“You just had a bad dream, Wisty. You’ve been sick for days. Mom and Dad and I have been really worried about you.”
This is what I hoped to hear, anyway.
Then I caught sight of Margo, Sasha, and Emmet in the background. There was a moment of letdown, sure, but then I felt huge relief, knowing they were okay and they were there for me. Even that hateful weasel, Byron Swain, actually seemed concerned about me.
“Don’t you remember?” Whit said. “The prison, Judge Unger, the Matron, all the kids who escaped?”
“I do!” I said, trying to sit up. “Actually, I do. Most of it anyway.”
“You missed The One Who Is The One,” Whit said then.
“I did? How? When?”
“I’ll tell you later. What about Mom and Dad?” Whit asked suddenly, his face lit with concern when he saw mine fall. “What happened? Where are they? Wisty? What’s wrong?”
My eyes went from face to face until they came to Sasha’s. “Ask him,” I said. “He’s the one who lied to us. Mom and Dad were never in the prison. Sasha lied to get us to help.” Bitterness rose in my throat. “I’ll never forgive you!” I spat out.
It took a moment for Whit to process the betrayal. In a flash his expression morphed from disbelief to dismay to disgust.
“No,” Whit growled, his fists clenched. “Neither will I!”
Sasha never flinched. “Worse things have happened to me. Far worse. We needed you guys. This is a war against true evil. The ends justify any effective means.” Then Sasha gave us that cheery smile of his, and it was so, so sad. And creepy.
Then and there, I vowed never to let the “war” or anything else do that to me. “I should turn you into a slug!” I shouted at Sasha. “You used our friendship, and ruined it forever.”
“Take it easy!” Whit cautioned. “You’ve been out for hours. He’s not worth it.”
“She’s awake!” someone shouted, and I suddenly realized that all around me were hundreds of kids wearing, like, party hats and blowing noisemakers. Tattered paper streamers were draped everywhere. We were back at Garfunkel’s.
Feffer was sitting on a couch, eating what looked like cake off a paper plate. When she heard my voice, she jumped off and came to me, licking my face.
I got to my feet, shaky, starving, and a little light-headed. Janine, our leader of the week, pushed through the crowd, holding a soda and a plate of chocolate cake. Real cake! Totally pukka. I hadn’t had any in… it felt like a lifetime. I didn’t even use a fork. I dug into it, icing first.
“To the Liberators!” Janine shouted. Everyone around me echoed her words.
My face flushed as I tried to smile and shove more cake into my mouth at the same time.
“Everyone helped,” Whit said. “Here’s to all of you!”
Margo, the commando, was staring at Whit, who did look very heroic. “You two did the most.”
“So, for today, enjoy being heroes!” Janine said, but her eyes shone only on Whit. I knew he didn’t notice that she was totally crushing on him. My bro was clueless, as usual. That’s one thing I love about him.
Someone handed me a foot-long hot dog with everything slopped all over it, and I began to wolf down the frank right on top of the cake. Yuck, but also delish.
“Emphasis being on ‘today,’ ” Emmet clarified with a heart-stopping grin. “We don’t let anybody be heroes for more than one day, because it goes to their heads. Hero worship tends to corrupt. Or at least turn you into an erlenmeyer.”
“Understood,” said Whit.
“However,” Janine went on, “for going above and beyond the call of duty, you are hereby promoted to official rescue mission driver. We stashed the van in a secret hideout behind enemy lines, and it’s waiting for you next time we go raiding.”
“That death trap?” Whit said.
“That rescue vehicle,” said Janine. “We just heard from another group of kids in an abandoned mall. They need help badly.”
“Wha—?” I blurted, my mouth still full.
“They need help,” Janine repeated, as if that explained all of life’s complex mysteries… and maybe it did.
“Another mission?” Whit said, but I could see the gears in his mind turning. His eyes met mine, and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing: our parents were out there too.
“Well, okay,” I said finally, and Whit nodded.
Feffer nudged my leg, and I patted her. “Of course you’re going,” I assured her.
“And me,” said a voice up close to my ear.
Chapter 100
Wisty
I TURNED TO SEE Byron Traitor Suck-up Weasel perched on a shelf near my head, curled into a snaky little S.
“No. You are not going,” I said firmly. “You are not going anywhere with us. You are still a hateful, traitorous, black-hearted naysayer!”
“Nuh-uh,” said Byron, in a tone that I think confirmed my point. Someone had given him half a hot dog, and he was chomping through it. “I’ve changed. I like you guys now. I want to go with you.”
“You are so full of it,” I said. “You’re staying right here.”
In my peripheral vision I caught Janine, Margo, and Emmet violently shaking their heads.
“He has to go with you,” Janine said. “You brought him. He’s your responsibility. The weasel must go.”
“There’s something I want to say to you guys,” Byron said stiffly. “I want to apologize.” My eyes widened. “At the time, when we… met, I felt I was doing the right thing. It seemed to be the only smart thing to do, to act like I did. But after seeing the kids living in Freeland, and the Hospital where you guys were, and the Curve dog… and realizing about how maybe I could have done something different in terms of that whole thing with my sister… well… I’m just saying I feel differently,” he continued. “That’s all I wanted to say.”
Whit and I made surprised faces at each other.
“Fine,” Whit said, and sighed. “Fine. We’ll take him along.”
And then another strange thing: tears, actual tears, began to flow from the hateful weasel’s eyes.
Can people really change? I wondered. Maybe they can.
EPILOGUE
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Chapter 101
Wisty
IT WAS MORE THAN a little scary to be on our own, me and Whit, in a stolen van. Well, that was the deal—just us, except for our budding pet shop: Feffer and Byron, the World’s Most Annoying Pointy-Headed Formerly Traitorous Weasel.
With our clean clothes and tidied hair—my beautiful auburn hair—we sure looked like New Order kids, so we would probably be safer. We were learning to rely on our magic more and trust in our powers. It’s harder than you would think.
Whit had been telling me about seeing his Oneness again, and hearing the prophecies about us, which didn’t include the one we saw on the wall inside Garfunkel’s. Also, poor Whit was seriously pining for Celia, hoping for a dream visit, at least. As for me, I was just enjoying the ride, blasting Stonesmack’s first album with the van’s stereo speakers turned up. Way up.
“Here. Need some help,” said Byron, bringing me the end of a large bandanna. “If you tie this to the clothes-hanger thingy, I’ll have a nice little hammock.”
I took the bandanna and turned around in my seat. He’d already somehow fastened one end to a handhold. Resigned, I slung the other end over the small clothes-hanger hook next to me, then tied a knot for him.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Byron jumped up and curled himself into his little hammock, leaving only his pointy face showing.
I sighed.
“Hey,” said Whit, “this looks familiar, doesn’t it? Check it out.”
I scanned the landscape through my window. We’d been passing fields of crops, mostly corn, with signs saying CLEAN CORN FOR CLEAN PEOPLE: WE GUARANTEE THIS PRODUCT HAS NOT BEEN SPRAYED, GENETICALLY MODIFIED, OR TAMPERED WITH BY SPELLCASTERS. BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE NEW ORDER COUNCIL OF A
GRICULTURE.
Weird stuff like that, probably written by The One Who Makes Irritating Billboards.
I saw what Whit meant, though. Something about the shape of the land, the way the horizon looked—it was familiar to me too. My back and neck tensed. Familiarity breeds, I don’t know, paranoia?
“What’s that?” asked Whit, pulling the van over to the side of the highway and pointing toward a shape in the distance, something poking up out of the unending sea of orderly crops.
“A tree?” I said, and had the most horrible feeling settle in my stomach. Why would the N.O. have left a single tree standing?
We climbed out of the van and, without a word to each other, began walking toward it, Feffer in tow. We crossed a few fields and some paths that, underneath a layer of dust, we could tell were abandoned streets, with double-yellow lines down the middle.
It took us half an hour or so to walk to it, and all the while the pit of my stomach dropped farther and farther.
But I didn’t truly feel like I was going to throw up until I saw the birdhouse.
Our birdhouse. The birdhouse Dad had built for Whit and me, and our mom. Nailed just where it had always been, twenty feet up on the massive trunk of the oak tree in our backyard.
How many times had I looked up at that spreading oak tree? My dad said it had been there for a hundred years or more. Whit and I had climbed it when we were little. Whit had used its acorns for batting practice, plinking them sometimes all the way over the neighbor’s roof. Also, he had fallen from that tree, breaking his leg like it was made of peanut brittle.
Now the tree stood by itself at the edge of a recently planted New Order field.
Everything around it, every house—ours included—was gone.
Chapter 102
Wisty
“WHERE’S OUR HOUSE? Where are Mom and Dad?” I said in a whisper, looking at the rippling corn patch where we used to live, where we had grown up, where we’d had such unbelievably happy times—except maybe my school-detention days.
I remembered what Mom had said whenever we came back from a vacation. I remembered every word.
North, east, south, and west
Our home is in the center.
Though we may roam, our home is best
And speak love, you may enter.
To be honest, I’d never really understood it, and the last line had never made any sense. Speak of love? Speak about love? Someone’s nickname is Love, and she’s telling him to speak?
I murmured the rhyme again, as mystified by it as I had been by everything else that’d happened since my normal life became my nightmare life.
“And speak love, you may enter,” Whit mused.
“Speak love,” I repeated, my heart aching. Then… “Oh. Wait. Speak love!”
I stepped forward, closer to where our front steps had been.
“Love,” I said loudly and clearly. “Love.”
Then I held my breath as a ghostly shape began to form in front of us. It was our home, vaporous, see-through, not totally real. But the memory of our house, the essence of our house, was here, right down to the ivy that climbed the southern wall and an old deflated football of Whit’s.
Then the front door opened, and I felt my heart thudding heavily inside my chest.
Please. Not The One, I prayed.
Chapter 103
Wisty
“MOM,” I WHISPERED as her form started down the steps. “Dad.”
They came to us, and of course we wanted to hug them, but we couldn’t, any more than Whit could hug Celia.
A horrible realization dawned on me. “Are you Half-lights?” I asked, my voice twisting hideously, on the verge of a bawl. “Are you dead?”
“We’re not dead, Wisty,” Mom said. “We’re just someplace else. You’ll see the real us soon enough. I hope so.”
“Mom,” I said again, my jubilation at her words almost making me faint. Could my emotions possibly roller-coaster any worse than this? I threw my arms out and tried to hug her again.
“Why can’t we touch you, then?”
“My sweet darlings,” Mom said, and it was pure her. “We’re alive, trust me. But we’re not really here right now. Magic has brought us to you today…. Someone else’s magic.”
Dad chimed in. “The important thing is that you know we’re so very proud of you. Your time in prison. How you rescued the children. How you dealt with that evil and unworthy judge. And The One Who Thinks He Is The One. You’ve done amazingly well.”
“You two are the present, and the future,” Mom said, smiling. “And now we know you can do it. This has just been a warm-up.”
“A warm-up… for what?” I asked. “I just want to be home again.”
Mom smiled wistfully. “You’ll see. But first you have to believe, Wisty, that you’re a very, very good witch. And one day, you’ll be a famous musician too.”
“And you’re a very, very good wizard, Whit,” Dad told him. “And, believe it or not, you’re going to be an important writer.”
Whit looked aghast. “I thought that the wizard thing was pretty out-there, Dad, but… a writer? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Do you have your journal?” Dad asked, still very serious, and then he looked at me. “And your drumstick? You haven’t lost them, have you?”
I nodded and held up my drumstick. Whit pulled his journal out from his waistband. We’d gone to ridiculous lengths to keep these things safe, but for what reason? Because I was destined to be a musician? Because Whit—Whit?—was going to be an important writer? Who had time for writers and musicians in these dark days?
Mom held out a hand toward my beat-up, dirty drumstick. “Okay, Wisty, you’ve proven you’re ready to do this. Transform that stick into its true form.”
At this point, I was used to failing, but I really hated to fail in front of my parents. “Mom,” I stalled, “you know I’ve got, like, a C-minus track record in that department.”
“The difference is that now, I’m right here. You can look into my eyes. All of the secrets are in there.”
When is the last time you really, really looked deep into your parents’ eyes? I bet you don’t even remember the last time. Like, maybe since you were a baby and making stupid googly eyes at each other. Well, you’d be surprised at what happens when you go in there. It’s kind of scary, actually—but in a good way. I’m not going to tell you any more. Just try it yourself someday.
“Speak love, you may enter,” Mom murmured. And I did.
And when I looked at the drumstick, it had turned into a dark, slender wand. You heard me. A witch’s magic wand.
Like me, you probably thought a wand was just a fantastical figment of legends and fairy tales. Well, we were both wrong. For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless.
“Now, you do it, Whit. Open the journal and look at me.” Dad held his hands above Whit’s shoulders and, as Mom and I watched them speak wordlessly to each other, the journal filled in with lessons, explanations, magic spells—everything a witch and wizard would need to know.
Whit whispered to me, “I’m glad I didn’t leave it in prison.”
“We adore you both,” Mom told us. “But we have to say good-bye for now.”
“We love you,” called Dad. “Good-bye. For a while anyway.”
“No! Stay!” I cried, but Mom and Dad had already started to fade. “Mom! I love you! Come back! Please don’t leave us already. Please!” I cried.
Then suddenly my parents were gone. Our house was gone too. Even the birdhouse.
I sank to my knees in the sun. Feffer licked my face. Dogs just know what to do, don’t they?
Finally, I struggled to my feet, and Whit hugged me and hugged me.
“This book is amazing,” he said, obviously trying to cheer me up. “Look—this is what I’m talking about.”
He held the book open under my nose. I sniffled and looked at it. Actually, it was amazing.
How to De-weasel Someone, the page read
in fancy letters. I frowned and read on: If you’ve accidentally turned someone into a weasel, and you don’t wish them to remain a weasel, first you must…
I looked at him. “Shred that page, please, will you?”
“I dunno. The weasel might come in handy as a human at some point. You never know. Anyway,” he said, tugging at my sleeve, “we’ve got things to do, kids to save, a New Order to crush… witch.”
“Okay, wizard.” I sighed and followed Whit back through the cornfields to our battered blue van.
I was ready for whatever came our way—at least I thought so. After all, I was a bad, scary witch. And Whit was a supercool wizard.
Then the weirdness continued—emerging out of the corn from the same way we had come, Byron Swain appeared, de-weaseled.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “Your mom did it. She said I should watch over you two.”
And off we went to crush the New Order.
Except things didn’t go exactly according to plan.
Just according to the prophecies.
EPILOGUE
THE LAST…
Chapter 104
Wisty
WHICH, OF COURSE, brings us back to where we began: waiting to be hung until dead in a stadium filled past capacity with craven looky-loos, and presided over by a fiend in black robes who scares the snot out of me.
Seriously, The One Who Is The One radiates like he’s some sort of bad-energy power plant.
And the most unnerving part isn’t just the obvious power he has over the people in this stadium, from the officious security guards posted at every entrance to the slack-jawed gang of spectator teens in colorful N.O. sweat-shirts sitting on the goalpost at the end of the field.
No, the thing that freaks me out is that I can tell he’s got magic. A lot of it. Serious mojo.
His Oneness gestures for the crowd to quiet, and they hush even before his hand is fully raised. How often in human history has somebody like him taken control of a whole society? You know the answer, my friends: far too often.