The Powerless Series: Complete 5-Book Set

by Jason Letts

  Rattled, Neeko cleared his throat and watched the figment dissolve into empty air. Its creator, Clara seemed completely uninvolved in the conversation, staring at the firelight without the slightest sign of comprehension. The web and the stars had come out above, shedding a faint glow that glimmered against the tops of the trees.

  “So what do we do now?” Gloria asked, standing behind Clara. She crossed her arms and looked into the dark woods.

  “Now we wait for Mira to come. And we don’t let her outsmart us,” Jeremy said.

  Neeko groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

  “It’s going to take her a week to get here, at least. And now we’ve got to babysit them this whole time.”

  “I’m bored,” Gloria complained, listing to the side.

  While they argued back and forth, Kevin reached for more of the fish and dropped it in his mouth. He sat down beside his family, passing it over to Jeana. She wasted no time consuming half. Then, when Neeko had turned around to tell them it would still be better than lurking off to the side the whole time, Jeana passed the remaining portion to Clara. She nibbled on it, little bits falling onto her lap and getting into her hair.

  “At least we can eat now. I’m starving!” Jeremy said.

  “Wait, where’d the fish go?” Gloria shuddered when she found the stone plate empty.

  “Your honorable leader choked the last of it down as soon as he got here,” Jeana explained.

  “What? No, I didn’t! There was plenty left. This is ridiculous,” Neeko stammered.

  “Neeko, how could you?” Gloria whined.

  Only some fish carcasses remained, but there wasn’t a bite of meat left. Neeko reached back to slap a mosquito that bit him on the back of the neck. He slumped down, looking gloomily at his fellow captors. They would have to keep watch now too, which meant only getting two-thirds as much sleep. Lost of all enthusiasm, he turned to Clara.

  “Go and tell Mira to hurry up and get here. I don’t know how much patience I’m going to have for this,” he said.

  Clara’s eyelids fluttered as though she were just waking up. She slowly turned toward him, her knotted bangs hanging around her face. Her speech was so different from Mira’s, raspy and uncouth but with a similar note of promise.

  “Oh, I’m gonna tell her. Don’t you worry ’bout that.”

  It wasn’t until sometime the next day that Mira and her friends saw Clara again. The forest had started to thin, and now there were bushes and thin trees erupting in mounds from the tall grasses. Every once in a while, the plains to the west of where Darmen was became visible, but the mountains to the north still hid under the horizon.

  Every step the group took brought the sound of swishing against the grass or the snapping of branches. The ground was dry, at least, and big fluffy clouds offered some relief. When the landscape cleared a little more, allowing unhindered sight for miles, it startled them to see someone appear a ways out in front of their path, waiting for them. It was Clara, wearing the brown garb of slaves, but her coming brought none of the playfulness and surprise they had come to expect from someone who could take shape anywhere at will.

  “I gots some bad news. You ain’t gonna like it,” Clara said, somber and distressed.

  “What? What is it?” Mira asked. Her eyes grew concerned and everyone came to an abrupt stop. The wind breathing against the grains and grasses already felt colder.

  “We been ambushed. It was a redhead with green hands, a boy of the flies, and another boy who makes himself clear. That one’s power kinda like mine when you think ’bout it, only the opposite. We gotta do what they says,” she explained.

  As Mira’s eyes scrunched up upon learning her family had been taken hostage, a wave of spiteful chatter passed through the group. There could be no mistake who the culprits were.

  “Are you serious? What do they want?” Mira asked, beside herself. She shook her head and put her hand to her face, groaning with the kind of aggrieved rattle that can only come from the very center. But Will stepped forward before Clara could answer.

  “They want to settle the score. Their ambition hooked them on a sinking ship, and now that it’s gone down they’ve got nothing left to do but be bitter and resentful. The way we left them at the mountain camp, they won’t be happy until we’re all in the ground. They must’ve followed your parents once they left…” Will reasoned.

  “And now they’re using them to get to you,” Vern picked up, tightening his lips and scowling. “So much for being in control. It was nice while it lasted. What are we going to do about it?”

  Mira kicked at the ground and cast her eyes out at the plain and the clouds. They were still so far away from where they could do anything to help, and they’d have nothing to do but let it grind away at their spirits until they got there.

  “What do you think we should do?” Mira asked, looking around at her friends.

  “But you’re our leader. It’s up to you to decide,” Aoi said.

  And that’s when Mira came to a decision.

  “I think it’s time to forget about who is leader. We’ve all been through so much together that we must be beyond it. Nobody is here against their will—except Knoll maybe, but I don’t think he’ll mind, and nobody needs to be given any orders. We are all equal, and we’ve decided to see this through to the end. Now how can we resolve this so everyone is safe and sound and we can continue on to our destination?”

  Plenty of blinking eyes and blank faces met her patient gaze. Mira didn’t think it was so much the task of formulating a new plan that taxed them, rather it must have been the shock of abdicating her authority. When every group has always had a leader, going without one must have felt so strange.

  “You mean how can we rescue them without fighting?” Chucky asked, holding Knoll.

  “Do they know about the carafe?” Mira asked Clara.

  “I don’t think so,” Clara said.

  “Then they don’t even know what this whole thing is about,” Mira said, turning to the group. “I don’t think we need to fight them. We just need to make them realize that the carafe is the key to giving everyone the chance to contribute to a better society. No matter what they’ve done or who they think they belong to, I know they’d rather build on their own well-being than tear down someone else’s.”

  After she finished speaking and the soft whistling of the wind became the only audible sound, Will reluctantly raised his hand.

  “I’ve got an idea then,” he said. “It might make them more receptive to give up if we put them in a better state of mind. The best way to change their mood is with one of Roselyn’s drawings. All we have to do is get them to look at one, and then it’ll be a piece of cake to get them to help us.”

  The plan sounded pretty good, and murmurings of agreement quickly circled around the group. Roselyn was distracted from making eyes at Will when Mary spoke up.

  “I guess things just wouldn’t be right if Roselyn didn’t find her way into the middle of the plan.”

  “OK, I think that sounds like a good method, but we’re going to need someone to coax them away from my family,” Mira said. “And since they’re after me, I volunteer myself as bait. I’ll lure them straight to Roselyn’s drawing and let its magic pacify them.”

  “Are you sure that’ll work? What if they catch you first?” Chucky asked.

  Mira had her hand on her chin, straining to think. There couldn’t be any more mistakes or someone would get hurt.

  “Trust me. It’ll be OK. From a distance, the only thing I’ll have to worry about is Jeremy’s swarm of flies, but I think I have a solution for that too. We’ll have everyone else hiding as close as possible but out of sight in case something happens. They’ll chase me and we’ll ensnare them.”

  After clearing up the rest of how the operation would go, Vern started chuckling.

  “You know, it’s a shame we aren’t leaving time for even a little beating. They so deserve it. I can’t think of three more arrogant, s
elf-centered people,” he said.

  “Be careful,” Aoi warned, leaning up against his side with a smile as his arm hung around her. “People used to say that about you.”

  Mary sighed and Will watched her. Mira turned her attention back to Clara, who still looked a little lost.

  “OK, you said there were high mountains in the area. Lead them to the west, and that’s where we’ll intersect with you,” she said.

  “You betcha,” Clara confirmed.

  “Don’t worry,” Mira continued. “We’ll have this straightened out in no time. Let me know immediately if they do anything to you, tell our parents I love them, and know I love you too. Be safe, we’re coming and then we’ll all finally be together again.”

  Clara opened her mouth to say something but then settled for a nod. Soon the breeze had swept the color from her, and she diminished into nothing more than faint streaks in the air. Now a long stretch of the plains occupied her place, leading out to the hazy mountains imbedded in the distant sky.

  Though the others took their first steps forward, Mira slouched, hanging her head. Roselyn put her hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and Chucky turned back to see what was the matter.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen them, you’d think the pain of missing them would fade away by now. But it never has.”

  Mira sighed and started forward to catch up with the others. This new complication seemed to grieve her more than all the rest. She knew she had to remain confident though or else her worries would become contagious, and that in itself would be enough to make the things she feared come true.

  The group had already started marching by the time the sun rose over the mountains, which crept closer and closer. Almost immediately, Mary fell behind. She felt bleary with fatigue, her legs dragged, and she was preoccupied with something Mira had said.

  Her vision drooped to the grass she would trample with her next step. The strap of the pack she carried over her shoulder ground into her skin. What exactly had she decided she would see through to the end? It wasn’t the carafe, or the mystery of what its full power contained. It hurt her whenever they let Knoll touch it to check their direction, not least of all because she could tell even the baby was judging her by her secrets.

  The group’s other motivations left her similarly flat. Yes, she wanted to see Mira reunited with her family, but it didn’t seem to matter much whether or not she was there to help. Mira and Vern would take charge and the others would happily agree to whatever they decided. Whenever they split up to search the area for food, Mary would turn around and suddenly find herself alone when everyone else had paired off to revel in their own private love affairs. Even getting stuck with baby duty was no relief. Knoll would never calm down for her, though he seemed so pleasant for everyone else.

  But she couldn’t leave. She did have to see something through to the end. Her body was such a small space in the scope of the universe, and for this one thing to fill it completely, how could she possibly resist? The rest of the group wound through some earthy mounds, oblivious to her absence. She started to feel like the pin that would prick their balloon. Or if the entire group, a mold of inspiring intentions, were a rose, she had to be its thorn.

  Coming around one of the mounds, having lost sight of her friends, Will popped out in front of her. Startled, she caught his eyes and stopped. They stood for a moment in silence, until she plowed on around him, keeping her head down. He came alongside her, shuffling faster as she sped up. But she had fallen too far behind to catch the others without a prolonged effort. There was only one thing he could want, and it was terrible.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said after casting another glance at him in a moment of weakness.

  “Mary, please!” he called, having to pick up the pace and catch her by the shoulder when she started to run. “You know I know.”

  Turning in anger, she brushed away his hand and struggled to contain her voice.

  “Of course I know you know, and you shouldn’t. It’s not natural. Can’t a girl find privacy inside her very own mind?”

  “It would destroy us, Mary. Cleave us in half like a great schism. You can’t…” he trailed off. His concern brought a slow, deliberate feeling to his words, and each syllable seemed to stab her in the ear. He stared directly into her eyes, looking through them like he had while holding the carafe. Why had no one else buried secrets like her? They were human too and had their shares of youthful foolishness and rash emotions. No, he had been drawn to her thoughts because they threatened him directly.

  “Don’t you think I know that? Do you have any idea how hard it is to do what’s right when everything inside is begging you to do what’s wrong?”

  Even just talking about it made her heart rend. She couldn’t let him see her cry, then he would know his cause was hopeless and he would hound her endlessly. He would know that this secret could not stay a secret for long, and it was only a matter of when she unleashed it and how well it succeeded.

  “You’ve got to put him out of your mind,” Will pleaded, looking frazzled and distraught.

  “But he’s in my heart. I can’t tell you what it’s like. We may be searching for the greatest gift, but I have the worst. To have the feeling of him in my chest every second—it’s inescapable—gnawing at my heart, you can’t even imagine it,” Mary sniffled, fighting back the tears.

  She failed and the first tear spilled from her eye, but she turned to continue walking, wiping it away and hoping he didn’t notice.

  “But they are happy together. You can’t seriously be thinking of getting in the way of that. What would Aoi do? The fury we saw from her in the academy would only be the beginning. She would rip the world apart,” he said.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Mary said, trying to regain her composure. Instead of impaled, she now felt merely hewn in half. “At the battle of Darmen, right after their first kiss, we were fighting Gloria and her parents. I had a chance to save her, but I did nothing even though it probably would’ve killed her. Then Jeana put me to sleep and I didn’t see her again until we met outside of the seaside slave camp. I don’t know if she knows, but I keep expecting her to corner me just like you did. I’d expect her to kill me, and she would be completely right to do it.”

  As soon as she’d gotten herself together, it all came apart again. And in a second she found her head buried in Will’s chest, sobbing. It was hard to think straight or tell what was going on. His arms were around her. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? Maybe she could and it would go away.

  “Relax, Mary, relax,” Will cooed. “Nobody wants to kill you…‌well, other than Gloria, and Neeko and Jeremy, and definitely Arent and maybe even Goober. But none of us. You don’t have to worry about us.”

  “That’s comforting,” Mary said, pulling away and wiping her eyes. Will grabbed the bag she dropped and put a hand on her back and soon they resumed walking.

  “We’ve been through a lot together, you and I. I don’t think I could’ve made it through the time we spent in camp without you. You can always count on me,” he said.

  “Thanks. Yeah, we have. So does that mean I can horn in on your relationship then?” she asked, and Will, nonplussed, opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t formulate any words.

  “Too soon? OK, sorry about that. But you will be on my side when this whole thing blows up, right?” she asked with puppy dog eyes.

  “OK, I think that’s enough jokes. How about we catch up to the rest of the group? I don’t like being back here with nobody else around. And promise me you won’t keep lagging behind. It’s all well and good you can tell who’s coming, but without you none of the rest of us can.”

  “OK, I promise,” she said, and together they traversed over and around the mounds until the rest of the group was within sight.

  The same little ping went off inside of her chest as soon as she saw Vern, and it ached when she noticed Aoi right by his side. She wondered who had the gift to allo
w everybody to get everything they wanted, and why the person who did never got around to using it. There certainly couldn’t be any good reason behind denying her the single intention of her being, and so that would mean it was the will of the web that she attain it.

  No matter how wrong it felt, she couldn’t let go of the hope that something would happen to make it right.

  Mary wasn’t the only one preoccupied with some of Mira’s words. The group had taken to the mountains, which were connected in a chain to those above where Darmen was to the east. But hiking for hours only brought them high enough to see the bare rock behemoths waiting beyond. Between the frosty wind and the clouds, it felt like flurries of snow would waft down around them at any moment. Even though the air remained clear, they began to understand that at long last winter would finally come.

  “How about we take a break here?” Vern suggested, dropping his bag in an instant and leaning against a sizable boulder. The spot offered some cover from both the wind and the ominous views that only served to remind them of hardships yet to come.

  “We can go a little farther,” Mira countered. “You’re not out of breath, are you?”

  She had rosy cheeks and a smile, but it wasn’t hard to see through the levity in her voice. After she took another step up the mountainside, Vern called after her. He hadn’t budged an inch.

  “We’ve been going all day. Let’s take a chance to snack and get our legs back. We won’t be able to go too far before the sun sets anyway,” he said.

  Distressed, Mira dropped her bag and let it crash against the ground. She put her hand to her head and looked away from everyone.

  “Fine. Let’s take a break. Forgive me for trying to get to my family as quickly as possible. I’m sure they’re having a party or playing hopscotch together.”

  Mystified at how defensive she’d become, Vern threw up his hands.

  “I don’t think an hour or so here and there is going to make a big difference. It won’t do us any good if we break our backs trying to get there,” he reasoned.

  “No, you’re right,” Mira turned to him, crossing her arms. “Let’s just take our time and see what happens. I’m sure it’ll work out for the best.”