This guy couldn’t see the other Ellie! Then, suddenly, I realized—neither could I. The other Ellie, the second Ellie—gone. Disappeared, like Gemini.
If Ellie Part Deux was gone, these people had to be human. It was too risky for her to stay around humans who hadn’t touched the book; we’d easily discover which was Fake Ellie and which was Real Ellie based on who was overlooked. I practically tackled my Ellie, I hugged her so hard. As I did, she whispered into my hair.
“Jalen. They know something about a personality shift.”
They do? Yes—they do! The agent. He’d said, “Ever since the personality shift.”
Hope glowed inside me. Others—other humans, apparently—knew about the shift.
How much did they know? Did they know I’d caused it? Would I be in a world of trouble? Based on the looks of these men and the fact that they’d launched arrows at my back, my best guess was that they knew quite a lot.
But they said they were agents. FBI? They might be able to help us. Maybe they could even take us to Nina!
Agent Cygnus had been rambling on about protocol when approaching a suspect and that Agent Griffin was obviously not following said protocol and, hey, what do you expect from a rookie and well-gosh-sorry. He crossed to the car and opened the back door. “Come with us, Jalen. You look like you could use a hot shower and a warm meal.”
My stomach rumbled, placing its vote.
Ellie grabbed my hand and shook her head. The events of the night had left her distrustful. And I had to agree—the slice in my ear hadn’t just appeared there.
Ziiiiip! I flinched. As if my thoughts had made it happen, an arrow zippered by me and planted itself in the ground just in front of Agent Cygnus, the staff waggling. Ziiiiip! Another, just in front of Agent Griffin. The sound of those arrows slicing the air so cleanly made me shiver, but neither agent recoiled. The warm smile never left Agent Cygnus’s face.
They obviously couldn’t see the arrows. Who had fired them before?
Sagittarius. The archer. And my former sign.
I took a step forward, fearing that another arrow might slice open our skin at any moment. We had to get out of here. Into the car—that’d be safe. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s—”
But the bulldozer engine roared to life, drowning out the rest of my sentence. I turned to see Dillon steering the dozer straight for the agents’ car.
Agent Griffin ran at the thing, leaving a wave of curse words in his wake. The bulldozer plowed straight toward him.
That was enough for Ellie; she took off running along the dark riverbank. Brennan and I exchanged a glance before we followed.
As the night swallowed us, we heard the bulldozer crush the car.
After running for eight or nine blocks, we paused at an intersection. There was light here, but we chose to catch our breath in the shadows. I felt bad—we’d left Dillon behind. Had they caught him? Or had he escaped? Would he catch up to us? Nah, surely not. Surely, he’d bail. I know I would. We’d have to keep going without him. Our time was ticking away.
I finally sucked enough air into my lungs to look up from the tips of my tennis shoes—
—and there were two Ellies.
“No!” I yelled. “No, no, no!” Why hadn’t I held on to Ellie’s hand? Watched with eagle eyes for the other Ellie to reappear? I spun and kicked the brick wall behind me. Stupid. Now my toes hurt, too. One of the Ellies looked positively sick at seeing her twin, her skin paling under the crusty blood on her cheek, compliments of Cancer. The other just bit her lip while silent tears mixed with her cut. One of these two was an excellent actress. Which one?
Gemini, our guide, was there now. She handed each Ellie a scrap of cloth, telling each to hold it to the cut on her face.
“How did they find us?” an Ellie asked, dabbing her cheek.
Brennan plucked the cell phone out of one of the Ellie’s back jeans pocket and held it up. The screen showed seven new texts from Ellie’s mom.
“You don’t even have to make a call, you know,” Brennan said. “It just has to be on.” He tossed it onto the sidewalk and raised his foot, ready to crush it.
“Wait!” I yelled. “I want to try my mom again first.”
I called. It rang and rang and rang and went to voice mail. Finally on my fourth try, my mom’s wailing ripped through the phone.
“Jalen?” she said through sobs.
The fist around my heart clenched harder. “Mom, where are you? I’ve been trying to—”
“Jalen, honey, I’m sorry, but I can’t stay. I can’t. Where’s your father? Where is he?”
“Dad? What are you talking about? Mom, you have to stay! Please stay with Nina! Where are you?”
My mom retched from all the crying. “N-Nina?” she said at last.
“Aren’t you with her? Mom!”
“Jalen,” my mom choked out. “I have to find him.”
The line went dead.
I knew it. I knew Mom always believed Dad’s disappearance meant that he walked out on us, left when I got so very sick. She had never believed he was dead. And now she was planning on trying to find him?
Did her personality shift make her want to search for him, instead of shutting him out?
And then, for the first time since I was nine years old, I wondered, Is he still alive? Could he have just…left?
“No!” I yelled. I smashed the phone down on the sidewalk, but instead of shattering into satisfying pieces, it bounced and skidded against one of the Ellie’s sneakers.
She stooped and picked it up. “That won’t help us at all.”
She pulled a matching cell phone out of her pocket. Of course—two cells. Twice as dangerous. She pointed to a taxi sitting at the red light in the intersection.
“You walk in the crosswalk, in front of the taxi,” she told us. Brennan looked at me and shrugged.
I took a shaky breath but nodded. We crossed—Brennan, Gemini, the other Ellie, and me. As we did, the Ellie with the phones cut behind the taxi and discreetly tucked both cell phones in the gap between the back window and the trunk.
The light turned green. The taxi took off with both phones, heading in the direction opposite ours.
“What are you doing?” the other Ellie shrieked.
I watched as contact with my mom rolled away. My stomach knotted.
I spit through gritted teeth, “I don’t think my friend would do that.”
“I was just trying to help,” Ellie said, her voice wavering. Then her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I’m a Keeper, Jalen? Do you really want to make that kind of accusation?”
The shadows in her statement tamped down my anger a notch. Was I certain? Our cell phones rolling far away from us was a good idea. Could it be Real Ellie, trying to help?
I sighed. “We needed those phones.”
“Yes! We did!” the other Ellie shrieked.
“For what?” Ellie asked. “So those agents could hunt us down?”
“We might’ve been able to trust them, you know,” I said.
Ellie placed her hands on her hips. “No, I don’t know. Those guys could be lions or scorpions or some other kind of awful creatures. I only know I can trust the two of you.” She glared at Gemini, at the other Ellie, and whipped around. She headed what I guessed was west, toward Algiers.
I glanced at Gemini. If she knew which Ellie was real and which was fake, she was offering no hints. Which one was it, walking away?
If it was my friend, if it truly was…well, then, my heart ached for her. Scared, distrustful Ellie. I remember how lonely distrust feels. I should—it was only hours before that I was steeped in it.
We followed the stomping Ellie for a block or two before Brennan said with a wrinkled forehead, “Hey, is this the right way? Without those phones, we don’t know where we’re headed.” I wished Dillon was still with us. He’d know what to do.
The Ellie closest to us stopped. She pointed at a tiny convenience store ahead, the only business open on this side of
the river at this time of night. “Ever hear of a map, guys?”
I gritted my teeth.
The neon signs in the window threw red and blue and yellow light onto the sidewalk. I swung open the door. A buzzer screeched with our entrance. The teen behind the counter didn’t even look up. I doubted he heard us over the punk music blasting through his earbuds.
Maps of New Orleans were up front, stuffed into a teetering circular metal rack with postcards and snow globes of the city—like it ever snowed in New Orleans. Brennan looked at a few maps and picked one.
At the counter, one of the Ellies leaned over the clear glass and pointed at a lottery ticket.
“Hey!” she shouted to the guy. His eyes opened just a slit.
“We want one of those!” She jabbed her finger at the case. “And this.” She took the map from Brennan and placed it on the counter.
My heart sped up. She was buying a lottery ticket? We weren’t eighteen. I’d never done something like that before. Surely, we’d never get away with it. But it reminded me about the hospital rules and the mom rules and all the rules. Forget the rules—forget them! Maybe this was the Ellie who had insisted we take The Keypers of the Zodiack out of Madame Beausoleil’s shop.
The teen behind the counter whipped his dyed-black bangs out of his eyes, pushed up the sleeves on his red plaid shirt, and ripped off a ticket. He tossed it on the counter, closed his eyes, and resumed bobbing his head to the music. Ellie slid the money to him, but he didn’t even pick it up.
“Here.” She held the ticket out to me. Was she smirking or smiling? “Let’s test our luck.”
The lottery ticket said, “Your Lucky Stars: 12 Chances to Win!” Twelve scratch-off patches were arranged in a circle on a zodiac calendar, Aries through Pisces.
“Ellie!” Brennan whispered. “You bought a lotto ticket?”
But I was already scratching off the gray gunk with my thumbnail. I started at the top with Aries and worked my way through each sign, just knowing I’d see a “You Win!” under one of the patches.
Under each patch was a “No.” And not just a “No,” but a rejection unique to that sign, from Aries, “Yeah, right.” To Libra, “Try again!” To Leo, “Nope.” To Pisces, “Better Luck Next Time!”
“I lost.” My hands grew clammy. This twelve-sign zodiac calendar taunted me, teased me, predicted me the loser.
Somehow, I still had a hard time believing that horoscopes could define me, could predict my actions and reactions. That these Keepers could pull a string and I would bow like a puppet. Don’t I have some sort of say in the matter?
I tore the lottery ticket into tiny, fierce pieces and threw them on the floor. I stormed out, clutching the map.
Outside, I breathed in cool air, trying to control some of this orange anger. It was harder to do than I ever imagined. I shook, I was so angry. Brennan laid a gentle hand on my elbow, but I shrugged it off. And great—guilt now, too.
The door buzzer screamed into the cool night air. The convenience store clerk came out and plucked an earbud from one of his ears. “Hey!” he shouted.
Rats. He knew we weren’t eighteen. Or he was ticked that I threw that torn-up ticket all over the floor. So this is what it felt like to forget the rules.
“Hey, sorry—” I started. But he collapsed, melting into the shadows beneath the neon-splattered sidewalk. In the blue-green light, I watched the wires of his headphones stretch and thicken and curl, turning into yellowish horns. His plaid shirt grew shaggy, morphing into coarse spotted fur. Before I could even turn to run, a small goat galloped from the rotten mist and head-butted me in the gut.
Oof! I dropped the map. The goat slurped it up with a disgustingly long pink tongue. He chewed once, gulped, then turned and trotted into invisibility. It obviously wasn’t time for my Challenge with this Keeper yet.
“See you later, Capricorn,” I uttered, clutching my stomach.
“Let’s just get another—” Brennan turned toward the store but stopped.
The convenience store was gone. A shadowy, boarded-up building with bars on the windows stood there instead.
One of the Ellies marched away, and we followed. Like a whisper, Gemini was beside me. When I saw her, I honestly couldn’t remember if she’d been walking with us the whole time or not.
“Why don’t you stay with us?” I asked.
She pulled her manicured fingernails through her hair. “It’s better if the others don’t know I’m helping you. They…wouldn’t be pleased.” She paused. “Do you want me here?”
The question surprised me, but the sharpness of my answer surprised me even more: “All I want is to get to my Nina.”
Gemini nodded. “You’ve lost someone before.”
Warmth flashed through me. Had I lost him? Or had he left? Lost or left?
My dad’s fishing boat had been found empty off the Cameron Jetty. The boat itself was fine, like it had just run ashore. But my dad, an excellent fisherman and boater, had vanished. They dredged the bottom of the sea with a huge ugly claw for a week. Nothing rose but sand and mud. Nothing.
Right after he disappeared, I played the lost or left game for months. Nina finally convinced me, without a doubt, that we’d lost him. Now, though, I wasn’t so sure.
Whoever said that loss gets easier with time was a liar.
Here’s what really happens: The spaces between the times you miss them grow longer. Then, when you do remember to miss them again, it’s still with a stabbing pain to the heart. And you have guilt. Guilt because it’s been too long since you missed them last.
Gemini put her hand on my shoulder. Surprisingly, I didn’t shirk from it.
“Those wounds take a long time to heal.”
I cracked my knuckles. Yes, they did, and I didn’t want to reopen them now.
For blocks and blocks, we followed Ellie in silence. Was everyone else wondering which sign we’d meet up with next? Wondering how we’d defeat them? Wondering if we’d ever get back to “normal”? Wondering how we got here?
Here. I blinked at the bulldozer crane under the orangey yellow light in the distance. Were we—?
“No,” Brennan breathed. Then he sprinted forward and pushed what might be his sister from behind. “We’re back at the bulldozer! You led us the wrong way!”
I grabbed the Ellie who had been leading us by the wrist. My eyes darted between her and the other Ellie, who stood away from our group, blinking through tears.
“You led us backwards,” I whispered. “Ellie—my friend Ellie—wouldn’t sabotage me like this.”
The Ellie whose wrist I held started to tremble. “Jalen,” she whispered. “Let’s just go home, okay? Home? I’m scared, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
I looked over at the other Ellie. “She’s lying, Jalen. Don’t listen to her. I want to help you.”
“I’m not lying,” this Ellie squeaked. She shook so hard her messenger bag slipped off her shoulder. “I’m not.”
I closed my eyes and my head fell back. When I opened my eyes again, I was looking into the dark night sky. A few more stars were visible now. My victories, twinkling down from above.
I wasn’t certain, still. I sighed to prevent exploding and released Ellie’s wrist. “Okay, where are we? How do we get to Algiers?”
The street signs told me nothing. I looked to Brennan. “Algiers?”
Brennan’s head snapped from landmark to landmark, like he was trying desperately to find something, anything that would tell him which direction we should go. The river. Before, he’d always used the river as his compass.
Now, he bit his lip and looked at me with wild eyes. “I don’t know.”
It was the first time I’d seen a true weakness in After Brennan. I didn’t like it.
We were still standing there, trying to figure out east from west when a familiar voice whispered from the shadows, “You came back!”
Dillon! I smiled at the thought of him. But I frowned at the sight of him. He stumbled into the l
ight with a limp.
Oh, no! Why didn’t I insist we come back for him? Why? Because of some stupid deadline, that’s why.
The Ellies glommed onto to him, cooing and petting him. “Dillon, are you okay?” “Where does it hurt, Dillon? Where?”
But Dillon just chuckled. “Hey, I’m alright. Just a sprained ankle. Got it trying to make some heroic leap out of that dozer. But what are y’all doing here? You got a deadline to meet!”
I shook my head. “Forget that,” I said. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
Gemini took a look at his puffy ankle. She tore a strip of fabric off the hem of her toga with her teeth and wrapped it.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said with a wince. “Didn’t even use up one of my nine lives.” He tossed back his head and laughed so boisterously, we couldn’t help but join in. “Well, what are we waiting for?” said a newly bandaged Dillon. He snatched up his tuba with a grin and started limping away. “Follow me.”
We walked for hours and miles, hours and miles, the dried crab on our skin crusty and itchy, the dried crab on our clothes stinky and crunchy. Every noise in the night made us jump. Around every corner, something lurked, waiting in attack mode. We were sure of it. It made a long walk longer.
And my feet were dragging. Not because I was tired, not really. I was—for the first time since we started this journey—unsure. Dillon had been hurt. And that stupid lottery ticket deeming me a loser. What had I done, unlocking that lock? And worse, it didn’t appear that I could do anything to undo it. Except keep going.
When we arrived at the ferry at Algiers Point, the sun was peeking over the horizon, a tangerine sun warming the sky in shades of pink and purple and gray. The bells of Saint Louis Cathedral across the river chimed six o’clock.
Six o’clock. We’d only traveled about two and a half miles since last night. We still had another six or seven to go before 8:30 tonight. And still ten Keepers to defeat.
The ferry ran every fifteen minutes, and one was not docked at the station yet. Brennan and I sat on a concrete bench in the ferry station and looked out over the expanse of the muddy Mississippi River. Gemini insisted on looking at Dillon’s ankle, at both Ellies’ cuts. I studied her again. Did she know which Ellie was my Ellie? If so, she was doing an excellent job of hiding it.
The 13th Sign Page 7
