25
“WHAT WE DO NEXT kind of depends on who has the Tree. Who do you think has it?” I asked.
She paced back and forth from the window to where I sat among the newspaper articles. “It has to be Mr. Tennin or Mr. Jinn,” she said. “Mr. Tennin doesn’t have it, or he would simply destroy it. And if he had it, why would he be helping us find the other things?”
“So it’s Mr. Jinn?” I said.
She nodded.
“Which would make sense, because he hasn’t come looking for me or the Tree. But how did he get it? He told me he couldn’t come here. He wasn’t in your house, was he?”
“Who knows,” she said. “Maybe he snuck in during the day when no one was paying attention or we were all out in the barns. Maybe he can just appear places.”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “When he came into my house he definitely walked in like a normal person. I heard him come in through the screen door, and he crawled out the window.”
She shrugged. “Does it matter how he got it? He controls the vultures, right? Maybe he sent in little mice to steal it and take it out.”
“I don’t think he actually controls them,” I mumbled, creeped out at the thought of Mr. Jinn sending rodents into my house to look for things.
“We’ll have to deal with that later,” Abra said. “I think our best bet is to start finding the other three things. Maybe we’ll find it along the way. Maybe the three things will even lead us to it.”
“We know the first thing to find is the stone bowl,” I said. “It has to be the one the old ladies gave to that guy at the fair.”
Abra sighed. I knew what she was thinking. The Darkness at the bottom of the fair was not a place we wanted to go back to, and the man with the bowl was not someone I wanted to look for, much less find.
“We’ll have to do that tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t think my mom would take us to the fair tonight. It’s too late.”
Outside, the moon emerged from behind a small cloud and sent ivory light through the window.
“You should probably get home,” she said. “It’s getting late.”
“Yeah, I don’t want my dad worrying about me. He’s been quiet again. Real quiet.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, staring hard at me as if I were a puzzle she was trying to put together.
Abra started gathering all the news articles into a pile to put back into the box. The next thing she said came out quiet and timid, not at all like the boisterous mystery solver who had been shouting out possible explanations not too long before.
“Sam, do you still want to find the Tree so you can bring your mom back to life?”
I didn’t answer. I reached over and put the atlas in the box and stared at the sword.
“Because if you do, well, I still think it’s wrong. But there’s something inside me that keeps telling me I’m supposed to help you find the Tree. I don’t think you’re supposed to use it to bring your mom back, but I’m going to try to . . . to be part of this.”
I nodded. I appreciated her honesty, but I didn’t want to get into that conversation again, the one about bringing back my mother. If she was willing to help, that was good enough for me.
I pointed at the gray sword. “I think you should hang on to that. There must be some reason it doesn’t burn you. I think you should keep it with you, in case . . .” My voice trailed off and the image of the Amarok rose in my mind. Abra hadn’t seen it yet. I was glad she hadn’t, but I wanted her to have some way of protecting herself if she ended up coming between it and the Tree.
She picked up the sword, and the drab grayness of the blade seemed to turn into something brighter, something closer to glass than metal. I could see it shimmering in the reflection in her eyes.
Mrs. Miller agreed to drive me home again, which was very kind of her, seeing as how Mr. Miller was out in the barn and Abra didn’t want to stay at home alone with the baby.
“I don’t understand why you insist on coming along,” Mrs. Miller said as the four of us went out to the car. “It’s seven minutes up the road, and Francis should be in bed.”
She buckled the baby into his seat and gave Abra a quick glare. The truth was I was the one who didn’t want Abra staying home alone. She was quite prepared to take the risk, but I didn’t want her there by herself with the Amarok on the loose.
Fortunately, the baby kept sleeping, even through all of that movement. I sat beside the window and Abra sat in the middle, between me and the baby. This meant the front passenger seat was empty. Mrs. Miller started the car and pulled out of the long lane.
The bright moon cast dim shadows across the stone surface of Kincade Road. Every shadow seemed to move, to shift, and I kept looking up at the moon, hoping the night would stay bright until I made it through my own front door.
We got about halfway down the road to my house when the car sputtered.
“Uh-oh,” Mrs. Miller said.
“What do you mean, ‘uh-oh?’” Abra asked.
She groaned. “I forgot to get gas today when I went into town. I think we’re going to run out.”
“Mom!” Abra said. “Why do you always do this?”
As she said that the engine sputtered again, this time louder and more persistently. Before I even had a chance to hope that we’d at least make it to my driveway, the engine stalled out and Mrs. Miller guided the car to the side of the road.
Everything was very quiet. Abra’s baby brother slept beside us, his face oblivious to the world. Mrs. Miller sat in the driver’s seat, not yet accepting that we had run out of gas. She tried to start it again. Nothing. Abra and I looked at each other. I was more scared than I could ever remember—more scared than when I had been hiding in the attic, more scared than when I saw the lightning strike the tree, even more scared than when the three dogs attacked me. During all of that stuff I had been in the middle of the action, but there in the car, on that moonlit night, I was waiting. Waiting to see what would happen next. And the waiting filled me with fear.
“Well, who’s walking to Sam’s house?” Mrs. Miller asked with a wry smile.
I tried to think it through. I remembered my father’s words about the Amarok.
It only devours those who are foolish enough to hunt alone.
“Why don’t you two stay here with the baby and I’ll go?” Mrs. Miller suggested. “It’s not very far. The church’s parking lot light is right up there.”
“No,” I said. “No. Abra and I will go.”
“You just don’t want to watch the baby again,” Mrs. Miller teased. “Okay. Please ask your dad to bring me some gas, just enough to get me home. And tell him I’m so sorry.”
Abra and I stared at each other across the dark backseat of the car, and I opened the door. The two of us got out. A cool breeze blew through the valley, much colder than you would expect to have on a July night. I slammed the door behind us. The sound of it closing felt sudden and irrevocable. There was no going back.
We walked quickly, our feet making far too much noise on the gravel road. Abra grabbed on to the side of my shirt exactly as she had held my sleeve at the funeral. But there was nothing affectionate about the way she latched on to me that night. She was scared, and I could sense it in her grip.
Halfway from the car to the lane, I stumbled, my feet kicking up loose stones.
“Shh!” Abra said quickly.
“I know, I know,” I whispered.
We were getting closer and closer to my mailbox. The church light was getting brighter and brighter, and the nearer we got to that light, the better we felt. I looked over at Abra, and because of that light I could clearly see her face. She looked back at me and smiled. We would make it. We were almost there.
The church light blinked out.
I’ve always found it eerie when a streetlight blinks out, but usually where there’s one streetlight there are many, and when one goes out it leaves a dim gap in the long line of those that stayed on. But this was different because there was only one light, and we were in the middle of the country, so when it blinked out everything went dark. We were left with the pale face of the moon and the faraway pinholes of light that came from my house.
We moved closer together and walked slower, quieter. We listened for any other sounds, and when we thought we heard something we stopped, my finger on my lips, Abra barely breathing. Then we took a few more slow steps, cringing at every crunch the gravel made under our feet.
Nighttime shadows can be tricky things, shifting and moving in ways that daytime shadows don’t. The breeze rustled the weeds that lined the small space between the road and the fields, so the dim shadows on the road were always moving, waving back and forth. The trees, too, faded here and there, as if they weren’t rooted to the ground, as if that cool wind had somehow freed them.
But from the depths of these nighttime shadows, a darker thing appeared. It moved toward us from the church, and the closer it got, the colder the wind became. The darkness I had felt in my heart during those days after my mother’s death seemed drawn to it. All the lies and deceit and anger at my mother’s passing gained lives of their own and rose inside me, as if they were given new life. As if they were rising from the dead.
Abra and I stopped walking.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
I shook my head as if I didn’t know, but I knew. I just didn’t want to say the words.
That dark shadow moved faster as it approached, and it raced past us along the side of the road. Everything in me screamed, Run! Run into the woods and hide! But Abra clung to my shirt and I knew I couldn’t leave her. The darkness inside me shouted, Leave! The Amarok isn’t here for you. Run away, and it will take Abra but you will be safe. Better one of you is devoured than both of you.
That voice, it was calm and convincing, and what it told me made sense. I grabbed Abra’s hand, the one clinging to my shirt, as if I was going to hold it, but instead I dropped it down to my side.
“What are we going to do?” she hissed as the shadow blew past us again, back up the other side of the road.
Every time it passed us, the darkness inside me grew, and my desire to run became almost overwhelming.
“What about this?” Abra asked, pulling the sword out from behind her.
“You have it?” I asked.
There it was, the moonlight glinting off its surface.
“I tucked it in the back of my pants, under my shirt,” she whispered.
She pushed it slowly out in front of her. The shadow paused, then approached. I could finally see its form—the wolflike shape, the massive size, the huge paws, agile and ready on the gravel. Its eyes glittered in the moonlight, and something else shone.
Its teeth.
Abra brandished the blade, but the Amarok only drew into itself before expanding larger, taller, fiercer. Before, it seemed ready to play with us, to bat at us with its paws and devour us happily—but once it saw the sword, it seemed full of rage. It took one step toward us. Another. Its eyes squinted, and I could hear the softest movement of gravel as it approached. Soon it was so close that even in the dim moonlight I could see its nose curling. I remembered what it had said to me in my dream.
That fruit does not belong to you.
I got ready to run.
Then I saw a bright light and heard a voice calling out to us through the darkness. The nighttime breeze got warmer and stronger, and I caught the smell of cut hay coming from a neighboring field, mingling with the far-off sound of the river. The Amarok melted away, like a shadow when the light comes on.