I send the thought out as though it might actually serve as a shield: Don’t come down here, don’t come down here, don’t come down here.
Then: a small miracle. Ken/Neth doesn’t turn into this hallway, or even glance down it. He just dashes past, out of my sight. I’ve never seen him move so fast.
As his footsteps fade, I sink down to the floor and rest my head against the marble wall and let out a few of the tears that have built up behind my eyes.
And it’s then, with my ear pressed against the marble, that I hear Roo.
I can’t hear her words, but I can hear her voice, talking fast, its pitch moving up and down. I can tell that she’s scared, that she’s determined, that she’s trying to figure out how to get them out of there. Then Dad’s low, solemn voice. And Kyle, making some sort of suggestion. Roo again, insisting on something. Mom speaking with urgency. Dad replying. A rush of high-pitched words from Señora V, maybe some kind of chant or prayer. And back to Roo. I can even sense Señor V’s gentle silence.
My whole life. My whole life is in that room. I can feel the two halves of my heart, twisting around in the left side of my chest—an actual physical pain.
I want to yell out to them but I know my voice would echo down these empty marble halls, and Ken/Neth would be back here in a second to toss me into the room along with them. Which at first doesn’t sound that bad, but then it does—when it occurs to me that we’d all die, that there’d be no way for me to even try to save them.
Not that I’m doing much saving anyway.
Still, I stand up and stroke the wall. Jeez, is there even a line in the marble? Something, anything?
“Roo!” I whisper into the marble. “Roo! Kyle! Mom! Dad!”
But of course they can’t hear me. They carry on with their own conversation and I can tell that Roo’s getting angry. I recognize that pitch of her voice, right before meltdown.
The volcano offers up this terrifically loud groan, a groan so loud I can feel it in my skull. It strikes me that any of these rumbles could be the final one.
And the reality slams me, along with the despair: The people I love are hopelessly trapped in a prison cell at the base of an erupting volcano.
I stand there with that fact for a second, and then my brain goes: Wait. Revision. At the base of an almost-erupting volcano.
And wait a sec. The words push their way into my brain: ONCE THE LAST BIRD DIES, THE VOLCANO WILL BLOW.
I have to admit: I’d totally forgotten about Miss Perfect. Like, until this very second, I haven’t given her a thought. I’ve only been thinking about getting the humans out of here.
But: If the prophecy is true, all I need to do is make sure Miss Perfect doesn’t die!
Which is a big if.
Not to mention I have no idea where Miss Perfect is right now. Or if she’s even still alive.
But then I get it: Lab A. Pen 98.
Lab A, Pen 98!
When I stand in the lobby and strain my ears hard, I can hear the faraway sound of footsteps. I run after that sound faster than I thought I could run, down another long, white hallway, down a flight of stairs, and then another hallway, another flight of stairs, following the footsteps. From the outside you could never imagine how many hallways and staircases and doorways there are in this building. I mean, it doesn’t look that huge, but here we go, another stairway, another hallway.
Finally, around one bend, I catch a glimpse of Ken/Neth, the black back of his tuxedo jacket. That’s when I take a second-long break to slip out of my shoes so I can follow him silently. I pick them up and pull in my breath and pretend I’m not scared.
On the next staircase, Ken/Neth’s footsteps pause, and, rounding the corner above him, I pause too, sucking my stomach in and pressing myself into the curve of the wall. It’s like I can feel his eyes searching, can practically hear his nose sniffing for me. But then his footsteps continue onward.
It starts to feel like we’re miles underground. There’s this low grumbling as we descend, the murmur of the volcano, and it feels hotter here, as though with each step we’re getting closer to the molten center where lava is brewing. I feel more and more claustrophobic, my heart freaking out, positive that on the next staircase Ken/Neth is going to turn at the wrong moment. Sometimes I think my body might just spin itself around and run up, up, up.
And then Ken/Neth stops.
Peeking out from behind the corner, I see that he’s come to a dead end. I watch him stand there in front of the blank white marble wall. No stairways or hallways or doorways leading off in any direction. And I think, Oh my gosh, is he lost?
Then I feel stupid when the marble wall slides to the side. Duh. Of course. Another one of these.
As Ken/Neth steps in, I race barefoot down the hallway after him, overwhelmed by a strange double feeling—total desperation to get in there before the wall slides shut plus total terror at the fact that I’m about to follow an evil man into a sealed room. Sealed like a coffin—that’s the phrase that jumps into my mind.
The wall is already three-quarters closed when I reach it, and as I squeeze through some kind of instinct kicks in, some kind of animal urgency, the blazing desire to avoid being sealed in, and without planning to, without even thinking about it, I twist around and stick my shoes into the crack between the sliding wall and the solid wall right after I pass between them. I only manage to get one shoe partway into the gap before the wall crumples its thin sole, but still the shoe is there, keeping the sliding wall not even a millimeter away from the other wall. I barely have time to think That’s so the kind of thing Roo would do before my instinct, or my fear, sends me down onto my stomach. I abandon my other shoe there and crawl forward into the room, hoping against hope that Ken/Neth doesn’t know I’m in here with him, that I didn’t make too much noise, that only I heard the soft crunch of the shoe crumpling.
As I creep forward I look around in wonder. This isn’t like any other part of La Lava. Yes, it’s a huge white marble room, but it’s filled with scientific equipment. It reminds me of the lab Dad used to take us to at his university. Microscopes and test tubes and sinks and long tables and high stools and whiteboards on the walls and hooks holding those white doctors’ robes.
And cages. Rows and rows of empty cages. As though awaiting the day when there will be thousands of Lava-Throated Volcano trogons in this laboratory.
I’m there on my stomach wondering how I’m going to find Pen 98. I stare up at the cages but I don’t see any numbers. And also, strangely, I don’t hear footsteps anymore.
Staying low, I scan the room, looking for Ken/Neth’s legs, when suddenly the silence is cracked by an impossible-to-describe sound. High-pitched, horrible, it makes your brain hurt and your eyes ache, forces your blood to run the wrong way in your veins, fills you with sickness.
Yet I move straight toward that sound, crawling beneath tables and between stools toward the fourth row of cages, because now I can see Ken/Neth’s legs, sprinting away from the scream, galloping off toward the far corner of the lab. And I know that only Miss Perfect is wild enough to make a sound like that.
But as I approach the cage, as I stand up and see that its door is flung wide open, I realize it’s not Miss Perfect who’s making the sound.
It’s a spectacular bird, the bird standing there at the front of the cage, screaming. I recognize it from Kyle’s Polaroid—but that photograph was just a pale imitation of the creature before me now. And I understand in a flash of certainty that this is Dad’s bird—the LTVT Dad surrendered to La Lava so they wouldn’t harm us.
The bird’s throat gleams like liquid gold, his body is such a pure true blue that it hurts my eyes, and his glittering wings are spread out across the door of the cage to protect Miss Perfect, who’s lying limp and shrunken against the back of it.
So this is where they brought Miss Perfect when they shot her down at the gala.
And this must be her mate.
As if in response to the bird’s scream, the
volcano growls. A rumble from the core of the world joining a cry from what is probably the last living male of the species.
For a second I’m frozen, not sure what to do, stuck between the rumble and the scream. But then I think about what Roo would do if she were here, how happy she’d be to see Miss Perfect with her mate, how brave she’d feel.
“Mr. Beautiful,” I murmur at the screaming bird. A name I know Roo would approve of. “Mr. Beautiful, Mr. Beautiful, Mr. Beautiful,” I keep murmuring as I reach toward the cage. He claws my temple first, then slashes my cheek. I can feel hot, thick blood running down the sides of my face.
But I continue, reaching past him, through the small hole between his wing and his body, and he’s so shocked I’m not running away that it takes him a second to gather himself enough to scratch at my eyebrow, a motion clearly intended for my eye. Somehow, though, I’m floating above pain right now, my mind focused on my hand moving into the cage, my fingers opening to gently seize Miss Perfect, expecting a protest from her and surprised when she comes easily.
As I pull her out of the cage past Mr. Beautiful, he lunges for my throat, but a millisecond before slicing me, he flaps his wings awkwardly and draws back.
Because Miss Perfect is nuzzling woozily into me, twisting her body to show me the place where the tranquilizer dart is still attached to her stomach. For the first time in my life the sight of a needle doesn’t make me shiver. I just yank it out of her and toss it back into the cage. She shuts her eyes, and lies there weakly, and smiles up at me.
And then the craziest thing yet—Mr. Beautiful pushes off the cage, flaps his wings, and lands on my head. I barely notice his talons piercing my scalp.
Mr. Beautiful and I gaze down at Miss Perfect, watching in amazement as she begins to fill out before our eyes, her blood pumping strongly again, her feathers starting to shimmer, her muscles regaining their tension.
The miraculous silence is broken by footsteps behind me, and suddenly I’m back to where I was—how did I go even a minute without being terrified of Ken/Neth? I glance over my shoulder and see him there with a pair of enormous needles in his hands. A beak-shaped gash at his temple sends blood rolling down his cheek to his neck. He seems to grow taller and larger by the second, his face blank like the face of someone who’s never smiled in his entire life.
As I start running, Mr. Beautiful lets out another earth-shattering scream, and Miss Perfect, now revived enough to stand up in my hand, joins him in the scream, a scream that rises from the depths of their bones. I know this scream is for Ken/Neth’s benefit, but still I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to hear again. I run between the rows of cages, their scream all around me and inside me, carrying me forward faster than I’ve ever been carried.
But the scream can’t get me through the marble wall—I stop there, hoist Miss Perfect up onto my head to join Mr. Beautiful, and frantically try to wedge my fingers into the minuscule sliver created by my jammed shoe.
The wall makes whirring mechanical malfunctioning sounds but it’s not budging, and Ken/Neth’s footsteps are right behind me. I whirl around to face him with my weird crown of shrieking birds, and I look straight in his eyes, because if he’s going to destroy me and my family and the birds I might as well show him some fury while I can.
And he’s standing there with his needles, and he’s about to lunge, and behind my back I’m still trying to shove my fingers into the sliding wall.
I only have a split second to wonder why Ken/Neth hasn’t grabbed me yet when suddenly the wall gives—my shoe slips down, my fingers wedge in, the wall starts sliding open before immediately starting to slide shut again. I stick my leg backward into the gap, and the wall jams there, pressing hard on my calf.
“GO!” I scream at the birds. “GO!”
They’re still shrieking, clawing and scratching and piercing my head as they launch themselves off it, squeezing through the narrow gap in the sliding wall, and there they go, and I crane my neck to glimpse them, heading up the hallway, up the stairway, upward, upward, their scream fading.
My knee is trapped and twisted by the wall and now that the birds and their shriek are gone I’m starting to feel pain again, the pressure of the wall becoming way too much to handle. I yank my leg out of it and it slides shut with an angry groan. I turn back to face Ken/Neth.
He’s standing there, staring at me, his arms still raised at his sides, his hands clutching the needles. I stare back at him through the blood running down my face. I wonder what’s going to happen next. Just me and Ken/Neth in this sealed room, and I’ve done exactly what he didn’t want me to do, and now I know that he’s the World’s Greatest Liar, and now I know that all this time he’s been spying on me and Mom and Roo for La Lava. He doesn’t care about my family, or about birds that are almost extinct, or about being a good person. I don’t even consider begging him for mercy.
All the courage is swiftly draining out of my muscles, and I can feel a tremor of dread moving upward from my legs to the rest of my body. I clench my jaw so Ken/Neth won’t see my teeth chattering. It occurs to me that he’s about to attack me with those needles, and I cross my arms over my chest, as if that would make any difference at all.
“You’re brave, Madeline,” Ken/Neth whispers, letting his hands fall limply down by his sides. His face looks solemn, maybe sincere, but his eyes won’t meet mine. “And you come from a great family.”
I blink at him in shock. Before I get the chance to absorb this—Is he joking? Is this just a cruel setup to lull me into calmness before he does whatever he’s going to do to me?—a new sound comes marching down the hallway toward us, the pow-pow-pow of heels on marble. And red-hot panic races through my veins.
Patricia Chevalier! So he was just putting me off-guard before she showed up to torture me in some other way! She’s probably already slaughtered Miss Perfect and Mr. Beautiful on one of the stairways. I shiver, picturing their blood dripping down the white marble steps.
I’m pulling away from the wall, preparing to face her, when I realize my dress is stuck in the sliding door! I look over at Ken/Neth to see what he’ll do with me now that I’m completely trapped, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s simply staring at my bloody hair. And I’m going, Okay, so I guess he’s just waiting to pass me off to Patricia Chevalier—the only person, frankly, who scares me more than Ken/Neth himself.
The footsteps pause on the other side of the wall. There’s a heaving sound, a woman groaning, and the door slides slowly, slowly open. I scoot out of the way and shut my eyes. I’m not ready for this.
“Holy Jesús,” she murmurs, but it sounds more like a prayer than a curse.
My eyes pop open.
Whoa. Double whoa. Quadruple whoa!
Vivi! Vivi of the dark shining hair! Vivi of the grass-green dress! Her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, her body jammed there in the doorway star-shaped, arms and legs spread wide to keep it open as it squeezes her. I can see her sculpted arm muscles straining against the pressure.
“Thank god for my personal trainer,” she says, struggling into the room.
She straightens her dress as the wall slides shut behind her.
“Dios mío,” Vivi mutters as she takes in the laboratory, the cages, my bloody face, Ken/Neth’s bloody temple, and the needles clenched in his hands. “It’s all true, isn’t it?”
Ken/Neth is still stuck in his frozen stare.
“Thank god I found you,” Vivi says to me.
And the volcano rumbles, but softly.
Vivi turns to look straight at Ken/Neth. “Do you want to know what hurts my heart right now?” she demands. “Thinking about how much money I’ve given this place.”
Then she shakes her shoulders, as though shaking it all off.
“Unless you want your name smeared across the front page of the New York Times tomorrow morning, you’re going to come upstairs with me right now,” she barks at Ken/Neth. “But first give me those needles.”
I look up at her, amazed�
�she’s treating Ken/Neth like he’s not a threat to her or me or anyone else. And I look over at him, waiting for him to protest or yell or pull out a gun or something.
But, dazed, Ken/Neth steps toward Vivi and hands her the needles. She seems comfortable, maybe even happy, as though she’s used to seizing all sorts of weapons from all sorts of men.
“So, where’s your family?” she asks me, and then to Ken/Neth: “Why don’t you open this godforsaken wall for us, buddy.”
Vivi looks expectantly at him, and I try to imitate the look on her face as I stare at him. But Ken/Neth barely seems to notice us. He’s gazing intensely down at the floor, as though the slabs of white marble might explain something important.
“I’m … sorry,” he says, quieter than a whisper. “I … Somehow I …”
“The wall, buddy,” Vivi says impatiently. “Open it.”
“Oh yes, of course,” Ken/Neth murmurs politely, stepping forward and gazing upward at the face-recognition device on the ceiling.
As the wall slides open, he reaches down, picks up my crunched shoe and my noncrunched shoe, and hands them to me. I slip them on (the right shoe a bit uncomfortable, but better than nothing) and stare at Ken/Neth in wonder. What is up with him? Where’s Mr. Evil, Mr. I-Won’t-Help-You, Mr. I’m-Gonna-Chase-You-Down?
With Vivi on his left side and me on his right, Ken/Neth leads us through the sliding wall, down hallways, up staircases. And as we walk, Vivi talks.
“When I get a gut feeling about something I won’t let it go,” she tells us. I love her low, almost growly voice. These warm waves of relief are washing over me as I listen to her. Her words swirl around me—I hear some, others slip away on the warm waves. “See, ever since I got to La Lava I’ve been having these mystical dreams … too much to go into, old cultures and amulets and stuff like that … suffice it to say, I had this feeling I was needed here, this gut feeling … and then when I didn’t spot the odd girl in the green dress as they were rounding everyone up for evacuation, I snuck away.… You should have seen that Patricia Chevalier, flying out of here in a white SUV all by herself, not stopping to help another soul, screeching in terror the whole way.… Well, let me tell you she doesn’t know the first thing about terror, just wait till the world’s best investigative reporters starting banging down her door.… I grew up in some pretty wild areas; I am not scared of volcanoes … so I started searching this whole place for whatever it was my gut was acting up about … knew I was on the right track when these two just ridiculously stunning screaming dream birds flew over me like bats out of hell on their way up and out … but the dead-end hallway … if it hadn’t been for that little bit of green dress sticking through …”
Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green Page 24