“This isn’t just some cute thing that Kit and I are doing because it’ll be fun! If we don’t stop the forces that are beginning to move, there are going to be massive earthquakes all up and down the East Coast. That’s not a maybe. It’s a will! You think the Island would survive something like that? The whole place is nothing but rocks and trash the glaciers dumped in the ocean; it’ll break up and wash away like a sandcastle at high tide! And you think Manhattan’ll survive? It’s already got four unstable geological faults of its own, right through the bedrock! And none of the buildings there are earthquake-proof; one quake’ll leave the place looking like somebody kicked over a pile of blocks!” Nita was waving her arms in the air now, so upset that she was beyond caring whether she looked silly or not. “Millions of people could die—“
“Could,” her father said, seizing on the word. He was pacing now.
Kit shook his head. “Will,” he said, and there was such a weight of certainty and misery on the word that Nita’s father stopped pacing, and her mother closed her mouth, and they both stared at Kit in amazement. “You’re saying,” Kit said, gazing at them out of eyes suddenly gone dark and fierce, “that you don’t care whether ten million people, more than ten million people, would die, just so long as we two don’t get hurt.”
Nita’s mother spluttered, to Nita’s great satisfaction. That one had sunk in. “No, we aren’t, we just—“
“You don’t even care that ten million people might die,” Nita said. “Just so Kit and I are okay, you’re willing to run that risk.”
“No, I—“ Nita’s father saw what was being done to him. “Young lady, no more out of you! Just the quakes going on off the coast now, by the reports we’ve heard, are too dangerous for you to be down there.”
“Daddy, believe me, we’ve survived a lot worse!”
“Yes — and your mother and I didn’t know about it then! Now we do.” Her father turned away. “The answer is no, and that’s final!”
From many fights Nita had overheard between her folks, Nita knew that when her dad said that, it never was. “Daddy,” she said. “I’m sorry. I really am. I love you, and I wish like anything I could do what you want. But I can’t.”
“Nita!” There was that rage again, full-blown, worse than before. Her father was on his feet, standing right over her, glaring at her. “You will do as I tell you!”
Hot all over, Nita shot to her feet — standing on the chair — and in sheer desperation shouted right back in his face. “Don’t you get it? There are some things in the world more important than doing what you tell me!”
Her father and mother stared at her, stunned.
“Besides,” Kit said quietly from out of her range of vision, “how would you stop us?”
Nita’s father turned away to stare at Kit now.
“Look,” Kit said. “Mr. Callahan, Mrs. Callahan — we gave our word that we’d do this.” What is this ‘we’? Nita thought, bemused. “And the wizardry we’re doing is mainly directed against the One who invented the broken promise. Breaking our word will play right into Its hands and cause a lot of people to die, at best. Maybe destroy this world, sooner or later, at worst.”
“But we have only your word on that!” Nita’s mother said.
“Uh-huh. But isn’t our word any good? And why would we lie to you about this? Considering that we’re going through all this crap for the sake of telling you the truth.”
Nita’s mother closed her mouth.
“She didn’t have to tell you,” Kit said, sounding angry for the first time. “But it would’ve been lying, in a way — and Nita thinks you’re worth not lying to.” He paused, then said, “I do too. We may just be kids, but we’re old enough to tell the truth. And to take it. Are you?”
The question wasn’t a taunt: It was honestly meant. “Even if you’re not, we’ll still have to do what we have to,” Nita said, though saying it made her unhappy. “When you two wake up in the morning, this could all seem like a dream to you — if it had to. I guess you’d better make up your minds, because we have to get some sleep or we won’t be worth dead fish tomorrow.”
Her parents were staring at each other. “Betty…” said Nita’s father.
“We need more time,” Nita’s mother said.
“I don’t think we’ve got it.”
Her mother looked back at her father. “If they’re right about this,” she said, “it would be wrong of us to stop them if they want to help.”
“But we’re responsible for them!”
“Apparently,” Nita’s mother said, in a peculiar mixture of pride and pain, “they’ve learned that lesson better than we suspected, Harry. Because now they seem to be making themselves responsible for us. And a lot of other people.”
“I guess there comes a time when you can’t do anything but trust,” her father said at last, sounding reluctant. “It just seems — so soon… Nita— is all this on the level?”
“Oh, Daddy.” She loved him, right then, and hurt for him, more than she could have told him. “I wish it weren’t. But it is.”
Nita’s father was silent for several long breaths. “Millions of lives,” he said under his breath.
And another silence, which he finally broke as if it were a physical thing, “When do you need to be up?”
“Sixish. I’ll set my alarm, Daddy.” Nita got stiffly down from the chair aching all over. Behind her, Kit got up and brushed past her as Nita hugged first her dad good night. Maybe the last time she would ever hug him.. or the second-to-the-last— Oh, don’t think of that now!
Her mother had caught Kit on the way past and hugged him — and now wouldn’t let Nita past without one either. She held her for a moment at arm’s length. “Thank you for — up there, baby,” she said, nodding once at the ceiling. Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling.
“It’s okay, Mom. Any time.” Is this what it feels like when your heart breaks? Oh, Lord, don’t let me cry.
“And thank you for trusting us.”
Nita swallowed. “You taught me how,” she said. And then she couldn’t stand it any more. She broke away and headed for her room, Kit right behind her.
She knew there was one hurdle left between her and bed. Actually, the hurdle was on the bed: sitting there crosslegged in the dark, looking at her with cool interest as they came in.
“Well?” Dairine said, as Nita flopped down on her stomach beside her, and the bed bounced them both once or twice. “I saw you disappear. Where’d’ja take them?”
“The Moon.”
“Oh, come on, Neets.”
“Dairine,” Kit said from the doorway. “Catch.”
Nita glanced up, saw her sister reach up and pick something out of the air: an irregular piece of pale, grainy stone, about the size and shape of an eraser. Dairine peered at it, rubbing it between her fingers. “What is this? Pumice?” There was a moment of shocked silence; then Dairine’s voice scaled up to an aggrieved shriek. “You did go to the Moon! And you didn’t take me! You, you —“ Apparently she couldn’t find anything sufficiently dirty to call them. “I’m gonna kill you!”
“Dari, shut up, they’re in shock out there!” Nita said. This argument did little to save her. Far more effective was Kit’s wrestling Dairine down flat, stuffing her under the bedcovers and a couple of pillows, and more or less sitting on her until she shut up and stopped struggling.
“We’ll take you next time,” Nita said, and then the pain hit her again. “Kit,” she said, husky-voiced. “Remind me to see that the runt here gets to the Moon in the near future. Next week, maybe. If she behaves.”
“Right,” Kit said. “You give up, runt?”
“Hwhmffm hnnoo rrhhrhn ffwmhhnhhuh,” said the blankets.
“Keep talking like that and your mouth’ll get stuck that way,” Kit said, and let Dairine out.
Nita’s sister extricated herself from the covers with icy dignity that lasted just until she was sitting where she had been, back in control and smoothing her ruffled pajamas. “Mom ‘n’ Dad didn’t kill you,” she said to Nita.
“Nope. You gave me good advice, runt.”
“Huh? What advice?”
“Last night, I suspect,” Kit said. “That stuff about ‘Either keep your mouth shut, or tell the truth—‘ “
Nita nodded, looking from Kit to Dairine, while Dairine modestly polished her nails on her Yoda pajamas. And Nita stared at her, and then started to laugh, so hard that she got the hiccups and fell over sideways, and Dairine looked at her as if she’d gone nuts, and Kit sat down and punched her once or twice, worriedly, in the shoulder.
