The Emerald Atlas (30 page)

“I just … think you should. Go on now.”

And then she was alone.

Kate knew with absolute certainty that if she did nothing, if she merely allowed Gabriel and Robbie and Dr. Pym to proceed with their plan, the children would die. Despite everything they’d done, nothing would be different. Time, Kate was learning, was like a river. You might put up obstacles, even divert it briefly, but the river had a will of its own. It wanted to flow a certain way. You had to force it to change. You had to be willing to sacrifice. Kate thought of her promise to Annie and the other children that she would come back for them.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the key she’d used to open the cage. She would’ve liked to have seen her parents.

Ten minutes later, a man passing the Secretary’s cage noticed the door was open and the prisoner was missing. At the same moment, Emma, running to fetch her sister, found that she too was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Devil’s Bargain

The air told Kate when they were getting close. It was no longer the damp, stale air she’d been breathing since the previous morning; this was clean, fresh. The Secretary must’ve sensed it as well.

“Almost there,” he gasped, tightening his grip on Kate’s arm, which he seemed to be holding more for support than control, “almost there …”

No guards had been posted outside his cage, and Kate had been able to sneak up unnoticed and whisper her proposal through the bars.

If the Countess would free the children and leave without harming anyone else, Kate would deliver the
Atlas
. But the Secretary had to get her to Cambridge Falls before Robbie and Gabriel’s army. Could he do that?

Yes, the man had sneered, there was a way.

Now, as the pair stumbled along the tunnel, Kate holding aloft their pilfered lantern, she thought about Emma and Michael. Given the chance, she would’ve told them that her visions weren’t like movies. She didn’t watch them happen; she lived them. She had been on the boat as it went over the falls. She had felt what the children felt as it plunged toward the rocks. Their terror had been hers, and she would do anything to spare them that pain.

She and the Secretary rounded a bend, and for the first time in two days, Kate was in the open air.

They were high over the valley, on a path cutting down the side of the mountain. The moon was full, and it bathed the entire world in a calming, silvery glow. The sheer sense of space took her breath away. Kate thought it was the most beautiful sight she’d ever beheld.

The Secretary fell to his knees at the edge of the cliff and started drawing in the dirt with his finger.

“What’re you doing? The others will be after me! We have to—”

“Quiet! I need to concentrate!”

Kate looked back toward the tunnel. She expected at any moment to hear her name being called, to see the light of approaching torches.

“There.” The Secretary straightened up, wiping his hands on his jacket. “Done.”

“Done what? All you’ve done is draw a line in the dirt!”

“Ah, but it’s a special line.”

“Dr. Pym and Gabriel are going to be here any second! You said you knew a way to town!”

“I do; this way. Step over the line.”

Kate looked at the not entirely straight yard-long scratch in the dirt. Stepping over it would mean stepping off the cliff and into thin air.

“You’re joking.”

“It will take you to the Countess. It is magic she granted me.”

“Uh-huh. Well, there has to be another way. If we run—”

The Secretary lurched at her, shoving his sweating face into hers.

“There is no other way! Your friends will be here soon! Does the little birdie want to save the children? Then birdie has to fly! Fly, fly, fly …”

He stepped back, gesturing to the line like a gruesome maitre d’. Kate noticed he was clutching something in his hand. It was the tiny yellow bird she’d seen earlier, but its body was motionless and limp.

“What about you?”

“Very kind of you to ask, very kind. But only room for one birdie. Griddley Cavendish will find another way.”

“How do I know you’re not trying to kill me?”

He smiled his filthy, cracked-toothed grin. “You don’t. Now—fly.”

Her insides felt like they had turned to ice. She took a trembling step to the edge of the line. A breeze blew in off the valley, pushing back her hair. She looked down. Far below, she could make out the rocky base of the mountain. Then she heard it—the faint echo of a shout. And again. It’d come from the tunnel; someone was calling her name.

Kate closed her eyes and stepped off the cliff.

Her foot struck something solid. She heard a sound like water slapping against metal, the low rumble of an engine. She opened her eyes. She was on the deck of a boat; the moon reflected off the surface of the lake. The Secretary’s magic had worked.

“Katrina …”

Kate spun around. The Countess stood there, flanked by two
morum cadi
. She clapped gleefully.

“You’re here! I’m so happy!”

After failing to find her sister, Emma had run to tell Michael and discovered everyone in an uproar over the fact the Secretary had disappeared from his cage. She pulled her brother aside.

“You gotta help me find Kate. She wasn’t in the room.”

Dr. Pym overheard this and lunged toward them, grasping Emma by the arm.

“What did you say?”

Emma told him, and Dr. Pym let out a long sigh. “Oh, this is very bad.”

Just then, a man was brought forward. He had seen two figures running toward the eastern end of the city.

Dr. Pym told Gabriel, “Go. We will catch up,” and the giant man turned and like that was gone. Dr. Pym instructed Robbie to put together a larger group and follow as quickly as he could. “Come, children. I fear your sister is about to make a grave mistake.” And the three of them set off after Gabriel.

As they hurried along the dark tunnel, Dr. Pym pressed Michael and Emma to tell him what they knew. There was no mistaking his seriousness, and Michael and Emma held nothing back. They told him about Kate’s vision, about the Countess gathering the children onto the boat, about the dam being destroyed, how all the children had died. They told him that Kate believed the vision was a warning.

“I should have been more careful,” Dr. Pym muttered, striding faster and faster. “I only pray we are in time.”

When they emerged from the tunnel onto the side of the mountain, Gabriel was kneeling, studying the earth in the moonlight.

“I do not understand. The tracks show the man ran off alone down the path. But the girl”—he paused, glancing at Emma and Michael—“her tracks say she stepped off the cliff. I do not think she was pushed. But nor do I see a body on the rocks below.”

“What?!” Emma’s voice spiked with panic. “No! You gotta be wrong! I’m sorry, Gabriel, but it’s dark and all; you probably just didn’t see it right! Read those tracks or whatever again!”

Dr. Pym was looking at the line the Secretary had drawn in the dirt.

“There is no body,” he said, “because Katherine is with the Countess.”

He explained that the line was a portal.

“So can’t we use it too?” Michael asked.

“No. It was designed to transport one person. Stepping across it now would mean stepping to your death.” He wiped it out with the toe of his shoe. There was the sound of footsteps, and Robbie and several other dwarves, along with a few men, came sprinting out of the tunnel. “We are too late,” Dr. Pym said. “The Countess has her. Gabriel and I and the children will go immediately to Cambridge Falls. When your forces are mustered, lead them down this path. It will take you to the town.”

“You’re mad,” the dwarf gasped. “If the girl’s with the witch, our goose is cooked. Anyway, take you bloody hours to get to town on foot.”

“Then we mustn’t dawdle. Just follow the path.” Nodding to Gabriel and the children, he started down the trail, moving with his brisk, long-legged stride.

“Dr. Pym!” Michael and his sister hurried after him, struggling not to trip as the rocky path snaked down the mountain, Gabriel following close behind. “King Robbie’s right. It’ll take us hours to get there like this.”

“Yeah,” Emma said, “why don’t you make one of those portal things?”

“Unnecessary. I know a shortcut. Stay close now.”

As he said this, the children noticed that they were walking into some kind of mist or cloud, which was strange since moments before the sky had been perfectly clear. Soon the mist became so thick that Dr. Pym ordered Michael and Emma to hold hands so that neither wandered off the edge of the cliff. They followed the wizard by the dim outline of his back, and, when that had been swallowed up, by his voice, calling to them through the fog, “Careful now, there’s a tricky bit here. Careful …” Then, as if not being able to see wasn’t bad enough, their other senses began playing tricks on them. They smelled trees they knew weren’t there, heard nonexistent water slapping against a bank; even the rocky slope of the mountain seemed to level out and become soft. Michael was just making a mental note to do more research on the disorientating effects of fog when Dr. Pym announced:

“And here we are.”

Michael gasped.

“How …,” Emma began.

“I told you,” Dr. Pym said, “I knew a shortcut.”

They had stepped out of the fog and were standing at the edge of the lake in Cambridge Falls, looking out across the moonlit water. Michael glanced back to see Gabriel emerge from a misty tunnel in the trees. Once he’d joined them, Dr. Pym went on:

“My friends, we have reached the most difficult part of our task. I needn’t remind you of the lives at stake. Katherine and the children are on the boat with the Countess. I will see to them. Gabriel, you’d best hurry to the dam. I fear the Countess may have sabotaged it. Do what you can.”

“I’ll go with Gabriel,” Emma said. “He might need me.” She looked up at the giant man. “You might.”

“Very well,” Dr. Pym said. “Michael, my boy, you’re with me. Quickly now, and good luck to us all.”

Kate closed her eyes and called up the image of the book-lined room: she pictured the fire in the grate, the snow falling outside, Dr. Pym at his desk with his pipe and cup of tea; she saw her mother enter, heard her say that Richard was still at the college; every detail was vivid and clear.…

Kate opened her eyes and saw the red satin curtains, the armchairs upholstered in deep velvet, the mahogany-and-gold table; from the corner, a Victrola played a high, haunting melody as gas lamps flickered on the walls, the light refracting through an ornate crystal chandelier. She sighed. She was still on the boat. Still in the Countess’s cabin.

“Katrina, you are testing my patience.”

The Countess was wearing a black gown that made her white skin almost luminescent, and in the wavering light, her eyes changed from violet to indigo to lavender in the space of moments. She poured herself a glass of wine and looked at Kate with a bored expression.

Since she had arrived on the boat, nothing had gone as Kate had planned. Starting with her demand to see the children …

“My dear, that’s quite impossible. But I admire how you’re always thinking of others. We’re very alike in that way.”

“If you’ve hurt any of them, I won’t help you get the
Atlas.
”

“Oh, oh, oh, look who’s learned the name of her magic book! Brava,
ma chérie!
”

“I mean it!” Kate had shouted, trying, unsuccessfully, to keep the quaver out of her voice. “I’ll let you kill me first. I know about the monster you keep here.”

“Aren’t you clever! As it happens, I released that nasty thing before I came aboard. I thought it could greet the townsmen when they arrive.”

“What? You can’t! You—”

“Now now, did you come to save the children or a mob of loutish townsmen? I’m afraid you can’t do both.”

“Fine,” Kate had snapped, telling herself that Dr. Pym and Gabriel were more than a match for any of the witch’s creatures. “Let the children go, and I’ll get you the book.”

The Countess had clucked her tongue. “I think you’re confused about the order of things. First, you bring me the
Atlas
. Then, my charges go free.”

“That’s not—”

“Darling, be reasonable. You must know the children are my only protection! Not that I need protection from you; you’re an angel! But I suspect you’ve been consorting with some less than savory characters, dwarves and wizards and the like? I forgive you, of course. We all make mistakes when we’re young. I could tell you about a certain Italian dancing instructor. No, no, book first, children second!”

“But—”

“The instant I have it, I’ll release them! I give you my word!”

The Countess had looked at her with a taunting expression, and in that moment, Kate realized how fully she had placed herself in the witch’s power. Gripping the arms of her chair, she’d thought of the children locked somewhere in the belly of the ship and asked what it was she had to do.

“My love, it is the easiest thing in the world!”

Apparently, Kate had only to imagine the desired moment; then, once she held it firmly in her mind, she would, with the Countess’s assistance, be transported to that time and place. Did Kate remember when she and her brother and sister had first traveled into the past? How they had placed a photo upon the blank page?

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well, you can’t imagine that the
Atlas
was designed, all those thousands of years ago, for use with photos! The photo merely provided a clear image. Given a specific destination, whether through a photo, a drawing, an image in your mind, or even—if you had enough control, which, sadly, you do not—the statement, ‘Take me here,’ the
Atlas
would obey. We do not have the
Atlas
. However, some of its power now resides in you, and the same principle applies.”

So again and again, Kate had closed her eyes and pictured herself in Dr. Pym’s study, and again and again, she opened them to find herself still in the cabin.

Her frustration boiled over.