“Coming right up.” She takes the menu from the table.
She goes behind the bar and shouts at the chef in the kitchen, “Two choco chips over easy and a mush-let with taters.”
“Roger,” the chef says, like a grunt.
“Do you guys come here often?” Ron asks.
“Hmm, maybe once every couple of months or so. I usually rather cook,” Iris says. “But I do come here every day for the paper.” Iris sighs. “I just don’t really feel like cooking these days.”
Giselle looks out the window with her head propped up on one elbow. “Why not?”
Iris shrugs. “I just feel uneasy, I guess. What with all the searching through the forest and,” she lowers her voice, “breaking into people’s cabins and stuff.”
Giselle turns to Iris, taking her elbow off the table. She also talks in a low voice. “I’m sorry if that makes you uneasy but you don’t have to worry. We’re not in any danger. Carl didn’t even know we were there.”
“Sure, maybe you’re not in any danger right now but these are gifted people we’re talking about. They kill and steal and lie without any thought.”
Ron frowns. Iris doesn’t talk like that often, but whenever she does, she always says the dumbest, most ignorant things about gifted people. Even Giselle, who seems to hate the gifted more than Iris, never talks like that. But Ron doesn’t want to give them a reason to be upset with her, so she scrubs the frown from her face and keeps her mouth shut.
“Regardless,” Giselle says, “we’re on a mission. You know that.”
“Why can’t you let someone else handle this? Why does it have to be you?”
“Iris, I don’t get it. You used to be very excited and supportive about this.”
The music stops. Ron looks up at the speakers on the ceiling and then over at the bar. The server is talking to the cook through the window softly but their body language looks agitated. Iris and Giselle don’t seem to notice, and just continue talking.
“Yeah,” Iris says, “but that was before all of that with Carl. It’s too scary now. There’s too much we don’t know.”
“That’s why we have to keep going. We have to find out what’s going on.”
“You’re gonna get yourself hurt—or worse.” She turns to Ron. “You too, Ron. You could get killed.”
Ron turns her attention back to the two of them, shifting in her seat uneasily. She was hoping not to get involved but now Iris has dragged her into it. “I understand your concern, Iris, but this is impossible to ignore.”
Iris turns to Giselle. “There’s nothing I can say to get you to stop, is there?”
Giselle shrugs with a smile.
Iris sighs. “Just be careful. Please.”
“Of course.” Giselle tucks a piece of Iris’s unruly red hair behind her ears. “I wouldn’t want to make you a widow.”
Iris pouts. “You better not.”
“So what’s the plan now?” Giselle asks, turning back to Ron.
“I think we should try and get him out of there,” Ron says.
“Why?” Iris whines. “You don’t know what he’ll do to you if you free him. That’s too dangerous.”
Giselle leans back in the booth. “I think our priority should be to find out what his gift is—if he has one.”
Ron doesn’t know as much about gifts as Chrys does but she has heard about a couple through Chrys. There’s no rhyme or reason to them, and just about anything seems to be possible. Ron thinks back to Carl and Noah. Identical twins. You could easily mistake one for the other.
“Iris, remember a couple days ago when you had that monster dream?” Ron asks.
Iris shudders. “I keep having that dream too—had it ever since I was a girl.”
“Is Carl in it every time?”
“No, it’s usually just me and the monster in the hall. I’m telling you, that’s why Carl really freaked me out in that dream. He doesn’t belong there.”
“You think his gift might have something to do with dreams?” Giselle asks, wearing that focused expression she always has when we talk about the gifted.
Ron shrugs. “It’s just a theory. Anyway, I agree that we should find out what his gift is, if he has one, but what about after that?”
“I don’t know.” Giselle puts a hand on her chin. “I think—”
“I’m sorry, ladies,” the server says. At some point, she had walked around the bar to their table. “Power’s out and it looks like it won’t come back on any time soon. Paul called the power company and they said they don’t know what the problem is yet, but could be hours. So I’m afraid you’ll have to come back another time. Can’t finish making the food. Stove’s electric.” As she starts to walk away she mutters under her breath, “Knew we should’ve never switched from gas. But no…”
She goes into the kitchen from the door next to the bar.
Giselle and Ron exchange looks.
“How long do you think that laptop’s battery will last?” Ron says in a hushed voice. “I think the power’s been out since the music stopped a while ago.”
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure Carl doesn’t have any backup power source out there. He’d have to wait until the power’s back up.” Giselle stands up. “Iris, get up. Let’s go.”
Iris stays seated, blocking Giselle from getting out of the booth. “No. You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you?”
“You want to stay here forever?”
“Don’t go there. You don’t have to help him, Giselle.”
“Iris, we have portable generators in the store.”
“So you’re just gonna waltz into his house with a generator? And how you gonna explain that, huh? How you gonna explain why you’re there helping him?”
Ron gets out of the booth and stands by the table. “That man could die, Iris.”
Giselle bends over and says in a low voice, “Do you really think Carl is that dangerous? He’s not.”
“He could hurt you,” Iris whines.
Giselle pushes Iris’s shoulder—not very forcefully, but just a nudge to try to get her to move. Iris finally caves and gets up and out of the booth.
She glares at Giselle. “Don’t get yourself killed, you idiot.”
She storms out of the diner, snatching a paper from the rack as she leaves.
Giselle sighs and makes her way out of the booth. “Come on, Ron.”
Ron follows after her. Giselle goes to the store next door. She pulls out a ring of keys from her pocket.
“Iris does have a point, though,” Ron says behind Giselle. “I mean, I think we should help, but how will we explain?”
Giselle unlocks the door and goes in. “I don’t know. Maybe Carl isn’t even there right now.”
Ron follows Giselle through the aisles. “Let’s hope so.”
Giselle goes to the back of the store. There are a couple generators on two wheels on one side and a handle on the other so you can lift them up and wheel them. Giselle lifts the smallest one at an angle and points at the shelf behind the generators.
“Get a can of propane,” she says.
Ron nods and takes a small canister. Giselle wheels the generator out of the store, Ron lugging the canister behind her.
As they walk to Carl’s house, Giselle says, “Oh god, should we be doing this?” But she doesn’t stop walking. “Should we knock? Should we break in again? What should we do?”
“I think we’ll have to figure that out when we get there.”
Giselle nods. They go through the forest. Giselle struggles to wheel the generator through so Ron helps her lift it and carry it with her free hand.
They arrive at the clearing and set the generator down. Carl’s motorcycle is parked outside.
Giselle peeks through the window. She turns back to Ron and shakes her head.
/> “He’s not there,” she whispers. “What should we do?”
“There’s a window around the back,” Ron says, pointing. “Let’s see if he’s down there.”
Giselle nods.
Ron sets the canister of propane down next to the generator and leads the way to the back. They kneel down by the window and peek into it, Giselle peering over Ron’s shoulder.
Carl is kneeling on the ground holding Noah in his arms, shaking him with tears running down his face. Noah’s body shakes stiffly, his head lolling around. Carl looks like he’s saying something, but they can’t hear him through the closed window.
“Ron,” Giselle whispers, her mouth right next to Ron’s ear, “I think we’re too late.”
Chapter 25
Hunter is sitting at his desk in our cabin, bobbing his head to the music playing through his headphones. He doesn’t notice me enter. His backpack is sitting on his lap unzipped. His legs are clad in his usual black skinny jeans but these have a couple rips in them.
I walk up next to him and tap him on the shoulder with one finger, where his skin is covered with his black T-shirt.
He glances over and then digs through his bag. He takes out an old-looking MP3 player and presses pause. Then he pulls off his headphones and puts that and the player in his backpack. He zips it up. “Ready to go?”
“Well, Li says we don’t have to go anymore,” I say. “Valeria basically figured it out—who did it, I mean.”
“Oh, so we’re not going anymore?”
I blink at him. I expected him to ask for more details about Valeria and the perpetrator, but instead he’s asking about the trip into town.
“Well,” I say, “we don’t have to go but I kind of still want to. I’d like to see my friend for a bit.”
“And is that something you’d rather do… alone?”
“Do you not want to come?”
“Do you want me to come?”
I sigh. “Come or not. It doesn’t matter to me.” I go over to my desk. “I don’t want to stay overnight though, so I’m going to leave now. It’s a couple hours from here, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” he says, standing up from his desk chair.
I put the cell phone and Remington’s letter in the tote bag. I consider taking the gloves too but wearing them in the middle of summer would just make me even more suspicious in town. “So are you coming or not?”
“If it’s fine with you, then yeah, I guess. I haven’t left this place since I got here. Might be able to buy some snacks. I really wish we had chips here.”
“Okay, cool. Should we get some water and food from the kitchen or something?”
He pats his backpack, which he had put on the chair. “I already got some. Six bottles of water plus four sandwiches.”
I hold out my hand. “Give me half.”
“It’s fine. I’ll carry it.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t be such a ‘gentleman.’ You think I want to ask you to dig in your bag every time I want a sip of water or a bite of a sandwich?”
He sighs and unzips his backpack. He hands me three bottles of water and two sandwiches wrapped in foil paper. I put them in the tote bag.
“Okay, let’s go,” I say.
We walk out of the cabin. Hunter leads the way into the forest.
“Do you know how to get out of the pocket universe?” I ask.
“Yeah, Remy told me how. We just have to go to the Red Tree and knock. He taught me the pattern.”
“Red Tree?”
“Yeah the bark has a reddish tinge to it.”
“Let’s hope we can find it among all these other trees.”
“Don’t worry. I know where it is. I walk through the forest a lot.” He glances back at me. “By the way, the investigation is over? Doesn’t that mean you completed the second task?”
“Yeah, Li told me I can do the third task now.”
“So you didn’t succeed? I can’t blame you. It’s really difficult.”
“No, I haven’t done it yet. She just told me to go to Shikoba, saying something about a confrontation of my past.”
“And you haven’t gone to him yet?”
“Well, I just wanted to see my friend first. But that’s why I don’t want to stay overnight. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow. But anyway, Li also said I can keep trying the third task until I succeed. How many times have you tried so far?”
“Just once.”
An animal darts past me, scaring me for a moment, but Hunter just keeps walking, unbothered.
“So why haven’t you tried again?” I ask, catching up with Hunter but staying just behind him.
“Chrys, do you know what Shikoba’s gift is?”
“Something about a photographic memory.”
“That’s part of it.” He stops and turns to face me. “His memory is perfect, yes, but he can also make someone relive a memory exactly as it happened. In reality, just minutes pass by but it feels like it’s in real time, as if it’s happening to you again, except you also remember everything that’s going to happen with disturbing clarity.”
I exhale slowly, my mouth not finding any words to say. In that case, a confrontation of my past would mean reliving something that happened. Something I probably don’t want to relive. The stuff I keep locked up, pushed down, far far away.
“Look,” Hunter continues, “I’m not trying to scare you off—I want you to succeed, which is why I’m telling you this. It’s intense. You should be prepared for the worst. He’s going to make you relive the memory that makes you wish you weren’t gifted the most.”
“So how do you know if you’ve succeeded or not?” I say, throat feeling tight.
“It’s simple. You just have to get to the end of the memory without asking him to pull you out.”
“That’s torture. Why would Li force us to do that—to relive some horrific memory?”
He shrugs. “Maybe because she doesn’t actually want to erase anyone’s gift? I mean, she knows how difficult it is. Those who even manage to get to the third task never try a second time. If he pulls you out, the next time you have to start all over from the beginning. Some don’t even bother trying at all, once they hear what they have to do.”
I close my eyes and massage my temples.
“Chrys, if you want to succeed, you have to make it through the first time. Don’t ask him to pull you out, no matter what. If you do, you’ll never want to ask him to put you back in there again. Trust me.”
I drop my hands and open my eyes, sighing. I look over at some rustling nearby but don’t see anything.
I turn back to Hunter. “So you’re never going to try again?”
“Well, the thing is I don’t really want to have my gift erased anymore.”
“Why not?”
He looks at me for a moment and then turns around suddenly and starts walking. “It’s nothing. I’m just okay with having it now.”
I follow after him. “But what changed?”
“Nothing changed.”
“What about all the noise? You’re fine with that too?”
“Turns out the noise isn’t that bad if I focus on one person.”
“Wait. Are you focusing on me right now?”
“Well, you know yesterday when you told me to focus on you and you thought about your friend? I’ve never actually done that before—you know, focus on someone. Usually everyone’s emotions just float around in me, but people who are the closest to me or people with really strong emotions are the most prominent. But when I focused on you, it was like everyone else’s faded away, like background noise. So I just, uh, never stopped focusing on you.”
“Well when I said that, I didn’t mean to do it for all eternity. So you can stop now. It’s embarrassing.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I know.”
I groa
n. “I’m serious. I don’t want you super in-tune with my emotions or whatever.”
He shrugs. “It’s not like you can tell if I’m doing it or not, so just pretend that I’m not.”
“How am I supposed to pretend now that I know you most definitely are doing it?”
“Okay. I stopped. There.”
I can’t see his face but it sounds like he said it with a smile. “You’re lying. You’re still doing it, aren’t you?”
“Nope. Definitely not lying, and definitely not still doing it.”
I sigh. “Whatever. Do what you want.”
“I will.”
The trees are getting smaller and closer together, and the ground is getting softer with moss and fallen leaves instead of bare dirt. The air is refreshingly cool in the shade of the canopy.
I walk faster so that we’re walking side by side. “Don’t you want to know who did it—you know, how the investigation thing turned out?”
“I figured you didn’t want to talk about it since you didn’t mention any details besides it being over.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. I just thought you’d ask me about what you wanted to know.”
“Well, just tell me everything.”
“But what specifically do you want to know? I don’t want to bore you.”
“I won’t get bored. Besides, we have a long way to go. Just tell me everything.”
And so I did. I told him all the details of everything that happened with the investigation as we continued walking through the forest. And after that, after we found the Red Tree and left the pocket universe, I told him about Ron and our adventures on the road before I made it to the camp.
Chapter 26
Ron and Giselle’s eyes are glued to the window. Carl holds his brother in his arms for a while, and then finally, he lays him back down on the mattress and covers him with the sheet, like normal. Then he goes to the open laptop on the table and unplugs the HDMI cord, letting it fall to the floor.
He slumps into the folding chair and stares at the laptop’s screen for a moment. Then, he wipes the tears from his face with the back of his hand, puts on the headphones, and starts typing.
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