Through the Mirrah Read online

  Aideen plucked the biggest leaf she could find and brought it to Rag Man. He scooped the pulps onto the leaf and folded it like a taco. He massaged it, mixing the two pulps together. She followed him back to the control panel and watched as he wiped the mixture over the wires.

  Some of the bugs crawled along his hand. Aideen’s skin crawled at the sight, but Rag Man simply wiped his hand off in the grass. The remaining bugs danced in spasms as they tracked through the pulp. The brief performance ended as the poison took effect and the bugs dropped dead.

  “Now the wires.” Rag Man reached down to grab the wires.

  “Is that safe? Touching live wires?”

  “What would you suggest?”

  Aideen explored the clearing as she thought, walking to a dead branch drooping from a tree. She broke two twigs off the end and returned to Rag Man.

  “Hold the wires but don’t touch the exposed ends.”

  Rag Man held the wires a few inches down and Aideen reached in with her twigs. She pinched the exposed ends between the twigs and spun them, twisting the wires together. At once, the ground vibrated.

  “Clever. How did you know to do that?”

  “The idea just popped into my head.”

  “You’re remembering.”

  “Not much.”

  Rag Man grabbed the next pair of wires and watched Aideen repeat her process. After they repaired them all, they sat back and admired their handiwork.

  “Not bad for two amateur electricians.” Rag Man smiled at her.

  “I still don’t understand how I got here, or why I’m rescuing this guy, Sterling.” Aideen raised her hands in exasperation. “I don’t even know who he is. You said I’d remember once the forest was better.”

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  Aideen tilted her head and cocked her eyebrow at him.

  “Let me see your pack.” He reached out for it.

  Aideen passed it to him and he rummaged through it before holding up her canteen.

  “You’ll want fresh water.” Pulling everything out of her pack, he lined up each item on the grassy mound. “There’s not much here. What was your plan?”

  “If I knew, we wouldn’t still be sitting here.”

  “Right. Sorry.” He peered into the bag again. “Not even a map?”

  “I don’t even think I have a Chapstick.” Aideen patted her pockets. “Hang on.” She reached into her front pocket and pulled out a folded paper napkin. “Never mind. Just some trash.” She tossed it to him and lay back in the grass. “Now what?”

  He smoothed the napkin between his hands. “Aideen, this isn’t trash.”

  “It’s only a napkin.”

  “Look.”

  Aideen sat up. Rag Man held it so she could see the hand-drawn map on one side. He stood and stepped over the control panel to sit next to her.

  “Did you draw this?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.” She furrowed her brow. “What are all those scribbles?”

  “They’re words.” Rag Man pointed to each picture on the napkin as he read all but one label. “Do any of those sound familiar?”

  Aideen shook her head.

  “The path drawn here starts at the Frog Pond, the bar. You must have started there. That must be where you got your arm bandaged.” He motioned to her left arm, where blood had seeped through her shirt.

  Aideen pulled up her sleeve to look at her arm. “What happened to me?”

  “You cut yourself as you were escaping Jay Ridge, the prison. I put a tourniquet on, but then you went to the village to find Sterling. I didn’t see you again until we met in the woods just now.”

  “Do we go back to the Frog Pond, then? See if anyone there remembers me and knows what I planned to do?”

  “No. That’s well out of the way, opposite of where Sterling is. If we could trigger your memory somehow . . .”

  “How long have you known me?” Aideen asked.

  “We only met yesterday.”

  “Then tell me everything you know about me, everything we’ve done together. That may help.”

  Rag Man recounted their meeting at the atrium, their incarceration in the Hutch on the train, and escaping Jay Ridge.

  “Jay Ridge sounds familiar. Sort of. I can’t get a picture in my mind, though.”

  “I have an idea.” Rag Man jumped to his feet. “There’s a tower near here. Closer than the Frog Pond, at least. But you can see half of D’Nal Harrim from the top. Seeing where you’ve been will help.”

  Aideen stood and let Rag Man lead the way.

  THEY PASSED THROUGH a break in the trees into a desert pimpled with dunes. A massive, brick tower rose out of the sand. For the first twenty feet, the building was hexagonal and round for the remaining sixty. Halfway up the round section, a crow’s nest wrapped around the tower. Aideen leaned back to take in its height.

  “It looks like no one’s used it in decades. Is it safe?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I bet you could see for miles from up there.”

  “Want to see?” Rag Man gestured toward the rungs attached to the side of the tower.

  As she climbed, the soft breeze lifting her hair off her shoulders, Aideen felt an exhilaration like never before. Not that I can remember, anyway.

  She stepped onto the diamond mesh floor of the crow’s nest and inched along the platform, taking in the landscape.

  The swamp where Rag Man must have gotten his plants lay to the northwest. The desert stretched south and west like a bride’s train. Railroad tracks ran from north of the swamp, along the edge of the desert, to the south past a large, black building. The building looked upside down.

  Whatever that means.

  Sand dudes ran for miles to the west, and just near the horizon was a lonely speck. The Frog Pond? She pulled out her napkin map to confirm her suspicion.

  “That’s where the Compass Tower stood before it burned down.” Rag Man pointed past the Frog Pond. “See the glint of the sun on what’s left of the dome?”

  “The Compass Tower isn’t on my map.”

  “It’s not on the way to the mountain, and you already knew Sterling wasn’t there.”

  “Why would Sterling have been there?”

  “He worked at the Compass. His office is on the top floor.”

  Brain scan. Aideen frowned at the sudden, random thought. What does that even mean?

  Aideen continued along the crow’s nest, stopping to face another mountain, topped with another tower. There are a lot of towers here. What’s so important to see?

  “Crowned Eagle Mountain,” Rag Man said from behind her. “And the prison tower.”

  “And Sterling.”

  “Remember anything yet?”

  Go east. Find Dawn. “Random phrases that mean nothing.”

  “Like what?”

  “Brain scan, go east, find Dawn.”

  Rag Man nodded. “Sterling would have scanned your brain at the Compass. That’s how he judges the likelihood of a Refuse being the Prophesied One.”

  The mention sparked recognition for Aideen, but she couldn’t remember any context. She sensed she had heard it before, though.

  “The Brown Ostrich is east,” Rag Man continued. “That’s where you would have gone if Sterling hadn’t been taken. And Dawn is the director there.”

  I don’t think I’ve met her. But what good is all this doing? “We’re wasting time. This Sterling guy is locked up in a tower and I’m just sightseeing.”

  “Do you think it’s wise to continue without knowing what you planned to do?”

  “You’ve seen my gear—or lack of it. I don’t think I had much of a plan.”

  Rag Man shrugged.

  “If you’re comfortable pressing on . . . Maybe Sterling can jog your memory, once we get him out of there.” He nodded toward the other tower.

  They made their way down from the crow’s nest. As Aideen turned toward the forest, she noticed a rusty metal door standing ajar.
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br />   “Hang on.”

  Rag Man turned and waited from where he had already started into the woods.

  “I want to see inside.”

  She opened the door, revealing a large, open room. A gigantic pipe rose from the ground in the middle of the floor and extended along the full height of the tower.

  “What that’s for?” She looked up at the pipe.

  “Must be a chimney,” Rag Man said as he joined her.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It leads to the top of a tower. It releases whatever it transports.”

  Aideen nodded as she realized it made sense.

  A control panel stood in front of the pipe. Aideen walked over and played with the numerous controls and switches until Rag Man grabbed her wrist.

  “You don’t know what those do.”

  “We can find out.” She freed her wrist from Rag Man’s grip to continue testing the controls.

  “What do you hope to do?”

  Aideen looked around the room as if searching for an answer. She spotted a bulkhead near the far wall. “I want to open this,” she said, pointing as she approached the angled doors. “There’s no handle, so they must open from the panel.”

  “You don’t know what’s down there.”

  She ignored him as she returned to fiddle with the panel.

  “There’s no power.” Rag Man bent down next to her and ran his fingers over a metal plate attached with screws. An access panel, most likely. “We’d need a screwdriver.”

  “We could try this.” Aideen pulled the knife from her pack as she joined him. She lined the blade up to the groove in the screw, but the thick blade didn’t fit.

  A memory—brief, but hers—flashed in her mind. She was trying to unscrew a bench with . . .

  The cover of my cell phone? My cell phone! What happened to it? She patted her pockets, out of habit since she already knew it wasn’t there.

  It had been in her pocket on the train, but she hadn’t used it after escaping the Hutch. When she woke at Jay Ridge, she was wearing prison scrubs. Had whoever changed her taken it?

  “Wait a minute—I remember!” She spun and grabbed Rag Man’s sleeve. “When I left you on the train, I jumped off and ran through some culverts. I met these women, and one of them—Lux—told me to go see Sterling. I remember Sterling!”

  She felt butterflies as the image of a tall, handsome man sauntered into her mind. His warm smile sent chills down her spine. Then she remembered a Turkey carrying him away.

  Aideen’s shoulders fell.

  “I also remember my lack of a rescue plan. The Frog Pond’s bartender gave me what they could, but I hadn’t figured out anything beyond ‘get to the tower.’ Is any of it even useful? Aside from the food.”

  “The sooner we get up the mountain, the better,” Rag Man said. “We can scope things out and create a plan.”

  Aideen nodded. “The Trappers will have someone guarding the tower.”

  “Turkeys, more likely.” Rag Man started for the door. “We must be careful as we get close to the summit. But we should get moving now.”

  WHEN AIDEEN AND RAG MAN came to the river, Rag Man kneeled to taste the water.

  “I still remember everything, so you should be okay.”

  Aideen joined him, cupped some cool water in her hand, and sipped. She looked around, waiting for something to change. Satisfied she still remembered who she was and what she was doing, she refilled her canteen with glitch-free water. They continued their journey to the mountain, reaching the base around lunchtime.

  They shared a quick snack before looking up at the hulk of earth ahead of them. It had to be at least a mile high. Maybe higher.

  “Have you ever climbed this mountain?” Aideen asked.

  “No,” Rag Man said. “I don’t climb, although I have friends who have been up a few times. The south side of the mountain is harsh, but if we circle toward the back, the climb shouldn’t be too bad.”

  They set out along the base of the mountain toward the north side.

  “Why would they bring Sterling to this tower instead of locking him in Jay Ridge?”

  “It is strange, as the tower hasn’t been in use for decades. Maybe they’re worried about another breakout.” He smiled at her.

  Aideen smiled back.

  They reached a mildly sloped mountain path and began their ascent. The path spiraled its way up the mountain. A goat with wings, buggy eyes, and twisted horns bounded across the path. Its upper lip looked like a beak, but its lower lip had beard, like a normal goat.

  “Is that a kahprahlehsee?” She watched as it hopped into the air, flapped its wings once to lengthen its stride, then landed and hopped again.

  “Kahprahlehs.” Rag Man chuckled. “How did you know that?”

  “The bartender mentioned it. They described it to me, but it’s still way stranger than I imagined.”

  They pressed on. The sun overhead bore down on them. Aideen’s head pounded and she covered her eyes.

  “Could we rest a moment?”

  They sat, passing the canteen between them. Rag Man stared at her shaking hand as she took the canteen from him.

  “You didn’t happen to bring any gojoos, did you?” He motioned to the pack.

  “Yeah, the bartender gave me some.”

  She slung the pack off her shoulders and tried to open it. Her fingers trembled so she couldn’t work the clasp. Rag Man took it from her and retrieved a gojoos, which Aideen devoured, sweet juice mixing with the salty sweat dripping down her chin.

  When she finished, she wiped her mouth and held out her hand. “Give me another one.”

  Rag Man closed the pack. “You should save them. We still need to get to Sterling and get down the mountain and out of the forest again. We won’t get to another supply until tomorrow, at the soonest.”

  Aideen frowned, then looked down at her arm. She peeled part the bandage off. The skin around the wound was warm and red. She closed her eyes as she rebandaged it. As much as Aideen welcomed the rest, she feared lingering too long. Her arm needed real medical attention. They resumed their journey as the sun traveled west, elongating the shadows across their path and easing their climb.

  They came to a section so steep it may have been vertical. Rag Man started ahead of Aideen, selecting his holds with care. Aideen gave him a few feet, then followed. Halfway up, Rag Man lost his grip and fell.

  Chapter Eight

  As Rag Man fell past her, Aideen grabbed his arm. It stopped his fall, but the tenuous scab forming on her forearm tore again. Rag Man grabbed a young tree growing out of the sheer rock. He regained his hand and footholds, before following Aideen the rest of the way up.

  “How is it not dark yet?” She checked the bandage on her arm. “I feel like we’ve been climbing all day.”

  “This is the second time you’ve complained, as if you’re not used to the twenty-eight-hour days.”

  “I’m not,” Aideen said. “On Earth, the days are only twenty-four hours long.”

  “So short? But how do you get anything done?”

  “Multitasking.” She looked out over the forest below them, then turned and peered up toward the summit as she pulled the Disco wafers from her pack. She popped one into her mouth and held out the sleeve. “Want one?”

  Rag Man shook his head. “We can stop, if you wish. Rest up and continue in the morning.”

  “No, we should keep going.” She dropped the wafers into her pack and slung it over her shoulders. “The farther we get today, the less climbing we have to do in the morning.”

  Dusk fell before she finally agreed to stop. She felt horrible that Sterling had to spend another night in the tower, especially since they were so close. But what could they do in the dark?

  Aideen tossed and turned for hours, then dozed, but was roused by nightmares well before sunrise. She rationed out breakfast for Rag Man and ate a gojoos while she waited for him to wake. She considered something more, but the nausea outweighed the hunger.<
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  “Tell me you slept a little, at least,” Rag Man said when he finally woke.

  “A little.”

  Aideen waited patiently for Rag Man to eat, then stood and shouldered her pack. “I hate to imagine Sterling in that cell.”

  “All right, let’s go.” Rag Man wiped his mouth and hands and led Aideen further up the mountain.

  They reached a ledge near the top of the mountain and crept around the peak, crouched low to avoid detection.

  “We have two hostiles at the front door, armed,” she whispered.

  “Armed hostiles?”

  He must not have owned a walkie-talkie growing up. “Turkeys. They may not have actual weapons, but those talons and beaks are sharp.”

  They continued around the peak, finding no other adversaries, then sat with their backs to a smooth outcropping to consider their options.

  “What should we do?” Aideen murmured. She didn’t know how well the Turkeys could hear.

  “We won’t beat the Turkeys,” Rag Man murmured back. “Two of us and one knife are no match for them. We’ll have to bypass the front door.”

  “How do we sneak in, then? There’s no back door.”

  “Through a window?”

  Aideen peered over the outcropping and studied the tower. It was shorter than the Compass tower had been. Narrow, arched windows without glass spiraled up the tower wall. The lowest one on this side of the tower was four or five floors up, so they could try the first- or second-floor window . . . provided the Turkeys didn’t catch them at it.

  She had never tried Parkour herself, but the pros could do all sorts of crazy stuff. Was getting up to and through a window really so hard? Glancing at the highest window before sitting back down, another question arose.

  “How will we get Sterling out?” she asked. “I didn’t think to ask for a key.”

  “You don’t still have whatever you used to pick the Hutch lock, do you?”

  Aideen shook her head, then paused, before opening her pack. She pulled out the coil of rope and dropped it at their feet.

  “How long do you figure that is?”

  “Eighty feet? A hundred?”

  “Long enough that if we give Sterling the rope, he could climb out through the window?”