“A tree. Seriously?” Unlike the purple trees of Kai’s first visit, the bark of this one was quite ordinary, all in regular shades of brown. At least it looked ordinary until a whole section of the tree moved and spoke.
“Greetings, travellers.” The man’s clothes rippled and shifted from tree bark to worn, soft leather that carried the dust of travel in its creases. The man wore his long hair scraped back and caught up with a leather strip at the nape of his neck. His face was a lined roadmap of the years he carried in the curve of his spine and the strength of his hands. He held a black metal knife, which he slipped into a pouch on his belt as he waved them over. “Anyone hungry?”
Kai frowned, trying to see if the man had any other weapons. “We can’t stop. But thanks for offering.”
Ruaan shuffled close to Kai and tapped him on the shoulder. He blinked fast against the moisture gathering on his lashes.
“What? Are you crying?”
Zap cleared his throat and pointed at Ruaan’s belly. Ruaan’s shoulders hung forward, and he cradled his stomach with the tenderness most people save for newborns. Zap snorted a laugh. “You forget that thing has been talking to us for hours now. We should stop and feed it, Kai.”
The man leaning on the tree threw aside a cloth to reveal a spread of food unlike anything Kai had ever seen before. “It won’t take long. Lunch is ready. There’s too much here for me to eat. Come on. Have a seat.”
Zap and Ruaan didn’t need a second invitation. They each picked a different side of the square table cloth and sat staring at the food as if they’d been eating gruel since birth.
Kai took his place opposite the man and tucked his legs underneath himself, shying away from touching the cloth spread beneath the food. The food itself looked more like a deconstructed bridal bouquet than something that would put some meat on their bones or fill their bellies.
“Trust me. It’s more filing than most of the stuff you’re so fond of on the other side.” A faint trace of amusement coloured the man’s speech.
“How do you know what we’re fond of? Who are you anyway?” Kai kept his hands tucked firmly in his armpits, though his eyes roamed from item to item on the blanket.
“All in good time, friend. I’ve been sent to help you.”
Zap had torn his eyes away from the food to stare at the man. “You’re a Seeker! I’ve heard of you. They warned us about your lot back at the OS. You’re like bloodhounds but for people. Whoa.” He frowned at the man, glanced at the food, and shrugged.
The man smiled, and it transformed his face. He almost looked kind. “Some call us that. You may call me Gallagher. “Please eat. I brought it all for you.”
Zap checked his hands and tried to brush the dust off. Ruaan tucked his behind his back.
“Would you like to wash your hands before eating?” Gallagher’s eyes flicked over the dust that stubbornly clung to them. He brought out a pitcher of water and a bowl, and tipped it over their outstretched hands. The grey dust was no match for liquid. Zap laughed in delight, rubbing his clean hands together.
Gallagher waved towards the food. “Help yourselves.”
Ruaan reached for a perfectly round, lime green blob, with dimpled skin much like a strawberry. He sniffed it and bit into the soft flesh. Purple juice dribbled down his chin and his eyes rolled. “Oh my! You guys have to try this one.”
Zap waved a royal-blue stick under Kai’s nose. It vaguely resembled celery but gave off a sweet and salty scent. Zap nibbled one end with long teeth. He sighed and a goofy smile crept over his face. “Now this is what I call the food of the gods. Here, try it.”
Kai sneezed, and Zap snapped his hand back. Zap studied it to make sure he couldn’t see any moisture all down the length of it. Then he bit into it, chewed, and swallowed.
Kai stared from one to the other and back again. His shoulders itched, and he glanced up to find Gallagher staring.
“You’re not hungry. You weren’t hungry the last time you were here either.” Gallagher’s eyebrow lifted and changed his statement to a question.
Kai shook his head. It bothered him that Gallagher had picked up on the same thing that was puzzling him. Worse than that, Gallagher probably knew why, but Kai couldn’t bring himself to ask. Pride or caution? Either way, he kept his mouth shut tight.
A strangely satisfied smile pulled at Gallagher’s lips, and he nodded slowly. “Good.”
“You said you were sent to help us. Who sent you and why?”
“I’m glad to see that you are cautious, Kai. Let me ask you one question, though. What does your heart say about me?”
“I don’t trust my heart.”
“Fair enough.”
“Who sent you?”
“I can show you the way to the one whom you seek.”
Kai leaned back, unfolding his long legs to ward off a cramp threatening to knot up his left foot. He wiggled his toes inside the canvas of his sneakers. At least this time he wasn’t barefoot. So, Gallagher thought he knew who they were here to find. Kai bit back a dry laugh. Bree was meant to be the whole point of this trip until they’d lost the girls and seemingly Tau himself. “That, right there, is the problem. I don’t think you know as much as you think you do.”
Gallagher shrugged. “If you’re worried about your two female companions, they’re safe for the moment. You need to get to your friend.”
Kai shot up. “How did you know—”
“I know what I need to. However, as slow as you’re moving, you aren’t going to get to her in time. She’s inside Stone City. You’re heading in the right direction, but the way is treacherous and long.”
Zap swallowed his mouthful of food and his jaw dropped. “Whoa!”
“You speak as if she’s alive.” Kai narrowed his eyes. “So what can we do?”
“There’s another way.” Gallagher held up a hand in caution. “Or I should say, there used to be another way, but it’s broken beyond repair.”
“Broken? Like a holey bridge that we’d fall off?”
“It’s not a path like that. Think of it this way. In space you get wormholes. Pinches in the galaxy that bring point A and B closer together and let you cut out years of travel. Are you familiar with the concept?”
Kai nodded. Zap and Ruaan were arguing over the last crispy flat cake. Hunched over, each of them had one end of the cake in hand as they glared at each other over the top of it. Neither seemed to have been tracking the conversation.
Zap pulled the cake a few millimetres closer. “We know about wormholes. Can we find a wormhole home?”
Gallagher shrugged. “I don’t know about that. Brio Talee, spirit cuttings. They are quick paths through the spiritual world. But if you were listening properly, you’d know that you can’t use them anyway. So the point is moot.” He slipped the knife from his belt, hoisted it overhead and slashed the flat cake in half. The boys landed on their backsides, still hanging onto their half of the cake.
“Whoa! That thing is dangerous, man!” Blood drained from Zap’s face. “I heard you. But the thing is, Kai fixes broken things.”
“What are you talking about?” Kai asked.
“Oh, come on. We lived in the same dormitory for how long? You were always fixing broken things.”
“But I was careful. I made sure nobody saw.”
Zap bit into his section of flat cake, waving his hand in a circle while he chewed and swallowed. “I guess that means I’m nobody.” He grinned. “You told Phil how to fix the microwave. That was cool. And there was that time Matty was in the sick bay. You sneaked out in the middle of the night. I didn’t dare follow you, but it was pretty obvious. He’d been gone for a week. The next day he was back. Coincidence? I think not. It’s all you.”
“But you never said anything.”
“So you admit it?”
“Come on, Zap. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was waiting for you to tell me yourself. After that? I never found the right moment. Why do you think I wanted A
ffinity so bad? All I wanted was to be able to do what you do.”
Gallagher leaned forward, rubbing his chin. “Are you telling me that you’re a Restorer?”
Kai peered at him out the corner of an eye. “Maybe? I don’t know.”
“All the signs are there. Living things, inanimate objects—you’ve fixed both?”
“I can see what’s broken, and I know what to do about it. That’s all. If this shortcut wasn’t broken, could we use it to get to Bree?”
“In theory, yes.”
“How is it broken?”
“Broken is the wrong word. More like infected. Tainted is even more accurate.”
Kai shut his eyes and pinched his forehead. A headache crept across his skull from the base of his neck. “It seems that point is moot, too. My Affinity isn’t working this time.” He held up Runt’s glowing light bottle. “I need this to make light. Can’t even do that anymore, let alone fix invisible pathways.”
Gallagher leaned back, resting on the tree. “How did you get back this time? The first time was a run in with a bus, if I’m not mistaken.”
Ruaan had stretched out on his back with his hands on his belly. He snored softly, his chest rising and falling like a metronome. Zap leaned on his elbow and sucked the last traces of food off his fingers. He stuck his hand in the air the way they used to at St Greg’s when they wanted the teacher’s attention. He shook it around as if to say, “Me! Me! Pick me!”
Kai rolled his eyes and put on his best teacher voice. “You there, boy. The one on the floor. What?”
“We were sent back with the help of a serious dose of dark Affinity enhancer.” He sat up, stretched, and looped his arms around his knees. “Whoever did it pumped enough of the stuff into the building to bring five of us back.”
Kai pinched the skin above his nose. “More than just us. Morgan and her friends, too, remember? We don’t know how many were brought back this time.”
Zap nodded. “You’re right. It’s worse than we thought. Normally, it should have worn off by now. I don’t know why it hasn’t. Apparently, it’s having a bad effect on our boy here, who is some sort of Affinity superhero. He keeps going on about all the things he could do before that he can’t do now. Cleansing a tainted bridge may be a little beyond him right now. No offence, Kai.”
Kai waved off the insult. He clicked his fingers and sat up straight. “It’s that air freshener thing. That’s what’s causing all the trouble. Why didn’t I think of it before?”
“Excuse me?” Zap’s forehead crinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“You know the section of the OS where we were sitting when the green vapour got us? It has those air freshener things mounted on the walls that are supposed to send out puffs of freshener at regular intervals. If someone loaded Affinity enhancer into those…”
“It would just keep pumping into the rooms until the canisters emptied.”
“Exactly. That could take months. All my light Affinity is powerless under the influence of that chemical cocktail.”
Gallagher picked up the corners of the cloth and folded it over the empty containers. The cloth flattened out the way it would if there were nothing inside. He took the next set of corners, folded them in and kept going until he had a tiny square of fabric, which he pocketed.
He stood up, brushed himself off, and held a hand out to Kai. He pulled him to his feet and leaned in close. “You are not as powerless as you think. Use what you have. Stop being a victim.”
Before Kai could respond, Gallagher turned to the tree, placed both hands on the bark and muttered under his breath. A shudder ran through the tree from roots to leaves, and the tree shook, filling the air with rustling. It began as a creaking whisper and built to a groan of ancient wood.
Ruaan woke mid-snore, shrieked, and rolled onto his feet. He backed away too fast and tripped, landing on his rear. The tree was moving.
Kai blocked his ears and resisted the urge to run. Zap sat with his face blank, head tilted to one side, pinching the skin on the back of his hand.
Gallagher moved aside with a wide sweep of an arm, “Gentlemen, I give you the entrance to Brio Talee, the spirit cuttings.
7
Evazee sat on the floor next to Peta’s beanbag in the blue-green lounge, careful not to touch the girl. Peta lay curled up, her eyes shut tight. She’d stopped crying and withdrawn inside herself. More than anything, Peta needed the Healing Stream but after seeing what had happened to Elden in the water, Evazee couldn’t imagine her agreeing to go in. Maybe if they could find the real thing, it would be different. But where would she even start looking?
Evazee studied her surroundings. It was easier than deciding what to do. The mat on the glass floor seemed to be woven of sea-grass. It was see-through, green, and soft to the touch. Apart from the beanbags, the only other decoration in the room was a life-size statue of a black man crouching in the corner. His carved ebony skin shone as if polished, his body lean but muscular. A scar ran down one side of face, slashing through his right eyebrow and down his temple and cheek, missing his eye by millimeters. He had the look of a warrior, fierce and merciless. Evazee dropped her gaze. Looking at the statue made her uncomfortable.
“You’re worried about your friend,” the statue said.
Evazee shot upright, adrenalin pumping through her system. “You scared me. I didn’t think you were…er, never mind.”
The man unfolded himself from his crouching position and crossed the room with the grace of a panther. He towered over Peta and then knelt down next to her, the frown on his face deepening. Evazee could pick up Peta and run, but trying to outrun this guy didn’t seem like a bright idea.
He reached toward Peta’s forehead. His hand was big enough to cover her whole face, but his fingers were gentle.
“Don’t touch her!” Evazee shook at the memory of the vision, at what had happened to Elden.
He stopped and his eyes flashed. “I’m not going to harm her.”
“Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant it’s not safe for you. We had some trouble downstairs.” The thought of explaining was too much. “Never mind. I’m sorry. I’m Evazee. You are?”
A broad smile slashed across his face. In a moment, he shifted from fierce warrior to kind stranger. “They call me The Zulu. I know what happened.”
Evazee blinked, “What do you mean?”
He pointed toward the stairway, his finger circling in a downward spiral.
“You mean downstairs? I was there, and I don’t know what happened. It was awful.” Painful, confusing, frightening. She could go on and on.
“The water, it changed. Yes?”
“I don’t know if I should be talking about this.”
“Did it turn black, green, or brown?”
“Brown. What difference does it make?”
“The colour speaks. Brown means…” He rubbed his fingers by his lips as if to tease the right word off the tip of his tongue.
“Zulu! Downstairs quick!” Beaver’s head poked up through the hole in the floor.
Zulu shot to his feet, whispering as he rushed past. “We’ll talk.”
“Is he going to be all right?” Evazee’s words bounced through the room and returned to her unanswered. Beaver and Zulu were gone. She sank to her knees on the seagrass mat, leaning on Peta’s beanbag, careful not to touch the girl. Evazee’s body felt heavy and her heart was sore. The vision had left a residue of dread in her that she was too scared to examine. It simmered just below the surface of her consciousness. Peta was not right, and Evazee had no idea how to fix her.
Jesus, I don’t even know if You can hear me. At home I can talk to You at any time, about anything. I know what it feels like to be near You. Here, I feel nothing. Well, nothing good anyway. I can’t feel You or see Your miracles. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help Elden or Peta. If I close my eyes, all I see is the spider web. I can feel it oozing through my veins. I’m scared.
She buried her
face in her arms and cried. All the emotions of the last few hours washed over her in thick waves, and she drifted on the edges of tattered consciousness, slipping in and out of sleep. She was so far gone that a warm hand on her back seemed to be more dream than reality.
“Evazee, wake up.”
She knew that voice. It took her straight back to stolen fruit and the testing grass. “Elden?” His hand spread warmth across the small of her back and made her shiver. Evazee eased herself upright, stretching out the kinks in her spine and neck.
He sat cross-legged next to her on the sea-grass mat. He had dark patches under his eyes. He’d changed out of the blue jumpsuit into his own clothes, even down to the holey T-shirt.
“Oh my gosh. It is you. How are you?” His face was paler than she’d ever seen, almost chalk-white. Evazee checked the room to make sure they were alone. “Where are they?”
“Researching. They’re trying to figure out what went wrong. They told me to find you, that we should make ourselves comfortable until they can help us. I doubt they’ll return for a while yet.”
“What happened? What did they do to you?”
Elden shrugged. “I don’t remember much.”
“Turn around. I want to see your back.” She wiggled her fingers in his face, waving tiny circles in the air.
He enfolded her small hands in his, gently, as if catching butterflies. “Can we get out of here? I don’t want to be here.”
The sadness in his eyes tugged at Evazee. “I think we can trust these people. They seem good to me.”
He looked away, his eyes roaming over the room with all its soft curves and gentle colours. “I know. I just want to go.” His cheeks were hollow and raw emotion cracked his voice. She’d never seen him like this before.
“Show me your back.”
Elden sucked in a deep breath and held her gaze as he let it out. His eyes seemed to search for something in hers. He turned his back to her, lifting his holey shirt.
Evazee bit her cheek. His back was a mess of raised scars. She fought off the stars that twinkled on the edges of her vision. The burns had healed but the scars remained.
Resonance Page 6