“Not to be blunt, but if she weren’t alive, her kidnapper wouldn’t have known where to find the parchment or that they should steal it from me.” She tried to sound convincing.
Daniel nodded, and for an instant, his face looked calmer, happier. But then the clouds rolled in again. “You may be right. But what did he do to her to find that out?”
Kayla didn’t have an answer to that. She wanted to put her arms around him and hold him until the knots in his shoulders loosened and the wounded look in his eye faded, but she didn’t know how he’d react. “We’ll get there. I promise, it will be over soon.” She pushed herself to standing and ignored the dizziness. “Okay, let’s continue.”
Jump after jump, they traveled across Central America. Kayla guessed they’d left Guatemala, but she didn’t know where they were. Honduras? Nicaragua? Wherever. She tried to drink in as many sights as she could: a rickety dock stretching into a blue-beyond-blue lake, a banana tree with leaves like elephant ears, a woman with red woven scarves and a cell phone that she dropped when she saw them, a mountain so peaked it could only be a volcano, a waterfall that fell hundreds of feet into a churning lake … Twice, they materialized on mountaintops that were so windy they had to clutch each other to keep from falling. Once, they appeared in a street in front of a donkey laden with sacks and beneath a billboard for shaving cream. Yet another time, they found themselves in front of a bulldozer in a half-torn-up field. It roared toward them like an animal, and Daniel had to jump them away fast.
After fifteen jumps, Daniel began to look pale. After twenty jumps, he swayed in between each one. After twenty-six jumps, he dropped to his knees. His eyes looked glazed. Kayla collapsed beside him onto the damp ground. They were in the rain forest, on a plateau that ended in a bluff. He’d managed to jump them to a flat area between the trees. She was grateful they hadn’t appeared in a tree. Around them, insects buzzed, monkeys screeched, and birds called. Shadows stretched between the leaves. Beyond them, the sun was low in the sky. It stained the clouds a deep golden hue.
Kayla realized she was shaking, her muscles vibrating. She hugged her arms to try to stop them. “Daniel, you okay?” Her throat felt thick. She swallowed and tried the words again. “Are you okay, Daniel?” They came out clearer the second time.
He was shaking harder than she was. She crawled closer to him. “Never did … so many jumps like that. Just … overdid it. You feel it too? Need to rest—” He toppled to the side.
“Daniel!” She crawled to him. Leaning over him, she clutched his shoulders. “You need a hospital. Jump us to a hospital!”
His eyes were wide, as if he wasn’t even seeing her. She didn’t know if he could hear her. “Please, be okay. Stay calm. I’ve got you.” She wrapped her arms around him and held him as tightly as she could, as if her arms were all that was keeping him together. He shook harder, nearly convulsing. His breathing was fast, too fast, and his skin felt hot to the touch. He sweated against her, and his arms shook like branches in a high wind.
She didn’t know how long she held him, but at last his shaking subsided into tremors, and then he stilled in her arms. His breathing slowed until he was breathing normally and slowly. “Daniel?” she whispered.
He didn’t respond.
“Come on, talk to me, please, wake up. Please.”
She rolled him gently onto the mat of leaves that blanketed the forest floor, and she looked around them. She had no idea where they were, or if they were near anything or anyone. She pulled out her phone—no signal. Of course no signal. She didn’t even know what country she was in. Panic squeezed her, and she felt her heart thump faster and faster, as if it wanted to gallop out of her chest. “Help! Someone, please help!”
The birds and the monkeys fell silent. And then they resumed, as loud as before.
Soon, it would be night, and their only ticket out of here was asleep or unconscious or … He wasn’t dead, thank God. But he wasn’t in any condition to jump, and she had no way of knowing how long he’d be out. Lying down next to him, she listened to him breathe. Maybe he only needed to rest. He’d wake soon.
He didn’t.
It grew darker. Shadows overlaid more shadows. The jungle shrieked and shook. Beside Daniel, Kayla pushed herself up onto her knees. Her stomach ached, and her tongue felt swollen and dry. Clouds of insects swirled around them, and she sprayed every inch of her and Daniel’s exposed skin with Selena’s bug spray. It smelled sickly sweet, and it didn’t seem to deter the bugs. There were more and more of them as dusk fell. She looked directly up at the tiny patch of deepening blue visible through the canopy of leaves. A star already poked through.
Think, Kayla.
She’d never been camping before, at least not since she was a kid. Fleeing from home with Moonbeam, she’d slept in cars and barns and abandoned mobile homes, but she’d never slept out in the open. Certainly never in a rain forest. There could be snakes here. And jaguars. And more snakes. She needed a fire. As soon as she had the idea, she seized it as if it were a lifeline in a stormy sea. A very green, very insect-ridden sea. Animals would be afraid of a fire, wouldn’t they? And it would keep the darkness at bay.
Sounds filled the darkening rain forest: cries and growls and shrieks and caws from animals and birds that she had no way to identify. Insects buzzed around them so loudly that they sounded like radio static turned high. She tried batting them away with her mind. It wasn’t easy. Unlike the grains of sugar, the mosquitoes and gnats swirled in swarms. Plucking them out of the sky, she flung them away. She devoted a portion of her mind to that task and sent the rest of her mind out into the growing darkness to find dry wisps of plants that she could use as tinder. Focusing on two things at once kept her from panicking more.
On the undersides of fallen trees, she found bits of stringy bark and, beneath branches, she found a few dead leaves that hadn’t been soaked. Concentrating, she made each leaf float to her lap and then she rolled them together into a loose bundle. Once she had a handful, she left it next to Daniel and lurched to her feet. She still felt shaky from all the teleporting, but after a few steps, her head cleared. Searching close by, she picked up every twig she could find. She was careful to avoid the bluff—last thing she needed was to fall and break her neck. She carted it all back to Daniel and then gathered some thicker branches. She’d never made a fire before, but the concept seemed obvious: start with tinder, then move to twigs, then to thicker wood. Clearing an area beside her and Daniel, she placed her tinder in a nice neat pile and pulled out her lighter. Her hands were shaking as she flicked the flame to life and held it to the tinder.
It caught and then it died.
She tried again. This time, she caught the flame with her mind and forced it to touch the driest bit of bark. It sparked a second flame, and she nursed it as it spread through the tinder. Carefully, she laid sticks against her tinder. It smoldered and then died.
She swore, loudly.
Daniel shifted in his sleep. Abandoning the fire, she hurried to his side. “Daniel? Are you awake? Are you okay?” He moaned—that was a good sign, wasn’t it? She felt his forehead. He still felt too hot. Mosquitoes hovered angrily around both of them. Concentrating, she repelled them with so much force that she heard them smack in a swarm against a tree.
She turned back to the fire. Now, she was determined to light it. She knew it was irrational, but she felt as though if she lit it, then he’d wake and everything would be okay.
Again, she flicked on the lighter. But this time, she coaxed the flame onto the tinder and, as it grew, forced it to split into multiple embers. Then she took each new bit of fire and set it on the wood. Slowly, it caught. Ignoring the insects and the sounds and the darkness, she nursed the fire until it spread and grew.
By now, the sky had deepened to near black, and the forest around them had fallen into complete darkness. Night was louder than day, full of calls and cries and rustling. Under her coaxing, the fire roared higher. Sitting back, Kayla hugged her kne
es. Her stomach rumbled, and her mouth felt dry. She took out the trail rations that she’d taken from Selena’s camping supplies and pulled out one of the futuristic-looking packets. Freeze-dried ice cream. Kayla tore it open and ate half, letting the chalky sweetness dissolve on her tongue. She chased it with a sip of water. Daniel continued to sleep, and Kayla returned to methodically flinging the mosquitoes away from them. It helped keep her from thinking too hard about where they were … or what she’d do if he didn’t wake.
After a while, she lay down next to the fire. Hopefully, Moonbeam would assume she was spending the night with Selena. Of course, she’d call to check up. She always did. And if Selena didn’t think to lie … Or worse, if Selena herself worried enough to call Moonbeam to see if Kayla was back … It would take an act of supreme luck for Moonbeam not to find out she was missing overnight. And if she did find out, she’d assume the worst. She’d call the police, and she’d prepare to run. She’d pack their most generic clothes, as well as the supplies to create false paperwork for new identities. She wasn’t a good enough forger to create anything that would hold up in court, but it would be good enough to get Kayla into school and rent a place from a not-overly-scrupulous landlord.
Regardless, there wasn’t anything Kayla could do about it right now. Curling up near the fire, Kayla closed her eyes and listened to Daniel’s shallow breaths. Please wake, she thought. Please wake. She repeated it like a mantra until she too fell asleep.
She woke minutes or hours later. It was dark, and the fire was down to embers. For an instant, she lay still, unsure if she was asleep and stuck in a nightmare or not.
With her mind, she picked up the embers, spread them to new wood, and held them there until the flames spurted up again.
Across the fire, the orange glow of the flames reflected off two shiny disks staring out of the darkness. Kayla heard a low growl, and a jaguar emerged from the bushes.
Her mind scattered, and the fire sputtered. Carefully, she reached toward the flames again, growing them higher. She didn’t move a muscle. She stared into the jaguar’s eyes as it paced back and forth on the opposite side of the fire. Teeth poked out as it curled its lips back.
Her heart pounded hard in her chest. She wrapped her mind around one of the embers and lifted it into the air. The cat paced closer. She flung the ember toward the cat’s face. She hit its nose, and the cat recoiled. She grabbed a second ember and threw it. The jaguar yelped. She continued to pelt it with bits of fire until it retreated into the shadows.
She heard it pacing in the brush. Leaves rustled, and twigs snapped. Tense, listening, she wished she knew exactly where it was, then it occurred to her that maybe she could “feel” for it, like she’d felt for her phone after the cave-in. Sending her mind into the darkness, she swept around their makeshift camp—and she felt it, close, very close. Kayla cast about for an idea. She picked up the bug spray and waited.
Snarling, the jaguar stalked closer. With her mind, Kayla lifted an ember into the air. As the jaguar stepped out of the bushes, she sprayed the insecticide at the ember. Fire whooshed, flaring like a firework, and she propelled the flame toward the cat.
Yowling, the jaguar spun and vanished into the darkness. She sat awake for a long time after that, listening hard, probing the area with her mind. She wished she’d realized that she could “feel” around her like this before the cave-in. If she’d known, that man wouldn’t have been able to surprise her. She built the fire back up as high as she could.
Sometime, somehow, she fell asleep again. Her dreams were filled with jaguars and fire and rocks and darkness and Moonbeam crying until she melted like ice cream into a river.
Chapter 11
Kayla woke to the cries of monkeys in the trees above them. Daylight poured into the rain forest. Beside her, the fire had died, and her hair lay close to the ash. A few embers smoldered. Her head ached, and her mouth felt as dry as paste. Groaning, she began to push herself up.
“Don’t move,” Daniel whispered.
She froze.
“Snake.”
She breathed shallowly, every muscle rigid. “Where?”
“On your foot.”
Kayla tilted her head to look down her body. Coiled on her left sneaker was a snake with black and red stripes separated by thin yellow stripes. “Jump me out of here.”
“I can’t. Not while it’s touching you. It’ll come too.”
She reached with her mind and wrapped her thoughts around the snake. It felt smooth and dry. And heavy. Heavier than anything she’d ever lifted before. Its tongue flicked in and out, and it regarded her with flat black eyes. Gathering every bit of inner strength she had, she tried to fling it away with her mind—and pain blossomed in her skull. Her muscles spasmed.
She felt a sudden prick in her calf, like a shot from a doctor. Yelling, Daniel touched her, and the world flashed white then black.
Her vision didn’t resolve. It stayed blurred. The world seemed to be dipping and spinning. She saw colors, so many colors, and she heard Daniel shouting at her. Her mouth tasted like copper, as if she’d sucked on a penny. She felt bile churn in her throat. Oh, God, she was going to be sick. Or faint. Or die. Her throat felt as if it were constricting, and she gasped. She flailed, trying to grab someone, anyone, to steady her, and she felt arms around her.
“Snake,” she heard Daniel tell someone. “Coral snake, I think.”
A woman’s voice answered. And then she heard more words, sonorous and melodic. The words wrapped around her as darkness rose to claim her. She felt her body turn rubbery, and she melted into the floor. “Moonbeam?” she whispered, or tried to. She smelled incense, myrrh. And then there was only darkness chasing the pain.
She didn’t know how long she floated there, in that dark sea. But her thoughts chased through it like fish. Moonbeam. Selena. Amanda. She kept seeing her sister, the once vague memories now crystal clear. Amanda, playing school with her: Amanda as the teacher and Kayla as the student. Their dolls were the other students. Amanda liked to be the boss. Other times, they’d sing together into microphones made from the cardboard rolls in paper towels. Kayla would be three backup singers at once. On her fifth birthday, Amanda made her a paper crown, and they had their own coronation ceremony, complete with imaginary knights and horses. The summer that Kayla turned six, Amanda taught her how to ride a bike. Kayla also remembered fighting with her over stupid things—toys that broke or lipstick that neither of them was supposed to wear—and screaming at her to play with me, talk to me, pay attention to me! And Amanda screaming back that she wasn’t her mother or even her friend. But then they’d be together again, curled up in the same bed, Amanda reading a bedtime story to Kayla while Moonbeam looked on. Except she wasn’t Moonbeam back then. She was Mom.
When Kayla woke, she was crying.
A woman held her, and Kayla sobbed against her plump chest. When she drew back, she saw it wasn’t Moonbeam at all. It was the voodoo queen. Queen Marguerite pushed her hair away from her forehead. “Better now?” she asked in her deep drawl.
“Am I dying?” Kayla asked.
“Not anymore. Your boy did the right thing, bringing you to Queen Marguerite. She knows just how to leech that poison out of you. You’re healthy as a mule now.” Her accent thickened when she talked about herself in third person, as if she were deliberately trying to sound more familiar and comforting. It worked. Kayla felt herself relax.
“I heard a spell,” Kayla said.
“There’s a spell that encourages a kind of sleep—that’s what you heard—and another that draws the toxins out. Requires a certain special herb, which you yourself preserved when you cleaned my shop, little fixer.”
Kayla scanned the room, looking for Daniel. He was by a window, watching her. His expression was shadowed. He had bruiselike circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept, and his hair stuck up at all angles. He didn’t look happy she was awake.
Beyond him, outside the window, she saw an alleyway with cobbles
tones, garbage cans, stacks of boxes and crates, and the rear entrances to shops and restaurants. A cat perched on a crate. Kayla belatedly realized she was in New Orleans.
“I won’t blame you if you quit,” Daniel said. She knew how much it cost him to say that. He looked so very alone by the window, angled light spilling onto the floor at his feet. She wanted to say something, anything, but her throat felt clogged.
Queen Marguerite pounded her cane on the floor. “She can’t quit!”
Both Kayla and Daniel looked at her.
Instantly, Marguerite schooled her expression into a laidback smile. “You may have done a nice cleaning job, but saving a life, well, that requires more. You owe Queen Marguerite, and I need my payment. You can’t quit.”
Kayla felt prickles walk up and down her spine and wondered why she cared so much. She thought she’d heard a note of real panic in Marguerite’s voice. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Why not?” Daniel asked.
Kayla opened her mouth and then shut it. He deserved a real answer. He’d saved her life. Maybe that was why she wasn’t going to quit? Or maybe it was because he wasn’t really that cool, tough guy who’d blackmailed her. Or because when he talked about his mother, she saw herself. Or because he needed her. Or because with him, she could use her power and have it mean something. Or maybe it was because she’d hated how she felt in the dark temple when the cave collapsed and how she felt in the jungle when she’d woken with the snake, and she couldn’t let that feeling win. “I don’t like being afraid.”
“I understand,” Daniel said. He held her gaze, and, for a moment, Kayla felt as if they were alone together. The rest of the world faded away. Then he turned to face Queen Marguerite. “It’s my mother who’s in danger. What does it matter to you whether Kayla quits or not?”
Marguerite’s smile faded, and she rose. “That spell shouldn’t exist. Even incomplete, it causes a burden that no one should have to bear. But complete … it will change lives. Your lives, whether you want it to or not. People will suffer. Empires have risen and fallen with that spell. Cities have burned. It’s an abomination. You need to find those stones, bring them to me, and I will see them hidden where no one will ever find them.” She thumped her cane again. “I must do this! You children don’t understand—”