The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(18)

At ten o’clock last night, Vera Farisi entered the dimly lit kitchen and found Mia rummaging through the cabinets in busy fluster. She bounced from shelf to shelf, scanning the calorie counts of every food item and marking them in her notebook. An unfortunate encounter at the mall had left her tense and despondent.

Vera flipped on the light switch. “Sweetheart—”

“Leave it off. I can see.”

“Those girls were only teasing you because they’re insecure.”

“No, Nana, that’s . . . You just don’t understand.”

Vera flicked a spotty hand in exasperation. In her eyes, Mia was a beautiful girl with sharp hazel eyes, flawless olive skin, and a lush brown mane that any woman would kill for. Yes, the child was a little chubby, and had an unfortunate penchant for dark and frumpy clothes, but she was nothing close to the six-chinned horror she saw in the mirror.

Mia read the nutrition label on her favorite dessert snack, then croaked a surly groan. There was nothing even remotely dietetic in the house. The men in her family were all built like tanks. They could eat a plate of lard and burn it off by suppertime.

“That was just a sneak peek of what I’ll get in high school,” she insisted. “I’ll be a walking target every day.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do. And I deserve it for letting myself get this fat.”

For the thousandth time, Vera cursed the girl’s mother, a vain and selfish stronza who’d abandoned the family years ago. Mia needed female guidance. All she had was this wrinkled old crone who hadn’t been a teenager since World War II.

“Tell me what I can do for you, peanut. Can I make you something?”

“No! Are you even listening to me?”

Mia lowered her head and winced at herself.

“I’m sorry, Nana. I’m just . . .”

Her grandmother smiled softly. For all the girl’s neurotic self-loathing, she was still the darling treasure of the family, the one who stayed sweet and sensible while her brothers swung through the house like wrecking balls. The Farisi men loved her with such fervent devotion that Vera pitied the first boy who was foolish enough to give her grief.

“Come here, angel.”

Mia crossed the kitchen and embraced her, sighing with self-rebuke. It was hard to forget how Vera had grown up in fascist Italy, a barefoot orphan who’d lived from crumb to crumb. And now here was her granddaughter, wailing over a weight gain like it was the end of the world.

God help me, Mia thought, as the kitchen lights flickered. God help me the day I have real problems.

—

Mia blindly thrust the plank at the ceiling, her breath spilling out in high wheezes. Dirt rained down in clumps—falling into her hair, onto her face, down her pajama top. She felt an unpleasant tickle as something crawled across her cheek on tiny legs. Screaming, she dropped the board and furiously slapped her skin until the wriggling stopped.

She fell to her knees and wept. For all she knew, she was miles underground. Even if she stood just three feet under grass, she’d never make it out. She was too short. And digging would only bring the world down on her anyway. All things considered, she’d rather die with stale air in her mouth than fresh dirt. If she was lucky, she’d die sleeping.

A faint light suddenly pierced the blackness of the grave. Mia looked up to see a luminous white disc hanging in the air, two feet in front of her. It started out the size of a coin but then expanded vertically. Two quarters tall. Five quarters. Twenty.

At forty quarters of height, the strange object dropped into the soil.

Dumbfounded, Mia picked it up. It was a cigar tube made of some glow-in-the-dark metal. Unscrewing the lid revealed ten smooth plastic sticks, all wrapped in a long strip of paper with handwriting on the outside. She unfurled it, squinting at the words in the dull radiance of the tube.

PS—Shake the lumicands to light them up.

She shook one of the sticks, then squawked in surprise as a small flame ignited at the end. The fire was fluorescent white and gave off no heat whatsoever. Mia put her free hand above it and then in it. The flame licked her palm harmlessly.

In the new light, she caught more handwriting on the other side of the note.

Mia, there are only 16 inches of dirt between you and sunlight. Use the lumicands. Use the boards. Keep digging. Trust me.

She had to be imagining all this. Maybe she was hallucinating from oxygen deprivation. She noticed her breaths were sharper now. The air felt thicker.

Crazy or sane, she was running out of time.

Mia shook each of the candles and then stuck them into the walls, as if decorating a cake from the inside. By the tenth and final flame, her grave was as well lit as an office cube.

She took a moment to notice her silver bracelet, a strange new adornment that had mysteriously appeared overnight. It terrified her to think that someone had crept into her room and slipped it on her while she slept. She didn’t even know how that was possible. The band had no seam and was too tight to slide over her hand. Her mysterious gifter would have had to break her thumb.

She shelved the puzzle and resumed her frantic digging. After two minutes, she managed to carve a small hat of air at the top of the egg, but she had yet to pierce daylight. Her shoulder muscles screamed with strain. She couldn’t take a breath without coughing. She couldn’t stop crying as dark memories came trickling back.