The platform beneath Mom’s chair jerked again and began sliding away from the witness box, out toward the front of the stage.
“They’re going to show me to the crowd!” Mom whispered. “Kids! Go!”
She pushed away at Finn and Emma, and turned and shoved at Chess, too.
None of them let go.
“Mom, it’s still dark,” Finn protested. “We’re okay.”
“Joe, hurry!” Emma whispered. “Do you have another screwdriver? I could help!”
The platform they were on had totally separated from the wall of the witness box now, sliding closer and closer to the front of the stage. If the lights came back on, all of them would be in plain sight.
“Chess!” Mom called. “Help me! Take care of Finn and Emma!”
There was a sob in her voice. There was a sob in Chess’s throat, too, and it was threatening to burst out. And that would endanger everyone, even if lights and guards and evil judges didn’t.
Chess reached down and began pulling on Finn’s and Emma’s arms.
He began pulling them away from Mom.
Fifty-Two
Finn
“Chess, stop,” Finn moaned, because he didn’t understand what was happening, and the only thing holding him together right now was being able to hold on to Mom.
The hard metal of her handcuffs dug into Finn’s wrist, but he just clutched her hand tighter.
“Finn, Joe’s doing everything he can for me,” Mom said, and she had the same super-calm Mom tone she’d used that time Finn had broken his arm. “I need you to be brave, too.”
I can’t, Finn wanted to wail. But Mom was whispering something to Emma, and Emma started tugging on Finn, too.
Finn burrowed his face harder against Mom’s side.
“Citizens, calm down,” Ms. Morales’s voice—no, Judge Morales’s voice—boomed out over the crowd.
“Mom, if her microphone works again, won’t yours work, too?” Finn whispered excitedly.
Even in the near-total darkness, Finn could see Mom shaking her head.
“They’re using some sort of auxiliary system,” Mom whispered. “They—”
Judge Morales’s voice kept booming around them in the darkness, drowning out whatever else Mom was going to say. It seemed to silence the crowd, too.
“We apparently have saboteurs who believe they can shut this trial down simply by cutting an electrical line,” Judge Morales said. “After they tried to throw us off with a fake recorded voice.”
That was how she was trying to explain what Mom had said? Finn wanted to yell back at Judge Morales, just the way he’d yell at a playground bully, You’re the one with the fake recording! You’re the one who shut off the electricity!
“Believe me, all the guilty parties will be found and punished accordingly,” the judge continued, her voice overpowering everything. “But right now, we all need to show the saboteurs that the will of the people is not to be tampered with. We have working microphones again, and in a second, we’ll have the spotlights back. Even without our projection screen, it’s time to call other witnesses alongside Kate Greystone.”
The crowd buzzed again, this time with excitement.
“Mom!” Finn whispered. “They’re not going to use the screen! They’ll have to show you and your answers for real! No matter what anyone else says, all you have to do is tell the truth!”
“I can do that better if I’m not worried about you, Finn,” Mom whispered back.
Was that true?
Finn still didn’t understand everything, but he didn’t want to be the reason Mom had to lie.
“What game are they playing now?” Joe whispered from below. “I don’t see how—”
He broke off, because a blinding light appeared at the back of the auditorium.
“Run!” Mom whispered, shoving even more urgently at Finn and Emma and Chess.
But the light wasn’t trained on Mom. It wasn’t even swinging toward her. It was aimed at a pack of guards at the back of the auditorium. A pack of guards—and three small, huddled shapes.
And one of the shapes was calling out pitifully, in a voice that sounded a lot like Finn’s own, “Mom? Mom? Are you there? Please, somebody—they promised! They said they were taking us to our mom!”
It was the Gustano kids.
Fifty-Three
Emma
That’s how they think they’re going to control Mom, Emma realized. They still think those are her kids. Whoever’s in charge doesn’t know why she dared to tell the truth a few minutes ago, but they’re reminding her whose lives are at stake.
A chill ran through her, because all their lives were at stake, and had been all along.
A moment ago, Mom had whispered into Emma’s ear, “Logic and love are going to triumph in the end, and in the meantime, I need you to take care of your brother. Both of your brothers. Trust me.” And Emma had believed her. But now Mom sagged back against the chair she was trapped in, and Emma could feel her mother’s despair like it was something contagious.
“I thought your message meant those kids were safe!” Mom hissed at Joe. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have—”
“Shh!” Joe begged. “I’m sorry! I had a plan!”
Had, Emma thought. Past tense.
Was he giving up, too?
“Joe, don’t you have any more electronic devices to fool them with?” Emma asked. “Maybe we could record our voices and throw them out into the crowd. Or . . .”
“That device I dropped was just a fake,” Joe protested.
“You built a drone lizard!” Emma reminded him. “Isn’t there something else—”
“Anything like that takes time!” Joe whispered back. “And there isn’t any left!” He seemed to be holding out his coat pocket, helplessly. “I have wires and screws and a few of my kids’ things I thought I could build something with—sparklers and smoke bombs left over from the Fourth of July, Lego pieces and rubber bands and string . . . You tell me what good any of that does us now!”
If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Emma would have thought, Sparklers and Lego pieces? Joe’s so much like me!
But now she could only think, He’s totally losing it.
Natalie came racing back to the others, even as Chess, Emma, and Finn reluctantly backed away from Mom and Joe.
“They’re bringing those kids up to the stage,” Natalie reported. “I heard fake Mom—I mean, the judge—she said that they won’t put the spotlight on Mrs. Greystone until the kids are right beside her. They want the dramatic effect. But we can’t let anyone see all of you here. Do you want me to run over and try to talk to . . . to fake Mom, to buy some time?” Her voice shook. “I don’t know what I’d say, but—”
“Oh, Natalie,” Mom said, her voice awash in helplessness. “We can’t ask that of you. There’s too much of a risk . . . a mother would see the difference. All of you—Joe, too—save yourselves!”
Joe kept stubbornly lying on the floor, working the screwdriver against the shackles. Emma liked him more than ever.
“What kind of a woman—what kind of a mother—doesn’t answer even when her own children call out to her?” the judge taunted over the loud, booming mike.
But the judge didn’t give Mom a working mike, so no one could hear her even if she did call back to those kids, Emma thought. The judge is just trying to make Mom look worse and worse!
Quivering, Mom bent her head low.
“There’s still hope for me,” she whispered with a sad little laugh. “They’ll keep me alive because there are still things I know that they want me to reveal. But those kids, they’re only valuable to the leaders if . . . if . . .”
She meant the Gustano kids were only valuable to the leaders as long as the leaders thought the Gustanos were truly Mom’s children.
And the Gustanos would lose that protection if the leaders saw Chess, Emma, and Finn Greystone.
What if the Gustanos themselves give away everything once they’re with Mom? Emma
wondered.
Mom did look like the Gustanos’ mom. If they really were two different worlds’ versions of the exact same woman—and as much as Emma hated the idea, it did seem true—then Mom and Kate Gustano were probably genetically identical. It made sense the same way that there would be two Natalie Mayhews, the same way that Ms. Morales and Judge Morales undoubtedly held the exact same genes.
But Ms. Morales and Judge Morales were not the same otherwise. And probably there’d be some differences between Mom and Kate Gustano, too. Probably Kate Gustano and her kids shared some special code words and special, silly memories that were different from the ones Mom and the Greystone kids shared, just because they’d lived in different places and had different lives.
And the Gustanos would notice if Mom didn’t act like their mom. If Finn Gustano was anything like Finn Greystone, it wouldn’t take him long to blurt out, “Hey! This isn’t really our mom! She just looks like her!”
And if Finn Gustano—or Emma Gustano, or Rocky—said something like that, it would be like signing their own death warrant.
Emma watched the three struggling Gustanos in their circle of light, as the guards around them prodded and shoved them up toward the front of the auditorium, up toward the stage. The crowd parted for them too easily. The crowd wasn’t just terrified of the guards—it looked like they were terrified of the Gustanos, too.
Because of Mom, Emma thought, her heart sinking. Because they think any kids of a horrible criminal like Mom would be horrible, too.
The crowd didn’t have any sympathy for sobbing little Finn Gustano, with his trembling lip and the bubble of snot in his nose. They didn’t have any sympathy for the fierce way Emma Gustano held on to her little brother’s arm, holding him up, or the protective way Rocky Gustano kept his arm draped around both his siblings’ shoulders, even as they were already connected by handcuffs and chains.
The analytical part of Emma’s brain wanted her to just keep staring at the Gustanos, to study and classify their every feature and move: Oh, that’s so much like us Greystones, or Hmm. That’s not like us at all. Is that something that came from their father’s genes, or is it because they lived in Arizona and we lived in Ohio?
But the Gustanos and the guards—and the portable spotlight the guards carried—were getting closer and closer. It was only a matter of minutes before they’d be climbing the stairs, only a matter of minutes before the spotlight would shine on them and Mom together.
And on the Greystones and Natalie and Joe, too, if they didn’t move quickly.
“Kids!” Joe hissed. “Go back down those stairs! Let Natalie take you—”
He pulled Natalie down beside him, and seemed to be whispering something in her ear. But Natalie sprang back, shaking her head no.
“We can’t!” she protested. “There are guards beside that door now—I saw them! And they’ll know we don’t belong up here, they’ll know I’m not really this world’s Natalie Morales. . . .”
Natalie was practically sobbing. Emma saw everything in the slump of the older girl’s shoulders. She saw how Finn had gone back to clutching Mom’s arm, how Chess huddled helplessly on the floor, how Mom held her face in her hands. And, worst of all, how even Joe seemed to have dropped his screwdriver.
All of the others were giving up.
Emma decided to hold her breath again.
At first, she told herself, I’m just testing a hypothesis. That’s all. If everything’s hopeless, it doesn’t matter what I do. And if this world is going to kill me, I at least want to know as much as I can about how and why.
It’d been a while since the bad smell of the alternate world had bothered Emma, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
Maybe we’ve been immersed in this world’s stink for so long we don’t even notice it anymore? Maybe that’s true for everyone in the crowd, too? And maybe the effects . . . build up?
Emma held her breath for so long that her head swam and dots appeared before her eyes. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if she just passed out.
But she still didn’t let herself breathe.
Logic and love, Emma told herself, remembering her mother’s words. Love and logic.
Love was the reason Emma, Finn, and Chess had come all this way to rescue their mother.
In another way, love was the reason Mom had wanted to rescue the Gustanos. She knew the love the Gustano parents had for their kids, because of how Mom loved Emma, Chess, and Finn.
Love was what mattered most.
But logic was how Emma could make love win.
When Emma had been holding her breath for so long that she swayed with dizziness and her eyelids sagged down over her eyes, she finally thought, We just need to buy more time. Just enough time for Joe to finish freeing Mom. And we can do that with the bits and pieces and kids’ toys Joe has in his pocket.
Her eyes popped open and she took the very, very smallest breath of air she dared. But she was still clearheaded enough to hiss down to Joe:
“Did you say you had string and rubber bands and Lego? And smoke bombs? I really want those smoke bombs! I’ve got a plan!”
Fifty-Four
Chess
The guards and the Gustano kids reached the door in the clear wall between the stage and the crowd. Now they were through the door and climbing the stairs. Now they were at the edge of the stage.
And Chess could only watch in frozen horror as the beam from the portable spotlight in the guards’ arms swung closer and closer.
Then Emma was nudging him and shoving something into his hands.
“Throw these out on the stage,” she whispered. “Hurry!”
Tiny wires poked Chess’s fingers, but as far as he could tell, Emma had handed him nothing but junk.
“You think we’re going to hold off the guards with wires and rubber bands and bits of string?” he asked incredulously. “And . . . Legos?”
“It’s dark! We could make them trip!” Emma whispered back.
Chess wanted to cry, that she could still sound so hopeful. Over nothing.
“All we have to do is confuse them,” Emma whispered. “And when they see the smoke . . .”
Emma reared back her arm and threw something into the air. Chess heard a muffled thud a few feet away. Evidently Joe’s smoke bombs were the type that splatted and set off smoke instantly, because Chess’s next breath brought in an ashy odor.
And . . . somehow it brought him courage, too.
He blindly tossed the handful of trash toward the guards surrounding the Gustanos.
“Let me have some of those smoke bombs!” he whispered to Emma.
Chess sensed, more than actually seeing, that Finn and Natalie were throwing smoke bombs, too. And Joe had gone back to struggling with Mom’s shackles with renewed vigor.
The guards screamed, and Finn Gustano wailed louder than ever.
“You’re under attack!” Emma screamed at the guards. “Lots more rebels are coming to fight you! Run while you still can!”
And it was crazy, because anybody could tell Emma’s voice belonged to a little girl. And the smoke bombs were just kids’ toys. They did little but pop and fizzle and stink.
But maybe in the darkness the guards heard them as terrifying weapons; maybe the thin columns of smoke seemed to be the first sizzlings of a larger explosion. The guards reeled backward, clutching their heads as if they couldn’t figure out what to do. One of the guards dropped the portable spotlight, and all the man needed to do was pick it up again. But he let the light careen about, shooting its beams out wildly.
Behind the guards, the crowd began to shriek and wail and shove their way toward the exits. In the crazily veering flashes of light, Chess saw dozens of other guards step out from behind the pillars and push the crowd back.
But the guards on the stage—the ones closest to the smoke bombs—just stumbled about, barely even managing to hold on to the Gustano kids.
“Joe!” Chess cried. “What was in those smoke bombs? Are they—�
��
“Magic” was the word he wanted to use, but that was silly. It didn’t make sense that the little puffs of smoke made the guards crash into each other and mutter “Why am I doing this?” And “What should I do next?”
“I think it’s just that they have air from the other world!” Emma hissed. “From the better world! It’s like an antidote! I didn’t know it’d work like this but—let’s use it!” She smashed a smoke bomb down right in front of Chess. “Breathe deep, everyone! Breathe in as much of the good air as you can!”
Chess sucked in the ashy air, and it smelled different now that he viewed it as belonging to the other world. This air made him think of bonfires on autumn nights, of logs crackling in a fireplace, of Mom lighting candles on his birthday cake every single year, every single birthday.
This air made him think of home.
Behind him, Mom let out a sound that might have been a laugh and a cry all at once.
“Kids, kids, I love you so much!” she cried. “But you have to save the Gustano kids for me! And yourselves! You have to go! Now!”
“You, too, Natalie!” Joe yelled. “Run! Remember what I told you . . . Kate and I will be right behind you!”
“We’ll meet you!” Mom added. “Back at the house! On the other side!”
Chess stood, torn even now. He’d come to rescue his mother. That was all he wanted.
But she wanted him to save the Gustanos. And she knew a lot more about this world than he did.
The beam of the spotlight swung closer than it had before, throwing a glow onto Mom’s face. Everybody else ducked down out of sight, but Mom was still trapped in her chair and couldn’t. And so Chess saw in stark detail that Mom was staring straight at him, her desperate wince full of not just anguish but hope—and maybe even faith as well—as she pleaded, “Kids, please!”
It was the “please” that did it. She wasn’t ordering them anymore. She was begging. And . . . trusting them. Trusting them to make the right choice.
Greystone Secrets #1 Page 22