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CHAPTER 5
WE CLIMBED UP THE SCRAP-METAL EVEREST, WITHme leading the way and Julie slightly behind. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps. Too little food. Julie wasn’t much stronger than a mosquito. In fact, if a big one rammed her, she might fall over. She didn’t complain, though.
About halfway up the slope she finally gave in. “How far?”
“Keep climbing.”
“I just want to know how far!”
“Don’t make me turn this car around, missy.”
“What does that even mean?” She mumbled something else under her breath but kept moving.
The edge of the Gap crept closer. The rhythmicwhoom ,whoom ,whoom grew louder. Had to be a beacon of some sort. I climbed onto the narrow ledge and reached for Julie. “Give me your hand.”
She stretched a matchstick arm. I grabbed her wrist and raised her over the jagged remains of the refrigerator onto the ledge next to me. She weighed next to nothing. “We’ll take a little break.”
“I can keep going.”
“I’m sure you can. But Honeycomb isn’t a nice place. By now someone probably knows we’re here and they have a welcoming committee prepared.”
“Oh boy! They’ll throw us a party!” She sat in the dirt.
Heh. I sat next to her. “You’re not from there, by any chance?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m from White Street.”
White Street got its name during the snowfall of ’14, which refused to melt for three and a half years.
When a street can hold three inches of powder despite the hundred degree heat, you know it’s packing some serious magic. Anybody who could afford to move did.
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen. I’m only two years behind Red.”
Looking at her, I would’ve guessed eleven tops. “How old is your mother? What does she look like?”
“She is thirty-five and she looks like me only grown up. I have a picture at home.”
“So what do you know about the coven? Who did they worship? What sort of rituals did they do?”
Julie shrugged. In front of us the gorge stretched into the distance, bristling with spikes and rusty iron.
Thin tendrils of mist clung to the steep slope. A deep threatening growl echoed from the walls, too far to be a threat. The Stymphalean birds answered it with their screeches.