When I reached Em/Suzanne, she was hurling rocks at one of the heads. Mummers all around us were either doing the same or attacking one of the seven legs with the yard tools they’d hung on to from the battle at the monastery. They were all mad, suicidal, and my niece appeared to be one of them.
“Em!” I shouted. “We have to get out of here.”
Purple flashed as vine fingers flicked and curled around me. The vines pinned my arms to my side and squeezed the breath from my lungs. My stomach dropped and the world blurred by as I was lifted into the air. Then I was stationary, looking down on the street, the parked buses, the fighting mummers, and the raging river below. Then I was being lowered into a green, lily-shaped flower bigger than a kiddy pool, with boiling red liquid inside. Then the flower disappeared. I smelled ozone and fried onions. Bubbles collapsed below me. I caught a glimpse of Hugo out of the truck, a radar gun in hand. Then I was falling, but only for a dizzying moment. I landed hard on the roof of one of the buses. My shoulder, ribs, guts screamed with pain. I writhed and groaned and struggled to breathe until I smelled menthol and strawberries—my old friend, Craig—and the pain was gone.
Rolling over to the edge of the roof, I saw Beardo’s last bubble burst. He was the shape of a man again. The mummers swarmed him, knocking him to the ground, beating on him, beating on him.
I hung over the side of the bus and dropped to the street. A gravelly, crackling, whooshing sound filled the air. The tunnel was gone in an instant, crushing the remaining Zaditorians. The mountain above it flowed down, swift and fluid, catching the army truck, which spun, teetered, and was swept over the side. The cab was empty, but the barbershop squad was still singing when the slide hit, and there was no time for them to get out.
“Did you see where she went?” Em/Suzanne said, walking over to me, worry painted on her face. I knew she was talking about Zelda. I shook my head, and we went to the edge of the road, calling Zelda’s name. I poked myself with a tack and called out to her with my mind. No response.
Em/Suzanne’s voice broke. She and Zelda had become close during Em/Suzanne’s imprisonment. Zelda had brought her care packages and kept her company through the nights. I began to feel frantic, darting this way and that, my head on a swivel, calling, searching. I loved this little fox, almost from the first moment we met. She had shown me compassion, given me love in the darkest moment of my life. And now she was special to my niece. Our broken family needed her.
Em/Suzanne had stopped calling. Her shoulders and chest heaved with sobs. I put my arm around her and looked down the embankment, hoping. Part of the army truck was submerged in the river. Above it, a patch of mud was moving slowly up the slide. I squinted at it and almost cried out but sucked the words back in before they could escape. I didn’t want to get Em/Suzanne’s hopes up only to dash them away.
A few moments later, I made out the shape of a snout and two pointy ears. “Look! Look!” I said to Em/Suzanne, and we ran to the slide. Zelda was shivering, trudging up and over the moved earth, her fur caked in mud. I had to hold Em/Suzanne back from going down to meet her. When Zelda reached the road, Em/Suzanne scooped her up, and Zelda licked Em/Suzanne’s face. Shivering, pressed against Em/Suzanne’s chest, Zelda said, I’m here. I’m here.
Chapter 34
THE LAST BUS OF Mummers volunteered to stay behind and help Rhonaya rescue the barbershop squad, if any still lived, but Rhonaya turned them down, despite assurances from Bruce and Pam that they wouldn’t harm the singers. Like all mobiaks, Rhonaya was distrustful of mummers.
Hugo told her to come with us now, that we needed her abilities, that our mission was more important than a few lives. Of course, he was right. Six lives were nothing compared to the trillions Blanche was set to take, but leaving Rhonaya alone to rescue the singers who’d just saved all of us felt wrong, horribly wrong.
While Hugo and Rhonaya argued, mummers walked over to the slide and began forming a daisy-chain down to the wreck, most of them sinking deep into the mud. When Rhonaya saw what they were doing, she shouted at them to stop. The mummers continued making the chain. She told them they better not expect anything in return for their help and declared she would kill the singers before she would let their cackle be taken.
“They’re not going to hurt anyone,” Em/Suzanne said to Rhonaya with scorn in her voice. “Only some are like that.”
Rhonaya ignored her, raising her chin and looking away, like a dog bothered by the antics of a puppy. Then her eyelids peeled back, and she pointed her radar gun up at the slide. I followed her line of sight. Four Zaditorians were climbing over the mud and regolith to get at us. They must have hung back while their brethren were crushed inside the false tunnel.
“Go,” Rhonaya yelled. “Go now.” She began throat-singing, but I could barely hear her over the rain.
“Run,” Hugo cried.
I grabbed Em/Suzanne’s hand—I wouldn’t lose her again. She held Zelda under one arm, and we scrambled over and around the twisted bodies of the mummers who had died fighting Beardo. Hugo was already in the driver’s seat when we reached the lead bus. Kaliah, Pam, and Bruce climbed in after us, and the bus was moving before we found our seats, before the door was even closed.
“Stop,” Em/Suzanne said. “We can’t leave them.”
Hugo stared straight
