“Come on, Rosie,” Linus urges me. “There’s nothing we can do.”
But I can’t leave yet. From where I stand, I can see the column of white-hot fire in the center of the park that stretches up into the sky. It’s horrible, but also fabulous, in a way. All those dreamers underneath—they’re gone for good now. Berg, the doctors and Whistler, they’re all dead, too. And Ian, and now Larry. I can’t bear to look again toward the Lost and Found.
A flicker high above draws my gaze, and I peer up into the smoke.
The undersides of the dragon’s wings glow white as it circles above the burning ruins of the park. It beats its wings in a gangly effort to rise, and then skims along the rising heat in a fluid, mournful arc. I know it can’t be real. It can’t even be a special effect, now that all the mechanical controls are lost in the inferno. But it’s still the truest thing I’ve ever seen, and my throat chokes tight with inexplicable grief.
“Rosie, please,” Linus says gently into my ear. “We have to go. We have to take care of your mother and Burnham.”
I turn back toward the van, feeling the cooler air on my face like a reproach. Linus helps me settle in with Ma again before he closes the door. Burnham swivels stiffly to look back at me, and the orange firelight brightens half of his features.
“Your stepfather’s back there?” Burnham says in his rough voice.
I nod, my throat tightening. “My dad,” I say.
I never called him that to his face. He always wanted me to. Now it’s too late.
I hug Ma and pull her close, hoping she keeps sleeping a while longer, hoping she never has to know how I let Larry burn. As Linus turns the minivan around again, I look back over my shoulder, watching the burning theme park as long as I can, searching for the dragon until we pull out of sight.
30
NOT DAD
WE’RE IN SORRY SHAPE by the time Burnham’s plane touches down outside Holdum, Texas. Ma’s the worst. She woke once during the flight to ask for a sip of water, and I was thrilled to see her conscious. After she gave me and Dubbs tearful hugs, she drifted off again. Burnham’s coughing is horrible to hear. He’s the one who insisted we get to his jet without stopping for medical care. He argued that a hospital would tie us up with questions, and his pilot had basic EMT training. We couldn’t refuse him. Not surprisingly, his family’s plane is stocked with every drug that Fister sells. Burnham’s been on oxygen the whole flight, along with some bronchial expander his mother ordered him to take. She is not pleased with him.
Linus has been quiet. Attentive. He showed Dubbs how to do KenKens in a book he found in a seat pocket, and she’s been sitting beside him, eating duos of Milano cookies and tapping her pencil eraser against her lips.
We’re it now, the five of us. After she met us at the jet with Dubbs, Lavinia stayed behind in Miehana.
“I really ought to thank you,” Lavinia mentioned as we were saying goodbye.
“What for?” I said.
“Before you burgled into my apartment, I was content observing things from afar. I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to be involved.”
“What’ll you do now?” I asked.
“I’m weighing my options,” she said. “I’ll look up my son-in-law, for one thing, and then I think I’ll take a little trip to Forgetown. They’re going to need some oversight now that Berg is gone.” She passed me a half-full package of lemon drops. “Look after your family, Rosie. That Dubbs is a special one. Now give us a hug.”
I glance down now at the scuffed black flats she gave me and step out onto the top stair of the plane. The bright Texas wind makes me squint, but it’s easy to spot a young doctor approaching with some gear on a two-wheeled cart. It turns out he’s brought a portable X-ray system, and he carefully examines Burnham first. He takes blood samples, too, and gives him a shot.
“Your parents want you home,” the doctor says.
“I know,” Burnham says. He pulls on a fresh tee shirt, moving stiffly, and tucks his St. Christopher medal under the neckline. “I’m just stopping here for a few days first. You can tell them I’m fine, right?”
“What I’ll do is send them your X-rays,” he says. “You’ve got yourself some lung damage there.” He passes Burnham a vial of pills. “You need to watch for infection.”
“I will,” Burnham says. “Thanks.”
Then the doctor gently goes over Ma and Dubbs, and finally he focuses on me and takes out the line from behind my ear.
“What about our ports?” Dubbs asks.
“Those should wait until you’re at a proper clinic,” the doctor says. “As for your mother, she should be all right, physically. She needs fluids and a healthy diet most of all, and rest. Minimize her stress if you can,” he says. “What she’s been through emotionally you’d know better than I.”
Soon after, we all help Ma and Burnham down the stairs to where Tom Barton, Thea’s friend, waits with an SUV. Tall and blond, Tom has the build of a young cowboy, and he’s quick to open doors and lend a hand. We settle my mother in the back, and when I climb in beside her, she puts her head on my lap and closes her eyes again, sighing.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Rosie,” Tom says.
“Thanks. Me, too.”
The others pile in the SUV, too, and Tom takes the wheel, heading toward the Flores ranch.
Wide green horizons stretch under an open sky, and the sunny beauty is almost more than I can take in. Part of me is still in shock. I sniff absently at my sleeve. Even though I washed up a bit on the plane, my clothes and my hair still smell of smoke. I’m never going to be able to forget what happened at Grisly, but at the same time, I can barely accept that Larry and Berg and the others are all dead. Even Ian. I mean, I despised him, but he didn’t deserve to die. A residual shiver ripples through me.
Forward. I need to look forward.
“How are Thea and the baby?” I ask loudly so Tom can hear me in the front.
Tom adjusts the sun visor over his head. “Madeline didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I ask.
The SUV accelerates a bit under his control.
“Thea’s in a coma again,” Tom says. “She’s not responding at all.”
“No,” I whisper, stunned.
“When did this happen?” Linus asks.
“She slipped off yesterday, a few minutes after she talked to Rosie,” Tom says.
His voice is calm, but I could swear he’s implying a connection.
“Does anyone know why?” Linus asks.
“No,” Tom says. “The doctors from Chimera warned us this could happen. It wasn’t completely unexpected.”
“Madeline didn’t say a word,” I say. When I called Thea’s mother from the plane, she insisted we come to the ranch. She wouldn’t have it any other way, but now I’m chilled to realize what she omitted in her invitation. I glance forward to find Linus has turned back in my direction.
“Do you still want to go?” he asks me.
I don’t even hesitate. I nod. If Thea’s sick, if she needs me, I have to be there. “Yes, of course,” I say.