I took the phone, anxious to hear my dad’s voice. “Papi?” There was no answer, only static. “Papi?” I asked again.
“Outside.” Dame Elisabeth held the door open for me. “And point the antenna straight up.” She followed me out.
Once we were about twenty feet away from the house, the crackling on the phone subsided, and I heard my father’s voice. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone still there?” he asked.
“Papi, it’s me,” I answered.
“¡M’ija! Are you okay? They won’t tell me where you are. I thought we were going to meet … where you said.”
He knew our conversation might be monitored and was being careful. Dame Elisabeth didn’t have to worry. My father understood all too well what was at stake.
“I’m safe. Don’t worry.” I glanced at Dame Elisabeth, who gave me an approving nod, before returning her gaze to the forest around us. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, but that’s not what’s important.” His voice was laden with concern, and I imagined him running his fingers through his graying dark hair, like he did whenever he was worried. “I was about to leave the clinic and meet you, but …”
I heard a muffled voice in the background, and my father responded, “I know, I know.”
“Papi, who’s there with you?” The thought that the half-eared man might have returned for my father filled me with dread. “Is someone forcing you to say things?”
“Huh? Oh … no, no. We just have to be careful with what we say.”
“But the person who’s there with you, does he have both ears? I know that sounds crazy, but just say yes or no.”
“Yes, don’t worry.” He paused for a moment, and I could hear more muffled conversation. “I’ll be leaving here with him, but I want him to bring me to you. We can go back to the US.”
The offer was so tempting. We could go back to the life I’d known, just the two of us … but I knew that what had started here would follow me wherever I went. “No, Papi, I can’t.” It was up to me to change the path I’d accidentally created, to stop all the destruction I’d seen in my vision.
“But over there it’ll be easier to hide … until this is over.”
“Papi,” I sighed, “it’ll never be over. Someone will always be after me. Because of who I am.”
“No, that’s not true. I can keep you safe. Let me speak to that woman.”
“Papi, I have a job to do here. I’m not leaving … not yet.”
“You’re too young to be making those decisions, Cassie. Let me talk to her … now.”
“But—”
“No buts. Put her on now. Ahora.”
I handed the phone back to my grandmother.
“Satisfied?” she asked him.
I could hear my father’s voice rising on the other end. He was not giving up.
“Mr. Arroyo.” Dame Elisabeth’s voice had a sharp tone to it. “You may think you remember me from when you were a child in Cuba, but trust me, you have no idea what I am capable of.”
My father was not backing down, and I could hear him arguing with her.
“No,” Dame Elisabeth stopped him. “You thought your job was to protect Cassie, but you were wrong. It’s our job to make her strong enough to protect herself.” She paused for a second, her eyes locking with mine. “And then she can protect the world.”
Nothing could be said to convince my father that I should be left alone under the protection of a woman he barely knew. Finally, Dame Elisabeth agreed to bring him to the cottage the next morning, along with some supplies.
I was glad he was going to be with me, but I knew he’d try to keep me from going after the spear. Which meant that even though I loved him more than anything, I’d have to go against his wishes. I had to fix my mistakes, and that meant using the spear again.
All night, I lay awake next to Dame Elisabeth thinking of what to do next. Just like in that stupid riddle with the farmer taking things across the river, every idea had bad consequences. Eventually, my eyelids grew heavy, but although I was physically drained, I couldn’t rest. Every time I drifted off, nightmare details from my vision jarred me awake. Then, just before dawn, I slipped into darkness.
I woke with a pounding headache, feeling more exhausted than I had the night before. The morning sun peeked through a crack in the drapes, and a lone bird chirped. I opened the bedroom door and saw Asher reading through my father’s journal, the one that Papi had given to me after being shot by the Hastati. Full of his notes and discoveries, it had helped us find the spear the first time. I could only imagine that the other book he’d given me, the Guardian’s Journal, held even more information. I could punch myself for having left it behind while I was escaping from the assassins who showed up at Simone’s house. Who knew what kind of information was in there and who was now reading it?
“Good morning, Cassandra,” Dame Elisabeth said, her eyes fixed on the laptop screen. “There are fresh strawberries in the kitchen, if you want to have that instead of the packaged meals.”
“Strawberries?” We didn’t have those when I went to bed.
“Yes, I got them earlier. They grow wild in the forest … down by the stream.” She stopped typing for a moment and looked over at me. “I’ll get some fresh food when I pick up your father, but you’ll have to get used to eating the packaged meals. We may be here awhile.”
I grabbed a strawberry and nibbled at it. “What time are we going to get him?” I asked.
Dame Elisabeth chuckled. “We? No, you’re staying here.”
“But I thought …”
“I already had this discussion with her,” Asher muttered. “I don’t like it, either.”
“It’s safer for you here.” She turned back to face the screen. “I’ll leave early this afternoon, and Asher will keep you company. I won’t be away too long.”
Asher waved me over and mouthed, “Come here.”
“What’s up?” I asked in a low voice, sitting down next to him. “Did you find something in there?” I pointed to my father’s journal.
“Kind of.” He flipped to a page toward the back of the book. “Look what your dad wrote in Spanish along the side of this page.”
I reread what he had written, translating it for myself to English because that was the language I thought best in.
GJ—1610 fire to open the doors of destiny. Clues point to the skull of the angel that resides with the lost souls of Naples.
“Fire to open the doors of destiny,” I repeated. “What do you think it means? Is it some kind of instruction for how to use the spear?”
Asher shrugged. “I don’t know. We can ask your dad when he gets here. But the GJ …” He leaned closer to me. “I think it refers to—”
“The Guardian’s Journal,” I finished his sentence. “Yeah, it must be. Do we know … Ow!” A sharp pain, like someone stabbing me behind the eyes, suddenly hit me. It was so intense that I felt like I might black out. I covered my eyes with the palms of my hands.
Asher touched my elbow. “Cassie? You okay?”
I couldn’t speak. Flashes of light flooded my brain. Time seemed to slow down, and then I saw a snapshot from my vision. It was something that had whisked by so quickly that I had barely noticed it the first time. It was the same horrifying scene of Rome, with bodies decomposing in the familiar streets. But this time I zoomed in closer, until I was on my school’s campus. I wanted to look away or close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I tried focusing on the familiar surroundings: the fountain, the villa-like main building, or the iron gates … but it was the students’ faces that I kept seeing. There was Gustav, the annoying boy from my history class who Simone always used to mock, lying still on the lawn. Next to him was Sandra, the quiet girl who had once lent me money for lunch.
I had somehow caused all of this. My use of the spear had created a future where my classmates were dying. I could feel my throat closing up. I was having a hard time breathing.
“Cassie!” Asher shouted, but his voice sound
ed so far away.
I tried to reply, but all that came out of my mouth was a guttural “uggghhh,” and then the next thing I knew, cold water splashed on my face.
I coughed and pushed back my wet hair. “What? Why did you do that?”
Dame Elisabeth stood over me with an empty cup of water.
“You feel better, don’t you?” she asked.
I nodded as drops of water rolled down my cheeks and onto my shirt. The pain had gone just as quickly as it had appeared. It was just like what had happened in the car except this one lasted much longer.
“What happened to you?” Asher asked, a concerned look on his face.
“I—I don’t know. It was like I had the spear again, and I was seeing some of the same things.”
“It’s the echo tracing.” Dame Elisabeth put the empty cup on the coffee table. “You’ll need to find a way to work with it.”
“Echo tracing? What is that?”
Dame Elisabeth handed me a blanket so I could dry my face. “You really don’t know much, do you? I’ve got my work cut out for me.” She sighed and sat beside me. “The visions from the spear leave a tremendous imprint in your brain. Humans only use a very small percentage of their mental capacity, and you are processing information that is very vast. What you’ve been exposed to will occasionally repeat, like an echo, as your brain tries to process it. You can use it to your advantage—it’s a way to absorb more of it. The key is to observe more without letting yourself get lost within your own mind. To get out, you need to give yourself a reboot, as if you were a computer, so that your brain doesn’t crash.”
“A reboot? Like throwing water on me?”
“That or anything else that can shock your brain back into its normal function.” Dame Elisabeth tapped my hand and stood. “You’ll figure out something that works for you. It’ll get better, and you’ll adapt. For the time being, we’ll keep an eye on you.” She walked back to the kitchen table to continue doing whatever secret work she was doing.
“Don’t worry,” Asher said. “Now that I know, I won’t let you get sucked into it again.” He gave me a wink. “I’ll always keep some water handy.”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered. Though he was trying to reassure me, this felt like yet another problem I’d have to deal with for the rest of my life. “I’m going to have some breakfast.” I stood to get the strawberries but felt a little dizzy. I plopped back down on the sofa.
“Maybe you should just stay here,” Asher suggested. “I’ll get them for you.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the “echo” I’d seen. Whatever horrible fate I had unleashed was going to affect the people I knew. And this wasn’t some distant future. It would happen pretty soon. There was no way I could just sit by and let it happen. In fact, it might have already started.
After breakfast, I spent some time rereading my father’s journal and decided that I should add my own thoughts to the blank pages. I wrote about the visions, trying to describe everything in as much detail as I could. It was like a continuation of his research and it might help us sort through things later.
Once he got here.
In a few hours he’d want me to be his little girl again. And, although I was supposed to be this strong girl with the power to control the world’s fate, at that moment that’s what I wanted, too. If only for a minute, I wanted him to hold me in his arms like when I was young and tell me everything was going to be okay. It was almost like I needed him to fill me up with courage for what lay ahead.
I closed my eyes, thinking about all the times Papi had come to my room after I’d had a nightmare or when he’d stayed home from work when I was sick. Blood-related or not, he would always be my dad.
My thoughts drifted to one of my many memories of us visiting a museum. He had talked to me about the composition of the paintings. Wanted me to look at the balance of light and dark. Showed me how each painter treated the blank canvas differently. It was all about the artist’s choices.
Choices.
That word again. What choices would I make, could I make, once I got the spear?
The sound of a car engine outside the cottage startled me. I jumped out of the chair where I had apparently fallen asleep and stumbled to the window. Dame Elisabeth was driving away.
I spun around.
Asher was gone, too.
My heart raced. How long had I been sleeping? Why didn’t they wake me up? I rushed to the door and flung it open, ready to run after the car.
“Where are you going?” Asher asked, stepping out of the bathroom.
“Oh, um …” I slowly closed the door. “Nowhere.”
Asher laughed. “You thought I left you here by yourself, didn’t you?”
“No.” I walked over to the kitchen and picked up the last strawberry. “And even if you did, it’s not like I’d be scared or anything.”
“Who said anything about being scared?” Asher leaned against the wall, a big smirk on his face.
“No one. I mean … I wouldn’t be … ugh … you know what I mean.” I took a bite out of the strawberry, a little of the juice dribbling down my chin. I swiped it away.
“Yeah, sure. You were just in a big hurry to get some fresh air. Uh-huh.”
I glanced outside. This was the perfect chance to go and explore the area before someone said no. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? This might be my only chance. “Yep, I need some fresh air. Figured I’d take a walk and get some more wood for the fire. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”
“That’s not a good idea. Someone might see you.”
“In the woods?” I rolled back my shoulders and opened the door. “I don’t think so.” I picked up Asher’s pocketknife from the coffee table. “Coming?”
Asher’s gaze bounced around the room. “Fine.” He grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “But we don’t go far. The perimeter fence is set up about a kilometer away from here, so we stay close by. Deal?”
I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Deal.”
Outside, I felt exhilarated. There was a certain rush that came with the freedom. Not that any of it felt particularly dangerous. I knew the perimeter fence would warn us of anyone or anything that might come into the area. It made the nearby woods rather tranquil and peaceful. We wandered back past the woodpile, through the scattering of trees and thickets until we reached a clearing with a small stream running through it.
I thought about the riddle with the farmer, the wolf, the chicken, and the bag of chicken seed. Deciding to cheat a little, I asked Asher for help. He didn’t really understand the riddle, so I explained it by using some of the things from inside his backpack.
“Okay, pretend this rope is the stream.” I laid it out between us. “And I’m the farmer, and this pocketknife is the wolf.” I picked up a rock. “This is the chicken, and the flashlight is the chicken seed. How do I get it over to your side of the stream if I can only carry one at a time?”
“Well, let’s figure out the basic rule,” Asher suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“The one thing that has to happen,” Asher explained. “If we can figure that out, then we can work from there.”
“Okay. So, the chicken can’t be alone with the seed or the wolf because something will get eaten.”
“Right. That means the wolf has to be alone or with the seed … no matter what.”
“And the chicken has to be with farmer … always.” The answer popped into my head. “That’s it!”
“What is?”
“The chicken stays with the farmer.”
Asher looked confused. “I don’t get it.”
“First, the farmer takes the chicken to the other side.” I jumped over the rope and carried the rock over to Asher. This leaves the wolf and the seed together, which is what we said could happen.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then the farmer comes back and picks up the wolf and takes him to the other side.” I stepped over
the rope and grabbed the pocketknife, bringing it back to Asher.
“But the wolf will eat the chicken when the farmer goes back for the seed.”
“Not if the farmer takes the chicken back across the stream with him! Now the wolf is by himself, and the farmer goes back and drops off the chicken and takes the seed.”
Asher began to nod. “I get it now. The farmer would drop off the seed with the wolf and on the final trip go back for the chicken that he’d left on the other side.”
“Ha! We did it!” I grabbed the rock that had been our chicken and tossed it into the stream, watching it plunk into the water.
At the same time, I felt a rumbling under my feet. I looked around, confused. Had throwing the rock caused some sort of magical earthquake? Then I realized it wasn’t the ground shaking, but the air around me. It was the sound of a helicopter approaching.
“Hide!” Asher yelled, shoving everything back in his backpack and racing out of the clearing.
I followed, thinking we were heading to the cottage, when he put out his arm to stop me and pulled me down behind some bushes.
“Don’t move,” he said.
The helicopter blades chopped the air right above us, but the canopy of trees kept us hidden from view. In the distance, I heard the faint sound of a siren going off. The perimeter fence had been triggered. Someone was coming.
“Do you think it’s—”
Before I could finish my sentence, a large whooshing noise filled the air and something raced through the sky, rustling the leaves above us.
For a split second, everything grew still. And then it all exploded.
I felt the reverberation of the explosion in my chest as the sound wave pushed through the entire area. Smoke and dirt blasted through the air as a ball of fire shot up to the sky. The cottage blew apart into tiny bits, the force of the blast throwing fragments of wood and cement everywhere.
Asher and I covered our heads to shield ourselves from the raining debris, and I could feel myself shaking from the inside out.
I tried to process everything around me, but a loud ringing in my ears prevented me from hearing anything.
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