* * *
Leslie stared dazed as Cougar Girl
continued to sob. “Why shouldn’t we have
given Professor Brown the scroll?”
“Yeah,” Savannah snapped. “Why don’t you explain it to us?” She crossed her arms, somehow managing to
balance her ice cream in her hand as she did so.
Cougar Girl calmed down, forcing her
sobs to subside. She looked down at
Leslie and up at Savannah. “What do you
know?”
“We know the scroll held a
description of an illness that plagued Gray’s village,” said Savannah, “as well
as a supplication to Professor Brown for help to find a cure.”
“So that’s what you’ve been told,”
muttered Cougar Girl. She placed a hand
on either side of Leslie’s head and pushed herself to her feet in one fluid
movement. She tied her long brown hair
back with a strap she carried on her wrist, then offered a hand to Leslie.
As Leslie grasped Cougar Girl’s hand
and was pulled to her feet, she noticed Cougar Girl wore a sandstone-colored
stone around her neck like yet unlike Gray’s soul binder. Leslie’s tank top was stained green on one
side from her ice cream, and dirt clung to it.
She tried to wipe it off but only succeeded in getting dirt and ice
cream on her hand. Her head
pounded. Wiping her hand on her pant
leg, Leslie asked, “Who are you?”
Cougar Girl folded her arms, and her
yellow eyes glinted in the sunlight. “My
name’s Ember, and everything you’ve been told is a lie.”
* * *
Leslie and Savannah followed Ember
to a small outbuilding of the town’s sewage treatment center. The cement building was nestled in the trees,
just out of view of the main buildings.
“The sewage plant?” Savannah
scoffed. “That’s your main
headquarters?”
A breeze kicked up, bringing a
pungent smell from the wastewater treatment plant. Leslie gagged. Savannah was right. Though the place was green, it was in no way
clean-smelling. This was definitely not
Leslie’s idea of a model headquarters for shifters in hiding.
Ember hushed Savannah and motioned
for her to follow. The door to the
outbuilding faced the trees. After
glancing around to make sure no one was watching, Ember knocked three times, paused,
and knocked two more times.
The door opened, and a weak yellow
light escaped the outbuilding. A little
girl about five years old hung onto the doorknob. She was black, and her dark hair with tight
curls put Savannah’s hair to shame.
“Ember!” the little girl cried. She ran forward and flung her arms around
Ember. “You’re back!”
Ember hugged the girl. “What are you doing here, Sapphire? You should be with your foster parents.”
Sapphire pouted, pushing out her
lower lip. “I don’t want to be with my
foster parents. I want to be with you.”
“You know your foster parents love
you, right?” asked Ember.
Sapphire nodded. Then, for the first time, she noticed
Savannah and Leslie. She peered around
Ember’s side. “Who’re they?”
“Some girls I’ve been following,”
said Ember. “They’ve come to learn some
secrets.”
“Oh,” said Sapphire, like it was
completely natural for strangers to come and discuss secrets with ember. She grabbed Savannah’s hand. “Come with me.”
With an awkward yelp, Savannah
allowed Sapphire to drag her inside.
Ember shook her head and smiled. “That
girl. I found her on the beach right
after she crossed over. She’s adjusting
well, but I keep having to call her foster parents to let her know she’s
okay. Come.”
Leslie followed Ember into the
building. Ember closed the door behind
her, and she blinked in the sudden darkness. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed
a stairway leading down into the earth, lit only by bare light bulbs hanging overhead. Metal pipes lined the walls.
Ember led the way down, with Leslie
following close behind. At the bottom of
the stairs the space opened up. It
reminded Leslie of a bomb shelter.
Shelves of food lined two concrete walls with collapsible cots and mats
covered in blankets lying in front of them.
A computer and a television sat on a desk on another wall; the computer’s
screen glowed brightly in the dark confines of the room. A teenage boy sat in front of the computer,
typing furiously. Sapphire dragged
Savannah to the cots and conscripted her into braiding her hair.
“What’s this place?” asked Leslie.
“This,” said Ember, “is our base of
operations. This is where everything
starts.”
“Everything what?”
“Everything we try to do to save the
worlds,” said Ember. She turned her head
sharply towards the boy sitting at the computer and snapped, “Kai, what is
Sapphire doing here?”
The boy shrunk in his seat. “She knocked, and I let her in. What was I supposed to do, let her…” The boy spun around in his seat and caught
sight of Leslie. “You!”
Leslie stared at the boy. Those dark eyes, that black hair. He was the boy from the mall! “You!”
Kai fumbled around the desk for a
weapon, found a stapler, and brandished it like a club. Leslie tightened her hands into fists.
“Kai, stop being an idiot,” Ember
said, leaning against the wall.
The hand holding the stapler
drooped. “But,” said Kai hesitantly, “they’re
the group with the scroll.”
“Were
the group with the scroll,” Ember corrected.
“He has it now.”
Kai went pale and nearly dropped the
stapler. He fumbled with it, caught it,
and set it back on the desk. Ember
ignored him and walked over to the mats.
She sat down, patting the space next to her. “Come sit.
It’s gonna be a long talk.”
Leslie sat down and crossed her
legs. Savannah continued braiding
Sapphire’s hair, but her eyes strayed towards Ember.
“The man you know as Professor Brown
is not who you think,” said Ember. “His
true name is Goldeyre.
“In my world, Goldeyre was a
powerful leader who nearly destroyed the world.
Fifty years ago, he started planting false ideals in the minds of the
people. He gathered an army, and they
blazed across the continent. When they
finally caught Goldeyre he was mad from the power. As his punishment he was sent to this world—”
“Wait,” Savannah and Leslie
interrupted. Leslie continued, “They
sent a warlord here?”
“A raving stark mad warlord that
managed to raise an army in your world?” Savannah added. “What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned
hanging or at least life in prison?”
“Capital punishment is not a very
big thing back there,” said Ember. “Plus,
they didn’t think he could do any damage here, cut off from his followers,
alone in a strange world.”
“Why not?” asked Savannah. “Why wouldn’t a big bad shifter not do some
damage in a brand new world? And why
wouldn’t he just go back to your worlds?”
Ember pushed an escaped strand of
hair back into her ponytail. “There’s an
age limit to who can cross the pathway.
Once a person turns twenty-five the pathway closes to them. It was only through the combined efforts of a
group of Spell Weavers that they were able to send Goldeyre here in the first
place. History says they locked his
shifting powers as well, but I wouldn’t count on that. Fifty years is a long time for the facts to
get lost or skewed.”
“If this happened fifty years ago,”
said Leslie, “then all this happened when the prof—I mean, when Goldeyre was a
young man?”
Ember shook her head. “Goldeyre is an Ancient. He hasn’t aged a day since he came over to
this side.”
The brush fell from Savannah’s
hands. “He doesn’t age? But how do people not notice that?”
“By moving every five to ten years,”
said Ember. “There’s a faction of the
government and other governments around the world that are dedicated to keeping
track of shifters, providing them safety, making sure they become
well-adjusted, and keeping track of criminals.
Goldeyre slipped off their radar soon after arriving and kept himself
hidden. He’s never returned to
California until now.”
“Why now?” asked Savannah. “Why is he here now?”
“Goldeyre’s supporters on the other
side are growing. I’m not sure how many
even know that Goldeyre is their leader, but I’m not sure how many would desert
them if they found out. But one thing I
do know—they’ve been hard at work trying to find a way to bring him back, and
Gray’s father is one of his biggest supporters.” Ember caught Leslie’s eye.
Leslie’s breath caught in her
throat. “But Gray—he would never—I mean—he
was sick! He only wanted to save
others. He didn’t know who Goldeyre
was. And what about the disease?”
Ember’s stare burned into Leslie,
but she couldn’t look away. “Azure had
his Spell Weavers manufacture a disease.
He advertised the fact that he knew a man in this world who could help
them find a cure, then infected his own son and sent him across the pathway
with the urgent message to find Professor Brown. He gave his son a scroll with the orders that
only Professor Brown was to read the scroll and made it seem like the fate of
all the people he knew and loved rested on the delivery of a rolled up piece of
paper.”
Leslie’s heart sank so far she felt
like she was headed to the bottom of the ocean.
“They poisoned Gray and sent him with a scroll that would let Goldeyre
return. And we handed it right to him.”
Ember nodded solemnly.
“So let him go back,” Savannah shot
out. “Let that world deal with him. He
was their problem in the first place.”
Kai started to rise out of his seat,
but Ember held up a hand, halting him.
He sat back down.
“What makes you think,” said Ember, “that after seeing this
world, with its technological marvels, that Goldeyre would be content with just
his world? No, he’s too greedy for that.”
Savannah scowled but said nothing. Sapphire, sensing the tension in the air,
crawled over to Ember and wrapped her arms around Ember’s right arm. Ember patted her shoulder.
“How does the scroll work?” Leslie
asked. “How will it get Goldeyre back to
your world?”
“And how do you know all this
anyway?” asked Savannah.
“I don’t know how the scroll works,”
said Ember, “but I’m hoping to learn tonight.
It’s about time for our communication with the other side, and that’s
what we use to communicate.” She pointed
to the television.
No comments:
Post a Comment