Elemental (12 page)

CHAPTER 22

A
lice watched me. I would have understood if she'd hated me in light of everything we'd learned, but instead she just looked sad. Finally she bit her lip and reached out as though she were going to hug me. But she didn't.

Of course she didn't.

“Thom, is there something I should know about you and Griffin?”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. Just . . . anything.”

“No. I don't know what Dare wants with us.”

Her silence reeked of doubt.

“If there was anything, I'd tell you. I don't keep secrets from you, remember? I promise.”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

“We need to go to the lighthouse,” I said.

“It's six miles. We don't have any water.”

“By morning they'll have ransacked it. We need to know what's there—who's been living there.”

Alice stared into the darkness. “The woman they were talking about . . . they made it sound like she was from our colony.”

“Yes. And she's a seer, like Griffin. Do you know who she is?”

“No.” Alice sighed. “I wish I could see the moon. I think we're at least two strikes into the night. We have to get away before daybreak.”

“We will.”

She didn't say another word, just took off running south toward the lighthouse. When the terrain shifted from hard ground to marsh, we headed onto the beach and half ran, half walked through powdery sand.

After a couple miles we spied a lone sentry, dozing beside a small fire. We couldn't risk being seen, so Alice led us up the beach and around the dunes. She was sure-footed and lithe, and with each step she disturbed sea-sparkle, so that the sand around her seemed to glisten blue-green. Just as well, because I was struggling to see her. When she spoke, it was only to warn me of some unforeseen hazard, or far-off groups of sentries I couldn't even make out.

It felt like we'd been running forever when the clouds finally parted and a sliver of moonlight illuminated the grassland before us. I'd begun to wonder if we were lost, but now the distinctive black-and-white stripes of Bodie Lighthouse loomed a hundred yards ahead of us.

“How did you find it?” I asked as we reached the massive iron door at the base.

“I have a good sense of direction.” She grasped the door handle and pulled it open. “Come on.”

We walked along a corridor, our footsteps loud and intrusive. I ran my fingers along the walls on either side of us, and though there were doorways, I couldn't see what lay beyond them. At the end of the corridor, we entered the main shaft. I could tell by the way sound reverberated how high up it must reach.

It took us a moment to find the staircase in the darkness. Then we began to climb, the metal stairs echoing until it seemed there were a hundred of us in there. My feet were invisible beneath me, but once I found a rhythm, I climbed faster. I counted the stairs as we went: two hundred and five. My thighs throbbed.

As we neared the top I began to make out the gray walls and the iron grating on each stair. I figured my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness, but then we came upon the lantern room itself, surrounded by large windows that admitted every bit of moonlight that could penetrate the clouds.

In the center of the octagonal room was a massive glass lantern. The Guardians had said the lighthouse was probably designed to prevent ships from grounding. Certainly it might have spared their ship from being wrecked. But no one had ever seen the lantern working, and the door had been sealed when the building was first discovered.

At least, that's what they'd told us. Now, it seemed, the room's purpose was to house the mysterious seer, whose belongings were spread across oak tables pressed tightly against the walls.

Alice stared at a piece of paper that looked oddly familiar.

“It's the map you found in your father's dune box,” I exclaimed.

“Yes . . . and no.”

I looked closer. Sure enough, this map was even bigger. Where the mainland had been torn off her father's map, here it remained. Words were written across various parts of it, although I couldn't read them because of the low light and the fact that vast swathes had been shaded over with what looked like one of Griffin's burnt twigs. Not just one twig either, but several, the shading applied in stages.

“Why was Dare so fascinated by this?” I could tell that Alice was asking herself, not me. “Everyone kept talking about the Plague, but what difference does this map make? What did it reveal to him?”

The edge of another piece of paper protruded from underneath the map. I tugged it out. It was the same size as the map, even looked like a map, but it was entirely foreign to me. As was the small piece of paper on top of it, covered in tiny words that might have been legible if not for the lack of light.

Time was precious, so I began to inspect the rest of the cluttered room. The next table was stacked with battered tin containers. I opened the top one and removed a piece of paper; it felt strangely slick to the touch, but as the moon disappeared again, I couldn't make out what was on it at all. The way the light fluctuated, we'd be hard-pressed to learn anything.

“You have to make a flame,” I said.

“In here? No way. What if someone sees it?”

“I'm not talking about a fire—just a small flame. It's going to take forever to see what's here if we keep waiting for the moon to come out.”

Reluctantly, Alice rubbed her hands together. Her movements grew faster and faster, the friction palpable, the heat emanating like an invisible glow. I was closer to it all than ever before. I
felt
it all.

Then she slowed down.

“What's the matter?”

“I don't know. I just can't make a spark. It's like . . . there's nothing there.”

“But yesterday—”

“I know what I did yesterday! I don't understand it either. My element isn't very strong, remember.”

“Can you try again?”

With a deep sigh, she brought her hands together. Everything was the same: the hands flying back and forth, the sound, the heat. But still—

A spark flew from her left hand and landed on the corner of the map. The paper ignited at once. Alice launched herself at it, patted it with her palms until nothing remained but the odor of smoke. “Enough,” she whispered. “No more.”

She wasn't watching me, but I nodded anyway. From the way she leaned across the map, head hung low, I knew she was embarrassed. I didn't understand why her element was so unreliable, but I already regretted forcing her to experience it.

With no other option, I lifted my piece of paper to the window and waited impatiently for the moon to reappear. Several moments passed before a dull light reflected off the shiny surface, though I still couldn't make anything out until the moon emerged completely.

The paper bore an image of five people: three adults and two children. Only this was no ordinary image. Something so lifelike could not have been hand-drawn. It looked as though its subjects had been caught and frozen.

Worst of all, one of them was my father.

CHAPTER 23

I
'd have recognized my father's eyes anywhere. Even his formerly long hair couldn't disguise them. But that meant that the two children in front of him were . . .

Alice appeared beside me. When she breathed in sharply, I knew she'd seen it too. “What is that?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you remember it?”

“No.”

“Is that your mother, then?” Her finger hovered beside the young woman in the picture.

“I'm not sure,” I said, though it wasn't true. This woman was same as the one on the portrait I'd found when I first opened my father's dune box. It had to be my mother.

I gazed at her bright eyes and wide smile. She had her arms wrapped tightly around Ananias. Beside them, my father held me close. I was just a baby. The third adult was an older woman, though I didn't recognize her.

Alice smiled, but she seemed tense. I was too. How could such a picture exist?

“Your mother was beautiful,” said Alice finally.

Yes, she was. And Ananias looked so comfortable in her arms. Only, I was totally separate from her, not even connected by a finger. I hated feeling jealous—especially after so many years—but I couldn't help wishing that she had been holding me instead.

“Who's the older woman?” asked Alice.

“I don't remember her.”

“Do you think she's the seer Dare was talking about?”

“Could be. Who else would keep this picture?”

Alice studied the image. I could tell she wanted to ask something, and I guessed what it was.

“You think she's my grandmother, don't you?”

“Your grandmother died years ago.”

“Yes.” That's what the Guardians had told us, anyway. Once, I'd asked my father what had happened to her. He said she had been lost at sea. It wasn't a long explanation, but the way he'd said it had deterred me from bringing up the matter again.

“Did they ever explain . . .” Alice began. Then she saw my face. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. If my grandmother is the seer, that means she's alive. And Dare thinks she's our ally.”

“Then where is she now?”

I shook my head and looked at the image again: the happy family of five. Then I noticed something else. We were standing in front of a stone building, its large glass windows clean and intact. “This looks like Skeleton Town. I think they
were
living there, just like you said. But this building is still perfect. You don't think . . . they lived there
before
the town was destroyed?”

Alice narrowed her eyes. “It looks that way. But then, who destroyed it? And why did the Guardians leave? Even the pirates said they wouldn't be living on Hatteras if they could've been on Roanoke.”

“None of this makes sense.”

Alice peered out the window and scanned the surrounding area. “We should hurry. I have a bad feeling.”

I heard her, but I couldn't take my eyes off the picture. I finally had something to remember my mother by, but the very same image made a lie of everything we'd been told. Everything I thought I knew. In the end, Alice—the doubter, the cynic—was right.

I spied something else in the picture too, coiled around the older woman's feet. It was small, and relegated to the corner, but I could still make out its striped brown fur and two yellow eyes. “Wait. I've seen this cat.”

Alice rejoined me. “Where?”

“In Skeleton Town.”

“You're sure it was this one?”

“Yes. It's the first one I've seen in years. It ran into the clinic the night I found the lantern. I got a good look at its markings in the lamplight. Griffin's seen it too.”

I recalled the mysterious sounds I'd heard in Skeleton Town—the ones I'd never been able to place. But if the seer had traveled to Skeleton Town, why was she hiding from us?

I was about to ask Alice what she thought, but she was looking outside again. Knowing that Dare's men would take everything by morning, I stole a final look at my mother and placed the image inside my pocket. When I looked up, Alice was completely still, her mouth open in surprise.

“What is it?”

She didn't even hesitate. “They're coming.”

“Already?” I stared out the window. The moonlight waxed and waned with each passing cloud, but I could make out the area immediately before us. “I don't see anyone.”

“We need to go.”

“What are you talking about? Think about the map, the image. We need to search this place, get some answers. By tomorrow Dare will—”

“You're not listening!” Her words punched the air. “Three men are heading this way. I don't know for sure they're coming to the lighthouse, but I think it's likely, don't you?”

“There's no one there, Alice.”

“You promised to trust me.”

“There's no one out there. I'm not blind.”

“But you can't see like me!” When she turned to the window once more, her eyes filled with tears. “Please, let's go.”

She went to leave, but I touched her arm to stop her. She flinched and pulled away, but stayed. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her cry.

“How exactly
do
you see, Alice?”

I wanted her to look at me, but she wouldn't. So I stared out the window at the emptiness. The tall grass around the lighthouse swished back and forth in the stiffening breeze.

There was no one out there. No one at all.

“What did you mean?” I asked again.

Alice slid to the floor. “I'm going to tell you something, and I don't want you to hate me.”

I was confused. More than that, I was scared.

She pulled up her knees and hugged them. “It's not an accident that I know the Guardians' secrets. Or that I knew where the dune boxes were. Or that I can disappear and never be found.”

A part of me wanted her to stop right there. I'd known Alice ever since she was born. Knew her as well as anyone. Perhaps better than anyone.

“I have . . .
something
. It's not an element, but I see and hear more than you. I don't spy on people. I don't eavesdrop, either. Honestly. I don't need to.”

I could barely breathe. “How?”

“I don't know. It's like your binoculars. When I focus on a small point I can bring it closer, make it clearer. Even sounds rise above the noise around me. Same with my other senses.”

“I don't believe you. That pirate ship was a mile from the shore when we got to Hatteras and you never even saw it.”

“I wasn't
looking
for it. I was focused on the fires, and the dune boxes. I just never looked at the ocean. But when I did—”

“You saw the flag was yellow,” I said, finishing her thought. “Then you said it was black. The rest of us couldn't see that.” I took deep breaths, tried to make sense of everything. “How long . . .”

“Since I was born. That's why you could never find me at hide-and-seek. I always knew when you were coming, so I'd move.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded wrong.

“You have another element.”

“It's not an element,” she whispered.

“You never told me.”

“I didn't know what to say.”

“How come no one else can do this?”

She paused. “I think my mother can.”

“You
think
?”

“She tells me things—things she shouldn't know. I think it's her way of reassuring me I'm not alone.”

“And what about
fire
?”

“That's the point. My real element is weak, like Griffin's. It's like having this other ability has diluted it.”

“That's not what I mean. Everyone else's element comes from a parent. Has your mother been keeping fire a secret too?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw her rub the ends of her hair between her fingertips. Invincible Alice suddenly looked vulnerable. “No. She says the fire came from my grandmother—skipped a generation.”

I continued to stare at the grass outside—saw nothing there. “Why are the Guardians keeping this . . . whatever it is, a secret?”

“They're not. My mother and I are the ones keeping it a secret.”

“Why?”

“Don't you see? This isn't like an ordinary element. It's not even like Griffin's visions. It doesn't do the colony any good. I see and hear things I shouldn't. Things that happen in secret. Things said in private. The Guardians have always hated me. My own father hates me. What do you think they'd do if they knew about this?”

She reached out to take my hand, to reassure me perhaps, but at the last moment she pulled back.

“Will you stop doing that?” My words came out fierce and hurt. “Pretending to touch me. It's cruel.”

She shrunk back. “You're right. It's not fair. I'm sorry.”

I nodded sharply, but inside, her apology grieved me. I hadn't wanted her to say sorry—I'd wanted her to touch me again. It might have made up for all the years she'd been lying to me. It might have made me forget that she was even more different from me than I could've imagined. It would have given me the chance to say that I was sorry too—that she'd had to hide who she really was.

Instead, I just stared out the window, my mind swimming with a thousand thoughts. I was so confused that it took me a while to notice the scene had changed.

We were no longer alone.

Three men lumbered through the grass, their silhouettes clear. They were probably no more than a couple hundred yards away. And they were headed straight for us.

Alice dried her eyes. “They're getting close, aren't they?”

I didn't answer.

“We need to run now,” she said with quiet urgency.

I didn't move. Not at first. I felt frozen, weighed down by the realization that after all these years I'd barely known Alice at all.

She stood and rolled up the maps spread out across the table, the small piece of paper caught between them. Then she stuffed them into her tunic pocket and took off.

Even when my legs began moving, pulling me down two hundred stairs in Alice's wake, my mind stayed in the lantern room. Instead of focusing on escape, I was wondering if anything or anyone was real anymore.

How could I ever know?