A Clatter of Jars (16 page)

Chuck

C
HUCK KICKED T
HE CABINET OPEN WITH HER
K
ELLY-
green high-tops, scrambling into the brightness. Ellie and the frog climbed out behind her.

In the distance, Chuck heard a splash. Then another, and another. Through the window, Chuck saw dozens of canoes tipping into the water, with more capsizing every second. And orchestrating everything—a dot on the shore—was Jo, playing the harmonica with Lily's Talent inside.

The Talent that Chuck had Coaxed inside.

What can I
do
?
Chuck wondered. And, perhaps out of habit, she grabbed Ellie's hand.

She felt nothing. No icy spark.

That's when Ellie said softly, “I still have my Talent.”

Chuck wanted to roll her eyes. She wanted to sigh and say,
Identifying
frogs
? Ellie, please.

But she didn't. Instead she puffed up her chest, so the two little words she was about to say would have more force behind them.

“I'm sorry,” Chuck told her sister. “I'm sorry I said you were boring, before.”

Even though there was nothing to share, Ellie squeezed Chuck's hand. Chuck squeezed back.

Hdup-hdup!
went the frog at their feet.

Ellie released Chuck's hand, squatting down to meet the frog. With her palms flat on the ground and her legs bent at sharp angles, she looked quite a bit like a frog herself.

“He says there's something in Jo's office that might help,” Ellie said, tilting her head back to Chuck. “Under the”—
Hdup-hdup!
went the frog—“under the filing cabinet.”

Chuck's eyeballs bulged. “
Ellie,
” she said. “You really
can
talk to frogs.”

Her sister pulled herself back up to her full height. “I told you,” she replied.

Hdup-hdup!
went the frog.

• • •

There was, in fact, something underneath the filing cabinet in Jo's office. Chuck found it easily, picking her way past the smashed shelves and the broken radio, the scattered shards of glass. She squirmed onto her belly and stretched her arm far under the cabinet, and there it was.

A jar. Sample-size, no larger than a Ping-Pong ball, with the words
Darlington Peanut Butter
embossed on the bottom. Nestled inside was a bracelet woven from green embroidery thread.

“The frog says to put the bracelet on,” Ellie told Chuck. “Then”—
hdup-hdup!
—“then we'll both have a Talent. What? Chuck, what is it?”

Chuck held out the jar to Ellie, to show her the label, written in neat, blocky letters.

Ellie read it, then looked up at her sister. “Do you really think . . . ?”

Despite everything, Chuck laughed. “Looks like I'm a Frog Twin after all,” she said, unscrewing the lid.
FROGS
was written on the label.

Chuck tied the bracelet to her wrist, letting the Talent seep into her bones. “I guess maybe I don't mind so much,” she told her sister.

Hdup-hdup!
went the frog.

Jo

A
S THE LAST RAYS OF
SUNSHINE CLUNG TO THE LAKE,
J
O
tipped the final canoe. In that moment, she could have sworn that behind her, in the dark woods, she heard singing. A gorgeous voice, rich and deep. Lyrics to her wordless tune.

Los golpes en la vida

preparan nuestros corazones

como el fuego forja al acero.

But when she turned to look, no one was there.

Precisely at the moment when the sun sank fully below the horizon, that's when the clattering began.

Jars, and jars, and jars.

They pushed themselves up the pebbly shore with the tide, each with an orb of yellow-purple illuminating its center, until Jo was buried to her ankles. Out in the black water, campers and counselors splashed and shrieked, but Jo was focused on only one thing.

With her harmonica at her lips again, Jo lifted a single jar into the air. Playing her song, she twisted open the lid and took a tentative sniff. When the Talent that wafted past her nose did not have an air of Recollecting, Jo let the jar smash to bits on the pebbles. The orb of yellow-purple drifted off across the water, to be lost forever in the wind. And Jo played another jar into the air.

• • •

Jo was busy, so she didn't notice him—the single figure in the water who was not swimming toward the shore. The single figure who was heading deeper into the lake, hoisting himself into an empty canoe, tugging splashing campers inside with him. The man had arrived moments before sunset, diving into the lake to do what he could to help.

He'd been in such a rush that he hadn't even thought to unclip his pocket watch.

Lily

E
VEN BEF
ORE
L
ILY'S BODY HIT
THE WATER, SHE HAD
only one thought in her head:
Max.
When she popped to the surface, the thought grew heavier, until she could barely breathe for thinking it.

Max.

She hadn't realized she was shouting until she heard her brother's reply.

“Lily! Over here!”

The relief filled Lily's lungs, so that she bobbed a little higher. Max was safe.

Lily sliced her way through the biting water, her arms nearly numb with cold. All around her, anxious campers fumbled for their overturned canoes. But Lily was focused on Max.

She needn't have worried. By the time she reached her brother, he was being pulled into a canoe with a crowd of other campers. The counselor who'd helped him held his paddle out for Lily, so that she might climb aboard as well. But when she reached for the paddle, she saw that the man was not a counselor.

“
Dad?
” she said, a summer's worth of tears welling up behind her eyes. “You came.”

Her father's smile was warm in the cold chaos. Juan Vera may have been known the world over for his singing, but Lily had always been much more fond of that smile. “You needed me,” he said. He reached the paddle out a little farther. “I knew there'd be no ease for my heartache if anything happened to you.”

The tears wet Lily's cheeks then, and she didn't even try to stop them. Her father had come. When she'd needed him, he'd come.

Lily returned her attention to Max, who was scanning the water. “Are you okay?” she asked him. “Your cast . . .”

“I can't find Hannah,” Max replied. “She can't swim.”

The chill of the water clenched Lily's chest.

“Is that her?” their father asked, pointing.

Max nearly lunged from the canoe when he spotted her. “Hannah!” Their father caught him by the back of his shirt.

Out in the blackness, Hannah was splashing wildly, her head bobbing-then-sinking-then-surfacing.

Lily's father surveyed the swarm of canoes around them. “I don't think we can reach her.” But Lily's thoughts were already focused at the bridge of her nose, her gaze fixed on Hannah, attempting to lift her from the water. And then Lily remembered that she'd lost her Talent.

No, she hadn't
lost
her Talent, not like everyone else in the lake.

Lily had given hers away.

“I can still help,” Lily said, pushing off from the canoe, plunging deep into the icy lake. Kicking. Kicking. Kicking. She dodged canoes and campers, the cold seizing her skin. Lily raced for the one person she'd never thought she'd be racing for.

When she neared the spot where Hannah was thrashing, Lily snatched an overturned canoe. With one hand on the rope handle, she kicked the last few yards to Hannah and wrapped her free arm around her stepsister.

“I've got you.” Lily felt Hannah's body relax, just a little, as she helped her grab hold of the canoe's edge. “Everything's okay.”

That's when Lily turned to shore and realized that everything was very far from okay.

Hundreds of yellow-purple orbs of Talent were careening across the lake, lighting the black water like stars shooting through the sky. Jo was using the Pinnacle Talent—
Lily's
Talent, the one she'd given away like it was
nothing
—to smash every Talent out of its jar. These were no Mimics, Lily knew. These were real Talents. The Talents of every single camper and counselor at Camp Atropos, Coaxed out by the lake.

And they were about to disappear forever.

“What's happening?” Hannah asked, as they joined the crush of campers kicking for shore.

Lily decided the simplest answer was probably best. “I messed up,” she told her stepsister. “I think I really messed up.”

Hannah snorted. “At least now you're telling the truth,” she said.

Renny

S
ALT WATER.

Sick from Caramel Crème bars, Renny and Miles had climbed down from their bunk and were heading across the shadowy path to the lodge to find the others when a new memory worked its way into Renny's mind. It was unpleasant, like a nose full of warm salt water.

“There's something happening at the lake,” Renny said, his fingers fidgeting at his sides. Now that he was listening for it, he heard splashing. Shouting. Through the trees, he noticed orbs of yellow-purple illuminating the sky. “Maybe I can help.”

Miles's face was near ghostly in the darkness.

“It's okay,” Renny told him. “You go back to the cabin. I'll come get you as soon as I can.”

Miles gripped Renny's hand tight. “
No.
I want to stay with you.”

Renny glanced through the shadows to the lake.

And he made up his mind.

“Okay,” Renny told his brother. “I don't have to go.”

“
No,
” Miles said again. “D-Don't let go of my hand.” And then, his grip tight in Renny's, Miles took a step toward the black water.

Renny was so surprised he nearly tripped as Miles tugged him along.

“Howard Greenspan,” Miles said, and it took Renny a moment to realize he was reciting Talent history. “Thirty-six as of his last birthday.” He took another step into the trees, Renny at his side. “T-Talent . . .” One more step.

“Talent,” Renny joined in. “Obliviator.”

One step after another, the brothers made their way to the water.