Aquifer

  For a moment, it feels real. The gurgling water, the piped-in breeze, the rustling in the trees — if you didn’t know the original, you’d be hard-pressed to find a flaw in the copy. But I do know it, and so does Seward; the wild is missing.

  “Are we heading somewhere in particular?” I ask.

  “We’re walking to Wren’s.” She slows, glances at her feet. “Walking. Hmm.” Talya smiles broadly. “She’s an outlier, choosing to live away from the Dwellings. She tends to the trees and the shrubs. During her years above, her home fell into disrepair, and much that’s green overgrew, but I think her plans were to return. My mother says she used to take me to this stream before Wren left surfaceward.” Talya throws back her hair. “If Wren’s here, this is a good place for us. I think my return home will be unpleasant. Father and my two brothers are searching right now, but I don’t think they’ll look outside the Dwellings.”

  I nod. “They don’t trust me.”

  “Judges function outside the rules. You define our system. You can do whatever you please, and the people will not question. No, it’s me they don’t trust. Now that I’ve turned six thousand.”

  I freeze. “Years?”

  She smacks my shoulder and it deadens. “Days, you idiot. I’ve reached joining age. I have one hundred days to find a companion, or one is found for me.”

  Please say you haven’t.

  I swallow, but the dryness remains. “Have a, have you …”

  “Not yet. And until I do, my brothers keep close watch over me.”

  We walk in silence. The stream bubbles, but I’m suddenly grim. “Do you have any prospects?”

  “I have a possibility. At least I hope I do.” She glances down. “I’ve known him for a long time.”

  I want to ask more, to find out who the bloke is. I could surely find him guilty of something.

  “I’ll just judge this whole system as unfair. Can’t I do that?”

  “You can try.” She pauses. “But judges come and go. The systems keep life in place.”

  Systems. Yes, Seward was right. Things here are not so different from above.

  “But now, Luca, could I see a book? I’d love to look at one. A really old one.”

  “Take your pick.”

  She reaches in and pulls out the red one, Massa’s.

  “That belongs to my father. He always held it, and when it wasn’t held, it was hidden. Even from me.”

  “Maybe I should take another —”

  “No.” I push it toward her. “Go ahead. Read it. I’d like to know what’s in it, and my reading isn’t great.”

  She nods. “Well, it’s handwritten. Page one says, ‘To Luca, my son, whom I love.’ ”

  I slow and regain my step. “That’s a nice start.”

  “ ‘I want you to know everything, and as I may not have the opportunity to tell you, it is my hope that someday you will find the truth in this book. First of all, I want to tell you about your mother.’ ”

  I snatch the book back from Talya, close it, and gently place it back in the pack.

  Her eyebrows furrow. “Don’t you want to know what Massa says?”

  “I can’t. If there’s even a chance I’m going to stay here, I can’t. I can’t know more about him or hear more about him. If I stay, I need to forget.”

  Talya leans into my shoulder. “And if you don’t stay?”

  “Your father says that’s not an option.”

  “My father has been in charge too long.” She steps in front of me, presses her finger to my chest. “What does this say?”

  “It says that there are some desirable things here.”

  Talya winks. “This is good.” She glances over her shoulder. “We’re here.”

  Ahead, a cottage rests on a spread of green grass. It’s a welcoming site, surrounded by trees and beside a large garden. Constructed of logs, not stone, the home could have come from the wealthy Telurine neighborhood of New Pert. Smoke churns from the smokestack, and the door stands open. We walk inside. It isn’t the quiet moment I’d hoped for.

  “What is going on?” I glance at Talya.

  “The group now be compete, just as you predicted.” Seward pushes back from the large round table and stands. “Though I admit I was not expectin’ his daughter.”

  “Oh, I was.” Wren rises from the table where Jasper relaxes, and embraces first me, then Talya. She points to two empty chairs and moves to shut the door. “Luca, I will not delay. Time does not favor us. Now that you’ve heard what’s expected from you here, the moment has come for you to decide your course, and in some ways the course of us all.”

  The crackling fire should warm the small cottage, but I feel cold. Cold and tired of decisions. Talya runs her hand along the dark stone, and then breathes deep.

  Wren notices. “Yes, we are off the Aquifer. Nobody pops in here. Any guests will be coming the old-fashioned way. Please, sit.”

  I don’t feel like sitting.

  “Why did you bring me down here, Wren? Weren’t there other places Seward could have stashed me? Secluded places. Maybe the outer Northern Territories?” I ask. “I could have taken care of myself.”

  “That’s me lad!” Seward slaps the table. “Thinkin’ like your uncle, you are.”

  “Haven’t you read your father’s book?” Wren says quietly. “Why else would I teach you to read? Didn’t you see what Massa wanted for you? He wanted you to experience what he never himself received. Freedom.”

  “You call this freedom?” Seward hisses.

  “Easy, man.” Jasper lays his paw on Seward’s shoulder, but he pulls free.

  “Yes. Freedom … the freedom to choose.” Wren walks into her kitchen, returning with two cups. She reaches both out to me. I shake my head.

  “Denying both options is the only choice you don’t have.” Wren hands one mug to Seward and the other to Jasper. “Your father wanted to give you the world. All of it. What if I would have withheld this part from you?” She takes her seat. “You have a rightful place here. Respected. Honored. How could I deny you at least a glimpse at what could be yours?” Wren exhales. “But now I’ve completed my course. I’ve watched after you. I’ve brought you above and back again. The length of stay is left with you.”

  I rub my forehead. “So all this — the hasty descent, our near undoing? This was to teach me to make a choice?”

  “No,” she says. “The timing of this trip was accelerated. Massa’s disappearance wasn’t foreseen. The danger that exposed you to … Massa knew nothing about the timetable for those matters, and I believe we have Seward to thank for a timely rescue.”

  I glance at my uncle and give a tight-lipped nod.

  Wren picks up the pot of tea and begins to pour. “I left the note and brought you down to save your life. And in so doing, perhaps bought Massa some more time, though I don’t imagine it is comfortable time. We left your father behind, but he would not hold that against you. Even Seward, if honest, would agree.” Seward lowers his head, and Wren continues. “You have seen your birthright below.” She turns toward Talya. “And all that could go with it.”

  Wren marches over to the fire, stares into the flames. “The world of the Toppers is not what it was. A civilization in tune to Massa’s every breath, as well as to yours, needs only days to fall into chaos. New Pert, the Swan, the wharf; the world you knew is changing, likely filled with the panic of a people convinced that in less than one year water will cease to flow. Not even the Amongus will be able to control the anarchy.”

  “Etria said that when the Council sees you mean them no harm, all will be set to rights,” I say. “They will know there is no need for a Deliverer.”

  Glasses tinkle on the shelf as a tremor works through the house, sloshing Seward’s tea onto the table. Wren grabs a nearby towel and wipes it dry. “Those still alive will know. But the decision to resurface goes beyond you or your father. Surface hoarding and violence will intensify. And the tremors. Luca, all this needs to be weighed in your decision.
” She raises her eyebrows. “Yes, the tremors. The water source exists on a fault line, but these are not the once-a-decade rumblings from beneath. These are not the movements of earth.”

  She stares into my eyes. “A question for a bright young man: What would you do if what you thought you needed to survive lay thousands of feet down, and you didn’t know the narrow path to reach it?”

  It hits me. “Blast my way through.”

  The room is very quiet.

  “The Council,” I say. “They’re trying to dig their way down. Blasting from the surface.” I stare at Talya, her eyes wide. “Eventually your sky will fall.” I turn away, look at Wren instead. “But if I leave, they’re waiting to undo me.”

  “Perhaps. But now that you have seen their prize, I think you have information they will want — about us, about how best to proceed. Though I shudder to think how they would extract it from you. Remember, the Aquifer is their goal. You and Massa are still the only ones who know both the way down and the way to the surface.”

  It is silent. Jasper speaks.

  “I don’t envy your choice, Luca, but I’ve made mine. After years on that island, speaking to critters to keep myself sane, well, this is a dream. A crumbling dream, but a fine one, nonetheless. I won’t be going back up.”

  Seward rolls his eyes. “Then I’ll take the other. If by any means I can surface, then surface I will. It’s not perfect, and it sounds as though it be less perfect still, but it’s real.”

  “So is this, Seward.” Jasper exhales.

  “You be bewitched.”

  “You’ve never had it so good.”

  “Fool!” Seward rises.

  “Pirate!” Jasper pounds the table.

  “Men.” Wren sounds weary. “If I was an Amongus, each of you would be in for a good debriefing. Luca, take some time. But your choice must come soon. I suggest you stay far from the Dwellings … Movement through the Aquifer renders you too easily detained. Your coronation is mere days from now.” She gestures behind her. “Take the back room as your own. You’ll find a private entrance. Come and go as you please. Walk the stream and think. I find it helps me.”

  It’s too much to place on me. Too much, and I whisper to Talya. “I’m going to be living here then.”

  “I know. That’s good. But please …” She turns me around and reaches into my pack, removes Father’s book once again. “Don’t make this decision alone.”

  Wren smiles. “A very wise young lady.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  I spend the evening with my parents.

  Mother Alaya’s words fill the book’s beginning. Each day recorded as a journey of life taken with her one and only child. Life below is chronicled as well — it reads like a joyous time. Woven through the pages is a combination of excitement and fear. The idea of life on the surface terrified her, yet she believed that, perhaps as an ambassador of goodwill, she would melt the Toppers distrust of the Rats.

  Mother felt certain she could find a sympathetic soul on top.

  Her last words tell it all.

  Your father has slipped through. It is my time to leave you, but in the safest of hands and only for a while. It is dark inside the tunnel, and the air, it weighs heavy on my lungs. You seem unaffected, and this makes me smile. Outside, I see a sky, and an orb — the moon by Massa’s description — guarded by an uncountable number of attendants. Lights shining, twinkling, even shooting across the sky.

  I go now to be with your father, and to wait for you and plan for a time when this separation is gone. When there is but one world, not two. You embody my hope. You are the one who comes from two. I trust this book and your life to Wren’s care.

  Come soon, my son. Come soon.

  Mother, the one who loves you.

  From there, the scratches take a painful turn, as a despairing Massa tries to make sense of his life. Guarding what doesn’t need to be guarded. Losing what should never have been lost.

  Trying to show me love though he has lost all hope.

  It is a love letter, a lifelong love letter filled with words he could not say.

  My father was a great man.

  I close the book and my eyelids feel heavy. A pounding from outside the cottage quickly changes that.

  “I know he is here, Wren! Let us in.”

  Etria!

  “You are the temporary judge until Luca’s coronation, but does this give you the right to enter my home?” She raises her voice, and I believe it is meant as a warning to me. “And with your sons as well?”

  “Were he alone, no. He could wander as he pleased. But Talya’s with him. I sense it. I have seen them together, seen how they stare at one another. It is not proper at this time, and with her in the middle of her six thousand.” He pauses. “Long ago, a suitable selection was made.”

  “By her, correct? It was made by Talya?”

  “This is a matter for my household, not for your discussion. I will not see my daughter risk Alaya’s fate. Toppers are Toppers.”

  “Which Luca, as we know, is not.”

  “But he is half-bred, and that ends this line of talk. He is meant to be our judge, not part of my family. Step aside.”

  I quietly twist the handle of the back door. It flies open.

  Talya winks. “It’s about time you came out.”

  “What? How long have you been out there? You can’t —” I peek over my shoulder. “Your father is here too!”

  “Talya!” Etria calls. “I hear you. Come to me!”

  She nods me out and we dash into the woods, toward the sound of distant water. It’s no small stream ahead — waves crash and pound against my eardrums. Downed branches and leaves crackle beneath my feet as we leap logs and dodge trunks. The tree line ends abruptly, and we pop out onto a rocky ledge. I see from the front what I had only known from behind: a majestic waterfall. Beneath the unreal glow of a nonexistent moon, there’s a sparkling plateau and another waterfall, and another, and another, disappearing into the muted subterranean sky.

  “Seven falls in all. The lowest and largest of the falls is formed by a crystal spike in the Aquifer.” Talya stares over her shoulder, at the three figures stepping free from the brambles. “The other six are simply porous rock.” She is talking faster now, and I see panic in her eyes. “We can’t go any higher. I’m sorry, Luca. If I had gone home, they wouldn’t have found you.”

  Etria’s voice rises above the water’s fury. “We most certainly would have seen Luca at the coronation, isn’t that right?” He folds his hands. “Now, daughter, do not disgrace me further before the future judge. Come. Obey your father.”

  I take hold of Talya’s hand and back toward the churning pool.

  “With respect, Luca, that hand is not yours to hold. I know you are not yet familiar with our customs, our systems.”

  To the top, Luca. Take her to the top.

  “Talya, do you trust me?” I shuffle to the water’s edge.

  “For no understandable reason, yes.”

  “Remove your glove.”

  “But once in the stratus, if we even reach it through this stone, we’ll only be able to access the small node behind the lower falls.”

  “Don’t aim for the node. We are going through solid rock, to the top.”

  “But I’ll see no prism. What will pull us?” Her breath quickens. “What if my light doesn’t separate the rock? We’ll be trapped in the stony layer. No one has ever risked something like this.”

  “Do you trust me?” I speak, but the words are not my own. The certainty is not my own. I am filled with something, something Other, and I stare at her with unblinking eyes.

  Talya slowly removes her glove, and a beam of light pulsates around us. “Luca, you are the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

  We grasp hands, and she slaps her palm down upon dark stone.

  The heat is overwhelming, but we reach it, a stratus without current. Talya strokes my face, gazes about, locates the small node, and we accelerate upwar
d. At the last moment she shifts her hand, veers to the side, and our world falls into heat and darkness.

  We are inside solid rock. Slowing, slowing. If we come to rest, there is no light node to pull us on. I will be undone. Talya will be undone, encased forever inside a stone.

  Up, up.

  Splash.

  I break the surface of a different pool.

  “Talya? Talya!”

  She bobs to the surface, shivering and wide-eyed and beautiful. “Where are we?”

  “The pool …” I sputter and shiver. “Above the top waterfall — at least … at least … that was the hope.”

  Talya’s breaths are shallow, and she swims closer. “Luca, if you leave this place, take me with you.”

  A chill works its way through me. There’s nothing I’d rather do.

  “But I heard, Talya.” I halve the distance between us. “Your father has selected someone for you.”

  “By the rules he upholds, it’s not his right. Not if I select first.” We move together, and she places her arm on my shoulder. “But by our rules I must be pursued, and may not pursue.”

  “Talya!” Etria’s voice is faint. “Where have you gone?”

  She smiles, and I smile. “Tell me how I pursue.”

  “Cup your hands.”

  I’ve never made that gesture; always it is given to me. But I lift my hands from the water, waiting. Talya looks at them, her eyes sparkling. She fits her own ungloved pair into mine and drinks. I do the same.

  “That’s it?” I ask. “Don’t get me wrong, I like that, but —”

  She draws her body against my own, and presses her palm against my chest. Every nerve fires and screams. There is warmth and want, and I wrap her in my arms.

  Okay, I like this second part a little better.

  “Are we leaving?” she whispers, grazing my ear with her lips.

  I don’t want to talk about the choice, not now. I want only to stay in this embrace. But the question hangs like a cloud, and I pull back, stare into her eyes. “I can’t promise you anything. I can’t keep you safe. Think of Alaya —”