The Dark Shore by Kevin Emerson

Author:Kevin Emerson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780062062826
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: 2013-06-21T07:00:00+00:00

19

I SLEPT AT SOME POINT, BUT IT WAS RESTLESS. I SAW the red-haired girl again in her frog pajamas, standing waistdeep in ash. This time, her skin had the gray translucence and dark veins that mine had in that dream on the Solara. Black blood, and she was sinking. Then the hospital room, Mom sitting beside me, Paul looking down. Only now he held the giant black blade, its serrated teeth glinting in the pale lab lighting, like the basement lab in Eden. “Have to get this out,” he said, leaning over me and sawing. . . .

I woke to gauzy light. The mosquito net. Bright sun was splitting through the slatted window. The air smelled something like sweat and that fresh-cut grass back at camp, a kind of living smell. Birds called outside. There were hums and clangs of street activity. A sizzling sound came from the kitchen, along with a tangy, spicy scent.

I got up and found my clothes cleaned and folded at the foot of the bed. I didn’t remember a time when my clothes had been folded. Back at Hub, my few outfits had just lived draped over the foot of my bed. Something like folding clothes had never been a detail that Dad or I would get to. There was too much else to do around the apartment.

I got dressed and went to the bathroom. I checked my shoulder. The wound had scabbed over. The red smudge of infection had mostly receded. It was still sore but not as bad.

I found Mom at the low wooden table, laying out forks and cups of whitish-green juice. She was wearing a long flower-patterned skirt and a light blue sleeveless shirt. Her hair was up, earrings on. This matched what I remembered about her, too—how she’d always dressed up, even at home, like she wanted to be ready at any moment for a special event.

“There he is,” she said. “Well, someone got a good sleep.”

“Did I?” I said, rubbing my eyes. It didn’t feel like it.

“It’s nearly eleven in the morning,” said Mom. “You’ve become quite the teenager!”

“Guess,” I said, thinking, I slept so long because I’ve been running for my life for a week. I thought about telling her that, but then noticed that as she laid out the forks, her fingers were shaking. I let the comment go and sat down cross-legged at the table.

Mom sat across from me. “I still can’t believe you’re here, and that you’re . . . I mean, the Epics of the Three. You’re part of that, Owen. That’s . . . amazing.”

“I’ve just been worried about surviving it,” I said. “You know, you’re part of it, too. My Atlantean genes either came from you or Dad.”

“Huh,” said Mom. “Never thought of myself as having a purpose like that, raising a future world saver and all.”

Another flash of annoyance: You didn’t exactly raise me.

Maybe Mom realized how that sounded, too, because she changed the subject. “Emil’s making an old pre-Rise dish from this region called motuleños.

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