Ringer

by Lauren Oliver

  Stretching onto her tiptoes, she managed to get a hand around a root exploding through the rot between stones. Maybe she could climb it, brace her feet against the wall and get some leverage—it would take her only a quarter of the way toward the top, but a quarter of the way was better than nothing.

  But here again, she failed. She could barely support her weight with one arm, and her feet slipped as the wood rot crumbled beneath her. She slammed into the wall with a shoulder and dropped on her knees—remembering, at least, to shield her left hand, so she didn’t accidentally put pressure on it.

  She sat there, panting, her nose leaking snot into the mud. She was too scared even to cry. She might actually die here. Here, at the bottom of some shitty hundred-year-old well, in a state she didn’t even like. She would die a virgin, alone, unloved.

  Funnily enough, it wasn’t Pete she thought of then, or April, or even her mom. It was Lyra, the way she looked when Gemma had last seen her: still fragile but also full of life, something hatching. When Gemma closed her eyes, she could hear Lyra’s voice, whispering to her across a distance.

  Gemma, her voice said. Gemma.

  Gemma’s heart nearly cracked. She opened her eyes again.

  But still she could hear Lyra’s voice, louder now.

  “Gemma, Gemma.” And Caelum’s, too, a lower, deeper echo of hers: “Gemma, Gemma.”

  She climbed to her feet. She couldn’t quite believe it. They were so distant, she almost feared she really had snapped, and that what she heard was just the transformation of her memory into sound. But no—there was an unfamiliar voice, too, a man’s voice. And how could she remember something she’d never heard?

  That meant they were here. Close.

  Instantly, she was seized by terror: they wouldn’t hear her. They would leave, like the police had left, and no one would ever think to look for her here again.

  The rock was still where she’d dropped it, exhausted, after an hour of banging fruitlessly, hoping someone would come. She picked it up again and slammed it hard against the slick wall, and the noise it made was of an old stone mouth, clicking its tongue in disapproval.

  Not loud enough. Was it her imagination, or were the voices receding already?

  She banged the stone again and again. Now she was crying, from terror and frustration. How could they not hear? How could they not see? Of course, she hadn’t seen it either: the well was separated from the houses by a hundred yards, and tucked behind a stand of trees.

  She thought of throwing something into the air, in case they happened to be looking in her direction. But it was no use. She could barely lob the rock ten feet in the air, much less hope to break through the wood that Calliope had used to conceal the opening.

  The well smelled like her own sweat, like a hard panic. She wasn’t imagining it. Lyra’s voice was receding.

  They, too, were going away.

  She was shaking and burning hot, too. She shook off the wool vest she’d taken from the farmhouse—a sudden vision of the boy, red-faced, enraged, pointing at her, as the wagon crested the swell of the hill, overwhelmed her—and as she did, the cigarettes and the peeling lighter thudded out of one pocket.

  Gemma’s breath seized in her throat.

  Could she . . . ?

  It had been raining on and off all night. The wood was damp, although not as damp as it could have been—Calliope had done her this favor by covering the well.

  She bent down. The lighter was cool in her hand. She thumbed a flame to life and was shocked by how vivid it was, how bright against the darkness.

  Could she . . . ?

  It was risky. It was dangerous. She remembered how quickly the airport bathroom had filled with smoke, how quickly she’d felt she couldn’t breathe. She had no idea how far Lyra and Caelum had traveled already, and whether they’d even see the smoke.

  On the other hand, she didn’t know how much longer she’d survive.

  And what had Calliope said?

  In all the stories, there’s always a fire.

  Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 25 of Lyra’s story.

  TWENTY-SIX

  AND THEN, WHILE SHE WAS still hesitating, still trying to decide, three gunshots cracked out in the silence.

  That settled it. Three gunshots meant a gun and someone to fire it: someone was still near, and she would take her chances that it was someone who would help, and not Calliope or some psycho Amish guy with a rifle from the 1800s. Maybe Lyra and Caelum had even gotten hold of a gun. Maybe they were trying to signal to her.

  She hoped and prayed that they weren’t on the wrong side of the bullet.

  Either way, she would have to take her chance.

  Gemma had never built a fire before—three of the four fireplaces at home were electric and functioned at the push of a button—but she’d watched her mom do it a few times, amused that Kristina had once been a tomboy and had spent her summers camping and hiking and hitchhiking between different beach towns, and amused, too, that Kristina always got so offended when Gemma said she couldn’t imagine it.

  Quickly, quickly, before they went away.

  She tore handfuls of paper from the old textbook, saying a silent apology to the Book Gods for ruining the binding—and was pleased to find many of the pages at the center very dry. They lit up easily, flaming quickly into little bright universes that soon shriveled and burned up to nothing.

  The wood was harder. She discarded all the wettest pieces and wound up with a small pile that she layered on top of a pyramid of crumpled pieces of paper. It would have to do.

  She was shocked by how much smoke there was right away: smoke curled off the wood as if being planed by an invisible machine. The chemical smell of ink made her cough. She crouched as low as she could, suddenly very afraid. What if the wood did burn, so well, so quickly she couldn’t control it?

  Smoke climbed up the well, rolling from one side to another, like someone rappelling down a cave but in reverse. Gemma tilted her head and gasped with relief: the smoke had sniffed its way to the open air, had begun to trickle through the narrow gaps in the wood and lift toward the trees.

  Someone would have to see.

  Please, God. Let someone see.

  The wood was still smoldering, releasing long tendrils of blue smoke that reminded Gemma of dark hair, that felt like hair in her mouth and in her throat. Her eyes and head hurt. Already, the air was very bad.

  Should she put out the fire? Her head hurt so badly, she had trouble thinking through the pain. One more minute. She would wait one more minute.

  The wood burst into flame, at last.

  Gemma began to cough.

  Her head now hurt so badly she couldn’t think of anything at all.

  She was very tired and thought, maybe, she should just lie down for a while, down in the mud, where it wasn’t so hot. . . .

  Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 26 of Lyra’s story.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  GEMMA DREAMED SHE WAS RIDING on the back of a giant bat, cupped in the soft leather of its wings. She dreamed that a veil had been placed over her face, to keep her from looking down and getting afraid, to keep her from crying out and startling out of the sky. But she couldn’t breathe. The cloth was wet from her breathing, and it flowed into her open mouth. It tasted like smoke.

  Briefly she woke up to the sound of voices and lights—hands everywhere, leathery hands, unfamiliar, and faces she didn’t know—but she hovered there, on the edge of consciousness, for only a few seconds before the bat enfolded her in its wings and once again swept her up, this time loosing itself from the trees and hurtling across the clean, cool night air.

  She could breathe again. The veil had come loose. Her sister had unhooked it, because she didn’t like how it looked.

  That’s better, her sister, Emma, said. Except that Emma had Lyra’s face, and Gemma knew, in her dream, that all along Lyra-who-was-Emma had simply dis
guised herself to give Gemma time to adjust to having a sister.

  The bat had turned to a trundling donkey, and Gemma rocked back and forth, back and forth, while Lyra, who was her sister Emma, walked beside her. The sky above them was the color of milk. Was she dreaming or not? She was bound up in white sheets, as if prepared for burial, but she didn’t feel afraid, not with her sister Lyra standing next to her and whispering to her, over and over, Shhh. It’s okay. You’re okay now.

  Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 27 of Lyra’s story.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “IS IT TRUE? DID YOU really lose a finger?” April didn’t wait for Gemma to answer. “That’s so awesome. You got your finger blown off. Is it your middle finger?”

  “Pinkie,” Gemma said.

  “Oh, well, thank God,” April said. “How else would you flick off Chloe DeWitt and the pack wolves? Seriously, that is the most badass thing I’ve ever heard. You’re going to be Instagram famous, like, immediately.”

  “Sure,” Gemma said. “Maybe I’ll even become a hand model.”

  “Uh-huh.” April fed a Twizzler into her mouth, then offered one to Gemma. “Maybe I’ll get my finger blown off too. You know, so we can be twins.”

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “You’re certifiably insane. You know that? You should be locked up.” But the knot in her chest had loosened. April had that effect: like a warm bath after you’d almost frozen to death.

  Since Gemma had woken up—nearly eighteen hours since she’d first been admitted, time enough for April and her mothers to catch a flight to Philadelphia and then make the drive to Lancaster General—April had barely paused for breath.

  She told Gemma how her mom Diana had helped her crack into Jake’s computer after April admitted the story they’d cooked up about finding it in the library was in fact a fabrication.

  “I should have known,” Diana said. “When’s the last time you two were at the library?”

  “It took her, like, two seconds,” April said, deliberately ignoring the question. “Meanwhile she can’t use Snapchat to save her life.”

  April had been hoping that there might be information on Jake’s computer that would help them locate Gemma. Instead, she had found passwords to HavenFiles.com, lists of bloggers and journalists who’d expressed interest in what was really happening at Haven, hundreds of names and connections, data that Jake, out of precaution, out of fear, had kept secret.

  But April, God love her, had never kept a secret in her whole life: she had flooded HavenFiles.com with new uploads, had emailed every single whistle-blower she could find online, had started a Truth Apocalypse, as she put it. Her mom Angela had even contacted the New York Times.

  “Some detective talked to me,” she said. “He wanted to know all about the Haven Files. All about Jake Witz, too.”

  “Is April bugging you, Gem?” Diana asked, ruffling her daughter’s hair.

  “Yeah,” Gemma said. “For about the past ten years.”

  She was kidding, of course, though in truth, she didn’t want to think about Jake Witz, or detectives, or the replicas escaped from the airport, and what would happen when the truth about them began to break. That would come later. For now, though, she liked to hear April’s voice, and see Angela and Diana bickering over whose turn it was to run down to the canteen for coffee, and sit in the sun with her mother, clear-eyed, sitting next to her.

  “Har-dee-har.” April made a face through a mouthful of Twizzler. “All I’m saying is, when the shitstorm hits the—” But she didn’t finish, because just then the door opened behind her, and Lyra and Caelum edged shyly into the room.

  Gemma’s heart leapt. They were both wearing hospital gowns, and Lyra was painfully pale, and still far, far too thin. But she was smiling, and alive.

  “Looks like you have some more visitors,” Kristina said, reaching out a hand and smoothing Gemma’s hair back.

  “You’re awake,” Gemma blurted. She had been asking since she had woken up that morning.

  April treated Lyra and Caelum’s arrival like she treated everything: as if it was exactly what she had expected all along. “You’re heroes,” April said, and then held out her bag of Twizzlers. “Twizzler?”

  Lyra shook her head. Caelum, however, took one, and Gemma couldn’t help but smile.

  “Come on.” Angela put a hand on April’s shoulder. “Let’s leave them alone for a bit, okay?”

  Gemma’s mom stood up. “I could use a cup of coffee, actually.”

  April made a face. Leaving Gemma alone was not a concept April had ever been particularly good at. It was one of the things Gemma loved most about her.

  “Yeah, sure,” she grumbled. “But we’ll come back, right? You can’t get rid of me that easily.” She pointed a Twizzler at Gemma.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Gemma said. Lyra and Caelum exchanged a look. She thought she saw a smile pass between them.

  Kristina bent down to kiss Gemma’s forehead. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and Gemma nodded to show it was okay for her to go.

  “How are you?” Gemma asked, as soon as everyone else had left. She was worried about how pale Lyra looked. “How are you feeling?”

  But Lyra answered immediately.

  “We’re fine,” she said. Caelum took Lyra’s hand, and Gemma felt a surge of love for them both. She struggled to find the words to express how she felt—how grateful she was.

  “April was right,” she said at last. “You’re both heroes. I can’t believe you found me.”

  Slowly, Lyra smiled. It was the funniest thing. Her smile was like something that snuck up on her, like the kind of sun that begins by planting an elbow through the clouds and then begins to push, and push, until the whole sky is exposed.

  “That’s what friends do,” Lyra said. “They find each other.”

  Gemma knew, then, that Lyra understood. That the terrible things that had happened to her hadn’t, after all, been more important than the love she had found.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, Lyra came forward and put her arms around Gemma’s shoulders, and squeezed. They had never hugged before. Gemma blinked away tears. She could feel Lyra’s ribs through her back. She thought of a bird; she thought of the dream of being carried to safety on a pair of wings.

  “Thank you,” Lyra said, twice. Then she pulled away, almost as if she was embarrassed. Without another word, she turned for the door.

  Caelum lifted a hand, and quirked his mouth into a smile, and waved. Then they were gone.

  Not a minute after they left, Kristina was back and fussing over Gemma. “She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?” Gemma asked, after Lyra had slipped out, promising to lie down. She was consumed by a strange anxiety, a premonition that she wouldn’t see Lyra again—or that she wouldn’t see her for a long time.

  Kristina sighed. She looked down at her hands. “Lyra’s very sick, Gemma.”

  “I know that,” Gemma said. “That isn’t what I meant.” But she wasn’t sure what she did mean. She was scared all over again, scared and full of love: she knew she couldn’t save Lyra, and that was the scariest thing of all.

  “I wish I had the answers,” Kristina said. That was one of the things Gemma loved about her mom: she wasn’t a liar.

  Kristina moved to the window and drew the curtains to let in the sun. Gemma blinked. Outside her window, a spider was weaving in one corner, putting the finishing touches on a web that looked like a blown-up snowflake.

  “Your father called,” she said at last, almost casually. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “I don’t want to see him,” Gemma said. “I don’t want to see him ever again.”

  “Well.” Kristina turned away from the window again. She had no makeup on. Gemma couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mom with no makeup. She looked gorgeous, Gemma thought. “You can’t avoid him forever.”

  “Why not?” Gemma asked.

 
; Kristina bit her lip. For a second, Gemma was sure—sure—she had been about to smile. But she sighed instead, and came toward the bed.

  “Listen, Gem.” This time, when she brushed the hair out of Gemma’s eyes, Gemma nearly cried. She’d missed her mom so badly. She’d been so afraid they’d never see each other again. “I think . . . I want you to know—and I know this will be hard for you—that I don’t think I’m going to go home. To your father, I mean. I think I’d like to get my own place. A place for just you and me.” Her throat was moving up and down, up and down, as if it was doing double duty just to get the words out. “What do you say? I know things will be different. . . .”

  But she didn’t finish. Because Gemma started to laugh, and cry, both, imagining a little house where she and her mother would live together, she and her mother and their animals, all covered in pet hair, and nothing white at all.

  Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 28 of Lyra’s story.

  TWENTY-NINE

  DEEP DOWN, GEMMA HAD KNOWN that when Lyra hugged her—their first hug ever—she had meant it as a good-bye. She was right. By the next morning, Lyra and Caelum had vanished.

  According to the nursing staff, they must have slipped out around dawn, unseen even by the stubbornest bloggers and tragedy tourists, through a little-used stairwell right by the ladies’ room that led down into the parking lot.

  They had practice, Gemma knew, in turning invisible.

  She couldn’t say she blamed Lyra and Caelum. They’d spent so much of their lives in closed rooms, surrounded by charts and IVs and sharp-edged equipment made for cutting. Gemma didn’t blame them for not wanting to waste another minute.

  “They’ll be back,” Gemma said to her mother. “They’ll find us again, when they’re ready. That’s what friends do.” She was sure, absolutely sure, that it was true. They just needed to find their own way back.