The Edge of Everything(20)

Late in the afternoon, Zoe used her phone somehow to see when it was expected to stop, only to discover that there were no reports of rain (or sleet or power outages) anywhere within 500 miles.

"Idiots," she said. "How can they not see this storm?"

X began to fear that the storm was meant for them alone.




       
         
       
        
Spock and Uhura pawed at the front door, begging to be let in. They'd finally been admitted into Bert and Betty's house, and were now trying their luck here. Jonah looked at his mother with such pleading eyes that she finally groaned and said simply, "Okay, fine."

Jonah clapped ecstatically, ran to the door-and discovered that it had been frozen shut. X listened as Zoe and her mother tried and failed to wrench it open. He could hear Spock and Uhura on the steps, whimpering. He pictured them shivering, their fur rattling with ice.

Above them, the roof groaned, threatening to cave in.

Then, suddenly, the rain stopped.

But the relief was short-lived, for soon the silence was torn by the sound of trees surrendering to the ice and splitting apart.

At first it was just a branch or two that snapped and fell onto the snow. Soon, though, the noise was terrifying and constant, like a thousand bones breaking. Trees that had stood more than a century were shattered in an instant. X could see Zoe and the others registering every loss. Jonah rushed to a window that looked out on the backyard. "Daddy Man's tree!" he said. The willow had not cracked, but it was bent low again and threatening to snap. X was powerless to help. His head was boiling. He slumped farther down the wall, draped in the blanket Zoe had given him.

The blizzard had damaged the forest, but this decimation seemed nearly vengeful, and it could not be ignored, for there was no wind or snow to cover the sound. Even to X, who had heard every sort of agonizing sound the universe could produce, the destruction of the trees sounded raw and pitiless-a kind of mass murder.

Zoe's mother, electric with anger and worry, said that there hadn't been an ice storm in years.

"This doesn't make any sense," she said.

At that moment, X felt the bruises beneath his eyes begin to burn.

One of the lords had come for him.

X felt him calling out. He could envision the lord's gnarled hands summoning up the storm-conducting it like an orchestra. X had no choice but to go to him. To end this.



He beckoned Zoe to his side.

"I have hurt you," he whispered.

His voice was hoarse.

"A little," she said.

"I am sorry, and ashamed, besides," he said. "This storm, this rain-it is not from your world, but mine. A lord awaits me in the woods. I feel his rage in every part of me. He has come to put me back on the path."

"Let him wait," said Zoe.

She said it blithely, but he heard the fear in her voice.

"I must finish what I began," he said. "I must drag Stan to the Lowlands where his kind belong. You must let me go."

"No," said Zoe. 

"Yes," said X.

"No," said Zoe.

"Yes," said X, laughing softly at her willfulness. "How long shall we continue in this vein?"

"I can go all night," said Zoe.

She sat down next to him on the floor.

"Don't you realize what the lords have done to you?" she said. "You were a little kid-totally innocent-and it killed them. So they made you hunt souls. And you were grateful, right? Because you got powers for a little while. Because you got to leave your cell every so often on some, like, supernatural hall pass. And the whole time-the whole time-they've been trying to turn you into them. And now you think you belong there! Which you don't. I am so sick of losing people, X. Don't make me lose you."

She was crying now. X wanted to touch her-she was the only proof he'd ever had that there was light and life and warmth in the world-but he knew if he so much as brushed her skin with his fingertips, he wouldn't have the strength to leave. He would sink into her, and all would be lost.

"I have brought evil to within a hundred yards of your door," he said, "and I will face it before it crawls even one inch closer."

Zoe looked away, defeated.

"Stay within these walls, no matter how fiercely they groan," X continued. "The lord will not risk being seen by any who walk this world. It is an unbreakable code. I, myself, am about to discover the penalty for breaking it."

He staggered to the door. He drew in a breath, gathering his strength so that he might break the seal of ice. He looked up at the ceiling as if his visitor from the Lowlands were hovering just above his head.

"If you want me," he cried, "let me out!"

He pulled so fiercely that the wood burst along the hinges.

The door flew open.

Spock and Uhura rushed into the house, delirious with relief. Their fur was beaded with ice, just as X had imagined. Their legs made a crinkling sound as they ran.

Jonah and his mother rushed to the dogs. The last thing X saw was them covering the animals with the blanket that had fallen from his own shoulders.



He stalked toward the woods, his head lowered, his broad back curved against the cold. He had gone a hundred feet when he heard Zoe call out to him.

"Will you come back?" she shouted. "When you've found Stan-when you've brought him to the Lowlands-will you come back?"

It was an impossible question. Surely she knew that. Though he was scared, he wanted to make her laugh, if he could.

"Unless I get into college!" he shouted. When Zoe smiled, he added, "That was a blurt."

"Yes, I know!" she said. "But, seriously, will you come back?"

Would it be a lie to say yes, if he truly didn't know?

Nothing could induce him to lie to her.

He began striding toward her through the snow. The lord would have to wait one more moment.

Zoe cried even harder when she saw X coming. He could see her shoulders rise and fall.

"If I do not return," he said, "it is only because not one but two worlds conspired to stop me."

Zoe came down the steps in just her hoodie and jeans. X all but flew the remaining feet. He removed his coat, and wrapped it around her. It brightened briefly, like coals being stoked.

He took her face in his hands, and pulled her mouth to his. Her lips were cool and smooth.

He lifted her off the snow when he saw she was standing in her socks.



The trees looked brittle and translucent: a forest of glass.

X moved slowly, pulled toward the lord by an unseen force. He feared that if he brushed against a branch, he might shatter it. He dodged and ducked the tree limbs. Where the tree trunks were thickest, he crawled. Up ahead, he heard the ice cracking and trees splitting apart. He knew the lord was close.



       
         
       
        

He came into a clearing littered with fallen trees. The lord, who was in a fury unlike any X had ever witnessed, stalked maniacally before him, pushing down firs with a single shove.

"I beg you to stop," said X. "I have come."

It was not the ebony-skinned Regent, but a crazed and vicious lord they called Dervish. He stared at X, eyes alight with anger.

"You will beg for MANY things before the horizon swallows the sun," he said.

Dervish resumed the destruction of the trees, stripping branches and snapping trunks so that their interiors lay exposed.

X stepped forward hesitantly.

"Yes, yes, draw near!" Dervish screamed. "Mark well what I do to these trees for it pales next to the violence I shall visit upon you-and those creatures who have sheltered you."

The lord had pointy, ratlike features. His face was as gray and papery as a wasps' nest.

"You were hoping the one you call Regent would come for you, no doubt!" said the lord. "But he is too soft a kitten, you see. He coddled you. And in return? You shamed him by letting your prey escape, and by mingling with mortals! When you return to the Lowlands, do not be surprised if you see Regent's bones floating in your soup." He paused, then added with relish: "I am your master now."

"I shall do whatever you ask," said X. "But I beg you to spare the family that took me in. They know nothing of who I am."

At this, the lord squawked with laughter.

"And now you would LIE to me?" he said. "I have borne witness to your every moment in that house. I have heard your pathetic mewling. You were like a love-struck schoolboy plucking petals from a flower."

X repeated his plea, even more softly: "Spare the family, I beg you. I will do whatever you require."

"Indeed you shall," said the lord. "And I shall require things that will reduce your heart to ash!"

He stomped toward X.

"On your knees, bounty hunter," he demanded. "It is time you took Stan's sins into your blood once more."

Dervish grasped X's face with both hands, and began reciting the familiar speech: "The Lowlands require another soul for its collection. He is an evil man-unrepentant and unpunished."

As he continued, the lord's fingernails-long, curling, and yellowed-punctured X's skin and sent blood down his cheeks.

X felt the lord's power flow through his body. Once again, Stan's story entered him. It was even more hateful this time, because new sins had been added to the old. When Dervish had finished, he shoved X to the ground, where he shook as if in a seizure.