The clearly exhausted Springer waves us outside.
The rain has died down to a steady sprinkle. We follow Purple around the back of the ruined building. Tucked in behind a broken slab of wall is a narrow, wheeled cart. The cart is made of sticks and boards, bound together with dried vines. The wheels are mismatched. One is metal and reminds me of Spingate’s symbol—it used to be a real gear in some large machine, perhaps. The other wheel is made of splintery wood. The wheels are close enough together that the cart would probably make it through the jungle’s narrow trails. Two long handles, so someone could stand between them and pull the cart behind.
Atop the cart is a long pile of vines. Purple reaches out, lifts a handful so we can see beneath.
A human face—Visca.
Spingate hisses in air, covers her mouth.
Visca’s dead eyes stare out. He was always the palest of all the Birthday Children. Now he is sheet-white. Dried blood crusts the bullet hole in his forehead. There are bite marks on his cheeks, and one of his ears has been chewed off—the jungle animals had started in on his corpse.
Purple looks at me. He wants me to understand. He brought us the body of our fallen warrior. It is an apology, maybe, or perhaps an effort to show good faith. Whatever the motivation, this gesture moves me deeply.
“Thank you,” I say. “This means a lot to us.”
Dolls, families, love, revenge, honoring the dead…our two cultures are similar in so many ways.
Purple covers Visca’s face.
We return to the steeple. Purple checks on his friend, who is finally awake.
“We need to talk to them now,” Spingate says. “We have to find out about food.”
“How? We don’t speak their language, they don’t speak ours.”
“But they have a language,” she says. “Maybe we can make each other’s sounds.”
Spingate steps toward them. She raises her hand to her chest, taps her sternum twice.
“Spingate,” she says. She reaches across, taps my chest. “Em.”
The Springer stares at us. It taps its own chest.
“Bar-kah,” it says, the words half-growl, half-chirp. It points to its wounded friend. “Lah-fah.”
A single, stunned laugh escapes me, makes Purple twitch in surprise and caution. Barkah, Lahfah…are those their names? Purple understood us?
Spingate points. “Barkah,” she says, doing her best to imitate the sound. Then she points down: “Lahfah.”
The wounded Springer’s eyes widen and the toad-mouth opens, letting out a sound like shoes grinding on broken glass. It’s as shocked that we can understand them as I was they can understand us. That sound—just like me, Lahfah is laughing.
Purple—I mean Barkah—points at Spingate.
“Singat,” it says. Then it points at me. “Hem.”
Lahfah’s mouth opens wide again, filling the room with that grinding-glass laugh. For having a broken leg and two dead friends lying close by, this one seems full of good humor. I wonder what he’s like in happier circumstances.
Are we making a connection here? Can we do this? Can we succeed where the Grownups just made war?
Barkah points at me again. “Hem. Yalani.”
I look at Spingate. She shrugs. We have no idea what that means.
“Yalani,” Spingate repeats, mimicking the sound as best she can.
Barkah stares at us, then unslings his bag and starts digging through it.
“Pellog jana chafe,” Lahfah says. “Rether page chinchi wag.”
He’s babbling. He must think we understand all of his language, not just a couple of names.
“Yollo bis,” he says, then roars with body-shaking laughter.
Barkah pulls out a piece of cloth and a black stick. When he does, another piece of cloth falls from the bag and lands, mostly flat, on the dirty floor. It is the picture of the Springer I killed.
“Ponalla,” Lahfah says softly, mournfully.
Barkah stuffs the drawing back into his bag. He unfurls a blank piece of cloth, lies it flat on the floor, and sketches. Quick, purposeful lines. His hand is steady. He knows what he’s doing—this alien is an artist.
The image takes shape before my eyes: the Observatory. And on it, tiny but clear, several layers up, a human figure.
Barkah points to it. “Yalani.”
“He recognizes you,” Spingate says. “From the statue of Matilda.”
I don’t know what to say, what to think. What do the Springers know about our city and that massive building? Did he want to shoot me because I killed his friend, or because of something to do with that statue?
Wait…the statue of Matilda is tall, but insignificant compared to the size of the pyramid. Even if you’re on the same street, the statue is too high up to make out any details. He couldn’t possibly recognize me unless he had been close enough to see the statue’s face.
I point to the base of the drawn Observatory.
“Did you go there? Did you watch us?”
Three green eyes blink at me.