CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Adrift

APRIL BOLTED UPRIGHT IN THE SPEEDING VAN, HER BREATH seizing in her chest. She swayed, disoriented—as if the only star in a moonless sky had winked out, leaving her dark and directionless.

The missing piece was gone.

For a moment, she couldn’t even remember what that meant. A numb spot burned in her mind, and the snipped memory struggled to re-form. April tried to remain calm, reaching out through the vine, her thoughts spilling out of the broken stem, but she still couldn’t sense anything, finding only cold silence where before there had been a warm summons.

The missing piece. Gone.

“Stop,” she said weakly.

Ethel, bent over the steering wheel, gave no sign that she’d heard. Arthur stirred, but seemed untroubled. But Isabel turned around to look. “What’s wrong?” she said. She studied the air all around April’s head, and her curious face wrinkled into consternation. “Why are you doing that?”

April pushed out harder through the vine, desperate to find the signal again. She unbuckled her seat belt and stood up. “Stop,” April muttered again, and then again, louder: “I said stop!”

Morla lifted her bony head, a small blip of interest crossing through her sluggish misery. Ethel, meanwhile, glanced back in the rearview mirror but didn’t slow.

Isabel lifted a hand to Ethel and said softly, “The girl told you to stop.”

Though they were on the expressway, Ethel hit the brakes at once and swung smoothly onto the shoulder. April grasped the seat to keep from toppling over. Joshua, who had been snoozing fitfully, woke with a sleepy, “Are we there?”

They rolled to a halt along the guardrail. Cars continued to whiz by on the left, rocking the van where it stood. Ethel turned and glared at the three of them suspiciously. April ignored her, pulling her hair back, not caring that she was exposing the vine’s wound.

Ethel caught sight of it and inhaled sharply. “This is no shopping trip for the boy, is it?” she said.

April pressed her fingers hard against the vine. The missing piece—what had happened to it? Had it been destroyed? “It’s gone,” she told Isabel. “I can’t feel it.”

“You just lost it for a moment,” Isabel said, but her face was wrinkled with worry.

“No. It’s just . . . gone.”

“They know,” Ethel said abruptly. Her squinty eyes were locked on to the vine’s broken stem. “They’ve got your daktan and they know you’re coming.”

April skipped right over the unfamiliar word, understanding Ethel at once. “The Wardens, you mean,” she said, not bothering to pretend anymore.

“The Do-Rights, yes.”

Isabel rounded on Ethel. “Hush!” she said sharply.

But Ethel paid her no mind. “They don’t want to be found. They’ve destroyed what you need. It’s too late for you now.”

“Quiet!” Isabel bellowed, rising to her feet. “You don’t know anything.” Morla cowered into her shell, her wretched presence shriveling into an icy tremble.

And then, abruptly, Morla was gone. Arthur was gone. The vine itself vanished from April’s mind. A single look at Ethel’s stunned face confirmed that she too had lost contact with her Tan’ji.

Isabel had severed them all.

Isabel yanked the van door open, letting in the sounds of roaring traffic and the smells of exhaust. “Out,” she commanded, staring down at April. Arthur was out the door before April could even react, his wings blurring past April’s face. Gone. She tried to make herself stand, to make herself leave. But it was as if she’d forgotten even how to stand. Gone. And then she felt a small hand in hers, pulling her forward. “Come on,” said a voice, simple and sweet.

She stumbled out into open air. She lost her balance, lost the small hand she was holding. Sharp pain flashed through her knees. And then suddenly, miraculously, she was warm again. The vine opened once more in her thoughts. She could breathe. She reached out through it, felt Arthur down over the edge of the highway, on a grassy slope whose low murmur she could also sense—but still she could not feel the missing piece.

“You can go now,” someone said imperiously, and she looked up to see Isabel looming overhead. But the woman wasn’t talking to April—she was talking to Ethel. April locked eyes with the driver and knew that the mixture of dismay and confusion and relief she saw on Ethel’s face must be echoed on her own.

Morla, meanwhile, had entirely disappeared into her shell, and from her April felt a painful waking from a deathlike sleep, a torturous unlimbering from the void. Ethel was in the tortoise’s mind again, rousing her and testing the bond after the brief severing, as if Morla were a great rusted machine whose parts could be hammered senselessly into motion. And April realized that that’s what Morla was—a machine. A machine with an animal’s soul beaten thin and trapped alive inside. She wondered how old Morla really was, and whether she would ever—could ever—die. Maybe death would be a relief.

April threw up, still on her knees there on the shoulder. Her stomach emptied itself in two convulsive heaves. It was all too much, all of it, everything that was happening—too sad, too sick, too hopeless. Joshua backed squeamishly away. Isabel seemed not to notice, still facing the van.

“Go,” Isabel said again.

“Ask her to tell you the truth, love!” Ethel called out. “Ask old Isabel what she really is. She’s no Keeper.”

April wiped her mouth and looked back at Ethel. “What?”

“Go now,” Isabel said, taking a step toward the van.

“She says she’s Tan’ji, but she’s not one of us!” cried Ethel. “And she never will be!”

Isabel took another step forward. And now, on the fringes of Morla’s mind, April felt a new presence, thunderous, coming down hard along the line of thought that burned between Ethel and the tortoise. This new presence began to push—so heavy, so sharp—and Morla made a sound that April heard through the vine, a sound of bone-deep anguish, the sound a person might make while being torn in two.

Suddenly the van roared to life and sprinted away, the door still open. Bits of gravel kicked up, spraying them. Horns blared. Tires screeched. Within seconds the van’s taillights were distant swerving dots in traffic. Ethel and Morla had escaped whatever Isabel had been doing to them.

Isabel bent over April, fists on her hips. The wicker sphere dangled above April’s head. “Don’t listen to Ethel. She lies.”

“I felt you inside Morla,” April said. “You were tearing them apart. Not just severing—more than that.”

“Severing’s too good for her,” Isabel said, but explained no more. “Come on. Let’s get off the road.”

April got to her feet, avoiding the pool of sick there on the shoulder. As she bent to wipe bits of grit from her bloodied knees, she saw Joshua was holding her backpack. She took it from him gratefully.

“You okay?” he said.

“Not really. But I’m not going to barf again, if that’s what you mean.”

Joshua made a face but reached out and placed his hand on April’s arm in a comradely sort of way. “I barfed once,” he said earnestly, and the gesture broke April’s weary heart just a little.

They climbed over the guardrail and down the grassy slope. The sun was fully below the horizon now, but barely—a peachy glow still crouched low across the sky. April veered away from Isabel, heading instead for Arthur, who sat all but invisible in the darkening grass. She opened herself to the bird, wanting to cleanse herself of Morla’s wretched presence.

Arthur was still calm after what Ethel had done to him—tamer than April had ever felt him—but his playful curiosity was beginning to surface again. She walked up to him and sat in the grass a few feet away. He hopped right over and plucked at the hem of her dress. When she held out a piece of dog food for him, he snatched it out of her hand.

Joshua came and joined them, sitting a respectful distance away. Isabel followed behind but didn’t sit. Behind her, back up the slope, the interstate traffic continued to thunder by.

April had no idea what to say to the woman, no idea what to even think. The missing piece was gone. Everything they’d done was all for nothing. There was no hope in the world anymore. The trip had been nothing but uncertainty and fear and danger, and now . . . what was she supposed to do? Go back home? She could barely even muster up the idea of a future.

Joshua scooted closer, his eyes wide and hopeful. “Can I feed Arthur?” he said.

April managed to smile. “Go ahead. He likes you.”

Joshua took some food tentatively. Arthur saw the exchange and hopped toward the boy expectantly. When Joshua just sat there, Arthur let out a low, rattling warble that April thought of as his purr. Joshua startled and hurriedly tossed the food. Arthur caught it out of the air nimbly and squawked in gratitude, rustling his wings. Joshua’s face lit up with wonder.

Isabel, however, did not seem impressed. “Where are we, Joshua?” she said impatiently.

“Northbrook,” the boy said at once, still watching Arthur.

“How far to downtown?”

“Eighteen miles, in a straight line.”

“As the crow flies,” April told him. “That means in a straight line—it’s a saying.”

“Eighteen miles as the crow flies,” he said. “Or maybe the raven.”

Isabel sighed. “But we won’t be able to walk in a straight line. It’d take us all night to walk that far, and it’s already quarter til nine.”

April stood up. “I’m not walking anywhere except home.”

“Home?” Isabel said incredulously. “No, no, you can’t go home.”

“Yes. I never should have come in the first place. But I did, and whoever had my missing piece knew it, and they destroyed it. It’s gone.” She keep her voice even, but her insides were burning wreckage, a world on fire.

“It’s not destroyed—if it was destroyed, you’d have felt it.” Isabel clutched at April’s shoulder, almost pleading. “I’d have felt it.”

“Ethel said it was destroyed.”

“I told you—don’t listen to her.”

“She also said you’re not Tan’ji. I don’t understand why she would say that, unless it’s true. And if you’re not, you can’t help me. Or Joshua. Can you?”

“She lies. People lie.”

April thought quietly for a moment, struggling to keep her head above the smoke. She was not much of a liar herself—not because she was so opposed to lying, necessarily, but because she was terrible at it. And because she was terrible at it, she often had trouble telling when other people were lying. But the more time she spent with Isabel—the more the woman kept hidden, the more she let slip, the more severing she did with that wicker sphere of hers—the harder it was to trust her.

“I think you lie,” April said firmly.

April half expected Isabel to sever her then and there, given what she’d seen of the woman’s temper so far. Instead, though, Isabel seemed to sag. Her face filled with sorrow. “This is no place to talk. Let’s find someplace quiet, someplace private. Let me explain.”

“I’m trying to imagine what you could possibly explain that would keep me out here—miles from home, without permission—when the missing piece is . . .”

“It’s not destroyed, April. I’m almost sure of it.”

“But it’s nowhere. If it’s not destroyed, what is it?”

“Severed.”

April hesitated. She found herself wanting to cling to the idea. She probed at that numb corner of her mind—not so much a corner as a kind of blind spot, shifting and swallowing her thoughts whenever she reached out for the missing piece. “Is that even possible? To sever just the missing piece?”

“There are ways it could be done, yes.”

“Could you do it?”

“Yes.”

“Then could you undo it?”

Isabel shook her head. “Not from here. From the other end . . . maybe. It depends what’s happening there. But the severing won’t last. If we just keep moving, the call will return, I promise—”

“You lied about being Tan’ji, didn’t you?” April interrupted.

Isabel glanced at Joshua. He was pulling up tufts of grass and tossing them into the air while Arthur watched, but it was clear the boy was listening to every word.

April said, “You’re asking for so much trust from us. You’ve already lied to us. We need to know the truth now, or we’re leaving. I’ll take Joshua with me.”

A pack of loud, rumbling motorcycles passed by on the highway above, filling the air with jackhammers and rattling April’s chest. Isabel let them pass, sputtering into the distance, before answering.

“I told you I’m a Tuner. What I didn’t tell you is that being a Tuner is . . . not a very respected profession. Tuners use Tanu called harps to clean and tune other people’s instruments. They get treated like maids, like garbage men. They are expendable. Even their harps are borrowed instead of owned.” She held up the wicker sphere, gritting her teeth. “But my harp is different. Miradel is more powerful than other harps, and I’m more powerful than other Tuners. With Miradel, I am . . . I am like Tan’ji. I have the bond. Just like you.” She let Miradel dangle again and twisted her wooden ring restlessly, clearly waiting for April to respond.

“I don’t understand how you can be like Tan’ji,” said April.

“Miradel only works for me,” Isabel insisted. “I’m the only one who can use her—the only one who can control her.”

April nodded, choosing her words carefully. “But do you have the same bond with Miradel that I do with the vine? Like, for example . . . can you be severed?”

Isabel turned away, which was all the answer April needed. “No one else can do what I can,” Isabel said stubbornly.

“But you’re not Tan’ji.”

“Not . . . completely. No.” She briefly made fists, then unclenched them. “I never had the chance.”

Joshua stood up. He walked stiffly over to April and put his arms around her, hugging her tight. Surprised, April patted his back awkwardly. Still holding her tight, Joshua looked over at Isabel and said, “You lied to me.”

“It’s not that simple, Joshua.”

“Yes it is,” he said.

“I can still help you,” said Isabel. “I can still take you to your Tan’ji.”

Joshua shook his head. “Maybe there is no Tan’ji.”

A cop car sped by on the highway above. As it passed, April thought she saw the brake lights flare. “We should go,” she said.

Isabel nodded. “Yes. Someplace quiet to spend the night. Someplace we can all rest and talk. Somewhere I can explain.”

April glanced down at Joshua and frowned. Would they be safe on their own? Could she keep him safe? April shook her head then looked up at Isabel.

“Okay, but what about the Riven?”

“We’ve left them far behind,” said Isabel. “Plus, the leestone’s effects will linger with us for a while. As long as you don’t push the vine too hard, it’ll be hours before they even have a hope of tracking us down—maybe a full day.”

That was a relief. “So where should we go?” April looked down the road, where a hotel sign rose high into the sky. But she was pretty sure Isabel didn’t do hotels.

“I know a place,” Joshua said, peering up at April. “It’s not far.”

Holding April’s hand, Joshua led them a half mile down the frontage road to a highway that crossed back under the interstate. On the far side of the expressway, a large patch of darkness lay before them, stretching for what looked like a mile in either direction, with just the one road cutting through.

“What is this place?” April asked, startled to see such wilderness this close to the city.

“Lagoons,” Joshua said. “The Skokie Lagoons. Lots of trees. Islands. Places we can spend the night.”

He led them on into the darkness, searching, then seemed to get his bearings when he found a paved bike path that led along the edge of the woods. But instead of following the path, he cut straight through the trees. Before long, April could hear the sound of falling water. They emerged onto the shoreline of a murky-looking lake. Water rushed over a low dam, really more of a spillway—only about a couple of feet high. As they stood looking at it, Arthur alighted in a tree just overhead. April could feel how happy the woods made him, how at home he felt.

Joshua pointed at the tiny dam. “If we cross here, we can get to that island on the other side before it gets totally dark. No one will find us there.”

The dam was less than a foot wide and probably a hundred feet long. Water ran smoothly over the top of it.

To April’s surprise, Isabel was already slipping off her shoes. “Perfect,” the woman said. “Thank you, Joshua.” And then she stepped out onto the spillway.

April watched in astonishment as Isabel easily navigated the slippery stone path, the water parting around her feet with each step. She never once lost her balance. When she reached the far side, dim in the wooded twilight, she waved her hands and shouted, “Come on across! If an old lady can do it, so can you.”

April and Joshua went next, Joshua in front. The water was shockingly cool. Joshua moved slowly, as if he were on a tightrope across Niagara Falls. He stopped several times, hesitating, but each time April said calmly, “All you’ll get is wet,” and then he started up again. April herself almost stumbled once, when she caught a whiff of a turtle drifting in the water nearby and thought of Morla. But this turtle was wild and alive and undeniably himself. April regained her balance and eventually—after what seemed like an eternity—she and Joshua made it to the far side. Seconds later, despite his confusion, Arthur joined them.

The island itself was overgrown and as wild as anything around April’s house. There were footpaths, unmarked and clearly little used. They found a clearing and set up camp there. Unsurprisingly, the mosquitoes were terrible, and everyone wanted to use April’s bug spray. April was slightly conflicted about the bug spray, since she could feel it every time the hungry drone of a mosquito turned to poisonous revulsion. But not only was it better than getting eaten, the bug spray also kept Isabel from swatting the mosquitoes to death against against her flesh. Bugs might be small, their minds meager, but for April, feeling even a tiny life snuff out inside her brain was like a miniature implosion of pain and blindness.

April broke out the beef jerky, which Joshua and Arthur both loved. As for April, she ate one apple and twenty-two potato chips, determined to ration things in a sensible way. Isabel, meanwhile, ate nothing.

They spoke little, until at last they settled into their blankets, staring up at the darkening sky overhead. Arthur, who had been daringly social all evening—even with Isabel—retreated into the shadows just above. April tuned herself to him until she felt him drift toward his version of sleep, a strange sensation she’d picked up before—half his brain faded into oblivion, while the other remained semi-alert. She envied it, and wished she could embrace it fully. But she couldn’t even try, not with the vine the way it was. Isabel had said she was not completely Tan’ji, a notion that seemed ridiculous. But as she lay there rubbing her thumb across the broken stem of the vine, April had to wonder if she herself wasn’t completely Tan’ji either.

Joshua stirred sleepily. “April?”

“Yeah?”

“How does Arthur sleep? In a tree, right?”

“Yes. He’s right above us.”

“Did he make a nest?”

“No. Nests are just for eggs, really. Arthur roosts on a branch.”

“Really? But how—” Joshua paused and yawned prodigiously. “How does he stay on? How come he doesn’t fall off when he goes to sleep?”

April laughed, glad for the distraction. She’d asked Doc Durbin this same question the first night Arthur was in the pen. “Ravens are what’s called passerine. Most birds are passerines—especially songbirds, or really any bird you’d see at a birdfeeder. Passerines have special feet. They have three toes pointing forward, and one toe pointing back.” She looked down at her own feet, almost feeling the illusion of Arthur’s feet inside them even now—his feet, when relaxed, naturally curled shut. He had to consciously flex them to open them.

“Passerine feet are very good for gripping branches. So good, in fact, that their feet stay gripped to the branch even while they’re asleep.”

“Ohhh,” Joshua said, but April could tell he was already mostly asleep himself. A moment later he began to gently snore.

“Passerine, eh?” Isabel remarked, watching April keenly. “You know a lot about animals.”

April shrugged. “I like animals, that’s all.”

“Like I said, all Keepers have a natural talent to begin with. And now here you are, an empath.”

April watched Joshua sleep. “And what about Joshua? Do you really think he’s going to become Tan’ji?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“You say a lot of things. But what would his Tan’ji be?”

“I wouldn’t want to guess,” Isabel said quickly. “That’s why he’s been traveling with me. I thought maybe he’d be drawn to what he’s looking for if he got close enough. We were headed into the city to see how we fared, but then I sensed you bleeding. We were lucky to find you. Very lucky.”

That seemed like a curious thing to say. April sat up and studied the woman. “We’re looking for the Wardens, right?” she asked. “The ones Ethel was talking about? I’d like to know who they are.”

Isabel sighed. “They’re Keepers, like us,” she said, and then winced. She clutched at Miradel. “The Wardens collect Tanu of all shapes and sizes—everything they can get their hands on. They have huge hoards of Tan’ji.”

“That’s why you think they had my missing piece.”

“Have,” Isabel corrected. “I think they have your missing piece, yes.”

April couldn’t even respond to that. “And you think they have Joshua’s Tan’ji, too?”

“I think there’s no better place to look. That’s all I’ll say.”

“You were one of them once, weren’t you? Ethel said they kicked you out.”

Isabel scowled. “Ethel lies. She doesn’t know. She wasn’t there.”

April couldn’t help but feel that even though Isabel might be telling the truth now, she was leaving plenty of space for lies. April sat very still, trying to piece together everything Isabel had said that morning, everything Ethel had hinted at in the van. Abruptly, comprehension dawned over her. “Oh my god,” she said, and then said it again. “Oh my god—you’re just using us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“No, please don’t do that,” April said, still thinking it through. “Don’t pretend. You’re trying to find the Wardens, but because you don’t know where they are, you need us. First Joshua, hoping you’d get him close enough to his Tan’ji that he’d feel it, leading you to the Wardens. Sort of a desperate plan, I think. But then you came across me. With the missing piece I’m like . . . your guided missile. A homing device.”

Isabel squirmed, and April knew she wasn’t wrong. “I’m not using you,” Isabel protested. “We’re helping each other. All of us.”

“But why do you even need our help finding the Wardens? If you were one of them—”

“I worked with them,” Isabel interjected. “I was never one of them.”

“Either way, why don’t you know where they are now?”

April could hear Isabel grinding her teeth. “When the Wardens don’t want to be found, they can’t be found,” she said.

April leaned forward. “And why are you so desperate to find them?”

Isabel was silent for a long time. As April watched, the wicker ball swelled slightly and then shrank again. Over and over it grew and shrank slowly, like a beating heart. Isabel didn’t even seem to be aware it was happening. Watching her face, April became sure that the woman was going to evade April’s question now—or at least, that she was going to twist the truth. April promised herself that her decision about whether to stay with Isabel or not would hinge on whatever the woman said next.

At last the wicker ball stopped pulsing.

“I need to get back,” Isabel said slowly. “Something happened that I . . . that I’m not proud of. I want things to be set right.” Her eyes were faraway and cloudy, and April was sure that those words—whatever they meant—were the truth. But then Isabel shook herself and glared at April. “It doesn’t matter. I’m helping you get where you want to go. I’ve saved you twice already.”

“You’ve severed me twice, too.”

Isabel stared back, unflinching. “It could be worse.”

“I’m sure it could. And I could walk away. Good luck finding the Wardens then.”

“Good luck becoming whole. Good luck with the Riven.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. April kept her fear shoved down deep. If Isabel wouldn’t flinch, neither would she. She would be brave. But the truth was, Isabel was the best chance she had at finding the missing piece, if it still existed. And as for the Riven . . .

“I’m going to sleep now,” April announced. “In the morning, I’ll decide whether to go back home or not.”

“You can’t go home, and you know it.” Before April could protest, Isabel pointed to the vine against April’s skin. “You don’t have a choice. Tan’ji don’t have a choice. You’ll keep searching for the missing piece forever.” She lay back on her blanket and rolled onto her side, her back to April.

April sat there, watching the woman breathe, trying to convince herself that Isabel was wrong. But of course, she wasn’t wrong. Somewhere far off, an owl’s call sounded, first loud and then soft. The change in volume was an illusion to fool prey, April knew. The owl was only pretending to move away. The thought made her remember Isabel’s words: “When the Wardens don’t want to be found, they can’t be found.”

April had asked her why she wanted to find the Wardens so badly. But maybe she should have asked a different question.

Why didn’t the Wardens want Isabel to find them?

April couldn’t quite make herself ask it out loud. Instead she said quietly, “What did the Wardens do to you?”

Isabel shrugged. She wrapped her arms around herself. The owl called again, softer still. “They made me who I am,” Isabel said simply. “That’s what they do.”