Otherbound

39

Drudo.

Naddi and Drudo.

Nolan had spent the night looking through the last of his journals, passing on whatever info he found to Amara. It wasn’t much, and nothing like the info she’d passed him. Nolan’s mind spun with the thought of Cilla being the only thing keeping him and the other travelers in the Dunelands. If Cilla died, the problem was solved—but that wasn’t an option.

Ilanne and Amara would have to find another way.

And they’d have to find it before his pills ran out. He’d decided to lower his doses, stretch the effects for as long as he could, but he already felt odd, warm and restless.

He flicked on an extra light in his room and Googled “Natalie Drudo” coma.

No hits. Nothing without the coma part, either.

Nolan tried Nadir, Nadia, Nadeem, Natalia, Natanie, Nat, Natal, Nate, Nathaniel, Nathan, Natasha, Nadine, going back pages and pages for each search before realizing—of course. The Dit language didn’t use separate d and t letters at all. It just used the d everywhere and pronounced it more sharply when it came at the end of a word, like Maart. The people of the Dunelands might be mispronouncing the palace’s name en masse based on the spelling.

“Nadir Trudo” coma.

“Nadine Druto” coma.

“Nathan Truto” coma. Then: “Nadia Trudo” coma

Google returned a question. Did you mean: “Nadia Trudeau” coma

The first page to come up when Nolan clicked the link almost made him spit out his third can of imitation Coke.

TRUDEAU CHARITY FUND

Help us keep Nadi alive!

The text accompanied a photo of a twentysomething couple, the man cradling a baby. The woman smiled excitedly at the camera. The photo looked old. Something about the colors made Nolan think it was a scan of a paper photo, not a digital one.

Over ten years ago, our beloved daughter, sister, and mother, Nadia Trudeau, fell into a deep coma in her house in Cape Town. Her brain remains active to this day; doctors all across SA could find no cause or brain damage and say she might wake up at any moment.

They told us not to get our hopes up.

How can we not?

Another photo, a portrait, came next. Nadia looked sternly into the camera. She had dark skin, a tall forehead, a mole on one cheek. Wrinkles around her mouth. She looked average, like one of Nolan’s teachers or a classmate’s mom.

We can no longer afford the medical bills to keep her on life support. Please help us fight to keep our Nadi alive. Please give her a chance to meet her granddaughter.

The website went on for three screens of backstory, accomplishments, photos, memories, EEG scans. Every member of the family told their story. They’d even embedded a YouTube video of Nadi’s son and husband recalling memories, and a clip of her newly born granddaughter in Nadi’s husband’s arms. Schmaltzy music played in the background. The website hadn’t been updated in two years, so by now, that baby could probably walk and talk.

Nadi had left behind every person on this website to rule over a world none of them had even heard of. The trade is worth it, she’d said. Power did scary things to people. Alinean lore was filled with cautionary tales of mages who let their magic go to their heads and suffered the consequences.

Nolan scrolled to the top of the website and studied the text again. The page didn’t say which hospital Nadi was staying in, but he guessed it was close to her family. Cape Town, SA. South Africa. He didn’t think it mattered. Even if Nadi had been in the United States, then what? Maybe he could’ve found a way to sneak into whatever care facility or private home she stayed at. He’d smother her with a pillow, the same way she’d smothered a three-year-old girl in that palace so long ago. He’d shove scissors into her stomach as she’d threatened to do to Pat.

The thoughts nauseated him enough to roll his chair away from the desk and put his head in his hands, which smelled faintly of soap and the ramen noodles he’d brought up to his room earlier. He’d spilled some of the spices.

He tried to hold on to his line of thought. If the choice came down to Nadi or Pat, to Nadi or Amara, Nadi or Cilla … Nolan would kill Nadi no matter how much the idea sickened him.

Maybe not. He hoped not. At least he wouldn’t find out. Nadi was halfway across the world.

He didn’t know which options that left.

“I can’t eat breakfast,” Pat said.

“Big night coming up, huh?” Nolan asked. The play debuted that evening. He’d almost forgotten.

“I guess. What’s your excuse?” Pat flicked on his light and leaned in his doorway, a pose Nolan had gotten used to by now. She was herself again. No trace of Nadi. It’d been a day since her threat—how much longer did they have? “You didn’t sleep, did you?”

“Not a bit.” The light hurt his eyes, and he grimaced, chugging down his fifth fake Coke.

“Seemed like a good idea?” she said, mimicking the way he’d been saying that lately. Thank God, she could still joke. “You, uh, want to talk about what’s going on?”

He considered it. “No. Thanks. How about you? Want to talk about butterflies in your stomach?” Or about Nadi?

“Let’s not.” Pause. “They’re more like steamrollers. Oh, man. What if I mess up? There’ll be over a hundred people there. A hundred! I’ve never been in front of that many people before.”

“You played that sunflower when you were five.”

She laughed. A pang shot through him. Pat seemed so … normal. Had she recovered from Nadi’s possession so quickly? Or was she just a better actress than either of them knew? “Yeah,” Pat said. “I remembered all my lines, too. Go, me. Are you coming to the play?”

“I probably shouldn’t. I’m sorry. I want to, but I need to stay with Amara. If I keep closing my eyes during the play …”

“Mom would smack you upside the head.”

“Yup.” Silence fell between them. It wasn’t a bad kind of silence. Not a comfortable one, either.

“What’s gonna happen to you?” Pat asked. “If … things don’t work out?”

It was the sort of silence inevitably broken by something awkward.

Nolan rolled his soda can between his hands. Right now, Amara was on the ship back to Bedam, where she’d meet Ilanne. Who knew what’d happen after that? “That’s a very good question.”

“Is it gonna get an answer?”

He looked up with a tired smile. “You want to rehearse that ER scene one last time?”

“Nah. I’m ready.”

Nolan thought back to the last time they’d practiced. With two timelines to account for, it seemed a lot longer ago than it should. “I think so, too.”