The Gift

that thousands-of people in terrible danger of being drowned.

Even though I figure that many of them are New Order automatons, I keep telling myself they’re living, breathing human beings. And we can’t let this giant wave-or The One-crush them. I think I know what I have to do, and there’s no time to consult with Whit.

It’s what my parents were saying: sometimes for the good of the many, you have to do something way outside your comfort zone. And this, dear reader, is way outside what I would consider even borderline sanity.

Over the roar of the massive wave, I yell so loudly I think the force of the words is going to tear my throat open. “I’ll give you what you want! I’ll give you my Gift! Just stop this insanity before the wave hits shore!”

Like magic-or maybe I should say it was magic-the wave starts to lower and then we’re gently coasting toward a narrow shoreline of packed sand.

Standing there is none other than The One. He’s smiling like a proud dad welcoming his kids home from a long trip.

“What an amazing ride! Ah, to be young… I envy you!” he says as the wave calmly spreads itself across the shore and we drift to a stop.

“I’m so pleased you’ve come to your senses, Wisty,” says The One. Unfortunately, I have rather sad news. You fail-both of you. All of the Allgoods fail. It’s obvious that I can’t work with you, so I suppose… I have to work without you.”

He turns so his back is facing us and raises his hands to the heavens.

“Take them away!” he bellows. “I have no further use for this witch and wizard.”

But there’s no one there. He’s talking to no one.

And then, in a heartbeat, like a plague of locusts overtaking the land, thousands of New Order soldiers and police swarm over the crest of the hill and descend upon us.

We swirl around, only to be confronted by even more hordes of soldiers standing in the water.

This wall of evil is impenetrable.

Finally The One looks back at us. “There is a moral to this story,” he says. “Of those who receive Gifts, much is expected. Take that one to the Shadowland with you, witch and wizard.”

EPILOGUE. AS PROMISED, A SPECTACLE Chapter 99

Wisty

I KNOW THERE’S NOT many pages left in this book, so at this point you’re wondering where the happy ending is.

I may be pretty young, but I’ve figured out that life doesn’t get wrapped up into neat little endings with perfect little bows. I can promise you one thing, though: there’s hope, okay? Don’t ever call me, Wisteria Rose Allgood, a downer. No matter what crap The One shovels upon us, I swear I’ll find that single bright spot in the bitterly dark landscape and cling to it for dear life.

And right now I’m clinging to the sight of the very people who gave me dear life.

My mother and father!

Not ghosts, not hallucinations, but live and in the flesh. But in ropes. Just like me. At least Whit and I can see them and tell them how much we love them-one last time before we die.

But what a family reunion it’s turning out to be! Look at us here-the jeering crowd around us, the jackbooted New Order lackeys shoving us forward onto the stadium stage, the ropes around our necks, the TV cameras in our faces… and, in the tower, right in front of us, Him. The One Who Is The One. He’s in his glory, triumphant-he’s won!

Using the old hangman’s platform as his stage just digs the knife in. Vaporization is The One’s preferred method of execution-it’s highly efficient-but the nooses are a bonus in our extra-cruel humiliation, the morbid theater of it all.

I so want to burn up with hatred for this monster who has destroyed our life and is about to kill my entire family. I want to use my anger to find my strength, to find my magic, to burn this horrible scene to ashes, to cauterize this place right off the face of this so-called world.

But honestly I’m too terrified to be angry. My courage is crumbling; my light is fading.

Oh God, I don’t want to die right now. I don’t want my family to die. I don’t want to watch them die.

Dad’s still wearing his game face, trying to give me and Whit courage. Mom’s given up attempting to hide her emotions and is quietly crying in grief and fear.

Whit, on the other hand, looks wildly angry, at least when he’s not recovering from repeated blows to the back of his head. Half a dozen times now he’s surged against his bonds, and half a dozen times his hooded handlers have struck him with a billy club, sending him limply to his knees until they haul him back up and he tries to find the focus and strength to surge again.

The ghoulish crowd is loving every dramatic bit of this. The heartbroken mother, the stoic father, the defiant son, the quaking chicken-liver daughter who they have somehow come to believe is a powerful witch.

But now The One Who Is The One raises his long-fingered hands in the air and waves for them to be quiet.

And now he’s doing something else with his hands, a motion I know only too well. Oh God, please don’t let him -

A black rift opens in front of him and rips its way toward us. Or, at least, toward two of us.

And, just like that, Mom and Dad have been vaporized. There’s nothing left but smoke. My mother. My father. Gone.

Chapter 100

Wisty

WHIT AND I STARE in paralyzed horror as a wisp of black ash lifts in the breeze and moves out across the sea of onlookers. They’re stomping, fist-pumping, and roaring their approval of the disgraceful murders that just took place.

I’m too decimated by the grief and shock of it to take any joy in the fact that we are-inexplicably-still alive. The One didn’t kill us. He didn’t kill us. It makes no sense.

And then it gets even stranger, even more surreal. Like a dream.

The scene is suddenly awash with painfully blinding light. But it’s a chilling light, if there is such a thing, like a powerful tsunami of sun blasting over a landscape of ice.

Maybe I’m dead after all? Maybe this is that celebrated light at the end of the tunnel?

Or… is it the End of Days?