7. The Particle Soup

The flowing lava picked up all the broken-off pieces. The plates of stone drifted back and forth. Some collided with each other at high speed. When that happened, the edges could go nowhere but up, forming even more mountains.

Others drifted apart, like Darus and the gods on one side, and Ardex on another plate across from them. The chasm between the brothers grew wider, even though they both tried to stop it. The speed of the plates lessened, but they never came to a complete stop.

Ardex was only a silhouette in the distance. Bella saw him turn and walk away. The distance was impossible to cross: any leap would mean a dive into the lava. And she no longer trusted that her godly body would protect her from that hazardous material.

Bella expected Darus to storm off, just as angry. But he tapped Feria and laughed merrily. “I made tectonic plates! Who would have thought? Who’s still making jokes about my—”

A thick raccoon paw slapped his face. “This is no game, Darus.”

“No, this is our answer!”

Eeris and Feria slid their legless body to the edge of their plate. It now moved agonizingly slowly, like a raft on a still ocean. “Look what’s happening.”

The two plates had split from each other perfectly. You could slide them back together and they would fit like two pieces of a puzzle. Their edges were mirror images of one another.

And in the space between them all kinds of material bubbled up. The gap was filled with new particles who were finally able to rise. Once exposed to the surface, they hardened and refilled the rough edges.

“This is how you double yet stay yourself,” Eeris murmured. “By making life out of two things that fit each other precisely. Pull them apart and let particles—food—refill the openings.”

The Green Sisters immediately started conjuring the particles, with the help of an exhausted Darus.

Hot air currents, even faster and fiercer than before, could also finally escape through the large opening. The crust was open again. They had bought themselves more time.

The fragments from space fell into the lava. They immediately melted into small particles, like the hydrogen they had brought. Darus no longer had the strength to manipulate it.

Fortunately, the hydrogen merged with the oxygen underground by itself, which was a light gas that rose up and escaped into the sky.

All the while, the atmosphere had been a thick oppressive blanket. Bella had constantly felt that she suffocated.

Now it filled with other things. The right things, it seemed. It grew lighter and more livable.

But there is still no liquid water, Bella thought. Gulvi, please, I hope you’re still alive. You have to take the final step.

“We have all the ingredients,” said Eeris. “This has to work.”

All Bella saw were specks shooting toward the air current. She didn’t know how or why.

She often felt like she didn’t belong. The others had these immensely useful powers with clear applications, and they knew what they were doing. She had vague things like wisdom and beauty. If the planet collapsed, at least she could explain why it happened.

But it mostly cultivated respect and love for her dear family members. For they had sent exactly the right specks.

It started as an almost invisible pile of dust, even to the amazing senses of the gods. Anything alive was bigger and more colorful to their eyes—to gods, an ant could look tall as a tree—and connected like one glowing spiderweb. But Bella could barely make out what was happening here.

The airstream contained exactly the particles that belonged on the other side. They bonded to each other like puzzle pieces, like hands shaking, as if they were only complete when together.

Judging this to be too slow, the gods focused all their powers on the particles to speed them up.

The same violence, however, split them apart again. They became two particles. The stream added more particles that belonged with those on the other side, completing the handshake again.

This repeated and repeated until the first particle had become about four particles, all exactly the same as the first.

For the first time, Bella felt better. The gods stopped dissipating into grains of sand; the shreds flew back to their bodies and rebuilt them. The headache was gone. It was as if she could finally think again, as if she was stronger and could handle the world.

And then the stream stopped.

It only came every so often. There was no pattern. Cosmo could sense the air currents but they came so suddenly that even he couldn’t predict it.

Now that the gods knew how it felt not to die, the blow landed even harder. One step forward, two steps back.

“Do it again!” Darus yelled. “Do it again!”

He ran to where an air current had just been. They saw enough air currents in the distance, including on Ardex’s plate, but by the time they reached them, they had surely already stopped.

These particles have to find their other side themselves, Bella thought. They have to be able to move on their own, in a place where everything can be.

The lava was fluid, but also deadly to everything. The ground cooled down and became unbreakably hard, as Darus had predicted. So there was only one place left.

These particles needed to end up in a particle soup. A huge ocean of water, filled with everything this planet had to offer.

“Gulvi,” said Bella. “We need Gulvi now, that’s our only chance.”

Darus slapped their stone plate with his tail that had regrown. A smaller raft broke off and everyone jumped on. The Green Sisters gathered all the specks they had and took them along in their mouths.

Eeris called it DNA: Divination of Nature and Animals. They tried sticking the loose parts together until it took an animal shape, but it didn’t work.

Cosmo didn’t need to come along. He could finally fly small distances, although his other wing hadn’t regrown yet. His gusts of wind, however, helped propel the raft to high speeds.

Gulvi was small and light. He must have been flung far from the landing spot.

But which way? Bella thought.

Cosmo shared that thought. After propelling the raft, he himself flew the exact opposite direction, as fast as he could with his half wings covered in thick air.

They raced over the lava, calling for Gulvi. They almost crashed into another plate again, so Darus growled and conjured an angled rock. They slid over it like a ramp, flew through the air, and landed on another patch of lava.

“He can’t be allowed to dry out,” Bella murmured, having to cling to Darus’s neck with all her might during the wild turns. “It has to stay cold. Gulvi will have gone north, where it’s colder.”

Only Darus could sense which way was north; after all, he had placed the magnet in the core. More and more rocks appeared, steering the raft. The Green Sisters kept trying to repeat their DNA magic—doubling their particles—especially now that the gods crumbled once more.

They reached the slightly colder north just as weak and exhausted as before they invented DNA. And there, flailing on the horizon: a dolphin on his back.

He tried to roll onto his belly. His fin was smashed flat and both eyes were nearly shut. He squeaked incessantly, although more and more softly.

“Gulvi!” Bella exclaimed. “We’re coming to rescue you! Hang in there!”

She was ready to leap from the raft. Darus pulled the emergency brake: a massive block of stone rose from the ground, broke off the raft, and flung all the gods forward and into the air.

Bella tumbled and reached Gulvi first. She wanted to pick him up, but his skin was searing hot. All these sensations confused her. First they could float, felt no pain, couldn’t touch anything. And now she could finally feel her own little brother, but had to let go because he was in too much pain.

“… you have to …”

Gulvi coughed. He couldn’t get another word past his raw throat.

“Yes? What is it? What do we have to do?”

Bella tried to keep him in the shade. She licked his dry skin but didn’t know if it helped. Darus came over and took over, also licking though he didn’t understand why.

“Gulvi. Talk to me, please.”

Now that Gulvi was finally turned around, Bella saw thick holes in his body. Rocks had cut into him, but he couldn’t move without water.

“Oh, dear Gulvi. There’s water in the air. How do we get it onto the ground for you?”

Bella looked up. Earlier, she could see every star, but now the sky was hazy. It filled with water in gas form, until one gray cloud hung around them like a shield.

The lava crept toward them, like a fiery monster with an appetite for dolphins. Water and fire, Bella thought, that can’t be a good combination.

“… up …”

It was Gulvi’s last word. His eyes fell shut and he stopped moving.