Aquifer (9 page)

I squeal, and Seward slaps his hand over my mouth.

“But Mape, Luca may not know where it is. He’s never descended.” An Amongus throws his arms into the air. “We need the dials to find them. There is no choice.”

Mape paces, his fists tightening into balls. “No!” he screams. “This is
my
life! Always there is no choice.” He exhales hard. “Fine! Fine. To the beach.” He lets his head fall back. It cocks to the side as he peers up at us. “What would you say that is?”

“Looks to be a net,” says another, raising an orb above his head. “A very full net.”

“Hello, Luca.” Mape waves, his voice calming. “What brings you here at night? And how do you come to know my employ?”

I should feel afraid, but I don’t. I stare down at their ripped pockets, think of my father, and I feel I can do anything.

“Leave me be,” I say. “I’m on private, Deliverer business.”

The group sneers, and one bends over and grasps a chunk of wood. “Oh, of course, of course you are.” He flings it upward.

“Uh.” It strikes Seward hard in the back.

Mape holds up his hand. “While it would be entertaining to watch the two of you pummeled into pulp, Luca, we need some … information from you, so first let’s bring you down.”

“Seward! Luca! Close your eyes!”

I obey, and the world flashes light around me. Lightning, but there’s no storm. A sunrise, but it’s night.

Below us, shouts and screams and one calm voice.

“Two years of hiding from you, Mape, and now here you are, and ya can’t lay eyes on me.”

“Jasper!” Mape claws at the air.

“Oh, you do remember me. Well now, that’s a nice thing.” He clears his throat. “Sad to say, most of you will be blind — an unblinking stare at a light rod does that. But some of you may see in a day or two. I suggest you stay together. There be beasties on this isle, big and small, and none too friendly.”

He sighs and stares upward. “Now for my birdies.”

We lower in jerks and finally strike ground, but I don’t move and I cover closed eyelids with my hands.

“You two can open up — light’s doused.”

I crack an eyelid and watch the Amongus stumbling, calling, gathering in a clump. I help Seward to his feet and turn toward Jasper. He is half bear; a wild, hairy, hulk of a man.

“Are you friend?” I ask.

“I hate them. They hate you. That’s mates to me. But I was sent here, and instead of chatter I’d like to finish my job.”

“Your job,” I repeat.

“There’s an opening I hear you need to find.” He tousles my hair. “Massa’s son. My pleasure. I’ve heard much of you.”

“You have?”

Seward sets his hand on my back. “Not to interrupt, lad, but in case one of them shut their eyes in time, I’m thinkin’ we best not be here when vision returns.”

I nod. “Yeah. Um, Jasper? This is Seward. Massa’s brother.”

Jasper tongues his cheek. “Oh, we’re quite well acquainted. More than once I’ve lost casks of water to this pirate.”

“Entrepreneur.” Seward chuckles. “We all scratch to make a livin’.”

“Scratch! My books!” I break toward the beach.

“Curse those things.” Seward follows, with Jasper not far behind. I dig up my buried treasure, and the three of us snake back deep into the forest.

“You know my father,” I say.

“Aye.” Jasper says. “I reckon better than most.”

“How, bloke?” Seward barks. He follows the two of us, and the mistrust oozes from his words.

“He keeps me alive. There is no fresh water on the isle. Each year he brings me a supply, sneaks here every few months to replenish. It’s a good thing. A man gets lonely by himself with only the beasties to keep him company.”

“Why … do … you stay?” I huff.

“No choice after what I found.” He whacks through the undergrowth with his machete. “Well, who I found. Mape was a mate, or so I thought, but the whole time we scooped, he was looking for an undone. A particular undone.”

Seward sets his hand on my shoulder. “He lies. I would know about any retrieval that needed doing. I would have been sent, not a shrimper.”

“Go on, Jasper.” I pull free from Seward. Jasper looks into my face; the eyes that glisten beneath his shaggy brows hold concern.

“It was on Scott’s Reef. I don’t figure many undones get dropped there.” He glances at Seward, whose eyes narrow. “The short version? We hauled her up in the PM’s shackles, Mape jumped ship, and a debriefing was my lot.”

Jasper takes a deep breath. “She’d been down there a long time.” He runs thick fingers over his face. “This isn’t mine to say, but I fear it falls to me. Luca, your father told me, and you should know.” He stops, bends over, and whispers. “That night I was trawling for shrimp. Instead, I pulled up your mother, Alaya. I’m sorry, Luca.”

Seward grabs Jasper. “This be the truth?”

“I have no reason to lie.”

“My mother.” I collapse onto my knees. “But what did she do?”

“Fantastic timing, shrimper.” Seward shoves Jasper. “And when we need to move the fastest!” He pulls me to my feet. “Luca, there will be a time for your sadness, but now the sun rises.”

Jasper nods and we quicken our pace. Mother, undone. Father, disappeared. Seward and me, pursued.

What is it about our family? What don’t I know?

S
huff. Shuff
.

Jasper’s machete rips through the saline forest. Brush and undergrowth, leaves and vine fly upward, coating Seward and me with bits of green.

My legs have no strength, and I lean my head against Seward’s chest and listen to my uncle’s heartbeat. It races. Too fast.

I don’t figure he planned to carry me in his arms.

I glance up at his face, which glistens in the light that seeps from Jasper’s pack.
Love
. My father said it was our word, only ours, but at this moment I think him wrong. I feel a warmth for this man, the same one who curses the weight of two extra books, and no other word seems to fit.

Bouncing through the jungle, I discover a second kind of love.

Jasper stops abruptly. Seward and I crash into his back.

“Easy now. We’re almost there.” Jasper glances at me. “But you’ll need to walk, Luca.”

“He’d be walking fine, and I’d still have strength in my arms, if you’d have held your news close to your shirt a bit longer.” Seward leans forward, and I step down. My vision blurs, but I see why Jasper calls to my legs. We’re heading down.

A cupped-out earth, like a miniature Glaugood, lies before us, its walls steep and green, with trees growing straight up from its sides.

“At the bottom of the bowl lies what you seek.”

“Which is what, mate?” Seward’s hesitance has returned.

Jasper steps toward him. “Many things.”

A shout in the distance.

Amongus.

“If they wrested the dials off the claw, they don’t need sight to find us.” Seward peers down over the edge. “We be dropping breadcrumbs of emotion on the way.”

Jasper points into the hole. “Down. Dials or no, they’ll have a hard time following us without vision.” He steps onto the steep decline and slides, crashing into a tree. “Use these trunks as braces.” Jasper releases one trunk and slides down to another, grasping it and righting himself.

More shouts.

“Go, Luca,” Seward says, “and give me these cursed things.” He grabs the books from my arms. “I’ll bring them with me. Now go.”

I take a small step forward.

“Not quick enough.” A firm hand shoves me onto the steep slope, and I stumble and crash into a slender shoot.

“You got it,” Jasper calls.

My shoulder throbs, and I shake my head clear in time to see Seward clutch a tree near me. “Keep going — look!” He glances up, toward the rim of the bowl.

Figures mill about. One with purpose.

He probably closed his eyes in time
.

I release my tree and slide downward, moving in short bursts. My slight frame makes each collision tolerable, unlike Seward, who bears the brunt of force on a weightier body. His shoulders absorb the impact, as each hand holds a book.

Numerous trunks later, we reach the bottom. Before me, a stone path, and at its end Jasper stands in front of a rock mound, clearing the pile. He squeezes into the fresh opening, then pokes out his head and holds up a backpack. “This is for you and them scratchings. You can’t carry them by hand; not where we’re going.”

He tosses the pack to Seward’s feet. Uncle stuffs it and slings it over my back.

Jasper disappears again, but this time it takes longer for him to return. When he does, he looks pleased. “Okay. I guess we’re ready to go.”

“Where?” I look around.

“Down.” A woman — Wren — steps out of the crevice. She hugs me long and real. “I see you received my note. Consider your reading test passed.” Wren grins at Seward. “And you brought the scoundrel.”

Seward bows. “At your service.”

I raise my hand, and my jaw drops. “Am I the only one who doesn’t understand what’s going —”

“Curse it!”

A pile of Amongus tumble onto the floor of the bowl.

“Got to hand it to them,” Seward says. “They’re persistent.”

“Come, Luca!” Wren grabs my arm and pulls. I follow her around the back of the pile and onto a grassy path that disappears into a small cave.

“Those stones were the marker, set by Massa for you. This is the entrance. This is the moment he trained you for.” She looks at me wide-eyed. “Only you can get us safely below.”

“Safely? Do you know who’s down there?”

“Do you trust me?” she asks.

I roll my eyes. “Why is everyone asking me that?”

“Mate.” Seward rounds my shoulder with his arm as footsteps pound nearer. “We be out of time for trustin’. If you know the way, use it!”

The first Amongus finds his way around the pile, and I take off toward the cave. I duck inside easy enough. Wren slips in behind. Jasper’s head appears — only his head — and he howls.

“I’m stuck, stuck in the pass! Ow!”

Jasper crashes into the tunnel, and Seward scrambles off his back. “Don’t know what you’ve been eating, but you better be hopin’ that’s the pinchiest we meet.” Seward hoists Jasper to his feet. The cave darkens as the Amongus converge on the entrance. “Lead, Luca!”

“Okay … okay …” I rub my hands together and swipe the sweat from my brow.

Blank.

My mind blanks.

Lefts and rights float about, but nothing sticks. I glance to each side. Thin tunnels lead off in each direction.

Wren places her hand on my head. “It’s here. It’s all here. Relax.”

In the distance, I hear Seward’s voice. “One’s inside the cave!”

“Close your eyes and remember.” Wren’s voice hypnotizes. “You sat with Massa on the dock. Hear his voice.”

“Three in the cave!”

Luca, let us begin the sequence. The first section, the most crucial, and the most dangerous should you err. What is the first turn?

“All here!” Seward shouts. “They all be here!”

“Left!” I scream, and stumble over loose rock into the first left offshoot.

“Luca!”

I turn, and Jasper tosses me his orb. I catch it, face forward again, and crash into a rock wall. “Oh, slight jog right.”

And as I run, the words shift, gel, fix in my mind. They are a whole. Unforgettable.

“Now a sharp right.”

Seward’s voice reaches me. I want to ignore it, concentrate on the route. “Left, left …”

“They’re following, Luca. We can’t take them there.”

“Veer left, lower your head …” My three mates catch up in the long stretch. My feet flop down, nearly out of my control, so steep is the descent.

“He’s correct.” Wren slows me down. “How can we lose them?”

“Without losing ourselves?” I pause and recite the route up to the present. It is dangerous to speak in the middle. Wren gives me no choice.

“When do we reach the pass?” Wren grips my shoulder.

“The pass? I don’t know. That word is not in the sequence.”

“Is there anything like it? A thin pass, with a drop off on the left?”

“Thin pass,” I repeat, forcing myself to focus on the sequence and not her questions. “Deep into the series we will come to ‘careful, hug the right. Keep hugging the right. Don’t look left.’ ”

She grins. “Get us there.”

We fly forward, and my mind wanders. Time seems to vanish
in the series of turns I alone know. The temperature is cool and comfortable. It hasn’t changed since we dropped. It makes no —

Crack
.

I slow to a stop and plod back to the others, already looking to where my foot fell.

Three dials. Three busted dials, the glass sparkling in the light of the orb.

I look up and smile. “Father. So you were at least this far. Easy left, then slow and whoa …”

We burst out of a shaft, pass beneath an arch of fitted stone, and gaze out at a subterranean dome. The ceiling is barely visible, rising hundreds of feet before us and reflecting yellows and blues. The path veers sharply right, where it thins to a trail wide enough for one that winds tight against a rocky slope. To the left is the open, airy expanse of the dome. I step to its lip and glance down. There is no bottom.

I pick up a stone, stretch my arm straight ahead, and drop it over the edge. We listen. Nothing.

Wren whispers, “This is where it must happen.”

W
e don’t know yet how well they see.”

Wren paces, her voice tense. “Your earlier breadcrumb analogy is accurate. They can trace us as long as they have dials. And who knows what manner of markings they may be leaving? The real danger is not that they find the Aquifer, it’s that they find their way out again with the means to return.”

She draws us back off the ledge and into a huddle.

“This means nobody can continue on to the thin trail. Our scent must stop here. We hide behind those rocks there.” She nods toward the piles on either side of the arch. “They will come quickly down, as did we, and when they reach the drop we can only hope they’re blind enough to miss the turn onto the ledge.”

“And fall,” Jasper huffs.

“And fall,” Wren repeats.

“And if they don’t?” My voice sounds small, small like me. “Fall, that is.”

Seward slaps my back. “Then we will, mate. But Wren is
right — we can’t lead them closer to the only thing they want more than you.”

We hide behind the two outcroppings, Seward and me on one side, Jasper and Wren on the other. Tucked behind Seward, I feel safe, and for minutes we whisper, speaking fondly about the things we know. Lendi, the wharf, Massa.

Then I hear it.

On the ground, not fifteen feet from us, there is a whirring. One of the three broken dials Father confiscated springs back to life.

“It’s picking us up!” I grab Seward’s arm.

“No, mate. If I be right, this time it picks up those who approach. Pocket your orb.” Seward peeks up the passageway. I press my cheek into his back and feel him stiffen. He turns and gestures me to take a peek, out from the safety of our hiding place.

I look and shiver. A row of Amongus move down the tunnel with speed. All carry dials, two carry orbs. If the rest are still blind, they have adapted very well.

I draw back and try to calm my heart. Their footsteps pound as one, echoing louder as they approach the dome. Seward presses backward, his weight pinning me between fear and rock. Footsteps thunder beneath the arch, until all falls silent.

A minute passes; I tap my uncle’s shoulder, and he shifts forward, shrugs. He shushes my lips with his finger and slowly steps out from the outcrop. Seward quickly returns.

“All there, mate. Standing at the ledge. I count nine.”

I raise up my fingers and mouth, “There were ten.”

He squints and steps back out, then hollers.

“Le’go!” Seward’s body jerks forward, out of my sight. I hear scuffling, then more silence. I push back deeper into the crevice,
my breath audible. Shadows appear, and I cover my mouth. In front of me, two Amongus feel their way into my hiding place, standing where Seward had been.

One yard away, no more than an arm’s length.

“There’s a strong reading here,” one hisses, raising his dial to his ear.

“Readings are everywhere. Likely Seward’s imprint.” The other gropes forward, and I shrink my small body yet smaller.

“It’s an uneven fix. It’s these cursed dials. Broken, I’m sure.”

Their dials stretch toward me, whirring, stopping, then jerking to life.
School
. I think of my eagle and my uncoded heart. A cool draft floats over me. Both of the Amongus jerk back. Without my body heat, I’m invisible.

“Blast, it moved.” They disappear, and I slowly stand and poke my head around the corner. The rest close in on the other side of the arch, where Jasper and Wren hide. All except for two, the two that pin Seward to the ground.

Think, Luca. Think
.

“Nobody matters here but Luca.” An order given. “Find the boy.”

A busted dial from the tunnel floor gives a faint whir.

You are brave. You are brave
.

I leap from my hiding place and race back up the tunnel. I hear motion and grunts, but it’s too late to turn back. I grab the dial and stare into its mechanism, press it against my heart. It picks up my warmth and whirs violently.

“Got the other two! I’m picking up a third.” I hear one shout. “We have all but the prize.”

Oh, Father Massa, I was not meant for this
.

I race back toward my friends and duck through the arch.

“He’s here! Something moves!”

Arms reach, and I weave and scamper through the chaos.

Seward fights his head free. “Luca, run. Run! You’re all they want.”

I reach the cliff’s edge, hold up my dial, and yell. “Then they’ll have to come get me!”

They drop Wren and Jasper and converge on me as one. I turn and fling my dial into the abyss, then drop to the ground.

One by one, they dash off the ledge, the dome swallowing their cries.

For a moment, all is still. I slowly stand. I’ve never taken a life, though I’ve watched many taken. I wonder if it’s the same thing. I know I saved my friends, but I can’t help feeling … less.

Jasper and Wren gather around me. “That was brilliant, Luca.” Wren hugs me and offers my uncle a satisfied sigh. “Seward, you have taught him well.”

I turn in time to see Seward crumple onto his back, where he grasps his jaw and writhes in pain. From behind the outcrop steps an Amongus, his gaze fixed on me. He cracks his knuckles.

“It is good to have my sight back.”

Jasper and Wren step between us, but two backhands later they, too, lie groaning on the ground.

“You’ve done well, Luca,” he says. “If you escaped the blaze, the assignment was to bring you to the PM’s isle, but I don’t suppose assignments matter too much below.” He takes a large step closer. With the ledge behind, there’s nowhere to run.

“Truth is,” he says, “I don’t know my way out. We’re already in too far. So the job must be buttoned up here.” He cups his hands. “Farewell, Deliverer.”

I brace myself, and he lunges toward me.

I feel nothing but the breeze he creates.

His body lurches to my left, his eyes large and confused.
He falls, Seward on his back, the two disappearing down into the mist.

“No!” I drop to my knees. “No. No. No!”

Wren crawls toward me. Blood covers her cheek, and she wraps arms around my shoulders. I rock within her embrace, rock and weep. The tears that fought so hard to escape for Massa fall freely.

“He did what he had to do.” Her voice is soft and weak.

“But why?” I pull free and push back from the ledge.

“Because there is much more at stake than you realize.” Wren blinks and sways, and Jasper kneels at her side.

“You still bleed.” Jasper rips his shirt and wraps it about her head. “You must’ve struck rock as you fell. We’ll take care of it as we can, but …” Jasper glances at me. “She soon won’t be much for walking.”

I breathe deep. “Okay. Okay. Give me a moment. I need to recite to here!”

Minutes later we string across the mountain pass. I lead the way, while Jasper’s steady hands keep Wren aright. The next hours blur into a strange numbness. The route. Always in my mind there is the route, but it becomes automatic, as Father said it would be, and other thoughts do not disrupt.

Why am I going here? Surely Seward knew of a deserted island free from the Amongus’s reach. Why do I need to go below?

And Nine. Nine Amongus fell. There were ten, and I didn’t see Mape. He may yet be following. I could be leading him to the water source, the one cared for by Rats. I don’t want to see Rats. Living the rest of my life miles below the ground with a bunch of devolved humans. There must have been a different way.

Maybe being undone would have been better.

No. You’re on the right path
.

The thought, the voice first heard in Lendi’s cave, is so clear. I peek at Jasper. His face is fixed — he heard nothing. I rub my temple. I must’ve bumped my head too. The strange voice seems quite at home inside.

I just wish that I did.

A cool blast strikes me, and I stop, turn. Jasper eases Wren to the ground and stretches his arms.

“How many more turns, Luca? Are we close?”

“Two. Just two directions. Sharp left.”

Jasper wipes the sweat from his face. “I can do that.”

“And a three-mile windy walk.”

He bows his head.

“Leave me here, if you must,” Wren says. “Send somebody back for me.” Her voice drifts light and airy, like the air in the dome, and her eyelids flutter.

“No, ma’am.” Jasper grunts and hoists her up. “If I can haul a net ‘a shrimp, I can carry a lady. And I’m not certain who you think we’re going to meet. Move, Luca.”

I dart left and enter a passageway — one like none other.

It’s not rough, but smooth and wide and comfortable. I rub my hand over it. “This is manmade.”

“Rat made,” Wren whispers, and she closes her eyes.

The smooth walk twists, but soon straightens, and widens and widens, and the ceiling lifts and lifts, and minutes later Jasper and I walk side by side, no longer in a tunnel. It’s not a chamber, or a cavern; it’s too large for those names. No, this place could contain the entire Swan Inlet.

It’s a world. The world of the Water Rats
.