Henri watches me closely. He is thinking hard, his brows crinkled.
“Are you sure, John?”
“Yes.”
He leans back in his chair, looks out the window. Bernie Kosar is on the ground, staring up at us both.
“It made it off Lorien,” I say. “I watched it the whole way until it disappeared.”
“That makes no sense,” Henri says. “I don’t see how it could be possible. There was nothing left.”
“There was a second ship.”
We sit through a long silence.
“Henri?”
“Yes?”
“What was on that ship?”
He fixes me with a stare.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I truly don’t know.”
We sit in the living room, a fire in the hearth, Bernie Kosar in my lap. An occasional pop from the logs breaks the silence.
“On!” I say, and snap my fingers. My right hand illuminates, not as brightly as I’ve seen it before, but close. In the short amount of time since Henri started coaching me I’ve learned to control the glow. I can concentrate it, making it wide, like the light in a house, or narrow and focused, like a flashlight. My ability to manipulate it is coming more quickly than I expected. The left hand is still dimmer than the right, but it’s catching up. I snap my fingers and say “on” just to show off, but I don’t need to do either to control the light, or to have it come on. It just happens from within, as effortlessly as twitching a finger or blinking an eye.
“When do you think the other Legacies will develop?” I ask.
Henri looks up from the paper. “Soon,” he says. “The next one should start within the month, whatever it is. You just have to keep a close watch. Not all the powers will be obvious like your hands.”
“How long will it take for them all to come?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes all is complete within two months, sometimes it takes up to a year. It varies from Garde to Garde. But however long it takes, your major Legacy will be the last to develop.”
I close my eyes and lean back against the couch. I think about my major Legacy, the one that will allow me to fight. I’m not sure what I want it to be. Lasers? Mind control? The ability to manipulate the weather as I had seen the man in silver and blue do? Or do I want something darker, more sinister, like the ability to kill without touching?
I run my hand down Bernie Kosar’s back. I look over at Henri. He’s wearing a nightcap and a pair of spectacles on the tip of his nose like a storybook rat.
“Why were we at the airfield that day?” I ask.
“We were there for an air show. After it was over we took a tour of some of the ships.”
“Was that really the only reason?”
He turns back to me and nods. He swallows hard, and it makes me think that he’s keeping something from me.
“Well, how was it decided that we would leave?” I ask. “I mean, surely a plan like that would’ve needed more time than a few minutes’ notice, right?”
“We didn’t take off until three hours after the invasion started. Do you not remember any of it?”
“Very little.”
“We met your grandfather at the statue of Pittacus. He gave you to me and told me to get you to the airfield, that that was our only chance. There was an underground compound beneath the airfield. He said there had always been a contingency plan in case something of the sort occurred, but it was never taken seriously because the threat of an attack seemed ludicrous. Just like it would be here, on Earth. If you were to tell any human now that there is a threat of an attack by aliens, well, they would laugh at you. It was no different on Lorien. I asked him how he knew about the plan and he didn’t answer, just smiled, and said good-bye. It makes sense that no one would really know about the plan, or only a few would.”
I nod. “So just like that, you guys came up with a plan to come to Earth?”
“Of course not. One of the planet’s Elders met us at the airfield. He’s the one who cast the Loric charm that branded your ankles and tied you all together, and gave you each an amulet. He said you were special children, blessed children, by which I assume he meant you were getting a chance to escape. We originally planned to take the ship up and wait out the invasion, wait for our people to fight back and win. But that never happened…,” he says, trailing off. Then he sighs. “We stayed in orbit for a week. That was how long it took for the Mogadorians to strip Lorien of everything. After it became clear that there would be no going back, we set our course for Earth.”
“Why didn’t he cast a charm so that none of us could be killed, regardless of numbers?”
“There’s only so much that can be done, John. What you are talking about is invincibility. It’s not possible.”
I nod. The charm only does so much. If one of the Mogadorians tries killing us out of order, whatever damage it attempts is reversed and done to it instead. If one had tried shooting me in the head the bullet would have gone through its own head. But not anymore. Now if they catch me, I die.
I sit in silence for a moment thinking about it all. The airfield. Lorien’s lone remaining Elder who cast the charm on us, Loridas, now dead. The Elders were the first inhabitants of Lorien, those beings who made it what it was. There were ten of them in the beginning, and they contained all Legacies within them. So old, so long ago that they seem more of a myth than anything based in reality. Aside from Loridas, no one knew what had happened to the rest of them, if they were dead.
I try to remember what it was like orbiting the planet waiting to see if we could go back, but I don’t remember any of it. I can recall bits and pieces of the journey. The interior of the ship we traveled in was round and open aside from the two bathrooms that had doors. There were cots pushed to one side; the other side was devoted to exercise and games to keep us from getting too antsy. I can’t remember what the others look like. I can’t remember the games we played. I remember being bored, an entire year being spent inside an airship with seventeen others. There was a stuffed animal I slept with at night, and though I’m sure the memory is wrong, I seem to recall the animal playing back.
“Henri?”
“Yes?”
“I keep having images of a man in a silver and blue suit. I saw him at our house, and on the battlefield. He could control the weather. And then I saw him dead.”
Henri nods. “Every time you travel back it’ll only be to those scenes holding relevance to you.”
“He was my father, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” he says. “He wasn’t supposed to come around much, but he did anyway. He was around a lot.”
I sigh. My father had fought valiantly, killing the beast and many of the soldiers. But in the end it still wasn’t enough.
“Do we really have a chance to win?”
“What do you mean?”
“We were defeated so easily. What hope is there for a different outcome if we’re found? Even when we have all developed our powers, and when we finally come together and are ready to fight, what hope do we have against things like those?”
“Hope?” he says. “There is always hope, John. New developments have yet to present themselves. Not all the information is in. No. Don’t give up hope just yet. It’s the last thing to go. When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HENRI AND I GO INTO TOWN ON SATURDAY FOR the Halloween parade, almost two weeks after arriving in Paradise. I think the solitude is getting to us both. Not that we aren’t used to solitude. We are. But the solitude in Ohio is different from that of most other places. There is a certain silence to it, a certain loneliness.
It’s a cold day, the sun peeking intermittently through thick white clouds gliding by overhead. The town is bustling. All the kids are in costume. We have bought a leash for Bernie Kosar, who is wearing a Superman cape draped over his back, a large “S” on his chest. He seems unimpressed with it. He’s not the only dog dressed as a superhero.
Henri and I stand on the sidewalk in front of the Hungry Bear, the diner just off the circle in the center of town, to watch the parade. In its front window hangs a clipping of the Gazette article on Mark James. He’s pictured standing on the fifty-yard line of the football field, wearing his letterman jacket, his arms crossed, his right foot resting atop a football, a wry, confident grin on his face. Even I have to admit he looks impressive.
Henri sees me staring at the paper.
“It’s your friend, right?” he asks with a smile. Henri now knows the story, from the near fight to the cow manure to the crush I have on his ex-girlfriend. Since finding out all this information he has only referred to Mark as my “friend.”
“My best friend,” I correct him.
Just then the band starts. It’s at the head of the parade, followed by various Halloween-themed floats, one of which is carrying Mark and a few of the football players. Some I recognize from class, some I don’t. They throw handfuls of candy to the kids. Then Mark catches sight of me and he nudges the guy beside him—Kevin, the kid I kneed in the groin in the cafeteria. Mark points at me and says something. They both laugh.
“That’s him?” Henri asks.
“That’s him.”
“Looks like a dick.”
“I told you.”
Then come the cheerleaders, walking, all in uniform, hair pulled back, smiling and waving to the crowd.
Sarah is walking alongside them, taking pictures. She gets them in action, while they’re jumping, doing their cheers. Despite the fact that she’s wearing jeans and no makeup, she’s far more beautiful than any of them. We’ve been talking more and more at school, and I can’t stop thinking about her. Henri sees me staring at her.
Then he turns back to the parade. “That’s her, huh?”
“That’s her.”
She sees me and waves, then points to the camera, meaning she’d come over but wants to take pictures. I smile and nod.
“Well,” Henri says. “I can certainly see the appeal.”
We watch the parade. The mayor of Paradise passes by, sitting on the back of a red convertible. He throws more candy to the children. There will be a lot of hyper kids today, I think.
I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around.
“Sam Goode. What’s the word?”
He shrugs. “Nothin’. What’s up with you?”
“Watching the parade. This is my dad, Henri.”
They shake hands. Henri says, “John has told me a lot about you.”
“Really?” Sam asks with a crooked grin.
“Really,” Henri responds. Then he pauses a minute and a smile takes shape. “You know, I’ve been reading. Maybe you’ve heard it already, but did you know that aliens are the reason we have thunderstorms? They create them in order to enter our planet unnoticed. The storm creates a diversion, and the lightning you see is really coming from the spaceships entering Earth’s atmosphere.”