CHAPTER
54
CHARLEY
DAY 85, AFTER NOON
Natalie once said there’s no such thing as luck on Nil.
She was wrong.
Luck is personal; we all have our own. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but it’s yours, and it follows you wherever you go—even to Nil. And luck can change, because as my nana always insisted, luck was a state of mind.
Chance, on the other hand, is different. Chance is a coin toss, chance is probability. My charts had increased Thad’s chances, but it hadn’t changed his luck.
And I couldn’t understand why.
As we left the meadow, I pondered luck and chance, labyrinths and personal journeys, island mazes and carvings and the eternal question:Why are we here?
But mostly I pondered the most disturbing question of all: Why isThadstill here?
***
The next morning, I woke before Thad, a rare event.
By the fire, Miya sat alone, sewing a pair of shorts, her nimblefingers working the thin twine in an easy rhythm, her shoulders relaxed. I was struck by the change in her bearing. No more wounded bird, tucked in a ball. The most fragile soul on Nil had been saved by one of the strongest, and now Miya emanated a quiet strength reminiscent of Talla’s inherent confidence. I wondered what Miya’s future held for her once she escaped. Her gift for spotting gates rivaled Jason’s, and my gut said she would make it. Talla’s bravery had secured Miya’s future, but the cost was huge. I wondered if Talla’s cross haunted Miya or inspired her. It was not a question I’d ever ask.
Past Miya, Rives sat near the Wall, like he was meditating, only his eyes were open. Lately he’d become as obsessed with the Wall as Thad, but while Thad traced the carvings, Rives just stared, and never at the same place twice.
“Find anything new?” I teased, walking up to him.
“Actually, yes.” Rives stood, grinning too broadly for this early in the morning. “Okay, what do you see when you look at the Wall?”
“Is this a trick question?” I asked, instantly annoyed. Now was not the time for games, not when Thad had only thirteen days left. “I see names.”
“Exactly. Thousands of names, if you count both sides. And I have.” Rives began to pace. “We know gates flash once a day on our end, at noon. So if we assume that gates flash once a day back home, that leaves three hundred sixty-five chances for people to show up per year. But we know that some inbounds have no riders, others pick up whatever happens to be there—chipmunk or cheetah, or a person. So I’m guessing worst case, one person gets snatched per week. That’s roughly fifty people a year. Now, if you do the math and count backward, this Wall was built in approximately 1859.” Rives raised an eyebrow at me.
“O-kaayy,” I said, fighting impatience. “So it’s old.”
Rives shook his head. “Do you know what happened in 1859?”Before I could say no, he said, “The biggest solar flare in history. That superflare sent a bunch of junk toward Earth, causing the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded. Scientists call it the Solar Superstorm; I know because we studied it last year. All kinds of crazy stuff happened after the superflare. Telegraph machines caught fire; others kept typing after being unplugged. Weird stuff. And get this”—Rives paused, clearly for effect—“according to the British astronomers who observed it, the superflare happened just before noon.”
Only slightly less dramatically, Rives continued. “Obviously, it wasn’t noon everywhere, but the only dudes who saw that superflare—the only two, Charley!—both saw it at noon. How crazy is that? Two scientists, totally unrelated, working at two different observatories in the same time zone, and both record the superflare at noon. So, just like there’re different quadrants here, there’re different time zones back home, and the gate storm had to start somewhere, right?”
He stopped, his face animated. “I remembering you asking Macy why we’re here. Well, I think it’s possible we’re here because of that massive solar storm. Maybe something happened back then, something cosmic that created this place or ripped open the gate to it. We’ll never know, but it’s possible it’s related. And it was your storm theory on the gates that gave me the idea.” Grinning, Rives waited for my reaction.
I wanted to scream.
Maybe that’s whythe islandis here, but it’s not whyweare here. Different question, different answer, and Rives’s answer didn’t matter, because it didn’t help Thad. Like I’d told Dex weeks ago, all that mattered was survival and escape, and for Thad, time was running out.
“It’s a cool idea,” I said, fighting not to snap, “but like you said once yourself, it doesn’t help get us home.”
Rives’s expression softened. “I know. But it makes the place less freaky, at least for me.” Stepping close, he wrapped his arm around me like he used to do with Natalie. “Keep the faith, girl,” he whispered. “Thad’s gonna make it.”
He has to, I thought, biting my lip.For both of us.
CHAPTER
55
