The Levitator seemed startled by the question. He dropped his hands to his lap. “All I can do is watch the fleet to make sure there are no holes in the net that holds up our city. I look into the portals, listen when I can, and pull people through if they get close enough. But that’s about as far as my abilities go.”
He paused, and there it was again—unease floating beneath his usual calm exterior. “There were good reasons why the old Levitator refused to interfere with other worlds. The truth is, I don’t know what I’m sending you into.”
Katherine put her shoulders back. “For all we know, everything we’re doing could only make things worse in the end. But to not act in moments like this? Impossible. We can only do the best we know how. And hope.” She looked into the faces of her husband and son. “Never lose hope.”
“Are you sure? Wouldn’t it be safer if one of you went while the others—”
“We stay together.” Griffin gripped his mom’s hand on one side and his dad’s on the other.
The Levitator nodded, his fingers worrying the frayed end of his sleeve. He hesitated, then stepped away from the lens. “I’ll be watching for you. If you need me, I’ll be ready to yank you back here.”
The tower walls began to shake. The glass bull’s-eye sagged and started to spin. Griffin squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. The portal tugged at him, like it would suck his guts through his skin, and then it pulled him all the way through.
* * *
Griffin’s legs buckled and he tumbled to the lantern room floor. Before he could lift his head to look outside and get his bearings, the whole place pitched to the left, and then to the right, tossing the Fenns around the room like laundry in a spin cycle. Philip grabbed the stairway railing as he careened past. He wrapped his legs around the metal and stretched his arms out to Griffin and Katherine.
“Grab on!”
They dragged themselves toward the stairs, fighting against the pitching ground, then slid down the steps, bellies to the floor.
“What is happening?” Griffin yelled.
“I don’t know!” Philip called over his shoulder. “But it’s better the farther down you get, I think.”
The Fenn family slunk down flight after spiraling flight, until they reached the ground floor of the lighthouse. There, the rocking was more like swaying. Rhythmic, almost like waves.
“Hang on—” Griffin scrambled over to the window. A huge wave broke against the tower with a boom that shook the foundation and rolled past, all the way to the horizon.
They were on the water. The lighthouse on Maris was a massive buoy.
Knowing what caused the tower to pitch like crazy side to side made room in Griffin’s head for other things. Like the smell. It was different from the Oregon coast because, of course, there was no coast on Maris. No beached sea creatures spoiling in the sun. No mud flats filtering layers of detritus. Just the briny air, with none of the beach to go with it.
Another detail worked its way into Griffin’s thoughts: The coast back home was full of birdsong—squawking and piping and chirping all day long. There was none of that here. But without any land to, well, land on, there wouldn’t be, would there?
Instead of the birdsong, something else filled the air. It started out low, like waterlogged timbers groaning as they shifted. Then it altered, modulating higher and splitting into two distinct sounds. Griffin shivered. It wasn’t just whale song, or the sound of wind whistling through the gallery railing above. It was the magic of this world. The song of the sea.
“Marvelous,” Katherine whispered.
“At least no one’s guarding the place.” Philip peered out the far window. “Anyone who ends up here would be stranded, I guess. We’re floating in the middle of the ocean. Unless you have a boat, you’re stuck.”
In the lull between swells, Griffin staggered across the room to stand beside his parents. “Are we stranded, then?”
Philip nodded at the waves barreling past. “Well, there’s no swimming that. We’ll have to trust the old Levitator’s notes.”
Along the bricks surrounding them, tiny bones and broken shells were strung from looping lines. Griffin steadied himself against the brick wall and, just as the Levitator’s notebook had instructed, combed through the dangling objects, searching for anything resembling a whistle.
“Found one,” he announced, lifting it to his lips and blowing a long, sustained breath. He was pretty sure he’d done it right, but no sound came out.
“Me too.” Katherine rose onto her tiptoes to reach a hollow bone, narrow and notched along one side. Her cheeks puffed and flattened as air moved through the whistle. Again, no sound. Philip found a third, but it, too, was silent.
Griffin peeked out the window, searching for any sign that their message had been received. The light was fading fast; only the revolving beams from the lens above illuminated the water below. The waves rolled past, the ocean’s secrets hidden beneath dark swells.
Griffin slid down the brick wall. He drew his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes. It was a little like being on a ship, there at the base of the tower, rocking back and forth, back and forth, until the motion seemed as natural as standing on solid ground. He’d been out on the open ocean in fishing boats a dozen times. The waves had never bothered him; he’d liked the thrill of the pitching boat. But there was something different about these waves—something eerie about knowing there was no harbor to come into, no home on the headland to return to when the trip was over.
But if the old Levitator was right, someone was out there. Someone would be coming for them.
18
GRIFFIN
GRIFFIN WOKE WITH a start. Goose bumps rippled over his arms and legs. Something was out there, just beyond the door. He held his breath, listening. His dad was snoring, of course. Waves slapped against the base of the tower, and the ocean’s song rose and fell in its never-ending melody.
But there—that was something else.
It was a clicking, warbling sort of call. Whatever was making the sound, it wasn’t human. Griffin shook his mom and dad awake. Philip rolled to his feet, eyes darting around the dark room. Katherine moved more slowly, cocking her head and listening. She lifted a finger to her lips, then pointed to the door. Philip swept Griffin behind him and the three crept along the wall. Katherine drew the door toward her and peered out into the darkness.
The song of the sea was louder with the door open, almost as if it were greeting them. Without any dust in the air, the moon was so white it gleamed silver, its peaks and craters startlingly clear. Moonlight shivered across the crests of the incoming waves, and it glimmered across the backs of something—many large somethings—in the water beyond the buoy.
“Look!” Griffin whispered.
“Incredible,” Philip murmured.
The moment they stepped out from the doorway, they were greeted by that same clicking, chirruping sound. It was definitely coming from those creatures. Their broad backs broke the water, revealing hornlike lobes to either side of gaping holes that could only be their mouths.
“Are they some kind of ray?” Philip whispered.
“Gigantic manta rays, maybe.”
“So they’re not dangerous, then?” Griffin swallowed.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“They certainly seem to want something from us.”
“I think…” Griffin couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “I think they want us to come with them.”
At that, the giant rays broke the surface in unison, the clicking rising in a crescendo.
A tentative smile crept over Katherine’s lips. “I believe you’re right.”
She exchanged a look with Philip, the kind parents are always trading over their children’s heads. Another kid might have minded. But that sort of thing was new for Griffin—the everyday kind of thing he never thought he’d have again—both parents fussing over him.
Philip raised an eyebrow. “If we do nothing, Somni will control
everyone on Earth. And they’ll use our armies to attack the other worlds.”
“If we do nothing, we’ll have no home to return to,” Katherine added. “Nowhere will be safe.”
So they stepped together to the edge of the lighthouse buoy. The air was calm, and warm even though the sun had been down for hours. The buoy tipped toward the waves and then away from it, toward and away. Griffin eyed the staircase leading down. They were going to swim with those rays—that much was clear. But were they supposed to just walk into the waves?
Before he could move toward the stairs, the giant rays dipped into the water, disappearing from sight. Griffin peered over the edge, then jumped back as one of the rays leaped out of the water to his right, twisting in midair, its slick back brushing so close to Griffin’s nose that his hair blew sideways across his face. The ray twisted again as it cleared the end of the buoy, slapping down on the face of the water before sinking below. As soon as the first landed, a second launched into the air.
Griffin backed up until he was pressed against the whitewashed tower bricks. “They want us to jump on their backs? No way.”
Philip grimaced, stepping up to the edge. “I’ll go first.”
Griffin darted forward to give his dad a quick hug. When the next ray leaped into the air, Philip squared his shoulders, lifted his arms, and leaned forward as if he were free diving off the edge of a cliff. But before he could fall, the ray was beneath him, flattening Philip against its back and carrying him under the water.
“Dad!” Griffin shrieked. He ran to the edge of the buoy, staring at the place where the ray had disappeared beneath the waves. He strained against his mother’s arms holding him back from the edge.
Out at sea, the ray broke the surface again, vaulting into the air. Philip got in one ecstatic whoop before the ray slapped down on the surface again. This time, though, the massive creature didn’t dive. Instead, it skimmed the waves, curving in a slow arc until it faced the buoy where Griffin and his mom waited. Philip pulled his knees under him and sat up so he could raise an arm over his head, beckoning the others to join him.
“He’s okay,” Katherine breathed.
“He’s okay,” Griffin echoed, bracing himself. He had to go next—no way would his mom get in that water without him. And they couldn’t stay on the buoy forever. It was only a matter of time before the soldiers discovered them.
The water parted to his right. A pair of horns and a gaping mouth broke the surface, rising toward Griffin. He let out a tight breath. Come on. You can do this. Before he could change his mind, Griffin stepped to the edge, raised his arms just like his dad had done, and leaned out over the water.
Time seemed to slow. The creature’s silvery skin filled his vision, then the ray slid along Griffin’s arms until his hands hooked on the base of the wings. Griffin winced, half expecting his shoulders to be ripped out of their sockets, but instead, the giant ray twisted, balancing Griffin like a teacup on its broad back. He barely had to remember to hold on. The wings or fins or whatever they were stretched out to either side, lifting the kitelike body and thrusting it into the air.
Abruptly, the balance shifted and they weren’t going up anymore; they were speeding down. Griffin squinted his eyes against the sting of the salt, and smack!—they hit the surface, sinking below, seawater spilling over the ray’s sleek body and rushing for Griffin. He sucked in a breath and hung on with everything he had.
19
FI
FI STUMBLED AWAY from the failed battle, her eyelids stuck together in a paste of tears and ash. Blinded by anguish, she left the cover of the trees, stumbling into the tall grasses, the feathery tips brushing along her jaw and collarbone. The green pulsing through the wildlands coursed through her, beating back the taste of death and smoke and failure in her mouth.
Fi ran until she couldn’t feel that pain anymore, past the meadow, through a bog that sucked at her ankles, and under the cover of an ancient stand of gnarled yew trees. She dragged the backs of her hands across her eyelids, smearing the grit until she could open her eyes again.
A shiver rippled through her as she stepped over some invisible marker on the land. Branches shifted overhead, bending to form the ribbed roof of a chapel. Fi spun in a slow circle as a steady rain began, splattering on the leaves and funneling into pools marking the oblong boundary of the chapel even as it formed, the drips pealing like bells as they landed.
She lifted her face to the sky, letting the rain beat against her skin, letting the ache inside her chest swell until she thought she might burst. Fi swatted at a line of raindrops. She wasn’t the all-powerful greenwitch Vinea needed her to be. She didn’t deserve this holy space.
Fi squeezed her eyes shut and she was back there, in the battle—the resistance fighters smothered underground. They died because she couldn’t do what everyone thought she could.
She was only herself. Stubborn, impatient, all-too human Fi. How could she be any different? But Great-Aunt Una had believed she could be more. Was that why Eb had stepped in front of the blow meant for her—because there was supposed to be something special about Fi? Something she could do to save Vinea that no one else could?
Only, she hadn’t. She couldn’t.
Fi had run away from the battle, but she hadn’t been able to outrun the hot breath of shame. She sagged against the sessil tree at the heart of the chapel. The lowest branches stretched well over her head, the highest ones whipping in the wind at the top of the canopy.
Fi swept the tears from her cheeks. She had to face this. She laid her palm against the gnarled trunk and the tree nudged back.
Up?
The lowest branch bent down to where she stood. As it reached for her, Fi wrapped her arms around the bark, swinging herself up to standing as she was lifted high above the ground. She held on, stunned at the raw power of the chapel that she’d been able to draw from. A second branch arced toward her, and then a third. She rose through the heights until the green was beneath her and all that was before her was sky.
From that height, Fi could barely make out the flashing beams from the lighthouse fighting to cut through thick clouds of smoke. Behind her stretched the wildlands, its borders shrinking by the minute. Beyond that, land burned black and riddled with snags. And in front of her, far too close to where the chapel stood, the soldiers’ camp with the children trapped inside.
Fi’s lungs ached. The silty air scraped her throat until it was raw and swollen. She couldn’t bring herself to look away, not after everything that had gone so terribly wrong. Not after what she’d done. Or couldn’t do.
She stayed in the crook of that highest branch so long that she lost track of the crimson sun sinking down, of the sturdy tree beneath her, of her own arms and legs, and the steady beating of her heart. Perhaps it was the smoke pouring into her lungs that eased her eyes closed, that beckoned her gently toward sleep.
While she slept, she dreamed. She was running frantically away from something. Every time she looked over her shoulder, the ground rose up like a mudslide, threatening to swallow her. The landscape before her flickered between the barren soil of Somni and the scorched wasteland of Vinea. She ran and she ran, but the avalanche of rocks and dirt and dead limbs never stopped coming.
* * *
Fi woke, groggy, on the forest floor. A dozen ferns covered her like a canopy bed, hiding her from sight in case anyone wandered by. The fronds parted as she sat up. Her fists clenched handfuls of soil. She swallowed, wincing, her throat hoarse from screaming. Slowly, her fingers uncurled. There in her palm was a seed, its shell firm and glinting dully.
The plants all around her lifted off the ground, straining against their roots. Leaves curled and fiddleheads unfurled, all reaching toward that single seed. Fi sat still as a stone. She hadn’t done anything—she wouldn’t even know how to ask them to do that. It must be the green trying to show her something. But what?
She brushed the soil away from the seed.
She barely breathed.
/>
A memory crept out of the dark, flooding her mind. She could smell the sharp Somni air, taste the moisture wicking off her tongue. It was during her first month on that strange world, and she’d been running an errand for Eb on the outskirts of the city. For the first time, she’d witnessed the raze crews at work.
She’d nearly cried out, dropped everything and dashed over to them. She longed to shake the sleeves of their stolas, begging for anything they might have heard about her family who’d been taken. But the sight of the soldier standing guard at the end of the line of prisoners stopped her. In the end, she’d crouched behind a low wall and watched their slow passage.
At first glance, the raze crew seemed to be doing exactly what they were supposed to, seeking out life growing in the barren soil and ripping it out, roots and all. But as Fi peered closer, she realized that wasn’t what was happening. Not exactly.
The prisoners worked with small pickaxes, slicing through the soil so they could tear the roots from the ground. But even as the right hand shook the dirt from one plant and set it into a sack strung over their shoulders, the left scattered seed into the broken ground. Yes, they were uprooting life, but they were sowing it, too. For every plant they killed, they let loose a dozen seeds.
Fi shook her head. The memory was still there—like a film over her mind, fading even as she reached for it. There was something different about those seeds. Something familiar. What was it?
Fi pressed her fingers to her temples. She knew what she’d seen. She knew the green had somehow called that particular memory into her mind. But what was she supposed to understand?
20
FI
FI SCRAMBLED THROUGH the underbrush, sprinting for the outpost. Strands of hair whipped like cobwebs across her face and ashes fell like rain, singeing everything they touched. She hurried past the sentries and down the steps cut into the wall of the hollow. Four greenwitches were gathered around the conference table, deep in conversation with Liv, Aunt Ada, and their commanders. Fi dashed inside, planted her hands on the tabletop, and announced, “I have to go back to Somni.”
A Way between Worlds Page 7