Heart of the Storm by Michael Buckley
A terrible sting bites my side, and I turn to find a Tardigrade behind me, his tooth-covered spike retracting into his mouth. I look down, feeling a terrible pain growing inside, a searing expansion of every muscle and organ. Riley races to my side. He’s screaming, but I can’t hear him. Fathom attacks the monster, but it’s pointless. I’m already dead.
Chapter Eighteen
A LIGHT SWALLOWS ME. IT’S BLUE AND BRIGHT AND CALM. It comes with the loveliest sensation. Every part of me feels warm and awake. All my pain is gone. Every worry melts away. I am safe for the first time in many years.
“Lyric?” Bex is hovering over me. I’ve fallen, and she’s trying to get me back on my feet. “Can you hear me, Lyric?”
Lyric?
“Shadow, is that you?”
Yeah. Guess what?
Husk stands over me. “Lyric, stay with us!”
Fathom stands over me. Riley is here, too. My mom and dad are here. My mother is holding my hand.
No Lyric, no games. I’m really out of here this time. Don’t worry, the baby is going to be fine.
“But I’m not,” I say.
I hear him laugh. Plot twist.
Suddenly, my friends and family melt away. Shadow is gone, and I am somewhere else on the battlefield, but I am not alone. I feel my son inside me, and the power coming from him.
I stand over the Tardigrade Fathom attacked. She lies on her side, staring up to the sky, leaking black blood onto the sand. I peer into her hideous face, and suddenly I’m inside her. I am in her mind. I am her.
“STOP!” I shout.
The Tardigrade shudder at my presence. Across the beach, they stumble. Some cry out in pain. My words hurt their minds.
“WHY DO YOU HURT US?” they ask.
“GO BACK TO THE GREAT ABYSS. YOUR CHILDREN REJECT YOU,” I threaten.
“NO! THE BROKEN ONES MUST BE DESTROYED. ROOM MUST BE MADE FOR A NEW FAMILY.”
“THERE ARE NO BROKEN ONES!” I shout. The baby’s power explodes out of my consciousness. It’s nothing more than a seed, but when it splits open it sprouts a vine that twists and turns around the voice, choking it and pulling it apart. The Tardigrade scream for mercy, then threaten to kill me, then weep at their own ending.
I can feel every one of them. I can see through all of their eyes. I can walk through thousands and thousand of years of their collected memories. My vine burrows into them, finds the connection they all share, that they believe we need, and strangles it. The voice is gone. I am no longer linked to them, or Husk. I stand and watch the monsters fall.
The White Tower trucks arrived quickly, filled with food and water and blankets for anyone who needed them.
“I’m surprised they didn’t get here sooner,” I say to Johar.
He smiles. “Opportunity knocks. We’ll be in touch, Ms. Walker.”
“No, let’s not.”
I watch him walk off to join several other men and women in business suits. I suppose they’re the board of directors.
My mother and father look tired. Chloe hovers at my mom’s leg.
“I guess I have a baby sister now?” I say, smiling into her little face. She smiles back.
“You know, I come with the deal,” Bex tells her.
Husk and Fathom stand together. They wait for me to give them orders.
“I’m abdicating,” I say. “One of you has to be the prime.”
“That is not allowed,” Husk says.
“Wait, Fathom quit. Why can’t I?”
“Fathom was a prince, not a prime.”
“Well, I’m in charge. I can change the rules,” I argue.
“I’m afraid there are some rules that cannot be broken,” Fathom says.
“I’m not going back into the water. Fathom rules in my place. Husk is your adviser. Arcade gets to be whatever she wants to be. Fix your people. Together.”
Fathom’s hurricane eyes lock onto mine. “I will not abandon you and the baby,” he says.
“You have no other choice,” I say.
There are a million things left to say, but I can’t imagine one of them that should be said. He and Husk shout to their people, and I watch them lead the Alpha back into the ocean.
Arcade and Flyer stop in the progression and turn to me. Arcade bends her knee and bows. I think it’s the closest thing I will ever get to a goodbye hug from her.
I take Flyer by the hand. “Take good care of this girl,” I whisper. “The prime commands you.”
He smiles and nods respectfully, and soon they are gone along with the others. There is a tap on my shoulder, and when I turn, I find Dahlia the Rusalka, along with the rest of her clan.
“Yes?” I say.
She wraps me into a hug, then steps aside for the others to do the same. I watch them follow the rest, and soon they are gone, back to the sea.
The kids gather around me, Riley included. Brady’s death is another blow, but their uncertain future seems to be troubling them more. They look to me for an answer, some kind of direction I can point toward.
“We stick together,” I say. It’s vague, but it seems to satisfy them.
Bex puts her hand in mine. I look at her, and she smiles. She is my bestie, my BFF, my sister from another mister. I chose me. She’s part of the deal.
“Where to now, Walker?” she says.
I look out at the crashing waves. “Somewhere boring, Conrad.”
My family and I stay in the camp for several days while arrangements are made for something permanent. It’s going to take time. There are a lot of problems the country is facing at once. Some of the states are refusing to rejoin the union. There’s talk of war.
On one afternoon, the president fulfills his last promise to me and a helicopter arrives to pick me up.
The prison isn’t far, perhaps an hour and a half. We touch down behind its huge fence, lined with barbed wire, and the pilot helps me step out onto the ground. He points to a door in the side of the building and gives me a thumbs-up. He promises to wait.
There is a guard standing at the desk. I don’t know her, but she smiles at me like we are friends. People have been doing that since the battle. It’s nice.
“She’s ready,” the guard says, then leads me through several locked doors that open only when she calls out to some unknown person. We descend a flight of stairs to a door with the words solitary confinement painted in black.
The guard opens the door and gestures for me to enter. “I’ll be right outside,” she says.
She closes the door, leaving me inside, but I am not alone. Pauline Bachman sits in her wheelchair. Her once-perfect hair is flat and dry. Her ever-present blue business suit has been replaced by an orange jumper with her prisoner number stitched on the front. Her face, however, is as twisted and mangled as ever.
There is a chair sitting across from her, so I sit in it. She eyes me up and down, then snarls. I have imagined this moment many times. I have considered shouting at her, threatening her, demanding answers, even trying to reason with her, but as I sit across from her, I’m not sure any of those things will make me feel better. She knows I put her here. She knows this is the payment I demanded to save the world. She knows that she will never leave this room again. Really, what am I going to say to her that is worse than what is unsaid? I sit back in the chair, look around the room, and then sigh.
“So, how’s the food?”
Epilogue
I HAVEN’T BEEN BACK TO CONEY ISLAND IN THREE YEARS. I’m told things have changed, but when we roll down the new Neptune Street, it looks a lot like it used to back in the day. There are still mom-and-pop pizza shops, and video game arcades, and raucous bars. The lights are still gaudy, and the people gaudier. They rebuilt the Cyclone, but it’s a bit too fancy for me. It’s not a real roller coaster if it’s built to safety codes.
We park the car in a lot and hand a man with an orange flag twenty bucks.
“How long do you plan to stay?” he asks.
“Hard to say, really,??
“Can we get ice cream?” Max asks. He’s all about ice cream, and the flavor doesn’t matter. I suppose that’s what I was into when I was three.
“Maybe,” I say. “Did you brush your teeth this morning?”
He opens his mouth wide to show me he did.
“All right, but later. We don’t want to keep him waiting.”
“Are you nervous?” Riley asks as we cross the street and head for the boardwalk. I can already hear the waves, and in a few more steps, I’ll see the whitecaps curling in on themselves as they hammer the beach. It’s a miracle I can hear anything over all the construction. There must be at least three hotels going up on the same block. I guess some things do change. The closest thing we had to a hotel was a homeless shelter.
“Of course she is,” Bex says, giving my shoulder a little squeeze.
“Why are we here?” Max asks. He’s forgetful, but again, he’s three.
I kneel down on the wooden planks so that we are eye to eye. He listens better when I am on his level. “I told you, Pickle. We’re here to meet your daddy.”
“Are you sure he’ll come?” Bex asks.
I nod.
“What does my daddy look like?”
“He’s hot,” Bex says. Riley gives her a little scowl. She giggles and wraps him up in her arms. “Not like you.”
She tries to kiss him, but he playfully pulls away. “Nope, you blew it.”
“C’mon, baby, you know you can’t resist me,” she says, laughing.
It used to hurt a little to see their love. Bex offered to end it, but it was pretty obvious they were built for one another. He’s given her a place where she feels safe to feel things. I love him for being her hot nerd with potential.
Max giggles and blushes, then hides behind my leg. Bex notices and scoops him up.
“If I can’t get a kiss from my fiancé, I’ll get one from you,” she says.
My son squeals when she plants a wet one on his cheek. Riley and Bex laugh and laugh. I suppose it won’t be long before the two of them have a Max of their own. It’s fine. There’s plenty of room in Denver. Maggie has already found her own place, and Sienna will be next. I’m losing my kids one by one.
“Tell him we said hello,” Bex offers.
She and Riley hang back as I take Max’s hand and walk him down onto the beach. We get as far as the surf, then stop. He stares out at the vast ocean and blinks into the sunshine. A wave rolls in and nearly gets his sneaker. He’s got such an easy laugh.
“Mommy, tell me where you got my name again.”
“Again?”
“Please!”
“A long time ago, a princess from Brooklyn met a prince who could not read. She gave him a book called Where the Wild Things Are.”
“Max!” he cries.
“Yes, it was about a boy named Max who went to an island where monsters lived, and he became their king.”
“So I’m the king of the wild things?”
“Yes, honey, you are.”
There’s a splash, and a crowd of people rise from the water. Husk and Fathom lead the others until they are standing before me. All of them kneel and bow. Max giggles, nervously, then looks up at me. I wink at him, then bend down.
“I’m the queen of the wild things,” I whisper.
Fathom is still the same beautiful creature I met years ago, with eyes like hurricanes and golden skin. His hair is a bit longer, but he still takes my breath away. Ghost and Flyer are by his side. Arcade follows, along with a few Alpha I don’t know.
Husk gives me a hug.
“Your Majesty,” he says.
“You know I hate that,” I say.
“I do,” he says.
Fathom smiles at me. There are a lot of things going on in it, things I am surprised I am eager to see, surprised I still feel myself, but we say nothing. We never had to say anything. Today is not a day to talk about messy entanglements and romantic impossibilities, anyway. Today is about our son.
Fathom kneels to Max’s height. He stares at the boy with glassy, amazed eyes.
“Max this is your daddy.”
“Hello, Max.”
“Are you a wild thing?” he asks.
“Of course. Where do you think I learned to do the wild rumpus?”
Fathom stands tall and does a silly, awkward dance. It’s forced, but it’s the most unguarded thing I have ever seen him do. It makes his son laugh. It makes me fall in love, again.
“Do it with me,” Fathom pleads, and Max apes his ridiculous movements.
I look around at the beach where I grew up. This is where everything changed for me. I was just a girl who happened to witness the arrival of a strange race of people from under the sea. One of them was the most beautiful person I ever met. He walked out of the ocean and changed my life forever.
Funny how history has a way of repeating itself.
Acknowledgments
Sarah Landis gave me the greatest gift an editor can give a writer—more time. Thank you for your patience and understanding as I swam through murky waters. This book wouldn’t exist if not for two women, Betsy Groban, who always believed in it, and Alison Fargis, who always believed in me. I’d like to thank Rachel Wasdyke, Hayley Gonnason, Lisa DiSarro, and the rest of the sirens who worked so hard to lure sailors and readers to this series. Thanks to everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for all your passion and hard work. Thanks to everyone at Stonesong for uncountable favors and support. Thanks to friends and family, who hopefully know that when I disappear, it’s into an imaginary world I can’t wait to share with them. And thanks to Finn, my wild thing.
Visit www.hmhco.com and undertowtrilogy.com to find all of the books in the Undertow Trilogy.
About the Author
Author photo by Dana Gallagher
MICHAEL BUCKLEY’s two bestselling series, the Sisters Grimm and NERDS, have sold more than 2.5 million copies and appear in twenty-two languages. He has also worked as a standup comic, a television writer, an advertising copywriter, a pasta maker, and a singer in a punk rock band. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Alison, and their son, Finn.
Visit his website at www.michaelbuckleywrites.com
Michael Buckley, Heart of the Storm