by Sara Etienne
It was the same with Nami. Her eyes were filled with the same turbulent force, one thought reverberating in the clamor: The Circle.
The Circle will fail the Family. That’s what the prophecy said. But what did that even mean? It was frustrating to think that I’d have to figure it out by myself. Just when I’d gotten used to the idea that I might have help, I was alone again. They might have been my friends, but I didn’t even recognize them anymore. What did Kel do to them? To us?
I remembered them rising out of the graves the night before, like people possessed. Even this morning, a faint pink line still sliced across their necks, stained the same color as my fingers. My hand involuntarily went to my throat.
They echoed my gesture and something flared in their eyes. Like they were remembering something. Their bodies sagged a little, looking smaller. Their eyes cleared and the Maya and Nami I knew were back. But Nami didn’t even try for her brash smile, and Maya barely gave me a shrug.
The moment I stepped outside the dorms, I gagged. The air was foul. Like rotting fish and death. I breathed through my mouth as the Takers corralled us down the path to the Compass Rose.
As we came out of the woods, there was a shout from the front of the line. The rest of us pushed forward to see what was wrong.
The ocean was red. And not pretty sunset red. The brown red of dried blood.
Across the crowd of girls, Maya and Nami turned and looked at me. As one, they mouthed, “An ocean of blood.”
Did Kel tell them about the tarot cards?
Maybe. The only thing I knew for certain was that whatever was going to happen here, it was starting now. We were walking across the bridge that led from the Past to the Future. I wanted to run away, but I had no place to go.
The rest of the Family looked different too, especially Kel. He no longer had his hoodie or gloves on, and the red patches on his cheeks had disappeared. His angular face glowed bronze even in the weak cafeteria light.
I did the only thing I could think of: I faced them all across the breakfast table. Kel, Maya, Nami, Damion, and Zach. The only person missing was Rita. I still wasn’t sure who she was or how she fit into this nightmare. Only that she did.
They all looked back at me and I held their strange, fierce eyes. Not flinching away. Then Maya dropped her gaze. Then Zach. One by one, they broke away, refusing to look at me. Till only Kel was left.
His eyes weren’t black anymore, but a gray so dark that it blotted out all the green. And when he looked at me, there was a hardness there that I’d never seen before. I searched in them, but I couldn’t find the Kel who’d talked me through the darkness. Who’d gallantly set off the alarms and run into the woods to save me. Who’d kissed me.
Only the Harbinger was left.
Kel’s gaze was hot against my skin, and I wondered if I was in danger even now, sitting here eating. The spoon pressed into my bruised fingers as I scooped the tasteless oatmeal into my mouth. Scrape, chew, swallow.
Dr. Mordoch’s voice cut across my thoughts. “Today is the last day of summer. A day of change. Marking the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. Just like you, over the next months, the trees will be shedding their leaves, exposing their very skeletons. How lucky you all are to be here at Holbrook, where we can observe these changes step by step.”
Dr. Mordoch stared right at me during her little speech, and again I wondered how she was involved in all of this. It was like being inside a painting done in pointillism. I was surrounded by bewildering pinpricks of color. I knew there was a picture there. I knew if I could find a way to step outside of the painting, to back away from the mass of dots, I’d see a perfect scene laid out on the canvas.
Whatever Dr. Mordoch’s role was in all this, she was back in full form today. Her face was animated with a manic energy, and her singsong voice resonated in the cafeteria. Her words slowly sank into my brain. The last day of summer. Then tomorrow must be the first day of fall. The words from the tarot cards echoed in my head.
With the sun as midwife, Autumn will be born in an ocean of blood.
But what was the part about the sun? And how am I supposed to stop it?
“Let us take a moment to think over our first week here at Holbrook Academy. You all are settling into our routine, learning what to expect, but as Buddha says, ‘As soon as we think we are safe, something unexpected happens.’ As you all saw on the way to breakfast, our campus was transformed during the night. I’m hoping our students have been as well. I talked with many of you after yesterday’s events, and I think we understand each other now.”
I bet she did more than talk. The cafeteria was full of students again, but most of them looked shell-shocked and drained. I didn’t want to know what she’d done to them.
“At Holbrook Academy, we’re always eager to use the unexpected as a learning tool. On Saturdays we usually have a less rigorous schedule. But it’s clear to me that this group isn’t ready for more freedom or privileges at the moment. Thankfully, life, in its lovely synchronicity, has provided us with the perfect opportunity.”
She beamed at us. “I know you’ll find it fascinating.”
Whenever a teacher used the word fascinating, alarm bells went off in my head. But this time, Dr. Mordoch was absolutely right.
The ocean swirled with murky clouds of deep red. An ocean of blood. There was no other way to describe it.
I tried to stay away from my Family as our Aunt led us and two other groups through the woods behind the dorms. As she unlocked the fence that separated the beach from the Holbrook campus, my throat squeezed shut. This was the beach where I’d almost drowned as a child. The beach I’d painted in class.
The scene came back to me. Shivering on the wet beach. The moon casting an eerie red light. Dr. Mordoch clutching me.
And the voice coming from the shadows, “You should have let her go.”
Ignoring my instinct to run, I forced myself to follow the other students out onto the beach.
The putrid stink that had been awful up at the Compass Rose was eye-watering down here on the beach. The tide was low now, but last night the waves must have almost reached the fence. Dead fish were washed high up on the rocky beach, their scales gleaming silver. Their fogged eyes staring at nothing.
Out in the water, corpses of seagulls and turtles bobbed in the red waves. Some of them were wreathed in seaweed. Others were tangled up in the lines of the generator buoys.
I hesitated on the fringes, not wanting to go any closer to the water. Or my Family. Nami, Damion, Maya, Zach, and Kel stood in a tight cluster, whispering to one another. Occasionally, one of them would glance over, staring at me with their unfamiliar eyes.
What is Kel telling them? Were they on his side in this—fight? Was it a fight?
Nami whispered something and pointed toward me, and I was right back in the hallways of my high school, wishing I could melt into the endless rows of lockers. In that moment, I didn’t care about prophecies or saving the world. I would’ve given anything for it to be yesterday again, when I was still a part of the Family. But more than the color of the ocean had changed overnight.
Dragon and the other Takers fanned out behind us, herding the three families of students forward. We crunched across the beach, strewn with glittering glass and tar-covered rocks.
“What is this crap?” The skinny guy who’d berated us at lunch the other day jabbed at one of the fish with a stick.
“It’s sometimes called a red tide,” our Aunt informed him in her patronizing tone. Her snub nose wrinkled at the smell and she looked at a little cue card in her hand. Like always, we had to go through the charade of Holbrook being a real school. “But that’s not a fitting name, since it has nothing to do with the tide or the moon. Scientists call it a harmful algal bloom, or HAB. Of course, the bloom of the red algae isn’t as pretty as flowers”—she laughed at her little joke—“but it does glow bright blue in the dark. Runoff from last night’s storm and the sudden temperature change must�
��ve given the phosphorescent algae the perfect conditions in which to grow.”
“Runoff?” Maya’s voice was quiet, as if she were speaking from somewhere very far away. Then she shook her head, and the rebellion came back into her eyes and with it, her old self. She stepped forward, and I saw that this still wasn’t the Maya I knew. A new sense of authority inhabited her body, a sense of ownership over herself and the world around her. “Do you mean all the dirt that’s washing away because they clear-cut the forests? Or are you talking about the crap from those oil tankers? Or maybe the shit that’s overflowing from the sewers?”
Aunt turned on Maya, but then Aunt noticed the change too. Saw the fire in Maya’s eyes. Aunt’s voice was cautious as she reprimanded Maya. “You know not to speak out of turn. Keep your mouth closed and maybe you’ll learn something.”
“No.” Maya’s answer was mutinous, but it also had a certainty I’d never heard before. Like she was merely stating a fact. “I won’t keep quiet anymore.”
Aunt looked uncomfortable and motioned the Takers to move in. Dragon came and stood right behind Maya, and Aunt scanned her notes, looking for where she’d left off. “As I was saying, scientists don’t know exactly what causes algal blooms like this. The unusual heat, ocean currents, or any number of other natural causes could have contributed.”
Maya opened her mouth, but Nami stepped forward and started talking before Maya could get in any more trouble. “Yeah, I’m sure that global warming had nothing to do with it.”
Then, in one ominous movement, the rest of the Family closed ranks around Maya and Nami. Seeing them there like that, I shuddered. And I saw another group of people, superimposed on them. Seven people, standing on a mountaintop looking down at the sea. We were connected to the ground as if our feet reached deep into the earth. The wind whispered stories to us. People sought us out for council. We were servants of The Circle. Speakers for those who had no voice. For our voices were mighty.
The image vanished, and we were just students again. Standing on the beach. But something of that power lingered in all of us.
Aunt must’ve sensed that she was losing control, because she stuck her note cards in her pocket and started handing out big black trash bags. “Don’t worry, the algae’s only toxic if you swallow it. So don’t go sticking your fingers in your mouth.”
I grabbed a trash bag, keeping an eye on Maya. Her eyes shifted between a steely reserve and a vague confusion. Her face mimicked the changes, as if she were shifting back and forth between two personas.
Aunt stood with her hands on her hips, looking at us expectantly. “The beach isn’t going to clean itself. Get moving.”
Students spread out, making retching noises and shrieks as they picked up dead animals and slimy clumps of seaweed. I looked down at the trash bag and then at a seal sprawled on the beach. A rotting, fishy smell wafted over to me, and bile rose in my throat, but I forced it back down. The seal’s milky blue eyes stared up at nothing. Flies crawled across its matted fur.
Men will feast off of the Earth like maggots.
Reaching down, my hand covered with the trash bag, I gripped the cold animal through the plastic. I nudged it with my foot and my other hand, trying to get it into the bag. But the seal was too big, and my fingers slipped. As I touched the wet fur, absolute silence descended over me. I couldn’t hear or feel anything. I couldn’t breathe, but I wasn’t gasping for air. I couldn’t see, but it wasn’t dark. There was simply the absence of all things. No smell, no desire, no cold or heat. No connection to anything.
I pulled my hand away. And the world came rushing back.
What I’d felt wasn’t just death. Growing up when I’d collected bones, I’d felt a calm quietness in them. But never this terrible blankness. Like all traces of life inside the animal had been eradicated. I leaned back, steadying myself. My fingers sank into the pebbly sand, and the same overwhelming void swallowed me up.
Alarm rang out inside me as I touched a nearby coil of seaweed. Nothing. A stone. Nothing. A crab shell. Nothing. Nothing. This wasn’t death. This was obliteration.
Nausea swept over me. The whole beach was barren. Kel was already destroying this place. Maybe what he’d said last night was true. Maybe it is too late.
No. I stood up, my fingers tingling with electricity. Now I was certain why I’d seen the visions. Why I’d been drawn to this place again. Why I was separate from other people. I was the one who would stop the Harbinger.
I’m going to save them all.
If only I knew how.
Kel’s voice buzzed in my ear and there was no sardonic edge to it. No trace of humor. “‘With the sun as midwife, Autumn will be born in an ocean of blood.’”
I hadn’t heard him come up behind me. I shook my head, not looking at him, and moved away, submerging myself in the mass of squeamish students.
But he was right there, following me, whispering again. “‘Death will be Autumn’s twin, and its mercy will cradle the Earth.’ This is The Path. Faye, it’s happening right now. Isn’t it?”
I couldn’t bear to be close to him. This Kel who was not Kel. I walked away, toward the arcing high-tide line marked by seaweed and rotting fish. Using the edge of the trash bag as a glove, I picked up a dead fish, shuddering as its slimy, rigid body slid into the bag. Kel’s steady footsteps crunched toward me again, but I was tired of playing cat and mouse.
I spun around to face him. “What did you do?”
“What?” His solemn gray eyes bored into me.
“To our Family? To this beach. Is this just the beginning?”
“Faye, last night is a blur to me. One minute you were all singing and digging up the talismans. Then suddenly I was lying in the dirt, holding one of them in my hand. And the whole world looked different. Brighter. Richer. It was like I’d been asleep for years and finally woke up.”
I remembered that feeling. From when I was six. I’d pulled away from my parents and plunged my hand into the waves and suddenly, everything was new. Everything around me was lit up from inside, rumbling with the drumbeat of that song. But it’d also been confusing. I had thoughts I didn’t understand. Nightmares of things I never could have imagined.
Then I understood what Kel was saying, even if he didn’t. He woke up. Last night, the Harbinger woke up. And we’d helped. He’d literally gotten us to do his dirty work.
“Sometimes I almost understand what’s happening to me. Then it slips away again, like a word just on the tip of my tongue. Please help me remember.” He tried to put his hand on my arm, but I stepped back.
After last night, I would never let him touch me again. But.
But, maybe I could touch him.
I thought about clutching Kel’s hand in Dr. Mordoch’s office. About seeing not just shadows of his thoughts, but a whole memory when we’d kissed. Yesterday, when I’d grabbed Freddy’s hand, my entire mind had been filled with the fear of Kel dying. And somehow, I’d triggered Freddy’s memory of the car crash. Maybe I could do it on purpose this time.
Snatching Kel’s hand, I flooded my mind with the image of the arrow. The one thing that seemed to tie all this together.
This time, everything was more violent. What I’d thought of as a swarm of bees was now a tornado. A torrent of thoughts and images screamed past me. A sad-looking woman wearing a protective mask. A staticky snatch of music. An abandoned subway tunnel. Kel’s gloved hand reaching out.
The images pushed and pulled at me, playing tug-of-war with my mind. I braced myself, trying not to be ripped apart by the maelstrom. Then, in my physical self back on the beach, I felt Kel struggling to pull his hand out from mine.
No. It’s my game this time.
I focused every fiber of my being on resisting the chaos. I am Faye. Fear is an illusion. I’m in control of my own reality.
Somehow, I managed to shove myself through the turmoil, into the eye of the tornado. It wasn’t that the storm of images had calmed down as much as they veered around me now, leavin
g me untouched. Inside this bubble, I felt an excruciating intimacy with Kel. His entire life swirled around me.
Euphoric islands of time with his guitar. Brutal arguments with his dad. And an intoxicating electricity that crackled in between. It was like being inside that kiss again, and I longed to throw myself into the phantasmagoria.
Hurrying, I concentrated on trying to find the arrow. I reached in and snatched an image out of the flow. Kel and a man stood facing each other.
Everything shifted and I was standing, looking at the man. Anxiety swept through my body.
“Dad, I’m sorry I ran away. I didn’t handle things well and I screwed up.” Kel’s voice came from me. A mix of fear, anger, and hope jangled through me as I forced myself to take a deep breath.
“You sure did. And crawling back here isn’t going to change that. You made your choice. You don’t want to be part of this family? Well, you’re not.” The man spit the words at me.
His words stung and I let their rage fuel mine. “Family? This hasn’t been a family since Mom died.”
“Don’t use your mother as an excuse for running away from your problems. She’d be ashamed to see what a coward you’ve become.”
Anger screamed in my mind. It was so powerful I could taste it. I don’t know who threw the first punch, but suddenly my body was moving, my fists finding their target, and it felt good.
Kel’s voice thundered in my head. “Get out!”
Shocked, I lost my footing and was slammed backward into the cyclone of emotions and memories. Then Kel was inside my mind. Raking through my memories.
Tumbling down the stairway in fourth grade. The laughter and bruises stinging.
Sitting down at lunch. Everyone around me getting up and moving to another table.
My parents asking me again and again, “Why do you want to kill yourself?” Not even meeting my eyes. As if they didn’t blame me for trying.
