“Of course not,” Geth said. “Find another thin bar.”
Sait found one and began to turn. The bar next to the lowered bar dropped a half inch. Winter tried to pull on the unconnected bars, but they were still as tight and unmovable as when they were connected.
“Find another thin one!” Geth ordered.
Winter found it and twisted as hard as she could, lowering the third bar. The water was now up to her shoulders.
“We’ve got to hurry,” Geth said. “Lith’s sinking fast.”
“We’re in a hurry?” Winter questioned sarcastically. “Thanks for pointing that out.”
Winter twisted faster. The walls of the prison shivered, and great amounts of water moved from open caverns into new spaces, creating a huge sucking sound.
“Here’s another one,” Andrus yelled, water entering his mouth as he spoke.
“And another,” Sait hollered.
“Twist them,” Winter yelled.
Two more bars lowered.
“We’ve twisted all the bars,” Sait wailed.
“I guess that will do it,” Geth said, having to swim to keep his mouth above the rising water.
“Do what?” Winter asked in a panic.
Sait pulled himself up to breathe in the small pocket of air still left in the top three inches of the prison. He reached out to pull on the bars they had lowered, but Geth stuck his hand out and stopped him.
“No,” Geth insisted. “If you pull back the wrong one, it will raise the bars back up and we won’t have time to lower them again. We need to pull the right one.”
“Which one is that?” Winter yelled, her mouth pushed up above the water gasping for breath.
“I have no idea,” Geth answered honestly. “If we had time to think, we could probably figure out a code. I wish I had shrunk enough to slip through.”
Water filled the cage completely. Winter wished for a Baadyn to help her breathe, but knew none would come to her rescue. She looked at the five bars as the entire island of Lith sank. She felt out of balance and confused. She knew that Foo was a place of limitless possibility, but that at its soul it was also a place of balance and organization. It was the off-balance disregard for what was supposed to be that was tearing Foo apart.
Winter looked at the five bars.
Her lungs felt like someone had shoved a small roasted sun into them. She could feel her insides choking and bits of flesh curling up like old flecks of paint. The five bars suddenly looked balanced to her, the middle one standing out like a solid center. She reached out and pulled the third bar. As she pulled it forward, the two on each side lowered until they were all far enough down that the captives could swim through.
The nits didn’t wait for an invitation, pushing past Winter and out of the cage. Geth shoved Winter through the opening and followed her up.
The water looked to have no ceiling, but in a few seconds their heads broke through and the cooling balm of oxygen filled their flaming lungs. Winter spat and screamed. Geth spat but didn’t scream. His hair was wet and hung in his face in long, dark, twisted strands. His green eyes looked amazed.
“Number three, huh?” he said. “How’d you know?”
“It seemed like the only bar with balance,” Winter answered. “Right in the middle.”
“I’m glad you got to it before me,” Geth smiled. “I was thinking of pulling number five because it rhymed with alive.”
“Oh, so when you said code, you were thinking of a dumb code?”
Geth smiled.
He swam ahead of Winter and crawled out of the water onto a long, dry ledge. He leaned down and pulled Winter up out of the water.
“Are you okay?” he asked, helping her get her balance.
There are moments in life too big to be clocked on a watch or an odometer—times when the very act of living is so real and intense that you forget there are other people in the world. In such moments, all poverty is ended, violence is a disease long ago cured, and wars occur only in fables with happy endings. Those moments are few and far between. I’ve known people who have never experienced them, and in turn have never really lived. Because until you hold a moment like that in your hand and blow it away like a dandelion in the wind, you have never really breathed. You may have bookcases filled with trophies and mile-high walls covered with plaques that prove you’re much smarter than you look, but unless you have stopped time for a moment in the act of truly living, then you really haven’t experienced that much.
For Winter, one of those rare moments had snuck up on her and caught her completely off guard. The ground she was standing on was falling apart, but for a second everything made sense.
“Are you okay?” Geth asked again.
Winter put her arms around Geth and held onto him. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she had people in her life who cared about her. The feeling was so comforting that Winter felt temporarily invincible. Her emotion was so intense that a Lore Coil filled with nothing but comfort shot off from around her, and within a reasonable amount of time most beings in Foo would pause to momentarily feel good about themselves as the Lore Coil passed over.
Winter might have hugged Geth for a bit longer if it had not been for the “awwwws” of Andrus and Sait.
Winter pulled back and smiled again.
“Are you okay?” Geth asked softly.
“Yes,” Winter said.
Sait cleared his throat.
“Leven,” Geth whispered. “We’ve got to get to him.”
Geth took Winter by the hand, and they began working their way through the crumbling insides of Lith.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Falling Just Right
Tim was beside himself. He had no papers, no money, and nowhere to go. For some reason nobody was answering the phone back home, and he still had not found Winter.
On the plus side, most of his memory had come back to him. He was still struggling to recall anything about the last couple of days, but he had a feeling that in time that might clear up as well.
Tim did remember they had been building a gateway. He had even returned to the abandoned barn they had done the construction in. It was void of any gateway or of Dennis and Ezra, but there were bits of used wood and metal and tools still lying around.
“They did it,” Tim said to himself, thinking that Ezra and Dennis had made it back to Foo. “I can’t believe it worked.”
Tim hiked back to the lake. He stayed off the main roads, feeling like he didn’t fit in with all the other tourists who were there to hear the trumpet and take pictures.
By midmorning he had reached the far edge of the lake where Dennis had talked about placing the gateway. Tim wanted nothing more than to return to his home and make sure his family was okay, but he also couldn’t help but be curious to see if the gateway had been completed. He stepped into the cold water at the edge and breathed in deeply. He could feel the blood from his shivering feet moving up into other parts of his body and turning his veins to ice.
Without further thought, Tim dove into the water and kicked his legs as hard as he could. It was murky, dark, and filled with fish that kept thumping into him. His eyes scanned the underwater world for any sign of the gateway. Just as his lungs began debating with him over the importance of obtaining air soon, Tim spotted the faint outline of a big box. He kicked his feet and rose to the surface as fast as possible.
Tim sucked in air like a vacuum with a clean filter. He caught his breath and then dove back down under. This time he went right to the gateway. He recognized what he had helped build—the square box with the mismatched piece of street attached to the floor by a metal arm. The cement base holding the arm had been built by Hector Thumps and had survived the blast to now hold a second gateway—although it looked a bit more cracked and flimsy than Tim would have preferred.
Tim’s lungs began to argue again.
He shot back up and filled his lungs with air. The cold wasn’t as painful anymore. And as Tim’s head
bobbed above the surface of the water, he noticed a boat motoring to the center of the lake. Tim took a deep breath and went back under.
He swam up and into the gateway. He stepped on the bottom of it, but nothing happened. He felt the walls and the ceiling of it.
Again with the lungs.
Tim pushed his feet up against the inside of the gateway to dart to the surface—but he had misjudged the gateway’s front opening, and his head rammed into the inside wall. The gateway shook, and Tim grasped for the opening edge to pull himself out of the box. His frantic grasp rocked the gateway from side to side.
The concrete footing screamed and then snapped.
The ceiling of the gateway crashed down against Tim’s head as the metal arm supporting the gateway broke free from its cement hold.
Tim’s lungs were not just angry, they were spitting mad. He kept his mouth closed, struggling in the box as it fell deeper into the lake. Tim’s body spun and his feet knocked up against all the surfaces inside the gateway.
A normal person might have perished right then and there from lack of air, but Tim’s job as a garbage collector had given him superhuman strength in the lung department. There had been many times when he had been forced to hold his breath to prevent the putrid smell of other people’s trash from assaulting his nose.
Now that skill was paying off.
The gateway spun as it dropped, sending Tim to the ceiling of it, which was actually the floor.
Had he been up on dry land watching the whole thing unfold as a movie, he might have noticed how his shoulder was pressed up against the uneven crack. He might also have heard the very faint sound of a trumpet pleasing the earth around it as a short German man with a large mustache played up above. He might even have wondered if, when the gateway was falling, it was passing through any water with a temperature divisible by seven.
But, of course, Tim wasn’t up on dry land, he was trapped in a box, running out of air. Fortunately for him, there was a brief moment right before he ran out of breath for fate to align things properly.
The empty gateway hit the bottom of the lake and broke into more pieces than it had started out with.
ii
The night felt old. The wind was like a memorable song written long ago, and the stars were dim from years of trying to be noticed. Brindle thought even the Fté Mountains looked aged. Their outline made obvious by the light of the moons, they sat there slumped and out of energy.
“Hello,” Brindle whistled into the trees. He was invisible and not yet sure that showing himself would be a good idea.
The fantrum trees shifted, their bark scuffing like coarse stones rattling against one another. Brindle didn’t particularly care for this region of Foo. True, it held some of the most magnificent scenery, but it seemed to be a breeding ground for unstable and newly birthed creatures of dreams. Brindle didn’t mind a variety of fellow beings, but he liked to know how they felt about sycophants before he had to deal with them. He bounded up into a shifting tree and called out again.
“Hello?”
“It’s late,” a voice called back.
“I know,” Brindle said. “It’s important.”
“I doubt that.”
“I was told you might know how to get to the Invisible Village.”
Two completely white eyes fluttered open and stared at Brindle from the dark.
“Why would anyone wish to visit the village?” a mouth beneath the eyes asked.
“I have reason,” Brindle said.
“Sycophant?” the eyes queried.
“Yes.”
The eyes came closer, moving out of the dark of the trees and into a spot where moonlight could rest on the shoulders of their owner. The being was tall, with a dark face and hands. He had a long, brown beard and solid white eyes with dark circles around them. His clothes didn’t match and his shoes were on the wrong feet. His hair was combed into a style that didn’t have much to do with style at all. There were smudges on his right cheek and left arm.
“I was told to look for Tosia,” Brindle said.
“That’s me. The village is not a place that any sycophant should visit,” he said. “Your nature is one of happiness. The Invisible Village will bring you nothing but depression.”
“I wouldn’t visit if it weren’t necessary,” Brindle said. “My contact didn’t know what you were. You are a . . . ?”
“One of the omitted,” Tosia answered.
Brindle jumped down from the tree and materialized. “I’ve not heard of your kind,” he admitted. “I apologize.”
“No apology necessary,” Tosia waved. “We’ve only one unique characteristic. Others can view us, but we cannot see ourselves.”
“Truly?”
“Sadly,” Tosia said. “I have no idea what I look like.”
“What about mirrors, or glass?”
“We’ve no reflection.”
“But I can see you.”
“How do I look?” Tosia asked hungrily.
“Very nice.”
“How generous of you. When I place an article of clothing on my body, it disappears to my eyes.”
“Amazing,” Brindle said with awe. “Why have I not heard of your type?”
“We’ve been here for some time,” Tosia said. “But because of our condition, we’re not the sort of pupil who seeks the desk at the front of the classroom. We prefer to be in the back.”
“There’s wisdom in watching the crowd.”
“How nice of you,” Tosia said. “Most would say we’re cowards.”
“Every breed has its noble and just.”
“What a delightful little creature you are,” Tosia said with joy in his voice. “You’re not at all like the white one.”
“White one?” Brindle asked.
“The white sycophant,” Tosia answered. “She came to the village a long while ago.”
“So Lilly is there?”
“She was last I had heard,” Tosia said. “Her soul is sicker than many of the others. She would take up metal and destroy the whole of Foo with the hate she holds in her heart. It’s a good thing she’s so small and unimportant.”
Brindle was quiet as he thought.
“I’m sorry if that was mean,” Tosia said. “Small things can be important.”
“Don’t worry about what you’ve said,” Brindle insisted. “I prefer people speak honestly with me.”
“Really?” Tosia asked.
Brindle nodded.
“How’s my hair?”
“Excuse me?” Brindle asked.
“I can’t get anyone to tell me how I really look,” Tosia lamented. “The omitted are all so insecure that we have a difficult time telling each other how we look. No one trusts anyone’s opinion. How’s my hair?”
“Too long,” Brindle said.
Tosia looked crestfallen, and then his face lit up. “I knew it,” he said. “Everyone says it looks just fine, but I think they just want me to look worse than they do.”
“What a strange breed,” Brindle said kindly.
“We have a hard time trusting each other,” Tosia said. “We’re always scared that our neighbor is making us look bad.”
“So, you can take me to Lilly?” Brindle asked, returning to the subject of his journey.
“I can take you to the mountains above the village,” Tosia said, tugging at his own hair. “But I won’t step in.”
“Take me to the edge of the village and you will be paid well.”
“I don’t understand money,” he said. “When I hold it, it does nothing. But others look at me differently.”
Brindle smiled. “I don’t understand it either.”
Tosia tried to comb his hair with his hand.
“I hate to pressure you,” Brindle said. “But there is some urgency in what I seek.”
“Of course,” Tosia waved. “Is my outfit okay?”
“Perfect,” Brindle said before disappearing.
Tosia turned and began moving back into th
e trees. His stride was wide and almost mechanical. He walked with some unevenness due to the fact that he couldn’t see his own feet.
“Where are you?” he asked the air.
“On your right shoulder.”
“Should I shave?” Tosia asked.
“No,” Brindle answered. “A beard looks good on you. Besides, shaving for you must be a bit precarious.”
“It’s never without blood.”
“Keep the beard.”
“Honest?”
“Of course.”
Tosia increased his speed, running through the moonlit forest with purpose.
iii
Ezra peeked out from behind Dennis’s right ear and growled. The front of the airport was crowded with patrons and police. Both Dennis and Ezra were sitting in the backseat of a cab in front of the Munich International Airport realizing that they were at an impasse.
“Look at all those stiff cops,” Ezra whispered. “Can’t a person just get on a plane and fly? Where’s the trust?”
“It was lost years ago,” Dennis said. “I hate to say it, but we still need Sabine. He did something to them last time to get me through.”
“Your life is one big pause,” Ezra seethed. “There has to be a way.”
“I could stick you on someone else,” Dennis offered.
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” Ezra said. “But I doubt I could find someone as dense and pliable as you to do my bidding.”
Dennis felt needed.
“Are you going to get out?” the cab driver leaned back and asked. “Or were you planning to just keep talking to yourself?”
“Hold on,” Dennis said. “I’m on the phone.”
“Whatever,” the driver said. “I’ll have to drive around again. They won’t let me just sit here. This is an airport.”
“Then drive around!” Ezra yelled from behind Dennis’s ear.
The driver, thinking it was Dennis yelling, put the cab into drive and drove out of the airport.
“We could try a boat,” Dennis whispered to Ezra.
“Is there water between here and there?”