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DIVING WAS the last way I’d expected to escape the Fire Falls. Just the thought of it nearly made me break into a cold sweat. I loved the water, but I liked being close to the surface, near the air that I needed to breathe to, you know, stay alive.
I set down my leaf plate. “We’re going underneath the Falls? Is the extra three hundred feet in height underwater?” The thought of traveling while underwater made my stomach lurch.
Immediately, my father placed his hand on my forehead. I don’t know if it was a reaction to the sound of my voice or if my face had physically greened. I breathed deeply, until I felt my clamminess subside.
Ray looked at me, concerned. “We’re not diving into water. We’re going to dive from up above, as high up into the air layer as we can get. Since only you and Valcas have the travel glasses, we’ll all need to join hands so we can travel together.”
I nodded, then frowned. Ray’s plan was an improvement over my initial thought—that we were going to swim underwater to try to gain enough momentum to travel. But two things bothered me.
First, how were we going to climb seven hundred feet without a ladder?
Second, if Valcas and I were expected to use the travel glasses again, wouldn’t the impurity ruin our eyes? Now that we’d both fully recovered, I didn’t want either one of us to be affected by the glasses. I wanted both of us to stay the way we were now, free from the slightest hint of cataracts that would cloud the color of our eyes.
I bit my lower lip so the team wouldn’t see it trembling. Part of me felt shallow feeling this way about something so superficial; but if the impurity was really an effect of travel...
I glanced over at my father. “What about the baglamas? Could we use it inside the air space instead of the travel glasses?” That, I hoped, would take care of both items that worried me—getting to the right height and not having to use the travel glasses.
My father looked at me. His blue-green eyes blazed with understanding, with insight. I finally understood what the word meant, particularly in terms of travelers, healers like my father. Insight—the ability to understand, accurately and deeply; an acute awareness that all of us knew my father had. I wondered whether his insight was part of his travel talent; whether it was something contained within the impurity of the talent; or, whether it was a personal ability, something inside him, independent of his travel talent.
“Of course,” he said. “Now that your eyes and Valcas’ eyes have been restored, I can understand your reluctance to use the travel glasses.” He brought his fingers to his lips as he continued to study me. “Although, we would still need to be in motion for the baglamas to work.”
Valcas sat there, stunned. I didn’t know if it was because he hadn’t given much thought about whether or not he was willing to give up using the travel glasses. If so, his days traveling with an unofficial object were over, effectively forcing him to play by the TSTA’s rules. Maybe he didn’t want to fill out the paperwork to travel by world building. Or, maybe it had something to do with the baglamas.
“How does the baglamas work?” I asked. “Do you need to play it to travel?”
My father smiled. His lips stretched wider than I’d ever seen, showing his teeth, one of which was made of gold. “Yes,” he said. “I will need to play it.” Suddenly, he stood up. “It has been a long time since I’ve played that song. I must practice.” Then, without another word, he turned and hurried back through the tunnel, leaving his light sticks behind.
“That was strange... even for him,” Ivory said. “He just got up, all dreamy eyed, and ran away.”
Valcas shrugged. “Plaka can be unpredictable, and once his mind is set—I hope he doesn’t get too excited. We still have to figure out the logistics. There’s not enough horizontal space to run to gain enough momentum to travel.” He turned to Ray. “How long do you think it will take us to build a ladder to reach a place high enough to jump?”
Ray frowned. “Seeing as we would need to dig into one of the rocky ends of the Falls to make a rough ladder or gather enough stone to build a stable base...” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Both options sound like they would take forever.”
Ivory unsheathed her knife, twirled it a couple of times and flipped it from one hand to another. “Who else has a cutting tool?”
The boys and I looked at her in silence.
“Yep,” she said, jamming the blade into the ground. “Forever. Just when I thought we were close to having a plan too.” She narrowed her eyes. “Assuming we do figure that out, we should think about where we’re going. Where would be the best place to find ourselves once we ditch this place?”
“Before meeting Plaka,” Ray said, “I would have said right outside of TSTA Headquarters to announce that we’ve completed our mission. I don’t think Plaka would be on board with that idea.”
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing the watch the TSTA had given me. “But how do we let the TSTA know that we rescued him?”
“What is that, Calla?” Valcas said. “I noticed that you’ve been wearing it ever since we left TSTA Headquarters.”
“It’s a watch,” I said, swiping the watch face through the different time zones. “The TSTA gave it to me with my assignment.”
Everyone’s eyes were on me.
“What?” I asked. “Didn’t everybody get one?”
“Let me take a look at that,” said Valcas.
I handed Valcas the watch. He looked it over and frowned. “It doesn’t appear to be useful,” he said. He swiped the watch face and tapped it a few times. “Not that I expect it would be able to do much in here, where we can’t use the travel glasses to travel or communicate.”
“But it is useful,” I said, defending the watch. “It tells time—it’s the only way I know how long we’ve been here behind the Falls.”
Valcas looked at me skeptically. “Twenty-two days is not a particularly large amount of time to keep track of,” he said. He was right, about the time. With the help of the watch, I’d counted twenty-two days too. Could the watch have other uses?
“Do you want to find out if it does anything else inside the air layer?” I said.
Valcas nodded. “I might as well try to do something productive.” He grinned. “Maybe it will tell me how to get us out of here.”