Chapter Sixteen: Mary Cane's Point of View

                The van bumps and jerks on the road, shaking unwanted clarity into my head.  I lean against Mallory, even though her bony shoulder stabs into my head every time the van hits a bump.

                After the William boy came into our little cell, Grace quickly interrogated him on his motives and finally confirmed that he was trustworthy.  We left with him leading the way.  He led us through a maze of corridors and tunnels and finally aboveground and into the van.  My mind, still foggy, doesn’t give much information about the layout of the building.  Not that I need to know it, but most of our escape remains nothing more than a haze adding more clouds to my thoughts.

                Now, in the van, William is having a conversation with Grace.  The two seem to have twin personalities.  As I watch them, I feel a pang of envy.

                “So can you, like, fly?” Grace asks him.

                “No,” says William, “but my half-brother can.”

                “Well how does that work?”

                “My dad was Atmosphere.  His dad was Elemental.” He shrugs.  “That’s how it works.”

                “That’s cool.  Yeah, they taught us something about that back in—at home.”

                William looks over at me.  “You okay?  You seem very interested in our conversation.”

                I look away, mumbling an apology. 

                They continue their conversation.

I’m awakened by the screech of the van doors.  Bright sunlight streams through, temporarily blinding me.  As I approach the exit, a hand grasps mine and helps me off.  On the end of the arm is a kind-looking man of about forty. 

                “You alright?” he asks.  His words match the movement of his mouth, so I know he’s speaking English and my translator is not affecting this.

                I nod.  “Thank you.”

                After I move away from the van, I spot Mallory, Scarlett, and Luna standing by a large oak tree.  I join them and look around at the scenery.  Everything is green, mossy, and damp.  I’ve no idea where we are, but I think it’s safe to assume we’re in Europe.  The air is humid.

                Grace walks over with William.

                “You like the weather?” he asks.

                “The temperature’s nice, but I like to drink water, not breathe it,” she says.

                He laughs.

                I mildly wonder if anything will happen between the two, but I push the thought away.  After all, how could anything happen, if the same thing that happened to our Society is happening elsewhere?

                Then I come across a horrible thought:

                What if we have to fight?

                I push that away, too, and try to see if I can see any structures or other signs of humans.  I only see a small building with only a door on the front and no visible windows.  I point this out to Mal, and she shrugs.

                “Maybe it’s a bunker?” she suggests.

                “Too small, I think.  And wouldn’t it be underground?” I say.

                “Good point.”

                We’re quiet for a few minutes, until someone—the man who helped me out of the van—starts speaking rather loudly:

                “Attention.  We realize that your Society has been firebombed.  We’re sorry for your loss.  We are willing to take you into our care and our men are searching your Society for survivors right now.  But you have to abide by the rules.  One infraction and all of you will be kicked out.  It seems harsh, but we are fighting a war.  We cannot fight among ourselves as well as against the enemy.  If anyone is cruel towards you, please tell us and we will deal with it.  But for now, you seven will take rooms F86-F92, on level six.  William here will show you the way.  We wish you the best and are, again, terribly sorry for your loss.”

                The building, as it turns out, is the entrance to a bunker of sorts underground.  Our level is six out of eight, and eight is the topmost level.  We only have to walk down four flights of stairs, which is taxing, but at least it’s just that.

                As I curl up on my bed in room F90, I close my eyes and think of nothing but how much I wish for home.

Chapter Fifteen: Luna Speisshofer's Point of View

                Scarlett pulls a box out of the corner and stands up to hold it in the torchlight.  “It looks like crackers.  They’re out of date, but this box obviously hasn’t been opened.”

                “What’re you waiting for, then?  Open them,” Grace says, leaning forward eagerly.

                “Anyone got their knife on them?”  Scarlett asks.  Mallory pulls her pocket knife from her pocket and flips it up to Scarlett. 

                Scarlett flicks the knife open and tears into the box.  Sure enough, there are ten rolls of crackers in the box.  She tosses us each one roll and puts the rest back into the box. 

                Mary, who is now a bit less disoriented, picks at a cracker while the rest of us chow down.  We all agree that some water would be nice, but nobody answers when we pound on the door, which is locked from the outside.  Not that we were expecting anything, but it seems like the food brought a bit of hope with it.

                I hear Grace start to say something as the torch goes out.

                I hear gasps to my left and a little shriek from Scarlett.

                “Well,” Grace says wryly, “that’s the end of that.”

                Katie’s voice comes from the wall to my left.  “I hope nobody’s thinking that at least it can’t get any worse.  Because it could get a whole lot worse.”

                “Wait a minute…,”  Grace says.  She snaps her fingers.  “Maryann, you can summon fire, right?”

                “It’s Mallory.  And my powers don’t work down here,” Mallory says from next to me.

                “Yeah.  Mine either,” says Scarlett, whose voice is a bit strained, telling me that she’s trying to get some water out of her hands.

                “Same here,” says Lois.  “It’s like someone turned off my powers.”

                “Weird.  Very weird,” says Grace.

                “Wait.  I could hear everyone’s thoughts right when we got here.  Not the guards.  They must’ve had some sort of blocking technology.  But yeah, I heard Scarlett thinking about food.  And then…,” Lois pauses for a moment.  “Well, it started to get foggy as I ate more…those crackers!  Don’t eat the crackers, you guys.  Once they’re out of our system, and don’t ask how we’re going to get rid of them, but anyway, once they’re out we should be okay.  But it might be days….”

                “Well, either way, these people weird me out,” says Katie.  “I know that about half of us in here speak English, but they didn’t, I could tell that much, and they had to have had translators or they wouldn’t have understood some of us.”

                “Okay, I’m going to move to the other wall because this is too cramped,” I tell them.  I scoot my way across the room so that, if there were light, I would be facing them.  I hear more shuffling and mutters of scoot over. 

                It gets quieter and quieter.  I assume everyone’s asleep, because of the sounds of even, paced breathing.  I decide that sleep is a good idea, and drift off.

               

I wake up to the sound of the door creaking open.  Light shines through; it makes a line across Mallory’s sleeping face.  She opens her  eyes a bit and puts her hand stretching out from her eyebrow to make a visor.

                A boy about seventeen comes in.  His head almost brushes the ceiling of the room and the torch he’s holding makes his gray eyes sparkle.  His black hair has streaks of light flashing across it as the fire flickers.

                “What…?” I say, still half asleep.

                “I’m William Holloway.  I’m here to rescue you.”

Chapter Fourteen: Luna Speisshofer's Point of View

                The cold metal presses against my temple as my captor rips the wretched bag from my head.  My friends sit on the couch, well, some of them anyway, and they stare at me wide eyed.  My wrists ache from the ropes tying them together.

                “Please,” I say, my voice hoarse.

                Lois looks appalled.  She must’ve read my captor’s thoughts.  “May we gather a few things?”

                “No,” the man barks.  “I have food. “

                “We’ll come,” Lois says gravely. 

                “Thank you,” I tell her.

                The cold metal of the pistol presses harder into my skull.  “Shut up.”

                I close my eyes.

                I feel the bag being shoved over my face again.  The man pulls on the back of my shirt.  I stand up and he walks us a short distance, and then, after removing the hated bag, shoves us into a van whose back windows are blacked out and whose front seat is separated from the back compartment by a thick sheet of metal.  There’s a row of benches on either wall.  Katie and Lois sit on the same side as me and Scarlett, Mallory, a confused Mary, and the brown-haired girl sit on the other side.  I wonder where Aly is.

                Lois asks me what happened, even though I can tell she’s heard my thoughts already. 

                “When the bombs went off, this goon and his men came and captured me,” I say, nodding toward the front when I mention the man.  “They took me to some prison sort of place.  I imagine that’s where he’s taking all of us.”

                “Is your family okay?” Katie asks.

                I nod.  “Not sure why they weren’t brought along, though.  Where’s Colette?  And Aly and Violet?  And who’s the brown-headed girl?”

                The girl looks angry.  “My name’s Grace, thank you very much.  And Clarisse went with Vivian to find someone named Nora Michelle.”

                I raise my eyebrows at Scarlett.

                “She means Colette and Violet.  And the person’s named Nadia May.  And Aly…we couldn’t find her.  But we think she’s alive because Jared’s cabin is still standing and that’s where we assume she was when the bombs came down.”

                “That’s good,” I say.  “What’s wrong with Mary?”

                Mallory looks at me.  I see that her eyes are rimmed with red.  “Malcolm.  He didn’t make it into the cell—.”  She starts crying.

                “Oh,” is all I say.

                We drift into silence.

The van stops a while later, coming to a screeching halt and snapping me awake.  I’m a bit angry because it’s the first time I’ve gotten real sleep since before the bombs dropped.  Mallory has stopped crying, but she’s still breathing shakily as we get off the van. 

                The man barks commands to us and ties our wrists before shoving burlap sacks over our heads.  It crosses my mind that we could escape if we really wanted to.  I want to say something about it to Lois, but the man makes sure we walk in a straight line and before that he rearranges us so I have no idea of my position and therefore who’s in front or behind me.  At some point, more men join us.   From what I hear, there’re six new ones, so that each of us has a guard.  Or, rather, a jailer.

                After walking for about a half hour, we come to a stop.  We’re pushed inside a building, I think, and forced to sit down.   Our bags are removed to show that I was right.  We’re in a room about ten feet across.  The wall and floor is cold against my back and legs.

                The man who drove us here steps toward us.  “Who are you?”

                No one answers.

                “I said, who are you?!”  he shouts.

                I cringe against the wall.

                Grace, however, is leaning toward and glaring up at him.  “Why do you need to know?”  She says this in a growling tone that makes me want to hide in a hole.

                He slaps her.  “Tell us.”

                Grace brushes her bloody mouth against her shoulder, smearing the blood.  “I’m Grace Abbott.”

                “Who are your friends?”  the man asks.

                “Scarlett Jones, Mallory and Mary Cane, Kathryn Wilde, Lois Adler, and Luna Speisshofer, but you’re already buddies with Luna there, aren’t you?” Grace snaps.

                “Where did you come from?”

                “Me?  Virginia, United States.”

                “And the others?”

                “They have their own voices.  Why don’t you ask them?”  Grace glares at him.

                “Where did you come from?”  the man asks us.

                “Where you picked us up,” Lois says calmly.

                “Before that,” he barks.

                “Some of us were born there,” Lois informs him.

                “And the ones who weren’t?”  The man’s voice is still hard, but he’s not shouting anymore.  He’s obviously getting what he wants.

                Mallory speaks up.  “I was born in London.”

                The man nods.

                “Australia,” Katie mutters.

                The man nods and crosses his arms.  He looks to one of his comrades.  “Take them to the cellar.”

                The bags are pulled over our heads once again and we’re taken down some stairs into what’s not a room so much as a hole.  There’s just enough room for us to scrunch shoulder to shoulder together against the back wall.  There’s a torch mounted on the wall that provides a dim, eerie light. It’s cold, and I’m grateful that we have to scrunch together, even though we can’t sit with our legs in any position but stretched out or scrunched to our chests.

                “So,” says Grace. 

                “So,” says Lois.  “Why didn’t you warn us?” 

                “I can’t see things unless I want to or am searching for them.  I didn’t see this because I didn’t want to,” Grace says simply.  I can tell that she would shrug if there was enough room.

                “Well, it’d be nice to search for these kind of events from now on.  Think you could do that?”  Lois says the last question in a sweet, fake-nice voice that one would use when addressing a young child.

                “On one condition.  Stop talking to me in that voice, okay?”  Grace does the same thing Lois did when she says ‘okay.’

                Lois rolls her eyes with a sigh.  “Okay.”

                “Hey…!” Scarlett scoots forward and points to the corner with the least light.  “Food!”

Chapter Thirteen: Grace Abbott's Point of View

                I watch Katie’s face fall. 

                “I’m sorry,” I say, standing up.  “I shouldn’t have told you.  I knew it.”  I put my hand over my face.  “I’ll just go.”

                “No.  You can stay,” Katie says, but it’s flat and monotone.

                “I have nowhere to sleep.  All I’m doing is eating your food.  And taking up space.  And making you depressed.  Face it, Katie.  I’m not helping by staying here.  Let me go.”

                “Where will you stay?”

                “I….”

                “Come to think of it, I never saw you around anywhere.  You weren’t at the Ceremony.  You weren’t anywhere.  Where did you come from?”

                “I was…I just….”

                “Just what?  Where. Did. You. Come. From?”

                “The American Society!” I fling my hands into the air.  “You got me!  They flew me here!  They wanted me to investigate!  They’re hearing this right. Now.   Are you happy, Kathryn Ann Wilde?  Because I’m not.”

                I storm out the door.  The cool air whips my face and blows my hair around out of my face as I look up at the starry, clear sky.  “Come and get me!  I’m done here.  I’m freaking done!”

                No one, of course, comes. 

                My vision goes black and my hearing shuts down.  I know what’s about to happen.

                She walks out the door.  She looks at the girl in front of her whose back is turned.  She listens quietly to the girl’s sobs.  She reaches out to touch the girl’s shoulder and the girl whips around.   She stares in shock at the girl.

                My vision comes back.  I feel tears streak down my face and start sobbing.  I don’t bother trying to hold it back.  You can’t change the future.

                The wind blows at my back.  I hear footsteps.  Just as I assume the girl from the vision, Katie, reaches out, I whip around.  She gapes at me.

                “You—your eye—,” she stammers.

                I shrug and press my lips together.  My hands slap against my thighs as they fall. 

                “I heard that all the Seers…but I never thought…”

                “Thought what?  Did you just assume that I was wearing my hair like that as a fashion statement?  Well, you thought wrong.  But what’s the big deal, right?  It’s only the fact that my left iris is STRAIGHT WHITE.  No.  Big.  Deal,” I shout angrily.

                Katie flushes and backs away, her eyes wide.  But when she speaks, her voice is steady.  “I didn’t mean anything by it.  I was just surprised.”

                “Well, Kristen—,” she cuts me off saying that her name is Katie, “you’d better go tell your buddies about poor little Grace with her ugly old eye.  Or does Lilly already know?”

                “It’s Lois.  And no, she doesn’t,” Katie says firmly.

                I get another flash, but this one’s brief.

                “By the way, Melanie’s waking up.”

                “Mallory,” she says.  “It’s Mallory.”

               

Katie ran inside after I told her that.  Mallory had woken up and was a bit disgruntled, but when she remembered what had happened she started crying.

                We sit on the couch, trying to comfort her.  She keeps crying and shaking her head.

                “I just can’t believe he’s gone.  He was always there and now he’s gone.  It doesn’t  make sense.”

                Lois wraps her arm around Mallory and rubs her shoulder.  “I know.  I know.  It’ll be alright.  I promise.  It’s okay.  You’ve got us.”

                Mallory keeps shaking her head. 

                Scarlett runs out of the kitchen with a tray of cupcakes.

                Mallory looks up.  “You don’t have to fatten me up, you know.  I’m okay.”

                “Nonsense,” Scarlett says.  “Cupcakes are good for you.”

                Mallory takes one and her lips curl upward a teeny bit.  “Okay.  Thanks.”

                She’s stopped crying.  An improvement.

                I walk into the bathroom to make sure my hair is hanging properly.  I stare at my reflection.  My eyes are still tinged red from my crying earlier, and my hair is tangled from the wind.  My cheeks are flushed behind the freckles.  I stare at the mirror until my sight goes blurry. 

                I shake my head a bit to break myself from the stare.   Out in the living room,  Mallory is smiling.  The thought that she’s feeling better makes me smile.

                But then, and I don’t know how I didn’t see this coming, the door breaks open.

                A man in all black shoves his way in.  He’s got a captive whose head is covered with a bag.  There’s a gun to the poor person’s head.

                He loads the pistol.  “If you ever want to see her alive again, come with me.”

                He pulls the bag off.

                It’s Luna.