The Gift (6 page)

I leave the phone in my sister’s hands, push through the others, and take off running toward the store’s loading dock. There’s
a portal there, a portal I’ve promised Wisty I’d never take alone.

That’s unfortunate, but I
need
this—I need Celia. I have no free will in this matter.

I charge toward the portal wall at a sprint, figuring if it’s been closed off since I was last here, it will serve me right
to run full-speed into brick and mortar, maybe knock some sense into me.

It gives, but traveling the portal is like swimming through stone. It feels like an impossible task to break through, but
finally I’m soaking in the vaguely familiar, penetrating dark and cold of the Shadowland.

It’s an extraordinarily bizarre place between realities, full of wandering Half-lights—souls of the dead who are stuck here,
who can sometimes find their way through to a world but who can’t stay for long.
Like ghosts slipping in and out of purgatory,
I think to myself.

“Celia!” I yell at the top of my voice. “Celia, it’s me! Whit! I’m right here.”

I want to be everywhere at once, to bridge the vastness and strangeness of this place in an instant. The problem is that keeping
your bearings in the Shadowland is like getting oriented in the middle of an ocean on a bleak and foggy day. Without a GPS.
Or a compass. And maybe with a bucket over your head.

I can’t allow myself to get lost. But I don’t know where to go.
“Ce-li-a!”
I turn and yell in another direction. Wandering away from the portal could be disastrous. I’ve never been here alone before.
I’ve been warned against it.

This time I get a response.

Only it’s not the response I’ve been aching for. It’s a terrible moan that makes my heart feel as if it’s been skewered by
an icicle.

The moan trails off, and then there’s another one, even louder, closer.

Disaster.
I’ve attracted the attention of Lost Ones—less-than-angelic humans who have been in the Shadowland so long that they’ve become
like rotting souls. Like monsters, I suppose.

I turn and feel around for the way out.
Where is the portal?

I can’t find it—there’s just this cold, damp fog everywhere.

They’re getting even closer. I can feel their cold and smell their mustiness.
Think! Think! Think!

I definitely see something moving toward me. A dark shape in the fog—low, limping, searching. I spin a quarter turn to my
left—and there’s another disturbance in the mist… or three… or
six.

This could be the end for sure.

Another quarter turn—the portal’s got to be in front of me, or maybe just a bit to the left —

There—I can feel something, or…

Ooomf.

I’m on the ground. On my back. Without my breath. Then I hear fabric tearing. My shirt?

My eyes are open, but all I can make out are the terrible shapes, figures made of flesh but also smoke. A dozen cold hands
are upon me, restraining me as if I’m on an operating table.

Am I on an operating table? What in God’s name do they want?

What is that snapping sound? That sensation in my
shoulder? I feel as if my flesh is being pulled, pushed,
torn,
even. It doesn’t hurt, though.
Am I too cold? Or in shock?

All I see for certain are wicked, broken, jagged teeth.

I tell myself not to, but I can’t help it: I scream. “Celia!” I wail, realizing this will probably be the last thing I’ll
ever say. “I love you!”

They’ve pinned me down. They’re biting me.
They’re
eating
me, aren’t they?

But then I hear a new noise through the fog.
Can it be?

A
bark!

“Feffer!” I shout. And the biting stops. Or, at least, it pauses. Do the Lost Ones sense the dog? Another piece of fresh meat
for them?

I look at the gaping wraith faces as they cast glowing yellow eyes around for the source of the noise. One of them starts
moaning again. I look into its shadow-planed face and I recognize who it is. I’m in shock.

Am I hallucinating, or is it the traitor of all traitors
—Tall Jonathan?

Jonathan was a Freelander who’d betrayed one of our most important missions. Wisty almost died because of him. For a moment,
it makes me almost happy to see him as a creature of ravenous evil.

“Jonathan?” I say, but then he’s retreated into the mist. There’s a frenzy of furious moaning and snarling to my left. Either
Feffer’s on the attack or the poor dog is making her last stand. The next thing I know, a large brown shape is tugging at
my tattered shirt.

“Feff!” I gasp as Jonathan resurfaces and lunges toward me again, along with a half dozen other horrifying shadow creatures
who seem to be drooling.

I stagger after the fearless dog, and though I’ve never been more glad to be alive, I almost hesitate as Feffer plunges back
through the portal.

Where is Celia?

Whit

IF YOU’VE EVER BEEN AWAKENED by a mysterious crash in the middle of the night, you know the sensation of adrenaline that was pumping through
me the second I became conscious. My body’s horsepower was revving at about four hundred. I’m talking luxury sports car, here.

I’m not sure, but I guess that’s how Janine ended up on the floor next to me, flat on her back.

Apparently, she’d been putting bandages and wraps on my arm, and the sensation of the tight grip freaked me out.
Reaction?
I involuntarily flipped and pinned her to the floor.

Obviously Feffer must have saved me in the Shadowland, but that’s the last thing I remembered. Until right about now.

“Oh God,” I say. “Sorry, Janine. I thought you were a Lost One. That I was still in the Shadowland. Are you okay?”

“What, you think I can’t handle a takedown? I’m fine.” Janine props herself up on her hands. “You, on the other hand, are
not.”

I glance at my arm. “This? It’ll heal.”

“Your arm might, sure. But…” Janine’s brow furrows. “There are other parts of you that are seriously hurt. Damaged, maybe
beyond repair. Your
heart,
Whit.”

Totaled, I think. Decimated, even. I don’t argue with her on that score.

She goes back to her Nurse Janine routine with the wraps. “Everyone knows it’s a suicide mission to go to the Shadowland alone—at
least not without a
lot
of experience or a trick to find your way back. Wisty and I are pretty upset with you. Do you know how much your sister loves
you?”

“I’m fine.” This sounds hollow, even to me.

“Going on a suicide mission is
not
fine. We need you.
I
need you. Does that… mean
anything
to you?”

“It does. I swear it does, Janine. I’m sorry I’ve been so…” The word Celia had used escapes me now.

“Self-absorbed?” Janine finally smiles. “That’s okay. Happens to the best of us, I guess.”

“Celia told me to think about the bigger picture. But sometimes I can’t think of anything else… but her.” I know it’s not
a great idea to say this in front of Janine.

But she doesn’t even flinch. “Tell me about it. About how you’re dealing with it, I mean.” She finishes with the wrap and
levels her eyes at me.

“Well… I don’t really know how to talk about it, where to start. Celia disappeared back in our hometown, and suddenly there
was this gaping hole in my chest. In my life. We did everything together, and then she was gone.”

Janine notices my journal nearby. “Maybe try to write about it, instead of talking.”

“Actually, I do. I’ve got…”
Should I tell her?
“A poem.” I laugh nervously. “It’s nothing. Dumb.”

“A poem?” Janine looks startled. “Can I… hear it?”

“Umm… I don’t think —”

“Please, Whit. It would mean a lot to me.”

“Okay,” I concede. “I guess. But you have to promise you won’t tell
anybody
—especially my sister. This is between us.”

“I swear,” she promises. I trust her more than anybody but Wisty. Janine is actually a very sweet person.

But still, I can’t believe I’m reading this to her.

Methought that joy and health alone could be

Where I was not—and pain and sorrow here.

And is it thus?—it is as I foretold,

And shall be more so; for the mind recoils

Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold.…

We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more.…

As I finish, Janine is gazing thoughtfully. I’m not sure if she likes it or hates it. But then I think I see that her eyes
are damp.

“You okay?” I ask. I reach out and touch her arm. Her skin is soft, warm.

“It’s so… beautiful,” she says, wiping away a tear with her sleeve. “Not dumb at all. Definitely not dumb.”

And the next thing I know, Wisty’s stepping out from behind a clothing rack. “That’s a
Lady Myron
poem,” she says incredulously. “That is, if I’m recalling Ms. Magruder’s eighth-grade English class correctly.”

Wisty

WHIT’S FACE IS so red that I actually feel a little bad about what I just said.

“Umm,” I mumble. “Sorry to interrupt.”

I really should’ve clapped my hands on my ears and walked away when Whit started talking about poetry. But to miss Whitford
P. Allgood’s first poetry reading would be, well, unsisterly.

Janine looks at me as if I’m
her
bratty little sister, not Whit’s. “Were you eavesdropping on us?”

“What’d you expect? I’m a Resistance spy,” I counter, fending off the glares. “And don’t you forget it, kids.” Whit rolls
his eyes. He’s clearly woken up on the wrong side of the bed—or floor, as the case may be. Time to change the subject. “So,
did you hear about the new mission yet, Bro? It’s a toughie.”

“I didn’t want to tell him.” Janine shoots me a look. “He’ll want to go. He’s in no condition —”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Whit interrupts. “You’re not my mother.”

Ouch.
We don’t ever talk about Mom and Dad casually anymore.

Janine looks a little hurt, then shakes it off. She smoothes down her cargo pants as she stands up. “Besides, I’m not sure
it’s one
any
of us should take. The rough intelligence makes it look worse than the mission that got Margo killed.”

My nostrils are flaring. “The mission that got Margo killed is exactly why we need to go there, Janine. We should finish what
she started.”

“Where is it?” asks Whit, struggling to stand up.

“They call it the Acculturation Facility,” Janine explains as she crouches down to help him. “They say it’s a school, not
a prison, but… it’s actually worse. It looks like some kind of labor camp. Nothing but young kids.”

“How many are there?”

“Almost a hundred,” she tells us. “But it’s the brainwashing that goes on there that I’m concerned about. Instead of finding
one hundred captives wanting escape, we’re likely to see them turning against us. In fact, the New Order is programming them
to do just that.”

“We’ve got to go,” I insist.

“Yeah,” Whit agrees. “The One is probably expecting us to be licking our wounds right now, not remotely imagining we’ll do
something bold like this.”

He grabs a fresh sweatshirt off a nearby rack and starts to put it on.

Janine’s losing her patience. She folds her arms across her chest authoritatively. “Whit, this is a really bad idea.”

Her eyes shift to a rack of cycling shorts that suddenly sprouts a head.

Byron!

“I have unfortunate news for all of you,” he says smarmily. “Care to hear it?”

“You weren’t eavesdropping on us, were you?” I say indignantly.

He laughs.
“I’m a Resistance spy, and don’t you forget it,”
he mimics. I roll my eyes.

“Well? We’re waiting for your
unfortunate news,
” I say.

“Just because Margo was…
eliminated,
” Byron emphasizes, “it doesn’t mean that suddenly Janine is leader of the week. Nor you, Wisty, nor Whit. This mission isn’t
your decision.”