Steve asked if Lucy’s parents were still alive.
“Her mother is. Her father died the same night as Lucy, in the explosion.”
Steve asked where the mother lived.
“I don’t know. She moved away some years ago.”
Cindy asked about Hector.
“He was hurt in the blast, but he recovered. He’s a local contractor, he lives here in town.”
Then, unfortunately, the old woman had grown annoyed, thinking that they were trying to blame Lucy for the explosion.
“What is it with all these fool questions? Are you trying to build a conspiracy theory around the plant explosion? Trying to blame poor Lucy because she was already burned? I tell you, that girl was a saint. Never had a mean word to say about anyone.”
Again, the librarian swore that Lucy had perished in the explosion. At that point Steve wisely changed the subject—to Sheri Smith—saying he had heard nothing in town about a “Mr. Smith.” It was then Ms. Treacher dropped a bomb—at least to Ali’s way of thinking.
“There is no Mr. Smith.”
Then who is Nira’s father, Steve had asked.
“No one knows.”
Ali instructed Cindy to move forward in time, to the next day, when they had lunch at Sheri Smith’s house. Unfortunately, the woman was not around, or so it seemed. They were fed and entertained by Nira’s nanny—Rose. The Rose with no last name. The Rose from Columbia, who spoke with only a faint accent. The Rose who wore black gloves to keep her hands from . . . what?
As Cindy spoke of entering the mansion, with Steve by her side, and talked about their lunch with Rose, Ali saw something her friends clearly missed—at least initially. Ali saw Rose was not Hispanic at all. For that matter, Rose was barely recognizable as a human being. Ali saw an image of a creature that flickered like an out-of-focus actress on a black-and-white TV set. One second the person they were having lunch with was clearly visible. The next Ali would see a thing—with a twisted torso, two arms, two legs, an oddly shaped skull. But it possessed no normal features.
The thing was wrapped in a white silk robe, and was a mass of scarred flesh. It had only one eye, the right one. The left was lost beneath a lump of seared skin, while the right hole peered at the world through a milky green marble that looked as if it had been dumped in a bowl of acid then lifted and left to dry beneath a colorless sun.
Was it Lucy Pillar? Had she survived the power plant explosion, after all? Had she survived her initial car accident only to return a year later and burn the bulk of the city to the ground? And had she done so out of revenge?
Or was Ali actually seeing Sheri Smith? The woman who had returned to Toule thirteen years after the gruesome explosion? The beautiful woman who had gone on to establish one of the most successful software companies in the nation?
Was the answer to all these questions one huge YES?
Yet the librarian—who had known Lucy a long time—said the girl had been a saint. That remark contradicted the “identical identity theory.” Sheri Smith was as far away from sainthood as your average politician was from heaven.
Ali was unwilling to decide on a theory yet, particularly since Sheri Smith had hand-fed her most of the clues she had to work with. Sheri Smith designed computer games for a living—ones that dealt with the end of the world. Ali was beginning to feel as if she were a character trapped in one of Omega Overture’s plots. The feeling grew stronger as Ali prodded Cindy forward in time.
The day after lunch with Rose, Steve and Cindy paid Hector Wells a visit. He was a well-known and respected contractor in town. He was not in the habit of talking about his personal history with a couple of out-of-town kids. But he had let them in because they had shrewdly dangled the promise of secret information under his nose. Information that might explain how Sheri Smith had killed a more recent girlfriend of his—Patricia.
In reality, Steve and Cindy were bluffing about how much they knew. They visited Hector to pump him for information. They knew she—Ali—was suspicious about Sheri Smith, and they wanted to help her collect information on the woman.
The latter fact stabbed Ali with more guilt. Steve was dead because of her. He had died trying to help her. Why? Because he loved her? He had never really tried to hide his feelings for her. And she had loved him in return—just not the way he wanted. In the end, she realized, he had died trying to demonstrate that he would do anything for her.
“You didn’t have to,” she whispered aloud. “I knew, I already knew.”
Ali had to force herself to concentrate on what Cindy was seeing and saying. Somehow, her friends got Hector to talk about how Lucy was originally hurt.
“There’s no mystery to what happened with Lucy. That day I was at a friend’s house, and we were playing computer games. The Internet was just getting going back then. We used to play this game, “Ultimatum,” online with people from back East. The graphics were crude by today’s standards and so was the story. But it was the new thing, and we were addicted to it, my buddies and I. We liked to drink beer when we played, and I had a few too many, and after we were done, I went to pick up Lucy. We had to go to a wedding, south of here somewhere. It was on the way there when I veered off the road and crashed into a tree. I was stupid, I didn’t have my seat belt on. But it saved me that time. I was thrown from the car, Lucy was not. The car caught fire and she got burned.”
Steve asked if he saw anything that caused him to veer.
“To tell you the truth, I remember very little about that night. I told the cops that when they arrested me. The trauma must have caused me to block it out.”
Cindy asked if Lucy and he were able to get back together.
“We tried, I wanted to try, but she had lost so much skin in the fire. She had to keep having operations. The scarring was severe. She thought she was hideous.”
Too hideous to be loved, Ali thought sadly.
Steve and Cindy got Hector to talk about the night of the power plant explosion.
“I snuck off to be alone with Lucy. For some reason, the gate leading to the plant was open, and we went inside to walk around. But we didn’t touch anything, or break into the turbine area. The plant blew at the other end of the facility—closer to where the gas burned that heated the water and drove the turbines. Lucy and I were shielded by the control room and a storage area. Or I should say, I was shielded. That’s not to say I didn’t feel the impact. When the plant blew, the ceiling ruptured above me and the walls collapsed. There was fire and smoke everywhere. I was lucky to get out alive.”
What about Lucy, they asked.
“Just before it blew, she said she had to go to the bathroom, and went looking for one. That was the last I saw of her.”
A small but fascinating fact struck Ali as she neared the end of their interview with the contractor. It was Hector’s reaction when Sheri Smith’s name was brought up. All he said was, “I try to stay away from that woman.” But Ali saw the fear on his face that Cindy had failed to note. It was deep, inexplicable. What had Sheri Smith done to him to make him so scared of her? It made Ali wonder. He reacted in the opposite manner when Nira’s name was brought up.
“She does have a sweetness to her. Most people around town don’t see that. They just think she is a mental case.”
Those were Hector’s last words—for the night—because Cindy ran out of gas. Ali was not given a chance to thoroughly probe the subject that mattered most to her—Steve and Cindy’s capture and torture at the hands of Sheri Smith. However, she did manage to retrieve chunks of the dialogue they had with the woman. The latter was interesting, to say the least.
But as Hector and Sheri Smith’s faces faded from her inner vision, Ali realized the noise she was hearing in her bedroom was no longer Cindy’s mumbled rendition of various conversations, but her loud snoring. Not for an instant did Ali consider waking her. If anyone deserved her rest, it was her old pal.
Leaning over on the bed, Ali kissed her on the forehead, letting an ounce of
fairy magic enter her friend’s brain, knowing that Cindy would have the sweetest dreams she had ever had. Then Ali turned and walked into the living room.
Two surprises awaited her.
Nira was sitting up on the couch, her eyes wide open.
The phone was ringing. Ali quickly picked it up.
It was Mr. Jason Warner. Her father.
CHAPTER
3
Ali had not spoken to her father in four days—a half a day more than the time she had spent in the elemental kingdom. Their last talk had been just before she had entered a cave high on the side of Pete’s Peak, with Farble and Paddy—her troll and leprechaun companions. At that point, Ali had called her dad on her cell and told him she was already bored with summer vacation. She was watching too much TV, too many DVDs, and just all around goofing off. But it was lies, all lies . . .
The truth of the matter was, at the time, she had been using the last drop of fairy magic at her disposal to blast open a hole in the cave that held the seven doors—the doors that led to seven separate dimensions. She was also using fire stones that she had stolen from the queen of the dark fairies—Radrine—to help with the excavation. Farble was helping her as well, trying to break into the cave. The troll could lift one-ton boulders without breaking a sweat.
Presently, Farble and Paddy were still in the elemental kingdom, in the care of a group of fairies, who were hiding in the mountains north of the fairy capital, Uleestar. Her friend, Ra, was with them. They were all trying to stay out of the Shaktra’s sight, and the monster’s army, which was busy ravishing the countryside.
But back to the cave and her last talk with her dad. The reason Ali had lost half a day in the cave had been because of Radrine and her evil minions. The dark fairies had put up a bitter fight, trying to keep her from entering the green world, and she had suffered a nasty hand injury from the battle.
But her battle with the dark fairies all worked out in the end. When she returned from the elemental world, Ali had the distinct pleasure of tossing Radrine into the blinding light of the Earth’s sun—which was deadly to a dark fairy, who for the most part lived in gigantic hives deep underground.
Because Radrine had caused her so much grief—the evil queen had once tortured her just to amuse herself—Ali had actually smiled when the dark fairy’s worm-infested translucent skull had exploded in the sunlight. However, although the act of revenge had not gnawed at Ali’s conscience, her grin had quickly faded and she had vomited. In the war with the Shaktra, killing was necessary, but Ali hoped it never became a pleasure.
Lying to her father, however, definitely bothered her. It hurt her now, especially when she heard the tension in his voice. He drove a truck long distance for a living, and had to be away for days at a time. He worried about her constantly, probably because he had never gotten over the loss of his wife—her mother—a year ago.
His inability to reach her had driven him nuts. Two days ago, he had discovered she was not staying at Cindy’s house—as she had promised to do. To make matters worse, from calling around town—in search of her—he had heard that Cindy and Steve were missing.
Her poor dad. Ali only had to listen to him a minute before deciding that her lying had to stop. She was going to tell him the truth, of who and what she was. He would get over it, she told herself, she was his daughter. He would have to get over it . . .
“Hey, Dad, you know about fairies? Well, I’m one of them, just found out a month or so ago. No, Dad, listen, I’m not that kind of fairy . . .”
It might be a bad idea to tell him the truth on the phone.
Across the room, Nira stared at her as Ali’s father rambled on in her ear. Her dad was so upset, Ali could hardly get a word in edgewise. She had to content herself to listen for a few minutes, just let him blow off steam.
As usual, Nira showed not a trace of emotion, but Ali could not rid herself of the impression Nira was not staring at her face, but lower, at her chest—possibly at the Yanti hidden beneath Ali’s shirt. Nira had shown a remarkable ability when it came to using the talisman. In Toule, a few days ago, she had made a dead boy talk. Pretty impressive, Ali thought, not to mention very disturbing.
Poor Freddy Degear, his bloody skull crushed, the rest of him stuck in the throes of rigor mortis, calling out for the wicked Shaktra, when his soul should have been flying high with the angels. Even while exploring the elemental kingdom, Ali had frequently reflected on the event. Holding the Yanti, and using a few peculiar hand movements, Nira had summoned forth a radiant heat that had flooded the morgue, and briefly shaken Freddy to life. Clearly the child had powers Ali could not begin to fathom, much less duplicate.
Sometimes it made Ali wonder who should be wearing the Yanti.
Yet, with the scar on Nira’s forehead that resembled a seared thumbprint, Ali never let herself forget that the child might be inadvertently working for the Shaktra. It made her wonder how she was supposed to protect her friends and family from Sheri Smith.
Her father finally began to calm down. He was on his way home, in his truck, driving as fast as he could. He would reach Breakwater in five hours—six at the outside. Now he was demanding to know where she had been the last few days. He was waiting for an answer. Ali found the pause more painful than his rambling. What was she supposed to say?
“I was up on the mountain,” she said finally.
“What were you doing there?”
“I was in a cave.”
“A cave? Were you camping out? All this time?”
“Not exactly. I was in this cave and . . . it sort of leads to other caves.” She added, “I didn’t actually have to camp out.”
“Were you alone?”
“No.”
“Were you with Steve and Cindy? You know, when I couldn’t reach you, I called the police. They said your friends are missing. Are they back home yet?”
Ali hesitated. “Cindy’s sleeping here, right now, in my room. She’s going to go home soon.”
“Wake her up and send her home this instant. I spoke to her parents. They’re frantic about her.” Her father paused. “Where’s Steve?”
Ali swallowed thickly. “He’s not here.”
“Where is he? Is he still up on the mountain?”
“No.”
“Then where is he? This is no time for games! I spoke to his mom earlier this evening, and she cried the whole time. She’s talked herself into believing that you kids had been kidnapped by the same people who took Karl. I had an awful time trying to reassure her. To be frank, I’m shocked at your behavior, Ali. This is so irresponsible of you. Your adventure—or whatever you want to call it—is over with, finished. You kids are not going near the woods the rest of the summer. Do you know I wasn’t even able to deliver my load to Miami when I discovered you had disappeared? I got too upset. Just so you know, the load is still in the back of my rig. That’s another account I’m going to lose. Fifteen hundred bucks a month down the drain.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t pay the bills.” Again, her father paused. “Is Steve there with you? He is, isn’t he? Let me talk to him.”
Suddenly, all of Ali’s fairy powers did not feel so powerful. She had to struggle to breathe. She spoke in a whisper. “Dad, you can’t talk to him.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“He’s dead.”
“What?”
“He’s dead. He died . . . a few hours ago.”
“What are you talking about? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Tears burned her eyes. She felt as if she were falling then, into a hole, a black pit without a bottom. Suddenly she was not so detached. Geea, Alosha—the fairy queen had fled for parts unknown. Thirteen-year-old Ali Warner was the only one left to answer his questions.
“Dad, I’m not lying. Steve’s dead. He was killed by this woman who lives in Toule. Her name’s Sheri Smith. She stabbed him in the heart. No, I mean, she ordered someone else to stab him.”
“W
ho?”
Now was not the time to talk of Karl. “It doesn’t matter, a guy who works for her. It was Sheri Smith who was behind the murder.” Ali added, “She almost murdered Cindy, too, but she managed to escape.”
Her dad was a long time responding. “Do the police know about this?”
“Cindy tried to tell them, but they didn’t believe her.”
“Why not?”
“Because the woman who killed Steve—she stole his body.”
“Ali . . .”
“He’s dead, Dad, and Cindy’s lucky to be alive. Now you’re right, I’ll wake her up and send her home right away. And I’ll call Steve’s parents, and talk to them, and tell them what’s happened to their son.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t make up a story like that.”
“It’s not a story. It’s the truth.”
“Who’s this woman you’re talking about? The name sounds familiar.”
“She runs a software company out of Toule—Omega Overtures. They make tons of money selling computer games.”
“I’ve read about her in the paper.” Her father didn’t sound as if he was buying her story. “So tell me why this rich and famous woman would want to kill Steve.”
“It’s a long story. I can’t explain it on the phone.”
“I’m confused. You say you were up on the mountain, in a cave. Is that where Steve was killed?”
“I wasn’t with him when he died. He was killed in Toule—in Sheri Smith’s mansion. But I saw his body.” She added, “I carried him in my arms.”
A stupid remark. Annoyed, her father snorted. “How could you pick him up?”
“I just did,” she mumbled.
“Before the rich woman returned and stole his body?”
“Yes.”
“Is this what Cindy told the police?”
“Not exactly.”
“Could you please elaborate on that?”
“She didn’t mention that I was there.”
“Why not? If you were there.”
“I asked her not to.” She added, “Like I said, it’s hard to explain on the phone. But when you get home, I promise I’ll show you things that will help you understand that I’m telling the truth.”