A sudden, fierce urgency flared to snatch at her mother, made a grab, do something, and Rima had to work hard to muscle back the impulse to knot her fist in Anita’s hair. Wait, be patient. Don’t spook her, because you won’t get another chance. Wait for it.
As if sensing some danger, her mother rocked back on her heels. The muzzy look on her face sharpened a moment, and the knife she still clutched twitched, the point moving to hover over Rima’s throat.
“Careful of the knife.” Rima licked her lips. “You don’t want to cut yourself.”
For a shuddering moment, nothing happened. The bright spark that was the point of the knife ticked back and forth ever so slightly with each beat of Anita’s heart. Rima said nothing, held her breath. Then she heard the knife clatter to the rock, and Anita was leaning forward, practically falling on top of her—and Rima thought, One chance.
“Oh, my poor baby, come here,” Anita sighed, snaking her arms around Rima’s neck and shoulders. “Come to Momma, baby.”
“Oh, Mom.” Her voice broke as she carefully wound her arm around Anita’s thin shoulders. “I forgive you,” she whispered—and then she clamped down and felt for the center of her mother with all her might.
In the next instant, when Anita began to scream—when it was much too late—Rima understood: she had just made the worst and last mistake of her life.
Too late, Rima understood everything.
BODE
The Shape of His Future
“NO, NO, NO, no, no!” Bode swung his torch right and left, but there were no chinks in the rock, no breaks. The rock was as smooth as a black mirror; his reflection so perfect, it was like staring through a window to a moonless night. “This can’t be right!”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Eric said. The high scream of the scorpions swelled from the mouth of the tunnel. “If the other tunnel ended, how can this be a dead end, too?”
“Because this is where we’re supposed to end up.” Casey reached for the glassy rock, and his hand’s ghostly twin floated to meet him. “This is the way it wants us to go.”
“Kid, we’re not talking fog now. This is solid rock,” Bode said. He saw the margins of Casey’s reflection smudge and blur—and then the ruddy glimmer of a face suddenly seemed to ooze from Casey’s body to appear on the rock’s mirrored surface.
Holy smoke. He knew the others couldn’t see this. The kid—
“But it’s the wrong rock.” Emma’s expression was tight, intense. “Look at it. This is almost like obsidian, volcanic glass.”
“So what?” he grated, bunching his fists. His brain was yammering, Get out, get out, get out! Despite what he saw in the rock—something that should’ve reassured him they might still have a chance—Bode was more frightened now than he’d ever been in his life. His back prickled. If you spent enough time worming on your belly through black echoes, you got a sense when there was something coming for you out of the dark, and he could feel the scorpions swarming down the tunnel. Those things would rush through the archway in a broad black river, and he would drown in a writhing sea of pincers and stingers. They would slither into his mouth, swarm down his throat, eat him from the inside out, scrape his eyeballs from their sockets. Got to get out, got to get out. “What does that matter?”
“Glass isn’t an organized solid. Light doesn’t show itself until it reflects or bounces off something. That’s why you see yourself in a mirror but not necessarily in clear glass. But look at us.” When she moved her hand from side to side, its mirror image echoed but blurred and elongated into shimmering, smeary trails. “This isn’t really reflecting. It’s as if the reflection’s being … slowed down?”
So what? His nails were slicing crescent divots from his palms. Tell me something I can use! Bode had to really work at not grabbing Emma by the shoulders and shaking her until her eyeballs jittered. “Yeah? How does that help us?”
“It’s like it … traps the light.” Casey’s hand was still pressed to his glimmering double. “As if it’s coming back to us out of tar or something.”
“Emma,” Eric said, “what if this is the same kind of energy sink that’s in the Peculiars? Wasn’t that designed as a barrier, a way of containing energy? Look at the smears. Remember what Lizzie said? Her dad said the glass makes the thought-magic slow down.”
“What does that mean?” Bode could see now that when he turned his head, his reflection lagged behind, the margins blurring into streamers. “Is that good?”
“No. It means there’s something beyond this, inside, the way the Peculiars trapped energy. Anything that can trap energy can trap us.” Emma actually backed up a step. “I’m not touching this. We can’t go through here. There’s got to be another way.”
“You know there isn’t. Emma, please, Rima’s on the other side. I feel it.” Casey’s face glistened and more tears streamed down his cheeks. “We have to help her!”
“Well, whatever you’re going to do, do it now,” Bode said. The scorpions’ squalls were much closer, no longer only echoes but a shrill of sound as focused and insistent as a drill coring through the bone of his skull. “I’ll settle for anyplace those things aren’t.”
“We got to go for it, Emma,” Eric said.
“Eric,” she said, “it’s an energy sink. That means it can steal from me, from us. You want to wake up dead inside solid rock?”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Eric said. “You have to get us through, Emma. It’s the only thing left.”
Well, Bode thought, not quite. Emma looked pretty spooked. Even if she could do it, Bode still thought it would take her much more time than they had left. But he had the gun. He had the can of gas, and their second jar besides. He had everything he needed, no more and no less.
In that moment, the shape of his future became clear. Shit, the writing really was on the damn wall now, wasn’t it?
“Get them through, Emma. You find Rima and that little girl, and then you guys clear out,” Bode said—and wheeled back the way they’d come.
“Bode!” Eric and Emma shouted. Bode saw Emma try to spurt after him, but Eric snagged her arms and held on tight. “Eric, no! Bode!” Emma cried. “Bode, stop!”
He did, but only at the bend and just for an instant. “Don’t drop them, Emma. Don’t let yourself get stuck. Get them out and get them clear, you hear?”
Then he rounded the corner and sprinted down the tunnel as the heavy pillowcase banged his thigh, as remorseless as a countdown.
BODE
Into the Black
1
HE LOOKED OVER his shoulder only once, enough to satisfy himself that they weren’t following, and then he dug in, dashing down the tunnel, closing the gap. Ahead, he could hear the tidal wave of the scorpions as they came in a susurrous hiss, like the ebb and suck of waves dragging over the rubble of shattered seashells. When he thought he’d gone far enough, he swiftly untied the sack, took out both the jar and the can, and set them side by side on the rock.