by Lola StVil
“My mother,” Perry says. “She got into drugs when I was younger. It started out as something she did only once in a while. It took the edge off, as she put it. But they got ahold of her. My father left us, and it was just her and me.”
Saudia sits down beside Perry.
“She promised me so many times she would get clean. I think she even meant it a few of those times. But she couldn’t. The drugs are stronger than the addicts, Saudia. And they always will be. That’s just how it works. My mom would stay clean for weeks. Months sometimes. But then something would happen, something that would send her back into a downward spiral. I’ve lost count of the times I would come home and find her passed out, a needle sticking out of her arm. Or so high she didn’t know who she was or who I was. It was heartbreaking. But I never gave up on her.”
Saudia reaches out and puts her hand on Perry’s. He looks up and meets her eye, his face twisted with pain.
“She couldn’t get off them. Not fully. Not even for me. The drugs always came first. She died alone is some dirty alley.”
I want to say something, but I don’t know what to say. Nothing can make that easier.
“Perry, I’m so sorry. I had no idea… ” Saudia says.
Perry manages a sad smile.
“I know. I never told anyone that before. And I know it won’t keep you away from Tracey. I know because so many people told me to give up on my mother, but I never did. But I wanted you to know why I’m always so harsh when you mention her.”
Quinn’s cell phone buzzes and she pulls it out and looks at it, a frown on her face. The tender moment between Perry and Saudia at least stopped the three-way argument between the twins and Quinn.
“Really? You couldn’t wait to check your text messages?” Saudia says.
Quinn looks up from her cell phone screen, her face pale.
“It wasn’t a text message. It was an alert. I fixed an alarm to my cabinet where all of my most dangerous vials are stored. That alert is the alarm going off. Someone broke in. I’m pulling the camera feed up now.”
We all crowd around Quinn, waiting for the little circle to stop spinning around and the feed to load. Slowly, the picture comes into view. The cabinet is clear to see—the doors are wrenched open. Smashed vials litter the floor around Langston’s feet as she stands holding a vial of pink liquid.
Langston broke into the cabinet?
“What the?” I start.
“Langston, no,” Quinn shouts as Langston uncorks the vial.
She can’t hear her, of course. She tips the vial up and pours the contents into her mouth and swallows.
She sways a little, and then she crumples to the floor. Her eyes flicker closed, and she lies motionless, surrounded by the shattered vials and spilled potions.
“Quinn? What did she just drink?” I ask.
Quinn doesn’t say anything.
“Damn it, Quinn, what just happened?”
“Langston killed herself.”
I kneel down beside Langston. I can feel liquid seeping into my jeans, and I don’t know if it’s from the spilled mixtures or if it’s my blood where the broken glass vials are cutting into my skin as I kneel.
I place my hands on Langston’s face. She’s still warm, and I can see her chest rising and falling as she breathes. It’s not too late for her. We can save her.
“Where the fuck is Regal?” I demand.
“He can’t fix this. It’s… ” Perry says quietly.
“Fuck that! Just go get him, Perry. Make him fix her.”
Perry gives me a sideways look and rushes from the room.
I can feel the tears bubbling in my throat. We can’t lose anyone, not like this. It’s so senseless. I knew she was upset about Drew of course, but to do this? We could have found another way to save him. I just wish she could have held on a little longer.
Where the hell is everyone? Why aren’t they in here helping me?
“Please wake up, please wake up,” I frantically whispered to Langston as the tears course down my face, leaving hot trails on my skin.
One falls from the end of my chin and splashes onto Langston’s cheek. I reach out and gently wipe it away. She’d hate her makeup to be smudged when she wakes up.
“Oh, thank Orah,” I breathe as Regal enters the room followed by Quinn and Perry.
I stand up to get out of the way.
“Atlas… ” Regal says.
“I don’t want to hear any bullshit excuses; just fix her.” I accidentally scream. My voice cracks.
Regal crosses the room and stands in front of me. He reaches out and touches my arm. I shrug his hand away. Why won’t he help her?
It hits me in a rush of panic. This isn’t real. The Gardu bird got me. I’m trapped in my own worst nightmare. I’m going to spend eternity watching Langston die as the team stands around and watch me try desperately to save her without help.
“Listen to me, Atlas,” Regal says firmly.
He holds me by the tops of my arms and forces me to look at him. I don’t resist. What’s the point? This is my eternity now.
“When Quinn said Langston killed herself, she didn’t mean it in the way you understood it. Langston isn’t actually dead. The mixture she swallowed allowed her to switch her life force with someone else. She’s activated the switch with Drew,” Regal explains gently.
“You mean I’m not trapped in hell?” I whisper.
“What? No,” Regal says, confusion clear on his face.
“I thought the Gardu bird got me. I thought I would be forever trapped trying to save Langston while you all just stood around watching me and letting her die.”
“That didn’t happen. You’re fine. And we’ll find a way to fix Langston,” Regal says gently.
He brushes a strand of loose hair from my face, and for a moment I think I see something in his face. Something that shouldn’t be there when he looks at me. I tell myself to get a grip. I step back from Regal. My gaze slips to Quinn. Is she watching?
I’m relieved that she’s focused on Langston and not watching Regal and me.
“Regal, Perry. Can you take Langston and lay her on her bed?” Quinn says. “We can’t just leave her here.”
They do as she asks. Regal slips his hands under her knees and behind her head, then gently scoops her up. Perry follows closely behind them. Quinn and I follow them out of the room.
“Are you sure that’s what happened?” I ask Quinn as we climb the stairs.
Quinn nods.
“I called the hospital while you were in there with her. Drew’s awake. As he gets stronger, Langston’s life force will fade more and more until eventually… ”
She trails off, but I know what was coming. The thought of losing Langston stabs me like a hot poker to the stomach. I remember when I was falling apart after losing my father and she would come into my room and turn it into a makeshift salon in an attempt to make me feel better.
“And I guess she’ll only wake up if Drew ends up back in the coma?” I ask.
Quinn shakes her head.
“Worse than that. She’ll only wake up if Drew dies. When I said she killed herself, I didn’t mean she’d done it there and then, but she did do it. She knows we wouldn’t kill an innocent human, so she signed her death warrant.”
“There must be something you can do, a reversal mixture or something.”
“I’m sure there’s something, but it’s too advanced for me. I called my mother. She’ll be here first thing in the morning.”
I don’t want to see Sadie. I am far from forgiving her for abandoning Kane when he needed her the most, but if she can save Langston, then I’ll tolerate her.
“Thank you,” I say to Quinn.
Quinn has a troubled relationship with Sadie, to say the least, and I know reaching out to her for help wouldn’t have been easy for Quinn.
After Quinn’s announcement, I ordered everyone to go to bed. There’s nothing we can do for Langston until Sadie gets here, and we needed to get
some sleep so that we could think straight. We still need to work out how the hell we’re going to find an island that’s been lost for years, and the stress of Langston’s actions has taken its toll.
We gather in Langston’s bedroom again as we wait for Sadie to arrive. I didn’t get any sleep, and I’d be surprised if any of the rest of the team did. No one bothers with breakfast. We just sit in silence and wait.
I look across at Langston where she lies on her bed, surrounded by the team. On a whim, I pick up her hairbrush and cross to her side. I gently brush the knots out of her hair. No one tries to stop me. They know as well as I do that Langston would want to look her best, even now.
It isn’t long before Sadie arrives.
“Why are you all in here? What’s the emergency?” she asks as she pushes Langston’s door open.
She stops when she sees Langston lying on the bed. She quickly goes to her side.
“What happened to her?” Sadie asks.
Quinn explains to Sadie about the mixture she took and why.
“And you kept that just lying around the house? Knowing that Langston would have done anything to wake Drew up?” she scolds.
“No. I’m not an idiot. It was in a secure cabinet,” Quinn says.
“Not secure enough evidently,” Sadie retorts.
“I knew I shouldn’t have called you,” Quinn mutters quietly, but not quietly enough for Sadie to miss it.
“You did the right thing calling me. I’ve spent my whole life picking up your mess, but this one is by far your greatest screwup, Quinn. There’s no way you could fix this yourself. I just can’t believe you were stupid enough to let her get it.”
“With all due respect, she had it in a locked cabinet. And she thought she could trust her friends to use common sense,” Regal snaps at Sadie.
She gives him a look.
“And how did that work out for you?” she asks Quinn.
“Right, that’s enough,” Saudia says.
“Both of you just stop it. In case you’ve all forgotten, we’re on a deadline here. Both to wake Langston up and somehow find a lost island that no one has ever found.”
“Island?” Sadie asks.
Saudia explains Valerie’s quest to her and how we have to hunt down the island to find the fairy dust.
“Okay,” Sadie says.
She thinks for a moment.
“The team needs to focus on finding the island. Atlas, call Pest. He’s pretty good at finding lost objects.”
“But he hasn’t found the island before,” I say.
Sadie shrugs. “He hasn’t wanted to find it before.”
“What about Langston?” Perry asks.
“Leave that with me. I’ll ask around. I have some pretty powerful friends who might be able to undo the bind.”
I step out into the hallway and go into my room. I call Pest and explain what we need.
“The Lost Island of Kavan?” Pest says. “Why on earth do you want to go there?”
I tell Pest about Valerie’s quest.
“Did you know the warlock Davis invented his own enchantment? He could use it to communicate with wild animals. And he also… ”
“Pest,” I interrupt. “This is important. We’re kind of on a tight deadline here.”
“Of course. Sorry, hang on a second.” He apologizes.
I can hear him rattling around the lab and then I hear the pages of a book rustling.
“Here we go. I knew I had this somewhere. The enchantment on the island is actually pretty clever. Because it’s not actually lost. It’s hidden in plain sight.”
“Pest,” I say again, struggling to keep the irritation out of my voice as he gives me useless facts.
He clears his throat and carries on.
“The island is exactly where it’s always been. Just off the coast by the Statue of Liberty. You need to pass the statue and walk to the very end of the peninsula. It’s a little off the beaten track, but it’s easy enough to get to.”
“So, why has no one ever found it?” I ask.
“Because they didn’t know what they were looking for. You have to find the golden ticket.”
“I want to get to the Lost Island of Kavan, not Willy Wonka’s factory,” I snap.
“I know,” Pest agrees. “And the ticket is the way. When you’re in the right spot, you’ll see a wall, and there’s one brick in that wall that’s made entirely of gold. Touching it will reveal a riddle. Solve the riddle, and you’re granted passage to the island.”
“What’s the answer to the riddle?” I ask.
“The riddle changes every hour, Atlas. I have no idea what it will even be, let alone the answer to it.”
“Okay. Thanks, Pest,” I say.
“Anytime,” he says.
I should hang up. As I was quick to remind Pest, time is of the essence, but I can’t bring myself to end the call without asking about Kane, and suddenly, I find that I can’t quite bring myself to say the words. I’m afraid of the answer.
I sit on the end of the line, the silence filling the room around me. I open my mouth to ask, but I close it again.
“He’s okay, Atlas,” Pest says as though he read my mind.
I feel a weight fly off my shoulders as relief hits me, and suddenly, I can talk again.
“Oh, I don’t care about… ”
There’s no point in lying to Pest. He’d see right through me. And he’s probably the one person who understands why I don’t give up on Kane completely, even when he deserves it.
“Thank you, Pest,” I say instead.
I go back to Langston’s room to tell the team I know where we have to go. Sadie has already left to start calling on her friends, and I’m surprised to see Tracey has joined the team.
“I texted Tracey to tell her why I didn’t go to meet her last night,” Saudia says. “She came right over so Langston won’t be left alone.”
“Thank you.” I smile at Tracey.
“No worries, Atlas. A friend of Saudia’s is a friend of mine.”
Her eyes dart quickly to Perry when she says it, and they dart back away equally quickly. I can see why. Perry’s face is thunderous. He is not happy at all about leaving Langston with Tracey, but what else can we do?
We can’t afford to leave anyone else behind, and leaving Langston alone would feel wrong.
Tracey sits down beside Langston’s bed. She opens her bag and pulls out a book.
“Well, I hope you like your stories far-fetched and sexy,” Tracey says.
She flashes the cover towards us with a sheepish smile. Fifty Shades of Grey.
“You haven’t read that yet?” Remy asks her, shocked.
“Just started it. It’s not really my thing, all this talk of inner goddesses, but I want to see what all the fuss is about,” Tracey says.
“You’ll love it,” Remy says.
“No, you won’t. It’s bullshit, but it’ll pass the time.” Saudia snickers
“Okay, guys. Let’s go,” I say.
We exchange our goodbyes with Langston even though she can’t answer us, and we thank Tracey again as we leave the room. Even Perry grunts out some thanks.
I tell Quinn where we’re headed, and she opens up a portal. We step through and come out on a deserted stretch of beach. A large brick wall stands behind us, and the sea is in front of us.
“Finding the brick suddenly doesn’t sound so easy, does it?” Regal comments as he walks towards the wall.
It looks next to impossible. Not that we won’t find it. I know we will. But will we find it in time? I try to work out how much longer we have to complete Valerie’s task. I’ve lost all sense of time, but the sun is well up, so it must be getting close to midday. Does that mean we have one day left or two? I have no idea.
I sigh and walk towards the wall. We split up and begin searching. All of the bricks are a pale yellow color, and I hope we can spot the golden one.
After several hours, Saudia screeches.
“Oh my God. G
uys. I found it.”
We rush to gather around her. She points to a brick high up on the wall.
“One small problem,” Perry says.
I look at him.
“No-fly zone,” he says.
Dammit.
Before we can start to discuss what we’re going to do, Regal steps up to the wall and begins to climb. He’s like Spiderman the way he shimmies up what, to me, looks like a totally flat surface. He seems to have no trouble searching out hand and foot holes.
He reaches the brick.
“Now what?” he calls.
“Touch it,” I shout back.
He reaches out and touches the brick. As his hand makes contact with it, a buzzing sound fills the air, like a swarm of bees. I spin around checking for anything approaching, but there’s nothing.
Regal begins to climb back down the wall as the buzzing sound grows louder. It’s lost its bee-like quality now. It sounds more like electricity buzzing in the air.
Regal lands back on safe ground with barely a sound.
We all stand looking out towards the sea.
“Pest said there’d be a riddle we have to solve. He said touching the brick would show it to us.”
Nothing.
I pull my cell phone out to call Pest.
“I don’t have a signal at all. Anyone else have one?”
None of the team does.
The buzzing noise stops abruptly. I look around and there on the wall is the riddle. The words are spelled out in bright blue and red flames.
I am the beginning of everything and the end of every place.
I am the beginning of eternity and the end of time and space.
What am I?
I look around blankly at the team. They look back at me, just as clueless. We are so screwed.
We stand looking at the riddle and looking at each other. Everyone’s face looks as blank as my mind feels. I can’t believe we came this far and managed to uncover the riddle, just to not know the answer.
“It doesn’t even make sense,” Saudia says.
She has said exactly what I’m thinking, but hearing it out loud frightens me. I was hoping one of the team would laugh and say it’s easy.
“What now?” Perry asks after we all stand gazing at the riddle for a few minutes.