ARTIE DIDN’T tell Putnam about the statue’s crying or about how the water was sweet above the statue and salty downriver. He already wanted to knock the statue down; what would he do if he knew its secret?
Artie wasn’t stupid. She could read what it all meant. The statue’s tears were running down the river to the sea, turning the ocean to salt. The tears must be magical, saltier than normal tears, to do that much damage to an ocean—even if the statue had been crying for many years. The sleeve Artie had used to wipe the statue’s face had dried, coated in a thick white chalk of salt. Her shoulder—pressed against the statue to push—had also turned white. Only after drying in the sun for several hours had the thick salt patches flaked off like dried mud.
So why didn’t she just tell Putnam? After he ate, she rubbed more aloe on his wounds. Each of the five angry gutters on his back glowed red and scabby, but none looked infected anymore. As she eased the gel into each long ditch, she considered how easily Putnam could destroy the statue. It was only made of gypsum, so far as Artie could tell, and wouldn’t be hard to break. Gypsum was a soft rock.
Artie couldn’t let him. There was, she was sure, a person in there. Artie had seen her move. Hadn’t she?
But Putnam had been sent on a mission . . .
She cleared her throat, hands still on his back. “What if . . . what if you never find the thing that is making the sea turn salty? I mean, what if you don’t fulfill your mission? Will your dad and everyone—will they be mad?” She didn’t add, And will the ocean become unlivable?
He finished his apple and set the core down on the blanket. Cleared his throat. “I . . . have something to tell you.” He sounded serious.
Artie, finished with his back, wiped her hands on her leggings and moved to sit in front of him. “What?”
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t exactly get sent on a mission.”
“What do you mean? You aren’t trying to find out why the water is salty?”
“No, I’m trying to figure it out,” he said. “And fix it. But I wasn’t told to. No one sent me. I just sent myself.” He picked up the core and tossed it into the bushes, then winced and groaned.
Artie peeked at his back. He hadn’t broken any of the scabs open. “Maybe don’t throw for a while.”
Putnam nodded.
“So. Basically you just ran away from home?”
He nodded once, jaw set.
“Are you—are you planning to ever go back to Raftworld?”
His eyes flipped up to stare at her. “Of course. I only ran away until I could figure out the salt and fix it. Fix the ocean. Then I go back.”
And he’d return a hero. She could see the pull of that, how exciting it would be. That is, if people love you and admire you already, then saving the world would make everything even better, because you’d be proving to them that they weren’t wrong to care about you.
“What if you don’t figure it out? Then what happens when you come home?”
He shrugged in a closed-off way that reminded her of herself. “I never thought about that.”
They both sat for a moment. Artie wasn’t sure what Putnam was thinking now, but she was imagining if she returned home after this journey. It was hard to even predict how angry her stepfather would be and how he’d take it out on her. She couldn’t think what Putnam would be facing. Why go back at all?
“Well,” she said in what she hoped was a cheerful voice, “if we’re lucky, we’ll never find out, because you won’t have to go back. Because we don’t have any way to get back to our boat anyhow.”
He stared at her for a moment, then broke out laughing. Like she’d said something really funny. He laughed so hard his eyes filled with tears.
PUTNAM REALIZED Artie might think he was laughing at her, so he explained. “It’s the idea that I don’t need to worry about getting into trouble. I just think that’s funny. I mean, I’d much rather be able to get home, even if I’m in a little trouble.”
“I don’t get why that’s funny,” Artie said.
“I guess it’s really not.”
Artie said, “We’re kind of in the same boat. Both runaways.” She smiled.
In the same boat. Putnam hadn’t been given a mission of any kind; he’d just run away. He wasn’t any better than her. Worse, really, since it seemed like she had much better reasons for running away than he did, at least according to all the bruises he remembered, and the old scars she carried.
And although he’d finally told her the truth, he hadn’t told her the whole truth: the fight with his dad, his shame over how his dad ruled—not being willing to take action, just letting things happen. His anger over how his dad let his second mom leave. And now, his guilt over running away himself and how much, even though he was mad at his dad, he missed him. Artie never talked about her stepdad, and he could tell she didn’t miss him. Her life had been so hard. Putnam was ashamed of how easy his life had been—and how he still couldn’t handle it. Artie’s stepdad had given her the bruises, Putnam was sure of it. His dad had only given him—what? Hard words? He felt like an idiot for getting upset about that.
He was happy, though, at how much better Artie looked now, even with the new bruises from the ice tunnel: healthier, stronger, more filled out, and calmer. Not all the time; she was terrified of the bears, much more than he was. When they’d faced the beasts, she’d frozen in fear. But even so, she’d helped him escape, too. And here in the underworld she seemed genuinely happy. She still didn’t sleep well—up and down all night long, and always surprised when she woke and saw him, as if she’d forgotten that he was there and was scared of him.
But her smile was readier and more real.
“Stop staring.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking—this is kind of perfect for you. I know you didn’t plan it, but you said once that you wanted to live somewhere where there weren’t any people. And here we are.”
She blinked. “I’ll help you find a way back.”
Putnam grinned. “Did you change your mind? You want to go home?”
“Not home.” Her voice was low and sounded almost angry. “No. But if I went back with you, maybe I could find a little island to live on, back in the warm part of the world, and you could go home. You want to go home, right?”
“Of course.” But he was beginning to see that there was no of course to that question, not for everyone. “There’s an island Raftworld sometimes visits—it’s small with a deep lake in the middle. There’s good food, especially mangoes—and tiny monkeys for company. You could live there, probably. And I could visit you when Raftworld stops by for mangoes.”
Artie nodded. “I’d like that. To see you.”
“Okay, then. I’ll get us out, somehow. And we’ll find the boat—or build a new one—and we’ll get home.”
She looked like she wanted to believe him, very much.
He didn’t tell her that before they left he was going to study that statue. As weird as it seemed, he felt like the statue was what he was looking for, the key to the salty water. Maybe if he destroyed it . . .
But he didn’t tell that part to Artie. She probably wouldn’t understand.
She had a secret, too; he could tell, something she wasn’t telling him about the statue or about the underground cavern. Like she knew something he didn’t. Part of him wanted to know what it was, and the other part of him wanted to pretend that everything was okay, that they’d find their way out of here together and go back home, where they’d both be fine.
DAYS PASSED as Putnam healed and Artie explored and found food. And the days in this underground world lasted so long! Artie couldn’t get over it. The first night they were there she had noticed the difference in light from the surface. The gypsum walls seemed to soak up light during the short southern day and then glow with it for hours after the sun must have set. By the time the glow faded fully, it was almost day again. Full darkness lasted only a few minutes.
And it rained every morning. All Artie could figure out was that, high above, the ceiling of the cave must have condensation on it from the humid air that warmed up and dripped down when the sun rose. Or maybe it was so high up that there were actually clouds; she didn’t know. Once Artie and Putnam learned to pack up their blanket before the rain fell, they were fine. They let themselves get showered, and they dried off once the rain ended.
Every morning she visited the statue and studied it, but it didn’t move again. She talked to it. She said, “Please stop crying” and “How do I make you stop crying?” and “I need you to stop turning the sea to salt or Putnam might knock you down,” but nothing worked. She pushed from different angles every day, but the statue didn’t move. She even kicked it a few times, and nothing happened except her toes hurt.
Truthfully, it was hard to worry about the statue every moment. This garden was flawless. It felt to Artie exactly like she and Putnam were swaddled into a little pocket of the world, protected and hidden away. Like they were hidden inside some giant being’s luck pouch. It was impossible to imagine this world with bears—or anything scary. This lucky pocket of an underworld simply couldn’t hold terrifying things like that. Only lovely things. Only good reminders. And once Putnam’s back healed, everything would be perfect.
She did think of the statue sometimes. And the claw marks on her arm. And then she put them out of her mind, deliberately, like she was hauling out trash to the bonfire and then walking away from her old home. This place was safe. It had to be.
She hated the thought of going back to the outer world. This little pocket world, this was for her. She’d crawled inside and she never had to come out. She could almost feel a god’s heart through the fabric of this world, beating.
She’d said she’d leave because she knew Putnam wanted to go back to Raftworld. Needed to go back. His father must miss him. And Artie knew, too, that if her mother were alive, Artie would try to get back to her; she could understand Putnam’s wish to return. So she’d help him find a way out, and then she’d break it to him that she was going to stay here. Where it was safe.
But even as she thought about staying, her heart said, What about Putnam? Won’t he miss you? And won’t you miss him?
Finally, early one morning, she plunked herself down in front of the statue and just sat, wondering again how such a thing had come to exist. Putnam was still asleep. Several days had passed, and every day made him stronger. His back was healing. The scars would always be there, ugly and deep—she wasn’t a doctor, after all, and couldn’t do anything to make them fade and not pucker—but he would live. His arms and legs and everything worked well, and the tightness in his skin and back muscles seemed to lessen each day.
Meanwhile, she had a good hour or more until Putnam woke and the rain came. She sat quietly on the big rock, and this time she didn’t tell the statue to stop crying. She just talked.
“Hey,” she said, stretching her toes into the water. “I’m sorry you’re sad. And I’m sorry your arm got clawed up. I bet it was a bear, like Putnam’s scar. I’m glad you got away from it. My arm . . .” She paused, thinking. She’d never said what happened out loud. “It wasn’t a bear. It was my stepdad. He was really mad, about a whole bunch of things, and he threw the pan of hot oil, and it got all over my arm and my neck. He threw it at me.” She wasn’t telling the story right, but the statute didn’t seem to mind. “That was all after . . . after my mom died.”
She kept talking. For a long time.
The statue never frowned, never judged; she just listened.
WHEN SHE reached the end of her story, she stopped talking. It wasn’t really the end. There was more to talk about—good memories of her mom as well as the sad and bad memories—and she could tell the statue these stories, too. But for now, she’d said enough. And she felt—lighter. Unburdened.
“Um,” she said. The statue almost seemed to lean forward slightly. “I’ve been hogging all the talking. I just realized that. Do you—do you want to tell me anything?”
For a moment there was complete stillness in the garden, except for the stream quietly babbling. The birds fell silent; the crickets and cicadas ceased their chirping and humming, the bees stopped buzzing, and the leaves did not rustle—as if waiting for something important. Except for the stream, it felt like time itself had stopped.
Then the statue bent its head, just a fraction of an angle. Maybe a trick of the light.
And then it blinked.
Blinked again.
And then it opened its mouth and began to talk.