by Sophia Sharp
“It feels like a ghost town,” Rob said. “Arthur? Are we at the right place?”
“It matches the coordinates given,” John offered. “And it fits the description his father gave.”
“There’s nothing else around here for a hundred miles,” Arthur said. “We would have seen it from the air otherwise. This must be it.”
“But where are the people?” Madison asked. “It looks like they just got up and left!”
“Look!” I exclaimed, trying to lift my arm to point. It dangled uselessly across Arthur’s shoulder instead. “Over there. On the porch.” I turned my head instead. “Isn’t that a jacket?”
Liz and John walked there. While Liz went to look at the garment, John came and knocked on the door. “Hello?” he hollered. “Is anybody there?” There was no answer.
Liz examined the cloth for a moment, and then picked it up and held it open. Sure enough, the form of a coat fell open in her hands. She brought it to us. I saw that it was made of stout brown wool – nothing fancy, but nothing to throw away, either. Something bulged from one of the pockets. I pointed it out, and Liz reached in to take it out.
“A pipe,” she said curiously. “And it’s still warm. Feel.” She held it out for me, then, realizing I could not, colored in chagrin. Rob took it from her, though, and confirmed what she said.
“That means the owner of the jacket was here recently,” Madison observed.
“But the question is,” John offered, “where did they go? I peered inside the window to the house. All the furnishings are still there. This is not an abandoned community.”
“Then where is everyone?” Liz repeated.
“It’s like they went into hiding,” Eve said.
“Call it a hunch,” Arthur offered, “but I’d say it has something to do with that other plane. My father told us nobody knew about this place except him. I believe him. That wasn’t completely accurate though. Other people did know. The ones from his research group. Outside of that circle, I’m sure, it wasn’t shared. Otherwise, this place would have been exploited a hundred times over. It would have been much easier for the government to come to the source of the crystals than spend money on my father’s research. And yet the town is still just like he described it. Untouched by the outside world.”
“Except for that plane,” Madison noted.
“Yes. Except for the plane. I don’t know what it brought, but maybe the villagers are conferring at some sort of town meeting.”
“That makes—” sense, I was going to say, but I never had the chance to finish. A piercing shriek shot through the village. Our heads whipped toward the source. It came from somewhere in the heart of town. Silence filled the air afterward, a deafening silence. It taunted us with its serenity.
“What was that?” Eve demanded.
“Somebody’s in trouble,” Rob said. “We have to go!”
“Wait!” John stepped in front of Rob, who was already running with me on his shoulder whether or not Arthur followed. “We don’t know this place. We don’t know who’s here. We have to be careful.”
Suddenly, the shriek came again—more desperate this time. There was no doubting whoever made the sound was in trouble.
“We have to go now!” Rob urged.
John looked from Rob to the rest of us. The girls looked a little scared, but all wore a mask of sheer determination. “Right,” John nodded. “I agree. But keep together!” He stepped forward to take the lead. “Keep your eyes sharp, and your wits about you! We have to be ready for anything.”
John went quickly at first, but slowed when it became apparent I couldn’t keep up if I was hopping on one leg between Arthur and Rob. I was sure we didn’t want to rush headfirst into something we weren’t ready to face, either. We walked down the abandoned street, listening, watching, trying to find the source of the scream. But the sound did not come again. There was no sound again. Everything was silent. There was nothing to guide us anymore.
We made our way through the village, staying to the middle of the street, and keeping wide on corners to avoid anything unexpected. Every house we passed, however, was empty. Every alleyway was devoid of people.
We turned a corner and froze. There was a small girl in the middle of the street, about to turn the corner too. She looked like she had been running. Her cheeks were stained with tear trails, and her yellow braids were a tattered mess. Her face was dirty, as if she’d been rolling on the ground. She looked shocked to see us. With a wordless cry, she spun and ran the other way.
“Wait!” Liz cried out, but the girl kept going. Without a second’s hesitation Liz raced after her. Liz was fast, and overtook the girl easily. She grabbed her arm. The small girl struggled against Liz’s grip. “We’re friends,” Liz said quickly, trying to calm her down. “We’re friends. You don’t need to run. What’s wrong? Where is everybody?”
“…Friends?” the girl asked uncertainly. She looked on the verge of tears. As I limped closer, supported by Rob and Arthur, I saw that she couldn’t have been older than ten.
“Yes,” Liz said gently, releasing her arm. “See? We won’t hurt you. What is your name?”
“Kelly,” the girl answered shyly.
“Kelly,” Liz repeated. “I’m Elizabeth. These are my friends, too.” She swept her arm back to take us all in. “Don’t be scared. Can you tell us where everybody is?”
The girl looked behind her unsteadily, almost as if debating to make a run for it. But then she turned back and let everything out in a rush. “Two men came,” she said quickly. “In a… plane.” She struggled over the word as if it were new to her. “They demanded to meet the Village Council. The rest of us came to see what they wanted to. Everybody went to Town Hall. When the Village Council came… the men struck one of them down and said they’ll hurt her more unless everyone did what they said!”
Liz looked back at us, worriedly. “Two men?” she asked. “What did they want?”
“I don’t know. They… they made everybody crowd into a nearby farm.”
“How did you get away?”
“My mom made me slip through a gap in the wall. She told me to run. Before I left, I saw the men tie the village councilors together. They started asking them questions. I don’t know anything else. That was all I saw.”
“How can two men command an entire village?” Rob demanded. His tone was harsh, uncompromising. When he spoke, Kelly looked ready to burst into tears. Liz and I glared at him angrily. He didn’t seem to notice. Luckily, Kelly found her resolve once more, swallowed, and answered.
“One of them had a… gun,” she said. Again, she struggled over the word. “I’d never seen anything like it! He said he could use it to hurt people. When the councilors saw it, they said it was true. They told us to listen so we wouldn’t be hurt. Nobody hurts anybody here. Nobody!” This time, she did break down, and started sobbing in Liz’s arms. “Nobody!”
“There, there,” Liz comforted her. “Shh. Nobody’s going to hurt you with us around. We can help you.”
“You… can?” Kelly sniffled. She looked up at Liz, and her eyes shone in the light.
“Of course we can. And we will. But we need your help. Kelly, can you show us where your Town Hall is?”
The young girl nodded vigorously, and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “Yes. It’s this way!” She started to run. Eve quickly stepped forward to catch her arm.
“Not yet,” Eve said. She bent to one knee to speak directly to the girl. “Kelly,” she added gently, “you have to tell us: Is the Village Council very important to your village?”
“Oh, yes!” the girl exclaimed. “They know everything. They take care of everyone. When somebody has a problem, they go to them. They heal the sick. They resolve arguments. They help us farm and take care of the crops.”
“These council members,” Eve continued, shooting a suspecting glance at us, “do they go by any other name?”
“Some people call them the elders,” Kelly answered,
chewing her lip.
“Anything else?”
“Um…” she looked around, as if scared someone might overhear, and lowered her voice. “Sometimes… sometimes they call themselves the seekers.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. That was all the confirmation I needed. Two men asking for the seekers? There were only two possible suspects in my mind. It had to be Chris and his dad. But… how did they find this place?
“Kelly,” Rob asked, easing me onto Arthur to kneel beside her himself, “can you tell us how many council members there are?”
“Sixteen,” she said without missing a beat.
“Sixteen. And how many people live in this village?”
“There are… about ten families,” she said, although she sounded less sure this time.
Rob nodded, and looked back at us. “That’s at least twenty, thirty people. Kelly, you said everybody went to Town Hall?”
“Yes!” she insisted.
“Alright. Alright. That’s good to know.” Rob stood back up, and raked a hand through his hair. “How could two men capture an entire village?” he wondered again. “Why did nobody fight back?”
“They do not have the means to resist,” Arthur said. “They’re not used to visitors, or outside threats.”
“But the Village Council, wouldn’t they have the crys—” Rob glanced down at Kelly, and changed what he was going to say. “Don’t they have means to protect themselves?”
I frowned. Rob was right. The seekers were the ones Arthur’s dad learned about the crystals from. Surely, they could use the crystals to defend themselves!
“Maybe they did not want to risk it, not with so many people around,” Arthur said. “We saw firsthand how… unpredictable… things can get.” He looked at me when he said that. “No matter what the reason, we have to be careful.”
“Right,” John agreed. “We don’t want to run headfirst into a bear trap. And we have to be aware of the fact that the two men know we’re here. They must have heard the plane. Alright. Here’s what we’re going to do. Tracy, you stay here with Kelly—”
“I’m going,” I insisted.
“Somebody has to look after her,” John said. “Besides, you can’t run—not with your leg. And we can’t afford to be held back.”
“Look,” I said, “I may be hurt, but I’m the only one who can actually do something.” I touched the crystal hanging under my shirt to emphasize the point. “I have to go. I should be able to disarm the men from a distance. And then you guys can make your move.”
“If you do what you did to the man who had Liz,” Rob said, “I can take them down.”
“And I can help,” Arthur said. He looked at Rob, and suddenly they clasped hands. “Together.”
“I may be limping, but I won’t be held back, either,” John grinned.
“We’re all going,” Eve clarified in a way that left no room for argument. “Kelly’s old enough to take care of herself. She can hide if need be. Besides, we’re stronger when we’re together.”
“I’m coming too,” the small girl said with fierce determination. “My grandmother is there, and I won’t leave her alone!”
Eve smiled, and ruffled the girl’s hair. “Alright. We’ll all go. Kelly… lead the way.”
Chapter Twenty – Fire and Flame
We devised a plan on the way there. The girls would all burst in first, temporarily distracting the two men – who were obviously Chris and his father, although there was no point to presume anything before I saw them. I would embrace the crystal at that time, and channel energy from the surroundings into their weapons as I’d done before with Liz’s kidnapper. Rob, Arthur, and John would then charge the men, taking them down, while the girls freed the villagers. With the townsfolk free, the numbers would be on our side, and the threat would be nullified.
The only flaw in the plan was that I was still very weak. The numbness of my body hadn’t gone away, but the pain in my leg was becoming more noticeable. I prayed I had enough strength to use the crystal once more. I had to! But there was no way of knowing how successful I would be until it came time to do so. If I failed to access it… it would be disastrous for all of us.
Of course, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
Kelly brought us to a far corner of the village. There, a sprawling, flat building stood next to a ramshackle old barn. “That’s the Town Hall,” Kelly whispered, pointing at the flat building. “And that’s where they brought the villagers.” She pointed to the barn.
“I doubt the men would have left the villagers alone,” John said. “If their hostages are in the barn, that’s where they’ll be too. Kelly, can we get closer without being seen?”
Kelly thought for a second, and then nodded. “I’ll show you where I escaped.”
She led us back down one street, and then started to slink from building to building, creeping around to the backside of the barn. We kept low, trying to avoid attention as best we could, though I doubted even a blind man could miss us if we were the only ones on the street. Everybody was held inside the barn so neither of the two men would be patrolling the perimeter. And if they were, well, finding them apart would just make things easier for us. Nine against two. The odds were in our favor, even if they had a gun.
It didn’t take long to reach the rear of the barn. Vines covered this side of the exterior, and a portion of the roof had caved in long ago. I could see the top of a tree peeking out through a hole in the roof.
“Over here,” Kelly said, pointing to a rotting plank in the wall. Carefully, she eased it away from the rest of the wall, and let us look in.
Right away, I saw the scene I had built up in my mind. The barn was a flat, empty space. The sun shone through the gap in the roof, revealing a dirt floor. Cobwebs hung between the beams of the ceiling that still stood, but all that was secondary to what was right before my eyes.
In the middle of the floor was a group of women kneeling on the ground. I counted them quickly. Sixteen. Just like Kelly said. They were arranged in a circle, and their hands were all bound behind their backs. Some had bruises on their faces, black eyes, or swollen lips, or other discolorations. But, all held their backs straight and proud. Intelligence and steely resolve was plain on their faces despite their predicament.
My eyes went past them, and found the rest of the villagers. I doubted if a more striking contrast to the women kneeling on the ground could be found. All of the villagers—every—single—one – had their eyes glued to the ground. They were all quiet, and very still. They were clustered beyond a shoulder-high fence, much like cattle. Most of them were old enough to be grandfathers and grandmothers, while the others were Kelly’s age or younger. Strangely, there was nobody in the middle demographic. Nobody our age; nobody Arthur’s or John’s age. Not as far as I could see. Some of the older villagers held children in their arms, but nobody moved. It was uncanny.
I didn’t get the chance to find the two men keeping everyone hostage before Kelly gently eased the plank back. Without warning, the distinguishing blue light of the crystals flashed for half a second. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. I looked at the other girls in surprise. None of us had used our crystals.
“The seekers?” I mouthed silently. Liz and Ashley nodded, while Madison shrugged uneasily. Eve seemed to be concentrating on something else entirely.
“Did anybody see the men?” John asked before I had a chance to follow up.
“No,” Arthur whispered.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Alright.” John exhaled, and ran a hand through his hair. “There’s an entrance to the left. We’ll go through there. Kelly, you stay back for now. Everybody else… we’ll do this according to plan. Ready?” Everyone nodded. “Let’s go.”
Arthur and Rob pulled me up, and silently we surrounded the door. Madison, Ashley, Eve, and Liz took the front. The rest of us made a circle around them.
“Ready?” John
mouthed. “Three. Two. One!”
With a shriek the girls burst through the door. The villagers all whipped their heads to look at us. None of them made a sound. The women on the ground looked up. Not one of them so much as squeaked. Not in surprise, not in shock, not in relief. But their eyes tightened when they saw us. Almost as if… as if in warning. Warning? Warning!
Something was wrong. Where were the two men? The girls kept running, angling for the villagers. Once the men appeared, I would embrace the crystal, and—
A gun blast rocked the air behind us. Immediately, I reached for the crystal – and found nothing. The pull I usually felt from it, the embrace that allowed me to form the link was simply… gone. The crystal was not inaccessible as it had been in the caves. It was just… gone. Like it had never been there. Panic gripped me. I had failed!
Something struck me across the shoulders, and I flew from Rob’s and Arthur’s grasp. My muscles couldn’t respond in time to shield me from the fall. I hit the dirt face-first. A ringing noise sounded in my ears. Had I been hit in the back of my head? With the effect of the willow leaf, it was… difficult to tell.
I struggled to flip myself over. My arms were splayed on the ground. With great effort, I brought my left arm under me first, then the right. With a heave, I pushed myself from the ground. Specks of white danced in my vision. I couldn’t… focus. My hair stuck to my face. I could taste dirt in my mouth. With another gargantuan effort, I forced my torso to flip over. But I used too much strength, and did not coordinate it well. I fell pathetically to my side. I could see the dirt, and the far wall of the barn, but those white specks blocked everything else. Where did they come from? They made up a good chunk of my vision, now. Belatedly, I realized I couldn’t… hear anything. Nothing except for the ringing in my ears. What was happening around me? Surely, something must be happening! But I could not tell. I was facing the wrong way to see the villagers, the wrong way to see my friends. And I had used the last of my strength simply pushing myself over.
Suddenly, somebody held me by the shoulders. I tried to resist, to fight the grip, but I might as well have been in a straightjacket. I was being dragged back, my legs leaving tracks in the dirt. The angle changed, and abruptly everyone came into view. Rob, the girls, John, Arthur, all of them, were standing together in a tight line. Just… standing. Why weren’t they doing anything? Then I noticed the man. He stood off to one side, in dark aviator sunglasses, holding a gun. It pointed at… me. That was why the others were still.
