Witch and Wizard_ The Fire - James Patterson [33]
When a familiar old ballad blasts through the room, I join in.
“Oh yeah!” I shriek. “Turn it up!” I look around, but I can’t seem to locate where the music is coming from.
Mrs. H. shoots us a shy smile and taps her ears, and the volume increases. “Never forget, lovelies, the music comes from within.”
I shake my head at the old adage, but I have to smile. She’s a fruity old witch, that’s for sure, but she’s right. She’s always been right. Suddenly I’m filled with the same feeling I had just once before, when performing onstage in front of thousands of Resistance supporters at the Stockwood Music Festival, amped by a wall of speakers created with my own magic. I shiver. One day I’ll get back there.
Maybe Mrs. Highsmith and I have more in common than I thought.
My brother takes her hand and whips her around the kitchen like they’re at some kind of ball. After a minute she turns to stir the soup, and Whit grabs my arm, laughing. We spin round and round to the familiar tune, and when we finish in a dip, laughing, Whit’s eyes are shining.
“That was Dad’s favorite song,” he says, breathless.
“Yeah.” I sigh, eyeing one of Mrs. H.’s guitars longingly. “I really wish that he’d lived to see me rock the socks off the New Order.”
“Had lived?” Mrs. Highsmith raises an eyebrow. “Oh, children, you didn’t really believe they were dead, did you?”
Tears well in my eyes instantaneously. The hoods. The crowd. The smoke.
The awful smoke.
“What do you mean?” I demand. “Are you claiming they’re … alive?”
“Well, they’re alive for now,” the old witch says. “Barely alive. Alive, as in struggling to breathe air in and out. As yet unextinguished, if you will.”
“Wisty, don’t believe her,” Whit says, jaw set. “I saw it with my own eyes. I watched them get … executed.”
Mrs. Highsmith laughs her musical laugh, and it looks like Whit might actually strangle her.
“But, darlings,” she says lightly, gesturing toward the shiny surface of the cooking pot, “see for yourselves.”
My brother hangs back, unbelieving, but I’m unable to stop myself from bolting forward. At first I can’t see through the salty tears, but I rub at my eyes, and there, on the lid, are two bent figures with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, standing near water.
Mom and Dad.
Alive!
Chapter 33
Whit
A LITTLE CRY escapes Wisty’s mouth, and I rush forward to join my sister.
My parents seem to be standing near a river, waiting with a lot of other people. They are emaciated and as pale as paper.
“Mom!” I shout. “Dad!” Their faces waver like an image caught in steam.
Wisty looks at me, her eyes pleading. “What are they doing there? Those don’t look like New Order soldiers —”
“Dad, where’s the river? Tell us where you are!” He doesn’t answer, so I turn to Mrs. H. “Is it in the capital? Do you know how to get there?”
“How do we find you?” Wisty asks, her hands gripping the sides of the lid.
Mrs. Highsmith’s kind eyes look at Wisty, then at me. “The river is in the Shadowland, of course,” she says gently. “Where else would it be, lambs? That’s where the river has always been, where people cross over to the other side.”
I grab Wisty’s arm, ignoring Mrs. H.’s ethereal BS for the moment. “We can get there. We just have to find a portal to the Shadowland, and we can bring them back. I don’t care about the risks, I don’t even … Wist?” She isn’t listening to me, and I follow her eyes back to the image of our parents and see why.
Mom’s eyes are looking right into hers, and she’s shaking her head in terror. “Stay away!” her lips mouth at us in her gaunt face. “Promise not to come here!” she wails. “You. Must. Not. Come.”
Dad steps behind her and puts one hand in the air like a stop sign. He looks about a hundred years old, and the gesture seems to zap the last of his energy, but his eyes are fierce as they lock with mine. “I forbid it,” he says, and suddenly I feel tiny, like I’m four years old again and asking to ride our neighbor’s bike. Dad’s eyes blaze inside his gray face, and just when I’m about to cry out