I CAN’T RUN out on class or chores without everyone noticing. I go through the motions for the rest of the day, scooping hot laundry from the dryers and folding tiny shirts. This time I get a stack of Indigo’s clothes, their backs covered in brownish burns from her tentacles. Marley scowls nearby, never making eye contact. She’s folding clothes like her hands are almost too heavy to move.
“I liked what you said in class,” I try, after a while. “I mean, I don’t think it’s actually like that. But it was still interesting.”
She gives me a sidelong look, like I might be making fun of her, but I guess whatever she sees in my face helps her trust me a little.
“I wish I’d kept my mouth shut! When I was at home, I never thought about anything like that. But here there’s nothing else to do, and suddenly I can’t stop all these horrible ideas from coming in my head. I need to stop thinking so much.”
“Why shouldn’t you think about everything that’s happened? There’s a lot to figure out.” I take a deep breath. At home, I know, we never would have had anything to do with each other, maybe said hi in the hallway at most. I would think she was bland and boring, and she’d probably think I was a weird know-it-all. Here, though, she must be feeling really alone—and anyway she’s starting to change. Maybe into someone I could sincerely like. “It’s cool that you’re trying to understand stuff!”
“Ada?” Marley asks. Is her lip trembling? “You don’t think having thoughts like that means there’s something wrong with me? I almost feel like there’s something happening in my brain. And then, my parents were always taking me to doctors, way more than normal, and I wonder if they knew—that I was messed up somehow.”
I give her shoulders a quick half hug; I got dragged to doctors a lot too, and learning that Marley was as well nags at me, like it might mean something. But right now what matters is showing her some support.
“If there’s something happening to you, I think it’s probably positive. Like, it was hard for you coming here, but now it’s making you stronger. That’s all.”
Marley manages a smile, and after that I notice she’s working a little more quickly.
The whole time I’m pouring in detergent and loading the machines, I can’t stop wondering about Dr. Jacoway. Did he really survive the massacre at Novasphere? Everyone seemed freaked out by what he was saying, but no one acted surprised; they obviously knew the story already. So why did he ask us where chimeras came from, when he might be the only person alive who knows the whole truth? Or was he so devastated that he lost part of his memory? He definitely acts like he might have some kind of brain damage.
The second the clock hits five, I tell Marley I have to get to the bathroom and then I dash out, up stairs and around bends; it generally takes ten minutes or so for everyone to finish whatever they’re doing and drift to the lobby or the beach. As I step out the front door, my hair swirls in a gust smelling of trampled wildflowers and pine.
I want to reach the woods before anybody sees me. I can always say that I was just going for a walk, but what if someone tries to tag along?
As long as I’m in view of the windows, I walk slowly, watching the coils of red heat tangling with the wind, which is aqua and silver and a blue like dusk, but brighter. Every sunbeam striking the grass and leaves scatters a violet fringe over the air. The metallic buzz of insects carpets the ground. I sit to glide down the same grassy hollow as last night.
Once I reach the tree shadows, I stop and glance around. Three of the smaller kids are skipping rope near the main entrance, then the hill streaks down filled with nothing but daisies. Red smolders everywhere, it’s so hot out, but there’s nowhere much anyone could hide in the meadow. I wander along the wood’s edge for a while, trying to find the exact spot where the blue led me in among the trees. It’s probably annoyed with how I acted last night, so I have to assume it won’t be coming to help me out. I’m on my own.
It all looks so different in daylight that I can’t be sure, but I think I recognize a branch bent like an elbow. Maybe the woods here don’t go too far back, but it’s just hitting me now how unlikely it is that I’ll find whatever it is I’m looking for. It could be as small as an ant; it could be hidden under a root; I’ll probably walk right past it and have no idea. The shadows thicken until it’s like walking through green glass shading up to ruby where the rising heat gets trapped by the branches. It’s cooler in here, quieter, with no sounds but a few rustlings and the swoop of bird song.
The rustling is a tiny bit too cautious, too conscious-sounding, for an animal.
I had a feeling that this was going to happen. Gabriel and maybe even Ophelia are getting too paranoid about me to let me just wander off on my own. I crouch down pretending to look at a ruffled yellow mushroom, then glance around. The heat today is pretty good camouflage, but in the shade it’s not body temperature, and there’s an upright shape back there that’s a touch brighter than its surroundings. Whoever it is, they’re trying to hide behind a spruce.
“Hi,” I call. I’d assumed at first the shape was Gabriel, but now I’m wondering if it’s too thick for him. “I can see you, so you might as well come out.”
Rowan gives a theatrical sigh and walks around the tree. “Sorry, Ada. Now you’ll really think I’m a dork.”
I’m so completely disappointed in him that for a moment I just stare, and he bends down to tug at a loose branch that got caught in his shoelace.
“I didn’t think you were someone who would do this. Like, spy on me? Rowan, come on!”
“You could give me the benefit of the doubt. That I have a good reason for it, and that I’m—as much on your side as I can be, considering what I am. I remember what you did for us, Ada. That means a lot to me.” He raises one flipper-hand as if he were reaching out to touch the stitches on my forehead, though he’s still too far away.
“But not to Gabriel,” I say. “It doesn’t matter to him at all. Not to Ophelia, either.”
He walks closer, shaking his head. He doesn’t really have a neck, so the movement makes his fur bulge out above his shirt.
“Ophelia’s on your side, too. As much as she can be. So, hey, where are you heading, anyway?” He grins, but his eyes look sad.
“I’m out for a walk.”
He grimaces. “You know, I’m not Gabriel. Just because he’s my friend doesn’t mean you have to act like I’m some kind of extension of him.”
“If you’re following me, you’re probably reporting back to somebody. But I don’t even know where I’m going, so that wasn’t a lie.”
I sound defensive. Do I really think I owe it to Rowan to tell him everything?
Rowan tips his head, considering that. “Okay, so I am. Reporting on you. But not to Gabriel, and not because I want to get you in trouble. Believe it or not, I’m trying to keep you out of trouble.”
I turn to walk on, and Rowan stays close beside me, just as if I’d gone exploring with him on purpose. He’s not really built for moving quietly through woods, and his sneakers shuffle and snap twigs way more than mine do.
“If it’s not to Gabriel, then it must be to Ms. Stuart.”
“Good guess. She thinks you might be hiding something important. So, if I follow you, then I can tell her that you were just sitting on a log and daydreaming or whatever. Not—doing anything she’d be upset about. See? I’m on your side.”
“What does she think I’m doing?”
“Maybe sneaking out here to have long conversations with some invisible entity? Think of how you’d feel if you’d been looking for something for thirteen years, and you suspected that the one person who might have the ability to see it had decided to keep it a secret. You’d be seriously pissed. And she’s smart to be suspicious of you, anyway. I haven’t said anything to her, but I’m almost positive you’ve seen things here and just pretended to have no idea. Right? Are you going to come out and say it, or should I?”
I guess I’m not surprised that he knows so much. He stops with his hand on my shoulder, and gently tugs me around to look at him. His pink face gleams with sweat—it must be terrible having fur in this weather—but his gaze is warm and honest.
“If I say it, will you decide to trust me?”
“I already trust you. Really, Ada. The problem is more everybody else.”
“You’re talking about the hole in the fence,” I say. My heart starts drumming crazily, just from hearing myself admit that much. “You’re talking about how you leave the grounds whenever you want, even though we’re all supposed to be locked up here. And if the people outside ever saw you swimming around free, they would smash down the gate for real and kill as many of us as they could.”
I almost say that he must have some huge reason to put us all at risk like that or he would never do it, but I stop myself. I’m not about to mention anything about his pet sea monster, either.
Rowan stares into my eyes for a while, looking for anything I’m still hiding. I gaze straight back. I’m better prepared this time, and after a few moments, he nods.
“I honestly don’t worry too much about anyone out there noticing me. When I’m in the water you have to get right up in my face to know I’m not a seal, and I don’t let that happen. What are you, forty-five, forty-six? I’m only, like, forty-one. Seal is a big part of me. I want to make sure you really understand that.”
I can make out the wall now, the gray stones shining through the trees up ahead. I probably shouldn’t blame Rowan—I wasn’t going to find whatever it is anyway, not without the blue here to guide me—but the sight of that wall weighs on me. It’s hard not to feel like a failure. A few white birch trees gleam like searchlights behind him.
“Seals are awesome,” I say, but I’m not really focused on him now. “It’s one of the best animals you could get. I have no idea what I am.”
“Ms. Stuart thinks you might be part mantis shrimp. Even though they’re not native here. One could have escaped from an aquarium, maybe.”
It takes a second for that to get through to me, but when it does, I almost fall over. The ground seems unstable here, somehow. “Part shrimp?”
“Mantis shrimp. And they’re actually really cool,” Rowan starts to say. “They—”
Beneath my feet the earth gives way. Rowan shouts and lunges for my arm, and misses, but his momentum sends him stumbling forward. I go skidding on my back down a steep slope covered in rocks that roll away whenever I grab at them. Rowan is right behind me, flailing. He accidentally kicks me in the face.
I land hard with all the breath knocked out of me. I barely manage to fling myself out of Rowan’s way, and he still thumps down on my legs. Then we’re both lying panting in a twilit cave. Light filters from the hole we fell through and rebounds off the craggy walls around us.
“Ada? You’re okay?”
“I think just bruised. Plus you’re crushing my calves.” He gives a half laugh and heaves himself off me. “How about you?”
“Bruised. The fur helps some.”
The light isn’t just coming from outside. And it’s a touch too blue to be daylight.
Several yards away from us, there’s a dip in the cave’s floor, and something in there is glowing.
Rowan notices how my attention has turned away from him. “Ada? Do you see something over there?” He squints. “It’s so dark back there. I can’t see anything. You seriously can?”
“It’s not that dark for me.” I get up, stiff from how banged up I am, and walk over. There’s an irregular pool sunk into the stone, maybe five feet across and three feet deep. The blue is crumpled up beneath the glassy surface as if it were sleeping. Its glow floods the water up to the brim, and passing quivers cast webs of shine onto the walls.
But the blue isn’t all that’s in there.