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That made a weird kind of sense. Her main Gift was the wind, and she might have a hint of her father’s lightning Gift, too. If she had been turned into air, a car engine might be just the kind of thing she would be drawn to. But what did that mean? And how was she going to get back? She couldn’t imagine what Alfred the Examiner was thinking.
If she’d had a hand, she would have smacked herself in the forehead. Of course. This was the Examination. He had put her into the wind somehow and now it was up to her to get out again.
She was being buffeted by fans and deafened by the rapid fire of pistons. Understanding was one thing. Doing something about it was something else entirely.
And what about Jack? she wondered. Was he undergoing a similar trial?
There was nothing she could do for him. She had to find a way back to herself before Mr. Holland drove out of town or the wind took her somewhere even more uncomfortable.
* * *
Jack squished out from under the giant’s heel like an orange pip squeezed between two fingers and shot off along a long, rectangular space. At the end of the rectangle, he bounced around a larger shape that reminded him of a large cushion, then down another long space that kinked in the middle, like someone holding up his hand to wave.
Exactly like that, he thought suddenly. Too exactly to be anything other than that.
He was in a person’s shadow.
No, he corrected himself. He knew what being in a shadow felt like. He could see things, for starters, and he could feel things, too. This was very different. Instead of him slipping into a shadow, this felt like a shadow had slipped into him and taken him over.
He was a shadow.
And if there was one thing he had learned in his months of being a shadow-walker, it was that even on the sunniest of days, all shadows were connected.
He didn’t know where exactly the person’s shadow led him. It could have been a tree, or a sign, or perhaps a traffic light, but he didn’t stay there long. He bounced off one edge of that shadow into another without any way of slowing himself down or controlling his movement. What if he kept bouncing and bounced far enough to leave the wards? Would he ever get back to his body?
Another concern struck him. Jaide had just disappeared. Maybe he had, too. Was this supposed to happen? Was this something Alfred the Examiner had planned to do to them the moment Grandma X and the others left the house?
No wonder Stefano seemed worried. He must have been through this before.
Thinking this made Jack both angry and slightly relieved. Stefano had known what would happen but hadn’t said anything. But he had survived, so why couldn’t Jack?
There had to be a way to get out of the shadow maze. All he had to do was find it.
* * *
Jaide was struggling to get anywhere at all. She might have become the wind, but it wasn’t doing anything she told it to. If anything, it did the opposite. When she told it to take her that way, it went in the other, and when she tried to go back, it only took her somewhere else. She was beginning to despair of ever getting out of the engine, let alone getting home again.
She wondered how long she had been trying. She wondered when Alfred the Examiner would bring her back, once it became clear that she had failed. She wondered what would happen if she became permanently lost and couldn’t ever find her way back. She wondered if “failing” the Examination was another euphemism for dying, just like “retiring” was.
But she wasn’t going to give up. She could control the wind when she was in her body, so why not now?
Perhaps Jack was doing better than her, she thought. She wished there was some way she could ask him. If he was, he might be able to help her … even if it was technically cheating.
* * *
Jack was experimenting with willing himself to bounce back the way he had come every time he hit an edge. He didn’t think it was going well. Normally when shadow-walking he was acutely aware of where his body was, and the farther he went, the more he was pulled back to it. With practice he had managed to go as far as school, although that still took a great deal of effort.
Now, he had no actual way of knowing, but he felt that he was only getting farther from where he wanted to be, not closer. Whatever he was doing, he was doing it completely wrong. The harder he tried to become the shadows he wanted to, the worse he did.
He needed help, and there was only one person that he would call, if he could just figure out how to do it. Grandma X did it. Aleksandr did it. Even The Evil did it. Why couldn’t he?
Barely had he formulated the plan when a faint voice called out to him from impossibly far away.
++Jack? … hear me?++
He recognized Jaide’s voice immediately, and right away part of him knew how to respond. It was like finding a muscle that had always been there but that he had never used before.
++Jaide, I’m here! Are you all right?++
++… very faint … hardly hear …++
He tried to shout, without really knowing how.
++I’M RIGHT HERE!!++
++Ouch,++ she said. ++No need to deafen me.++
* * *
Jaide felt rather than heard Jack laugh in relief.
++How are we doing this?++ she asked.
++I don’t know. Maybe it’s a twin thing.++
Either way, now that the connection was open, it seemed easy and natural. She felt better about it being there but that didn’t change the basic fact of their situation.
++I’m lost,++ she confessed.
++Me too.++
++But I feel like I know where you are.++
++Yeah, you’re … that way.++
This was something else hard to define. Jaide just knew that Jack was over there, wherever there was. In fact, now that she knew that, she could feel herself moving in that direction. As long as she didn’t try to push, it seemed the wind was happy to take her. The moment she hurried things along, she was tossed and tumbled again.
With a roar and a feeling of being blown out in a hot rush, Jaide emerged from the car. By the exhaust pipe, she assumed. Now she bobbed and swayed through a blurry field of light that could have been anywhere.
++This is some test,++ said Jack.
++It’s awful. I can see why Stefano would rather go to school.++
++Do you know where you are? I think I’m underground somewhere, hopefully not in the sewers again.++
Jaide confessed that she had no idea. ++How are we going to get home?++
++I don’t know. Let’s get ourselves together first, then we’ll try to think of a way.++
++What if we don’t?++
++Don’t think like that. We will.++
Jaide could tell that he was trying to be positive despite being as worried as she was. Some of his thoughts and feelings were leaking in, too, along with the words. She was grateful for his effort and resolved to do the same. Whatever happened to them, at least they had each other.
* * *
On the doorstep of the house on Watchward Lane, Ari was dreaming of mice. Big, fat mice dancing right in front of his nose. They smelled delicious, but their eyes were glowing white, and he knew what would happen if he ate them. The Evil made everything taste awful….
He jerked awake as a sudden eddy sprung up out of nowhere, swept him into the air, turned him over three times, and dropped him unceremoniously on his head. For once, the cattish ability to land on his feet utterly failed him.
That wasn’t the only strange thing. The shadows cast by the morning sun were swinging wildly from side to side.
“Kleo!” he yowled, righting himself indignantly. “Kleo, something’s happening!”
The gray cat and the Examiner hurried from the kitchen into the hallway behind him.
“Ah, yes,” said Alfred. “Now, the question is where …”
The earth rumbled. Kleo looked down at her feet as though the floor was affronting her.
“Is that supposed to happen?” she asked.
“Sometimes.”
The Examiner peered all around him, looking under the cabinets and in the cupboards. “Troubletwisters, as you know, are profoundly unpredictable.”
There was a heavy thud from behind them, and there was Jack, curled on his side on the floor as though he had dropped from the sky.
No, thought Kleo. Dropped from one shadowy corner of the ceiling, where the light was most dim.
Ari ran to him and poked him with a paw.
“Ow,” Jack said, rubbing his head. He would have a bump later, but it was good to have hands to know that, and even better to have a head that hurt at all.
A crackle and bang came from the living room, followed by a wild cry for help. Kleo was the first on the scene, where she found Jaide clinging to the chandelier, swinging helplessly from side to side.
“Get me down!” Her eyes were wild and her red hair was in disarray, but behind her desperation not to fall she felt only triumph. They had done it! They had made it home!
