PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Um, a rerun?” Casper answered.

  “Correct!” The Girl said. “This is one of those.”

  My phone rang again just as the words left her mouth. I picked it up and looked back at her, not sure whether I found her habit of telling me things about thirty seconds before they happened cool or aggravating. I flipped the phone opened and answered. There was no need to check the caller I.D.. Only one person had this number.

  “Hello,” my voice was met with a series of loud tones. It was like somebody was pressing down on the buttons, just like what I heard from Owen’s phone when it said Merrin was calling. The tones rang against my eardrums, and I pulled away from it.

  “Mind the ring,” the Girl in the Tower said to me; her pale eyes reading me in the rearview mirror.

  Reluctantly, I leaned back into the phone. The tones rang out like piercing music but, as I listened, something strange happened. Just like when my mind started opening up after my faux asthma medication had left my system, the tones seemed to be blasting through more mental walls, or at least downloading new information into my brain. When it stopped; the melody melting into a standard busy signal, I understood what Allister Leeman was talking about.

  “Stop the car!” I yelled.

  “Is everything-“ I jerked the wheel; which probably wasn’t Owen’s favorite thing. He cursed under his breath and pulled the car to a stop alongside the road. The highway was dark and empty as I ran out into it. We were somewhere in South Georgia or maybe Alabama. Either way, the night sky was as clear as I had ever seen it, which was exactly what we needed.

  Like the letters in all the messages the Girl in the Tower sent me, the stars started to glow. They popped out in the sky, bursting with sparkling blue and red energy. It was like they were diamonds hanging in the sky.

  “Cresta, what is it?” Owen was beside me, following my eyes into the sky. He couldn’t see it.

  “It’s a map,” I said doubtlessly. I knew it instinctively, as though I had always known it, as though I could always see it. The stars were guiding me. They were showing me where my Mom was. “We have to go North. She’s North.”

  “Cresta, are you-“ But he didn’t finish. Looking in my eyes, Owen set his jaw. “Then we go North.”

  The stars called to me as we drove, like a map spread out in my head. First one would ping and, when we started going toward it, another would light up. They were breadcrumbs, and we were following them, like Jake and Jill.

  ***

  Owen drove until the sun was almost up, following my directions as we pinballed across interstates and back highways.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked. “When the sun comes up, I mean?” Everyone else was asleep, but Owen had been behind the wheel since we left, and me- I was too worried, or wired, or something in between to even think about sleeping. That left me plenty of time to worry though. “If I can’t see the stars-“

  “I know,” Owen answered. His eyes looked tired and raw; circled with dark bags.

  “How will I know where-“

  “I know,” he repeated. “I mean-I don’t know. We’ll figure it out okay. I promise.”

  “Do you think they’re after us?” I asked; another thing that had been weighing on my mind.

  “Yes,” he answered; eyes on the road.

  “And do you think they’ll find us?”

  “Cresta, we don’t even know where we’re going. I doubt they do.” He smiled, but there was a wave in his voice, like he wasn’t as sure about it as he wanted to be.

  “Owen,” I said, looking back to make sure that the rest of them were unconscious. “Do you think they’re right?”

  “Who?” He asked innocently.

  My hand went to my fathom necklace again, and rested back on my lap when it came up empty. “Allister Leeman. Dahlia and the others. Do you think there’s a-“

  “No.” He wouldn’t even let me finish.

  “But if there’s a chance-“

  “There isn’t,” he said, as sure as if I had just asked him if there was chance it would start raining syrup.

  “But if there is- I don’t want to be the reason the world ends. I mean, if that’s-“

  He jerked the wheel, sending the car skidding off of old route 52 and into the gravel parking lot of a fleabag motel simply called ‘SLEEP’.

  “Get out of the car,” he said, pulling the gear into park.

  “What? You’re kicking me out?”

  “Just get out of the car,” he said, and hopped out himself. He was halfway down the gravel parking lot by the time I got my seatbelt off and had gathered myself enough to follow him.

  “What the hell, Owen? I was just asking a question!”

  The sun had crept out into the sky and was peeking out off in the distance, turning the still night sky an electric blue that matched Owen’s eyes perfectly.

  “You can’t ask that question,” he said, with his teeth gritted. “Ask me anything else you want, but not that.”

  “Why not?” I walked closer. “You said you would never lie to me again. So, unless you think that-“

  “It doesn’t matter what I think! That’s not what this is about.” Owen’s hands were at his head now, grabbing handfuls of hair. “The aura of the Bloodmoon has been hanging over us since my great grandparents were in diapers. It’s the horror story we tell our little kids to stop them from acting up. It’s like the boogeyman, except it’s real, and they’re desperate to stop it.” His hands moved down from his hair, covering his face. It made his words hard to understand.

  “We didn’t always know as much about it as we do now. Prophecies; they come in pieces.” He moved his hands and looked at me. There was a glint in his eyes; like he was reliving something horrible. “You’re not the first girl who’s been accused of being the Bloodmoon. Others have been-“

  He cleared his throat, and broke my gaze. “It doesn’t matter. None of them survived. The point is, you are not allowed to think of yourself that way; not even for a second. You are Cresta Karr; the most beautiful person who has ever graced my life.” He put one hand on my shoulder and the other brushed against my lips. “I would die if anything happened to you. You know that, right?”

  I kissed his fingers. They tasted like leather, salt, and happiness. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I promise. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

  “I’m always going to worry about you, baby,” he answered, taking my hands in his own and kissing my fingers too.

  He called me baby. It sounds so much different coming from him than stupid Allister Leeman.

  “And I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s just-I’ll feel better after tomorrow.”

  “I will too,” I said, pulling him close. Flashes of me, of Owen and Casper, and of my mother filled my head. I wanted this to be over so much. I just wanted my life back, but looking at Owen, feeling how tense his hand was in mine, I knew that could never happen. Still, it was nice to imagine.

  “I would never think you could be the Bloodmoon,” he pressed his face against mine, letting his mouth rest at my ear. “You could never be anything less than perfect.”

  “I’m not perfect,” I said, prickling as his warm breath tickled my earlobe.

  “You are to me,” he said. “I love you Cresta.”

  Oh my God.

  “I love you too,” I said, and really meant it. I had loved Owen for so long that I could barely remember a time when I didn’t. He was so much a part of me that, even before I met him, it felt like a piece of me was waiting for him to show up. Hearing him actually say he felt the same way and being able to say it back was everything that I had ever wanted. I leaned up, pulled him in, and kissed him square on the lips. It was not our first kiss, but it was ur best one. It was best, because we loved each other.

  “Don’t let Allister Leeman hear you say that,” I smiled, pulling away from him. “He might get jealous.”

  “Allister Leeman is a lonely lunatic who had a bird tattooed on his neck so he wo
uldn’t have to be alone,” he answered. “And if he, or anybody else, for that matter, wants to marry you; they’re gonna have to get through me first.”

  My hands explored his back, tracing the hard muscles that wrapped his shoulders. “You have a tattoo though, don’t you? I mean, it isn’t a bird, but . . . ”

  “I have no idea what it is actually,” He smiled, letting his hands rest at my lower back. “When I was a kid, some prophecy said I was going to die. My parents tried everything to get around it, but it was no use. The Council of Masons said it was a fixed point; that, no matter how hard they tried, I would never grow up.”

  Flashes of what I saw in Owen’s memories came back to me. He was standing with his mother, begging for help from the Council. And then, in the next flash, he was getting his tattoo, howling in pain.

  “So they gave you this?” I asked, tracing circles on the spot where the tattoo was.

  “They told me that it was special, that it would allow me to live.”

  “And it worked?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m not dead, so . . . ”

  “Lucky me,” I said, kissing him again.

  “I asked my dad to tell me what the stupid thing was a hundred times,” he said.

  “It’s a blob, like a Rorschach thing,” I answered.

  “No it isn’t,” he laughed and squeezed my hand. “Dad said I didn’t need to know. He said nobody ever needed to know, so he turned it into an anchor. Anytime anyone looks directly at it, even Breakers, all they see is that stupid blob. Believe me, I’ve tried enough to know.”

  “So take a picture,” I shrugged.

  “You don’t know my dad. He’s very thorough. Besides, I don’t think it matters. It’s my angel,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

  “Because it saved your life?”

  “Because it brought me to you,” he smiled. “And because, even though my dad is thorough, he isn’t perfect. If I look over my shoulder-Like, if I’m not looking directly at it, I can sort of make out a piece of it.”

  “And what do you see?” I asked.

  He grinned and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Wings.”

  Chapter 18

  Fixed Points

  “So, what’s your name anyway?” Casper asked the Girl in Tower. She was hunched in the corner of the 7-11, bracing herself against the walls with her hands. She had done this every time we stopped. At the gas station, where we stopped shortly after Owen and I had our motel parking lot moment(which was much less dirty than it sounded), the Girl in the Tower crouched under the car and stayed there until we filled up. At ‘Harvey Boy’s Used Car Emporium’, where Owen traded in Echo’s $90,000 luxury sports car for one of those Scooby Doo type vans that was probably out of date when my mom was in diapers (if Breaker babies even wore diapers. They were probably too evolved for that sort of thing), the Girl in the Tower hunched under Harvey Boy’s desk and started carving symbols into the wood. He didn’t seem to mind. Though that was probably because he was making $70,000 or so on the deal. Still, the van was roomier and Owen said we needed to drop Echo’s car to help cover our tracks.

  Here, at the 7-11, where we stopped to freshen up and grab dinner (a bag of loaded baked potato flavored Lays, chocolate milk, and two sticks of beef jerky), she was mumbling something about a white dress and hiding her face from the fluorescent light. Was this what they had done to here; broken her by keeping her locked away from people, from the world, her entire life? Why would they do that? What’s to be gained?

  “I do not understand the question,” The Girl in the Tower looked at him. The lights of the convenience store made her look even paler than she had before.

  “Your name,” he repeated, picking up a bag of Funyuns and a peach Nehi. “Traditionally, I like to know a girl’s name before she sticks her tongue down my throat, but I guess we’re sorta past that now.”

  “I apologize. I was simply trying to expedite the inevitable. Though, if the sensation was not physically pleasing to you, perhaps we can try again.”

  “No,” Casper shook his head. His face turned a shade of red almost as bright as his hair. “I mean, it was-It’s just- It’s not like I-. Look, I was pleased, okay. But that’s not what I meant. I just wanted to know your name, so I wouldn’t have to call you ‘that weird girl who frenched me’.”

  “Frenched?” She tilted her head.

  “And what do you mean by inevitable?” Casper asked, ignoring her question.

  “I have known you since before I knew myself,” she said, taking the bag of Funyons from his hands and eyeing it. “Onion flavored corn snack,” she read. “No. I will not enjoy the taste of these on your breath.” She put them back.

  “Listen sister-,”

  “You are the boy with hair bright like the sun. Our love will break the anchors.”

  “We’re not in love! I don’t even know your name!” Casper said, and gave me a ‘help me out here’ look. I just grinned and stayed silent.

  “No, not at the same time,” she muttered. “And I do not have a name, at least not in the way in which you do.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked bracing myself. Owen had gone to get supplies and Merrin was in the restroom; which sucked, given that I was pretty sure that their explanation of what the Girl had said would be simpler.

  “Unlike Owen and Papa, my abilities, the whole of who I am, are contingent on living outside of your world. Seers cannot be Breakers no more than Breakers can be humans. We are different, and cannot act or live as you do. To do so would be to strip away what makes us special,” she said.

  “That’s why your parents kept you locked away in that tower; because, if they didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to see the future,” I surmised.

  “Do not blame them. Their ways may be foreign to you, but the segregation of the seer is an ancient necessity. No one can touch the world and continue to see it as we do. It is an impossibility.”

  “They won’t even let you have a name?” Casper asked, with more than a little sadness in his voice. “That’s not cool.”

  “Names are for people,” she answered.

  “You are a person!” He answered her. “No. No, I’m not gonna let them get away with this. You’re not a thing. You’re not some chess piece. You’re a girl; a really weird girl with obvious boundary issues, but a girl nonetheless. And you deserve a name.” He leaned in closer to her and let that mischievous smile that I knew so well spread across his face. “I’m gonna give you a name.”

  “Can it be Wendy?” She asked in a small voice. “Papa used to sneak books into my cell. I believe I read Peter Pan 137 times before the pages began to wear. Wendy was always my favorite, because she got to grow up.”

  “Okay,” Casper answered, swallowing hard. “Wendy it is, I guess.”

  Owen and Merrin came rushing in from the hallway. They were together? Why?

  There was a worried look in Owen’s blue eyes. So, when he grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward the door, I was only sort of surprised.

  “Owen, what’s wrong?” We stopped in front of the 7-11’s plate glass wall, and he pointed out into the crowded parking lot. “What am I looking at?” I asked, looking at people pumping gas and children sitting in their car seats. It looked completely normal; nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Look closer,” he said breathlessly. His hand was curled tight around my arm, and it was shaking. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good. I peered out the window, looking for something, anything out of the ordinary. I was about to give up, until I saw a car at pump number two. Gas overflowed from the tank and spilled onto the ground, but the tall man pumping it didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t moving at all. In fact, no one in the entire parking lot was moving.

  “They’re here,” he said. “We have to move.”

  “Who, the Breakers?” My heart slammed against my rigcage.

  “Come on!” He pulled at me again.

  I didn’t move though. Something was happening; the same
thing that happened when I saw the Seer’s Tower , or when the stars became my guide. The entire parking lot started glowing. People pinged, the air shifted. Suddenly, the shade lifted, and they were there.

  Breakers scoured the parking lot, searching through cars and trucks, looking through the surrounding woods, and even in dumpsters. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Three Breakers were seconds away from walking into the 7-11 and finding us. Even if we ran, there was no way we could get away. Amazingly, that still wasn’t the worst part, because one of the Breakers who was almost certainly going to find us, was Dahlia.

  “It’s too late. She’s here,” I whispered.

  “You can see it?” Owen asked.

  “It’s too late,” I repeated.

  “No it’s not,” he said, pulled me away from the window. We ran toward the back of the store, where Merrin was standing with Casper and the newly minted Wendy.

  “Stop wasting time,” Merrin snarled. “And put that down!” She jerked the Funyuns out of Casper’s hand.

  “She can see through the shade,” Owen said. The door of the 7-11 opened, though I was the only one who seemed to notice. As Dahlia and the others stepped in, the people in the store seemed to freeze. The cashier let the change she was about to give her customer fall and change loudly on the counter, her hand standing as steady as a statue.

  “Oh God,” I muttered.

  “Get down!” Owen said, pulling me behind giant Miller Light pyramid. The other folded into place behind us. “If you can see through the shade, it means that you might be able to manipulate it.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know how I’m evening seeing it,” I answered. “I never know how I see it.”

  “We don’t have time for your bouts of little girl self-consciousness,” Merrin said, leaning in. “You’re going to have to learn to do it, or this is over. You, Owen, your mother; it’s all over.” She grabbed my hands. “It’s just like when we snuck out of Weathersby. Just think it. Believe it, and it’ll happen.”

  “If it’s just like Weathersby, then you do,” I begged her.