by Lisa Amowitz
Abruptly, my palm started to burn more intensely. Before us, unmistakable in a swath of moonlight, was the carved tree, Pluto’s final resting place.
I crouched to study the carving, placed strategically where the foggy ground cover ended. We peered at it in the scant moonlight.
“This one is different from Xavier’s. Look.” I pulled out the crinkled note. Xavier’s hastily drawn sketch pointed straight downward. The one carved into the tree pointed slightly to the right.
Zuber and I exchanged glances before darting to an adjacent tree. After a bit of scrambling, we located another faint symbol carved into a trunk, tilted slightly higher. That symbol led to another, and another. Someone had been very busy carving these symbols. The more we located, the more the pinprick on my palm burned. I imagined I heard the tinkle of piano notes wrapped inside the wind. I thought of Sam and my throat tightened with a painful lump.
Could Sam really have been here? I’d never thought to ask Zuber directly. “Was Sam Bernstein ever a student at High Step? He was a piano player.”
Zuber stopped in his tracks, gaped at me, and scratched his head. “You mean your old boyfriend? The kid that disappeared? Not that I know of.”
“You looked at me funny for a minute, Zuber. You’re not keeping anything from me, are you?”
Zuber squinted, his brow furrowed. “No, of course not! But it was weird. For a minute my brain kind of jittered, like someone shook it. Then, nothing. Just a blank.”
“But you swear. You don’t know anyone named Sam?” Zuber slanted his head. “I can’t swear I don’t know anyone named Sam, but no piano-playing Sam Bernstein. I’m sure of that.”
The lump in my throat hardened. I was certain Zuber wasn’t lying, but I still couldn’t shake the strong sense that Sam had been here. If only Xavier was able to spit out the truth locked inside him without it killing him.
After a series of ten trees carved with symbols, the woods seemed to end abruptly in a wall of fog.
“What the hell?”
“This way,” Zuber said confidently, like a hound on the trail. I followed him into the mist…and came out on the other side. The mist evaporated to reveal a dirt road that led to a wrought-iron gate set in a high brick wall. Beyond the gate, a star-studded sky glowed a deep radiant indigo.
“That’s it!” I rushed down the road toward the gate. “The entrance to the compound!”
“Don’t, Beth!”
I stopped a few yards short, the pinprick on my palm blazing with so much pain, I almost keeled over. Zuber caught up to me, breathless. “It’s booby-trapped. You didn’t think they’d let us just walk out of here, did you?”
I glared at the gate that taunted me with its empty promise of freedom.
“We should go back to the cave,” Zuber said. “It’s only dumb luck some patrol hasn’t caught up with us.”
I hung my head and nodded, the thought of that cold dark hole filling me with dread. I shivered and turned to leave when a rumble, followed by the low beam of car headlights, approached from behind us on the dirt road.
“Shit,” Zuber hissed and pulled me behind a broad tree trunk. We were about to burrow into the earth when a car door slammed and someone called out, “Wait!”
I twisted free of Zuber’s hold and found myself buried up to my waist in the ground. Zuber blasted out of the earth like an angry geyser. “Why the hell did you do that? If I lose you underground, you’ll suffocate before I can get back to you!”
He yanked me roughly out of the dirt and shoved us through the trunk of a massive tree. We stood listening on the other side of it, blocked from the view of the passing van. “Are you completely insane, Beth? Let’s try that again. This time hold on.”
I yanked my arm from his grip. “It wouldn’t hurt to wait just another minute. It could be help.”
Footsteps crunched back and forth. A figure, silhouetted by the headlight’s bright beam, cast an elongated shadow on the dirt road. Zuber pulled me low to the ground.
“Beth? Is that you?” I let out my breath at the sound of that familiar voice.
“Andre!” Without hesitation I raced toward Andre and jumped into his muscular arms. “How did you know where to find us?”
Andre smiled and brushed the tangle of hair from my face. “They said you were dead. That you blew yourself up. I didn’t want to believe it. With Zuber gone, too, I thought there was a slim chance he’d have slipped in and tried to whisk you out of the compound. But I knew it was blocked. I begged a guard into letting me go, claiming a medical emergency at home.” Andre flashed me a lopsided smile. “It worked, as usual, and here I am. Your knight in shining armor.”
He pulled me to his chest and I rested my head there, listening to the calming rhythm of his breathing. There was a tentative crunch of footsteps on cold dirt as another, slighter figure stepped from the glare of the headlights.
“I brought Dawn. Just in case anyone needs healing,” Andre said.
Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, “I think it’s about time I brought you home, Beth.”
29
I HELD MY BREATH AS THE MASSIVE GATES SWUNG open, then closed behind us. The dirt road continued, then emptied onto a deserted country lane that wound through the night forest. There was no trace of the lingering mist that coated the compound’s grounds, no evidence that the compound existed at all. There was just endless road and woods.
Illuminated by the headlight’s beams, a sign indicated that we were 35 miles west of Springfield, and 120 miles to the west of Boston. This was news to me, since I had no recollection whatsoever of entering the compound in the first place.
Dawn and I huddled in the back seat. Dawn, never much company to begin with, fell promptly asleep. Zuber kept stonily silent in the front passenger seat, his puzzling contempt crackling like static electricity. Even Andre’s calming effect could only partially defuse it. I didn’t understand his mistrust of Andre. Though he could easily slip through the side of the van and onto the road, I doubted he would. He had no other choice than to trust Andre.
Despite my own frayed nerves, eventually the steady drone of the old van’s chugging engine, the hum of tires on the road, and Andre’s soothing vibe worked away my tension. I dozed off and woke as the first streak of vermillion stained the sky over Linford.
My stomach lurched at the sight of my hometown. The silhouettes of low buildings, blue-gray hulks against the backdrop of the lurid morning sky, reminded me that the girl I’d been here was lost forever. This was just to be a brief pit-stop to check in on Xavier before I went home to see my family.
“Did you know Xavier from home, Andre?” I blurted.
Eyes fixed on the road, Andre answered softly. “He’s older than us. He came to the compound pretty young. We never met until I first went there.”
We fell back into silence, the bare trees and frame houses drifting by in a pastel blur. People slept peacefully inside those homes, unaware of the terrors that lived outside their comfortable reality. Terrors like me.
“Do you think Xavier knew Sam from somewhere else? Some band thing? Because…” My voice choked off. Sam had been Linford’s golden boy. Torn remnants of the missing posters that had cropped up all over town were still plastered to telephone poles. I swallowed hard and continued. “Because Xavier had something of his.”
“Did he really?” Andre pulled the car into the empty parking lot of a familiar strip mall. Snippets of my former life bombarded me: Mom and me purchasing my sixth-grade graduation shoes at Adler’s Shoe Emporium, stopping with my dad at the Linford Delicatessen. Zuber gazed silently out the car window, stiffly alert.
“I suppose it’s possible they met through their music before Xavier went to the compound,” Andre said.
“How old was Xavier when he left? Fourteen?”
“Sam was into music his whole life, Beth. It’s possible they took a class as kids somewhere, right?”
“I guess. But that means they would have met when Sam was t
welve.” I slumped lower in the seat, the mystery of Sam’s vanishing gnawing at me like a reopened wound. The view outside the car window mocked me, reminding me that I wouldn’t find any comfort here in Linford. That I didn’t belong here anymore. “It still doesn’t make sense.”
Andre turned to face me and touched a hand to my knee. “Life doesn’t always make sense, Beth.” The words were just that, words, but combined with the warmth of Andre’s hand on my knee, they lowered the boil of questions in my mind to a gentle simmer.
“True,” I said, slumping in the seat, exhaustion washing over me in a heavy wave.
“I can take it from here,” Zuber said abruptly. “Take Beth to her mother’s house in Finley Lake. Thanks for the ride.”
Zuber had already emerged outside the car and began to stalk off. Andre jumped out and followed, his long strides quickly overtaking him, his voice muted through the car window. “This is ridiculous. I didn’t take you all this way for you to storm off in a huff.”
Zuber whirled on Andre, his normally stoic expression bristling with emotion. “I’ve got to keep him safe, no matter what. And if that means trusting no one, then that’s the way it has to be.”
I slipped quietly out of the rear door, straining to listen from a distance away while they argued. Andre’s voice dropped low, his body language relaxed and non-threatening. “I brought Dawn to help Xavier. He’s seriously ill. If you let him die, how will that be helping him?”
“I can’t take the chance,” whispered Zuber, the reasonable veneer stripped away to reveal someone who was nearly unhinged. “I don’t know who to trust.”
“I know you never liked me, Roddy,” Andre soothed. “But I didn’t come all this way to be your taxi driver. Xavier and I used to be good friends before you came to the compound. Right now he needs all the help he can get.”
Zuber flashed me a desperate look. I walked closer, hands in my pockets. “Andre’s had my back for as long as I can remember. He took a big risk getting us here.”
Zuber turned to Andre. “I hope I don’t regret this. If any harm comes to Xavier because of your actions, witting or unwitting, I’m going to make sure you regret it to your last dying breath.”
I wasn’t sure if Andre did, but I recognized the cold threat in Zuber’s voice. I shivered, wondering how many of the people who had crossed him had been buried alive somewhere deep under the ground.
Andre placed a hand on Zuber’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off. “I would never hurt Beth or anyone she cares about.”
“Save your sweet talk for someone who buys your brand of shit, Serrano. Just get back in the car.”
Zuber directed us past the McMansions that lined the coastal road, past the long-deserted factories and down a dead-end street. At the end of the street was the burned-out remnant of the old school building that had once been Linford High. After the modern new building had been completed ten years before, the building had briefly housed a private school before the fire had destroyed it for good.
Zuber got out of the car and cast a glance at Andre, bald contempt in his dark eyes. “He’s in there,” he said coldly.
Andre woke Dawn and helped her from the car. She stood blinking beside him, wide-eyed and pale, her hair a frizzled cloud of dull red.
I shuddered, unnerved, thinking of how frightening it must be to be holed up, sick and alone, in this charred husk of a building. What if Xavier had already died in there, thinking that no one was ever coming to save him? I closed my eyes and choked off the thoughts of Vincent, who I had probably killed, my sorrow for him mingling with my still-raw grief for Sam.
I had to save Xavier. And hope that my terrible powers were good for more than just bringing death.
Zuber took me inside first. We walked directly through the sooty brick exterior wall into the rubble-strewn halls. Morning light filtered through the collapsed roof, lighting our way past piles of debris. Creeping down an unblocked staircase into the basement, we felt our way to a set of double doors that led to the old school’s auditorium. Thin strips of dusty light cut across the rows of seats. On the dark stage, a single light glowed.
My breath caught. Surrounded by empty snack bags, cans, and water bottles was a battered couch, a theater prop from days gone by. A blanket-wrapped figure was curled into the fetal position on the couch. I cried out, raced down the aisle, and jumped onto the stage, Zuber at my heels.
Death hovered in the space above the still figure, waiting eagerly but still unsatisfied. I pulled back the blanket. Lips cracked and blue, stubble on the sharp planes of his jaw, Xavier was alive. But barely.
30
“XAVIER”
Not even the flicker of an eyelid. Blood streamed from the corners of his mouth, staining the blanket and the couch. I found the pulse in his neck throbbing weakly.
“Get Dawn,” I barked at Zuber. “Now!”
It wasn’t long before Zuber, followed by Andre and Dawn, came hurtling down the aisle. Dawn crouched beside Xavier, her fingers pressed to his neck.
Andre looked sharply at Zuber, who remained focused on Xavier’s still form.
I glanced upward. The billowing darkness had begun to drop. “Hurry. Please.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Dawn whispered shakily.
A faint shadow hovered above Dawn. I bit down hard on my lower lip. Dawn would pay a steep price for healing someone so close to death. “I’m sorry,” I said under my breath.
Zuber took me by the arm and pulled me into the shadows. Andre joined us as Dawn began to work on Xavier, her hands gracefully weaving in the air above him like a harpist.
At first Xavier was unresponsive. The dark cloud continued its descent. Finally, his eyelids began to flutter, followed by a slight twitching of his head. He kicked off the blankets and began thrashing his arms and legs violently. His back arched as his body went rigid with convulsive spasms.
I focused on the lowering cloud. It was heavy, like a blanket of lead descending. I pushed at it with all my strength until I thought my chest would explode from the strain. I wondered about Vincent, and if he was still clinging to life, if this would do him in. I wished I could sense him as clearly as he could sense me.
It was like trying to shove an elephant over a cliff, but little by little, the cloud eased higher toward the ceiling. Dawn whimpered as the shockwaves continued to shudder through Xavier.
When it was finally over, Dawn sprawled unconscious on the stage floor. Andre sat cradling her head in his lap, stroking her hair. Drained of strength myself, I crawled over to Xavier just as his eyes snapped open.
“Beth,” he said. His eyes skittered unfocused, and his voice was little more than a gruff rasp. “Everything hurts.”
Zuber came up beside me. “Take it easy, bro. You’re going to be okay.”
Xavier smiled and closed his eyes.
I marveled at the improvement. Color had returned to his sunken cheeks. He had his voice back. But Dawn wasn’t doing so well. Andre stood and walked over to us.
“She just needs rest and she’ll be fine. So do you and so does Xavier. Maybe this is a good time for me to take you to see your family, Beth. If you’d like, that is.”
I glanced at Zuber. “Will you be okay alone with them?” “We’ll be fine. I couldn’t live with myself if you missed the chance to see your family,” Zuber said.
Andre nodded gravely. The implication was clear.
This might be the last time I’d see them.
Andre and I picked our way out of the ruins to his van. It was already noon. The midwinter sun bathed us in light and shadow. Walking to the car arm in arm, we could have been anything or anyone. No one would guess that we were refugees from a secret society of freaks.
The ride to Finley Lake went by too quickly. Now that I was to be reunited with my family, I wanted the drive to last. I wasn’t sure what I would say when I barged in on them, or what condition I’d find my brother Carson in.
“You don’t have to worry, Beth. Shelly goes to se
e them a lot. She helps your mom with the shopping and does a little cleaning for her.”
“Great. I cut out on her and so she has to rent herself a replacement daughter.”
Andre frowned. “She doesn’t pay Shelly. Shelly’s just good-natured that way.”
My hands balled into fists. “Where do they think I’ve been? Don’t they think it’s odd I haven’t been in contact?”
“Beth,” Andre said cautiously. “High Step has its own unique way of dealing with things like this. It’s called Plausibility. They plant an idea in the mind of the subject, and whenever a doubt or suspicion arises, it’s overridden. I know it sounds awful, but considering the nature of our abilities, it always made sense to me.”
“Nothing about High Step or the Talented world makes sense to me. If I could rip my Talent out of myself, I would, and I’d run as fast as I could.”
“But you can’t, Beth.” The muscle in Andre’s jaw twitched. There was nothing reassuring in his words. “It’s in our DNA. It’s who we are.”
We pulled into the driveway of Gram’s lake house. I hadn’t been here since Gram died, but it was clear Andre had. It rankled me that he had been allowed to see my family more than I had. I sat in the car hyperventilating, trying to muster the nerve to go in. It turned out I didn’t need to, because Shelly came running out of the house to greet us.
“Beth? Is that Beth? Oh my God!”
She pulled open the car door before I had a chance to react and was all over me, a tangle of hair, perfume, and jangly jewelry.
“Oh my,” she said, cocking her head. “You’ve gone au naturel.” We’d stopped at a gas station to get me cleaned up, but I knew I was a sight.
“You don’t have to say it. I’m a mess. Rough trip.”
