Resonance

by Dianne J Wilson

  “You’re not burnt anymore. That’s something.”

  Elden turned back with a wry smile. “The pain is much less. So that’s good. Right?”

  “I would have thought the Healing Stream would have finished the work. It’s weird.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t in there for the full time. They said about half an hour should do. It was cut short.”

  Evazee cleared her throat. “Was it Peta?”

  “Peta? How would she affect the process?”

  How could she transform her vague suspicions into words? She checked to make sure the girl was sleeping. “Peta touched your pod. That’s when everything went wrong. I think there’s still some residue of what was released in her when Shasta healed her leg. I think it affected you. I’m so sorry.”

  “How could it have?”

  She shut her eyes to avoid his, but residual images of liquid spider webs sliding through her veins flooded in. It could have come from Peta alone, but what if it came from both of them? Was the vision a warning? If so, it was up to her to figure it out.

  Peta whimpered in her sleep. Her face crinkled, and she clung to her belly. A single tear slid down her cheek, but through it all, she didn’t wake up. Evazee reached for her forehead and stopped short before touching. Peta’s skin blazed beneath her fingertips, hot enough to be felt across the gap between fingers and skin.

  “She’s burning up. I don’t know how much time we’ve got. She won’t go in a pod after tonight. I don’t think I’d let her either. Her only hope is the Healing Stream.” Evazee turned straight into Elden who’d moved closer without her noticing, “Can you take us there?”

  “This is a different section—”

  “To where you were before. I know. Can you find the stream?”

  He reached up and gently separated a lock of her hair from the rest. He curled it around his finger and let it unwind as it slid off. “I can try.”

  “Let’s do it. She doesn’t have time for all their research.”

  “We steal their boat?”

  “Not steal, borrow.”

  “That works, too.”

  “What else do we need? Do you think we could borrow a lamp as well?” A small smile tugged at the corners of Evazee’s mouth, and Elden grinned back with a faint sparkle in his eye. For a moment, she saw beyond the gaunt pull of his cheeks, and her heartbeat doubled.

  “I was about to suggest that.” He held up a hand for a high-five, and she hit his hand, feeling excitement bubble in her belly.

  “There’s no time to waste. They could be out any minute.”

  Evazee nodded and eased herself off the floor, working life back into her ankles. Her only regret at leaving was that she wouldn’t get to finish her conversation with Zulu. He would have told her the meaning of the colour of the water. But in the big picture, what difference would that knowing make? Probably not much.

  She picked up a lamp off the table. It was shaped like an hourglass that fit in her hand and the light reached as far as she could see into the rest of the home. It glowed with its own light and didn’t need to be plugged in.

  Elden scooped Peta up in his arms, grunting under the weight of the girl who slept so deeply that she hung in his arms like soggy seaweed. “Let’s go.”

  ~*~

  Kai peered into the dark hole at their feet. A silvery staircase led down into the blackness. It was impossible to see what they would be walking into. “Guys, you know that we could die in these cuttings, right?”

  Ruaan leaned forward, tilting his head at an angle, “That doesn’t sound like something I want to do. I like living. I really do.”

  “You don’t have to come. You can wait right here or go back to the graveyard. All I know is I can’t leave Bree. If there’s a chance I can get to her, even a slim one, I’m going to take it. Same for you Zap. You don’t have to.”

  Zap pursed his lips, “Let me think this through. My choices are, go back and die at the hands of the Grave Keepers, or follow you into who-knows-what and potentially die. I think I’m going to go with potentially. It’s a bit of a no-brainer really.” He shrugged, “Besides, it’s quite exciting, don’t you think? I want to know what’s down there.”

  Ruaan glared at him. “You truly are insane, aren’t you? Here’s the thing. There was no food where we came from. Nothing. However, there might be food where we’re going. So I’ll take my chances.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Besides, Kai is the only one with light. I’m not going to hang around in the dark.”

  Kai sighed. “You’re both nuts.” He twisted his torso, clicking his back. Then he laced his fingers and pushed his palms forward as if he were warming up for a marathon. “Let’s just do it.” Don’t overthink, just walk. One step at a time. He took a deep breath and stepped down. As his foot touched the first step, a dark flash rippled through the structure of the bridge from beneath his feet, swelling outward and then snapping back with force. The stinging rebound shuddered through his legs hard enough to make him stumble.

  Kai caught himself on the rail, but the metal seemed acidic and seared his fingertips. He pulled away so fast he lost his footing and slid down the stairs to land at the bottom in an ungainly heap of arms and legs.

  “Kai! You dead?” Zap sounded shaken.

  Kai gingerly eased onto his back, checking for broken bones. “Not yet. I fell. That’s all.” He closed his eyes for moment and wished to have his Affinity back. “Get down here. I want to get through fast. Just don’t touch the rail.” It had always been so simple: know the problem and fix it. It didn’t take Affinity to know that this place was broken, but there was nothing he could do. He hoisted the bottle light toward the stairs. The steps themselves were rusted, corroded, eaten right through in places. “Walk carefully. There are holes.”

  Ruaan pushed Zap out of the way. He made his way down, feeling his way with his feet before stepping. He moved efficiently, avoiding the holes without much fuss. Only when Ruaan reached to the bottom closer to the bottle light could Kai see his jaw clench and the white in his cheeks.

  Zap stood alone at the top. He leaned in, but his feet stayed rooted. “The darkness looks hungry. I don’t think I can…”

  “Get down here. Now.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not listening. Get moving.” Kai shoved his hands over his ears, feeling like a three-year-old.

  “But…”

  “No! We can’t wait. Go back or come. Choose.” Stop being such ninny.

  “I am not a ninny. What a fine friend you are, wanting me to die.” Zap stepped down, his foot narrowly missing a rusted hole. “So much for an adventure. This is more like the dentist and the principal’s office all rolled into one.”

  Kai leaned over to Ruaan. “Did I say ninny?”

  “I didn’t hear you say ninny. Did you want to say ninny?”

  “He is being a ninny. I might have thought it.”

  “This isn’t the first time he seems to have heard your thoughts, is it?” A tremor snaked through the structure, cutting off their conversation. Ruaan shuffled closer to Kai. “Do you think this thing can carry our combined weight? It seems too weak.”

  “It will hold.” Kai avoided Ruaan’s eyes. He focused on Zap, who gingerly picked his way down the damaged stairs, blinked hard, and chewed his lips as if trying not to cry. “Two more steps, Zap. Keep coming.”

  8

  The door to the dome house was unlocked. At Evazee’s touch, it slid back. The boat bobbed at the foot of the stairs just where they’d left it a lifetime ago. The catches that held it shifted back automatically as their feet touched the first stair. Evazee hung the stolen lamp on the hook mounted at the front of the boat. It swung with the movement of the boat, casting strange shadows that seemed to have a life of their own.

  Elden motioned Evazee in to sit in the middle. He straddled the gap with one foot in the boat and the other on the landing and leaned over Evazee to deposit Peta into her lap. Evazee shrunk back, still scared of to
uching the girl, but Elden gave her no choice and even less time to object. Peta curled herself up against Eva’s chest. She breathed in deeply and settled down with a slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  “You got her?” Elden settled in behind Evazee with his feet prodding her in the back. Somehow today, it didn’t matter. Evazee fought the urge to pat his feet. He unhooked the oars and used one to push away from the dome house. The front door slid shut as the gap between them and the floating house widened in time with each dip of the oar.

  “How are you going to find the Healing Stream?”

  “Don’t ask.” Elden grunted with the effort of rowing.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know.”

  Evazee shivered at the tingling across her skin. The light from behind them dimmed. She looked back to find the dome house was gone, cloaked once more behind an invisible shield. The light it cast had been cut off too, leaving them in the same deep gloom they’d been stumbling through when Beaver and Shrimp had found them. But for the light hanging at the front of the boat, they’d be in complete darkness.

  Time lost meaning as they sliced through the water. Oars dipping and dripping, as steady as a metronome, the rhythm of it filled Eva’s head. At first, she found herself tensing at each pull of the oars, waiting for a crunch of collision. There seemed to be nothing around them but water, and soon, she grew more relaxed and her thoughts drifted.

  Their progress through the water slowed. Elden was having difficulty breathing. Evazee imagined his back, the cross-cross roadmap of pain, and she shuddered, “You must rest if you need to.”

  He said nothing but picked up the pace.

  Peta still slept, her eyelashes casting dark shadows on her cheeks. Her arm underneath Peta had gone numb.

  “So is Bree your only sister?”

  “Correct.”

  “And where are your mom and dad?”

  “Why are we talking about this?” Elden grunted with each swing of the paddles.

  “Just interested, that’s all.” Silences were always uncomfortable for Evazee. Her natural response was to fill the void with words. Questions. The void left by the absence of noise sucked them right out of her. “Were you happy growing up?”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll stop.” The marshlands around them gave off the smell of sulphur. It hung at the base of Evazee’s throat, and she fought the urge to throw up. To take her mind off her queasiness, she peered ahead. The river forked in three directions. Now what? Elden swore under his breath, and she knew he’d seen it too.

  “So Evazee, which one do we take?”

  “I was about to ask you.”

  “Yeah, but I beat you to it, so you have to choose.”

  “That’s a bad, bad idea.”

  “OK fine. We’ll rock, paper, scissors. Loser chooses.”

  “That is completely flawed logic. You’re letting the loser choose.”

  Elden rested the oars across the boat in front of him, stretching sideways. “Fine. Winner picks. I don’t care.”

  “But you can’t make that decision if you don’t care. It doesn’t work like that.”

  Elden hid his right hand behind his back, his eyebrow demanding that she do the same. Evazee shut her mouth. No point talking if he wasn’t even going to listen.

  “My hands are stuck.” She pointed at Peta with her chin.

  “Rubbish. Balance her on your knee and you can slip that one out.”

  Evazee sighed and did as he said, sliding her hand out and hiding it behind her back.

  “Rock, pap—” The boat spun suddenly, nearly tipping Elden out. The oars slid off and fell into the water with a splash that wet all three of them. Elden gripped the sides with both hands. “Whirlpool. Hold on! It’s getting worse!”

  Evazee folded herself forward over Peta as the boat jerked hard, changing direction. It picked up speed, hurtling along out of control. It spun round and round, tilting them precariously before it dropped back level, pitching Evazee and Peta forward. Before Evazee could recover, it dipped again and spun. The nose of the boat hooked on a submerged rock and the timber shattered, breaking the boat into hundreds of tiny pieces and dumping the passengers into the icy water.

  Cold slammed through Evazee, and she lost her grip on Peta. Her thoughts froze, drifting through her mind like snowflakes, none of them making sense. As heavy as stone, her body started sinking. Darkness blurred the edge of her vision, spinning to a closed tunnel.

  ~*~

  Kai held up the tiny bottle of glowing water so that he could see what they were getting themselves into. The silence sliced through his head, no insect noise, no birds, not even the sound of wind blowing. “As far as I can see, we have to follow this bridge to that central landing. From there we have to figure out how to navigate through.” His voice echoed.

  “You’ve left out the part where we die.” Ruaan hunched over and leaned in close to Kai. “You might recall that I’m not so keen on that.”

  “You make it sound like there’s no other option.” Zap stepped forward and tried to make himself taller than Ruaan. It failed and left him looking like nothing more than a cheeky younger brother.

  “Cut it out, you two. Come on.” Kai walked without waiting. Each step sent another ripple through the bridge beneath his feet. He ignored it and kept walking anyway.

  The bridge curved up and over and Kai stuck to the very centre so as not to have to look over the edge. Behind him followed Ruaan, who walked with ease. Zap brought up the rear in odd bursts of tiny running steps, and then he froze. After a patch of silence that seemed too long, Kai looked around. Zap wasn’t moving at all.

  “Come on. We don’t have time for this. What’s that smell?” Kai squeezed his nostrils shut and gagged. “Did one of you let off? Must have been that weird food you ate.”

  Ruaan shook his head, and Zap’s mouth worked but no sound came out. His lower lip shook, and he pointed at his feet. Kai moved closer and bent down so that the bottle light could reach. Zap’s feet were buried in black goo up to his ankles. A faint shimmer threaded away from the puddle he was trapped in. Kai ran the light up, following a web-like trail of black goo that stretched off the edges of the bridge into the shadows beyond where Kai’s light reached.

  “It’s a web.” As Kai brought the light back down, the goo at Zap’s feet crept higher up his leg. “And it’s growing.” A bubble formed in the puddle and popped, the first sound they’d heard in the cuttings other than their voices and the sound of their own breathing.

  The pop broke the spell and Kai grabbed Zap’s arm. “Ruaan, help me. We’ve got to get him out of here now. This stuff is spreading.”

  Ruaan grabbed Zap’s other hand, and together they pulled. Zap yelled, a guttural bellow that started in his belly and echoed through the open space around them, bouncing and rebounding back to them, filling the emptiness with bellowing on an audible loop.

  The goo clung tightly, stretching as Kai and Ruaan sweated to pull Zap out. Just when Kai thought they’d have to hack off Zap’s feet or leave him behind, the web snapped back nearly throwing them off their feet. The web oozed toward them with a metallic hiss.

  Kai ran for the platform, picking his way around the holes. “Follow my steps. Run!” The closer they got to the central platform, the worse the holes became, until at last the platform was within reach. The bridge broke through completely, leaving a broad gap.

  The ooze made up Kai’s mind before he could even consider any other option. He took a deep breath and ran, launching himself off the broken edge of the bridge. He landed on the other side, tripped and rolled. He lay on his back watching the stars dance. The fall had knocked his wind out.

  Something landed next to him, a thud of a body…one of them had taken the chance. A loud “oof” and a scream. Ruaan hung in by his fingertips.

  “Kai, help.” Zap’s voice was low, strained. He crouched near the edge, holding on to Ruaan’s wrist.


  Kai rolled to his side, onto his hands and knees, and crawled. Don’t pass out. He grabbed Ruaan’s other arm and together they pulled. As Ruaan shot over the edge, his shoe hooked and slipped off. The three of them watched it disappear into the shadows below.

  The oozing web reached the crack in the bridge. Each string slid along the edge like tentacles, feeling for a way to get across. The boys stood mesmerised, breathing hard.

  “It’s stuck on the other side. Haha! Take that stupid webby slime!” Zap fist-pumped and started happy dancing with arms and legs swinging wildly. As he spun, his arm thwacked across Ruaan’s chest.

  Ruaan caught it, putting an end to his jig. “I wouldn’t be celebrating just yet. It’s starting to cross the gap.”

  Kai watched the threads melt together, slowly reinforcing, building, growing. It would only be a matter of time until it was across to their side. “Come on. We’re nearly at the platform.”

  Kai stepped off the bridge onto the round island; a circular ball suspended on nothing, covered in intricate patterns carved into the ebony surface. Kai leaned down and traced the patterns with his fingertips. There was nothing gentle in the carving. Harsh lines and jagged edges protruded from the surface. If torture could be captured in a surface, this was it.

  Many bridges led off the ball at all angles, poking out like short spikes and ending at a door. Some were elaborate, carved and exquisitely detailed. Others were plain and undecorated. Kai guessed there were at least fifty. How was he going to pick just one?

  “This is weird. How do we get to the other side without falling off?” Zap stood like a surfer, legs spread and bent, waiting for the next ripple under his feet.

  Ruaan appeared behind them. “Try walking.”

  “What? Are you completely insane?” Zap tapped his temples.

  “Apparently not. I just walked right around the whole thing. Gravity sucks. Literally.”

  Kai frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not going to answer that. Try it.”

  Kai started walking, his eyebrows huddling together in the middle of his forehead. His tummy flipped as he got close to the edge of being upright but he took another step. Then another and another. It took one hundred steps to get back to where he started, and he managed without falling off.