Flux (34 page)
“Hey!” he yelped, coming to an abrupt halt. “Are you a double?”
Absolute silence descended onto the girl standing beside Nellie, and she gave him an icy glare.
“Uh, Deller,” Nellie said hastily. “It’s kind of, well ... relative, y’know?”
“Relative?” he asked, confused. “You mean she’s your cousin?”
“No.” Nellie slitted her eyes, scowled and fidgeted. “I mean, like ... Well okay, I’m
her
double.”
The air relaxed as the girl in the gold-brocaded dress gave an approving nod.
“Oh.” Deller’s eyes darted between them. “Yeah sure, I get it. So, does that mean we’re in another level?” He glanced around eagerly. “Where’s my double?”
“We’re not in another level,” Nellie said impatiently. “And if you shut up and don’t ask too many questions, she might help us find Fen.”
A very weasely expression crossed Deller’s face and he glanced quickly at Nellie’s double. “D’you know any easy ways into the Interior?” he asked.
Relief hit Nellie, so enormous she almost sank to her knees. As usual, Deller was way ahead of her. She wasn’t even going to have to ask him if he would come along on her search for Nellie Joanne.
“You can’t go through the skins,” her double said quickly. “A watch has been placed on them and even if there wasn’t, the skins are too tough to get through in the Interior. You’ll have to get there the normal way.” She turned toward Nellie, her gray sarpa eyes intent. “You don’t know,” she said quietly, “how important this is. How important
you
are—more even than the rest of your doubles. You have to
listen
, to the skins, to your own skin.”
Utterly bewildered, Nellie stared at her double. Their eyes locked and then she heard a voice shimmer deep within her mind.
You’re not half bad, y’ know,
it said lightly,
for a double. My slowest double, that is
. A dense brief humming started up around the girl in the gold-brocaded dress, she grinned a fierce weasely grin, and was gone.
“Hey!” Deller yelped, stepping forward and running his hands through the air. “Is there a gate here?”
“She doesn’t need gates,” said Nellie, staring at the place her double had been standing. What in the Goddess’s name had the girl meant when she’d said Nellie was the most important double? What had happened to everything being relative? “She won’t show me how she does it without them though,” she added glumly. “She’s kind of a crabby person, actually.”
“Well.” Deller grinned at her. “She
is
your double.”
Nellie slitted her eyes at him, but he ignored her, settling down on the riverbank and pointing west. “See that?” he asked.
Sitting beside him Nellie glanced in the direction he was pointing. “See what?” she asked grumpily.
“That constellation,” he said. “It’s the Five Children, the ones who didn’t get turned into moons and ended up living normal lives. It’s sitting right over the Interior. All we have to do is follow it, and it’ll take us where we need to go. It’ll be like a promise. We’re going to find them alive—Fen and Nellie Joanne.”
Nellie sat watching the scattering of tiny stars, her heart thundering like an ache, like anger, a knife-edged knowing she couldn’t put into words. What they were about to do was absolute foolishness. It was sliding off the cliff edge of hope. It could steal breath and end heartbeats. And it would take her straight into her most frightening memories.
“What about your mom?” she whispered, hugging her knees. “She told me no more running off. And she’ll be too scared to let you go.”
“We’ll have to sneak off,” Deller said glumly. “I don’t like it, but I don’t know any other way. We’ll hang around a couple of days when we get to Shor to help her get settled, then take off. Lucky for us Shor’s closer to the Interior than Dorniver.” He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. “I know she told you to stick around, but you’re not taking off really, if you’re with me. She’ll be mad. She’ll be out of her head with worry. But she’ll understand why we went. And think how happy she’ll be when she sees us coming back with Fen.” He stared up at the Constellation of the Five Children, transfixed. “It’ll be worth every minute of her worrying, she’ll see.”
“Yeah.” Doubt still hung over Nellie like a thick veil. “But what if ... “ She paused, swallowing.
“What if what?” asked Deller, turning to look at her.
“Well ... “ Again Nellie paused. “What if what the doubled priest said in the Temple is true?” she burst out unhappily. “What if I am half sarpa?”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” shrugged Deller. “My dad had sarpa in him too, remember? Lucky for Fen it all went to him.”
An astonished look crossed Nellie’s face, and he leaned toward her, bumping her shoulder with his own. “The way I see it,” he
continued, “if you’re half sarpa, you’ll be able to figure out what they’re likely to do next. We’re bound to run into a few of them again somewhere, especially since they’re looking for you. And I bet they’ve got something to do with whatever’s happening to Fen and your sister. Plus, being half sarpa, you can do things the rest of us can’t. I mean, Nellie—, “ Deller gave a short laugh. “When those guys took off through that laboratory door, it wasn’t the human part of you they were running away from. Anyway,” he said gruffly. “Your heart’s all human, I know that for sure.”
Suddenly Nellie found herself engulfed in a tight hug, Deller’s heart thundering against her own. Just as quickly he withdrew, and they sat breathing rapidly, staring out over the quiet rippling water.
“Well,” said Nellie, her hands fluttering nervously, patting her short bristly hair, her face, her throat. “
Well
.”
“We’re going to find them, Nellie.” Deller turned toward her, his face shadowy in the sepia-gray dusk. “We’re going to find them and bring them back, you and me.”
“And the Goddess,” Nellie said firmly. Getting a grip, she raised a finger and waved it in his face.
“Sure.” With a grin, Deller hooked her finger with his own. “We’ll let Her come along too.”
Watch for the exciting sequal to
Flux
In
Fixed,
Nellie and Deller leave the Outbacks and head into the Interior, intent on rescuing Deller’s younger brother Fen. Caught by the security police, they are taken into one of Detta’s underground military bases. There Nellie becomes a subject in one of the dreaded experiments performed in K Block and learns the truth behind the “great mysteries” of the Goddess Ivana and its relationship to her own past.
Using her ability to enter other levels of reality, Nelly confronts the mysterious elite who control human minds through doubling and discovers the real reason the levels are fixed.
Award-winning books
by Beth Goobie
The Lottery
ALA Best Book nominee
CLA YA Book Award nominee
International Youth Library White Raven List
“...an ambitious, thought-provoking homage to
both Shirley Jackson and Robert Cormier.”
—Booklist
Before Wings
Canadian Library Association
Young Adult Book Award
Mr. Christie’s Silver Seal Award winner
Governor General’s Award finalist
for Children’s Literature
“Beth Goobie just might be the best YA writer in the country.
She is, certainly, the most intense, most poetic.”
—Tim Wynne-Jones
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
