“SHUT UP AND keep paddling,” Josh growled over his shoulder. “This isn’t as easy as it looks.”
The older boy was lying on the bow of the short kayak with both hands in the river a few inches apart. A vee of calm water expanded back through the wild churn of the flood from those points of contact, collapsing in again a few yards behind us.
“I just asked when—”
“I said ‘shut it,’ Monroe!”
I felt a sudden tugging on my paddle. Glancing along its length, I saw a hole about the size of my palm open in the water to my left. For about one second the dark patch reminded me of Dave’s newfound magic, but then, as it grew, I realized …
“Whirlpool!”
“In that case,” said Josh, “the answer to your earlier question is ‘now.’”
The whirling hole in the water grew rapidly, pulling the kayak sharply down and to the left as we began a slow spin. “Are we going to die?”
He shrugged. “I sure hope not.”
Within seconds, we were a yard below the surface of the river and the top of the whirlpool was fifteen feet across. Between the spinning and the terror, I had to fight not to throw up. We continued to sink until we were ten feet down. At that point, the mouth of the funnel above began to close, though both the spin and size remained constant down where we were.
“That’s new.” Josh didn’t sound happy as he rolled over onto his back to watch the waters shut out the sky.
Soon, the aperture above had dwindled to a tiny circle no bigger than a dime, enclosing us in something very like a giant bubble. The spinning slowed, though it never quite stopped. A stripe of foam more than a yard across appeared in the wall of water, shaping itself into a mouth—a grim smile teasing its white lips as they kept pace with our circling progress. A pair of huge catfish slid forward into the place where eyes should have been, their barbels making tentacled lashes around their widely opened mouths. The face had no nose.
“Uh, hi?” Feeling like an idiot, I waved at the enormous face. “I could use some help.” A soon-to-be-dead idiot, at that.
“Tell me why I should not simply destroy you, boy.”
I shook my head. “Nope. We did that one before. If you haven’t destroyed me yet, it’s because you have a good reason not to. I’m not playing that game.”
“You are arrogant.”
“Probably, given how many people have said so. Also, if you believe my teachers, stubborn, sarcastic, and unwilling to apply myself. None of that has anything to do with the fact I need your help, or that you have reasons of your own for giving me a hand. Otherwise, why are we here?”
The paired catfish shut their mouths with an almost audible snap and the white foam lips grew darker as turbulence swirled mud through the water. Up front, Josh gently but repeatedly smacked his head against the plastic bow of the kayak.
After perhaps a minute, the mouths snapped open again. “I will aid you, but do not speak again if you wish to live, boy. My tolerance rides the edge of a breaking wave.
“What you wish to do cannot be accomplished with any structure built by the Winter King, nor in a place of his power. Your father is buried deep. Perhaps too deep for you to reach. But only in the attempt can the possibility of the thing be realized one way or the other. The verses I gave you in the heart of winter were a test you passed. Have another.
“Find the father, bound in stone.
Seed of power, tied to bone.
The key, a Crown high and fair
The lock, silver bright and rare
Patterns carved in ancient rite.
Seal the bond with fire bright.”
The catfish turned in the water, pointing their mouths at Josh. “Hide him as he needs, my disciple. But do not guide him. The riddle’s answer is his to find. Now go.”
The waters opened suddenly wide and our whirlpool spat us out with a sound like the roar of a mud-drenched lion.
* * *
“Maybe it’s simpler than that.” I turned to where Sparx sat between the model of the capitol and the circle containing the Crown. “Maybe this time I need to stop thinking so hard and just do it.”
We’d been hashing over the riddle, what it might mean and how to address it, for hours. Given Oscar’s note, Sparx thought he could probably reverse engineer much of the necessary spell structure, but none of that mattered if we couldn’t figure out where my dad was trapped.
“Do what?!” The hare threw his paws wide. “Because I’m not seeing it.”
“Use the Crown, obviously. If it’s the key, then maybe my scar is the silver lock.”
Before Sparx could argue, I raised the Corona Borealis and set it on my brow. It felt cool against my forehead but not cold—more like exposed skin on a breezy fall day than the pressure of a thing of metal and adamant. I could sense its power rising as the spring fallow came to an end.
“Well?”
I sighed. “Nothing. It feels stronger now but … wait a second.” I thought back to my experience on Oscar’s throne below, about how it felt like the stone was doing the thinking for me. “The patterns in the Crown…”
“What about them?”
“What if they’re like the lines of a magical circuit? A really complex one, like a magical computer core.”
“I’m not following you, kid. Computers aren’t really my thing.”
“When I was on the throne, it worked with the Crown to let me do more than I could by myself. It sort of … thought for me. Like a computer. And, it had all these lines through it like the Crown does, or like a circuit. What if part of the way the Crown amplifies power is by acting as a magical computer? Letting you think through spells and stuff much faster than you could on your own.”
The hare blinked. “Interesting theory, but how will you use it? You aren’t the Summer King yet. Well, and we’re trying to prevent that because it’s going to destroy you.”
“No, but I have the scar and I am the … I don’t know, Crown Prince. Maybe I can tap some of that. Let me try.” Guided by a sudden impulse, I reached up and pressed the place where the Crown rested above the scar on my forehead. “Yeah…”
“What?”
“I can feel a connection, but it wants something more. I … think I need to go outside. Come on!” I dashed up the stairs and out into the backyard where I looked at the stars and … “YES!” I turned to see Sparx waving frantically and making zip-your-lips motions. Oh, right. Oops.
I let him lead me back to the basement where he hopped onto a table. “Now, talk.”
“Once I got outside I could feel the Crown sort of reach out to the real Corona Borealis, the constellation. It was a weak contact, but I think I can steer by the stars.”
“All right, but I see a few problems.”
“Like the fact that if we don’t want Morgan and Oscar to find out what I’m doing, we’ll need Josh again. Also, I need to leave you behind to play decoy.”
“Yeah, those’d be big ones. Since I can’t come with you I’m going to have to go there myself as soon as possible after you find the place.” He sighed. “I wish you could get Dave to do this stuff instead of Josh.”
“You and me both, but even if he had the right powers, I’d hate to run the risk of getting him into any more trouble with his mom.” I sighed. “Besides, we don’t have a lot of choice, and Mississippi did tell Josh to help me. When we parted ways this afternoon, he gave me his cell number. Let me give him a call.”
Josh wasn’t any happier to hear from me than I was to have to call him, but he did promise to be there in an hour. A bit after midnight I stood in my backyard with Josh beside me, the Crown on my head, and a watery shimmer of illusion all around us, while Sparx perched on the rooftop above, pretending to be me.
“You look awfully pretty in that shiny hat, Monroe, but I had plans for the night. Can we maybe speed this up?”
“Working on it.” The problem was, while I could feel a link and the stars definitely wanted to help, they were being pretty vague about where exactly to steer me. I was beginning to think I’d been premature in believing I had this.
So, what was I missing? I started to run through the riddle again:
Find the father, bound in stone.
Seed of power, tied to bone.
Oh. Of course.
Reaching inward, I tried to touch the place in my heart where stone lived. But all I could find there was fire. Disappointing, but not unexpected. I hated the whole idea of having earth within, and reaching for something I didn’t want to even exist was never going to be easy. So, find a different angle. But what?
Find the father, bound in stone.
Seed of power, tied to bone.
Well, I had written a new shape into my bones when I cast the Dragon’s Wings, if only semi-intentionally, and that was because of my earth magic. Maybe that was my way in now. I concentrated on my bones, on the feeling of ideograms writing themselves into my shoulder blades and spine and ribs, on the place where fire and stone had merged to become a part of my very skeleton.
I almost had it when the dragon came wide awake within me—angry, hungry, fierce, eager to rain fire and death upon its enemies. Sweat broke out all over my body as I fought a silent battle with the creature I had unknowingly invited inside my skin. It wanted out, to fly and hunt and rend. I felt a terrible desire to let it take me, to simply give up on human cares and hurts.
But if I did that, I would give up all my human joys, too—my friendship with Dave, my genuine affection for my school with all its quirks and characters, the deep bonds of love and pity that tied me to my mother … That last relationship—by far the most difficult—was also the one that gave me the strength I needed now.
If I let go of everything, my mother would have no one and nothing. My aunt’s presence was temporary. When Noelle went back to the earth, my mother would have no anchor at all and she would be lost. I couldn’t let that happen. No matter how angry she made me, I still loved her and she needed me.
Maybe that wasn’t supposed to be the way the world worked, and thirteen was too young for that much weight to fall on my shoulders. But that didn’t make it not true. That didn’t relieve me of the responsibility to do what I could for her. I had to at least try to help her, and that knowledge gave me the strength to force the dragon back down into my bones, to bind it there, and put a deep sleep upon it using the powers I had been given—forcing it into a sort of hibernation.
I can’t really explain how I did those things because it was an act of love melding stone and fire, and the words to describe it don’t properly exist in either elemental tongue, much less in English. But I managed it and that connected me to the place where earth lived within my bones. I still couldn’t touch the stone in my heart, but I didn’t have to. When the powers moved through me, I felt the fire that tied me to my mother like a lodestone. That gave me the insight to find the bond between stone and father in my bones, if not my heart.
Turning slowly, I felt that bond pulling on my skeleton like the north pole on a compass. The link between the earthly Crown and its heavenly twin flexed, and a star that didn’t exist appeared like a pointer in the sky. A star only I could see. Between the star and the tugging on my bones, I had it. There! My father was that way, and closer than I’d expected. Much closer. Within a few miles, if I was reading the signs properly. Fetching my bike out of the garage, I began to ride, barely aware of Josh close beside me on his bike.
I stopped at the foot of a tall hill in a small park in a neighborhood I’d never been to before. According to my watch, it was closer to three than two. Clouds hid the stars, making it very dark indeed, since there were no streetlights in the depths of the park. But I didn’t need light. As soon as I got off my bike and my feet hit the ground, I just knew where everything was. Everything that touched or changed the ground anyway, all the dips and rises, every tree and each of its branches, a park bench I might have run into at another time.
Walking slowly with my bike beside me, I followed the line of the hill about a quarter of the way around until I came to an outcrop of stone like a flat wall. I slid the hand that shard of stone had melted into along the surface because I had a better feel for things of earth on that side. The wall was cold and hard—solid as a mountain. I was almost there, but not quite. I stepped forward into the stone. I should have broken my nose. Instead, I found myself pushing through what felt like a thick velvet curtain into an enormous cave. The darkness was as deep as that I had fought under the capitol, but empty and devoid of presence. I couldn’t see, but again, I knew my surroundings. I stood within a great and hollow hill.
“Okay, this is all creepier than a drowned corpse.” Josh’s hand fell away from my shoulder, a contact I only noticed as it ended. “I don’t suppose you thought to bring a light?”
Josh. Sigh. I wanted nothing more than to leave him in the dark, but I owed him. With a snap and a twist of my will, I summoned fire to dance along the fingers of my left hand, holding it high like a torch.
At the very center of the vast cavern, a broad natural-seeming staircase led into a hole perhaps thirty feet across, though it only went down three and a half steps. A smooth cap of stone blocked further progress. The pull on my bones drew me down into that well where I knelt and ran a finger along the floor. It felt like volcanic glass—slick and smooth as a frozen lake—with patterns that reminded me of a finely whorled marble as they gaudily reflected the red light of my burning hand.
“Where are we?” Josh had followed.
“I … I think this is where my father is trapped.” I pressed both palms to the stone floor. “Yes. I can almost…” Letting the Crown guide me again, I bent and pressed my forehead against the slick surface.
CONTACT
A charge like cold lightning jumped from the stone to the Crown, flickering from point to point and filling my mind with …
—deep, slow thoughts, like water trickling through cracks in an ancient vase—
—stone dreaming of self in an unsleeping mind—
—a fragmented presence—
—kinship—
I shoved myself away from the floor, pushing so hard I fell over backward. The Crown tumbled from my brow with a metallic crash.
“I’m all right!” I hoped so, anyway. “I’m all right.”
“Do I look like I care, Monroe?”
But I hardly heard. “I think I touched my father’s thoughts. They were…” What was the phrase I wanted? “Not entirely human.”
“That’d explain a lot,” said Josh.
I ignored the dig. “It’s like he isn’t actually aware of himself as something distinct from the stone that surrounds him … as if he were thinking with a mind that’s as much a thing of rock as it is of flesh.”
I had a sudden insight. When I became the dragon, I thought as a dragon thinks. Maybe my dad had taken on the mental shape of the stone that contained him. “Yeah.” I nodded to myself. “Yeah, that feels right.”
“So, your dad’s a rock that thinks? That’s some pretty weird stuff, Monroe.” For the first time Josh sounded almost interested, and I remembered that his family was … challenging. “Can you even talk with him when he’s like that? Mind to mind, I mean? Because you’re going to have some serious trouble convincing a boulder to become the Summer King.”
I winced. “I don’t know. I can feel he’s there, but communicate … His thoughts are … well, let’s just say stone doesn’t much care about something as brief and fragile as flesh, even his son.”
I felt a sharp, almost physical pain in my heart—a stab of loss that caught me by surprise. Here I was, closer to my father than I’d ever expected, and he didn’t even know about it. How was I going to make a stone into the Summer King? I couldn’t touch him or speak to him or … anything. Fear followed the pain. This wasn’t going to work. How could it? Noelle had been right; there was no reaching my father.
I climbed out of the pit, breathing jaggedly and pacing as I tried to force down the loss and pain that filled my chest. Don’t think about it. Don’t let it hurt. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. I had lots of practice at not thinking about things that hurt, and soon enough the moment passed. When I was sure I had it together again, I retrieved the Crown.
I felt exhaustion fill me like water pouring into a vase then. “Holy crap, I’m beat.” I looked at Josh, realizing only in the moment I did so that the flames on my fingers had faded almost to nothing. “I think we’re done for tonight. Or, wait a second … bother. Sparx.”
I really didn’t have the energy, but I needed to leave a marker. “Ash and char, sun and star, wind and smoke, ash and oak.” I touched one burning finger to the floor at the top of the stairs and drew the ideogram for a long-burning ember.
Now, if I could just make it home without crashing my bike …
The first challenge came at the exit. The wall of rock was every bit as solid on this side as it had been on the way in. But when the Crown fell off earlier, I’d lost that deep sense of connection with my father and the earth that had opened the way. When I tried to walk through the wall this time, I nearly did break my nose.
Josh laughed and let go of my shoulder. “That almost makes this whole trip worth it. If you could see the look on your face…”
“Gosh, thanks.” I gingerly felt my nose and dabbed at a fresh cut on my cheek. “I’m so happy to be able to provide you with a show. I don’t suppose you have any clever ideas on how to get through this thing? Because I’m not sure how I did it last time.”
“You’d best figure it out quicklike. If we’re stuck in here for good, I’m going to end up cracking your bones for the marrow.”
As soon as he spoke, I realized the answer. With a sigh, I put the Crown back on and reached inward. It took three draining attempts to recapture some sense of connection to the earth that resided in my bones and open the way, and I pulled the Crown off again the instant we reached the outside world. As the heir, I could use its powers, but it cost me in a way I doubted it cost the rightful ruler.
In my exhaustion and with my earlier sense of the earth faded away, I ran into several trees and that park bench. Once we finally got back to the street, we climbed onto our bicycles and started the long ride back to my house. I thought for a moment that I saw a coyote slip out of the shadows under the trees and fall in behind us, but I was too tired to be certain.
When I got home at four I waved goodbye to Josh, then collapsed on my bed without taking my clothes off. I slept right on through till Sunday evening. As soon as I woke, I told an impatient Sparx how to find the hollow hill. I also told him I didn’t think our plan would work, but I’d barely finished speaking when he vanished in a puff of smoke.
Despite all the things I needed to do, I headed for the attic after having a very late first meal. Dinfest? Breaker? Whatever. Sparx would be gone for a while and I needed to get my head straight. Pretty much since the day I first met the fire hare I’d been rushing from one emergency to the next with no end in sight. Now I was about to … what? Force my long-absent father—who happened to be a giant rock at the moment—into becoming the Summer King? How crazy was that?
It only took a moment to scamper up the shingles to my spot by the chimney. I’d come to love it up on the roof away from everyone, especially at night. It was incredibly soothing to simply sit and stare at the stars and pretend I was alone in the universe, and I found myself needing that more and more. For a little while at least, I didn’t have to think about anything. Not the Crown. Not magic. Not my family. Not even me.
Time slipped quietly by until, “Kalvan!” My mother’s voice, harsh and bitter, called up from the window below.
Her anger startled me. “Yeah, Mom? What’s wrong?” I pivoted and used the chimney to pull myself upright—getting down and back in through the skylight safely was a bit of a process.
“I want to talk to you, now!”
“I…” Something in her tone made me pause as I grabbed for the roof-peak. “About what?”
“Your behavior. You’ve been sneaking out at night. I want to know why, and what you’ve been doing.”
Instead of climbing down, I answered from where I was. “I haven’t gone out that much, and really I’ve just been going to the park. Sparx has been with me most of the time.”
“I know there’s more to it than that. Don’t lie to me, Kalvan!”
“I’m not lying! I—”
“Last night when you were up there, I could smell the dark magic on you!”
I opened my mouth to try to explain about Mississippi’s charm and Sparx acting the decoy, but closed it again without saying anything when I realized it didn’t matter what I said. She was using her crazy voice. The angry version. I hadn’t recognized it initially because she’d never directed it at me before. My heart went cold and heavy in my chest.
Growing up with my mom’s mental illness had forced me to develop a sort of sixth sense for when she was … off. It was a survival skill, plain and simple. One that had grown stronger in the months since I drove Oscar away and his stabilizing influence on my mother failed. She was way off now, and she was off at me for the first time ever. I could hear it in her tone and her cadence, but most of all I could hear it in her certainty.
I don’t know what she believed I’d been doing while I was out of the house, or even if the times I was gone had any correspondence with the times she believed I was gone. But really, it didn’t matter. There was no reason the reality of the world had to have anything to do with the reality inside her head. What mattered was that there is no arguing with mental illness. Not my mom’s anyway. Her brain is broken in a way that makes her believe things that aren’t true—really believe them in her bones. I could argue the clock around and all it would do would be to make her more certain I was lying to her.
“Kalvan, you come down here right now and explain yourself!”
I didn’t answer. There was no point. Instead, I settled myself back into the gap between the roof and the chimney.
“Kalvan!”
I looked up into the stars and tried to pretend I couldn’t hear anything at all.
“You are going to be in so much trouble when you get down here!”
I clenched my fists until I thought the knuckles would pop right off, but I didn’t answer, and I didn’t look away from the stars.
“Kalvan, if you don’t come in this minute, there will be severe consequences.”
Don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer …
“I’ll give you to the count of five. Then I’m closing this window and locking it.”
I had to practically chew my tongue off to keep from responding.
“One, two, three—I’m serious, Kalvan—four, five.”
Don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer-don’t-answer …
“This is your own fault, Kalvan.” The window closed, and I heard the lock shut with a sharp snap. My heart made the same sound as it broke.
I’d spent my whole life knowing my mother had moments like this, delusions that went every bit as deep as the depressions, but she’d never focused the anger they could bring on me before. I wanted to make it not have happened, but it had. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.
“Kalvan…” It was Sparx’s voice this time, and so quiet he might have expected me to shatter at the sound of my name.
I kept my eyes on the stars. “Go away.”
“I—”
“Go away!”
Sparx vanished with a little popping noise.
Silence.
I needed that. Time passed and I realized I was cold despite the fire in my heart. I thought about going in to get out of the night air, but the window was locked. There were probably any number of things I could do about that, but none of them seemed worth the effort.
More time passed.
Hunger joined the cold. I tried not to care, but it didn’t work. I would have to eat at some point, and it would be smart to get in out of the cold, but the window was locked.
The window was locked.
My mother had locked me out on the roof.
My mother.
My mother!
The fires that had been burning low in my heart suddenly flared wild and red and full of rage like nothing I’d ever felt. I moved without thinking, monkeying my way over and down to stare in through the locked window. The fires within grew hotter and angrier and my hand burst into a flame so intense I could barely look at it. I punched through the window, but it didn’t shatter. It melted away from my burning hand and drops of molten glass dripped onto the counter below, leaving scorched holes in the laminate.
Twisting my arm, I grabbed hold of the lock, popping it open. The brass withstood the heat longer than the window had, but I felt the mechanism fuse in place an instant later. No one would ever lock me out like that again. With my other hand, I wrenched the window open. I slipped inside, dropping from the ledge to the counter to the floor.
I heard the door at the foot of the stairs open, and I almost turned to go back out the window. I couldn’t bear the thought of dealing with my mom right now, but the voice that called my name belonged to my aunt instead of my mother.
“Kalvan? Are you all right? I heard some odd noises…” She trailed off as her head came into view and she saw the hole in the window and the smoke coming off the counter.
After a moment she spoke again, her tone gentle. “That’s not good.”
“She locked me out.” The words fell out of my mouth seemingly in defiance of my will. “She locked me out, and then I punched a hole in the window.”
Noelle nodded. “Your father broke a coffee table in half.”
“I … what?” I couldn’t make sense of what she was telling me.
“Our mother put her fist through a plaster wall—broke two knuckles.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not your fault, Kalvan. Genny has that effect on people.”
“But I broke the window…”
“It’s. Not. Your. Fault.” She sighed. “It’s not her fault, either. She can’t help herself.”
“I broke the window.”
“I know. I know. It’s all right. Come here.”
I flung myself into my aunt’s arms in the same moment she opened them. She was cool and far more still than any living human could have been. It was exactly what I needed. Putting my head against her shoulder, I sobbed as I could never remember and she held me with all the patience of the dead.
Eventually, I was empty, and I stepped away from my aunt.
“It’s not your fault,” she said again. Then, “I’ll go get some duct tape; that’ll deal with the problem for now. Tomorrow, I’ll see about getting it repaired.”
Once she was gone, I went over to the window and felt the smoothly melted edge of the hole. This had to end. I had to find some help for my mother because I couldn’t go on this way. If that meant conjuring my father out of his stone prison and stapling the Crown to his forehead against his will so he could do it, that’s what I would do. And if it couldn’t be done, well, then I would die trying and it would all be somebody else’s problem.
“*sprths*al*erarha!”
With a flash of red light and a puff of heat, the hare appeared on the counter. “You summoned me?”
“We need to get to work.”