A Million Suns

19 ELDER

“FOUND YOU,” I SAY, PUSHING OPEN THE DOOR.

Amy sits in the middle of the gallery on the second floor of the Recorder Hall. Her knees are pulled up to her chin and her arms wrap around her legs. A thick, old book rests beside her, open-faced but ignored. The art room is cluttered, sculptures and paintings from last gen’s artists stacked on one side and rows of canvases propped up on the other — mostly from Harley, but a few from some other artists. Art isn’t exactly respected here on Godspeed, and although Orion had made something of an attempt to turn the collection into a proper gallery, he’d been much more focused on books than paintings.

“How did you find me?” Amy asks as I plop down beside her.

I tug at the wi-com around her wrist. “They have locaters, you know.”

She nods silently. Her head falls against my shoulder, her long red hair spilling down my arm.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” I say.

“I’m just sorry it happened. Do you…” Amy doesn’t look at me as she says this. “Do you know who did it?”

“We have some suspects. Second Shipper Shelby said she saw a Feeder shouting yesterday in the Recorder Hall. Something about doing whatever he wanted…”

I watch her closer. Shelby also said that the person the Feeder was shouting at was Amy. She gives no indication of that now, although I can see the secret behind her eyes, clawing to get out.

“Why did you run off?” I ask softly.

The last I’d seen of her was a blur of brown clothing. I didn’t like the idea of Amy running off alone, but I couldn’t abandon the investigation, not in front of the Shippers, and not before I knew they had everything they needed to find the killer. I tracked the location of her wi-com until I could escape.

“I thought I’d go ahead and get started on that clue Orion left me,” she says, her voice cracking.

“Did you find anything?” I ask, pretending not to notice that she’s been crying. The death of the girl in the rabbit fields seems to have affected her more than it did the shipborns.

Amy shoves the book over to me. I wince at the idea of a book — a book! From Sol-Earth! — being pushed across the floor, but I pick it up silently. I read the title and flip through some pages. “Why would there be a clue here?”

“Alice follows a rabbit down a rabbit hole,” she says, turning the pages in my hand to a chapter near the beginning. She somehow avoids touching me, just as she’s shying away from eye contact. “I thought it fit. But I guess not.”

I look at the illustration that accompanies the chapter: a girl in a poufy skirted dress, staring curiously down a hole under a tree.

“Why did you come to the gallery?” I ask, closing the book and setting it gently beside me.

”No one else comes here,” she says softly. “I didn’t want to stay in the fiction room, and I figured nobody would find me here.”

I wonder if she includes me as a nobody.

Amy twists the wi-com round and round her wrist. Her skin is pink there. I want to reach out and stop her. Instead, I turn the book over in my hands. I can’t figure Amy out, but maybe if I can figure out the clue, I can take her away from whatever place in her mind she’s retreated to.

“Huh,” I say.

Amy jerks her attention to me. “What? Huh, what?”

I hold up the back of the book to her. “‘Other works by Lewis Carroll,’” I read aloud. “Through the Looking-Glass.”

“So?” Amy eyes me curiously.

“The first clue was on the back of a painting, right?” I ask. Amy rolls her hand for me to go on. “Well, maybe the second clue is too.”

“Through the Looking-Glass is a book,” Amy says. “Not a painting.”

Instead of arguing, I jump up and head to a stack of paintings. Harley did so many and the gallery is so small that not every single one is hanging from the walls. I flip through the canvases quickly — I know exactly which one I’m looking for.

“Harley did a painting right after his girlfriend, Kayleigh, committed suicide. I remember when he finished it — Orion said it was his ‘greatest achievement.’” Amy looks at me doubtfully. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you really think he’d use another painting for the next clue?” she asks.

“Maybe?” I shrug, still sifting through canvases. “He left those clues specifically for you, but let’s be honest — he didn’t know you that long. I guess he saw how close you were to Harley in that short amount of time and figured the best way to leave the clues was with his paintings.” Amy doesn’t notice the bitterness in my voice; even Orion could see that she was closer to Harley than she was to me.

“So where is this painting?” Amy asks.

“Don’t know. It used to be on the wall.”

“Where?” Amy calls. She’s moved to the center of the room, examining the only wall that isn’t decorated with art.

“Over there, actually,” I say. I get to the end of the first row of Harley’s canvases and start in on the second. “Anyway, Orion told Harley that good paintings all have titles. Harley said he didn’t think paintings needed names, but Orion made a big deal out of it and called the painting—”

“Through the Looking Glass,” Amy says.

“Yeah.” I glance back at her. She’s bending in front of the blank wall, reading a tiny placard.

“Through the Looking Glass, Oil Painting by Harley, Feeder,” she reads. She turns back to me. “But where is it? There’s a hook here for the painting, but no painting.”

“It’s not here, either,” I say, pushing aside the stack of paintings.

“This must have been an important painting — it’s the only one that has a placard.”

Amy’s right. The rest of the room is a bit of a mess, but this blank wall is neat, clearly sectioned off. It’s obviously meant to be the center of attention, even if there’s nothing left to direct one’s attention to.

“Orion names the painting, he hangs it in the center of the room, he bothers to get a placard made that shows the title of the painting — this has to be the next clue he wanted us to find.” Her green eyes search mine, as if she could see Harley’s art in them.

I move to stand beside Amy, staring at the empty wall. “But where’s the painting?”