“What?” I follow Bishop’s lead, sticking my cheeks between the bars, visually searching the room for anything at all.
“It’s hard to see, but it does look empty,” Sam agrees, holding the lantern up to illuminate the darkened cell. All we can make out are three stone walls, a ratty old bunk attached to one of them.
“We need a flashlight, why didn’t we think to bring one?” I shake my head in disgust at our lack of foresight.
“Or a lock pick for that matter,” Bishop adds.
Sam lets out a little huff. “Now what?”
“Wait!” Giddy with sudden inspiration, I remove the scorpion Animate from my pocket and place him on the ground. “Turner, we need your help.”
The machine crawls a short distance away, stops and turns, and shoots a beam of light from its crystal face. Hologram Turner appears in an electrified dust storm.
“You rang, my lady,” Hologram Turner drawls with a smirk as his body coalesces into hologram reality.
“Do you think you could go inside and see if there are any relics?” I gesture toward the locked cell.
“Where are we?” He looks around.
“I promise, I’ll fill you in when we return.”
He crosses his arms and tightens his features, the way he does when he’s protesting, and says nothing.
Dipping my head in a gesture of sincerity, I give him a piercing look, then grit out, “I promise.”
Hologram Turner looks us over, his gaze barely skimming Bishop, but finally relents. He steps through the bars. Since he’s a hologram made of light, he can walk directly through anything.
“Good idea.” Bishop joins my side. We watch him check every nook and crevice.
“Not looking good in here.” Hologram Turner kicks over a piece of wood, then sticks his hand in a crack in the wall. “Nothing here either.” He looks up. “And the roof is missing.” He holds out his hands, palms up, catching the spitting rain. Lightning cracks above. “Storm’s coming.”
“Great, we came all this way for nothing. Terease told me it would be here.”
Hologram Turner kneels on the floor to sweep the area below the bunk. “Wait. Found something.” He reaches under the bed and slides out a wooden box.
My heart leaps in my chest. This is it; it must be. He lifts the box as he stands, brings it forward, and slides it sideways, passing the box between the bars.
“Thank you.” I smile, catching his blue-gray gaze with mine.
“You’re welcome. And I’ll expect answers soon.” He steps back through the bars, then disintegrates into thin air.
Sam crouches down and the scorpion Animate crawls across the floor and into her palm. She sets him on her shoulder, and he perches there, tail poised and curled.
Placing the box on my raised knee, I lift the lid. Inside, within a nest of weathered crushed velvet, sits a leather journal. I remove it and hand the box to Bishop, who places it aside.
On the cover is an infinity symbol that has been burned into the leather, and I run my fingers over it before flipping the book open. “The end is at the beginning,” reads the words inscribed on the first page.
Sam leans closer with the lantern as I flip to the next page. Loose pencil lines, dark smudges, and cross-hatchings reach across the paper, forming a drawing of a desert. The scene is familiar because I’ve seen it before—twice, though never in a drawing or photograph. Once was in a dream, the night Aunt Mona told me I was a Wanderer, and then again this scene was presented to me on the hot air balloon ride, the one at Gabe’s gala dance that revealed my future like a crystal ball. I look over to Bishop, who was with me at the time, and his eyes glint with recognition.
“So you’ll be going there,” Sam says, apparently reading his mind.
“I guess so.”
Excited, I flip again and again. Beautiful and detailed sketches of our beginnings, specifically of our collective beginnings as Wanderers in Egypt, adorn each page. Each matches very closely with a story Mona told me long ago.
I press my lips together as I recall the story’s details, recapping for Sam and Bishop what I know of King Unika. The king took over the kingdom of Egypt after his brother’s death, wanting to return his ailing city to greatness, especially the grain fields, which had grown barren. To please the gods with a gift, he ordered his architect to construct a golden obelisk in the middle of his fields. It is said that because of this, after some time the god Amun-Ra appeared to him, revealing how to irrigate the fields to better his crops. It’s believed that the king was one of the original Wanderers, and that’s how the obelisk became the symbol of our people. Though it’s just a story, part of our mythology. Until now, I wasn’t sure how much of this story I truly believed, because how much truth can survive this length of time?
“So, what else is in there?” Sam points to the book. “Isn’t there a prophecy somewhere?”
I flip through, but there are only notes below the sketches, mostly names of portraits and locations on hand-drawn maps.
“Well, what do they say?” Bishop leans closer and squints. “The pencil is smudged here. Can you read it, Sera?”
I clear my throat, following each word with my finger as I say them aloud. “A child, born unto a mortal and a Wanderer, will set off the cycle of the Chosen, for this union is not meant to be and can only mean the undoing of the Wanderers.” I hold the book to my face, trying to read the rest. “It’s smudged, I can’t quite make any more out,” I say with a huff.
“What does that mean, anyway? Why would they even care who married who?” Sam asks.
“I can tell you what it means.” But it isn’t Bishop or me who responds. The voice comes from someone standing behind us, hidden in the darkness.
::18::
Miss Swift
Volta Swift, our defense arts teacher, steps out from the hallway’s shadows. Today she’s wearing a security uniform that somehow can’t hide her elegant, yet muscular form, or how striking her looks are. Her short and spiky white-blonde hair contrasts with her dark skin and the unexpected light color of her eyes. I relax a little, knowing she will be on our side. With her violet eyes, she’s one of the Watchers who never transitioned into a Chosen, according to Terease.
“‘A child, born unto a mortal and a Wanderer, will set off the cycle of the Chosen, for this union is not meant to be and can only mean the undoing of the Wanderers,’” she repeats.
“I, myself, found bits and pieces of information on the prophecy when I found out I was a Watcher. From my studies, I believe the Masters saw this union as an act of treason, a dilution of the purity of soul we possessed in the beginning of our time when Gibeon was a utopia, a paradise, and long before the city was set into motion. By mating with humans, we’d take on their humanity, though good in many ways, we would also inherit the bad, which would bring about abuse of our gifts and cause us to deviate from the enlightenment that they wished for us to achieve. We simply wouldn’t be able to help it. The Society scholars call it necesse corruptionem.”
“Inevitable corruption,” Bishop translates.
“Yes.” She nods. “The Masters saw the future for themselves. So a child from this union, once matured into a Wanderer and later the Chosen, would have to fulfill the prophecy and end us. But as you know, that never happened, and since then, every so often, new potential Chosen have been born.”
“But how? How does a Chosen end it?” I step forward.
“It’s not certain, but Society scholars believe we must go back and kill the queen and the king before they bear a child.”
“‘The end is at the beginning.’” Sam recites the line from the journal. “If that’s true, you would end us at the beginning.” Sam flips to the front of the book and points to the handwritten line.
“Unfortunately, that’s as much as I know on the subject,” Miss Swift says, “and I need to sneak you back into the Academy. Gabe’s sent out the alarm to the staff, reporting one of the transporters stolen.”
“Oh God,
the E.Y.E.S. video,” Sam squeaks. “They’ll know it was us.”
“Now that’s where you’re extremely lucky.” Miss Swift crosses her muscular arms and smiles. “I was on security watch when you pulled your little stunt, so the proof has been erased. But you know, Sera, you need to be more careful. Grand Master Levi is already sniffing around.”
“But I had to come and find the journal. It must have the answer to how I will Wander back in time to carry out the prophecy in here somewhere.” As I flip through, one sketched image in particular stops me.
I hold the book up, flat and open for the others to see. It’s the crown of Unika, a sketch similar to the one Stu showed us a year ago when I put together the sundial bracelet to take me to my mom.
“That again!” Sam cries out. “Please, no.” She rolls her eyes.
“But where is the bracelet now?” Bishop asks. “It holds the gem that belonged in the crown. We’d have to put the entire thing back together.”
“You’re right and that could take forever,” I add.
Sam frowns. “Do we even know where to begin?”
“Terease took it for ‘safekeeping.’” I sketch the quotation marks in the air with my fingers.
“We could just go back in time and steal it back,” Sam offers.
“But where would we even begin to look?” I ask Miss Swift.
“I wish I knew,” she says. “But first, we have another problem—I need to sneak you back into the school. Bishop and Sera, I think you should skip through time, back to your apartment.” She waves us away. “And I’ll take Sam with me. We’ll leave your transporter here.”
“Fine, let’s meet back at the apartment in fifteen,” I say. Everyone agrees. Sam exits with Miss Swift via her transporter. Bishop and I stand on one side of the long corridor between the jail cells. With one hand, I clutch the journal to my chest; the other I extend to Bishop and he grabs it tightly. Together we run, leaping over fallen debris and splashing through water puddles to activate our supernatural gift of time travel. That, along with holding a keyword in my mind, will send us back to the Academy.
We travel through a sparkling gateway back to the Academy via skipping—the simultaneous movement in time from one point to another.
Bishop and I fall through the wormhole and land in our apartment. We tumble, entwined, onto the couch. His elbow jabs into my side, and I groan as he clumsily untangles himself. When he stands, he reaches out his hand to help me up.
“Let me go hide this really quick,” I say, holding up Mom’s journal. I bound into my room and slide the journal under my mattress. Maybe it’s not the most ingenious hiding spot, but if someone really wants to find it, I suspect that they will no matter where it’s hidden in this apartment. I may have to remove it from campus to truly keep it safe.
I return to the living room. “Let’s go out to the murals in the main arcade. I want to see something.”
“Sure,” Bishop says.
We walk out of the apartment and down the marble corridor. A group of students walk past with shopping bags filled with more new items. Their purchases are nonstop since they received their credit cards a few weeks ago—a perk of becoming a new member of the Society. Maybe they would think twice about their new stuff if they knew they were creating relics that mapped their entire life. My stomach grumbles with anger, or maybe it’s hunger. As I reach up a hand to rub it, I wonder if we can scrounge up some food in the apartment because I think we missed dinner.
In the main arcade the ceiling reaches six stories, arching over our heads. An ironwork roof of Victorian stained glass details allows the evening late fall light to settle, casting a dark gray hue over the space. As usual, birds fly from one colonnade to the next, playing in the space above us. One lands on the frame of the Seraphina Angel painted by Leonardo da Vinci. It’s the one that Bishop often stares at and claims it look like me, but it’s the painting nearby that I’m here to see.
“Unika’s mural.” I point at it, then lean to him and whisper, “I wanted to look at where it is I’m meant to go.”
In the painting, a golden obelisk stands in a field of grain. A river flows nearby. In the foreground, a king stands with two field workers at his feet, kneeling with harvest baskets. Stylized geometric sunrays beat down from a cloudless sky.
“I don’t think I could kill someone.” I take in Unika’s lean figure. It’s not his fault he was the first. And even in this painting he looks like a ruler, yes, but fair, familiar even. I lean back on the railing, taking in all the details. “Here I am, supposedly this special person, someone who’s going to save everyone from this craptastic life, set Nocturna free, and I have to do something that makes me no better than any of the Society. I have to kill someone—two someones.” I look to Bishop. “In my heart it doesn’t feel like the right answer.”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t think of it like that. What if you were to just stop the actual meeting of the king and the queen so that they never fall in love and have children?”
“True.” I think for a moment. “But if I stop the beginning of our race, then where does that leave everyone we know? Do we just disappear from time, cease to exist?”
“I don’t know, but I honestly don’t like what’s expected of you.” He turns to me with a look of desperation and grabs my arms, taking me by surprise. “We could leave, Sera. We could run away from it all.” Bishop’s expression is sincere and earnest, and he’s shaking, he’s so upset. “I could keep you safe. We could live as Normals, the way you’ve always wanted. I could give you the life you deserve, the love you deserve.”
My heart wrenches at Bishop’s plea. With his all-consuming love for me, he’d rather run away to make me happy instead of saving his family. This is part of our curse. Wanderers love so intensely that it rewires ours brains to react irrationally. “I know you don’t really mean that.” I give him a sad look as I brush away the hair that’s fallen messily on his forehead. “What about your family? They’re still wasting away in Nocturna,” I remind him. “This is the reason I was born, to set everyone free.” I take a deep breath. “Maybe after this is over we’ll become Normals? Or maybe none of us will be. I’m sure the world wouldn’t miss me too much.” My gaze drops to the floor.
“But I’d miss you.” I look up and he pulls me closer, giving me the expression that I love. His eyes come alive with upside-down smiles, his lips curve, and his cheek punctuates with a dimple that’s always stolen my heart.
“Thank you.” I can’t help but smile back at him, and he leans down and kisses me on the forehead.
“Hey.” Sam joins us. “I just got an earful from Miss Swift. Be glad you didn’t have to deal with that or ride in the transporter again. It’s even worse the second time.” Sam reaches out, places a hand on my shoulder, and the scorpion Animate crawls across the bridge of her arm, settling in the crook of my neck.
“Lucky you.” I laugh, pulling away from Bishop.
“She begged us to lie low for the next day. She said that because the transporter was stolen, the Society officials have to be notified. So they’ll be arriving to watch everyone, and target number one will be you.”
“Figures.” I rub my forehead in thought. “But did you happen to mention to her that I’m kinda on a deadline? The Grand Master will have the results of my blood tests soon, and he’ll know exactly what I am.” Has it only been this morning since the awful examination by the doctor? “At this rate, I may not even make it to the Oaths on Saturday.”
“We won’t let anything happen to you, Sera,” Bishop assures me, but the truth is, I’m not sure if anyone can save us all now.
“I’m going to my room to scour the journal for any helpful info.”
::19::
The Guinea Pig
Sam and Bishop ransack the apartment refrigerator. I’m tempted to stop and eat, but in truth, my appetite seems to shrink the more I think about what’s ahead for me. Instead, I hide away in my room.
Leaving the lights off, I s
trip out of my school clothes and slip into my pajamas. Sleep would be nice, but too many thoughts scream around inside my head. Why me? And can I really be this hero, if you can call it that? Can I change the past when I have no idea what the outcome will be?
I feel guilty for thinking even for a millisecond that I could run away with Bishop. Once upon a time, the thought would have been very enticing. Bishop and I could easily blend into any time. Would they hunt us down? The Underground? The Society? And how would I save Bishop’s family or protect Sam? They could send her or anyone I’ve ever met to Nocturna, just for knowing me.
I collapse on my bed, surrounded by a fluffy cloud of bedding. Even with the weight of this task pressing down upon me, I can’t allow myself one second of peace, so I lean off my bed and reach under the mattress to pull out Mom’s journal.
I sit up and settle the book as a bridge between my crossed legs, studying the cover. Around and around, I drive the tip of my finger, tracing the infinity symbol like a racetrack. If you look closely at the details, you can see that it’s a snake twisted into an elongated figure eight. The mouth of the serpent devours its tail. This is the symbol of the Underground. I remember it from the presentation Terease, Principal Evans, and Professor Raunnebaum gave after the Underground attacks several weeks ago. But at the time, the coiled snake was engraved on a shield.
Flipping open the book to the first page, I read the words out loud to myself. “The end is at the beginning.” When a voice responds, I jerk with surprise.
“Can you tell me what’s going on with that?” Hologram Turner points to the journal. The scorpion Animate has climbed up and settled itself on top of my headboard to project Turner’s image on the other side of my bedroom, and now he’s returned for answers.
“I figured you would have heard everything by now. So you can’t hear anything when you’re stuck in that thing?” I gesture to the scorpion.
Seeing Light (The Seraphina Parrish Trilogy) Page 10