“I think so,” I whisper numbly. Maybe I am ready to be done with all of this.
The clouds race across the heavens faster, and the massive, whirling twister towers above me, just a slight girl battling the whole sky. I open my arms, palms up, a lamb offered for the slaughter, and a deafening clap of thunder bellows its response.
I concentrate on the last sensations I will possibly ever experience, feel the hard rain tearing across my face and sense the cold wind on my eyelids, my tangled hair whipped in the raging gale. I hear the roar of the storm as it grows in strength, but my ears strain to hear something else as well.
Byron. I’d forgotten him.
“Wisty, come right now! You can get away!” he bellows.
I snap open my eyes to see a spectacular flash of lightning strike nearby, and in a magical dance of luck, timing, and sheer adrenaline, I’m able to instantaneously send all my electrical energy into manipulating it.
Debris swirls around us as I hurl the supercharge at The One and his soldiers. The flashing crackle flies from my fingers and finds its target: the river, with the New Order troops all wading through the shallow water. The connection lights up the sky, and for a moment hundreds of men convulse like marionettes as electricity shoots through their bodies.
I feel nauseous. Those were men with families, with hopes. But they were also men who’d done unspeakable things, I remind myself, who’d performed experiments on children and executed their parents.
But is there ever an excuse for mass murder?
I glimpse The One’s face, distorted with anger and … what else? Admiration? And I hear Pearce’s enraged yelling behind him, but then I turn away from them, toward the turbulent river. Toward the Shadowland, and my parents.
Now is the moment when terror finally grips my heart. But there’s no time to think of drowning, to imagine my lungs exploding.
Instead I inhale a giant gulp of air, and Byron grabs my hand as we plunge into the deep, swirling frenzy of water. I kick my feet fiercely and don’t stop until we push through a portal and deep into the Shadowland.
Chapter 70
Whit
THE RIVER OF Forever is not the serene, clear-blue comfort that you’d hope to greet your soul after you’ve exhaled your last breath in the Overworld. Instead it’s a gray mass of angry, roiling waves, ominous and forbidding, surrounded by the anarchy of the dead.
But it’s as if the water has a magnetic pull, too; I stumble toward it as if hypnotized. As I near, I can see an ancient-looking drawbridge firmly locked in a raised position. Who knows how long it’s been that way? There’s a mass of accumulated souls throwing themselves into those furious waters, but they can’t cross. Instead, the river rolls them violently about, tossing them like limp fish back onto the bank. I feel an overwhelming need to jump, too, along with a vague panic at the thought of not being able to control that urge. Celia puts her hand on my arm, shaking her head in warning.
Sasha has taken Ragan and some of the others to rest away from the crowds, but a few of us, including Janine and Celia, have started elbowing through the masses along the bank, trying to find the spot on the river where I remember seeing my parents, in the vision at Mrs. Highsmith’s.
It’s chaotic, with lines snaking back and forth and mobs of the newly dead wandering aimlessly through this antechamber of the afterlife, and no one seems to be able to help us. Some people are weeping, but most are dazed and in shock, nearly unresponsive.
“They don’t get that they’re dead,” Celia explains, nodding at a group of older people huddled together near us, confused and terrified. “They’re not like the Half-lights — not like me. They don’t have … unfinished business.” She smiles sadly. “But until they cross the River of Forever, a lot of them just don’t understand what’s going on.”
“And is it always like this?” I can’t believe that this frenzied mass of people is always so immense and confused. This can’t be how it’s supposed to go.
Celia’s brow creases. “I don’t know, Whit. You expect me to know everything about this place, and I just don’t!” I’m momentarily stunned by her anger. Celia never snaps — at me or anyone.
I try to squeeze her hand, wanting reassurance that it’s fine; we’re fine. I forgot I wouldn’t be able to feel it. It’s like grasping at air. It seems like now that we’re physically the closest we’ve been since she disappeared from the Overworld, strangely she feels farthest away. How can we truly understand each other when we’ve had such intense experiences on our own?
She sighs. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s just that I’ve been trying to get across that river just like everyone else for as long as I’ve been here. You can feel it pulling, can’t you?”
I nod. It’s an effort to keep myself on solid ground.
“I feel that pull every second, all the time.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “It must be hard.”
She presses her lips together and looks out at the gray waves. “I don’t think this is the way it’s supposed to be, but this is all I know: Some of the other Half-lights have heard rumors that The One’s power has leaked into the Shadowland and it’s just screwing with everything, but we’re all guessing. The only thing I know for sure is that until balance is restored, we’re stuck on this side, and the dead just keep coming.”
“Maybe that means that it’s not final, then,” Janine suggests. “That … the dead aren’t really dead yet.”
“But they are,” Celia says testily. “Just look at them.”
I peer at the bewildered faces of those around us. In their frightened, yearning eyes, the spark has unmistakably been extinguished. There is no light here, no life. Which means that if my parents are here, they really are just like these people. …
Dead.
The thought takes my breath away, and the ground whirls under me. I sit down abruptly, head in my hands.
“Whit!” Celia crouches next to me, alarmed. She probably wants to see me as the guy I used to be, too — this big-shot quarterback, invulnerable and easygoing. But I can’t be that guy for her right now. Not anymore.
Not in this world.
“I just …” I search her face, my head swimming. “I never believed it. I always held out the hope that they’d be alive somewhere, somehow. But if my parents are here, then they’re …”
Celia nods, rubbing my back, though I can’t feel it. “Then they’re like me.”
I stand up. Whatever the outcome, whatever the state of my parents, I’ve come this far and I have to find them. I look around at the mob, eager for a familiar face.
And I see one — but not the one I expect.
He’s a bit younger than I am, slightly built, with bushy dark hair standing out from his head in all directions. Half of his face is missing.
Daniel Anderson. I knew him in high school — he was in Wisty’s class, I think.
I went to his funeral.
The whole school was there, the girls all sobbing, the guys stone-faced but some of them crying a little, too. His girlfriend — a pinch-faced sophomore cheerleader, a girl Celia never got along with — talked about how much he liked video games and his car. As she said it, his mother got hysterical.
It was the car that killed him.
He was the first person I ever really knew who’d died. They called it a tragedy. That was before the New Order, before any of us understood what tragedy was.
“Daniel.” I put my hand on his shoulder, and he whirls around, jumpy, scared.
“I don’t understand,” he murmurs. “Is it time?” he asks, and I try not to stare at the crater in the left side of his head. His eyes widen as if he’s seen the future in my face. He’s looking at me like the Lost Ones did, with desperation and crushing hope.
“Save me,” he pleads. “Please.”
I back away from him, suddenly on my guard, but his cavernous eyes follow me, expectant. “I will,” I say, though I have no idea how. “I promise … I promise I’ll do whatever I can.?
??
Then Janine whispers in a very small voice, “Save me, too, Whit.” She’s leaning heavily on Emmet now, and I can see how shallow her breathing is. The blood has soaked her shirt a sticky dark brown. Her face is almost translucent, and a cold sweat stands out on her brow.
I nod solemnly.
I don’t know how I’ll manage it, but I need to save her more than anything.
Chapter 71
Wisty
IT’S SO DARK in this part of the Shadowland that Byron and I can’t see a thing in front of us. We have no idea where we are, where we’re going, or where my brother is. We’re picking our way over uneven, rocky ground, and I can just barely make out the reaching branches of a pocket of trees up ahead.
There’s magic over there, I can feel it, like some kind of cocktail of dark energy pulling my own M toward it. I stray from the path to take the quickest way possible toward those alluring trees and immediately slam my shin into a boulder in the darkness.
“Wisty — watch out! Careful!” Byron urges.
Why the heck do people always tell you to watch out after you’re already hurt?
The gash is wet with blood, and I bite my lip, stifling a cry, and Byron holds my hand in support. After a minute the pain ebbs and I stand up, ready to set out again. Even though I’m kind of disturbed that Byron is still holding my hand in his clammy grip, I’m too scared to let go.
“At least we’re safe here,” I say, trying to look on the bright side.
“Safe?” Byron repeats. “You neglect to account for flesh-eating Lost Ones and spirit-suckers, not to mention the danger of getting trapped in this maze forever and eventually running out of strength … and oxygen.”
I can always count on Byron for a healthy dose of optimism.
“Relatively safe, I mean. Safe from Pearce and The One. They’re Straight and Narrows, right? So we don’t have to deal with them in the Shadowland, at least.”
Byron conspicuously doesn’t answer.
My skin is still wet from the river, and my dripping hair makes it feel like I’m crawling with a thousand roaches, their little legs scurrying over my arms and down my neck. And now Byron’s got me thinking about Lost Ones. After ten minutes of stumbling along in the pitch-blackness, paranoid, I’ve had about enough of the creepy quiet and dark.
“All right, Byron, say something annoying.” I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve flamed out in a Byron-induced rage.
“What? Wisty, after all we’ve been through, I resent that you would imply —”
“Just kidding. I’ve got it pretty much down to a science at this point. Stand back.”
As he lets go of my hand, I release a spark, and suddenly I’m covered in the familiar glow, flames licking out from my body.
I love the feeling of being a human torch.
“Whoa,” Byron breathes, and I still feel a bit of pride at the awe in his voice. “That seriously never gets old.”
I lead the way down a path full of potholes, along craggy cliffs. Insects crunch and slither beneath our feet, and I shudder. Was it really my wet hair that I felt crawling on me?
“Where are we going anyway?” Byron asks after a few minutes.
“I don’t know. To the end, I guess. Didn’t you say that the end is near? I think you might be right, B.”
I mean it as a joke, but it comes out way more serious, and Byron goes quiet.
I kind of feel sorry for the guy. True, he has a history of playing both sides and hasn’t always been 100 percent trustworthy, but this particular time it is kind of my fault he’s part of the focus of a cross-world manhunt. And he did think he was saving my life back there with Pearce. I sigh.
“Listen, Byron, I meant to tell you …” I cough. I’m really bad at this. “I’m uh … sorry … for, you know, turning you into a weasel. Even if you did deserve it.”
Byron’s eyes cloud over — with tears? Okay, I wasn’t prepared for that.
“Hey, now,” I mumble uncomfortably. “No need to get all emotional. I just wanted to let you know that despite all the bad blood between us in the past, I’m starting to think you’re a pretty solid guy. Maybe even … a friend.” His lip quivers, and I wag a finger in warning. “Not that I’m not prepared to revoke that judgment if the situation calls for it.”
He nods vigorously but is still fighting back a sob. This is totally awkward.
“I will never let you down again, Wisty. I know I’ve said some things in the past, but … I just think you’re amazing, and you don’t know what it means to me to hear” — he sniffles —“to have your friendship, I mean. I swear that you can depend on my allegiance and expect the highest level of commitment in the future and —”
I put up a hand. “Okay, got it, Byron. No need to go overboard, just … c’mere.”
I let the flame extinguish for a second and hold my arms out tentatively for a totally platonic, not-weird-in-anyway, tiny hug of friendship. Byron practically leaps at me, squeezing me half to death and probably getting snot and tears and God knows what else in my hair.
Still, the whole thing is kind of heartwarming, and I can’t help being a bit relieved.
Chapter 72
Whit
WE, THE LIVING, are bloodied, weak, and struggling to breathe the air in this wretched place. But as we shuffle in a line through the crowds milling along the river — Sasha and Emmet, wounded but defiant, Ragan with his surviving young charge, Janine and I — we positively radiate life against this backdrop of dead.
Well, all of us except Celia. We follow her Half-light through the sea of spirits, to a group of more people I know — or knew. People from our town. People who might be able to help us locate my parents.
“Have you seen Benjamin and Eliza Allgood?” I ask no one in particular, trying to shift their focus. “Please — has anyone seen my parents?” I ask more forcefully.
“Whit!” Sasha waves me over to a stooped spirit.
The man is ancient, with papery skin. He’s draped in a flowing black robe. I don’t recognize him at first, but without warning he leans in and gives me a stiff, very cold hug. He smells sour, but there’s something else there, too: the faint smell of cinnamon.
Memories flood back to me as I realize that I know this man, too: it’s the old minister from the church that our parents used to take us to, when we were little kids, back when religion was legal. We stopped going when Wisty and I were pretty young, but it’s him, all right.
He mumbles something that I can’t understand, and I lean in closer, eager for direction.
“Can you bear it, son?” he croaks. “Can you bear to witness the truth?” Then he points a spindly finger. I hold my breath as I follow it with my eyes, and Celia grips one of my trembling hands, Janine the other.
My feet are carrying me forward before my brain even registers the scene. Down the banks of the River of Forever, there is a couple, a man and a woman, working their way through the crowds of people, lining them up, organizing them, comforting them.
“Mom! Dad!” I shout midstride. Their heads turn to look at me, and emotion rips through my chest.
It’s really them.
“Whit?” my mom gasps, her voice part hope, part anguish. I reach her first and swing her into a fierce embrace.
“Mom, I thought I’d never —” My voice breaks off. I have to stop talking or I’ll lose it.
She’s so, so thin. Emaciated. Her arms encircle me, but I can barely feel her. It’s as if I’m being hugged by a ghost.
But I can feel her. She has substance, even just a little, and the spark in her eyes burns so, so bright when she looks into mine.
A sob catches in my throat, and my whole body shudders as I grip my mother in my arms with every bit of my strength.
I’m not sure how long I’m clutching her before I spot a man behind her whom I hardly recognize. He’s aged a hundred years and seems shrunken, slight.
“Dad?” I whisper, unbelieving. I untangle myself from Mom’s arms and run to m
eet the man who has always been my rock, my solid ground. The man I thought I’d lost forever.
He grips me in a ferocious hug, and his arms are stronger than ever. Strong and solid.
I can feel both of my parents.
Which means … Are they dead or alive? I can’t bear to ask that question, so I ask the next-best one. I pull away from my dad and look from him to Mom, needing to know.
“What is this river? And what are you guys doing here?”
Mom’s voice is soft, coaxing, like when she tried to help me with a difficult math problem in my homework when I was a kid. “You know what it is, Whit. It’s the river to the other side.”
“And what’s on the other side?” I ask stubbornly.
“We all find out in our own time,” my dad says. “Whit, this is the most important time in your and Wisty’s lives. The world is in terrible upheaval, and the backup at the river is just a symptom of it. We never dreamed it would happen this way, this quickly.”
“What exactly is happening?” I demand. Despite how relieved I am to see my parents, I find myself angry with them, too. They should have prepared us better. And they’re still feeding me these half-truths.
Mom holds my hand as if she never wants to let it go. “The One Who Is The One has raised the bridge across the River of Forever, and chaos has erupted. The natural flow of life, of fate, of the Prophecies, has been critically interrupted.”
“Very soon we’ll find out if the Prophecies will or will not be fulfilled,” Dad jumps in. “But Wisty is as much a part of it as you are.” He puts his hands on my shoulders, his voice pleading. “Whit, where is your sister?”
“I have no idea where she is,” I say, exasperated. “Why don’t you ask your friend Mrs. Highsmith? She’s the one who said Wisty had to deal with The One. She’s the one who sent each of us off on our own. But right now it all seems nothing short of insane. I should’ve never trusted that old lady. I don’t even want to think about what could’ve happened to Wisty.”