And It Arose from the Deepest Black (John Black Book 2) (7 page)

11

Holly. I need to talk to you and Mom about the Gorgols, okay?

Okay, Johnny.

I wheeled her into the kitchen, where Mom was ready with dinner.
I’ll speak to Mom out loud, and if you don’t understand something, let me know. Tap on the table or something to get my attention.

Okay, Johnny. Are you mad at me about them? Because I brought them here?

What was I going to say? “It’s fine that you brought killing machines down from the sky, little sis!”
No, Hol, of course not.
I pressed my forehead against hers.

What are you going to say to Mom? Is it bad?

Maybe.

I don’t like that, Johnny.

I smiled, trying to reassure her.

So we sat down and ate together, and as we were finishing, I tried to subtly shift the conversation. “Mom, what do you think of these Gorgols? What do you think should be done about them?” See? Subtle.

Mom froze. She had cut a piece of roast beef, stabbed at it with her fork, and was about to put it in her mouth, but after my question, she placed it back on her plate. She looked at her food, in a way that told me clearly both that she was not looking at her food and that she had probably expected this conversation. “Tell me what you plan to do, John,” she said, head down.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

“Not really, John. And honestly, I’ll probably never be fully okay again, knowing what I know. I’ll always be afraid that your powers — that Holly’s powers — make you both have to take risks. Make you targets. Put you in danger. As a parent, that’s terrifying.” She finally looked up, and there was a tear slowly falling down one cheek.

I swallowed. Did I really want to do this? Not really. Did I think I had to anyway? Probably. “Mom. You know what I can do, what Bobby can do. Holly is
incredible
—” I looked at Holly with a smile, reaching out to pat one of her hands. “— but I don’t think she’s ready. But, Mom, Bobby and I feel like we need to help. To stop the monsters and keep them from killing a lot more people.” It wasn’t much of a convincing argument, but it was the point I needed to make.

The fork rose and my mom finally ate her roast beef. She chewed, slowly, looking nowhere into the distance. “You know that person?”

“Who?”

“The person who fought the Gorgols.” Mom took another bite, without looking at it, probably not even registering what she was doing.

“Yeah, well, I think so. I think it’s a woman — I mean girl — well, I don’t know. She’s like 18. Her name is Pip.” I felt Holly tense beside me.

Hold on, Hol, let me explain.

“
Pip
?” Mom said. “The woman who is trying to save the world from two sea monsters is named
Pip
?”

I nodded. “Her real name is Phillipa, but she goes by Pip.”

Mom nodded. “Okay, so this Pip. How do you know her?”

“She was in Sol’s group of students,” I said, and Mom jerked to attention. “It’s not like that, Mom. She’s not like Margrethe.” Mom was well aware of the dangers of Margrethe, having watched Aunt Cindy’s car get nearly destroyed by that woman. “Pip… I think she’s okay. She was the only one who took care of Holly when Sol had her.” And then she disappeared into the hills when I’d finally found my sister, but Mom didn’t need to know that.

“Holly?” Mom asked, looking but not expecting a response.

Holly’s eyes welled. “Mommy,” she said, unable to add anything else out loud. I reached out to her, in case there was something else she needed to say.

Hol. Okay?

Johnny. Tell Mommy you’re right about Pip. She stayed with me. Gave me food. She tried to be nice. Well, maybe not really nice, I don’t know, but a lot nicer than HIM.

I patted Holly on the hand again and repeated what she’d said to my mom.

“That’s not much of an endorsement,” Mom said. “But why you? If this Pip character is fighting them, let her fight. Why do you need to be the one?”

I shrugged. “Because of Holly.”

“What does that mean?”

So I explained what Holly told me. About feeling them. About bringing them to Earth.

And about how the Gorgols were looking for her.

Mom was silent. For a long time.

“Mom?” I asked.

“How will you do it?” she replied.

I was confused. “Um. We’ll go there and fight the Gorgols.”

“Johnny. No.” It was Holly.

What, Hol?

I don’t like this idea, Johnny.

I understand, but, you know, I can’t just sit back and wait for them to find you. And besides, every day we wait, people are dying.

It’s not that, Johnny.

Then what, Hol?

I’m just worried that if you start — if you start fighting the Gorgols — you can’t un-start.
I had no reply to that. I was afraid of that possibility myself.

Mom looked at me with a pragmatic sort of seriousness. “You said
we’ll go there
. Go to the Gorgols. That’s all well and good, John, but let’s look at the facts. If you disappear now, we’ll be all over the news again. The reporters and all those cameras…”

Holly shuddered.

I hadn’t thought about that. School had just started. If Bobby and I went missing again, Mom might be strung up, by the media at least. Hell, they might think she’d kidnapped us, or worse. I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

A conspiratorial kind of look appeared in Mom’s eyes. “To be blunt, I don’t think your sister can take anymore of their flashing lights and yelling. So if you need to disappear, we need a plan.”

“What?” I asked.

To my right, Holly tapped the table. She didn’t understand, so I reached out.
Mom wants to help.

Holly looked confused, still.
She wants you to go?

No, Hol. I think she just knows we have to.

I still don’t like i
t
.

“John,” Mom said, looking concerned. “Say what you will, but you’re 15. If you disappear again, people will freak out. If you
and
Bobby both disappear, well…” She paused, looking around. “I don’t even want to think about what they’d do if we all went together.”

“Bobby and I could just sneak away…”

Mom laughed. “That would be worse. The media would have a field day. I don’t know how they’d blame it on me, but they would.” She looked at Holly, and the implication was clear — if I left and that brought attention to my mother and sister, Holly would suffer.

But if I didn’t go, the Gorgols would come to Holly.

“Then what?” I said. “How can we go across the country, again, without people losing their minds?”

Mom thought quietly. “There are three possibilities. One, like you just said, we all disappear. No one knows where we are. That seems unlikely to work, and will just cause another sensation, and I have no idea how all of us could hide from everyone. Two, we figure out a reason that’s so believable that no one questions it or follows us. That seems impossible. I have no idea what the reason could be, and people are just too cynical to buy much of anything these days, even if it was the God’s honest truth. But, three…”

“What?”

“We don’t go anywhere.”

I blinked. “How’s that going to help? Do nothing? Let people die? The Gorgols will just come to us anyway.”

She turned to me directly, dinner forgotten. “What I mean is, we make everyone
think
that we haven’t gone anywhere. How long do you think you need?”

I hadn’t actually thought about that. “Um, I don’t know. A day? I mean, not counting the time to get there and back. But the Gorgols are big, so it’s not like we have to hunt for them. And once we fight, I think it’ll be quick.” Mom looked at me closely, gauging what I meant. Trying to see if I was that confident. And I wasn’t. “One way or the other,” I made myself say. She looked away, but before she did, I saw the lines of worry deepen on her face.

Mom shook her head slightly. “You
have
to fly. Otherwise, it just takes too long. Train or bus would be
days
. But flying is complicated. Security, lots of people around. I don’t see how it can be done. Someone will notice you. They’ll remember you from the news.”

“Mom. When I went to the capital, I
pushed
a lot of minds. At the bus stop, on the bus, in the city.” Suddenly, I was certain. “I think I can do the same at the airport. All I need to do is make sure people don’t recognize me. Recognize
us
. So Bobby can help, too.”

“John, a single airplane can have hundreds of people. In the airport, there will be thousands.”

“Yeah, but I only need to push the ones who are near me. You know, like when we flew to see Grandma and Grandpa that time, and we sat in, like, row 68 or something? I didn’t have any idea who was in row 10, did you?”

“No, unless I walked past them on the way to my seat.”

“And that part’s fine. I can push people as I move past them. Once I’m sitting somewhere, I just need to make sure the people around me don’t recognize me. So, I think I can do it. Airport, plane, city, whatever.”

Mom relented, but just barely. “Okay, but what about buying a ticket? That’s going to cost a fortune. I don’t know if I even have the money. Since your Dad passed —” She stopped for moment, unsure. “Anyway, if I buy a ticket, your name will be on it. There’ll be security…”

“For security, I can just push their minds again. Easy. I’ve done it to cops before.”

“That’s hardly something to be proud of,” Mom said.

I just shrugged. “And I don’t want you to spend all your money on me, Mom.” It was true. I never so much as asked her to get me a phone, even though every other kid had one. Well, except Bobby, but his parents were just jerks. “I mean, I think what we’re going to do is really important, but we might fail. I couldn’t bear it if I failed
and
sent us to the poorhouse.”

“There’s no such thing as a poorhouse, John. If I don’t pay the mortgage, we’re homeless.”

“Well, I couldn’t bear that, either.”

“And if you fail, they’re coming here anyway, right? Home or no home.”

“Gee, no pressure,” I said.

“Okay, how are you going to get a ticket? No,
two
tickets. Without what little money I have.”

“I don’t need a ticket. I just
push
here,
push
there, and everyone lets me right on board. No questions asked.”

“That’s stealing.”

“I know, but I won’t do it unless we’re sure the seats will be empty. We can find flights in the middle of the night or something — besides, that’ll mean less people around. And we’re doing it to try to save lives. Including our own.” I looked at Holly and saw the fear in her eyes. I smiled at her with what I hoped was winning confidence.

“What about a place to sleep, if you need it?”

I reminded her about the night I’d spent in the hotel suite when I’d gone to meet Sol in the capital. She shrugged. “More stealing.” But she got very quiet, considering everything.