The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (30 page)

Leech had no problem adjusting. He’d accepted a kiss from a really pretty girl in one of the market stalls, which caused the whole crowd to ooh and aah. Seven had entered the market in just her wrap dress, but by the time we’d emerged, she was adorned with silver earrings, a beaded hair band, hammered gold bracelets, all just given to her.

After, we hung out by the central fountain in the plaza. Seven told us about school, some of her friends, and I had a feeling like this was my team. I could picture us flying south together . . . and I’d thought about this for a few minutes before I realized that Lilly hadn’t been part of my imaginings.

The sun was just beginning to descend, its rays still searing. “Ah.” Leech had lain back on the stone wall of the fountain. “There’s something to be said for this sun thing.”

I still had my sweatshirt on and was burning up inside. Finally, I took it off and let the sun bathe my arms. It was a weird feeling, almost like I could feel the radiation seeping in through my T-shirt, through my skin, my Rad burns tingling, and yet it also felt like I was being lit up by energy, and the feeling was dangerous but also vital. “Live bright,” I said.

Seven smiled. “He’s a convert.” She still had on her hat and long sleeves. She winked at me, but before I could come up with a reply there was a splashing of water and she flinched, arching her back.

“Oh!” Seven spun around. “Are you starting a splash fight that you are going to
lose
—”

But then we both saw that Leech had sat up and was clutching his one hand with the other. His arm was shaking violently. “Damn,” he said, gritting his teeth and stomping his feet.

“What’s wrong with you?” Seven asked.

“It’s cryo sickness,” I explained. “He was one of the first cryo subjects, before they’d really gotten the procedure perfected.”

“It’s fi-i-ne,” said Leech. He’d wrapped his arms around himself like he was cold. I hadn’t heard his voice shake like that before. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “Fine.”

“Man, Leecher,” said Seven. “I’m sorry.”

Leech nodded. “I’m gonna go back to the infirmary and lie down.” He started to get up. “I’m supposed to get these bandages changed anyway.” He slapped carelessly at his eye. It had to hurt, but he didn’t seem to care.

“What about you, Owen?” Seven asked. “You gonna hang out with me tonight? My friends still want to meet the guy behind the legend.”

“I—I should go home, probably,” I said. “Have dinner with Mom. I left things kinda bad this morning.” I felt like that was partly true but more like I’d had as much as I could handle for the day and needed some time to let things settle.

“Well, boo,” said Seven. “That’s no fun.”

“Sorry,” I said. I stood to go. “Will you be okay?” I asked Leech.

“Sure,” he said, but I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not.

I headed back to Mom and Emiliano’s. On the way, I wondered where Lilly was, what she might be thinking. I felt the urge to go find her again, but also not to. Maybe letting a little time go by would be best. She could always find me.

Mom was on the back porch. She was sitting in a wicker chair, in the shade of a white umbrella, flipping through what looked like a little newspaper written in the local language.

“Hey,” I said. “Didn’t know if you’d be home.”

“Oh hey,” she said, smiling. “Yeah, I had a short shift at the clinic. I was hoping you’d come back. After this morning I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t see you again until you left.”

“Oh, nah,” I said. “Sorry about that, I was just . . .” I tried to think of what to say. I didn’t really know.

“It’s okay, Owen, don’t worry about it.” She stood and motioned to the other chair beside hers. “Sit. I’ll get you a drink.”

“Sounds good.”

I sat and put my feet up on the railing. The porch looked out on a series of alleys strung with clotheslines.

Mom came back with two frosty glasses of the lime drink. “Cheers,” she said, holding hers out as she sat down. We clinked glasses.

“Listen,” she said slowly, “I’ve been thinking about it. You have every right to be upset with me. I mean, furious, really. I haven’t been a good mother to you. I haven’t been a mother at all.”

I shrugged at this. “I don’t know.” The tight feeling was returning, but I also had an urge to not end up shouting again. I found her looking at me. “I get how you like it here,” I said, “and how you weren’t happy. I know it wasn’t my fault.”

“It really wasn’t,” said Mom, “and, no, I wasn’t happy and it’s kind of you to say that, but I still made huge mistakes. You deserved so much more from me, Owen. All I can do now is hope that you’ll give me another chance.”

I wondered if I could. I felt like I still had a right to be mad, like I still was mad . . . and yet, maybe I could let that go. Or at least try. I wouldn’t be here long, and who knew what would happen once I left. This might be the only time I got with her, and it seemed like a waste to spend it mad. “Okay,” I said.

“Listen to you. You’re a better person than I’ve ever been.” Mom rubbed my shoulder. “You don’t suppose . . .” she started. “Well, I have no right to ask this, but . . . You don’t think you’d consider staying, do you?”

“You mean staying here?” I asked. “Like living in Desenna?”

“Maybe, yeah? I mean, it’s better living than in Yellowstone. It might even be better for your father. His lungs would be better here.” She flashed a look at me. “Not that he and I . . . but I mean, he could be here. You could live with him here, and I . . . I’d be near you. I’m sure Mother would allow it. You’re a god, after all.”

I felt my pulse picking up speed, knots forming inside. “You mean, when I’m back from the journey,” I said.

“Sure,” said Mom, “or even, I don’t know . . . Owen, this journey you have to make, it’s going to be dangerous, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you’ve nearly been killed just getting here. I know this is a typical mom thing to say, but I just hate the idea of letting you out of my sight after finally having you again. Isn’t there some other way? Like, couldn’t the Good Mother send a team after Atlantis and you could stay here and advise from Tactical or something?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and I felt like I was going to be torn apart inside by a storm of feelings—wanting to be with Mom but also feeling like, no, I was one of the Three, and what would Dad think of all this? And what about how Mom left us and how, as of two days ago, I hadn’t seen her for more than half my life?

But at the same time I couldn’t help thinking: Why couldn’t Dad come here? It wasn’t
that
crazy. And the air might be better for him. As a god, I could probably ask Victoria to give him a job. Would he want that? Would he do that for me? Mom wouldn’t come back to Hub for me. But she’d been unhappy, and maybe that was just
life
and . . . Ugh! It was all impossible to figure out! But I couldn’t deny that some part of me thought staying sounded good.

There were noises from in the kitchen. “Hello?” Emiliano.

Mom started to get up. She rubbed my head. “Thanks for talking, Owen. Thanks for being here. Thanks for even considering giving your mess of a mom a second chance.”

“Sure,” I said. I felt like I could no longer form sentences. Just mumbled words.

“I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.” She headed inside.

I sat on the porch for a while, watching the last rays of afternoon sun illuminate the hanging clothes, while the shadows deepened in the alleys. There were some kids playing with a ball down one alley. Tinny music echoing from another. Overhead, the sky was a liquid blue. Seagulls arced by. The easterly breeze carried salt and that faint tinge of oil.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how I
could
know what to do, about any of this.

I still wanted to be angry, to resist and resent, and yet, I couldn’t deny the feeling that maybe, despite being one of the Three, being called home to protect the planet and all that big stuff, maybe I had just found my real home here. And if that was the case, what did I do with that feeling?

I had no idea.

I wanted to talk to Lilly, or maybe Seven, or even Leech, but instead, I followed another urge: I stayed and had dinner with Mom and Emiliano.

We talked about life in Desenna, I described life in Hub, and some of what had happened in Eden and since, leaving out the more dangerous parts.

Later, we laughed about Emiliano’s crazy grandparents and about Mom’s wacky cousin Paula, who I barely remembered but who’d been a professional cave diver, and they asked me if I had a girlfriend, and I said
I don’t know
, and they asked me if I liked Seven, and I said
I don’t know
, and instead of worrying about how complicated this all was, I just let the night be easy and fun. A night like a normal family somewhere, somewhen, might have had. Like I could maybe have again.

I FELT MYSELF WAKING, RISING THROUGH THE CHOCOLATE and blue water of the well, the eyeball of sky above, emerging . . .

To find myself in a bed. I felt thick, hot fluid in my lungs, burning my chest, drowning me. Not lake water. I looked down to see my arms striped with black blood.

I was in a hospital again, a collage of Lilly’s room and the
Solara
.

An electric click. I looked down to see my abdomen bubbling and stretching. Paul was there, his arm thrust into my hernia scar. “Just need to make a few adjustments.” His eyes whirred and sparked.

He pulled out his arm, blood covering his blue-gloved hand all the way up to the elbow of his white smock. He was holding an organ. “We need to get this out of the way.”

He passed the organ—it was dark red, a kidney?—to my mom. She was standing beside him, also in a white smock, her hair pulled back, and a clear plastic visor over her face. She took the organ in both hands, smiled sweetly at me, and leaned over. “It going to be okay,” she said. “We’re almost done, and then you won’t remember any of this.” She reached out with her blood-spattered, blue-gloved hand. Her thumb touched my cheek and she made a gentle, clockwise motion, counting time. . . .

Yes, Mom
, I thought, believing her.
I’ll be okay. We’re together now. Like you said
.

Something fluttered by the open door. The girl with the red hair. And somehow I left the hospital and was running after her. Through a hall, out into daylight and off the cliff.

I felt the sensation of flying again, and we were back in the ash below the caldera outlook. I bent over and dug desperately into the gray mush, like snow or quicksand. She seemed to be very deep, too deep, pinned in a chasm with black walls. I kept reaching for her hand, our fingers flicking off one another, hers this bony white but mine the gray translucent, the fingernails gone, crystalized skin like windows in their place. Everywhere my veins were swollen and black.

“Owen!” she screamed to me, and I kept reaching for her.

“Wait!” I shouted, but she was sinking deeper.

And there were other hands, digging at the side of the hole, which now seemed to be caving in, and I looked up and there was Seven. “Hey there, flyboy,” she said, and her face was tattooed with the black veins, too; her lips puffy, cracked, black ooze dripping down her chin. Her eyes were ash gray and oil, the black consuming her.

She took my hands. Our hands together an indecipherable scribble of disease.

“We’re kindred spirits,” she said, “walking ghosts. You know it.”

I tried to respond, but dream rules had suddenly changed and I couldn’t make sound.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

Shaking.

“Don’t make me wake you up another way.”

My eyes opened.

Seven kneeling beside me. She was leaning over, her face close, smiling. “Jeez, you sleep like the dead,” she said, and then she smiled. “I could have done anything I wanted, and you probably wouldn’t even have noticed. Well, you might have noticed
some
things.”

“Hi.” I smiled while also trying to make sure the covers were over me well enough.

Seven stood. She was wearing a white longsleeve shirt, brown pants rolled up to her calves, and hiking sandals. “The Mother sent me to get you. We’re making for the temple. What were you dreaming about?”

I sat up. “I don’t know. That weird stuff I was telling you about yesterday. I’m always back at Hub, and there’s this girl, and then this time you were in it.”

“Ooh, me . . . and another girl?” Seven smiled deviously. “You’ve got a naughty streak.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

Seven laughed. “Let’s pretend it was. I’ll be outside.” She left the room.

I dressed and headed out. Mom was in the living room.

“Hey,” she said. “Good luck today. Let me know what happens, okay?” She blew me a kiss. I caught it, barely thinking, and pretended to stuff it in my shorts pocket.

“And be careful,” she said.

“I will.” Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought about how weird it was to have such a normal interaction with her, like that shouldn’t be okay, and yet it felt fine. New, but fine.

Seven and I walked up the street. The day was hot, a bath of humidity, an alien feeling to me, the sky white with haze. I felt sweat breaking out all over me, my clothes sticking.