Geneva Sommers and the Quest for Truth

by C J Benjamin

  “Well, it’s settled then,” Nova said. “I’ll use my usual charm to get sent to the locker and you two can follow me in. Then we’ll get all the information we need about the legend.”

  “That all sounds great, Nova, but how will we get out?” I asked sounding worried now.

  “Simple, Greeley will let us out,” he said with a confident grin.

  “And how do you think you’re going to manage that?” I challenged.

  “We’re going to have to wait until the day before the New Year Gala. We’ll have the day to get all the info we need and then Greeley will let me out because I have to perform at the Gala.”

  “Why will she care if you get to go to the Gala?” challenged Remi this time.

  “I don’t think they would risk leaving anyone behind all alone at the Center, but mostly because they would never leave their star soloist behind,” he said, teeth gleaming as he winked at me.

  “What? You’re a soloist too?” squealed Sparrow. “Why didn’t you tell us? Remi and I have a solo also. This is wonderful! I’m so excited.”

  I had to force myself not to roll my eyes and look defeated. Great, so all of my friends are brilliant singers? I quickly shoved that thought from my head, hoping Nova wasn’t paying attention to what I was thinking with all the racket Sparrow was making, chattering on about her and Remi’s solo. After a few more moments I couldn’t take any more Gala babble and had to interrupt.

  “So, it sounds like we have a plan, but what are we supposed to do between now and then? We still have three weeks before the Gala.”

  “Well, we can keep coming out here to practice,” Remi shyly suggested.

  “I think we may have to cut back on that unfortunately, or we at least need to be more careful. We still don’t know what held Journey up and if you were able to follow us, let’s face it…” Nova trailed off with a shrug.

  Remi narrowed his eyes at Nova, but said nothing in response.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’ve been thinking we need to find a new way to sneak out when we have to.”

  “Well, why don’t we use your invisibility powers?” suggested Sparrow, looking at Remi and me.

  “That will work for us, but what about you guys?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you’re not coming out here without me,” Nova said.

  “Maybe they won’t have to,” Sparrow replied. “Eja, earlier tonight, Tippy was playing around with the disappearing power to show us how it worked. She was holding Niv and he disappeared as well. Would this hold true, say if we were all touching her?”

  “Ah, yes it should. She’s a Parallel, right?” he asked Nova as though I couldn’t answer for myself, which always made my blood boil.

  “I’m an Echo, too, don’t forget,” I piped up.

  “True. That’s very rare. I’m afraid I’ve never met someone who possessed all your gifts, so it is possible all of your rules are yet to be written. What I do know is that as a Parallel you can absorb powers, and as an Echo, you can share them as well.”

  “Wait, so I can give my powers to everyone else, too?” I asked with excitement. “That’s great!”

  “Not so fast. You can share your powers with others, in a few different ways, but the simplest way would be through direct contact with you,” Eja said, bursting my bubble. “And that only holds true for other Beto’s, because it is meant as a means of protection.”

  “What about Niv?” I challenged.

  “That is curious. Let me see you do it.”

  I called Niv over to me and stood up, cradling him in my arms. A moment later, we vanished. I could tell it worked by the impressed looks on everyone’s faces. Niv looked happy as could be, giving me little kisses all over my face, making it hard to concentrate. I started to giggle when he wiggled his way into my shirt and suddenly I heard everyone else laughing. I must’ve been visible again.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Well, besides the fact that you have a marmouse wrestling around in your shirt, your face is covered in dirt,” Remi said, barely able to contain his laughter.

  “Oh,” I said, instantly self-conscious and raising my hands to my face. “Niv!” The little bugger’s face was covered in soil, so he left smudges of dirt all over when he was kissing me. Great, now I a mess!

  “Don’t worry, I’ll clean you up,” said Sparrow grinning.

  All I could do was laugh as Niv popped his head out between my shirt buttons. We stayed in the forest a bit longer discussing the best possible options for sneaking out using the invisibility power. Nova cut our conversation short though when Eja started filling us in on other ways to share powers that included tethers and fissures.

  “I think you’ve given us enough to think about for tonight,” Nova said, rising to his feet from our comfy little circle on the warm forest floor.

  “Nova, I need to learn about these things!” I said scrambling to my feet more closely to him than I intended, pushing me off balance.

  Nova grabbed my arms to steady me and gave me a stern look that I knew would do me no good to argue against. By now the others were standing as well and Niv scurried over to see what was going on.

  “I know we haven’t been out here as long as usual, but we should really get back to see what kept Journey away. I’m kind of anxious about it still to tell the truth,” Sparrow said sheepishly.

  30

  We thanked Eja and told him that we would be back to the forest as soon as we figured out the best way to cloak everyone with my new invisible power. He wished us luck and watched us as we trudged through the dark forest, until we disappeared from his view, the old fashion way. I slumped along behind the others deep in thought. I was wondering why it always seemed that although I would gain some great or valuable insight with each visit to the forest, I would always come away with more questions than I answered. I sighed deeply and scratched the silky long hairs between Niv’s ears.

  “At least we may have figured out a way to protect you,” I whispered while kissing him on his snout as he gazed at me with sleepy eyes.

  We reached the clearing to the fields that separated the forest from the Troian Center and stopped on Nova’s signal.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I think we should try out your vanishing act,” Nova said. “I feel like it might not be wise to send you back in through the window without knowing what stopped Journey from joining us.”

  We all looked back and forth at each other. I watched as Remi gulped in fear.

  “It’s as good a time as any to practice, I guess,” I said with as much certainty as I could muster for Remi’s benefit.

  I tucked a sleepy Niv away into my shoulder bag and joined hands with the others. I concentrated on vanishing and I knew it worked because when I opened my eyes they were gone!

  “Guys? This is so weird! I can’t see any of you,” I said nervously.

  “I know, I can still see myself, but you’re all gone,” came Sparrow’s excited voice.

  “Well, I guess we know it’s working,” said Nova. “Shall we?”

  “Remi, are you good?” I asked.

  “I think so,” he replied uncertainly.

  “Okay I think we need to communicate like this until we get back to our rooms. Just because no one can see us doesn’t mean they can’t hear us,” Nova warned.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I telepathed.

  “Tippy, follow my lead. I’m going to bring us in right through the front gates. I’ll be sure to redirect the Grifts and how about you take care of any tarcats that come our way,” Nova added.

  I could just picture him winking at me, which made me roll my eyes and smile. I hadn’t told the others yet about my power of communicating with animals, so they probably all assumed Nova was talking about the tarcat I scared off the other night. Only I knew he was really playing lightheartedly with me to lessen my fears.

  It felt strange to feel Nova’s warm hand squeeze mine, but not be able to see it. I could feel Sparrow�
��s cool, dainty palm in my left hand as well, and I could hear Remi’s nervous breathing from further behind. We were walking single file from what I could tell, through the fields at quite a fast pace, and as the distance to the Troian Center decreased, the pounding of my heart increased. I could see two Grifts up ahead, casually leaning against the courtyard wall. We were still blanketed by the moonless night, but soon we would be close enough for them to see and we’d know whether we were really invisible or not. It was a frightening feeling, testing it out in the open like this. I felt very vulnerable, but even more determined because I needed to be able to protect my friends or we’d all end up in the locker, much sooner then we’d planned.

  “I’m going to send one of them around the corner to check on something,” Nova telepathed.

  We paused a short while waiting for the Grift to stride to the corner of the wall and vanish as he rounded it. Then there was only one lazy Grift in front of us. As we got closer we could see he was mindlessly cleaning under his nails with a knife. The scene would have been nerve racking enough without there being a knife flicking about.

  “Here we go, deep breath and then hold it until we’re past. 1, 2, 3…”

  I took a deep breath and then felt myself being pulled rapidly forward by Nova. At first I felt like a tiny tug boat pulling against the swell of the sea, but finally Sparrow and Remi caught speed and the four of us ran on our tip toes until we were well past the Grift and harbored in the long shadows of the courtyard walls.

  31

  “It worked! We’d made it past the Grift with no problem. He didn’t even look up from his knife. It was so incredible, I wish you had been there!” exclaimed Sparrow in her high-speed whisper to Journey at breakfast.

  “Humm…ts…ggud…” Journey mumbled as he stuffed his mouth with porridge and beans.

  Ugh, he was so disgusting when he ate. I had to turn away for fear I would lose my appetite all together if I watched him sop up any more of his meal with the crusty hunks of bread he was stuffing into his mouth. I swear he didn’t even chew. It didn’t seem to faze Sparrow though as she leaned in closer to fill Journey in on all the things we’d done without him last night.

  “So what held you up last night, Journey?” Nova asked. “You haven’t said much this morning.”

  He took a few large gulps of juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked around the cafeteria for a moment, and then leaned in. “Jemma,” he said quietly and my heart sank.

  I quickly glanced past his shoulder in the direction of her table and was cut by her icy stare. I wasn’t expecting her to be watching us and before I could look away, she caught the startled look in my eye and a wicked smile slowly slithered across her face, baring her teeth the way a tarcat does right before it pounces. I swallowed hard and looked back to Journey.

  “She’s watching us,” I said.

  “Yeah, and I expect she will be for quite a while,” he replied.

  “Why? What happened?” asked Sparrow breathlessly.

  Journey looked at me and told me to keep an eye on Jemma, and then he recounted what happened last night. Jemma had apparently gotten out of bed to go to the Jane’s room. That’s what held Journey up. He wanted to wait for her to come back to bed so she didn’t return while he was trying to slip out the window. “I thought if she caught me leaving she’d alert the Grifts and then you’d all end up locked out or worse, because surely they’d come to our room and find you all missing.”

  “So what happened next? Did she take too long to go back to sleep or something?” Remi asked.

  “Not exactly,” Journey replied and then continued to fill us in on the rest of his night. “She came back shortly, and was about to climb back into bed when she stopped short. She turned slowly toward the windows and her eyes locked on the empty cot bed and froze. Then she looked around and saw that the rest of you were gone too and I was in a panic. I didn’t know what to do. I was about to get up and grab her, but instead of going for the door like I thought she would, she crept over to the wardrobe. At first, I didn’t know what she was doing, so I propped myself up to see better and I saw it.”

  While he was talking, goose flesh exploded up and down my spine, leaving the hair on the back of my neck standing even in the sticky morning heat that filled the dining hall. I already knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth, no magic powers needed. I saw it in her wicked smile. She had found my journal.

  “She had Tippy’s journal in her hands.”

  With each word that rolled off his tongue, it felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into quicksand. Like the words themselves were burying me alive. The room tunneled around me and everyone’s voices dimmed, like I was listening to them from inside a glass box. It was just noise and vibration. I missed the rest of what he was saying, but it didn’t really matter. Jemma had found my journal. My completely empty journal, which I’m sure of because I was always careful to use the enchantment Sparrow taught me each time to erase my writing. But Jemma saw me writing in this exact book, over and over, she even made snotty comments about what a little bookworm I was becoming, always writing, writing, writing. I particularly remember one day in lessons when she was itching to sharpen her teeth on someone and she said, “Oh look, little Miss Nobody is writing to her imaginary friends, how sweet,” right before she knocked it out of my hands while her minions laughed.

  “She what?” exclaimed Sparrow, bringing me back to reality. Nova kicked her under the table, signaling for her to keep her voice down. “Sorry. She just has some nerve riffling around in your stuff like that,” she said looking at me. Then she turned to Journey and hissed, “Why didn’t you get up to stop her?”

  “What did you want me to do? Tell her to please stop playing with 65’s magic journal and go back to bed?” he retorted sarcastically.

  “Journey was right to stay where he was. At least for now she only noticed the three of you were missing and she didn’t see anything in the journal, right?” Nova asked looking at me. Sparrow nodded for me since I was too numb to move.

  “So maybe she just thinks you tore the pages out or she found the wrong journal or something. You could have been out of bed writing in the courtyard for all she knows. The good news is she doesn’t know we were out in the forest and she doesn’t know that Journey saw her. We have a leg up on her. We just know we have to be extra careful now. I really think we need to suspend sneaking out to the forest because Jemma’s going to be keeping a close eye on you. She may not know exactly what we’re up too, but I have a hunch she’s going to keep at it until she finds out,” Nova said.

  “But…” I started, only to be cut off by Nova.

  “We already have our plan to get into the locker. Now all we have to do is wait for the time to be right. There’s no use risking getting caught going to the forest. That would spoil the whole thing.”

  “I need to practice,” I said, already sounding defeated.

  “No you don’t, Tippy. You’re better than you even know you are. You got us back here safely last night.”

  “What about Eja? Won’t he be expecting us?” Journey asked.

  “I’ll try to get a message to him while I’m at Flood work today. He’ll understand,” Nova said.

  I stared at the table gloomily while the others finished their breakfast. I couldn’t stomach any food even if I’d wanted to. I was too upset, stewing over what Jemma had done. I was stabbing my helpless fruit and pushing it around my plate while I sulked over how once again Jemma had managed to ruin my life. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone?

  “Tippy, it’s okay. She doesn’t have anything on us. We got off pretty easy. I mean, what if we hadn’t taken Niv with us? She would have found him and that would have been much worse,” Nova telepathed to me.

  I snapped my head around to face him, with my eyes as big as saucers, already brimming with tears.

  “Niv!” I squeaked.

  This was too much to handle. Jemma could do what she wa
nted to me and even my friends, but I couldn’t let her get to Niv. I promised to protect him and I already loved him so fiercely that the thought of her finding him and taking him away from me was unbearable. She had already taken so much from me. I shoved back from the table and ran to our room sobbing, leaving the others staring open-mouthed after me.

  I found Niv right where I left him, happily curled up inside the hollowed-out book. He blinked up at me and gave a lazy yawn, which actually made me smile and cry all at once. I scooped him up and let him lick my salty, tear-stained face for a second before I put him into my shoulder bag. I quickly changed into my work clothes and slung the bag over my back to head out the door right as Remi was coming in. I already made up my mind that I had to protect Niv and I couldn’t let anyone get in my way. Not even Remi.

  “65, where are you going?”

  “I have to do something. Just cover for me, okay?”

  “What? How? Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know, Remi. Just say I wasn’t feeling well and went to see Miss Breia or something.”

  He started to say something back to me but I didn’t wait to hear it. I pushed past him and at the door, I vanished. I could feel it this time. It’s hard to describe, but a feeling of transparency or lightness washed over me. I felt like a shadow, moving effortlessly along, safe and unnoticed. I was really starting to get the hang of this power and realizing how valuable it was. I crept carefully down the hall toward the courtyard. I saw the other orphans finishing up their breakfast, laughing and chatting in the carefree way I had always envied. I caught a quick glimpse of the others at my table. They sat quietly, looking drawn and worried. It seemed to age them, subtly setting them apart from the others. It was one of those things you’d notice, yet not be able to put your finger on. But I knew it, and I felt it. Every ounce of their stress, worry, fear; it all weighed heavily upon my invisible shoulders as I moved past them into the warm sun of the courtyard.

  I pushed on, past the Grifts and into the wide openness of the fields. I could see the locals in the distance who had already started their long day, laboring in the fields. They tilled, pruned, plucked and cultivated the ravaged soil all day long to get enough food to sustain all of us on the island. Most of what they grew went to Lux. What was left they shared with the Troian Center or traded for supplies. Luckily the forest bounced back the fastest from the Flood and was back to producing abundant fruits and vegetation to keep us all going. I plucked a vine of wild grapes to eat as I made my way through the forest. I realized I was actually pretty hungry still since I didn’t eat much breakfast this morning. Neither did Niv, who by now popped his little furry head out of my shoulder bag and was taking in the sights and sounds of the beautiful morning. I handed him a grape, which he kindly took and stuffed into his mouth, puffing out his cheek. He reached up for another and promptly stuffed it into his other cheek. His little face was so fat that I couldn’t help but giggle as he greedily reach up for another grape.