Teardrop

Eureka heaved in empathy. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She looked at her hand, then at Albion’s extended hand. What could happen if she touched him? If the twins were freed, then perhaps it would be worth whatever—

A blur of red registered in the corner of Eureka’s eye. Rhoda was running for the swing set, for her children. Ander cursed under his breath and raced after her.

“Someone please stop her,” Albion said, sounding bored. “We’d really rather not—Oh, well. Too late now.”

“Rhoda!” Eureka’s shout echoed across the lawn.

As Rhoda was passing Albion, the Seedbearer reached out and grabbed her hand. Instantly she froze, her arm as stiff as a plaster cast. Ander stopped short and hung his head, seeming to know what was coming.

Beneath Rhoda’s feet a cone of volcano-shaped earth bloomed from the ground. At first it looked like a sand boil, a bayou phenomenon whereby a dome-shaped mound rises from nothing into a powerful geyser along a flooded alluvial plain. Sand boils were dangerous because of the torrent of water they spewed from the core of their swiftly formed craters.

This sand boil spewed wind.

Albion’s hand released Rhoda’s, but a connection between them remained. He seemed to hold her by an invisible leash. Her body rose on a sprocket of inexplicable wind that shot her fifty feet into the air.

Her limbs flailed. Her red robe twirled in the air like ribbons on a kite. She soared higher, her body completely out of her control. There was a burst of sound—not thunder, more like a pulse of electricity. Eureka realized Rhoda’s body had broken through the cordon over the yard.

When she entered the storm unsheltered, Rhoda screamed. Rain siphoned through the slender gap created by her body. Wind wailed in like a hurricane. Rhoda’s red silhouette grew smaller in the sky until she looked like one of Claire’s dolls.

The bolt of lightning crackled slowly. It huddled in the clouds, lighting up pockets of dark, twisting atmosphere. When it broke through cloud and tasted bare sky, Rhoda was the closest target.

Eureka braced herself as lightning struck Rhoda’s chest with a single awesome jolt. Rhoda started to scream, but the distant sound cut off in an ugly static sizzle.

When she began to tumble downward, the flailing of her body was different. It was lifeless. Gravity danced with her. Clouds parted sadly as she passed. She crossed the boundary of the Seedbearers’ cordon, which resealed itself somehow over the yard. She thudded powerfully to the ground and left an indentation of her crumpled body a foot deep in the earth.

Eureka fell to her knees. Her hands clasped her heart as she took in Rhoda’s blackened chest; her hair, which had sizzled into nonexistence; her bare arms and legs, webbed with veiny blue lightning scars. Rhoda’s mouth hung open. Her tongue looked singed. Her fingers had frozen into stiff claws, extended toward her children, even in death.

Death. Rhoda was dead because she’d done the only thing any mother would have done: she had tried to stop her children’s suffering. But if it weren’t for Eureka, the twins wouldn’t be in danger and Rhoda wouldn’t have had to save them. She wouldn’t be burnt up, lying dead on the lawn. Eureka couldn’t look at the twins. She couldn’t bear to see them as destroyed as she’d been ever since she lost Diana.

An animalistic yelp came from behind Eureka on the porch. Dad was on his knees. Cat’s hands hung on his shoulders. She looked pale and uncertain, as if she might be sick. When Dad rose to his feet, he staggered shakily down the stairs. He was a foot away from Rhoda’s body when Albion’s voice stopped him cold.

“You look like a hero, Dad. Wonder what you’re going to do.”

Before Dad could respond, Ander reached into the pocket of his jeans. Eureka gasped when he pulled out a small silver gun. “Shut up, Uncle.”

“ ‘Uncle,’ is it?” Albion’s smile showed grayish teeth. “Giving up?” He chuckled. “What’s he got, a toy gun?”

The other Seedbearers laughed.

“Funny, isn’t it?” Ander pulled back the slide to load the gun’s chamber. A strange green light emanated from it, forming an aura around the gun. It was the same light Eureka had seen the night Ander brandished the silver case. All four Seedbearers startled at the sight of it. They grew silent, as if their laughter had been sliced off.

“What is that, Ander?” Eureka asked.

“This gun fires bullets made of artemisia,” Ander explained. “It is an ancient herb, the kiss of death for Seedbearers.”

“Where did you get those bullets?” Starling stumbled a few steps back.

“Doesn’t matter,” Critias said quickly. “He’ll never shoot us.”

“You’re wrong,” Ander said. “You don’t know what I’d do for her.”

“Charming,” Albion said. “Why don’t you tell your girlfriend what would happen if you were to kill one of us?”

“Maybe I’m past worrying about that.” The gun clicked as Ander cocked it. But then, instead of pointing the gun at Albion, Ander turned it on himself. He held its barrel to his chest. He closed his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Eureka shouted.

Ander turned to face her, the gun still at his chest. In that moment he looked more suicidal than she knew she had ever been. “Seedbearer breath is controlled by a single higher wind. It is called the Zephyr, and each of us is bound by it. If one of us is killed, all of us die.” He glanced at the twins and swallowed hard. “But maybe it’s better that way.”

31 TEARDROP

Eureka didn’t think. She charged Ander and knocked the gun from his hand. It spun in the air and slid across the grass, which had been dampened by Rhoda’s pocket of open rain. The other Seedbearers lunged for the gun, but Eureka wanted it more. She snatched it, fumbled its slippery grip in her hands. She nearly dropped it. Somehow she managed to hold on.

Her heart thundered. She had never held a gun before, had never wanted to. Her finger found its way around the trigger. She pointed it at the Seedbearers to keep them back.

“You’re too in love,” Starling taunted. “It’s wonderful. You wouldn’t dare shoot us and lose your boyfriend.”

She looked at Ander. Was it true?

“Yes, I will die if you kill any of them,” he said slowly. “But it’s more important that you live, that nothing about you be compromised.”

“Why?” Her breath came in short gasps.

“Because Atlas will find a way to raise Atlantis,” Ander said. “And when he does, this world will need you —”

“This world needs her dead,” Chora interrupted. “She is a monster of the apocalypse. She has blinded you to your responsibility to humanity.”

Eureka looked around the yard—at her father, who was weeping over Rhoda’s body. She looked at Cat, who sat huddled, shaking, on the porch steps, unable to raise her head. She looked at the twins, bound and bruised and made half orphans before their own eyes. Tears streamed down their faces. Blood dripped from their wrists. Finally, she looked at Ander. A single tear slid down the bridge of his nose.

This group comprised the only people Eureka had left to love in the world. All of them were inconsolable. It was all because of her. How much more damage was she capable of causing?

“Don’t listen to them,” Ander said. “They want to make you hate yourself. They want you to give up.” He paused. “When you shoot, aim for the lungs.”

Eureka weighed the gun in her hands. When Ander said none of them knew for sure what would happen if Atlantis were to rise, it had sent the Seedbearers into a fervor, a total rejection of the idea that what they believed might not be true.