The Fire Page 9

  “No!” I shout. “Wait!” But the image has vanished completely, and the lid reflects my own horrified face in its place .

  Wisty’s voice comes out in a whisper. “They’re alive. And they want us to just do nothing?” I can see she’s close to losing it.

  “Mrs. Highsmith” — I turn to the old witch, suddenly angry at her for not giving us the guidance she’d promised —“you think I care what they said about staying away? We’re obviously going there. Will you help us find the portal, or are we on our own?”

  Mrs. H. looks like she’s got a million other secrets she’ll never reveal. “There will come a time in your lives, Whitford and Wisteria, when you have to make your own decisions, when you have to go your own way, when you have to disobey the injunctions of your parents.” She peers into our faces, eyes bright.

  “I’m thrilled you understand that that time is now.”

  Chapter 34

  Wisty

  “NOW EAT UP, children, I’ve a plan.”

  Mrs. H. puts two steaming bowls of the gruel in front of us. It looks and smells like cat food, but whatever. Whit eats a spoonful and then pushes the rest of the bowl away while trying not to make a puke face. I think I’ll pass on mine. We’re not here for the food anyway.

  “Listen very closely, dears. If not followed explicitly, this plan could easily result in your deaths.”

  Well. At least she’s being straight with us.

  “Whitford, I understand that you have experience in the depths of the Shadowland.” Whit nods, and Mrs. H.’s eyes bore into him.

  “Look ahead. Your vision will serve you well, young man, as you journey to this foul place of writhing, hungry spirits. The labyrinth will deceive you, but you must navigate the depths of the soul to find your parents. Follow the animals to the river, and love will meet you there.”

  Whatever that means.

  Whit looks like he doesn’t totally speak Mrs. H.’s language of soul riddles, but he nods solemnly anyway.

  I, on the other hand, am already getting annoyed. Our parents are out there in some Shadowland abyss, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to learn about the meaning of life before we find them.

  Still, when Mrs. H. turns to me, I find I’m holding my breath. “And you, Wisteria, have the greatest task of all. I’m afraid your trip will be arduous, your task mammoth, and the odds overwhelmingly stacked against you.”

  She pauses meaningfully, and I lean forward. “Anything,” I say. “I’ll do it.” Now that I know they’re alive, every fiber of my being aches to see Mom and Dad.

  Mrs. H. beams at me. “It is you, and you alone, who must deal with The One Who Is The One. Now.”

  Wait, what? My spoon clatters to the floor. The One, as in the all-powerful One who’s been trying to track us down and skewer us for months?

  “You’re not serious.” I stare at her in horror, my jaw hanging open like a guppy’s.

  Mrs. H. nods expectantly.

  “Our parents are on the verge of death, here,” I protest, incredulous. “And while Whit gets to go traipsing after them in the Shadowland — which I have experience in, too, by the way — I’m supposed to just … what? Knock on the door of the most powerful being in the Overworld and then … ‘deal with’ him?” I’m shouting now.

  Mrs. Highsmith looks me over with quiet disapproval, and then she says something totally whackjob: “Tell me, Wisteria, do you remember anything, anything at all, from your Biology 101 class? How about physics? Chemistry? No? I should have expected as much from a truant.”

  I shudder involuntarily at the familiar words. It’s practically the exact same thing The One said to me back at his pad, forever-and-a-day ago, when I was supposed to be proving myself as a witch. Mrs. Highsmith cocks an eyebrow, and I’m speechless.

  Just what exactly is going on here?

  I glare at her. “Look, if you want to focus on the past, fine. In the past, we’ve seen The One control water and air and the earth. We’ve watched him empty oceans, whip up tornadoes, and split open the ground with a flick of his pinky finger. How is anyone supposed to fight that?”

  Mrs. H. nods and holds my face in her hands, and I feel like I’m about five years old. “But what he doesn’t have is your fire, Wisty, your energy, your electricity. He may control the earth, but he doesn’t control the people on it. At least not in their thoughts. Not yet. But if what The One believes is true, if your powers extend to the electrical impulses of the brain, he’ll use you to control not only the government of the Overworld but the actual minds of all humanity, in every dimension.”

  I frown, uncertain what to make of this. Whit’s kneading his knuckles into his forehead, deep in thought.

  “Don’t you understand the implications of your power, darling? If The One Who Is The One succeeds, it will be the end of the last shred of free will any of us has left. It will be the end of resistance, of creativity, even hope. It will be the end of … everything.”

  “Okay.” I sigh, feeling like a very heavy chain has just been placed around my neck. “But what am I actually supposed to do to beat The One? My so-called Gift feels like this thing that’s so much bigger than me, something I can’t even totally control, and I’m not even sure what it’s for.”

  Mrs. H. considers her answer. “The Gift is certainly not to be used to be God. Only to prevent others from trying to be God.” I nod, waiting for a directive, but Mrs. H. shakes her head. “I can’t tell you exactly how to use these tremendous Gifts you’ve been given,” she says gravely. “To grow and to understand the Prophecy, you must learn to master them on your own.”

  I sigh, the gravity of this situation settling in my gut.

  I’m supposed to infiltrate a heavily guarded compound and pick a fight with the most powerful being the world has ever seen, and Whit is supposed to go stumbling through the Shadowland, where people either are eaten by the voracious Lost Ones or get so lost in the haze that their minds turn to gruel. All because of a Prophecy someone saw written on a wall. Because, for some reason, they all believe in us, a truant and a foolball star.

  I look at Whit, the one person I can always count on, who has been with me through every terrible loss, every struggle, every victory. Are we really going to do this?

  Whit nods, his eyes bright with hope, and I squeeze his hand, suppressing a feeling of panic. Of course we are.

  Besides our lives, what else have we got to lose?

  Chapter 35

  Whit

  THE SHADOWLAND IS a labyrinth of despair.

  It’s a knot of wrong turns, a blanket of fog weakening your resolve, a stench of lost souls who’ll do anything to claw their way out of this purgatory. The Shadowland is the taste of fear in your mouth urging you forward, deeper into the maze, farther from any connection to time, sanity, or the living.

  But the Shadowland is also Celia, the girl I loved and lost, a beautiful soul known in this purgatory as a Half-light, whose life was taken too early, whom I’d do anything to get back. And now it’s my parents, waiting for me by a river in the depths of its secrets.

  So, with a cocktail of emotions coursing through me, I’m finally on my way there.

  But first I have to get to the portal — the only one Mrs. H. is sure is still in operation. It’s deep in an area of the capital I’ve never been through before. I walk briskly, and soon the elegant white stone buildings give way to a concrete no-man’s-land full of heavily guarded factories belching thick, white steam into the still air.

  I turn down a narrow alleyway, and shadows shift as men bundled in rags move away from me in the dark. I stand straighter, trying to make the most of my big frame.

  I walk beside the concrete wall, barbed wire snarling along the top, twelve feet up. A red sign tacked to it reads TESTING FACILITY — KEEP OUT. Two exhausted-looking soldiers are keeping watch, but one appears more concerned with rolling a cigarette. The security measures almost seem ridiculous anyway; the rumors of what goes on in The One’s experimental l
abs are more than enough to keep out the curious.

  Except vengeful wizards, I guess.

  Though these guys seem like slackers, I see the brass N.O.P.E. pin of honor on the soldiers’ uniforms, meaning that they’re actually commandos in the New Order Portal Elite squad (the existence of which the N.O. vehemently denies, of course). They’re Curves, drafted to enter the Underworld and report back, since The One is officially a Straight and Narrow who can’t travel between the worlds himself.

  Trained wolves snarl at the N.O.P.E. soldiers’ feet, teeth bared and ready to snap.

  I picture my parents’ wan faces, Dad’s forbidding hand, and the fear in Mom’s eyes. Something was going on there at the river, something they didn’t want me to see. But nothing — not Dad, not The One, not even a pack of wolves — is going to keep me from the Shadowland.

  It’s the last place in the universe any sane person would want to be, but that terrifying land of stolen memory and shortened lives holds Celia, my parents, and everything I’ve lost.

  For better or worse, the Shadowland holds my destiny.

  Chapter 36

  Whit

  WHEN YOU’RE BACKED into a corner, sometimes the only thing to do is the stupidest thing you can think of.

  To that effect, without so much as a disguise to help me out, I march up to the New Order thugs slouching against the dirty concrete. “Confidence is key,” Dad always used to say. “You can do almost anything if you believe you can.”

  And, actually, it kind of works for a second. I don’t betray any motive, and it’s as if the guards have forgotten that they’re supposed to be guarding the place. They just look at me with bored expressions. For a minute I think I’m actually going to get away with strolling right past them, but unfortunately the wolves are a bit more on the ball.

  The death dogs snarl and start to tug at their chains, mouths foaming at me in hunger and hatred. This perks the soldiers right up, and they scramble to get their weapons pointed at me.

  The youngest one tries to be authoritative. “No one goes in or out, bub,” he says, his gun leveled between my eyes. “Entry is strictly forbidden.”

  “I’ve been sent by The One Who Is The One,” I hear my voice telling them calmly before I know what I’m saying. The older, bald one looks at me uncertainly and mutters something to his comrade, and I try not to let my hands shake in front of the hell beasts, who probably have built-in lie detectors or something. “I have an official letter,” I continue boldly.

  One of the guards nods and holds out a hand expectantly. Great. I do not, in fact, have an official letter. All I have is a crumpled-up slip of paper with Mrs. Highsmith’s directions to the portal on it, but I pull the pathetic thing out of my pocket anyway and thrust it at him.

  The older one takes the proffered letter and unfolds it, then barks, “What’s this? It’s just a piece of paper with street names. Arrest —”

  Before the guy can get the rest of the words out, I’m off. This is what I’ve trained for. This is what I was made for — saving my parents. My feet fly beneath me, faster than I’ve ever run before, carrying me straight at that heavy wooden door guarding the portal.

  And as I hear the wolves snapping at my heels, as I sense the guards taking aim with their fingers quivering on the triggers, I hope, I pray, that I’m still a Curve, that my body will bend into the other dimension, that I’ll melt through this solid door into the Shadowland and into the arms of Celia, and my parents, and everyone who is counting on me to be a hero this last time. I’m praying that I don’t just smash into that oak and get arrested.

  Because after all I’ve been through, after all Mom and Dad have been through, that would seriously suck.

  I’m flying, leaping, flailing forward with one final heave, holding my breath, and the last thing I feel is a tremendous crack as if my head’s exploding.

  Chapter 37

  Whit

  WELL, THAT WAS … intense.

  With portals, each one is a different experience, but it’s never very much fun. There have been times it wasn’t unlike going through a car wash; times it felt like being “squeezed out a birth canal” (in Wisty’s words); and one notable episode when I was sure I looked like a tomato smashed against a wall when I came out the other side.

  But this one was unlike anything I’d ever gone through. After that initial nasty bump on the head, I thought it was all over, but then I felt the weirdest sensation, like my cells were rearranging themselves or something.

  I’m definitely in the Shadowland now, because I can hardly see a thing.

  “Celia!” I call out tentatively. “Mom? Dad?”

  As I stumble through an opaque wall of fog, I gag on the smell of rotting sewage — no, rotting flesh — and my heart flutters with recognition.

  Lost Ones.

  Less-than-angelic humans stuck in the labyrinth of the Shadowland so long their very souls have rotted into a mass of stink and decay. Monsters tormented by loss and demented with hunger.

  Hunger for human flesh.

  God, no.

  I hear the screams of men being tortured, devoured. Soldiers? The N.O.P.E. guards, leaping after me into the portal and into the cannibalistic maws of Lost Ones? I shudder violently, but though the shrieks go silent, there’s nowhere to run.

  Suddenly dozens of decaying arms grab at me from out of the smoke, their slimy flesh slipping around my shoulders, my chest, my throat. I scream, but the sound is muffled among the moaning and frenzy.

  I push back at them, wrenching my body in utter terror.

  “Don’t try to fight us, idiot,” a low, garbled female voice coos into my ear, full of ill intent. “You can’t win. Don’t you see? We’re already dead.” The others cackle, and the Lost Girl continues. “Don’t you wish you were dead?” She puts a clammy hand on my cheek, and I recoil. I’m glad that I can’t see her rotting face through the haze. “You will be.”

  She laughs, and my stomach turns as I now begin to make out a hint of stringy flesh left on her face as it shakes terribly, her cavernous eyes dancing in front of me. “Soon. Very, very soon, you’ll be dead, too, handsome idiot stranger.”

  Chapter 38

  Wisty

  MY FACE IS scrubbed clean, my hair is brushed, glossy, and trailing down my back like a flame, and I’m decked out in a chic green dress that Mrs. Highsmith had lying around. I click along the spotless streets in my too-tight shoes as if I don’t even care that the security cameras from the surrounding mansions — each of which I’m sure comes equipped with a vicious wolf-mutt growling just beyond the gate — are trained on my every move. If it weren’t for the glint in my eye, you’d swear I was New Order Youth all the way.

  After weeks on the run covered in blood, grime, and who knows what else, I almost feel like I’m going to a fancy N.O. recital. My old frenemy Byron Swain once told me about those so-called parties that culminate in an elaborate recitation of The One’s successes, with the N.O. elite dressed to the nines and patting one another on the back. As excruciating as that would be, I wish I were going there — instead of where I’m actually headed. …

  My showdown with The One, maybe to save the fate of the world, but more likely to die.

  I’m muttering Mrs. Highsmith’s advice —“wits, courage, compassion” — like a mantra, and I’m so worked up I almost walk right in the path of a Youth Troop on patrol.

  There are two straight lines of stone-faced children, marching stiffly in crisp white uniforms accented with bold red trim. The leaders are just kids — probably younger than I am, but they’ve got the cold, brainwashed look of soldiers of the highest rank. Not one of them would hesitate to bash my head in.

  They’ve got a few even younger kids with them, who are being dragged along, sobbing, in chains.

  New Order families and couples stroll by, elegant in their fine clothes. They don’t look at the chained kids, or seem to hear their wails.

  But I do see the looks on those kids’ faces, the hopelessness and
the pain. I do hear their screaming. I walk past the banner-lined street that will take me to the palace and The One’s headquarters. Without even meaning to, I find myself approaching the troop instead. Though it’s the last thing in the world I want to do, I can’t not help.

  Chapter 39

  Wisty

  I HAVE THE sudden, eerie feeling that something is horribly wrong as I’m walking toward the troop. I can almost feel hands pressing down on me, choking out the air, and even in the thin material of my dress in the chilly breeze, I start to sweat.

  Whit is in serious trouble.

  How can I help him now? Entrances to the Shadowland are few and far between these days, and I could never get to Mrs. Highsmith’s portal quickly enough. The Youth Troop is standing at attention; they’ve already spotted me ambling toward them. I’ll just have to pray he can get himself out of whatever horrible mess he’s in, I think, remembering Rency’s ruined face.

  I’m on edge, and the cold stares of the troop as I approach aren’t helping. What kind of moron walks right up to brainwashed killers without even so much as a disguise?

  Yours truly.

  I panic and do a quick face-scramble, but the New Order Youth start to crack up as I draw near. They point and snicker, imitating me, and I get the sinking sense that maybe I’m a little cross-eyed. And that my nose is skewed to one side of my face.

  The kid at the head of the line blows a whistle sharply, demanding decorum. I can’t see his face, but the troop immediately stands at attention.

  “Just kidding around,” I say, forcing a weak laugh and quickly rearranging my features. I tap the last kid in line on the shoulder, and he spins around, ignoring the reproach of the whistle-blower up front.