Maya pops her head up for the first time. “I want to help!”
“And the Pool showed me Maya,” I add.
“We all know that,” Marc interrupts before Eval can say anything else. “But what you’re doing is far too strenuous for her. I could barely wake her up this morrow. Although she’s maturing, she’s still a child. The long morrows in the Barrens are exhausting her.”
“But I want to help,” Maya pleads.
I examine Maya’s face and immediately notice the dark bags under her eyes. Her waist-length hair is stringy, messy, and grimy with dust from the Barrens. I have to admit to myself that no matter how desperately I want to find Tela, it’s not worth the toll it could take on Maya.
“I’ll search on my own,” I say.
“No!” Maya shouts. “The Pool showed me to you for a reason.”
“Marc is right,” I reply to her. “The Barrens is no place for you.”
Maya looks at Eval again. “When I was still very small, not much older than Aven is now, I used to get scared if Darkness came during sleep time. I’d curl up in a ball on my bed.
“I knew the Keepers would protect me, but I was still frightened. Even though Marc would keep watch from the tunnel near my room, I hated being alone. Sash used to come to my room and sit with me until Darkness passed, but then she moved to a habitat of her own when she ended her Apprenticeship.
“During the first Darkness after Sash left, Tela heard me crying. She came to my bed and sat beside me. From then on, every time Darkness woke us, she would come to my side. By the time she became an Apprentice, I wasn’t scared of Darkness anymore. It’s my turn to help her now.”
“You’re a brave girl,” Eval says. “We’re not proposing that you give up the search, but you can’t go out every morrow. Marc has suggested every third morrow. That gives you time to rest and also stay current on your education.”
Maya fervently nods her head. “I’ll do that. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Your courage and dedication are well beyond your height,” Eval says to Maya and then looks at me again. “You and Sash can perform your duties as needed on the morrows Maya isn’t available.”
Tork has been silently standing by Eval’s side the entire time. After taking a step forward, he focuses his eyes directly on me.
“Tela has fallen to the wild sap,” he remarks in a bitter tone. “There’s almost no chance of finding her. She’s part of the Barrens now.”
“It’s not her fault,” I argue. “She didn’t make the choice to drink wild sap. It was the only way I could think of to save her life. If anyone is to blame, it’s me.”
“But even if you find her,” he counters, “no one knows if she can be restored to a person of value to the Delta.”
“We’ll take it one step at a time,” I say. “The first step is to find her. Then we’ll figure out how to fix her.”
“She may not want to be fixed,” he tells me.
“Then why would the Pool show me Maya?”
When Tork doesn’t answer, Eval intercedes. “I understand your loyalty to Tela. No one wants to lose her or anyone else to the Barrens. But what was the exact question you asked the Pool?”
“I asked if there’s a way to find Tela,” I answer. “The Pool showed me Maya.”
“Unfortunately,” Eval says, “I doubt that even the Reflecting Pool can answer the more important question you didn’t ask.”
“What’s that?”
She folds her hands in front of her. “Will you find Tela?”
* * *
With a sidearm throw, I launch a small stone down a rocky slope. As it skips across the ground, several dull clacks reverberate up the side of the hill. I look down to see if I disturbed Maya, but she doesn’t seem to be aware of anything going on around her. Lost in deep concentration, she’s sitting perfectly still with her feet tucked underneath her and both hands resting on the dirt.
Morrows have turned into what I think of as weeks, and weeks into a couple of months. I’ve kept track of the areas we’ve searched by shading them in on my map of Krymzyn. We’ve covered everything within two thousand miles of the Expanse between the Bridge of Harmony and the southwest corner of the Barrens, about one-eighth of the total space we need to search. We recently turned the southwest corner and began working our way to the east. The process has been moving slower than we first anticipated since we only have Maya every third morrow.
On roughly half the morrows that we couldn’t take Maya out, Sash and I have searched random parts of the Barrens on our own. Proving again that he wants to help in any way he can, Larn has been willing to have Kale take over my traveling duties on those morrows. Since Sash can get sap from twice as many trees as any other Hunter during Darkness, missing a few hasn’t made a difference in the supply. Although searching by eye is a much slower process than when we have Maya with us, at least we feel like we’re accomplishing something.
Maya stands up from the ground. She looks at Sash and then at me.
“Nothing,” she says.
“Don’t be discouraged,” I reply despite the despondency I’ve felt for weeks. “This is just our first stop of the morrow. I have a good feeling about this morrow.”
“I’m glad one of us does,” she mumbles.
“What’s that pile of rocks over there with a branch sticking out it?” I ask Sash. “That’s the second time I’ve seen one of those.”
“A marker for a trading post,” she answers.
“What you mean?”
“Some of the
