Witch And Wizard: Fire Part 2

Two kids stand over me, prodding my arm with a stick. The bigger one, a freckle-faced show-off with a chipped tooth, is answering a question the other has asked.

"She's the red-haired witch, dummy. Not very good at it, is she?"

I focus through the pain and summon all my energy to fix the little braggart with a long, withering look. To my utter satisfaction, the kids scamper away in horror. "She'll change us into rodents!" Freckles yells. Ah, my reputation has preceded me. Somehow, it feels like an overwhelming relief that I can still strike fear into the hearts of children.

Exhausted, I collapse back into the cushion of sleep.

The next time I open my eyes, it's dark, and there are candles everywhere. Everyone in the room looks sh.e.l.l-shocked, like they've just received the worst news. My heart starts to race until I see my brother. He's across the room, standing with some grubby-looking little girl, and I feel such a sense of relief I almost pa.s.s out again. I wish I could get his attention, but I don't have the strength to move.

An older man with a weathered face and a braid running down his back is leading some kind of vigil. These people, whoever they are, have lost someone. My heart aches for them; I know what loss feels like, too.

Believe me.

"Let's not let them take everything from us yet, though." The weathered man looks from face to face, eyes fierce. "Let's sing for family. Let's sing for hope."

The crowd of filthy, gaunt survivors all hold hands, and there's barely enough s.p.a.ce in this tiny bas.e.m.e.nt room to fit them all. The whole place is radiant with candlelight, and the broken gla.s.s dangling from the ceiling shimmers.

Then the singing starts up.

It's low at first, and then, as more and more voices join in, the volume builds, like the vibrations of a bell or the mournful echo when you trace a finger along the lip of a gla.s.s. You feel it inside you.

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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s 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 ident.i.ty 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 seash.e.l.l. "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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 ragam.u.f.fin 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes the book away with nimble fingers practiced in theft.

"Poems?" The kid looks genuinely appalled.

"Give it. Now," I manage. It's taking a ma.s.sive 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 bada.s.s, 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 embarra.s.sed. 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.