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Cornelia swooped in and took a perch on one of the outermost branches, so she could watch their approach. When they finally stepped into shadow, Jack breathed a huge sigh of relief. This was where he belonged. It was instantly ten degrees cooler.
Tara waved and Cornelia swooped down to land on her forearm.
“Where to now?” she asked the bird. “Where’s Lottie — I mean, Charlie?”
Cornelia swiveled her head nearly all the way around in one direction, then just as far the other way.
“Does that mean you don’t know?” asked Jack.
Cornelia bobbed her plumed head.
“But she was here?” asked Kyle.
The head bobbed again.
“So I guess we’ll just have to look around,” said Jack, taking in the enormity of the space before them. From a distance, the fallen branches had looked insignificant, but now, close up, they were big enough to hide whole families.
“We should split up to save time,” said Tara.
Jack was loath to agree with that. The deathly silence under the tree was already beginning to creep him out.
“Why don’t you just call her, using that telepathy thing of yours?” said Kyle. “If she’s here, she’ll hear you.”
“The Evil might hear me, too,” Jack said.
“And it might not.”
Jack looked at Tara, who nodded. He got the impression she hadn’t been looking forward to splitting up, either. Her brave face was a good one, but it was wearing thin.
“All right,” Jack said. “Let’s just go in a little farther and I’ll give it a try.”
They wound their way through fallen dead branches until they found one just the right height for them to sit on. Gray dust puffed up when they did so, making Kyle sneeze. Cornelia took to the branches above, where she sat grooming her feathers and staring at the shadows with her black eyes.
“Okay.” Jack closed his eyes and concentrated on what he knew about Lottie. She had looked exactly like Grandma X when she was young and presumably looked just like her now. He had never met her, but they were related by blood, which had to count for something.
++Hello?++
His mental voice vanished into the thick shadows under the long-dead tree.
++You don’t know me, but my name is Jack Shield and I’m your great-nephew. My sister and I got your living mail. Are you here somewhere? Can you tell me where you are?++
“Have you started yet?” asked Kyle.
“Shhhh,” said Tara. “Don’t distract him.”
Jack listened a full minute, and when no reply came tried again.
++I want to go home, and I want to take you with me. But we’re running out of time. Are you there? Can you answer me? It would really help if you would say something.++
From above came a squawk and a flutter of wings.
“Charlie!”
“Jack,” said Kyle. “Open your eyes.”
He did and saw standing before them a ghostly green image of the woman he was trying to contact.
“She’s trying to say something,” said Tara. “Can you hear her?”
Lottie’s lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. Jack couldn’t hear anything with his mind, either.
“Maybe it’s slugs again,” said Tara, poking the image with her sword. The blade went right through the image, unhindered.
Cornelia landed on Jack’s shoulder. “Charlie?”
The ghostly woman smiled as though she had heard, and reached out one hand to touch Cornelia’s gleaming feathers. Her fingers passed right through them, however, and Lottie’s face fell.
++Lottie!++ Jack cried with all his strength. ++Tell us where you are and we’ll come to you!++
Lottie’s lips moved soundlessly again, and she shook her head with frustration. Her image flickered.
“Wait,” said Kyle. “Don’t go!”
The ghostly image of Lottie disappeared as though it had never been there.
“That really was her this time, wasn’t it?” said Tara.
Jack nodded. “I think so, but I couldn’t hear her, no matter how hard I tried.”
“Well, that means she’s here somewhere. All we have to do is find her.”
“Cornelia, do you know where to go next?”
The bird managed a very humanlike shrug in answer to Jack’s question.
“Great,” said Kyle. “What if she’s on the other side of the planet?”
“I don’t think so,” said Tara. “She didn’t come to us in the city, but she did just now, which I think means we’re getting closer. We just need to know which direction to go.”
“Not that way,” said Kyle, pointing back the way they had come.
All three stared at a gray cloud that hadn’
t been there before. It was noticeably growing larger.
“Uh-oh,” said Jack. “It heard.”
“What do we do now?” said Tara.
“We hide,” said Kyle. “Before it sees us.”
* * *
Kyle led them deeper under the lifeless canopy, leapfrogging over fallen branches or crawling under them where space allowed. They left a wide trail of footprints behind in the dust, which Cornelia tried to brush away with her wings, but Kyle stopped her.
“We’re going to create a false trail,” he said. “Let’s make it look like we climbed the trunk, then we’ll double back and take cover … there.”
He indicated a triangular hollow formed by two fallen limbs, one of them forked in a wide V. Tara kept a worried eye out for The Evil’s approach, and suggested every minute or so that it was time to turn back. But Kyle was adamant that they had time to do it properly, if they hurried.
They reached the trunk, where they put some handprints on the rough bark, and then began walking back on their own footprints. It was harder than it looked, and much slower than any of them liked. Already they could hear the humming and clicking of insect wings as The Evil approached. It was growing louder by the second.
Finally, they reached the hollow.
“Okay, you first,” Kyle said, pushing Jack ahead of him. “Burrow down deep, and cover yourself with as many twigs as you can find. Don’t smother yourself, though. Leave an air hole. Now you.” Tara went next, then Kyle, sweeping the trail behind him with a crooked stick.
The light from the suns outside was turning a deep brown as The Evil encircled the tree. Cornelia landed next to Jack and burrowed down with him. The sound of their rustling seemed terribly loud to him. Surely The Evil would hear and descend on them like a horrible hammerblow? Hopefully the brooch-charms would help. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and kept a tight grip on Cornelia, who was quivering with fear.
