“Oh, I see,” came the little boy’s voice, though he had not taken that form. Val suspected that, without a host, he had only enough strength to create fragments of his false selves. The air around him crawled, infested. “You’ve come to play with me. How kind.”
Val’s skin erupted in goose bumps.
“Wrong,” came Zoey’s tense voice. “We’ve come to destroy you.”
“Wrong.” Now the little boy’s voice held no trace of amusement. “You’ve come to feed me.”
His white round gaze flicked to Marion. “I see you, little traveler.”
His voice spat every word like a mockery. Val blinked, sweat stinging her eyes. In the space of that blink, he lunged at them.
Val dug her heels into the black mud and thought of the long reaches of stone beneath her feet. The Rock that had been her home, and her mother’s home, and her grandmother’s. It had witnessed their suffering; its children had been stolen from it by a beast that did not belong. And now it had had enough.
So had Val.
Half crouched between Marion and the Collector, Val thrust out her hands and watched her light fly.
He shrieked and recoiled, springing across the stones to dodge Val and attack Zoey instead. Val heard Zoey’s distant shout, felt the ground vibrate as though something deep below had jerked awake. The Collector screamed once more, a wildcat yowling for its kill, and launched himself above them. His misshapen form blocked what little Val could see of the dimming moon. A righteous rage spiked in her breast.
That moon was not his to smother.
She twisted around, feet firmly in place, reached down into the ripe soil with every thought she possessed—every ounce of energy, every feeling—and let herself effloresce. Fire scorched her chest, her lungs, her palms. The heat ripped tears from her eyes, but she did not waver.
Then, like a door slamming shut on a room flooded with warmth, Val’s light vanished. Every ounce of strength she’d felt coursing through her body disappeared.
Bereft, she asked the Rock: Where did you go?
The answer became clear in an instant.
The earth directly underneath Marion’s feet shook, ready to ignite.
Marion drew a shaky breath.
“Now,” she whispered, and her eyes locked with Val’s—triumphant and a little sad.
For one vicious instant, Val considered aborting their plan. She would wrap Marion in her arms and shield her from the necessity of what was about to happen. She would burn around her, an unwavering human flame, until the Collector scorched himself to ash trying to get to them.
But instead, she tore her gaze from Marion and dropped to the ground. She wrapped her arms around Marion’s left leg and saw Zoey, inches from her, eyes wide and teary, do the same to Marion’s right. In the space between Marion’s calves, their knuckles knocked together like a clumsy kiss.
Above them, the Collector shrieked and dove at Marion, his fall erratic but inevitable. Zoey’s fingers clamped tight over hers. Val pressed her cheek against Marion’s thigh, squeezed her eyes shut. A tidal wave crashed through Marion’s body, surging up from the wet rocky ground beneath them. Val’s hands stung as if they were being molded to the surface of the sun. Marion shuddered violently, Val’s and Zoey’s firm grips clearly the only thing holding her up.
Beneath them, the Rock opened. The sea surged up to meet them and swallowed.
QUICKLY, NOW.
Quickly, the Rock explained in whispers, in the flutter of a thousand wings, in the shifting of the known universe against the unknown:
Please.
Please understand.
I am a small rock.
I am a great Earth.
This is only one monster.
This is one of many monsters.
You are a small girl.
And you are a small girl.
And you are a small girl.
You are mighty.
You are one, and one, and one.
You are fragile.
You can move mountains.
You are breakable.
You will never break.
This power is mine.
And now is it yours, too.
You must keep fighting.
You must never stop fighting.
You must light the path for others to find their footing.
You must—
Marion
The Obscura
Marion had expected this tesser to be a violent affair. She’d anticipated being knocked against unseen walls as though traversing a wormhole from a sci-fi movie, ripped across the universe from one existence to another.
But instead, she slipped easily through a cool narrow space, not so slim as to feel claustrophobic, thin enough to press against her skin like an embrace. The twin sensations of Val and Zoey clinging to her legs anchored her. The air around her was smooth and supple. For a moment Marion imagined herself floating luxuriously through a pool of pure mountain water, as yet untouched by mankind.
She wondered if she would see Charlotte, and she cried out, desperate, into a seam of sky. The knotted air caught her voice and warped it.
Then her feet slammed to ground; the illusion of ease fell away.
At first her disorientation was so complete that she couldn’t lift her head, much less stand. She lay on something flat and hard. She moved her fingers and felt a rough surface—packed sand, covered in a fine film of grit. A strange scent filled her nose, sour and sharp and full-bodied. Gasoline mixed with the bracing bite of snow.
Opening her eyes, she exhaled; her breath turned to clouds in the frigid air. She heard a slow, uneven crackling sound somewhere to her left, reminding her of a frozen lake ready to shatter. A flutter of fear stirred in her chest.
“Get up, Marion,” she whispered, mostly to reassure herself that she seemed to still be alive.
She pushed herself into a sitting position, wobbled for a moment, and stood. Her legs felt rubbery and abused, freshly born. Taking in her surroundings, her mind seemed to separate from her body, refusing to accept that what her eyes told her was not, in fact, a remarkable lie.
Beside her, Val and Zoey shook themselves awake and rose to their feet. The three of them stood in the center of a vast salt flat, gleaming white and unending. The black sky overhead was frightening for its brilliance, painted in glittering waves of galaxies so near that Marion felt certain she could stretch out her arm and scoop the stars into her palm like fresh powdered snow. Fat white trees dotted the flat. They were bulbous, sick-looking, the land around their roots sitting in piles like slabs of cracked sugar.
Marion’s skin hummed with recognition. Those trees—she’d seen them before, in the first obscura she’d visited. The snow-covered beach, the amber sea.
She examined the nearest tree. It stood straight for a couple of feet and then jutted to the side. Branches sprouted from its swollen trunk, haphazard and agitated.
And that’s when Marion realized that the bone cry was gone. She could neither hear it nor feel it nearby, silent but waiting. The twanging taut cord that had lived in her chest since Nightingale threw her had gone utterly silent.
Without its familiar hum to keep her company, the absence of Charlotte felt like a physical lack, raw and roaring.
Steam escaped from the bark of the alien trees, unfurling in thin spools. Marion didn’t like them. They weren’t Sawkill’s trees—craggy but good-natured, spooky in the right light but ultimately well-meaning, their rough bark crusted with the sea. These trees were ill, unnatural. They were facsimiles of trees crafted by cruel hands that knew nothing of warmth.
Marion approached the nearest one. She reached for its lowest branch, hesitated, then convinced herself to touch it.
The surface stung her hand with cold. Marion peered more closely. The trees were covered in a lustrous gauze of ice that caught the starlight and winked at her when she moved. That was the crackling sound—these trees growing and breathing beneath their wintry coating.
She r
ubbed her palms together, suddenly desperate for warmth. She couldn’t decide if the sight of the trapped trees was exquisite or terribly sad.
“What is this place?” breathed Val, coming to stand beside Marion.
Zoey paced nearby, her skin a glimmering soft brown in the eerie starlight. She’d managed to hold on to her bat through everything, and Marion felt comforted by the earthly sight of it.
“It’s an obscura,” Zoey whispered. “I guess.” Another pause, and now her voice wavered slightly. “If the Hand of Light knew what they were talking about, that is.”
“I knew he was from a place like this. A hidden part of the world. He bragged about it, like that made him special.” Val dragged her fingers along a branch. Her fingers came away dusted with minuscule ice flakes. “But it’s not what I expected, and I don’t know what it means.”
Zoey’s reply came quietly. “Neither do I.”
Marion thought of the black book, its binding stuffed with illustrations and scrawled instructions. An idea had been forming in her mind, ever since Chief Harlow and Briggs had told her about the Far Place, that night in Zoey’s lamplit kitchen. She hadn’t told anyone about her idea. She had hoped, perhaps stupidly, that she would never have to. But now, it seemed, the moment had arrived.
Zoey turned her free hand over in the air at her waist. Around her fingers, the air shifted, like she’d dragged her hand through water. “I still feel Sawkill. How is that possible?”
Val glanced down at her own palm, where a tiny flame sprang to life. “The moth told me that Sawkill gave this to us. It’s the Rock’s power—”
“And now it’s ours, too,” Zoey finished, eyes wide. “I heard that just now, before we landed here. Or, I felt it, I guess.”
Marion stared at Val in wonder. “You saw one of the moths?”
A shy smile tugged at Val’s lips. “Yeah.”
Zoey hugged the bat close. “Okay, so what now? What do we do?”
Marion opened her mouth to reply, and then caught Val’s expression—so full of an awful sadness that Marion felt the weight of it solidify in her chest like a stone.
“Please don’t,” Val whispered. “You don’t know what will happen to you there.”
Marion hadn’t had the chance to tell Val what Briggs had told them—that beyond the obscurae existed a Far Place unreachable by human and monster alike. She assumed Zoey hadn’t had the chance, either. And yet . . . that look on Val’s face.
Val had guessed Marion’s plan. Val knew.
“How do you know about that?” Marion asked, attempting to act calm.
“Sometimes,” Val replied, after a pause, “after feeding, he would tell me things. Like a drunk man spilling secrets. A few times, he mentioned something called the Far Place. A realm beyond his home. He was afraid of it, Marion. More afraid of it than anywhere else.”
“Why?” Zoey asked.
“Because he didn’t understand it.” Val’s brow furrowed. “He told me that place was a trick, a deceit. He told me it was an ending, and it terrified him.”
And so that’s where I have to go, Marion knew. Her heart kicked against her rib cage in protest. That’s the only way to truly kill him.
She hoped.
Soft light peeked through the cracks between Val’s fingers. Her eyes glinted brighter than the impossible stars above. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll burn him. Zoey will smash him to pieces.”
“And if that doesn’t work, and we all die trying?” Marion kissed Val’s faintly glowing palm. The minuscule white flame resting on Val’s life line warmed Marion’s lips. She realized she would never again make Val come apart under her mouth—that she would never make anyone feel such pleasure, ever again, that she would never be hugged, that she would never feel cold, that she would never wake up in sunlight on lazy mornings—and swallowed against the bitter tightness of her throat. “He’ll go back to Sawkill, or somewhere else, and more people will die. I can’t let that happen.”
“Wait, what?” Zoey hurried over, bat held loosely at her side. She looked from Marion to Val and back again, shaking her head. “Tell me I heard you wrong just now. Marion, there are tons of monsters, all over the world. Dad and Briggs said so, and they may have lied about some things, but I don’t think they lied about that. Even if we get rid of this asshole, more will still be out there!” Her tears spilled over. Impatiently she dried her face. “It’s not our job to save the world. It can’t be. That’s not fair.”
“If it’s not our job,” Marion asked quietly, “whose is it?”
Then the tree Marion and Val had been standing beside exploded.
Branches went spinning, shedding thin spirals of ice flakes as they flew. Marion ducked, stumbling over a crack in the ground.
Val and Zoey lunged in front of her, crouched defensively—Val’s hands raised and flashing, Zoey with her bat ready to strike in one hand and her other hand flat like a shield.
Then Zoey moaned, “Shit.”
The tree had been decapitated, its branches flung across the flat like the perimeter of debris surrounding a detonation site. Out of its swollen trunk oozed bubbling black liquid and thick globs of sick yellow pus. Tiny mouths within the pus opened and closed, letting out small agonized screams.
Crawling out of the tree, dragging himself up from inside the ruined trunk, was a pale, flesh-colored beast with long limbs and cratered skin. Lidless black eyes—like holes drilled into soft clay—gazed unblinking from beneath a severe, jutting brow framed by batlike ears. Long flaps of skin trailed between his shoulders and elbows, and long two-clawed hands shaped like hooked scythes. From the skin flaps hung clusters of bloodied feathers; between his joints stretched ropy strings of flesh that bunched together and pulled apart with his every movement. Slippery knobs of skin floated up and down his arms like melting wax, merging with the elastic joint-skin to knit new hands that punched out of his arms—thick and bludgeon-like, with long bent fingers. His back legs ended in long, clawed feet with toes thick as tree branches. Glistening with slime, they curved under the narrow soles of his feet and seemed to bear all his weight.
He blinked, drew in a rattling breath. His lipless jaw, so wide it hinged just below his ears, dropped open with an earsplitting roar. Inside his gaping mouth writhed a dozen smaller ones, bursting out like tentacles and lined with tiny chomping teeth.
Watching him emerge from the tree as if in slow motion, Marion at first was full of a desperate, screaming doubt.
Surely this wasn’t right.
She was imagining things. She was dreaming. This was a friendly beast who suffered from unfortunate genetics. He would guide them home, share with them the secret of destroying all the world’s monsters. They would return to Earth bearing instructions for lasting peace.
Then the creature roared. Zoey dropped her bat, clapping her hands over her ears. Val did the same, turning to shove Marion back. “Run!” she shouted, though Marion could hardly hear her over the din. “Run, Marion!”
The monster lunged, his fleshy wings opening wide. He shrieked with what Marion knew in her bones was pure, vicious appetite.
The next few seconds passed with excruciating slowness:
Val was the first to act. She screamed and met him halfway—part girl, part dazzling incandescence. The monster slammed into her; his wing clipped her chest and swiped her easily aside. She let out a pained cry, hit the ground hard, and rolled.
The monster landed, shaking the world. His left wing sizzled, charred. For the first time Marion realized how large he was—tall as a grizzly on his hind legs, longer than a giant squid.
She knew Sawkill probably couldn’t hear her—or if it could, that it might not be able to help her any more than it already had—but still she thought of the Rock and prayed for help.
I need to take us to the Far Place, she thought. Me, and the beast.
Zoey rushed at the Collector with a furious battle cry. She dodged his first blow, one of his sword-size claws swiping through the air m
ere inches from her back. She ducked and wheeled back around, slammed her bat down on his tail—fleshy and ringed, like a rat’s, and thick as Zoey’s torso. Then Zoey jerked up her hand and aimed.
Marion’s skin jolted, electrified. Energy crashed into the Collector’s chest like a battering ram, but it didn’t fell him. He shook his head, saliva flying from his mouth, and swung around to knock Zoey clean off her feet with one of his back legs.
I need to send them home, Marion thought desperately—to the Rock, to herself. Zoey moaned, clutching her side. Val shakily tried to push herself back to her feet; her bloodied nightgown hung in shreds.
At the sight of them reeling and wounded, something inside Marion responded—a coiling, a gathering.
I need to do both at once.
And soon.
The Collector’s bulging head whipped around to look at her. He roared, and terrible pain shot through her skull, ear to ear, and the question from her childhood returned to her: What do you think it feels like to be electrocuted?
This. It felt like this.
Charlotte had always laughed at her for being scared of storms. Love, the chances of that are one in a million. Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you.
In the cloud of pain clogging her vision, Marion saw Charlotte’s smiling face.
Sisters two and sisters true, whispered Charlotte’s ghost.
Marion clutched the starfish charm at her neck. You love me, and I love you.
Then she laughed. Inside her, the Rock wound tighter and tighter—a spring ready to launch.
This power is mine, and it is yours, too.
“Val!” she called out. “Zoey!”
Her voice, all things considered, sounded pretty commanding to her own ears, and she applauded herself for being not just a good, steady girl—not just Marion the rock, Marion the plainer sister, Marion the grave little mountain—but a woman who would be remembered by the people who mattered.
The Collector leaped—his many mouths gaping open to taste her, his hairless wings spread, the layers of his scream cutting the air like claws on glass.
Beyond him, Val raced to her side. She was shouting something, but Marion couldn’t make out the words. Zoey was there, too, reaching for Marion with one hand.
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