Chapter Five

When I poked my head out again, Shadow was standing against the wall, a bundle of clothes in her arms. I closed the door until there was barely enough space to slide an envelope through it.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Where's my dad?"

"I'm on laundry duty," she said. "Your clothes aren't ready yet, so I brought you some of my old ones."

"Thanks," I said, and flung my arm out. She pressed them into the crook of my arm. I dragged them inside and locked the door.

"I just wanted to apologize for how I talked to you today," she said through the door. "I just wasn't thinking. Do you think we can start over? I'd like to be friends."

I pulled a shirt over my head and didn't answer. There was a brief burst of fear when I realized that I was still damp and she'd be able to see the faint outline of my plastron.

Shadow cleared her throat. "Anyway, when you're done in there, let me know. I'll show you to the place you're gonna sleep. It's on the second floor and it has a great view of the pond."

"Where's my dad?" I asked. The t-shirt was baggy, but the pants fit just right for once. I wondered if I could sneak them out with my stuff when we left the farm.

"He's with Mike and Don in the barn. They have a lot to talk about."

I knew without her saying it that they weren't coming back anytime soon. Jealousy jabbed at my insides, and a helpless frustration swept over me, and then anger for feeling that way at all. Scrunching my shoulders so that my shirt bagged over my chest, I slipped out of the bathroom. I couldn't stop thinking about how ugly my hair was when it was wet. Just looking at Shadow's hair—thick, glossy, fabulously messy, like a model's—gave me pangs.

"This way," she said, and led me back through the kitchen and up a flight of stairs. Everything creaked: the floorboards, the wall panels, the banister. I could hear a mutter on the upper floor growing louder and louder.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Who's what?"

"I hear someone talking."

"Oh, that's just my TV," she said. "You've watched TV before, right?"

"Yeah." Once I had stood in front of a wall of TVs in a supermarket for an hour, watching a movie. Dad had been forced to come in after me.

"Have any favorite shows?"

"No." A lot easier than saying that my only glimpses of televisions had been while I was walking past them.

"Well, you can watch mine as long as you want," she said. "But first things first. Here's where you'll be sleeping."

She opened a door onto a small bedroom with two beds in it, pictures hanging crookedly on the walls, and little square windows glancing out over the trees. My books were already sitting on the nightstand beneath an old lamp. Dad's backpack was sitting next to his bed, both pairs of his katana lying side by side under a square of light. My heart jumped. It didn't seem right that they should be lying out where anyone could see them.

"If there's anything I can do to help you," she said, "just ask, okay? I've got the room at the end of the hall." She pointed. "Plus, I've got a full bookcase in there if you need any new reading material."

For a long moment, I stared at the books I had read and reread lying on my bed. An intense longing to shut the door on Shadow rolled over me, to pull down the shades and disappear under the covers. Just as I turned to push her out, a catchy theme song blared from her room. I'd read about sirens in our mythology book a hundred times, and honest to god, I think that if one were singing to me, it would sing that stupid song.

I looked at her feet. "Can I watch your TV?" I asked.

"Yeah! Sure. Come on." She reached down as though she were going to take my hand, but when I shrank away she stopped.

"Sorry!" she said. "Seriously, I'm just not paying attention today. Totally stupid. Don't stay up late like me or you'll lose half of your brain."

She led me into her room, which was across from ours, and threw the door open. Her room had been the victim of a clothing explosion. The closet doors hung open, a heap of garments standing knee-high on the floor. Studded belts looped over her bedframe, dark shirts and ripped jeans were wadded up under and over the bed, and a flock of socks peered out from beneath her desk. Styrofoam cups and bottled sodas were clustered on her nightstand, and an old laptop with disproportionately large speakers sat on her desk. But none of that mattered as much as the flatscreen television hanging on the wall. I stared up at it with my mouth hanging open.

"Like it?" Shadow asked. "Mike bought it for me. You know, for playing 'author.'" She threw herself down on her bed, grabbed a remote off of her nightstand, and threw it to me. Without thinking, I ducked, and it clattered into the hall.

We both looked after it, then at each other. My face burned.

"Hey, it's okay!" Shadow said. "It's okay. I have dropped that thing in the sink before. It'll survive."

I retrieved it and slunk up to her, holding it out.

"Go ahead, keep it." She pushed it back toward me. "Do you want to watch a show or a movie? I've got all kinds." She reached underneath a pile of jeans and extracted a CD case, and when she flipped it open it was full of DVD-RWs with movie titles scribbled on the fronts in permanent marker.

I was just about to freeze again when there was a squawk on the television. There on the screen was a little green boy in a purple jumpsuit, flinging his arms in dramatic circles. At first I didn't understand him, he was talking so fast. And then, without even blinking, he flashed down to the floor. He had become a wolf.

"Like it? That's Teen Titans," said Shadow. "I've got all the seasons."

"Who's he?" I asked, pointing at the boy, who was scratching his ear.

"Beast Boy."

"Can he turn into any animal?"

"Anything that he wants. Even extinct ones." Shadow pulled the pillows off of her bed and thrust one into my arms. "Here, sit on this. I'll go make some popcorn."

That evening was a blur. I don't remember her leaving the room and I don't remember her coming back. I do remember that she sat down beside me with a bowl of popcorn. Later there was a pizza and a can of Sprite. At first I didn't touch the food, but then my curiosity got the best of me, and soon I was digging in with the same fervor that Shadow had. Salt and butter and cheese, crammed it all in my face like I was an endless chasm. To be honest, I don't even remember what half of the shows were about. I was just drunk on the colors and the sounds and the grease and a team of super-powered children who didn't need parents. Outside, the sky purpled, the clouds bunched up into golden castles, and the stars popped out one by one.

I woke up wrapped in a blanket on the floor. The television was still on, but muted. My stomach hurt and my mouth was dry. I sat up, blinking, and groped for one of the sodas. Someone was talking just outside in the hall.

"Yeah, all she did was watch cartoons. She's fine! I gave her pizza."

"That's not a real supper, Shadow."

"Mom. She's probably never had pizza. It's good for the soul. Believe me, she needs it. The poor kid thinks everything's out to kill her." Her voice lowered conspiratorially. "She doesn't even make a sound when she walks!"

"Leo trained her up that way, honey. And, to be fair, I don't think the guys had a proper childhood either."

"But they're fine, more or less. I mean, Mike is a teddy bear, and even when Don's in one of his moods, you can have a conversation with him. But Saya isn't like that. It's like she's completely shut off. She's mature, but not in a good way."

A long sigh. "There's nothing we can do. Just don't say anything to Leo about it."

"I did talk to Leo."

"You what?"

"God, Mom, it's okay. He agreed with me. Like I said: this is medicine."

"Shadow, I… it's too late for this. That's all I can say."

There was a pause. "Mom? Are you okay?"

A long sigh. "No. No, I'm not."

"Is it Leo?"

"Trouble's been following him, honey, and I'm so tired of trouble."

"Don't you dare tell them to leave."

"I won't. I can't. We're in this together, for better or for worse." A dry chuckle. "Oh, I could've run into a group of sanitation workers…"

Someone shuffled down the hallway, kinky hair tied back in a ponytail; I saw her face limned in a dim yellow light. Then the door at the end of the hall clicked shut. I quickly curled back up on the floor, just in time: Shadow stepped into the room and leaned on the door. I could feel her eyes lingering on me.

When I woke up again, it was probably about six AM, and I had rolled up against the wall and curled into a ball. I could hear a rooster crowing far away. The TV was off and Shadow was draped over her bed with her limbs flung everywhere. It physically hurt me to look at her.

I slipped up to the window and peered out. The clouds were mounding into fantastic shapes above the horizon, glowing like heaps of fresh-baked pastries. The trees whispered together and there were birds discussing politics up in the canopy. Down below, still shielded by the wall of trees, the pond was black as ink. Perhaps its darkness was why I didn't see the cairn at first—a pile of stones stacked neatly into a dome by the edge of the water. Nor did I see Dad until he shifted a little. He was sitting on the bank, legs crossed, arms on his legs, chin touching his chest. The fabric-bound katana lay across his knees.

I pulled on my tennis shoes. Tiptoeing down the stairs, I crept out of the front door. For a moment the entire world was glorious: the air fresh and cool, the flowers nodding in the breeze, the overgrown lawn twinkling, each leaf heavy with dewdrops. I took a few deep breaths to clear my lungs and marched off through the grass, cutting a dark path and drenching myself in dew. I was nearly to the pond when I flushed a flock of quail; they scattered toward the woods.

Dad looked up. He smiled. It was a tired expression.

"Good morning, Saya," he said, patting the stone by his side.

"Good morning." I settled beside him.

We sat together quietly as the sun rose, touching each tree with light, slowly filling the darkness between the branches. A woodpecker beat a tattoo across the copse, and an insect buzzed by. The crown of the farmhouse shone like amber. Someone in a white shift moved in one of the windows, then looked out at us. I think that Dad would have acknowledged them, but he had drifted away again. I pretended not to see.

The wind stirred the grass growing between the stones and fluttered in the loose wrapping on the katana.

So, I thought, staring at the cairn, this would have been my grandfather.

I wondered if I still had a grandfather on the other side of my family, and if I would like him. He probably wouldn't like me.

I felt nothing at this thought, and wondered if that were wrong. I couldn't imagine traveling across an entire country, sick and tired and beat up, and getting up before dawn to sit in front of my dad's grave. If he died, I'd have an ache, I guess; I'd miss his presence. But sitting in front of his bones wouldn't ease it any.

Dad rose to his feet. The swelling in his face and arm had gone down and he almost looked normal. Just as I was beginning to smile, Dad lifted the bundle in his arms, and with a savage ferocity, launched it across the pond.

I stumbled to my feet. "Dad! No!"

The bundle dropped into the water like a stone and was gone. A flock of birds scattered into the sky, then dropped back into the trees again. I swallowed convulsively and looked up at his face.

"Why did you do that?" I said. "They were so beautiful!"

"Your mother gave them to me," he said, and turned toward the farmhouse.

"But I was hoping you'd give them to me someday!" I said.

He looked stricken for a moment, but the look passed, and he set his jaw.

"That set was poison," he said.

"It was not! It was beautiful! It was the most beautiful thing we had and you threw it in the pond!"

"It has been done. I needed to do this."

"Maybe you do, but I don't!" I pushed my shirt over my head.

"Saya! What are you doing?"

I kicked off my shoes and pants. "What do you think?"

He grabbed for my arm, but I dashed out of his reach and plunged into the water.

God, it was cold! It stole the breath right out of me. But I didn't lose my head. I paddled hard out to where I thought it had sunk, sucked air, and I dove.

I thrust down as hard as I could, kicking hard, groping blindly in the darkness. I broke through one layer of cold water, then another, hands outstretched. I felt nothing. How deep was it here, anyway? Oh my god, what if it had fallen so deep that I could never find it again? Sick emptiness flooded through me. Katana will rust in the sheath. They mold. All you have to do is breathe on them and they begin to consider suicide. Of course Dad would throw them into an entire pond, of course he would! Terrifying images passed through my head: the blades irreversibly damaged in mere days, the wooden sheaths with their elegant lacquer-work swelling and cracking, the sleek fabric hilts marred by filth!

Intense blank terror jolted through me. Even though I desperately needed to breathe, I struggled deeper and deeper, and finally thrust my arms through mud. Soupy mud, mud up to my elbows, and it felt like it went deeper than that. Sparks flashed behind my eyelids.

Suddenly a hand batted at my ankles, then grabbed me around the calf and pulled. I twisted away, but it was weak and stupid and uncoordinated, and that gave Dad the chance to throw an arm around my waist. I wriggled, but he clamped me tightly to his side. With a few powerful strokes, he drove skyward, and we broke the surface.

I panted for breath, twisting and snarling in his grip, my eyes full of frustrated tears, but he only put me in an arm lock and thrust his elbow around my chin. I couldn't even think of biting him, and my legs churned uselessly in the water.

"Saya," he hissed in my ear, "how old are you?"

I took a deep breath and ceased struggling.

"How old?"

"Ten," I said as best I could.

"Good to know. And whose swords did I throw in the water?"

"Mom's."

"No. Mine. And this ritual was mine." He exhaled.

"But they were so beautiful!"

"Many terrible things are beautiful, even laudable," he said. "Now. Why are we here?"

"To… to kill Mom."

"That's right. And any alliance I have with her, however small, must be completely obliterated."

The candid photograph flashed up against my eyelids. I was very still.

"Now. If I let you go, are you going to return to the house?"

All the fire had gone out of me. I was shivering hard.

"Y-yeah."

"And you won't go after them again?"

I didn't answer, but his grip tightened painfully on my arms.

"They're going to rust!" I said.

"Everything returns to dust someday," he said. "It was only necessary that these return a little sooner."

"Dad!" I said, my voice strangled. "Let me go!"

He dropped me. I thrashed uselessly in the water a moment, then paddled toward the bank. He sliced through the water beside me, eyes narrowed.

There was a woman on the bank in a white bathrobe, arms wrapped around her belly. I recognized the kinked hair immediately. My response was to draw short from the bank, ducking out of sight behind some tall reeds, but Dad grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me out of the water. We struggled out of the mud and into the grass. I wrapped my arms around my chest and hunched over, praying she wouldn't look too closely.

"Leonardo!" the woman said. "What's going on?" Her eyes widened. "Are you bleeding?"

I startled when I saw a trickle of bright red staining his bandages.

"It's nothing," he said. "Saya, have you met April O'Neil yet?"

I shook my head, staring at my feet.

"Look at her," Dad said sharply. "Don't look at the ground."

"Shh, Leo, it's okay," April said. "Come on. Get inside and dry off before you get sick."

"Saya, get your clothes," Dad said. "Go on."

I picked them up in slow motion. Out of the corner of my eye I saw April and Dad whispering to each other, then April walking back up to the house. For a minute I hoped Dad would follow, but he did not. He waited for me.

"What are you doing?" I asked at last.

"I'm making sure you don't dive back into the pond."

"But Dad!"

"But nothing. We are not by ourselves anymore," he said. "Do you understand that?"

"Yes," I said. I couldn't look him in the face.

"These people are caring for us at great risk to themselves."

"I know!" I snapped.

"Do you really want to see your mother die?" he asked. "Or was that just an impulse?"

I didn't say anything.

"I will kill her," Dad said softly. "If I don't, then Mike or Don will. Can you live with that?"

I clutched the clothes to my chest and started to cry again, big stupid tears. "I don't know!" I said. "I don't know! It seemed so straightforward at first, but now I don't know if I want it at all!"

He knelt beside me and tipped my chin up. "Look at me," he said.

I did. His expression was strained.

"Do you want to go to her?" he asked.

I hesitantly shook my head.

"If we are going to kill Karai, then we all need to be on the same page," he said. "You must be prepared for the worst, and prepared absolutely. If you have your blade at her neck, you must not hesitate. She certainly won't."

"When are we going to do it?" My voice was hushed.

"Not immediately," he said. "I have to heal, Mike has to get back in shape, and Donatello is engaging in extensive reconnaissance. This may take as long as a year to prepare for, and that's if Raphael doesn't bring the Foot to us first."

"But the police got him." I glanced furtively at the cairn. "Maybe they shot him."

"If he's in the Foot's employ, they'll get him out in no time. My guess is that he'll have to heal, too, and that he'll be after us as soon as he can get on his feet. Until then, we must prepare to the best of our abilities."

"Breakfast!" someone shouted from the farmhouse. I looked up and saw Michelangelo leaning out of the window, waving.

Dad waved back and stood. "I have a new exercise for you. When someone speaks to you, you look at them in the face. If they ask you a question, you respond respectfully. No looking at your feet."

"But I don't like it when they look at me!"

"Why not?"

"Because they can see how messed up I am."

A bemused blink. "In what way?" he asked.

"What do you think?" I asked, and dropped the bundle away from my chest. "Does this look normal to you?"

"Yes. Do I look normal to you?" he asked.

"What… of course you do!"

"You must not have seen many real turtles, then," he said. A slow smile cracked across his face.

"Well, at least I know exactly what you are when I look at you," I said. "But when people look at me, it's like… it's like… they don't know what I am or what happened to me."

"They don't know you yet, that's all. You should have seen April's face when she saw us for the first time. Plus, you did get a good smack in the face." He gently turned my head to the side.

I sighed and leaned into his shoulder. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"Neither do I." He pried my shirt from beneath my arm and stuck it over my head. "Get dressed. Come on."

"I'm… sorry about your wound," I said as I pulled my pants on.

"Don't worry. It happened. All we can do is take these things in stride. Now come on." He wrapped his arm around my neck and dragged me up toward the house. I staggered against his side, punching at his arm.

"Dad! I swear I'm not going back!"

He dropped me and pushed me ahead of him, chuckling softly.