Across Carina (8 page)

Somehow. Even though she can read my thoughts. . . .

Stop. Stop thinking, Jade.

Clear.

I had always had a terrible sense of direction, so when I left the mushroom by Charlotte’s house and wandered deeper into The Mango Sun, I became lost for two days.

The sun rose, and the sun set, reminding me of minutes wasted. I had no clue which way to go or if the sun was even authentic. Likely, it was from Charlotte, as I had not seen it prior to our talk on her mushroom.

The sun was not all that she sent. The mango mist appeared whenever I was hungry, and I found that I could drink it too. I knew that Charlotte was watching me and wanted me alive. And that was all the reason for me to keep my thoughts subdued.

It was hard to do, especially on such a volatile planet. Charlotte’s mind lacked cohesion. On the first day I walked straight through a desert into a rainforest that ended at a beach.

The desert air was dry, forced to the back of my throat by fervent winds. It choked me, whipped through my core, knocked me on my face. I fell several times in the sand, amidst the prickling cacti, my only source of color. And I stood up several times, coughing, spewing the grit off my tongue, while the sun beat down, covering half the sky.

The heat followed me into the rainforest, where the air was thick. It hung from the trees and churned in the swamps. It swam in the pores of my skin. And halfway through, I too was swimming, in a torrential downpour that drove me in slippery steps to the forest’s end.

I staggered onto the beach, the heat relentless. The sand was red and baking. I dropped to my knees and winced at the burn of skin that was already raw and beaten. Tears welled in the corners of my eyes.

I looked past the shore, into the sun.

“Please!” I begged. “Have pity on me! For just one day!”

The sun listened. The next day the air was cold and white as I trudged up a snowy mountain path. With each step I took, the path lengthened before me and vanished behind me. I was walking in place—an ever-slanting place—while blank space rode on my back.

I looked over my shoulders into it, into that white unknown. But even as the air chiseled into me, cracking me and pulling on my breath, I couldn’t bring myself to turn back, not into the recess of Charlotte’s mind. And so I trudged on.

After hours on the mountain, Charlotte finally let me rest. The path leveled out, and as I walked a little further, the snow began to melt. A sprightly sun shone in the distance.

I was led to a beach, much different from the first. The air was light and cool, and the sand was a powdery white canvas.

A hundred yards down the shoreline, a cluster of boulders whispered for me to climb them. I could hear them in my ears. They were sparkling and alive. Even after all of my physical labor, I found myself drawn to them, eager to climb. If I could reach the top, then I would have conquered something. And that was exactly what I needed. Those boulders were the first compelling thing since the waterfall.

Wanting to hydrate first, I looked to the ocean and wondered if the water was safe to drink. It wasn’t that I normally drank from oceans, but this water was clear and devoid of fish.

In fact, I hadn’t seen any animals at all. Charlotte
had
said that she couldn’t create anymore. It seemed that all she could do was alter the topography and weather. Of course, that was scary enough on its own.

I cupped my hands in the turquoise ocean, taking a tentative sip. Then another. The water was saltless and cool. I sat in the sand—my dress bathing—surrounded by water and seashells, but it was no beach. I drank until my throat was wet and my stomach full.

Then I started for the rocks. Standing before them I saw that they were much steeper than they had looked at a distance. However, I had nothing else to do, so I stuck one foot in the lowest crevice and hoisted myself up. I only climbed for a couple of minutes before tiring. I had no prior experience rock climbing, and though I was trying otherwise, I could feel myself using my arms rather than my legs to ascend.

I wanted to rest, but there was really no place to do so. I stood caught with my left foot in a crevice a few feet above my right foot and with my arms spread wide apart, each hand gripping as much of the wall as possible.

I glanced down to see how far I had climbed. It was higher than I had thought.

My fingers began to grow weary and white. I thrust my body against the rocks to keep from slipping, but they were too smooth. All the natural handholds had disappeared. My left hand lost its grip and swung to my side . . . but somehow I didn’t fall. Then my right hand started to slip, and I prepared for the worst . . . but still I didn’t fall. I was suspended in the air, with my feet wedged in the tiniest cracks and my arms hanging like an ape’s. And I was bewildered. I had no idea what was going on, but I was too afraid to move and find out. Something was supporting me, and if I left it by risking a climb to the top, I would risk falling to the bottom.

As I considered my position, I lost all sound. I could no longer hear the ocean waves or the wind. My own breath became inaudible.

Panicked, I looked to the sky and screamed.

“Help! Somebody help!”

I couldn’t hear myself. Even my thoughts were beginning to fade, like someone was turning down the volume on my mind.

I stared and stared at the rocks in front of me. Time passed, but I don’t know how much. Without my thoughts, I had no concept of minutes or hours. I was a vegetable on the verge of dissolving into the soil.

I fell onto something. At first that was all I could say about it. With my back on the thing and my face toward the sky, I couldn’t see what was transporting me. I was immobilized, left only to watch the sky and its shifting clouds.

I was laid at the mouth of a cave, high on a mountaintop, with no way down. When I sat up, I saw a giant bird flying back toward the ocean. It had an orange body with a sharp blue beak and blue wings that extended several meters. It looked prehistoric.

I scooted back, frightened that
that
was what had carried me across the ocean. I didn’t know if it had rescued me or snatched me for its own use.

It cawed loudly as it flew into the clouds and disappeared.

My thoughts scrambled. I could hear again. I was trapped. There
were
animals on The Mango Sun.

What if it comes back for me?

I cowered, backing further into the cave. But now the ocean was scarcely visible, and that made me just as nervous.

It wasn’t long before night drenched the world in black. I wondered where I should sleep, or if I should sleep at all. I was exhausted, having barely slept at all since leaving my house. The shifting terrain had not been conducive to it.

If I poised myself at the cave’s entrance, I would apparently be exposed to fantastical birds. If I huddled deep within the cave, I might encounter whatever lurked inside. I threw my options back and forth until my body had had enough. I collapsed on the ground, and my eyes shut themselves.

In the middle of the night, I awoke. I was curled on my side with my head at the entrance of the cave. I sighed out of relief that I hadn’t rolled off the mountain.

Above me the stars shone like diamonds sewn into a black velvet cloth that draped all the way to the ground. It was lovely, but ever lonely. I had never been by myself for longer than a day. There had always been someone around, even if only in the next room.

Since Garrett’s death, I had been telling everyone that I wanted to be left alone. Now I
was
alone, and I didn’t like it one bit. But I bet my family liked it, being without me. I’d caused them nothing but grief for months. So it was fair this way, really. We had all gotten what we deserved.

I fell back asleep with faded images of my parents, Tyson, and Garrett drifting across the blackness of my mind like a slideshow that would soon be erased.

A blue man shook me awake. I gasped so hard I knocked the wind out of myself. I scrambled to my hands and knees, hyperventilating.

The man stepped back. He was bald, with pale blue skin. There wasn’t a hair on his body. He was all but naked in a pair of shorts made of coarse grass. He was studying me with his head cocked to the side like he hadn’t seen a human before, though he looked fairly human himself, aside from his blue skin and the long, pointed tongue that he then stuck out at me. The gesture wasn’t aggressive, but inquiring, as if somehow his tongue could sense his surroundings.

“Are you Jade?” he asked in an airy voice.

His feet were large and bare, so I could see his bony toes curl against the ground as he walked back toward me. But his toes were the only bony part about him. He was solid.

“How do you know my name?” I asked.

I stood up, but stepped back, eyeing the ground for loose rocks. The man moved closer, fixed on me. His eyes were wide and blue, like open portals.

“My sister has been talking about you,” he said.

“I don’t know your sister,” I said. “Who are you?”

I took another step back and hit a wall, just past the mouth of the cave. I swore under my breath. Briefly I lowered my head, rubbing along the back of it.

“I have not touched another human for many years,” I heard the man say.

I looked up, and he was right in front of me. His hands were resting on the wall, with his arms on either side of me.

Oh no. What do I do? Gouge his eyes? Knee him in the groin?

Garrett and Justin had once taught me some self-defense techniques, but all of the sudden I couldn’t remember anything from that night. Except for my winning hip throw of Justin. I’d never forget that. Unfortunately, I couldn’t perform a hip throw backed against a wall.

Keep the dialogue going, Jade. Don’t look timid. Say something.

“Another human?” I managed to ask.

“Yes,” the man said. “It is not the same to feel one’s own skin.”

He leaned in, inhaling deeply through his nose. He caressed my cheek, and I noticed a tungsten-like ring on his right index finger. It had four square diamonds in its band.

“Are you human?” I asked.

“We are our planets, and our planets are we.” He paused, twirling my hair around his fingers. “I am . . . human . . .”

“But?” I prodded.

I kept still as my hair was raked across my face. The man was mesmerized by its fluidity. He grinned, sticking out his tongue again. It was like a snake’s.

“But,” he finally said, “I’ve spent ages with reptiles and the color blue, and now I look different. You see, I intended to create an entirely blue world. I started one, but my powers were taken before I could finish.”

He leaned back just enough to study my face.

“Powers?” I repeated. “Wait—are you related to Charlotte?”

He nodded mournfully. “Indeed, Charlotte is my sister. But I do not reside on The Mango Sun with her. I rule The Blue Planet.”

“The Blue Planet?” I asked skeptically. “Like Neptune?”

I glanced away from him. There wasn’t a rock in sight. I should have brought one of my knives from Earth, or at least asked Charlotte to make me one. Maybe an imaginary knife could kill in an imaginary world.

The man sighed like a little child.

“I have never been to Neptune. I was going to choose a more specific name for my world, but The Blue Planet seemed to suffice after only being able to create the waters and the lizards and the snakes.”

He looked down at his shorts and then added, “Well, I suppose I managed to form a little land, too, but it’s not much.”

He’s as crazy as Charlotte.

I thought about running, but there was no real sense in that. Even if I had had somewhere to run to, the blue man would have surely caught me. I had to play this differently. I would keep the focus on him.

“Who are you?” I demanded, and I threw back his stare.

“Oh dear,” he said suddenly. His forehead creased with guilt. “Please forgive me; I see that I’ve come on too strong.”

He knelt down and looked up at me.

“I am Eden. I’m sorry if I have frightened you. It’s just that you are very beautiful and I have not seen anyone but my sister for quite some time. My planet is empty and dull. I can’t project my thoughts like Charlotte, and I rarely visit her. We do not get along.”

What is it with these people and their moods?

At least he wasn’t going to hurt me. I could see now that he was just lonely and a little off. Still, he was saying wild things, things that Charlotte had said. And that worried me.

I walked past the mouth of the cave, toward the cliff. I was shaking my head like it might shake away the scene.

“You’re saying that you guys are gods or something?” I asked, and I turned to look back at Eden.

He rotated on the ground to face me. I towered over him, blocking the sun, and in the shadow of the cave he was a deep sky blue.

“Gods, creators, rulers—you may call us what you like,” he said.

I threw up my hands. “Have I fallen into a mythology book?”

He replied calmly. “Each world has its own creator, or creators.”

“Fantastic,” I said. “Now that that’s been established, I think I’d like to ask
my
creator to get me the hell out of here.”

I sat down at the edge of the cliff and swung my legs over, muttering in thought. I had seen the shadows and space through new eyes, but I doubted that I had a creator. I still wasn’t even convinced that Charlotte and Eden were creators. Charlotte was certainly a witch, in all senses of the word, but beyond that I didn’t know. Maybe we had all been born from the elements, just like the chariot drivers.

Eden sat down beside me.

“You can’t reach him from here,” he said. “You’re in a different channel now.”

“A different channel?” I asked. “The last time I checked, there was one planet with life, and that was Earth. I don’t know what this Mango Sun place is, but your sister is trying to keep me here as her pet. She’s simultaneously torturing and protecting me; trapping me on rock walls, but not letting me fall from them! This place is just as twisted as Earth.”