The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy (33 page)

Tears ran down his face.

The recording changed. Whose music was this? Did his father play like this? Happy. Happy music. Straight up with no darkness. No ambiguity. Drums in the background. Old drums, long dead. Dead and happy! His father was happy, blowing up a storm. Playing with his son while his beautiful daughter-in-law showed the world what dance meant. Lovely child. He could hear his father’s voice—
“
Beau
tiful girl.”

Ellie was on the other side of the room spinning amongst giant portraits and ancient moldings and the swath of walnut floor. As though she heard his thoughts, she turned toward him, spinning, leaping. Throwing herself into grand jetés, legs extended like double knives, leaping toward him. Arms high, head poised. She circled around, and flew toward him again.

Doing cartwheels! Cartwheels, from one corner of the floor to him. She ended the run with a double flip, skidding to a stop, in the splits!

His horn shrieked and he jumped off the stage, embracing her. “Oh, Ellie, you are wonderful.” He held her to his heart. Everyone was applauding, but he didn’t hear them.

When he let her go, she said, “I great! Jeremy great!”

V
al fought her way along the riverbank, staying close to the shore. The sun was long gone. She didn’t know what time it was; it seemed to be the middle of the night. Wearing the big hiking boots made swimming difficult. She was going to take them off, tie them by their shoestrings, and hang them over her shoulder so she could swim. But then she stepped on something hard and slimy. Her boot slipped off it, and whatever it was moved under her foot. Moved of its own volition. She pulled up her feet and headed for the middle of the river.

Two-hundred-pound snapping turtles lived in these waters; she’d read about them. The boots stayed on. She kept her feet and hands as high as she could. Tears ran down her face and into her mouth, but she kept paddling upstream, where she thought she’d find the mansion.

When she was midway across the river, the monster swooped across the sky. It was huge, with hair extending out like wings. Black
eyes and bright teeth. The moonlight outlined it against the clouds, like a ghost. She gasped and dove under water, heading for the opposite bank.

Her lungs shrieked for air, but she kept swimming. When some roots sticking into the water touched her face, she grabbed them and pulled her face out of the water. The thing circled, dipping over the forest with mad eyes. She felt something warm between her legs.

She’d wet her pants. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, even though she was in a freezing river with no one around. She was so afraid that she had wet herself. Tears ran down her cheeks. Her teeth chattered so loudly she could hear them.

Val clawed out of the water and burrowed into loose leaves and debris on the riverbank. She didn’t care if the monster got her. She had to get out of the water. She had to rest. Everything was gone. The car was gone, Josh was gone, and everyone she knew was gone.

She gasped. The combat packs were gone. The shiny metal case with its vials of happiness went up with the SUV. In a few hours, she would feel like she’d been ripped apart, and she wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. She sagged where she lay. She’d lost. Her mission was over.

Val covered herself as well as she could with leaves and dirt. She tried to get warmer. Tried to sleep. Maybe she did. Maybe the faces were dreams.

She’d seen Sylvia James’s face, from the Hermitage Academy. She was looking at Val earnestly. She was a nice lady. Val had asked her questions and she had answered them right away. Val hadn’t needed to hurt her, or give her drugs. She’d told the truth because she was a nice person and wanted to help. And because Val was a federal agent and she’d trusted her.

Was Val sobbing in her sleep? Is that what that noise was? Was she asleep? She’d peed in the water because she was so scared. She was ashamed, but almost all of the people she questioned did it. Wally the math teacher had pissed himself. And the old man that morning, the one who’d played the ponies. His wife, too.

She frightened them so badly that their bladders let go in terror. She made people do that all the time. Three times today. She’d killed three people that day: Wally, the old man, and his wife.

She felt far away from her body and her thoughts, like they belonged to someone else. How many people had she killed in her life? Hundreds. Thousands?

Why?

Sylvia James had talked about Jeremy Edgarton screaming at his mother. What would it be like to have a mother like that? And Chaz Edgarton as a father? Pretty bad. Jeremy was autistic, too. That was sad. He had to be busy all the time.

Josh had said they were building a theme park on the estate. Maybe that was so Jeremy could stay busy. Maybe there wasn’t any plot. Maybe Veronica Edgarton was off somewhere with the general and not at the estate.

Why did Val need to kill anyone?

The troopers said atomic missiles were going off tomorrow morning. That would mean everyone would die. Did she need to kill anyone now?

The president had told her to complete her mission. Use sufficient force. He would make her bureau chief if she did. What did he tell her to do? Her gun nestled against her side like a lover. What was she supposed to do? Why should she do anything? President Charles must have known about the missiles going off.

She was so sleepy, like she was drugged.

Her ring had sparkled in the car, a flash of blue light. She bought it because she’d had a crazy idea. She’d imagined a man loving her so much that he bought that beautiful ring for her. She could feel him embrace her. Hold her. Whisper “I love you.” She was wearing a dress like one of Mrs. Edgarton’s and holding her hand out. The ring glittered.

It was about life, not death.

J
eremy invited everyone who had seen their performance to a late supper, including all the village people who’d been skulking around outside, peering through the windows.

Sam sat gingerly on one of the fine Georgian chairs. He watched carefully to see how everyone was eating before he picked up a fork. Jeremy noticed. Good, he’d be a good leader; he understood the importance of manners.

Eliana lit into her uncooked grits with abandon. And she had discovered a new treat: unpopped popcorn. She tossed the grains back with a glass of olive oil, crunching the whole mess.

“She has strong teeth,” Sam said.

“And a strong stomach,” Lena answered.

When everyone had eaten his or her fill, Jeremy said, “Take the rest home, Sam.”

“I’ll get some skins to carry it,” Sam said. “Many thanks.” He carefully enunciated the words.

“Take the platters, Sam. And the bowls,” Jeremy said. “We won’t have any use for them. Take it all.” He waved at the silver and crystal, the china and linen. Baroque silver candlesticks from before the Revolution. “We won’t need it.”

“Oh, Jeremy, what would your mother say?” Lena looked stricken. If Jeremy was giving away his family heirlooms, it meant what was coming in the morning was real.

“My mother would tell them to take everything they could stuff in the shelter and think of her when they used it. Sam, my mom’s furs are at the end of her closets. They’ll be useful in the winter. You’re way underground, but I bet it will be cold. Her jewels are up there, too.”

Jeremy got up. The others stood at his cue.

“Thank you, Mr. Egerton. We’ll remember you, all of you.”

“And I’ll remember you, Sam. Do what I said, now. Take over the world when you get out—and make it a decent place.” Jeremy drooped with exhaustion. “I’ve got to get some sleep. Good night everyone.” He headed for the staircase.

“Jeremy and Eliana bed now?” Ellie said brightly, running after him and taking his arm.

“Uh...” Jeremy couldn’t respond; she’d caught him off guard. They walked up the stairs. He finally found some words. “Ellie, we need to talk. I don’t think we should have sex.” The thought had been with him since that afternoon when he’d caressed her feet. She was so soft and appealing, he could hardly look at her without a throb running through him. “We’re very young. Part of what is wrong with the world is people having sex casually. This has been a hard day. Tomorrow is going to be worse. We have to get up early. So, let’s just be friends, OK? Let’s go to sleep.”

“OK. Sleep.”

They walked through the second-story hallway, heading for his room. He stopped at the room before his, opening the door and leading her in. He turned on the bedside light and patted a fluffy bed in a very nicely done room. “You sleep here, Ellie.”

He felt safer with her in the spare bedroom on the other side of his bathroom. He’d earlier put the nightgown and robe on the bed for her.

When she realized he intended for her to stay here by herself, she looked shocked. “No Jeremy?” She stood with her mouth slightly open.

“No, I’m just on the other side of the bathroom.” He opened the bathroom door so she could see. She recoiled like he’d shown her a torture chamber.

“No, Jeremy.” Her eyes filled. “Afraid.” He stood like a dolt. “Jeremy no like Eliana.” The tears spilled over onto her cheeks.

“Look, hon, I think we should do it this way.” He put his arms around her. “I don’t just like you. I love you. But this is how it should be.” He was sure he’d botch the job if he tried, and he believed what he’d said about teen sex.

He walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. “I’m going to take a shower, Ellie. Don’t mind me.”

Ellie froze when she was alone in her room. She could hear terrible wetness falling in the next space beyond the door, just as she’d heard it at Lena and Henry’s. Jeremy hated her so much that he put something that would kill her between them. He did not like her, as she had thought he had, when she danced.

She made little chittering noises for a while, rubbing her nose with her hands, and then fell onto the bed, soaking the puffy cover with the strange moisture from her eyes.

While she slept, she could see herself about to enter the great hall in her world. Her dream was something that had happened before she left.

Her mother had put her arm around her as they’d approached the wall of the elders. Light moved inside it, as it did in all the walls of their world. The great wall thinned so she could see the dark elders behind it. The figures had craned their necks and watched them.

“Is she ready, Belarian?” they had asked her mother. Now Eliana could hear the elders’ voices as sounds with real words, instead of invisible
words in her mind.

“I don’t think she can learn much more,” her mother had told the elders. “She can read simple sentences, speak a bit. She can add and subtract. That’s as much as she is capable of. But we’ll provide directions.”

The elders had pronounced her fit to leave for a planet they knew very little about and wouldn’t dare visit themselves.

The tall elder—the doctor who had come to Belarian’s place and looked at Eliana’s body all over—had said, “I will be very disappointed if you do not succeed, Eliana. And Belarian will be more than disappointed.”

Her mother had looked at her strangely, eyes hard. “If you do not succeed, you will no longer be my child,” Belarian had said. And then she hadn’t looked at her at all. It was like Eliana wasn’t there.

Her eyes opened wide and her heart beat fast.

Ellie sat up in bed, face wet, making terrible noises in her mouth. She couldn’t stop. When they were down in the concrete world, Jeremy asked her if there was punishment in her world, and she had said no, everyone was nice. But now she knew what punishment was.

If she did not do her job here, she would lose her mother. That was punishment.

The noises kept coming out of her and water fell from her eyes.

“Ellie?” Jeremy came from the room of terrible moisture. “What’s the matter, Ellie? Why are you crying?” He sat down on the bed and held her. She clung to him.

“My mother...” came out of her, over and over.

“Oh, Ellie. How stupid of me. You miss your mother. Come on, you can sleep with me.” He pulled her toward the terrible wet room. “Come on, El, it’s OK.” He dragged her through so quickly that she hardly noticed the bowl with water like the one where Shaq drank at Lena’s place.