“Mom, don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was still in shock myself. Then I remembered we didn’t have to be hopeless. “Oh, I almost forgot—Lynne went out to get help. She’ll tell the police where we are, and they’ll come and get us. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right!”
Mom looked at me like I’d totally lost all my senses.
“Lynne?” she said.
And then I explained about Lynne stowing away in my suitcase, and hiding under the bed, and escaping when I went out to give the speech. When I finished, Mom looked almost hopeful.
“Well, you’re right, maybe we do have a shot at being rescued,” she said. “That Lynne can be very convincing.”
“Yes, she sure can,” I said excitedly. I looked back at the door, as if expecting to see it open any minute. The gray walls around me didn’t look nearly so grim anymore. “And she’s smart, too,” I bragged. “She should be the Crythian, not me.”
“Oh, Crythians aren’t smart,” Mom said. “You don’t understand. Having a good memory isn’t the same as intelligence. Intelligence involves insight, being able to make connections, solve problems. If anything, Crythians’ memories get in the way of their intelligence. Except for your parents, the rest of us were always too busy trying to keep track of our memories to truly understand anything. We don’t really think very well.”
I thought again about how all the people had watched me during my speech. They had seemed almost stupid, staring and staring. I closed my eyes, trying to make sense of everything Mom had told me. My mind kept skirting the biggest revelation she’d made, about the secrets stashed away in my own head. No matter how much I’d wondered about my parents, I didn’t want their memories in my brain. That made me something else: not just plain old Kira Landon from Willistown, Ohio, but a freak of nature, a mutant, a—a—I didn’t even know if there was a term for something like me.
Regardless of what you called someone with a computer chip and other people’s memories in her head, that wasn’t what I wanted to be. And I sure didn’t want anyone else to know what I was.
“If Lynne rescues us,” I began. “No—I mean, when she rescues us—the Crythians won’t be able to accuse us of anything, will they? I mean, there’s no way they could guess that I—”
Mom sat up straight.
“Absolutely not,” she snapped. “Your parents never told anyone but me what they did. And I haven’t told Rona or her cronies a thing. Not since they came and got me, right after you left for school. Come to think of it, they were probably watching to make sure you were gone before they got me…. Rona showed no interest in you until I refused to cooperate. I thought I could just drop a note behind me and you’d be safe at Lynne’s house.”
“Mom, I can’t drive,” I reminded her.
“I was trying … Oh, never mind,” Mom said. I noticed she wouldn’t look me in the eye. She shook her head angrily. “That Rona is so despicable! I don’t know how she’s managed to get all of Crythe under her power. Or maybe she doesn’t have complete control, if she thought she had to use you to manipulate them…. I’m so glad you showed her that you weren’t going to be one of her pawns!”
Mom sounded proud. I wasn’t sure I’d ever done anything to make Mom sound so proud.
I thought about how differently Mom and I had been treated.
“Have they, uh, fed you?” I asked hesitantly.
“No,” Mom said. “Not since I got here. But I don’t know how long ago that was. They knocked me out at our place, and I woke up here. What day is it, anyway? What time is it?”
“Thursday,” I said. That was the only question I could answer with certainty. It seemed like the day had already lasted several lifetimes, but I remembered that the sun had barely been over the horizon when I’d given my speech to the Crythians. Of course, with the difference in time zones, Lynne and I had probably awakened incredibly early, West Coast time. “I guess it’s still Thursday morning,” I told Mom in amazement.
“Then Rona or her cronies were in here harassing me practically every hour through the night,” Mom said bitterly. “I thought she was just doing that again when you opened the door. That’s why I pretended to be sleeping.”
So Mom hadn’t eaten in more than a day, and she’d had a night of constantly interrupted sleep on a cold concrete floor, and she was still looking at me like I was the one she was really worried about. I suddenly wished I could give Mom even one of those apples I’d rolled under the bed for Lynne.
But Lynne had needed all the energy she could get, I reminded myself, because she was going to save us all.
It was then that I heard footsteps outside the door.
Twenty-Four
I POKED MOM IN THE SIDE, AND WE BOTH SPRANG BACK FROM THE door. We watched it unblinkingly. We heard a key in the door, saw the handle turning….
“Oh, please, let it be Lynne,” I murmured. “Please.”
I willed myself to see Lynne’s familiar face beaming at me; my ears waited to hear, Oh, there you are!
The door opened.
And—yes! I saw Lynne’s brown hair first, the strands that always escaped from her ponytail sticking out on the side. I was already on my feet, ready to race to her in glee and relief, my mouth already braced to scream, You found us!
Then the door opened the rest of the way, and I saw her face. I froze.
There was not a shred of joy in Lynne’s expression, only terror. Her teeth were clenched, her eyes bugged out; she seemed seconds away from releasing the kind of endless shrieks I’d heard only in horror movies. I couldn’t stand to keep looking. I peered beyond her. Foolishly, I still held some hope that some California police officer would be on her heels, come to release us.
Rona Cummins stood behind her.
Wildly, I looked over at Mom, wanting to signal her with my eyes. There were three of us and only one of the enemy. We could overpower her….
Mom was staring at something between the Cummins woman and Lynne. Lynne turned slightly, and then I saw it too.
A gun. Mom was staring at the gun wedged against Lynne’s back.
“This is all you need to see,” Rona Cummins said. “Just in case you had any wild delusions about counting on this one for help.” She reached out as though she was going to shut the door again.
Mom stuck her foot in the door.
“That girl is an innocent bystander” she said with incredible calm. “Let her go.”
Rona raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, so you can speak” she said. “But I’m sorry I’ll have to deny your only request. How stupid do you think I am?”
“Her parents are undoubtedly looking for her,” Mom said, still with that even, measured voice. “No one’s looking for Kira or me. If you take her home, we can settle this peacefully. Just us.”
Rona laughed.
“You have some nerve,” she said. I wondered how I ever could have trusted her. How desperate had I been? She was still talking. “You think I’m going to bargain? Negotiate? I’m holding all the chips.”
“Are you?” Mom said quietly.
“Am I?” Rona repeated. She was gripping Lynne’s arm so tightly that her hand might as well have been a tourniquet. “Are you trying to tell me something? Do you have anything to trade for this ‘innocent bystander’s’ life?”
Mom didn’t say anything.
“Maybe you need to be convinced that you should tell me something,” Rona said. She pressed the gun deeper into Lynne’s back. Lynne winced. Rona smiled, a nasty, heartless, reptilian smile. “I have reasons to keep you and Kira alive right now. I don’t need this girl. And”—now she looked directly at me—“yes, my little friend, this is what’s known as blackmail.”
I looked at Lynne, to see how she was taking all this. She yelped just a bit, and I thought that that was amazingly brave of her. I would have screamed. Then I saw that Lynne was swaying a little, like she might faint. She reached out and gr
abbed the door for support.
“Give us some time,” Mom begged frantically. She wasn’t even trying to sound calm anymore.
“There’s not much time left,” Rona said, and she jerked Lynne toward her. Lynne was still holding on to the door, so the motion pulled the door back. Lynne let go only seconds before the door shut.
And then I saw that Lynne had not just been holding on to the door to keep herself from fainting. She’d been sticking a scrap of paper there.
Twenty-Five
I PULLED THE PAPER FROM THE BACK OF THE DOOR. LYNNE HAD attached it with chewing gum.
“See how smart Lynne is?” I told Mom proudly.
I unfolded the small square, which was just paper torn from one of Lynne’s school notebooks. Of course—she’d had her backpack with her when she hid in the trunk of the car.
The note said:
Crythe is a ghost town. Except for the main street and the castle we’in, it’s all in ruins. And I’m pretty sure some of the Crythians are actors.
Then, in big, emphatic writing, she’d added:
DON’T TRUST AUNT MEMORY!
“Thanks a lot,” I muttered. “Don’t you think I already figured that out?”
“She probably wrote that before she was caught,” Mom said distractedly.
I had a sudden chill. I could just picture Lynne sneaking back into my room, trying to warn me before she went for help. What if that was the reason she got caught?
I made myself focus on the rest of the note.
“Crythe’s a ghost town, and the people are just actors,” I muttered. “Does that mean everything here is just a—a fraud?”
“It didn’t used to be,” Mom said. “But in the war … a lot of the village was destroyed. Rona must have repaired just enough to make it look good, and perhaps she hired extra ‘villagers.’” She squinted off into space, deep in thought. “At least some of the original Crythians must still be here, or Rona wouldn’t have gone through that charade with the ceremonial dress. I don’t know how to think about all of this…. Was she trying to trick you and them both? Does she suspect that some of them know more about your parents’ invention than they’ve let on? And she thought you might get them to tell?”
I sank to the floor.
“We don’t know anything,” I said.
Mom whirled around. She kicked the wall.
“We know this is real,” she said. “So was that gun.”
I swallowed hard.
“She’s not going to kill Lynne, is she?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“We have to have a plan,” Mom said. “There must be some way to rescue you and Lynne without betraying the entire world.”
I didn’t think about it until later, how Mom hadn’t included herself in the list of people who needed to be rescued.
Mom sat down by the door again, her chin on her knees, her face in her hands.
“I have to be able to think,” she mumbled. “I’m not good at plans. If only Toria and Alexei were here …”
A chill traveled down my spine.
“They can be,” I said slowly. I could barely bring myself to say the words. “If you hypnotized me and gave me access to their memories, wouldn’t it be just like—”
“No!” Mom shouted. She’d never shouted at me like that before. I stared at her and she stared back. “Anything but that,” Mom added, only a little less vehemently. “Everything Rona has done proves that your parents’ memories should not be … resurrected. I have to protect you from that. Protect the rest of the world. No, we have to trick Rona, make her believe we’re going to give her the secrets, and then make sure you and Lynne are safe before she finds out the truth…. Oh, if only I could think of something!”
I didn’t want Mom to see how relieved I was that she didn’t expect me to be hypnotized, become my parents. I hunched over and shoved my hands into my pockets. That’s when I felt the keys I’d put there the day before and had totally forgotten until now. I pulled them out, one from each pocket.
“Mom, look,” I said, feeling a sudden thrill. “Maybe …” I didn’t have a complete plan formed in my head, but something was coming together. I looked down at the tag on the first key: SAFE-DEPOSIT BOX, FIRST BANK OF WILLISTOWN. I held it out to Mom.
“Where did you get this?” Mom asked.
“From the kitchen cabinet, back home,” I admitted. “When you wouldn’t answer any of my questions, I thought …” It all seemed so long ago. Now I couldn’t imagine being so naive that I believed I could get answers from a lockbox. “Never mind what I thought. What if we tell Rona that the secrets are stored at the bank?”
“But they aren’t” Mom said. “As soon as she sees they’re not there, she’ll just be right back at us, madder than ever. She’ll kill Lynne without a single qualm.”
I shivered, not wanting to be reminded how high the stakes were.
“No, Mom, she can’t open your lockbox,” I said. “Nobody can but the person who owns it. The bank people won’t let her. I—” I couldn’t look Mom in the face. “Lynne and I called the bank to find out what their rules were, and they told us. So you’ll have to go with her back to Willistown and to the bank. You can tell her you won’t go without me and Lynne. And then when we get there, we can tell the security guard, and they’ll call the cops.”
I could see a few problems with that plan—like, wouldn’t Rona figure out that we could turn her in once we got to the bank? I looked back up at Mom, wondering if she’d shoot down the whole idea.
“That just might work,” Mom said slowly. “Except … we’ll have to tell Rona that the lockbox is in your name.”
“What?” I said, suddenly confused.
Now it was Mom’s turn to avoid my eyes.
“It’s better that way,” she said. “Safer.”
Twenty-Six
WHEN RONA CUMMINS CAME BACK, MOM MET HER AT THE DOOR.
“We have a deal to offer you,” Mom said in a dull voice, her eyes trained on the floor.
I stood a few paces behind her, where Mom had told me to stand. Mom had scripted the whole thing. I felt like a little kid again, just obeying my mother, without a single thought in my own head.
“A deal?” Rona’s eyes glinted with interest. “So you’ve come to your senses after all.”
“You didn’t leave us many choices,” Mom said, still in the emotionless tone of someone who is either drugged or deeply depressed.
“Well, let’s hear it,” Rona said eagerly.
“All my sister and brother-in-law’s notes on their, um, experiments are in a bank vault back in Ohio,” Mom said. “Kira has the key.”
This was my cue. I reached into my pocket with what was supposed to be a dramatic flourish. I’m not sure I carried it off. I was so nervous, my hands shook. When I pulled the key free from my pocket, it swung on its ring like a miniature pendulum.
“I knew there was a reason to kidnap you!” Rona chortled. “Hand it over.”
She reached out, as if it had never occurred to her that I wouldn’t automatically do as she said.
At the last minute, just before her hand brushed mine, I pulled the key away and stuffed it back into my pocket.
“Not so fast,” Mom cautioned.
But Rona’s reflexes were lightning quick. In the time it took me to blink once, Rona had pulled out her gun and had it pointed at my head.
“I said, hand it over!” Rona commanded.
It was a weird thing to have a gun pointed at me. I’ve seen people point guns all the time in movies or on TV at my friends’ houses. But it’s different when it’s my head the gun is aimed at, my life that’s only seconds away from being extinguished.
I heard Mom gulp. She stepped between me and the gun.
“I said we had a deal, not a giveaway,” she told Rona. I hoped I was the only one who heard the quiver in her voice. “That key won’t do you any good without Kira.”
Rona squinted at Mom. Mom kept talking.
“The safe-deposit box i
s in Kira’s name,” Mom said. “She has to sign at the bank to have it opened. Only she can remove any of the contents.”
Mom’s voice was definitely shaking now. I hoped Rona thought it was just because she was scared. What if she guessed that Mom was lying?
“Come on, then, Kira,” Rona said, motioning me toward her with the gun.
“You take all three of us,” Mom said. “Me, Kira, Kira’s friend. Take us back to Willistown. We open the safe-deposit box, you take everything that’s inside it, you set us free.”
“You have it all figured out, don’t you?” Rona growled. “I think you have a little bit too much figured out. No. I’m taking just Kira. You and the other girl will stay here. That way, she’ll have some incentive to play this straight. Any tricks and …” Rona squeezed the trigger. I screamed, terrified that, any second now, a bullet would rip through Mom or me. Maybe both of us. But at the last minute Rona had pulled the gun to the side, shot into the wall.
Rona laughed gleefully.
“Scared you, huh?” she taunted us.
“That was dangerous,” Mom said. Her face was white and angry. “Bullets can ricochet. You might have killed any of us.”
“I just wanted you to know I was serious,” Rona said.
“So am I,” Mom said. “You take Kira and Lynne both. If you have to have a hostage, you can keep me here until you have the secrets. Then you release me, too. Deal?”
I gasped. What was Mom thinking? Rona would kill her for sure when she discovered there were no secrets in the lockbox.
Rona glanced my way, and I struggled to regain my poker face. Rona mustn’t suspect, she mustn’t suspect, I repeated to myself again and again. I didn’t let myself think anything else.
Rona narrowed her eyes and studied my face even more carefully than ever before.
“You’re scaring me with that gun,” I muttered, trying to sound childish. I had to make myself seem like a stupid girl who knew nothing about secrets or secret plans, who was merely terrified out of her wits.