“And you didn’t say anything?” Sofia shouted. The echo of her voice seemed to hang in the tops of the trees for a full five seconds.
“Calm yourself, goodness gracious me,” Master George snapped back, Sofia’s outburst having brought back some dignity to his face. “We need to go there no matter what I know, and I was merely waiting for the right time to speak on it. But, if you must hear it now, what I have to say will only make our reasons for going forward even stronger.”
“What?” Tick asked, not bothering to hide the impatience that came out in his voice.
Master George kicked a bush near his feet. “Oh, how it angers me. This, more than anything she’s ever done. Jane is stealing children from towns and cities across the Thirteenth Reality and keeping them in the Factory. We suspect she is planning to use them somehow to create her abominations at the Factory. She’s currently using her powers of Chi’karda to deconstruct various animals on a quantum level and put them back together again to serve whatever purposes she’s dreamed up with her evil mind. Horror is the only word I can think of to describe such a thing.”
The Haunce had told Tick about this when discussing the overall plan, but the reality of it hadn’t hit until he heard his boss explain it in such stark terms. An emptiness expanded inside Tick, a void that should’ve been filled with a long list of terrible emotions but instead felt numb.
“She can’t be that sick,” Paul said. “She can’t be.”
“I’m afraid our sources are very reliable,” Master George said. “I believe what happened to Jane in the Fourth Reality”—he shot a nervous and quick glance at Tick—“has driven her past a point from which I can’t imagine anyone could ever return. Her life has been consumed by hatred and evil, encompassed by a delusion that she can still find her utopian reality and bring an endless peace to the universe. Bah! She’ll have every last one of us dead. The woman’s insane, I tell you. Insane!”
Tick had a disturbing thought pop into his head. “Well, I guess if we can’t stop the Realities from going kaboom, at least Jane won’t be able to steal any more kids.”
“Don’t let your mind wander down that path,” Master George said, stepping closer to Tick. He put a hand on his shoulder. “Instead, let’s focus on accomplishing what the Haunce has sent you to do. Once done, we’ll stop Jane’s madness and free the children.”
Tick looked at Sofia, then Paul. Both of them had stern faces, made all the harsher by the sharp shadows from the flashlight. “What do you guys think?”
“What do you mean?” Sofia asked, an edge to her voice. “What do you think we think?”
“No,” Tick said. “I just . . . does this change anything? We knew we had to get in there and convince Jane to help us. After we do what the Haunce wants . . .” He didn’t know how to finish. Despite what George had said, every potential pathway that flickered inside Tick’s mind seemed to head for disaster.
“Dude,” Paul said in his gimme-a-break tone. “This only makes it clearer. Crazy Jane can do all the hokey-pokey stuff she wants, but if she’s messing with little kids now . . . we gotta get in there and stop it. Simple as that.”
Sofia was breathing as if this latest news had pumped up her adrenaline. “And Sato will come—just like you asked him to in your note. We can do it, Tick. You’ll save the universe with your fancy powers, then we’ll get the kids out, then we’ll burn the whole place to the ground. Let’s go!”
She didn’t wait for a response but marched off into the dark woods, toward the east. Paul stepped in line right behind her.
Tick looked at Master George. “Guess I’m not in the lead anymore.”
“Well, I think they could use your flashlight. Let’s go, Atticus. Lots to do.”
Tick nodded and started walking, shining his light up ahead so his friends could see. As they made their way forward for the next few minutes, the shadows leaping with every movement and the eerie sounds of the forest haunting the cool air, Tick realized his earlier choking fear had disappeared. It had transformed into impatience, an eagerness, even.
Sofia stopped, holding her hand up to signal them to do the same. Paul almost bumped into her, letting a branch loose as he caught his balance. It hit Tick square in the nose, but Sofia cut off his cry of complaint before it got started.
“Quiet!” she snapped in a harsh whisper, finally lowering her hand as she looked back at them. “Something just . . . whisked across our path. Up ahead.”
Ice began to fill Tick’s chest again. He stepped to the side so he could shine the light forward without his friends being in the way. He saw gloomy, towering trees and thick bushes and ivy, all the greenness muted and pale. The shadows stretched and retracted as he swept the area, but nothing out of the ordinary came into view.
“Hear the silence?” Master George whispered from behind Tick, startling him. His voice seemed louder than it should have, and Tick realized why. All those creepy sounds they’d been hearing earlier had cut off. Completely. The sudden quiet reminded Tick of being outside after a heavy snowstorm back home—all sound sucked in by the cold, white stuff.
Tick caught a glimpse of something flashing toward him from the right—a wispy trail of fog that he barely saw. He imagined he could see the faint image of a head and a long body, an outreaching hand, when sharp tingles pricked the skin along his forearm, making him suck in a breath.
There was a popping sound, and then the flashlight went out.
Chapter 38
Smoky Embrace
The needle pricks vanished. Tick instinctively held up the flashlight to take a look, but the darkness was too complete; black engulfed everything. He flicked the switch back and forth. Nothing. Then he shook it.
Shards of loose glass tinkled together and fell to the ground. The light bulb hadn’t burned out; something had smashed it, making it useless.
“Tick, dude, what happened?” Paul whispered, though it sounded like anyone within a hundred miles could’ve heard him.
“I don’t know.” Tick looked around but couldn’t see a thing. He remembered the ghostly image of what he’d seen from of the corner of his eye. Those long, smoky fingers of fog reaching out . . .
Leaves crunched a couple of times where Sofia had been standing.