The Gift Page 19

  “What an amazing ride! Ah, to be young… I envy you!” he says as the wave calmly spreads itself across the shore and we drift to a stop.

  “I’m so pleased you’ve come to your senses, Wisty,” says The One. Unfortunately, I have rather sad news. You fail-both of you. All of the Allgoods fail. It’s obvious that I can’t work with you, so I suppose… I have to work without you.”

  He turns so his back is facing us and raises his hands to the heavens.

  “Take them away!” he bellows. “I have no further use for this witch and wizard.”

  But there’s no one there. He’s talking to no one.

  And then, in a heartbeat, like a plague of locusts overtaking the land, thousands of New Order soldiers and police swarm over the crest of the hill and descend upon us.

  We swirl around, only to be confronted by even more hordes of soldiers standing in the water.

  This wall of evil is impenetrable.

  Finally The One looks back at us. “There is a moral to this story,” he says. “Of those who receive Gifts, much is expected. Take that one to the Shadowland with you, witch and wizard.”

  EPILOGUE. AS PROMISED, A SPECTACLE

  Chapter 99

  Wisty

  I KNOW THERE’S NOT many pages left in this book, so at this point you’re wondering where the happy ending is.

  I may be pretty young, but I’ve figured out that life doesn’t get wrapped up into neat little endings with perfect little bows. I can promise you one thing, though: there’s hope, okay? Don’t ever call me, Wisteria Rose Allgood, a downer. No matter what crap The One shovels upon us, I swear I’ll find that single bright spot in the bitterly dark landscape and cling to it for dear life.

  And right now I’m clinging to the sight of the very people who gave me dear life.

  My mother and father!

  Not ghosts, not hallucinations, but live and in the flesh. But in ropes. Just like me. At least Whit and I can see them and tell them how much we love them-one last time before we die.

  But what a family reunion it’s turning out to be! Look at us here-the jeering crowd around us, the jackbooted New Order lackeys shoving us forward onto the stadium stage, the ropes around our necks, the TV cameras in our faces… and, in the tower, right in front of us, Him. The One Who Is The One. He’s in his glory, triumphant-he’s won!

  Using the old hangman’s platform as his stage just digs the knife in. Vaporization is The One’s preferred method of execution-it’s highly efficient-but the nooses are a bonus in our extra-cruel humiliation, the morbid theater of it all.

  I so want to burn up with hatred for this monster who has destroyed our life and is about to kill my entire family. I want to use my anger to find my strength, to find my magic, to burn this horrible scene to ashes, to cauterize this place right off the face of this so-called world.

  But honestly I’m too terrified to be angry. My courage is crumbling; my light is fading.

  Oh God, I don’t want to die right now. I don’t want my family to die. I don’t want to watch them die.

  Dad’s still wearing his game face, trying to give me and Whit courage. Mom’s given up attempting to hide her emotions and is quietly crying in grief and fear.

  Whit, on the other hand, looks wildly angry, at least when he’s not recovering from repeated blows to the back of his head. Half a dozen times now he’s surged against his bonds, and half a dozen times his hooded handlers have struck him with a billy club, sending him limply to his knees until they haul him back up and he tries to find the focus and strength to surge again.

  The ghoulish crowd is loving every dramatic bit of this. The heartbroken mother, the stoic father, the defiant son, the quaking chicken-liver daughter who they have somehow come to believe is a powerful witch.

  But now The One Who Is The One raises his long-fingered hands in the air and waves for them to be quiet.

  And now he’s doing something else with his hands, a motion I know only too well. Oh God, please don’t let him -

  A black rift opens in front of him and rips its way toward us. Or, at least, toward two of us.

  And, just like that, Mom and Dad have been vaporized. There’s nothing left but smoke. My mother. My father. Gone.

  Chapter 100

  Wisty

  WHIT AND I STARE in paralyzed horror as a wisp of black ash lifts in the breeze and moves out across the sea of onlookers. They’re stomping, fist-pumping, and roaring their approval of the disgraceful murders that just took place.

  I’m too decimated by the grief and shock of it to take any joy in the fact that we are-inexplicably-still alive. The One didn’t kill us. He didn’t kill us. It makes no sense.

  And then it gets even stranger, even more surreal. Like a dream.

  The scene is suddenly awash with painfully blinding light. But it’s a chilling light, if there is such a thing, like a powerful tsunami of sun blasting over a landscape of ice.

  Maybe I’m dead after all? Maybe this is that celebrated light at the end of the tunnel?

  Or… is it the End of Days?

  When the light ebbs, I see that The One Who Is The One is on his knees. Screaming. Only for some reason I can’t hear him. In fact, I can’t hear anything.

  Was there an explosion? I don’t know, but suddenly there are hands all over me, cold hands. They’re loosening my ropes. A small army of hooded figures has banded around me and Whit. The New Order guards lining the stage have been toppled by the rush of flooding light and energy.

  No sooner have the hooded figures pulled the nooses up over our heads than the hangman’s trapdoors on which we’ve been standing click open. And I’m falling into darkness.

  It’s as if I’ve been hanged, but I haven’t been, have I? I’ve just fallen onto my back.

  I’m sprawled on the ground with all the spirit and decorum of a discarded rag doll. I don’t care to move. I don’t even care to breathe. I just want this all to end. I want to close my eyes and stop being. I pray for it to happen.

  There’s another cold hand on my arm, helping me to my feet. And now my ears are starting to ring, and I hear something else, too-a voice. A familiar voice.

  “Run,” the voice says as a door opens and daylight streams in. “Run, Wisteria. Run like there’s no tomorrow… because if you don’t, maybe there won’t be.”

  My hearing returns as the sound of massive panic sweeping through the stands hits me. The shrieks and wails seem to have enough power to bring down the entire stadium.

  What have they seen? What has happened to their fearless leader?

  I stagger outside and join the frantic crowd on the stadium field streaming toward one of the four tunnel exits. I have done this before: escape the scene of my own execution. It seems impossible, but I know I can do this. I know how to keep my head down. I know how to duck and weave. I know how to stay focused in a sea of blind panic.

  But I haven’t gone fifty yards when I stop dead, as if my heart has fallen from my chest. Whit! Where is Whit?

  I turn and manage to glimpse the plywood hangman’s scaffold. Four empty nooses dangle limply in the breeze. The One is nowhere to be seen.

  Neither is Whit.

  I haven’t even cried for my parents yet, but now I fall to my knees and start to bawl like a baby. In an ocean of thousands, I’m alone.

  But not completely. Again there’s a hand on my arm and a voice in my ear. “Run, Wisteria,” it says. “Hurry. You have to leave this cursed place.”

  But this time I resist. I get to my feet, but I’m pushing back toward the scaffold, toward the last place I saw my brother.

  I make it only a few steps when somebody-or something-knocks me to the ground.

  “Whitford’s fine,” it says, pulling me back to my feet and turning me around. “Think about it. You can’t be together now. It would make it easier on them if you were together. We can’t risk it.”

  The voice has been rational, if insistent. But now it sounds truly urgent. “There’s no time, W
isty. For Whit’s sake, run! Run. You have The Gift. Only you have it. Without you, hope will die.”

  And I have to run, don’t I? I have to try to escape. My life matters. My Gift matters. So I run. I run as if my brother’s life depends on it.

  As I look back, I finally see the face of the one who rescued me-it’s Celia. Celia!

  There she is-that one bright spot in the bitterly dark landscape. I told you I would find it. I told you I would cling to that light for dear life. And I am.

  I’ll use it to find Whit. To find my friends. And to make my way to the Shadowland to find my parents.

  Because…

  Of bad, scary witches who are given Great Gifts, Much Is Expected.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  Excerpts of NEW ORDER PROPAGANDA

  as Disseminated by The Council of N.O. “Arts”

  ESPECIALLY OFFENSIVE BOOKS THAT HAVE BEEN BANNED

  as Dictated by The One Who Bans Books

  THE BRAWLERS: The story of a pack of sentient dogs-some stray, some pets-seeking to fulfill a “prophecy.” Thankfully, since New Order citizens are now aware that pet ownership is irrational and a burden on society (and that the only appropriate role for canine beasts is in the employ of members of the Hunt), there is little interest in this series.

  GOSSIP GHOST: A series of books that follows a roaming pack of teenage spirits who lie, cheat, and spy on one another. According to the New Order Council for Documenting Pernicious Influences, the lying, cheating, and spying were reasonably well done, but the supernatural elements were offensive. The books were among the first to be rounded up and destroyed in the Great Book Purge.

  THE INTERESTING CROSSOVER OF THE DOG TO THE SHADOWLAND: The purportedly nonfiction story of a dog, more exploratory than the rest of his pack, crossing into another dimension. Because of nonsensical references to alternate dimensions, the text was banned.

  THE THIRST TOURNAMENT: A work of fiction set in a world that has run out of water and where the government has decided to control the population by having excess children serve as gladiators. After a thorough investigation, the New Order Council on Resource Protection has declared this to be an unrealistic water-rationing strategy.

  THE UNFORTUNATE STONES: In this absurd novel, a group of actors are turned into stones in a publicity stunt gone horribly wrong. They spend the majority of the book contemplating their stony bodies and the afterlife. References to the dark arts, theatrics, and the afterlife quickly earned the novel an Objectionable Mention on the New Order Book Burning Committee’s list of tomes to be destroyed.

  ULTIMATE ARMSTRONG: The absurd tales of a collective of genetically altered children with wings who can fly. As The One Who Is The One once quipped, these books should be read just as soon as pigs fly.

  SOME PARTICULARLY REPREHENSIBLE NOISE POLLUTERS OF THE FORMER AGE

  as Defined by The One Who Monitors Auditory Stimuli

  DUCHESS GOO GOO: A ridiculous pop star who burst on the scene with her dangerously infectious first single, “Five-Card Stud.” She dominated the charts of the day and used her theatrical wiles to beguile the mass media into abetting her celebrity ambitions. She was among the first musical celebrities rounded up by the New Order Council of Cultural Standards.

  DUSTIN BEEPER: A singer propelled into stardom by the videos posted online from his debut album, Beepin’ & Weepin’, which spread like a viral pandemic. Though officially banned for entertainment purposes, his music is still sometimes used by the New Order to lure Freelanders out of hiding.

  THE RED-EYED SLEAZES: A “hip-hop” group whose disturbing videos proudly projected tacky excess and bikini-clad girls, and yet the musicians always seemed as if they’d just like to go to sleep. The New Order Council of Musical Standards had them banned for their oblique mockery of N.O. professional culture.

  SMILEY PYRUS: A teenage pop star who rose to stardom by deceitfully charming her audience with a shy smile and then literally setting the music charts on fire. While not as dangerous as the wanted witch Wisteria Allgood, Smiley still is among the most dangerous musical fugitives in Freeland.

  SWIFTY TAILOR: Country music superstar who was as famous for her bouncing blond curls and silly romantic folk songs as she was for breaking the hearts of handsome movie stars. Upon the arrival of Order to the world, she was swiftly jailed for her insistence on referencing “romance” and “love” in her work.

  VISUAL “ARTISTS” WHO ARE NO LONGER SULLYING THE WORLD

  as Annotated by The One Who Assesses Visual Stimuli

  PIERRE PONDRIAN: While briefly embraced by the N.O. as a representative of efficiency, this minimalist was soon banned when it was discovered his work resonated with antiestablishment forces glorifying the virtues of “abstraction” and “freethinking.”

  PAULO CEZONNE: A lazy painter who was involved with the “impressionist” movement, which the New Order deemed damaging to the development of clear and precise thinking. The movement proved as tremendously difficult to stamp out as an antibiotic-resistant infectious disease.

  RANCHER ELFIE: A misguided “pop culture” artist who thought it would be amusing to mock the New Order by emulating official statements, posters, and banners and replacing certain messages and icons with absurd substitutions of his own design. He and his sense of humor are no longer with us.

  SANDY EYEHOLE: A photographer who covered his prints of various celebrities and “commercial” artifacts with garishly colored sand. Fortunately his work was very easy to destroy.

  SEPTEMBRE FEYNOIR: This artist’s saccharine depictions of pretty children, gowned women, bucolic landscapes, and domestic scenes-cheap prints of which were once embraced and consumed by millions-are now regarded as bad for one’s health, with some studies indicating they may be carcinogenic.

  THANKSY: An oddly polite purveyor of graffiti who, during the last battle before the New Order’s Great Ascendancy, painted “Thanks!” over doorways that were hospitable to his rebel propaganda. Later, the markings proved useful to New Order agents looking to eliminate subversive elements.

  EGREGIOUSLY INEFFICIENT OR SUBVERSIVE WORDS BANNED FROM USE

  by Decree of The One Who Edits the Dictionary

  Beaner (noun)

  a derogatory term for people who have the good sense to pay attention to the important things in everyday life, such as budgets, performance reviews, and municipal statistics ‹usage instance: As she stood on the execution platform, the rebel screamed her defiance at the noble citizenry, calling the spectators a pack of Beaners.›

  pilgarlic (noun)

  an archaic construct formerly used to describe a man without a full head of hair ‹usage instance: It was ironic that the swordsman mocked his bald-headed foe as a pilgarlic, for in a few hundred years baldness would become the height of personal attractiveness.›

  sandwich (noun)

  an archaic term for two slices of bread placed around some sort of foodstuff-because of the unfortunate phonetic properties of the latter half of this word, The One Who Is The One lent his revered name to the lexicon, and this item is now referred to as a One-der-Meal ‹usage instance: Anybody calling a One-der-Meal a sandwich will soon find himself accustomed to prison rations.›

  shademark (noun)

  a silly word rebels use to scare their children-it apparently refers to the stain on the ground left by a person who has fallen prey to a “Lost One,” a zombielike creature that inhabits their fantastical realm of spirits ‹usage instance: Terrified by stories of shademarks, the child had sleep-depriving nightmares that seriously impinged upon his productivity at the factory.›

  wisteria (noun)

  a climbing ornamental vine with fragrant, usually purple, clusters of flowers-for obvious reasons, mention of this now extinct species of plant is prohibited ‹usage instance: The gardener tore out the ugly stump of wisteria and in its place planted a New Order Soybean Cultivar No. A42.›

  wunny (adjective)

  an unpleasant expression apparently used by reb
els to describe any unpleasant situation (etymology uncertain) ‹usage instance: Dude, this Resistance rally is totally wunny. Let’s get out of here.›

  About the Authors

  James Patterson is the author of the highly praised Maximum Ride novels, the Witch & Wizard series, Med Head, and the bestselling detective series featuring Alex Cross and the Women’s Murder Club. His books have sold more than 205 million copies worldwide. In 2010 he was selected as the Children’s Choice Book Awards Author of the Year. He lives in Florida.

  For previews of forthcoming James Patterson books and more information about the author, go to www.JamesPatterson.com.

  Ned Rust lives in Croton, New York, with his family. He has also collaborated with James Patterson on Daniel X: Watch the Skies.

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