Arlo Finch in the Kingdom of Shadows, page 4
She tried to play it off like it was no big deal. “So which way do we go now?”
Arlo pointed to the right. “It’s not much further.” He led the way, happy to have been wrong.
There was a way forward. It was just sideways.
7
HADRYN
ALVA HADRYN THOMAS WAS BORN in a small town in Texas forty-three years earlier. In the weeks after summer camp, Indra had found his birth announcement online, confirming he really was human.
There had been doubts because Hadryn was a shape-shifter. He could convincingly appear to be anyone by altering his face, his body and his voice. At Camp Redfeather, he had impersonated nearly every member of Blue Patrol at one point or another, although he spent most of his time as Thomas, a visiting Ranger assigned to their patrol.
He was charming, clever and extremely dangerous. He hadn’t just broken the Ranger’s Vow; he seemed to have no moral code whatsoever. He bragged about the people he’d killed over the years, mostly in the pursuit of powerful magic and mystical knowledge.
Sociopath was the term for someone without a conscience, and that seemed to fit.
Hadryn had a particular obsession with Arlo Finch, a mix of jealousy and vengefulness going back to their first meeting. In their last encounter, he had threatened to kill everyone close to Arlo unless he agreed to help recover more arcane artifacts. Hadryn was ultimately captured by the Eldritch, who had been keeping him as a prisoner in the Realm.
Until tonight. Now he was free.
“What do we do?” asked Julie after Rielle had left. “Is he going to come after us?”
“He might,” said Indra. “We need to figure out a system so he can’t impersonate us again.”
“I’m more worried about him killing us,” said Jonas. “We can’t stay here tonight. We should go home.”
Indra scoffed at the idea. “He can google. He can easily figure out where we live, or where we go to school.”
“Those are the same for us,” said Julie, who never missed an opportunity to point out she and her brother were homeschooled.
Connor tried to be the voice of reason. “Look, Rielle said the Eldritch are looking for Hadryn. That means he has to be careful. He’s probably lying low for now.”
“Still, we have to warn Arlo,” said Indra.
Everyone agreed. They decided to text Wu’s phone. If he turned it on when they got to China, he’d get the message.
Everyone crowded around Connor as he typed:
Rielle came. She says Hadryn escaped
The Eldritch don’t know where he is. She says you’re in
danger
“You can’t just leave it like that,” complained Julie. “It’s too scary. You have to be a little positive.”
Indra and Jonas agreed. Connor typed one more text:
Good luck!
8
THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
“WE’RE IN THE WRONG PLACE,” said Wu. “This is bad. This is really bad.”
He was consulting the brick-like GPS unit he’d been carrying in his pack. The device was at least twenty years old. Wu had found it at the back of a shelf in his family’s garage, its batteries covered with a salty crust. Unlike the maps on a modern cell phone, it didn’t rely on a data connection, so it could be used offline.
But it wasn’t completely intuitive, either. It came with a thick manual set in small type.
“Maybe you’re not using it quite right,” said Arlo, trying to be gentle.
In fact, Arlo was certain Wu was dead wrong. This patch of sunny forest was exactly as Arlo had seen it in the atlas. Every tree and every rock was just where it should be. Even the bird songs were correct. It was thrilling, like waking from a dream and realizing it was real.
Wu showed Arlo the device’s tiny pixelated screen. “See, we’re here.” He pointed to a blinking dot. “And we’re supposed to be there.” He pointed to a red X.
“How far off are we?” asked Jaycee. “Are we even in China?”
“Yeah, I mean, we’re on the north side of Guangzhou, but it’s the wrong park. We’re six miles away from where we want to be.”
Arlo had to stifle a laugh. “We just came seven thousand miles and you’re worried that we’re off by six?”
“We had a plan! We knew which buses to take. I don’t know how to get us to your dad’s apartment from here.”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Arlo. “We’re fine.”
Wu was unconvinced. “Should I use my phone? We can get maps and directions.”
They all knew the stakes. The moment Wu or Jaycee switched on their phones, they would connect to the local wireless network. It would show up on their monthly bill as a roaming charge. There would be no way to conceal that they’d somehow been to China. Only by staying offline could they sneak in and out undetected.
“Don’t turn on your phone yet,” said Arlo. “It’s not an actual emergency.”
Arlo Finch had no idea that there were three text messages waiting to tell him just how much of an emergency it was.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, they found themselves on a wide dirt path flanked by towering columns of green bamboo. The afternoon was hot and incredibly muggy. After a year in Colorado, Arlo had forgotten the suffocating closeness of humidity. The back of his T-shirt was soaked with sweat.
“Which way?” he asked Wu. “Left or right?”
Wu consulted the GPS. “I think right? I’m not really sure.”
Then, under the wind and birdsong, Arlo heard voices. Someone was singing. Wu and Jaycee heard it, too.
“There!” said Jaycee, pointing down the path. A group of hikers was approaching, singing a song in unison. They were kids—three girls and three boys—and looked to be between ten and fourteen years old. As they came closer, Arlo saw they wore khaki uniforms with bright red neckerchiefs.
“I think they’re Rangers!” said Wu.
This felt like a good omen. “Ask them where we are,” said Arlo.
They met up with the group in the middle of the path. Gesturing to himself and Arlo, Wu spoke Mandarin to the girl who seemed to be the patrol leader.
“Rangers!” she said with a big smile. The patrol saluted, putting their hands over their hearts. Arlo and Wu saluted back.
Although he couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, Arlo caught the gist. He watched as the Chinese Rangers unfolded maps and discussed routes. One boy held out his water bottle to Arlo, asking if he was thirsty.
“Can I refill mine?” Arlo asked, pantomiming the action. The boy nodded vigorously. The patrol also shared packaged buns with bean paste.
“These are good,” Jaycee said. “I’ve had them before.”
Wu reported what he’d learned from the map discussion: “They say there’s no good way to get where we’re going by bus. They say we should take a taxi.”
“How much will that cost?” asked Jaycee. They only had the one hundred Chinese yuan she had brought back from her trip, the equivalent of twenty dollars. They had estimated it would be plenty for bus fare, but not much more than that.
Wu asked the patrol about the cost of the taxi. The answer wasn’t good. “It’s going to cost everything we’ve got.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Arlo. “We have to go for it.”
After shaking hands with the Americans, the Chinese Rangers headed on their way, singing the same song. Arlo envied their afternoon hike. He and Blue Patrol hadn’t had the chance to do normal Rangers things for a long time.
* * *
Another twenty minutes of walking got them to a small hotel near the edge of the forest, where a single taxi was waiting out front, its driver smoking a cigarette in the shade. He was in his late forties, and wearing a collared shirt and dark slacks despite the heat.
After a brief discussion with Wu, the driver snuffed out his cigarette and gestured for them to get into the taxi. Being the smallest, Arlo took the middle seat, his pack on his lap.
“Are you sure he knows where he’s going?” asked Jaycee, leaning across to Wu.
“He seemed to know what part of town it was in,” answered Wu. “I don’t think he really speaks much Mandarin, but we sorted it out.” In planning for the trip, Wu had warned them that people in this part of the country spoke primarily Cantonese, which was considerably different from what Wu had grown up speaking.
A few turns later they emerged from the forest on a road descending from the mountains. Arlo leaned over his sister to get his first view of Guangzhou.
He had never seen a city of this scale. Skyscrapers seemed to be in a battle over which one could reach the highest. Many of them were basic glass rectangles, but a few were unique, with rounded edges and delicate tapers. One tower reminded him of the spirit knife in his pocket, a dark cylinder with elaborate designs.
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” said Jaycee. “Just this city alone has more people than most states in the U.S.”
Wu leaned forward to ask the driver a question. “He says it’s going to take forty-five minutes,” he reported back. “Nothing to do now but wait.”
After twenty hours of constant movement, it felt odd to simply be a passenger, to have your fate completely in someone else’s hands. Soon their exhaustion, combined with the vibration of the car, had each of them resting their eyes for longer and longer stretches.
Arlo suddenly slumped to his left, falling into Wu. The taxi was exiting an expressway. When did we get on an expressway? he wondered. Had he fallen asleep?
Wu and Jaycee were both out cold. Even sitting up, Wu’s trademark snore was pronounced. Arlo smiled. Jaycee had her head propped against the window, her lower lip dangling.
On the dashboard, the taxi meter was at 86.95¥ and climbing. Arlo caught the driver watching him in the rearview mirror. It could have been simple curiosity, but it wasn’t hard to read it as something more suspicious.
Arlo nudged Wu awake. “Can you tell if we’re going the right way?” he whispered. He pointed out the window to the road signs.
“I can’t read Chinese,” Wu reminded him. “I can only speak it.”
Wu checked the GPS unit in his lap. He couldn’t get it to turn on, so he flipped it over, checking the batteries.
Meanwhile, Arlo carefully tapped Jaycee’s shoulder. He’d been on the receiving end of her waking anger too many times before. Gradually, one eyelid opened. Jaycee glared at him with a single pupil.
“Do you think we’re in the right place?” Arlo asked. “Does this look familiar?”
Jaycee straightened up, peering out the window. Just based on her shoulders, Arlo could tell she recognized something.
“This bridge! I know it,” she said. “We’re close.”
They had crossed over a river onto an island. The buildings here were much shorter—six to ten stories at most. Amid the cars and trucks, three-wheeled bicycles carted wrapped bundles, their riders talking on cell phones while they pedaled. Shoppers crossed the street in the middle of blocks. Their driver made liberal use of his horn.
The taxi slowed, then turned onto a much narrower street with tiny shops on both sides and bundles of electrical cables hanging overhead. Arlo was surprised to see that not everyone looked Chinese. There were African men with colorful shirts and Indian women in full sarongs. Some of the hand-printed signs were in English: T-SHIRTS! PHONE CHARGER! BEST SALE!
Jaycee suddenly grabbed Wu’s arm. “Tell him to stop. I know where we are!”
* * *
After paying the driver all one hundred yuan, the trio weaved their way through a dizzying maze of narrow streets and alleys. Jaycee seemed to know exactly where she was going. They passed smoky barbecue stands, phone repair stalls and butchers’ shops with pig carcasses dangling by their hooves.
They arrived at the base of a six-story cinderblock building. The steel mesh door was painted sea green. Jaycee pressed one of the forty buttons beside the door. It buzzed.
And then they waited. As five seconds became ten seconds, Wu was the first to ask—
“What if he’s not home?”
In all their weeks of planning, they hadn’t prepared for that possibility. They had assumed Clark Finch would be in his apartment, because where else would he be? He was a fugitive in China without a job.
Jaycee pressed the buzzer again.
“Are you sure that’s the right one?” asked Arlo. “Because they all kind of look the same.” Notably, none of them said Finch.
Annoyed—and maybe doubting herself—Jaycee pressed the buttons directly above and below the original one. Still no answer.
“We can call him,” said Wu. “I mean, I don’t know how long we can wait. It’s already 11:30. We’re way behind schedule.”
Jaycee agreed. “I should call him from my phone. He’ll recognize the number.” She unzipped her pack, digging out her phone.
Arlo stopped her just as she was about to switch it on. “Wait,” he said. “Just one more minute.”
“Why?”
He couldn’t really explain, at least not in a way that seemed rational. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the crush of colors and people and smells. But Arlo was convinced that turning on their phones was a mistake. A concession. A betrayal.
After making it all the way to China, all the way to their dad’s apartment, it felt like cheating to rely on modern technology for this last part. It was like getting a car ride across the finish line of a marathon. It felt like giving up. Like surrender.
For the past six weeks—for the past three years—Arlo Finch had held out hope that he would be reunited with his father. He had envisioned this encounter a specific way, with their dad opening his door to find his son and daughter waiting for him. Astonished, he’d say—
“Jaycee!? Arlo!?”
Wait. That voice was real.
They turned to find their father standing halfway down the street.
Clark Finch was wearing cargo shorts, sandals and a gray T-shirt. He carried a bag of groceries. He was shorter than Arlo remembered, and thinner—the kinds of details one doesn’t see in a video call. Jaycee dropped her pack and bounded over to him.
Arlo hadn’t felt his feet moving, but somehow arrived next to them. Jaycee stepped aside so Arlo could have his turn. His father scooped him up, squeezing him tight. Arlo recognized the press of his bony shoulders, the scratch of his beard, the smell of his skin. It was really him.
“What are you doing here?” his father whispered.
“We’re here to bring you home.”
9
ENEMIES OF THE STATE
THEIR FATHER’S APARTMENT WAS SO SMALL you could touch both walls at the same time.
Jaycee had described it after her visit that summer, but Arlo had assumed she was exaggerating. If anything, she had been underselling just how tiny it was—more of a cell than a proper apartment, with just a bed, a desk and a shelf under the window to hold a microwave and rice cooker. The bathroom was down the hall, and shared with all the units on the floor.
Arlo, Jaycee and Wu watched from the doorway as Clark Finch quickly packed his laptop and a few hard drives into a canvas pack. Outside, a thunderstorm had begun.
“We didn’t turn on our phones,” said Arlo. “We didn’t want to leave a digital footprint.”
“That’s good,” said Clark. “Did anyone ask your name, or want to see ID?”
“No,” said Arlo. “I mean, we talked to some Rangers in the park, but I don’t think we told them our names.” He looked to Wu for verification.
“We just said we were from Colorado,” said Wu.
Scanning the family photos taped to the cracked walls, Clark yanked one down and handed it to Arlo. “Is this online anywhere?” The photo showed Blue Patrol from the winter Court of Honor, when Arlo had received his Squirrel patch. Arlo had labeled his friends’ names so his dad would know who he was talking about.
Arlo sighed. “Yeah. It’s on the company website, I’m sure.” It wouldn’t be hard to individually identify them.
“It wasn’t just the Rangers in the park, though,” said Jaycee. “There was also the taxi driver.”
This seemed to worry Clark. “Did he use a navigation system? Did he ever punch in this address?”
Arlo tried to envision the taxi’s dashboard. He could see the meter, and the driver’s cell phone in its holder. But was there a map on it? He couldn’t remember.
“I don’t think I ever told him the address, just the neighborhood,” said Wu.
“Why does it matter, though?” asked Jaycee. “I thought it was only the Americans who were after you.”
Clark opened the microwave, loading it with small electronics and flash drives. “I’m not worried about me. The three of you are in the country without visas, without any documentation. The authorities could arrest you and there’d be no way to get you out. They could deny they even had you in custody.”
“It’ll be okay,” said Arlo. “Seriously. We just have to get back to that park, then I can take us through the Long Woods.”
Clark Finch shut the microwave door. “I still don’t understand what you mean by ‘Long Woods.’ Is that a group or a ship or what? I need to know where we’re going.”
Jaycee took her father’s arm. “Look, Dad, I don’t get it either. But I also don’t understand most of what you do with computers and stuff. I just know it’s real and it works. You have to trust Arlo. He can do this.”
Arlo felt a flush. He’d never heard his sister talk about him this way.
Clark twisted the timer knob on the microwave. Almost immediately, the contents began sizzling and popping as the delicate electronics melted. There would be no way for authorities to ever read the data they held.
He looked over at Arlo. “Okay then. Let’s get to those woods.”
* * *
The back staircase ended at a steel door leading into a narrow alley. Clark motioned for the other three to hold back while he poked his head out to look. He quickly ducked back, pulling the door shut.
