by Peter Telep
Keane takes the rose, just as Hedera passes beneath an archway decorated with more colorful flowers.
We both gasp.
She looks beyond beautiful in this shimmering gown with a plunging neckline and matching gold heels. It’s a scene from a movie as she starts toward us.
But I can’t watch anymore. It’s too cheesy, too personal, and I bet Keane will mess this up big time.
I want to break the connection… but I’m too scared. I feel like he wants me here for some reason. Needs me.
“Doc, I lied. I don’t really have a choice.”
I look at him, confused. “What do you mean, you lied?”
He excuses himself from Hedera, slides his arm around my shoulder, and leads me a few steps away. “Listen, when I give Hedera that rose, it’s really my immortal. I want to her have it, if that’s okay with you.”
“Whoa, slow down, bro. You’re not dying!”
“Look, her wreath’s strong enough to carry an immortal, so I’m giving her mine. And I need you to carry my father’s and your grandmother’s, okay?”
I can barely breathe. “No, I won’t!” I grab the rose, rush over to the railing, and throw it down to the beach.
When I turn back, Keane’s holding another rose.
“Doc, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. But that’s okay. I feel good. I’m ready.”
“You’re not ready! You’re not going anywhere!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I rush toward Keane—
But before I can reach him, he forces my grandmother’s immortal on me, along with his father’s…
And then he breaks the connection.
For just a few seconds, I’m falling through the sundeck to the sound of my own heavy breathing.
With a rush of dizziness, I’m back in Faldareach, crouched on the rocks with the others.
I sway forward and then glance around, panting.
Tommy’s still here with his hand on Keane’s neck.
Whoa. Everything I just experienced must’ve happened in seconds instead of minutes. Usually connections happen in real time, but that one was different—
And it felt like someone else was watching us…
Tommy glances back at me.
I raise my brows. “Please, tell me he’s okay.”
My hearing is much better now, so I’m ready to listen to some good news. I need some good news.
But Tommy just shakes his head.
Meeka starts to hyperventilate. Steffanie screams Keane’s name and breaks down.
Hedera’s hands are balled into fists and pressed tightly to her chest. She opens her mouth, but only the faintest screech comes out. And then she throws herself on Keane’s body.
“Hedera?” I say. “Do you have his immortal? Please tell me you do.” I’m already crying myself.
She glances up, shakes hers head, and then bursts into more tears.
What the hell?
I glance back at Meeka and Steffanie. “He told me he was giving it to her. I don’t know what happened?”
As I finish the sentence, someone shouts from the debris above: “Get away from him right now!”
I know that voice.
By the time I glance up, Julie is already morphing into a mask, along with two others. They loom above us, their eyes crisscrossed by wandering veins of energy.
Tommy drags Hedera off Keane’s body—just as the three masks unleash their bolts.
Keane rises into the air. His arms, legs, and head droop like a puppet’s at the end of the flickering lightning.
I can barely watch.
With a rumbling thunder and harsh buzz, his body flashes into nothingness, along with the masks, who leave vapor trails coiling in the frigid air.
“Keane!” Stefanie shrieks.
For a second, the world’s stopped, grown even colder, and we’re all frozen there, locked into the horror of losing Keane.
I start trembling.
But then I remind myself that Julie and her friends picked him up. I have to believe they’ll save him, and I need the others to believe that, too, otherwise, can we really go on?
“He’ll be okay!” I blurt out, breaking the silence.
“You think they’ll help save him?” Meeka cries, her dirty cheeks stained with tears.
“Yeah, I do!”
“You don’t know anything! She’s been dumping on you from the beginning, and you just keep taking it, Doc! When are you going to wake up?”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Whatever! You want to be a fool and believe that, go right ahead. But they took him, and if they do save him, he’ll just become another slave.” Meeka storms away, nearly falling as she trips over the nearest rock.
Steffanie looks to me, her eyes overflowing with tears. I gesture for her to go after Meeka, and she nods.
Meanwhile, Hedera has shoved herself between two small boulders and bunched up into a ball, with her head buried in her knees.
Tommy groans loudly as he backhands a fresh wave of blood dripping from his nose. With another grunt, he stands and massages his hip. “Not a good day, but we always get back up, right?”
I wish it were Tommy’s words that send me to my feet—
But it’s another tremor rolling hard across the valley.
The scorched pit collapses and widens as a tornado of knights swirls out, swelling into an even larger funnel.
At once, they break formation and punch into the clouds like a thousand rockets streaking away.
Cypress arrives at my side, and we stand there, staring into the sky as the valley falls silent again.
“What do we do now?” I ask with a shiver.
“I don’t know, Doke.”
“Maybe we’ll just go up to Larkspur. Somehow. We’ll find that second lab. We’ll scout it out.”
“But the Galleons will follow us,” she says.
I curse.
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe Mum will know what to do.”
“Yeah.”
Cypress projects the immortal, who slowly faces the valley and lowers her head. “I can still hear the echo of her death.”
“Who’s death?” I ask.
“The curator who was here. She was so young. I was going to teach her the combinations to the locks. I’m old enough to remember them. When the Galleons got inside, they tortured and murdered her.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s a trace of her immortal in the ashes. We call it a viskk. You’ll sense it once you’re down there.”
“Down there?”
“Yes.”
“For what? The place is gone. We need to go to the other lab, but then if we do that, we’ll lead them straight to it.”
“I’m sorry, Doc, but the Galleons have already found the lab in Larkspur. My colleague gave up its location. The masks are already drilling to get inside.”
“Are you serious?”
“Curators are scientists. I wish we were stronger.”
I jerk around and throw my hands in the air. “So Meeka’s right. It’s really over.”
“Pardon me for listening in,” Tommy says from behind us. “But what’s all this talk about quitting?”
“Both labs are gone,” I tell him. “No weapons, no way to fight the Galleons.”
“You remember that day your Dad got the phone call from Mrs. Gomez saying you were flunking out of Spanish?”
“What?”
“You remember that night?”
“Why’re you bringing that up now? Come on, Tommy!”
I’m so frustrated that I’m trembling.
“Calm down, son. What’d I tell you that night?”
“I don’t know!”
“Sure you do. You think hard on it.”
I sigh in disgust and then do my worst Tommy impression just to be sarcastic: “You said something like, ‘if y’all never fail, y’all don’t ever learn how to win.’”
“Yeah, but I don’t talk l
ike that.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“No, son, I do not!”
“Tell your story!” Cypress shouts to Tommy.
“Okay, okay,” he answers, and then he faces me. “So what happened after that call?”
“I don’t know…”
“You regrouped, got yourself some tutoring from Julie, and you started passing.”
“So what’re you saying? All we need is a Spanish tutor so we can stop the armadis?”
Tommy glares at me. “Maybe I am! Maybe all I’m saying is we need to regroup.”
“Whatever.”
“You’re a nice man, Toe-me,” Cypress says. “But I don’t know what this regroup can do.”
“Mum?” Tommy asks, gaining the immortal’s attention. “I heard you say something about getting down to the lab.”
“That’s right,” she replies. “The masks destroyed nearly everything, but the curator wants us to come anyway.”
“Why?” Tommy asks.
“Honestly, I’m not sure,” she answers.
“Any guesses?” he asks.
“She’s conserving her energy and won’t respond.”
Tommy slaps a palm on my shoulder and squeezes me. Hard. “Y’all get down there and have a look.”
“All right. And hey…” I look at him, embarrassed. “Sorry for freaking out.”
He shrugs. “I’ll cut you some slack… this time.”
“Thanks.”
His expression softens. “We’ll be all right.”
I nod, but my eyes burn with tears. “I can’t stop thinking about Keane.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Hedera? It’s me,” I tell her.
She’s still curled up in a ball and won’t lift her head.
I crouch down closer to her. “Please, you can’t stay here.”
Slowly, she lifts her head and rolls her hand, palm up. Her persona flashes, and the glowing head wears an even sadder expression than the one on her scratched and bruised face. “I don’t need a new wreath. I just need him back.”
“Listen to me. Julie kicks ass. She’ll save him and protect him, and then we’ll go up there and beat down those masks and bring him home.”
“I want to believe you.”
“You already do. Ashes to bloom, right?”
She wipes away some tears. “Ashes to bloom. But how can you be so strong?”
“I’m faking it.”
She almost smiles. “I always do.”
“That’s a lie.” I offer her my hand. She takes it, and I pull her up and away from the rocks.
She hugs me tightly. “Whatever it takes, get him back.”
“No worries. We’ll do it.”
I help her over to Tommy, who’s waiting for us down near the smashed up truck.
Steffanie nods, not exactly in agreement with our plan, but more like, hey, I’ll go along and keep my doubts and attitude to myself.
Meeka, on the other hand, would never do that. You get her emotions—every one of them—whether you want them or not.
“You guys ready?” I ask.
“Whatever,” Meeka says through a loud sigh. She swats off a tear with her knuckle, and then gives me the darkest look imaginable.
“Look, I’m sorry about everything. I’ll take the blame for Keane and for everything else. I’ve been saying that since the beginning. I feel like walking away right now…”
“But you won’t,” Steffanie says.
I shake my head.
“We’re wasting time,” Meeka snaps.
“What?” Steffanie asks. “We’re suddenly in a rush?”
Meeka draws back her head. “Uh, yeah? The Galleons are going to Earth.”
“Nice,” Steffanie says, sounding sincere.
“How is that nice?”
“I mean nice that you haven’t given up, because back there you were sounding like—”
Meeka snorts. “Just shut up.”
“Both of you shut up and let’s go,” I tell them.
We project our personas. I take Mum’s hand…
And she jumps us into an arch-shaped corridor.
Gaping holes have been torn in the scorched walls. Part of the ceiling has caved-in, and wide cracks branch across the stone floor.
“This is the deepest section,” Mum says. “Just outside the main lab.”
In the glow of our personas, we stare down an intersecting corridor. More wreckage fades into the darkness.
“The place is huge,” I say, my voice echoing.
“Walk straight ahead,” Mum says and then winks out.
“Wait!” I shout.
But she’s already gone.
We all break into a jog and reach the end of the corridor in just a few seconds.
The thick, metal doors are heavily scarred and have been peeled back like fruit.
Beyond them lies the main lab, cast in the glow of small fires and sweeping back like an auditorium. The ceiling soars some twenty feet and is covered in the same black panels we saw at Brandalynn, the ones that withstand huge pressure and twinkle like stars.
We shift inside, picking our way through mangled and burning furniture, shattered ceiling panels, and fragments of gear that might’ve belonged to an engine.
Directly ahead lies a ring of broken glass fanning out from a central pedestal.
“The curator’s wreath was here,” I say. “Inside the tube.”
“This place is depressing,” Steffanie says. “Can we go?”
“You sound like Keane,” Meeka tells her.
“Do you feel that?” I ask.
Meeka frowns. “Feel what?”
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly, I’m drawn like a magnet across the lab, my feet crunching over the broken glass.
The glow from my persona seems to fade… and then…
Out of the total darkness, a wall appears. In the center of the wall is a blackened metal door.
The door creaks open a few inches, allowing bright light to slip into the room.
I pull back the door and peer around the other side.
“Oh my God.”
CHAPTER FORTY
I shift past the door, which slams shut, leaving me alone and standing on my front porch in Winter Springs, Florida.
An incredible sense of calm washes over me, like I’ve been here all along. I never threw that pizza or ran or got gassed and woke up at the Palladium with Keane.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the mail lady in her little truck with the blue stripes. She opens my neighbor’s mailbox, shoves in some magazines, and then drives up to mine. She wears bifocals and glances over them to see me and wave.
I look at her like, what the hell? and wave back.
And then, like clockwork, Mrs. Bossley lumbers onto her driveway for her daily trip to the mailbox.
I jump over there and block the box before she reaches it. “Hey, Mrs. Bossley!”
My tone could not sound more urgent.
She answers casually, “Hi, Docherty. Can you move out of the way so I can get my mail? I ordered some toenail clippers on eBay, and they still haven’t come yet.”
I grab her by the shoulders. “We need to talk!”
“Are you crazy? Let me go.”
“I’m inside the lab at Faldareach, but the masks got here first and blew it up. What do we do now?”
She rips off my hands and waddles past me. She opens her mailbox, curses, and then slams shut the door. “Bills! No package! I’m emailing that vendor! He’s getting a one-star rating from me.”
“Mrs. Bossley, please!”
“Docherty, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing! Don’t you remember? You’re a curator. You jumped me out of the hospital.”
She stands there for a moment, narrowing her gaze. “Are you on some kind of medication?”
“No! Will you listen to me? Wait! Look at my skin. You see the aura? The little glow? I’m in my persona, right? You can see that, right?”
“I’m calling your father right now.”
“You don’t remember anything you told me?”
“Of course, I do. I’ve told you and your friends a million times to stop riding your bikes on people’s lawns and making so much noise. The homeowners’ association is your friend, Doc, not your enemy. We protect the neighborhood.”
I look at her like she’s crazy. “Why am I seeing this? Why am I here? Why don’t you remember who you are?”
Her mouth opens a little, and then she shakes her head. “You know what? Now I’m calling 911.”
She hurries away toward her front door.
“You call them!” I scream. “Call everyone! I need to find out what the hell’s going on!”
Cursing under my breath, I stomp down the sidewalk, not sure what to do now. I guess I’ll go home.
I’m so frustrated that I don’t realize I could’ve jumped until I’m already near my driveway.
I stop and look around. It’s a warm summer morning, the birds chirping, a dog barking in the distance.
For just a moment, I toy with the idea heading up to my room and hiding in my closet. There’s no drama or stress in this place, just an empty neighborhood sitting somewhere inside my brain—
Because it can’t be real, right? None of it. Someone wants me to see this place.
But who? And why?
Without thinking about it, I head down to the mailbox, tug open the little door, and pull out the only piece of mail we’ve received:
A hexagon-shaped envelope that looks ancient and made of this leathery paper covered in a thick layer of dust.
I brush off the letter and cough as dust flies in my face.
There’s a return address printed in an official-looking font that my wreath translates. I recognize my father’s name, Dr. Thaddeus Harrison, and another word: Grrethos, one of the realms on Halsparr.
My name is handwritten across the front. No address.
But I recognize the cursive. It’s my father’s.
Trembling, I tear open the envelope and remove a slip of “paper” made of the same material. I unfold the paper to find a handwritten note:
Doc,
If you made it this far, there’s still a chance. I thought the curators could help, but I was wrong. We’re running out of time. Find Doctor Arabelle. He’ll know what to do now.