The Golden Spiral (17 page)

“I’m not scared of you,” I bluffed.

My ears rang with sudden, dreadful silence.

I lowered my hands, surprised to find traces of tears on my cheeks.

And then the blister on the horizon burst open in an explosion of boiling light.

The shifting, swirling fire shot upward like a fountain. At the apex of the column, the light began to bend, curving into a mushroom cloud as white and empty as the blackness it penetrated. Wherever the two touched, the edge glittered with golden stars.

I expected a rush of sound—the sonic boom after a bomb—but there was nothing except my ragged exhale and low moan.

And then the landscape of the bank buckled as waves
rippled just below the surface. Lumps became hills became mounds became mountains. The earthquake raced toward me, silent, destructive, deadly.

Instinct screamed at me to turn and run, to
move,
but it was too late.

Cracks fractured around my feet, thin lines that widened as they raced outward to meet each other in a tightly woven spiderweb. When the lines collided, the web broke open and chunks of land fell into a deep chasm as black as the sky above me.

The aftershocks continued to crash into each other, creating larger ripples, which created even larger cracks. And as each crack broke open, more and more of the bank fell away into darkness.

The bank was disintegrating before my eyes.

But thankfully, not from beneath my feet. The patch of land where I stood remained intact, a small island of safety. My screaming instinct quieted; there was no point in running if there was no place to run to. I wrapped my arms around my chest, frozen with fear and confusion. Was I still just dreaming, or was this actually happening?

Eventually the ripples lessened, stilled, smoothed out into oblivion, and I was left standing on a scrap of stability. The chasm around me felt as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon. I didn’t dare look down, afraid that whirling vertigo would pull me down with it. I still felt the tattered remains of the dream state wrapped around me, a gentle fog that softened the edges of the harsh black-and-white world. I almost took a breath.

And then the mushroom cloud of light imploded, folding in on itself to form a single point on the jagged horizon. Surrounded by thick blackness, the spot looked like an eye frosted with milk-white blindness, an eye fixed directly on me.

I began to shake.

The light changed again, but this time, instead of blossoming upward, it descended into a waterfall of flame, bleeding down into the blackness of the chasm that stretched between me and the shattered horizon line.

It happened so fast. One moment the light was
there
—in the distance—and then it was
here,
rushing past my feet in a churning, frothing river of silver and white, the sharp peaks of the waves glittering like broken glass.

The wild river parted around my small island, dividing and rejoining in the blink of an eye.

It wasn’t just a river, though. It was
the
river.

As before when I had gazed into the endlessly changing, endlessly flowing river of time, I could see images flashing past.

A girl, standing on her toes, her hand on the frame of an open wooden door. Her head swinging right, then left, looking, searching.

The river shifted and I peered over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of the darkness of an underground prison. I blinked, and she was washed away from sight. I wondered who she was looking for, or who she was running from.

Another image rose to the surface: A man cresting a hill in the distance. A tall man, but lost in a shadowy fog. I recognized him, but I didn’t know how or from where. He opened his mouth, and the river poured into him, drowning out his words, dripping from his eyes in tears that fell like stars.

The river tore the image to pieces, fragmenting only to reassemble into a scene that stopped my heart in my chest. Dante stood on the burned wreckage of the Dungeon, his boots coated with a fine layer of gray ash, the same color as his eyes. The light from the setting sun rested on his shoulders like a coat. Seeing him was like a balm to my fevered mind. His eyes met mine, and I could have sworn that in that moment, he saw me—really
saw
me—even through the ripples of the river and the cocoon of my dream.

Almost immediately Dante was pulled apart by a whirlpool of time and I cried out with the loss.

Zo’s voice slithered back into my ear.
Do you like what you see?

The river boiled around my feet, the silver stream filled with jumbled images. A collection of flashes of me appeared, each one layered on top of the next like a giant, personalized flipbook: walking to school with Hannah, watching movies with Jason, laughing at a joke with Valerie, listening to Leo’s story of the Midnight Kiss, dancing at the Dungeon with Dante, studying with Natalie. My life frothed around my feet as wildly as the swirling river did. I felt dizzy, disoriented. Which one was the real me?

Time was running free and loose, unchained from its moorings, carving a new path through old land.

I took a deep breath, hoping this was still just a dream. But then why couldn’t I wake up?

This was Zo’s doing. He’d admitted as much. But what could he have done that would have completely redirected the river?

As soon as I thought the question, though, I knew I didn’t want to know the answer. Only something catastrophic could result in this kind of devastation, this kind of wholesale
change.
He’d threatened to kill da Vinci—had he succeeded? Or had he struck closer to home? Was I here because he was somehow targeting me?

I had had enough. I was sure that, even in a dream, the key to getting home was to go through the river. Surely the shock of the transition would be enough to wake me up. At least, I hoped that would be all it would do.

As much as I didn’t want to leave the safety of my small island, I also didn’t want to stay here another moment.

“I’m leaving, Zo,” I called out into the void. “You can’t keep me here any longer.”

I swallowed my fear and stepped off into the river.

And I started awake, my body sheathed in sweat and my heart snapping like a flag in the wind. My mouth felt lined with cotton and I swallowed, hoping to clear it out enough to cough. I folded my legs against my chest, wrapping my arms around my knees and burrowing my face into the deeper darkness of my own body. I braced myself for the inevitable wave of black-and-white flashes that accompanied the changes to the river. I expected the pain would match the severity of what I had seen firsthand; I wasn’t disappointed.

Hot needles pierced the soles of my feet, injecting liquid fire into my veins. Lava bubbled up my curved legs, pooling in my stomach. Steam cooked my heart. Sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped into my hair, mingling with the tears that dribbled from my eyes. I tightened my grip on my limbs, biting down on the agony until my scream softened to a whimper. I prayed that the darkness sweeping toward me was unconsciousness.

Dante’s locket around my neck burned like the cold fire from a distant star.

I’d never felt so alone in my life.

Zo’s voice pierced through the tattered remains of my dream, his words lingering in the still air of my room.
But sweet Abby, I am with you . . . always.

***

Some distant time later, I woke again. This time to the smell of bacon. My mind slowly shook off the rust of unconsciousness, piecing together fragmented memories into some kind of cohesive whole. That’s right. Dad was making breakfast. I could do with a hot meal to help banish the cold stone that seemed to be lodged in my chest.

I crawled out of bed, straightening my back first and then stretching each individual limb. Residual heat seemed to crackle along my bones—one last needle-shot of pain before sloughing off into a flash of numbness. I shook out my hands, flexing my fingers.

I swung back my curtains, disoriented to see the sun so high in the sky. The darkness of the bank and the following hours of oblivion had thrown off my timing.

Whatever Zo had done was done. I’d seen the redirected river; I’d felt the repercussions of pain. Now it was time to see what I could do to fix it.

The house was strangely quiet as I went downstairs to the kitchen. I thought for sure Hannah would have been up and running around. Maybe she was at McKenna’s or next door with Bethany.

Rounding the corner, I saw Mom at the counter, slicing tomatoes. She wore a navy blue suit with a string of bone-white pearls around her throat. Her normally curly hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She looked tired, and a little pinched around her eyes and mouth.

“Mom?” I said, my voice croaking from disuse. My mind felt foggy, sluggish. Where was Dad? He was supposed to be cooking breakfast.

She looked up and laid down her knife. “Abby! What happened to you?”

I turned my hands over, only distantly surprised to see my fingernails were still black with soot. After all, I was still wearing the T-shirt and shorts I’d fallen asleep in oh so long ago. A scratch I hadn’t noticed before ran along the side of my index finger.

Mom came around the island, grabbing a dish towel from the sink on her way. Her high heels clicked on the floor.

I frowned. Since when did Mom wear heels in the middle of a summer day?

“Here.” Mom gently pushed my shoulder until I allowed my knees to buckle enough that I could sit down at the kitchen table. She wiped at my face with the towel, the roughness oddly soothing. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine I was six years old, coming in from a hard day of play and having Mom help me wash up for dinner.

“What have you been doing?” Mom asked. “Is everything okay?”

I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to respond.

Luckily, Mom didn’t seem to notice my dilemma but simply added to her list of questions. “What are you still doing in your pajamas? I came home from work special so we could have lunch together. Mr. Jacobson had some last-minute reports he needed me to do, so I left later than I planned. I’m making BLTs, though. Does that sound good? Are you hungry?”

I blinked slowly, trying to keep up with the flow of her words. Some of them made sense, but not all of them. “Mr. Jacobson?” I asked. “Reports?”

Mom balled the towel in her hands and sighed. “We’ve been over this before, Abby. I know you don’t like him, but he was hiring. And I needed the work.”

“That’s why you’re all dressed up. You’ve been at work.”

Mom sat down in the chair next to me and covered my hand with her own. A worried line appeared between her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t seem like yourself. Are you feeling sick?” She pressed the back of her hand against my forehead before moving it to check my face.

“Does Dad know you’re working?” I asked. The idea felt slippery in my mind; I was having trouble hanging on to it. I kept coming back to the fact that he was supposed to be here. In the kitchen. Cooking breakfast.

Mom jolted back as though I’d slapped her. Red spots appeared high on her cheeks, and her mouth thinned into a slash of cracked lipstick.

“What? What did I say?” I searched Mom’s face for a hint, but all I saw was the black anger in her eyes.

“Your
father
most certainly knows I’m working. His
lawyer
made sure I didn’t have a choice.”

“His lawyer?” I repeated in a squeak.

Mom sighed, and the anger drained out of her eyes, replaced by the sheen of tears. “Oh, Abby, I know the divorce was hard on you. But I thought we were past this. I thought you had come to accept the way things are.”

I felt the blood throb in my temples as a headache pounded into life. “You’re . . . you and Dad . . . you’re divorced?” My lips were numb. “Since when?” I asked reflexively.

But I knew the answer already: since Zo had redirected the river. Whatever he had done in the past—in
my
past, specifically—this was the cataclysmic result of his work. The river had been redirected, and now not only were my parents divorced but they apparently hated each other, too.

I shook my head as though I could turn this new truth into the lie I wanted it to be.

“But . . . but what about Hannah?”

Mom tilted her head, a puzzled look on her face. “Who’s Hannah?”

Chapter

12

I ran. I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Slamming open the door to Hannah’s bedroom, I stopped in shock, staring at the neatly made-up queen bed covered with a sandy brown comforter and matching pillows, at the low dresser and mirror in matching oak.

I shook my head in denial. Where was Hannah’s frilly daybed with her white curtains and pink pillows? What had happened to her casual clutter scattered over the dresser? Where was her Snoopy lamp that Dad had brought home the day she’d been born? Where were the shelves and shelves of the books she loved so much?

I turned away and tried to push past Mom, who had followed me up the stairs. She grabbed my arms, holding me in place.

“What’s going on? Talk to me, please.”

“It looks like a hotel!” I accused. “You turned Hannah’s room into a
guest
room.”