Chapter 20
BEING IN LOVE IS A VERY STRANGE THING. Your thoughts constantly drift
towards this other person, no matter what you’re doing. You could be
reaching for a glass in the cupboard or brushing your teeth or listening to
someone tell a story, and your mind will just start drifting towards their
face, their hair, the way they smell, wondering what they’ll wear, and what
they’ll say the next time they see you. And on top of the constant dream
state you’re in, your stomach feels like it’s connected to a bungee cord,
and it bounces and bounces around for hours until it finally lodges itself
next to your heart.
That’s how I’ve felt since the first day I met Sarah Hart. I
can be training with Sam or trying to find my shoes in the
back of our SUV, and the thought of Sarah’s face and her
lips and ivory skin take over me. I can be giving directions
from the backseat and still be one hundred percent
focused on the way it feels when the top of Sarah’s head
rests just under my chin. And I can be surrounded by twenty
Mogs, my palms just starting to light up, and I’ll be analyzing
every line of conversation from Thanksgiving dinner at
Sarah’s.
But what’s even more insane is that as we drive the
speed limit towards Paradise at nine o’clock at night, as
we drive right towards Sarah and her blond hair and blue
eyes, I’m also thinking about Six. I’m thinking about the way
she smells, the way she looks in her training outfits, how we
almost kissed back in Florida. My stomach also hurts
because of Six. Not only because of her, but because of the
fact my best friend also has a crush on her. I need to buy
some antacids the next time we stop.
While Sam drives we debate Henri’s letter and talk about
how cool Sam’s dad is for not only helping the people of
Lorien but also for giving Sam a riddle to find the
transmitter device in case anything were to happen to him.
And still I’m going back and forth between Sarah and Six in
my head.
We’re two hours from Paradise when Six asks, “But what
if it’s nothing, though? I mean, what if there’s nothing down
in that well but some weird birthday present or anything
else but the transmitter. We’re risking a lot, like a lot a lot,
by showing up in Paradise like this.”
“Trust me,” Sam says. He drums his thumbs on the
steering wheel and turns up the stereo. “I’ve never been so
certain of anything in my entire life. And I get straight As,
thank you very much.”
I think the Mogadorians are there waiting, in far greater
numbers than what we faced in Florida, watching everything
that might lead them to us. And if I’m going to be honest
with myself, the only reason I’m willing to take this risk is
because of the possibility of seeing Sarah.
I lean forward in the backseat and pat Sam’s right
shoulder. “Sam, no matter what happens with that well and
sundial, Six and I owe you big-time for what your dad did for
us. But I really, really, really, really hope that it leads to a
transmitter.”
“Don’t worry,” Sam says.
Highway lights come and go. Bernie Kosar’s floppy ears
fall from the edge of the seat as he sleeps. I’m nervous
about seeing Sarah. Nervous about being so close to Six.
“Hey, Sam?” I ask. “You wanna play a game?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What do you think Six’s Earth name is?”
Six whips her head over her shoulder, her raven hair
slapping her right cheek, and she frowns at me in mock
anger.
“She has one?” Sam laughs.
“Just guess,” I say.
“Yeah, Sam,” Six says. “Guess.”
“Um, Stryker?”
I laugh so hard Bernie Kosar jumps up to look out the
nearest window.
“Stryker?” Six yells.
“Not Stryker, then? Okay, okay. I don’t know, something
like Persia or Eagle or …”
“Eagle?” Six yells. “Why would I be Eagle?”
“You’re such a badass, you know.” Sam laughs. “I just
figured you would be like a Starfire or like Thunder Clap or
something really badassy.”
“Exactly!” I shout. “That’s totally what I thought, too!”
“So what is it then?” he asks.
Six crosses her arms and looks out the passenger-side
window. “I’m not telling you until you make a real guess with
a real girl’s name. Eagle, Sam? Give me some credit.”
“What? I’d name myself Eagle if I had the chance,” Sam
says. “Eagle Goode. That sounds pretty awesome, right?”
“It sounds like a brand of cheese,” Six says. We all laugh
at that.
“Okay. Uh, Rachel?” Sam says. “Britney?”
“Ew, yuck,” she says.
“Fine. Rebecca? Claire? Oh, I know. Beverly.”
“You are insane.” Six laughs. She punches Sam’s thigh,
and he howls and rubs at it dramatically. He hits her back, a
couple of knuckles on her left bicep, and she feigns severe
pain.
“Her name is Maren Elizabeth,” I say. “Maren Elizabeth.”
“Aw, you gave it away,” he says. “I was going with Maren
Elizabeth next.”
“Yeah, right,” she says.
“No, I was, I was! Maren Elizabeth’s pretty cool. Do you
want us to start calling you that? Four goes by John, right
Four?”
I scratch Bernie Kosar’s head. I don’t think I could get
used to calling him Hadley, but maybe I could get used to
calling Six Maren Elizabeth. “I think you should take on a
human name,” I say. “If not Maren Elizabeth, then something
else. I mean, at least for when we’re in front of strangers.”
Everyone grows silent, and I reach behind me into the
Chest for the velvet bag holding Lorien’s solar system. I set
the six planets and the sun in my palm and watch them
hover and glow to life. As the planets begin to orbit their
sun, I find that I am able to dim the brightness of their glow
with my mind. I intentionally lose myself in them,
successfully forgetting just for a few moments that I might
be seeing Sarah soon.
Six turns to look at the faint solar system that floats in
front of my chest, and then she finally says, “I don’t know; I
still like the name Six. Maren Elizabeth was when I was a
different person, and right now Six just feels right. It can be
short for something if someone asks.”
Sam looks over. “For what? Sixty?”
I set out seven mugs and a kettle on the stove. While
waiting for the water to boil, I crush three of the pills I stole
from Hector’s mother into a fine powder with the rounded
back side of a metal spoon. Ella stands beside me
watching as she always does when it’s my turn to make the
Sisters’ nightly tea.
“What are you doin’?” she asks.
“Something I’m probably going to regret,” I say. “But
something I have to do.”
Ella flattens a piece of crumpled paper on the table and
places the tip of her pencil on it. Immediately she’s drawing
a perfect picture of the seven teacups I’ve lined up. From
what I can get out of her, she met with a couple in Sister
Lucia’s office who said they had “a lot of love to give.” I’m
not sure how long the meeting lasted, but Ella says they’re
coming back tomorrow. I know what it means and I pour the
boiling water from the kettle as slowly as I can, trying to
prolong my time with her.
“Ella? How often do you think about your parents?” I ask.
Her brown eyes grow wide. “Today?”
“Sure. Today, or any other day?”
“I don’t know …” She trails off. After a pause, she adds,
“A million times?”
I bend down to hug her, and I don’t know if it’s because of
how sorry I feel for her or how sorry I feel for myself. My
parents are dead, too. The victims of a war I’m supposed to
continue someday.
I scoop the crushed pills into Adelina’s teacup, regretting
that I’ve resorted to drugging her. There’s no other choice.
She can stand by and wait for death if that’s what she
chooses, but I refuse to give up or to go down without a
fight, without doing everything within my power to survive.
With the tray teetering in my hands, I leave Ella at the
table and make my rounds. One by one I hand the tea out
around the orphanage, and when I’m ushered into the
Sisters’ quarters to deliver Adelina her tea, I carefully shove
her cup towards the front edge. She takes it with a polite
nod. “Sister Camila is feeling ill this evening and I have
been asked to sleep in the children’s quarters tonight for
her.”
“Okay,” I say. As I think about the possibilities of Adelina
and me being in the same room tonight, I watch her take a
long sip from her teacup. I can’t tell if I just made a huge
mistake or helped my cause immensely.
“I will see you soon then,” she says. Then she winks at
me. I’m taken aback, almost dropping the two remaining
cups from my tray to the floor.
“O-okay,” I stutter.
When curfew comes a half hour later, nobody falls asleep
right away, and instead many girls whisper to one another
in the dark. I lift my head every few minutes to look at
Adelina lying on her bed across the room. Her wink has left
me confused.
Ten more minutes pass. I can tell most everyone is still
awake, including Adelina. She’s usually quick to fall asleep
when she’s on duty, so the fact that she’s still up tells me
that she’s also waiting for everyone in the room to fall
asleep. Now I think her wink definitely meant she wanted to
resume our conversation. The room falls silent, and I wait
before I lift my head. Adelina hasn’t moved in the last half
hour, so I move the left legs of her bed off the ground and
tip her slightly. Suddenly she raises her left arm above her
like a white flag of surrender, and she points to the
doorway.
I toss the covers aside, stand, then tiptoe from the room.
When I reach the hall I slink a few paces into the shadows,
holding my breath, hoping this isn’t some sort of trap
Adelina and Sister Dora have set up. After thirty seconds,
Adelina enters the hallway. Her walk is labored and she
sways from side to side.
“Come with me,” I whisper, taking her hand. I haven’t held
her hand in years, and it brings back the memory of us
huddling together on the boat to Finland, when I was sick
and she was strong. We were once so close you couldn’t
slide a piece of paper between us. Now the mere touch of
her hand feels alien.
“I’m so tired,” Adelina confesses as we climb to the
second floor; we’re halfway to the north wing and the belfry
protected by the padlock. “I don’t know what’s wrong with
me.”
I do. “Do you want me to carry you?”
“You can’t carry me.”
“Not with my arms,” I say.
She’s too tired to argue. I focus on her feet and legs, and
a few seconds later I’ve lifted Adelina off the floor and begin
to float her down the dusty corridors. We pass the ancient
statues cut into the rock wall and enter the narrower hallway
in silence. I worry that she’s fallen asleep, but then she
says, “I can’t believe you’re using telekinesis to fly an old
lady like me down the hall. Where are we going?”
“I had to hide it,” I whisper. “We’re almost there, I
promise.”
I unlock the padlock and it falls from the oak door’s
handle, and soon I’m following a floating Adelina up the
stone stairway that circles around the north tower leading to
the belfry. I can hear Legacy faintly meowing from the top.
I open the door to the belfry and set Adelina gently down
next to the Chest. She props her left arm up on the Chest lid
and leans her head against it; I can see she has just about
lost her battle with the pills, and I’m angry with myself now
for tricking her. Legacy climbs into her lap and licks her
right hand. “How is there a cat in here?” she mumbles.
“Don’t ask. Listen, Adelina, you’re almost completely
asleep, and I need you to open the Chest with me before
you are, okay?”
“I don’t think I have …”
“Have what?” I ask.
“Have it in me right now, Marina.” Her eyes are closed.
“Yes, you do.”
“Put your hand on the Chest’s lock. Put my hand on the
other side.”
I press my palm against the side of the lock and it feels
warm. I use telekinesis to pull her right hand away from
Legacy’s tongue and onto the other side of the lock. She
interlocks her fingers with mine. A second passes. The lock
snaps open.
“Uh, guys? Something is, uh, something’s totally happening
back here.” The seven orbs that hover in front of my chest in
the backseat of the SUV are speeding up, and I can no
longer control them. It gets so bright that I have to cover my
eyes.
“Hey, hey! Dude, cut it out!” Sam barks. “I’m trying to
drive up here.”
“I don’t know what’s going on!”
“Pull over!” Six yells.
Sam rips the vehicle onto the shoulder of the road and
slams on the brakes, stone and gravel crunching and
pinging us. The six planets and one sun dim in brightness,
and the planets start to whip around the sun at such a rate
that it’s hard to focus on any single one. With each orbit the
planets are absorbed into the sun until it’s the size of a
basketball. The new globe rotates as though on an axis,
and then it produces a flash of light so bright that I’m
momentarily blinded. It slowly dims, and sections of its
surface raise and recede until what’s left behind is a perfect
replica of Earth itself, all seven continents, all seven seas.
“Is that … ?” Sam asks. “That looks like Earth.”
The planet spins near my head, and on its third or fourth
rotation I see a small pinprick of pulsing light.
“Do you guys see that little light?” I ask. “Look at Europe.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sam says. He waits for another rotation and
then squints. “I would say that’s in what? Spain or Portugal?
Can someone reach the laptop? Hurry.”
With my eyes still on the globe and the tiny pulsing light, I
crash my hand around behind me until I find the laptop. I
hand it to Six, who hands it Sam. He looks up at the globe
hovering in the backseat, types and looks up. “Well, it’s
definitely in Spain, and it looks to be close to … Well, the
closest city seems to be a place called Leon. But that’s,
that’s slightly off. We’re looking at the Picos de Europa
Mountains for sure. Anyone ever heard of them?”
“Definitely not,” I say.
“Me neither,” Six says.
“Is that maybe our ship?” I ask.
“No way, not in Spain. Well, at least I highly doubt it,” she
says. “I mean, if it is our ship then why would it just start
glowing now, showing us where it is? That wouldn’t make
any sense. Besides, you’ve looked at these things how
many times?”
“A dozen,” I say. “Maybe more.”
Sam hugs his headrest and raises his eyebrows. “Right.
So it’s as if something just activated it.”
Six and I look at each other.
“It could definitely be one of the others,” Sam says.
“Could be,” Six says. “Or it could be a trap.” She looks at
Sam. “Has there been any suspicious news from Spain?”
He shakes his head. “Not as of five hours ago. But I’ll
check again right now.” He starts typing on the keyboard.
“Before you do that, let’s get off the main road before
someone notices there’s a glowing planet of Earth floating
in the car,” I say. “We’re pretty damn close to Paradise,
remember?”
Adelina snores and I feel guilty, but for the first time in my
life I see the Inheritance I should have received years ago.
Rocks and gems of different colors, different sizes and
shapes. A pair of dark gloves and a pair of dark glasses,
both made of materials I’ve never seen before. There’s a
small tree branch with the bark pared away, and under that
there is an odd circular device with a glass lens and floating
needle not unlike a compass. But it’s a glowing red crystal
that has me most intrigued. Once I look at it I can’t look
away, and I slowly reach down and take it in my hand; it’s
warm and tingly in my palm. For a brief second the red light
brightens, and then it fades and begins to slowly pulse at
the same rate I breathe.
The crystal grows hotter, brighter, and it begins to emit a
low hum. I panic, nervous that one of my Legacies has
activated a Loric grenade. “Adelina!” I yell. “Wake up!
Wake up, please!”
She furrows her brow and her snoring intensifies.
With my free hand I shake her shoulder. “Adelina!”
I shake her harder, and as I do I drop the crystal. It
bounces hard on the belfry’s stone floor and rolls towards
the doorway. As it falls from the first stair to the second, the
red light stops pulsing. As it falls from the second stair to
the third, it stops glowing altogether. And as it falls to the
fourth stair, I chase after it.
Sam zips us down a dark dirt road. The globe continues to
whir in my face. The tiny pulsing light continues to try to tell
us something. We come to a stop, and Sam kills the engine
and lights.
“So, I’m thinking it’s one of you guys,” Sam says, turning
around. “It’s another number. And that number is in Spain.”
“We have no way of knowing that,” Six says.
Sam nods at the globe. “Okay, look. You guys were
meant to stay apart from one another when you first arrived,
right? That’s how it worked. You all go off in hiding until your
Legacies develop and you train and everything. And then
what? Then you get together and you fight together. So this
light right here, maybe that’s a signal to get together, or
more likely, it’s a distress signal from one of the remaining
numbers. Or, guys, maybe Number Five or Number Nine
just opened up their Chest for the first time, and because
we have this thing running at the same time, we can
communicate.”
“Maybe they see we’re in Ohio, then?” I ask.
“Shit. Maybe. Possibly. But seriously, think about it. If the
Elders were going to give you all this stuff in your Chests,
then they’d give you something to communicate with each
other. Right? Maybe we just unlocked the key somehow,
and we’ve got the location of someone who needs our
help,” he says.
“Or maybe one of the others is getting tortured and
they’re being forced to contact us and it’s a trap,” Six says.
Just as I’m about to agree, the edges of Earth grow fuzzy
and then the entire globe vibrates with a female voice that
says, “Adelina! !Despierta! !Despierta, por favor! Adelina!”
I’m about to yell back, but the globe suddenly shrinks, reforms
into the seven orbs and returns to normal.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What just happened?” I ask.
“I’d say the signal has been cut,” Sam says.
“Who was that girl? And who’s Adelina?” Six asks.
I catch the stone after it bounces off the ninth stair, but no
matter what I do it doesn’t glow like it did before. I shake it
in my palm. I blow on it. I set it in Adelina’s open hand. It
doesn’t change from its new faint blue color, and I’m
worried I broke it. I carefully set it back inside the Chest and
pick up the short tree branch.
With a deep breath, I stick the branch out one of the two
windows and I concentrate on the opposite end. There’s a
bit of a magnetic force happening; but before I can really
test it or figure it out, I hear the oak door at the bottom of the
tower creak open
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