Holding Onto Hope Read online

  It filled with seawater as a wave caught him squarely in the face. Ben yelled and gargled salt water, which did nothing to improve the way his mouth tasted. The wave broke across the deck and his side of the vessel tipped into the air to leave him clinging to the railing and shivering violently.

  “Ben!” Kural hurried closer, also holding fast to the railing to keep from slipping. “We have to get you inside!”

  “No!” The shout was mostly an expression of dislike. He was already plotting his path to the door. His side of the boat plunged again and precipitated a sickening drop in the pit of his stomach. His back struck the railing squarely and in the next moment, Zaara bolted past him at high speed.

  “I’ll go first!” she called and raced across the deck like she was sprinting up a hill.

  “Zaara!” Ben yelled as the ship tipped again.

  She slipped, wind-milled her arms, and barely managed to catch hold of the door. It slammed open, took her with it by its momentum, and banged into the wall to elicit a curse from her. She hunched her shoulders and hung on as a wave covered her in salty spray, then nodded at him. “Okay, go now!”

  “Are you crazy?” Staying outside didn’t seem like a very good idea, but running across a slippery and wildly tilting deck seemed like a worse one.

  “I am not crazy!” she yelled in response. “Ben, you have to run. Start when you’re going uphill and try to get yourself into that stairwell.”

  “I hate this idea!” he shouted and was doused in salt water again a moment later.

  “Ben! Go now!”

  His mind was a blank but his body worked—a welcome change. He unwound his arms from the railing and launched himself toward the door. His boots provided enough purchase to keep him from slipping, thank goodness.

  The boat rocked to the other side. His mind flashed through images of him stumbling past Zaara, flipping over the railing, flailing into seawater, and coughing and choking. He didn’t know if he could control his body well enough to swim and these were hardly good conditions for it.

  He put all his focus on the door and leapt forward.

  At the same moment, the vessel tipped again and created the illusion that the doorway had lunged forward to swallow him. Ben—who had been worried he wouldn’t make it at all a split second before—now hurtled into the darkness at high speed.

  It could have been worse if he’d registered every detail. He was fairly sure his mind turned off during his tumble down the stairs, for which he was glad. When he came to, he rolled one way to fetch up against one wall with a thump, then rolled the other way into the opposite wall. It was, he realized, a repetitive cycle over which he had no control.

  He decided to not even try to stand—thump—while he made a mental inventory of his—thump—injuries and tried to wiggle his—thump—fingers.

  A moment later, a series of exclamations and thuds announced Kural’s arrival. He had one glimpse of the wizard, his robe and spread arms making him look like nothing so much as a flying squirrel, before Kural landed smack on top of him.

  The man proceeded to join him in his regular journey between the two walls of the corridor.

  It was, Ben thought—thump—not the most dignified thing—thump—he had ever done.

  More yelling intruded, a door slammed, and a moment of silence followed—except, of course, for the series of thumps.

  The sound of helpless laughter was unmistakable. He looked up to where Zaara held onto the wall railing and almost sobbed with laughter. As he and Kural rolled to the other side of the corridor, she sank onto the stairs, grasped the railing with both arms, and buried her face in her elbow. She made little whooping noises while she watched them.

  The wizard gave her an unfriendly look.

  “I don’t suppose you would consider helping us rather than laughing at us.”

  This only set her off again, but her laughter turned into a shriek when the ship pitched wildly. Ben made a hawking noise and Kural tried to escape, but his efforts only precipitated another tumble down the hallway in a series of thumps and exclamations.

  It took a great deal of effort and a few close calls with Ben’s stomach, but the three of them managed to get into their cabin to strap in. He wondered, as his body tensed against the restraints, whether he should be worried. Suddenly, he was very aware of how they had shut themselves inside a tiny capsule.

  Every time his body lurched against the straps, he remembered the jerk when the rope had first broken his fall on the rock face—and the sudden slackness, paired with Mike’s yell, that told him it hadn’t been enough to truly catch him.

  He closed his eyes and realized he was praying.

  Mutters caught his attention and he opened his eyes as Zaara and Kural reached out to clasp their hands together. At first, he thought they were also praying. Then he saw the faint shimmer of magic in the air and realized they were working on the storm.

  Ben lost track of how many times the pitch and roll of the ship threw him against the restraints, and it wasn’t long before his stomach betrayed him beyond his ability to control it. Through it all, however, his companions’ focus never wavered.

  Slowly and gradually, the waves quieted.

  “You stopped the storm,” he whispered when Zaara opened her eyes.

  She responded with a tired shake of her head. “We only hurried us through it—unwinding a storm is too much for any two wizards to do. Kural will maintain our speed and I’ll go tell the captain.” She smiled with exhaustion. “So the good news is that you’ll get off this boat sooner than you thought.”

  His thumbs-up was accompanied by a sickly gurgle.

  Chapter Three

  “Okay,” Nick said as Jamie lay back in the pod. “You’ve done this before so you know the drill. Watch my finger and count back from ten.” He began to move his finger from one side to the other so the boy had to track the movement.

  “Ten,” Jamie said. He swallowed, terrified of the idea of the lid closing over him. He loved the game but he was also claustrophobic and this fear haunted him every time he lay on the pod bed.

  “Keep counting,” the engineer said.

  “Right.” He was very sure the drugs were taking hold. “Nine, eight, seven…”

  He blinked and opened his eyes to blue sky. His mind adjusted and took in more detail, and he realized that he lay on a bed of soft grass, listened to the chirp of insects, and heard the wind in the grass.

  “Oof.” He sat quickly. “Prima?”

  “I’m here. Welcome back.”

  “Thank you.” He stood and looked at his clothes. “I see I’ve retained my slightly less awful clothing.”

  “Yes, and I encourage you to continue in that direction.”

  “First things first,” Jamie said. “Where is Taigan?”

  “She’s on her way to the edge of the forest. You’ll want to meet her there.”

  He set off so hastily that he forgot to check which direction the forest was in and had to reverse course a moment later. The AI snickered at that but didn’t give voice to any snubs, which suited him fine.

  The land through which he traveled was familiar to him, with pink grass and glowing flowers, but he was certain the forest hadn’t been there last time. He was sure he would remember trees like those—redwoods that reminded him of childhood trips to California.

  His heart thudded so loudly that he could hear it in his ears, and its tempo only increased as he scanned the tree line. Every glimpse of movement made his heart leap. He would see her soon, round-faced and skinny, hopping over tree roots.

  Soon.

  Taigan scrambled onto a massive tree root and walked along it with her arms out for balance. She began to get out of breath and she savored the feel of sweat running down her back. While she had never liked humidity or getting sweaty when she was on Earth, the reminder of her as a person with a body was something she loved.

  She couldn’t get over how wonderful it was to do something as mundane as scratching her nose. Th
e little details made all the difference, she thought as she rubbed her back and enjoyed the feeling of cloth over sweat-slick skin.

  The edge of the forest grew closer. She had walked all morning and the trees were definitely getting smaller. Sometimes, if she found the right angle, she could even see out into what was beyond—a meadow that looked almost pink.

  As if inviting her, a breeze lifted her hair. She could smell flowers. This wind had come from the plains, not from the trees.

  The girl began to run. She loved running and always had. It was one of the best ways to lose herself and she was fast too, but with her dropping out of school so frequently, none of the coaches had wanted to take a chance on her not being there for a big meet.

  Every time she ran, she told herself that if she could only run fast enough, she would fix it all. If she ran fast enough, she would ace that test—or get what she wanted for her birthday, or the guy she liked would give her a call. It didn’t always work but she believed in it anyway.

  If she ran fast enough, she would wake up.

  Taigan tucked her arms against her skinny body and focused everything she had on the glimpses of pink through the trees. She hurdled tree roots and leapt over dips in the ground as she pushed herself to go faster. She could always go faster. Her body never failed her—not in this.

  If she ran fast enough, she would wake up.

  Sweat trickled down the side of her neck and her breath came rapidly. She wanted to laugh and scream with how happy she was. Everything was working, she was home in this body, and she existed. And if she existed, she could wake up.

  The grass came ever closer.

  “Jamie is waiting for you,” Prima told her, and Taigan let her legs push her to greater speed.

  Jamie—who could read her thoughts, who annoyed her more than anyone else in the world, but who she could never live without. He had never told her how desperately alone he felt when his twin was in a coma, but she had found his journal, read it, and cried herself to sleep for three nights afterward.

  He would know she was still alive.

  She burst out of the trees and into the grass. “Jamie! Jamie!” She laughed as she spun in search of him. “Jamie! I’m here.” She rested her hands on top of her head and tipped her head back to breathe. “Jamie?” she called, her eyes still closed. “Prima—am I in the wrong place?”

  The long moment of silence became uncomfortable.

  “Prima?” Taigan felt the first flicker of unease. If Prima was offline, it meant—

  Well, she didn’t know what it meant, but it couldn’t be good.

  “Prima, are you still here?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Thank crap for that. Where’s Jamie?”

  Another pause followed.

  “He’s here,” the AI said finally. “He’s standing in front of you and you’re both here. He doesn’t see you, though, and you don’t see him. I…” She had been worried before that she’d hurt Taigan’s feelings. But this worry was different. “I don’t understand,” she finished finally.

  “Prima?” Jamie turned in place. “Do you have any idea when she’ll get here?”

  It wasn’t Prima’s fault, he reminded himself. He had worked himself up in his head. The image he’d held onto was that he would see her as she burst out of the trees and they’d share the particular smile they had—one that said, “You know me better than anyone else.”

  It drove Emilia nuts.

  He knew no one was to blame for him arriving at the forest too early so he had to stand around and kick dirt awkwardly. It merely felt like a letdown, that was all.

  Prima didn’t answer for a moment. When she did speak, her voice was as gentle as he’d ever heard it.

  “Jamie, I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Panic spiked. “What? Prima, what happened?” Something had happened to Taigan. A heart attack, an accident, the coma had—no, no, no. “She’s—” He wanted to throw up. He’d pushed to have her put into this game, he’d yelled at his parents and they’d done it, and he’d killed her. Thanks to his obstinacy, he’d killed his sister and it should have been him.

  “Jamie! What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? It’s all my fault, that’s what’s wrong. I killed her!”

  What? The AI sounded astonished—then horrified. “Is that what you thought was going on? That she was dead?”

  He stopped in his tracks. “She’s…not?”

  “No!”

  “Why would you say you were sorry like that?” He shrieked the words at the sky.

  “Because I was sorry. Something seems to be glitching and you’re both here but you can’t see each other. Something isn’t working and the game is me, so it’s my fault. I said I was sorry because I was sorry.” She sounded almost panicked. “How did you get her being dead out of that?”

  “Oh, my God.” Jamie sank onto the ground. His heart pounded and he felt dizzy.

  He also still wanted to hurl.

  “Oh, my God,” he muttered again. “Holy shit. Prima, never scare me like that again. Never, never, never. Oh, my God.”

  “I still don’t understand,” she said plaintively.

  “Okay…maybe don’t introduce bad news that way again.” Laughter bubbled in his chest. It wasn’t dignified laughter, much more on the hysterical end of the spectrum. “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.”

  She was alive. He didn’t care that he couldn’t see her.

  They could work the rest of it out. As long as she was alive, there was hope.

  He had thought his sister was dead. Prima could not understand that at all. She would need to comb through linguistics databases again.

  Maybe another time, however, because right now, she needed to understand why the two of them couldn’t see each other. They were both there, after all—in fact, in a feat that was statistically improbable, they had emerged at almost exactly the same place.

  She was given to understand that, where twins were concerned, there was a considerable number of coincidences. The AI filed this away to run simulations on it later.

  They simply couldn’t see each other. Now that was a pickle as DuBois would say. She liked how he talked. He was the one out of the crew who she understood the best.

  Carefully, she studied the output that told her about each of them. She had access to a feed on heart rate and blood pressure—both elevated in each of the twins right now—internal temperature, CO2 levels, hormone levels, and an active brain scan.

  Taigan’s brain looked different than Jamie’s, of course, but it always did. It was closer to something she recognized as a waking state, but it wasn’t all the way there.

  Ah. Maybe that was it.

  Prima studied the way the two of them manifested in her code. Jamie was like Justin or Ben—smooth around the edges. Taigan was…spikier. Her edges wavered like static. She existed differently as if she were a TV out of tune.

  While she watched, the girl kicked the ground. She wasn’t annoyed, she could see, merely bored and she glanced at the little puff of dust with vague interest.

  And so did Jamie.

  “Can you see the dust?” the AI asked him.

  “Yes, what was that?” A second later, he seemed to realize what was going on. “That was her?” He stretched his hands out and edged forward as if he were in a dark room.

  Unfortunately, he walked right through her.

  This was most certainly a pickle. Prima would have shaken her head if she had one. As it was, she made a small hmmm noise in her circuits.

  “You can’t see each other,” she reported to both of them, “but you can see the effect the other makes on the world. Taigan, when you kicked the ground, Jamie saw the puff of dirt.”

  “He did?” The girl looked up, her eyes wide. She stamped her foot on the ground again.

  Jamie responded with a crazed laugh and did the same. It rapidly turned into a vague type of fight as they kicked dust in the other’s direction—although the dust that coated T
aigan’s face in her part of the world floated through her in Jamie’s.

  It didn’t take them long, either, to realize that they could do more than simply throw dust. Taigan knelt to drag her finger through the dirt: I MISS YOU, she spelled.

  He uttered a laugh that sounded more than half like a sob. He knelt to clear another patch of ground. I MISS YOU TOO.

  She hesitated. THANK YOU FOR COMING TO GET ME.

  I DIDN’T DO A VERY GOOD JOB OF IT, DID I?

  WE’RE BOTH HERE. Her answer was immediate. I’M NOT ALONE. THANK YOU. Tears welled in her eyes. WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT. RIGHT?

  WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT, he wrote at once. I WON’T LEAVE HERE WITHOUT YOU.

  Quietly and carefully, Taigan reached out in her brother’s direction. She left her palm hovering in the air. He couldn’t see her but he stretched his hand out as well. They passed through each other, the spacing not quite right.

  But they knew. Prima was sure of it. They knew what the other was doing.

  Chapter Four

  When the ship limped into port at Heffog that evening, no one on board looked particularly reputable or vaguely neat. Kural and Ben were both bruised to hell and back, as were many of the sailors. Most of the group were still damp, with a tiny crust of salt crystals in eyebrows and beards.

  Even Zaara, who managed to be elegant at the worst of times, looked like she simply wanted to sink into the ground and hide.

  After making sure all their possessions had been unloaded, the wizard cast a critical look at his companions and summoned a carriage with a whistle. “A meal and sleep first,” he said. His tone left no room for argument.

  She didn’t do anything other than nod, which did more to convince Ben of her exhaustion than anything else. Every once in a while, however, she would giggle and he knew she pictured him and Kural rolling across the ship’s floor.

  He glowered and nursed his bruises.

  The carriage they had was less of an elegant conveyance on sprung wheels and more of a converted farm wagon with pieces of hay and cabbage still on the floor. He had initially been too tired to care about anything other than his lack of seasickness but was now jostled so painfully that he could not get comfortable at any point during the journey.