“I need it,” Apollo said.
Patrice sighed on the phone. “Well, it’s there,” he said. “It costs $3.99. I can change the price so it’s free, then you just download it.”
When Patrice said that, a new idea came to Apollo. One so good it actually made him laugh, even in the midst of all this. “I do want you to change the price. Is there a maximum you can charge?”
“It’s supposed to be $999.99, but there’s an easy way around that.”
“Can you do it now?”
“This is me,” Patrice said. “Of course I can. How much?”
“Seventy thousand dollars,” Apollo said.
The laughter on the other end of the line came so loudly, even Emma heard it before Apollo hung up.
By the time he found the app in the App Store, the price had been changed. He tapped to purchase. He squatted beside Emma, and together they watched the download bar progress.
“But what’s the point if we can only use it once?” Emma asked. “The park is half a mile north of here.”
“The old man told me a story,” Apollo said. “Do you know what kills trolls?”
“Daylight,” she said.
The house above rumbled, a thunderous crash, so loud it seemed possible a wall had collapsed. Soon the second floor might come down on the first, and then the first would be driven down into the basement.
Emma looked back to where the stairs had been. Hard to say if they were still there, through the black smoke.
Emma gripped Apollo’s hand, and he lowered her into the hole. Not as deep as they’d feared. He handed the iPad down next. The Knudsen line, and their centuries of service, had come to its end. By evening, there’d be nothing left of them but scorched wood and bones.
APOLLO EXPECTED EMMA to make magic. He climbed down into the dark alongside her, the passageway walls of compacted earth tight around them, hardly wide enough for one person, let alone two, the path ahead a long dark gullet, and above them a house on fire.
Though they were standing chest to chest, it was so dark he couldn’t see her face. His eyes hadn’t yet adjusted. He wanted to reach out and touch her cheeks or her nose to be sure this was really her.
“What are you waiting for?” Emma asked.
“I’m waiting for you,” Apollo said. “Your light.”
“You said we could use this only once,” she said, tapping him with the iPad.
“Not that. I’m talking about, you know, that light I saw in the forest. It floated all around you. It was like a cloud.”
Emma remained quiet. He couldn’t see her face to read any expression.
“You controlled Jorgen’s dreams,” Apollo said, sounding exasperated and desperate. “The trees parted for you. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about!”
Emma finally spoke. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying I was on my own and keeping Brian alive, keeping myself alive, working on Jorgen day and night, and it was killing me, Apollo. You saw me, didn’t you? I wasn’t able to do it because I was so powerful, I was able to do it because I had no other choice. I had to do it alone, so I did. But now I don’t have to do it alone. At least I hope I don’t. We could be stronger together, but that means you have to help me. Can you do that? Will you?”
Apollo nodded. They moved forward.
The passageway became even tighter, the roof coming down at an angle so they had to lower their heads. It felt like a funnel, a chute, the same as one might use on a cow, or a pig, in a slaughterhouse.
“Don’t be mad at my sister,” Emma whispered. “Please.”
“You’re thinking about that right now?”
Both spoke in hushed voices, though it sounded louder down here.
“Please, Apollo. It seems ridiculous to you, but it matters to me.”
“Kim lied to me,” he said. “I put a check in her hand, and she didn’t blink.”
Here Apollo stopped moving. Their eyes had adjusted enough that he could make out her outline behind him.
“Why did she believe you?” he asked. “What did you say that convinced her?”
“She didn’t believe me,” Emma said. “But she’s my sister. She wasn’t betraying you, Apollo. She was protecting me.”
They scrambled forward in the dark.
—
The passageway finally opened into a large space, an earthen amphitheater, a series of ringed ridges that fed down to a broad floor of flattened earth. Kinder Garten had shown them the camera. Were those other men watching Apollo and Emma now?
They moved down the ringed levels, shallow as stairs. As they approached the floor of the amphitheater, Apollo felt Emma’s eyes as surely as a touch. He felt himself shiver with the desire to tell her about Brian West. The dream that was not a dream, but a memory. Kinder Garten had clung to his belief that he’d cared for his family, that he’d done something so horrific as an act of love. Did Brian West feel the same when he’d plunged his only child into steaming hot water, when he held him under? He must have; against all common sense he must have. When Apollo had become impatient with Emma, when he’d become cruel, how had he justified it to himself? He was trying to focus on Brian, to be the kind of father he’d never had. What lengths will people stretch to believe they’re still good?
Apollo scanned the higher ridges of the arena. The darkness hid everything more than two feet away, the effect more disconcerting in this open space. In time their eyes would adjust to the dark, but just now they felt nearly blind. In the tunnel they’d been cramped, but out here a tank might be sitting at arm’s length, and they wouldn’t realize its main gun was pointed at them until it fired. Hands outstretched, skitching forward in small increments, legs slightly bent as if expecting a blow. They moved forward until they reached the far end of the arena’s stone wall, then pawed alongside it to traverse the space. Because of the shadows, because of the almost hypnotizing rhythm of their feet on the loose dirt, they felt dizzy as they moved.
Then Apollo bumped into something. When he hit it with his foot, there was a low, hollow thump. Emma went down on a knee.
A large gray polyethylene storage box.
The lid still on.
Apollo and Emma pulled the top off, trying to stay quiet, both breathing so heavily, they sounded like winded dogs.
A small body lay in there, on its side. Naked.
They knelt there waiting, listening, and then they heard it, faint but regular: the child’s breathing. Without the lid, it echoed in the chamber.
Emma choked with shock—it sounded like she was retching. She dropped the iPad and reached into the storage box. The bottom of the bin showed layers of dead leaves and dirt, a makeshift mattress. She lifted the body and there he was. Sleeping beauty.
Brian.
He looked big for six months old, but that’s because he was ten months old.
Being lifted, being held, caused the boy’s breathing to change; a long, low gurgle escaped those lips. His skin felt cold to the touch. His eyelids fluttered open. Emma leaned close to see them. The baby yawned and squinted his eyes.