The Harp and the Ravenvine

by Ted Sanders

  They’ll find us.

  “The Riven,” Chloe said.

  “Yes.”

  Chloe’s dad looked over at Isabel but said nothing. Joshua, meanwhile, huddled against the driver’s-side door, watching Chloe fearfully. Chloe wrapped the raven’s eye in her hands, trying to bury its blooming light. “What did you do?” she asked for a third time.

  “It was an accident!” Isabel cried. “I told you, I was only playing, trying to see what Jess’s harp could do. I was only peeling back the veins, pulling them inside out. There was no danger, not with that little harp, I never—”

  “Danger,” Chloe said. “Danger of what?”

  Isabel hesitated. She looked at Chloe’s dad, as if he had the answers, but he remained silent, gripping the steering wheel like he was strangling it. “Obversion,” said Isabel.

  Chloe had never heard that exact word before, but she knew that the obverse of something was its opposite. “A reversal, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “So instead of hiding us from the Riven, now this stone is revealing us. It’s calling to them!” Chloe looked down at the orange-yellow light leaking from between her fingers. It grew slowly brighter by the second. She started rolling down the window, letting warm night air push into the car.

  “No!” Isabel said. “You can’t just get rid of it.”

  “The hell I can’t.”

  Isabel reached over the seat and pressed the tip of her finger against the leestone. “It’s warm. Don’t you see? The light—it’s already grown from nothing into something.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The light of an ordinary raven’s eye shrinks for a reason. And now, with the obversion . . . it grows for a reason.”

  Chloe knew all too well that the usual purple cloud of a raven’s eye shrank whenever the Riven were focusing on the bearer of the stone. It shrank as the leestone absorbed that attention and eventually lost power. But now everything was backward. This burning yellow cloud was growing. “They already know we’re here,” Chloe said. “Is that what you’re saying? They’re already after us?”

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “And whatever security we’ve earned from the leestones at Horace’s, or at the academy, it’s gone now.”

  “Then I’ll destroy the stone.” She leaned toward the window.

  “No!” Isabel said. “It won’t matter—in fact, it might make it worse. You might bring every Riven in the city down on us.”

  “According to you,” Chloe said.

  “According to me, yes. I’m sorry, Clover. I never meant—”

  “Stop it! Just stop it!” cut in Chloe, tired of excuses.

  “It’s okay, Belle,” her father said soothingly—maddeningly. “It’s okay.” He looked in the rearview mirror anxiously, but not at Chloe. She realized he was checking to see if they were being followed. More than any of them, he knew what it was like to suffer at the hands of the Riven. And he was the one Chloe was worried about now.

  Chloe cursed to herself, resisting the urge to look back. She didn’t know what to believe. If only Horace were here—maybe he would be able to logic out what was happening, figure out what Isabel done, how this damn Tan’kindi was actually working. Or better yet!—he could send it through the Fel’Daera, erase it from existence for a while. But she couldn’t risk taking it back there. She glanced over at Joshua. The boy was still cowering against the door, clearly afraid of the burning leestone.

  “We need to get to the lake,” Isabel said. “Someplace with a pier. We need to throw the stone into the water—the deeper, the better.”

  “Navy Pier,” said Chloe’s dad.

  Isabel shook her head. “Too many people. We need someplace quieter.”

  That didn’t make much sense to Chloe. Safety in numbers, right? Surely the Riven wouldn’t dare to chase them down when there were crowds of people around—assuming any of this was true in the first place.

  Joshua spoke. “There’s a closer pier anyway.”

  “Where, Joshua?” asked Isabel. “Tell us where.”

  “Almost straight down the road we’re on. Go all the way to Lake Shore Drive. Just a little bit north, there’s a beach with lots of sand. A long pier, hooked like a clothes hanger. The water is deep.”

  “Perfect,” said Isabel. She leaned into Chloe’s dad, patting his arm. “Get us there. Fast as you can.”

  They drove on, gunning it between stoplights and sitting nervously when they were caught by a red. The leestone grew brighter and warmer in Chloe’s hands. Time and again she almost chucked it out the window, Isabel’s warnings be damned. How did a raven’s eye work? And how had Isabel reversed that process? Chloe had heard Horace’s tale about tossing a raven’s eye into the street, shattering it, and how it had drawn Dr. Jericho away, saving him. Maybe with things in reverse right now, Isabel was right—maybe shattering the stone would be the worst thing she could do.

  Or maybe this entire thing was a lie.

  And then, as they were stopped at a red light, a flash of movement caught Chloe’s eye. A strange, slashing flicker in the driver’s-side mirror. Chloe twisted in her seat, staring out the rear window. A block back, she saw a towering figure just crossing the street. The figure turned and began sprinting up the sidewalk after them.

  A Mordin.

  “Dad, we’ve gotta move,” Chloe said.

  “I can’t. The light’s red. I’m boxed in.”

  Now Chloe spotted another Mordin behind them, farther back on the far sidewalk, swiftly closing in.

  “We really need to move, Dad.”

  Chloe searched for the third Mordin that she knew had to be nearby. A little park off to the left was empty. Nothing up ahead. And then, just as she turned to the passenger side, the smell of brimstone drifted in through the open window, sharp and unmistakable. The same instant she caught the smell, she saw it—Mordin number three, hurtling down the cross street straight at them, all arms and legs and grinning teeth. It was no more than thirty feet away—a mere three or four strides on those monstrous legs. Isabel saw it too and gasped.

  Chloe fumbled with the button for her still-open window. “Now, Dad! Now!”

  The words weren’t even out before the engine roared. The wagon lurched into reverse, then surged forward. Chloe was thrown back in her seat. Tires squealed. Horns blared. And then a great gnarled hand reached in and caught the edge of the open window frame. The car actually heaved to the right under the force of the blow. The Mordin held on, loping alongside as they accelerated, glaring savagely in at them. It was particularly ugly, with a cruel nose and wideset eyes. It stank even worse than Dr. Jericho. It struggled to reach inside, but Chloe swung her fist as hard as she could against the long, bony fingers still gripping the door. Once, twice, three times. She might as well have been pounding on steel.

  The Mordin growled and took a mighty leap, landing heavily on top of the wagon. The roof buckled. Joshua curled into a ball, keening.

  Chloe went thin, so filled with rage that she barely heard the Alvalaithen’s song. She shoved the raven’s eye into her pocket and slipped out of her seat belt. She bent over the backseat, digging around in the hatch. It was heaped full of junk, and she didn’t even know what she was looking for, but she had to do something. She would do something.

  Her father sped down the street, weaving this way and that, but he couldn’t shake the Mordin. The creature scratched at the roof with nails that sounded like they were made of steel.

  Chloe’s hand found something cold and hard, buried deep in the junk. She focused on the object, letting her fingers find purchase, knowing at once what it was—a crowbar. Holding it tight, she let her own lack of substance spread into it, turning it into a ghost. She pulled it easily from the pile and got up on her haunches.

  Joshua stared. “What are you doing?”

  “Chloe, no,” said her dad, watching in the rearview mirror.

  “Just keep driving,” she told him. “Don’t stop.” And then she stood up.r />
  Her top half emerged through the roof of the car. The wind whipped her hair. They were passing through a cemetery, dark rows of tombstones on either side of the street. The Mordin crouched overhead like a hulking, horrible marionette, clinging to the luggage rack with one powerful hand and raking at the roof with the other. When he saw Chloe, he reared back in surprise, but quickly recovered and reached for her neck.

  She felt his ghastly fingers pass through her throat as his hand closed on nothing. The Mordin stared, shocked, and was nearly shaken loose as the wagon swayed violently, but he hung on and broke into a greedy grin. “You,” he said, the word spilling musically from his ugly mouth like the strike of a bell.

  “Me,” Chloe said, and she laid the ghostly crowbar deep across the meat of his thigh, and let go.

  The Mordin shrieked in pain—a ghastly, trilling sound that split Chloe’s ears. He clutched at the bar now melded in his flesh and toppled off the roof, spilling into the street like a bundle of lumber, rolling to a stop as they roared away.

  Chloe sank back into the car and released the Alvalaithen. She looked out the back, watching as the Mordin staggered to his feet and limped toward the curb.

  “What did you do?” said Joshua into his hands, his eyes wide.

  “I took care of it.”

  Isabel’s eyes were on her too. “That was smart,” she said. “That was brave. If only I had my harp, I could have helped.”

  Chloe didn’t reply. Truth be told, her heart was hammering over what she’d just done. She’d melded the crowbar inside the Mordin’s body—something she’d never done to a living creature before. Even a creature like a Riven. She’d considered it on the riverbank, with the Auditor, yet hadn’t actually had a chance to attempt it. But now it had just . . . happened.

  “If I had my harp,” Isabel was saying, “I could undo the obversion.”

  Chloe had heard enough. She pulled the raven’s eye from her pocket and thrust it into Isabel’s face. The raven’s eye was so bright now that it blinded her, so warm that her leg felt sunburned. “Why the lake?” she demanded. “I don’t need water to bury this. I can take it down into the ground and leave it where it’ll never be found.”

  Isabel looked startled—frightened, even. “That’s too dangerous.”

  “I can manage. I finally learned how to go underground, no thanks to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Isabel said, turning away. “We’re leaving a trail of smoke. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And how do you put out a fire?”

  “Water,” Joshua said.

  “That’s right. It’s the only way.”

  The car rolled on, as fast as her father dared. Once, Chloe spotted another Mordin lunging from a dark alleyway, but they sped on past before it could reach them. Was it true that the raven’s eye couldn’t be buried? If her father hadn’t been here—and Joshua too, she supposed—Chloe would have put Isabel’s claim to the test. But she couldn’t afford the risk that Isabel might be speaking the truth. She couldn’t do that to her dad, not now.

  “I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” Isabel said, not looking at anyone in particular but obviously speaking to Chloe.

  “That’s right,” Chloe said. “I spectacularly don’t.”

  “You think I did this on purpose.”

  “I think lots of things,” Chloe replied.

  Isabel twisted around again. “Then tell me: if I wanted the Riven to find us, why would I have warned you what was happening? Why wouldn’t I just let the raven’s eye burn, let the Riven come?”

  Chloe hadn’t considered that, but she didn’t let an inch of doubt creep onto her face. “Maybe you’re just extra sneaky.”

  “Or maybe I’m lost. Maybe I’m doing the best I can with the mess that’s been handed to me.”

  “Like I said before,” Chloe said, not budging an inch, “get in line.”

  Isabel held her gaze, steady and piercing. Chloe gave back as good as she got. Finally Isabel’s eyes dropped onto the dragonfly. “You could leave the car at any time, I think,” she said. “You could do with the raven’s eye whatever you think is best. And yet here you still are.” She flopped back into her seat, crossing her arms like a smugly satisfied child. Chloe had no answer for her.

  They swung onto Lake Shore Drive. Off to the right, the dark waters of Lake Michigan stretched out to the horizon like an ocean. Joshua directed them to the beach. They passed a golf course and a marina, getting ever closer to the lake, but eventually they reached a point when Joshua was uncertain how to proceed any farther.

  “There are no roads,” he said. “But the lake is still a ways away.”

  “Which way is the pier?” Chloe’s dad asked. Joshua pointed, and he wrenched the wheel, sending the car bouncing over the curb and down a wide, deserted sidewalk that cut through an area wooded with shrubs and scrubby little trees. Chloe caught a glimpse of a sign that said bird sanctuary.

  “I’m going to get you close, Chloe,” her dad said. “And then you get out. You move fast. You get rid of that thing.”

  Cloe nodded. “Don’t follow me. Everyone stay in the car.”

  “But—” Isabel began.

  “Stay in the car,” Chloe repeated. “Especially you. I’m handling this.”

  Far up ahead, they could see that the sidewalk ended in darkness. The lake lay somewhere beyond. Chloe leaned forward, gripping the raven’s eye.

  “Go faster,” she told her dad.

  “Chloe, it’s a dead end, we can’t—”

  “Go as fast as you can for as far as you can. Wait until the last second. When you need to hit the brakes, tell me.”

  Her dad glanced at her in the mirror, then nodded. The car surged forward, the engine straining. Chloe loosed the song of the Alvalaithen, drinking from it deeply. Power coursed through her as she went thin. She moved to the center of the seat, crouching. She willed the seat to stay firm beneath her. She’d learned years before—after the accident, when the earth had nearly swallowed her up—that in order for matter to feel solid beneath her, she had to believe that it was solid. Until that terrible day, she’d always unthinkingly believed in the earth beneath her feet. And ever since, she’d learned to wrestle that belief into being, to hold on to it tenaciously whenever she went thin, and even—when she had to—to point that belief where she needed it.

  The station wagon careened over the sidewalk, bouncing madly. In the headlights, a thick row of shrubs grew nearer and nearer. Chloe waited, ready to spring, sure they were past the point of no return now but trusting her father. The shrubs loomed ever larger.

  “Matthew,” said Isabel, bracing herself.

  “Now!” her father shouted, and stomped on the brakes.

  Chloe uncoiled, timing it almost perfectly. She leapt with all her might, diving between Isabel and her father. As she knifed through the cold plane of the windshield, she felt the distinctive warm hum of flesh streaking through her calf—someone’s fingers. It was Isabel, trying to catch her. To stop her? Save her? But of course she couldn’t be stopped, didn’t need saving.

  She sailed over the plunging hood of the wagon as it screeched toward a halt. She felt herself tumbling in midair and she curled into it, somersaulting, air rushing through her and not slowing her at all. She sliced through the line of shrubs. They were covered in thorns that couldn’t touch her. Beyond: open air, darkness, the faint sound of water. A sandy beach, sloping gently away. Still thin, still clutching the raven’s eye, she sailed far out over the sand, a hundred feet or more. She opened out of her slow spin and somehow found herself descending feetfirst. She touched down, sinking into sand up to her belly.

  It was shockingly cold down deep, where her feet were, and she felt a flicker of panic. But by believing she would not sink, she pushed back steadily, coasting as if she were water skiing, holding out her hands for balance. Still sliding, she gradually willed herself out of the cold ground, letting the ground grow solid bit by bit beneath her—from fog to feather to wat
er to earth. Gradually she lifted and slowed, until at last she popped free entirely. Airborne again just for a moment, she let the dragonfly go still and then hit the ground running, headed for the darkness ahead where the lakeshore lay waiting.

  She laughed out loud, exhilarated. That was a stunt worthy of Neptune’s cape. Sorry—cloak. But the thrill was short-lived. The sand was wet and soft and sprinkled with coarse vegetation. It was hard going. The wind off the lake blew straight into her face.

  She ran for a hundred yards or so and then slowed to a trot, exhausted. She picked her way across the lumpy sand, almost like tiny dunes. She looked back once or twice but saw nothing—just the dark line of bushes and trees, and the city behind, with the bright lights of downtown far off to the south. She’d left her father back there without protection, and Joshua too. Even Isabel—without her harp, she was as vulnerable as any of them. But Chloe had the raven’s eye. If the Riven were still in pursuit, surely they’d be coming after her, not them.

  At last she reached the foot of the pier. She leapt over a ribbon of brackish water and onto the wide concrete surface. Relieved to be off the sand, she broke into a run again, the wind ripping at her. It was dark, and there were no railings—just a six-foot fall into the water on either side—but the light of the raven’s eye lit the way now, gleaming like a torch. She set her sights on a small light tower shining far out on the hooked pier, a thousand feet from the shore.

  She ran and ran, out onto the black water. She saw no one. The only sound was the soft slosh of waves against the pier and the slap of her tired feet. At last she arrived at the light tower, a latticed structure about thirty feet high with a platform at the top, like a miniature Eiffel Tower. A security fence surrounded the base. Chloe went thin and slipped inside, then mounted the ladder that led to the platform high above.

  At the top, shielding her eyes against the bright green warning light that shone here, Chloe looked back to shore. She guessed she’d come nearly a half mile since bailing out of the car. Were the others following? Waiting? But it didn’t matter. She’d come here for one reason, and one reason only. She turned toward the dark, windy expanse of Lake Michigan. She shifted the raven’s eye from one hand to the other; it was so hot now she could barely stand to touch it. She reared back, ready to throw, and as she stepped into it, a single thought sliced across her mind.