Waterfall

by Lauren Kate

  She fixed her eyes on the surface of the waterfall. Fantasizing wouldn't help her now. Cat was right--this was ridiculous. She couldn't reach that orchid. Why was she even considering it?

  Find your way out of a foxhole, girl.

  Memories of Diana's voice filled Eureka's heart with longing. Her mother would say that belief in the impossible was the first step toward greatness. She would whisper in Eureka's ear: Go and get it.

  When Eureka thought of Diana, her hand moved to her neck. As her fingers traced the locket, the yellow ribbon, and the thunderstone, she devised a plan. She handed Cat the torch. She slid her tote bag from her shoulder and gave it to Ander.

  He gave her a smile that said, You're really going for it?

  She hung in front of him, feeling the warmth of his fingers as he took her bag. Sweat formed on her brow. It was foolish to want a good-luck kiss, but she did.

  "Go and get it," he whispered.

  Eureka crouched into the starting pose she assumed before a race. She bent her knees and balled her fists. She was going to need a running start.

  "Nice form." Solon drained the last of his drink. "Who knew she was trained?"

  "Let's go, Boudreaux." Cat repeated the cheer she'd chanted at meets. But her voice sounded distant, like she couldn't believe what was happening.

  Eureka had done the high jump for a season when she'd first started running. She stared at the waterfall, envisioning a horizontal beam of water for her body to clear when she leapt. Fear filled her, energy she told herself to exploit. From the back of the cave, she began to jog.

  For the first few strides, her muscles were cold and tight, but soon she felt the loosening, the lightening. She inhaled deeply, drawing the strange, steamy air into her lungs, holding her breath until she felt immersed in the atmosphere. Her shoes stopped squishing. Her rib cage lifted. Her mind traveled to the highest branch on the moon. She didn't look down when the floor dropped out from under her. She pivoted in the air, arched her back, drew her hands up, and dove backward into the waterfall.

  Cold water roared around her. She screamed as her body dropped twenty feet and was consumed by the fall. Then the thunderstone shield bloomed around her, an answered prayer bouncing her upward. She was weightless, protected. But the force of the waterfall was dragging her down.

  She was going to have to swim up it.

  Her body straightened. She did one breaststroke, then another.

  It was hard work. Every burning stroke of her arms raised her only a half-inch higher. When she didn't strain against it, the water pushed her down. After a long, exhausting stretch, Eureka sensed that she was only now level with the cave's floor. She still had far to go.

  Her arms thrust forward. She groaned as she strained to draw them back. She kicked her legs fiercely. She struggled up the waterfall, half-inches becoming inches, and then, impossibly, feet.

  She was trembling from exhaustion when she saw the thin roots of the orchid tracing the side of the stone. Beyond the waterfall were wobbling broad green leaves, shimmering fuchsia blossoms. She was so excited that she lunged toward the orchid.

  She moved too quickly. Her body passed through the waterfall before she realized her mistake: the instant the shield was exposed to air, it popped like a balloon.

  Eureka's hand had been just inches from the flower, but now she lost propulsion. Her arms spun. Her legs bicycled in the air. She screamed, and her body dropped--

  Then something brushed against her back. A force buffeted her in midair as she rose along the face of the waterfall. The orchid came within reach again.

  The Zephyr. The sensation of Ander's breath surrounding her body was wonderful and intimate. It embraced her and pushed her higher in the sky. They were thirty feet apart, but Eureka felt as close as when they'd kissed.

  She reached out and grasped the orchid. Her fingers closed around its reedy stem. She pulled it loose from the rock.

  Below her, Ander whooped. The twins clapped and jumped. Cat catcalled. When Eureka turned to wave the flower triumphantly, she saw Solon frowning at Ander.

  The wind changed directions, and the force that had been holding her up was ripped out from underneath her. Gravity returned. Eureka plunged down the face of the waterfall into distant darkness.

  9

  DIVER DOWN

  Eureka plummeted through cold mist. She heard the twins scream. She reached out for the blur of their bodies as she hurtled downward, through the space in the floor of the cave and into a wide, shadowy chute.

  Darkness swallowed her. She crossed her arms over her chest, clutching the orchid with one hand, her thunderstone with the other. The yellow ribbon slapped her chin to remind her she had failed that girl. She braced herself for whatever she would soon be crashing into. Every waterfall had an end.

  She worried about plunging into water too shallow for her shield. She thought back to the rainy night her grandmother Sugar had died, the soles of her feet slowly turning blue, and the old woman's hoarse last word: "Pray!" For some reason, the memory was calming. She whispered, "I'm coming, Sugar," then, "I'm coming, Mom."

  She fell faster. Then she did a somersault. If these were her final living moments, she wouldn't spend them like a mannequin.

  She thought of a million things at once--a poem she'd read in the psych ward called "Falling," by James Dickey, a movie about people who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, her first taste of whipped cream on pancakes, the aching baroque sweetness of the world, the luxury of letting yourself feel lonesome and sad.

  Suddenly the chute opened into a vast dim chamber and Eureka saw water below. From the movie about the Golden Gate suicides, she knew to assume a sitting position before she broke the water's surface.

  She rocketed underwater as if strapped to an invisible chair. The shield sprang up around her. She gasped and whooped and looked beneath her. It had saved her from being impaled on a dense metropolis of stalagmites. Their spires had come within inches of her skin.

  She collapsed against the surface of the shield. She tried to breathe, to slow her sprinting heart. She tried to recover what she'd been thinking as she fell, but those thoughts were flying up wherever dreams lived.

  She heard shouting, her name being called. A great splash blew the shield backward. Ander swam toward her. He arrived in front of her shield and pressed his hands against its surface. He looked desperate to hold her.

  Eureka released the orchid. She pressed her hands against the shield, her palms against Ander's. Then, slowly, she pressed her forehead and her shoulders against it. Ander lifted his chin, rapt, as she pressed her lips to the shield.

  She gazed at him. His lips were slightly parted. He hesitated for a moment, then took his finger and traced her lips lightly through the shield. She could feel the subtle pressure of his touch but not the softness of his skin.

  Heat coursed through Eureka. They were tantalizingly close--

  They could swim to the surface and the shield would fall away, but Eureka suddenly sensed that a powerful force might always lie between them, teasing her, torturing her.

  Ander had been underwater a long time without air. Within her shield, Eureka could breathe, but Ander's lungs must have ached. She pulled back from the edge of the shield and pointed toward the surface. When Ander nodded, she picked up the orchid and they kicked themselves higher, higher, until Eureka's head broke the surface and the shield shattered again.

  They faced each other and tread water, which was as warm as a just-drawn bath. Her arm brushed Ander's thigh. His foot pedaled into her knee. Her guilt grazed his, then got lost in the dark water. Eureka didn't know how to stay connected and not sink.

  "Don't mind me." Solon smirked at them from the edge of the pool.

  Beyond Solon, Eureka saw a curved staircase built into the stone. Cat and the twins leapt from the bottom step and ran toward her. Dad's winged bower hovered at the foot of the stairs.

  She waved the orchid to signal she was okay. She was
still adjusting to the idea that she wasn't about to die.

  The cave was darker down here, undecorated. Only a few stalagmite candelabra lit the yawning space, but Eureka sensed there was more to this underground cistern than she could see from the pool.

  A spray of water erupted behind Eureka. She lunged forward.

  "Just a little blowhole," Solon said. "It's not another test. Why don't you calm down and emerge? We have much to discuss."

  Ander pulled himself out of the pool and turned to help Eureka. She was soaking; he was as dry as ever.

  Solon tossed her a robe identical to his. She put it on over her wet clothes and wrung the water from her ponytail. Cat and the twins embraced her--her friend high up on her body, her siblings low.

  "So. You passed," Solon said. He glanced at Ander. "With only some cheating."

  Ander chested up against Solon. "She was almost killed."

  Solon stumbled backward, amused. "Some would say that's the point. I'm sure you know who I mean." He turned back to Eureka. "Your friend is mad because when I realized he was using his Zephyr to aid you, I used mine to disengage his. That's when you fell." He used two fingers to mimic the flailing legs of a falling girl and whistled the sound of her descent.

  "You wanted me to fall?" Eureka asked.

  "Want is a strong word. Mostly, I don't want a Seedbearer paraded into my home."

  "I'm not a Seedbearer anymore," Ander said. "My name is Ander. Like you, I turned my back--"

  Solon scowled and shook his head impatiently. "Once a Seedbearer, always a Seedbearer. It is the most unfortunate aspect of a vividly unfortunate existence. And you are nothing like me." He paused. "Ander? After Leander?"

  "Yes."

  "Rather pretentious, isn't it?" Solon asked. "Have you had your Passage yet?"

  Ander nodded. "I was eighteen in February."

  Eureka's gaze darted between the two boys, trying to keep up. All of this was news to her. She imagined Ander's birthday, months ago in Lafayette. Whom had he celebrated with? What kind of cake did he like? And what was a Passage?

  "Whom did you replace?" Solon asked Ander. "Wait, don't tell me, I won't get stuck at that dysfunction junction just because some kid walks into my cave like a bad joke."

  Eureka threw the orchid, striking Solon in the face. "Here's your flower, asshole."

  "Blow it out your blowhole," Cat muttered.

  Solon caught the orchid by its stem. He brought it to his chest and patted its petals. "How much time will you buy me?" he asked the flower.

  When he looked up at Eureka, an eerie smile haunted his face. "Well, you're here now, aren't you? I might as well get used to it. Privacy and dignity are temporary states."

  "Water, water, everyone?" Solon held out a copper carafe when they were back upstairs and dry, seated around his fire. He'd distributed alpaca blankets, which they all wrapped around their shoulders.

  Cat flexed her feet in a pair of Solon's moccasins.

  "These things will be the death of me," she'd told one of the skulls on the wall when she'd slipped off her red stilettos and hooked their heels through its eye sockets. "You feel me, right?"

  Dad's moth-wing bower had begun to sag during Eureka's adventure with the orchid. The moths were dying. When the bower drooped all the way to the ground it unfurled, looking as magical as a drab gray quilt. As Solon and Ander carried Dad closer to the fire and propped him up on a mountain of pillows, Eureka fingered the bower's strange material. The moths' wings were changing, from thin, chalky sheets to dust.

  She took the carafe from Solon, aching to down its contents in a few gulps. She held it to her father's lips.

  He drank weakly. His dry throat made scraping noises as he strained to swallow. When he seemed too tired to drink any more he turned his eyes on Eureka. "I'm supposed to be taking care of you."

  She wiped the corner of his mouth. "We take care of each other."

  He tried to smile. "You look so much like your mother, but ..."

  "But what?"

  Dad rarely brought up Diana. Eureka knew he was tired, but she wanted to stay in the moment, to keep him there with her. She wanted to learn as much as she could about the love that made her.

  "But you're stronger."

  Eureka was amazed. Diana had been the strongest person she knew.

  "You aren't afraid to falter," Dad said, "or to be around others when they falter. That takes strength that Diana never had."

  "I don't think I have a choice," Eureka said.

  Dad touched her cheek. "Everybody's got a choice."

  Solon, who had disappeared behind a hanging rug that must have led to a back room, returned carrying a wooden tray of tall ceramic mugs. "I also have prosecco, if you'd prefer. I do."

  "What's prospecto?" William asked.

  "Do you have popcorn?" Claire asked.

  "Look at us"--Solon tossed an empty mug to Cat, who caught it by the handle with her pinky--"having a little party."

  "My dad needs a doctor," Eureka said.

  "Yes, yes," Solon said. "My assistant should be here presently. She makes the loveliest painkillers."

  "His wound needs redressing, too," Eureka said. "We need gauze, antiseptic--"

  "When Filiz gets here. She handles what I don't." Solon reached into his robe pocket and withdrew a hand-rolled cigarette. He put it in his mouth, leaned over the fire, and inhaled. He blew out a great puff of smoke that smelled like cloves. William coughed. Eureka fanned the smoke away from her brother's face.

  "First," Solon said, "I must know which one of you saw through the witches' glaze into my cave?"

  "Me," Claire said.

  "Should have known," Solon said. "She's three foot two and exudes the knowledge that adults are full of crap. Her quirk is still quite strong."

  "What's a quirk?" Cat asked, but Solon only smiled at Claire.

  "Claire is my sister," Eureka explained. "She and William are twins."

  Solon nodded at William, exhaled out the corner of his mouth to be polite. "What's your brand of magic?"

  "I'm still deciding," William said. He didn't mean it as a joke--to William, magic was real.

  The lost Seedbearer rested his cigarette on the stalagmite he was using as an ashtray. "I understand."

  Ander picked up the cigarette and sniffed it as if he'd never seen one before. "How can you smoke?"

  Solon snatched the cigarette. "I have forsaken a million pleasures, but I am faithful to this."

  "But what about your Zephyr?" Ander asked. "How can you still--"

  "My lungs are ruined." Solon took a puff and exhaled an enormous plume of smoke. "Derailing you a moment ago was the first I've used my Zephyr in ages. I suppose, if my death depended on it, I could still erect a cordon." He tapped the tip of the cigarette. "But I prefer this little buzz."

  He turned away, cigarette dangling from his lips, and plucked the orchid petals from their branch. He dropped them into a glass soda bottle, counting the petals under his breath, as if they were precious gold coins.

  "What are you going to do with those?" Claire asked.

  Solon smiled and continued his weird work. When he had filled the bottle, he pulled a small black velvet pouch from his pocket and poured the remaining amethyst petals into it.

  "I'll save these for a slightly less rainy day," he said.

  "Now that you have your little flower," Cat said, "is there any chance I could use a phone, or hop on someone's Wi-Fi?"

  "He's been living under a rock," Eureka said. "I doubt he's hooked up to broadband." She glanced at Solon. "Cat was separated from her family. She needs to reach them."

  "We're off the grid down here," Solon said. "There used to be an Internet cafe a couple of miles to the west, but now all of that is waterworld, thanks to Eureka. The entire worldwide cobweb has been washed away."

  Cat gaped at Eureka. "You killed the Internet."

  "The witches may know where your family is," Solon continued, "but they don't provide information for free." He g
lanced at the petal-filled bottle. "I'd think thrice before becoming indebted to those beasts."

  "We met them," Eureka said. "They helped us find you. They carried Dad and--"

  "I know." Solon turned to the disintegrated bower. He ran his hand lightly over the moth-wing dust. "I would recognize the remains of my darlings anywhere."

  "Can the witches really put Cat in touch with her family?" Eureka asked.

  "They can do many things." Solon flung down the velvet pouch, reached for a burlap sack behind him. He spilled out a mass of colored stones and began sifting through them. "Scavenging vultures. Whorish harpies. You met Esme? The young one--very pretty?"

  "We didn't catch their names," Eureka said.

  "You never will--and you must never call her by it. Their names are secret from everyone but other gossipwitches. Anyone who knows one must pretend that she does not."

  "Then why tell me her name?" Eureka asked.

  "Because Esme is the smartest and the loveliest and therefore the most terrible."

  "What about the witches' glaze?" Claire scooted closer to Solon, who gave her an alarmed smile, as if no one had been close to him in years.

  "I pay the hags to enchant the entrance to my cave. The glaze is a special camouflage so my family can't find me. It's imperceptible to the senses, or it's supposed to be. I shall demand a refund." He looked at Ander. "How did you get this far?"

  "I have been planning to find you for a long time--"

  "Easy to say that now, but you could never have found me on your own." Solon made a scary face at one of his skulls. Then he rose and disappeared again behind the hanging tapestry. Eureka heard sounds of cupboards being flung open and slammed shut.

  "I am no threat to you, Solon," Ander called. "I hate them as much as you do."

  "Impossible," Solon said when he returned a moment later, icy bottle of prosecco in one hand, champagne flute in the other. He jerked his head toward Eureka. "You have her. My Byblis is dead."

  Eureka felt for her bag to make sure she still had The Book of Love. Byblis had been one of the previous owners of the book, and a Tearline girl. Ander had told Eureka that the Seedbearers had killed her.

  Solon studied Eureka. "You resemble her."