The Gift

Chapter 11

Whit

"Did you forget about us, Whit? Did you forget about me?" Celia looks sad, making this even more painful for me. "I guess I can't blame you for moving on."

"What are you talking about, Celia? I never forget you. Everybody knows that. I never stop thinking about you, trying to find you. People think I'm crazy!"

"Maybe you haven't totally forgotten me, Whit. But I'm talking about us. The lost, the kidnapped, the murdered. The Half-lights." I shiver at her mention of the sad souls in the Shadowland. "I'm really not… me anymore. I'm part of something… bigger."

"Celia, you'll always be you. The Shadowland can't destroy you. Not for me. Where are you? The real you -?"

"You don't get it, Whit." Celia breaks into my words and smiles wistfully. "I've got to give you credit, baby. You really are the most sensitive football hero who ever walked the face of this world. But you're like a lot of guys in other ways, Whit. You're such a boy. You see and care about and protect only what's right in front of you."

"No." I shake my head in disbelief at her words. "That's not true. You know it isn't."

Why is she trying to hurt me?

"Yes, it is," Celia says, her eyes boring into mine. "Case in point. Where's your sister?"

I whirl around in a three-sixty. Wisty is…

Gone?

"What the…?" I start tearing around the square, looking down alleyways frantically. "Wisty!"

This can't be. Has she been kidnapped?

"You have to start thinking bigger, Whit." It's torture-Celia's voice is coursing through me like a living force, and all I want to do is capture it, surrender to it. But my sister…

"I know you're scared," she goes on, strangely unmoved by Wisty's disappearance. "You just lost someone you cared about, and you don't know how to deal with it. Think about that, Whit. It's the key."

"Wisty!" I scream. The only response is the whisking sound of an empty plastic bag skimming across the town square.

"Whit-up here. Look at me. I'm here to tell you more that you don't want to hear. You and Wisty need to stop running away from the New Order. Stop running from The One."

"Never! I'm going to find Wisty, and we're going back to the Shadowland-to find you. Not an image on a screen!"

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.