Harrison Squared (23 page)

“Who are you? You look familiar.”

“My-my-my—”

“Who is this man, Waughm?”

“Micah Palwick, Toadmother. Elijah Palwick's brother.”

“Oh, yes. I see the family resemblance now.” She leaned forward until she was towering over him and put a giant paw on his shoulder. Her nails were pink. “Are you a troublemaker, Micah?”

Water from her dripped onto his face. “No ma'am,” he said in a small voice. “I mean Intercessor. I mean—”

She released him and eased back. The tail of her muumuu floated on the pool's surface. I realized that she'd never come completely out of the water. Was there more of her down there? How
much
more?

“So what's this I hear about the
Albatross
?” she said.

Waughm told her about the fire at Ruck's, and the damage to the boat, and kept mentioning that it was Micah's responsibility to keep the craft in working order. If the
Albatross
had been a bus, Waughm would be throwing Micah under it.

“We think it's the Harrison boy who did it,” Chief Bode said.

Waughm nodded vigorously. “He's a wild one. No self-control. Just today he attacked me!”

“Ooh, attacked by a
teenager
,” she said, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Thank the stars you survived.”

Chief Bode chuckled once, then quickly silenced himself at the Toadmother's glare.

“Micah Palwick,” the woman said, turning again to Lydia's uncle. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Uh, ten o'clock?”

“
No!
The time is
nigh
. The First tell us that the Ashen Light will appear soon.”

“Uh, Toadmother?” Waughm stepped forward. “Do you think you ought to be telling him about that?”

“The stars are right!” she shouted. Her voice made the air tremble. “The last time we had this chance was over a dozen years ago. We don't know when it will happen again. Urgaleth, the Mover Between Worlds, is returning, bearing its precious cargo, and
you
, Micah Palwick, you have endangered everything!”

Micah looked at Waughm, then Bode. “The scriptures are
real
?”

The Toadmother's great hand smashed into the side of Micah's head. The man flew sideways and crumpled to the ground. Beside me, Lydia gasped, but the sound was masked by the Toadmother's shouting.

“Yes they're
real!
” the Toadmother said, indignant. “Who raised you?”

Chief Bode moved toward Micah's body, hesitated, then crouched beside him. Micah moaned.

The Toadmother turned her attention to Waughm. “Fix that boat by the end of the week,” she said. “We will not fail this time. The First are ready. And we have the perfect vessel, primitive yet sturdy.”

“Uh, when you say ‘vessel,'” Waughm said, “are you talking about the boat, or…?”

“The Harrison woman, you idiot!”

“Oh. Right. So she's still alive?”

“Of course she's alive. We need her breathing, don't we?”

“Yes, but the Scrimshander has a habit of … well—”

“He knows his job. Unlike you, Waughm. Now get that Palwick out of here before I eat him. And don't bother me until the
Albatross
is repaired, or the Ashen Light appears in the sky.”

“Yes, Toadmother. Thy will be—”

“Can it, Waughm.”

She seemed to twist in place. Her head bent toward the water, and her body followed her like a giant Slinky. The splash was surprisingly small.

*   *   *

We hunkered in our hiding spot, waiting for the room to clear. Waughm stalked out through the doorway that led to Coach Shug's office. Chief Bode looped an arm around Micah and helped him limp out. A few minutes later the lights shut off, and we were sitting in the dark. We waited another minute in silence, and then Lydia clicked on the flashlight.

“I am never going in that pool,” I said. My invisible leg still ached, but the pain was receding.

We crept back to the girls' locker room, and from there upstairs to the outer loop, then through the kitchen. We didn't talk, though whether that was from fear of being overheard by Waughm or from, well, fear in general, I couldn't decide. So many thoughts were tumbling in my head, but I kept coming back to this:
Mom was still alive
. The Scrimshander had her, but she was alive.

We finally reached the loading dock outside the school, and Lydia made sure the door locked behind us.

“That was
amazing
,” Lub said. He didn't seem frightened at all. “Are there more of them down there?”

“God, I hope not,” I said. “I thought maybe she was one of your people. One of the Dwellers.”

“Nobody's that fat down there,” he said. “Besides. No gills.”

We started walking back home. I said, “So this Intercessor isn't a Dweller. Lydia, do you have any idea what she is? Lydia?”

“They're really going to do it,” she said. She was holding the flashlight, so I could barely see her face. “They're going to summon Urgaleth.”

“And they need my mom to do it,” I said. “They called her a vessel.”

“A primitive but sturdy vessel,” Lub said.

“Yeah, what's that primitive crack about?” I asked. “Is that because she's native Brazilian?”

Lydia hesitated. “Some people in the Congregation are a bit preoccupied with, well, racial purity.”

“That woman's half fish!”

“Hey,” Lub said.

“Sorry,” I said. “But she's half something, right?”

Lub looked at Lydia. I already knew he could see in the dark much better than I could. “What?” I asked.

“Do I have to spell it out?” Lydia said.

“Yeah, I think you do.”

Lub flexed his gills. “Years and years ago, the First and the humans living here, they sort of…”

“Interbred,” Lydia said.

“So you and Lydia are probably cousins?”

“Let's not go that far,” Lydia said.

“But yeah, she could be,” Lub said happily.

“We're getting off track,” Lydia said.

“You're right,” I said. “The important thing is to find the Scrimshander before this Ashen Light thing happens. Do either of you know what that is?”

“I never heard it in English,” Lub said. “But I think it's the same as the—” He made a warbling noise. “The Elders talk about it all the time.”

“It's in our hymns,” Lydia said, and sang a string of syllables.

“Your accent's terrible,” Lub said.

“The point is, it's happening soon,” Lydia said. “Urgaleth will rise.”

“Bringing some ‘precious cargo,'” I said. “Whatever in the world that is.”

“That's the thing,” Lydia said. “It's not going to be of our world.”

“Too many unanswered questions,” I said.

We'd almost reached Lydia's house. The lights were all still on. She said, “I should check on Uncle Micah.”

That surprised me. I thought she hated him. I said, “Lub, can you give us a second?”

He ducked into the shadow of a clump of trees, and I walked with Lydia toward the front door. “We need a plan to find my mom,” I said. “I was thinking about Tobias Glück's diary.”

“Way ahead of you,” she said. “We're going to need the Involuntaries. Come to the meeting house tomorrow night.”

She reached for the door, and I said, “Wait.” I lowered my voice. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened to your parents?”

She regarded me silently. “I told you,” she said finally. “Anybody who crosses the Congregation, crosses the Scrimshander.”

“I don't understand. The Scrimshander did that to them?”

“My parents were going to leave the church. Move out of Dunnsmouth. They couldn't go along with the Congregation anymore. Then one night, when I was eight years old, they disappeared. They were gone for two weeks. When they found them, lying on the shore, they were like this.”

“What did the doctors say?”

“They didn't know what to say. They couldn't do anything for them. Then the insurance ran out and they couldn't stay in the hospital anymore. So, Uncle Micah and Aunt Bee took us in.” She took a breath. “Harrison, the Scrimshander works for the Congregation. And if he has your mother…”

“I get it,” I said. “We just have to find her before that happens.”

*   *   *

Lub walked with me down the hill. He kept trying to talk, but I was so distracted I could barely hear him. When we reached the rental house, he pointed and said something about visitors.

Saleem's taxi was parked in front of the house. It wasn't running, and there was no one behind the wheel. “I better go see what that's about,” I said. “See you tomorrow?”

“Don't look so worried,” he said. “The current will carry us home.”

Inside the house, the lights were all on, but there was no one in the kitchen or the living room. Aunt Sel's bedroom door was closed.

“Aunt Sel?” I called out. “Did you call a taxi?”

There was no answer. I went to her door. “Aunt Sel? Are you all right?”

From inside I heard a thunk that sounded like a body hitting the ground. I reached for the doorknob—but then the door opened a few inches.

“Harrison, you're home.” Aunt Sel was dressed in her nightgown. “Good study group?”

“It was fine. Did you call Saleem? His car's out front, but—”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Oh,” I said.

She smiled brightly. “See you in the morning!”

*   *   *

Morning was … interesting.

By the time I woke and hopped out to the kitchen, Aunt Sel was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, and Saleem was in the kitchen—making breakfast. He noticed me, then did that over-chipper thing people do when they're nervous. “Morning, Harrison!”

Then he noticed my leg. Or rather, my lack of one; I hadn't put on the prosthetic yet. Aunt Sel had told him about it on our way back from the lobster dinner, but the first glimpse of the stump can throw people. Fortunately, we'd pretty much maxed out on awkwardness.

“How do you like your eggs?” he asked.

The same way you like my aunt, I thought; over easy. Instead I said, “Scrambled is fine.”

Aunt Sel pushed her coffee over to me. “It looks like you need this more than I do,” she said.

I'd had trouble falling asleep, and when I finally did I'd dreamed of walking through downtown San Diego, and everywhere people were sprawled on the sidewalks and streets, unconscious. Coma city. Not too hard to analyze, I know.

“Saleem,” I said. “You study stars, right?”

“Astrophysics covers that, yeah.” He dropped an egg into the pan. “Mostly I'm trying to figure out what happened in the first couple nanoseconds after the big bang.”

“But you've studied astronomy, right? Have you ever heard of the ‘Ashen Light'?”

“How'd you hear about that?” Saleem asked.

“So it's real?” I tried to hide my excitement. “I heard somebody talking about it, but I didn't know what it was. Or when it's going to happen again.”

“Nobody knows,” he said. “It's random—or at least unpredictable with the knowledge we have now. There's a green glow that can be seen around Venus in certain conditions. The earth and the moon have to be in the right position, partially blocking Venus so we can see just the edge of its atmosphere. A crescent moon works best.”

I thought of a line from “The Ancient Mariner”: “The horned moon, with one bright star within its nether tip.” I said, “So that's the Ashen Light, this green glow? I thought from the way they were talking that it had do with the stars, not a planet.”

“Well, the ancients thought that the planets
were
stars.” He worked the spatula under the egg and turned it. “People still call Venus ‘the evening star.' Then again, people used to think the Ashen Light came from Venusians lighting huge fires to burn their crops. That theory's not in favor these days.”

“What is it, then?” Aunt Sel asked. She seemed amused by this scientific conversation.

Saleem looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. Oh jeez.

“Lightning,” Saleem said. “That's current thinking, anyway. Huge amounts of electricity, lighting up Venus' whole atmosphere. When it's happening, you can see it with the naked eye, if the sky's clear. But like I said, it's random, and almost nobody catches it in action.”

“What if it's not random?” I asked. “What if somebody had figured out the schedule on Venus, and when it would be visible on Earth?”

“If you figure that one out, let me know,” Saleem said. “I'll make
that
my dissertation.”

*   *   *

I itched to tell Lydia and Lub about what I'd learned from Saleem about the Ashen Light, but Lydia was in school, and Lub—I had no idea on how to reach him. We'd have to work out some system for contacting each other; he couldn't just keep showing up at my bedroom window. What was the Aquaman equivalent of the Bat Signal?

I didn't know what to do with myself. I took a shower and got dressed. I walked around the house, trying not to think of what might be happening to Mom right now. Had she known before we came here how dangerous Dunnsmouth could be? The last morning I saw her, she'd found that note in the truck.
Stay out of the water.
Then she'd tried to send me off to Grandpa. But
she
wasn't going to leave. She'd been determined to get to this town as soon as possible and get the buoys in operation the very next day after we arrived.

Why the rush? I'd chalked it up to AMP mode, but now I thought she was working on another deadline. Did she know about the Ashen Light?