“I don’t know,” the nurse said, rubbing at her cheek.
Wyatt grunted and turned from her. He’d find no answers here. The nurse cowering at his feet said something else, but Wyatt didn’t hear it. He was too busy staring at the large picture window on the wall opposite the hospital rooms.
“It’s night,” he said slowly. Then he laughed. “It’s night!”
“Where are you going?” the nurse called after him as he bolted for the exit.
“The night!” he said. “I’m going to save the night!”
Chapter Forty-Three
WYATT EMERGED ONTO the roof of Greenwood Hospital to find the sky twisted into a violent storm. Rain came in sheets, falling nearly sideways. A sharp gust of wind forced Wyatt to the ground where he resorted to crawling toward the far corner. Periodic bursts of lightning lit up the otherwise dismal scene. Wyatt felt every thunderclap in his bones and he caught himself wondering if it could crush him.
Wyatt called for Lucy as he crawled, but his loudest shouts were muffled even to himself. A particularly stunning spider web of lightning forced Wyatt to his stomach and the resulting thunder had him clutching at his ears. He lay sputtering in the rain for a moment, wondering what he was doing. But the need to find Lucy drove him onward.
Battered by the storm, Wyatt reached the hidden hideout nestled in previously fallen debris. He didn’t bother calling for her again, instead scrambling into the darkness.
Inside the cramped space, a single candle flickered, the walls of crumbled stone insulating it from the wind. Water spewed from ever crack, and there, nestled into the deepest corner, was Lucy.
She was lying on her side, knees pulled to her chest, and wasn’t moving.
Wyatt dove for her, grabbing her shoulder and spinning the small girl toward him. “Lucy!” he shouted.
Her eyes burst open at once and she lunged upright with a shout. At once, the storm that raged over Greenwood vanished. The persistent quake that had shook the stone fell to nothing, and an oppressing silence filled the space.
They stared at each other for a brief heartbeat, both stunned for different reasons in the now still night. Then the small girl exploded at Wyatt.
“Get away from me,” she shrieked, clawing at Wyatt’s face.
He fell away from her and scuttled backwards, slapping at her hands.
“Get away!”
“Lucy, it’s me,” he pleaded.
She continued to go after him, a crazed whirlwind of clawed hands and gnashing teeth, more animal than child. Wyatt pushed himself to the opening and spun to his feet. He danced several strides away. Lucy stood in the doorway to the secret hideout, taking ragged breaths through bared teeth.
Wyatt held up his hands. “Lucy,” he said as calmly as he could. “It’s me, Wyatt. You know, Dumb-name.”
She continued to seethe.
“Julia?” he tried.
The name snapped the girl from her enraged stupor. “Julia’s gone,” she shouted. “They’re all gone. Because of you, the Bad Man took them away.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” she retorted. “He doesn’t want me to remember. I don’t want to remember. But you...” She jabbed her finger in the air with such fury Wyatt knew she’d impale him on it if she could. “You won’t let me forget. You or the other shadows.”
“I know who the others are,” he said eagerly, forgetting his calm tact.
Lucy continued to scowl, but she held her ground and lowered her finger.
“I think…they’re our parents. And they want us to be—”
“What did you say? Our parents? I have no parents. Never did. The Bad Man said you took them away from me.”
Wyatt shook his head. “No, Lucy, the Bad Man is wrong. He wants to keep us apart for some reason. But the others…our parents…they wanted us to find each other.”
Lucy shook her head violently and clawed at her own face. “No no no no no,” she began to chant, eyes pinched shut.
Wyatt approached her cautiously and reached a hand toward her shoulder. Lucy’s hand snapped up before Wyatt could touch her, slapping his hand away. She fixed him with a fiery look.
“You are Lucy, right? That’s your real name?” he said, holding his ground, but ready to run if the need arose.
“Stop talking,” she hissed.
“Just tell me you remember. Tell me you’re really my sister. Tell me—”
Lucy struck like a viper, taking Wyatt by surprise as her small body collided with his, and they went to the ground in a heap. Lucy kept her position on top of him and slapped both hands over his mouth, squeezing tightly.
“Shhhh,” she whispered, her mouth at his ear.
Wyatt stayed still, fearing what the girl would do if he disobeyed.
“You can’t talk about…them,” she continued.
Wyatt tried to respond, his words coming as a deep hum in his throat. She leaned back to look at him. Then she slowly withdrew her hands, but remained seated atop his chest. She held a single finger to her lips.
“Why not? If you’re really my sister and they’re really our—”
Lucy slapped him across the cheek with such speed he hadn’t seen her move, but he felt the sting of the strike and was left looking to the side. He grabbed his face and felt the flesh pulsing.
“Hey,” he said. “I was just saying—”
Lucy raised an open hand and eyed him, daring him to finish the sentence. He didn’t.
“Why can’t we talk about…you know who?”
Lucy lowered her hand and stood up. She walked a few paces away and then turned back. “Because if you talk about them or even think about them, then they’ll come.”
Wyatt climbed to his feet, still rubbing at his sore cheek. “Uh, and that’s a bad thing?”
Lucy nodded and walked to the edge of the roof. There, she leaned against the short wall.
Wyatt stared at her back, waiting for further elaboration. When he received none, he walked to the edge as well. He leaned against the stone and tried to catch her gaze, but she was fixed on something far in the distance.
“Lucy, why don’t we want them to come?”
Without turning, she said, “Because if they come, then the Bad Man will come, too. He always follows them. And then he’ll make me remember.”
“Remember what? The accident?”
Lucy flinched as if she’d been struck, but she quickly gathered herself and shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Hey, that’s what Julia used to say.” Wyatt laughed, hoping to lighten the mood and pull the small girl from whatever mire she was steeped in.
“He makes me remember things. About them. And about you.”
“What sort of things?” Wyatt asked.
“Scary things, I think. I don’t know. I put the memories in another place so I don’t have to remember. If I remember, then I will hate you, and our—they will be unhappy with me. But the more memories I hide, the stronger the Bad Man gets.”
Wyatt frowned for a moment, but then smiled and gave her a light push on the shoulder. “So, you are my sister? Wow, what are the chances? I didn’t even know I had a sister, and we’re both in the same hospital after how long I don’t even know.”
“The memories are leaking,” she said flatly, still transfixed by some unseen object.
Wyatt jumped up to sit on the ledge, wobbled, nearly fell, and then decided to return to standing within the roof’s boundaries. “What do you mean leaking?” he asked, a growing sense of euphoria rising within him. My sister, he thought with a smile.
Lucy brought a hand to her chest and made a fist. “When the Bad Man makes me remember, I go to sleep and put the bad memories in a different place so that I don’t have to hold them anymore. But it’s not working like it used to. I know who you are. And I don’t want to.”
Wyatt hardly heard the words. His eyes were glued to Lucy’s fist, curled against her chest, and the simple hempen string that sprouted from beneath her shirt to w
rap around her neck. He clutched at his own chest out of habit.
“Lucy…”
She finally turned from the quickly darkening night and faced him. Moonlight lit up her fair complexion and deepened the worried lines carved into her face.
“What’s in your hand?” he asked, pointing at her chest.
She looked down and then slowly drew from beneath her shirt a pendant. She held it up for him to see. A small emerald stone in the grasp of a driftwood hand swung lazily from the string. It glowed softly in the low light.
Wyatt nearly fainted and only managed to hold his balance by clutching at the short stone wall. “What is that?”
Lucy looked at the pendant. “It’s how I make the other world.”
“Make. The other. World?” Wyatt stammered.
“Mhmm. In my dreams.”
“You mean the Realms? Hagion? Gazaria?”
Lucy dropped the pendant and looked up, eyes wide. She took a step toward him. Wyatt could feel her breath on his face as she stared up at him. “You know about the other world? Do you dream it, too?”
Wyatt shook his head. “No, I don’t dream it. I’ve been there.”
“How?”
He reached out and gingerly grabbed the green stone around her neck between his fingers and held it between them. “I have one, too. Or at least I used to. It let me travel between this world and that one.”
“Used to?”
“I…I gave it away. I thought it would fix things…doesn’t matter now. So, the Bad Man…he’s…”
Lucy looked jerkily to the side as if expecting the specter to appear at its name. “I think he’s bad memories.”
Wyatt felt sick to his stomach. He dug his fingers into the impervious stone wall and leaned out over the edge, concentrating on not losing whatever last meal he had consumed.
“And the dark magic in the Realms?” Wyatt asked, already knowing the answer.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t want to remember, so I hid them there. In the other world.”
Wyatt nodded, resting on his elbows. “So, the bad side of the Mother’s voice—” Wyatt bit the words off mid-thought. “Wait. Lucy…” She turned to look at him, her face showing a weariness no nine-year-old should ever know. “In the Realms…the other world you dream…you’re the Mother.”
She stared back, not understanding. Then she shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s broken now.”
Wyatt just stared at her. “It was you the whole time. The voice. The whisper. You were what gave me my powers there. And even here for a little while…” He wanted to say more, but found too many thoughts vying for his voice that he resorted to letting his mouth hang open as he continued to stare at his newfound sister. And the creator of his world. Close behind the feeling of wonder crept a deeper feeling of shame. He had given that power, and connection to Lucy, to the very creature she feared most, and the very force that sowed such violence and hate within the Realms.
He opened his mouth to apologize, but shut it again. She was right—he had broken it. Once again, Wyatt the Mighty had failed.
“What do we do now?” he asked, though they weren’t the words he should have spoken.
“What do you mean?” Lucy asked.
“I have friends there. In the Realms.”
“Then you shouldn’t have broken it,” she quickly retorted, her sorrow replaced by anger. Or at least something approaching anger.
“I didn’t mean to. Maybe we can fix it. I didn’t know about you until just now. If I had…” Would it have made a difference? he wondered. Despite his intentions, whether pure or wholly selfish, he had done nothing but let down his so-called friends since he first entered the fantastical world his sister had seemingly created. Maybe that’s my destiny, he thought.
“Well, you better fix it,” a new voice chimed in, fracturing Wyatt’s veil of self-loathing.
He turned to see Ms. Abagail approaching from the stairwell. She was completely drenched, hair and clothing clinging tightly to her body. Her eyes were hard and unmoving as she came to stand before Wyatt and Lucy.
“What exactly is going on?” she demanded, pointing a finger back toward the stairwell. “What was all that?”
“Uh, well, it’s complicated,” Wyatt said.
“He broke it,” Lucy said, pointing at Wyatt as she slid to sit against the short wall.
“I did not,” Wyatt said quickly. “Well, I didn’t mean to,” he amended.
Ms. Abagail snapped her fingers, drawing Wyatt’s attention back to her. Wyatt felt oddly embarrassed seeing Ms. Abagail looking far more stern than usual. He had never seen her so wound up before.
“People died in there,” Ms. Abagail said, clearly trying to restrain the volume in her voice and only partially succeeding. “I’ll ask you again, Wyatt. What’s happening?”
“I said it’s—”
“Then simplify it,” she cut in.
“Okay,” he said, finding himself standing at attention beneath her gaze. “Well, the world I can travel to, the Realms, well, Lucy, who is my sister, by the way, made it. In her dreams or something. And she put all her bad memories there, which is the bad part of the magic there. And I have—had—the power to go between worlds, though I didn’t know it was her world too, but then I, well, I gave up my powers. And that broke things. Or something like that. I think.”
Ms. Abagail stared at him for several long moments. “And how did giving up your power lead to what happened here?”
“Uh, well, I think the two worlds are colliding?” He framed it as a question for he was still unsure of what he had done. But as he spoke, it made sense to him. He had possessed the power to step into Lucy’s world, and had mistakenly given that power to the Bad Man, even though the creature seemed to go between worlds at will anyway… “I don’t actually know,” he admitted.
“Well, what are you going to do now?” Ms. Abagail asked, some of her previous fury waning.
“It’s broken,” Lucy said. Her knees were pulled to her chest.
“Then fix it,” Ms. Abagail said, directing the command at Wyatt, though it had been Lucy who had spoken.
“I can’t,” he said. “The Bad—I don’t have any power. I’m not a Druid anymore.”
Ms. Abagail threw her hands in the air. “So that’s it? You’re just going to let people here get hurt? And what about Athena? She’s still in your fantasy world, isn’t she?”
Wyatt looked up at that. “Oh no,” he said.
Both Lucy and Ms. Abagail looked at him.
“Wyatt?” Ms. Abagail asked slowly when he didn’t immediately elaborate.
Wyatt swallowed. “I totally forgot. I don’t know how. I was just so consumed by wanting to…doesn’t matter. Oh, how could I forget?”
“Wyatt?” Ms. Abagail repeated.
He shook his head. “When I last left. After I gave my powers to...I was trying to find her. The Regents…they were going after her and the elves. And they still have Rozen, too. And now they have…oh no.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that,” Ms. Abagail said.
Wyatt felt dizzy. “The Regents use the bad side of the magic.”
“Well, they’re bad guys, so duh,” Ms. Abagail responded.
Wyatt ignored her. “I…uh…”
Realization blossomed across Ms. Abagail features, and had the situation not been so heavy, Wyatt would have been flattered by her grasp of all he had told her of the Realms over the time they’d known each other.
“You gave your power to the Regents?”
Lucy jumped up at that. “You did what?”
Wyatt eyed them both and wished there was room behind him to retreat, but only a long fall awaited him, and so he remained in place. “I didn’t know. It said it could help. That it was the only way. I was desperate. I thought I was making the right choice, for once.”
“The Bad Man?” Lucy shouted, hurling herself at him.
“I didn’t know he was so bad,” Wyatt gasped as the small girl leapt onto
his chest, drove him into the stone wall, and nearly sent the pair of them over the edge.
A strong force took them from certain doom and sent them skittering across the stone roof. Lucy snarled from all fours and made to pounce again, but Ms. Abagail moved in between them.
“Enough,” she said plainly.
“He gave the Bad Man his power!” Lucy shrieked.
“It was a mistake,” Wyatt protested. “And how was I to know he’s the embodiment of your bad memories?”
“How could you?” Lucy retorted nearly before Wyatt had finished speaking.
“Enough!” Ms. Abagail shouted, stomping her foot.
The young staff member of The Shepherd’s Crook whirled on Wyatt, looking far more intimidating than he ever thought possible. She pointed a finger at him.
“I’m not going to pretend for a minute that I understand half the shit that is going on here. And I cannot begin to comprehend how any of this is possible. But I’m also not going to sit here and point fingers like a couple of children.”
“I’m nine!” Lucy shouted.
Ms. Abagail halted her speech and Wyatt could see her jaw flexing. Then she turned toward Lucy, who was still crouched in a ready-to-pounce position.
“You both may be kids still, but if you,” she pointed at Lucy, “can create an entire fantasy world in your dreams that becomes real, and you,” she spun on Wyatt again, “have the power to go between this world and that one, and if half the shit you told me you can do is true, then I don’t care how old either of you are. Powers or no powers, you’ve both messed up from what I can see, and I am not about to let people here, on Earth, suffer, and I’m not about to leave Athena and god-knows-who else at the mercy of some four-armed maniacs. Especially now, if they have your Druid powers, or whatever.”
Lucy slowly sat down and stared at her hands. Wyatt felt his mouth hanging open and had to use his full concentration to close it again.
“I…I’ve never heard you talk like that,” he said when it seemed Ms. Abagail had said all she wanted to. “That’s not very staff-like of you.”
Ms. Abagail stared incredulously, water still dripping from her body, hair still matted to her face. Mascara ran in dark lines from the corners of her eyes and Wyatt could see she was wearing less rings than usual. She opened her mouth, then shut it, and walked to the edge of the roof.
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