The Silver Moon Elm (32 page)

“None of you have heard of it?”

Eddie cocked his head. “No. Show me.”

She looked around nervously. “It will probably draw attention.”

“If it’s half as powerful as you suggest, Jennifer-spirit, isn’t it worth the risk?”

His earnest voice and complete trust in her convinced her to show him. As he and a few others looked on, she unsheathed her daggers and stood up. A brief kiss on the blades, a deep breath, and…

“Jennifer-spirit!” Eddie staggered back on his feet, as did everyone else behind him except Evangelina, who stretched by the fire and idly flicked her brunette hair. Phoebe, the newolf, lay down flat on the ground and put her paws over her eyes. “You brought the sun screaming back! How did you do that?!”

“You can do it, too,” she told them. “All of you. It’s called a beaststalker shout. It’s pretty harmless to human forms, but will damage the ears and eyes of any magical creature. Do you want me to show you?”

Twenty-nine of the thirty warriors who had gathered nodded wildly. But Jennifer only had eyes for the thirtieth, who spat and walked away.

About an hour later, she had trained every willing warrior, though none could do it as well as Jennifer herself. Eddie could make quite a bit of noise using the mere tip of one of his arrows. Her stock went up considerably within the camp, and Eddie was soon finding new recruits.

“How many now?” she asked him.

“More than twenty. And with their new skill…”

“…we may have enough,” she finished for him. At least enough to get inside. Who knows what else the Quadrivium can throw at us? It was time to find out.

Nakia was inside, sipping instant coffee with Andi and a couple of the friendlier warriors, and teaching them…

“…trigonometry?” Jennifer repeated. “Really? They want to know that?”

Nakia shrugged at the warriors as they nodded and left. “They don’t get much formal schooling, that’s for sure. They seem pretty hungry to learn something besides hunting, camping, and killing.”

“So you figured sine, cosine, and tangents were the way to go.”

“It’s what I know.” Nakia winked. “You know screaming at high volume, so that’s what you were just teaching outside. Anyway, are they all trained? You ready to head back to Pinegrove?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’d like to be better prepared this time. Can you tell me anything—anything at all—about the Quadrivium?”

Nakia’s face fell. “I’m sorry. Nobody knows much about them. Just a few basic facts: They live in Pinegrove, and there are four—”

“I know two of them. Edmund Slider and Tavia Saltin.”

Andi nearly spat out her coffee, she began giggling so hard. “Tavia Saltin? But that’s so…so…” She couldn’t come up with the right word. “I mean, she’s not even a particularly good piano player.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“There is a verse that describes the Quadrivium—”

“Of course there is.”

“—and it suggests one has musical talent:

Four formed the Quadrivium
:

One to build a new dimension
,

One to create new numbers
,

One to relight the stars
,

And one to sing the song of change
.

“If you pay attention,” Andi continued, “you’ll notice that there are four in the verse, corresponding loosely to the four major subjects at Pinegrove High.”

“Edmund and Tavia are faculty,” Jennifer pointed out. “Edmund would know all about new dimensions, and Tavia does teach music.”

“So are you saying the Quadrivium are faculty at Pinegrove High?”

It didn’t jibe with her theory that Skip was involved, but Jennifer felt there was something to this line of reasoning. “Why not? What two lines are left? Creating new numbers…that would be math…”

“…and Slider again,” Nakia pointed out.

“There are other mathematics faculty. Andi, don’t you and Bobbie have someone different from Slider?”

“Yeah, Mr. Frost. But I doubt he’s the type…”

“No one ever seems the type.” Jennifer sighed. “We have to assume he is. Okay, who’s the astronomy teacher?”

Andi shrugged. “Only those on eight legs go into astronomy class.”

“Nakia?”

Nakia’s brows furrowed. “I’ve never been cleared for astronomy class. Remember? Trust issues. I take advanced Spanish instead.”

Jennifer slumped into a chair, head in her hands, and rubbed her eyes. “We can’t fight what we don’t know. We could take out three of the four members of the Quadrivium, and still be left with whoever’s in there. And he or she could be unbeatable.”

“So you are still trying to kill them?” Andi asked. Her face was inscrutable.

“I may have to,” Jennifer said. “I’m sorry, Andi. But it’s not like your friends in the hallway. This Quadrivium—”

“What will killing them accomplish?”

“I don’t want to kill them,” Jennifer persisted. “I meant it when I told you that, Andi! But I need them to do something for me. They’ve messed things up, and they have to make things right.”

“So you’ll hurt them, like you hurt Bobbie.”

“Andi, that’s not fair. I don’t have a lot of choices anymore.”

“Have you tried asking them?”

Nakia’s royal Egyptian eyes rolled at that. “Don’t even answer that, Jennifer. Nobody who knew what they were talking about would ask that question.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being naïve,” Andi said. “But I don’t like seeing the people around me get hurt.”

“It doesn’t strike you as a bit strange,” Nakia countered, “that someone who hates seeing pain slices open her own arms on a regular basis?”

Jennifer had to put a stop to this. “That’s not getting us anywhere. Andi, I’m going to try to get this done with as few people hurt as possible. That’s all I can promise. You don’t have to come with us. But don’t try to get in our way.”

“I won’t get in your way, I came here to help! But I won’t…”

“You won’t fight. I get it. That’s fine. You could maybe help out those of us who get wounded?”

Andi seemed relieved at the out Jennifer had offered. “Yes. Okay, I’ll do that.”

“What will you need?”

“Antivenom,” Andi answered. “Lots of it.”

“Eddie must have some in his supplies. I’ll talk to him.” Jennifer turned to Nakia. “How about you? Can you fight with us?”

“I can try.”

“That’s all I’m asking. With you two on board, that’s just about everyone. We only have a few standouts among the warriors here, and I don’t think anything I do or say now—”

“Jennifer Scales.” The voice made them all turn around. Elise Georges was in the entryway to the cabin, the newolf Phoebe at her side. Uncertainty softened her hostile emerald gaze. “Do you have time for a walk?”

The first minute or so of the walk was silent, mutual torture. Jennifer could sense that something had shifted in Elise’s demeanor, but the woman wasn’t ready to express it. Meanwhile, Jennifer wasn’t sure if she wanted to burst into tears, confession, protest, or all three—but she was sure Elise was not interested in finding out which would happen.

As it turned out, the newolf helped break the ice by rubbing up against Jennifer and licking her hand.

“Phoebe likes you,” Elise allowed. “That’s unusual for a stranger.”

“I’m not a stranger. I’m your daughter.”

The woman stopped in the middle of the prairie, where horses and sheep and wildflowers would normally be. “So you keep saying. Would you care to explain how that’s possible? And if you call that thing”—she pointed vaguely back toward the cabin, but Jennifer knew to whom she was referring—“your sister, does that mean I’m her mother, too?”

“No! No, it’s more complicated than that. You have to understand, things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be—”

“Don’t I know it. I’m supposed to have parents, and a brother, and friends. Not a horde of unruly teenagers who barely follow my commands. You’re taking them into a battle in Pinegrove itself, without my permission.”

“You could join us.”

Instead of the immediate rebuke Jennifer expected, Elise licked her lips and raised the collar of her jacket. “Battle’s coming, no matter what I do. If two children tracked you here, the Quadrivium certainly will. And I’m fine taking them on. Relieved, actually. But you know nothing about tactics, kid. You’re about to return to the same battlefield where you got your ass kicked not twenty-four hours ago. You’ll have even less surprise on your side than you did before.”

“Not necessarily. They won’t be expecting all of you. And if you guys didn’t know what a beaststalker shout is, I’ll bet a bunch of them have forgotten, too.”

“Maybe.” Elise began to walk again. “You have obvious skills. You’re not like any dragon I’ve ever seen before. Maybe you could help us…make a dent. Before the end comes.”

“The end?”

“There’s no avoiding it, kid. We’re going to die soon. Me, Eddie, Phoebe, every last one of us. How we’ve stayed alive these last few years, I couldn’t begin to guess.”

“You may have had something to do with it.”

The woman shook her head. “I’ve taught these children how to kill. And they’re good at it. And we know how to survive, how to hide. But lead them? They don’t turn to me when they’re hurt. They don’t turn to me when they’re afraid.”

“The mother I know is exactly the kind of person folks go to when they’re hurt.”

“The mother you know isn’t here,” Elise snapped. “What the hell do you want from me?”

Jennifer silently cursed the tears running down her cheeks. She had sworn to herself she wouldn’t cry. “I want you to come with me. If I’m going to die, I want my mother there.”

“That’s the attitude that will get you killed.”

“So come along and teach me different.”

“It won’t make a difference. Whether you succeed or fail, no one will ever know. The world will keep spinning. People will keep dying.”

“I know better than that. And if you had grown up differently, maybe you would know better, too—”

“I grew up differently enough from these kids to learn something valuable,” Elise growled. “Everything is born for no reason, limps through life for no reason, and dies for no reason. You can’t control the gears of death. But you can, if you’re willing, throw your body into them before your time. If that’s what you want to do, then do it already!”

Hearing these words come out of her mother’s mouth broke Jennifer’s heart. She sank to the ground and pulled Phoebe close to her. “Why did you ask me out here?”

As if snapped out of a nightmare, Elise threw her head back and sighed. “Yes. I asked you out here. I thought about doing so earlier today, so that I could kill you and end this nonsense.”

“So have you changed your mind?” Jennifer found she didn’t care anymore. The Quadrivium was too strong. Her father was dead. Her mother was twisted beyond recognition. Why drag what few friends she had left into a suicide mission?

“That depends,” Elise replied, “on what you can tell me about this.” The woman reached into her coat pocket.

“What you were teaching the others caused a lot of light and noise,” Elise explained as she pulled out the object. “Phoebe was restless, so I took her for a walk near here. We were at the edge of the woods just over there when she suddenly broke away, running off despite my commands. You can imagine, it’s hard to stop a newolf who gets a notion. She rousted a couple of wild hornets’ nests—yes, they’re alive and well in November around here, and I have a couple of nasty stings to prove it!—and I finally found her snuffling at this on the ground.”

Jennifer was barely listening; instead, she was clambering to her feet and checking the pocket of the jacket Eddie had lent her that morning. There can’t be two!

Elise continued in a whisper. “I went over and picked it up. Almost immediately, I felt…”

Jennifer retrieved a mirror image of what Elise held out—a frail, silvery starburst from a moon elm that no longer existed.

“I felt,” Elise managed through quivering lips as she rubbed the edges of her own leaf, “like I was missing something. I’ve lost so much in my lifetime, but this was like losing something worse.” She looked up at Jennifer. “Do you think you can help me find it?”

Jennifer’s jaw tightened as she struggled to keep her face composed. “Oh, yeah. We’re going to find it. Tell you what: Let’s start with you showing me those hornets’ nests.”

CHAPTER 17
Monday

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Getting everyone in vehicles to Pinegrove wasn’t difficult, though it did involve some grand theft and automotive know-how. By the time morning twilight came, they had embedded themselves in the snow-frosted forest on the southwest fringe of the town, with the high school grounds just a few miles away. Nakia’s teeth were chattering and Andi seemed depressed, but everyone else looked grim and prepared under the moonless sky.

“I just want you to know,” Evangelina murmured in Jennifer’s ear as they took position, “that I still don’t think this is going to work.”

“Hey! You helped with The Plan this time. And so did Elise and Eddie.”

“The Plan is still flawed.”

“The Plan is strong, like bull. You love The Plan and you know it. Now get to work.” She turned to Elise. “Our new friends’re still with us?”

“Y-yes. They seem to have kept up with the convoy.”

“Great. I’ll, um. See you out there.”

The woman stared back for a few seconds. “If you die,” she finally said, “how would you like to be buried?”

“Thanks for the rousing speech, General Patton. You know what? Just leave me to rot. I don’t want to be any trouble.”

This actually provoked a small grin. “See you out there, then.”

The hundred or so arachnids guarding the observatory were not stupid, Jennifer supposed. They knew about Jennifer and Evangelina, so they were scattered more evenly over a wider area. They also would suspect the two of them would not be alone, so they had increased their overall numbers.

What they did not expect, however, was a missile from above, directed right in their midst.

She chose a spot just fifty yards from the observatory as her target. As she plummeted, she held her breath and prayed like mad that the cocoon of fire building around her would do something—anything—to absorb the impact of her landing.