She didn’t want to tell Dad. She really didn’t want to tell him. But if she didn’t tell him, something worse might happen. “The thing is, Dad—” she started to say.
“Your mother said that someday something might happen,” Dad interrupted.
Eureka blinked. “She warned you.” She took his hand, which was cold and clammy, not strong and reassuring the way she was used to it feeling. She tried to stay as calm as possible. Maybe this would be easier than she’d thought. Maybe Dad already had some sense of what to expect. “Tell me exactly what she said.”
He closed his eyes. His lids were creased and damp and he looked so frail it scared her. “Your mother was prone to delirium. She’d be out with you at the park or some store buying clothes. This was back when you were little, always when the two of you were alone. It never seemed to happen when I was there to see it. She’d come home and insist that impossible things had occurred.”
Eureka inched closer to him, attempting to inch closer to Diana. “Like what?”
“It was like she would fall into a fever. She’d repeat the same thing over and over. I thought she was ill, maybe schizophrenic. I’ve never forgotten what she said.” He looked at Eureka and shook his head. She knew he didn’t want to tell her.
“What did she say?”
That she came from a long line of Atlanteans? That she possessed a book prophesying a lost island’s second coming? That a cult of fanatics might someday seek to kill their daughter for her tears?
Dad wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “She said: ‘Today I saw the boy who’s going to break Eureka’s heart.’ ”
A chill ran down Eureka’s spine. “What?”
“You were four years old. It was absurd. But she wouldn’t let it go. Finally, the third time it happened, I made her draw me a picture.”
“Mom was a good artist,” Eureka murmured.
“I kept that picture in my closet,” Dad said. “I don’t know why. She’d drawn this sweet-looking kid, six or seven years old, nothing disturbing in the face, but in all the years we lived in town, I never saw the boy. Until …” His lip trembled and he took Eureka’s hands again. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the breakfast table. “The likeness is unmistakable.”
Tension twisted through Eureka’s chest, crippling her breath like a bad cold. “Ander,” she whispered.
Dad nodded. “He’s the same as he was in the drawing, just grown up.”
Eureka shook her head, as if that would shake the sensation of nausea. She told herself an old drawing didn’t matter. Diana couldn’t have read this future. She couldn’t have known Eureka and Ander might someday truly care for one another. She thought of his lips, his hands, the unique protectiveness that came through everything Ander did. It made her skin tingle with pleasure. She had to trust in that instinct. Instinct was all she had left.
Maybe Ander had been raised to be her enemy, but he was different now. Everything was different now.
“I trust him,” she said. “We’re in danger, Dad. You and me, Rhoda, the twins. We need to get out of here today, now, and Ander is the only one who can help us.”
Dad gazed at Eureka with profound pity and she knew it was the same look he must have given to Diana when she said things that sounded crazy. He tweaked her chin. He sighed. “You’ve had a real hard time of it, kid. All you need to do today is relax. Let me make you something for breakfast.”
“No, Dad. Please—”
“Trenton?” Rhoda appeared in the kitchen wearing a red silk robe. Her loose hair flowed down her back—a style Eureka wasn’t used to seeing on her. Her face was bare of makeup. Rhoda looked pretty. And frantic. “Where are the children?”
“They’re not in their room?” Eureka and Dad asked simultaneously.
Rhoda shook her head. “Their beds are made. The window was wide open.”
A terrific clap of thunder gave way to a faint rapping on the back door that Eureka almost didn’t hear. Rhoda and Dad sprinted to open it, but Ander got there first.
The door blew back with a sharp gust of wind. Rhoda, Dad, and Eureka halted at the sight of the Seedbearer standing in the doorway.
Eureka had seen him before at the police station and on the side of the road later that night. He looked sixty, with pale skin, slickly parted gray hair, and a pale gray tailored suit that gave him the appearance of a door-to-door salesman. His eyes glowed the same bright turquoise as Ander’s.
The resemblance between them was undeniable—and alarming.
“Who are you?” Dad demanded.
“If you’re looking for your children,” the Seedbearer said as a strong odor of citronella wafted in from the backyard, “step outside. We’d be happy to arrange an exchange.”
30
THE SEEDBEARERS
Rhoda shoved past the Seedbearer, who glanced bitterly at Eureka, then spun around to cross the porch.
“William!” Rhoda shouted. “Claire!”
Ander rushed through the door after Rhoda. By the time Eureka, Dad, and Cat made it to the covered patio outside, the Seedbearer was at the bottom of the porch stairs. At the top, Ander had tackled Rhoda. He had her pinned against one of the colonettes of the balustrade. Her arms writhed at her sides. She kicked, but Ander held her body still as easily as if she were a child.
“Let go of my wife,” Dad snarled, and lunged toward Ander.
With a single hand Ander held him back, too. “You can’t save them. That isn’t how this works. All you’ll do is get yourself hurt.”
“My children!” Rhoda wailed, keeling over in Ander’s arms.
The odor of citronella was overpowering. Eureka’s eyes traveled past the porch to the lawn. Standing among acid-green ferns and the mottled trunks of live oaks were the same four Seedbearers she’d encountered on the road. They formed a line facing the porch, steely gazes eyeing the scene Eureka and her family were making. The Seedbearer who had knocked on their door had rejoined his group. He stood half a foot ahead of the others, hands crossed over his chest, turquoise eyes challenging Eureka to do something.
And behind the Seedbearers—Eureka’s body seized and a wave of red spots swam before her eyes. Suddenly she knew why Ander was holding Rhoda back.
The twins were hog-tied to the swing set. One metal chain from each swing bound the wrists of each twin. Their arms stretched above their heads, linked by the knotted chain that had been looped over the long horizontal top bar of the swing set. The other two chains had been used to bind the twins’ ankles. Those chains were then secured in knots on the sides of the swing set’s A-frame bars. William and Claire hung at a slant.
The worst part was that the swings’ splintery wooden seats had been wedged into the twins’ mouths. Duct tape held the seats in as gags. Tears streamed down the children’s faces. Their eyes bulged in pain and fear. Their bodies shook with whimpers the gags prevented Eureka from hearing.
How long had they been tied up like that? Had the Seedbearers broken into the twins’ bedroom in the night, while Ander was guarding Eureka? She felt sick with rage, consumed by guilt. She had to do something.
“I’m going out there,” Dad said.
“Stay here if you want your kids returned alive.” Ander’s command was quiet but authoritative. It stopped Dad at the top step of the porch. “This has to be handled exactly right—or we’re going to be very sorry.”
“What kind of sick jerks would do that to a couple of kids?” Cat whispered.