by Peter Telep
The firestorm grows so bright and intense that it can’t last much longer.
This is it.
Our last stand.
And maybe it won’t mean anything to the masks, but it means something to us.
It means that we love each other. That we’d do anything for each other.
And those thoughts, that energy, will never die. It’ll just become something else. And someday it’ll bloom again.
It will. I just know it.
Now, more masks enter the sphere and release hundreds of bolts in our direction.
Tensing, I open up even more fiercely on the masks firing at Julie. I can’t see anything now. I can’t breathe. My wreath aches. Grace and the scholar exchange their good-byes.
I try to connect to the others, but no one’s answering. We’re either being blocked… or they’re already dead.
I hesitate, cease fire—
And then…
I’m back in the sunroom, sipping tea with the queen robe.
“What the hell?” I gasp.
“I’ve been with you the entire time,” she says. “I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy, but I had to.”
“Then you saw them kill Meeka and little Rose and the scholars. And now Solomon’s killing his own daughter! And you still think he’ll keep a promise?”
A tear slips from her eye. “I have something for you.”
Meeka’s immortal glistens to life at our table.
I freeze. “How? There wasn’t even time…”
“For me there was. I connected with her just before she passed.”
“Why?”
She smiles through the tears. “Because you need her.”
My wreath grows warm as Meeka’s immortal vanishes into my chest.
I start weeping. “You’re right.”
“And I need her, too, Doc.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Her sacrifice gives me the courage to save all of our people.”
With that, the queen robe rises from the table, knocking over her chair. “Go now. Hurry!”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Just go!”
She leans back—
As the entire room shatters into billions of hexagons that float into space.
In the next breath, the stars wink out…
Leaving me in total darkness.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
With a shiver, I’m back in the dome Solomon created.
And there’s Julie, trapped in the middle of dozens of bolts. Her father’s masks are seconds away from killing her.
Meanwhile, behind me, the others aren’t dead yet—
But they’re close.
Steffanie’s firing from one eye, while Tommy’s lightning is all but gone, just a few wisps with sparks dancing along their ends. Cypress and Hedera float over the others, but they, too, are exhausted, their fire coming in spurts and coughs and doing little to push back the enemy masks.
The grren have become masks with cat faces, but they’re taking so much fire that they can barely put up a fight.
I try to connect with everyone but ram head-on into a mental wall of pain.
I’m down to my last breath.
And then, all at once, the masks cease fire.
Julie plunges to the transparent floor, striking it with a loud thump. She’s not moving.
At nearly the same time, the cries of billions rise in my head. Wait. Those aren’t voices. They’re the fears of all those Lords and Ladies of Galleon hiding inside the cathedral. And now, for just a second, I pick up the trrune of departing mask and look through its eyes—
As the walls inside the cathedral begin to shake and the immense doors swing wide open…
Wait! There’s Keane! He’s clutching his chest in pain but still running toward the doors.
Again, I try to connect with him but still can’t.
And suddenly, my focus is torn back to the hear and now by Solomon, who stares at me in utter disbelief. “You killed her planet now!” he shouts, referring to the queen robe.
“No! We’ve killed you!”
He flashes his middle fingers and jumps away.
With my hands becoming fists, I face the others as the enemy masks jump off to the cathedral, summoned back by the lords and ladies. “Everyone! Come on, it’s time for the bloom!”
“You heard the man, move out!” Tommy cries.
I turn back for Julie and race toward her.
Behind me, Steffanie shouts, “Doc, we can’t. We’re still short one. Meeka…”
I shudder hard. She’s right.
We need six for this to work, and the grren aren’t able to help. Tommy, Steffanie, Cypress, and Hedera are ready to connect and jump back to the cathedral. At the same time, the dome’s beginning to evaporate around us.
We’re out of time.
And where do we find the sixth?
I drop to my knees at Julie’s side and gasp her name.
She flinches. Her eyes open, but they look pale and cloudy. She shakes hard, as though with remembered pain.
“Julie, it’s me. Can you sit up? I’ll get you out somehow.”
She tries to lift her head. “I thought masks don’t die… but I guess we do.”
My eyes widen. “No, you don’t!”
She grabs my hand, and I imagine it’s warm, even though it’s cold and lifeless. “I wasn’t lying when I said I love you.”
“Julie…”
She swallows and her eyes begin to roll back in her head.
“Excuse me, Doc,” comes a familiar voice from behind me.
I glance back.
It’s Mrs. Bossley. “I was just getting the mail, when I ran into some of your friends.”
I literally fall over as a sphere of golden light forms between us and divides into two scholars floating in the air. One immediately shoots down and penetrates Julie’s chest.
At the same time, Mrs. Bossley moves aside… to reveal Keane standing behind her.
The second scholar strikes him hard and nearly knocks him down. “Dude, take it easy,” he shouts. “Really!”
“You fought them,” I say, struggling to my feet and then rushing up to grab his shoulders.
He gives me an awkward look. “You’re not going to hug me, are you?”
I sigh and shake my head.
Mrs. Bossley clears her throat to get our attention, and then she lifts her chin toward the Galleons’ ship.
“If it’s okay, I’ll carry Julie,” Keane says, lifting his chin toward her. “And then you’ll have six for the bloom.”
I turn around.
Wow. Julie’s already sitting up and looks a hundred times better. She’s reaches out for Keane—
But someone else grabs her hand.
It’s Solomon!
“Adios, bitch,” he screams before they jump away.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
“What the hell?” Keane shouts.
“The Armadis is vulnerable!” Mrs. Bossley reminds us. “You have to go now!”
“But we can’t!” I scream. “We don’t have enough for the bloom.”
“You’ll have to try it with five.”
“No, Arabelle said it has to be six!”
“Wait, I think I can help,” Keane says.
With the scholar inside his wreath, he’s able to jump away in his body and return in just a few seconds with a woman about Grace’s age but much taller. Her gray hair falls wildly around her shoulders, and she’s dressed in rugged desert clothes like a rumm. She clutches Keane’s hand and looks nervous.
Standing next to her is a younger woman, about Cypress’s age, a Galleon glowing in armor. Her curly brown hair drapes over the plates covering her shoulders, and she’s even taller than the older woman. I’m guessing they’re mother and daughter, with the same pointy noses and narrow eyes.
“Doc, this is Tenna,” Keane says, eyeing the older woman. “She’s carrying my mother and my sister.”
“Oh, the
lady you told me about,” I say, remembering our conversation about the woman he found who’s carrying those immortals.
“That’s right. And this is Ohdova. Her daughter.”
The younger woman nods. “Keane told us everything, and we’re ready to help.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Ohdova turns and grabs Tenna’s hands. They close their eyes, and suddenly, the younger woman morphs into a mask and shrinks down to disappear into her mother’s chest.
“Does that answer your question?” Tenna asks me.
My eyes widen. “Hell yeah, it does!”
“Now watch this, Doc.” Keane takes Tenna’s hands, and she vanishes into his body. “I’ll carry all of us!”
With that, I wave my hand—
And our entire group transforms back into masks. I connect with the grren’s translator and ask that their group provide covering fire as we enter the cathedral.
She assures me that their blood is still hot. They’re in this fight to the death.
“Doke, something’s happening,” Cypress says in my head.
Guided by the scholars, all six of our masks form a circle floating in space.
Once in position, all six of us will morph into one powerful being called “the bloom.” The others begin breaking into hexagon-shaped pieces, and I realize my mask is doing the same.
Clouds of hexagons gather in the center, with flashes of white and gold and deep blue flickering all around us.
As this happens, my connection to the others becomes so powerful and perfect that I’m reliving their memories:
I run breathlessly through a jungle on Halsparr. The boys chasing me are no more than twelve or thirteen. “You’ll die, Woven! You’ll die!”
I’m sitting in a giant tree in the Highlands of Flora. I’m facing Pace, who smiles. “See?” she asks, glancing around. “This isn’t so bad. You should never be afraid of heights. Anyway, we’re playing the game tonight. This time we’ll carry you in the bubble. It’ll be amazing…”
I’m sitting on my grandfather’s knee, inside a log cabin with a fire blazing. The windows are frosted, and it’s snowing outside. My grandfather’s breath smells like beer. “Tommy, my boy, ya’ll are gonna be something. Maybe you’ll join the Marines like your old pappy. Now, listen up. I wanna tell you a story about true courage…”
I’m lying on the ground, staring up at a crowd of angry kids, their faces covered in black soot, their eyes like sparks. Behind them, the sky darkens like a movie getting ready to start. I thrust out my hand and project my persona, but it’s just a head floating over my palm. “Please, I just wanted something to eat.” A pig-faced boy slaps my hand away, kicks dirt in my face, and then all of them attack.
I’m walking hard and fast toward a familiar bike leaning against a crumbling stone wall. Someone grabs me by the shoulder and yanks me around. “Hey! Don’t leave yet. We don’t even know your name.” Oh my God. It’s Meeka, but she looks so... young. “I’m talking to you!” she adds.
I finally answer: “Name’s Keane. Not that you care.”
I’m staring at the immortals of a woman who, wow, looks like just Keane, and so does her little daughter. They glow in front of a collapsed and burning building. “Please, carry us. Maybe you can find my husband and my baby boy…” It’s takes a second, but I realize this memory belongs to Tenna, and this is the day she found the rest of Keane’s family.
The cycle repeats, with everyone’s memories coiling into braided wires of thought that I experience all at once without overloading my brain.
This is the bloom Dr. Arabelle was talking about—
The “crucial connection between humans, masks, and scholars.” We’ve done it. We can fight the Armadis.
But it’s hard to feel good about that…
Because Meeka should be with us now. Her whole life was about sacrifice, right to the bitter end.
She was a damned princess! She was going to rebuild the royal house! She didn’t deserve to die!
I hold back fresh tears as we become a golden mask as large as the Galleons’ ship.
Everyone’s nervous with anticipation, and those feelings come at me like a hot wind and a powerful vibration.
The scholar inside says I should step outside the bloom for a better look.
Whoa. Our face is a combination of everyone’s, and it even has Cypress’s eyelo and a hint of grren in the eyebrows.
It’s breathtaking. Glorious. Powerful.
We float down to hover outside the open cathedral doors, where inside the Armadis has formed its wreath. The rest of the ship is still falling apart around us.
Sure, the Armadis could try to escape…
But the Lords and Ladies of Galleon know they can never hide from a laurel like me whose trrunes show me where they’ve jumped. So instead of escaping, they’ve decided to dig in.
Rings of masks have formed another blockade around the Armadis in a last ditch effort to protect it.
Positioned in the center of the outermost ring, directly in the front and facing us… are Solomon and Julie.
“Doc, I’m so scared,” Julie says in my thoughts.
“Me, too.”
“You know if you do this, I’ll be gone forever.”
“I know.”
“But I told you… I love you—and I still mean it.”
“Even if that’s true, it won’t change anything. It can’t.”
She hesitates. “Doc, please listen. There’s a way for us to be together. Let me show you…”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
I’m trying to ignore Julie’s thoughts, but they’re coming at me “loud” and fast, and I can sense they’re forcing her to do this no matter how hard she tries to fight back.
Now she’s blocking everyone else’s thoughts.
I’m sure the Armadis has given her this power so they can use her to get to me.
Oh, we can be together? Really?
I should be laughing like a maniac right now…
Because the lies are clear.
The Armadis is desperate.
And it’s too late for Julie.
“Doc, I always took care of you, and I know you want to take care of me, too.”
She starts forcing memories into my head: the days she carried my backpack when I broke my arm, the times she saved me from bullies, and all those afternoons when she tutored me in Spanish. I relive the long days and cool nights we spent on the island as kids, dreaming of the future. Now she’s giving me driving lessons while I imagine what it’d be like to kiss her and call her my girlfriend.
And then, suddenly, we’re standing in our bathing suits on the beach in Tenerife. Julie looks normal, her shoulders glistening with water, her hair slicked back. However, the only reason I know this is a fantasy is because there are no footprints in the sand. Not a single one.
“We can stay here forever and have a great life,” she says, gesturing around. “Everything you’ve always wanted, right?”
Sure, it’s palm trees and paradise, but it’s not real.
“Julie, this is so lame,” I say with a sigh. “I know exactly what you’re doing.”
I’m about to break our connection when she grabs me by the cheeks—
And her hands feel warm and soft.
She kisses me hard, wrapping her tongue around mine. Chills rush through my spine.
I can’t help myself. I give in to her kiss.
I surrender.
And when she pulls back, her eyes grow so intense that I can’t look away. “You can save me from being a mask, and then we can stay here. They promised.”
Her hands begin to slide down my back…
I lose my breath. And then…
No, I won’t let this happen. I pull away and shout at the sky, “I’m not taking your deal! It’s over!”
“Doc, it’s not over!” Julie shouts.
I glare at her. “You never loved me. You know who really did?” I point across the beach—
Whe
re Meeka’s immortal stands there, shimmering in the sunlight.
Now I’ve taken control of this pathetic fantasy.
Julie takes a step back as Meeka’s immortal approaches. “Doc, what’re you doing?” Julie asks.
“I’m showing you the truth.”
Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “But you don’t understand. We have to be together. It’s the only way.”
“Oh, I know. It’s just… the together part, well that doesn’t include you. And you know why? Because every bad decision you made led to this.” I glance over at Meeka. “And now she’s gone!”
“Because of me? That’s crazy, you know that I—”
“Just shut up!”
Meeka stands next to me and glares at Julie. “You can’t control him anymore.”
Julie begins to lose her breath. She glances around, lost for a moment, and then faces us. Enraged. “I’m sorry for what I did! I tried to make up for it!” She starts crying hysterically. “Please, Doc! Don’t do this!”
I look to Meeka for strength, and her gaze reassures me that what I’m doing is for the best.
But seeing Julie like this… it’s just so hard.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and then break the connection—
But I can’t.
At that moment, a voice echoes up through a tunnel and calls my name.
It’s Keane. And for just a moment, I catch a piece of his thoughts:
“…trying to stall us… under attack, and the bloom is broken without you, Doc! We can’t hang on! Come back!”
“So that’s what this is!” I shout at Julie. “Another lie!”
“I didn’t want to… I can’t control what I do anymore.”
“Doc, break this connection,” Meeka says.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
I’m still here on the beach.
“Julie, let me go.”
She hunches over in pain. “I can’t…”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
“I told you she’s your weakness, not mine,” Solomon says, crashing into our connection.
He’s dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt, long black socks, and sandals. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, and, of course, lights one up. After that, he slides his Ray Bans onto on his forehead and grins. “Thanks for saving my daughter. She came in handy, didn’t she...” He marches up to us, trailing smoke. “So, Docherty, while we hang out here and, you know, catch some rays, the Armadis escapes. Boom.”