“Benny!” Nix yelled.
“What … what is it?”
“You have to come and look!”
Nix grabbed his hands and fairly hauled him to his feet and then pulled him out from under the shelter of the trees. Not toward the promontory that looked down on the camp. Instead, she pulled him toward the trail that led back into the woods. She was running, and her grip was so tight and insistent that Benny ran too.
“What is it? What’s that sound?”
“You have to come see!”
They raced along the path to a clearing, and there, Nix stopped and pointed. She need not have bothered, because Benny saw it. His eyes bugged wide, and his mouth fell open as he stared up at the roaring thing.
It was silver and white, with vast wings that lifted it high above the mountains. Benny raised his hand, as if he could touch it. The thing appeared to move slowly, but that was an illusion. It was just so far away. Higher than the tallest of the surrounding mountains, skimming just below the ceiling of gray storm clouds. In another hour there wouldn’t have been enough light to see it. If the storm had started, it would have been both invisible and unheard.
But they stood there, holding hands, staring up as it roared above them, soaring with alien majesty from one horizon to the other. Coming from the west, heading east; far, far above the Rot and Ruin.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
Nix just shook her head.
“Where did it come from?”
“From the east. ”
“No, it’s heading east,” he said, but Nix shook her head.
“It came from the east and turned around. I saw it and ran to get you. ”
They watched it go, diminishing in size from a giant to a gnat and then to nothing, taking its roar with it. When it was gone, there was at least five minutes of silence before the birds began to sing again. They stood in the clearing for ten minutes more, hoping it would come back. Willing it to come back.
Benny said, “Nix … did we just see that? I mean, tell me we actually saw that. ”
Nix’s green eyes were filled with magic, and her smile was bright enough to hold back the storm. “It’s real, Benny. We saw it. ”
“But how? It doesn’t make sense. ”
She shook her head, and they stared off to the east. The thing they had just seen belonged to another age, to the days before First Night. They knew about them from the history books, but neither had ever seen one. Never expected to. They kept looking into the distance.
But the slow, lumbering jumbo jet did not return.
50
THEY DID NOT KNOW HOW TO TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY HAD JUST SEEN. It was strange and wonderful, but it seemed more like a dream than a part of what they were about to do.
“I wish I could tell Tom,” Benny said.
“I wish I could tell Mom,” said Nix, then she said, “Benny, if we get out of this—”
“When we get out of this,” he corrected.
She gave only a tiny nod to acknowledge that possibility. “After this is over,” she said, “we need to find out about that jet. ”
“Sure, I mean we let everyone know—”
“No,” she said firmly. “We have to find out about it. Lilah was right. We don’t have a home anymore. We’ve been—I don’t know how to say it. Cut loose? We’re no longer connected to anything, and certainly not to Mountainside. ”
“There’s Morgie and Chong. ”