Waterfall (9 page)

“It’s from Dante’s
Inferno,
” he said.

Eureka wanted to know more. When had he read the
Inferno
? What had made him pick it up? Had he liked it, made his own lists of who belonged in which circle of hell the way Eureka had?

But this wasn’t Neptune’s Diner in Lafayette, where you hunkered down in a red vinyl booth with your crush and
flirted your way into each other’s secrets over cheese fries and chicken gumbo. She sensed that, like Mr. Piscadia’s leisurely walks in the park, those kinds of dates now lay at the bottom of the sea.

She reached for the bell and rang.

A
panel in the door slid open.

Eureka’s reflection greeted her. Her ombré hair was soaked and tangled. Her face was swollen and her lips were cracked. Her blue irises looked dull from exhaustion, but she couldn’t tell if crying had made her eyes something they hadn’t been before.

Cat pursed her lips at her mirror face. Her fingers scrambled to rebraid her pigtails. “I’ve looked worse. Usually in the context of more … pleasant circumstances, but I have looked worse.”

Eureka watched Ander avert his eyes from the mirror. He was jiggling the doorknob, trying to get in.

“What’s a mirror doing on a door in the middle of a cave?” Claire asked.

William raised a finger to the glass. A magician had visited his preschool a few months ago, and Eureka remembered that one of the things William had learned was how to detect a two-way mirror: a regular mirror had a small space between the reflective surface and its glass covering; a two-way mirror did not. If you pressed a finger to the glass and saw no gap in its reflection, someone was on the other side, watching you.

Eureka looked down at William’s finger. There was no gap. He looked up at Eureka in the mirror.

A voice made them jump. “Who do you think you are?”

Eureka held William’s shoulders as she spoke into the mirror. “My name is Eureka Boudreaux. We came from—”

“I didn’t ask your name,” the voice cut her off. It was soft and deep—a boy’s voice—seasoned with the slightest German accent.

It was odd to be looking at herself, addressing a disembodied voice, and discussing the nature of identity.

“When who you are changes all the time,” she said, “the only thing you have is your name.”

“Good answer.”

The door creaked open, but no one stood behind it. Ander led them through the doorway, into a grand, circular room. Rushing water echoed off a distant ceiling.

Eureka held her torch over the moth-wing bower. Dad had drifted to sleep, but his tightly clenched jaw told her that,
even after the salve, his pain was severe. She hoped help was inside this cave.

A vast tile mosaic covered the floor. Its design depicted the Grim Reaper grinning through bloody fangs. A sickle sparkled in his left hand, and where his right hand ended, a fire pit had been built into the stone. Its blaze emanated from the Reaper’s bony fingers.

Between the stacks of skulls, the walls were decorated with dark murals. Eureka stared at one depicting a great flood, victims drowning in a violent sea. A day ago it would have reminded Eureka of the Orozco murals she’d seen with Diana in Guadalajara. Now it could have been a window outside.

“We came all this way to end up in some freak’s bachelor pad,” Cat whispered in Eureka’s good ear.

“Freaks can be valuable friends,” Eureka said. “Look at us.”

Near the far wall of the room, a spiral staircase made of stone curved up, to a floor above, and down, to another floor below. But as they walked farther into the room, Eureka saw that the far wall was moving, that it was a waterfall cascading from an unseen source down white stone. The ceiling opened up and the floor dropped off and there was a gap of several feet between the edge of the ground and the waterfall. It made Eureka claustrophobic and she didn’t know why.

Just in front of the waterfall, a dark green slope-back leather chair stood atop a sleek fox-fur rug. A man sat in it, his back to them. He faced the waterfall, reading an ancient
book and sipping something fizzy from a golden champagne flute.

“Hello?” Ander called.

The man in the chair was still.

Eureka stepped deeper into the room. “We’re looking for someone named Solon.”

The figure spun to face them, propping his elbows atop the studded back of the chair. He lifted his chin and surveyed his guests. He looked fifteen, but his expression had a serrated edge that told Eureka he was older. He wore suede moccasins and a maroon satin robe belted loosely at his waist.

“You’ve found him.” His voice held an absence of hope. “Let’s celebrate.”

Cat tilted her head toward Eureka and whispered,
“Schwing.”

It hadn’t occurred to Eureka that the boy was hot—though, now that Cat mentioned it, he was. Very. His eyes were a pale, spellbinding blue. His close-cropped hair was blond with intriguing black and brown leopard-print spots. The slinkiness of his robe suggested they had stumbled into his boudoir.

The Solon she’d heard about defected from the Seedbearers seventy-five years ago. Was this boy pretending? Was the real Seedbearer somewhere hidden away?

“You’re Solon?” Eureka asked.

“Read ’em and weep.” He glanced at Eureka. “Not literally, please.”

They endured an awkward silence.

“Please don’t take this personally,” Solon said, “whatever
that
means, but I’ve been hoodwinked by those witches so many times that, before I welcome you into my salon, I require some proof of your quote-unquote identity.”

Eureka felt her empty pockets. She had no means of identifying herself, other than her tears. “You might have to take my word for it.”

“No, please keep that.” The boy’s blue eyes twinkled. “Do you see that flower at the top of the waterfall?”

He raised an index finger. Thirty feet above them, a vibrant fuchsia orchid grew out of the stone. It was stunning, undisturbed by the rushing water. It reminded Eureka of the gossipwitches’ caftans. At least fifty bright-lobed blooms clung to the orchid’s vine.

“I see it.”

“If you are who they say you are,” Solon said, “bring it to me.”

“Who are ‘they’?” Eureka asked.

“One vexed identity at a time. You first. The orchid …”

“Why should we believe
you
are who you say you are?” Cat asked. “You look like a freshman gamer too wimpy to carry my books.”

“What Cat means is,” Eureka said, “we were expecting someone older.”

“Age is in the eye of the beholder,” Solon said, and tipped his head toward Ander. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Ander looked paler than usual. “This is Solon.”

“Fine,” Cat said. “He’s Solon, Eureka’s Eureka, and the Cat’s the Cat, not that you’re interested. We’re thirsty, and I’d like to know if my family’s pushing clouds around or what. I take it you don’t have a phone?”

“The orchid,” Solon said. “Then we’ll talk.”

“This is ridiculous,” Cat said.

“She shouldn’t need to prove herself to you,” Ander said. “We’re here because—”

“I know why she’s here,” Solon said.

“If I bring you the orchid,” Eureka said, “you’ll help us?”

“I said we’ll talk,” Solon corrected. “You’ll find that I’m an excellent conversationalist. No one has ever complained.”

“We need water,” Eureka said. “And my father’s hurt.”

“I said we’ll talk,” Solon repeated. “Unless you know someone else in the neighborhood who can give you what you seek?”

Eureka studied the waterfall, trying to determine the texture of the white rock wall behind it. The first step would be getting beyond the water to the rock. Then she’d have to worry about climbing.

She looked at Dad, but he was still asleep. She thought of the hundreds of trees she and Brooks had climbed throughout their childhood. Their favorite climbing time was dusk, so that when they nestled into the tallest branches, the stars would just be coming out. Eureka imagined attaching all those tree
limbs onto one colossal trunk. She imagined it stretching into outer space, past the moon. Then she imagined a tree house on the moon, with Brooks waiting for her inside, floating in a space suit, biding his time by renaming constellations. Orion was the only one he knew.

She fixed her eyes on the surface of the waterfall. Fantasizing wouldn’t help her now. Cat was right—this was ridiculous. She couldn’t reach that orchid. Why was she even considering it?

Find your way out of a foxhole, girl.

Memories of Diana’s voice filled Eureka’s heart with longing. Her mother would say that belief in the impossible was the first step toward greatness. She would whisper in Eureka’s ear:
Go and get it.

When Eureka thought of Diana, her hand moved to her neck. As her fingers traced the locket, the yellow ribbon, and the thunderstone, she devised a plan. She handed Cat the torch. She slid her tote bag from her shoulder and gave it to Ander.

He gave her a smile that said,
You’re really going for it?

She hung in front of him, feeling the warmth of his fingers as he took her bag. Sweat formed on her brow. It was foolish to want a good-luck kiss, but she did.

“Go and get it,” he whispered.

Eureka crouched into the starting pose she assumed before a race. She bent her knees and balled her fists. She was going to need a running start.

“Nice form.” Solon drained the last of his drink. “Who knew she was trained?”

“Let’s go, Boudreaux.” Cat repeated the cheer she’d chanted at meets. But her voice sounded distant, like she couldn’t believe what was happening.

Eureka had done the high jump for a season when she’d first started running. She stared at the waterfall, envisioning a horizontal beam of water for her body to clear when she leapt. Fear filled her, energy she told herself to exploit. From the back of the cave, she began to jog.

For the first few strides, her muscles were cold and tight, but soon she felt the loosening, the lightening. She inhaled deeply, drawing the strange, steamy air into her lungs, holding her breath until she felt immersed in the atmosphere. Her shoes stopped squishing. Her rib cage lifted. Her mind traveled to the highest branch on the moon. She didn’t look down when the floor dropped out from under her. She pivoted in the air, arched her back, drew her hands up, and dove backward into the waterfall.

Cold water roared around her. She screamed as her body dropped twenty feet and was consumed by the fall. Then the thunderstone shield bloomed around her, an answered prayer bouncing her upward. She was weightless, protected. But the force of the waterfall was dragging her down.

She was going to have to swim up it.

Her body straightened. She did one breaststroke, then another.

It was hard work. Every burning stroke of her arms raised her only a half-inch higher. When she didn’t strain against it, the water pushed her down. After a long, exhausting stretch, Eureka sensed that she was only now level with the cave’s floor. She still had far to go.

Her arms thrust forward. She groaned as she strained to draw them back. She kicked her legs fiercely. She struggled up the waterfall, half-inches becoming inches, and then, impossibly, feet.

She was trembling from exhaustion when she saw the thin roots of the orchid tracing the side of the stone. Beyond the waterfall were wobbling broad green leaves, shimmering fuchsia blossoms. She was so excited that she lunged toward the orchid.

She moved too quickly. Her body passed through the waterfall before she realized her mistake: the instant the shield was exposed to air, it popped like a balloon.

Eureka’s hand had been just inches from the flower, but now she lost propulsion. Her arms spun. Her legs bicycled in the air. She screamed, and her body dropped—

Then something brushed against her back. A force buffeted her in midair as she rose along the face of the waterfall. The orchid came within reach again.

The Zephyr. The sensation of Ander’s breath surrounding her body was wonderful and intimate. It embraced her and pushed her higher in the sky. They were thirty feet apart, but Eureka felt as close as when they’d kissed.

She reached out and grasped the orchid. Her fingers closed around its reedy stem. She pulled it loose from the rock.

Below her, Ander whooped. The twins clapped and jumped. Cat catcalled. When Eureka turned to wave the flower triumphantly, she saw Solon frowning at Ander.

The wind changed directions, and the force that had been holding her up was ripped out from underneath her. Gravity returned. Eureka plunged down the face of the waterfall into distant darkness.