The Gateway Trackers Books 3 & 4

by E. E. Holmes

  “Yes, of course I do,” I said, and the words seemed to take a little of my immediate panic away. “I trust you.”

  “Good. Then you can rest assured that I will not let anything happen to Annabelle while you go with Flavia. And Annabelle promises to stay with me and heed my warnings, don’t you, Annabelle?”

  Annabelle’s eyes darted back and forth from me to Finn, and then she answered in the same calm, measured tones that Finn had used. “Yes, of course. I’ll stay right here with Finn. We will wait for you.”

  “Very good, then,” said Finn, as casually as if we had just decided where to go get dinner. “Flavia, would you be so kind as to bring Jess into the Scribes’ wagon? Jess, I’m sure Flavia has some good insight into Rifting that can help you interpret what you saw.”

  “I . . .” I glanced nervously around the group. Every pair of eyes was on me, some of them wary, some of them fascinated, but each and every pair was staring at me as though I were something strange. Something different.

  So much for a normal night of teenage shenanigans.

  “Okay, fine. Let’s go,” I said shakily.

  Flavia smiled tentatively at me and ushered me toward the Scribes’ wagon, which was actually an old converted boxcar. I followed her numbly, my eyes continuing to Annabelle, as though I were afraid she was going to vanish the moment I looked away, or else suddenly appear as I had drawn her. At last Flavia closed the door behind me, hiding her from view.

  Flavia didn’t ask me anything at first. She sat me down in one of the shabby armchairs by the potbellied stove. Wordlessly, she pulled off my boots and tucked a patchwork quilt around me, like a mother tucking a child into bed. Then she made me a fragrant cup of tea, stirred it with a cinnamon stick, and handed it to me. It tasted like ginger and apples and something flowery. I took several sips and let the warmth sink down into me. Flavia let me sit in silence while I drank, never pushing, no expectation, until I was ready to speak. A strong wave of déjà vu washed over me as I recalled the last time I had been inside this wagon. Her counsel then had been thoughtful, comforting, and much appreciated.

  “Thank you,” I told her at last. I was relieved to hear my voice was no longer shaking or shrill.

  “You’re welcome. How can I help?”

  I looked into Flavia’s face. This girl saved my life once. I trusted her. I could tell her.

  “Something happened to me recently,” I said. “Have you heard about the Shattering that took place at Fairhaven last month?”

  Flavia nodded. “Yes, we all heard about that. I had never before heard about one happening in my lifetime.”

  “Yeah, well, I tend to attract once-in-a-lifetime events every week or so,” I said dryly. “Anyway, just before the Shattering happened, I woke up to a spirit drawing of a young Durupinen woman I didn’t recognize. It turned out to be the Shattered spirit herself, which I didn’t discover until much later. The drawing helped us to identify her and reverse the Shattering.”

  Flavia’s eyes went wide. “She reached out to you before the Shattering even happened?”

  I shook my head. “No. That would have been remarkable in and of itself. But that wasn’t what had happened. I was able to speak to her before she Crossed. She had never tried to reach out to anyone. She couldn’t. She was trapped inside the príosún on the Ilse of Skye, under every restrictive Casting you could possibly think of.”

  Flavia’s eyes went, if possible, still wider. I dropped my own gaze to my cup of tea clasped in my hands.

  “Then how did she—”

  “She didn’t. It wasn’t a normal spirit-induced drawing. It was a prophetic one,” I told the cup. Silence greeted these words. I couldn’t bear to look at Flavia’s face. It was really much, much easier to keep looking down into my tea and counting the tiny specks of tea leaves settled in the bottom of the cup. Maybe I could interpret them, like Annabelle, and find the answers I needed. Finally, the silence spiraled on for so long that I couldn’t stand it anymore. I looked up and found Flavia’s face. She’d had time to settle it into a calmly expectant expression.

  “Go on,” was all she said.

  I took a deep breath. “At first I thought it might have been an isolated incident. I’ve never had a prophetic experience before. But then I woke up to this.”

  I picked up my sketchbook, opened it to the most recent drawing I’d done of Annabelle, and handed it to Flavia. She took it from me, looked down at it, and gasped.

  “But . . . is this . . . she’s . . .” she whispered.

  “Dead,” I finished for her. “I don’t know how else to interpret it.”

  “Nor do I,” Flavia replied. “Is that a knife by her hand?”

  “Yes. I’ve drawn that same image in my sleep twice now,” I told her. “The sketches seem to be completely identical.”

  Flavia’s eyes flashed in and out of view as the light from the fire flickered against her glasses, turning the lenses opaque. “No wonder you panicked when you saw Annabelle here. And she doesn’t know?”

  I shook my head. “I just couldn’t bring myself to frighten her with a vision I didn’t understand. What would be the point? I couldn’t tell what had happened, or how it had happened, or where it had happened! It has no context! What am I supposed to say to her? ‘Hey, so I had a vision of you dying but that’s all the information I have, have a nice day!’ I can’t do that to her!”

  “No, you can’t,” Flavia agreed. “Does anyone else know you’ve had this vision? Besides your Caomhnóir, I mean.”

  “My sister and Milo know, and my mentor at Fairhaven,” I told her.

  “So this is why you asked me about Rifting and prophecies,” Flavia said quietly. “I thought you were still worrying about the Isherwood Prophecy, that there was something still there to interpret. It didn’t even occur to me that you were talking about another prophecy entirely.”

  “I know, right? One prophecy is already one too many,” I muttered.

  “What did your mentor have to say?” Flavia asked, her studious gaze still poring over the sketch.

  “Well, as luck would have it, Fiona’s mother is a Seer,” I said. “She only ever had one real prophetic incident, a sculpture of my mother’s face. Her obsession with interpreting it eventually drove her mad. Fiona has studied prophetic art intensely ever since, in the hopes of helping her mother. She was the one who explained to me that I was a Seer, and that the drawings I had made were actually prophecies.”

  “And did she have any interpretation to offer for this image?” Flavia asked.

  “No. She only encouraged me to open myself to the gift, so that I could be more receptive to understanding what the visions mean.”

  “Ah, I see,” Flavia said, understanding dawning on her face at last. “That’s why you wanted to Rift. You wanted help interpreting this particular image.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “And did you? Did the Rifting increase your understanding?” I could tell that Flavia was trying to tame her own intellectual curiosity, but it bubbled up in her voice nonetheless. Her hunger for undiscovered niches of Durupinen knowledge was insatiable.

  “Yes,” I said. “But this leads me to another . . . uh . . . delicate piece of information that only a few people know.”

  Flavia laughed incredulously. “Of course, it does.”

  I smiled weakly. “You know me. I like to keep things interesting.” I hesitated again, but I had already made my decision, already decided that I could trust her. “When I arrived, you told me that you felt sorry for Irina, and that you hoped that the Council would set her free and let her Cross. Is that true?”

  Flavia looked taken aback by the sudden shift in topic, but nodded her head solemnly. “Yes, it certainly is. In fact,” she stood up abruptly, her quilt crumpling to a heap at her feet. She scurried over to one of the old boxcar tables that was strewn with open books and fraying sheaves of parchment, and extracted a piece of heavy yellow paper. She brought it to her chair and handed it o
ver to me as she sat back down. “This is a petition to the Council that a group of us have created. It asks for mercy for Irina from the Council, and asks for consideration for pardon and an immediate Crossing.”

  I scanned the paper, feeling a lump rise in my throat. “There aren’t very many signatures on here.”

  Flavia shrugged helplessly. “That’s because most of the Travelers want to see Irina punished. The Council Elders are livid about the recent string of attacks Irina has committed, especially Ileana. Disloyalty is tantamount to treason amongst the Travelers. But we hoped that they might consider Crossing her, if we could frame it as the elimination of a threat, rather than giving in to her demands.”

  “Do you think it will work?” I asked, without real hope in my voice.

  “I felt we needed to try something,” Flavia replied.

  “So, that’s a no,” I said with a sad smile.

  “It’s a long shot,” Flavia admitted.

  I handed the petition back to her. My heart was pounding very hard, considering all I was doing was sitting curled up in a chair. “Well, as you know, I was the one who unmasked Irina at Whispering Seraph. What you may not know is that I tried to Cross her once I realized who she was.”

  Flavia covered her mouth with her hands. “You did?”

  “Yes. And I would have done it, but I was stopped by one of the other Trackers before I could open the Gateway. I had a chance to help Irina, and I couldn’t. But before she was taken away, I made a promise that I would find a way to free her, if I could.”

  Peeking out from over her hands, Flavia’s eyes glazed over with tears. “You promised her?”

  “I did. And that’s why I’m here. To do whatever I can to ensure that she gets to Cross. Obviously, I hope that the Traveler Council will just decide to do so, but if they don’t . . .”

  Flavia dropped her hands. “How will you do it?”

  “I have no clue,” I said. “Well, that’s not true. I have one, vague, terrifying clue.” And I tapped a finger on the sketch in my lap.

  Flavia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” I said with a bitter laugh. “But I went Rifting with one question in mind: what does this sketch mean? Well, the Spirit Guides had an answer for me: this is how I keep my promise to Irina.”

  Flavia looked from my face to the sketch several times. I watched the horror slowly blooming on her face, until I felt quite sure that her expression perfectly captured what I was feeling in my gut at that very moment.

  “In order for Irina to be free, Annabelle has to . . .” Flavia voice shook and faded. She looked down at her petition as though it had transformed into something ugly and malignant in her lap.

  “That’s what the Spirit Guides told me. And I’m hoping they’re wrong. That’s why I was hoping you might help me interpret the vision I had when I was Rifting. Maybe I missed something? Maybe they were trying to give me a hint? Maybe I’m interpreting it all wrong? Please, Flavia. I know nothing about Rifting or Spirit Guides or prophecy interpretation, and you’re the most knowledgeable Durupinen I know. There’s got to be a way to help Irina without sacrificing Annabelle. Help me. Please.”

  Flavia reached a hand across the small space between us. She grasped my hand where it lay, right on top of the image of Annabelle, and squeezed it. Then she leapt up, returned to her desk, settled herself in front of a blank page, and picked up a pen.

  “Tell me everything about your Rifting vision,” she said firmly, pushing her glasses up her nose with a bookish determination.

  §

  When I exited the Scribes’ wagon thirty minutes later, I was confident that I had told Flavia every detail I could possibly recall from the Rifting. Unlike a dream, the Rifting did not fade from the memory upon waking, but implanted itself firmly, Flavia told me, allowing the Rifter to ponder and interpret the experience more fully. I was both grateful and disheartened by this fact. On the one hand, clearly recalling details might help save Annabelle. On the other hand, much of the vision had been so disturbing that I longed to forget it entirely.

  I saw Finn leaning against a nearby wagon, waiting for me. He leapt to attention as though I were an approaching commanding officer, and perhaps the expression on my face suggested just that.

  “What are you doing? Where is Annabelle? Why aren’t you with her?” I cried at once.

  “I am with her,” he said, much more calmly than I deserved. “She’s right inside this wagon, asleep. She was dead on her feet. She’s been traveling for more than a day.”

  A cold, iron fist released its grip on my lungs. “Oh. Right. Thank you for staying with her. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

  “It was where you needed me to be,” Finn said.

  “Are you sure she’s asleep? I need to tell you what—” I began, but a sharp voice cut me off.

  “There you are! Where the hell were you? Jess, she’s coming! Annabelle is coming to the Traveler camp!” Milo’s flustered voice crackled through the connection with a manic energy that made me wince.

  “Yes, thank you, Milo, but you’re about an hour too late,” I replied. “And this isn’t a crappy cell phone connection. I can hear you loud and clear as always, so please take it down a notch before you make my head explode.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Milo said, his voice settling at once. “What do you mean, I’m an hour too late?”

  “She’s already here,” I told him.

  “Oh, shit,” Milo said. “Damn, sweetness, I’m sorry. I tried to warn you as soon as I found out, but I couldn’t reach you for the longest time! It was like the connection was jammed. That’s why I was shouting.”

  “That would be because of the Rifting,” I told him. I rubbed at my forehead. Though he was remembering to keep his voice down, my head was beginning to pound. I suspected this was the onset of that Rifting hangover Flavia had warned me about.

  “The what?” Milo asked.

  “Never mind, I’ll explain it later. Just tell me what you found out. How did you know she was coming?”

  “She was traveling, which was why it took her so long to get back in touch with us. She was on planes for twelve hours, and then had to switch over to an international cell phone and all that before she could finally call us back. And of course, she didn’t rush, because we were trying to play it cool and pretend it wasn’t, like a dire emergency, so we wouldn’t scare her or make her suspicious that something was going on.”

  “Well, that plan’s out the window,” I said dryly. “I scared the ever-loving shit out of her the second I saw her by screaming that she needed to leave because I was putting her in terrible danger.”

  Milo was silent for a long moment. “Smooth move, sweetness.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “But I was half-hysterical after a drug-induced dream-vision thing, and—”

  “Wait, what now?!” Milo cried. “You’re doing drugs? What is going on over there?”

  “It’s this thing called Rifting,” I said impatiently. “The Travelers use herbs and a Casting to deepen their connection with the spirit world and get clearer messages. I tried to so that I could try to understand my vision of Annabelle better.”

  “And did it work?” Milo asked eagerly.

  “Yes and no,” I hedged.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Milo asked.

  “It means that I have some more shit to figure out. But I’ll keep you posted, I promise,” I told him.

  “And . . . and what about . . . your promise? Irina?” Milo asked, lowering his voice even though I was the only one who could possibly hear him.

  “I still haven’t testified. But I’m . . . working on that, too,” I said vaguely.

  “Okay. If you need me . . .”

  “I know. Thanks, Milo. Truly.”

  “You got it, sweetness.” I felt the energy pop that meant he had pulled out of the connection. I sighed and rubbed my head again.

  “All okay?” Finn asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah,
Milo was trying to warn me that Annabelle was coming to the Traveler camp.”

  “Ah,” Finn said with a rueful smile. “Too little, too late, then.”

  “It wasn’t his fault. The Rifting sealed off the connection for a while. Is she asleep?” I pointed to the wagon again.

  “Yes. I checked. Sound asleep,” Finn said.

  “Good. You’re going to want to sit down for this.”

  Finn listened calmly while I explained every detail of my Rifting vision, as well as everything that Flavia and I had discussed in the Scribes’ wagon. When I had finished, he sat for a few moments with his hands pressed together, his fingertips against his lips.

  “We can’t keep this from Annabelle,” Finn said. “You’ve got to tell her.”

  “I know. I just don’t know how.”

  “Regardless, she must be told. It would be unfair to keep her in the dark,” Finn said.

  My eyes filled with tears despite my efforts to fight them back. “What am I supposed to say, Finn? This is all my fault.”

  He frowned at me. “How? How is this your fault?”

  “I made that promise to Irina, and I set this whole thing into motion. It was a rash promise to make. I had absolutely no idea how I would keep it—I still don’t know how I’m going to keep it, except that I seem to be sacrificing one of my good friends in the process.”

  “You mustn’t talk like that,” Finn said sharply. “You are not to blame for anything. Every choice we make, every action we take in this life—has consequences. You carry no more blame than anyone else simply because you’ve been given a glimpse of what those consequences might be.”

  “But it was still my decision to promise to help Irina,” I said.

  “And it was the right decision. You should help her. We should all help her. She has been persecuted and tortured for years. It’s unconscionable, what’s happened to her,” Finn said, reaching out and taking my hand. “But don’t forget what you know to be true of prophecies.”

  “What do I know to be true of prophecies?” I asked.

  “They are not set in stone. They are not immune to the actions of those they speak of. It was right there in the words of the Isherwood Prophecy: ‘she will have the power.’ Your agency mattered. Your decisions mattered. You fought for the only outcome you would accept and in the end, you triumphed.”