Eva caught Alex’s stricken glance. Her eyes widened just slightly at his disappointment. She’d been expecting it. She didn’t react further. A moment later she averted her eyes and faced the front of the vehicle.
Alex felt the blood rush out of his head. His own amazing spell, the one that had gotten raves, had killed Mr. Today. He took a second to compose his anger. Finally he looked at Aaron and said evenly, “Where’s Ms. Morning?”
Aaron smiled again. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
That vague sentence was more info than Alex had expected. Almost too much. “Haluki?”
“Tch,” Aaron said. “Now you’re getting desperate. Not attractive, Alex. Especially not from where you stand in this disaster area.”
Alex gripped the package and shook his head as if he pitied his brother. “You’ve taken everything I love. What else could you possibly want from me?”
“Ahh,” Aaron said with a grin. “I thought you’d never ask. But the answer is nothing.” He pushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “Not today, anyway. Perhaps in a week or even ten days, when your water runs out and your people are getting shot for stealing, you’ll be anxious to talk again. But for now? Not one more thing.”
Alex folded his arms across his chest, the package still dangling from his fingers. “Then go.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Aaron pointed to the sack.
Alex, disgusted, didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. He turned on his heel and walked away.
Aaron stayed where he was, watching Alex walk back into the dreck of Artimé, the hollow smile never leaving his face. When his brother was out of sight, he got back into his vehicle and signaled the driver to go.
“That seemed to go well,” Eva said.
“Silence!” Aaron said. He wanted to brood alone.
Coming to Terms
By midnight things had settled down in Artimé. The exhausted teams had worked hard, fed by inspiration and adrenaline, and now more than fifty of them were able to find floor space in the shack to lie down for their six-hour sleep shift. The un-shacked sat in small groups on the hard cement or in the sand along the water. Most dozed, a few talked, some mourned family, friends, and Artimé.
The tide was out and the moon full, and a couple of clever teams were out gathering oysters, clams, prawns, and anything else they could find to eat, while another tireless group worked at making a fire from remnants of the Silent kids’ raft and the flint Alex had found inside the shack.
The team that had found the boat, unharmed and bumping up against the east wall of Quill, pulled it onto the beach. They’d been clever enough to bring back the net and fishing gear they’d found inside, and now that team stood as far out as they could, casting the net over and over, catching a few fish now and then.
Inside the shack Henry Haluki babbled on and on to the Silent boy about Quill and Artimé and the big battle, and then he pulled his magnifying glass from his pocket and made his eyeball enormous. The Silent boy smiled, seeming to enjoy all of it. Sean snored lightly on the floor next to Meghan, who slept as well.
It was as harmonious as it could be, under the circumstances.
» » « «
Alex, carrying the unopened package from Aaron in his component vest’s interior pocket, picked up one last stiff platyprot and brought it over to the wall, next to Ms. Octavia. He got down on his haunches and turned to her, adjusting her glasses to where she liked them, just so. “I’m trying,” he said wearily to her. “I wish you were here.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the sorrow and hunger headache from getting any worse. Then he went over to the creatures that couldn’t be moved because of their weight, namely Jim and Florence, both near the shack.
He kneeled next to Jim and petted his mosaic shell, noticing its intricacies for the first time. What a lot of work went into that, he thought. Mr. Today always pointed out others’ abilities, but he rarely spoke about his own amazing talent as a sculptor. Alex traced his finger along the pattern. “So much detail,” he whispered into the night. “What I wouldn’t give to hear your exceedingly slow speech right about now, Jim.”
The winged tortoise didn’t answer.
Alex moved to Florence. She was twice his height and frozen in full, glorious stride. Perhaps she had been running when it happened, making Artimé shake with her steps. She was sleek and ebony and beautiful, just as she always looked. Alex almost expected her to turn when he reached up and touched her arm. “I’m so sorry,” he said to her. “If there’s anything you can do to fix things here . . . well, just let me know.” But he didn’t expect an answer.
He turned, considering taking a walk down by the water to process his thoughts, but there were Unwanteds everywhere. There was no place as far as the eye could see to sit and think and be alone.
Then, from somewhere above his head, he heard a scraping sound.
He looked up above Florence to the roof. There sat the Silent girl. She froze when Alex saw her, as if she were caught doing something wrong.
“Hey,” Alex whispered. “How did you get up there?”
She pointed to Florence.
Alex’s eyes widened. The thought of climbing up Florence’s body freaked him out a little. It seemed so . . . so wrong. But she was just a statue now. And her bent knees and elbows did offer a lot of hand- and footholds. He considered his path, and then started climbing quickly, in case she woke up. Which he’d be thankful for, but she’d kill him anyway, probably. “I hope you have no memory of this,” he muttered. It was an easy climb, and seconds later he hoisted himself to the roof and sat next to the girl.