The Children of Wisdom Trilogy

by Stephanie Erickson

  Webber tenses. “I can’t just make life out of nothing.”

  Mara laughs out loud. “I’m sorry. I thought that’s what Spinners did.”

  Flustered, he shrugs. “That might be the basic gist of it, but the materials I need are only found in my cauldron. I can’t just knit you a sweater and tell you it’s made of lives.”

  She doesn’t miss his snark, and the smile melts from her face. “No. I don’t suppose you can. Lucky for you, I have time to troubleshoot that small detail. Perhaps Nathair will have some ideas. He spends a great deal of time around your workstation anyway.”

  Webber steps forward to protest, but I grab his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

  Mara smiles. “Don’t make me eliminate you both.” She turns to leave but stops in the doorway to add one last thing. “You could prove very useful indeed,” she says as she slams the metal door home.

  And just like that, I’m trapped in the basement again.

  Eleven

  Penn

  The mists aren’t clearing like they should. They’re unusually thick considering how far we’ve come from where we left Miette.

  We walk carefully, not sure of what’s in front of us. There are big, looming shapes all around us. Based on the map we saw in Ryker’s office, I can only assume they’re trees. My feet crunch through the vegetation, but the mists drown out the sound. As we walk, the mists get thicker, not thinner, as if they’re bouncing off some object in front of us. But the white vapor is so dense, we can’t see what that object might be.

  It’s almost as if the mists are climbing an invisible, dome-shaped wall stretched out in front of us, and then pouring back off it in waves. What could it mean?

  Horatia and Galenia have never been to Earth before, so they probably don’t realize this is abnormal. When I look back at them, they seem less focused on the mist than they are on their first real-life experience of a forest. They’re looking all around, soaking in all the details. I can’t help but smile at their show of appreciation.

  “What is it, Penn?” Galenia asks, finally sensing something’s off.

  “This is odd. The mists usually clear, not gather. Something is blocking them.” I nod toward the dome shape in front of us, but it’s hard to see it through the murky air.

  “What does it mean?” Horatia asks as she holds out a hand, letting the mist pouring off the dome roll over it. It doesn’t leave any moisture behind as real fog would. It just passes over her, leaving no trace of itself on her skin.

  “Michaela is beyond this…dome or whatever it is. We have to get to the other side,” I say, convinced I’m right. There are no alternatives. We have to keep going. We certainly can’t get back to the heavens without Miette or Michaela. We need a Reaper to get home, and the one I want is straight ahead. Through the peculiar dome.

  “What are you suggesting?” Horatia asks, obviously a bit leery of the situation.

  “I think I’m just gonna go through it and see what happens. If it doesn’t hurt me, you can follow, okay? If it does, find another way in. You have to save her.”

  “I don’t—” Horatia starts to protest, but I’m already moving forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Galenia take her hand in comfort, but I can’t afford to stop and consider the consequences of my planned action. I have an idea of who created this. She’s bad news, so I don’t really expect anything pleasant to come from passing through it. Extinction, imprisonment, torture…they’re all possibilities.

  Despite that, I put out my right hand, glance back at my sisters for one last smile, and then put one foot in front of the other.

  I feel no different at all. No searing pain, nothing that melts my arm, no change in the temperature or texture of the air. I press on, continuing to brace myself for…something. The mist at the edge of the dome is so thick that I can’t see anything, not even my hand stretched out in front of me. But I keep making my way toward the interior of the dome, toward Michaela. At least I think I’m moving toward her. I can’t really tell in all this fog. The only way I can ensure I’m moving in a straight line is to literally put one foot in front of the other, walking heel to toe, heel to toe. It’s slow, but it makes me feel better about where I’m going.

  And then, rather suddenly, the mists clear. I find myself in a beautiful old forest with redwoods that seem to stretch past the sky. Some of them tower so high, I can’t even see the tops from where I stand.

  I made it through and nothing happened to me. Nothing at all. This is the first thing that’s felt easy in a long time. All at once, I’m filled with this odd mix of joy and dread. We’ve finally had a victory, but at what cost? I let out a hysterical laugh, and it comes out like a bark.

  “Penn?” Horatia calls nervously, and I realize that I haven’t checked in with my sisters. They probably can’t even see me anymore. I turn around quickly, finding myself facing one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. It’s a solid wall of mist, climbing up and bending in toward me. But it’s completely flat on this side, as if someone cut through the mists with a sharp knife.

  “I’m okay. Come on through,” I say as I marvel at the phenomenon.

  Galenia stumbles through as if she’s been pushed, followed quickly by Horatia, who leaps through and lands gracefully.

  They gasp in unison as they take in the expansive forest around us. The sky is only visible in bright patches between the high branches of the canopy. Birds and squirrels call to each other, creating a soothing symphony of sound.

  “Wow,” Galenia breathes.

  “It’s no wonder you love it here,” Horatia says.

  “I’ve never been here before, Ratia,” I point out.

  She promptly smacks me on the arm. “On Earth, you ungrateful wretch.”

  The mists disperse abruptly, cutting my laughter short. Now that my sisters are free of them, they just disappear. There goes our easy path home.

  “What’s happening here, Penn?” Galenia asks, her voice a mix of fear and amazement.

  “I think Mara may be keeping unwanted Reapers out.” It’s the only thing I can think of. If she’s keeping her son here unnaturally, keeping Reapers at bay would be job number one.

  My sisters circle around and take in the rest of the forest in awe. We start a long walk through the wilderness, too taken by its beauty to worry that Michaela wasn’t waiting for us on the other side of the dome.

  We’ve walked for miles. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. I find myself thinking of my very first trip to Earth when I landed smack dab in the middle of a swamp. “Hey, at least we’re not trudging through some swamp in Florida right now,” I say. Galenia and Horatia look at me as if I have two heads. Of course, they’ve never been in a swamp before. “Believe me, it’s no cake walk.”

  “And this is?” Horatia says. There are sticks, moss, and dead leaves caught in her gold robe, and her hair is getting wilder by the moment as it gets snagged on tree branches and bushes.

  Galenia, however, is walking effortlessly through this wilderness, and she even has a sprig of something green tucked behind her ear. She looks so at home, I wouldn’t be surprised if a bird swept down and landed on her hand.

  “I like it,” she says with a smile.

  “Clearly,” I say, smirking at her.

  “Oh, sure. Mother Nature here is totally at ease,” Horatia says, plucking a twig out of her hair. “Where are we? And why didn’t Miette get us a little closer to Michaela?”

  Horatia’s questions bring my own to the surface. Where was the welcoming committee? If the dome is protecting something, shouldn’t it be more heavily guarded? Maybe that was just the outer layer of defense, and the real fun lies ahead.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I think it had something to do with that dome. It must be protecting Shiloh.”

  “Her son,” Horatia says.

  “That’s what this is all about. She’s stealing other people’s threads to keep him here.” They’ve probably figured it out too, at least mostly, bu
t this is the first time any of us have said it out loud. Her crimes sound even worse that way. Mara is killing others to keep her son on Earth. The suffering on both sides of this situation must be immense. I can see no gain for anyone.

  Truth be told, I’m tired of asking questions and making guesses. I feel worn down by all of it. Kismet, Andrew, the surprises, the tapestry, the prison of lost souls. My whole life has taken on the curve of a question mark.

  As we walk through the woods, I can only hope that it all ends here.

  Twelve

  Michaela

  Once the door slams home, we sit in the darkness for a few moments. They didn’t bother to bind us this time. Maybe they figured we’d just get out of the restraints anyway. Who knows? But it’s just as dark as it was before. There isn’t even a naked bulb in the room; the only light source is on the other side of the huge, metal door.

  “We have to get out of here,” Webber says.

  “I know,” I say, wanting to pace, but not wanting to crash into him or anything else. So I stand still.

  “Where’s the door?” he asks. I notice his voice is coming from my left. He was right in front of me before.

  “Be careful moving around. I don’t want you to get hurt.” Meaning I’m not in the mood to get stepped on, so watch it.

  “I’m familiar with being trapped in a dark room, Michaela. Thank you,” he snaps.

  His comment stings enough to make me flinch. We had to leave him in a room like this in hell, and I’m certain he’ll never let us forget. Maybe we don’t deserve to forget. I don’t really feel like saying anything, so I don’t answer his question. He’ll find the door.

  I can tell when he does. I hear his hands pawing at it, searching for a weakness.

  Escape. He’s so focused on it. He didn’t come here for Mara. He came here for me. But I know we can’t just leave her to her own devices. If we do, more people will die before their time. It won’t stop until she does. Shiloh helped me see that. I need to take her back to the heavens so she can meet with justice.

  The thought overwhelms me. I know Webber won’t help me with that, but how can I hope to accomplish such an enormous task without assistance? I shake my head in the darkness. These are worries for my future self. Right now, I have to figure out how to get out of this basement yet again.

  “There’s a window in the door. It slides to the left,” I say, barely above a whisper. I’m still a bit wounded by his barb, but he doesn’t seem to pick up on my tone. He keeps scraping at the metal door.

  I take slow, measured steps forward, not wanting to crash face-first into the post that I know is somewhere in the middle of the room.

  I reach Webber before I get to the door. He fumbles in surprise and steps on my foot, making me yelp. “Sorry,” he says as he moves away.

  “It’s just a good thing the Fates don’t wear big, heavy boots,” I say, wanting to rub my toes all the same. Webber isn’t heavy, but he’s as solid and muscular as most male heavenly beings. My black-and-white flats did little to protect me.

  As soon as my toes stop throbbing, I find the window and try to pry it open, the same way I did before.

  This time, it doesn’t budge.

  I rub my hands on my dress and then try again, this time with more fervor. It still doesn’t move. In fact, the longer I hold my hands against the window, the warmer they get. I keep pushing. The heat grows, but it happens so slowly that it takes me a while to realize I’m being burned. My hands are probably red by the time I pull them away, but the darkness reveals nothing.

  I kick at the ground. I can tell we’re not far from dirt. If we could just get through the foundation layer and dig our way out…

  With what? All we have is our bare hands.

  I listen for Webber, but he’s silent. He’s stopped moving around and must’ve settled down somewhere in the darkness.

  “Webber?”

  “I’m still here,” he says, his voice small and filled with regret.

  I don’t respond. I sit down with my back against the door and stare into the darkness. Now what?

  “Have you been down here before?” he asks, his voice slicing through the darkness.

  “Yes. This is where she brought me after…Lily.” I don’t elaborate, and he doesn’t ask. I can’t think about that little girl right now, not when she might be in that horrible prison with Andrew and Kismet. It will make me want to crumple into a ball on the floor and let the darkness swallow me forever.

  But Webber doesn’t care about Lily, at least not right now. He cares about getting out of here. “Judging by Mara’s surprise when she saw you in the boy’s room, I assume she didn’t just let you out. Did you use the window to escape?”

  “I did. There’s a bolt on the outside that can be reached from the open window.”

  “Why do you think it won’t open now?” he asks.

  “I think she did something to it. Bewitched it. Isn’t that what they call it?”

  “I don’t really know. I’ve never met a witch before.”

  He doesn’t speak anymore, and neither do I. But I know this isn’t the end. I’m still here, and as long as I am, I’ll keep fighting. I just need to be patient and wait for the next opportunity.

  “She will come back for us,” I say. “Or maybe it will be Nathair. When that happens, we need to be ready.”

  “Ready how?” he asks.

  “Ready to escape. Ready to win.”

  Our plan is simple. We will sit and wait on either side of the door, and the moment it opens, we will take one or both of them by surprise. Mara is powerful but slight. I think we can handle her if we catch her off guard, before she can summon her powers. Nathair is another matter, but it won’t help to fret.

  We have nothing. No weapons or tools, only ourselves—our hands, our bodies, and our minds.

  “We can do this,” I tell Webber, suddenly feeling certain of that. “We must do this.”

  “Or what, Michaela? What do you imagine will happen if we don’t escape?”

  “She will destroy the world, bit by bit.” I say it quietly, but the gravity of the words echoes in my mind. Never have I met a human who so earnestly believes she is more powerful than God. There is no precedent for this, no easy path ahead. The destruction of one or the other seems inevitable.

  That means failure is truly not an option. I’ve heard the humans say that before. For their sake, I hope they’re right.

  Webber and I are in our positions next to the door, so close we could probably touch. But I don’t reach out to him. Despite the fact that he came here to rescue me, he’s not a kindred spirit like Penn. Nervous energy pours off him, and I have no idea if he will cooperate when the time comes. I can only hope that he does. Or that I can handle the problem if he doesn’t.

  “Webber, can I ask you something?”

  “You just did, so I’m quite confident you can.” If Penn had said that exact thing, I would’ve laughed and swatted him, but coming from Webber, it feels like a barb. I don’t know why.

  “Why did you come?”

  He doesn’t answer me, and silence stretches out between us for what feels like years. Centuries. Civilizations rise and fall in the time he takes to speak again.

  “I had to.”

  “Did someone force you?” I ask, trying to think of who would volunteer the world’s worst Spinner to rescue a wayward Reaper. Why didn’t they send another Reaper? Ryker could have even come himself.

  “No. No one made me. I found Mara’s thread in the tapestry, and I saw you with her. I went to Ryker, and he guided me here. It wasn’t easy to find you, you know. I had to watch Mara for quite a while.” He shifts in the darkness, and I imagine him shrugging. As if that explains everything.

  “And trudging through the wilderness alone isn’t exactly my cup of tea,” he says, as if I’m supposed to be grateful for my botched rescue.

  The mention of Ryker is shocking. The head Reaper knows where I am? Why didn’t he come with Webber? Why would
he trust him with such an important mission? “But why? You’re…well…terrible at rescue efforts. You remember what happened in hell, right?” I say, throwing caution to the wind.

  “A stupid demon abused his power and threw me into a cell. How is that my fault?”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” I say slowly.

  “Well, how would you look at it?” he asks, his voice rising, defensive. Accusatory.

  “Another way to look at it is that you overreacted to something he said and endangered everyone who actually cares about you.” My voice matches his own note for note, my irritation plain.

  I hear him let out a long sigh, as if he feels defeated. “That’s another way of looking at it, yes.”

  “So, that being said, why did you come here?” I push.

  “I told you why.”

  “‘I had to’ is not an answer.” Despite the fact that he can’t see me, I put air quotes around his words. It’s so dark that I can’t even see my hands doing it.

  “That’s your opinion.” His tone reveals nothing.

  I take a deep breath, trying to regain sympathy for this fellow prisoner in the darkness. He did come here for me. I’ve seen flashes of goodness in him. Not much, but it’s there. I hold onto it for dear life.

  “Why did you have to?”

  “Because I don’t like who I am.” The words shock me. So much so, I have to fight the urge to ask him to repeat himself. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a heavenly being say something like that. Most of us are a bit…well, perfect for lack of a better word. We’re different, but we tend not to see our differences as flaws.

  “Then why do you act the way you do? Why do you continuously jab at Penn?” I should be understanding and soothing right now. That’s what he needs. But the questions just flow out of me.

  “It’s not all that simple, you know,” he shouts at me. The sudden volume in the small space startles me. I sit silent for a moment, letting him cool down.