I set Sam on Bernie Kosar’s back, but he pushes himself off. “I’m okay. I swear.”
From the other side of the fence, Sam’s mom yells, “Sam!”
“I’ll be back, Mom! I love you!” And then he’s the first to run towards the Mogs. Six and I catch up easily, but she veers right to plunge her sword into an approaching Mog. Four more are thirty yards ahead of her; and with the large pendant bouncing around her neck, she charges, with Bernie Kosar at her heels.
Sam and I enter the muddy field, and two Mogs cut off our path. Over my shoulder I see two more separating and marching in our direction at strategic angles. The others have entered the forest at two different sections, and I can’t see who has the Chest. I pull the dagger out of my back pocket. The handle wraps around my hand.
I run ahead, and the two Mogs in front of me run, too, their swords bouncing and cutting into the empty field behind them. When we’re less than five yards apart I leap with my dagger above my head. As I start to fall, a huge tree zips underneath me, ramming both Mogs and killing them. Six. As I hit the ground again I turn to see her running towards Sam and the two Mogs who circle him.
The one on Sam’s left tackles him around the waist. Six tears the Mog off and throws him far into the field, where he immediately gets back on his feet and charges.
I sneak up behind the other Mog and hammer my dagger into the back of his neck, pulling it out at an angle that slices down through his shoulder blade. He falls to a pile of ash that blows onto my shoes.
Bernie Kosar pounces on the other Mog and quickly he has a tongue coated in thick ash.
“We have to get back to the car and get out of here,” Six says. “There must be more on their way—they were waiting for us.”
“We have to get my Chest first,” I say.
“Then we’re going to have to split up,” Six says. With her soot-covered sword, she points at the two sections of forest the Mogs disappeared into. “Bernie Kosar, you’re with me.” Bernie Kosar shrinks into a hawk, and he and Six head left.
Sam and I enter the forest in the other direction. Soon we hear twigs cracking, and we run in that direction. I speed ahead and hurdle a series of dead trees to see four Mogs trying to escape through a small clearing. In the moonlight, I still can’t see if any of them hold my Chest.
I slide down the hill on my side, crushing saplings, creating a small landslide of loose rock. I hear Sam crashing after me.
They’re halfway through the small clearing. It’s dense, with grass six feet tall, and I run through it at full speed. Sam yells for me to tell him what direction I’m headed in, but instead I keep running and aim my lit palm straight up into the sky as a beacon. “Okay! Got it!” he yells.
Finally, right before the clearing becomes forest again, I can almost reach one. I dive for his legs and slice through the bottom of his muddy khakis and sever his Achilles tendon, causing him to roar onto his back. I climb up his flailing body and stab him in the chest, killing him.
Sam trips over my legs and falls on his face. “You get it?”
“No. Come on!”
Using one hand as a flashlight and the other as a machete, I race through the forest with ease, not caring how close Sam stays behind me. In less than a minute, I see another Mog struggling over a fallen log. From twenty-five yards away, I lift the log high off the ground, tip it, and force the Mog to teeter and fall headfirst. I crash through weeds to find him motionless on his stomach. I can already tell he doesn’t have my Chest. I kill him with two stabs of my dagger.
“John?” Sam yells in the darkness. “Dude?”
I again shine my palm in the air, and I’m scanning the trees when Sam arrives.
“Tell me you got it?”
“Not yet,” I say.
“No Chest,” Sam mutters.
“I just hope Six had better luck.” I reach behind me and pull the white tablet out to show Sam. “But I do have this.”
He grabs it out of my hand. “From the well?”
“That’s not all we found. Wait until I tell you what else—” I suddenly recognize where we are. I stop walking. I even stop breathing.
Sam grabs my shoulder and says, “Whoa, dude. What’s going on? You feeling something? Like maybe somebody just opened your Chest?”
As far as I can tell, my Chest hasn’t been opened. The feeling brewing inside me is something entirely different. “We’re near Sarah’s house.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
AFTER THE DOOR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TOWER creaks open, I hear footsteps. I hear echoed breathing. Whoever it is, it’ll be impossible to hide a drugged Adelina, a cat, and a Chest stuffed with alien weapons and artifacts. I slowly set the branch back into the Chest and close the lid. Legacy creeps to the edge of the belfry floor and then sits and stares down into the darkness. We’re all silent, but then Adelina rolls out a long, droning snore.
The footsteps in the circular stairway speed up. I give Adelina a few shakes to wake her up. She falls onto her side.
What do I do? I mouth to Legacy. The cat jumps on top of the Chest and then jumps back off again only to purr around my feet. It isn’t an answer, but it does give me an idea. I lean down and set Legacy on top of the Chest and then scramble up into one of the two windows where the cool air penetrates my pajamas and instantly causes my teeth to chatter. The footsteps are getting closer.
With my mind, I raise the Chest high in the air, and Legacy’s claws scrape at the lid for a safe footing. I have to duck as I float the Chest up and over me and out the window. Immediately after I set the Chest quietly on the frosty lawn ten stories below, Legacy jumps off and runs into the darkness. I then float Adelina up and over me, her nightgown brushing the top of my head, and carefully I set her down next to the Chest.
The footsteps are loud now. I swing my legs over the edge of the window. Using whatever concentration I can still muster, I am able to levitate myself a few centimeters above the cold stone. I push out into the swirling wind. Before I lower myself away from the tower, I see the mustached Mogadorian from the café round the last turn of the stairway and stomp into the belfry.
My concentration buckles and then snaps into a million little pieces. I go into a wild free-fall until the last moment, when I press my hands in front of my chest and set my mind on floating like a feather. My right knee lands a hair from Adelina’s shivering body.
I panic. I either have to try to get the Chest and Adelina down into the village for hiding—but it is the middle of the night and we are in our nightclothes and I can only see a few lonely windows lit in town—or I have to quickly find a place to hide us within the orphanage. It will take the Mogadorian less time to descend the tower than it did for him to race up it, but he still has a long hallway to travel and another flight of stairs to run down to make it to the first floor. I stick my head through the double doors, and once I see the coast is clear, I drape Adelina over the Chest and float them into the nave. My strength is waning immensely, but I am somehow able to summon just enough power to get the Chest, Adelina and me tucked away up into the farthest recess of the drafty, cold and damp nook where the Chest had originally been hidden.
I am beginning to think I led the Mogadorian right to me by opening the Chest. Perhaps the red pulse of the crystal I dropped is some kind of transmitter. Adelina will know what it is, what to do. To combat the fear that an evil alien race is coming directly for me, to somehow apologize to Adelina for drugging her, and to gather a little warmth, I rest my head on Adelina’s chest and wrap my arms around her waist.
Hours later, I hear Adelina grunt and shuffle her legs underneath mine.
“Adelina?” I whisper. “Are you awake?”
“Who is that? Marina?”
I whisper, “Adelina, you have to be really, really quiet.”
“Why?” she whispers. “And where are we?”
“We’re in the nave where you hid the Chest. But please listen to me. They’re here. The Mogadorians came for me last night after I opened the Chest, and I had to hide us.”
“How did you open up the Chest by yourself? It doesn’t work that way.”
“You told me how to do it. You were sleep-talking,” I lie. I could tell her I drugged her, but I’m not ready for that argument.
Her confusion is evident in her voice. “I don’t remember. . . . I, I remember getting out of bed and then . . . I guess that’s about it. You opened up the Chest? What was inside?”
“A lot of things, Adelina. So much. There are all these stones and all these jewels, and one of them lit up in my hand and started flashing, and I think that’s why the Mogadorian showed up.”
“What Mogadorian? What happened?” Adelina tries to sit up, but I stop her before she hits her head on the low ceiling.
I whisper, “I saw a man in the café a few days ago who had a book about Pittacus, and he kept staring at me. He had this hat on and this big mustache, and I could just tell he was from Mogadore. And then last night after I opened the Chest in the north belfry, he showed up.”
“How did we escape?”
“I used my telekinesis to float us out the window and into the yard, and then I used it to get us up here.”
“We have to get out of here,” she whispers. “We have to leave Santa Teresa immediately.”
My excitement is immediate. I hug her in the dark, and to my surprise she hugs me back. Adelina crawls to the lip of the nook and I follow her with the Chest hovering behind me. When the nave appears empty, Adelina asks me to lower her to the floor. Then I carefully drop the Chest over the lip and set it silently next to Adelina’s bare feet. I’m about to levitate down when Sister Dora appears at the back of the nave and marches towards Adelina.
“Where have you been?” she barks. “You left your post all night. How could you do such a thing? And what is this luggage doing in here?”
“I had to get some fresh air, Sister Dora,” Adelina says softly. “I’m sorry I left my post.”
I can see Sister Dora’s eyes narrow. “With Marina?”
“What?”
“I had four girls wake me up in the middle of the night saying that Marina snuck out last night and that you left with her.”
Adelina starts to speak, but Ella suddenly appears behind Sister Dora and tugs on her dress.
“Sister Dora? I just saw Marina,” she lies.
“Where?”
“In the bedroom, sleeping.”
Sister Dora bends down and snatches Ella by the arm, and the terrified look on Ella’s face causes something to shift inside me. “You’re a little liar! I just came from the sleeping quarters, and no one is in there. You’re making up excuses for her.”
“Sister Dora, that’s enough,” Adelina says.
But Sister Dora begins dragging Ella away so forcefully that her feet hardly touch the ground. “We’re going up to the office, and you’re going to learn that you don’t lie here.”
Tears stream down Ella’s cheeks. From the nook’s opening, I stare at Sister Dora’s hand and pry her fingers away from Ella’s bicep. Sister Dora yells in pain, and then peers down at Ella with surprise and confusion. She grabs Ella again.