Nil (35 page)

Following her finger, thirty meters out, the grass shifted in waves toward the horses, like ripples in the sea as a shark moves beneath the surface.

“We need to get over there.” Charley pointed across the meadow. “The far end.”

She took a step and I threw out my hand to stop her. “No. Something’s in the field.”

Charley shrugged. “Probably just the hyena going after the horses. Let’s go. We can stick to the side.”

Charley strode into the thick grass. I lunged forward and grabbed her elbow; at the same time, a massive tiger went airborne, skimming the top of the grass. It latched on to one of the horses’ necks, taking it down in a clean kill. The horse’s hooves swept the top of the grass line, then disappeared. Never slowing, the second horse galloped out of sight.

“I guess the tiger’s still here,” Jason said.

“Ya think?” I said. Back in the meadow, the tiger ripped into his lunch with gusto, making his stripes blur.

I turned away. “Okay, Plan B. We are not hiking around a hungry cat who’s busy with lunch. He might think we’re stealing his snack, and we don’t want to be dinner. Let’s go.” As I started to walk, Charley stopped me.

“No,” she said. “We need to be
there
.” She pointed toward the far corner. “I know it.” Her voice had that determined I’m-not-backing-down tone.

“Charley, we can’t.” My tone matched hers.

“Yes, we can,” she said, her voice confident. “We can skirt the meadow’s edge. We won’t be close to the tiger. Let’s go. Now!” Her last word was militant.

I stared at her, trying to figure out how to say
Don’t be stupid
without sounding like a jerk.

“We have to go!” she snapped.

“No we don’t.” Jason’s voice was dull. “Look.”

“What?” Charley asked.

“Far end, rolling north.” Jason pointed. “And it’s a racer. A single for sure.”

I peered across the field, seeing nothing. Then I caught the speeding flash of iridescence, and I knew Jason was right.

“We’re too late.” Charley’s voice was bleak, and when she looked at me, I felt sick. Her face wore the same look I’d seen for the last two weeks when noon passed. Relief, then guilt, mixed with worry and fear—they swirled through her eyes, dimming the gold—and I hated Nil for that, too.

Noon was seriously starting to suck.

CHAPTER

54

CHARLEY

DAY 85, AFTER NOON

Natalie once said there’s no such thing as luck on Nil.

She was wrong.

Luck is personal; we all have our own. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but it’s yours, and it follows you wherever you go—even to Nil. And luck can change, because as my nana always insisted, luck was a state of mind.

Chance, on the other hand, is different. Chance is a coin toss, chance is probability. My charts had increased Thad’s chances, but it hadn’t changed his luck.

And I couldn’t understand why.

As we left the meadow, I pondered luck and chance, labyrinths and personal journeys, island mazes and carvings and the eternal question:
Why are we here?

But mostly I pondered the most disturbing question of all: W
hy is
Thad
still here?

*   *   *

The next morning, I woke before Thad, a rare event.

By the fire, Miya sat alone, sewing a pair of shorts, her nimble fingers working the thin twine in an easy rhythm, her shoulders relaxed. I was struck by the change in her bearing. No more wounded bird, tucked in a ball. The most fragile soul on Nil had been saved by one of the strongest, and now Miya emanated a quiet strength reminiscent of Talla’s inherent confidence. I wondered what Miya’s future held for her once she escaped. Her gift for spotting gates rivaled Jason’s, and my gut said she would make it. Talla’s bravery had secured Miya’s future, but the cost was huge. I wondered if Talla’s cross haunted Miya or inspired her. It was not a question I’d ever ask.

Past Miya, Rives sat near the Wall, like he was meditating, only his eyes were open. Lately he’d become as obsessed with the Wall as Thad, but while Thad traced the carvings, Rives just stared, and never at the same place twice.

“Find anything new?” I teased, walking up to him.

“Actually, yes.” Rives stood, grinning too broadly for this early in the morning. “Okay, what do you see when you look at the Wall?”

“Is this a trick question?” I asked, instantly annoyed. Now was not the time for games, not when Thad had only thirteen days left. “I see names.”

“Exactly. Thousands of names, if you count both sides. And I have.” Rives began to pace. “We know gates flash once a day on our end, at noon. So if we assume that gates flash once a day back home, that leaves three hundred sixty-five chances for people to show up per year. But we know that some inbounds have no riders, others pick up whatever happens to be there—chipmunk or cheetah, or a person. So I’m guessing worst case, one person gets snatched per week. That’s roughly fifty people a year. Now, if you do the math and count backward, this Wall was built in approximately 1859.” Rives raised an eyebrow at me.

“O-kaayy,” I said, fighting impatience. “So it’s old.”

Rives shook his head. “Do you know what happened in 1859?” Before I could say no, he said, “The biggest solar flare in history. That superflare sent a bunch of junk toward Earth, causing the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded. Scientists call it the Solar Superstorm; I know because we studied it last year. All kinds of crazy stuff happened after the superflare. Telegraph machines caught fire; others kept typing after being unplugged. Weird stuff. And get this”—Rives paused, clearly for effect—“according to the British astronomers who observed it, the superflare happened just before noon.”

Only slightly less dramatically, Rives continued. “Obviously, it wasn’t noon everywhere, but the only dudes who saw that superflare—the only two, Charley!—both saw it at noon. How crazy is that? Two scientists, totally unrelated, working at two different observatories in the same time zone, and both record the superflare at noon. So, just like there’re different quadrants here, there’re different time zones back home, and the gate storm had to start somewhere, right?”

He stopped, his face animated. “I remembering you asking Macy why we’re here. Well, I think it’s possible we’re here because of that massive solar storm. Maybe something happened back then, something cosmic that created this place or ripped open the gate to it. We’ll never know, but it’s possible it’s related. And it was your storm theory on the gates that gave me the idea.” Grinning, Rives waited for my reaction.

I wanted to scream.

Maybe that’s why
the island
is here, but it’s not why
we
are here
. Different question, different answer, and Rives’s answer didn’t matter, because it didn’t help Thad. Like I’d told Dex weeks ago, all that mattered was survival and escape, and for Thad, time was running out.

“It’s a cool idea,” I said, fighting not to snap, “but like you said once yourself, it doesn’t help get us home.”

Rives’s expression softened. “I know. But it makes the place less freaky, at least for me.” Stepping close, he wrapped his arm around me like he used to do with Natalie. “Keep the faith, girl,” he whispered. “Thad’s gonna make it.”

He has to
, I thought, biting my lip.
For both of us
.

CHAPTER

55

THAD

DAY 355, ALMOST NOON

Today was my day.

I felt it—when I woke up, when we picked the Flower Field as the day’s hot spot, and when Charley squeezed my hand a second ago. Today felt
right
. Or maybe I just wanted it to be right. Want, need, entwined in a blur of desperation, choking me so tight I was incapable of separating the two.

Charley’s voice sucked me back from my mental black hole.

“Scan the field,” she said, her eyes busy. “I’ve got the north edge.”

Tick-tock.
Seconds passed, then minutes. I felt noon slip when Charley shouted.

“There!” she cried, pointing.

Meters away, the writhing wall of air whispered my name as it rose.
Come, Thad
.
Run
.

“Run!” Charley yelled, pulling my hand.

I took off, Charley by my side, her hand tight in mine. The gate was glorious, winking with outbound perfection. Abruptly, clarity struck—as crisp and clear as the cloudless Nil sky—and in that moment, I knew: I couldn’t win. Because even when I caught the gate, I would lose.

I would lose Charley.

Just run
, I told myself. Charley’s feet paced mine.

The gate rolled fast, skimming the north edge of the Flower Field. It was a racer, a single. Three meters away, the air glittered like sunlight bouncing off of snow.

I looked at Charley, certain I would shatter, even before I felt the burn of the gate. “I love you.”

“As I love you.” She grinned. “No regrets. See you on the flip side!” Then she let go.

In my peripheral vision, Charley spun out of gate range.

Heat leaked from the gate; it was like approaching an oven set on full broil, and I was about to throw myself in. As I braced for the burn, a sickly looking orange cat darted from the field, brushed my ankle, and shot into the gate.

Charley screamed as the cat shimmered; I fought to stop, windmilling my arms to get away before the gate zapped me to death. Millimeters from my nose, the gate snapped shut with an audible hiss.

It was gone. So was the cat.

And I was still right here.

“Well, that sucked,” I said. I rested my hands on my hips as I fought to catch my breath. My quads trembled; I couldn’t make them stop.

Charley threw her arms around me. “If you’d have hit that gate—” She shook her head, holding me tight.

I rested my head against hers. “But I didn’t.”

For a long moment, we just stood there. I had no clue who was holding who, and it didn’t matter. We were together. And I was still alive.

“Holy crap,” Charley murmured, her breathing almost normal. “That gate was yours. We were
right there
. And some crazy cat stole it and almost killed you in the process. What’s up with all these frickin’ cats?”

“You know how Nil loves to play with kitties. Gates are like catnip. It’s weird
.”

“It’s awful.” Letting go, she sat on a rock. Her expression was half shocked, half furious. “To be so close only to have it stolen by something so random, especially something that looked half dead.”

“Nothing like Nil to try to save a cat with one foot in the grave.” My voice was bitter. Forcing a smile, I sat beside Charley and took her hand in mine.

“No,” Charley said. “It wasn’t Nil, it was random. Cats are like a wild card, literally.”

That was when I knew Charley didn’t get Nil. Maybe Nil hadn’t found the chink in Charley’s armor of goodness; maybe Charley didn’t have one. Nil wasn’t in Charley’s head—at least not yet, and I hoped not ever.

Because I knew better.

This was Nil’s playground, where Nil watched and cackled and called every last shot. She knew that cat was primed and ready to run, just like us. Nil flashed gates where she pleased, using gates to change the game, bringing new contestants and threats to add to her fun. Right now Nil was enjoying herself way too much with us to let me go: watching us hope, watching us struggle. Today’s gate was a calculated Nil move.
Here, kitty
, she’d crooned, crooking her island finger and calling for trouble.
Run and I’ll let you go
.
But you, Thad, will stay
.

Thinking of Ramia, I shuddered.

Watching me, Charley frowned.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, unwilling to tell her she was wrong. I refused to give Nil any advantage, not when it came to Charley. The warmth in Charley’s hand was a grounding force, a reminder of what was real and what mattered.

Charley looked at our hands. “I hate this. I mean, I’m so happy to have you for another day, but—that cat robbed you.” Her voice went flat. “I was ready. I was ready to say good-bye, dreading it but ready, and you got robbed.”

“I know.” I rubbed my thumb over her palm. “I know.”

For a minute, we just sat there, holding hands, not speaking.

“Did you ever see that old movie,
Groundhog Day
?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Well, it’s about this guy who lives the same day over and over. Noon is like that for me. We just keep saying good-bye, over and over. And then when noon’s over and you’re still here, it’s great, but it’s also terrible. And it’s worse than that stupid movie, because when we wake up, it’s not the same day, it’s another day, gone.”

I stared at Charley’s hand in mine. “For me, noon is like that moment when I’m on the mountain, behind the start line and the horn’s about to blow. I’m running through the course in my head. I’m amped and ready; I’ve got my head straight—and then it’s like someone canceled the race. Without warning, they just said, ‘Not today. Come back tomorrow.’ And then I just get jacked up all over again, ready to fly, ready to
go
.” I swallowed, hard. “Ready to say good-bye.”

She nodded, then laughed, a weird hollow sound. “That word:
good-bye
. I get that, too. Because when you catch a gate, it’ll be good. Better than good, it’ll be great. But it’s still a farewell.” Charley paused. “The crazy thing is, when noon passes, it’s like a gift. Another twenty-three hours together, guaranteed, that no one can take away.” She looked at me, her face full of guilt. “I know I shouldn’t be telling you this—I feel like I’m confessing, and I’m not even Catholic—but I’m totally dreading our good-bye.”

Understatement
, I thought. Charley had no idea how much I dreaded leaving her behind. Maybe I’d started out as her island guide, but along the way I’d become more like her shield, her protection against the darkness of Nil. And I feared that without me, she’d be vulnerable. But it wasn’t my choice; it was Nil’s. The cat was cruel evidence of that.