“Shadow bat!” Natala got to her feet.
“Why are you following us?” Dorsom scrambled up to stand beside Sami.
Sami gaped at the lovely young woman with lips like a scarlet slash. “You’re the bat?”
The woman laughed and combed her fingers along her part, then tossed a few locks of hair behind one shoulder. “I can assume any form I please. Often this amber creature I am. I enjoy the light. Why should the Flickers have all the charm? They’re stupid and unsubtle and undeserving.” Her eyes glittered with amusement and she put her hands on her hips. She wore a long blue tunic and looked like a pharaonic queen. Outlined with black winged makeup, her eyes were too large for her face, which tapered to a small foxlike chin, and her teeth looked very white and rather sharp. “But I am concerned for you,” she said, nodding at Sami. “There are few Silverwalkers indeed, and it worries me how these Flickers enstumble you along, with little sense of the Shadow soldiers.”
“How dare you make such accusation?” Natala asked at the same time Dorsom said, “What are you saying?”
The young woman shrugged and gestured to the gray lines shooting from the clouds to the horizon—which Sami had noticed were increasing in size and frequency. “They close in—from all sides. If you want to avoid her sentries, you’ll need a guide.”
Natala snorted and looked away, but Dorsom thought, There may be some sense in this.
“You’ll not survive without me,” the bat said casually while studying her nails—which, Sami noticed, sparkled with opaline brilliance. “Nixie’s dimension you’re in now—not Silverworld, Flicker-sweet and light.”
Dorsom frowned. “I believe Nixie shall not harm Sami.” He glanced at Sami and said carefully, “We think she means to make of her a trophy. A prize.”
“Very possibly—and yet quite mad is Nixie,” the woman shot back. “She wants and wants not the Silverwalker. The queen needs must have Samara, yet she’s an inconvenient need. And certainly she will not hesitate to dispose of you others.”
Dorsom raised his eyebrows at Natala.
I don’t like it. Natala’s thought was low and unhappy.
Sami stepped in discreetly and said, “I believe our friend will help us—won’t you?”
“Bat you may call me,” the woman said. “And you shall I help, Samara, and alone you.” With that, she swept off, her long tunic curling behind her like an ocean crest. “Do try to keep up,” she called back over one shoulder. “If you prefer not to be live-swallowed!”
Dorsom and Natala kept squinting and scanning the trees, on the alert for anything that looked as if it might seize or eat them. Bat told them she was willing to lead the group as far as she could go, but there would come a point she could go no farther. “Nixie will make gloves from my wings if I am discovered helping your cabal,” she hissed.
They set out on their journey on foot once again, crossing the sandy, palm-lined paths of one isle, then marching across shallower water to the next. Bat led the way on a difficult, veering course that avoided what looked like smooth footpaths and cut through dense, pastel-tinted bushes. Sami’s thoughts kept returning to Teta and her mother and Tony. The last time she and Tony had talked, they’d had that dumb fight, when she’d accused him of trying to act too grown-up. Now she wished she could take it back, tell him she’d just been so worried about Teta but that was no reason for her to say mean things. She wished they could just go fishing. Or surfing. She wondered what they were doing now, if they had realized yet that she was missing, if they were frantic. She glanced at Dorsom and he shook his head. Startled, she stopped for a moment and laughed. She would never get used to thought-sharing. “Did you hear what I was thinking just now?”
“Possibly—some snippets and snappets might have through-come.” He shrugged lightly. “There are at least twenty charted levels of thought in Silverworld—though probably many more—from the lightest and easiest to read to the deepest and most personal. Unimagined even to the self. And I can assure you that back in the Actual World, scarcely minutes have passed since you came to ours. A Silver year is an Actual week.”
“So they may not have noticed yet…,” she said uncertainly. It was beginning to feel to Sami like she’d been away for a year, not a few Silverworld days.
Dorsom frowned at his feet sweeping through the long brush and grass as they walked. This second, smaller island was dense with tropical foliage and all sorts of odd bird peeps and fantastical colors winking between the palm fronds. Except for the wandering paths of turquoise sands and glints of birdcages in the trees, it seemed almost uninhabited. Yet, even with all this color, she noticed the light was starting to look denser, deeper, the edges of things outlined in increasingly stark lines. The sky overhead seemed gloomier. She wondered if this was true only in Shadow lands, or if indeed the darkness was spreading all over Silverworld.
The deeper they pressed into the Bare Isles, the less anyone spoke. Yellow glints shone in the overgrowth, and sometimes jagged, wild laughter erupted from the bushes. Dorsom kept a hand on his knife at all times: Sami knew he was watching for the wild things Lamida had warned them of. They swished through feathery sea-green blades growing straight out of the ground. They pushed aside branches draped with blossoms like golden spheres or sugar cones or lilac bells. On the next isle, tiny animals peeped at them from the branches; they looked like fur-covered snowballs with round eyes and tiny mouths, and they clucked and chortled and giggled as Sami and the Flickers passed underneath.
“This doesn’t seem that scary and terrible,” she whispered to Natala.
Natala’s lilac brows lifted. “Don’t be deceived,” she murmured. “Shadow Nixie is a queen of illusion. These islands she arranged to suit her own purposes.”
“Enthrall and enfuddle she will,” Bat confirmed. She turned to face them yet kept walking backward as easily and naturally as she walked forward. “The more she can mystify her prey, the easier to capture they are.”
“Are we walking right into a trap, then?” Sami stared into the woman’s gray eyes and felt a kind of pull that made her feel, once again, off-balance—the way so many things did in this world.
“I know not. But no other way is there,” Bat said gravely.
Gradually, the wind calmed and the sun grew a bit brighter. Soft pale-pink light washed over the trees and there was a stillness in the air. “I think we’ve lost them—the Shadow soldiers,” Sami said, looking around. “Those Shadow strikes—I don’t see them on the horizon anymore.”
Shading her eyes, Bat nodded. “They no longer have to chase us.”
“They’ve got us where they want us,” Dorsom agreed grimly.
On the other hand, Sami wondered if she and the Flickers still needed to be quite so cautious. But when she considered taking a footpath of lilac stones instead of scaling yet another rough hedge, Bat’s thought flew at her: ’Tis a fine way, except for sinking into its cook-hole of quicksilver sand.
When she eyed a dry trail around a marshy thicket, Bat admonished, All well if you don’t mind being eaten by that herd of razor-toothed leapers.
After a long afternoon of hiking, climbing, and warnings, Bat stopped them by a switching stand of trees with thick olive-colored leaves. The narrow trunks rubbed against each other, making a squeaking, grunting sound, and the leaves rose and twitched, buoyant and alive.
“What is such place?” Dorsom frowned, scanning their surroundings. Sami was hungry again from all the walking, plus she was sticky with sweat, her feet ached, and her back was sore. She hoped for some more vapor berries as well as a place to sit and put up her feet.
“Wait!” The woman threw out her arms. Sami saw her pupils slide into slits and her body seemed to clap into itself, like a bursting bubble. Suddenly there was a frantic flapping, and Bat chittered above the treetops. Light spangled off its wings so it looked like a piece of wax paper, crumpling an
d tumbling through the air. After a few moments, the bat returned, light folding into a slit, expanding into a woman.
“ ’Tis a gazing pool,” she said, running her hands over her silver-blue hair. “Go around we should, if we—”
“No. No, it’s nearly sun-wane. We need to find a place to stop and rest,” Natala said, shaking her head. “And to scavenge more food for Sami.”
“This isn’t a Flicker gazing pool,” Bat said, her face furrowed with concern. “To Bare Isles this belongs….”
“We’re well aware of that,” Dorsom responded. He stretched his arms and shoulders. “But Sami is not a Flicker, much less a trained rebalancer. She’s exhausted—we needs must stop!”
Bat’s face turned blank and cold, her small mouth getting even smaller. “As you like!” she said with a sniff, then pulled aside a narrow opening in the thin trees, bending them easily, a curtain of blue foliage gathered in her arm. The tree leaves made a hushed, serpentine hiss as the group passed through. Velvety, trimmed grass rolled down to an oval pool; the water was flat and still as a mirror.
As they approached the water, Sami realized the pool was ringed with aquamarine- and jade-colored gems, each about the size of a dinner plate, embedded in the ledge. Up on the lawn, placed like rays around the perimeter of the water, were raised rectangular platforms, about waist-high. Each of the platforms had a canopy of sheer fabric radiant with late-afternoon light as it floated on the breeze.
“Oh, just—wow.” Sami went up to one of the platforms and touched the fabric: it was shot through with silver threads. “I wish my mom could see this! And Teta. And even Tony would love this. I mean—it looks like a vacation on some dreamy, faraway island.”
“Dreamy, yes,” Dorsom murmured. The Flickers followed Sami, gazing around warily. “And not very real.”
“Well, it is lovely,” Natala conceded. “Whatever it is.”
“Take care, Silverwalker,” Bat cautioned as Sami moved inside the white canopy, touching the fabric with her fingertips. “You don’t know this place and you mustn’t let down your guard inside the Bare Isles.”
Enchanted, Sami scarcely heard what the others were saying. Inside the white curtains it smelled of fresh rain and ocean mist. The platform was covered in pale cushions and pillows ranging from large to mouse-sized. Sami picked up one of the miniature pillows, and realized it had a sweet vanilla scent. She sniffed, touched her tongue to it; then, suddenly starving, she popped it into her mouth. Its texture was different from anything she’d ever tasted—a bit crisp, soft, feathery, and spongy. Its taste was unfamiliar and delightful—spicy and leafy, creamy, fruity, and sweet. “I can eat these!” she cried out, scooping up handfuls of the little pillows, popping them into her mouth. “Oh my gosh. They’re so, so good!”
Dorsom sprang to her side, knocking the rest of the little pillows out of her hands. “Sami, those are Shadow food.”
“Who cares!” She turned, laughing, grabbing pillows that were spilled across the platform, eating before he could catch her wrists. “These are the best things ever.”
Natala put a hand on Dorsom’s arm. “She’s hungry. Actuals can’t skim along without food like Flickers can.” She ran her silver-ringed fingers over a pillow, and her gemstones’ blue lights flashed. “These are vitamins, minerals, and egg. Perhaps they are not so bad.”
Dorsom held one pillow up to Bat. “What is such stuff?”
Bat looked wryly at the food, then at Dorsom. “Will-o’-the-wisps, cattails, moonlight,” she said in a low voice. “Nutrient.”
“Riddles. Evasion,” Dorsom muttered.
Bat’s queenly face twitched for a moment as she took a step backward.
“Patience, Dorsom,” Natala cautioned.
A sly smile spirited over Bat’s face. “Flickers always think they can tell what’s actual and true, but in reality, they don’t listen. They only muddle and eavesdrop on each other’s denials and distractions.”
“As you like, Shadow creature,” Dorsom said impatiently. “Flickers know nothing and see nothing. Just, will you tell us—is this food safe? What happens now she’s eaten Shadows’ food?”
Bat regarded Sami gravely. “I know not.”
“How can you not know?” Natala cried, startling Sami, who was busy dusting off more tiny pillows from the ground—it was the first time she’d heard the serene Flicker raise her voice. “You are one of them! You have to know.”
Bat glared at her, a cold half smirk on her face. “How am I to know such a thing? Have ever I seen an Actual eat Shadow food before? Has any a one here known such? In fact…” She crossed her arms, her manner growing more thoughtful. “To tell the truth, I would have guessed that Shadow food—especially anything found here—in the Bare Isles—was too much darkness, too pure for any un-Shadow creature to take in.” She lifted her arms, bangles jingling as she dropped them. “I’m curious indeed to see what consequences there are.”
Throughout this discussion, Sami had begun to notice the tiny pillows she’d eaten seemed to be expanding in her stomach. Her hunger had vanished and she felt much as she did after one of her grandmother’s dinner heflehs, when Teta invited friends and visiting relatives, and they’d spend hours at the table, eating and telling stories. It was a sense of happy contentment along with a deep, bone-washing tiredness. And suddenly Sami felt very tired. Her senses swam around her, blurring colors, smells, and sounds.
“Sami! What’s happening?” Dorsom’s words seemed to bounce faintly, the group turning toward her in alarm.
“I just…need…to sleep.” She pulled her legs up onto the platform and let herself sink into the cushions. It was an amazing, heavenly sensation, like slowly falling into vanilla pudding. “Just for a bit.”
A powerful smell was in the air. It smelled a bit like dust. Like wet cement and sawdust and burnt things—phosphorus—was that the word for it? Plastic, dust, gunpowder. Like sitting too close to fireworks. Sami opened her eyes to see sharp broken rubble—piles of debris, stacks of cement bits everywhere. Light was coming from a weird place: she looked up and saw the center of the ceiling was crushed. Through an immense hole dangled a tangle of metal rods or pipes. In the back, to one side, was a staircase with a twisted railing of once-elegant metal scrolls that led up to an opening in the crumpled ceiling.
What is this place?
She stood up slowly, running her hands over her arms and face, but she was completely unhurt.
Where am I?
Somehow, this was not a dream. She was very much here, in this place. The light was hot and strong and the air almost wet with humidity—a bit like the air in Florida. Other smells started to emerge from underneath the dust and gunpowder. She smelled diesel and wet pavement, a damp, greasy, roasting smoke. There were also wisps of spices—cumin, cardamom—earthy as the scents coming from an old cupboard.
Sami moved toward a window in the cement wall where street sounds poured in from down below. Just an empty frame; the window held no actual pane—it was like someone had cut the glass out with a knife. Looking out, she could see she was up high, maybe on the top floor of an eight- or ten-story building. Below was a city. Honking cars and sirens filled the air along with children’s voices, high and urgent, as they ran through junk piles on the street, tossing a red ball. Men in berets shooed the children, and other men in zip-up white jumpsuits trudged around burnt, splintered wood, metal rods, and hills of refuse as high as snowdrifts. Abandoned shells of cars seemed to drift through the dust. Looking straight down, Sami realized the lower front of the building she was standing in looked like it was completely torn up into a huge heap, like an unmoving avalanche of wreckage between the building and the street.
Studying this view, she thought that something about the scene below seemed awfully familiar.
Her legs turned rubbery. And then her whole body seemed to fill with cold jelly.
&
nbsp; Her mother had a few snapshots of herself in her old neighborhood in Beirut, grinning, posing in her navy school uniform, behind her a rubble field and city buildings. Eight or ten stories high.
In one snapshot, Sami remembered seeing a little boy running in the background, almost a blur of movement, holding a red ball.
Now a sound filled the air—haunting and swirling, almost mystical. She knew, without even thinking about it, that this was the adthan, the call to prayer. Teta used to say that sound was what she missed the most about living in Lebanon—the daily punctuation, a call to pause and reflect. Five times a day the musical recitation came crackling through loudspeakers on top of the mosques, telling people it was time to stop what they were doing and pray.
At last Sami knew she was in Lebanon. She tried to tell herself she was dreaming. But she couldn’t. Somewhere in her dimmest consciousness was the memory of an enormous force hurtling her, smashing her through layers of time and space. Someone or something had gotten hold of her and sent her not into a dream or fantasy, but back into her mother’s history.
Sami scanned the room, taking stock of the situation. It looked like this place might once have been some sort of store or workshop. There were wire hangers scattered across the floor, a toppled plastic mannequin, an overturned desk and chair. Near the window stood a large metal frame, which she realized must have held a mirror at one point. Now it was empty, surrounded by tiny glass fragments. The frame itself was silver metal scrollwork in the shape of wild, irregular waves.
The call to prayers stopped and the street noise resumed, although it seemed subdued, as if much of the city were praying silently. She leaned out the window as far as she dared and tried calling out to the people below, but Sami’s breath was whipped away in the wind and the distant roar of jackhammers and traffic. The window frame was covered with cement dust and splintered wood. Something cut into her fingers as she held on too tightly.
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