A little chill slicks down his spine, dampening the pleasant heat of hate. He thinks of all the notices and letters he’s received from Gravely Power, the font growing larger and redder with each missive. He’d forwarded them to the family lawyer without opening them, and been assured that no one could mine his property without his written consent, as it was no longer the 1940s. But if there’s anyone with fewer scruples and more connections than a coal company, it’s surely Elizabeth Baine.
Arthur swallows a vision of strangers digging and pawing through his earth, pretending to look for coal until they found something much worse.
Arthur decides it’s a helpful reminder of what will happen if he fails, if he lingers up here in Eden, rather than going down to Underland.
“I hope you’re prepared to spend the next decade in court, then,” he says into the phone. He hopes his growl is convincing. “I promise I’ll make you regret ever setting foot in Eden.”
A sigh gusts through the speaker. “I’m sure you would have.” Only then does Arthur hear her odd choice of tenses: would have, was going to. “But I don’t think it will come to that. I’ve found what I need.”
The chill thickens, congealing in his stomach. “And what’s that?”
He can see her smile hanging before him, a sickly Cheshire grin. “The right incentive.”
The line goes dead.
Arthur is almost at the front gates when he realizes he cannot see his own feet, because he is running through a thin veil of mist.
TWENTY-THREE
I call Jasper nine more times on the way back to the motel, hanging up before the automated message begins and forcing myself to take ten steps before I call again. No answer.
I don’t have Logan’s number in my phone, so I call the high school counselor and ask him to look it up for me. Mr. Cole tells me he can’t do that due to student confidentiality or whatever and I put a tremor in my voice, which isn’t hard, and say, “Please, sir. I’m worried about Jasper.”
Ten seconds later Logan answers his phone and says “Hi?” with the ponderous wonder of a teenager who has spent the last week marinating in weed and video games.
“Hey, tell my brother to pick up his phone.”
“Opal?”
“No, it’s Dolly Parton.” I can almost hear the gears of his brain grinding, like nachos in a blender. “Yes, Logan, it’s Opal. I want to talk to Jasper.”
“Uh, he’s not here?” He doesn’t sound very sure.
I exhale slowly through my nose. “Logan Caldwell, are you lying to me?”
I hear the click of his throat as he swallows. “No, ma’am.”
“Well then where is he?”
“Home, I guess? He said he had that interview thing to get ready for, but he was supposed to come over later, my mom’s making wings—”
I hang up before I say something I’ll regret. Like: What interview, or, How come he told you and not me, you little shit? The power company people must have gotten ahold of him somehow, and he didn’t have the guts to tell me. I have a guilty flash of the Stonewood acceptance folder waiting under my bed in its sparkly gift bag; I walk a little faster.
The air is hushed and the fog is thickening fast. The leaves are thrashing above me, white-bellied, and the wind tastes bitter in the back of my throat. Dark, oily clouds boil on the horizon.
Maybe Jasper just turned his phone off for his interview and forgot to turn it back on. Maybe he fell asleep with headphones on. Maybe Arthur is drawing the Starling sword even now, standing between the Beasts and my brother.
Or maybe he’s waiting to befriend them, empty-handed, leaving Eden to fend for itself. I walk a little faster.
I’m getting close when I hear the sound of sirens. High and distant, howling closer.
I look up at the sky and realize that it isn’t thunderclouds massing overheard, eating the last of the light: it’s smoke.
I stop trying to call Jasper. I run, shoes slapping the road, lungs aching. The sky darkens. The smoke thickens, pooling and coiling above the fog, nothing at all like the honest gray of chimney smoke, or even the bleached white clouds from the power plant. It’s black and sour, littered with greasy flakes of ash and the chemical remains of things that were never meant to burn. It tangles with the mist, forming dark shapes that make my eyes sting.
All the Gutiérrez kids are out on the sidewalk in front of Las Palmas, coughing into their elbows, their faces blurred by mist and smoke. One of their aunts shoos them back inside as I pass, casting worried looks over her shoulder. Her face appears at the old drive-thru window, watching the sky. She pulls a charm from her blouse and kisses it three times.