The Gift Read Free Page B

sad love poems for
     Celia. But sometimes it fills with magazines, maps, whole works of literature… or, if we’re lucky, spells. I think wizards
     are supposed to be able to control what comes when, but so far it’s basically a crapshoot.
    Wisty takes it out of my pack and helps me flip through the pages for any sort of injury-healing spell, and we finally come
     up with this mouthful:
Voron klaktu scapulati.
    “Sounds like
devilspeak
to me!” Wisty quips, impersonating a crotchety old lady talking about rock music. But the most amazing warmth spreads through
     my shoulder when I say it, and suddenly—just like that—it’s back in its socket. I raise my arm without a twinge of pain.
    “Guess we’ve sold our souls,” I say. “Now let’s figure out where the heck we are and how to get back to Freeland.”
    As we make our way to the rear of the cramped space, we figure out we’re inside a shipping container. I grab a few books for
     the kids back at Resistance headquarters—
The Blueprints of Bruno Genet
and
The Thirst Tournament,
among others.
    “You ready to face what’s out there?” I ask as we reach the door.
    “Or
who’s
out there,” Wisty echoes warily. “Lemme get focused, in case I have to light up or something.”
    On the count of three, we roll up the container door.
    And there, staring right at us, are…
our parents.

Chapter 9

    Whit
    WELL, AT LEAST it’s their
heads
anyway.
    Our parents’ photos are on a twenty-foot billboard, their faces looking lost and lonely in this abandoned rail yard. And below
     their mug shots are words that never cease to chill our bones:
    THREE MILLION B.N. REWARD
    For Information Leading to
    the Apprehension and Arrest of
    BENJAMIN ALLGOOD and ELIZA ALLGOOD
    for Heinous Crimes Against Humanity
    and the New Order
    Text messages to “Informant2020”
    or visit your local N.O. Intelligence Office
    Sure, we
know
our parents are wanted criminals—for the same bogus reasons we are. But having it in black and white for all the world to
     see—and slapping the pathetic price of three million beans on their heads!—is a cruel reminder that this nightmare may never
     come to a happy end.
    Wisty, as usual, reads my mind and throws me a semihopeful bone. “They’re still free,” she points out quietly.
    “At least they
were,
” I say, “whenever this poster was put up.” The paper does look a little weathered—faded, frayed, and even torn at the edges.
     We both fall silent as the powerful smell of aging books’ brittle pages—full of dreams, stories, tragedies, laughter, and
     imagination—seems to swirl out from the open door of the trailer and smother us with the bittersweet memory of home.
    How can you make peace with something when you don’t even know what that “something”
is? We can’t know whether our parents are alive or dead or being interrogated in a New Order prison or… banished to the Shadowland
     like Celia.
Are they suffering? Is there anything we can do about it? Or are we as helpless and useless as I feel right now?
    I punch the billboard so hard my fist goes right through the pressboard backing.
    Then I pull my hand out and try to pretend it didn’t happen. Wisty gives me a concerned look, and I shrug. I’m sure my knuckles
     are bleeding, but I don’t feel a thing.
    I glance at her worried, grief-strained face and quickly look away. I have an urge to hug her, but I need to show her that
     I’m not letting my emotions take over. I swallow agolf ball–size lump in my throat and take Wisty’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
    There are no people on the outskirts of this eerie town. Just broken windows in warehouses. Streets strewn with rubble. The
     only new construction appears to be enormous video billboards and loudspeaker towers.
    As we make our way to the town center, I imagine what it might have once been like here. Quaint. I see a redbrick high school,
     jungle gyms, a park with a gazebo, an overturned tricycle. A pang