Sky Jumpers Series, Book 1 (25 page)

Mr. Hudson’s wife and sons wore faces full of relief. Mr. Hudson looked as bad as my dad. Worse, if you counted the blotchy spots all over his skin. Aaren put his arm under Mr. Hudson’s shoulders to lift him up a bit, then put one of the pills in his mouth and gave him a drink. Brock took a pill to Melina in the third bed. She was
so little—only a year or two older than Brenna. She didn’t have the blotchy skin yet. Maybe with the medicine, she wouldn’t get as bad as Mr. Hudson was.

When Dr. Grenwood returned to the community center from her stint as a hostage, we heard the happy reunion in the hallway. Aaren ran out to join them. A moment later, his mom walked into the clinic with Aaren’s dad’s arm around her shoulders and Aaren and his siblings surrounding her. I could tell that the past few days had been even worse for her than for us. When she saw me with the bag of Ameiphus, the look on her face made our entire trip worth it. I hoped she would forgive us for leaving her daughter behind in Browning.

A group of people rounded up all the bandits, while Dr. Grenwood and Aaren moved between the three patients in the clinic and the chaos of the celebration and the nine wounded guards in the gym. The whole time, I sat with my mom in a bubble of calm on my dad’s bed.

“Before the fever got bad,” she said, “your dad decided he’s going to run for council head.”

I looked at my dad’s face, then at my mom’s. “What? How?” Nothing had changed. I wasn’t any better at inventing.

She reached out and ran her hand down my hair. “I think you reminded us both how to be strong.”

I smiled. “I did?”

She nodded. “Most of the town has been begging him to run, and I told him I support him one hundred percent. I think we’re both finally ready.”

I looked up at her in shock. “It wasn’t me?” My mom gave me a confused look. I swallowed my own confusion and searched her eyes for the truth. “
I’m
not the reason he wouldn’t run? Because I’m such an embarrassment?”

“Hope.” Her voice was so sad, like maybe her heart hurt. “You’ve
never
embarrassed us.”

My mom put her arm around me. I leaned into her shoulder, finally relaxing, and fell asleep.

After two hours, my dad’s fever broke and he woke up. I was awake and skimming my fingertips across his big, thick fingers when I heard his voice, sounding more like a croak.

“You’re alive.”

I looked at his face, which was much more normal-colored than it had been, and smiled. “You too.”

He squeezed my hand. “Course we are. I told you—you’re the most capable girl I know, Hope.” He paused a moment and smiled. “You do know you’re grounded, right?”

I squeezed his hand back and grinned. “Yep, I know.”

I shivered in the cavern below the hole in the mine floor as I waited with Brock, Aaren, and Aaren’s family. I linked my arms in Aaren’s and Brock’s, hoping to share some of their warmth. “What’s taking them so long?” I asked.

I knew Aaren was as anxious as I was. It had been a long three weeks since we’d last seen Brenna. And two days since Aaren’s dad, his brother Cole, and a couple of guards left for Browning to get her and bring her back.

Aaren’s little brothers, James, Quin, and Nick, ran to where the cave room and river narrowed to a tunnel. Nick tilted his ear toward the opening and pointed. “I hear voices!”

Everyone strained to hear Brenna’s chattering from the tunnel opening. I couldn’t believe how much I had
missed that voice! A few minutes later, Beckett crawled through the tunnel into the cave room, followed by Brenna, Mr. Grenwood, Cole, and Clive.

They were immediately surrounded, and I joined the reunion like it was my family. Brenna breathlessly told us about her trip home and her stay at Brock’s house with her new best friend, Estie. She looked like she might explode if she didn’t tell all three weeks’ worth of news soon.

“Oh! Oh!” Brenna said. “I didn’t tell you the best part! They’re all going to move here the second the snow melts in the tunnel. So you’ll get your family, Brock, and I’ll get Estie!”

I wondered if Brock would shout for joy or jump up and down, but what I saw on his face was even better. His look of a million worries had come back as soon as we left Browning, but when Brenna gave him the news, all that lifted and he smiled bigger than I’d ever seen him smile. Until Brenna almost knocked him over when she plowed into him with a hug.

“Come on,” Mr. Grenwood said as he lifted Brenna onto the ladder leading up to the mines. “Let’s talk on the way. I’m sure the sledding races are over, but there’s still a lot of Winter Festival fun to be had.”

We usually held the Winter Festival in the gym at the community center, but our town had spent too much time in the gym lately. Everyone agreed that having the Winter
Festival outside where it actually felt like winter was the best thing anyway. One of the city office rooms in the community center had been turned into a temporary jail until a real one could be built. It held six of Mickelson’s men, so that helped make the decision, too.

By the time guards reached the woods to pull Mickelson out of the Dimple, he was gone, and he hadn’t been seen again. Until the mine workers could seal the hole in the mine floor, a few of our guards watched it constantly so he couldn’t come back.

As we stepped out of the cave, the last bit of sun dipped behind the top of the mountain, and we followed the river by the light of the sunset. In the distance, the smoke from the fires rose into the sky. If I squinted, I could see past the fires to the place where we’d held the remembrance ceremony just over two weeks ago for the three guards who died in the battle with the bandits. I closed my eyes and thanked them again for saving everyone.

The closer we got to the party, the louder the voices of everyone in town became, the darker the skies got, and the more my teeth chattered.

When we rounded the last bend in the river, the Winter Festival was in sight. Dozens of fires burned in a massive circle, with a circle of tables inside that, and the performance platform right in the middle. All the tables that had held the inventions at the Harvest Festival were ready for
our feast. The smells drifted along the air like happiness itself. We raced between two of the fires to join our town in the celebration, and a group formed around Brenna, Cole, Dr. Grenwood, Clive, and Beckett.

My parents waved me over, and I ran to them.

“I see Brenna made it back safely,” my dad said.

“Yep.” I glanced at Brenna and the others.

“Then it’s time to get this party started.” There hadn’t been an official vote yet to see if my dad was the new council head, but everyone except Mr. Newberry acted like he was. My dad walked to the center of the platform, grabbed the bullhorn, and said the words the council head says every year: “Let the feast begin!”

Once everyone finished eating, we found a spot in front of the performance platform to sit and watch the storytellers, and I snuggled up next to Aaren, Brock, and Brenna. A few people placed torches around the obelisk in the center of the platform so we could see.

A hush came over the crowd as Mr. Hudson walked onto the platform. I nudged Aaren. “Why is he up there?”

Aaren shrugged.

I couldn’t believe how healthy Mr. Hudson looked! He’d come down with Shadel’s only three weeks ago. Even with Ameiphus, he should have been in bed for another
three weeks, yet here he was, looking normal. I heard that Melina had healed even more quickly.

“I consider it quite a privilege to be up here tonight,” Mr. Hudson said. “The Winter Festival is a celebration of life—of our ability to make it through the coldest, darkest times. I think we can agree that as a town, we’ve recently made it through some pretty cold, dark times.”

Chills ran down my back. After all we had been through, this Winter Festival felt different from any other one I’d been to. And it wasn’t just because we were outside. I think it was because as a town, we felt different.

“I know many of you have been shocked at how quickly I made it through my own cold, dark time.” Mr. Hudson glanced upward for a moment. “Although the Bomb’s Breath is invisible and deadly, it protects us. It makes our town stronger. And now Dr. Grenwood has confirmed that the chemical change that occurred when the medicine was exposed to the air of the Bomb’s Breath also made the Ameiphus stronger.”

The crowd sat in silent awe as we processed the news. Dr. Grenwood had said that since Shadel’s Sickness was a side effect of the green bombs, the cure would be as well. It made sense that the thing that made the medicine stronger would be a side effect of the green bombs, too.

Mr. Hudson continued. “Many of us have been
personally touched by the loss of a loved one who died because of the Bomb’s Breath. We have great reason to fear it. Yet we live in a unique situation in White Rock. We’re the only location within hundreds of miles with not only the optimal conditions for growing Ameiphus, but with an altitude high enough to access the Bomb’s Breath. Our town’s motto has always been to work with our strengths, and Ameiphus is arguably one of our greatest strengths.

“If we take each batch of Dr. Grenwood’s medicine into the Bomb’s Breath, we can come out of our coldest, darkest time stronger than we’ve ever been.”

The crowd cheered, a few people whooped, and Aaren smiled at me. It amazed me how much better the town reacted to the suggestion of using the Bomb’s Breath now, as opposed to when Mr. Hudson suggested it at the council meeting a few months ago. We’d come a long way.

“We can accomplish great things when we work together. But we can’t forget the difference one person can make. Inventing’s always been important to us. It’s moved our community forward. It’s given us the comforts we enjoy. It’s made us efficient. It’s raised our quality of life.” He reached a hand out and placed it on the Difference of One stone. “Every name on this stone is here because their contribution to this community has been great. It’s always been our quest to look ahead and look outside what we thought was possible.”

I
knew
inventing was important. But this was a celebration! And not even a celebration about inventing, like the Harvest Festival.

“But in trying to look ahead,” Mr. Hudson said, “it seems that we sometimes overlook. It’s been our tradition to add names to the Difference of One stone only at the Harvest Festival. However, a onetime change to that tradition was recently put to a secret vote, and everyone chose to add a name to it tonight.”

I looked to Aaren and Brock to see if they knew anything about a secret vote, or if they knew of an invention good enough for a special ceremony, but they just grinned.

“Someone in our midst chose to lead a trek to save our town, even though she knew it was extremely dangerous. She didn’t let the fear of bandits, the Bomb’s Breath, a mountain, or the worst storm this valley’s seen since the day she was born stop her.”

The words didn’t enter my head right.
Is he talking about me?

“When things got their worst, she didn’t back down. When all seemed lost, she faced the bandits’ leader alone. By doing so, she saved many lives.” He smiled at me. “She saved
my
life. Hope Toriella, I am proud to announce that your name is now engraved in the Difference of One stone.” He held out his hand toward me.

A roar erupted from the crowd unlike any I’d heard
before. So many hands patted me on the back as I got to my feet, I practically floated to Mr. Hudson. I turned to the people around the platform. They all looked at me with smiles on their faces. And they clapped and cheered. For me.

They cheered for
me
.

Mr. Hudson pulled a Difference of One medal from his coat pocket, placed it over my head, and gave me a hug. With his head close to my ear, he whispered in a shaky voice, “Thank you.”

My mind went to the moment when my invention broke last fall. It had felt like I had a history that was impossible to change—but maybe it
wasn’t
so impossible. After all, I never thought I’d live to see my town agree to going anywhere near the Bomb’s Breath, yet they cheered for it today.

As a town, we’d changed what would happen next in our history. I guess maybe I had changed what could happen in mine, too.

I never realized how hard it would be to write acknowledgments until now. How do you squeeze a million kinds of grateful into so few words? Into
any
words?

First and foremost, I’d like to thank my husband, Lance, and my kids, Kyle, Cory, and Alecia. They have given me everything—their support, their encouragement, their confidence, their tolerance, their love. They never stopped believing in me (or laughing along with me!), even for a second. I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have a family like them. A big thanks to my parents, too, who fostered creativity (no matter how big a mess I made), always listened, and made me believe I could do anything. And to the rest of my family, who have always rallied behind me—especially my sister Kristine Davis, who read some slightly altered passages so many times, I felt like I’d invented a new kind of torture. She deserves a medal.

Huge thanks to Sara Crowe, who somehow manages to emanate a powerful calmness at the same time as a contagious excitement. She is a singularly remarkable agent, and I love working with her.