Flock Page 23

  Before I could continue, Grim interrupted, “Can you get there with the child?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Waste no time,” she said. “Whatever forces have preyed upon us this evening, their properties are diminishing. If we’re to borrow from the universe’s powers, it must be done soon.”

  After hanging up, I stuck my head up over the desk and scanned the area. The elevator dinged and Nurse Betty stepped off, accompanied by another nurse and an orderly, who held the door open. Betty walked over to Leira and the lineup and pulled two of the wheeled cribs toward the waiting elevator. I held my breath as she went back for another two, leaving only Leira and one other remaining. The elevator, I could see, was full; a second trip would be required. Betty watched as the door closed on the other nurse, the orderly, and the first four transfers. Needing a diversion, I crept around to the side of the desk, where a rolling cafeteria cart had been abandoned with its metal-dome-capped meals stacked one atop another, and jugs of liquids and paper-capped glass tumblers. With a swift kick, I knocked it to its side. It landed with a clatter of metal, breaking glass, and spilled liquids. I heard Betty’s “What now?” exclamation as she charged to investigate.

  Moving like quicksilver, I snatched Leira up into my arms and made for the stairwell. I felt like a thief with stolen wares clutched to my chest. Bounding down the stairs, I could hear Leira’s labored breathing. She burbled as if her breaths were struggling through liquid. I recognized the sound from Afi’s fluid-filled lungs and knew it was a bad sign, a very bad sign.

  Avoiding the front entrance, I turned left out of the stairwell exit and pushed through a door marked “Hospital Personnel Only.” It led to a warren of administration offices, which, after some searching on my part, led to a private exit and a staff parking lot. Running around the side of the building, I discovered the main parking lot to still be a crush of people. In the scene of all-around chaos and confusion, no one gave a wild-eyed teen and the bundle pressed to her heaving breast a second glance.

  For all intents and purposes, I had already stolen a car and abducted a child that evening. What difference would it make to add the theft of a car seat to my growing rap sheet? I opened the unlocked back door of the car next to my dad’s and pulled out the infant carrier. So much for the low crime stats my dad loved to quote.

  Leira felt like a bag of bones as I lowered her into the seat. I came so close to running her back into the hospital. What possible proof did I have that this would work? Surveillance information from Operation Vision Quest? A message from Idunn? She was hardly the most reliable of sources. I still couldn’t decide if she was a thief or a hero. And who had I turned to at this most vulnerable of moments? Grim! Another whose motives toward me were as murky as a mud pit.

  Should stunt drivers ever be needed in northern Minnesota, I could boast experience. No curb or lawn was off-limits in my roundabout path from the congested parking lot to the road. Leira, the trooper, wheezed in reaction but didn’t cry.

  As I drove from Pinewood to Norse Falls, I was only slightly relieved to notice the effects of the storm diminishing. Pinewood had clearly taken the worst of it, but Norse Falls hadn’t been entirely spared. Trees were down, as were utility poles and streetlights, power was out in all the surrounding homes and businesses, and debris littered the road.

  I tried my mom, Stanley, and Jack on my cell. No luck. The towers must have suffered damage, too. I pulled down the long gravel drive to Jack’s farm, cutting my lights and hoping to avoid the notice of his parents. I was disappointed not to see Jack’s truck out in front of their home. It meant he was probably out looking for me.

  My dad’s car was, again, surprisingly nimble over the rutted farm road, though I could hear Leira’s pained gurgle with every pothole we navigated. When I finally pulled up alongside the sinkhole, I let out a hack of nervous relief. I quickly gathered Leira to me, noticing in the car’s dome lights that her face had a bluish quality to it. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen; we didn’t have much time. I held her to my chest and ran.

  As I approached the rim of the sinkhole, an area still roped off with yellow tape and orange cones, something moved in the shadows off to the side. My heart skipped a beat and then leaped with joy as I recognized first Grim’s tall, gaunt form followed by Hulda’s short, hunched figure.

  “She’s not breathing.” I gasped for air myself, overcome with the passage of precious moments.

  “Hand me the child,” Hulda said with authority.

  I did so, noticing Leira’s thin face was purplish now, and she wasn’t moving.

  Hulda removed a shawl from around her shoulders and laid it on the ground. She then gently eased Leira onto it, and both she and Grim fell to their knees.

  “We need to grind the seeds, the carpel, from this apple,” I said, removing it from my pocket.

  A look passed between Hulda and Grim. They clearly questioned the source of the offering. Hulda then nodded to Grim, who dragged forth her medicine bag, the one she had used once upon a time to heal Jack’s burns. She opened it and removed a mortar and pestle. Meanwhile, with the sleight of hand of a magician and the skill of a surgeon, Hulda sliced the apple in half with a pocketknife and lifted out the five-pointed carpel. Grim was at the ready with the pestle and pounded at the small brown specimens, no doubt envisioning it was my head she was pummeling to a pulpy mash. She had that look in her eyes; one I recognized well.

  When the seeds were ground, Hulda scooped the paste onto the tip of her baby finger and, opening Leira’s mouth, ran the substance along her gums and tongue. Nothing happened. I choked with fear and anger. Hulda and Grim proceeded with an eerie chant. Whatever it was, it made the funereal screech of a murder of crows sound light and snappy.

  Then, sitting back on her heels and raising her arms to the sky with one final appeal to whatever or whomever she and Grim were beseeching, she bent down, took a deep breath, and blew one blasting puff into Leira’s tiny blue lips.

  I saw her chest rise and fall like bellows, after which her mouth trembled and her entire body flinched as she gasped and sucked in air with two or three rattling breaths. And then she wailed with all the subtlety of nails on a chalkboard. Never had anything sounded so wonderful.

  I thought of what the nurses had said about the ability to cry being a good sign, and I choked in my own attempt to take in air with everything else: disbelief, gratitude, relief, and joy.

  “Praise be,” Hulda said, falling forward in exhaustion.

  “Too close. Much, much too close.” Grim tsk-tsked and shook her head back and forth, but she dropped her arm across Hulda’s shoulders in a display of camaraderie that took me by surprise.

  Hulda and Grim weren’t the only ones who were exhausted after the ordeal. I felt faint and weak; even my arms seemed too heavy to support and swung like thick chains at my sides. I was so out of it, in fact, I barely registered the fact that from behind, someone had thrown their arm around my waist in support. Jack. I had no idea how long he’d been there or where he’d come from, but it didn’t matter. He was there and, as usual, had my back. But the ordeals of the evening hadn’t been without their costs, even to him. His face was gray and tightly drawn, and he slapped at his biceps as if trying to get some circulation going.

  “So it’s true, then,” Hulda said, shaking her head sadly. “You’ve both lost your powers.”

  My head snapped up. Although it was as I had suspected, this was confirmation. “I . . . It . . . How did you know?”

  “You are altered, Katla,” Hulda said.

  There was such melancholy in her voice as she said this that I felt glum, too.

  “And Jack,” she continued, “I believe, has shared in your fate, as he was destined to do.”

  The mention of fate and destiny knocked the wind from my pipes. Just yesterday it had been Leira’s fate to die and take her rightful place in line for Vatnheim’s throne. Yet here she was before me, squirming with life. And, once upon a time, Hulda h
ad told me a Native American legend about Sky Girl, who, by destiny, had been drawn to an apple tree as the ground split open. According to the tale, she had been saved by being borne away to Water World by swans. So many elements of that legend — a part-bird, part-female creature, deliverance by swans, a Water World, apple as the tree-of-life symbol — were significant. And Jack. He had once told me of an unshakable sense of fate since the moment he laid eyes on me.

  “Is it permanent?” I asked, reaching for Jack’s hand.

  “Yes, I suspect it is,” Hulda said. “Let this sacrifice during an act of great heroism be your consolation. I myself shall be sorry not to witness one of such potential rise in our ranks. I felt sure you were the harbinger of change our flock awaited. But your powers were meant to serve other purposes.”

  Leira stretched and began a fresh volley of wails.

  “It is time to return this one to the hospital,” Hulda said. “Suspicions will be roused already.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. What possible excuse could I have for running off with her? The truth — healing her at a power place — wasn’t going to fly.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Jack. “I’ll think of an alibi on the way.” I turned and gave Hulda a wave. Something in the sad nod she returned made my eyes well with tears. Grim stood stonily at her side. After all we’d been through, with everything I was willing to risk, I’d hoped for some small sign on her part. Oh, well. I could save the world, but other things, like Grim, were beyond my control.

  Driving back, a hundred possible excuses as to why I took off with Leira ran through my head. None of them were any good and were a distraction I really didn’t need while driving. Leira had already been through one scrape with death that day, as had Jack and I. It took Jack’s jerk on the wheel and the blare of a passing car’s horn to jar me back to reality. I gave up on a feasible story; we’d just have to wing it, a prospect that seemed dicey now that I was no longer “bird girl.”

  I parked as close to my original spot as possible. Jack lifted his brows but didn’t say a word when, after gently removing Leira, I chucked the infant carrier into the backseat of some random-to-him car we passed on our way into the building.

  Luckily, the hospital was still teeming with people. It appeared that the newer, multilevel wing had been completely evacuated, and the security detail had been reassigned to deny admittance to the upper floors. Having hatched a pretty thin plan, I described it to Jack, found my way to a standing-room-only waiting room, located an out-of-the-way corner, and slunk down against the wall.

  “Good luck,” I said to Jack. “You know where to find me.”

  I still don’t know how much time transpired between then and my mom shaking me awake. As much as I’d like to proclaim it a thorough acting job, I really had nodded off.

  “Kat, wake up. What on earth are you doing?” my mom said.

  “What? Huh?” I noticed Jack standing behind her.

  “Where have you been?” She scooped up the also-slumbering Leira and pressed her to a wet cheek. “I was so worried. No one knew what happened to you two. Betty had seen you up on the floor, but . . . Why were you even there? If I hadn’t bumped into Jack, I’d still be looking.”

  I rubbed at my eyes. I was having a hard time keeping track of who was aware of my double life and who wasn’t. It was a lot to do when just coming to. And now I had to fabricate.

  “They said there had been damage to the hospital,” I said. “There was no cell coverage, either. I rushed over to check on her. They were moving everyone off the wing because of possible structural damage, but at one point she’d been left in the hallway unattended.” Because I had kicked over a cafeteria cart, but it was no time for unnecessary details. “So I brought her down here,” I continued. “She seemed better while I was holding her. She settled down and slept, so I just found us a safe corner.”

  “She does seem better,” my mom said, her eyes growing big. “A lot better.”

  “I hope I didn’t get anyone in trouble,” I said. Meaning me, most of all.

  “But I’ve walked through this waiting room at least twice.” Frown lines pressed her forehead into waves. “I would have seen you.”

  An all-white-clad figure with a crisply starched smock over polyester floods and lace-up, mall-walker shoes appeared before us. “I see you’re awake now.” The stern voice first addressed me. “I’ve taken it upon myself to check on the two of them from time to time,” Grim said, then leveled that steady gaze of hers upon my mother. She straightened her volunteer badge.

  “Oh, you’ve been here?” my mom asked.

  “All evening,” Grim said with authority.

  OK, so that uppity clack of hers had its advantages. And for the first time ever, I sensed we were on the same team, flock as Hulda had so recently called it. Too bad such solidarity had to come post-suspension, post-loss of powers.

  Another figure, one with a clipboard, hurried up to Grim and reported to her like a new recruit to a general. “I have another three volunteers arriving who need assignments,” she said to Grim.

  I had to blink back my surprise. This subservient do-gooder was none other than Dorit, our expelled-for-revealing-secrets former Stork, who — last I’d heard — had left town amid a cloud of shame, distrust, and suspicions. I started to open my mouth but received such a quick flare of nostrils from Dorit that I clamped my lips, biting my cheek in the process.

  “I will be right with them,” Grim said. “As long as everything here is fine.”

  “Yes,” I mumbled.

  “And thank you,” my mom added. “Thank you so much.”

  Grim nodded to my mother, nodded to me, and strode away with Dorit scurrying behind her.

  A lump formed in my throat. So I hadn’t been right about everything. Life, people still had the capacity to surprise me. And Grim looked good in white; it flattered her features, rendered her softer, prettier even.

  “I should find Stanley and let the nurses know everything’s fine.” Again, my mom hugged Leira close to her. “I just can’t get over how robust she looks, though I hardly dare say it.” She walked away, cooing to a pink-faced Leira.

  Jack lowered himself to sit beside me on the carpeted floor. “I caught a bit of CNN while I was roaming, trying to bump into your mom.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “A lot of head-scratching over the coincidence of so many natural disasters.”

  “Like?”

  “Earthquakes in Australia and California. Electrical storms along the eastern seaboard. An avalanche in the Andes. A wildfire in China.”

  “So our storm?”

  “Just a blip on the world’s radar.”

  “A blip,” I repeated.

  He nodded his head yes.

  “I think I could get used to being a blip.” I tucked my hand under his.

  “Me, too,” he said, cupping his own around my fingers and squeezing.

  “Wanna be blips together?”

  “Sure. One thing, though.”

  Uh-oh.

  “What?” I asked.

  “No more secrets, no more heroics, no more asinine, self-sacrificing plots.”

  Asinine. Ouch.

  “How could I, anyway? Just a blip, remember?” I said.

  He didn’t look convinced.

  I dropped my head on his shoulder. “You know I did what I thought was my only option, but I’m sorry if it . . . excluded you.”

  He lifted my chin with his finger. “Don’t ever . . .” He had a hard time continuing.

  “What?”

  “Just promise you’ll include me in your travel plans next time.”

  “I promise.” I laughed and then melted into him for a kiss. It was sweet and hot and promise-worthy. I definitely intended to include him in my future travel plans, all plans, for that matter.

  Saturday morning I headed over to Afi’s to help out. Jack, I knew, was at his parents’ place doing his part in their cleanup. This shared activity felt like
a small connection during our day-after duties.

  Upon arrival, I couldn’t help exclaiming, “Whoa. This place is a —”

  “Damn mess,” Afi finished for me.

  I surveyed the scene before me. A tree limb had crashed though the front window. Daylight streamed through its jagged edges, casting a zigzag reflection upon the merchandise-littered floor. A broom-in-hand Ofelia came around one of the aisles, sweeping as she went. Dust floated up like mist, obscuring the space between us. When it had settled, I found her giving me a puzzled look, which turned quickly to surprise, then disappointment.

  “Did you hear about Leira?” I asked her, diverting attention from me.

  “Doing better, I hear,” Ofelia said.

  “She’s being discharged today. The doctors are calling it a remarkable turnaround.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Ofelia said. “Your mother and Stanley must be so happy.”

  “Over the moon,” I said. “And back again.” I pointed to the dark light fixture overhead. “Any word on power?”

  “Sure,” Afi said. “The word is out.”

  “What does the back room look like?” I asked, biting back a smile.

  “That’s the worst of it. If I’d wanted a gosh-darn skylight,” Afi said, shaking his head, “I’d have put one in myself.”

  My eyes popped open. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “That’s what the insurance agent said.” Afi scratched his stubbly chin. “Could be the damage exceeds the value of the place.”

  “That sounds even worse,” I said.

  “If it comes to that, I’ll take it as a sign. I needed this like I needed a hole in my . . . roof.” He swiped at the air with his hand and turned on his heel, heading for the back.

  The front door chimed; Jinky and Penny walked in. Penny’s knee was bandaged, but her limp was already improved from the day before.

  “Hey, guys,” I said. “What’s going on?”