Celia's thick, wavy black hair starts streaming out, tickling her lips. Almost as if it's responding to the wind in the plaza. The plastic bag blows into my face. I tear it away in frustration.
"Whit, are you listening to me? Do I need to get any louder?"
My head will explode if she does. "I can hear you, trust me. You're just not making sense at the moment."
"You and Wisty need to turn yourselves in, to save your parents-and the rest of us. It's the only way. I think Wisty understands that… right, Wisty?"
Celia turns her head, and there-behind her, up on the screen-is my sister. How can that be?
"Wisty!" I yell. "How -?"
"It's okay, Whit," Wisty says. "Everything is okay now. I understand our role."
Celia looks back at me, and her long hair starts reaching out of the screen, flowing toward me. I feel pulled in by it. I have no resistance to her. I feel as if I'm airborne, flying toward the screen to be swallowed by her eyes, her lips, her soft, soothing voice.
"I have to go now, Whit. Turn yourselves in. Save us. You can do this, Whit."
Then the screen fuzzes out, and I'm falling into blackness that seems to have no end.
Chapter 12
Wisty
Now that was maybe the strangest thing that has happened to us so far. Another mystery inside a mystery inside a mystery.
I remember almost nothing. At least, nothing after I told Whit to look up at the screen-and Celia. Now I'm flat on my face in the middle of the town plaza, and my head is pounding.
I turn to find Whit in a similar state, only he's holding his head with both hands and sobbing. There's not much that's worse than seeing your older brother cry. Except maybe seeing your parents that way.
I scramble over to him and hold him as he tells me what happened. It's a pretty incoherent jumble, but one thing is clear: Celia said we had to turn ourselves in. Nice one, Celes. I'll chew on that. First let's go over your connection to the New Order one more time. How did you get up on the propaganda board?
"We're not turning ourselves in," I tell him dismissively. "It's a video trick. The N.O. is getting desperate."
"It's BS!" he says indignantly, suddenly straightening. "I know it now. That wasn't Celia talking. It couldn't have been. We're going to destroy this regime, and we can't do it if we're prisoners. Or dead."
I pull myself up. "Wow," I say, brushing the dust off. "Got knocked back by charging testosterone, there."
Whit manages to laugh at my lame joke, then surprises me with a fake bull charge, shoulder to gut.
"Yeah! We're gonna take 'em down!" he yells.
"Yee-ha!" a bunch of little voices shout. What now?
We turn and see the most ragamuffiny band of ragamuffins poking their heads out of the doorway of a boarded-up video-game store.
"Who are you?" I ask, wide-eyed. They're clearly not so nervous that they don't want to be seen, but not so trusting that they want to be in arm's reach.
One little boy with an incredible burr-tangled mane of brown-blond hair steps forward.
"Are you guys regular people?" he asks. He can't be much past the third grade.
"If you mean we're not brainwashed by the New Order, yeah," I say. "We're not. Where are your parents?"
"They're gone. We don't know where. Taken."
"Taken?"
"The soldiers put them in trucks and stole 'em away," he says. Some of the smaller boys and girls start to rub tears from their eyes.
A flash of emotion crosses Whit's face. Sympathy, empathy-call it what you will. My brother's not exactly a softy, except when he ought to be. He takes off his knapsack and puts it on the ground in front of him, then rests his hands on it for a moment with his eyes closed.
And then-it's the most surreal thing-a puppy and two kittens poke their heads out of the bag.
The children's sorrow turns to wonder and laughter as the puppy and kittens scamper out of the bag. The kids who can't get in to pet the animals are looking back at Whit with awe. Frankly, so am I. "Whoa!" I say.
Now he's pulling back on his collar, and white doves are fluttering out of his shirt and up into the sky. And now-gross!-he sneezes and a cloud of yellow bees comes out of his nose and zooms up after the doves. The kids are laughing hysterically.
"Where'd you learn the parlor tricks?" I ask Whit. "Sweet. You're becoming a rather charming wizard."
He shrugs. "I thought I should do something nice for someone else for a change, instead of just worrying about us all of the time," he says, and turns back to the merrymaking kids. "You guys want to come with us?" he offers.
Wow. The things that can happen when you black out for a few minutes. Suddenly my brother's become Mr. Whitford Fountain-of-Charity Allgood, Esq.
"You gonna open a soup kitchen next?" I say with a big smile.
"Maybe," he says. "Why not?" And then my brother conjures up a big pot of hot tomato soup, with bowls and spoons, and just the right amount for everybody.
Chapter 13
Wisty
With the help of some spells that appear in Whit's journal, we're able to find our way back to Garfunkel's department store, which thankfully is only several miles away. But trying to dodge New Order surveillance with a stream of dirty, chattering kids in tow is no picnic, let me tell you. I'm never becoming a camp counselor.
As we stride in, the first thing I notice from the back of the crowd-where I'm rounding up stray kids like a kindergarten teacher's aide-is Janine. She's our most reliable Freeland icon after Margo. Her eyes light up brightly as she runs past the empty cosmetics counters to welcome her hero.
My brother, Whit, that is. In case I haven't mentioned this enough, a lot of girls adore Whit. Which, I guess, makes his faithfulness to Celia kind of extra impressive.
"You did it!" Janine clutches him before he has a chance to explain that these kids aren't the ones we were supposed to rescue. "This is way beyond our expectations! We didn't think -"
Whit gently pushes her away, pain in his eyes. "It's not that simple, Janine." Next, Feffer, our rescued hound, comes prancing up, barking with excitement.
"Where's Margo?" Sasha, our resident zealot, asks with confusion all over his face.
Oh God. They think we succeeded on our original mission. They don't know…
And so, for the next fifteen minutes, utter devastation drowns the group as we explain the sordid outcome of the mission that failed.
Margo was one of the original and most beloved Freeland leaders, one of the real rocks in our ever-changing existence. As it turns out, those on the mission who had escaped got back to Freeland without witnessing her execution. And Garfunkel's-whose power mostly comes from an ingenious method of siphoning energy from perfume bottles-doesn't have regular access to New Order broadcasts. Actually, that's probably a blessing.
"We were all just keeping vigil for your return," Sasha says. "For all of you."
Having to tell the story just tears me up all over again. And looking around at everyone makes it worse. The ragamuffin crew's light of hope seems extinguished. I'm even sorry for Sasha, whom I don't particularly trust because he lied through his teeth to us once. But he and Margo had the same fire of resistance in their blood. They would do anything for the cause.
And Janine-well, she and Margo were like sisters. Her green eyes, which had shone so brightly for Whit, were glazed over with shock and grief. Whit was stroking her hair comfortingly. Finally, she buried her head in the crook of his neck. "We grew up together," she moaned. "Best friends since preschool, you believe that?"
"Sure I do," whispers Whit. "Everybody loved Margo."
Emmet, my best bud here, comes over to me and puts his arm around me. Normally it would make me beyond happy-because, let's face it, Emmet is extremely wicked cute-but right now, strangely, it almost annoys me.
I've had it with falling apart. If Margo walked in here right now, she would probably revolt against all this pitiful weeping and feeling sorry for her.