The Gift

this.”

It’s been hard enough ducking flying toasters and pots with the floor steady under our feet. But now it gets ten times harder as the ground turns into something like gelatin. It’s a bona fide earthquake, courtesy of The One. The rattling and crashing and tipping furniture ratchets up the decibel level to deafening, earsplitting. My head is pounding.

“And he’s mastered the earth!” Mrs. Highsmith continues, hollering her lesson over the madness. The One seems to oblige by precisely illustrating her next point. “And he’s mastered the water!”

Now it’s raining-inside the apartment. The room is filling with churning water, quickly making its way up to our quivering knees.

“There’s only one thing he needs to completely secure his present and future domination, and to complete himself. His ego is huge. That’s his strength and his weakness. Do you follow… MY DRIFT?”

Then Mrs. Highsmith levitates into the air, presumably to avoid having to swim in her own kitchen, but judging from the look of terror-flecked anger on her face, I realize she’s not doing it under her own control. In a second, she’s pretty much pinned up against the ceiling, her face twisted in profound agony. Then her eyes begin to bulge unnaturally.

She’s being crushed to death, isn’t she?

“Liar!” she screams inexplicably, and suddenly the room goes still. “Show yourself!”

And then, as if an invisible pair of forceps has reached inside the apartment, she’s yanked out of a broken window and into the howling wind outside, screaming, “Show yourself!” the whole way.

Chapter 91

Wisty

WE’RE DEAD QUIET, Whit and I. There is just not much to say after you witness something as strange and horrible as what just happened in Mrs. Highsmith’s apartment.

But then Whit is ever practical. “Let’s get out of here before The One shows himself. Or sends his soldiers.”

Too late. Sort of.

We don’t even have a chance to get to the door before I hear an eerie and familiar song drifting in through the broken window. Notes that have forever burned themselves into my memory.

The Command Pipe. The Command Pipe of Byron Swain, to be exact.

I go to the window, ignoring Whit’s cry of “Wisty! No! Stay away from there!”

Down on the City of Progress’s unblemished sidewalk is a depressingly familiar crowd of feral freaks led by- quelle surprise-Mr. Untrustworthy himself.

But you know what? I also feel a wave of relief-completely out of my control, I might add-that Byron is alive. Go figure.

Whit’s standing behind me protectively, then he leaps to the apartment entry to start barricading the door, just in case this ends in, you know, a little reprise of our last encounter with B. and his toothy, drooling friends.

“So, Wisty, I guess you didn’t figure it all out yet,” Byron says with little emotion. “If you’d done the right thing- if you’d been listening to what we’ve all been telling you-I might be able to help you right now. But you didn’t. So I can’t.”

A note of anger enters his voice, and he glares at Whit, who’s back by my side. “So now I’m afraid I have to do what Celia told me to do.”

“What are you talking about, Swain?” yells Whit. “Don’t you dare talk about Celia.”

“When I chased you into the Shadowland, I met up with your old girlfriend. To be more exact, her people met up with my people.” I remember the moment, and I know Whit does, too. “And I regret to inform you, lover boy, she’s a Lost One now. She and her new friends were about to consume us-and that means she’d eat you, too.”

I don’t even need to look at Whit to feel the energy radiating off his body: he wants to launch himself out the window at Byron. “But that’s impossible!” he screams.

“What’s wrong with you, Byron?” I yell. “You act like you care about me, and then you lie, and threaten, and betray me every time we meet -”

“Lie? Wisty, tell me one good reason why I should lie. Tell me what I have to live for now.”

I have to admit, I can’t answer that one. Never could. Not even when Byron was in preschool with me.

“Prove to me that you spoke to Celia,” Whit presses. “Prove it!”

“Okay, Whitford. I can do that. Tell me, does this line sound familiar? ‘We only have a short time together. Let’s not waste it.’”

Judging from the shade of gray my brother turns, he has heard those particular words before.

“Had a dream the other day, didn’t you? And Celia wore a lot of perfume, right?”

I’ve seen fireplace ashes with more flesh color than Whit has right now.

“And you know why she was wearing so much perfume? It’s because even in a dream, she stinks like a rotting zombie-the way all Lost Ones stink.”

Whit is shaking his head in denial, or disgust, or horror. Or all of the above.

“But you know the irony here? She’s not haunting you because she loves you. Or because she wants you back. No, she’s after somebody else.”

“What do you mean?” Whit asks.

“In fact, the deal she struck with me-the reason I was allowed to live and return here-was that she made me promise to bring her your sister. That’s what this is all about, jockstrap.”

Chapter 92

Whit

I CAN’T EVEN BEGIN to understand what Byron Swain just told me. It has to be lies.

I have a plan forming, but in the meantime, I pick up every object within grabbing range and start hurling it out the window at him and his beasts. Books, candlesticks, cook’s tools, framed pictures. You name it, I toss it outside.

I have a good throwing arm, but unfortunately the little creep is obviously experienced at dodging projectiles.

“Wisty!” he shouts in between ducks. “Please come with me! This is your last chance to accept my offer. Do what your parents have been preparing you for your whole life!”

At that, I hurl a standing lamp at him like a spear. It hits Byron in the side and spins him around, but he doesn’t go down.

Then Wisty stuns me. In the quietest voice, she whispers, “Mom and Dad did say… that sometimes we needed to do things that won’t feel natural.”

“They said ‘outside of your comfort zone,’ not stupid!” I yell at Wisty. Immediately I regret it. But it’s too late. Even Byron rises out of his defensive crouch and glares at me.