by Vivien Reis
“Ben, wait.”
He didn’t turn around, didn’t look back at Mr. Flynn, just kept walking. To his car. To Gran’s house. Into his bedroom.
It wasn’t until he sat down at the desk that he tried to make sense of what had happened, to piece the shattered events together. Because that’s what they were, weren’t they?
He was holding his mom’s diary, something comforting about the smell of the pages and the leather. The words scrawled inside were gibberish, the handwriting sloppy and shaky.
There was nothing that told him what he had just experienced was real. Nothing that told him he hadn’t already lost his mind.
And so much that told him he had.
# TWENTY
Abi was lost in the dark. It was ever-changing like smoke, but so thick it blotted out all light. She ran through it—away—but the voices always reached her.
They were too fast. She sprinted away, but the darkness pulled the air out of her lungs, her chest burning with the need to breathe.
She turned and felt cool stone on the side of her face. The chanting grew louder and then faded rapidly as she slipped back into the darkness. Away from the world.
But she wasn't alone. A chill swam through her body. She feared it was Him again.
"Abi." The thing hadn't spoken to her before but she knew it wasn't Him. She recognized the voice.
"Mom?" Abi whirled, her whole body stiff, the world spinning and turning in the black smoke faster than she could keep track.
"Abi," her mom said again.
"Where are you?" She hated this woman, but that didn't matter now. She wanted to go home, to be with her family again. To go back to the way things were.
"Be still, Abi. I have something to tell you." The words came out in a rush and when Abi turned toward them, there she was. But it wasn't the mother Abi knew. It was the woman she’d known before her mom fell ill.
She was beautiful. Her thick hair was clean and brushed through. A white nightgown glowed against her skin and her face was full, the dark bags under her eyes nonexistent. But she wore an expression that froze Abi's thoughts.
Fear.
Her eyes darted quickly over her shoulder as if she was expecting someone.
"What is it, Mom? What's wrong?"
Abi knew what this woman had done, how she had torn their family apart, but a warmth spread through her, thawing the deep chill in her bones. She felt safer. She wasn't alone anymore. Her mom reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"They're watching me, I don't have much time." She grabbed Abi's cheeks with both hands, hard. "The boy you met, think of him right now. Tell him you need help."
Boy? "I don't understand. What's going on?"
"Never mind that," she ordered, looking quickly over her shoulder. "The boy. You were with him recently. I can see it." She closed her eyes and then they flew open a moment later. "Jesse. That was his name."
Jesse? Did Abi know a boy named Jesse? She strained to think of her life before this darkness. Nothing came to her.
"Think of him, Abi! Tell him you need help!" The last part shrieked through the air as her mom vanished into the thick smoke.
"Mom?" Abi clutched at her arms. "Mo—" Fear choked her as a large form came lumbering through the dark in her mom's place.
Abi started awake, sore spots on her cheekbones and forehead pulsing from lying against the concrete ground.
Her head ached and a burning odor smarted her nose. She tried to push herself up on shaky limbs but fell back against the stone.
The room spun as she rolled onto her side. Her stomach lurched and she dry-heaved.
"You're doing very well, Abigail."
That voice. It sent a panic running through her drained body.
"Please." It was a weak whisper.
The man walked closer until his shoes were right in front of her nose and knelt, his face hovering over hers. His head was shaved on either side, long blonde hair slicked back at the top. He hadn’t let her see his face yet. Light danced in his blue eyes, alive with excitement.
She didn't shrink away. She didn't have the energy to.
"Oh, but we're almost finished. It'll all be over soon."
Abi knew what his calm tone didn't give away—they were going to kill her.
"Please." Shame warmed her insides. "Please." A sob tried to break free, but it was dry. There were no tears left.
"Shh." He smoothed down her hair, the gentleness of it giving Abi hope, fear, doom.
This was it. She would die in this room, and his would be the last face she ever saw.
She gripped hard on her own arm, digging the nails into her flesh. This was the longest period of lucidity he had allowed her, but that was no comfort.
Her mind went to the white goat. Was that how they would do it? Slit her throat and then bathe in her blood? Or were they feeding her to the demon? It had escaped from her vision before but she knew what she had seen. It was the absence of light, it was things horned and painful and red. Abi's skin crawled.
The man left.
She would never see her family again. She could never say goodbye to her father, or graduate, or land that stupid internship. Would Ben and Gran ever find out what happened to her? Did she even want them to know?
Abi's limbs trembled as she let her body's weight roll her onto her back. The ceiling was so uniform that her eyes couldn't place how far away it was from her face. It made her nauseated.
How long had she been there? She grasped at her memories but all she could remember was this.
Black. There was something about it that gnawed at her, something she had to remember.
A rumble shook the stones and jerked her back to the present.
The lights blinked out with an audible buzz.
Her droopy eyes caught sight of a man entering the room. And then another.
Dozens of robed figures filed in around her, each holding an unlit candle. The room darkened.
She wanted to scream, but only a tiny whimper escaped. Her eyes throbbed like she would cry.
A small light spread to her left until she could see—the hooded figures were lighting one another's candles in a rapidly growing and terrifying warmth.
Abi knew exactly how it would begin, like a routine she couldn't remember learning. Humming started low, mixing a hundred voices into one even tone that echoed around the room.
Several moments passed before she could hear the chant over the humming. With practiced slowness, they spread over the room until it was an even mix of both. Her heart sounded like a drum, beating double time for the chant.
She lost control of where she was. The world spun around her body, first sideways, then end over end.
Her mind couldn't catch up to what was happening, but her body knew to fear this. It knew what was happening.
Remember.
"Meil ee Mundi.”
The voices rose in a crescendo. She could hear them but she couldn't see the pale, candlelit faces anymore.
"Raise Him. Alshir eim Meil ee airrilea."
She wasn't just spinning, she was falling. Her stomach rising higher and higher as she plummeted. Wind rushed all around her, matted hair stinging her face. She was above them and all around and moving.
"Reunite us. Reunite us. Ealaria Meil. Ealaria Meil."
What was it she had to remember? Time was a tangible thing, growing smaller and smaller.
She was close to death, waiting for her life to flash before her eyes. Her parents, Ben, Cora.
The only thing that sped through Abi's mind was her stupid orange bike. She had left it lying in the forest when they had taken her.
Remember, her mom's voice said.
Her face was wet, and she knew it was from the tears.
"Help me." Abi tried to speak, but the wind ripped the words from her throat before she ever made a sound.
Her mother. She had come to Abi. She told her to think of someone. Jesse.
So she did. As the voices rose to a deafen
ing height, as the wind sucked all the air from her lungs, as she plummeted through the earth, she thought of Jesse.
"Help me."
# TWENTY-ONE
His teacher shuffled into a sitting position across from him, leaning back against the scuffed white wall. "Do you know how your mom acts when I'm around? She's different, isn't she?"
The gears in his mind tried to work, to grind into movement. So Mr. Flynn was aware of the effect he had on his mom. Anger and frustration cleared some of the fog in his head, and he nodded.
"That's because we share the same gift, the same one that allowed me to channel that paintbrush through you and into the yo-yo. When I used to visit every week, I would try to bring back the old Mary, however slight that is."
Ben exhaled a rush of air, staring at the ceiling tiles. None of it seemed real, like it could actually happen. Mr. Flynn's words resonated within Ben, a tiny ball of hope growing. Could there be a reason for his mom's sickness, a reason for his own?
"Why can't you fix her then?" He didn't want to look at his teacher, so his eyes stayed unblinking on the ceiling, a burning, swirling pattern mixing with the orange-white of the tiles.
"Do you remember my radio analogy? That we have a stronger signal? Mary's radio is broken. I can lend her my own for a time, but it's mine. It's not meant to sustain two people for very long."
"So you know what's wrong with her?"
Mr. Flynn stared at his palms for a moment, the silence stretching on. "Before she attacked you, she just changed. Her mind changed, and I could feel it. Something distant and dark about her. I wish I knew how to fix her, to bring her back. I would do it in a heartbeat."
He regarded Ben with such depth in his eyes that Ben believed him. The words struck him with a sincerity he hadn't heard from Mr. Flynn, a raw emotion he had only ever seen in movies. Tears stung his eyes again, but not ones of anger or frustration. A knot formed in his throat.
The fluorescent lights now overpowered what little light glowed from the windows, and the harshness of them gave Ben something to focus on. He tried to gather himself, calm his racing thoughts.
Mr. Flynn seemed to truly care about his mom—about him. So much so that he would come to their house every week just to brighten her day. And Ben had hated him for it.
"Does it hurt?"
Mr. Flynn cocked his head to the side. "Does what hurt?"
"When you bring her back to herself."
"No, it doesn't hurt. It's just tiring."
"Is that why you only do it once a week?"
He nodded.
Some of the pieces clicked together. If this was true, then he wasn't losing his mind. This transition was the root of all his problems. He looked down at his hands, rubbing at his right palm over and over.
"Mr. Flynn?"
"Yes?"
"The hallucinations I'm having. Will they go away once I finish...transitioning?"
"Some of them might."
A heavy weight pressed against Ben's chest. "Some?"
"Depending on how far your mind is stretching right now, you might have rooted into someone else's mind. Have these hallucinations been about anyone in particular?"
"Abi."
Mr. Flynn deflated a little. "I was hoping they were of your mother," he explained. "A root allows a connection between your mind and hers, like a bridge. You're not in control of your gift right now, so it's tapping in and out of that root at will."
Ben cringed. He was rooted in his sister's mind?
"So wait." The ball of hope soured in his belly as he pieced this together. "If I'm rooted into Abi's mind, are my hallucinations real? Are they actually happening?"
"Yes. That's where the Oracle part comes in." Mr. Flynn wore a smirk, but Ben's face fell flat.
His eyes roamed the room, left, up, right, down, disbelief and wonder and fear going haywire in his brain. "So I'm having premonitions?"
"No. You can see things as they happen. Not before."
Goosebumps spread from the top of Ben's head down the backs of his arms and legs.
"Abi. When she went missing, I saw it. I thought, I thought—but it must have been her, through her eyes or something. She was running and they..." They got her. He didn't finish. He could have done something. He should have paid more attention to her surroundings, picked up on some clue. Anything.
"It's not your fault—"
"I saw her." His voice quaked and grated on its way out. "I saw her. She was..." Bile rose up in his throat and he swallowed hard. "I think they were torturing her. Was that real?"
Mr. Flynn had gone silent, and that was all Ben needed to understand. His sister hadn't just been kidnapped, she was being tortured by those people.
"We'll get her back. I promise." His face was hard and determined, the glint in his eyes gone.
"How?" That lone word came through as a choked whisper that made everything too real. This was his baby sister they were talking about. She was being tortured.
"I think together we can find Mary. We find her, we find Abi. Or..." He got up, rubbing his chin back and forth, lost in thought. "Maybe—if we can try to find Abi first, then maybe we can find your mom. But Abi's not an Oracle." Mr. Flynn shook his head.
"Why can't we do it that way? Why does she have to be an Oracle?"
"This type of communication requires at least one skilled Oracle. Since Abi isn't one at all, it would fall to you to fully establish a connection, which is next to impossible given your state. If we were communicating with your mom, though, at least the part of her mind used for communication is more thoroughly developed."
Mr. Flynn was losing him again but seemed to realize this as he continued. "I can help bridge the connection between your mind and another's, but only so far. If we're connecting with another Oracle, their mind can reach out to us while we're reaching out to theirs if, of course, they choose to. We call it a knock, an invitation that the other Oracle can answer or ignore."
"Okay, so if I knock on Abi's mind, she can't answer or ignore. If I knock on my mom's mind, she has that option."
"Correct."
"And how does that change if I'm already rooted into Abi's mind?"
His teacher shook his head. "You can root into anyone's mind, Oracle or no. A root allows you to see through another's eyes momentarily, but at your stage, it can't be used intentionally."
"How long would it take me to learn this?"
"That depends on too much for me to say. Your mind is undergoing a massive transition. It's like learning to fly while you're growing wings."
"So, we need to figure out a way to knock on my mom's mind?"
"Yes."
"And we knock, and then what happens?"
"She tells us where she is."
It seemed far too easy to be true. If Mr. Flynn was so sure about all of this, why hadn’t he tried to communicate with his mom already? Why wait for Ben--
"There's something else."
Ben almost laughed. How could there possibly be anything else to add to this mess?
"Your dad. He's not in a coma."
"What are you talking about? The scans—"
"Each time I've been to see him, I've been searching his mind, like I do with your mom's. It took some time, but I'm certain: someone has sealed his mind away from his body, building a wall between the two. It looks like a coma but it's not."
Ben was just beginning to stand on solid ground for the first time in over a week, only to have it crumble underneath him. How could all of this be explained by some hocus-pocus secret powers? But if it were true…
"So, Dad's not brain-dead?" He held his breath, afraid of the answer, knowing how foolish it was to hope.
"No. I don't think he is."
The air rushed out of his lungs and he hung his head down, relief washing over him. His dad wasn't gone.
“He’s an Oracle then, right? Like mom?” How else would he be involved in all of this?
Mr. Flynn shook his head. “I think they were trying to get
to your mom and…” He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was it as simple as that? If Ben hadn’t left his stupid cereal bowl out, his dad wouldn’t have had to calm his mom down that morning. He would have left for work, like he was supposed to.
"The seal can be broken. But I can't do it alone."
"Are there more like you?" Ben couldn't say like us. "Someone we can call?"
"There's more of us, but we have to act like we're on our own. There’s no guarantee they'll come to our aid. You have to understand, our race is hunted and killed for the abilities we have. Secrecy is our best defense. The Brethren protects us but only with sufficient evidence that a crime against us has been committed."
The Brethren. A flash of memory. He’d heard his mom say that name before when he was little. Hadn’t he?
"Who can fix this then?"
"You. You have a natural blood connection with your mom, one that we can use to help her."
Help his mom? "You really don't think she did it, do you?"
Mr. Flynn’s face hardened. "No. I know she didn't. She couldn't."
Bloody images forced their way into Ben's mind. Could he be right? Could someone else be responsible for everything? He pressed his hands over his eyes, blocking out the harsh overhead lighting.
"I believe if we find your mom, we can find Abi. And I believe your mom is the only one that can break the seal on your dad."
Ben was afraid to uncover his face, afraid that if he did, he would find himself sitting in his room, all of this some sick joke his mind had played on him. Could his dad be fixed?
When he finally looked up, Mr. Flynn was waiting for his response.
All the hallucinations he'd had were real. It was crazy to believe any of this, but it could change everything. Two weeks ago, he was conditioning for hockey and sneaking out to go to parties with Mike. Now he might be the only person that could save his entire family.
This could be the answer. Instead of hunting through a journal of scribbles, he could actually do something. Help his mom. Find his sister. Bring back his dad. Save his family.
