“Stay here. I’m going back.”
She gave me a stern look. “Don’t”
“I have to. My house is two blocks that way, the one with the maple tree in the front yard. If I’m not back in a few minutes, go there. A fox will help you.”
I snuck back into the otalith lair, TV noises and snoring still mixing. The rhythm of the snoring accentuated every eighth beat of my racing heart. I had no desire to be back in that cage. My legs felt shaky as I carefully took one step after another. The first door I tried stuck at first, then swung open. I had to catch myself on the doorknob to keep from falling. The lights were off in the room, but there was a faint green glow in the air, like the room was filled with radioactive dust. A table on the back wall supported stack after stack of white flour. There were also laptops on the table, a scale, and one small, vintage-looking suitcase. When I came closer, I saw the words “Montgomery Ward” engraved near the handle.
My niece's dream came back to me. In it, I’d fought a cowboy for Montgomery Ward. The dream had sounded like nonsense at the time, like any other dream, but now . . . . She had predicted this. She could tell the future. What else was in her dream? I tried to think back, to recall, but then stopped myself. I had no time for that now.
I set aside the lance and opened the suitcase. Inside was a vintage typewriter—more specifically, for those typewriter perverts out there, a baby blue 1966 Montgomery Ward Signature 510.
As I closed the case, I noticed the snoring had stopped. Fear jolted me. I turned around and saw the First Sojourner standing, backlit, silent, between me and the door. The light from the hall was now on. I opened my mouth to tell her to run as a huge shadow filled the doorway and three deafening cracks sounded. The First Sojourner collapsed to the floor. The otalith flipped the light switch on with her gun. My breath caught in my throat as she aimed the gun at me.
Then the room transmuted into a desert, I heard the otalith scream in terror, and I knew the cavalry had come, that Kaliah was throwing the Ghost of one of her nightmarish whorls. I couldn’t see the otalith in the whorl Kaliah was throwing for me, but I could see the First Sojourner. She was looking up at me with half-closed eyes. “Craig is disappointed in you,” she said just before green rekulak bile rapidly spread over her body and devoured her.
Chapter 28
DEBRIS FROM INSULATION RAINED into my eyes as I lifted a tile from the drop ceiling and moved it to the side. Blinking, I lifted the Signature 510 from the sink over my head and restored it to its hiding place, balanced on the metal scaffolding. After retrieving the trout test DVD nearby, I slid the tile back into place. The loose toilet seat slid and squeaked as I stepped down. I prepared a bucket of ice water for my hand, popped the DVD into the small TV/DVD combo set on the towel table, and sat on the toilet to watch.
For the two days since Kaliah had rescued me from the otalith lair, I’d been training in the bathroom at the bakery. It was the only safe place.
The Friends had somehow noticed I’d gone missing right away and woken Kaliah up to interrogate her. They’d brought in more Zaditorians to search for me, summoning them somehow from Zaditor. After I’d returned to my assigned home and explained to them that I’d merely been drinking alone on the river bank, gathering my thoughts, they’d assigned Beardo and Baldo to watch me full time and kept the extra Zaditorians in town to watch everyone else. Beardo and Baldy had stayed in my living room at night and followed me wherever I went.
With threats, Meadow had encouraged me to work at the bakery fourteen hours a day. She expected the grand opening in an hour. If I didn’t deliver, she would peel a strip of skin from my arm.
The whole town was being driven to exhaustion creating critiques and art in honor of Blanche’s accomplishments. A musical tribute and a folk-art tribute had also been scheduled for today.
The Friends were in a hurry to present their offerings to Blanche before the high water swept away the town. The warm rain had not let up in two days. The snow in the mountains was melting. The river had overrun its banks and almost reached the school. Mummers had been put to work stacking sandbags to protect the school and other vulnerable areas of town. I hadn’t had time to see if Em was among them, but Zelda had told me she wasn’t. I suspected Zelda was lying to keep me focused on my training, but I gratefully believed her. I couldn’t do what I needed to if I knew Em was stacking sandbags in the rain all day.
With all the added security, I hadn’t been able to talk with Hugo, but Zelda had told me he was furious with me, and she was too. My stunt had compromised the escape and forced Hugo and her to rework their entire plan.
I had done most of my training during bathroom breaks at the bakery, keeping the fan on so no one could hear the TV or my typing. I’d worked on rekulak spells, though Kaliah and Zelda had both told me not to. When I’d offered to use one to remove Brad from Kaliah’s whorl, Kaliah had refused, became sullen. But for the most part, she had been in good spirits. When we would go over the escape plan, faking to work, she would tease me and play pranks. And despite the circumstances, I’d enjoyed spending the time with her.
Brad had hurt her
