by Jason Letts
“But that’s not who I am. My parents did teach me better!”
“We’ve seen exactly who you are, and it’s as bad as the mold on the bread,” he said, exasperated.
“Right, the mold!” Mira squeaked, excitement in her wide eyes. “It’s the mold that can save her. I can save Mira, and there’s no one else who can.”
Kevin continued to hold her, and Mira waited every second for his hand to deliver that final push. But he had a pensive, weary look on his face, and Mira took his moment of deliberation as a chance to press her case further.
“I know it looks bad. It does. Everything you know is saying you get sick if you eat mold. Therefore mold makes you sick. But what if we fed the mold to the bacteria digging into your daughter through those wounds. It would hurt them or at least drive them away enough for her to get better.
“So what do you say, Mr. Ipswich? Some things might seem bad, but that’s just because they haven’t figured out how to be useful yet.”
Having no other choice, no other way to get his daughter healthy again, he took a chance on her idea. Allowing her back in the house, they met Jeana, who couldn’t figure out why he had suddenly changed his mind about this stranger.
“So we’re letting her in and we’re going to waste a fresh loaf? This is unbelievable!” she raved.
But she gathered around Kevin and Clara at the table while Mira got to work. Reaching out for the bread, Mira worried she wouldn’t have the same magical effect on it. She felt different, hopeful, but once her hand wrapped around the bread, a fuzzy blue mold spread out from her fingers, creeping over the bread until every inch had been covered.
She carved away the moldy surface and got to work liquefying it into a healing salve. She explained to them how she was isolating the amino acids, what the enzyme was doing, and how the refined chemical structure would work.
Altogether, they followed Mira and her bowl of soupy liquid up the stairs. Finding the girl in her bed, wet streaks still dribbling down her cheeks, Mira removed the bandages and dipped a cloth in the liquid.
“What are you doing?” little Mira coughed, looking like it strained her to remain awake.
“I want to do something helpful for a change. This will give you a chance to heal, Mira. That’s all you need,” Mira explained, noticing the copy of Widget’s manual on the bed. “Everything that you’ve been fighting against, it’ll all be gone after this.”
Though the child could comprehend little of what went on around her, she gave the tiniest nod of the head though her weary eyes were shut. After dabbing the cloth against the puffy, red cuts, Mira and the rest of the family held their breath as they waited for signs that it worked. Clara held her hands to her face, peeking through her fingers. Kevin looked down at his beloved little ingenious thinker. Because it meant the world to her, Jeana prayed for her family to remain safe and intact.
But the more Mira dabbed the moist cloth against the wounds, the harder it became to see if it had any effect. After all, it wasn’t the cuts on the girl she was healing, but the infection that had created this illusion in her mind. Mira shielded her eyes from the candle, which became brighter and brighter until it blinded her to everything.
Chapter 13: Revolutions
When Mira’s eyelids fluttered open, she beheld a scene just as puzzling as the one she had left. After closing her eyes to block out the blinding white candlelight, she now saw a kaleidoscope worth of colors, swirling and shifting among the shapes and figures before her. Blinking again, she struggled to make them out, but they looked flat as if they were part of a stained-glass window.
She recognized the faces first, which were so close to her. Three figures were caught in some kind of contorted grapple, but she had never seen the one directly in front of her. A young, heavy countenance looked fascinated by her. His dreamy expression had an unsettling, obsessive quality to it, and he held a finger out, seemingly so close, yearning to touch her.
But he had an arm wrapped around his shoulder that restrained him. A girl, jingling curls around her face, strained to hold him back. When Roselyn glanced at Mira and saw her awake, an astonished gasp rippled through her. She shouted something, and Mira could hear her own name, and then Roselyn redoubled her effort to pull back the child.
Hanging under the boy, another girl, lying on her side, jerked her head to look. Mary, dirty and exhausted, clung to the boy’s exposed torso to stop his advance. She yelled, trying to alert Mira to a danger she could not understand. The boy too noticed she had awakened, and it startled him. The canvas of his face revealed a streak of disappointment and self-contempt. His eyes drifted down as the boy seemed to shrink into himself. He shivered and cringed.
“That look,” Mira whispered, even as loud cracks snapped from over the bank. “It comes from a feeling of such inescapable worthlessness. How often I’ve worn it. It eats you away from the inside until there’s nothing left, decay.”
Staggering and emotional after Mira’s words, Roselyn and Mary’s strength gave out and they fell away from the boy. But rather than lunge forward, something about Mira or what she said struck a chord with him. He pursed his lips and shivered, goose bumps speckling his skin.
He looked around, twitching his head back and forth. None of the girls moved or spoke. Free from his restraints, the boy toddled to the ledge. His foot skidded against the first loose stone and he slid out of sight. Roselyn and Mary wrapped their arms around each other in a joyous hug, expressing a rush of relief. Their laughter dwindled and they finally turned to Mira.
“Are you OK? I can’t believe you’re awake. It’s been so long,” Roselyn said, smiling though also appearing a bit nervous.
The girls kneeled down beside Mira, now staring at her cheek. The cut on her face was vanishing before their very eyes. Mira could tell they didn’t know how to react to her, and it wasn’t surprising considering how she’d been behaving. She needed to start making amends.
“I’ve been so awful to you, to everyone. I’ve been such a bad friend and a bad leader and a bad person. I had it all wrong, and I’m so sorry. There was so much I didn’t understand. I’m just so sorry,” she said, breaking into tears.
Her friends didn’t know what to say at first, and they stayed motionless. Mary wiped away Mira’s tear so it didn’t interfere with the closing cut, and Mira spontaneously pulled her in for a hug. Mary looked back at Roselyn, astonished.
“That’s OK,” Mary said. “Nobody has any idea what’s going on. We’re just as much in the dark as you. We just need to be a little kinder to each other is all, or else we’ve already lost everything.”
Mira nodded, full of shame. She wiped her eyes and tried to smile, happy to have her friends and lucky for their forgiveness. Glancing around, she tried to make sense of her surroundings and found she couldn’t.
“What is going on? Why can’t I see you right? Where is everyone else?”
“There’s a battle going on over the bank there. We’re near base camp, and everyone’s fighting. It’s the Specials, these ultra-powerful ancients, and it’s got everything topsy-turvy. There, you see that? Everything’s black and white now. Someone is playing with our minds. That boy was trying to kill you. I can’t explain why he stopped, but you woke up just in time,” Roselyn explained.
“You can see for yourself. Can you stand?” Mary asked.
“I think so. I feel a little hazy, but not hurt. How long was I out?”
But by then the girls had gotten Mira to her feet and helped her look past the slope’s edge. Her eyes took in the bizarre movements of the unfolding battle. Thousands upon thousands horded around distinct pockets, each occupied by one of the Specials. People were knocked into the air and floating toward the clouds, the earth shook, and vines and trees sprouted underneath them. It looked surreal from so far away, the rhythmic movements and bursts of light. Plants grew so fast that fresh branches lifted warriors right off their feet. But for all its wonder, it could not hide the tan and black bodies that littered
the ground.
“They’re in there, the rest of us?”
“Will, Rowland, Vern, Chucky, and Aoi,” Mary answered.
“We’ve got to help them get out of that mess. Where could they possibly be?” Mira asked.
“If they’re in there, I can find them,” Mary boasted.
“OK then, let’s go.”
“But you don’t have any weapons!” Roselyn said.
“I won’t need them,” Mira responded.
Setting out over the side onto the slope, they noticed that the young boy had long since disappeared. Hopping rocks on their way to the bottom, the three girls waded onto the battlefield, hoping to find their friends.
But the battle had turned into a bloodbath, everyone at the mercy of the Specials. Those who tried to get away couldn’t, and those who tried to attack found themselves thwarted by weapons beyond their comprehension.
Dejected, Commander Carmichael paced back and forth. He scowled and shook, waving his arm across his view of the battle.
“Come on. Wipe them out!” he called, disappointed. Glum, he watched as the legions of warriors pressured his ultimate weapons.
The old, bearded man, caught in a battle he didn’t understand in a time he didn’t know, fought against all comers. Just as the masses swelled toward him in one direction, a flick of his arm would propel them into the air, giving him time to deflect the next flank of chargers.
He kept an eye on one side, where the tallest Special, the stringy man with the diamond wand, struggled to keep away those that beset him. Swinging the massive staff and making the earth shake did not prevent the soldiers from closing in. One soldier leapt at the behemoth but was caught in the air. The Special hardened him into stone and then shoved him back against the rushing crowd. When he reached back to take another swing, a build up of earwax formed in his ear and an itch inflamed his feet.
These trifling powers, pitiful compared to his, started to irritate his every sense. As soon as he relented to scratch his ear, the mob overran him, piling into a massive heap. He turned several to stone and managed to fight off those that held him a few times, but his skin was just as fragile as theirs, and he eventually succumbed to their attacks.
The old man watched him slip under, sure a similar fate awaited himself. There could be no escape from the wrath or the desperation of these warriors. But as he repelled another clamoring throng, he could’ve never guessed that it would come so soon.
Those closest to him were at the mercy of his control over movement, forced to form a blockade for his protection and turn on their fellow soldiers. Though the masses proved manageable, he had no defense against the sun. It shredded the clouds overhead and scalded him. The elderly man’s bones grow weary and his fearful expression slackened. The rest of the soldiers too suffered under the sunlight that inexplicably drained the life from their bodies.
This struggle between countless soldiers and their one target grew weak and ineffectual. He did little more than brush them back and they barely leaned forward to retaliate. But something worked its way through the crowd that carried all of the fresh force and energy of the shining sun. Cutting closer, hurling away fighters with little resistance, a formidable mangler of a man broke through to the front. His hair charred at the ends, he glowered and snarled, a dead stare beaming from his bloodshot eyes.
The old man’s mouth hung open as he looked over his shoulder at the one who had come for him. His rags seemed eerily similar, but his singed hair and dreary face disturbed him more. He had a chain around his neck that vanished under the ratty fabric. All around him people recoiled in horror, but found they didn’t have the strength to move.
Feeling the Warlord’s startling grip coil around his bearded neck, the old man wriggled like a fish in a bear’s claw. His feet left the ground as cold hands held him into the sun’s pulsing flashes.
“You’re not one of us,” he choked.
“I’m more,” said the fiery-faced Warlord.
Quick electrical surges, threading in and out of his bare arm, traveled along his skin to his hand and the helpless victim it held. The light all around grew brighter, and then he discharged his buildup of energy into the screaming old man. So close to death, the current darted inside him. His skin grew bright red, looking like it would rip apart.
The Special looked down at beady, unsympathetic eyes, his heart thumping rapidly. All at once the pressure of the current created a reverberation of his power that exploded from him and thundered in all directions.
The shockwave raced out, sending a pulse of movement that contracted every muscle it swept through and jerked every joint it came across. The soldiers all around fell after their spasm of movement, but the impulse that spread through the air affected more than just people. Anything that could move did, from flapping grass and floating clouds to creaking rooftops and rattling pillars.
The old man’s life had been extinguished, and the Warlord dropped him and looked for his next victim. He crossed the small clearing and started reaching through the convoluted wreckage of soldiers. His touch sent pulses of energy into his victims, making their hearts burst in their chests. Body parts exploded, spraying blood over the area. It would be a long while yet before anyone understood the full effect of that shockwave and even longer until it was undone.
The veranda had collapsed from the shockwave, and most buildings in base camp suffered cracks and other structural damage. Commander Carmichael, who climbed through the rubble, had seen just enough from his distant perch to understand the cause. Out of breath yet still shaking, he hollered to his warriors on the battlefield and urged them to grasp the monumental opportunity at hand.
“It’s him! He’s there! Someone, anyone! Please! You’ve got to get him. Go get him!”
Screaming until his voice went hoarse, he ripped out his hair as the remaining soldiers struggled to their feet. The sun already seemed less intense, perhaps itself exhausted by the flux of energy. Inspired by the sight of their leader, soldiers wearing black prepared to reengage their enemies. The Specials had been all but slain. The shockwave had momentarily weakened the young woman who controlled higher brain function, allowing a group to knock her into a cluster of vines that tore her apart. The Warlord trudged to the west, apparently leaving.
“We can’t let him get away!” Rowland barked, helping his friends to their feet.
He watched the despicable Warlord trudging through the masses, applying his deadly hand to tan uniforms. Unlike the others, who moved sluggishly, Rowland’s armor had protected him from the shockwave’s unnatural effects.
“I can’t…I can’t do anything,” Vern said, lying limp.
“You don’t need to,” Rowland said, taking a deep breath and letting go of Vern. “I’m ready to put a stop to this. I can do this. If I’m wrong, tell my family I love them.”
“No!” Vern moaned, the others in chorus. “He’s too strong. Please don’t go. Don’t listen to his words. Remember Mira.”
Rowland, aware of his chances but compelled to act, chanted his reasons in his mind. A vision of his family illuminated his thoughts. Their kindness and love for so many years seemed so clear to him, and he fought on their behalf to repay them for it. He looked down at his friends, many of whom had sustained injuries and looked so destitute because of one evil man. Their friendship kept his dire heart beating.
“I can do this for us. This is what we came for,” he said, clenching his teeth.
His friends begged him to stop as he ran off through the rising crowds for the dark figment storming away. Somewhere swords were clashing, and flashes of light had resumed again, but for Vern, Aoi, Chucky, and Will, the courage of one young man resounded above them all. He passed further away, and those in between enshrouded him, but Rowland’s friends grafted his safety to their most solemn hopes.
They didn’t even notice it when footsteps approached from behind. Mira, Mary, and Roselyn joined them, immediately struck by the gravity of whatever stole their attention.
Mira slid down on the grass between Vern and Will.
“What is it? What are you looking at?” she asked.
In any other moment, the shock of seeing her awake would have enraptured them, but right now her voice and presence couldn’t even register. They stared breathlessly forward, and Mira just made out the glare of the sun on Rowland’s metal armor. Even though she didn’t know what had led them to this moment or how, she took their hands in hers as Rowland tracked through the floundering armies.
The moans of the wounded at his feet urged Rowland on, and he vowed to put an end to all of it. In a crouched run, he curved around behind his exalted adversary, even as his minions put up what feeble resistance they could. In his hand, Rowland carried the firm blade with which he hoped to accomplish what his army had failed to do for ten years.
But even as he neared striking distance, a creaky plate in his armor warned of his approach. Sensing that he’d been given away, Rowland turned to hide his face and raised his sword for the first strike. But the Warlord, afflicted like all the rest of light without color, momentarily faltered. He mistook Rowland for Pyrenee, who appeared to prepare to strike down another foe.
“Pye, the sun will not set.”
Wide-eyed, Rowland grasped the opportunity that appeared before him. In a stroke of luck, he had passed for his enemy, and the time had come to make the strike. Hesitating no longer, Rowland whipped himself around and swung his sword.
But Rowland never felt the impact of his deadly slice. Instead, his neck collided with a firm hand, and gritty fingers closed around it. In a second, Rowland choked, letting the sword fall and bringing his hands to his captor. As his feet left the ground, his eyes met the depleted soul that held him. He struggled to breathe, to gasp at the monstrosity bent on his destruction.
The sun intensified, and Rowland felt it heat his armor. Through the bright light, Rowland saw the blue wisps of energy weaving along the chiseled arm that held him. A pressure deep in the pit of his stomach wanted to find release. He knew his final moments had come, and he glanced aside to try and spot his friends. But they were nowhere to be found, and the loneliness he felt brought tears to his eyes.