They gazed in all directions. Empty lands, everywhere.
“Should we eat some of the food we brought?” said Torren. “They aren’t here, so we don’t need to save it for them.”
“We should eat it,” Lizzie said. Her hair was tossing in the wind, getting all messed up and slapping at her face. “Or most of it, anyway. We ought to save a little, just in case they show up.” She was very disappointed not to see Doon out in the distance, limping toward them, with Lina following helplessly behind, or maybe not with him at all. Sitting down to eat some lunch would be a good thing in two ways: it would give them a rest, and it would give them more time to see Doon and Lina if they really were out there.
So the three of them took the bread and dried fruit and water bottles from their backpacks, and then they put their packs on the ground and sat on them. They didn’t talk much as they ate; it looked as if they had failed in their mission, and they were not feeling cheerful.
“You smell funny,” Torren said to Lizzie.
“I do not!” Lizzie said. “Anyway, it’s not a smell; it’s a scent. It’s enticing. But you wouldn’t understand.”
“You think you’re so—”
But Kenny interrupted him. “Look!” he said, pointing. “Someone’s out there!”
They jumped to their feet and squinted into the distance, against the sun. They all had the same thought: Our mission will be a success after all! But they soon saw that this wasn’t a lone traveler but someone accompanied by animals and a wagon. The little caravan was moving south.
“It’s not them,” said Lizzie.
“Nope,” said Kenny. “But maybe whoever it is has seen them.”
“Let’s shout!” cried Torren.
They yelled as loud as they could, jumped up and down, waved their arms. The traveler in the distance reached the crest of the hill where the clump of oaks grew that the rescuers had been aiming for themselves. Person, wagon, and animals seemed about to disappear down the other side.
“Louder!” screamed Torren, and they yelled with all their might. The faraway traveler paused, turned, paused again. Torren had an idea. “Lift me up!” he cried to Lizzie and Kenny. “Quick! Do a chair with your arms!” They did, and he leapt up, standing twice as high as his regular height, and waved and screamed some more.
And the traveler, followed by the caravan, turned and started in their direction.
“They’re coming!” cried Torren. He jumped down.
“Hurry!” cried Kenny. “Let’s go!”
They grabbed up their things and shouldered their packs. They ran, still waving their arms and shouting, and soon they were sure: the person had seen them, too, and was steering the wagon and animals toward them.
“I think it’s a roamer!” cried Torren. “Isn’t it?”
The person stalking toward them held a long stick and flailed it around, shouting. “Get going, flop ears! Over here, this way! Move those pointy little feet!”
“A shepherd,” said Kenny. “A woman.”
“Doesn’t she look kind of familiar?” Lizzie said. “Wasn’t she the one who came to town last week with the mangy sheep?”
“Yes,” Kenny said. “I think you’re right.”
“Hey, there!” called the shepherd as she drew near. She and her wagon looked like a traveling junk pile, clanking and creaking. The sheep’s legs were black with mud. The shepherd strode up to them and pointed her stick at them. “Who are you?” she said. “Why are there so many children wandering around out here?”
Kenny stepped forward and spoke up. “We’re looking for our friends,” he said, “who might be in trouble. One is Lina and one is Doon.”
“Lina?” said the shepherd. “Long dark hair? Tall and skinny? Very quick in the way she moves?”
“Yes!” cried all three rescuers.
“She was up there by the mountain with the cave in it. On her way home,” said the shepherd. “I’m surprised you haven’t met up with her by now.”
“But wasn’t there a boy with her?” Lizzie asked. “Brown hair, dark eyebrows, serious-looking, handsome . . .”
“She was looking for a boy,” said Maggs. “He was down in there.”
“Down in where?” Kenny said.
“Down in that city in that cave.” Maggs pressed her lips together and frowned, as if she might say more about this but chose not to.
“It was Doon!” cried Kenny.
“It has to be!” Torren said.
“We have to help him!” Lizzie cried. “We have to go and get him! Lina, too, of course.”
“But it’s late,” Kenny pointed out. “It’s too far to go; I’m sure it is. Dark would come before we got there.”
“That’s right, it would,” said Maggs. Her sheep nudged up behind her, making mournful noises. She shook her stick at them. “Are you three from the town called Sparks?”
They said they were.
“If you’re going to get home before dark, you’ll have to hurry,” said the shepherd. “You’re off course. You’ve come too far south. You don’t want to be out here at night. Go tell your people to get up there and rescue those two kids.”
“We can’t rescue them ourselves?” said Lizzie, disappointed.
“No,” said the shepherd firmly.
“Then let’s go,” said Kenny. “As fast as we can.”
So the three of them turned around and headed back to Sparks. The shepherd, with her scrawny horse, her rattling wagon, and her wayward sheep, turned southward again and trundled on.
CHAPTER 22
________________________
Return and Discovery
It was fully dark by the time Kenny, Torren, and Lizzie came staggering into the village, having walked at a breakneck pace for several hours. When they got to Doctor Hester’s house, Torren ran up the path and flung open the door. “We’re back!” he shouted. “Come here, everyone! We have to tell you something important!” Lizzie and Kenny crowded in behind him. It was warm in the house; the fire burned brightly. In a moment, Mrs. Murdo stepped out of the kitchen with a spoon in her hand, and when she saw them, she halted and gazed at them, puzzled.
“Torren,” she said. “Where have you been all day?”
Poppy trotted out after her, but she barely looked at Torren and the rest. “I want some,” she cried, tugging on Mrs. Murdo’s shirttail. “I want some. I want some, right now.”
Mrs. Murdo patted her absentmindedly. “In a moment,” she said.
“We found out where they are!” yelled Torren.
“Who?” said Mrs. Murdo. “Hello, Kenny . . . and Lizzie . . .” She trailed off, sensing an odd level of excitement. “What are you talking about?”
“Lina and Doon!” cried Torren. “Someone has to go and rescue them!”
“Rescue them?” said Mrs. Murdo. “From what? Lina’s down at the hotel.”
Maddy came in the back door and gazed calmly at this gathering. She held a basket in one hand that looked to be full of weeds. “Hmm,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“I was the one who figured out where they went,” said Lizzie, “after Kenny said they were gone.”
“Gone?” said Mrs. Murdo, looking more and more confused.
“I want some now,” Poppy whined.
Torren jumped up and down in front of Mrs. Murdo. “The shepherd told us!” he shouted. “Lina’s up there, and Doon is, too! They have to be rescued!”
At that point, Mrs. Murdo put her hands on her hips and looked stern. “All right,” she said. “I’m missing something. Anyone want to explain?”
Poppy started to cry.
“What’s the matter with Poppy?” Lizzie asked Mrs. Murdo.
“She’s hungry,” Mrs. Murdo said. “I’ve taken the last of the olive oil and was just frying a few potatoes, and she can’t wait to have some.”
“Maybe we could all have some,” Lizzie said.
So they crowded in front of the fire, eating fried potatoes (there were just enough for three slices e
ach), and Kenny and Lizzie and Torren told their story, all of them interrupting each other and talking in a great, urgent rush. Mrs. Murdo looked more and more horrified, and by the time they were finished, she was clutching the arms of her chair and glaring at them. “The town leaders need to know about this right away.” She stood up and glared at Kenny and Torren and Lizzie. “You three,” she said. “Come with me.”
All that afternoon, Doon had slept and Lina had sat beside him, thoughts swirling through her mind of all that had happened in the short time—not even three whole days—since they’d set out on their trip. They’d left the door of the room partway open; light came in, and chilly air, and a few flying bugs, but no sound of animals or human beings. At about midday, Lina got out more of the food from Maggs, and they both ate. Then Doon slept again. Finally, the daylight began to wane, and the trees outside became a tangle of shadows. It grew colder, too, and Lina knew they’d have to prepare for the night: make the fire, eat the last of their food. She awoke Doon to look at his ankle and was shocked at how swollen and dark it was, like a big purple fruit. “I should be able to walk fine tomorrow,” Doon said, but his voice was full of doubt. He sat up and leaned against the wall. “I can’t stop thinking about the diamond,” he said.
“But you don’t know what it was,” said Lina.
“No. But I looked underneath it, just for a second, when I came out of the cave, and I saw wires—it reminded me of when I used to take plugs apart in Ember to see how electricity worked. Wires were inside them.”
“So maybe it was a light,” said Lina. “But still—one light, I don’t see why that would have made much difference to anything.”
“Maybe not,” said Doon. “But the strange thing is, it was here, right next to the way out of Ember, waiting for us. It was meant for us, just like . . .” He stopped.
Lina thought he was too upset to finish his sentence. But the look on his face changed. The sad, heavy look went away, and a look of surprise took its place. With his mouth hanging open and his eyebrows lifted up, Doon stayed speechless, as if suddenly turned to stone.
“What?” Lina finally said. “Just like what?”
“Just like the boat in the room,” said Doon. “There was one boat, remember? And we thought, Why just one boat for all the people in the city?”
“Yes, and we were wrong, because really that was just a sample, and once you found the secret door, there were lots of boats,” Lina said. “But you had to know—”
“You had to know how to find them!” Doon cried.
“You mean there might be more?” Lina asked. “More diamonds?”
“There might!” cried Doon. “We have to try—” He struggled to stand up, moving so fast that he turned his injured ankle and said, “Yow!” very loudly and just barely managed to stay on his feet. “There was a steel panel in the boat room in Ember,” he said. “And inside it a key. But I don’t see anything like that here, do you?”
“No,” said Lina. She lit a candle, because the light from outside was nearly gone, and walked with it around the edges of the room. The walls looked perfectly smooth to her. There was nowhere for a key to be hidden, and no keyhole to put it in.
“The instructions would have been in the book,” said Doon, “if that shepherd hadn’t burned up the pages. Let’s try anyhow.” He placed his hands on the wall behind him and ran them up, sideways, and down.
Lina jumped up. She stood the candle in a blob of its own melted wax in the middle of the room. “What are we looking for?”
“Anything that’s different from the rest,” Doon said. “A dent, a bump. I don’t know.”
They patted their hands over the entire rear wall of the room. If this was like the boat room, the rear wall was the one that should lead somewhere. Lina set up the table and stood on it to reach the high parts, and Doon did the low parts by scooching along on the floor. But every inch of the wall, as far as they could tell, felt the same: smooth and hard. So they moved on to the side walls. They pressed harder. Frustrated, they banged with their fists in a few places, thinking maybe they’d shake something loose. But the room stayed the same: no panels opened; no doors slid aside.
At last they set themselves to go over the wall where the entrance was. They were tired by now and losing hope, but they kept on, and after a while, Lina thought she felt a very slight seam in the wall. It was just to the left of the doorway. “This might be something,” she said. “Feel it?”
Doon felt where she pointed. “Yes—just a hair of a crack. Try pressing beside it.”
Lina pressed. Doon put his hand next to hers and they both pressed—and a small flat door sprang open, startling them both so much that they stumbled backward.
“Got it!” cried Doon, who had sat down hard on the floor. He struggled up, standing mostly on one foot. Lina was peering inside the opening, and Doon looked over her shoulder. What they saw was simply a handle, set vertically in the boxlike opening. To the left, the word “Off” was printed, and to the right, the word “On.”
“Shall I do it?” said Lina. Doon nodded. She gripped the handle and pulled it to the right. It moved stiffly, but there was a satisfying click when it locked into place.
And then came a grinding, a creaking—and the walls began to move.
They jumped away and stared. On both sides of them, solid panels were sliding upward, revealing, all down the length of the room, shelves built within the walls from floor to ceiling, and on the shelves, lined up in neat rows, were blue diamonds exactly like the one that Doon had broken.
“Dozens of them,” Lina breathed.
“Hundreds,” said Doon. “They’re so beautiful.”
In the light of the single candle, the diamonds glimmered softly, blue as the evening sky before the stars come out.
“Our diamonds,” whispered Doon. “The diamonds meant for the people of Ember.” He gazed at them, his eyes gleaming. “Now,” he said, “if only we knew what they were for.”
CHAPTER 23
________________________
Home Alive
The three town leaders—Mary, Ben, and Wilmer—were not pleased to learn that Lina and Doon had gone out into the wilderness and needed to be rescued. At a time like this, Ben Barlow remarked sourly, wandering off on some crack-brained adventure and get ting yourself kidnapped was a truly unhelpful thing to do. In fact, he said, it was almost criminal, in the circumstances, and when the two troublemakers were brought home, they should be given an appropriate punishment.
Nevertheless, everyone agreed that the children would have to be found. So Mary and Ben conferred with Mrs. Murdo about how it should be done. They decided to take one of the smaller, lighter of the town’s wagons, one that could be drawn by a younger, speedier ox. Mary would drive the wagon. Doon’s father insisted on going, even though Doctor Hester had told him the cut in his hand was infected and he’d have to have his bandage changed and the wound cleaned at least twice a day. Because of that, and in case Doon or Lina needed medical care, the doctor would of course go on the journey, too. At the last minute, Lizzie, to her delight, was asked to come along, because she was the person from Ember who had most recently been up in that direction. They would leave first thing in the morning, and they would take food and shelter and blankets with them, along with fire-making materials. Doctor Hester packed a bag of first-aid supplies: bandages, ointments, and splints.
When morning came, they set out, only Lizzie feeling the least bit cheerful.
The morning was cold but clear, and the ground less soft than it had been before, which made for easier travel. Lizzie stood in the wagon bed right behind Mary, who held the reins, and kept her informed about which way to go. “We went up on this side of the squash field,” she said, “and then up the hill in that direction. Then when you get to the top of the hill, you’ll probably see one of the red flags that Kenny put down. After that, you have to—”
“Thank you, Lizzie,” Mary said. “No need to tell me the whole trip at once. Just
say something now and then to keep us on the right track.”
So Lizzie kept more or less quiet except for absolutely necessary remarks, such as mentioning the first red flag when it appeared up ahead, or when she had to point out the mitten-shaped clump of trees that they had tried to make it to yesterday. She went back to the thoughts she’d had before, the pictures in her mind of how, when they found Doon, she would run to him and discover that he was hurt and be the one to know what to do, and he would realize how really special she was and—
The ox trudged on, and the wagon bumped along after it, over stony ground and clumps of grass, uphill and down, always heading northeast toward the mountains. The sun reached the midday point and began the descent into afternoon. Lizzie sat down in the back of the wagon. She brushed her hair (she’d brought her hairbrush with her, along with two spare ribbons and three scarves), and then, feeling sleepy, she rested her arms on her raised knees and put her head down on them. This was pleasant, because again she’d rubbed her wrists with lavender, and she was drifting off into a dreamy doze when Doon’s father gave a sudden shout.
“Look!” he cried. “Someone’s out there! Mary, stop the wagon for a moment!”
Lizzie jolted awake and leapt to her feet as the wagon slowed and halted. “Where?” she said.
Doon’s father was standing, too, pointing north and east with his clublike bandaged hand. “Way out there,” he said. “All I see is a dot, but it’s moving—might be an animal, I guess, but I don’t think so.”
They all strained to see it. Whatever it was moved in fits and starts, slowly.
“Could it be a cow?” said Doctor Hester.
Mary shook her head. “Maybe a deer,” she said, “or a coyote.”
They stayed there, watching, for a few more minutes. Lizzie squinted hard at the moving dot, pressing her blowing hair to her head with both hands to keep it out of her eyes.
“Let’s head toward it,” said Mary. The ox heaved forward and the wagon wheels turned, and when they had traveled for another ten minutes or so, they were sure that the dot in the distance was not an animal. It was not a person, either—it was two people, walking close together, holding on to each other. Lizzie screamed, “It’s them!” and Doon’s father and Doctor Hester called “Doon!” and “Lina!” at the same time, and the two people, though they were still far away, must have realized who was coming, because each one flung an arm into the air and waved like mad.