Chapter 15
EACH NIGHT LATELY I LIE AWAKE FOR HOURS, MY eyes open, ears
attuned to the sounds of silence around me. Every so often I
lift my head when I hear a distant noise—a drop of water
hitting the floor, a person shifting in her sleep—and
sometimes I crawl from bed and go to the window to be
assured there’s nothing out there, an obvious attempt to
feel some semblance of security, however flimsy it might
be.Each night passes with less sleep than the night before.
I’ve grown weak, exhausted to the point of delirium. I have
trouble eating. I know worrying doesn’t do me any good, but
no amount of willing myself to rest or eat does anything to
change how I feel. And when I finally do sleep, nothing
keeps away the terrible dreams that wake me up again.
There’s been no sign of the mustached man in the week
since I saw him in the cafe, but I can’t dismiss the notion
that just because I haven’t seen him doesn’t mean he isn’t
out there. I keep returning to the same questions: who was
in my cave; who or what was the mustached man in the
cafe; why was he reading a book with the name Pittacus on
the cover; and, most importantly, why did he let me go if
he’s Mogadorian? None of it makes sense, not even the
title of his book. I’ve turned up nothing other than a brief
summary of the plot online: a Greek general given to short,
pithy statements defeats an Athenian army when they were
on the verge of attacking the city of Mytilene. What does it
have to do with anything?
The questions of the cave and book aside, I’ve come to
two conclusions. The first is that nothing was done to me
because of my number. For the time being, it’s keeping me
safe, but for how long? The second is that the crowd of
people in the cafe kept the Mogadorian from making a
move. But from what I know of them, a Mogadorian wouldn’t
let a few witnesses deter him. I’ve stopped rushing to and
from school ahead of the others and have instead attached
myself to their large group. To keep Ella safe, I’ve stopped
walking with her in public. I know it hurts her feelings, but it’s
for the best. She doesn’t deserve to be mixed up in my
problems.
But there’s one thing that has given me a shade of hope
in all this. A noticeable change has occurred in Adelina.
Worry creases her forehead. There’s a nervous twitch to
her eyes when she thinks nobody’s watching, and they dart
from one section of a room to another like a scared,
threatened animal, the same way they used to years ago
when she still believed. And while we haven’t spoken since
I fell into her arms after rushing from the cafe, it’s these
changes in her that have me thinking I might have my
Cepan back.
Darkness. Silence. Fifteen sleeping bodies. I lift my head
and glance across the room. Instead of seeing a small lump
in Ella’s bed, the covers are thrown aside and her bed is
empty. It’s the third night in a row I’ve noticed her missing,
and yet I never hear her leave. But I have bigger things to
worry about than where she’s gone off to.
I drop my head on the pillow and glance out the window.
A full moon, bright and yellow, hangs just outside. I stare at
it for a long time, entranced by the way it hovers there. I
take a deep breath and close my eyes. When I reopen
them, the moon has turned from bright yellow to bloodred
and it seems to shimmer, but then I realize it’s not the moon
I’m staring at, but rather its reflection, shining brightly in the
dark waters of some great pool. Steam rises off its surface,
and the air reeks of pungent iron. I lift my head again, and
only then do I see I’m standing amid a ravaged, bloodied
battlefield.
Bodies are strewn everywhere, the dead and dying, the
aftermath of some war in which there are no survivors. I
instinctively bring my hands to my body, feeling for puncture
wounds or cuts, but I’m unscathed. That’s when I see her,
the girl with the gray eyes I’ve dreamed about, the one I
painted on the cave’s wall beside John Smith. She lies
motionless at the base of the shore. I rush to her. Blood
gushes from her side and soaks into the sand and is
carried out to sea. Her raven hair clings to her ashen face.
She’s not breathing, and I’m completely and utterly
anguished to know there’s not a single thing I can do about
it. And then behind me comes a deep, mocking laugh. My
eyes close before I slowly turn around to face my enemy.
My eyes open and the battlefield disappears. The
familiar bed in the darkened room has returned. The moon
is normal and bright yellow. I get up and walk to the window.
I scan the dark terrain, still and quiet. No sign of the
mustached man, or anything else, for that matter. All the
snow has melted, and the moon glistens on the wet
cobblestones. Is he watching me?
I turn away and crawl back into bed. I lie on my back,
taking deep breaths to calm myself. My whole body is tense
and rigid. I think about the cave and how I haven’t been
back since the boot prints appeared. I roll to my side with
my back towards the window. I don’t want to see what’s out
there. Ella still isn’t in her bed. I try to wait up for her to
return, but I fall asleep. No further dreams come.
When the morning bell rings I raise my head off the
pillow, my body stiff and sore. A cold rain beats against the
window. I glance across the room and see Ella sitting up,
lifting her arms towards the ceiling, yawning deeply.
We shuffle from the room together, saying nothing. We
coast about our Sunday routines and sit through Mass with
our heads hung. At one point I nudge Ella awake, and
twenty minutes later she returns the favor. I survive the El
Festin lunch line, doling out food while looking for anyone
suspicious. When everything appears normal, I can’t
decide if I’m relieved or disappointed. What saddens me
most is that I don’t see Hector.
Towards the end of cleanup, La Gorda and Gabby begin
horsing around, spraying each other with the hose attached
to the kitchen sink as I dry dishes. I ignore them, even when
I get splashed in the face. Twenty minutes later when I’ve
just finished drying the last dish, carefully placing it atop the
tall stack, a girl named Delfina slips on the wet floor and
bumps into me, causing me to fall into the stack and send
all thirty plates back into the dirty water, where some of
them break.
“Why don’t you watch what you’re doing,” I say, and I push
her with one arm.
Delfina spins around and shoves me right back.
“Hey!” Sister Dora barks from across the kitchen. “You
two, knock it off! Right now!”
“You’re going to pay for that,” Delfina says.
I can’t wait to be officially done with Santa Teresa.
“Whatever,” I say, still scowling.
She nods at me, a malicious look upon her face. “Watch
your back.”
“If I have to come over there, Lord help me, you are going
to regret it,” Sister Dora says.
Instead of using telekinesis to toss Delfina through the
roof—or Sister Dora or Gabby or La Gorda, for that matter
—I turn back to the dishes.
When I’m finally free I walk outside. It’s still raining and I
stand under the eaves and look towards the cave. The mud
will be thick on the mountainside, which means I’d get filthy.
I use that as an excuse for why I won’t go, though I know that
even if it weren’t raining I wouldn’t have the courage,
despite my curiosity of whether or not new boot prints have
been made in the mud.
I walk back inside. Ella’s Sunday duties require her to
clean the nave after everyone leaves, wiping down pews.
But when I go there, everything has already been cleaned.
“Have you seen Ella?” I ask a ten-year-old girl named
Valentina. She shakes her head. I walk back to our
bedroom, but there’s no sign of Ella there. I sit on her bed.
The bounce of the mattress causes a silver object to peek
from beneath Ella’s pillow. It’s a tiny flashlight. I flip it on.
The light shines brightly. I turn it off and put it back where I
found it so that the Sisters won’t see it.
I walk the halls, peeking in rooms as I go along. Because
of the rain, most of the girls have stayed in, milling about in
their small groups, laughing and talking and playing games.
On the second floor, where the hallway splits and leads to
the church’s two separate wings, I go left, down a dark,
dusty corridor. Empty rooms and ancient statues cut into
the rock wall and arched ceiling, and I stick my head in the
doorways, looking for Ella. No sign of her. The hallway
narrows and the dusty odor segues to a damp, earthy
smell. At the corridor’s end stands a padlocked oak door I
jimmied open a week and a half ago looking for the Chest.
Beyond the door is a stone stairway that circles around the
narrow tower leading up to the north belfry, which holds one
of Santa Teresa’s two bells. The Chest wasn’t there either.
I surf the internet for a while but find nothing new about John
Smith. Then I go to the sleeping quarters, lie in bed, and
feign sleep. Thankfully La Gorda, Gabby, and Delfina don’t
come into the room, and I don’t see Ella either. I crawl from
bed and walk down the hall.
I enter the nave and find Ella in the back pew. I sit beside
her. She smiles up at me, looking tired. This morning I had
put her hair into a ponytail, but now it’s come loose. I pull
the band free, and Ella turns her head so I can redo it.
“Where have you been all day?” I ask. “I was looking for
you.”
“I was exploring,” she says proudly. I instantly feel terrible
all over again for ignoring her on our walks to school.
We leave and go to our room, say good night to one
another. Slipping beneath the covers, waiting for the lights
to be shut off, I feel hopeless and sad, wanting to simply
crawl into a ball and cry. So that’s what I do.
I wake in the middle of the night and I can’t tell what time
it is, though I assume I’ve slept at least a few hours. I roll
over and close my eyes again, but something feels off.
There’s some change in the room I can’t quite explain, and
it amplifies the same anxiety I’ve felt all week.
I open my eyes again, and the second they adjust to the
dark, I realize a face is staring at me. I gasp and bolt
straight backwards, crashing into the wall behind me. I’m
trapped, I think, trapped in the far, back corner. How stupid
of me to have wanted this bed. My hands tighten, and just
as I’m about to scream and kick at the face, I recognize the
brown eyes.
Ella.
I instantly relax. I wonder how long she’s been standing
there.
Very slowly she brings her tiny index finger to her lips.
Then her eyes widen and she smiles as she leans forward.
She cups her hand around my ear.
“I found the Chest,” she whispers.
I pull away, look earnestly into her radiant, upturned face,
and know immediately she’s telling the truth. My own eyes
widen. I can’t contain my excitement. I pull her to me and
give her the tightest hug her small body can endure.
“Oh Ella, you have no idea how proud I am of you.”
“I told you I’d find it. I told you, because we’re a team and
we help each other.”
“We do,” I whisper.
I let go of her. Her face brims with pride. “Come on. I’ll
show you where it is.” She takes me by the hand, and I
follow her around the bed, tiptoeing quietly.
The Chest—a bright ray of hope when I’d least expected
it, when I’d needed it most.
0 comments:
Post a Comment