work back toward the source. If this ley wasn't healed first, the rest couldn't be healed at all.
"Then why don't you do it?" Kelsa asked. "Turn into mist and flow through the keyhole or something?"
"I told you, humans did the damage, so humans have to fix it."
"Why? Is that some sort of magical law or something?"
"Or something." But his mobile face had closed.
"Fine," said Kelsa. "If it's a magical law, then you can magically change it."
"It doesn't work that way."
He didn't board the bus with her. The backwash from its stabilizing jets kicked up a puff of dust and ruffled his thick black hair. He was still standing there, scowling at her, when the bus pulled away.
But even if she believed him - which she didn't! - she was only fifteen! She had a bereaved mother and a brother who needed her. She couldn't even rob a museum, much less take off for Alaska by herself!
To tell her that trees weren't the only living things whose immune system had been weakened by the corruption of those so-called leys was a low, dirty blow. Even if the doctor had admitted that cancer rates were on the rise, and the medical community didn't really understand why.
***
Her eyes were dry again by the time she reached her shuttle stop, but she knew they were still red, and that her mother would see it and be concerned.
Kelsa was hoping to sneak up to the bathroom and apply cold water before her mother saw her. So when she let herself in and heard the silence that meant no one was home, her first reaction was relief.
Then she realized that her mother should have been home from church several hours ago.
First, she checked for a message on the com board. Nothing, but her mother had probably sent the message to Kelsa's com pod - which thanks to that lunatic whatever he was, was now at the bottom of the river.
The house com board had been programmed as a backup for all their pods, so after running her fingers through the menu for a few moments Kelsa was able to check her pod's messages. Only there weren't any messages.
She called her mother's pod and got the signal that it was turned off or out of range, so she left a message for her mother to call home and signed off, trying not to panic.
Kelsa had always known, abstractly, that anyone could die. Levcars crashed. Planes malfunctioned. But when her father died, her subconscious conviction that the universe couldn't do that to her, to her family, had shattered. Her family could be taken from her. Even Joby, young as he was, could be snuffed out, and she wouldn't even know about it till the hospital called. Till the police came to knock on her door.
Her mother must have gotten stuck in traffic on the way home from church ... for almost two hours? OK, then her com pod was out ... and she hadn't been able to borrow someone else's or find a public board?
Kelsa paced between the kitchen and the front door, arms wrapped around her body to keep the seething emotions in check.
Of course, her mother might simply have forgotten to call and leave a message. And if that was the case, then Kelsa would simply kill her when she got home and solve the problem for good!
After her father became ill, the rule that if you were delayed coming home you always called to let the family know where you were had become ironclad.
Which must mean that her mother couldn't call.
That didn't stop Kelsa from calling again - still off/out of range. Or smashed in some horrible car crash?
Kelsa was pulling up the contact button for the nearest hospital when her common sense kicked in. Her mother was less than two hours late. It was too soon to start calling hospitals, and the police would laugh in her face.
Anyone could be delayed for a couple of hours.
Kelsa went back to pacing. And it wasn't really a coincidence that when the security system finally chimed to signal the approach of a card it was programmed to accept Kelsa was bringing up the hospital's contact button - she'd brought it up six times in the last half-hour.
She paged out to the welcome screen and turned to face the front door, her heart drumming with anger and relief. She would wait on the anger, because her mother might have a good excuse.
The door opened and Kelsa's mother came