I’d spent weeks feeling boxed in and helpless. I thought if I could understand why David Combs shot Freddie, I could make a decision. If he’d done it because he was bullied or in love or mentally ill, then I could trust that the voices were telling the truth. But Fadil was right; it doesn’t matter. No reason could justify my withholding the right to choose from everyone else. True, if I did nothing, humanity would perish. That’s what the voices promised. And if I continued to heal the sick, I would be involuntarily rapturing countless people, to where I didn’t know, and stranding those of us left behind to an unknown but potentially fatal end.
Both options sucked, but after I called Deputy Akers from Carmen’s phone and waited for her to arrive at Bartlett’s mansion, I remembered what Freddie had said. The game was rigged, but just because I had to play didn’t mean I had to play by the rules dictated by the voices.
The siren and the girl on the tampon box and Snippity Snap and Baby Cthulhu and Lego Gandalf had given me two equally terrible choices, but the choice belonged to me, and I chose neither.
FIFTY-EIGHT
THINK ABOUT WHAT you’re doing, Elena, the sketchy girl on the tampon box said.
You shall fail. That was Lego Gandalf.
“Then I fail,” I said. “And humanity dies. But this is my choice to make, not yours.”
It had been only a day since Sean had kidnapped me and I’d raptured Carmen Ballard and Harrison Bartlett. When Deputy Akers had arrived at the mansion, we’d spent a while discussing our options. She’d been eerily calm about the whole thing and had advised me not to report it. If I did, I’d have to explain to other police officers where my kidnappers had vanished to, and it was doubtful they’d believe I’d raptured them. But since no one was going to find the owner of the house or his attorney, and they weren’t a danger to me anymore, we agreed the best course of action was to simply leave. Then Deputy Akers had driven me home. When I asked her why she was helping me, knowing she could get in trouble, she told me that miracle workers need miracles of their own sometimes, even if they didn’t want to admit it.
I told Mama what had happened, and when she’d finished hugging me and crying, I’d had to beg her not to call the police or try to find Sean on her own. If he came back, I’d told her, I knew how to deal with him.
By the next morning, I’d made my choice and I knew what I needed to do. So I’d gathered the voice’s proxies together, lined them up on my bed, and told them my plan. Lego Gandalf, Snippity Snap, Baby Cthulhu, the tampon box, the siren peering at me from a coffee mug I’d bought Mama, and even Winston, which Freddie had brought over and given to me.
Your god commands you not to do this!
“You’re not my god,” I said. “You’re not even a god. For all I know you’re some basement-dweller sitting on a fancy future computer in a parallel universe messing with my life because you get off on it.”
How dare you—
You’ve experienced a trauma, the girl on the tampon box said. Take some time to consider the choice you’re making.
“Oh, I have,” I said. “So will it work or not?”
Theoretically, the siren said, but the risk is too great. Even one mistake and you could burn the entire planet or collapse it into a singularity.
Do you think you’re smarter than a god? Baby Cthulhu said. If what you propose were possible, we would have done it!
Enough, said Snippity Snap. We can’t force her not to do this, and if she fails, the end of the world and the billions of lives lost are on her.
Winston spoke for the first time. This will kill you. You will die. Your skin will melt and your brain will explode. And you will visit the same gruesome end on all of humanity.
“I understand the risk.”
What gives you the right? Lego Gandalf asked. If you do things our way, it at least offers some on your planet the opportunity to live. But if you fail, you all die.
“What gives me the right to decide for everyone you rapture?” I said. “This isn’t a debate. I’m not asking your permission. We all deserve the right to choose, and this is the choice I’ve made.”
Please reconsider, the siren said. I didn’t save your life to watch you die this way.
You have the audacity to defy your gods? Baby Cthulhu added.
“Yes,” I said. “I really do.”
I picked up a box that was sitting on my dresser and swept the figures into it. Freddie, Fadil, and my mother were waiting for me in the living room. I nodded at them as I headed for the door, and they followed me to the playground.
What are you doing, Elena?
This isn’t the way!
You wouldn’t dare.
Please, Elena. Don’t.
I dumped them all into a metal trash can and doused them with lighter fluid. Fadil handed me a box of matches.
“You sure it’s okay?” I asked Freddie, glancing at the comic book clown. “Your dad made it.”
“It’s good,” she said. “You gave me a better way to remember him.”
I drew a match from the box, dragged it across the strike strip, and dangled the tiny flame over the can. The voices had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember, but I wasn’t Joan of Arc. They weren’t God or gods or any type of divine beings. They were like me—fallible, human, I hoped—trying to make their own choices with the information they had. And though they had more knowledge than I did, they still didn’t, couldn’t, know everything.
“Hold up.” Mama stepped forward, pulled off her wedding ring, and tossed it in the can. “Okay. Now go.”
I smiled. The match was burning down toward my fingers. If I held on to it a little longer, it would simply die out. But this was a choice too, and one I should have made a long time ago. I dropped the match and watched the voices burn as they continued screaming at me to stop.
“What was that?” I asked, cupping my hand to my ear. “I’m sorry; I can’t hear you anymore.”
FIFTY-NINE
MEET ME IN the art room. That was the message I received from Freddie during last period on what might have been the day the world ended.
I had a simple plan, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified, and I was grateful to procrastinate a little longer, especially since that meant a few more minutes with Freddie.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Freddie’s sculpture was the first thing I saw when I walked into the art room. A girl with wings of wires and copper tubing spread wide stood on a pedestal. Her head was tilted toward the sky and her arms both pointed groundward. She was painted gold and silver and blue, and struck a pose both beautiful and strong, like she was prepared to hold back an army equipped with only her resolute smile.
“It’s a Valkyrie,” I said.
“It’s you.” Freddie stood back, admiring her creation.
I shook my head. “You didn’t even know me when you started it.”
“That’s why I call it Mary,” she said with an impish grin. “Besides, my job is simply to peel back the layers and discover the truth hiding underneath.”
I crossed the room and stood beside Freddie. She slipped her hand in mine. “We can run away.”
“Maybe when all this is done.”
“Do you think it will work?”
“The voices said it might, but that it’s dangerous.” I nudged her with my elbow. “Either way, you should kiss me now in case I fail and die and we don’t get another opportunity.”
Freddie let go of my hand, wrapped her arm around my waist, and pulled me to her. “Nah. I’d rather save it for after.”
The idea of Freddie wanting to kiss me should have dominated my every thought, but I couldn’t stop staring at her sculpture. At the Valkyrie. In myths, a Valkyrie decided who would live and who would die. They traveled the battlefields and escorted their chosen to Valhalla. But that wasn’t me. I wasn’t going to choose who lived or died or who traveled to somewhere better. Everyone deserved to make that choice for themselves.
“We should get goin
g,” Freddie said after a moment. “Fadil’s going to meet us there?”
I nodded. “Don’t want to be late for the end of all things,” I said.
Freddie and I walked to her car and took off. We had to drive to the past so that we could face the future.
SIXTY
LIKE I SAID, the plan was simple. But simple doesn’t always mean easy.
Step 1: Arrange to broadcast the miracle. I was going to do something that would change the world—something that could potentially end the world as we knew it—but I wanted to warn people first in order to keep the panic to a minimum. For that I needed someone who could broadcast my message. Mrs. Haimovitch gave me the card of the reporter she’d caught snooping around after the shooting. His name was Lou Johnson and he was a reporter for an Internet news site with a rabid following. Though he was initially hesitant to meet me, seeing as Mrs. Haimovitch had drugged him and showed him her colon the last time he’d come around, the promise of a live, exclusive miracle proved irresistible.
Step 2: Choose a location for the speech I was prepared to give and for the miracle that would follow. That part was easiest of all. It only seemed fitting that we end at the beginning.
Step 3: Show up. That proved to be the most difficult part of my plan. As Freddie and I neared our destination, fear began to gnaw at me. I believed I was making the right decision, but there were so many ways it could go wrong. What if the voices were right and I failed? I’d be dooming the entire world to die rather than simply those the voices would have left behind.
Freddie must have sensed my trepidation, because she took my hand and held it as we pulled into the Starbucks parking lot where Mama, Fadil, Naomi, and Javi were already waiting for us.
“You can do this, Elena,” Freddie said. “You’re the Miracle Girl. You’re my Miracle Girl.”
“I’m not a miracle,” I said.
She smiled. “You are to me.”
We parked the car and I walked alone to the patio to meet Lou Johnson while Freddie went to stand with the others. I’d already gone over the plan with them, so there was nothing left to discuss. They knew what I was going to do and had come only to offer their support.
Lou definitely had a face for television. Strong jaw, perfect hair, bright smile, and a deep, soothing voice that might have lulled me to sleep if I hadn’t been so nervous. While one of his assistants fitted me with a body mic, Lou explained that he would provide an introduction and then the rest was up to me. I didn’t know if he honestly expected I was going to perform a miracle live for his viewers to see, but I doubted it mattered to him. I’d do what I’d promised or I’d fail spectacularly and expose myself as a fraud. Either way, it was certain to boost his website’s hits. The only thing I was unsure of was whether it was possible to broadcast the miracle. Previous attempts to record me healing someone had failed. I hadn’t told Lou that, though, because, for me, the speech I’d prepared was the important part, and whether the camera caught the miracle or not, when I was done the entire world would believe.
And then it was time. I stood on the Starbucks patio where, only a few weeks earlier, David Combs had tried to murder Winifred Petrine and had changed my life. A small crowd, which included Tori Thrash and Deputy Akers, had gathered outside to watch. My old manager, Kyle, stood with his face pressed to the glass. Mama, Fadil, Naomi, Freddie, and Javi waited for me behind the camera.
I didn’t hear much of Lou Johnson’s introduction before he nodded and turned the circus over to me.
This was the moment. This was the time. I’d made my choice, and all I could do now was see it through.
I stared straight ahead into the camera, smiled, and said, “Hello, my name is Elena Maria Mendoza, and I’ve come to end the world.”
SIXTY-ONE
“HELLO, MY NAME is Elena Maria Mendoza, and I’ve come to end the world.
“Some of you may already know who I am. You may have heard that I was born of a virgin or that I healed a young woman who was shot right here at Starbucks. You may have heard that I am a fraud, that my ability to perform miracles is a lie perpetrated by a lonely, mentally ill young woman desperate for attention. Or you may have no idea who I am at all. Either way, I’m about to tell you the truth, and when I’m done, you’ll have a decision to make. One that will change the course of human history.
“It is true that my mother conceived me through the process of parthenogenesis. This is a fact, conclusively proven by Dr. Willard Milner, who went on to publish numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers about me and my mother. I’m not going to explain what parthenogenesis is. Google it yourself.
“It is also true that on September thirteenth, on the patio of this Starbucks, a young man named David Combs shot a young woman in the stomach, that I healed her, and that, as a result, a beam of light from the sky enveloped David Combs and caused him to vanish. At the same time, though I didn’t know it, four other people around the world were also raptured.
“The apocalypse began at Starbucks, and I was the cause.
“Beginning when I was a young girl, I heard voices that spoke to me through inanimate objects. A stuffed Cthulhu doll, a tampon box, a My Little Pony named Snippity Snap. On September thirteenth, a voice from the siren in the Starbucks window told me I had the power to heal Freddie as I knelt on the pavement watching her bleed to death. I didn’t believe the voices at first. Who would? But left with no other option than to watch a beautiful young woman die, I closed my eyes and attempted a miracle. That Freddie is alive today is proof that I succeeded.
“It wasn’t until later that the voices warned me humanity was in danger—that we were facing extinction from an unknown threat to the world—and that I alone had the power to save us. I healed a cat with a damaged leg, my neighbor’s hip, a little boy of cystic fibrosis, and many others. What I didn’t know then was that each time I healed someone, it enabled the voices to rapture people from across the globe. I don’t know where the voices come from or where those who have been taken go. The voices assured me they’ve gone to a better place. But once I realized the tradeoff, I began to doubt the mission I’d been given.
“See, the voices offered me a choice. Heal the sick and allow them to take people against their will or do nothing and doom humanity to death. The problem is that it’s not my choice to make.
“I don’t know how the world will end. I don’t know if it will end. I do believe the voices are right that humanity is in danger. We make terrible choices. I’ve spent the last few weeks attempting to understand why David Combs tried to shoot my friend. I learned that he was bullied by his classmates. That he was rejected by a girl he liked. That he was in love with a girl who didn’t know he existed and that he had problems at home. I doubt I’ll ever really understand why he did it. But I know he made the choice of his own free will. He could have chosen not to bring a gun to Starbucks that day. He could have chosen to ask to sit with us instead of trying to shoot Freddie. He could have asked for help in any of a thousand different ways. But he didn’t.
“We make bad choices and we have to live with the consequences of our actions. My neighbor, Mrs. Haimovitch, drove her daughter away because of a mistake, and it’s a mistake she lives with every day. I have made more mistakes than I can possibly list. We kill each other and ignore the people around us who desperately need our help. We choose to pollute the planet and fight wars and to refuse to see each other as equals and deserving of respect. If and when our world ends, it won’t be from a meteor or a viral outbreak or some other cosmic event; it will be us. We will be our own undoing. If we continue on the self-destructive path we’re on, we will surely annihilate ourselves.
“But we can change. We can choose.
“We can choose to allow unseen forces to save us or we can choose to save ourselves. We can choose to be better, we can choose to fight. And we might lose—the world still might end—I can’t promise it won’t. Because, as a wise woman once told me, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. We are all
stumbling through the dark, but we’re not alone. You’re not alone. We can walk together, and we can carry those who can’t walk.
“Today, I’m giving you back the choice the voices attempted to steal from you. I’m going to do something the voices never intended. I’m going to perform a miracle, and when I’m done, the same lights that opened from the sky and raptured David Combs and so many others will appear all across the world. I will hold them open for as long as I’m able, and those who wish to leave may do so.
“I don’t know what you’re going to find on the other side. You may discover a better life. You may not. I won’t blame you for going. The world is a mess, the fear feels inescapable sometimes, and I won’t deny that starting over somewhere else is tempting. But you deserve to make that choice for yourself.
“I also don’t know what will happen to those who stay. It’s possible we’ll all die in a matter of months. It’s possible we’ll destroy ourselves and each other. But it’s also possible we’ll choose to build a better world. To change course and thrive. The apocalypse started at Starbucks the moment I healed Winifred Petrine, and by doing this now I may be ending the world as we know it, but it is only one end, not the end. Not for those of us who stay and fight. Because we are the choice. We are the change.”
SIXTY-TWO
LEGO GANDALF HAD hinted that I had the ability to open the portals on my own when I’d asked if I could bring back Ava Sutter for Tori. The brass horse had confirmed it by showing me how to rapture Carmen Ballard, Harrison Bartlett, and the man watching Sofie and Conor.
The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza Page 27
