by Lynette Noni
“Go.”
I’m not sure why I used that word. Maybe because, while Ward claimed that the actual word wouldn’t matter, in my head “go” is the opposite of “stop.” I would have felt strange saying something like “burrito” in an attempt to make the world move again.
Especially since it worked.
Sounds inundate us once more, the most invasive of which is the blaring horn from the bus driver. Through the windshield, I can see his face is as white as the seagulls again soaring overhead. But there’s no need for the driver to look so ashen, not anymore. While the bus is still screeching on its brakes, Abby is back on the pavement beside us.
My head is whirling. Somehow Ward coached me into undoing what I’d done — a miracle in and of itself — but there are consequences. Not the least of which is a relieved bus driver, baffled onlookers, and a terrified and confused little girl.
“Landy?” Abby looks up at him, visibly trembling.
He scoops her into his arms. “You’re okay, sweetheart.” He looks at me and says, “Make them forget.”
My eyes widen with disbelief.
“Preferably before that cop gets over here.”
Ward has no free hands, so he nods toward the mounted police officer making his way to us from across the street. Even if the spectators are shaking their heads and trying to convince themselves that what they saw must not have happened — in their eyes, one second Abby was in the middle of the road and the next she wasn’t — there’s no way the policeman won’t ask questions. He would have heard Abby’s excited squeal of “HORSIE!” and watched every heart-stopping moment of her bolting toward the animal. There is no explanation for what happened after that.
But … I still don’t understand what Ward is asking me to do. Or how, exactly, I’m supposed to do it.
“Seriously — you have maybe a minute before we’re all detained for questioning. I’d prefer not to spend the next few hours in a holding cell.”
He has a point.
“Do it just like before,” Ward tells me quickly. “Focus on what you want. Focus on the people around us — the policeman, the bus driver, all the witnesses. You don’t have to picture them individually. Just center your thoughts on Abby, and imagine the people who watched that happen forgetting what they saw. Then Speak.”
He’s asking the impossible. But I already know the impossible is possible when it comes to me. And yet, if I do what he’s asking, I could cause even more damage. What if in trying to make people forget one single event, I make them forget everything they’ve ever experienced? There is no undoing that, surely.
Ward must see the fear on my face, because his eyes capture mine, his gaze intent and steady.
“This won’t mean anything to you yet, but I protect others from the words powered by Speakers like you. I can help control what happens when you open your mouth.”
I suck in a breath and hear his words repeat in my mind:
Speakers like you.
Speakers like you.
Speakers like you.
Does that mean there are more people who can do what I can do?
Other … Speakers?
I want to demand answers, but the mounted policeman is almost upon us, so I try to stay focused on him.
“Trust me,” Ward says. “I will protect them. I will protect you.”
It’s a whisper of promise, and God help me, I believe him. So I close my eyes and concentrate harder than I ever have before, hoping that I’m not making another mistake as I breathe out a single word.
“Forget.”
I open my eyes as the second syllable falls from my lips, and I hear Ward whisper something too quiet for me to hear. Then something astonishing happens. A soft light bursts out of me and a corresponding one from Ward. The two lights merge into one, touching Abby first, lighting her eyes for less than a microsecond, then moving outward toward Isaac, Ethan, the policeman and everyone else nearby. Their eyes light up when the glow reaches them, like the flash of a camera going off in their retinas. Then, after a quick shake of their heads, they continue as if nothing strange just occurred.
“Landy, I’m hungry. How long until we’re home?” Isaac asks, effectively breaking into my stunned disbelief.
It worked — it actually worked.
“Me, too,” Abby says, squirming in Ward’s arms. “I hope Mummy — HORSIE!”
I jump again at Abby’s squeal, this one more excited than the last, since the horse — and its uniformed rider — is only a few feet away from us now.
“Good evening, Officer,” Ward says to the policeman, who looks baffled, clearly wondering how, why and when he crossed the street. “Can you please tell us how to get to the nearest train station?”
The policeman furrows his brow but gives a slight shrug and rattles off directions that Ward has no need for. The distraction works, however, and when the officer finishes speaking, bids us goodnight and nudges his horse away from us, I heave a sigh of relief.
“That was a little too close for comfort,” Ward mutters, lowering Abby to the ground.
“I’m hungry,” Isaac says again. “Is it dinnertime yet?”
Ward smiles at his cousin. There are no signs of a dimple this time, though. His entire expression seems strained, especially when his eyes flick to me and away again. It’s almost like — almost like he can’t stand to look at me. Now that he knows the truth.
Now that he knows I’m a monster.
“Sure, buddy. We’ll be home in a few minutes and you can eat then.”
Abby cries, “Hurrah! Can I read to Jane after dinner?”
She starts to move toward me, but Ward pulls her back to his side. He captures her hand in his free one, and I try not to let that small action affect me, but it does. He doesn’t want her near me. And I don’t blame him.
“Not tonight, sweetheart. There’s somewhere else she needs to go after we drop you back to your mum.”
I feel the blood drain from my face, wondering what horrors lie ahead for me.
I was supposed to have three days. But now I don’t know anymore. What does it mean, now that Ward has heard me Speak? How much does it change things?
Do I even want it to change things?
I’m overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty as we walk in silence to the shopping center beneath Centrepoint and come to a stop beside the elevator.
“Rules are rules,” Ward says, not meeting my eyes.
I don’t realize what he’s talking about until he lets go of Abby and draws the blindfold from his pocket. My troubled heart plummets deeper into despair as he ties it into place, a sense of entrapment pressing in on me as we step into the elevator and begin our descent.
Ward knows I am a monster now. And soon enough, Falon and the rest of Lengard will, too. I have no idea what they’re going to do with me. To me. But if what I’ve suffered so far while remaining silent is any indication, my outlook is grim indeed.
I never wanted any of them to know. I tried — so hard — to keep it a secret. To take it to my grave with me. But … I also can’t bring myself to regret what just happened, not when it means Abby is humming quietly at my side right now.
But if Ward hadn’t been there, hadn’t been able to guide me through it — I don’t even want to think about what might have happened.
Lost in my anxiety, I’m caught by surprise when we step out of the second elevator and Ward unties the blindfold. Unending walls assail my vision, and something inside me shrivels up to hibernate once more.
Too soon, we arrive at the Falons’ suite, where Esther takes one look at her nearly comatose children and has to hide a smile behind her hand. But then she glances up at Ward and me, and any trace of her amusement flees. I don’t know what my face shows, and I don’t dare look at him, so I wonder what she can read from our expressions.
I don’t have long to wonder, because Ward is quick to make our excuses — quick to get me away from his family.
I swallow the lump that lodges in m
y throat as we leave their quarters and head down the whitewashed corridors again, a heavy silence between us. All the things we’ve left unsaid.
I’m trembling from head to toe, something Ward must feel since I’m still cuffed to him. It’s the first time we’ve walked the hallways together when I haven’t been free at his side, and that, more than anything else, tells me everything I need to know about what is coming next.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Swallowed by the too-comfortable chair in Director Falon’s office, I feel just like the orbiting second hand of the clock on the wall. No matter how many times it moves forward, ultimately it will end up back where it started. Sixty seconds, and all that work was for nothing.
Two years, seven months and eleven days, wasted by a single word. I’m right back where I began, and it only took four letters:
S
T
O
P
I don’t know where Ward is. All I know is that he brought me straight to Falon’s office and didn’t so much as knock on the door before entering and pulling me through with him. The director was on the phone when we barged in. After one look at Ward’s face, he muttered a swift, “I’ll call you back,” and promptly ended the call. He rose to his feet, ordered me to take a seat and left the room with Ward in tow.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Whole hours could be passing — days, months, years, perhaps — but all I see is that second hand going around and around. Always moving but never finding any end to its journey.
The door slides open, interrupting my thoughts, and Falon steps back into the room.
Ward isn’t with him.
The director doesn’t take a seat. Instead, he cocks his head to the side, assessing me. My palms begin to sweat and my nerves are zinging, telling me to do something. Flight. Fight. They don’t care which — just something. But I do nothing except remain seated, hold his gaze and listen to the clock tick toward its unreachable destination.
It feels like an eternity before Falon’s appraisal ends and he abruptly says, “Come with me, Jane. There’s something I want you to see.”
I blink once. Twice. Then force myself from the chair and move to leave the room. Falon shakes his head, though, and presses his hand against the touch screen mounted next to the door. Following that, he leans forward for a retinal scan. A moment passes before a hiss sounds and part of the wall on the left side of the office slides away, revealing a hidden exit.
“This way, please.”
With a turn of his wrist, he politely gestures for me to go first.
I’m intrigued. And not just a little terrified. For all I know, he’s taking me to some kind of execution chamber. But all I can see as I step forward is another long hallway.
Falon moves through after me, and the secret wall closes behind us, sealing us out of his office.
I ball my hands into fists behind my back to keep him from seeing the visible manifestation of my anxiety. Falon’s eyes miss nothing, though, and I’m floored when he sends me a hint of a comforting smile. He dips his head forward, indicating that we’re to move, and he starts off down the corridor.
Unlike all the other hallways I’ve encountered at Lengard, this one isn’t on even ground. It slants downward. And soon the walls change colors — something else I’ve never seen. The change is gradual at first, slowly darkening from sterile white to pastel gray, smoky gray, dark gray. We’ve reached charcoal by the time we hit an elevator, almost like the walls themselves are saying there’s something different about this hidden hallway. Warning. Danger. Take Caution.
We step into the enclosed space, and after another handprint and retinal scan from Falon, the doors seal us inside and the metal box plummets at an incredible speed. I’m not prepared for it since I hadn’t imagined there was much farther down we could go. But we’re dropping like lead, deep into the bowels of the earth.
By the time we come to a stop, my ears are blocked and I feel uncomfortably nauseous.
“It takes some getting used to,” Falon says, seeing my pallid expression. “We’ve reinforced the walls to compensate for the biometric pressure this far below sea level, but you’ll need a moment to acclimatize. Even with the air filtration system in place.”
I’m already beginning to feel better, at least physically. Psychologically, I’m a wreck.
“We’re almost there,” Falon says.
He leads the way down a now completely black-walled hallway. The overhead fluorescent lights cast eerie shadows on our path, and while I’m no fan of the unrelenting whitewashed misery up on the higher levels, this strange blackness is disconcerting.
We soon reach the end of the hallway, and Falon raises a palm to rest it against the wall. An unseen sensor scans his hand again, and the wall slides open to reveal yet another secret doorway. He moves into the room beyond and beckons me to follow. I step forward and …
And I gape. It’s all I can do not to gasp out loud.
We’re standing at the entrance to a room so huge that thick stone pillars are in place to keep the tons of rock above us from caving in. The space is easily the size of a football field, but that’s not what has caused my stunned reaction.
It’s the people.
They’re everywhere. Clustered in twos, threes, fours and more. It’s clear this is some kind of training room, like a giant underground gymnasium. The space is bright and well lit, with a combination of luminous white and blue lights bouncing off the walls and pillars. It’s like something out of a science fiction movie. But that might also be because of the specific kind of training these people are doing.
They’re … Speaking.
They’re saying things, and things are happening.
Their words are creating responses.
And just like when Ward guided me into making the people on Market Street forget the incident, I can see light flowing from people all around the room.
A girl to my left yells out, “Hover!” and light bursts out of her, hitting the chest of a man twice her age, three times her size. I recognize him — he was one of my rotating evaluators before Ward, poking and prodding me for a response I never yielded. Despite his bulk, the moment her word … touches him, his body rises from the ground and he begins to levitate.
The man barks out a laugh and crosses his legs and arms, assuming the comical pose of a genie. His eyes glint with amusement, and he calls back, “Hiccups!”
The girl makes a groaning sound, but it’s cut off when his light reaches her, swallowed by the hiccups she can’t stop from bubbling up from inside her.
I don’t know what I feel as I watch this play out before me. Wonder, mostly, and disbelief. Hope, too, at my sudden knowledge: I am not alone.
I also feel the sting of resentment. For over two and a half years I’ve been locked away, with no idea there were other Speakers in the hidden depths of Lengard. These people … my people …
How did I not know they were here?
… Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Heart pounding, I turn to look at the next group demanding my attention, a set of six people around my age, each person holding what appears to be an imaginary gun. Three of them wear green armbands, three wear blue and all of them are running, ducking, hiding from what I understand to be the opposing teams. They use the pillars, they use other people, but mostly they use the invisible weapons in their hands.
“Bang!” one of the green-banded girls cries out, aiming around a pillar at one of the blue-banded boys.
The boy is caught by surprise, and he lets out a grunt as the light that poured from the invisible gun touches his stomach. I rock backward in amazement when a bright splatter of green paint appears across the front of his T-shirt.
In response, he raises his hands — or, rather, his “weapon” — and takes aim back at her, calling out, “Bang, bang!”
Two wisps of light burst forth, and the green-banded girl ducks behind the pillar just in
time for them to soar right into the path of a blue-banded Asian girl. The new girl jerks her shoulder at the impact of the light and stumbles backward as splashes of blue paint burst across her collarbone and her upper thigh. Two shots, two points of contact.
“Hey! I’m on your team, you ass!” she cries out.
The guy raises his hands in the air, one still gripping what looks like nothing. “My bad, Keeda! I didn’t see you!”
“Yeah, yeah, because I’m invisible, right?” The girl — Keeda — rolls her eyes and swipes at her paint-splattered clothes, only smearing the color further. Meanwhile, the green-banded girl has already taken off and is now engaged in an imaginary-gun battle with another blue-banded opponent farther into the room.
“I just used the last of my ammo on you,” the boy says, shaking the empty air between his hands as if listening for something. “I need to go get another infusion if I want to stay in the game. Cover me?”
Keeda nods and runs off with him, shooting green-banded opponents as they go along, disappearing deeper into the training room.
I don’t know what I’m more surprised about: people using intangible weapons for a paintball skirmish match and discharging them with words, or Keeda and the other blue-banded boy saying normal sentences to each other among the rest and those words having no consequences. If I had repeated just two of Keeda’s words — “I’m invisible” — no one would have ever seen me again. And I don’t even want to think about the result that “you ass” could have produced. So how …
“Jane?”
I whip my neck to the side and feel my pulse skitter erratically at the sight of Cami jogging over to me, looking as stunned to see me as I am to see her.
Cami is here. In this place. The betrayal I feel — it’s like fire burning in my blood.
Why.
Didn’t.
She.
Tell.
Me?
Her eyes flick from me to Falon. “What — um, what are you doing here, Uncle Rick?”
She looks nervous, agitated, uncertain. I’m feeling the same way.
“According to Landon, Jane had a breakthrough today, and in doing so, saved Abby’s life,” Falon says.
