“How long did you say you’ve been awake?” a dark-skinned woman on his left asks in a sharp tone. Her black hair is cut short; her hairdresser couldn’t have spent more than sixty seconds on the task. Her eyebrows are thick, dark, fearsome. She appears to be Middle Eastern, and it doesn’t take me long to place her accent. She’s from Israel.
Marc is unmoved by her nasty tone. “You already asked that question, babe.”
“Answer it again for our new arrivals,” she orders.
“Not very long,” he says.
The woman stands and puts her hands on her hips. There’s something commanding about her presence, but she’s one shrill chick. She doesn’t much care for Marc’s laid-back attitude.
“Who are you people?” she demands of the rest of us. “What are your names? Where are you from? Why are you here?”
“I’m Brad Pitt and I’m researching a new film I’m shooting,” Marc says cheerfully. “It’s called Six Suckers in a Box.” He pauses. “Any other stupid questions?”
The woman moves, freeing up her hands, standing over him. “You don’t want to take that tone with me, mister,” she warns.
“You don’t like Brad Pitt?” he asks innocently.
Leaning over, she places a long finger near his right eye, like she might poke it out if provoked. “Answer my questions,” she whispers.
“Sit back down and I’ll think about it,” Marc says.
The woman is clearly volatile; I fear she might hurt Marc. I feel I must intervene, and speak quickly. “Hey, I’ll answer your questions as best I can. If you’ll calm down and listen.”
The woman throws me a nasty look. “Don’t interfere.”
I harden my tone. “Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell any of us what to do. This isn’t an interrogation. I’ve offered to tell you what I know. Now sit down and behave like a human being.”
“I know it must upset you that she didn’t say please, but I’d do what she says,” Marc adds.
The woman draws back and eyes me warily. “Go on,” she orders.
“Sit,” I insist.
The woman looks to the other three: a nerdy guy with sun-bleached blond hair and thick glasses; a tall black male who might have been plucked from an African jungle; and a short Asian girl with a scar on her left cheek. If the Israeli woman’s searching for support, she’s wasting her time. None of the others is impressed with her strident behavior. She sits back down and stares at me.
“Speak,” she says.
“My name’s Jessica Ralle, although most people call me Jessie. I’m eighteen years old and live in Los Angeles. I just graduated high school and plan to go to college at UCLA starting in September.” I pause. “Who are you guys?”
“My name’s Chad Barker and I’m a physics student at MIT—” the nerdy guy with the glasses begins.
“Wait!” the woman interrupts. “You didn’t tell us how you came to be here, Jessica Ralle.”
I shrug. “Probably because I have no idea. Now let Chad finish introducing himself, all right?”
The woman glares but I ignore her and turn back to Chad. “Are you one of those super-smart guys who’s going to make the rest of us feel like idiots?” I ask.
Chad blushes. “Well, I’m only eighteen but I just finished my undergraduate degree and I’m about to start a special PhD program in string theory. I call it special because I’m allowed to skip getting a master’s degree.”
I give him an encouraging smile. I can tell he’s afraid—almost as afraid as the Israeli woman. That is one tough cookie who can’t stand not to be in control.
I speak to Chad. “I was right, you’re a natural genius. I assume you live in Cambridge, Massachusetts?”
“Most of the year, but I’m originally from Sarasota, Florida. I’m spending the summer there. In fact, I was sleeping in late at my parents’ house when I . . . well, I sort of ended up here.”
“The last thing I remember is sleeping in my bed,” I say. “But I was out cold, or dreaming. I don’t know what time it was.” I turn to the Asian girl. “What’s your name?”
She hesitates. “Chong, Li. Li Chong.”
“Where you from, Li?” I ask.
“Seoul.”
“What were you doing before you woke up here?” Chad asks.
Li shakes her head. “Typing on a computer at work. I was there late—it must have been about nine o’clock. Then I saw this bright light and . . . I don’t know what happened next.”
“I saw a bright light too,” Chad says quickly.
“So did I,” I say. “Anyone else?” Marc and the black guy nod. The Israeli woman hesitates before doing likewise. I add, “Good. We’re making progress. We have a pattern.”
“We have shit,” the Israeli woman snaps. “How do I know you’re not all lying?”
“Jesus Christ,” Marc mutters, rolling his eyes.
The woman jumps up again and points at Marc. “This guy was awake before any of us. When I opened my eyes, I saw him crawling around, checking each of us out. I closed my eyes and pretended I was still asleep. He searched the whole place.”
“I would have done the same,” I say.
“Me too,” Chad adds.
The woman gets angry. “Don’t just take his side because he’s handsome. Why was he awake before the rest of us?”
“Someone had to wake up first,” Chad says. “And for the record, I don’t think he’s that handsome.”
The woman boils. “He refuses to tell us what he was doing! He won’t even tell us his goddamn name!”
“What’s your name?” I ask.
Marc chuckles; he’s clearly enjoying the show. He speaks to the angry woman. “If you’d asked me politely, like Jessie here, I would have told you how I like my coffee in the morning and what my favorite sexual position is. But you had to start off acting like a bitch. Or are you acting? Whatever your name is . . .”
The woman sucks in a breath. It’s possible she’s having second thoughts, I’m not sure. She searches our faces and scowls, clearly feeling cornered. She blurts out her next remark.
“My name is Shira Attali. I was born in Tel Aviv, nineteen years ago. I’m currently stationed along the West Bank. If you have a clue where that is.”
“I’ve heard of the place,” Marc says. “Isn’t it a landlocked territory located east, north, and south of Israel—right next to the Jordan River and the Dead Sea?”
Shira nods, continuing to stand. “That’s where I’m from. And that’s where I was standing guard when I saw a bright light and woke up here.”
“What time of day was it?” Chad asks.
“Four in the afternoon.”
“So you’re in the army?” I ask Shira.
“Yes,” she says.
“A pity you left your rifle behind,” Marc says.
“Why do you say that?” Shira asks, and for once there’s a modicum of respect in her voice.
Marc shrugs. “The six of us just got kidnapped. People who kidnap other people are usually bad people. A rifle would come in handy, if you ask me.” He adds, “By the way, my name’s Marc Simona and I’m from LA, like Jessie here. I was asleep in my bed when I saw a bright light and got snatched and woke up here. That’s my whole story.”
“What do you do for a living?” I ask, knowing, of course, that he’s lying.
“I’m a valet at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.”
I catch his eye. “You must make pretty good tips. Especially on red-carpet nights.”
He takes my observation in stride. “It’s a living.”
Chad breaks in. “You say you got snatched. Did you feel as if someone grabbed you? Physically grabbed you?”
Marc hesitates. “Yes.”
“Can you guess what time it was?” Chad asks.
“Near dawn.”
“You could tell even though you were asleep?” I ask. In my dreams he knew it was dawn because he was wide awake and the sun had just come up.
“I woke up just as it happened,” Marc says. “It was like some kind of huge hand grabbed me from behind. That’s all I know.”
“Grabbed you from behind in bed?” I persist.
“I just told you, that’s all I know.”
The black guy finally speaks. “My name is Ora Keiru. I’m from Sudan. I was milking a goat when I was taken here. I saw the light you all speak of.”
There’s a dignity in the way he talks, and he’s certainly a sight for hungry female eyes. Six and a half feet tall, powerfully built—his long legs look as if they were designed for chasing down wild animals.
“What time of day was it?” Chad asks. To me it’s obvious he’s trying to establish a pattern to when we were abducted, and I think I see it. Yet I say nothing about the timing. I’m curious about Chad and want to see where he goes with his questions. I started out by joking about his high IQ but now I’m beginning to see he’s probably smarter than any of us.
“Late afternoon, close to the evening,” Ora replies.
“How old are you?” I ask.
Ora hesitates. “I’m not sure. My parents died when I was young and I’ve never celebrated a birthday. I live far from the city with two sisters. My country is poor but the land is beautiful and so are the people. I would not trade my home for any other place.”
“What are your sisters’ names?” I ask.
“Klastu and Ariena.”
I can’t help but notice the affection in his voice; it makes me smile. “I’ll bet they’re baby sisters,” I say.
“Neither is a child anymore, but I am the eldest.”
“Great,” Marc says, and claps his hands. “Finally, we’re all introduced and feeling better about each other. Now let’s figure out how the hell we got here.” He pauses. “Any ideas? Anyone want to speculate? How about you, Chad? It sounds like you’re the brain here.”
Chad smiles shyly. “I wouldn’t go that far. But you’re right, we need to figure out why we’re here and where here is. I suggest we start with what we do know.” He stops and looks around at our metal cell. “We’re in a large vehicle of some kind and it appears to be moving. The question is—are we on the ground or in the air?”
“If we were on a railroad track, we’d hear constant repetitive noises and feel slight bumps from the track,” Marc says.
“The fast trains in Japan are supposed to be almost silent,” I say. “They use powerful magnets and sort of float along.”
“They don’t float,” Chad corrects me. “The magnets are used to reduce the friction with the track and give a smoother ride.” He pauses. “And there’s not a lot of places in the world that have them.”
“So you think we’re in a plane?” I ask.
Chad considers; I can see the gears turning inside. “Even on the smoothest flight in the world you feel some slight rises and falls as you hit air pockets. But I’ve been awake ten minutes and not once have I felt a sudden drop in elevation—not even a tiny one.”
“Does that mean a jet’s out of the question?” I ask, and it strikes me then that, except for Shira, we’re all behaving pretty rationally—almost too rationally. I tell myself that my inner calm comes from the fact that I’d been warned by Cleo that weird shit was right around the corner. But the reasoning feels thin to me.
It makes me wonder if we’ve been drugged.
It also makes me wonder why I don’t feel more bitter about my kidnapping, especially after my talk with Cleo. I’ve no illusions that my abduction is not somehow connected to the Lapras’ need for a new leader and the Alchemist’s mysterious desire to be involved in that selection.
Yet a part of me accepts that what’s happening now is little different from what happened to me in Las Vegas. The bottom line is I was born with seven witch genes, and because of that fact I’m cursed to have a “destiny,” perhaps an important one—and all my bitching to the contrary is not going to change that fact. When I think back to everything Cleo told me last night, in witch world, I realize that’s what she was trying to tell me.
“Get over it, girl.”
It does sort of help that I have Marc along for the ride.
The guy is a lot cuter in person than in my dreams.
Yet why do I have anyone with me? I know from being inside Marc’s mind that he’s no witch. Hell, I can tell by scanning the room that I’m the only witch present. If I’m about to embark on some test of witch powers to determine if I’m fit to lead the Lapras, then the company I’m keeping makes no sense.
“Ask me after another ten minutes,” Chad replies to my question about us being in a jet. He adds, “It is possible we’re in the back of a large truck.”
“It’d have to be on one hell of a smooth road,” Marc says.
“It could have a high-tech suspension,” Chad argues. “I’ve read how such systems are currently being tested. Once a person’s aboard such a vehicle, and blindfolded, they can’t tell whether they’re moving or not.”
“You’re all assuming we’re moving,” Shira says. “I’m not so sure. That vibration we feel—it could be anything.”
Her remark appears insightful, and the room falls silent. Yet I know it’s not true. Since I awakened to my witch status in Las Vegas a month ago, I’ve become much more aware of where I am at any moment. It’s like a GPS signal has become activated in my brain. I’m not saying I can tell where we’re at, but I know—absolutely—that we’re moving rapidly. For that matter, I know we’re high up in the sky, extremely high.
“We’re probably in a jet,” I say. “And we’re probably up so high there’s almost no air. That’s why we’re not hitting any air pockets. People who flew in the Concorde used to say they never felt like they were moving. That’s because it flew above fifty thousand feet.”
“The Concorde got grounded years ago,” Marc says.
“That’s irrelevant,” Chad says to Marc, although it’s clear he’s impressed with my remark. “I think Jessie’s onto something. The military has jets that can fly miles higher than the Concorde. If we’re in one of those craft, we could be going faster than the speed of sound and not even know it.”
Marc shakes his head. “Sorry, Chad, Jessie, I don’t buy it. I’ve never been much for government conspiracies.”
“Then maybe it’s time we stopped and talked about who has abducted us,” Chad says. “Let’s look at the facts. You may have noticed I’ve been trying to keep track of when each of us was abducted. Accounting for the different time zones, it looks like we were all picked up at exactly the same time, even though we were spread all over the globe.”
“Shit,” Marc mutters in amazement as the truth of what Chad is saying sinks in.
Shira points to Marc and me, but speaks to Chad. “Don’t you find it odd that those two are from the same city?” she asks.
“Not really, not unless they know each other,” Chad replies. “You don’t, do you, Jessie? Marc?”
“No,” Marc says.
Shira points at me. “Then why did Jessie say, ‘It’s you,’ the second she woke up?” she demands. “When Marc was standing over her?”
I shrug. “Did I say that? I don’t remember. I was out of it. I thought Marc was my boyfriend waking me up.”
“You were awake,” Shira says firmly.
Chad raises his hand. “For now can we please just trust each other and assume everyone is telling the truth? It’ll make this go a whole lot faster.”
Shira gives me a dirty look. “Fine. Go on.”
Chad continues. “The reason I want us to consider that a government’s behind our kidnapping is because of the exotic way we were all knocked out. I mean, none of us got hit on the skull or belted in the nose. None of us had a cloth dipped in ether p
ressed to our mouth. No, we all saw a bright light and some of us felt like it grabbed us. That sounds pretty high tech to me.”
“Are we talking about the U.S. government here?” Marc asks.
Chad shakes his head. “They’re a leading candidate but it doesn’t have to be them. It could even be a rich corporation. My point is that it took special tools—which means plenty of cash—to pick us up within a few minutes of each other, knock us out, and stash us in this cell.”
To me, it sounds like Chad’s describing the Lapras, but I keep the idea to myself. Even though none of them feels like a witch to me, I wonder if one or more of them is and doesn’t know it. Their ignorance might camouflage their powers, even from my intuitive gene.
Whatever, if none of them is aware of witches then my breathtaking tale of what happened to me in Las Vegas is unlikely to go over well. Shira, for one, would probably try to kill me the first chance she got.
There’s a lot of anger in that woman—or girl. I wonder at its source. I have to keep reminding myself she’s only nineteen. She doesn’t act like a teenager. But I suppose being in the army could do that to you.
“Why would someone go to all this trouble to grab us?” Marc says. “What’s special about us?”
“That question is key,” Chad says with energy in his voice. “Let’s give it a closer look. If we can figure out what makes each of us unique, then we might be able to figure out the motive behind our kidnapping.”
Marc shakes his head. “There’s nothing special about me. All I do is park cars for a living.”
“Is that all?” I ask. “You don’t have any hobbies?”
“No.”
“A second job perhaps?” I persist.
“No.”
I recall what Silvia Summer told him the night of the movie premiere. I feel an irresistible urge to goad him. “You don’t look like the sort of guy who should be parking cars,” I say, quoting her word for word.