22
“I’ll do it,” Emily said afterward. “But only on one condition.”
“What’s that?” Aunt Anastacia raised an eyebrow.
“We’ll have to escape from here—”
Aunt Anastacia began to complain, but Emily overshadowed her voice. “—and we’ll have to get Rina and Joanna back, if they’re still alive.”
“They’re still alive. I can sense their life forces.”
Emily exhaled loudly, her shoulders slumping in relief. She’d been hoping they were still alive, never really knowing if they were. She didn’t bother to ask how Aunt Anastacia could sense something like that; she was just happy to know they were still in the land of the living.
“But I seriously doubt we’re going to defeat the Alfreds here and then defeat their parents at their home and rescue your friends without an Adopted.”
Emily smiled. “I have an idea.”
Aunt Anastacia did a half-roll of her eyes. She leaned back in her chair and relaxed. “Let’s hear it.”
“So far, you’ve been thinking about defeating the Alfreds,” Emily started. “But we don’t need to defeat them. At least not now. Not when they have the upper hand.”
Aunt Anastacia furrowed her brow. She seemed to be catching Emily’s drift. She leaned forward again in renewed interest. “Go on.”
“So I propose we employ tact and deception,” Emily offered, trying to sound official. “We don’t need to defeat them. We only need to escape from them.”
“You mean run?” She said that as if running was an alien concept.
“Yes, precisely that,” Emily said defensively. “There’s nothing dishonorable about running. Especially when we’re still going to meet them for a final showdown.”
Her aunt mulled over the words for a bit.
Emily saw the idea taking hold, so she pressed on. “We just need to get through today. It’s obvious you need more rest to get to your full strength. I need more time to come to terms with the Adoption. Michael needs more time to learn. And we need more hands on deck.
“You said it yourself,” Emily pressed. “It’s about winning. It doesn’t matter how we win. What matters is that we do win.”
Anastacia nodded.
Emily smiled, pleased with herself to have won that little battle.
“I suppose we can sneak out the back.” Aunt Anastacia paused and thought of something. “I could cast a cloaking spell over us. Michael could cast a confundus spell to confuse the Alfreds outside. They’re already tired and weary from the all-nighter they pulled last night, so they won’t be able to see past the confundus spell until we’re safely away from here.”
Emily smiled and nodded. Of course, she had no idea what Aunt Anastacia was talking about, or that she had a means for them to employ deception. She was just glad that Aunt Anastacia had a plan, and it seemed as though it was going to work.
“It’s going to take a lot of skill and delicacy,” Aunt Anastasia said again, her voice carrying more confidence. “It’s going to take a lot of expertise on my part and deception on the rest of yours. Plus a healthy dose of luck, but I think it’s going to work.”
“Great!” Emily clapped her hands together once. “Where are we going to go to? Obviously, some place the Alfreds can’t find us.”
“I know just the place,” Aunt Anastacia said excitedly. “It’s like my secret end-of-days hideout. If we can make it there, we can definitely prepare for an offensive.”
“If we time it right,” Emily added, “we can be in the castle while the Alfred kids are still here trying to bring down the barrier.”
Aunt Anastacia’s smile faltered. “That’s stretching it too far. I don’t think these young roves outside are novices. For them to have brought down my barrier in twelve hours, they’re pretty good.”
“Ah, we’ll figure something out then,” Emily faltered.
“Stay here,” Anastacia instructed. “I’ll go arrange everything. I’ll send Michael to you with instructions for what to do next.”
Emily nodded enthusiastically.
“Our deception starts now,” she added. “You must act normally. They might not have been able to cast a monitoring spell, but they do have eyes, and they see keenly. We can’t give them any notion that we’re up to something.”
“I understand, Aunty.” I brought up the idea! Emily didn’t add.
Her aunt stood up, came over to her, and gave her a warm squeeze of her right shoulder before she went into the library.
Emily didn’t really have anything to do after that. She couldn’t leave the house. So she remained where she was. It wasn’t hard to pretend she wasn’t doing anything because she literally had nothing to do. It’s one of the many reasons she hadn’t come to visit with Aunt Anastacia more often. There was just nothing to do in the house. No TV. No stereo. Nothing. And, of course, because she had thought Aunt Anastacia was weird and living in a delusion of being some priestess with powers. If she had known Aunt Anastacia was honestly a powerful rove, she might have come to her aunt with her problems.
Emily must have spent close to an hour sitting there on the couch and staring into space. She could hear whispering coming from the library, but nothing concrete. She must have dozed off a couple of times on the couch. The next thing she was conscious of after one of her dozing-off sessions was Michael falling splat onto the couch next to her.
Emily flinched out of her sleep, staring at him in surprise. He had a wide grin on his face, and he was looking straight at the wall. She looked around the room—no one else nearby. No sound coming from the rest of the house.
Even the barrage outside had stopped. For a brief moment of panic, Emily thought the Alfreds had
