Waterfall (20 page)

“Come back!”

They didn’t. They walked through the mountains in the rain.

For several minutes, Eureka wanted to return to him, to race back to the Bitter Cloud and bring Ander with her wherever she went. She didn’t want to be so cruel.

But more than that, she wanted to want nothing but to destroy Atlas.

She touched her thunderstone, the yellow satin ribbon, and the blue lapis lazuli locket that hung from the long bronze chain. The thunderstone was an emblem of Eureka’s power, the yellow ribbon was her symbol of hope, and the locket represented her purpose: to get to the Marais, the swampy no-place beyond her reach, to undo the Filling, to make Diana proud.

Eureka wondered what Esme’s crystal necklace meant to her. Had it been a gift from someone she loved? Did she love? Sometimes the witch looked like a beautiful, intimidating older girl; other times, like now, she looked like an alien queen from another galaxy. Eureka wondered whether Esme’s life had turned out the way she’d hoped it might. Or was she
broken, like Eureka, masking pain with swarming bees and shimmering amethyst makeup and clothing made of orchid petals?

“What is the Glimmering?” Eureka asked.

Esme cupped one palm to the sky. She studied the rain gathering in it. “It is where your friend and her date have gone looking for freshwater—and where you shall discover your history. The truth is in the Glimmering.”

“What do you know about my history?” Eureka asked, then: “There’s freshwater nearby?”

Esme spread her fingers to let the water that had collected in her palm filter through. Where the water hit the earth, orchid stems wriggled from the muddy soil and laced themselves around the witch’s ankles, blooming amethyst buds.

Esme leaned toward Eureka. “The Glimmering looks like water, but it isn’t for drinking. It is a mirror that reveals a soul’s identity through the deep recesses of its history.” The buds at Esme’s feet yawned into blossoms at her knees. She smiled. “Mortals can face many things, but they cannot face their true identities. A single glance in our Glimmering has been enough to drive everyone insane so far.”

“Are we really all that bad?”

“And worse!” Esme smiled. “Mortals spend lifetimes admiring their good through ordinary mirrors. The Glimmering shows that which you are too weak and afraid to see.” The witch stepped closer, bringing with her a waft of fragrant,
honey-scented air. “It’s very rare for anyone to make it back alive. Though of course”—she tapped Eureka’s thunderstone with an amethyst fingernail—“there are exceptions.”

“Is Cat there now?”

Esme’s grin darkened. “Perhaps your friend’s reflection in the Glimmering will mature her … into the grave.”

Eureka grabbed the witch’s shoulders. “Where is it?”

Esme’s laughter rose from somewhere in the earth, the black heart of a volcano. Bees stung Eureka’s hands. Rain fell on the rising welts, its salt amplifying every throbbing sting.

“Show me where it is!”

Like a ballerina at the barre, Esme raised her arm along her midsection, draped it over her face, then lifted it high above her head before it opened, like a flower. Her long, painted pointer finger gestured into darkness. Then the darkness shifted and a shimmering amethyst-colored haze lit a faint path in the night.

“If you hurry, maybe you can catch her.”

Eureka swatted through bees and ran. The witch’s silky giggle rang in her deaf ear as she tore over the muddy slush along the path. She didn’t think of looking back.

Up ahead the gossipwitch’s haze lit a quick-flowing stream the storm had cut into the earth. Eureka would have to cross the stream to follow the glow. She found the narrowest crossing and tested the water’s depth with her foot. The bank sloped down several feet—after that, she couldn’t tell. Eureka swallowed, touched her thunderstone, and waded in.

She inhaled sharply at the cold constricting her legs. She reached for the low branch of a hazelnut tree to steady herself as she moved forward. The water rose to her chest, not deep enough to use her thunderstone shield, not shallow enough for her to move confidently. The current was strong, rushing against her, urging her to join its flow, like a crowded high school hallway.

She slipped and lost her grip on the branch. She tried to put her feet down, but the current moved too fast. Her thunderstone floated along the surface as she swam hard for the far bank.

Sharp rocks struck her underwater. Something bit her lower back. A huge loggerhead turtle had clamped its jaw around her hip. The pain was excruciating. Eureka thought of Madame Blavatsky and her turtles and wondered if Madame B had come back from the dead to chide her for all the ways she’d failed her destiny. The turtle’s eyes were wide, yellow green, determined. Eureka made a fist and pounded the turtle’s head until its jaw slackened and it dropped off into the swirling stream.

She wasn’t far from the bank, but she was in pain and knew her back was bleeding. She imagined Cat striding happily to an inviting, deadly spring. That horror helped her thrust her body forward, until at last her fingers scratched the muddy edges of the bank. The soggy earth she clung to crumbled into the stream, sending her flowing farther from the now distant purple glow.

Her body struck a tree trunk. She wrapped her arms around it before the current pulled her away. She steadied herself. She lunged at the bank again. This time she grabbed slimy roots that held fast enough for her to pull herself up. At last she heaved herself out.

She collapsed on the bank in the rain, and considered never moving again. Then the amethyst glow grew dimmer. Eureka sprang up and ran toward it. She rounded the corner of a muddy path. She climbed a staircase of steep boulders lit by Esme’s glow.

Just when she began to fear that this was an evil prank, that this path led to a cliff overlooking rocks that stood like spears, the glow fell on a large, round pond. Rain fell on its surface, but the Glimmering was as smooth as a mirror. A spring bubbled gently in its center. Slender conical mountains rose beyond it. Doves cooed in nearby trees.

The pond was surrounded by a bright amethyst ring of flowers. Tall, purple-lobed, gossipwitch orchids. Purple flamingos struck curious poses as they stalked the enchanted border of the enchanted pond.

Eureka turned her good ear toward a happy moan she recognized from many after-party rides home with Cat. Her friend leaned against the trunk of a pine tree near the Glimmering, wrapped in the Poet’s arms.

Something drew Eureka’s gaze above Cat and the Poet, to the limbs of the tree they leaned against. A shadow shifted on
a branch. Eureka didn’t need moonlight to recognize Brooks. How long had he been up there, watching Cat, waiting … for what?

For Eureka, of course. She knew Atlas’s plans now. She knew her role was to undo the Filling. She knew where his precious robot was. All this gave her power she didn’t yet know how to use.

Hang on, Brooks,
she yearned to say.
Just hang on a little longer.

His legs dangled over a thick pine arm. He knew Eureka saw him. Very slowly, he drew his pointer finger to his lips.

“Dare I suggest a skinny-dip before we fill the jugs?” Cat said to the Poet. Leaning in the wet grass at their feet were four clay drinking vessels they must have brought from the Poet’s cave.

“What is ‘skinny-dip?’ ” the Poet asked.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” Cat crossed her arms and began to remove her sweater.

“Cat!” Eureka called. “Stop!”

“Eureka?” For a moment a smile lit Cat’s face. Then it disappeared. Eureka realized that Cat would have been happy to see the girl Eureka used to be—but not the murderer standing before her now. “What are you doing here?”

Eureka thought about the way she’d just treated Ander. What did she think she was holding on to? What good would it do to say she’d been worried about Cat? Anger flashed in
her eyes. She was mad at herself, and at Atlas, but Cat was in her line of fire.

“This isn’t a sexcapade with a bayou boy.”

“Really?” Cat’s face darkened. “I could have sworn this was Lafayette and we were in the alley by the daiquiri store. How stupid do you think I am? That’s an actual question. I left my family to run away with you and some nut job you barely know. Then you, the girl I thought was my best friend, turn out to be the real nut job I barely know.”

“Cat, we have to go.”

“You act like you don’t even care about all the horrible things happening.”

“I care. That’s why I’m here.”

“But you can’t cry about it, right? You have a great excuse to pretend that nothing matters, so you don’t have to feel it. I left everything, lost everything, just like you. Guess what? I found freshwater. You’re not the only person in the world who can help.”

“Stay away from that water. It’s dangerous. It isn’t even water.”

“Don’t say anything else.” Cat stopped Eureka. “I don’t want to discover what new way you’ve found to underestimate me.”

Eureka tried to pull her friend farther from the water. “I’ll explain once we get far away from here.”

“Go home.” Cat snapped her arm free. It was the closest either of them had come to admitting that they weren’t just
temporarily at odds. Their real homes were gone. Eureka had destroyed them. This place, this night, that evil ten feet up in the tree, was all they had.

“Please come with me, Cat.”

The purple light had disappeared. Eureka wondered if she’d imagined her encounter with Esme. The spring bubbled innocently.

“Girls”—the Poet raised one of the jugs—“let’s all just rock the boat, there is nothing to be afraid of. See.…”

“Don’t!” Eureka called after him. “Your reflection—”

The Poet turned to face the water. He stood at the Glimmering’s edge. He lowered the jug toward the surface—then he stopped. He shook his head like he was trying to erase the vision before him. He dropped the jug.

Ten feet away and holding Cat back, Eureka couldn’t see what the Poet saw in his reflection. He cried out something in his native tongue. His legs wobbled unsteadily. He reached into his cargo pockets and withdrew a can of spray paint.

“What’s he doing?” Cat said.

Eureka held her tighter as the Poet sprayed a cloud of black paint above the Glimmering. He wanted to paint over what he saw, to change the canvas. But he couldn’t. And he couldn’t turn away. His cloud-lit profile revealed a boy in agony, but strangely, the Poet’s hands reached forward, grasping for something ahead of him.

Esme’s words returned to Eureka:
Mortals can face many
things, but they cannot face their true identities.
She glanced back at the pine tree, at the still shadow she knew was watching.

“He’ll fall in,” Cat said.

“No matter what happens,” Eureka said to Cat, “promise you’ll stay away from that water.”

The Poet reached for his reflection in the pond, entranced. Then he tumbled into the water without a splash.

“Poet!” Cat shouted, dragging Eureka a few steps toward the water.

Eureka shivered as water spooled around the place where the boy had fallen. His arm shot out, straining toward the sky, still clutching the can of black spray paint.

“He’s messing with us,” Cat said, relieved. “Isn’t he?”

When the can fell from the Poet’s fingers, Eureka saw that the water was viscous, almost tar-like.

“Don’t go down there, Cat.”

“He needs help—” Cat said, but she didn’t move.

“The witch warned me. That water is enchanted. Its reflection is lethal. It shows the darkest parts of people.”

The Poet’s elbow dipped beneath the Glimmering, as if something gripped it from below. Then his wrist was level with the surface. Cat screamed; Eureka held on. By the time the Poet’s fingers disappeared beneath the Glimmering, the fight had left Cat’s body. She slumped forward, dropped to her knees.

“He was kind to me when I needed a friend. He wouldn’t
hurt a soul.…” Cat trailed off, looked at Eureka, then looked away.

Eureka knew they were both thinking the same thing: if the Poet’s reflection had killed him, what kind of horror would Eureka see if she looked inside?

The Glimmering was still for a moment. Then three iridescent bubbles rose above its surface. One at a time they popped, leaving the faintest amethyst-colored shimmer in the air.

“S
he’s not there.”

An hour later Ander’s frantic voice traveled up the waterfall from Solon’s workshop. Eureka had finally dragged Cat back to the Bitter Cloud, where her friend collapsed on her pallet, pushing Eureka away when she tried to comfort her, crying silent tears until she slept.

Cat had wanted to stop at the Celans’ caves to tell them about the Poet, but it was too dangerous to risk. The Celans already had Seyma’s death to avenge. There was no telling how they would respond to losing one of their young.

“Not at the pond,” Ander said. “Not with the Celans. I’ve looked everywhere. She just … disappeared.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Solon asked.

Eureka moved toward the stairs leading to his workshop. Now that Solon knew she’d snuck out, both boys would be furious with her. She had to tell them she was back.