Across Carina (27 page)

Blood drizzled down my chin, onto my lap. I kept very still and watched it. I was barely registering the pain. I was too focused on the fact that I could only breathe through my nose. It panicked me.

Charlotte moved on to Sal. His wide hazel eyes watched me pick at my stitching and poke it with my tongue. My cheeks bulged. I tried to steady my shallow, patchy breaths as I met his gaze. Charlotte was stitching shut his lips, too, and blood was bubbling up from beneath his tongue. His chest rose like he was holding his breath, deciding what to do. Then he swallowed. I looked away.

Charlotte returned to her seat and began her tale.

“Eden and I grew up on a human planet much like Earth. Though it was ruled by a different creator than your El.

“We were born twins to a poor single mother. We never knew our father, not even his name. We had one older sister, Lucilia. She was beautiful. She was discovered by a modeling agency in her adolescence, and she earned a great deal of money for our family. She delivered us from poverty. I was grateful to her, but it was clear that she had become Mother’s favorite.

“Eden and I, once close, began to compete for Mother’s attention, each of us desperate to come second to Lucilia. We lived in her shadow for the rest of our lives.

“All I ever wanted was to be seen—to be heard—but Mother never made the time for me. Nor did Eden after our childhood. He and I spent decades apart. It wasn’t until I was lying on my deathbed that we reconciled. We finally realized that we had both been victims, and we surrendered our mutual blame.

“When I met my creator, it was bittersweet. He said that I had mostly lived well, but that given my rivalry with Eden, I would require training to reach my fullest potential. You see, my creator makes future creators in order to perpetuate his ideals across space and time. Of course, I craved the powers that he promised me. And eventually I received them. I labored for more years than you children can fathom.

“Thus, I began to form The Mango Sun. And Eden made The Blue Planet. Our rivalry returned as we fought for recognition from our creator. I hadn’t changed as I had thought. I had merely gone through the motions in order to gain power, but my heart remained the same.

“I so wanted to impress our creator that I promised him I would make every single one of my people return to me after death. None would stray or rebel like I had. They would all become creators like him. It was a humble gesture, but it was rejected.

“I went to war with my own maker. And I lost. He stripped me of all my powers but one and left me to rule an empty planet. I can project all my thoughts and make them seem real, but I know that they are not. It is a twisted fate.

“Eden’s powers were also stripped, for engaging in the rivalry with me. But he didn’t fight in the war. He was given the chance to progress again. At first I envied him, but now I see that he has nothing. He is forced to attend lessons, without promise of an end. And between them he sits and stares at his empty waters, and that is all.

“For me to change now would be to relinquish what I have and start over. I cannot do that.”

When Charlotte finished, the thread in our lips unraveled and fell, stained red, on the floor. I inhaled deeply through my mouth, overcome by my saliva.

“Why don’t you just choose progression like Eden?” Sal asked. “It can’t be too late. In the end, you’ll have so much more.”

“I may not be happy on the other side,” Charlotte said.

“The other side is always bet—” I started, but I cut myself off. I was surprised at my habitual thinking.

Charlotte smirked. “You seek something greater, yet you don’t know what it is that you’re looking for. You relentlessly climb fence after fence, desperate to reach the other side, but when you arrive you’re as unhappy as you were before. Are you tired of climbing yet?

“I was once like you, looking to the other side. Now I see that the other side is not good enough. Stay with me here. We’ll be happy together. You’re just like me—don’t you see it?”

I was not like Charlotte. There was no way in hell.

“You stay away from me,” I said. “I am not like you.”

I reached for Sal, and he pulled me up.

We were on the verge of jumping into the pool when Eden appeared on the glass ledge across from us, waving happily.

“Jade!” he called. “Who is your friend?”

Before I could reply, his eyebrows shot up, and I turned to see what had alarmed him.

Charlotte was whipping her hands in a circular motion, and the room had begun to spin around us.

We stood frozen in the hub of her crafted fan. Fog coated the room, and Charlotte cackled at our blindness.

I took Sal’s hand. The room spun faster. Glass exploded. Pillows sacked me. The couch crashed into the wall. The roof trembled and shingles clattered. In seconds the wind had achieved the force of a tornado.

“You miserable witch!” I screamed. “Try projecting something happy for once!”

Charlotte growled in the mist. It sounded like she had moved closer.

“I’ve done nothing but provide for you!” she said. “I’ve given you food and shelter and safety—and you’re not even grateful! You owe me that!”

“I don’t owe you a thing!” I cried.

“She’s not worth it,” Sal said right in my ear.

There was a pause, and then he whispered, “We hereby summon a driver of the Carina galaxy.”

He grabbed me and we dove into the murky pool. Guided by our hands, we inched forward, wrapping around each corner until we found the glass ledge.

Eden was waiting for us. He lifted us from the pool and carried us out of the house—each of us in one of his strong, blue arms. I could hear a frenzied Charlotte on our heels.

The daylight restored our vision in time to see the roof of the house blow off. We ducked and almost fell to our deaths, for the house was no longer in a field of mushrooms. Eden was holding Sal and me while standing on a strip of ground barely wide enough for two people. The surrounding earth had cracked into an endless chasm.

Fireballs rained from the sky and crashed into the hole, sending tremors up through the heated rock. Charlotte had produced the Armageddon of her own world.

Stupid, stupid girl.

I huddled against Eden, my arms wrapped around his neck. My legs tangled with Sal’s as we tried to stay balanced.

“Please tell me you can fly,” Sal said to Eden.

Eden shook his head. “I can only teleport between my planet and here.”

“Then take us to your planet!” Sal pleaded.

“I can’t,” Eden said. “I can’t bring you in and out of my world at will. If I took you there, you would have to live with me, permanently. We must wait for the driver you summoned.”

Charlotte stormed out of her house with the tornado behind her. It was on a tight leash, moving and stopping whenever she did. Her golden hair was in knots and her dress torn. Her cheeks were blazing, but her scowl had dipped into a frown.

“Why don’t you like me?” she sobbed. “Why won’t you stay with me here?”

I tried not to look at her scheming tears, but something was happening. Her face was changing.

She transformed into Garrett right before my eyes. I stared at my other half.

“Garrett!” I screamed, reaching for him.

“No, Jade!”

Eden tried to restrain me, but he hardly had room to move. Our strip was narrowing by the second. He shifted his weight to one leg as the rocks below us tumbled into the chasm.

I threw myself over his shoulder and kept reaching for Garrett. But when I touched my brother’s face, I immediately recoiled. It was burning hot. As I leaned back, I saw that he had caught fire.

“Don’t leave me, Jade,” he said. “Not again.”

His lips were trembling.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

Eden had me by the legs, and I could feel him start to pull me back over his shoulder.

“Wait!” I screamed, pounding on him. “I have to help Garrett!”

But it was too late. Garrett’s body began to contort.

Crack, crack, crack.

His bones broke in a downward wave.

Crack, crack, crack.

One of his arms twisted around his waist and then up to his eyes, which he started to scratch. Bloody embers fell from them in piles at his feet. They were consuming him. He was almost gone.

“I’m so sorry,” I repeated.

I pitied him. I loved him. I remembered the night I’d lost him. I smelled the smoke; saw the fire; heard the sirens; and felt Justin drag me to the edge of the driveway, where we watched Garrett die.

Crack, crack, crack.

I screamed.

“It’s an illusion!” Sal cried.

Garrett’s frown began to flicker, and in a second I was looking at half of him and half of Charlotte. I flinched, and Eden almost toppled over.

Suddenly, the cry of horses rang through the sky. Sal, Eden, and I turned to see a pair of them pulling a chariot in our direction.

I bid farewell to Garrett just as Charlotte reclaimed her true form. She raised her arms, and all the rocks reversed their paths and ascended. Even her house lifted into the air, spinning round and round inside the tornado. Aside from where we were standing, every inch of The Mango Sun was on fire.

The chariot grew tentative in Charlotte’s wake, stopping several yards away from us.

“What are you doing?” Sal shouted at the driver.

It was a driver we didn’t know, but still, none of them were supposed to be affected by Charlotte. I didn’t understand.

The driver shook his head at us. He reached for the reins as if he might turn around.

“None of this is real!” Sal tried to explain.

And yet it
was
real, in a sense. Even with her limited powers, Charlotte could conquer anyone who willingly entered her world.

It made me wonder. . . . If we fell into the chasm, would we die? Or would we find ourselves eternally locked in her dreary, dark mind?

I think I’d rather die.

Sal pressed on. “Eden, please tell me you have something to offer the driver. He’s our only hope.”

“Something to offer? Like what?” Eden asked.

“Stories, gold—anything!” I said.

Eden stuck out his tongue in thought. His coolness troubled me. We lost more ground, and he shifted to his tiptoes. We were teetering on the edge of the chasm.

“My ring,” he said suddenly. “Take my ring.”

I glanced at Eden’s hand and recognized his ring with the four diamonds. He had been wearing it the day I’d met him.

“Is it valuable?” Sal asked.

“Priceless,” Eden replied. “It was given to me by my creator.”

I felt guilty having him relinquish his gift, but he insisted.

We called to the driver with our offering. It enticed him enough to whip his horses across the hellfire to us. Charlotte tried to stop them by flinging her tornado in their path, but she was unsuccessful. The chariot reached us.

Eden pushed Sal and me on board and then handed his ring to the driver. The driver pocketed it without a glance. He looked as anxious to depart as we were.

I asked Eden to come with us, but he said he couldn’t venture to other worlds. Not yet. I didn’t know what that meant, and I thought that it was stupid.

I grabbed his hands and tried to pull him up, but he didn’t budge. The chariot’s shield was preventing him from coming with us.

The driver screamed at me to confine my arms and legs to the chariot, and we took off. We left Eden balancing on no more than a square inch of ground. He waved, and then a cloud of smoke consumed him.

The Mango Sun shook violently, and the walls of the chariot began to break. Our horses quickly grew tired, and soon they were barely trotting. The driver whipped them again and again.

“I don’t want to be with you!” I screamed at Charlotte. “Let us go!”

Her voice echoed across the chasm. “Then you are forever banished! You may never see me or Eden again!”

She was floating before the remains of her house, watching us go. We had passed through the first set of clouds, but she was still visible. It was like I was seeing through closed eyes. Even from far away, she bore into me so intensely that I became dizzy, and I had to hold on to Sal for support. In the background our driver was swearing—I wasn’t sure if at Charlotte, us, or the horses.

The fire continued to grow. It reached the clouds and smothered us in smoke. The rocks, too—they climbed the sky and started thrashing the chariot about.

Sal and I dropped to the floor. I never wanted to see Charlotte again. All that she had done was cause me trouble. And I could see now that the other side was not always best.

Charlotte had tried to tell me that. I supposed she had been right about one thing. But never again would I return to her forsaken planet, or any of the others.

Just as I thought this, the horses had a burst of energy, and we started climbing again. Sal and I looked down and watched Charlotte shrink. She was now half covered in flames herself.

When we had almost reached the edge of The Mango Sun, I heard it—the sound of something about to boil over. Charlotte disappeared in a wave of fire, and I knew that she had met her end.

We broke the atmosphere just as the rumbling climaxed. The Mango Sun exploded behind us, pushing us onto our faces.

We raced through Carina as drops of warmth spewed from where the planet had been, falling in mango bits all over us. The horses galloped faster than I’d ever known.

“She’s dead,” I breathed. “She’s really dead.”

I was overcome by both relief and anxiety. I hadn’t wanted Charlotte in my life, but I hadn’t meant for her to die. And now I feared that her thoughts would haunt me. The things she had said about me—some of them were true.

“Maybe she’s dead,” Sal said. “But maybe she isn’t. So much was in her head.”

“No,” I said quietly. “She
is
dead. I can feel it. Her thoughts consumed her, Sal. And we just saw it—The Mango Sun is gone.”

I pointed to what was left of it. Streaks of colored earth were cascading down Carina in firework tears. It was lovely in the most petrifying way.

“Let’s forget it,” Sal said. “We’re safe, and that’s what matters.”