Putting Up Roots

Chapter Eleven

Rejoicing at finding Ruby was cut short by the weather. As Sapphire gasped with relief and went forward to put her arms around her sister, the forest lit up in vivid purple and white. It was lightning, up on the ridge—and close. A titanic clap of thunder followed at once.

“Let’s go, Dawn,” Josh shouted, and hoped that she understood him. Winnie Carlson had said that the camp would be safe in bad weather—but she didn’t say that you could sit out a thunderstorm in the middle of the jungle. “You, too, Sapphire. Bring Ruby with you.”

“What about my spangle?” Ruby wailed.

Josh didn’t answer. If he was sure of anything, it was that what he had seen running away through the wide-spaced stems was no spangle. It was too big, and too fast-moving.

He didn’t wait for Dawn, but headed for Sig and Topaz. They hadn’t moved, except to jump at the lightning and the violent crash of thunder. Sig turned to lead the way back, but Topaz waited for Josh and grabbed him before he could stop her. She gave him a hard hug and said, “Thanks, Josh. If anything had happened to Ruby, Saph would never have forgiven herself.”

He pulled himself free, embarrassed by her show of gratitude, and muttered, “I really didn’t do anything.” He turned to make sure that the others were following. Dawn was a few feet away. Sapphire and Ruby were coming more slowly, largely because Ruby insisted on dragging with her a leaf three feet across.

Josh waved them on and turned back to make sure that Sig was still in sight. Dawn could probably lead them out again, if and when she chose to, but he didn’t want to have to rely on that. It was suddenly very dark under the leaf canopy, except when flashes of lightning lit the gloom.

“Come on!” Sig was waving, too, at everyone. “It could rain any minute. We don’t want to be anywhere near the stream when it does—have you ever seen a flash flood?”

Josh hadn’t, and he wondered when Sig had. The Lasker brothers looked like perfect city scruffs, tough and rough and streetwise. On the other hand, someone had given them those peculiar and awful names, Siegfried and Hagen and Alberich. That didn’t sound like gangster parents, or uneducated jobs from the unemployment Pool. How had the Laskers come to be on Solferino at all?

It was a question that would have to wait. A sudden patter of raindrops sounded on the broad leaves overhead. It stopped in a few seconds, but it felt like a warning. The real thing could start at any moment.

They emerged abruptly into the clear space that bordered the stream. Winnie was waiting for them, leaning into the wind. Its force was far stronger here, and her short hair was blowing wildly about her face.

“We found her,” Sig shouted.

She raised her fist in the air, then gestured downstream.

“Go to the camp. The others are there. I’ll make sure of everyone else.”

Lightning again showed everything in vivid blue-white. Josh looked up, to see if he could follow its track, and found the sky already dark. But another bolt followed almost at once, and what he saw by its light brought him to a halt.

“Look!” He pointed up and along the line of the ridge that he and Sig had climbed.

The clouds were low, a few hundred feet above the ridge. Below the clouds, seeming almost to touch them, giant shapes came scudding along over the top of the hill, a dozen or more of them, all different colors, huge and round and majestically riding the wind.

Winnie stopped urging the others along. As they emerged from the forest they all halted and stared up. Three of the balloons were passing directly overhead, stately as great sailing ships. Another explosion sounded, more muted than the crash of lightning, and suddenly only two balloons were above them. Josh heard a rattle on the ground nearby, not at all like raindrops. Something hit him on top of the head, hard enough to hurt, and bounced to the ground in front of him.

He picked it up. It was brown and rounded, the size of his thumbnail. He stuffed it into his pocket. As he did so, the real rain came.

Josh was soaked instantly, as thoroughly as if he had jumped into the stream. The drops were mixed with hail, stinging his exposed face and hands. Sig was shouting, “Stay away from the stream!” and Winnie cried out, “Back to the camp and inside, all of you. Keep to the high ground!”

Josh started to run, then changed his mind. He turned. Here came Topaz, Ruby—still hanging on to her leaf—and Sapphire. Then Sig. And, last of all, sauntering despite Winnie’s attempts to hurry her, Dawn.

Josh ran back, grabbed her hand, and pulled. She laughed, and ran with him. Over the soaked carpet of plants, up the incline, on into the camp’s enclosed but cramped kitchen area.

Winnie Carlson came last. Josh waited at the door and slammed it shut behind her.

Outside, fork lightning flashed continuously in the evening sky. The crash of thunder added to the howl of wind and the ferocious rattle of hail on the roof. Inside, everyone was talking at once and no one seemed to be listening.

“Never again, I promise.” Sapphire was so pale that she seemed bloodless. She made the sign of a cross on her heart.

“Huh. Sure.” That was Amethyst, her voice bitter. “I bet it was your last one, anyway.”

Sapphire said nothing, but she reached in her jacket to an inside pocket and pulled out five little tubes. She stared at the triple-snap for a few seconds, then dropped the tubes to the floor and crushed them savagely under her heel. “I’m off it. Even if it kills me, I’ll stay off it.”

“We’ll hold you to that,” Topaz said. But she went across and put her arm around her sister.

“But how could she? I mean, she’s a retard.” That was Hag to Rick in a different conversation, shaking their heads at each other and trying to pull one of the big grapelike things off the stalk. “I mean, how could she know her way in the forest like that, when we don’t?”

“Dunno. I think I’ll try this, though.” Rick had loosened a purple sphere.

“You can if you like.” Winnie had been watching them. “Eat one, I mean. But it may not be what you think. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some sort of precursor to a larval stage.”

“What’s a larval stage?” Rick had the globe up to his mouth.

“The young stage of an animal.” Winnie’s manner was just a little too casual. “Something like, say, a caterpillar.”

“Uurh! A bug!” Rick threw the sphere onto the floor. Amethyst picked it up and sniffed it curiously.

Sig had kept his eyes on Ruby, who was sitting quietly in a corner with the leaf on her lap. He pushed his way across to her. “Can I look?”

“All right. But it’s mine, don’t forget.”

“I know.” Sig gently lifted the leaf and carefully inspected the base where it had been severed from the stem. He noticed that Josh was watching, and signaled him over.

“You had the best view of anyone,” he said, when Josh was in the corner with them, “except maybe for Dawn. What did you think it was?”

“The animal?”

“Sure.”

“Not a spangle, no matter what Ruby says. It was a lot too big. And not a bodger, not even a small young one. This thing was fast.”

“A rupert, maybe?”

“That would be my guess. Though I don’t know much about ruperts.”

“Then somebody has a bit of explaining to do.” Sig turned the leaf, so that Josh could see where he was pointing. “Remember what Bothwell Gage told us? A rupert is the smartest life form on Solferino, and it’s somewhere in intelligence between a dog and a chimp.”

“That’s what he said.”

“So look at this.” Sig touched the place where the leaf had once been attached to its stem. “I noticed the same thing with the plants when we were up on the ridge. That leaf wasn’t broken off, and the stems on the ridge weren’t chewed through, either. Everything has been cut, with something like a sharp metal knife.

That’s one hell of a dog or chimp, if it can make and use a knife.” He handed the leaf back to Ruby and turned again to Josh. “I want to have a talk with her, when the storm ends and things calm down a bit. And you might want to see if you can get anything out of Dawn.”

Within an hour the thunder and lightning had ended. The rain stopped, the clouds cleared. It seemed not like a true ending, but a brief respite. Wind still muttered menacingly along the line of the ridge. More bad weather was on the way from the west.

While the storm raged, no one could think about eating. Now they could think about little else.

People clustered about the oven of the little kitchen, sniffing and drooling and doing everything but steal raw food. Topaz and Rick weren’t really cooking, they were just heating whatever would be ready fastest.

Dawn had to be as hungry as anyone, but she didn’t stay in the camp. She walked barefoot down to the stream, swollen by the rains, and stood on its bank. Josh wasn’t worried much about her safety, because Dawn had grown up with Burnt Willow Creek and must have learned how to respect it in all seasons and conditions. He followed her for a different reason: he had an idea.

Sig was an insane optimist if he thought Josh might get something out of Dawn by talking to her. Dawn did talk a little, in her own fashion and with her own unknown agenda. What she did far more, though, when the time and means were at hand, was draw. In the past weeks Josh had seen beautiful sketches of everything from Burnt Willow farmhouse to the Messina Dust Cloud. Dawn’s drawing wasn’t just fast, it was easy and fluent and uncannily accurate. And she would sometimes draw on demand.

He didn’t have a sketch pad—anything like that was back at the main compound—but he did have colored pens in his pocket. For the rest, he had to improvise. He took the big flat leaf that Ruby had carried with her from the middle of the jungle.

“Dawn.” She turned as he spoke her name, and he held out pens and the broad leaf. “Will you draw for me what you saw when you were with Ruby and Sapphire, in the forest? The animal, the one that ran away.”

She took the materials from him without a word. She smiled, and went on smiling for the next few minutes. What she did not do was draw. Josh waited impatiently, glancing up at Solferino’s moon. Clouds were racing across its face, and they thickened as he watched. He could count on a few more minutes, no more, before the storm hit again.

And then suddenly, surprisingly, swiftly, Dawn was drawing. She had turned the leaf away from Josh, and the urge for him to tilt it and see what she was doing was almost overwhelming. He forced himself to watch and wait in silence. In a few minutes, she was done. She handed him the leaf, smiled again, and strolled away toward the camp.

He stared down in the wan light of Solferino’s moon, and felt huge disappointment. What Dawn had sketched was not the sleek animal that they had caught a glimpse of as it ran away. Her drawing was of a series of leaves, each similar in shape to the one that he was holding but far smaller in size. Each drawn leaf held its own drawing within it. Sometimes it was meaningless sharp-edged marks, darts and kites that sprawled up and down and anywhere. Four of the drawings were more structured, even if they were no more informative. Two showed a sort of hut built of umbrella-plant stems and leaves, rather like the lean-to where they had found the captive bodger. The other two little leaves contained within their frames what were, without a doubt, miniature sketches of spangles. The point was made extra clear by an umbrella plant on each picture, offering a sense of scale.

Well, it had been worth a try. Josh was tempted to drop the leaf into the swollen stream. Instead he hung on to it and lugged it with him back to the camp. By the time that he had taken those forty uphill paces it was raining again. He went into the kitchen-living area, resigned to a disappointing end to a turbulent day.

“What’s that you’ve got?” Topaz was sitting cross-legged near the door. She had been talking to Dawn, heads close together, when Josh entered.

“Not much.” Josh held out the big leaf. “I was hoping she’d draw the animal for me that Ruby found in the forest, but no luck.”

He eased his way past them toward the far side of the kitchen, where a big tray of food had been set out on a table folded from the wall. From the look of it, everyone else had already eaten. No knives, forks, or plates tonight—it was fingers or nothing.

Josh dug in and gobbled down mouthfuls of something like a greasy and half-cold omelets. He decided it wasn’t a good idea to ask what had been used to make it.

As he ate, he surveyed the crowded room. Winnie was in earnest conversation with Sapphire, who looked like she was still on either snap withdrawal or a bad guilt trip. Probably both. Near to them Ruby, egged on by Hag and Rick, was holding a knife and under Amethyst’s direction was cutting one of the big purple grapes carefully through the middle.

Ruby finally held one half out in triumph. The inside was a firm, pale-orange fruit with a brown center.

“I told you Winnie Carlson was kidding about the bugs,” Amethyst said. “She’s a lot more laid back when Brewster isn’t here. I bet that’s just fine to eat.” The Lasker twins glared at her for a moment, but soon turned their attention to the fruit.

Rick cut a thin slice and nibbled it. “Pretty good.”

Josh decided he might try a piece—once a few others had done the same, and they hadn’t rolled around in agony. Rick didn’t count, he would eat anything.

Josh looked toward the door. Topaz still held the leaf, and she and Dawn were crouched over it together. He noticed how similar they were in appearance—the same height, the same hair color. The other Karpov sisters were fair-haired and blue-eyed, but Topaz and Dawn looked like sisters. Odder yet, Sig Lasker, watching Dawn and Topaz but pretending not to, could have been the older brother of either of them.

While Josh was still comparing, Topaz glanced up and gestured to him to come over.

“I’ve asked Dawn about this,” she said as he approached, “but I want to check with you.”

“She spoke to you? Did you, Dawn?”

“We’re getting there.” But it was still Topaz speaking. “What I want to know is this. Dawn draws things she has seen, you told me that. Does she also sometimes draw things from her imagination—things that she couldn’t possibly have seen?”

“She could, if she wanted to.” Josh felt an irrational need to defend Dawn. “She’s not stupid.”

“I know she’s not.” Topaz bristled back at him. “But you are.” She calmed down almost at once, as Dawn laid a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, Josh. But that’s not what I asked you. I didn’t say could she draw what she hasn’t seen. I want to know if Dawn ever does.”

“She draws—” But then Josh had to stop and think. Every one of Dawn’s drawings was something that he knew Dawn had looked at; or else, like the views of Burnt Willow Farm, it was something that he had every reason to believe she had seen. “I don’t think she invents. If she draws it, I think she has actually seen it. There may be little details she leaves out, but she doesn’t make things up.”

“Good. Now take a look at this.” Topaz held out the leaf with the drawings that Dawn had done. She pointed to two of the little sketches. “What would you say these are?”

Josh needed only one glance. “They’re spangles. But Topaz, Dawn has seen spangles.”

“I know. But look at these. Look closely.” Topaz lifted the leaf so that it was no more than a few inches from his face. “See them?”

She was pointing at a faint series of lines that crisscrossed Dawn’s drawing of the spangles.

“I see them. But I don’t know what they are.”

“Well, I do. Those are bars. That’s a cage, Josh. Can’t you see it? That’s a spangle, sure, but it’s a spangle sitting in a cage.”

“It can’t be. If there had been a spangle sitting in a cage where Dawn went, Sapphire might have been too zonked to see it—but Ruby would surely have noticed.”

“That’s what’s bugging me.” Topaz sat back on her heels in frustration. “Dawn draws what she sees, and she saw an invisible spangle in an invisible cage. Did you, Dawn?”

“No. “Josh’s inspiration came in an overwhelming sweep, so fast and complete that he could not guess what led to it. “She didn’t see a spangle in a cage. Did you, Dawn? You saw a drawing of a spangle in a cage. Each of these”—he pointed to the set of little drawings of leaves, neatly sketched on the big leaf—“every one of them is a drawing of a drawing. The original drawings were much bigger, one to a leaf. Right, Dawn?”

She was smiling benignly, nodding her head very slowly.

“But that can’t be right.” Topaz looked from one to the other. “You were there when Dawn found Ruby. You saw that animal, whatever it was, running away. You didn’t say it was carrying a big stack of leaves.”

“It wasn’t. It left a stack of leaves behind.” In frustration, Josh crumpled the edge of the leaf that he was holding. “Don’t you see, Topaz? When we found Ruby, she was sitting on them. We never gave the leaves another glance, and I bet Ruby didn’t, either—she was interested in the rupert, not in some bunch of drawings.”

“We can check easily enough.” Topaz stood up. “The leaves should still be there. We’ll go out tomorrow morning, and we can—unless—”

She paused and stared outside, to the rain that was falling harder than ever.

“Unless.” Josh finished her thought. “Unless the ruperts do their painting with something that washes off in water.”