Dandelion Fire (23 page)

Henry stopped near the top of the stairs. Pieces were falling together. They were the wrong pieces, but still. Darius must have come through into Kansas after Henry had escaped, but he'd been faster than Henry. He
was the one who had opened all the cupboards. He had found his way to Endor. Or maybe not to Endor. He'd been looking for Nimiane. He had wanted her freed in the worlds. Maybe he had gone to wherever she was, to wherever Zeke and the girls had shoved her after Zeke had knocked her out. It felt like an age ago, like it had all happened somewhere in Henry's distant childhood, back when he was a baby. But it had only been a matter of weeks.

Henry reached the top of the stairs and stood on the damp landing. How would Darius be able to tell which cupboard the witch had gone into? Maybe he couldn't. But they were both probably through there somewhere. Worse, Nella and Ron had seemed pretty sure that Henry and Darius would be meeting again.

Henry walked into the dark bathroom, set his glass on the counter, and flipped the light switch without thinking. Nothing happened. There was a window in the shower, so he ripped the shower curtain down and threw it in the tub. Bright daylight flooded in through the gapped and shattered panes, and Henry turned and saw himself in the mirror.

Black spots of dried blood were stuck to his lip beneath his nostrils and to the sides of his nose and his cheekbones around his tear ducts. He leaned toward the mirror and saw black tracks leading out of both of his ears. He twisted the faucet handle to wash his face and then remembered why he had walked upstairs in the
first place. The only water in the house was in the toilet tank.

Henry picked up the porcelain lid and balanced it on the seat. For a moment, he stared at the black float and the decades' worth of toilet silt that clung to the tank's walls. Then he numbed his mind, dipped his glass, and drank quickly.

It was good.

He didn't finish the glass. He pulled a hand towel off a rack and dumped the rest of the water onto it. Leaning back toward the mirror, he scrubbed at his face.

The blood from his cupboard passage came off quickly. There wasn't a lot of it.

He dropped the towel in the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His shirt was ridiculous. Wherever he decided to go first, he needed to change his clothes.

A cobweb was stuck to his jaw, straggling off from the new skin around his old burns. He brushed it, but it didn't move. Then he looked closer. It wasn't one cobweb, it was a whole tangle of extremely fine threads. Together, they formed an irregular tube, spiraling in place where his scar had begun to pock. They were gray, and they were deathly. Smaller versions, tiny and ghostlike, crawled out of the other places where the witch's blood had spattered on his skin.

Henry ran his fingers through them, and they were undisturbed. He raised his right hand and saw his palm-flame in the mirror. The gray webs scattered, flattened
on his face, spun, and writhed to avoid his dandelion fire. He put his hand down and watched them swirl back into place.

An actual spider, unaware of the consequences of its decision, lowered itself from the ceiling and came to rest on top of the mirror. Henry pinched its thread between his fingers and dangled it in the air. Then he moved it through the ghost-funnels next to his face.

When it touched the first small one, the spider jumped, grabbed at its line, and started to climb. Henry moved it through the bigger one, and the spider twitched and dangled. Its legs folded against its underbelly, and its abdomen shriveled up as all eight legs dropped off. Henry let go of its string, but it clung to his fingertip. He shook it off, scraped his fingers on the sink's edge, and then looked back in the mirror.

He didn't like that at all.

Remembering how Nella had looked when he had begun to really see her, he stared at himself. He wanted to see more than the weird things clinging to his face. But nothing appeared. Nothing but his face-webs and a flash of gold when he raised his right hand.

Henry shivered and left the bathroom quickly. He didn't want to think about what he had just seen. He needed to change. And then he would pick his poison.

Wearing normal shoes felt good. He'd been through a lot barefoot. Henry wiggled his toes. He was even wearing socks. They were a little damp, but better than
nothing. Water had found its way through most of the drawers in his nightstand dresser, but his jeans weren't too terrible, and he'd found a black T-shirt that was completely dry

Henry's backpack was unzipped on his bed. He stood in the doorway, holding Grandfather's journals, looking from the diagram to the wall to the list of names and back to the wall.

He hadn't the least idea where to begin. A brassy-looking door on the left looked interesting. It had some sort of relief of a vine with colored stones as flowers. But he wasn't sure. He found himself more attracted to plain doors, to doors that didn't look as frilly or glamorous as some of the others. To doors that didn't look like they might have Darius or Nimiane behind them.

It was distracting having most of them open. Smells, good and bad, crept through along with warm air or cold. He wanted to shut them all, but he wasn't sure that would be smart. He'd already regretted shutting the most important one.

Badon Hill was the only place he really wanted to go. But it had been boarded up.

Henry stared at the twisted rectangular door. He could pick the smell of Badon Hill out of every other drifting scent. It was its own place. Its wind had its own flavor. The dangling door drifted and rocked, and Henry pulled in a deep breath. Realization bubbled up in Henry's mind. When the faeren had posted their warning, they
had closed off the backside of the cupboard. He hadn't been able to smell anything. There had been no breeze.

“Wait,” Henry said out loud. He set the journals on his backpack and knelt on the end of his bed. Water soaked up out of the mattress and into his jeans. Henry pushed the door out of the way and felt around inside. Splinters of wood covered the bottom, and when his hand reached the back, his fingers crawled through earth and moss.

It was open again.

Henry didn't know why that would be, but he didn't care. That's where he was going. If he couldn't find a way off the island, then he would come back and try something else. If he found out that there was no Deiran Coast in that world—how, he didn't know—then he would come back and try something else.

Henry flipped through the other journal until he found the combination to Badon Hill. Then he set the compass locks, picked up his backpack, and hurried down the attic stairs. He didn't stop on the second-story landing. He quick-stepped down the next flight, moved through the mushroom patch, dropped his pack on the dining room table, and went into the kitchen to find a pen. He was planning on digging in the junk drawer, but there was already a pen on the counter.

He picked it up and went back to Frank's note. He wrote his own note up the side.

He looked at his note and tried to think if there was anything he should add. Should he say “Love, Henry”? No. But he did have a thought. He double-checked the journal and then copied the Badon Hill combination next to his note and circled it.

That would be enough.

It was time to load his backpack. The flashlight went in first. A couple pairs of socks, a pair of underwear, a gray hooded sweatshirt, and a long-sleeve T-shirt were wadded into the middle. The other can of tuna went in there somewhere. He didn't know where his pocketknife was, and he didn't feel like looking, so he'd pulled an old-fashioned, plastic-handled, round-nosed steak knife out of a drawer, wound a kitchen towel tight around the blade, and shoved it into the middle of his clothes. He rubber-banded the journals back together, put them in a sealable plastic bag, and dropped it on top of everything else. Then he zipped up.

He felt weird climbing the stairs, knowing that he
might never see the house again. A lot of things had happened to him here. He had changed. But not as much as the house had.

Henry stopped in the bathroom for another drink. He didn't look in the mirror, but he couldn't help looking down at the spider and its scattered legs. He didn't like spiders, but he still felt a little bad. He set his glass on the sink and bent down to pick the dead thing up. The legs stuck to his fingers, and he brushed them off into the toilet bowl. The body was dry and crumbled in his hand. When it was floating with its limbs, he put his hand on the toilet handle but stopped. He shouldn't flush. The tank would empty. Henrietta might need that water later. He might need it later.

“That didn't help,” Henry muttered. He banged the lid shut and stood up.

He didn't allow himself to dawdle on the landing. A knot in his stomach was trying to grow and tighten, but he kept his breath even and concentrated on what he was doing, not on what might happen because of it.

Grandfather's room smelled wonderful. The wind from the smashed windows tangled with the breeze that slid out of the cupboard, and Henry stopped and simply felt it. He looked out at the police car and then around his grandfather's room, the room that had been so mysterious for so long. Crouching in front of the cupboard, the floor breeze rustled against his face and filled him with an ache. A longing. Not for anything he knew, but for something. Something that could be had. It was like
being hungry without knowing food existed. Or thirsty without ever having heard of water.

Henry wished that someone could assure him that everything would be all right, that he wouldn't die until he was one hundred, and that he wouldn't notice then. Maybe that he wouldn't die at all. But that was Darius's wish. That's what Nimiane had achieved. Death was better than that.

Henry felt like he should pray. He didn't know why, and he didn't remember the last time he had. He took his backpack off and set it in the cupboard in front of him. The breeze was warm on his hands.

“God,” he said, and stopped. What else should he say? Fix everything? Kill Darius in his sleep? Make the world soft and friendly?

“God,” he said again.

And he crawled in.

Soft earth compressed beneath his palms. Moss pulled away beneath his fingers. He pushed his pack up ahead of him and grabbed handfuls of warm grass. He saw the sky and treetops swaying, grabbing at its belly. He saw the long gray stone, its surface shimmering with warmth, and he rolled out into the sun.

raggant flared its nostrils and sampled the world. He knew it well, and he hadn't been gone long. Much was the same. But the currents had changed. For a person, it would have been like finding a childhood river flowing the wrong direction. Or worse, leaving someone strong for a few days and returning to find them dying. But the raggant was not like a person, and it didn't panic like one. It sat on the thick tree limb and breathed— longer, deeper, louder—and his soul remapped the world. It didn't use any abstractions, like coordinates or dimensions. A spawning salmon didn't need to, even a migrating goose with the intelligence of a walnut wouldn't need to. And their internal compasses were as sophisticated as a bit of fluff when compared to the raggant's. The raggant's was more like a spider's web. If spiders worked in color, knew the stars by how their light tasted, and could see sound.