The Dark Light (41 page)

I turned for the hill and then stopped.

Sol waited about six feet away. I didn’t know how long
he’d been there, but as soon as I saw him, my heart raced. “You heard?”

“I heard.”

“Did I do the right thing?”

“He belongs with his father, Mia,” he said, approaching me. “This is a chance for that to finally happen.”

“I know,” I said, and meant it. “But would you trust Bromasta? With Jay, I mean.”

Sol responded with a subtle nod, his gaze never once leaving my face. He reached for my hand, our fingers linking, hands palm to palm.

“Then I guess that just leaves you and me.” I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could and battled the tears I knew were about to fall. “Sol, I . . .”

His fingers came to my chin and he gently raised my face to his. “Mia, I’m coming with you.”

I knew I’d heard him wrong. There was just no way. He was going to head west, like Bromasta, to press the advantage following Elias’s defeat.

“To Crownsville,” he said.

“You’re serious?” I whispered, still gripping his hand. “Please don’t tell me this is a joke.”

He smiled. “I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of Elias, Mia. His magic is powerful. Until I see his body, I won’t be convinced
he’s gone. You need someone to look out for you, more than just Petraeus. At least until things calm down.”

Sol was coming with me to Crownsville! I wasn’t going to lose him. Not yet.

“We have to move, though,” he said. “Did you hear the horns?”

I hadn’t heard anything but Sol telling me he was coming back to Crownsville.

“They’re coming,” I said, regaining my senses. “Bromasta and Jay! They have to get out of here.”

We ran to the others where I scooped up Jay for the hug of a lifetime. “No swords,” I said, crushing him against me. “And no more kicking sentinels. I’m serious.”

“I’ll be good,” said Jay.

“And I’ll make certain of it,” added Bromasta. After seeing him take on the sentinels, I believed him. “Now go, Mia. You’ll hear from us. Often.”

Though I knew I’d done the right thing, letting go of Jay was hard. A horn blew.

“Contact Petraeus as soon as you’re safely away,” said Sol to Bromasta.

“The moment we’re clear of Orion,” Bromasta replied, his arm around Jay.

Sol and I walked to the arch. Smiling at the boys, I took the Solenetta from my pocket. “It’s time to go home.”

Colored mist swirled under the arch. The Equinox was beginning.

The others watched from the bottom of the hill. Orion, aflame from the light of the setting sun, stood far beyond. A brigade of mounted guardsmen tore across the land, dust churning in their wake.

“Barrier’s open, Mia,” said Sol. He stepped through the veil of brightening multicolored light that filled the archway, the boys at his side. They vanished.

My gaze settled on Bromasta and Jay. “Good-bye,” I whispered.

The Equinox strengthening, I slipped into the shimmering lights, and emerged in a field in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

The same sun lowered in the west. Brakaland was gone.

“I want my mom,” said Ben. “Where’s my mom?”

I wished I knew. I stared at the spot where Bromasta and Jay had last stood. There was no hill in sight. In fact, there was nothing but acres of browning pasture and a dilapidated barn in a neighboring field. Nevertheless, I pictured Bromasta and Jay, Vermillion and Delane, and the sentinels charging from Orion. Did they gallop west toward this very space in a world within a world?

“Mia, the Solenetta,” said Sol. “The Barrier won’t close while it’s in your hand.”

I spun around, aware of the lights, which spread rapidly into the sky. I pushed the Solenetta into my pocket. The Equinox retreated, the colors fading before they finally disappeared as if absorbed by the early evening air.

The kids waited in a huddle, looking to us for the next move. Slowly it sank in that we were back. And in the middle of a field. In the middle of nowhere. With six kids who were depending on us to get them home. Six kids who had suddenly reappeared.

“We didn’t think this through,” I said. “Sol, what the hell am I going to tell the cops?”

“I’m thinking,” said Sol. His gaze rested on the barn in the neighboring field. “Tell them you were looking for Jay on the Ridge and that you were kidnapped too. That you found yourself here.” He pointed to the barn. “In there.”

“That’s my story.” I rolled my eyes.

“It’ll work,” he said.

I stared at the barn. It was half falling down, hardly the lair of the infamous Crownsville Kidnapper.

“Don’t mention me,” said Sol. “It’ll only confuse things.”

“And if the kids talk?”

“Who’d believe them?” he replied. “Especially if you stick to your story. Get them away from here. Make it look like you’ve escaped. Get a few miles and then call the police.”

“And what about you?” I asked. Sol was in his Brakaland gear, as out of place here as I felt.

“You can do it, Mia.” He kissed my forehead.
For luck.
“I’ll be waiting for you in Crownsville.”

There was nothing left but to put the plan into operation. I rallied the troops before leading them off across the field and toward what I hoped was civilization, all the time getting the boys straight on the story, warning them that no one would believe that they had been in Brakaland. After about a mile trek, we found a road. We followed it for a mile or so farther before we stopped. A sign stood on the grassy shoulder.

CROWNSVILLE: 60 MILES

Was that how far we’d come? Through Bordertown, the Wastes, the valley, Orion.

Sixty miles.

I took out my phone and placed a call. The cops picked us up twenty minutes later.

A
n hour passed. Then two. Then three. Still the cops did not release me. They entered in and out of the hospital’s private waiting room where I sat, a never-ending stream of nameless, frantic faces. Only Sheriff Burkett refused to leave my side. He’d arrived about an hour after we’d been picked up, astonished, almost bewildered by the news he’d picked up on the wire. Pete hadn’t reported me missing. Now word of my disappearance had exploded.

“We’re trying to track down Pete, Mia,” said the sheriff. “Just hang tight.”

Oh, I was hanging tight.

Night had long since fallen outside and an image of the
room with its nondescript paintings, soft lamps, and overstuffed armchairs was reflected in the wide window. Two worlds. One solid and real, one existing in some kind of dreamy haze.

“Try not to worry,” the sheriff added. “As soon as we catch the kidnapper, we’ll find out where he’s holding Jay. We’ll get Jay back.”

I didn’t reply. There was no need. I’d spun my lies. All I had to do was wait.

And then the wait ended. The door opened and another cop entered. Sheriff Burkett sprang to his feet.

“News?” he asked.

The cop perched on the seat beside me, his look despondent. “We found it burned,” he said. “The barn’s gone. I’m sorry. The kidnapper got away.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to smile.
Sol.
It had to have been him. He’d burned the barn to cover our tracks. Our story was safe.

“Mia, is there anything else you can tell us?” the cop asked. “Anything you might have forgotten?”

It went like this: I’d been searching the Ridge for Jay on Friday night when I’d been grabbed and hurled into the trunk of a car by a man I couldn’t see in the darkness. He’d taken me to a barn in the middle of nowhere, where I’d found the six kidnapped boys. Jay had not been among them.

The man had left us tied up in the barn, returning with food
and water two or three times over the next two days. On the final day—today—I’d managed to break free of my bonds and get myself and the boys to safety. It was a simple story. A stupid story. And it was working.

“There’s nothing else,” I said. “How are the boys?”

“They’re with the doctors,” the cop replied. “Their parents have all arrived. I don’t need to tell you that you’re a hero in their eyes, Mia. In all of our eyes.”

I glanced at Sheriff Burkett who was nodding in prideful agreement. If only they knew the truth.

Struck with guilt, I stared into my lap. “What happens now?”

“We comb the barn for evidence,” replied the cop. “We keep looking for the kidnapper. We keep looking for your brother.”

With the Solenetta safely stuffed in my pocket, I pictured Jay as I’d last seen him at the Nonsky Fault. Where was he now? A world away from the lie that would forever be a part of my life. I couldn’t wait to get home and use the parler stone, to tell him of the trouble he’d caused—he’d love it. The cops would search; they’d never find him. And then one day they’d give up the hunt and this would all be forgotten. For them. Never for me.

I looked to Sheriff Burkett. “When can I go home?” I asked.

“Not until Pete gets here. He has some explaining to do, Mia. I want to know why he didn’t report you missing.”

“You know Pete,” I said, rushing to Pete’s defense. The last
thing we needed was Child Protective Services breathing down our necks. “He’s always in and out of the house. We barely see each other some days. He might not have even noticed I was gone.” I wasn’t convinced my explanation was helping Pete’s cause. “Honestly, he would have called you if he’d known I was missing.”

“Perhaps,” said the sheriff skeptically, then changed the subject, “You’re sure you won’t see a doctor?”

“I’m sure.”

Four hours passed. Five hours.

Come on, Pete.

Sheriff Burkett’s phone rang and he left the room to answer it. It was the first time I’d been alone. Restless, but so tired I could sleep for a week, I wandered to the window and looked out over the parking lot. A large pack of reporters were gathered by the hospital’s brightly lit entrance. How the hell was I going to avoid them in the coming days?

The door to the room opened, and I turned. Sheriff Burkett entered with simmering anger in his eyes, his face red. He looked disgustedly away from the man who followed him into the room, a man with unwashed brown hair, a three-day beard, and sparkling blue eyes. Balian eyes.

Pete’s gaze locked with mine.

I’d done it. I’d made it. I was home.

* * *

We didn’t speak until we entered the kitchen at home and the door was safely locked behind us.

“All this time,” I said to him as we sat at the table. “You never spoke a word.”

It was the same old kitchen, the same old Pete. Only not anymore. There was energy in his eyes, a visible lifting of the weight of the secret he’d carried for so many years.

“It hasn’t been easy,” he said. “But it was necessary.”

He took from his pocket the parler stone—an exact replica of Bromasta’s.

“I spoke to your father. He and Jay are safe. They should reach Solander’s encampment early tomorrow morning.”

“Vermillion and Delane?”

“They’re with them.”

I was glad, though a touch worried about Vermillion being unsupervised around Jay’s hair.

“And us?” I asked. “What happens now?”

“I teach you,” said Pete. “You listen. You learn.”

Pete had emptied his pocket, so I emptied mine. I placed the Solenetta on the table.

“Hide it,” said Pete, barely giving it a glance. “Don’t tell anyone where—not even me.”

“I’ll bury it so deep it’ll never be found,” I said.

“And when the cops question you again, stick to your story.
Don’t veer, no matter what the boys say. You offer one face to the world—a sister hoping for her brother to be found.”

I hesitated, not used to seeing Pete so in control. “You know everything that happened,” I said. “Don’t you?”

“From the moment the first boy disappeared,” Pete replied.

He
was
different. I could see it in his every movement. It was clear on his face. He’d known about Sol, about Gus, about countless Brakaland exiles here in Crownsville. He was part of a bigger world, one I’d never noticed though it was all around me. But now I knew. There would be no more secrets between us.

“Can you do it, Mia?” he asked. “Can you live a lie?”

I was about to reply when lights shone from the driveway and a car pulled up outside the house. Wondering who it could be since it was the middle of the night, and hoping to hell it wasn’t the press or the police, I darted to the window, Pete a step ahead. But it wasn’t reporters. It wasn’t even the cops.

I tore out of the kitchen and onto the porch. Willie was dashing toward the house, her eyes wide, her face pale in the moonlight. “Mia, I don’t believe it!” she gasped. “I just spoke to Dad. I knew something was wrong when you didn’t return my texts. I just thought you were freaking about Jay.”

A second later we were collapsed on the porch step, wrapped in each other’s arms. I knew right then that everything would be okay. I’d knuckle in, play my part. I didn’t have to lie—not to the
people I cared about most, not to Willie, not really. Because that was the thing with me and Willie: Sometimes there was just no need for words.

* * *

I found him on the Ridge the next day, back in jeans and a T-shirt. It was the Sol I knew from before madness had entered my life.

“I went to Crowley’s house,” I said.

“I’ve not long been back.”

Sitting beside him on the grass, I looked out over an invisible world. “I feel like I should wave to Rip. Let him know we made it.”

“He will have heard,” said Sol. “It’ll be the talk of Bordertown.”

The plains stretched before us, empty and endless, Onaly and the Sleeper Hill Giant the only sights.

“I still can’t believe you burned down the barn. It’s all over the news.”

“It was falling down anyway,” said Sol. He grinned.

But other loose ends remained. I’d spent most of the morning with Willie. She’d warned me that her dad wanted to talk to me and that the cops were already in town.

“I’m not sure that Sheriff Burkett’s buying it,” I said, “especially about Jay. It won’t be long before one of the kids says something about Brakaland.”

“And the Solenetta?” asked Sol.

“Top secret location. Pete made me hide it.”