LITMIR.BIZ

      “Tarki, Tarki, Tarki …”

      Clouds drift over the Himalayas, sun reflecting off their snowy slopes. Kanchenjunga, the world’s 3rd highest peak, looms over Gangtok. The city’s residents go about their day—working, shopping, eating, drinking, teaching, learning, laughing, smiling. One hundred thousand peaceful, unknowing souls.

      Little Alice struts across her back lawn, blades of grass tickling her toes, the smell of a brushfire rising from the valley. Her fists are at her hips and her elbows jut behind her like wings. Her knees are bent, her head forward. She moves her elbows together, apart, together, apart, clacking and cawing like a peacock. She calls, “Tarki, Tarki, Tarki,” which is what they call the old peacock that’s lived with her family for the last 13 years. Tarki eyes the girl and does a half turn and ruffles his bright neck feathers and clacks back. His tail fans, and Little Alice dances with glee. She runs to Tarki. He takes off, Little Alice chasing.

      The hard lines of Kanchenjunga are in the distance, hiding the Valley of Eternal Life below its frozen slopes.

      Little Alice knows nothing of this valley, but Shari knows it intimately.

      Little Alice follows Tarki to a rhododendron bush. She is less than a meter from the brilliant bird when he bows his head and blinks his eyes and scratches at something under the bush. The bird pushes into the leaves. Little Alice leans closer.

      “What is it, Tarki?”

      The bird pecks the dirt.

      “What is it?”

      The bird freezes like a statue, its head low but cocked, stares at the ground with one wide eye. Little Alice cranes forward. Something is there. Something small and round and dark.

      The bird makes a horrible sound—Creeeeaaaaaak—and bolts toward the house. Little Alice is startled but doesn’t follow. She holds out her hands and pushes the waxy leaves aside and wriggles into the bush, puts her hands on the ground, finds.

      A dark marble, half-buried. Perfectly round. Carved with strange markings. She touches it and it’s as cold as the void of space. She digs around it with her fingers, makes a small pile of dirt, pries the sphere free. She picks it up, turns it around and around, frowns. It is painfully cold. The light from the sky filters, changes, is suddenly bright bright beyond bright. Within seconds everything is white and the ground is shaking and a giant crash explodes over the hillsides, rattling the cliffs and the mountains, shaking the trees, the grass, the pebbles in the streams. The sound fills everything.

      Little Alice wants to run, but can’t. It’s as if the little marble has frozen her to the spot. Through the light and the sound and the fury, she sees a figure drifting toward her. A woman, maybe. Young. Petite.

      The figure draws closer. Its flesh is pale green and its eyes sunken, its lips curled. An undead corpse. Little Alice drops the marble but nothing changes. The ghost gets close enough so that Little Alice can smell its breath, which is excrement, burning rubber and sulfur. The air grows hot and the creature reaches for Little Alice. She wants to scream for her mama who can save her, for help, for safety, for salvation, but no sound comes, no sound comes.

      Her eyes shoot open, and she is screaming. Awake now. Drenched in sweat, a two-year-old girl, and her mama is there, holding her, rocking her, saying, “It’s okay, meri jaan, it’s okay. It was just the dream. It was just the dream again.”

      The dream that Little Alice has been having over and over every night since Earth Key was found.

      Little Alice cries, and Shari wraps her in her arms and lifts her from her bedcovers.

      “It’s okay, sweetheart. No one is going to hurt you. I will never let anyone hurt you.” And though she says it every time Little Alice has the dream, Shari doesn’t know if it’s actually true. “Nobody, sweet girl. Not now, not ever.”

      ii

      

      “How did you get it?” Sarah asks, running her finger over Jago’s jagged facial scar.

      “Training,” Jago says, staring at her, watching for signs that she’s coming back to him.

      It’s been four days since Sarah retrieved Earth Key from Stonehenge. Four days since Chiyoko died. Four days since Sarah shot An Liu in the head. Four days since the thing underneath the ancient stone monument sprang to life and revealed itself.

      Four days since she, Sarah, killed Christopher Vanderkamp. Pulled the trigger and put a bullet in his head.

      She has not been able to say his name since. Won’t even try. And no matter how many times she kisses Jago or wraps her legs around him, showers

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