PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Her hand fell back to her chest, never reaching Casper’s face. Her expression fell away, and the light left her pale seer’s eyes.

  “She never even got to live, Cress,” Casper said through gritted teeth. “She never even . . . ”

  “Fate save us!” A voice pulled me from the moment. Merrin and Owen stood over us. Him, bare chested and cut; her, with her perfectly manicured hand stretched over her mouth. “A seer is dead.”

  “She had a name!” Casper looked at her with flared nostrils. Wendy’s head was still in his lap.

  “We killed a seer, Owen,” Merrin said, ignoring Casper. “Maybe not with our own hands, but this is our doing. We are responsible.” She looked sick and beyond defeat. “Do you have any idea what they’ll do to us? There’s no going back from this.”

  “There was never any going back,” I said, standing and wiping fresh tears from my eyes. I was sick of crying, sick of having reasons to cry. The night sky had lightened to a thick navy blue. The sun would be up in minutes. “We’re going to find my mother.”

  I marched through the crowd. I wasn’t sure who was following me, and I didn’t care. I was done with this. People had died for this. An innocent girl had died. Let these people have their crazy. Let them kill each other until the end of time looking for someone who might never come. I didn’t care.

  The sky was rapidly brightening now. There was no sun yet, but the moon had dulled to a flat pale. As for the stars, there was only one left. But wouldn’t you know; it pinged to me. I struck off running, breaking through the throngs of people as quickly as my legs would allow. I made it through Main Street and past the schoolyard before I knew it. The star kept pinging; brightly and over and over. It called to me, loud and intense. This wasn’t like before, when the tones opened something inside my head. This was deeper than that. It was in my bones, in my cells, in my soul. It rang to me, it sang to me and, as I made my way to the ruined steps of where my house used to be, I saw why.

  My mother stood flatly on the steps, with Allister Leeman behind her. He had a knife at her throat.

  “Mom,” I screamed.

  “Enough!” Allister Leeman jerked her so hard I was afraid he was going to tear her in two. “Enough of this! You will kill one of those people right now, this instant, or I will slit her throat!”

  I felt people at my sides. Owen, Casper, and Merrin had followed me.

  “Now!” He shouted and pressed the knife at her throat. A trickle of blood appeared on her neck.

  “Cresta, go! Just run!” Mom yelled, but Allister Leeman jerked her again, shutting her up.

  “If you run,she dies,” he spat. “No kill one of them!”

  I didn’t know what to do, what move to make. I had done all of this for my mother, but I couldn’t kill someone, not even for her.

  “You wanna play with me girl?” Allister Leeman asked, looking nervously at the sky. “Fine!”

  He started to slide the knife across her throat.

  “No!” I screamed. Mom spun, she hit Allister Leeman in the chest and both of them went down. I ran over to them, but it was over by then. And, when Mom stood up, Allister Leeman’s knife was buried in her chest.

  She fell into my arms, blood trickling from her mouth. “Mom . . . ” I choked.

  “It’s okay, love. You’re going to be okay. Everything happens for a reason, even this.” Her arms fell limply at my sides. I was the only thing holding her up, as I felt the up and down of her chest grow slighter and slighter.

  “Mom, don’t leave me,” I whisperedly begged. “Please don’t go.”

  “It was worth it,” she said. “I love you Cresta. I always loved y-“

  The movement of her chest stopped. So did her breath. So did her heart.

  “You brought this upon yourself,” Allister Leeman was in front of me, huffing and scowling. “If you would have just done your duty, none of this would have been necessary. All this destruction, all this death; it’s your fault.”

  I laid my mother carefully on the ground as he marched toward me. The sun was slowly peeking in the sky, almost risen. Anger rose like a flood within me, and with it, something else. An energy, unlike any I had ever felt before took me over. Like water bursting through the walls of a damn, it filled in every inch of me. I felt everything now. The ground underfoot, the sky overhead, and everything in between; it was all a part of me now. And with it, a heartbreak so real and raw that it threatened to overtake everything else. Well, everything except the anger.

  “My fault?!” I screamed. They were just words, but they seemed to have to power to throw Allister Leeman backward. “You are a monster! You . . . ”

  I didn’t will my feet to move, but somehow I was moving closer to him. His eyes got large and his face colorless.

  “You want me to kill! Is that what you want?!”

  A strange thought occurred to me. There was shade all around here, stopping the citizens of Crestview from seeing, hearing, or otherwise experiencing what was going on around them. The shade covered them completely. They reacted because of what the shade told them. If I controlled the shade, if I told it to convince Allister Leeman that he couldn’t breathe, that there was no air around him, would his body react to it? Would his lungs burn and then shut down? Would his heart race, and then stop? Would the life drain out of him like it did with my mother?

  As I thought it, it seemed to happen. I felt the shade twist and turn, shaping to my will. Allister Leeman panicked. He rose suddenly, straining his body as he struggled uselessly trying to force it to breathe. He clawed at his throat, before falling to his knees in front of me.

  “It can’t be me,” he choked out with what little air remained in his lungs. “It doesn’t end like that. Anyone but me.”

  His logic didn’t matter to me though. I barely heard it. All I could hear, all I could see, was my mother dying in front of me, telling me that everything would be okay. Nothing would ever be okay again. She was gone, never coming back. And it was all Allister Leeman’s fault.

  I could kill him.

  I will kill him.

  He struggled at my feet and, in my heightened state; I could sense his heart straining for the oxygen it needed to keep pumping. It wouldn’t be long now, and then the bastard would never be able to hurt anyone again.

  “Cresta.” Owen was at my side, his hands on my shoulder and back. His voice was low, as though he was very far away. “Don’t do this. We’re so close, baby.” He leaned in closer. I felt the heat of him on my neck. It was different than the heat of the anger. The anger tore me up. Owen put me back together.

  “Think of your mom, Cresta.”

  Anger flashed in my again, and Allister Leeman struck the ground with his fist, begging for release.

  “No. Think of who she was. She loved you so much, baby. She gave her whole life for you, so you wouldn’t become this. And she died for you too. Don’t make it all for nothing, not now, not after she gave so much. Think of your mom. Think of Wendy. Think of me and Casper. We all love you so much. I love you so much. Come back to me, Cresta.”

  His voice sounded closer now, calming me and beating back my rage.

  “He’s not worth it, Cresta. Don’t let him take you away from us. Pick your life. Pick me. Pick yourself.”

  It all broke around me. I let go of it, freeing Allister Leeman just as his heart was about to burst. He struggled and gasped for air, while I struggled to keep the tears back.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to Owen, but I wasn’t done. I reached down, grabbed Allister Leeman by his greasy ridiculous hair, and pointed his ugly face toward the sky; now complete with morning sun.

  “Do you see that, you arrogant son of a bitch?! You’re nothing. You’re no one. And I’m so glad that I’m the one who gets to see your face as you realize that.”

  Then I punched him.

  . . . But I didn’t kill him. The sun was up on the morning of my sixteenth birthday, and I hadn’t killed anyone. I stumbled over to my mother and lay be
side her.

  Chapter 22

  Nothing in Heaven or Hell Part 2

  (a.k.a A Reason For Everything)

  The rest of it faded into a blur. I lay, pressed up against my mother, as Dahlia’s Breakers beat back Allister Leeman’s people. I barely moved as Echo picked me up from a circle of my mother’s blood, and completely zoned out as we traveled the seven hours back to Weathersby. The next few days were a haze of tears and images tinted with grief.

  Images; Casper sitting quietly at my bedside, Owen brushing strands of hair out of my face, marked the days. People came in and out; some familiar, others strange, trying to get me to talk, or eat, or do anything at all. The first time I left my room, was for Wendy’s funeral. Sandwiched between Owen and Casper, I was a zombie of myself, barely able to look up, let alone stand, kneel, or do any of the hand gestures that apparently came with laying a seer to rest.

  They buried her under an oak tree at the foot of the tower where she spent most of her life; now visible to everyone. One by one, Breakers would march up to her blank headstone, take hold of the white bone dagger that sat atop it, and make a mark. I couldn’t tell what it was at first; probably because I was too lost in my own mind, too busy replaying the events that got us here in the first place. As my turn came to grab the dagger, I saw what it was though. With each stroke, the Breakers had made a mural. All of their lines stitched together to create a perfect likeness of Wendy’s face, etched on the stone.

  But something about that didn’t sit right with me. They didn’t know her, not really. Two weeks ago, none of them even knew she existed. And now they were content to let this; this face on stone, define who she was and how she would be remembered.

  Not me.

  I took the dagger, laid it on the stone, right under the picture, and carved ‘Wendy’ in large sharp letters. That’s who she was. That’s who she wanted to be. And, like it or not, that’s how she was going to be remembered.

  I felt Dahlia at my back. I was sure she was going to chew me out right then and there, blame me for everything that I already blamed myself for. But when I turned to meet her, she just shook her head and walked away.

  Afterward, Echo stood to say some words about his daughter. It was the only part of this entire thing that made any sense to me. He talked about how kind she was, how she loved to watch the people of Weathersby from her window and how, more than anything; she yearned for the outside world.

  With tears in his eyes, he finished. “And, though my sorrow about her death could never be measured, I’m glad that, at least she got to see her beloved world before she left us. I just wonder if it was worth it.”

  When it was over, and I told him what Wendy said to me-

  Tell Papa it was. It really was.

  Echo cried so loudly and so bitterly that it drew a crowd.

  ***

  I didn’t see him again until the next day. He knocked lightly on the door of my room, but didn’t wait for me to answer before he walked in. The TV was on. A newscaster was talking about a tornado that ripped the small town of Crestview, Georgia apart, but curiously left the surrounding towns untouched. I turned it off.

  “How are you?” He asked. He was dressed all in white; something Owen had explained was a Breaker mourning tradition. “Because white, not black, represents the absence of all things.” He also told me that the death of a seer was the greatest loss a Breaker could ever endure. Watching Echo stand before, with his slumped shoulders, drained face, and tired eyes, I figured that there might be one worse; the loss of a daughter.

  “I’m okay,” I answered, not knowing whether that was even the truth. “What about you?”

  “I have Weathersby to run,” he said, as though that was an answer.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “You’re not to apologize to me again, Cresta,” he sighed. “I’ve told you, what happened was not your fault.”

  “It feels like my fault,” I said, sitting on my bed. That, I knew to be the truth.

  “Well, you’re young. Your feelings are supposed to lie to you. “ He sat beside me. “I don’t want you killing yourself . What happened to your mother, what happened to Wendy- There are plenty of people to blame for that. No need to throw you on the sword as well.”

  “Tell that to Dahlia,” I muttered.

  He put his arm around me, as if that were answer enough. “I talked to the Council of Masons. Sometime within the next few months, you’ll have to meet with and give them an account about what happened. But I’ll be with you and there will be no punishment. They feel that since your actions led to the capture of Allister Leeman and his defectors, and since you’ve now be proven not to be the Bloodmoon-All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”

  “That’s a funny way of putting it,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” he squeezed my shoulder. “I saw your mother that night. She was far away, it was just for a split second, and I don’t think she saw me, but I’m sure it was her. She was just as beautiful as ever.”

  He stood. “I have something for you. It was found on Allister Leeman’s person as he was being prepped for transfer. When questioned, he admitted it was yours.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an object, letting it dangle in front of him. It was my necklace, the one my dad gave me before he died, the one I hadn’t seen since the morning my whole life changed.

  “I figured you would want to have it,” he said, placing it in my hand and closing my fingers around it. “Listen, I know that nothing can bring your mother back, and I know that I’m a poor substitute, but you always have a place here. I hope you know that.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I was looking at my locket, but I meant to thank him for so much more than that. At the end of the day, my mother had been right. Morgan Montgomery was a good man.

  “Dinner’s in two hours,” he said, opening the door to leave. “We’d love to see you there.”

  As the door closed behind him, something I never thought possible happened. My locket opened. A small sliver of paper fell out of it, coasting like a feather to the floor. Picking it up, I saw that it was an old faded picture. Two babies lay on a white rug. One was asleep. The other stared at the camera with strange smiling eyes.

  Turning the picture over, I found an inscription written on the back in large flowery letters:

  Cresta and Poe- 3 Months old

  “Who the hell is Poe?” I muttered, but there was no time to wonder. Suddenly, a sharp sensation flowered inside my head and, with it, a familiar voice.

  :My darling Cresta,: the voice said inside my mind. I recognized it instantly. It was Dr. Conyers,my biological mother. :I truly hope you never hear these words. Because, if you’re hearing them, it means that both of your protectors are dead. If that’s the case, then the days ahead of you are going to be very perilous. I want you to know, my sweet girl, that you are not alone. Even when it seemed like no one was there, even though it may seem like that now, I am with you. I will always be with you. If you take nothing else from my words, know this. Your father and I love you more than the sum of all things. You, my darling one, my beautiful daughter, are what keeps us going. And we will not fail you. Even now, with the opening of this locket, things are in motion. We will find you, wherever you are. You will be safe. You will always be safe. It’s important though, in this perilous time, that you know everything. There are people who would use you for their own means, and to arm you with the knowledge you will need to stop them, I must open your eyes. Remember my dear, everything I have done, I did for you.:

  Pictures started playing in my mind. At first, the images didn’t make any sense. My mother and Dr. Conyers running from an exploding building, a red door with a crescent moon slamming shut, a woman falling off a cliff and into the rocky sea below.

  Then though, I saw myself. I was in Chicago. It was the night my father died. I was in the back of an ambulance with that horrible pink blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Mom was with me, and Dr. Conyers. But that wasn�
��t right. I didn’t meet Dr. Conyers until I came to Crestview. I would have remembered that.

  “No one can know!” Dr. Conyers said pacing. I was a mess of tears and shivers.

  “Of course not,” Mom answered, pacing in circles on the pavement. “But she’s just a girl.”

  “Which is exactly why it has to be done,” Dr. Conyers answered, chancing a glance at me. “If they find out about this, that it’s already happened, there will be no stopping them.” She walked closer, putting her hand on my cheek. “We have to do it, for her.”

  The thing I knew, I was in the car with my father. It was right before the accident. The Beach Boys had just started playing on the radio. But this time, I was driving. That wasn’t right. Why was I driving?

  Oh God.

  It all opened up to me now. I had begged him, pleaded even, to drive home that night. “I’ll have my license in a year!” I had said. “All the other dads let their daughters drive.”

  He had let me. It was true. I remembered it all now. I had been driving. I, not my father, lost control of our car. I ran off the bridge that night. I killed my father.

  The visions left with my revelation, replaced instead by a thick sickness in the pit of my stomach. My mom, my mothers, took the memory away from me. They didn’t want me to have to live with the memory of killing my dad. They-

  “I killed my dad,” I choked out, realizing all the reasons they did what they did. They didn’t just want me not to know. They didn’t want anyone to. I had killed someone. All I had done, all everyone had done to stop the prophecy from happening, it was pointless. It was over before it started. I was the Bloodmoon. I had always been the Bloodmoon.