PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “And some of you guys are pulling for the Destroyer guy?” I asked when a spark of blue electricity shot down like lightning into the center of the maze and Dr. Static did a Tiger Woods-esque fist pump.

  “Well, they’re not actually the Destroyer. And besides, the teachers have a betting pool.”

  I smirked and shook my head. “Hey, who’s the girl in the tower?” I asked, wondering if he could help me.

  “You mean like a seer’s tower? There are no seers in this game.”

  “Oh, well I’m gonna go,” I answered, but Dr. Static had other ideas.

  “I don’t think so, Greenie,” he said, and pushed me across the glowing yellow tape. “New Bloodmoon!” He yelled and his half of the audience started cheering again.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said and walked back to the tape. When I reached it though, my feet stopped moving. I couldn’t do it. The tape wouldn’t let me pass.

  “Can’t get out ‘till the game’s over,” Dr. Static chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  A swirl of red energy, like exploding cherry bombs started nipping around my Sketchers. I kicked, dancing like Ashley Simpson on SNL, trying to put it out. Everybody started laughing and, through a flush of anger, I heard Dr. Static say, “Better get in there, Greenie.”

  I sighed and ran into the garden maze, figuring I could at least douse my feet in one of the fountains. But as soon as I rounded the closest hedge wall, everything changed.

  I tried to remind myself of Dr. Static’s words.

  Sensory Illusion, it’s not real.

  “It’s not real,” I murmured to myself, but it was hard. The garden maze stretched and flattened out. The flowered walls transformed into metal barriers accented with barbwire and spikes that jutted up into the air. The ground under my feet, lush and fertile from the outside, dried up and cracked. The grass, plants, vegetation, and shrubbery melted away. The scorched land heated up so much that the soles of my feet started to burn even more. I kept moving , afraid that if I stopped for too long, the heat would work its way through the soles of my shoes.

  I heard the sounds of fighting all around me; an explosion, scuffling, yells; but there was no one to be seen. I turned, thinking that I might exit the maze and just wait along the edges until the whole thing ended but, when I spun back around, the entrance I used had vanished.

  Sighing, I turned back around, only to be met by a sandstorm. Well, not exactly a sandstorm. It was more like a whirling dervish made of red crackling energy.

  “It’s not real,” I repeated, backing up against the now metal wall. It felt real though. I felt grains of sand showering my face; a precursor to the storm that inched closer. It sounded real, whipping against my eardrums and drowning out my once loud surroundings. It even smelled real; like heat and the desert.

  My doubts started to disappear as I continued to back up; pressing my back against the unyielding wall. This wasn’t some illusion; not when I could see, smell, and feel it. This was real, and it was going to kill me. Unless, of course, I ran.

  I darted away from the twister just as it collided with the wall, sending sheets of sand spraying in every direction. The winds were heavy and almost knocked me off my feet, but I managed to stay standing, to stay running.

  I heard an echo, a voice screaming over the noise.

  “Night!” It yelled.

  Night, what did that mean?

  Turning, I saw Jackson. He was dressed all in blue with a strip of blue paint running across his eyes. He stood on top of a hill so large that there was no way the maze could have realistically hidden it.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed again.

  “Nice!”

  Was he giving me a compliment?

  “I can’t hear you!” I yelled but, as I opened my mouth, glowing red sand flew inside, choking me. The twister was nipping at my heels now, ready to consume me.

  “Ice! Ice!” Jackson yelled. ”Freeze it! Think about ice!”

  The glowing twister lifted me off the ground, pulling me into its hungry red mouth. I whipped around like a stuffed animal in the washing machine.

  “Ice. Ice.Ice.Ice,” I muttered over and over again, trying to bring it into the forefront of my mind. “Snowflakes, ice cubes, Frosty, a frozen lake.”

  My head whipped, jiggling my brain around like a pinball in a machine.

  “Damn it! Ice tea!”

  The twister stopped, hardening around me. I fell immediately and smacked against the dry, but cooler, ground. Standing, I found myself in the middle of a crystal sculpture. The red energy was frozen. The ground around me was frozen. Even the air had a bite to it as it blew by. I worked my way through the openings in the sandstorm sculpture, realizing I had frozen the lot of it . . . with my mind.

  “It’s not real, but it’s still really cool, right?” Jackson asked smiling. The hill he was one had faded back into the ground and he was standing level in front of me. ”Welcome to the Bloodmoons.”

  I looked down. I was dressed in the same blue uniform he was wearing. Touching my face, I felt the same blue mark running over my eyes. “We’re the bad guys?” was the only thing I could manage.

  “Yeah,” he grinned mischievously. “Or what’s left of them.”

  I looked around. There was no one anywhere. “Just you and me?” I asked.

  “On the bright side, that’s twice as many of us as there were two minutes ago.”

  Though I knew, like the red sandstorm, the ice I used to stop it was just an illusion; a shade, I still shivered with its closeness.

  “What about the Bloodmoon? Aren’t we supposed to protect him?”

  Jackson ran his hand over his chest. The front of his uniform shimmered, revealing a red crescent at his heart. Moving his hand back, it disappeared.

  “It’s you?” My brows knitted together.

  “Don’t sound so shocked. I’m awesome; super great in a really dope way,” he nodded, as though he was agreeing with himself.

  “Don’t let Casper teach you lingo anymore.”

  A crackle of red energy, like a fireball, hurtled over one of the giant metal walls. It collided with the frozen sandstorm. Its splintered pieces flew at us like frozen daggers. Jackson and I grabbed each other and hit the floor.

  “It’s not real. It’s not real,” I muttered over and over again.

  “Does that work?” Jackson asked just as an ice shard landed inching from our faces.

  “N-not really,” I stuttered.

  We jumped to our feet once the ice stopped flying and started to run. I felt a rush of heat from behind me as well as a strange flapping sound that made my heart stop. Jackson looked back.

  “Do I wanna turn around?” I asked.

  “That depends. What are your feelings about lizards?”

  I turned left at a crossway in the maze, with Jackson behind me and whatever was making that flapping noise right behind him. When I turned around, the sight of it took my breath away. A huge red dragon, glowing with so much energy that it lit up the entire maze, the entire sky, flew toward us. Its feet curved up into claws, scales covered its body, its wings stretched out like a bat’s, and smoke poured from its mouth.

  It shot another fireball at us. It collided with the metal wall behind us and burned straight through. We ran again.

  “We can’t outrun it!” Jackson yelled; his short legs trying to keep up.

  The letter’s words flashed in my mind again.

  Fool the dragon.

  “We don’t have to,” I said. I pulled him behind a small rose bush that sat in the center of another crossroads. “This is all shade, right?” I looked at him. “And we can control it?”

  “Yeah.” His breaths were quick and heavy.

  “Make this grow. Hide us. I’ve got a plan.”

  Jackson closed his eyes and held his hand out. The rose bush grew and expanded. Soon It was a hedge and then a tree; a large expansive tree with limbs that sprouted roses of every c
olor.

  “Now look at me,” I said.

  “What are we doing?” He opened his eyes.

  “Fooling the dragon,” I smiled.

  By the time the dragon reached us; the flapping of its wings so loud that it shook the ground underfoot, I walked from behind the rose tree to meet it. I wasn’t myself though. To the dragon, I looked just like Jackson, glowing red crescent and all. I had never thought about dragons smiling until the horrible red thing’s mouth twisted into a grin; its sharp teeth snapping before me. It reared back and, just as it was about to bathe me in hot red energy, Jackson jumped out from the other side of the tree. With a bright blue dagger in his hand, he threw it. Hitting the monster in the heart, it roared, convulsed, and spit fire into the air. Finally, it crumpled onto itself and disappeared. A small flag fell from where the dragon used to be. It danced around in the air until it came to rest in Jackson’s palm.

  A trumpet sounded and the maze, in its entirety, melted around us. We were back in the garden, with all of the other students and teachers circling us, clapping and cheering our names.

  “I told you it would be fun,” Dr. Static winked as he neared me. I looked down to find that my clothes had reverted back to normal and, touching my cheek, that the strip was no longer over my eyes.

  The crowd lifted Jackson into the air and chanted “Jackson! Jackson!”

  Looks like he won’t have to wait until next year for more friends.

  “You slayed the dragon,” Dr. Static settled beside me, watching the crowd carry a laughing Jackson away. “Not bad for a greenie.”

  “Jackson slayed the dragon. I just confused it,” I answered.

  “No one ever slays the dragon,” he said.

  “Cause it goes against your prophecy?” I asked.

  “Because it’s a freaking dragon. And it’s your prophecy too, you know,” he grinned. “You have a lot of potential. I think you could be a hell of a Breaker one day.”

  I remembered what Echo said about my mom.

  She was a hell of a Breaker.

  Was that even what I wanted? I looked away, staring at the wide open field that stretched between the garden and the woods and separated Weathersby from the outside world. It was dark and the moon was crescent tonight, though not red. A glimmer in the openness caught my eye. As I stared, the world seemed to shift. A wave of something rippled across my line of sight. Where once there was nothing but trees and air, a tower now stood. It was tall and thin, made of white brick with a golden cap at its top. It was bare expect for a door at the bottom and a large arched window near the cap.

  A girl stood in the archway. Her hair, dark enough to match the night sky, came down in a crown of bangs and her skin was pale to the point of being almost colorless.

  The girl in the tower.

  “Will you excuse me? I have to . . . .” My voice trailed off as I walked away from Dr. Static.

  I started out into the field toward the tower. Walking away from the rush of noise coming from the crowd, I realized I must be the only one who saw it. Otherwise, celebration or not, you’d think somebody would care about a tower appearing out of nowhere.

  As I reached the door, gold to accent the top, I noticed a string of symbols etched into the brick. A vine of intertwining silver and red circled the bottom with large golden roses drawn along them. If it was a decoration, it was a good one; as beautifully done as any painting I had ever seen.

  If it was an anchor, like the large red ‘W’s that strung along the whole of Weathersby, it wasn’t quite as successful; you know, since I could see it and all.

  I felt the girl’s eyes on me as I ran my hand along the drawn roses, but when I looked up, she was gone. I pushed through the unlocked door and was met with a pair of matching doors and a set of stairs that winded up in circles for what seemed like forever.

  A large golden rose was drawn on both doors. As I neared them, I heard noises from the stairs. Footsteps, then two sets of footsteps, then voices. I pulled open the left rose door, not sure how I’d explain my presence in an obviously hidden tower.

  The letter told me to do it?

  Stuffing myself inside, I found that it was an empty closet. Or, if it wasn’t, then the stuff inside was shaded so well that I couldn’t see it. Either way, I pressed my ear against the wall and listened.

  “I don’t know why you’re acting like this.” It was Echo. His words, Echo’s echo, sounded throughout the tower, but something told me that if I was even an inch outside of the building, I wouldn’t be able to hear it.

  “That’s because I’m acting reasonably; the way reasonable adults do.” The other voice belonged to Dahila. It was stern, but less cold than it had ever been when she was talking to me. She breathed heavy and I could hear the exasperation in her tone. “There’s no reason she should be here.”

  She?

  “That wasn’t my call. If you have a problem with her placement, bring it up with the Masons. It was the Council who approved it,” Echo answered.

  “And I’m sure you were completely silent on the matter,” Dahlia scoffed.

  “What does that mean?” Echo balked.

  “It means you fought to keep her here.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “You know why.” Dahlia’s voice was quiet, almost downtrodden.

  “Don’t start this again,” Echo warned.

  “Ash’s daughter shows up in the middle of the night, the first unknown Breaker in 100 years, and the Council just lets you keep her here, no questions asked? Do you really expect me to believe that?”

  Me. They were talking about me.

  “I expect you to trust me,” Echo answered. “This is a unique situation, and as such-“

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m one of your students! This has nothing to do with how rare she might be.”

  “Dahlia, don’t!” His voice cut through the place like a knife, but if it affected her, she didn’t let it show.

  “This is about her! Like everything else in our entire lives, this is about Ash. Go ahead, try to deny it. Tell me the fact that this girl is the daughter of your ex-wife has nothing to do with the way you’re acting. ”

  Things were silent for a while. Just when I was about to push the door open and see if they’d left, Dahlia spoke again.

  “We don’t know who’s after her. We don’t know what Ash had been up to for the last fifteen years. I mean, she obviously kept tabs on you. She knew just where to send her little girl once whatever trouble she was causing proved too much.”

  A flash of anger rose in my gut, but I stayed silent, stayed still.

  “Yes. The fact that this girl who I didn’t know existed is the daughter of my wife who I thought was dead did occur to me. Is that what you want me to say?”

  “Your ex-wife,” she corrected. “Ash is your ex-wife. Though, you’ve always had trouble remembering that. And the fact of the matter is, whether you want to believe it or not, Cresta is dangerous. She’s an untrained Breaker and trouble is nipping at her heels.”

  “Would you rather I turn her out, let the big bad whoever have her?” Echo asked.

  “I would rather if you followed protocol and sent her to the Hourglass, where she’d be safe.”

  “Please! Until two days ago she didn’t even know what she was. The Hourglass would eat her alive. This is the best place for her. The Council understands that.”

  “And it doesn’t hurt that she’s a walking reminder of your first love,” Dahlia sighed.

  “Dahlia, I don’t know when this is going to stop with you. You and I have done the greatest thing two people could ever do together. We gave birth to a Seer. There is no better fit for me. None. Sure, maybe I talked about Ash a little too much. Maybe she held a certain place in my heart, but that was when I thought she had died doing her job; when she was a martyr and not some turncoat. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Morgan, the girl is a Capricorn.”

  “She isn’t!” He said it so loudl
y that I wondered why it mattered so much. “I accessed the records at the hospital in Chicago where she was born. Her birthday is in March.”

  “Stop it. That girl drips Capricorn. Even a youngling could see that. You-“

  That’s enough!” I heard a loud clanging, like Echo had punched the wall or something. Instinctively, I jerked away from the door. ”I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”

  “Then maybe I should just say it.” I could hear the tears in Dahlia’s voice, even though, try as I might, I couldn’t actually picture someone like her crying. “It takes two Breakers to have a Breaker baby. Did you really think Ash just ran away and happened to find a husband who had those inherent traits; those exceedingly rare traits? You know better than that. That girl is a Capricorn. Ash was pregnant when she faked her death.”

  The breath caught in my throat, and not because of asthma.

  “You’re keeping Cresta here for the same reason you don’t want to have this conversation; because you know there’s a chance that she’s your daughter.”

  Chapter 11

  Why Nine Year Olds Don’t Get Tattoos

  Dahlia ran out of the tower after she dropped the bombshell. Echo went t after her. It was for the best because, if they hadn’t, I’m sure I would have burst out of that closet with my mouth open asking for an explanation.

  Echo could be my father. The thought rolled around in my head, wrecking whatever serenity had managed to survive the last few days. I spit the idea out as I exited the closet and the tower. This wasn’t something I was even going to entertain. Sure, my whole world had upended. I was a closet freak with superpowers I still hadn’t begun to broach, and my mother was a runaway from a secret cult. But I knew my father. I knew him in my bones, in my DNA. He was there when I was born, and I was there when he died. No one was going to take him from me.