Harbinger (27 page)

31

SCREAMS REVERBERATED
in my mind, ripping me from the memories. There was something more. Something that I couldn’t—that I didn’t want to—remember.

I opened my eyes, and I was no longer on the mountaintop. Or in that ancient valley. I was back in the dimly lit library. Rita still looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something. Dr. Mordoch still clutched the empty whiskey bottle in her hand. But the water was gone, leaving flotsam from a different time in its wake.

It’d only taken seconds. All those memories exploding in my brain. Another lifetime of experiences that’d been buried for ten years, ever since my parents had taken me to see the lunar eclipse. Ever since I’d touched that first wave. Dead parents. The boy whose talisman I’d given to Kel. A vision of the future that was now the present. And the screaming . . . “You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You remember being the Harbinger.” Rita’s voice was triumphant. “After your vision on the mountain, you said that The Circle was failing us. You told us that we couldn’t leave the future in the hands of the mindless masses. Your vision of a dying Earth proved that, right?”

It was like looking at old photos of myself when I was a kid. I didn’t always remember the moment the flash went off, but I knew I’d been there. Once Rita described the scene, I knew I had said all those things. When the others in the Family heard of my vision, they were devastated. They’d trusted in the ways of The Circle for so long, but now they agreed that we needed to do something. Well, all of them but the boy. As usual he was full of caution and warning.

In truth, I think the rest of them liked the idea of a more powerful Family. One that would change the course of the world. So I forged the talismans from the great boulder on the mountain, marking them not with The Circle, but with the new symbol of The Path. We agreed that as a Family we would be stronger. It might take all of us to prevent the vision from becoming reality. We would use our power and the power of our people to fix this world. And I would lead the way.

“You told us it would work. We sacrificed everything. Our power. Our lives. The Circle. All because of your vision. Your Path.” Rita’s voice was hard, her face twisted with her torment. “And he tried to stop you then, like he’ll try to stop you now. He fought against you all those years ago, and now you’ve given him the power to do it again.”

Yes. The boy had taken some persuading. I tried not to think about what I’d done to him. Or what he, as Kel, might do to me. But I’d done what I had to do. And we’d begun the ritual, a phenomenon that would take thousands of years to complete. First, the Family had locked their power deep within the iron. Then, I’d cut their throats, so each of them would stay safe inside the talismans. We couldn’t go forward in time, but we could wait it out.

But someone needed to be able to know when the time of the vision was drawing near. Someone needed to be first, to dig up the talismans and choose new bodies for the Family to inhabit. So I became part of the ocean. Passing the millennia on the rise and fall of the tide.

“The night we started this, when our people gathered to sing about our bravery and sacrifice, I thought I’d be an avenging angel and right the world. But, it wasn’t like that . . .” Rita’s face was possessed, and I saw what all those years out of time had done to her. “Now you must finish this so I can be free. So we all can.”

What went wrong? How did Rita’s talisman get separated from the others?
The screaming of that still-forgotten memory tore at my mind again, and I put my hands on my head, trying to make it stop.

“You’re the only one who can end this, Faye. After all those years as part of the sea, the Harbinger chose
you
to finish the ritual. Even as a little girl you had an uncanny sense of the world around you. But you were so young . . . just a child. All those new memories, all that power. You didn’t even know what to do with it. So I showed you The Path, told you where the talismans were buried, how to rid the world of this blight. Then I brought you to the ocean on the night of power. It should’ve worked. I should’ve been freed from this decaying world. But she interfered.” Rita spun on Dr. Mordoch, who still cowered near the desk.

“I’m sorry.” Dr. Mordoch hugged the whiskey bottle to her chest as she sank to the floor. Her eyes pleaded with me. “I just wanted to help you.”

I still didn’t like her, but I knew what it was like to be trapped in your own private hell. Sidestepping Rita, I reached down to help Dr. Mordoch.

“Faye, your hands—” Dr. Mordoch’s strangled voice rang out in alarm.

A faint silver glow radiated from them as we touched. An ugly blur of malice and arrogance and fear poured through Dr. Mordoch’s fingers into my thoughts. Seeing how the years of obsession had warped her, I pulled my hand away as soon as Dr. Mordoch was standing. Trying to hide my repulsion.

Rita’s face twisted with disgust. “She’s served her purpose, Faye. She got you back here. You might as well get rid of her.”

I looked at Dr. Mordoch again—her frayed robe, her crumpled face framed by limp scraps of hair. The efficient headmistress had been stripped away, leaving nothing but weakness. The contempt must’ve shown on my face, because her hand struck out, slapping me. Hard across the jaw.

“You ungrateful bitch.” Dr. Mordoch swayed uneasily, backing away toward the far wall. Then she lost all composure. “I sacrificed my entire life for you. I saved you. Don’t you remember? I saved you from the ocean.”

“That’s what happens when you show them pity.” Rita’s words were warm in my ear. “It was the same way with my parents. They turn on you. Now that you understand what you are, Faye, you have a choice to make. This world is teetering on the brink. You can join the maggots and allow Dr. M. to numb you into one of them. They’ll consume the Earth, but at least then you won’t have any more pesky visions. Or—”

She stepped between me and Dr. Mordoch again, her eyes burning. “Or you can do exactly what you dreamed of doing. You can save the world. You can wash it clean. This is
your
Path, Faye. Take it.”

A warm pulse of power fed off Rita’s words. I thought about the heady intimacy of being inside Kel’s memories. The strength I’d felt as I’d merged with the wooden door in Solitary. Even now, I could feel the forest surrounding Holbrook, the wooden beams holding up the Compass Rose. I trembled with their energy. Finally part of something bigger than myself.

“Faye, you’re not stable. I
know
you, maybe even better than your parents. Maybe even better than yourself.” Dr. Mordoch’s voice cracked as she tried to regain control of the situation. “You’ve never been well. Why don’t you go back to your room and get some sleep. We’ll pretend this never happened.”

Dr. Mordoch, my parents, the Cooperative, they all wanted me to be normal. Wanted me to hide my strangeness, to keep quiet and make nice. But I was so much better than that.

Rage flowed through me, and the wind rose, buffeting the trees outside. The silver glow around my hands grew into a bright flare, and power coursed just beneath my skin.

“Know me? You think you know me?” I yelled at the woman who had taken me away from my purpose. “You don’t know me. I am the Harbinger.”

When I said the words out loud, I knew how right they were. Maybe I’d always known.
I am the Harbinger.
I grabbed the lamp from the desk. Electricity snaked through it, hissing like a wild animal. I coaxed the power out of the socket, letting it build up around me like a storm cloud. It was delicious, and I wondered how I’d ever survived without this charged euphoria.

Reaching out into the air, I wrenched aside electrons and ions, forcing a path between me and Dr. Mordoch. A silvery bolt shot across the room, slamming into her chest.

Dr. Mordoch screamed as she was blasted against the wall, smashing into the shelves in a hailstorm of books. The smell of burnt hair filled the room. The shock jolted through me as well, and Dr. Mordoch’s cries joined the screaming in my head. That one last, terrible memory fighting to surface.

Dr. Mordoch tried to sit up. I could smell her from here, the sour stink of alcohol and panic. Looking at her slumped against the bookshelf, I felt sorry for her. The screaming memory receded and, with it, the heady sense of power. The glow around my hands dimmed and I was just Faye again. Weak and insignificant. A freak.

But I’m supposed to be the hero.

Then I understood. I’d thought the Harbinger needed to be stopped. But I’d been looking at it all wrong. I was
still
the hero, but when I was finished, there wouldn’t be a ticker-tape parade. There wouldn’t even be anyone left to cheer.

Not Dr. Mordoch. Not Kel. Not even me.

But at least there would be
something
left.

Power surfaced inside of me, like a shipwreck hidden for years under the waves. And now I could feel the sickness too, strangling the Earth.

“Show her who you are.” Rita was excited. “She hurt you. Locked you in the dark. Even now, she wants to take you away from your Path.”

I growled, still feeling the sting of Dr. Mordoch’s hand on my cheek.
How dare Dr. Mordoch touch me. Me, the strongest of the Family.

I would show Dr. Mordoch what real authority was. This was what I was meant for. I was here to wash the world clean.

“You are nothing.” I thought about being chained up in Solitary. I could almost feel the cuffs still cutting into my wrists and ankles.

The marble floor under my feet started to vibrate, and I braced myself in the doorway.

Dr. Mordoch huddled on the shaking floor. “Listen to me, Faye . . . Buddha says—”

“You’re just a bug, trying to find smaller bugs to eat.” The taunts from the cafeteria rang in my ears.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Deep in the stone, I felt all those years of pressure beneath the ground. Limestone bullied into becoming marble.

“Please, Faye. I never wanted to hurt you,” Dr. Mordoch whispered.

Distant drums pounded in my ears and the fire of transformation rushed into me.

“Do it!” Rita’s cry sounded like the baying of wolves.

A thick crack shot across the floor between me and Dr. Mordoch, shattering and scorching the stone under her. I screamed as the heat burned through me. The wooden joists warped and the floor buckled.

Nails melted. Long millennia seeped from the marble into the wood, and it disintegrated into sawdust. With an earsplitting crash, the floor caved in under Dr. Mordoch. She grabbed at the empty air, her eyes pleading with me before she plummeted through the gaping hole.

“Yes!” Rita grinned. “This is how we shall answer their arrogance.”

I stared at Rita, standing on the other side of the rift. After a hundred years, she was weak, used up. No more substantial than a shadow. “There is no we. You may be one of the Family. But
I
am the Harbinger. I say what will be done.”

Rage crossed Rita’s face and her mouth opened. Without a word, I struck her with the full strength of my newfound power. Rita blinked at me in disbelief, our eyes locking. Then in a blaze of light, she flew apart, vanishing in a million little pieces. Dots on a canvas.

The house let out a fatal groan, sending the library ceiling crashing down. Rita’s legacy swallowed up in an explosion of shingles and splinters.

I buckled to the floor. Tremors of pain ran through me as the room collapsed in on itself. I threw myself into the hallway and ran down the spiral steps.

The stairs moaned, boards smashing as my feet pounded out the beat.
Hurry, Hurry. It’s time.

The arrows carved into the dark passageway sang a song of power. Cracks split across my skin, mirroring the ones spiderwebbing across the black stone walls. I cried out as the passage caved in behind me.

The secret doorway fell away in a shower of sawdust and plaster. And there in front of me, tiled into the floor, was the compass. Still pristine.

Rita had been clever. Leaving this house for me to find, the trail of arrows, the diary, the tarot cards. But I was glad she was gone. She was a reminder that something in my plan had gone very wrong. Her and this off-center house. Even now, the corner of the back porch stuck irritatingly over the cliff.

The Compass Rose.
As the walls crumbled into dust and gypsum around me, I suddenly understood how truly genius Rita had been. The name didn’t just refer to the design in the floor. Or the arrows carved into the walls. This whole house was a compass.

Shouts were coming from outside now, barely audible over the destruction. Running to the back door, I twisted the knob, forgetting the door was nailed shut. I reached out to the trees all around me, felled and butchered. To the roots creeping beneath the house. With the lightest touch, the door splintered away.

The same splintering pain shot through my bones. But it was lost in the aching chaos.

Stepping out onto the porch, I blocked out the yelling and running footsteps. Wind blew off the sea, carrying its stench with it. I clutched the railing and peered straight down into a transformed ocean. In the dark, the toxic tide shimmered blue, lighting up as the waves crashed against the night beach.

I remembered Aunt saying that the algae glowed in the dark, but I hadn’t imagined it would be so beautiful. The phosphorescent water swirled and spun with turquoise light. As if dancing to the same terrible power that was inside me. I focused on it, trying to find the final clue Rita had left.