We Will Change Our Stars
Page 34
Jasmine knocked on the door, and she made a little show of it, dancing around as she knocked along to her humming. Callie’s mother opened the door, and smiled at us.
“Hello, Ma’am,” I said. “May we please play with your daughter?”
Well that sounded less creepy in my head.
“Um,” she said tentatively, and I deserved that. “Sure. You can try, but I haven’t been able to get her to come out of her room all day. She won’t tell me what’s going on. You might have better luck.”
One by one, we thanked her, and walked into the house. We kept up our row until we got to Callie’s door. Jasmine knocked again, and called out to the girl.
“Callie? Can we come in?”
The door opened slowly, and Callie looked ragged. The matching bunny jammies gave away that she wasn’t in a good place at the moment, but at least she survived this.
“Are you okay?” Kizzy asked.
Callie shook her head, and walked into her room again. “The voices are loud today. They’re screaming at me, but I can’t understand them.” She shut her eyes, and tangled her fingers in her hair. “It’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t reach it.”
“Well, we have good news,” Jasmine said, trying to make her feel better. “Arachne is taken care of, and you’re safe.”
She left out the part where something was happening, and we had no clue what. The Oracle would probably be safe no matter what.
“Safe?” she asked. Callie’s eyes went to the ceiling. “Safe is not in my head. I hear so many words, and none of them are safe. Mountains will crumble.”
Oh damn, not this again.
“Crumble,” she said again. “I can taste grief on my tongue. Tears on my face, burning my eyes.” Her voice sounded hoarse as she cried. “Ripped to pieces. Eyes ripped to pieces. Pieces . . . ” She started pacing the room, looking at the post-its that covered her walls.
“Callie,” I said. “We already told you that didn’t mean anything. It can’t be about us. There are only five, and you said it was about six people.”
She laughed hysterically, only for a moment. “Six . . . six is so easy. Five, and one more makes six. He’s coming. She said he’s coming, and then mountains will crumble.”
Kizzy looked at me, and whispered, “She’s nuts.”
Jasmine, far more gentle than I, approached the girl. Stopping just in front of her, she said, “Honey. You need to try and focus. What’s coming? What do you hear?”
“It’s so dark,” Callie whispered. “I feel it inside of me. Darkness from down under. It’s beneath us, but it comes. Soon. So much light, but the dark wants to take him. They said it might. She’ll have to bring him out of it.” For a split second, she looked at Juniper, who looked as lost as the rest of us. Callie looked up again.
“Eyes,” I said. “Eyes are the seers.” That much seemed obvious. “Three eyes ripped to pieces. But who are the mountains?”
“You,” Callie said. “I told you. You, Kezia, and another. Soon. The darkness is coming. It will swallow the light. And in the end, there will be light . . . everywhere . . . ” Her eyes went distant. “I can hear them. Shhh . . . ”
I felt power vibrating in the air around us, and I reached out to grab Jasmine the way that Kizzy grabbed Jasper. The seers didn’t seem to be aware, but they operated on a different frequency than we did. Our senses had always been sharper
Callie’s soul sang to me, radiating power not her own. Too much would kill her, and the voices swam in her head. The gods would overwhelm her if they spoke too loudly. But it didn’t look like Callie had a problem with it.
Callie closed her eyes one more time. “Pieces, pieces.” In a moment, she gasped and her eyes opened wide again. When Callie spoke, her voice sounded like an echo. “Almost time. The eyes will fall, and the mountains will cry. One by one, the eyes will close. Leave this world for the next, abandoning flesh for stone. Six mountains will stand when the wind comes blowing.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nicole "Cappie" Thorn was born in California but, after a stint in Kansas, moved to a suburb of Phoenix. She spends a lot of her free time knitting and reading from her massive book collection. Her eclectic tastes, like Disneyland, Buffy and all things London, carry into her writing. She started writing in her early twenties and finds it wonderfully addictive.
Sarah Hall has been writing since her early teens and plans to continue long past her death, via robot body. She spends her days daydreaming about conversations between fictional characters and ignoring the condescending looks she gets from her cats when she does so. During her day in the unforgiving Arizona heat, she juggles her pets, writing, and her neurotic sometimes writing partner. She has no problems with said juggling, as the Force is with her.