Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

“Our time’s almost out,” I reply, noting that I’m not even out of breath.

“And whose fault is that?” Henry says, just behind me.

“We’re fine!” I say, my mind still throbbing with the cave writing. The things I’ve seen.

“He might get lost!” Elizabeth says.

“We blaze a trail of light for him,” I retort, “and we’ve marked the turnings.”

She stumbles on a rock, and I reach out to take her hand. It’s impulsive, yet I also know full well what I’m doing, and even before my fingers close around her wrist, our eyes meet, and I feel desire spark between us, see it in her face, like a hunger.

But Henry catches her first, steadying her.

I exhale in disappointment, and then anger, and start to reach out for her again, when I hear Konrad calling out, closer now.

“I said don’t wait for me!”

And we begin running again, though at a pace that allows my twin to keep up. When we reach the ladder, Henry says, “The claw’s tapping the glass! What happens now?”

“We still have time,” I assure him.

I feel my body in the real world tugging me back toward it. There is no arguing with it. I swiftly climb the rungs.

“Victor!” Konrad calls out to me from below. “Did you find what you wanted? Tell me what you saw!”

“I found it,” I tell him over my shoulder with a triumphant smile. “The way to bring you back.”

"The way you tell it, ” said Henry, “ It sounds a bit like the Egyptian cult of Osiris.”

We were on the water, bathed in sunlight, sailing close to the wind on the twenty-footer. The day had dawned with all the warmth and promise of a summer morning, and after our lessons and lunch, we’d had our cook pack a picnic hamper, and we’d taken the boat out. At the tiller, leaving the chateau in our wake, I’d finally had the chance to tell them in full detail what the writing on the cave walls had shown me.

“Someone murdered Osiris,” Henry continued, “I forget who, and cut his body into fourteen pieces and scattered them. His family found the pieces and buried them, and he came back to life as the god of the underworld.”

“A myth,” said Elizabeth. “How do we know these cave writings are any different? They were made by primitive, superstitious people. Do you really think they knew how to bring people back to life?”

“Ah,” I said, “they didn’t bring him back to life. That’s what’s so interesting. They grew him a new body. Prepare to come about, please.”

I pushed the tiller hard over. At the front of the cockpit, Elizabeth and Henry busied themselves with the foresail. Henry, never the most confident mariner, was sure-footed now and winched in his sheet with a confidence I’d never seen before. And Elizabeth, I couldn’t help noticing, seemed to have regained the weight and bloom she’d lost in the past few weeks. There was enticing color in her cheeks and a new luster in her windblown hair.

The boom swung overhead, and the mainsail filled with a satisfying whoomph. I adjusted the tiller and turned my face into the breeze, inhaling happily. From the moment I’d woken this morning, I’d felt remarkably well-bursting with energy. Hopeful, even. For the first time since Konrad’s death, I’d actually wanted to get up and face the day. And I hadn’t yet had a single jolt of pain in my maimed right hand.

It seemed our visit to the spirit world had helped all of us in some way.

“A body part and a bit of mud,” said Elizabeth reflectively.

“Surely creating life can’t be so simple,” Henry added, pushing his spectacles back on his nose but looking at me with a hint of challenge.

Elizabeth surprised me with her quick reply. “Is it so different from the way God created Adam, fashioning him from the mud?”

“Well, no,” Henry said. “But you’re also forgetting the black liquid Victor described. That was one of the ingredients.”

“It wasn’t liquid,” I said. My mind still felt seared by the ancient words and images, as though I’d stared too long at the sun. “What came out of that sac was alive. It didn’t just flow; it moved of its own will.”

“Right,” said Henry, “so all we need is mud, a body part, and a magical liquid we don’t have.”

I shook my head, suddenly realizing something. “No. Even then it wouldn’t make life. The body’s just a shell. It has no spirit. The body must first be grown in our world until it’s ready for Konrad to inhabit.”

“This was all in those writings?” Henry asked, incredulous.

I nodded. “In the end it all came in such a rush.”

I saw Henry glance at Elizabeth before returning his gaze to me. “And you’re certain, absolutely certain, that this is what you read-or saw in those cave symbols? It can’t have been an easy translation, even with the butterfly’s help.”

Firmly I said, “I’m sure, Henry.”

“And you’re already imagining going ahead with this?” he asked. “It seems a primitive, barbaric thing.”

“What other choice do we have, Henry?” Elizabeth said to him impatiently, and I was startled-and delighted-by her fervor. “If I’d merely read it in a book, yes, I’d say it was outlandish. But we’ve entered the land of the dead, all of us, and seen what it holds. And we need to get Konrad out of there as soon as possible. That noise…”

I saw Henry suppress a shudder as he remembered the weird moan lifting to us from the depths. But I also remembered how Analiese had said she’d never seen anything-which meant that, whatever it was down there, it hadn’t stirred for a long, long time. I didn’t see why it necessarily had to be evil. A greater part of me wanted to know more about it. But if Henry and Elizabeth feared it and thought it would harm Konrad, all to the good. It would keep them focused on the urgency of our endeavor.

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t think we should waste any time.”

“That liquid,” she said, “or whatever substance it was. We need to know how to get it.”

“Why didn’t the hieroglyphs tell you?” Henry asked.

“There may be other writings in the cave,” I suggested. “Or elsewhere. We’ll need to go back.”

She nodded reluctantly. “Though, I don’t like the place.”

“Henry does, I think,” I said.

He leaned back with the look of someone remembering a fleeting and guilty pleasure. “I can’t deny it,” he said. “There was something… Can ‘liberating’ be the right word?”

“You’re the expert with words,” I said, and grinned.

“I’m different when I’m there,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t like myself.”

I laughed. “You are more yourself. That’s the wonder of it. We all are.”

She blushed and set her gaze on the shoreline. “Well, if that’s true, I’d be very worried if I were you. You’re even more reckless and arrogant inside.”

I was indignant. “How so?”

Henry snorted. “With those butterflies on you, you carry on like you’re a demigod. And what you did with the spirit clock-”

“Didn’t we all return safely?”

“Well, yes,” he said.

“And how long were our bodies without us?”

“A minute and two seconds.”

“An extra second only!”

“There are limits to what the human body can endure!” Henry exclaimed.

“I think you’d be amazed, my friend.” They clearly had no idea of the kind of power and vitality I felt in the spirit world, how my senses and experiences there seemed even more real than the sunlight and wind and water that surrounded me now. I realized that, more than anything, I wanted to return.

“Victor.”

I was expecting Henry to chastise me further, but I saw him staring fixedly at the tiller. He pointed.