One of Zak’s eyebrows went up, echoing her question. At that instant a little breeze blew across the concrete, carrying the bitter scent of the marigolds—and an idea flowered suddenly in Robert’s head.
Not a microscope, but maybe something they’d be sure to see. Something big enough . . . He looked toward the marigolds and took a long, deep breath, drinking in the smell. If we could make a picture . . .
The image in his head was bold and flamboyant and risky. But it might work. And if it did, there would be a chance of saving Lorn and the others—instead of going back to watch them die.
He looked up at Cam. "We’re not going yet," he said. "There’s one more thing we can try."
28
WHEN HE TOLD THEM WHAT HE WANTED TO DO, CAM WAS horrified.
"That’s crazy. You want us to slog back across the concrete, and work all night, and use up all our energy—just to make some kind of picture?"
"It’s not just a picture," Robert said. "It’s a chance to make a difference. Don’t you see—" Running out of words, he spread his hands, trying to get Cam to share his feeling of urgency. Of opportunity.
She looked scornful, but Zak shook his head at her. "He has to do it, Cam. Don’t try to stop him."
Cam still didn’t look convinced, but she followed the other two as they set out to walk back to the marigolds.
It was a darker journey this time. Retracing their steps took them under the nearest storm machine. Its huge body made a gloomy roof high over them as they trudged from one end to the other. The stench of old exhaust fumes lingered in the air, and the ground was dirty and stained with oil that clung to the soles of their feet.
It was a relief to come out at the far end, even though that left them exposed to the open sky. They jogged the rest of the way, with their packs bouncing and their greasy feet slithering on the hard surface. Tumbling into the shelter of the marigolds, they leaned against the solid stalks, breathing in their strong, clean scent.
In the dark the flowers had closed up, like umbrellas. Cam looked up at them for a moment or two. Then—without saying anything—she began to climb, scrambling up the nearest stalk with her spear tucked behind her bundle. "She’s going to help, then," Robert muttered.
"Of course." Zak sounded amused. "Did you think she’d let you down?"
The stem began to shake as Cam sawed away at the top of it. A few moments later, she called, "Watch out!"
Zak pulled Robert out of the way and the flower head fell suddenly. It hit the ground not with a crash but with a soft, disconcerting bounce. Lying next to them, it was as tall as they were.
"We’ll drag it," Robert said. "We should be able to manage that together."
Zak looked at him. Then he looked at the strip of open concrete between the marigold bed and the storm machine.
Robert knew what he meant. This was only the first flower. There were dozens more, and each one would have to be moved separately. Across the open space.
He looked back at Zak and shrugged. "Everything’s dangerous for people our size," he said. "It’s just a question of which risks you choose."
Zak grinned and bent down to take hold of the marigold.
They worked all night, taking turns to climb the stems and cut off the flower heads. The two on the ground dragged the flower heads over the concrete and into the shelter of the storm machine. There were thirty-four altogether, and they cut and moved every single one.
Under the storm machine, they pulled the flowers to pieces. Cam and Robert took the big outer petals and laid them out in concentric circles on the stickiest patch of oil. They walked around and around in the dark, putting them in position to make a pattern they could hardly see. Off to one side, Zak sat patiently, working at what remained of the flower heads, stripping off all the green parts to leave pads of small, brown florets.
By the time all the large petals were laid out, the dark was already thinning. Robert glanced toward the garden beyond the storm machine, narrowing his eyes and trying to judge how late it was. There wasn’t much time left. And he had another flower to find.
"I’m starving," Cam said. "And exhausted."
"Eat some marigold petals. We can spare a few." Robert heard his own voice, sounding as brisk as hers did when she was giving orders. He was beginning to understand what it meant to be focused. To see the thing that needed doing and concentrate all your energies on getting it done. He nodded at the pattern of petals and the little, dark pads that Zak had made. "You finish off here. I have to get the last thing. I should be back in an hour or so."
As he set off, he was praying that his mother hadn’t been seized with a sudden desire to tidy the garden. The marigolds were grown deliberately, but this other plant was a weed. An intruder that scrambled along the bottom of the side wall, rooting in its crevices.
Stingo. Pimple-head. Poke plant.
It was so small and insignificant that he would never have noticed it on his own. But Emma had spotted it. For years, from the moment she had discovered its name, she’d taunted him with its soapy smell and the dirty feel of its leaves.
Louse-top. Pong-weed. Sneak-in.
When he was younger, it used to madden him. Time after time, he had tugged up all the horrible red stalks, trying to root out the whole plant. But it always had sneaked back somehow. In the end he’d given up, hating the insignificant, insistent flowers and the rampant way they spread.
He toiled across the concrete, keeping a nervous eye on the sky. It was just after dawn, and the world was made up of dim shapes that gradually became clearer as he went.
He was a dozen steps away from the side wall when the soap smell hit him. Peering ahead, he made out the ugly straggle of leaves and stalks that spread along the edge of the concrete and up the wall, clinging in any crack that offered a roothold.
As he walked forward, he began to notice the colors. The green of the delicately cut leaves shaded into a deep crimson. The stalks were blood-red, rich against the earth colors of the brick wall. Their tiny hairs caught the light like threads of crystal, and dozens of long, pointed seedpods stabbed at the air with hummingbird beaks.
It took him by surprise. For a second—looking from leaf to stalk to seedpod—he forgot why he had come. He just stood and stared at the intricate, graceful plants spread out along the wall.
Then he remembered that what he needed was a flower.
He knew that most of the flowers were gone before the marigolds came, but all he needed was one. One last, late bloom among the pointed seed heads. His eyes traveled around the leaves and over the stalks, searching. Surely there would be one left.
It took him almost ten minutes to spot it. It was right in the corner of the wall, growing with its back to him, so that he only glimpsed the pink petals behind the hairy swell of the base. It wasn’t until he’d struggled all the way around to the other side that he saw the flower properly.
It was stunning.
Five rounded petals spread into a classic flower shape, bigger than his head. Their fine, clear pink was streaked with white lines converging into the luminous green center. Out of that center, from the very heart of the flower, rose a cluster of translucent stems, each one tipped with brilliant orange pollen.
He stood and stared at it.
It’s beautiful.
Emma had taunted him with flowers like that a hundred times. And he had believed what she had said, grabbing at them with rough, angry hands. Crumpling them into nothing and ripping them out of the earth. He had hated them because he had never seen them properly. Because—
Because he was too big.
He stared at the flower for a long time. Then he hooked the shaft of his spear around the stalk and pulled the stem down until he could hold the top. Using the spear blade carefully, he cut through the arched stem, leaving the cut piece long enough to wind through the strings of his pack. With the flower nodding above his head, he set out back to the others.
BY THAT TIME, THE SUN WAS UP, AND THAT SHORT WALK WAS t
he most terrifying part of the whole journey. He was completely exposed, with the pink flower waving over his head to draw attention to him as he moved.
When he finally reached the shelter of the storm machine, Cam shot out and dragged him underneath.
"Are you insane?" she said. "What took you so long?"
"It’s all right." Robert slipped off his pack and worked the flower stem loose. "I found one."
The pink flower was pitifully small next to the big swirl of marigold petals. Looking at the two of them together, Robert felt a shiver of uncertainty. He imagined Emma’s eyes skimming over the picture they’d worked so hard to make, and he felt—silly.
She’ll never understand . . . .
But it was the only chance there was. He had to try.
Bending down, he laid the pink flower on the ground beside the pattern of marigold petals, choosing a spot where the leaked oil was thick and dark, so that the colors showed up clearly.
He was just in time. As he stood up again, there was a loud thud, and the ground quivered with the tread of heavy feet.
"They’re coming," Zak said softly.
Mom and Dad . . . the cars . . .
"Which one goes first?" Cam hissed.
Robert knew it didn’t matter. In a couple of seconds, both machines would be on the move. There was no chance of getting away from them.
"Just get down!" he snapped.
As they threw themselves flat onto the concrete, the high roof over them creaked and sagged. There was a loud, metallic crash. Then another one.
They’re both inside the cars, then . . .
Robert had been anticipating all that. It was the fumes that took him by surprise. As the engine started up above them, the puff of exhaust hit the great wall of slatted wood behind it and billowed back into the space where they were sheltering. They were engulfed in clouds of suffocating, poisonous smoke.
The next moment, the storm machines were on their way, in a burst of heat and stink and noise. Blinded and choking, Robert and Cam and Zak dragged themselves up and stumbled toward the side of the garden with their eyes streaming. Trying to reach clean air before they had to breathe again. They didn’t stop moving until they were close to the bottom of the side wall.
That wasn’t part of Robert’s plan. He wanted to be standing still and upright next to the pink flower, not doubled over and gasping for breath. He struggled to straighten up and stagger back into position, but there wasn’t time. He was still coughing when the ground began to quiver again.
There was a loud scrape beside the cliff wall of the house. The slatted wood swung away from him, its base catching on the concrete. Robert looked up and saw the huge, rounded toes of Emma’s black school shoes moving toward him.
24
THE AIR STIRRED, CARRYING THE FAINT RUBBER SCENT OF TIRES.
The front of the bike was a giant Ferris wheel, spinning against the darkness of the zigzag trees. And beside the bike was a tall black column—rounded shoes, and cloth, and a deep sound of breathing.
Emma.
It was a guess. The highest thing Robert could see, when he looked up, was the pale underside of a chin, jutting like overhanging rock. But it had to be Emma. He held his breath, willing her to look down. Willing her to see the petals they had taken so long to lay out.
The huge wheel rolled toward them and stopped suddenly. Still staring up, Robert saw the massive head tilt downward. He heard the noise of rushing air—a sharp, startled breath.
It was Emma, and she was staring down at the pattern on the concrete.
Robert looked, too, seeing it for the first time in the light. The colors sang against the black of the oily concrete.
The great circle they had made was almost too big for him to take in. Its center was a disc of tiny florets—thirty-four clumps of them, merged into a single, rich brown mass. From that center, hundreds of orange petals radiated outward, ring after ring, exploding into brilliance. It was a vast, glowing marigold, enormous and unmistakable.
And next to it, dwarfed by comparison, was a solitary, pink Herb Robert flower.
A giant Emma and a tiny Robert.
Let her see . . . . Let her understand . . . .
Her head was clearly visible now, its mass of carroty hair fallen forward around the face, every strand thick as a cable. It was Emma, and she’d seen the petals. She had to understand.
The huge black figure stood motionless for a second before there was any reaction. When the reaction came, it was horribly, appallingly wrong.
A ferocious shout erupted high above Robert’s head. The words were too deep, too loud for him to understand, but he recognized the rhythm of them, even with his hands clapped over his ears.
She was furious. She was out of control, yelling over her shoulder at someone he couldn’t see. Her dark shape shook terrifyingly, and a torrent of noise flooded back toward the house.
Then one of her great black shoes lashed out, kicking at the ground and scattering the petals, grinding them into the concrete. The heavy, ridged sole crashed down so close that Robert heard Cam shout a warning at him. But he was beyond being careful. He was burning up with frustration and despair.
She hasn’t understood! She hasn’t understood a thing! It was all a waste—all that time and planning and energy. Cam was right. They’re too different from us. We can’t make contact with them. They’re too different . . . .
Red rage swept over him, choking out everything else, and his hand reached out blindly, feeling for his spear. In that instant, he would have thrown a dagger, a grenade—even a bomb if he’d had one. He would have hit out with anything that might hurt enough to make him visible. Enough to force her into seeing him. I’m here! I’m just as real as you are! Look at me!
But instead of his spear, he found Zak’s hand. It closed around his, folding the fingers shut and pushing his arm down to his side. Robert struggled furiously, spinning around to yell at Zak, to mouth what he wanted to say if it couldn’t be heard.
Why won’t she look at us? I hate her—
But the shout froze on his lips. As he met Zak’s eyes, full on, the low light caught them aslant. They flashed bright blue, dazzling, and clear, and for an instant, Robert couldn’t see anything else. Only that face, rushing toward him out of the black tunnels of his own eyes.
It was you . . . .
The knowledge knocked the breath out of him. Everything that had happened spun in his head. Pain and fear and confusion. Struggle and beauty and death. His brain boiled with questions, too many to speak, too many ever to disentangle.
Zak’s lips moved, shaping a single word.
Now.
The sound was blotted out by the roar around them, but Robert heard it inside his head, as clearly as though it had been spoken into silence. And he understood that this was the moment he had come for.
This is the place where I can change things.
Slowly, still in that silence, he turned back and saw another huge figure coming through the gate. Its shoes were like Emma’s, massive and black, with toes like steep, rounded hills. But these toes were scuffed bare and there was a long groove scratched into the side of one of them.
He knew that scratch. It was twice as long as his whole body now, but he recognized the ugly, upward line and the shallow, hooked scrawl at the end. He’d done it when the shoe was new, catching his foot against a broken railing.
The second figure stopped beside the first. Robert saw its head move, looking down at the concrete. It turned from side to side, taking in the squashed mess of marigold petals and the little pink flower lying off to one side.
Zak’s fingers tightened around Robert’s hand for an instant. Then they loosened and withdrew, leaving him free to step forward. Robert was more afraid than he had ever been, through all the strangeness that had gone before. But he wasn’t nervous. He knew exactly what he had to do.
He stepped away from the wall and began to walk steadily out across the concrete. The sound above him thinned fo
r a second, and he caught the sound of Cam’s voice, shouting high and shrill.
"Robert! You can’t—"
But he didn’t stop. He went on walking, all the way across the concrete, until he reached the little pink Herb Robert flower. Then he turned. He turned away from Cam and Zak toward the two huge shapes and the great spoked wheels of the bicycles.
He was totally visible, completely exposed and vulnerable. The dusty brown of his skin stood out clearly against the black surface of the oily concrete. If the vast eyes above kept staring down, they couldn’t miss seeing where he was. And what he was.
The flowers had made a picture of that, an image of the unknown, to draw attention. But now he was there himself, more real than any image, small and unprotected. They could choose to recognize him and be disturbed. Or they could simply march on, trampling him under their feet.
That wasn’t his decision. All he could do was make himself visible. He stretched out his arm and touched the nearest petal of the flower that carried his name.
There was one last rumble above him, deep and sharp, and then complete silence. In the silence, the scratched shoes ahead of him began to flex. They bent into heavy creases across the center as their heels rose off the ground.
The huge, unthinkable figure who wore those shoes began to concertina, like a high-rise building folding itself away. The knees and the head came down and forward, and the great pale face hung over him like an asteroid, its surface rough and irregular. The mouth opened into a cave with quivering walls, big enough to swallow him up a dozen times over. The nostrils gaped like tunnels disappearing into the dark, with hairs clustered inside the entrance.
And the eyes—
Tilting his head back as far as it would go, Robert stared up at them. Their rounded surfaces gleamed wet and vast flicked by eyelashes like rigid wires, thick as his fingers. Their pupils were windows into darkness. The irises were gray-green, striped in a dozen places with faint brown lines. Individual as a fingerprint. They quivered and drew back, contracting as the eyes opened wider.
From the darkness of the pupils, Robert saw a tiny, mud-stained figure staring back at him. For a second he was looking into the dark cavern, and the figure was Lorn in her old bat-leather tunic. So small, so small . . . She was pale with hunger, and the bones stood out sharply in her cheeks.
The Dark Ground Page 18