Maybe it’s all those things.
At least O’Malley wasn’t as bad as Gaston. The little pilot looked like he was on the edge of tears because Spingate was leaving. Just before we left, I saw them facing each other, holding hands. He looked at the ground, nodding his head while she spoke softly.
I have the spear. Bishop has his red axe. The heavy shovel rests on Farrar’s shoulder. Coyotl still prefers his tried-and-true thighbone.
Spingate carries the jewel-studded tool I found back in the Xolotl’s coffin room. Her bag also holds a white case filled with bandages, sharp little knives, pills, needles and thread for stitching wounds, containers of ointments and other things. Smith taught Spingate how to use all of it.
Opkick and Borjigin—teenage half-circles who were originally with Bishop’s crew—took it upon themselves to start an inventory of the storerooms. They sent each of us off with a small black bag containing some food, a bottle of water and a flashlight. They also found a handful of knives, with sheaths that strap around our thighs. There aren’t many of these, so we only give them to the circle-stars.
We climb the ring of piled vines and descend the other side. Just like that, the shuttle is gone from sight. We’re heading into the unknown. Am I frightened? Of course. But I have also grown accustomed to this—the unknown is all that I have ever known.
We walk down a wide, vine-covered street. The sounds of our people quickly fade away. Leaves rattle: the dead city hissing at us. A light breeze brings new smells. I now recognize the minty scent of the vines. Most odors, though, neither I nor Matilda have ever known before.
Buildings rise up on either side of the street. Some are boxy, but most are stepped pyramids. Ziggurats. Those remind me of something from my childhood…Matilda’s childhood, I mean. I remember a wedding. I remember staring up at the cake, at four layers, each layer smaller than the one below it. At the top, a little statue of two people. I thought it was a toy. I wanted to play with it, but Mother wouldn’t let me.
Some of the pyramids are small, three or four layers, while others are massive, twenty layers or more. The biggest of these have layers so wide that there are smaller ziggurats built upon the flat spaces. Vines cover almost everything, softening shapes, turning the orange-brown stone a pale, fuzzy yellow.
As I walk, I realize I don’t feel as anxious about the sprawling sky above. All this open space, it feels like I belong here. I’m beginning to understand that this is natural. This is the way things should be—being cramped in a shuttle or packed into narrow hallways is not.
A few buildings have collapsed. Young trees rise up from the street, from rooftops, from the sloped sides of the ziggurats. Trunks of green and brown, leaves a darker yellow than those of the vines. The way tree roots clutch at stone walls makes me think more buildings will collapse as the years roll on.
Birds fly overhead—well, not the birds I know from Matilda’s memories, but brightly colored animals about the same size. Instead of feathered, flapping wings, these things have two sets of stiff, buzzing membranes. The membranes move so fast they are a blur.
Blurds—that’s what I will call these creatures.
Some are small, some big. A large one sweeps its wings back against its long body and dives, then pulls up sharply, extending claws that snatch a smaller blurd right out of the air with a sickening smack-crunch.
Death lives here. Death lived on the Xolotl. Perhaps death lives everywhere.
Farrar turns in circles as he walks forward, almost tripping, gawking up at the towering pyramids. “Where is everyone?”
There should be people. Lots of them, yet the only motion comes from blurds and blowing leaves. If O’Malley is right about the warehouse, the Grownups built all of this.
So where did they go?
—
By the time we reach the warehouse, the red sun is directly overhead. Heat beats down on us, makes my shirt damp. I hope we can go inside and find some shade.
The warehouse is built from the same vine-covered stone that makes up the rest of the city. It’s tall and wide, with a peaked roof that faces our street. The vines are so thick they almost obscure two huge stone doors that look like they’re designed to slide apart. If those doors opened all the way, the shuttle could roll in with plenty of room to spare on either side.
Cornstalk statues rise up from the roof’s edges. This close to them, the vines look like old spiderwebs strung between the posts.
Bishop points to the base of the big doors. “Let’s try there.”
We walk closer. Through the thick plant cover, I see a person-sized door set into the big sliding one. How did he spot that?