth & Sky Trilogy)

by Megan Crewe

  “It’s starting,” Win says.

  “You don’t think we’re supposed to be right out on the river where the battle is, do you?” I ask. How could Jeanant hide something there? But the rebellion is beginning and they’re all leaving, and I don’t see any hint to guide us.

  “I doubt it,” Win says. “But when most of them are off in the boats, it’ll be safer for us to investigate the town.”

  Which would be great, if we’d gotten any idea what we’re looking for. “What exactly did the message from the Louvre say again?”

  He takes the slab of plastic out of his satchel. “ ‘Repeat the years for my first message to reach you two hundred and sixty-eight times since zero, to the place where a little dragon scares off the big dragon. The sign will point at the sky.’ ”

  As he says the last words, one more group of soldiers strides past, hefting the remaining poles. Their carved tips bob toward the sky. My breath catches.

  “The poles!” I say. “They’re the key to winning the battle, right? And you said they put them in the river, pointing up?”

  “But . . .” Win edges forward, watching the men march down the road. The sand is marked with the lines of the poles, but none remain. The first few boats are casting off from the shore. “He wouldn’t put something we’re meant to find in the river. There’d be too much risk of losing it.”

  I turn Jeanant’s words over in my head. Imagine him saying them in his smooth, careful voice. “Maybe we’re too late,” I say. “He said the sign will point at the sky—that could mean it won’t be pointing yet, but it will in the future. We were supposed to find it before they went off with the poles.”

  Win’s eyes light up. “That makes sense. All we need to do is jump back an hour or two!”

  He ducks behind a broad trunk, unfurling the time cloth. I move as close to him as I can while leaving a little space between us. The ground hiccups beneath me, my stomach flips, and we’re there, in the paler light of the just-risen sun.

  Several heaps of poles lie at intervals along the road. We creep closer. “Does anything look odd about any of the poles to you?” Win asks. “It’ll be difficult for us to examine every one without being noticed.”

  I squint at the heap, but they all look the same. “Let’s check the others. There has to be something.” Or maybe I’m wrong, and the clue has nothing to do with the poles after all.

  We examine the next pile, and the next, each bringing us closer to the town. I scan the jungle, but there’s no sign that the pale woman’s followed us. Yet. I miss the soothing coil of the alarm band around my ankle.

  A faint tramping sound reaches my ears. Another squad of soldiers has come into view on the road toward town, maybe a quarter mile away.

  “Quick, before they get here,” Win says. He hurries over to study a heap of poles laid on the edge of a patch of marsh. A flicker of color catches my eye. I glance back at the soldiers, judge them at least a few minutes distant, and dart across the road.

  It’s just a thin scrap of cloth. A scrap dyed three colors—red, purple, and yellow—caught in a crack near the point of a pole at the bottom of the pile, as if it ripped off someone’s clothes.

  “What?” Win says.

  “It’s nothing,” I say, but I can’t quite pull my gaze away. There’s something about it . . . I narrow my eyes, staring at the scrap as hard as I can, and it prickles over me. A twinge of that alien thereness, as if the fabric is slightly more real than the pole it’s caught on.

  “That one!” I correct myself, pointing. The soldiers are close enough now that I can hear a question voiced from one to another. I grasp the end of the pole. It only slides out a few inches at my heave. The footsteps behind us speed up to a run.

  Damn. As I yank the pole again, Win dives in beside me, grabbing it just below my hands. A few of the other poles clatter over each other, but we wrench ours most of the way out. With one last jerk, it’s free.

  “Let’s go!” Win says. We race across the road, clutching the pole between us.

  A thin shout pierces the air. A boy, the one who saw us yesterday I think, is perched in one of the trees by the edge of the jungle. He points to us, calling out, as we crash into the underbrush. All we can do is keep running. Win tugs the pole from my hands, levering it under his arm so we don’t have to balance it between us. My ankle starts to throb, but I just push myself faster.

  I check behind us once, as we veer around a rotting log, and catch a glimpse of a conical hat in the streaks of sunlight that penetrate the foliage overhead. But only one. When I look again, a minute or two later, there’s no sign anyone’s chased us this far into the jungle. Either we’ve lost them, or they decided it wasn’t worth pursuing us for one pole out of hundreds.

  Win’s pulled the loose collar of his shirt up over his mouth—to muffle the rattle of his increasingly ragged breaths, I realize. In spite of it, I can hear the click in his throat. Finally, when my own lungs are starting to ache, he stops. He leans against a boulder, the pole braced against the ground, rasping as he recovers from the run.

  Now that I can take a closer look at it, I notice a ring of shallow scratches around the middle of the pole. I lean in. The shapes look like those alien characters. “Here,” I say. Win pulls the pole to him.

  “Is that it?” I ask. “Jeanant left another message?”

  He nods, but his forehead has furrowed. “I think they’re directions,” he says. “They’re not very specific. But it’s definitely Jeanant. We’re supposed to travel over water and into”—he pauses the way he always does when he’s having trouble translating—“a dark that stays deep no matter how brightly the sun is shining.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s the last line from one of his poems. But it referred to the space station—he was talking about the inner passages, the maintenance tunnels.”

  Why am I not surprised the guy who spoke so eloquently in that recording was also writing poetry in the midst of planning his rebellion?

  “Did the people here build underground tunnels?” I say. “Or maybe . . . There could be caves.”

  “Those are the most likely possibilities.” Win leans the pole against the boulder. “How did you know this was the one?”

  “That piece of cloth,” I say, motioning to it. “I think Jeanant must have left it. It doesn’t feel wrong exactly, but it’s a little more . . . real. Like you, and him, and the Enforcers.” I pause. “But that’s something I notice because of my ‘sensitivity,’ isn’t it? He didn’t know you’d have someone like me helping you—how did he expect your group to find it?”

  Win slides the scrap out of the crack it was stuck in. It’s only the length of his forefinger and about as wide. He rubs it between his fingertips. “It must be something Thlo would have known the significance of. She’s the one he was counting on following him here. He didn’t know who else she’d bring with him. It’s a good thing I had you.”

  He shoots me a grin, for just a second before it falters and his eyes dart away. As if he thinks he’s not even allowed to smile at me. The gesture sets my teeth on edge. I just want him to treat me like an equal, not some puppet for him to use. Why is that so hard?

  Turning away, he pulls out the time cloth. The wavering lines that he brings up on the display look vaguely like a topographic map overlaid by a glowing grid. Win motions toward one point, and the lines there enlarge.

  “There’s a network of caves in the side of the hills we came down from,” he says. “As well as on the other side of the river. I suppose we should start here, only take another jump if we have to.”

  “But if he said we have to go over water—”

  “There’s a stream, here,” Win says, tracing the line. “That could be what he meant. Let’s find out.”

  18.

  We set off again, Win in the lead. Soon, the pale gray face of a cliff looms a
bove the treetops. Shoulders of rock poke through the underbrush.

  The cliff face is spotted with openings, many far above our heads. Between them, vines and bushes and even trees creep across the wider outcroppings, as if the stone is dappled with pockets of jungle. We follow it, examining the shadowy gaps. How are we supposed to know which one Jeanant used?

  Then I spot it. Scratched beside a large curved opening, a symbol like a burst of flame.

  Prometheus.

  “Hey,” Win says, staring at it. He’s only taken two steps when he jerks to a halt and stumbles backward. His breath hitches.

  “What?” I say, bracing myself for some unseen enemy. But Win’s shaking his head with a sudden smile.

  “I caught it that time,” he says. “If I’d kept going, I’d have been doxed. Someone’s nearby.”

  “Jeanant?” He must have placed that thread not long ago. I could get my second chance.

  “I hope so,” Win says. “There’s no way for me to know for sure. Are you . . . okay to try talking to him again?”

  “Yeah,” I say, though my nerves have gone jittery. I will not screw things up this time. “I’ll mention Thlo right away.”

  “Good. And be careful, in case it’s not him. If it is, once he realizes you’re with our group, you shouldn’t have to explain very much. We need to get all the parts of the weapon. Maybe he has them on him and he can just give them to you; maybe he can tell you directly where we need to go. He should know the best way to proceed.”

  “All right.” Just present myself and let Jeanant figure out the rest. Shouldn’t be that hard.

  “I’ll wait right here,” Win says, ducking into the shelter of a tree.

  The cave entrance is several feet wide and high, with a tangle of ferns and saplings stretching along a ledge just above it. A series of boulders rambles away from its right side in a jagged line. Just a few feet within the opening, the shadows blend into total darkness. I square my shoulders and head inside.

  The daylight behind me fades quickly, the air between the rocky walls cooling with a faintly chalky smell. My damp clothes chill my skin.

  The passage narrows, until I can touch both sides with my arms outstretched. My sense of the space ahead has faded into hazy gray impressions. I hesitate, then remember the phone in my purse.

  I pull it out and turn it on. The glow of the screen glints off the ripples in the cave floor and the dribbles of moisture sliding down the rough walls. My wallpaper photo beams at me—the one Evan snapped of Angela, Bree, and Lisa, and me, our faces sunlit and fingers raised in victory signs in front of the biggest roller coaster at the amusement park we trekked out to this August. The roller coaster I made myself go on with the rest of them, even though the jolts and scares of the rides echo the panic of the wrong feelings.

  I’m doing this—tramping across centuries and continents, holding myself together—for them. So there will be more summers and more amusement parks and more goofy photos. So we’re all safe.

  The reminder steadies me. I walk on, holding the screen close to my side. There’s nothing ahead but blackness. I’ve been moving forward another minute or two when a light flickers in its midst.

  I freeze. The light flickers again, and settles into a faint glow. I switch off my phone, setting my feet down as softly as I can manage. As I draw nearer, the cave splits into two passages, the glimmer down the one to my left. I continue toward it.

  The glow is hitting the wall at a bend in the passage, emanating from somewhere beyond that turn. I’m just a few feet away when a figure steps out to meet me.

  The light only catches the side of his face, but even as I squeak in shock, I recognize Jeanant. He’s still wearing his Traveler clothes, but his head is bare, his black curls tied back from his face and a thin gray cloak replacing the Parisian jacket at his shoulders. His eyes narrow as he peers at me in the darkness.

  “I know Thlo,” I blurt out. “I’m not with the Enforcers. I’m trying to help you.”

  The tension in his stance has relaxed before I’m finished the first sentence. He smiles, giving me an echo of the feeling I had when I met him in the Louvre. The certainty that we’re doing something right here.

  “I know,” he says warmly. “I heard you just as I was leaving Paris, but I didn’t think it was safe to return. Any change in the order of my plans is risky. I hope you can understand why I assumed the worst.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I should have explained right away.”

  He eases forward. His gaze hasn’t left my face once. There’s a sort of wonder in his expression.

  “I’ve been trying to understand why, if Thlo realized what I meant to do and followed me immediately, she wouldn’t have met me herself,” he says, and pauses. “But she didn’t come immediately, did she?”

  I shake my head. “It’s all gone the way you planned. The first message—”

  “Wait,” he interrupts, holding up his hand. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s my future. I don’t want to test the limits of the time field. Either one of us could be doxed.”

  “I’m not really from your future,” I admit. “I’m from here. From Earth.”

  His eyes widen, but the admiration in them only deepens. Not a hint of Win’s clinical curiosity. My nervousness washes out of me.

  “I wondered,” he says. “That’s why you’ve been able to reach me, and the others haven’t, I assume?”

  “Yes,” I say. “We’ve been following your instructions. Not always quickly, but . . .”

  “But you’re here,” he says. “Would you come into the light? I have to be sure you’re real.”

  He moves around the corner of the passage, toward the source of the glow. I follow him into a wide alcove, where the canvas bag he was carrying at the Louvre lies on the cave floor beside a square object a little thicker than my thumb, which is shining with an artificial light.

  “Completely real,” I say. My confusion must show in my voice, because his smile turns wry.

  “It’s been several days, and the Enforcers haven’t been far behind, so I haven’t had much chance for sleep. An apparition arriving to tell me that everything I’ve worked for is coming to fruition—it’s exactly the sort of hallucination my mind would want to conjure up right now.”

  Here in the brighter light, I can see the signs of strain. The creases around his mouth, the slightly ashen cast to his bronze skin, that I’m not sure were there in Paris. What was just a few hours for me was obviously much more for him. Just how long has he been jumping through time, distracting and evading the Enforcers while waiting for the safest moments to hide the parts of his weapon?

  “I’m really here,” I say. “And we’re going to make sure your plan works. I’m going to make sure it works.”

  A drop of icy water falls from the cave ceiling, sending a shock of cold through my scalp. I wipe it away with a shiver, and Jeanant’s eyebrows rise.

  “Your clothes are wet. You must be freezing.”

  Before he’s finished speaking, he’s unclasping his cloak. He wraps it around me, securing it at the base of my throat. The fabric is so thin I can barely feel its weight, but the chill recedes everywhere it touches.

  “You don’t have to give me this,” I protest, even though I’m already pulling it closer around me.

  “You need it more than I do,” he says. “At least I was prepared for this trip. There’s no way you could have been. I’m glad Thlo trusted you. She’s brilliant, but she wasn’t always as open-minded as Earth’s people deserve. It must be so difficult for you to understand what my people have done to your planet, and yet you’ve come all this way to help me. You’re from northeastern America, I’d guess, from your accent? And your clothes—early twenty-first century?”

  “Right on both counts,” I say.

  “Thlo approached you at random . . . ?” He halts, looking chagr
ined. “I haven’t asked your name.”

  “It’s Skylar,” I say. “And, no, not exactly.” It seems too complicated to try to explain Win’s situation, so I skip that part. “I was noticing the shifts. It turns out I’m sensitive to when the past’s been changed. And your group, um, noticed that I was noticing.”

  “So you’ve always felt something wasn’t right,” Jeanant says, and I nod. His voice softens. “To live with a sense you had no way of understanding—and to fight with us, now that you do know—that sort of bravery doesn’t come very often. Thank you.”

  I should be the one thanking him. Jeanant’s shown more respect for me in the last five minutes than Win has the entire time I’ve been around him. I wonder how Jeanant got to the place where he stopped seeing us as test subjects and recognized we were people too.

  “And now I need to apologize again, for rambling,” Jeanant goes on. “It’s been so good, to talk to someone properly. You’ve come to meet me for a reason.”

  “Yes,” I say. “We tried to find you again so you can tell me how we can finish this.”

  “You’ve done perfectly so far,” he says. “I’ve no doubt now we will finish it. I just want you to know I wish I’d gotten here sooner. I wish someone had thought to do this before me.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” I protest.

  “Everyone on Kemya is at fault for this terrible situation,” he says. “And it’s my fault I didn’t plan my moves carefully enough to take my shot at the generator, or this would already be over, and you and Thlo and the others would never have had to be in more danger.” His mouth twists, and he draws himself up straighter, with that now familiar confidence. “I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure I don’t make a second mistake. Which means, as much as I wish we could talk longer—”