The Indifferent Children of the Earth Page 4

  Chapter 4, Friday 19 August into Saturday 20 August

  The sink’s fingers sank into the wood easily, ripping out long splinters as it pulled itself up into the tree. I climbed higher, followed another fork in the trunk, and positioned myself on the thickest branch I could find. It wasn’t very thick; any higher, and I’d have problems. I wedged myself in, facing down, ready to kick in the sink’s face, break its jaw, maybe even knock it down to the ground. If it didn’t rip my leg off first.

  Another crack reverberated through the wood beneath me. The sink crawled up the trunk, digging its fingers into the wood, not bothering with handholds or branches. It was close. With a stuttering leap, it moved from one branch to the one just below me. I kicked, catching it in the cheek, and the rotted flesh split under the toe of my sneaker.

  Have you ever felt the way moldy cloth rips? It was something like that.

  Its head snapped back, and for a moment, its grip loosened. I kicked again, smashing fingers, but no bones broke, and that meant the sink wouldn’t care. It righted itself and pulled itself closer; I could smell the rot now, rising to meet me.

  A burst of light struck the sink. I stared as the light ripped a hole through the sink’s body. It filled the air around me with light, brighter than day, white heat scorching my legs. The sink gave a quick jerk, and then slumped down, still gripping the tree in its second-death. And then the light vanished, and I blinked to adjust my eyes. A purple after-image followed everything as I turned, trying to see what had happened.

  There, on the gravel road a few yards away, staring up into the tree—a person in a hoodie. A man, to judge by the width of his shoulders. He stared for long moments; I couldn’t make out anything, not in the dark, not with my vision blurred from the flash of light. The man turned away, took two steps, and disappeared into a column of flickering light. A quickening.

  And not a very efficient one, at that. The quickening he had used was crude, consuming large amounts of energy, and to judge by the brilliant flash toward the river, it did not take him very far.

  I could have done a much better job.

  Then I glanced down at the sink. I could barely make out the outline of a ragged hole in its chest, the wound already cauterized by the same energy that ripped it open. A chunk of the tree trunk was missing too, the wood black, and still hot to the touch. I wiped the charcoal soot on my jeans, gave the sink a last, careful glance—to be sure it was really dead, this time—and started climbing down the tree.

  By the time I hit the ground, there were no more flashes of light announcing the hoodie-quickener. No sign of sinks, either, but that wasn’t good enough for me. If more had awakened in the graveyard, which seemed more than likely, I didn’t want to be around by myself.

  It took me time to figure out the way I had come, and even longer to find my bike. I had run farther than I realized—my bike was almost at the east end of the graveyard, and it was a big place. On the other side of the fence, my shirt torn in a second place now thanks to the fence, I got on my bike and started back up the hill.

  It didn’t make any sense. Not just the unskilled quickener, hiding out in this crap-hole of a town. That was strange enough. But no—what really didn’t make sense was the way he had handled that sink. If you had the right focus, you could knock a sink around, slow it down, maybe even break up the body—if you had enough time. But what that quickener did, that was one of the most basic quickening available. I realized that the hair on my arms was still standing up. A static charge. Barely refined energy. As close as you can come, as a quickener, to releasing the electricity that we take in.

  I thought briefly of Christopher, felt the scar on my wrist hotter than a coal. There were other ways to release that chaos.

  Regardless, the sink should have absorbed that energy like a dry sponge; that’s where their name comes from. They’re energy-sinks; the more you pour into them, the stronger and faster they are. And the longer they stay around to bother the living.

  But somehow, that quickener had blown the sink in half. I don’t know which made me sweat more—that thought, or peddling up the hill in that suffocating Midwestern swamp-air. By the time I reached home, my legs were aching, in part from the burns, in part from the peddling and running. I put the bike back in the garage; if Mom were still gardening, she was as silent as the grave, because I didn’t hear or see anyone outside.

  The lights in the house were off, from what I could see through the windows. I slipped in our blessedly-unlocked front door. A glaring line of light from my dad’s office met me, accusing from underneath his door. And then the soothing, numbing, tap of twenty-six letters spilling out a song. I hurried up the stairs, avoiding the steps that would give me away—I remembered them this time—and into my room.

  In the bathroom, I stripped off my clothes and examined them. The shirt was ruined, two big holes announcing my prison escape. The jeans—the jeans were singed and had a too-smooth, glossy look where the fabric had almost fused together. I didn’t think denim could do that. Even though the jeans hadn’t burned all the way through, my shins were bright red, like from a bad sunburn. Damn. Unskilled or not, that quickener knew how to throw a lot of power behind his work.

  A quick, cold shower did little to help. When I lay down again, clean, my legs throbbing, I realized my heart was ticking along faster than my dad ever typed. I was awake. Really awake. It was a bad sign. Right now, excited and curious, I couldn’t stop thinking about that man in the hoodie—who was he? Why was there a quickener here? And how did he destroy that sink?

  In the back of my head, though, I knew that being awake was dangerous. When the excitement faded, when memory slipped back in, I’d have to face it all again, and I wouldn’t have the safety of retreating to that quiet spot hidden behind my heart.

  Even knowing that, though, I couldn’t calm my racing mind, couldn’t stop thinking about the quickener. Because I still thought of myself as one of them, you see. Because, although part of me knew that I had nothing to do with quickening any more, it’s hard to remember that that part of me had died.

  I’m kind of an idiot like that, I guess.