A Clatter of Jars (11 page)

Lily

L
ILY HAD PLANNED
ON SITTING BESIDE
M
AX DURING THE
campfire. (There'd be no room on the log, she hoped, for Hannah.) As the sky grew darker and the fire grew warmer, everyone would sing songs from atop their logs, and Jo's jars of bracelets with their Mimicked Talents would melt silently away. And Lily would turn to Max and say,
I stopped a criminal.
Max's eyes would grow wide with amazement.
You did?
he'd say.
Wow. That's WAY better than making punch.

That's what Lily had planned.

But when she reached the fork in the path—left for the fire circle, right for the lake—Lily noticed the frog. Even in the dim light of the setting sun, the frog was bright green, and white at the throat, with bulby pads at the ends of his toes. He was squatting directly in front of her, tilting his froggy head as though he wanted to tell her something. Lily glanced left, then right. No one else seemed to see him.

Hdup-hdup!
went the frog. And then he shifted to the right, and hopped away from the fire circle, toward the cold, quiet waters of Lake Atropos.

Later, Lily wouldn't be able to say precisely why she did it. Perhaps it was Fate. Perhaps it was simple curiosity. Whatever the reason, Liliana Vera followed the frog.

Jo

E
VERY EVENING
FOR THE PAST FIVE YE
ARS,
J
O HAD
waited on the southernmost bank of Lake Atropos, watching the tide lap at the shore. Most nights she carried baskets with her, to haul away her loot. Tonight she brought nothing but Grandma Esther's harmonica. The sky blazed fiery orange nearest the water, edging into watermelon pink farther up, then, at its height, a deep blackberry, and lily pads dotted the shore.

Precisely at the moment when the sun sank fully below the horizon, a familiar, beautiful sound rang through the darkness. It always began low and slow, growing sharper and more musical as the jars increased in number. Two jars, then ten, emerged from the water, pushing themselves up the pebbly shore. Twenty jars, then dozens and dozens. Soon there were hundreds of them—all glass, sample-size, with the words
Darlington Peanut Butter
embossed on the bottom, and an orb of yellow-purple Talent at their center. Jo pulled out her harmonica and began to play. Searching.

Los golpes en la vida

preparan nuestros corazones

como el fuego forja al acero.

Pearl, alabaster, porcelain, frost.

When she spotted it, Jo raced into the water, wading through jars glowing yellow-purple, snatching up the one she wanted. Jo clutched the jar to her chest, like a toddler might with a stuffed bear.

She didn't notice that she'd dropped her harmonica onto the pebbles.

Just in time. Jo had found her Talent for Recollecting just in time. In two short days, Jenny would arrive.

In two short days, all would be forgotten.

Jo unscrewed the lid of the jar and pressed it beneath her nose. The yellow-purple orb was dragged through her nostrils in one long
suuuuuuuuuck
. Immediately she felt the Talent seep into her bones.

Jo reached out for the nearest memory, testing her new abilities. She found one easily, and wound it around her fingers. The memory tasted tart and smooth, like pineapple custard. She was picking out a puppy at the Fifty-Ninth Street shelter, she remembered. Pippet, that's what she'd named the dog.

Jo flicked the memory away—
flick-flick-flick-flick-flick!
—and let the empty jar smash to bits on the pebbles. The rest of the jars she left clattering in the lake behind her.

She left her harmonica as well.

Lily

L
ILY
SAT AT THE EDGE OF T
HE PIER, HER FEET DANGLING
over the water, wondering why the frog might have led her here. Far off in the woods, campers were singing, enjoying their campfire. Lily watched the sun sink lower, stretching its long rays across the lake. The sky blazed fiery orange nearest the water, edging into watermelon pink farther up, then, at its height, a deep blackberry, and lily pads dotted the shore.

“You think those Talents have melted yet?” Lily asked the frog beside her—even though she knew it was ridiculous to talk to a frog.

The creature's white throat was luminous against the darkening sky.
Hdup-hdup!
he replied. Then, precisely at the moment when the sun sank fully below the horizon, the frog leapt off the pier into the black below.

“Well, good-bye to you, too,” Lily said, and she rose to join the others at the campfire.

She stopped when she heard the noise.

It was quiet at first, a whisper above the singing in the woods, but it grew steadily sharper and more musical.

Jars, Lily saw, searching the water. They lapped their way up the pebbly shore not fifty yards away. Hundreds and hundreds of them, glowing yellow-purple at the center. Talents, Lily was sure of it. She may have destroyed the jars in Jo's office, but here, somehow, were new ones, emerged from the lake, and
glowing
. The sight was delicious and frightening both at once, made all the more peculiar by a sudden familiar lullaby.

Los golpes en la vida

preparan nuestros corazones

como el fuego forja al acero.

It was Jo, a shadow against the trees, playing the tune on her harmonica. Lily twisted the length of yarn around her thumb. An Artifact. Jo had an Artifact.

Lily was so focused on the glowing jars and the haunting music floating across the water, that it took her a moment to notice the footsteps on the pier behind her. Footsteps, and crutch steps, too.

“Max,” she said, spinning around to find her brother. He was balanced on his good foot, using only one crutch, and he was holding a glass of something. A memory Hannah had concocted for him, most likely.

“When were you going to tell me about the accident?” Max asked.

Chuck

A
S THE SUN CONCEALE
D ITSELF BEHIND THE
TREES, ALL
three hundred campers of Camp Atropos (well, all except two, but Chuck didn't know that) settled themselves onto the thick logs that spiraled the fire pit. Counselors fed the fire, scattering bits of blaze to the dark wind.

“There are two seats in the front,” Ellie said, grabbing Chuck's hand. Ellie had found her when Chuck had gone to use the bathroom. Chuck had never felt so betrayed by her own bladder.

Chuck wrenched her hand free. “Can't I do something by myself for
once
?” she snapped.

There were plenty of sounds, all around them. The
thunk!
of wood onto the fire. The chattering of campers. The
hdup-hdup!
of a frog in the distance. But to Chuck, it seemed that her sister's silence swallowed up every noise in the woods.

“Sit wherever you want,” Ellie said at last. And she left Chuck to take a seat beside Renny and Miles and Lily's stepsister, Hannah, in the front row.

Chuck found a seat in the back, at the very end of the log spiral. Del sat beside her, scratching a spot below one ear.

“Aren't you supposed to lead the campfire?” Chuck asked him. She thought that was one of his duties as head counselor.

Del scratched a little harder. “Normally, yes.”
Scratch scratch scratch.
“I mean, I think so.” He kicked his feet into the air, and Chuck noticed that his laces were untied, dangling to the dirt. “I'm feeling a bit fuzzy at the moment. Teagan said she'd take over.”

As the frogs on the lake croaked their froggy songs, Teagan led the children of Camp Atropos in songs of their own. All the while, Chuck ran her fingers over the silver knot in her pocket—quirky and complicated and beautiful—watching the back of Ellie's head as the sky slowly swallowed her braids into darkness.

When the world around them was black as ink, Teagan declared, “This is our final song of the evening. So, in Camp Atropos tradition, let's all stand up and join hands.”

Del reached his hand for Chuck's, and as soon as she took hold, she felt it. The icy chill worked its way up Chuck's arm like a dip in a lake on a hot day. And it wasn't only Del's Talent she felt. Linked as she was with nearly every camper and counselor of Camp Atropos, Chuck felt them all. Racing up one arm and down another, the Talents came, surging through bodies they'd never inhabited before, cool when they neared her and warm as they pushed away.

As the campers' song filled the woods, Chuck wheedled some Talents forward and urged others back, until Del had Molly's Talent for time-telling, and Hannah could sense lies, and Miles could climb mountains with his bare hands. She tinkered with each and every Talent, savoring their varied textures. All except Ellie's. Chuck had spent enough time with Ellie's.

By the time the final breath had been drawn on the last note of the song, Chuck knew for certain what she was. She dropped Del's hand, hoisting one Kelly-green high-top onto the log behind her, then the other. She stood as tall as she could, and she shouted.

“Hey!” she hollered. “Hey! Everybody!”

The campers and counselors of Camp Atropos, just finishing their song, turned in unison to look at her. And Chuck saw Ellie's face then, her frown enhanced by the flickering fire, but she didn't care. She didn't. Chuck had something bubbling up inside her, and she needed to let it out.

“I!”

She belted each word.

“Am!”

She took her time with it.

“A!”

Savored each syllable.

“
Coax!
”

That was precisely when the first jar exploded.

Lily

“
H
ANNAH TOLD ME
ABOUT THE ACCIDENT,”
M
AX SAID,
making his way closer. His crutch pinched his shirt at the armpit. He held out the glass of whatever it was. “Remind you of anything?”

Lily scratched below one ear, confused by her brother's words. But when she took the glass and drank a tentative sip, the memories came flooding back.

Coffee.
The drink—and the memory—tasted of coffee.

“The bookshelf,” she said softly. She remembered now, what she'd done. She wished she hadn't.

Max's face was scrunched in anger. “Why didn't you tell me?” he demanded. “Why'd you lie about it?”

Lily set the glass on the pier. “
Max,
” she said, Hannah's beverage burning her throat.

She could apologize. Just two little words.

Instead, Lily said something else entirely. “You like her better than me.”

“What?” Max's face scrunched even more, a rumpled shirt at the bottom of the clothes hamper. “Who?”

“Hannah!” Lily bellowed the name. She shook up everything inside her like a bottle of soda, and popped the lid. “All you care about is Hannah! I stopped a criminal, you know. I mean”—she glanced at the jars clattering against the shore, not fifty yards away—“I tried to. But isn't that better than making some stupid drinks? I put hundreds of jars of stolen Talents inside the campfire so they'd melt away.”

“You did?” Max said. But he didn't sound impressed, the way Lily had imagined. “Why would you do
that
?”

Before Lily could respond, a burst of light—sudden, dazzling, alarming—shredded the sky above them, and a grand
ka-WRACK!
shook the woods. For a brief moment, everything was stunned into silence. The campers, the squirrels, the frogs, even the wind. And in that moment, Lily knew in her gut where the explosion had come from.

“The fire,” she breathed. “The Talents in the fire.”

Ka-WRACK!

Max jumped at the sound of another explosion, and watched, dumbfounded, as another yellow-purple orb blazed a path through the darkness.

“
You
did that?” he asked.

Ka-WRACK! Ka-WRACK!

“I was trying to help,” Lily said, her voice a whimper.
Ka-WRACK! Ka-WRACK!
“I was trying to help everybody.”

There was shouting, from the woods. Terrified yelps.

“You didn't help at all!” Max hollered above the clamor of more and more explosions. The sky was awash with Talents now, dozens of yellow-purple sparks. It might have been beautiful, if not for the frightened shrieking from the campers at the fire. “You made everything worse!”

As the Talents skimmed across the water and the explosions continued, shouts growing louder and louder, Max stomped on his good foot back into the trees, leaving Lily alone on the pier.

“She's not your sister, Max!” Lily called after him. She wound the length of yarn around her thumb,
faster faster faster
. “
I'm
your sister!” But in the chaos, she was certain he didn't hear.