heading north. Angel had promised answers in Russia, and my mom had mentioned it the day the sky caught fire. Like Jonny, I had to trust that therewere no coincidences—in this strange new world, my gut was all I had to go on.
Unfortunately, my gut didn’t warn me of a tropical storm on the ol’ radar. I only saw it when I was almost upon it, because of how ash-filled the sky was, even at ten thousand feet. I immediately swerved west and tried to outfly it, but it was too big.
Storm-force wind, needlelike rain, ash, and debris blasted me from all sides, twisting me around and trying to take me down. I was in the middle of the ocean, so I couldn’t land; I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t stop flying, even for an instant.
Out of the storm wasn’t much better. I flew north for several days, alone with my thoughts and shivering inside my sweatshirt. Rizal had been right—the temperature continued to drop. I was numb and alone, and hunger gnawed me inside out every minute, but two words sustained me:
Find. Truth.
The truth, bobbing just beyond the next wave. The truth, rising with each new hazy day. It became everything.
When I finally saw the uneven blob in the distance that suggested land, I was convinced I was hallucinating. But the strip got bigger, filling the horizon. I had no idea where in the vast Russian countryside Angel would be, but I was sure she’d jailbreak my brain and send a little message via the voice—the kid had no boundaries.
So far, nothing.
As I flew farther inland, a vast, circular valley stretchedout below me, with a gray shelf of rock built up all around it. Hulking objects dotted the yellow land, and when I dove lower to get a better look, I thought I was seeing things in my exhaustion. At first my spirit soared at the realization that those dots were thousands of animals…
Until the smell hit me.
Every single creature lay dead. Lions, zebras, giraffes, all in varying stages of decomposition.
Uh, pretty sure there aren’t giraffes in Russia, rotting or not.
I saw someone wrapped head to toe in a burgundy fabric, huddling over one of the fresher corpses—some kind of deer. I stood watching nimble fingers snatch bones already picked clean and tuck them into hidden pockets.
Finally, I tucked my wings inside my sweatshirt and cleared my throat, and the figure turned.
The amber-colored eyes were all that was visible beneath the folds of fabric, and they widened at my approach.
“You are not burned!” a woman’s voice exclaimed.
“No…” I said uneasily.
Was that something she hoped to fix?
“Every person that comes to us from the city is burned.” A man I hadn’t seen stood up from behind the bulk of a water buffalo. He was also in a full robe.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not from the city. Which city, by the way?”
Which country and which continent, for that matter?
The two swaddled figures turned toward each other in silent communication.
“Do you know why all these animals died?” I interrupted.
“Come,” the woman said, walking away. “Come with us to our home and we will talk.”
Exhausted, starving, and desperate for answers, I followed.
34
“THERE WAS A very bright flash of light, and then heat all around.” Azizi was an animated storyteller, and his breath made the candle jump.
Once inside the mud-packed hut, my hosts had pulled their cloaks down around their shoulders, and I saw that Azizi and his sister, Nuru, had albinism. “We have to cover our skin,” Nuru explained. “Or the sun cooks it.”
They reminded me of Angel and Gazzy, and it wasn’t just their fair hair and skin. Nuru was measured and unreadable, while Azizi could be goofy, filling the spaces between his sister’s silences.
“A Jeep from one of the travel groups, its windows,
pfft
.” Azizi made a fist and shot his fingers out to signify the explosion of glass.
The travel groups were safaris—I learned that I was in eastern Africa, in the Ngorongoro
Unfortunately, my gut didn’t warn me of a tropical storm on the ol’ radar. I only saw it when I was almost upon it, because of how ash-filled the sky was, even at ten thousand feet. I immediately swerved west and tried to outfly it, but it was too big.
Storm-force wind, needlelike rain, ash, and debris blasted me from all sides, twisting me around and trying to take me down. I was in the middle of the ocean, so I couldn’t land; I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t stop flying, even for an instant.
Out of the storm wasn’t much better. I flew north for several days, alone with my thoughts and shivering inside my sweatshirt. Rizal had been right—the temperature continued to drop. I was numb and alone, and hunger gnawed me inside out every minute, but two words sustained me:
Find. Truth.
The truth, bobbing just beyond the next wave. The truth, rising with each new hazy day. It became everything.
When I finally saw the uneven blob in the distance that suggested land, I was convinced I was hallucinating. But the strip got bigger, filling the horizon. I had no idea where in the vast Russian countryside Angel would be, but I was sure she’d jailbreak my brain and send a little message via the voice—the kid had no boundaries.
So far, nothing.
As I flew farther inland, a vast, circular valley stretchedout below me, with a gray shelf of rock built up all around it. Hulking objects dotted the yellow land, and when I dove lower to get a better look, I thought I was seeing things in my exhaustion. At first my spirit soared at the realization that those dots were thousands of animals…
Until the smell hit me.
Every single creature lay dead. Lions, zebras, giraffes, all in varying stages of decomposition.
Uh, pretty sure there aren’t giraffes in Russia, rotting or not.
I saw someone wrapped head to toe in a burgundy fabric, huddling over one of the fresher corpses—some kind of deer. I stood watching nimble fingers snatch bones already picked clean and tuck them into hidden pockets.
Finally, I tucked my wings inside my sweatshirt and cleared my throat, and the figure turned.
The amber-colored eyes were all that was visible beneath the folds of fabric, and they widened at my approach.
“You are not burned!” a woman’s voice exclaimed.
“No…” I said uneasily.
Was that something she hoped to fix?
“Every person that comes to us from the city is burned.” A man I hadn’t seen stood up from behind the bulk of a water buffalo. He was also in a full robe.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not from the city. Which city, by the way?”
Which country and which continent, for that matter?
The two swaddled figures turned toward each other in silent communication.
“Do you know why all these animals died?” I interrupted.
“Come,” the woman said, walking away. “Come with us to our home and we will talk.”
Exhausted, starving, and desperate for answers, I followed.
34
“THERE WAS A very bright flash of light, and then heat all around.” Azizi was an animated storyteller, and his breath made the candle jump.
Once inside the mud-packed hut, my hosts had pulled their cloaks down around their shoulders, and I saw that Azizi and his sister, Nuru, had albinism. “We have to cover our skin,” Nuru explained. “Or the sun cooks it.”
They reminded me of Angel and Gazzy, and it wasn’t just their fair hair and skin. Nuru was measured and unreadable, while Azizi could be goofy, filling the spaces between his sister’s silences.
“A Jeep from one of the travel groups, its windows,
pfft
.” Azizi made a fist and shot his fingers out to signify the explosion of glass.
The travel groups were safaris—I learned that I was in eastern Africa, in the Ngorongoro
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