The Gift

Chapter 24

Whit

What have I done?

I'm sitting on the roof of Garfunkel's bombed-out, dilapidated department store, looking down at the journal in my lap. How could I have ever put such a thing down on paper, much less thought it up in the first place?

This poem I've just written wasn't plagiarized from Lady Myron or anyone else. I have to take full responsibility for these sickening words.

I look off at the horizon, past the outskirts of this burned-out city and the yellowing hills. I see a lazy squadron of bombers passing along, their contrails turning pink in the light of the setting sun. Is it that the world's turned upside down? That everything that was normal yesterday is extinct today? Or is this whole Celia thing just slowly driving me crazy, turning me into some death-obsessed poet?

Just then I hear voices.

I run to the edge of the roof and look down at the bomb-pocked street. A small gang of slacker-looking dudes in black T-shirts and jeans is laughing and walking toward the building's entrance. I have no idea who they are, but at least we know nobody employed by the New Order wears black jeans and Ts. Or has long hair.

Still, I have a bad feeling. Just like the one I'd told Wisty about, before she and the rest left for Stockwood.

I zip down the fire escape to see what's going on with these guys.

Turns out they're a band looking for the Stockwood Festival. Why a bunch of musicians wouldn't know the whereabouts of the biggest concert ever in Freeland seems a little suspicious.

Also suspicious is that they radiate jerkosity. They keep snickering and slapping each other on the back, saying things like "Righteous" and "Big-time," the kinds of expressions used by guidance counselors who are trying a little too hard.

The leader-a guy with too much gel in his hair and this horrible wannabe goatee-looks me up and down. "Are you the man here?" he asks.

"Nobody's really the leader here. And nobody else is here anyway."

"They at the music festival?" he asks.

"I think it's something like that."

"You have directions? Like I said, we're a band. We're called the Nopes. Ever heard of us?"

I resist the obvious response and just shrug my shoulders. "I think it's in a stadium in the next city, down the old interstate-about twenty miles south of here."

"Really? I heard it was north, dude. The other way."

"That's what they told me anyhow," I say. "I honestly don't know. Sorry, guys."

"Well, we'll come back here if you got it wrong," he says with a threat in his voice. "Hey, can you tell me this: will Wisteria Allgood be there? At Stockwood?"

"Wist-a-who?" I say, hoping I don't look panicked. Even though I kind of am.

"Wisteria Allgood, the Youth Resistance leader," he repeats.

"I think I've heard of her," I say. This is getting worse and worse-the "Youth" Resistance is something you just don't hear us referring to ourselves as.

I shiver and look back casually at the visitors. "Hey, guys, it's getting late, and I'm supposed to go meet some friends for a pickup game. Want to come?"

"We're musicians, not jocks," he says, narrowing his eyes at me. "Come on, guys. We better get rolling so we can do some rocking."

And, with that line-a dead giveaway that they aren't "rockers"-they turn and walk away. I watch until they round the corner.

As soon as I'm pretty sure the phonies in black are gone, I take the fire-escape stairs three at a time. Up in my makeshift room, I flip open my journal to take another look at the poem I'd written earlier. And, as if by some otherworldly magic, I see a short message instead.

It packs quite a punch.

GO TO YOUR SISTER. SHE NEEDS YOU. TRUST NO STRANGERS.

It's written in familiar handwriting. Like my father's handwriting.

And then, when I blink, it's gone.

I flip madly through the journal, hoping to find it again to convince myself I hadn't hallucinated, but instead I come across my most recent poem.

Another wave of panic comes over me.

What on earth made me write a six-page poem about the death of my sister?