She had escaped.
Now she needed to get out of this mess and regroup with Sam and company to figure out how to rescue Miles and Mr. Lin. This time, she’d accept Mrs. Lin’s offer to provide some backup. It was now clear to Fern that defeating Laffar was going to be more than a one-Otherworldly job.
Fern took a moment to gaze out at the horizon from her unique vantage point. From her roost in the memorial, she could see across the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument. The brightly lit marble obelisk was gleaming white, a sentinel against the District’s dark midnight skies.
“I want you to rotate so that your stomach is flat against the statue. Then dangle your legs over the edge and slowly lower yourself down, all right?”
“All right,” Fern said.
“I’m going to catch you. Don’t be scared,” the officer said. Fern almost let out a laugh. Sure, she was precariously balanced on a towering marble statue, but this was not scary. Scary was looking your murderous father—a man who didn’t know you and wanted to kill you—in the eye for the first time.
Fern lowered herself slowly, gripping Lincoln’s smooth marble thighs. She wished Sam had been there to see her. It was the kind of stunt he would have loved.
She felt the officer’s firm grip around her waist. He lowered her slowly to the top of the platform where Lincoln’s statue rested. Seamlessly he lifted her body, lowering her to the bottom of the platform, still about five feet from the floor of the memorial. With one more step, Fern and the officer were finally on the main level again.
The officer took Fern by the hand and ducked under the red velvet rope. When they were both safely on the other side, the officer got his first good look at the girl who had miraculously scaled the Lincoln Memorial.
He would have recognized her anywhere. It was the same girl who had wandered off when the rest of her friends and family were standing in line for the Washington Monument. A girl wandering out of line was one thing, but climbing into Lincoln’s lap was something that the officer had never seen in twelve years on the force.
“You seem intent on getting yourself into serious trouble, Fern,” he said, noticing for the first time the strange color of the girl’s eyes. Fern glanced at the man’s name tag.
Officer Hallet. She cursed her bad luck.
“Good evening, Officer Hallet,” Fern said politely. “So nice to see you again.”
Officer Hallet remained puzzled by the girl and her predicament. Normally he loved the night shift around the Capitol. The Mall was usually empty, and Washington was never more beautiful than it was on a crisp, clear night with all the monuments and memorials shimmering under the lights. When he first saw the small dark heap on Lincoln’s knees, he thought some careless tourist had launched a bag of trash onto the memorial itself. As he ran up the steps, he was shocked when he realized it wasn’t a bag on Lincoln’s lap but a human being. Judging by the size of the creature, he reasoned it was a young girl, apparently resting peacefully.
“Would you like to tell me what you’re doing here, trespassing on government property, past any reasonable hour for someone your age, I might add, before I call this incident into the station?”
Fern looked into Officer Hallet’s eyes. She could tell he was not angry. Just confused. She usually had that effect on adults who weren’t aware they were living among Otherworldlies.
“I’m really sorry,” Fern said, and she meant it. She was sorry that she was putting Officer Hallet in this fix. But she was afraid that if he “called the incident into the station,” she’d be detained and forced to answer dozens more questions by dozens more people, while Miles and Mr. Lin remained in serious danger. What was she going to do? The officer’s radio rested on his shoulder, buzzing with static every few seconds.
Fern thought carefully about her dilemma. She’d only had brief practice explaining her peculiarities in ways that Normals could understand. However, if there was one thing Fern had learned, it was that if you gave adults enough general information, they’d fill in the blanks so that everything made sense for them in precisely the way they expected it to.
“I wanted to get away for a little bit . . . so I started walking.”
“From where?” Officer Hallet put his hand on Fern’s back and they began descending the many steps down to the Mall level.
Fern explained that she’d walked from the Marriott in Woodley Park.
“You walked all that way? That’s five miles from here!” Officer Hallet marveled at the fact that a young girl could walk such a distance alone without anyone stopping her.
“I guess that’s why I was so tired. . . . I thought I would just rest on his lap,” Fern said, referring to the memorial.
Officer Hallet’s radio buzzed once more, and he reached up to turn the volume down.
“Does your mom or dad know where you are?” His thick eyebrows bunched together.
“No . . . I didn’t want to worry my mom,” Fern said with practiced innocence.
“Don’t you think she’ll be pretty worried when she wakes up and discovers you’re missing?”
“Yes . . . but . . . I was so tired of the others making fun of me,” Fern said, hanging her head.
Officer Hallet studied the girl. Her dark hair in combination with her striking pale eyes and skin gave her a nymphlike quality. Your typical thirteen-year-old probably didn’t take off in the middle of the night for a five-mile stroll around the capital. This girl was different. Which probably meant she was on the receiving end of her fair share of bullying. Officer Hallet was long removed from middle school but not so far that he didn’t remember what it was like to feel like an outsider. His urge to protect people like Fern was part of the reason he became a cop—he liked the notion that he would play a role in defending the defenseless.
Fern looked at Officer Hallet’s face and knew that he believed her. As she had hoped he would, he had supplied his own backstory and was fully on board with Fern’s explanation.
“Look,” he said, removing all traces of frustration from his voice, “if we can get your mom down here to come pick you up, then we can avoid taking you to the station. Do you know how to reach her?”
Fern stopped herself from chuckling. The Commander practically slept on top of her cell phone. Given her daughter’s recent history, she was clearly smart to do so.
Fern’s time for rescue had come. She hesitated for a moment before reciting the Commander’s cell phone number. Though she knew she wasn’t being entirely rational, she wondered for a brief moment if she might not be better off taking her chances down at the police station. The Commander’s questions were likely to be infinitely more difficult than anything a uniformed police officer with no knowledge of Fern’s history would ask.
But becoming official Washington, DC, police business would take time, and that was the one thing Fern McAllister was short on.
“Yes, hello?” Officer Hallet said into a phone he’d produced from one of his many pouches. “Hello, Mrs. McAllister, my name is Officer Richard Hallet, and I’m with the Washington, DC, police. It seems your daughter has wandered off, and not to worry, she’s perfectly safe, but I was hoping you might be able to come down here and pick her up.”
Fern could hear the Commander’s frantic voice on the other end of the phone. She sounded both anxious and angry. Fern knew by the time the Commander reached her, the anxiety would have receded, leaving only the anger.
Back inside the Marriott hotel lobby, Mrs. Lin struggled to recover from the news that Fern McAllister was in some kind of danger. She stared at Mary Lou, trying to read her face.
“Is Fern okay?” Mrs. Lin asked, speaking generally about Fern’s condition without knowing the facts.
“She won’t be when I get through with her,” Mrs. McAllister responded, ignoring Sam, Lindsey, and Can-dace’s presence in the hotel lobby.
“Where are you going?” Mrs. Lin asked, nervous that Mrs. McAllister would be suspicious of the unexplained presence of the group in the
lobby and connect them to Fern’s disappearance.
“I’m going to pick her up,” Mrs. McAllister responded.
“Would you like company?” Mrs. Lin offered.
“No, thank you. . . . I’m going to hop in a cab. Please make sure they get back up to their rooms,” she said, motioning to Sam, Lindsey, and Candace. “Fern’s fine . . . but I would like some time alone with her.”
Mary Lou considered the idea of asking May Lin, point-blank, what was going on with Fern—but she wasn’t sure she could trust the Lins. Mrs. Lin had different priorities. Though Mary Lou realized she didn’t know as much about Otherworldly affairs as Lindsey’s mother, she did know her daughter, and she knew something was dreadfully wrong. Which was why, without assistance from anyone else, she was going to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter 21
The Ride Home
Mary Lou McAllister’s tone was sickeningly sweet. The last time Fern had heard her mother exude this much charm, she was flirting with their new neighbor in San Juan Capistrano, Wallace Summers.
“I can’t thank you enough, Officer Hallet,” the Commander gushed, taking the policeman’s extended hand in both of her own. She brought his hand close to her heart. “I hate to think what might have happened if you hadn’t found her!”
“I was just doing my job, ma’am,” Officer Hallet responded, letting his hand linger in Mary Lou McAllister’s grasp before withdrawing it.
The taxicab Mary Lou had arrived in was waiting for the McAllisters, parked with its engine still running on the side of Constitution Avenue. Mary Lou had told the driver she would be no more than a few minutes.
“Well, I’m relieved to know there are people like you left in the world,” Mary Lou said in earnest. She looked over at Fern, a few feet away, shivering with her arms crossed. As usual, her daughter was underdressed.
“I better get Fern out of the cold before she catches one,” Mary Lou said, “but thank you so much, again.”
“Don’t mention it. . . .” Officer Hallet paused. He knew it was a mistake to get any more personally involved than he already was, but the woman in front of him seemed to ooze trustworthiness and he wanted to help her. “Before you go, do you mind if I have a word with you in private?”
Mrs. McAllister looked at him quizzically. “Of course not,” she answered, before commanding Fern to go to the cab and wait for her. Fern ran across the lawn that separated Constitution Avenue from the outskirts of the National Mall. Both the officer and the Commander watched Fern get into the red cab and close the door.
“Is this the first time she’s run off?” Officer Hallet asked Mary Lou. Mary Lou gave the officer an uneasy smile. Fern never really just “ran off,” she thought. She disappeared. Completely and instantly.
“The only reason I ask is because Fern told me she left because she was being bullied. I don’t want to pry, but I thought you should be made aware of that fact.”
Mary Lou thanked Officer Hallet for the information and made her way to the taxi, suddenly feeling at a loss.
Could it be as simple as normal teenage drama?
As she reached the cab, Mrs. McAllister took two fortifying lungfuls of crisp District air before climbing in next to her daughter.
Fern stared straight ahead.
Mary Lou McAllister told the cabbie to take them back to the hotel. He looked in his rearview mirror and signaled comprehension with a thumbs-up. Then he resumed his muffled conversation with someone over his cell phone earpiece. On her initial ride to the National Mall to retrieve Fern, Mrs. McAllister considered what might be going on with her daughter. She dismissed the possibility that Blythe Conrad and Lee Phillips had gotten under Fern’s skin. It was possible, certainly, but Mrs. McAllister was more concerned that Blouts were somehow involved in tonight’s misadventure. Had she been wrong?
Without saying a word, Mary Lou let blocks of regal gray stone government buildings zip by the windows of the cab. The downtown streets were empty. She didn’t quite know what to say to her daughter.
“You told Officer Hallet you walked, but you teleported, didn’t you?” The Commander’s voice was flat and cold.
Fern looked out the window opposite the Commander. If only there was a printed guide that explained everything that had happened and was happening to her. Anytime someone had questions, she could hand over the guide and instruct them to read it. Fern was starting to feel like she was going to spend the rest of her life explaining herself to the people who cared about her.
“Yeah,” Fern said, figuring it was only a matter of time before the Commander really laid into her.
“Why?”
Perhaps the most frustrating thing, Fern realized, was that lying was fairly useless. The Commander’s lie detector was infallible—and she wouldn’t stop until she was satisfied.
“If I tell you everything, you’re going to get upset and you’re going to try to stop me . . . and . . . I won’t stop . . . I can’t.” All at once, Fern felt a lump form in her throat. In her mind, images of a caged Miles and a bruised Mr. Lin flashed. The tears were coming.
She couldn’t cry. It would only make everything worse. Fern was convinced she was in for a stern lecture from her mother.
Silence filled the cab. A minute ticked slowly by.
“Can I ask you a question, Fern?”
Fern was puzzled. The Commander had never once asked her permission to pose a question. Wondering what was going through her mother’s mind, Fern carefully studied her face. Even in the dim light of the cab, the Commander’s eyes looked tired, no doubt from the worry Fern had caused her tonight.
“Sure,” Fern responded.
“I know I haven’t done everything perfectly, or even close to it, throughout this whole situation, but have I ever been unreasonable when you told me the truth? Have I ever made you doubt that I won’t make every effort to try to understand what you’re going through?” The Commander paused, and Fern could tell her voice was about to crack. “Since I found out the truth about you being an Otherworldly, have I done a single thing to make you doubt that I have your best interests at heart?”
Fern didn’t have to think about it. The Commander had been on her side from the beginning. She never blamed Fern once. Some mothers might have snapped or resented a child like Fern for presenting so many difficulties and challenges. The Commander, though, had shown more patience and understanding than Fern probably deserved.
“No,” Fern said, turning away from the window, finally facing her mother. “I think that if I tell you everything, it’ll only worry you.”
“Fern, I’m already worried!” the Commander insisted. “I only want to know what I should be worried about.”
The Commander looked at Fern so sympathetically that her compassion broke the barrier of restraint Fern had built between them. Hot, salty drops fell from Fern’s eyes and down her cheeks. She tried to swipe them away with the back of her hands, but the old tears were replaced by new ones as quickly as she could wipe them away.
It wasn’t only one thing that had brought on Fern’s tears: She was crying for Miles Zapo, her new friend, brutalized and trapped in a cage; she was crying for the female members of the Lin family, who were probably sick with worry; the tears fell for Aunt Chan, who only wanted Miles returned safely to her; they fell at the revelation that her mysterious father had turned out to be a murderer— not only that, but he wanted her dead; and they fell for Fern herself and the weight she now constantly carried on her shoulders.
Mrs. McAllister slid over to the middle seat. She wrapped Fern in her sweat-suited arms.
“Honey, it’s going to be all right.” Fern let her mother hug her for a few moments and then backed away from the embrace.
“How do you know that?” Fern asked, her voice laden with the rush of emotion.
“I just do, okay? Now why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”
Fern took a few breaths.
“You know the voice I heard when I was in the ocean, wh
en I froze Vlad on the beach?”
“Yes,” the Commander answered. She usually preferred to sweep that incident from her thoughts—she hated the idea that her daughter had almost died and that she’d been unable to stop it.
“Well, I was hearing the voice of another Otherworldly. A second Unusual. His name is Miles Zapo.”
“Another Unusual?” The Commander glanced up front at the taxi driver. He was still jabbering on his cell phone headset. It was safe to talk openly. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. . . . I first saw him in a dream. He was locked in a cage in some basement. I wanted to know more, so three nights ago I teleported to the place from my dream. He was really there.”
“Why doesn’t he teleport out of there then? Does he have the ability?”
“Yes, but there are these monsters that zap his powers. He’s in a daze most of the time.”
The Commander’s expression was blank. Fern couldn’t tell how she was taking it.
“Anyway, last night I went to visit his aunt in Minnesota to find out more about him. He told me to see her. Together we figured out that the man who’s keeping Miles locked up is trying to gather all the ingredients for a potion that will give him immortality. . . . He’s the one who stole the Hope Diamond.”
“But why is he holding this other Unusual child prisoner? What’s in it for him?”
“Miles has special talents, like me, beyond teleporting. He can turn objects and himself invisible . . . which, if you think about it, is the perfect talent for stealing valuables from a museum.”
“I’ll say,” the Commander said.
“Mom?” Fern said, gathering strength for her next revelation.
“Yes, honey?”
“The man keeping Miles prisoner . . . who wants to make the potion . . .” Fern paused. “I’m pretty sure he’s my father.”
“Haryle!” the Commander shouted with a gasp.
“You know his name?” Fern asked, somewhat shocked. So the Commander had heard of the evil Blout.
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