The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(27)
When she’d snuck back to the attic the next night, the box was gone.
She pulled the picture out, leaning back against her bed. She didn’t know where it had been taken—somewhere in Kaolin, she assumed, but the countryside, not Old Port.
Her mother, Alethea Byrne, was standing with a bicycle in front of a small stone cottage with an arched door. The roof was thatched, and there was ivy growing up one side. She wore a thick sweater, pantaloons, and high-laced boots, one foot put up jauntily on a bike pedal, one hand on her hip. Her face was alight with joy. The camera had caught her mid-laugh, and the wind was playing with her curls—red, Agnes knew, though they were dark gray in the photo. She looked vibrant and happy and carefree. She looked alive.
On the back of the photograph, written in a looping scrawl, were the words:
Taken by X, March 12. Runcible Cottage, the Edge of the World.
Agnes traced her mother’s handwriting with a finger. She had tried to copy the style to no avail. Taken by X, March 12. Her father had taken this photograph. Of his wife laughing. With a bicycle. Wearing pants.
She flipped it over and stared at her mother’s face. “I’ve been accepted to the Academy of Sciences,” she said. “Well, almost accepted—I passed the first round of admissions. Eneas said you would be proud. Would you, Mother? Would you be happy for me?”
Her mother laughed and laughed but never answered.
Finally, Agnes shook herself and returned the photograph to its hiding spot. She tucked the letter inside a book on her nightstand. Then she got into bed, her brain whirring, planning and plotting for what tomorrow would bring.
11
Leo
LEO WAS EVEN HOTTER IN THE BACK SEAT OF THIS CRAPPY car than he’d been in the library in Old Port.
If the temperature rose any higher, his skin would melt off. He could already feel it on his hands and face, a creeping red that itched and burned when he scratched it.
There were no windows on the car, and only a canvas roof, so sometimes the sun would scorch him for hours and other times he’d be blissfully in the shade. His driving goggles were coated in dust. In fact, everything seemed to be covered in a fine layer of dirt—his brand-new boots, his shirt, his hair. Even his mouth felt grainy.
They had left at the crack of dawn and hadn’t stopped driving since. The man at the helm of this expedition was a burly beast named Branson, and he had three men under him, all dour fellows. One had a constant lump in his lower lip where he kept his chewing tobacco. Leo’s back seat companion was a consummate nose picker. Leo didn’t know anything about the man driving the supply truck behind them.
“How much farther?” he asked. He’d been asking the same question every hour for the past five hours. He couldn’t help himself. Why hadn’t they taken the railroad? It had a café car and large, comfortable seats, and there were plenty of stops in the Knottle Plains. And Leo always rode first class—one of the perks of being best friends with the future head of Conway Rail. But the more they had driven, the more he realized that they weren’t going to Alacomb or Oakbend or any of the cities in the more rural areas. They were driving right into the heart of the plains themselves, where there was nothing but grass and sky and more grass and more sky. But not nice, thick, green grass, like the fairways at the Old Port Country Club. This grass was tough and yellow, like straw. They’d passed streams and ponds that had all dried up, or had a trickle of sludge running through them at most. Many of the farmhouses looked abandoned. It was quite a depressing sight.
Branson grunted from the driving seat. That was the only answer Leo had gotten since the last time he’d asked.
Agnes would probably love it if she were here. She’d find a million weird insects to put in jars and dissect once she got home. Leo’s stomach turned just thinking about what might be lurking in the high grasses.
Several beads of sweat trickled down his lower back, pooling unpleasantly under his backside. He was aching for a shower. As it turned out, the Knottle Plains were boring. Maybe this was why his father hadn’t gone on the actual expeditions himself. He delegated it to ruffians like Branson. Did that make Leo a ruffian in his father’s eyes? No. He refused to believe that.
Perhaps you’ve got more of me than your mother in you after all.
Leo couldn’t shake the conversation he’d overheard between his father and Kiernan. The Pelagan man seemed to think the sprites were dead. If that was true, then why even bother with this search in the first place? And what did he want another Arboreal for? And what was that island he kept mentioning? There were too many questions, and Leo didn’t know if he’d ever get any answers.
What felt like hours later, just as the sun was beginning to kiss the horizon and the sky lit up in searing pinks and fiery oranges that might have been pleasant to look at if Leo’s ass didn’t hurt so much, Branson turned off the car engine. “All right, boys,” he said. “Everybody out.”
The relief Leo felt at standing upright was indescribable. He moaned with pleasure as his muscles unwound, raising his arms above his head and giving his back a good long stretch. Branson opened up a map and spread it out on the hood. Chewing Tobacco and Nose Picker gathered around him. Leo took a swig of lukewarm water from his canteen, wishing he could call on Swansea to bring him an iced tea.
The man in the supply truck came out to join them. He was a thin, nervous-looking fellow with a twitchy mustache. He lit a cigarette and glanced back at the truck as if he were frightened it might drive away on its own.