The Gift

Chapter 100

Wisty

Whit and I stare in paralyzed horror as a wisp of black ash lifts in the breeze and moves out across the sea of onlookers. They're stomping, fist-pumping, and roaring their approval of the disgraceful murders that just took place.

I'm too decimated by the grief and shock of it to take any joy in the fact that we are-inexplicably-still alive. The One didn't kill us. He didn't kill us. It makes no sense.

And then it gets even stranger, even more surreal. Like a dream.

The scene is suddenly awash with painfully blinding light. But it's a chilling light, if there is such a thing, like a powerful tsunami of sun blasting over a landscape of ice.

Maybe I'm dead after all? Maybe this is that celebrated light at the end of the tunnel?

Or… is it the End of Days?

When the light ebbs, I see that The One Who Is The One is on his knees. Screaming. Only for some reason I can't hear him. In fact, I can't hear anything.

Was there an explosion? I don't know, but suddenly there are hands all over me, cold hands. They're loosening my ropes. A small army of hooded figures has banded around me and Whit. The New Order guards lining the stage have been toppled by the rush of flooding light and energy.

No sooner have the hooded figures pulled the nooses up over our heads than the hangman's trapdoors on which we've been standing click open. And I'm falling into darkness.

It's as if I've been hanged, but I haven't been, have I? I've just fallen onto my back.

I'm sprawled on the ground with all the spirit and decorum of a discarded rag doll. I don't care to move. I don't even care to breathe. I just want this all to end. I want to close my eyes and stop being. I pray for it to happen.

There's another cold hand on my arm, helping me to my feet. And now my ears are starting to ring, and I hear something else, too-a voice. A familiar voice.

"Run," the voice says as a door opens and daylight streams in. "Run, Wisteria. Run like there's no tomorrow… because if you don't, maybe there won't be."

My hearing returns as the sound of massive panic sweeping through the stands hits me. The shrieks and wails seem to have enough power to bring down the entire stadium.

What have they seen? What has happened to their fearless leader?

I stagger outside and join the frantic crowd on the stadium field streaming toward one of the four tunnel exits. I have done this before: escape the scene of my own execution. It seems impossible, but I know I can do this. I know how to keep my head down. I know how to duck and weave. I know how to stay focused in a sea of blind panic.

But I haven't gone fifty yards when I stop dead, as if my heart has fallen from my chest. Whit! Where is Whit?

I turn and manage to glimpse the plywood hangman's scaffold. Four empty nooses dangle limply in the breeze. The One is nowhere to be seen.

Neither is Whit.

I haven't even cried for my parents yet, but now I fall to my knees and start to bawl like a baby. In an ocean of thousands, I'm alone.

But not completely. Again there's a hand on my arm and a voice in my ear. "Run, Wisteria," it says. "Hurry. You have to leave this cursed place."

But this time I resist. I get to my feet, but I'm pushing back toward the scaffold, toward the last place I saw my brother.

I make it only a few steps when somebody-or something-knocks me to the ground.

"Whitford's fine," it says, pulling me back to my feet and turning me around. "Think about it. You can't be together now. It would make it easier on them if you were together. We can't risk it."

The voice has been rational, if insistent. But now it sounds truly urgent. "There's no time, Wisty. For Whit's sake, run! Run. You have The Gift. Only you have it. Without you, hope will die."

And I have to run, don't I? I have to try to escape. My life matters. My Gift matters. So I run. I run as if my brother's life depends on it.

As I look back, I finally see the face of the one who rescued me-it's Celia. Celia!

There she is-that one bright spot in the bitterly dark landscape. I told you I would find it. I told you I would cling to that light for dear life. And I am.

I'll use it to find Whit. To find my friends. And to make my way to the Shadowland to find my parents.

Because…

Of bad, scary witches who are given Great Gifts, Much Is Expected.