Across Carina (18 page)

“Perhaps,” Artemis said, ignoring my question. “Do you feel better, child?”

I only nodded. I was still thinking about trying to find Eris. I didn’t know if it would be worth it to seek help from someone so volatile.

After a minute, I spoke up.

“Even if we find her,” I said, “she might not . . .”

I sighed. Nobody was listening.

She might not help us. Or let us live, for that matter.

Artemis had turned to Sal. “What about you? Are you well?”

“I feel phenomenal! Thank you!”

He smiled, still sharpening away, but his eyebrows were furrowed. He was not the only tentative one.

Artemis stood.

“I must go,” she said. “I am late meeting some friends. I shall hate losing you two from Getheos, but if you must find Eris, I suggest searching by The Edge. When she
is
here, she often idles at The Great Waterfall.”

Sal and I exchanged looks. The Great Waterfall didn’t sound safe, especially if it was by The Edge. Artemis didn’t seem concerned, but she was immortal. We were not.

Before departing, she tried to give us her bow and several arrows, but they were too big to fit in our bags. I could see them becoming a burden, and neither Sal nor I were skilled archers, so we politely declined her gift.

“You’re far too generous,” Sal said.

Artemis was not offended. She refilled our canteens—I emptied mine in seconds—and then pointed us in the right direction. Sal and I bid her farewell as we left the dead Chimera and marched toward The Edge.

“How will we know when we’re there?”

My questions were mounting. My mind had been in overdrive since the attack. I was picking apart poor Sal’s brain, one layer at a time.

We were walking side by side, and I was chewing on a piece of bread that I had pulled out of my bag. It was one of only a small number of pieces that we had. The week before, Sal had bartered with the widow for a loaf of bread, but he and I had almost finished it by the time we’d left. We could have asked the widow for more on our way out of the village, but Sal hadn’t wanted to take anything else from her. Not when he was already taking away her help.

So, we had little to eat, and I was famished. I blamed my adrenaline rush from earlier for my being so hungry. I only wished that the blame could do something.

“You’re a very curious girl,” Sal observed.

“Do my questions bother you?” I asked.

“Not in the slightest,” he said. “I’ve just never met anyone with as many of them as you.”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked.

He laughed, but didn’t answer.

We trekked on.

After stopping twice to rest, night fell. We considered our options and decided to forgo sleep. Our map indicated that we were close to The Edge, and we didn’t want to stop until we found Eris.

“Why do people here speak English?” I asked. I still wasn’t out of questions. “Even Charlotte and Eden spoke English, and that was on The Mango Sun. I mean, we’re not even in the same
galaxy
as Earth.”

“I have a theory about that,” Sal said. “You know the story of Babel?”

“Sort of,” I replied.

“Well the people there were vain, full of entitlement,” he said. “They wanted to bend the rules, so they built a tower that they thought could reach Heaven. According to the Bible, our god was not happy about that. He scattered them across the Earth and distorted their understanding of language. That’s why a native Spanish speaker today can’t understand Russian unless he’s taken the time to learn it. If it weren’t for what happened in Babel, everyone on Earth would understand each other, regardless of the actual number of languages in use.”

“But Earth’s original language wasn’t English,” I pointed out.

“Sure,” Sal said, “but to my knowledge what happened in Babel never happened anywhere else.”

“How does that explain why everyone
here
speaks the same language as us?”

“You don’t understand. It’s possible that we’re not even speaking English right now and just don’t know it. Visitors, like you and me, may be able to understand and speak the language here.”

“But how?” I demanded.

“Other worlds don’t suffer from the distortion of language like Earth does. Earth was cursed. But I think that you and I were able to acclimate to Getheos.”

“Why weren’t the other planets cursed?”

“Other worlds are cursed in their own ways, Jade.”

I wasn’t satisfied.

“I’ve heard theories that people view colors differently,” Sal went on. “My green might not look like your green, even if we both believe we’re seeing green. We could even point to a tree and agree that it’s green, but we might be looking at two different colors. Maybe outside of Earth, language works in the same way.”

We stopped in our tracks. The desert had just ended without warning. It had bled into a beach, and there we were, staring at the shoreline ahead. I wondered how far the ocean went before it dropped off into space. It was an image that I could hardly produce. All I could see was sand and dark water.

“Are you ready for this?” Sal asked.

“I’ll be ready when we find Eris,” I said.

“Then let’s start looking.”

We carried our shoes across the sand. The moon hung bright and full, dipping into its own reflection. It looked close enough to steal. A few birds seemed to swoop down from its craters and soar over the ocean.

The water was strangely placid. With The Edge so close, I thought that the water would be rushing to The Great Waterfall in torrents, but it was still.

The shoreline stretched for miles on either side of us. It was backed by a sparse forest. Crickets were chirping in rivaling camps and owls were speaking in hoots. Eris could have been anywhere.

“Should we separate?” I asked.

Sal thought for a moment.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t know what’s out here. I guess if we stick to the shore, we should be all right. Maybe Eris will sense that we’re here. Whoever finds her first should run in the opposite direction to the other. Let’s mark this spot in the sand.”

“Sounds easy enough,” I said.

“I hope it will be.”

Using his fingers, Sal drew a large square in the sand. Then he drew a triangle on top of the square and a little rectangle within the square. I smiled at his house and hoped, for our sakes, that no wind came through and blew it away.

“I hear the water is cyan in the daylight,” he said. His eyes were lost in the house. “Maybe we should camp for the night and find Eris tomorrow.”

He wasn’t making sense. He sounded tired, but I was tired, too. And I didn’t want to stop. We were so close to the end.

“I want to find Eris,” I said. “We can keep a low profile in the dark.”

Sal chuckled. “Low profile. All right, Jade. At least take this.” He handed me one of his knives. “Try not to cut yourself this time.”

I packed the knife in my bag and faced him at an angle. He leaned toward me, his knees bent, and hugged me with one arm. His hair smelled of salt and smoke.

“In case I don’t see you again,” he said, slowly pulling away.

I really hoped that I would see him again. Suddenly I realized why he had wanted to camp for the night.

We began to walk in opposite directions. I looked back a few times until Sal was as tiny as a Lego man.

There wasn’t a soul on the beach.

“Er-is! Er-is! Where are you?!”

I had been walking and calling that name for an hour, like Eris was some runaway dog. If only I could coax her into my arms.

“Er-is!”

Part of me didn’t know why I was even bothering. I had no clue how vast the beach was or wasn’t. And if Eris could hear me regardless, there seemed to be no way for me to tell.

What about now, Eris? Can you hear me? Please, if you can, say something. I need your help.

Too presumptuous?

Eris, my name is Jade Callaghan. I have heard of your magnificence, and I want to meet you. You are my favorite of the gods.

Too much.

Eris, people suck. Want to teach me your ways?

I wondered why, out of all the gods, my salvation had to be in the hands of the unpredictable one. I had about reached my limit.

Walking on the sand was doubly as exhausting as walking on solid ground. I kept sinking and cutting my feet on the shells.

Meanwhile, Eris wasn’t saying a word. It was possible that she wasn’t even on Getheos. If that were the case, then she wouldn’t have heard my pleas. I was strongly considering turning back to find Sal.

That’s when I heard something.

I turned around to see the faint outline of someone running in my direction. Whoever it was had a broad frame and shaggy hair. It looked like a man. A determined man. Perhaps determined to get me.

I could hear his feet, pattering against the sand. I looked for a rock to hide behind, but there was nothing but sand and water. The forest was no use either. It was too far for me to reach in time. As I had walked, the beach had widened and pushed back the trees.

So, I ran as well as I could in a dress on the beach. It was as maddening as trying to run in a dream. Behind me the man sprinted with heavy breaths, spraying sand with each long stride. I ran until I felt out of control—like I would trip if I dared stop—but when I looked again, the man had gained on me.

I could still scarcely see his face. During my search the moon had withdrawn, shrouding the beach in darkness. Silently I cursed the moon and then tripped in my distraction.

I crumbled face first in the sand.

The man seized me, twisting my arm so that I faced him. I swung my free arm back and prepared to punch him, when I realized who it was.

“Sal?! What the hell?!”

“What is your problem?”

“My problem? Why’d you act like you were going to kill me?”

“Shh,” he said. “We have to keep quiet. I honestly didn’t mean to scare you, but I couldn’t call out your name. I didn’t want to attract any attention to us.”

“What is the matter?” I asked.

A flare lit up the sky behind Sal. He brushed the sand off my face and pulled me up.

“I found a boat,” he said, “and we must take it.”

“What’s going on?” I demanded. “What about Eris?”

I pointed as another flare ascended the night.

“We don’t have time to find Eris,” Sal said. “I just walked right into the start of some battle. I don’t know how many guys are out there, but I just saw one of them handing out weapons to a line of others. It didn’t look good.”

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah, back by the trees,” he said. “There was—”

I interrupted him. “No, I’m trying to figure out why you’re calling it a battle. That sounds extreme for a couple of flares and weapons.”

“I said it’s the
start,
” Sal said. “These things break out all the time here. It’s like a board game to the gods, except people get hurt. That’s why you and I need to leave. Now. There are groups here who will imprison those who stand on neutral ground. We’re neutral, Jade. They’ll either use us as bargaining chips or try to mold us into clones. I’ve seen it before.”

Nobody was going to mold me.

“Where’s the boat?” I asked.

Sal turned to watch another flare fizzle.

“Over there,” he said.

“We’re going
into
the battle?”

“Unless you found another boat, then yes!”

“What about The Edge?” I asked. “We’ll die! Why would we go into the water when we could call for a chariot?”

“We can’t call for a chariot right now,” Sal said. “I think the entire forest and most of the beach are being patrolled by these guys. They just haven’t made it this far down the shoreline—but they will. If I hadn’t found you first, they would have. I need you to trust me.”

Eris, please help us.

Sal took my hand, and we started to run across the sand. We stayed close to the water, ready to dive for cover if we needed. Ahead of us the sky filled with the fiery glows of war. Garrett’s face was in every one of them. He was screaming, crying, pleading to know—“Why, Jade? Why? Why are you at the scene of every fire?”

One of the trees in the forest caught fire. Its branches bent and snapped against the next tree; and then all the trees began to knock each other down like dominos. Smoke rose above the forest and diffused, clouding the stars. There was an explosion, and several people screamed.

“What are they fighting about?” I asked between pants.

“What does anyone fight about?” Sal countered. “Probably something stupid.”

With each of our steps, our feet plunged into the sand, and we were forced to lunge into our next steps. It was exhausting, and suddenly I started to cry. It was only the second time that I had cried since leaving Earth. I didn’t want Sal to notice, so I kept my hand in his, not raising it to wipe my tears.

He didn’t notice. He was busy steering us around rocks and checking the sky for flares. After a few minutes he whispered that he could see the boat. I couldn’t see anything, but I had to trust him. We slowed down, and he pulled me toward the invisible escape.

In the black air something whizzed by our faces. Sal dropped to the ground, and I fell with him.

“What was that?” I asked, struggling to catch my breath.

“Someone’s seen us. Stay low.”

I was on my hands and knees. I looked straight ahead and could see the outline of a small boat a few yards away. It would barely fit two people.

“That’s the one,” Sal said.

We crawled toward the boat in increments to avoid being detected by the archers. I feared even breathing.

Another arrow flew past just as Sal led me around to the front of the boat. We dropped our bags inside and then lay down in the shallow water, now shielded by the bow. The arrows kept coming.

“Will the gods become involved?” I asked.

“Probably,” Sal said.

We listened as the fire wrecked the forest. Artemis’s forest. She would not be pleased. I hoped I wasn’t present for her second round of wrath.

Suddenly, someone screamed.

She’s already here.

All the arrows ceased, and it was quiet.