O’Malley is fuming. “You weren’t supposed to leave, Gaston. You either, Spingate.”
“Yet leave we did,” Gaston says. He glances at Spingate, grins. “And we discovered all sorts of neat things.”
She turns even redder, something I wouldn’t have thought possible. She’s glaring at Gaston like she wants to choke him. Does she think I’m going to yell at her or something?
“Spingate, relax,” I say. “So you guys explored, it’s not the end of the world. Just promise you won’t go off alone again, okay?”
She nods quickly. “I promise. So does Gaston.”
Gaston sneers. “I didn’t promise anything, so—”
“Gaston,” she barks, turning on him. “You promise Em and you promise right now!”
He rolls his eyes again, but not with the same defiance he showed O’Malley.
“Fine, whatever,” he says. “I promise.”
Why is Spingate so flustered by this? I feel like I’m missing something, but they both made it back okay.
“You said you found things,” I say. “Like?”
“Light,” Gaston says. “Maybe ten minutes away from the Garden, the hallway ends at another archway door. Spingate opened it with the scepter. Past it is the same kind of hallway where we all met—white walls, glowing ceiling, the same thing.”
I have mixed emotions about that. The fact that if we keep going straight there will be light is good, because we don’t have many torches left. But I was hoping he’d found something else.
“More hallway,” I say. “No way out of the dungeon? You’re sure?”
He shakes his head. “Not that we could see, but we didn’t go past the archway. We sealed it up again and came back here.” He grins. It’s a very self-satisfied expression. “Yep, came right back. We didn’t stop to do anything else. Anything at all.”
If Spingate gets any redder, people might mistake her for Coyotl. What is wrong with that girl? Maybe she’s tired. She looks like she hasn’t slept at all.
“Anyway,” Gaston says, “the hall goes straight and it goes uphill, which we all know Em loves so darn much. Once we’ve all had a nice rest, we can get going again. Because we can’t stay here.”
O’Malley huffs. “You already said that, Gaston.”
The smaller boy nods. “And watch me say it a third time.” He points to his mouth. “We can’t stay here. Don’t just hear it, O’Malley, understand it.”
Why is Gaston being so annoying about this?
“Of course we can’t stay,” I say. “Everyone knows that.”
Gaston smiles and crosses his arms. Spingate shakes her head.
I look at O’Malley. “Do people actually want to stay here?”
He shrugs. “Some of them.”
“You told them we couldn’t, right?”
“Em, everyone is so tired,” he says. “They’re happy they can finally rest. If some of them think we’re going to be here awhile, with plenty of food and water, that keeps them happy. Sometimes it’s better to let people think what they want to think.”
That doesn’t make any sense.
“It’s always better to tell the truth,” I say.
O’Malley glances at Spingate and Gaston, like he wants to say something to me but won’t while they are around.
“Sure, Em,” he says, his tone flat. “I’m sure you’re right.”
What does he mean by that? O’Malley is hard to read. In that way, he’s the opposite of Bishop. I can tell what Bishop is thinking simply by looking at him. But O’Malley? His thoughts are his own.
He offers me the spear. “Here you go,” he says.
I take it. I wonder if it even means anything anymore. The circle-stars accept me as leader with or without it, and maybe we’re past the point of needing symbols.
We can’t stay, but we don’t have to leave this very minute, either. I look out at everyone. I see smiles, I hear laughter. Spingate and Gaston were playing, for goodness sake.
It’s nice here. We could all use some nice.
No one is acting like nothing has happened and that this is normal. Everyone has changed. When we first woke up, I could think of Spingate and O’Malley as little kids in adult bodies. Not anymore. The ordeal has affected them. It shows on their faces. No one has forgotten what we’ve been through, but here in the Garden, things seem…better.
It feels like the hardest times are behind us.
Bello returns with a handful of steaming meat, so hot she’s tossing it from her left hand to her right, giggling at the pain. I look in the direction she came from, and see thin smoke rising up. Okereke and Ingolfsson are poking at the blackened, sizzling remains of the pig. The air above it shimmers with rising heat.
Bello offers me the wet, greasy chunk of meat. It smells amazing. I lean the spear against the tree and take it from her. Now I’m the one flopping it from hand to hand, laughing as the scalding-hot meat seems to sizzle my skin.