“Stop,” Em/Suzanne said.
Pam crouched down in the aisle beside her, put a hand on Em/Suzanne’s arm. “It’s okay,” she said.
“We have to go back,” Em/Suzanne said. “We have to save them.”
Pam shook her head. “This was the plan all along, Little Bear. Remember?”
“But they don’t have to stay behind. We can all make it.”
Pam’s face expressed pride and sadness. “We can’t all make it. We tried. And that was very brave of you to insist that we did. But they have to fight now so that we can go on, so that we can save the universe.”
Em/Suzanne’s face pinched as she began to cry. Pam hugged her and rubbed her back.
Little Bear? I didn’t trust Pam, and I didn’t like her comforting my niece, but I kept my mouth shut this time. Em/Suzanne had clearly bonded with her and the rest of the mummers during their confinement and deprivation. I couldn’t break a bond formed under those circumstances with a few words. And if we managed to save the world, there was a scenario in which Em/Suzanne spent the rest of her days in a mummer’s body. Pounding my prejudices, earned or not, into her head would only drive a wedge between us.
Hugo drove us around the mountain, along the river at a decent but safe pace. The rain fell, slamming against the roof. The windshield wipers flapped back and forth. No cars approached from either direction. We were the only ones on the road. We came across three more slides, but they were small and only blocked part of the road, which was lucky because I was out of rekulak spells.
Bruce tried to make small talk with me, asking about the cheese-themed dates Naomi had taken me on. After I grunted a few terse responses, Kaliah came to my rescue and spun a yarn about why cheddar was orange. I had to smile as she went on about the Protestants bringing the practice over from Ireland, where they’d developed a secret code using shades of cheese to send messages to each other during their war with the Catholics. Bruce dimpled his chin with a frown and nodded while he listened, as if he were learning a truly interesting historical tidbit.
As we neared the highway, the road dropped in elevation. Large sections were flooded, but the water never came more than halfway up our tall wheels. When we reached the highway, Hugo stopped the bus, turned around, and said, “North or south?”
“North,” Pam said. “To the DMV in Eureka.”
Bruce smiled at me and said, “Naomi will be delighted to see you again.”
“Good to know,” I said.
Hugo turned north and got the bus up to highway speed. Eureka was about forty minutes away. Shortly, we crossed the bridge over the confluence of the north and south forks of the Eel River, but I couldn’t see the forks or the river, only a muddy body of water sprawled across the land. Giant trees sprouted from it like reeds.
As we drove, I worried again about how many people, mobiaks and barrens alike, Blanche had infected, how many people I would have to kill to save the universe. I pictured Craig the way Zelda had described him, as a string through all seven of Arawok’s stomachs. As long as Blanche was attached to that string, she couldn’t be regurgitated into the void, the way my sister had been. I wanted to ask Zelda how the void was different from regular dying, but I was afraid of the answer, of knowing what my sister had experienced in her last moments and for the rest of eternity, what the Blanche-infected people would experience when I excised them from Craig.
I thought back on my kidnapping, on meeting Kaliah for the first time, on everything that had led to this point. I made myself nauseous gaping at the constellation of misjudgments and poor choices that had coalesced into this disaster. If I’d only done this, said that, gone here . . . .
“She’s a lot like you,” Kaliah said, her chin resting on the back of the seat in front of me.
“She’s like her mom,” I said, looking over at Em/Suzanne, who was sleeping in Pam’s arms now.
“You both want to save everyone.”
“Isn’t that the plan?”
“You have to play with the money you have left. Don’t think about the hands you used to have or the ones you could’ve had. That’s how you go on tilt.”
“What is this? Are you quoting Kenny Rogers now? Just say what you’re trying to say.”
I caught a glimpse of hurt in her eyes as she turned and sat back down, and I felt instant remorse, but before I could apologize, the brakes screeched, and I had to brace myself to keep from sliding off my seat.
The bus stopped, and I looked ahead to see the north- and southbound lanes, four in all, congested with empty parked cars. I’d seen no vehicles traveling south since we started this journey, but there had been plenty passing us. And they’d all ended up here. There was no space for the bus to get through.
We were on a small hill overlooking Scotia, the mill town where I’d drunken the Zaditorian milk that had saved my life. The rows of nearly identical houses reminded me of Arampom. This town, though, had a working mill. The buildings were weathered, but not falling apart, and there were stacks of fresh lumber and mountains of logs and sawdust in the yard.
Its sister town, right across the Eel River, was Rio Dell, where Blanche’s celebration of the 1964 Christmas Flood was being held. The festivities looked well on their way.
Three cars pulled up behind us. Twelve people got out of them, mostly men, a few of which wore skirts and V-neck sweaters. Everyone in the group carried an umbrella and a gargantuan purse. And they all had bleach-blond hair.
Blanche!
Chapter 35
AS THE GROUP WALKED down the highway, approaching the bus, I
