Logan tried to smile, but he felt like an idiot. Was she making fun of him? Still, when Candace handed him a can of Coke, he took it and opened it. She grinned at him again, and he took a big gulp.
“I was going to order some pizza for dinner,” said Candace. “You want to hang out and have some?”
But the word dinner suddenly reminded Logan of what was waiting for him at home. In a flash, he remembered that he’d left the noodles boiling on the stove. How long ago had that been?
“Sorry, I’ve got to go!” he tossed off as he raced out the door and across the gravel to his own trailer.
In the kitchen, the smoke was billowing up from the stove. All the water had boiled away, and the noodles were black on the bottom of the pot. Logan dumped the whole thing in the sink and rounded on Darcy, who was sitting ten feet away determinedly watching TV. He was about to start shouting at her again when he saw that she wasn’t the only one in the room. Candace had followed him over and was standing just inside the door.
“Sorry to barge in,” she said with another of those smiles. “You dashed out of there like something was on fire, so I just wanted to see if everything was okay.” She chuckled a little. “I guess something was sort of on fire.”
Darcy had turned around and was staring, so Candace came further in and held out her hand. “I’m Candace. New neighbor. Logan was jut helping me move my stuff in next door.”
Darcy shook her hand with no trace of her usual sour attitude. “I’m Darcy. Nice to meet you. That’s Sam.” She pointed to where Sam was standing at the end of the tiny hallway staring curiously at the stranger.
Candace turned her smile on Sam. “Nice to meet you both. I was just telling your big brother that I was going to order some pizza. You guys all want to share it with me? It doesn’t look like your other dinner is going to taste too good.”
Logan felt like an idiot all over again and wanted to say no, but he couldn’t deny the look of hope on Sam’s face. There wasn’t anything else to eat, anyway.
That and Darcy was already accepting. “Yeah, thank you!”
“I love pizza. We never get to have pizza,” Sam chimed in happily. “Logan just makes stuff out of boxes for dinner.”
Logan was finding it hard to look at anything but the cracked linoleum. “Our mom works late most days. I don’t really know how to cook.”
“Then it sounds like this family needs pizza,” said Candace like it was no big deal. “Let me go grab my cell phone, and we’ll be eating in a half hour or less.”
An hour later they were all still sitting around the table with two empty pizza boxes in the middle. Candace was making Sam laugh by telling stories of a cat she had as a kid who used to have fits any time it heard the door bell ring. Darcy looked different. Seeing her with a normal smile again, Logan remembered what a nice kid she used to be. He wondered what had changed. Was this just what happened when girls started to become teenagers? That might be it. Most of the girls at school acted all snotty, too.
Candace was now telling the kids about her favorite book from when she was a kid. Darcy was laughing, and for the first time, Logan realized that not having their mom around might be even harder for Darcy than it was for him. He felt bad for yelling at her earlier.
Then he realized what she was saying.
“You should see Logan’s favorite book. It all old and moldy and he reads it like it’s a big secret. He’s in this book club that he thinks is all cool and mysterious and he won’t ever tell us anything about it.”
Logan’s urge to hit her was back in full force, but Candace just leaned back in her chair with a curious look. “A book club? That is really cool, Logan. I always wanted to be in a book club. What do you guys read?”
Logan didn’t know what to say. The truth would be beyond belief, and he’d already made a fool of himself enough for one night. He didn’t want to lie, though. Instead, he shrugged, “Just this book of stories we all have.”
“Are there a lot of kids?”
“Not really.”
“Only the really smart ones get in, huh?”
Logan looked up to see if she was making fun of him again. She looked like she was being serious, but she was sort of hard to read. He tried not to be paranoid. “No one’s keeping anyone out,” he said.
“It’s a good thing,” Darcy said, “or there’s no way Logan would be in it. Those other kids are way cooler than he is.”
“Shut up, Darcy.”
“I’m just saying. You don’t see any of those kids living in this trailer park, do you?”
There was a painful pause, as Logan tried to decide which would be the best way of murdering his sister. He had almost decided on decapitation when Candace spoke up again.
“You must be pretty smart to get into a group with a bunch of rich kids. It can’t be easy to hang out with people who think they’re better than you.”
Logan’s annoyance abruptly switched directions. “They aren’t like that. They aren’t rich kids. Or even if they are, they don’t act like it. They’re actually really cool and nice. They’re even nice to Darcy, so that should tell you.”
For a split second, Logan saw a surge of hostility in Candace’s eyes. It was so strong, that Logan felt a moment of fear, but then it was gone again as quick as it had come. Candace smiled. “You guys are actually making me miss my little brother. No one can be mean quite like a brother and sister. You’re lucky, though, Logan. When I was your age, my dad found me reading a book when I was supposed to be doing homework, and he threw it in the fire. Yeah, he was an awesome dad.” The bitterness was heavy in her voice. Logan figured that hostility he had seen must be toward her dad. He didn’t say anything. He knew from experience that there was nothing to say.
Not long after that, Candace went home, promising to come back in the morning to meet their mom before she had to go to work. Logan cleaned up pizza boxes and put Sam to bed. Then he picked up his copy of the Book of Sight and sat down to read for a while. Anytime he talked about the book he found that he couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards until he read at least a little. So far, there were only two stories that he could understand. The others were just random words. No matter how many times he tried to read the rest of the book, nothing ever made any sense but those first two chapters. It was the same for the other kids. The Book of Sight was not a normal book.
Tonight, as he always did, Logan flipped to the third story to study its incomprehensible pages for a while before going back and reading the first two. It took him a few minutes to realize that something was different. At first, the words were as ridiculous as ever, but before he felt his usual frustration, he found that the nonsense oddly made sense to him. Without warning, the words reached out and pulled him in, and Logan found himself lost.
INTERLUDE
Once there was a king. Strong and proud, he was always sure of his own power and never doubted his right to do whatever he wanted. The people of his kingdom admired him as people always admire perfect self-confidence. They were proud to have such an impressive king.
The king wanted complete control over all of his kingdom. He did not trust any of his advisors or governors. He was sure they were all plotting to take control of his kingdom. He decided that to truly rule his kingdom, he needed to be everywhere at once, so he ordered craftsmen to carve perfect likenesses of himself out of the strongest oak trees and to place these images in every town and village in the land. Then he brought in powerful magicians and had them cast spells that allowed him to see whatever his images saw. When the final words of the spell were spoken, the king was jubilant. Now no one in the kingdom would ever forget that the king was watching them and expecting their complete obedience. He sat in his high tower and by just closing his eyes, he could see near and far.
At first the images were largely ignored by the poor and ignorant people who were going about their daily work. Even the all-seeing eye of the king cannot change the turning season and the sweat that it takes to have enoug
h food to survive. But magic always changes things, and not always the way we imagine. Unexplained things began to happen. A farmer pulling his cart in from the fields was just passing the image when his wheel broke. In the hour it took to repair the cart, the farmer discovered that all of the fruit inside had rotted. A little girl lost her pet bird only to find it later perched on the feet of the image. The bird was unharmed, but it never sang or even chirped again. These stories spread to every village, and more stories grew around the statues.
Things were said to disappear near the statue while other things were destroyed by touching it. Some claimed that a mysterious sickness was going out from the statues and infecting anyone who passed too close. People began to be afraid, to warn their children to stay far away, and to leave offerings of bread or cheese or meat so that the image would leave them alone. The king saw all these things, and he was pleased. If people feared his image, they would fear him, and none would dare to go against him. He continued to watch.
Fear, like magic, can work unexpected results. It was only a matter of time before fear turned to something more like worship. Plague broke out in a remote village, and the people were certain the image was angry at them. None of the usual offerings were able to save loved ones suffering from the illness. The town elders decided something more was required. An alter was set up at the feet of the image, and animals were sacrificed. Soon after, the plague stopped spreading. No one in the village doubted that it was the sacrifices that had saved them. Soon every town in the kingdom had regular rituals to sacrifice animals before the image of their king.
The king found this very useful. His people were so in awe of him that they obeyed his commands unquestioningly. When he wished to attack a neighboring kingdom, thousands of men volunteered to be soldiers, hoping to win favor for their families and villages. Those who stayed home would sacrifice even more animals to insure the safety of their loved ones who were gone. Men began to grow rich off the sale of animals for sacrifices, and in time there began to be dark rumors that more than animals were being offered. People spoke of children who had disappeared and of secret midnight sacrifices. Men began to carry weapons with them in the street, and women locked their doors at night.
Years passed as the kingdom came more and more under the thrall of her king and his images.
Then came Kiara.
Kiara was a slave girl, small, dark and insignificant. Her mother and father had died many years before, leaving her to care for her young sister in the home of an indifferent master. With all her heart, Kiara doted on her sister and protected her as much as any slave might. When the girl disappeared, then, Kiara was nearly out of her mind with grief. Her master claimed to have organized a search for the girl, but Kiara knew better. She saw how her master had unexpected success in his business, how he bought new lands and new horses. She knew where her sister had gone, and the thought burned in her day and night, giving her no rest. Each morning she had to pass by the king’s image in the town square on the way to fetch water, and she was hard pressed to force her feet to walk in that shadow. She felt the evil of the thing as if it were a living creature, reaching out for her. Kiara was certain that one day it would succeed in trapping her and then she too would simply disappear as her sister had.
That was when she decided to be the first.
Men came and went around the image day and night, but there are certain advantages to being insignificant. None of those men ever paid attention to Kiara, as each night she approached the statue with a small sharp rock in her hand. The king may have been able to see through the image’s eyes, but he could not see what happened at its heel. Slaves had no access to weapons or heavy tools, but Kiara would have been too small to use them anyway. Instead, she had living weapons, weapons that no one important would ever think about. In unobserved moments, Kiara bored tiny holes into the wood of the image, slipping a few tiny insects into each one. When she left, no one even noticed the damage, but unseen inside the wood, the insects were working. Several weeks passed. Finally, when Kiara knew that the image must be riddled with tunnels inside and extremely weak and dry, she smuggled the flint from the kitchen and a handful of straw. It only took one spark, a few puffs of air, and then the whole image burst into flame.
All the townspeople who could see it gaped in horror, sure that some terrible evil was upon them. Then they saw a tiny figure stand up on the altar before the blaze and cry out above the roar of the flames, “I am Kiara. Tonight I end this evil. It is time to be free, for our children to be free, for…” But no one knew what else she might have said, for just as men came to carry her away, the top half of the image collapsed, falling on the alter where Kiara had stood. No one in that town ever saw Kiara again. Some said she was killed. Some said she was taken and offered as a sacrifice to cover her own offense. Some said she escaped and lived free in the hills. No one ever knew the truth.
But it is a fact that after that from time to time someone would rise up and destroy another image, some by fire, some by ax, some images simply disappeared. The king was terrifically angry. He brought home his soldiers from the war and put them to work hunting for those who destroyed his images. Some were caught and their lives ended, but for each death, more troublemakers would appear, and more images would topple.
It was a long struggle and might have been still longer if the king’s servants hadn’t found him one morning, too weak to get out of his bed. No doctor could find any illness or injury on him, but the king’s weakness continued to grow. Still, the king insisted in running the kingdom from his bed, commanding the hunt for the rebellious with increasing cruelty. He became noticeably weaker each time another image was destroyed. At last the day arrived when the king was too weak to sit up in his bed or to even speak. No one dared to say anything to him, seeing his proud eyes still burning brightly in his now pale face.
But beyond the castle walls, the people felt their fear fading. What images remained were pulled down, and there was no one to order more arrests. People went back to their normal lives, soldiers laid down their weapons and returned home, children played again in the town squares.
And from the king’s palace there was only silence.
2
What Crawls Unseen
"I just don’t understand why none of the rest of us can understand the story,” complained Adam. “We’ve visited every place you’ve been in the last two weeks and still nothing.”
Logan just shrugged, but Alex could tell he was annoyed. Not that she could blame him. They had been over all this a hundred times, but Adam still wouldn’t let it rest.
“Are you sure you didn’t do anything else that day that might have made a difference?”
“Knock it off, Adam,” said Eve with her usual laugh. “He’s told us every little detail of his day. He doesn’t want to do it again.” With a jerk of her head, she changed the subject. “Does it seem like that guy over there is staring at us?”
They were walking through a quiet neighborhood. The man Eve was talking about was standing in front of a mailbox a few doors down on the other side of the street. He had his back to them. Something about his shaggy blonde hair seemed familiar, but Alex couldn’t place it.
Adam would not be put off so easily. “He’s just getting his mail. Don’t you guys want to be able to read it for yourselves? From what Logan’s told us, it was the best story yet.’
“Of course we want to read it,” said Eve. “But it’s not Logan’s fault we can’t, so give him a break, okay? It’s the first day of summer vacation. We finally get more than five minutes together. Let’s just enjoy it.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes, Alex feeling pretty much perfectly happy. It was so good to be with her friends and doing something worthwhile again.
After all that they had been through last summer, the school year had been a huge letdown. Day after day of mind-numbing classes and homework, hardly any time to spend together, no truly interesting discoveries or developments, nothing to b
ring them closer to getting answers about the Book of Sight, nothing to look forward to except the regular arrival of letters from Dominic’s mother full of vague warnings and implied doom.
Then the explosion had happened, and Alex knew something was afoot again. The whole town had been rocked by the blast, though most people thought at first it was an earthquake. When Dominic told her what had really happened, Alex knew this was the thing she’d been waiting for all year. It had been unbelievably frustrating waiting for school to get out so they could go investigate, though it had taken that long for all the emergency crews and then scientific crews to clear out of the area anyway. The official word was that a pocket of natural gas had been trapped underground and somehow a spark had found it. Alex wondered if anyone but the five of them knew that was a lie.
At last the waiting was over. It was summer break. Everyone had free time again, and they were on their way to the site of the explosion. Even the mystery of this new story Logan had read was just something else interesting to work on. Alex was sure they were on the verge of something big. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the explosion had happened on the same day that Logan unlocked the third story in the Book. It was only a matter of time before the rest of them found the key, too.
“It has to have something to do with the explosion,” Adam started again.
“So we’ll hopefully find something out when we get there,” said Eve, exasperated. “There’s no point in going over it again until we have more information.”
Adam started to protest but then stopped himself. “You’re right,” he said. “Sorry. It’s just driving me crazy.”
“Maybe we’re not all supposed to read it,” said Dominic unexpectedly.
Alex turned to look at him where he was walking by her side. He had his hands in his pockets as usual and was staring straight ahead down the road.
The Broken Circle (The Book of Sight 2) Page 2
