It’s so beautiful, you almost have to turn away.
When I realize what they are singing, it’s like an arrow to my chest. “Silent, Silent.” Even buried under all this grief, I can see Dad’s expressive face mouthing the words over our heads on Holiday Eve, hear Mom’s sweet voice dancing along the verses. A sob catches in my throat as I hum along to the familiar melody, tears streaming down my cheeks.
I lock eyes with Whit across the room. He’s looking at me like his heart is breaking, like he’s saying good-bye. To me. I shake my head. No. No.
The candles are blurring again, I’m drowning in darkness.
Silent, silent.
But I’m not ready to go.
Not yet.
Chapter 7
Whit
I AWAKE DISORIENTED in cold, damp darkness, my body aching, my sister nowhere in sight. There are shadowy figures all around me, but I can’t make them out. Something jabs me in the ribs and I flip onto my feet, muscles tensed, ready to tear it to shreds. In the millisecond before I move to strike, there’s a hyena-like laugh, high and mocking.
“Ooooh,” a familiar young voice teases, “someone is a leetle bit jumpy this morning. Come on, wiz boy, let’s get going.” I make out Pearl Marie’s mop of ratty hair in the darkness, and yesterday comes flooding back to me. I must’ve passed out on a pile of rags.
“Go? Go where? It’s still dark out!” I groan. What with being a fugitive on the run from the most powerful being in the universe, rewatching our parents’ execution, and carrying my dying sister on my back through a maze of plague victims and trained wolves, I’ve been put through the wringer, physically and emotionally. I could sleep until next Holiday season.
“It’s half past quit-your-whining o’clock.” Pearl Marie is already crouched down, digging through the rags. “You’re fit to work, ain’t ya?” The tiny drill sergeant starts lobbing bedding at my head.
“Well, yeah, but —”
A moth-eaten sweater soars through the air. “Gotta” — warped sun hat to the gut —“pull your weight, like everybody else. Find a disguise.” I duck as a shredded blanket makes a beeline for my nose. Pearl stands up, hands on her hips. “Everyone knows your stupid face.”
“What about Wisty?” I protest. “I can’t just leave her —”
“No prob.” Pearl shrugs. “Mama May told me to stick close to the house and look after her.” I soften a bit at the mention of Mama May, remembering how much the Needermans are risking by taking us in, how dearly they’ll pay should they be found out. I owe them this.
I reluctantly start climbing into the crusty clothing. After a minute, I peek out from under my disguise of toga-like moldy blanket topped with a half-unraveled scarf as a face mask topped with a large sun hat. “Does it still look like me?”
“Big muscles? Small brain? Yep, I can definitely still tell it’s you under there.” Pearl frowns.
I sigh in frustration. It used to be so easy before. I could just morph a bit, take the form of an old man, a bird, almost anything I’d need to be … .
Wait a minute. Something is different. Pearl’s looking at me in wonder, and I feel things shifting: the shape of my nose, the length of my hair … and are those dimples I feel? Pearl holds up a piece of Holiday glass so I can see my reflection.
I’m stunned. After days of feeling my power slipping away from me, I can’t believe it freaking worked! Who’s got the mojo? Wizard’s got the mojo!
Meanwhile, Pearl’s doubled over with laughter.
“Brandon Michael Hatfield?” she snorts. “Are you serious?”
“What?” I reply, incredulous. “You know him?”
“Brandon. Michael. Hatfield!” Pearl’s voice goes up a full octave. “Of course I know him!” she shrieks. “He was the biggest dreamboat in the former Freeland! I just didn’t realize you had the mind of a preteen girl!”
Celebrities have mostly been wiped out in the N.O. regime for representing idols other than The One, so what’s the harm in making use of likenesses of long-gone pop stars? Besides, I’ve been the poster boy for public scorn long enough. Maybe I wouldn’t mind having a face everyone likes for a change. So sue me.
“My girlfriend used to be into his music,” I say, shrugging, pretending that the mention of Celia doesn’t still hurt somewhere deep inside. Pearl nods skeptically. “Hey, it’s actually pretty tough to just come up with a new identity out of thin air! Sometimes you have to, you know, borrow one. Brendan What’s-His-Face seemed like as good an option as anyone else.”
“Brandon Michael Hatfield,” she corrects, as if I’ve committed sacrilege.
“Got it.” I roll my eyes. “Anyway, it works, doesn’t it?”
Pearl nods, still giggling, then hustles me toward the door. “You better get goin’.”
“But my sister …” I glimpse Wisty’s frail body across the room, her red hair matted with fever. If anything, she looks worse today.
“I’ll tend to her for you. I’ll talk to her and dab at her forehead. Trust me. I’ll look after her.” Pearl pats my hand and peers up at me with her big silver eyes, all scout’s honor. I start to smile gratefully, but then Pearl finishes, “At least until she dies.”
Chapter 8
Whit
I’M TEARING THROUGH the streets, madly searching for an escape from this sad and tragic world. And it does seem mad that I’m trying to get to a place where the dead still walk. To the Underworld. To the Shadowland. To Celia the love of my life, trapped among the Lost Ones.
I can’t get Pearl’s words —“until she dies” — out of my head. If I could just get back to Celia, I know she could tell me what to do. She’d been brutally murdered by the New Order, but she sometimes still came to visit me. As a spirit. And she had helped Wisty and me so many times before.
She’d know what to say. Wouldn’t she?
I don’t care. I need her now, no matter what. Her sweet smell, her comforting arms, her voice whispering encouragement. I can’t be alone now.
Like I’d done so many times before, I head for a concrete wall at the end of an alleyway and smash my shoulder into it at full force, hoping for some vulnerability I can’t see, a bend in the fabric of this dimension giving way to the next. We’d used this pathway before, in the days when it seemed portals to the Shadowland were everywhere. But The One’s influence is growing, and many portals have disappeared or have been blocked.
Like this one.
I’m met with only a bright flash of pain, and I crumple to the ground, utterly defeated, yearning for Celia, for my parents, for the kids who gave their lives for the Resistance. I’ve lost nearly everything, and now I’m going to lose my sister, too.
The words lap at my ears like an echo in a seashell. “Until she dies …”
No. Not yet. I drag myself out of the garbage on the street.
I will not let my sister die.
Chapter 9
Whit
I PULL MYSELF up, new energy coursing through me.
I’m thinking of the Resistance fighters, of Janine and Margo and Emmet — kids who had lost everything but who would never give up on one another, and never gave up on us. Kids who are long gone now but whose determination I can still feel.
I’m also thinking of Byron, whom Wisty zapped into a weasel on more than one occasion. As screwed up as a lot of his theories were, Byron seemed to be right about one thing: when our power went through him, it became stronger, even though he didn’t possess any magic on his own. We’d tested that on other kids, too, and it had seemed to work. So maybe, just maybe, it could work now?
I sprint back to the Needermans’ bombed-out apartment building, taking the basement stairs two at a time, and then burst into the small room, searching for Pearl.
She’s nowhere to be found. What was it she said? I’ll look after her. Trust me.
I’m not sure I know the meaning of that word anymore.
I crouch down by Wisty. She’s still feverish and barely conscious, and her face
is filthy.
“Don’t give up on me yet, Wist. I’ve got a plan. Just hang in there.” I start to wipe my sister’s face with a dirty cloth when the door opens and the little ragamuffin saunters in.
Pearl sees my angry expression and shrugs. “I got hungry and figured the witch wouldn’t miss me,” she says cheerfully enough. “Shouldn’t be long now anyway — the mess she coughed up earlier was some kind of gross black sludge.”
Before I know what I’m doing, I bat the scraps of food Pearl’s holding to the floor and tug the little girl across the room toward my sister.
“Hey!” she protests. “It’s not my fault she’s —”
“You’re not going to watch over Wisty until she dies. You’re going to help me make her better,” I tell her, voice as hard as iron. “Right now.”
Chapter 10
Whit
ON THE CEMENT floor in the drab basement apartment, Wisty struggles in the grubby linens, her breath coming in quick, jagged gasps. Sweat stands out on my sister’s forehead, but her teeth chatter behind her papery lips.
This has to work.
Pearl slouches next to me, feigning boredom, but I’m gripping one of her hands and one of Wisty’s with frenzied determination. Wisty coughs violently, and red drops of blood appear on the corners of her mouth.
I lick my lips and try to swallow my panic. I have to work fast; we’re losing her.
I let go of Pearl and start to riffle through my journal for a spell, but Pearl snatches the book away with nimble fingers practiced in theft.
“Poems?” The kid looks genuinely appalled.
“Give it. Now,” I manage. It’s taking a massive effort not to yell at her.
“Fine,” she says, chucking the journal at my head. “I’ll just be over here, choking on my own vomit.”
“That’s what my dying sister is actually doing right now, thanks to your lack of cooperation.” I heave a frustrated sigh.
I lean over to pull Wisty’s fire-red hair away from her clammy cheeks. “Listen, Wist, you’re not done living — not by a long shot,” I say quietly. “You’re not done rocking the music, bursting into flames like a badass, or mouthing off when I’m trying to give you advice. And this is the best advice your big brother is ever going to give you.” I start to choke up but force this last part out anyway, because I need my sister to hear it: “You’re not allowed to die yet, okay? It’s definitely not in your best interest.”
Wisty doesn’t move and her breathing stays shallow, but Pearl’s face softens and she gets this big-eyed sympathetic look, like she might actually start crying, too.
“I have something to say.” Pearl awkwardly puts a hand on Wisty’s shoulder, looking kind of embarrassed. I’m staring, not sure what to make of this, and she shoots me an annoyed look. “Close your eyes, Whit. It’s like a prayer or whatever.” I shut my eyes obediently and hear her settle in beside me.
I expect her to make some snide remark, but when she speaks, her voice is sad and sincere. “Whit seems to care about you a whole lot,” Pearl starts. “I had a brother, too, who I cared about. And he used to keep an eye out for me, too.” She’s quiet for a moment. “But he’s gone now and —” Her voice quivers, and my heart lurches in my chest. “And it was just the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, so I know how he feels.”
Pearl pauses for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to go on. “So just … just wake up already. Amen.” I open my eyes, but Wisty’s pale face is unmoving.
Pearl grips my hand tightly as if it had been her idea all along. “Okay, wizard,” she says gently, “now do your sappy poetry thing.”
I flip to a fresh page in my journal, and Murry Robinson’s words unfold on the page before me:
Though Death but seldom turns aside
From those he means to take,
He would not yet our hearts divide,
For love and pity’s sake.
I shut my eyes tightly, and a shudder goes through me as I imagine the blurred, skeletal image of Death pointing a spindly finger at Wisty, then turning away in defeat.
He looks more like The One, actually.
The anger builds within me until I’m shaking with all of the rage, pain, and frustration that comes from losing everything you love in the world. I say the poem over and over, my voice forceful and sure, and I hear Pearl chanting beside me, too, her words warped by tears for Ziggy and the others whom Death didn’t turn away from.
Energy surges through us into Wisty’s frail body, and the single lightbulb in the room flickers and shatters. My fingers burn with the spark of raw, healing power.
When the surge subsides, I peek at Wisty tentatively. I hold my breath, waiting to see the effects of my power, the color rushing into her cheeks, the familiar wry smile, her own magic emanating from her again. It has to have worked. I felt it.
But she’s not moving. I’m not even sure she’s breathing.
My pulse quickens. It’s like … she’s already gone. Pearl is looking at me with big, nervous eyes. What if whatever I just did actually killed Wisty instead of saved her?
And then, just as I’m ready to give up all hope, my sister’s eyelids flutter open.
I don’t know what I was expecting — lucidity, maybe? The magic hasn’t made Wisty shiny and new again, or even totally well, but still, something has changed. Her eyes are dazed and feverish, burning into mine.
And they’re no longer ringed with red.
“Wisty!” I shout, squeezing her way too roughly in a hug I can’t stop.
“Hi, Whit,” she chokes out. “I’m … okay.” Tears slip down her cheeks, and I’m nearly sobbing with relief myself. With that small effort, Wisty passes out, but sheer, unfiltered joy floods through my system anyway. Somehow I know she’s going to make it.
I have the power to heal. This is what it’s like to feel invincible.
Chapter 11
Wisty
IT’S COLD. SO, so cold.
I’m wrapped in blankets, but I’m as icy as a slab of beef hanging in a meat truck: chilled to the bone. The air tastes stale and recycled, but I can’t even seem to lift my head to get a better look at this room.
My vision is still a little blurry, but I’m suddenly aware of a figure next to me. I flinch, adrenaline rushing to my head as my body sends out the alert: Stranger. Dark, claustrophobic room. So many people want me dead. And where is my brother?
I squint to focus my eyes.
It’s just a kid, I realize with relief. Her eyes are glued to me, a little smile on her grimy face. She has this weird beauty to her, and for a second I think she might be an angel.
Then I see the glint of her knife.
I try to lurch away from her, but my body won’t obey. I feel paralyzed. I try to scream for help, but it comes out as a raspy, gurgling moan. The kid raises an amused eyebrow at me. I’m drugged, I think. She’s drugged me and is about to carve me up.
She moves toward me. Not knowing what else to do, I grip the covers with white-knuckle panic. A whimper escapes my lips.
“Relaaax,” the girl says, her round, gray eyes inches from my face. They’re almost hypnotic; I’m still afraid, but I find myself automatically calming down. She sits cross-legged next to me and starts whittling at splinters of wood, the edge of the knife catching the low light of the single candle. I try to slow the blood thundering into my brain, and after a minute she looks up.
“So, you’re finally awake. People were placing bets that you’d be dead before sunrise, you know,” she says matter-of-factly.
I stare at this morbid little girl, not sure at all what to make of her.
“When Whit brought you in, he said he didn’t know how much longer you’d last. But thanks to my help, you pulled through.”
“How —?” I cough, then start again. “How do you know my brother?” My vocal cords are hoarse from disuse, and my voice comes out as more of a squeak than the threat I had intended.
The big-eyed girl definitely doesn’t appea
r threatened. She prattles on for what seems like forever, relating the list of everything she knows about me and my brother — like how our faces are plastered on every wall in the capital — but I can’t seem to focus on her words.
My heart constricts when she gets to the part about how our parents really are dead, but I’m too numb with cold to process much else, and her animated descriptions of deadly Holiday ornaments, the poetry cure, and blood in the streets have my head spinning.
I feel totally drained, like all the blood, energy, power … all the magic, has been sucked right out of me. My hands are blue is the only thing I keep thinking. If I could just get warm, work up a little magic, I could figure all of this out.
“Come here for a sec,” I croak, interrupting the girl’s tirade.
I must sound utterly crazy, because the kid looks like there’s absolutely no way she’s getting any closer to me right now.
“Come on. Want me to cough some blood your way? Just get over here and help me sit up,” I prod.
She reluctantly moves closer and tries to push up the rags behind me with the very tips of her fingers so she can avoid actually touching me. Whatever. If I’m going to die, maybe I can at least warm up a bit first.
I point a finger at the fireplace and catch my companion’s skeptical look. I feel a twinge of anger, that familiar heat. That does it. A terrific fire crackles in the hearth, the three-foot flames instantly warming up this damp room.
“Yes!” I give a little uncontrollable squeak of victory. I may not be totally well, but my magic is coming back.
The girl is evidently impressed. “Whoa!” she says with a twinge of awe that makes me way more proud than I should be for just a little fire. “You really are a witch.”
“And a scary witch, little girl,” I bite back with a self-satisfied smirk, though I’m already collapsing into the rags, exhausted. “Lucky for you, you didn’t try to use that knife.”