“I’m sorry,” he calls out. “But I . . . can’t . . . get up.”
A long line of bodies inches aside as Johnny hurries toward us, lantern hoisted high, the boy still clung to his back. “Thank God.” He rips the fragile cloth of the horizon screen above, clipping the lantern around one of its internal wires so it swings above us. “How do we do this?” he asks.
“Hop over to the ship,” says Smudge. “I’ll guide from here, you assist from there. The ropes will help.”
“Got it. Hey, buddy?” He cocks his head to the boy. “I gotta set you down, okay? We’ll get you tied to the rope again so you can cross over safely.”
With much reluctance, he releases Johnny’s neck and slides down next to Mateo, who pats his trembling shoulder. Johnny pecks Smudge on the cheek, then steps over to the ship. About two inches of space rest between it and the catwalk, the water beneath us rising a few feet per minute.
“Careful now.” Smudge removes her pieces of rope from her waist, ties it around the boy, and then hands the loose end to Johnny. She steadies the boy as he crosses over, and Johnny guides him down into the ship’s opening, releasing his grip on the rope. Through one of the circular side windows, I see the terrified boy fold up on a long bench, not even bothering to remove his backpack.
“Just like that.” Smudge surveys the flood. “And fast. Chloe next, then you and Baby Lou, Joy.”
“Then the piggies,” Chloe adds.
“Yes, then the piggies.” Smudge pats her on the head.
Chloe takes my hand. “I’m scared, Momma Joy.”
“It’s okay. She’s handing you straight to Johnny.”
They repeat the process with Chloe, passing her seamlessly from catwalk to ship. And there’s a drop of relief when I see her seated safely next to the boy. But there’s about fifty feet to go before the water level reaches the catwalk, so the terror still far outweighs any perceived victory.
Smudge cuts the rope connecting me to Pia, and hands Johnny the loose end. He guides me over the edge, steadying me as I step onto the metal surface. But the minute my boot touches, I slip.
Johnny yanks me to him by the rope. “Gotcha.” He wraps a strong arm around me and Baby Lou.
“Thank you.” My heart’s in my throat. “You should dry the area there so that doesn’t happen again.”
He helps me down the steps into the ship. “Sure thing.” Then he removes his shirt, revealing a ripple of chiseled abs and an array of scars, and climbs out again. A moment later, he tosses down his wet shirt, then hops down the steps, setting the piglet cage into the corner before jumping back up and out.
“Joy,” Raffai says in a low voice from the captain’s chair. He doesn’t even turn to look at me.
I kneel by Chloe at the bench along the left side of the ship and drop my bag and hers, then my crossbow, onto the floor by the bench. “Can you hold Baby Lou and Tallulah for a minute? Until Mateo gets down here?”
She nods, and I remove Tallulah’s knapsack from my shoulders, setting it down on the bench next to her. Pia scurries over to us from the opening and takes her seat next to Chloe, while I remove Baby Lou from her sling. She screams when I hand her over, but I leave her and go to Raffai anyway.
When I get to him, I gasp. He attempts to hold in the contents of his abdomen, but blood gushes between his fingers, spilling from a huge open slash wound.
“Smudge!” I rip Baby’s sling off of me and apply pressure to staunch the bleeding. “Hurry!”
“It was . . . her,” he says through pained gasps. “Arianna . . . Superior.”
“What about your men? What happened to them?”
“Dead. All dead. They were . . . good men.” He coughs, and blood splatters from his lips. “Where’s Cheyenne and . . . the others?”
“Cheyenne is . . . dead. The others are in the Watchtower.”
“No” —he groans and shakes his head—“the key.”
Mateo enters with Raven, and Raven jumps from his arms. “Grampa!” She races to his side and grips his sleeve. “No, Grampa, you can’t die! Don’t leave me alone, Grampa!”
“You’re . . . not alone . . . my beautiful . . . precious child. I will always be . . . with you. Same as your mother . . . and your father.” He coughs again, and blood gurgles from his mouth. From his shirt pocket, he removes the braided lock of hair and hands it to Raven, who cradles it to her chest, and weeps.
“Mateo, take over for Smudge,” I say. “She needs to tell him goodbye.”
“Okay.” He climbs back out, while Raven buries her wet face against Raffai’s shoulder, clutching him to her. “I love you, Grampa . . . Please don’t die.”
Smudge appears in the doorway, and rushes over. “Raffai—no! Who . . . who—?”
“Arianna Superior.” I back away to give her space beside him. “Can you do something?”
She drops to her knees at his side, regards his grievous state. “No. His wounds are . . . far too great.” She cups his hand in hers. “Raffai, I . . . need to thank you. At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be awake. I didn’t understand why you would want that for me, for anyone. But I do now. You gave me my soul. You gave me Sadie. You gave me love, laughter, friendship . . . and freedom.” She leans in closer. “But Raffai, I could’ve killed the Teuridons and saved Cheyenne. Just one zap and they would’ve all been dead. But I couldn’t. And if I can’t protect the ones I have left, then I’m nothing, and they may all die. Please, enable me to protect Raven and my friends, my . . . family. We’ve lost so many already. Please, Raffai. Shut it off.”
He pulls her to him, laboring to breathe. “Haltus . . . revengeus,” he whispers, and his eyes close. His body falls limp, giving up its fight for life. And he’s gone. Raven sobs harder into him while the others gather behind us. Smudge’s face is solid white stone, and my heart has shattered onto the floor with Raffai’s blood.
Mateo hops down into the opening with Tristan. “A couple more.” He gestures to Raffai. “Is he—?”
I nod.
“Damn. Damn, damn, damn.” He sets Tristan down, and the boy huddles with the rest of the children.
Ms. Ruby steps down into the ship, assisted by Emerson, who carries a lantern, two crossbows, at least five full bags of supplies, and steadies the girl with the bloody nose. He drops his load down in the pile of everyone else’s belongings and helps the girl sit on the floor near the window, head tilted back. Then he makes his way over to us as Mateo and Johnny get the last of them transferred from catwalk to ship. Three more come down the steps, assisted by Mateo, then he, Johnny, and Pedro hop in with the last boy and girl, a lantern and a crossbow, then slam the hatch closed.
Ms. Ruby approaches with a gasp when she sees Raffai. “Oh no . . . oh my dear . . .” She lays a hand on his head and pets him, tears splattering her filthy purple-and-brown robe.
“Who has Baby Lou?” I ask, numb.
“I do!” Serna waves at me from a bench next to Chloe and Pia and a few more youngers. “She’s fine.”
“Ms. Ruby, can you help with the children?”
She heads toward Serna and the other youngers, dazed.
“You okay, sis?” Pedro asks. A glance to Raffai’s body. “Shit, man.”
“I don’t know how I am,” I say. “Smudge, can you drive this?”
Through the window and a few feet down, the water sloshes near the underside of the ship.
“Yes.” Smudge turns away from Raffai to the controls, tugging at the knotted drawstring beneath her chin.
“Raven, sweetheart . . .” I take her hand, but she yanks it back and screams at me.
“Come on, honey.” Pedro picks up her flailing body. He takes her to the back corner of the ship and rocks her, shushes her until she surrenders into a sobbing heap of sorrow.
I motion to Emerson, Mateo, and Johnny. “Will you boys help me move Raffai so Smu
dge has a place to sit and operate this thing?”
“Hang on,” says Johnny. “Let me look for some blankets. We’ll need to”—he clears his throat—“cover him.” He jogs over to a row of cabinets and, after digging through two, finds one with a handful of old, raggedy sheets. He hurries back to us, drops them onto the floor, and the four of us lift Raffai by the arms and legs to move him to the front corner by the wall. We cover him, while Johnny drapes another blanket over the bloodied captain’s chair.
Smudge takes a seat, face void of emotion. I’ve seen this before. It’s the wheel of the boat again when Miguel died, his body in the same place Raffai’s is now . . . almost. An echo of the past, a reiteration that we will never be free of heartbreak.
“Watch the floor.” Smudge flips a lever and sections rise from the floor in the shape of additional seats—six rows of four behind the captain’s chair, complete with safety harnesses.
“All right, everyone take a seat,” I say. “Youngers in the seats with harnesses. A few of us will be on the bench or the floor.”
The children scramble over to sit, and Serna straps herself in tight with Baby Lou. I make sure all belts are secured, while outside one of the side windows, murky water sloshes a foot below it. Through the Watchtower window, Mr. Tanner and Professor Al back away and head to the other room full of townspeople. They can go now; we’re safe. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Smudge lowers us into the water. Through the few inches of window left, I see Professor Al and Mr. Tanner each remove a gun from his waistband. They aim them at the crowd . . . and the townspeople drop to the ground.
“Oh my God!” I race to the window. “No!”
Mr. Tanner and Professor Al clasp hands, a long embrace, then they kiss each other on the lips. They gaze with tragic eyes through the window one last time before placing the guns to their own temples.
An explosion of red.
And they, too, are gone.
“Smudge!” I race to the window.
“It was the . . . only other way.”
“You . . . you knew they were going to do that?”
“Yes.”
Appalled, I peer back at Ms. Ruby. “You did, too?”
She turns away.
“But . . . they could’ve busted the glass! They could’ve gotten on the ship!”
“What happened to the others, Momma Joy?” Chloe asks.
I can’t speak.
“Mr. Tanner and Professor Al shot them all,” says Tristan. “And then themselves.”
Chloe and the other children are stunned, horrified. All at once, they bombard me with questions I can’t answer.
“Be quiet!” I stumble back to the other side of the ship and slump down to the floor. “Please!”
Smudge clears her throat. “They would not have been able to break that glass; it was unbreakable. And they would not have fit on the Mother Ship. But mainly, we could never risk the possibility of their capture and being taken back to Alzanei. For many reasons.”
We pass a sign under the murky water that reads: Cheyenne’s—Zentao’s Finest (and only!) Hand-Decorated Treasures . . . and a sickness inhabits my soul. Cheyenne said it herself: it wasn’t over. And if she knew this would happen, why was she at peace?
The children shriek, and my heart’s in my throat. The ship’s lights shine through the muck, straight into the huge, glowing pupils of a Teuridon. Its monstrous yellow teeth protrude over giant green lips, its body covered in black-and-gold scales, with long tendrils stretching from its snout, each dotted with fleshy, purple bulbs.
There’s a thud against the front window: a goat’s carcass. With a mighty force, the gargantuan fish darts forward and clamps its jaws around it, making waves that toss the ship in the water. I hold my breath until the creature swishes its black tail fin and darts off in the other direction.
“Why don’t they attack?” I ask Smudge.
“The Mother Ship emits hormonal frequencies that resonate within the Teuridons. They believe it is one of their own kind. Although they are large, and their sense of smell is five times more powerful than a human’s, their brains are small. They are . . . not very intelligent.”
Her emotionless voice is alarming. Moments ago, one of these creatures swallowed someone she loved, and she acts like it never happened. I step forward to crouch beside her, planting my foot in a puddle of Raffai’s blood. I struggle to fight my sudden nausea, but it comes on too strong and I run to the corner of the ship to vomit. After I’ve emptied the meager contents of my stomach, I wobble over to Smudge’s other side and crouch again. “Are you okay?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine. But you lost three people you loved—”
“I will also be . . . fine.”
And at her flat tone, I sigh. “All right, well . . . where are we going? I mean, how do we get there? How far is it?”
“Three miles up the river is an entrance to the chasm power plant in Alzanei.”
“How does a river travel uphill?”
“Well, a branch of the river. It flows uphill due to the force of Alzanei’s waterfalls.”
“Waterfalls?”
“Yes, man-made. Alzanei is encircled by them. They pour from the outer edge of the city and form rivers and streams throughout, leading to a huge chasm in the middle where they all meet. Fresh water from the river here meets with saltwater from the ocean at the chasm. It’s how they power the city, and how they always have fresh water and food. Fish and other aquatic life are the main staple of the Alzaneians.”
“What about the Teuridons? Do they travel up there?”
“No. They are dwellers of the dark, and an increase in oxygen from the water higher up can kill them. Instinct keeps them down here.”
“Smudge . . .” I stand and stretch my legs, which are going numb from crouching. “What did he say to you?”
“Who?”
“Raffai, before he died.”
“Oh . . . he said, Haltus revengeus.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I think it may have . . . deactivated his self-imposed Nirvonic System block. I knew there was a voice command for it, but Raffai wouldn’t dare tell a soul, for fear of it falling into the wrong hands.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . never mind. It’s too difficult to explain.”
“Okay, but you can . . . kill now?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t feel any different.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
“Yes. Let’s hope.”
Johnny edges forward from his spot off to the side where he’s been waiting for the right time to approach Smudge. He takes a few hesitant steps toward her, then risks rejection and embraces her from behind. He says something into her ear in a low voice.
My thoughts spin Mr. Tanner’s and Professor Al’s final words to me, knowing full well what would happen. Their goodbye gifts, promises in my pocket and on the chain around my neck, are an unfathomable weight on my soul. I retreat to the wall and slump down, too close to Raffai’s body but too distraught to move. I fumble in my pocket for the paper from Professor Al, remove it, unfold it, to see if I can make any sense of the mysterious message.
Johnny turns away from Smudge. “Whatcha got there, Joy?” He takes the few steps over and sits down in front of me.
I extend the crumpled sheet of paper, and he snatches it up, eyes wide.
“What? Have you seen that before?”
He removes something from his pocket. “This. Cheyenne put it in there before she . . . let go.” He places the object into my hand and my oblivion subsides, transforming into adrenaline and wonder. Johnny holds up the paper, and I place the object near it—a perfect match to one of the notched sections of the circle. Made from an unfamiliar grayish-bronze metal with a matte finish, th
e object has a raised, glass pearl of green in its center, no bigger than the tip of my finger, and strange indentions on two sides.
“What is it?” Johnny asks.
“One of the Seeker’s Keys . . . I guess. And Raffai mentioned something about a key, before . . . ”
Johnny traces its circumference, inspecting it from all angles. “Well . . . what are they?”
“No clue.”
“Should we ask Smudge?”
I almost agree, until Professor Al’s warning replays in my mind. I lean in close to Johnny’s ear. “Professor Al told me not to show this to any AOAIs, including her.” I gesture over to Smudge. “He also said not to let it fall into the wrong hands.”
“That’s kinda cliché, isn’t it?” he whispers back. “Why the mystery?”
“No idea. But until we’re sure what it is, and what it does, it’s best we keep it between us.”
“Mm-kay.” He shrugs, nods, turning Old Jonesy’s hat around backwards.
“Mind if I hold onto it?”
“Be my guest, Ms. Hero.”
I look at the paper one last time, then wrap the strange key up into it. “Hero. Ha. I’m hardly that.”
The farther we float down the cloudy, brown river, the more I come to realize how lost I am. This emptiness inside, a dread so dense and deep, has swallowed me whole. My life has been an endless losing streak. I’m becoming my mother—a sad, magic-less, soul-dead woman who’d give herself to any man for a few moments of escape.
From across the ship, Mateo’s gaze burns through me, and I avoid it; best to cut the cord now, while the other wounds overshadow a bit more pain.
These children . . . they deserve better than me, better than all of this. They’ve been cursed to the care of a selfish girl with a dwindling soul; a candle in a windstorm, trying to protect a thousand embers with more wind. When I should have been there, one hundred percent, I was having “alone time,” and rolling around in the dirt with a boy. I hate who I’ve become. Perhaps Mr. Tanner or Professor Al should have been in my shoes, and I in theirs. I have no right to bring another poor child into this rotten existence. Stupid of me to risk that. Had my mind been where it should’ve been—on caring for Baby Lou—I wouldn’t have made that grave mistake.
The Soultakers (The Treemakers Trilogy Book 2) Page 11
