I stopped breathing. Blood rushed to my face, and the skin around it felt tight. My arms and hands tingled and felt light. My gut felt like a sinking stone.
What’s wrong? Zelda said.
Go away, I said.
“Let’s start with how this happened?” Hugo said as I forced myself to start breathing again. “How did Blanche trap your rekulak?”
I gave Hugo the bones of the story, and when I was done, he said, “If we get you back in that whorl, can you undo what you did?”
“Yes,” I said with more confidence than I felt. I couldn’t shake the idea of all those people dying because of my weakness. “The Prime Nabob said they were going to infect all seven stomachs. If I free my rekulak, will all those people be regurgitated too?”
Hugo nodded. “Yes, but I wouldn’t worry about their blood being on your hands. Each stomach has stalwart defenses against invasion from another. Blanche would need an army for her infection to get a foothold.”
I remembered the program Em had shown me from the coffee shop where all those Blanche-infected people were enjoying spoken-word poetry inspired by the ’64 flood, and I had another terrifying realization. “The flood is a totem.”
“What?” Hugo said.
“You once told me when Arawok regurgitates someone, it creates a Nexus Whorl. Well, Blanche was regurgitated during the ’64 flood, so it makes sense that another flood could act as a totem for the Nexus Whorl created in ’64. The conditions you described are eerily similar to the ones back then.”
Hugo raised his eyebrows. “Even if that’s true, Blanche would need an army, as I said.”
“She has an army.” I grabbed pen and paper from one of the shelves, drew the patterns from the shower curtain Omen Totem, labeled them with the stomach names they were given on the program, and showed the drawing to Hugo. “This is a map to the stomachs, right?”
“It is roughly similar to ones I have seen in ancient texts.”
“I found a map like this inside a program being handed out at a spoken-word show commemorating the ’64 flood. All the people there were infected by Blanche. People. Barrens. She can last longer in them before being regurgitated. She told me herself. The Humboldt Historical Society, with Brad at the helm, by the way, a man who apparently wears many hats, is funding events all over the county, showcasing original art inspired by the ’64 flood in honor of its forty-ninth anniversary: movies, documentaries, plays, paintings, sculptures, poetry, fiction, memoir, all culminating in a huge celebration in Rio Dell, where she died. Why celebrate a forty-ninth anniversary when the fiftieth is right around the corner? Makes no sense. But now the answer is clear. They knew this flood was coming. I don’t know how, but they did. And they’ve been preparing an army of locals, teaching them art, teaching them how to graft and how to navigate between stomachs. When the flood comes, this army is going to waltz right into the Nexus Whorl and go to whatever stomach they want.”
Hugo looked down at the floor like he’d just discovered a stain in his carpet and was trying to identify its origin. “I thought we had more time . . . . We need to find this sourdough totem of yours before the flood comes. But first, we need to free my sister. We can’t get past the Wall of Blanche without her, and she is almost completely under Brad’s control. As her shaka, you are the only one who can save her now.”
“How did you let it get this far? How could you just stand by and watch Brad do this to her?”
Anger showed on Hugo’s face. “I did not have the power to intervene. I noticed when this Lou character came to town to aide my sister you were not with him. You, who had the power to intervene. So let us not speak of the past no more, shall we.” Hugo sniffed, then continued before I could offer a defense. “Brad towed Kaliah’s mobile totem library all the way out here to administer the Doegerot to her. There are four totems inside from Kaliah’s personal life that do not belong to our ancestors: a paintbrush, a handsaw, an agate, and a beer bottle from the old west. You need to enter the whorls from these totems and clear them of all the corruptions Brad has so carefully positioned in them. There are a few ways to do this, but as a Sojourner, all you must do is touch the corruptions with your blood. Once you’ve cleared those four whorls, Kaliah will be able to do the rest.”
I nodded, remembering the candy-dish whorl in which I’d freed all those children in the same way. “Where is the library?”
“Across the river, outside the monastery. It is an aqua blue trailer, very difficult to miss.” Hugo pulled a small bottle out of his robe pocket and handed it to me. “For you. Bloom. Steal the totems. Free my sister. I will do the rest.”
“How will you deal with the Zaditorians?”
“Don’t worry about my end. I have a radar gun that Lou gave me. And many here are willing to fight, including Rhonaya, the finest warrior I know. You just worry about my sister. I can deal with the Zaditorians. But without Kaliah, we’re not getting past the wall.”
“Do you know where I can get a typewriter?”
Hugo let a laugh escape, short and concise. “Ahhh, the second mystery.”
“Excuse me?”
“Two weeks ago, the Zaditorians scoured the entire town, confiscating computers, laptops, typewriters—such as they found—and everything with gluten in it. I understand the gluten now, but why the typewriters?”
I considered telling him, but for some reason—spite, most likely—I decided to let him
