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PAIN LANCED through my kidney where I’d taken the kick from behind. My kneecaps ached from how I’d landed.
“Where did it go?” I wheezed. “Where is The Char?”
Martha stared, unfazed, as if she hadn’t noticed anything.
Plaka fell to my side. “It disappeared on impact. Martha didn’t show any sign that she noticed The Char.”
I groaned, wondering whether she would have felt its presence had it attacked her. I certainly felt the blow. “Martha?”
The woman turned to me. “Charles?”
“Is there a way to speed up her healing, Plaka? I’d like to question her, but we can’t be playing the name game after every other sentence. It would help if she were lucid.”
“She must have been here for a long time. I suppose we could find Charles or transport one of his silhouettes for a visit.”
“There’s not enough time. He may be somewhere here for all we know.”
Plaka patted my shoulder. “I realize that, but reversing the process she’s been through won’t be immediate.” He turned to the woman and frowned. “Perhaps we could find someone more receptive. Someone who hasn’t been here as long. It will be difficult to leave her after seeing her progress, just to turn right back into what she was when we found her.”
I agreed, but there was nothing we could do about it. If this place were the result of the TSTA’s convictions, then who else was there to report it to? The Aborealians would be ready for war at any moment, but that was only one world. Who knew how many worlds the TSTA had under their control? Or how many ethereal beings.
Plaka and I continued our search for Calla. He briefly tried to heal a couple more of the lost that we saw on the way. One was a man with aviator goggles and a walking cane. The first word out of his mouth was “Adriana?” The second lost, also male, mumbled something we couldn’t quite make out. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was the name of whomever he’d been searching.
We moved on.
After passing several more lost who were under attack by flashes of white—Uproars—highlighting the clouds up above, we found another woman. She knelt, alone, sipping handfuls of water from a pond sprinkled with lily pads. Like the water, the lily pads were silver and motionless.
I held my breath while Plaka lifted her from the ground and administered his healing, hoping it would work this time.
The woman flailed her arms and screamed. Plaka held her tightly, soothing her with words, until she settled down. Her chest heaved through a knitted coat that fell to her ankles. A shawl covered her shoulders.
“Henry! Henry! Help, me, Henry. I’ve been caught, caught.”
“Calm. Breathe, and tell me your name.”
Her chest convulsed, but gradually her breathing slowed. “Rachel. My name is Rachel. Rachel. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. I have to find Henry. I have to find him. Henry. I-have-to-find-Henry-to-find-him-to-find-him-to-find-him-to-find-Henry.”
I sighed and squeezed my forehead. So much for finding someone lucid.
“Rachel, listen to me,” bellowed Plaka.
She twitched toward his voice. A flicker of recognition reached her eyes. Presumably she responded to her name being spoken. “But Henry...”
“Rachel.”
She jerked. Her body locked into position like a mannequin when Plaka let go.
“We’re here to help,” he said. He pointed to another of the lost. “Do you see him? Do you see the light attacking him?”
She bobbed her head up and down. “The Uproars! They’re here. One followed me here, all the way here. Here, here, here. They attack.” She looked up and stabbed a finger at the sky. “No day, no night, always. There’s only always. Always!”
“They chased you through time and space until you ended up here?”
“Yes, Yes. Yes. Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes.” She shrank to the ground, trembling, as another flash of light blasted the man whom Plaka had pointed out.
The man continued staring into space as if nothing had happened. Had an Uproar attacked in any other time or place I’d visited, the man would have been knocked to the ground, perhaps injured, depending on the strength of the impact.
Plaka held Rachel by the shoulders, gently. “Why doesn’t the man move? Why doesn’t he fight back?”
“I don’t know. Don’t know. I. Don’t know.”
“Breathe, Rachel. You’re doing well.”
She nodded, her head bobbing furiously. “But we can feel it. The attack, the pain. The fear. Fear, all of the fear. Our loss, our pain. Loss and fear. Pain-we-feel-pain-loss-fear. Loss, loss, loss, loss, loss.”
The more she talked about pain and fear, the more I began to realize what being not just lost, but Lost, was all about. It was both physical and mental. My stomach twisted, churning acid and bile until it bubbled up to my throat. If Calla was here, then she would feel all of that pain and loss. As much as I wanted to find her, as much as I wanted to take away her pain, I feared what we would discover once we found her.
Susana was enough to make the sane who were merely onlookers lose their sanity.
“I’ve heard enough,” I said. “I can’t take it anymore. Plaka, please. Help me find Calla and get her out of here.”
“But, Henry!”
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Plaka said, smoothing her hair back. “You’ve done well. Thank you. Once we figure out how to save the Lost, we’ll save you. All of you. But until then, I must find who I’m searching for too.”
“No!” She fell to her knees. “I have to find Henry. I have to find him. Henry. I-have-to-find-Henry-to-find-him-to-find-him-to-find-him-to-find-Henry.”
Turning our backs on Rachel was one of the most difficult things I’d ever had to do. I worried that she’d helped us more than we’d be able to help her in return. She’d revealed more about Susana, the Uproars and the Lost than we’d thought possible.
If I understood what I saw, then the Uproars had already completed their tasks of driving the Lost to Susana. They chased their victims continuously, while those they pursued continued to run through time and space, until they became Lost—until they ended up in Susana. My fear of putting Calla in danger in Susana was gone. It didn’t matter that I was present. I couldn’t lead the Uproars to her. If she was in Susana, then they’d already found her and driven her here. Without me.
My nails bit into the insides of my palms as we continued our search. I chided myself, repeatedly. I never should have left her. Each time the Uproar tried to attack Calla, I’d helped her to escape. Except perhaps the first time at the dock when it had already been there, waiting. But for whom? Me?
A hopeful thought nagged at the back of my mind. Had my presence been a blessing rather than a burden to those I’d loved? The bond I had with my father may have prevented him from ending up in Susana. He was allowed to die, instead of becoming Lost and tormented forever. It was possible that Calla had become Lost because I was no longer with her. Because, without me, she had to keep running. Having not been with her every single moment, it was possible that her Uproar—the one that had been Plaka’s—had attacked her without me. Lack of knowledge, sometimes, gives one hope.
I picked up my pace, with Plaka following at my heels. We hoofed past more of the Lost, and their still water-bodies of Nowheres and their constant torture by Uproars and The Chars.
I thought about Edgar, how Calla said he’d stared into space and the silver brook at the Workshop at the Woods. He could be here now, still alive and Lost, washing imaginary plumples in a replica of his brook, fixed in Susana. His despair over Shirlyn’s infraction had led him to a place that became a Nowhere. But he’d said the Workshop in the Woods was not an un-place, that my father had built it with his World Builder talent. Had my father figured out some way to protect Edgar from Uproars and The Chars? Was there more than one way to get to Susana than being chased by an Uproar? Nick had found a way to port us here.
And then there was the matter of Ray. His tattoo. Someone must have known about Susana to have inked the message on his person. Someone who had been here, or who had heard of it. I wondered if that individual had been to Susana and had somehow escaped. Whether he (or she) had found a way to escape on his own, or whether someone had come to his rescue. Maybe that someone was here now.
Lights flashed from above.
Thanks to Rachel, I knew each flash meant one of the Lost was getting a dose of fear and pain. But none of the Lost screamed. Their silence made Susana all the more eerie.
Plaka gasped behind me as another figure came into view.
I felt a shock of pain and fear of my own.
A young woman stood on a dock, staring at a silver body of water that was shaped like Lake Winston.