The Gathering (17 page)

My mind whirls, desperate to catch up. To make sense of what I just walked into. My grandmother is supposed to be dead. Her room was empty at Shady Wood. “How is this possible? How are you alive?”

“I escaped before they could kill me.”

“How?”

“That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that you found me. I knew if I made enough noise, you would.” She looks over her shoulder, her muscles still tense, like Scarface might reappear at any time. There are leather straps tied around each of her wrists. “We don’t have much time. Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.”

“I’m in New Orleans.” I give her the address. “Will you be able to get here safely?”

She nods. “I’m not too far away. Stay where you are. I’ll come. And I’ll explain everything.”

*

I barge into Luka’s room in the dead of night. “She’s alive!”

He jerks up in bed. “Who’s alive?”

“My grandmother. She’s alive. I saw her.”

A moonbeam streams through his window, casting his face in light. He pushes his hand through his hair, disoriented from the abrupt wakeup call. “You’re gonna have to back up. What do you mean your grandmother is alive?”

“I found her. Tonight.” My heart soars as I walk across his bedroom floor with bare feet. “She’s the Fighter, Luka. They’re the same person. She didn’t die in Shady Wood. She escaped and now she’s coming here.”

He presses his palms against his eyes.

“Our mission wasn’t a complete failure. We helped her get out.” We got her off that medicine just in time. “She was strong. I’ve never seen anyone so strong.”

“I don’t understand how you found her.”

“I went to bed thinking about the Fighter. When I woke up, I was in a clearing and she was there, fighting. Scarface was there, too.”

His face turns as pale as the moonlight.

I press my lips together, wishing I wouldn’t have tossed out the name so carelessly. The man tortured Luka to the brink of death. I’m pretty sure he tortures Luka still every time he sleeps. I want to reassure him. This discovery? It changes everything. “I-I think he was afraid. When he saw us together, I think that made him very afraid.”

He looks at me, processing. And eventually, it shows up in his eyes. The same something that has planted itself in my heart. A seed of hope.

The List

W
e spend the next day in the library going cross-eyed, studying the journals with Cressida, hoping to find something useful. Some sort of clue or tangible weapon we could use against the enemy. Something more than a vague reference to a sacrificial offering.

My leg jiggles as I sit in a chair on the dais, paging through one of the journals. I can’t stop it. It jiggled all through breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It jiggles still, as evening gives way to night. The more time that passes without my grandmother arriving, the faster it goes. How long will it take her to get here? What if something happens to her? Or what if last night wasn’t even real? I regret, more than anything, not doing the penny trick Link taught me. I’m growing increasingly paranoid that last night was a giant construction. If I’d conjured up a penny, I could at least lay that particular worry to rest.

I shut the journal. The only sound comes from pages turning. Luka sits near the entrance studying the Keeper journals Cressida collected for him earlier this morning, his elbow on the table, his fingers fisted in his hair. Link and Jillian sit cross-legged on the floor, flipping through a stack of prophetic journals they pulled off the shelf. Cressida sits at her desk, copying words.

Ditching my notebook, I sit on the rung of a ladder nearby Link and Jillian and clasp my hands between my knees. “Find anything?”

“Oh, you know. Super cheerful stuff. Like this gem.” Link flips a couple pages. “
We will be gathered like sheep to the slaughter
. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

My jiggling leg completely loses control. It bounces like a jackhammer, so fast that Jillian arches her eyebrows at me. I stand abruptly, snag the journal Cressida read to us yesterday and begin pacing in front of the fireplace. I don’t want to read the prophecy, but it’s turned into a gruesome car crash. The kind you want to look away from, but can’t. I end up reading it over and over again until I’ve committed each line to memory.

“What’s this?” Link directs his question to Cressida, who’s hunched over her desk, and reads something from the journal in his lap. “
The king, the eye, the censor, the idol, the physician
?”

She sets her pencil down and stretches. “You found the List.”

“A list of what?” Jillian asks.

“That’s always been a mystery. We don’t have any idea what it means.” With a smile, Cressida abandons her work and joins Link and Jillian on the floor. “It was originally written in Aramaic. I don’t know why my grandfather didn’t translate this top word here. It means Key.”

The word snags my attention. Luka’s, too. I’m pretty sure we’re thinking the same thing—my grandmother called me the key.

“What’s this symbol above it?” Link asks.

“Another mystery. My grandfather and I researched it extensively, but we couldn’t find it anywhere.”

Curiosity pulls me closer. I look over Link’s shoulder and recognize it immediately. It doesn’t look as ominous on paper as it does in person, but the sharp, angular design is identical. “I’ve seen that before.”

Cressida’s head jerks up. “You have?”

“Yeah. Several times.”

“Where?”

“The other side tried marking it on my brother.” I don’t say the name—Scarface. But I do look at Luka. He stares at me from across the room. “I also saw it on the inside of a girl’s wrist. She was in my Honors English class at my old school. And again on a kid’s neck.”

Cressida takes the journal from Link—not rudely, but excitedly—and examines the symbol as though seeing it for the first time. “The other side, as in evil?”

I nod.

“You’re positive it was
this
symbol?” She points to the page.

But I don’t have to look. After what almost happened to Pete, I couldn’t forget that symbol if I tried. “I’m one hundred percent positive.”

She holds out her hand, her eyes flicking toward the journal in mine—the one I’ve been studying for the past hour. “Can I see that?”

I hand it over.

She flips through the pages, biting the tip of her tongue as she searches. Finally, she marks a spot with her finger and reads. “One will arise with the ability to set captives free.
She alone will see evil’s mark
.”

My heart begins to race.

“That’s why we couldn’t find it anywhere. This symbol is evil’s mark. And only one person can see that.” Cressida looks up at me, her eyes filled with the same intrigue that used to fill Dr. Roth’s whenever I told him about one of my dreams. “Which means you’re the One.”

There’s this long moment of charged, awkward silence as Jillian and Cressida gape. My cheeks turn hot. I stand there like an idiot, wanting to erase Cressida’s words.

Finally, Link speaks up. “So that takes some of the mystery out of the list, then. We know it’s a key to something, and it has to do with evil. Otherwise the symbol wouldn’t be there.”

“Right!” Cressida’s bright-eyed attention turns back to the list.

I could kiss Link for the diversion.

“
The king, the eye, the censor, the idol, the physician
,” she mutters.

Luka deserts his spot on the table. “Maybe it’s a hit list. Key people evil has to kill in order to carry out their plan.”

“The eye and the idol could be items, though,” Link says.

Jillian perks. “Or maybe, it’s like us. The Gifting has Fighters, Keepers, Cloaks, Shields, and Linkers. Maybe the enemy has something like that, too.”

My thoughts shoot to Scarface. Where would he fit in that hierarchy?

“That could work,” Luka says. “The
king
would be the one in charge. The
eye
could be the one who keeps a watch over everything.”

“Like the Eye of Sauron?” I give Link’s knee a playful kick, then catch Luka watching the exchange.

My cheeks go a little warm.

Jillian sits up on her knees. “Maybe the censor picks through all the information the eye sees and reports it to the king.”

“What about the idol?” I ask.

Cressida rubs her earlobe. “That would be something people worship.”

“Nobody worships anything anymore.” Science has made sure of that.

“We all worship something,” Cressida says.

There’s a moment of silence as all of us think over the possibilities.

I scratch my wrist. “What about the
physician
? Why would evil care about healing anything?”

“Physicians don’t just heal.” Jillian looks around our small circle. “They also medicate.”

“Like the people at Shady Wood,” Link mumbles.

My heart rate picks up speed again. It feels like we’re on the brink of something.

Luka bites his thumbnail and peers at the list. “It could have something to do with the fetal modification clinics. They call it ‘healing’ the women. Treating abnormalities.”

“There’s been extensive testing done on the fetuses,” Cressida says. “According to my mother, ninety-five percent of the time, no abnormalities are found.”

My eyes go round. I don’t know why I’m shocked. Luka and I suspected as much, considering he never would have been born if his mother had listened to the doctors. “Why doesn’t the public know about this?”

Cressida shrugs. “It must not be newsworthy.”

“That’s outrageous! That’s—that’s—”

“Excuse me, Ms. Rivard?”

I turn around.

Geoffrey stands in the entryway with his hands clasped behind his back. “There is a woman downstairs. She says her name is Elaine Eckhart.”

Disparities

I
hurry ahead of Geoffrey, ignoring the faint bite in my ankle, and come to a halt in the foyer. My grandmother stands inside the doorway, her appearance shocking.

The woman I met last night was a warrior—strong and sure and formidable. This woman, however, is like a skittish dog—a shrunken, weaker version of her dream-self, with white hair that hangs limp and thin past her shoulders, sallow skin, and hands that fidget nervously. The disparity is alarming. So much so that the hope I’ve been harboring—that she can teach me, that she can strengthen me, that together we can take on the other side—takes a nasty hit. But then I remember Cap and myself. I’m small. Cap’s crippled. Yet we are both powerful Fighters.

I take a tentative step forward, afraid any sudden movement might scare her away. It’s her eyes that have me closing the rest of the distance. They don’t shine like they did in my dream, but they are still her eyes.
His
eyes. My father’s eyes.

A hot clog of emotion rises in my throat.

It’s her. She’s here. And she’s alive.

I wrap her small, frail body in a tight embrace.

Her hand flutters to my back and gives me a few uncertain pats.

After fifteen years in solitude, I can’t imagine she’s used to affection. I let her go. Up close, her face is a maze of deep wrinkles, but beneath the age and hardship, is the woman who raised my father. “I’m glad you’re here.”

She grasps my arms, as though to steady herself, tears welling in her eyes. I recognize the emotion—profound relief. She’s glad to be here, too.

“Geoffrey,” Cressida says. “Why don’t you get our new guest some hot tea?”

I lead my grandmother to the dining room. All of us sit around the table—Link, Jillian, Luka, me, Cressida. Thankfully, Vivian and Marcus are out. The crowd’s big enough as it is.

Geoffrey enters with a steaming cup of tea and sets it in front of my grandmother. Ribbons of steam curl up around her face. She takes a sip, her hands shaking so badly some of the drink sloshes over the sides. The same leather straps that were wrapped around her wrists last night are wrapped around them now.

I want to be sensitive. I really do. But here she is—this woman I’ve been dying to talk to ever since I found out she was alive—the first time, back in Thornsdale. If I don’t let some of these questions out, I might explode. “How did you escape?”

The cup rattles against the saucer as she sets it down. “I didn’t have any medicine in my system. When they loaded me into the back of a semi, I was conscious. The truck was full, but I was the only person awake.”

My gut turns to rot.

“We drove for a long, long time. When we finally stopped, we were in a remote, wooded area. Men dressed in scrubs began to unload us. They laid us in a long ditch and then they began the injections.”

The rot in my gut rises. “Injections of what?”

“I don’t know. I crawled into the bushes before they reached me. Once they finished …” My grandmother closes her eyes, as though she’s trying to press the memory away, her hands trembling so badly they shake the table.

I place mine over hers, hoping to still them. Hoping to still her.

“They sprayed them with butane and lit them on fire.” Her words are dead. Hollow.

Jillian gasps.

Cressida’s fingers flutter to her mouth.