Earth & Sky (The Earth & Sky Trilogy) (19 page)

“You don’t have to be here helping with Jeanant and the weapon if you don’t want to,” he goes on. “You’ve done so much already. What I said before—that I’d bring you home, if you wanted me to—that still stands. If this is getting to be too much, I’ll take you back, and you can have that time to think through what you want to do, while I go get the last two parts. And then I’ll come get you, and we can sort out this thing with your brother, if it’s possible.”

Home. The thought sends a pang of longing through me. To curl up on my familiar bed, surrounded by my familiar things.

Will it still be familiar? I’d almost forgotten the fear that clutched me after the boy died by the caves. My past didn’t seem to have changed that much, but all I really know is that my brother and I still went to my grandparents’ house after school that day, and he still disappeared. What about my parents? My friends? What if I shifted something while we were following Noam?

“If you just tell me where Jeanant said we needed to go,” Win is saying, “I can finish the rest myself.”

“He said . . .” I pause, trying to remember his exact words. It was less than a day ago I spoke to Jeanant in the cave, but it feels like weeks. “We’re supposed to go somewhere close to my region of the States—‘just before blood is spilled where the trees were laid low.’ ”

Win frowns. “ ‘Where the trees were laid low?’ That’s it?”

“He seemed to think it was all we’d need to know. But, there was a message on the weapon part he left in the cave too.”

I watch Win as he digs in his satchel for the second slab of alien plastic. This mission has become mine as much as his. But—he’s right, I’ve already helped more than either of us expected. I’ve gotten him one step away from the end. There might not even be anything else I can do, where he’s going next. Maybe I’ll just get in the way, and it’ll be better for both of us if I go home now.

Of course, he could also decide his loophole is too risky and not come back for me at all. Not only would I not be able to save Noam, I’d never know whether Win even succeeded. Whether the shifts are going to end.

“ ‘Remember when we talked about the ones who came first, losing their lives to those who came later, because of greed on one side of them and inaction on the other,’ ” Win says, reading from the slab. “ ‘Revisit the irony and the tragedy. Start by following the path of anger.’ ” He turns it over, searching for more writing. “I don’t know what that means. ‘The irony and the tragedy.’ I’ve heard Thlo use that expression before. I guess she’d know what he’s referring to.”

“Jeanant thought I was working with Thlo,” I say. “Because that’s what you told me to tell him.”

“Well, if it’s supposed to be close to where you live, that narrows it down,” Win says. “You must know some of the local history—does any of this, the trees, the greed and inaction, ah, ring a bell?”

“Maybe . . .” I try to think back to my US history course, but the names and dates have blurred. “The thing about ‘those who came first and later,’ it could mean the Native Americans and the European settlers. But I’m not sure what he means about the different sides.”

Win digs out the time cloth. “I can try to look it up. I don’t know how easy it’ll be to find with information that vague, though.”

As he unfolds the cloth, I have the sense of time slipping away from me. As soon as he finds it, I’m going to have to make a decision about where to go.

The answer Win needs was probably in my history textbook somewhere—but I don’t have that anymore. Although . . .

“Wait,” I say, and Win looks up. “My friend, Lisa, she’s taking US history this year because she had scheduling conflicts before. They cover the stuff about the Native Americans right at the start. If we went back, to my present, I could ask her about it.” Lisa’s not the most academic one in our group, but even if she doesn’t remember . . . “And I can look at her textbook to see if anything feels
wrong.
That worked with France.”

A trip home will buy me more time to decide. It’ll be easier once I know what’s waiting for me there.

“That did,” Win says. He hesitates. “And then you’ll want to stay there, in your time?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’m still figuring that out.”

“Well, let’s go,” Win says more brightly. “It sounds like that’s more likely to work than me sifting through thousands of years of history for mentions of trees.”

23.

T
he cloth pings again when Win pulls it into its tent form in the cramped space of the train cabin. The light behind the panel flickers its warning. I pause. “Are you sure it’s okay—making an extra jump when the power’s low?”

Win’s already flicking through the data. “It’s not that far and barely any time. We’ll want to be careful where we land, though.”

I shudder at the thought of the Enforcers tracing us to my friends. “Right.” I glance down at myself, at the ink- and mud-stained dress still clinging damply to my legs. God knows what my face and hair look like. “I should probably go home and clean up.”

Win nods. “I’ll set us down close to my hotel and we’ll walk from there. If the Enforcers have determined I was staying there, they’ll assume that’s where we were going and look there first.”

“Smart,” I say, but I’m not sure he even hears the compliment. The cloth lifts off at that moment with a squeal of wind. My breath catches, my gut flips, and I open my eyes to a wrenchingly familiar street. A few blocks from the Garden Inn, less than ten minutes from the house I’ve spent most of my life in, if we hurry.

I duck out, almost afraid to look around me in the clear afternoon light. But nothing my gaze slides over feels
wrong
. The brick houses, the tiny lawns, the sapling trees with their sprigs of autumn foliage—they all look exactly as I remember. A coil of tension I hadn’t even registered inside me starts to loosen.

“How long is it since we left here?” I ask Win as we head down the street, taking the first corner so we’ll be out of view if the Enforcers catch up. “I mean, in present time?”

“About ten minutes,” Win says.

Still at least an hour before I’d have to worry about my parents getting home, then. I walk even faster. We’ve taken another turn, onto my street with just a couple blocks left to cover, when a digitized melody emanates from my side.

Win’s head jerks around as I fumble to open my purse. “My phone,” I say, tugging it out. The call display tells me it’s Angela.

“Hey,” I say, bringing the phone to my ear. It’s a struggle to sound normal. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” Angela says in her usual cheerful tone. It feels like years since I last heard her voice. “I’m still at school, working away. Do you remember where you and Bree stashed the painted lightbulbs? I’ve looked all over the art room. Maybe I’m going blind.”

Painted lightbulbs . . . Right. ‘This’ afternoon, at lunchtime. And centuries and centuries ago. Where
did
we put them? I press the heel of my hand against my temple. I should be able to remember details like this—I would, if there weren’t so many other crazy memories crowding in between then and now.

“I think—” A red plastic tub, slid onto a shelf. “Check the cabinet in the corner by the pottery wheel.”

There’s a shuffling sound as Angela makes her way over, and the creak of a door opening. “Aha!” she says. “I figured I could count on you. Thanks! I promise not to badger you about dance stuff ever again.”

“It’s okay,” I say. And then, remembering the main reason I’m here, “Lisa’s not there with you, is she?”

“No,” Angela says. “Weren’t she and Evan and Bree heading over to Pie Of Your Dreams? I figured you were with them.”

“Oh,” I say, my cheeks warming. By Angela’s time, that was only half an hour ago. I must sound like a basket case. “Yeah, I had an errand to run, I guess I got so distracted I forgot she mentioned it. Well, I should let you get back to decorating. It’s going to be great, Ang.”

“You know it,” she says. “See you tomorrow!”

Tomorrow
. I roll the word around in my head as I drop the phone back into my purse. It feels like a foreign concept now.

We come to a stop in front of my house. An ache spreads through my chest. I left my keys in my school bag in my bedroom, but the spare is where it should be, under the false bottom of the mailbox. I push open the door.

The hall looks the same, and the stairs, and my room with the comforter slightly rumpled where I sat to wipe off my nail polish, my jeans slung over the side of my laundry basket. I let out a breath like a laugh.

“I’ll get changed and wash quickly, and then I’ll go see Lisa,” I say to Win. “Wait downstairs?”

His nod seems hesitant, but he goes without a word. I dig through my closet, trying to decide what to put on. Something that’s not too weird for me to be wearing here, but not too weird if I Travel on with Win either . . . That possibility is feeling more distant with every second I spend breathing the familiar ocean scent of Mom’s fabric softener.

In the end I pull out a slightly rumpled peasant skirt Angela encouraged me to buy but that’s never felt quite like my style, and a plain T-shirt. Jeanant’s cloak can disguise my upper half if I leave this time period again. I peel the cloak off and find the fabric’s so thin that if I fold it tightly, I can squeeze it into my purse. I carry the rest of the clothes into the bathroom, so I can clean up before I get dressed.

The face that stares back at me in the mirror is wan and mottled with dirt. A reed tip is tangled in my hair. The memory blinks back: Noam sprawled on the marsh ground, his hair limp against the matted grass. The blood. His jacket, turning so red . . .

I press my palms against my forehead. Not going to think about it. Not going to think about the slimy texture of the reed—like the ones I pushed past as I slogged through the marsh—as I untangle it. Not going to
feel
all that over again. I’m going to make it right as soon as I can, and then that death won’t matter.

Funny how it seems like some huge tragedy has happened, when nothing’s actually changed. What I saw has been reality all along. I just didn’t know.

Somehow, that’s the thought that breaks me. I drop down onto the tiled floor, balling my scarf against my face in an attempt to smother my tears. They hitch out of me in little gasps.

It’s been twelve years. In this time, right now, my present, Noam’s been dead and tossed away like a piece of litter for twelve whole years. Not wandering in a crowd somewhere. Not living a distant but happy life. Not living at all.

And I was there, and I couldn’t stop it.

But I will. I will. I repeat that to myself, and the sobs slow. I have to pull myself together and find out the information Win needs, and then I’ll have my chance.

I sway back to my feet and peel off my clothes, splashing water on my face and into my armpits. No time for a shower. I’m pretty sure Lisa had history today. If I can catch her and the others at Pie Of Your Dreams, I can ask her and check her textbook if I need to and this will all be done.

Hair combed and fresh clothes on, I grab a piece of paper and a pen off my desk to shove into my purse, in case I need to note a bunch of details. Then I hurry downstairs. Win’s sitting on the leather couch, running his fingers back and forth over the arm, his mouth bent into a crooked smile.

No leather on his space station either? It must be strange, getting such pleasure out of all these things I take for granted. The thought sends a tickle almost like affection through me. When he looks up, I’m hit by a clashing of memories: the guilt on his face after the experimental kiss, the gentleness of his hand steadying me after Noam . . .

I have other things to focus on right now. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s solve this riddle.”

We walk in silence toward Michlin Street, sticking to less-trafficked side streets. Win’s gaze never stops roving around us, but there’s no sign of the Enforcers so far. When we turn onto the main strip in the midst of the afternoon shoppers, the brightly painted sign of the pie shop standing out a block and a half away across the street, I stop.

“You can’t be, like, hanging around,” I say, feeling suddenly awkward. “Lisa and Evan saw you at school yesterday. I don’t want to have to make up a story about that too.”

Win shrugs. “Not a problem.” He glances longingly at the cafe where we first talked, but I guess stopping by there when the Enforcers have already pegged it once is too big a risk. Instead he gestures to the furniture shop we just passed. “I’ll browse around in there until you’re done.”

“Okay,” I say, but my legs balk again when I make to leave. I can’t help asking, “You will wait? You won’t leave without talking to me?”

He touches the center of his chest and says that short phrase in his own tongue he used when swearing he’d take me home if I’d asked him to, back when he first invited me on this journey. “I promise I’ll be here.”

He kept that first promise. I offer a small smile, and turn.

“Skylar,” he says before I can go, his voice low. He pauses until I look at him. “I— I had a teacher once, one of the veteran Travelers, who oversaw the last segment of our studies. Just about every lesson, he’d go into this little lecture about how we couldn’t expect Earthlings to live up to Kemyate standards, that the shifting had made them defective, they just didn’t have the same kind of thought or emotion . . . But I don’t think he must have spent much time down here. Or maybe he never really paid attention.”

He’s still holding my gaze, like it’s important to him that I understand. I don’t know how to respond, but the words sink into me like a balm. If this is the closest he can bring himself to apologizing, I’ll take it.

“Thanks,” I say. He gives me a nod and I head to meet my friends.

I weave along the busy sidewalk, surrounded by shops and cafes I’ve walked past or been in dozens of times. The “Help Wanted” sign is still there in the window of the vegetarian restaurant. The chain coffee shop is blaring another pop tune. The yoga studio across the street—

The sign flickers before my eyes, as if an afterimage is laid over it. A logo with two stylized figures instead of one. A shiver of
wrong
ness passes through me, but when I blink, both the shiver and the afterimage fade away.

That was . . . odd.

I amble on, across the street and past Vintage Fleas. My gaze catches on the window display. I stumble, then stop. There . . . there used to be—I can almost see it—an old phonograph with a mahogany box—in that spot, right there—

No. It’s a ’70s-style lamp with a fringed shade. Hasn’t that always been there? I rub my eyes, and the lamp remains, but so does the sense that I glimpsed something else.

“Sky!” a voice calls. I look up to see Lisa beckoning me from the doorway of Pie Of Your Dreams. “Hey!”

“Hey, Lisa.” I hurry over, trying to push my uneasiness away. Inside, Bree and Evan are sitting a table right at the front of the shop.

“I saw you from the window,” Lisa says, gesturing as she drops back into her seat next to the glass. I sink into the extra chair.

“I thought you had a lab report to do,” Bree says.

Right. The excuse I gave. I put on my best embarrassed face. “I realized after I got home it’s due the class after next. Didn’t want to miss out on pie if I didn’t have to!”

“You want the rest of my pecan?” she asks, nudging her plate with its half-finished slice toward me. “They cut the pieces so big—I think my stomach’ll explode if I eat any more.”

“It’s good for you—puts meat on your bones,” Lisa says with a wink, motioning between Bree’s thin frame and her own much curvier body. Bree rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning.

“Thanks,” I say, scooping up a bite. My own stomach’s grumbling again at the smell of sugary pecans.

“We were discussing winter break plans,” Lisa informs me as I gulp down a few sticky-sweet mouthfuls. “I think we can convince our parents that a road trip down to Miami Beach would be good for our souls. Evan just wants to do another ski trip.”

“You know what they’re going to think of if we bring up Miami,” Evan protests. “Partying, drinking, drugs. It just takes one paranoid parent to shut the whole thing down. And then they’ll be suspicious no matter what else we suggest. If you start too big you screw it all up.”

“What I want to know is: is there something you’ve been getting up to that we don’t know about, Evan?” Bree asks, arching her eyebrows. “Because my mom would trust me not to do anything too stupid.”

Evan grumbles about some parents being more open-minded than others, Lisa shoulders him playfully, Bree shakes her head with a smile and a rustle of her frizzy curls, and I . . . just sit there. I should be able to jump into the conversation, spin off the joke, offer my own opinion. But somehow even right there with them, I feel slightly out of sync. As if they’re a few beats ahead of me and I can’t catch up. My last forkful of pie has turned gluey in my mouth.

I swallow it down, forcing a grin so I at least look like I’m participating. It must be that question nagging in the back of my head, for a mission none of my friends have the slightest clue about. If I can just get the answer, take the pressure off, maybe I’ll be able to relax.

Just before blood is spilled where the trees were laid low . . . The ones who came first, losing their lives to those who came later, because of greed on one side of them and inaction on the other.

“Lisa,” I say quickly when there’s a break in the banter. “In US history—you’ve been covering the battles with the Native Americans?”

Bree gives me an odd look. “Yeah,” Lisa says. “Why?”

“I, um, this is going to sound a little weird, but I figured it might have come up,” I say. “Was there an incident where some Native Americans had a problem with two different groups of settlers at the same time? Pressure from both sides? Maybe something to do with trees being cut down?”

Lisa giggles. “Okay, that does sound weird. Where did
that
come from?”

I motion vaguely. “I was reading this book—it referenced it, but without any details—I was just wondering what it was talking about.”

“And I’m sure Lisa was paying sooo much attention in class,” Bree says teasingly. But Lisa’s expression has gone thoughtful.

“I think there was a thing about the Native Americans being between two sides,” she says. “We watched this documentary a couple weeks ago—and then we had a big discussion about the different alliances. The British were supposed to be helping the Native Americans against the American soldiers taking their land. But then there was this battle where the Native Americans came to ask for protection at some British fort, and the British said no way.”