Dex and Daphna turned to each other, eyes suddenly wide with rekindled hope.
“He still thinks Latty fell!” Daphna cried. “She’s still alive, Dex!”
As excited as Dex was, he was also angered. “Then where is she?” he demanded. “She said she’d never put us in danger again!”
“I don’t know, Dex, but she’s alive!”
Realizing this conversation might better have been kept to themselves, the twins went silent. They looked back at their father to find him regarding them with intense concern. For the first time since they’d climbed through the hole they’d made, he didn’t seem overflowing with confidence.
Seeing this, Dex and Daphna turned and scanned the cavern. They both felt sure Latty would appear just then. It had to end that way. Tarik began scanning as well, but he did so with suspicion and alarm.
When Latty failed to appear, the twins hopes sank as fast as they’d risen.
“But—where we teleported—” Dex said.
Daphna nodded. She’d forgotten about that. Tarik may not have killed her, but she had to be in there. She probably fell to her death trying to make her way to the cavern, just like they almost did. Tears filled Daphna’s eyes. She couldn’t take this.
“So my memory isn’t as clear as I thought,” Tarik grumbled. He didn’t appear to have paid attention to the twins’ last exchange, and he seemed suddenly in a hurry. “Our sharing session is at an end,” he announced. “Latona is of no consequence right now. If she is alive, I’ll deal with her and any others after I take care of you.”
The moment these words left Tarik’s mouth, he lunged at the twins. The speed and surety with which he grabbed them was shocking. Their father, as Dex and Daphna had always known him, wasn’t remotely capable of such a thing. But Adem Tarik was someone else. By the time either twin knew what hit them, they were being dragged by the wrists toward the mouth of a cave.
Dexter dug his heels into the cavern floor, but he was sliding. Tarik was crushing his wrist and the pain made it difficult to think clearly.
Changing tactics, Dexter threw his weight forward and punched at his father with his free hand. The first swing missed wildly, but the second connected squarely with Tarik’s ear.
Dex had never punched another human being before, and the impact of fist on flesh unleashed a torrent of wrath even more powerful than what he’d let loose on Antin’s gang in the burned out ABC. It burst through his fist like bullets through a gun as he pummeled his father’s face. He punched again and again and again.
Tarik turned his head to deflect the blows, but he made no move to let go of either twin’s wrist to block the punches. Dex continued his assault, but he was already wearing himself out. Now the hand he was punching with hurt as much as his wrist. Dex managed one last feeble blow, then his arm went limp.
Tarik’s face was bruised and bleeding, but he was still moving the twins toward the cave he’d chosen. Dexter had but one strategy left: he collapsed. It only took a second to see this was useless, too.
While her brother was fighting like a wild animal, Daphna did all she could not to throw up. She pulled and pulled her arm trying to get free, but the only effect was to make her think it was going to rip right off. Tarik had a death-grip on her wrist.
“Please, Daddy!” she cried when Dex sagged to the cavern floor. “Please! I still love you!” she lied. She was trying to find a voice, not a flirting voice, but something similar, a voice like a promise. “We can help you with your plan!” she cried.
Tarik made no reply. He was staring straight ahead as he dragged the twins, focusing on the dark opening that was now only ten or fifteen yards away. He was muttering to himself, “Soon, soon, soon.”
Daphna, abandoning her strategy, screamed for help, and when the only response was the echo of her plea, she let herself fall to the cavern floor next to her brother. Now they were both being dragged by their arms like corpses from a battlefield.
A few seconds later, everything went dark and cold. They’d left the cavern. Now they were being yanked to their feet like toddlers.
The twins knew full well they were about to be hurled to their deaths. Instinct alone renewed their will to struggle, and somehow they both hit on the same idea: they wrapped their free arms around their father and gripped him with all their strength.
Surprised by the double bear hug, Tarik let go of the twins’ wrists. This let them lock all four arms around him.
The three, now one, teetered as Tarik shifted his weight, looking for the best way to shake the children off. He put his hand on Daphna’s face to pry her back, but at the same moment, a voice, screaming, rang out in the cave.
“No!” it cried, “I can’t let you do it! No matter what the cost!”
Latty!
She was invisible in the dark, but she was there, right there, in the cave.
The twins felt Tarik go rigid between them.
“It can’t be,” he said. “Sophia?”
There was a strange, silent pause, followed by a small voice that said, “Yes, Adem. It’s me.”
Dex and Daphna, still clutching their father between them, looked in the direction of Latty’s voice. Long before she was called Shimona Wax, when she was one of thirty-six child geniuses recruited by Adem Tarik to bring Heaven to Earth, the twins’ mother was called Sophia Logos. It was her original name.
“Latty?” they whispered, “are you our mom?”
The only response was laughter. Tarik was laughing, great rolling, deep-chested laughing.
Before the twins could gather themselves or mount an attempt to escape, the humming rose up into the cavern again. It was not a humming for long this time. Seconds after it started, the noise transformed into a thundering rumble, and it rushed up at them like some kind of monster from the deep. When it reached them, the ground jerked back and forth. Tarik and the twins lost their balance and fell.
The three interlocked bodies hit the ground and burst apart. Dex and Daphna, both winded, felt gentle hands helping them up in the dark. They managed to get to their feet and run.
Their mother was running with them.
The cavern itself lurched this way and that. Books were flung off their piles in every direction. Debris fell from the walls all around. The entire mountain seemed ready to collapse on the three figures staggering forward stubbornly, slipping on books, getting back up, falling as the ground tilted and rolled. They managed to stumble to the center of the cavern, and there they stopped, all equally indecisive about which way to go.
A cracking sound came then, the cracking of the earth itself, as a crevice in the cavern floor tore open just behind him. They heard a body make a leap. It hit the ground with a grunt. Tarik was there somewhere, trying to reach them.
The earth continued to jolt. The sound of rock ripping from all directions made the twins and their mother huddle together. Caves were collapsing along the outer walls.
“Look!” Daphna cried when a moment of calm allowed her to be heard. More light was coming in now through new gaps opened above. The wall they’d climbed through had disintegrated, revealing a vast and yawning pit. Daphna pointed at it desperately.
“There’s nothing there!” Dex hollered, but then he understood.
“Run!” he screamed. He had Daphna by the hand and pulled her along. She had her mother’s.
The three sprinted for the hole, ducking every moment to avoid rocks falling from above. They pitched around the books sliding under their every step, refusing to give in to the ground that would not hold steady.
They were there, at the edge.
Latty, Shimona, Sophia looked into the infinite blackness below. “We’ll fall!” she cried.
“Trust us!” the twins shouted together. There was enough light for them to see their mother’s face. She looked terrified.
Daphna squeezed Sophia’s hand. “We have to jump!” Daphna urged. “I can get us out of here. Just don’t let go!”
Sophia looked at the twins, but as
she did so, Tarik raged at them from somewhere close by. He was coming.
Sophia looked grim, but nodded. “I trust you,” she said.
“On three!” Dex cried, pulling all three of them forward to the lip of the chasm. “One, two—three!”
Dexter, Daphna and their mother leapt into the abyss.
CHAPTER 30
falling in love
Cold wind—freezing cold wind—rushed up at the twins’ hurtling bodies. It was the only way they knew they were actually falling. The sensation was so astounding that neither Dex nor Daphna realized at first what they needed to do. They just fell. Had the fissure they’d jumped into not been unfathomably deep, they’d already be dead.
“What’s happening?” Sophia finally cried, and her terrified voice brought Daphna back to her senses. She still had her mother by the hand, and her brother, too.
Daphna opened her mouth to teleport them home, but a gust of brutal wind punched into her throat. Then, before she could try again, something plummeting after them fell on Sophia.
Tarik.
Sophia would surely have been ripped away, but Tarik had somehow managed to grab Daphna’s wrist again. All four bodies now fell together, lopsided, into the void. The only sound was the up-rushing wind and Tarik, who roared, “You will all die! All but me! I am immor—!”
Another sound came, swallowing his words, an awful, high-pitched wailing of some sort, echoing all around. Or was it—laughing?
But then the flapping started, a sound so large and looming it felt like a physical presence. Moments later it was, as the four figures fell through millions of surging, screeching bats.
Dexter screamed. Daphna screamed. Sophia screamed. They were battered and lacerated by a tide of whipping wings. None could tell if they were still holding on to each other.
Then, suddenly, the bats were gone, and they were falling again, enveloped now in a foul-smelling, sulfuric mist.
“What should I do?” Daphna managed to shriek. Tarik was still with them. Taking him home was something she couldn’t bear. If there were any chance in the world he wasn’t really immortal, it would be better just to wait for the bottom.
“Don’t do anything!” Dex cried. He felt the same way. Enough was enough.
“No!” Sophia cried. “I won’t allow it!”
There then came the sound of a sickening crunch, followed by a howl from Adem Tarik. Daphna’s hand, which had felt like it was being pulverized, suddenly felt light. The twins both felt light for a moment, almost as if they were floating up.
They both understood at once what had happened. Sophia had bitten Tarik’s hand. He’d let go of Daphna, and so their mother had, too.
Daphna croaked out a Word.
An instant later, she and Dex fell onto their living room floor.
CHAPTER 31
another mother
Dex and Daphna rolled onto their backs. Their hair was a mess. Their clothes were shredded. They seemed to be bleeding from a thousand cuts. Neither could lift their arms. The sickening mist they’d been falling through clung to them for a moment, then lifted and wafted away.
“It was Latty who fell when they went into the caves thirteen years ago,” Daphna choked. She was looking up at the ceiling. “That’s why I teleported us to those caves. She was down there somewhere.”
“We’ve known Mom our whole lives,” Dex said. He was looking up at the ceiling, too. He offered this like it was an observation no more significant than noting they’d lived in Portland all their lives.
“I’m so glad,” was Daphna’s answer. But then she said, “Very soon, I’m going to have a complete and total breakdown. And after that, I’m going to feel guilty for the rest of my life about the way we never appreciated—”
“Yes,” Dex agreed. “Me, too. But not yet. Not yet, okay?”
Daphna and Dexter turned their heads to look at each other. Daphna nodded. Brother and sister sat up and hugged for an entire minute. Then they stood up.
“Why did she do it, Dex?” Daphna asked. “Why did she have to pretend she was Latty all these years? Why didn’t she just get him arrested for attempted murder or something and divorce him?”
“What if she didn’t win? No one in Turkey seemed to care what happened in the caves,” said Dex. “Besides, people ask a lot of questions in court cases. She probably didn’t want anyone to get suspicious of her identity. And I’m sure she probably worried that would make his memory come back. She saw a chance to stay with us and watch him, without having to be his wife. That must have seemed like a pretty good option.”
“That must be why she never went back to Israel after the accident,” said Daphna. “She told us she came here right from Turkey to find us a place to live, but it was also so no one back in Israel would see her. Here, no one would know who she was.”
“Except Rash might have,” Dex pointed out. “That’s why she wouldn’t go near him. That’s why she had to leave it up to us. I’m going to get a fire started.”
Daphna nodded. She ran to her room and then down to Dex’s and came up with both the Ledger and the Book of Nonsense. Dexter had a treated log already burning, so she put them on top. It only took a few seconds for them to catch fire.
While they watched, Daphna asked, “Dex, did we stop God from coming back?”
“I don’t know,” Dex answered. “I don’t know. For all we know, every single thing Tarik told us was a lie.”
“Yes,” was all Daphna could say.
“I don’t know what the truth is, and I never did,” Dex went on. “It was so much easier when I didn’t wonder about these things. All I know is that we did what Mom wanted us to do.
“Daphna,” he added, “I think the other reason she kept letting us get into danger was that she couldn’t bring herself to interfere until she was sure it would stop Tarik once and for all. I mean, we were her weakness. She had to realize that. No matter how much she loved us, stopping Tarik was more important than saving us.”
“But why did she come out, then? In the cavern? She risked letting him win at the very last second.”
“Because, Daphna, what I’m saying is she wanted stopping Tarik to be the most important thing. The truth is, in the end, she loved us too much.”
“She loved us more than God?”
“I guess so.”
“Maybe it’s all the same.”
For a long moment, neither twin spoke.
Then Dex, his voice quavering slightly, said, “We said we weren’t having that breakdown yet.”
“Right,” said Daphna, trying to focus on something practical. “We better undo everything we’ve done. We need to erase our voicemail message and get those reporters back to put out a new message that unbends everyone, and I’ve got to take down the website!”
“You’re right,” Dex agreed. The books were nothing but ash now. “I’ll change the voicemail.”
“Maybe I’ll teleport to the TV station and get that done right away.”
“Good idea.”
Daphna spoke her Word, but she didn’t go anywhere. Concerned, she tried it again, with the same result.
Dex, also concerned, spoke the Word that made him invisible. It didn’t work. The twins tried all the Words they’d learned. None of them worked.
“It’s ’cause we burned the Book of Nonsense,” Dex concluded.
Daphna hung her head. “We’re doomed then, Dex. We’re going to a foster home for sure.”
Just then the doorbell rang.
Dex and Daphna looked around for a place to hide, but a voice came from behind the door. “Milton!” It was Evelyn. “Milton! I need to talk to you. It’s urgent!”
Daphna shrugged. Dex shrugged. They went and opened the door.
“Dex! Daphna! It’s so good to see you!” Evelyn cried, but she hadn’t really gotten a look at them. When she had, she paled. “What happened?” Evelyn begged. “Did the gang come back? You’re both bleeding! Is your father here?”
In the face of Evelyn�
��s overwhelming concern, the twins had that breakdown. It was simultaneous and complete. They both folded into Evelyn and then clung to her long limbs for dear life. Evelyn guided them to the couch, and they all sat down. The twins wouldn’t, couldn’t let her go. They wept uncontrollably for nearly five minutes while Evelyn stroked their heads and inspected their wounds.
When, finally, they could cry no more, they spoke: the whole story tumbled out, all of it, from Milton’s arrival home from the Middle East on that drizzly day to his fall into the bottomless hole in the mountains of Eastern Turkey. It took nearly thirty minutes, and Evelyn, silent as she listened, grew paler and paler with their every word.
The twins spared no thought to what it was surely making her think of them. If they wound up carted off to a mental institution instead of a foster home, so be it. They simply had to get it out. It was only when they’d finished that they noticed Evelyn was weeping harder than they were.
Daphna, despite her own sorrow and despair, put her hand on Evelyn’s leg. “I know you loved him,” she said of her father. “But he was—well, I guess he wasn’t evil. I’m starting to think no one is really, truly evil—just wrong. I think, actually, he knew he was wrong. He kept trying to tell himself he wasn’t a bad man. And he took the time to explain his whole plan to us when he was going to kill us anyway. I think he wanted us to tell him his plan was okay. He was Adam, like we told you—and lonely, and, I don’t know—”
“Such a fool,” Evelyn sobbed. She didn’t appear to be listening anymore. Fat tears rolled down her face. “Such a hopeless, hopeless fool.”
“Do—do you believe us?” Dex asked. He hadn’t expected anything like this reaction. If she believed them, they might still have a chance at a life.
Evelyn couldn’t answer. She was crying too hard, and all her shaking made her drop something. It was a gift, the same skinny little thing the twins had seen tucked into their father’s file at the R & R.
Book of Knowledge Page 25