“I…uh, you what?” Milo asks.
“I killed him. I killed my dad,” I whisper into his shirt. His entire body has turned to marble, hard and alien. What have I done? Please don’t let go of me, I beg silently. If Milo leaves I will truly be alone. I can’t do this without him. I don’t want to do this without him. Milo is the only reason I don’t go back to Mr. Walters and take him up on his offer. What good is an extra two years if I have to spend it completely alone? Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.
Suddenly his hands start rubbing slow circles on my back again. He leans into me and presses his cheek against mine. I can’t breathe because I’m afraid I’m imagining this. Milo can’t possibly want to stay with me now.
“What happened?” Milo asks. “I don’t believe you meant to hurt him. You wouldn’t do that.”
He is probably the only person in this world who actually believes that. Even with Celia, I think she’s secretly afraid of what I’ll do. The single fact that I make her brother happy is just more powerful of an idea to her. I just wish I knew whether Milo was right.
“I don’t really know what happened,” I admit. “I was my birthday. We’d spent the day at the amusement park with my friends. Then everyone came back to my house for cake and ice cream. I was so exhausted that night that I fell asleep on the couch and my dad had to carry me up to bed.”
It was the last time he held me in his arms and I wasn’t even awake to savor it.
“What happened after he took you to bed?” Milo asks. His rough voice betrays dark thoughts and I shake my head quickly.
“He didn’t hurt me, Milo. My dad would never have hurt me,” I say.
“Then what?”
“I remember being asleep, which is kind of strange, I guess. I thought I was dreaming at first, but then I realized it wasn’t a normal dream. It was different, real, if that makes sense. Someone was calling my name, screaming at me to wake up. Then there were even more people. They were all yelling, telling me to wake up over and over again. It scared me to death. I didn’t know what was going on, but I had learned how to wake myself up from bad dreams years before. I focused all my thoughts on my real body and starting counting. Before I got to ten, the dream started disappearing. I realized something was wrong right away.”
“What do you mean wrong?” Milo asks.
“I don’t know. It was just wrong.” The sensations of that night return like they do every time I think about it. “The air was pressing in on me, suffocating me. I felt nothing, no emotions, no presence of other people like I usually did, no connection with the natural world around me. All I could feel was pain. My strength was being sapped from my body to the point that I could barely even force my eyes open. When I did get them open, all I could see was my dad’s outline against the window. I don’t know what he was doing, but the pain was so horrible it physically shocked my body.”
“What did you do?”
My chest shakes involuntarily. The terror of that night sneaks back into my heart. “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I was so scared. I tried to tell him to stop, but I’m not sure I even spoke. I could barely even move. It hurt so bad to move, but I forced myself to reach for his hand. The moment I touched him, everything went away. I was so relieved I didn’t even hear him screaming at first. When I finally registered it, his face was so white. His whole body was shaking. I tore my hand away from him immediately, but I was too late. He slumped to the ground and he never got up again.”
I dry my face and try to finish with what little dignity I can muster. “By the time my mom ran into my room, there was nothing anyone could do to save him. She saw him on the floor and started crying. Our butler, Manuel, was the one who called the paramedics. I knew my dad was already gone, though. I felt his life leave his body as he fell still. I don’t know what I did to him, but it’s my fault he’s dead. I killed him, Milo.”
Milo buries me in his arms. “You don’t know that, Libby. It could have been something he did himself. He was obviously doing something to you when you woke up. Maybe it turned back on him.”
“But he wasn’t trying to hurt me, Milo.”
“You don’t know what he was doing. Maybe he didn’t mean to hurt you, but whatever it was, it definitely hurt him.” I start to object, but Milo talks right over me. “You waking up interrupted what he was doing. It could be that whatever he was in the middle of wasn’t supposed to be interrupted. But even if that’s true, it wasn’t your fault.”
“If I would have just stayed still until he finished…”
“No,” Milo says, “who knows what might have happened to you. Those people in your dream, they knew something was wrong. I think something bad would have happened to you if you didn’t stop your dad. I can’t explain it, I don’t have Spiritualism to give me any otherworldly insight, but I know I’m right about this.”
My chin quivers. I will defend my dad to the end because I loved him more than anything in this world, but regardless of my arguments I know what I felt that night. The terror in my dream was so overwhelming. The people were so filled with it all they could do was scream at me, but they knew something more. They knew there would be tremendous suffering if I didn’t wake up and stop my dad.
“He couldn’t have known what he was doing was going to hurt me,” I say quietly. I have to believe that. If my faith in my dad is taken away from me…I just can’t handle that. He was all I had for so long. “He didn’t know.”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Milo says, almost like he believes it.
“But what was he doing?” I ask. I’m not really expecting a response, but Milo surprises me completely by pulling me off the bed with him. He tosses me my lavender hoodie and tugs his suit coat back on. I hold the hoodie in front of me without moving.
Milo turns back to me, and says, “Well, put it on. It’s snowing outside.”
It seems to be a re-emergence of that bossy commanding Milo I met after Celia and I were attacked at the mall. I didn’t like being told what to do then, and I don’t like it much now. “Are we going somewhere? It’s the middle of the night.”
Taking the sweatshirt out of my hands Milo drapes it over my head and pulls it down until my curls bounce through the top, followed by the rest of my face. I push my arms through the sleeves with growing irritation. “Milo, I’m not going anywhere in the snow. It’s too late.”
“He won’t care,” Milo says. “He said we could visit at any time as long as it had something to do with you being the Destroyer.”
“He who? Mr. Walters? Milo, you can’t be serious. I do not want to go to Mr. Walters’ house tonight.” I don’t want to go anywhere right now, but I especially don’t want to spend the rest of my night sitting around at one of my teachers’ houses.
“Can you think of anyone else who might know what your dad was doing?” he asks.
“Well, no, but why can’t we talk to him tomorrow?” I ask. I’ll admit that Milo is probably right about Mr. Walters being able to help me. That scares me to death. I’m not sure I want to know what really happened. What if Milo is right? What if my dad was trying to hurt me? I don’t want to admit that to Milo, though, so I dig up another reason. “I’m tired, Milo. Why don’t we go see him in the morning? We should be going to bed, not traipsing off to Mr. Walters’ house.”
Milo’s hands slow in their work of pulling my hair out from my hoodie. “We should be going to bed?” The glint in his eyes is horrible.
I just glare at him. “Why can’t we do this tomorrow?”
“Because he’s leaving tomorrow morning, remember? His sister’s in the hospital. That’s why you don’t have to go to his class all next week.”
It’s been a long week. By Friday, I don’t know that I caught much of anything any of my teachers said to me. Faking my way through every class, getting to know Celia, training with Milo, dreading going to the dance, it was a lot to deal with. Paying attention to lectures kind of fell by the wayside at some point. I vaguely
remember hearing Mr. Walters say something about his sister. Waiting until tomorrow to ask him would have been fine by me—I need at least that long to prepare myself for the worst—but waiting a whole week? I can’t do it. Not if he really has some kind of answer for me. Five years. That is long enough.
“You could have said that from the start,” I snap, irritated that I have to give in to him taking over again. “Fine, let’s go.”
Milo and I hurry out to his car, and we’re driving down the interstate a few minutes later. I try looking out the window to distract myself from the possibility that I might actually find some answers. It’s thrilling and terrifying all in the same breath. I try closing my eyes but the images of the screaming spirits burst into my mind at once. Finally I scoot to the very edge of my seat and lean toward Milo. His arm comes around my shoulder automatically. Everything slows. The car keeps racing along the highway at ridiculous speeds, but I feel like I can finally take a breath. Whatever Mr. Walters tells us, I don’t have to hear it alone.
That single piece of knowledge carries me up to his house when we arrive.
Milo rings the bell and we wait. The upstairs light is the first to flick on. Then the hallway. The porch light buzzes to life a moment before the door pulls open. Mr. Walters’ snowy white hair is doing a wonderful impression of Einstein at the moment. His eyes blink rapidly before fastening onto me.
“Libby? What time is it?” he asks.
“It’s a little after eleven o’clock,” I say. “Sorry to wake you, but we really need to talk to you before you leave.”
Mr. Walters nods blearily, his gaze slowly sliding over to Milo. His face scrunches as he peers at the young man in front of him. “Who are…” His eyes widen. “Milo? Good gracious, boy, what did you do to yourself? I barely recognized you in proper clothes.”
I don’t even bother to stifle my laughter. Milo takes it with his customary shrug.
“Could we talk to you about something?” Milo asks.
“Does it have to do with the Destroyer?” he asks. Milo nods. “Then yes. Come in, please.”
We troop inside his retro style (and I don’t mean the good kind of retro) bungalow. The “grandma used to live here” theme is carried into the living room with patchwork throw pillows and quaint pictures of cottages. To be honest, I expected something a little more…intimidating from a former Seeker. Milo looks like he’s thinking the same thing.
“Sit down, sit down. I’ve got to catch a flight in the morning, so let’s not waste any time. Why are you here?” Mr. Walters asks.
“How much do you know about my dad’s death?” I ask.
Mr. Walters’ head tilts to one side. “As much as anyone, I suppose. There weren’t very many details released to the public.”
I take a deep breath. “I want to tell you the rest of the story.”
Curiosity strong enough to kill a dozen cats piques in Mr. Walters’ eyes.
“I want to tell you what really happened,” I say shakily. I knew this was coming. It is the price for getting the key to unlock my guilt. So with as much detail as I can remember, I tell Mr. Walters everything. I don’t leave out anything, not the way my dad had been clutching my hand, not the look of terror in his eyes when he first realized I was awake. He listens to what I have to say with an eager expression. When I finish he leans back in his chair and presses the tips of his fingers together.
“So you want to know what your father was doing to you that night,” he says slowly.
The tone of his voice, his confident posture, they all give me hope.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have an answer for you, Libby.”
My shoulders fall.
“But that doesn’t mean there is no answer. We’ll just have to find it,” he says. “What other talents did your father possess besides Perception?”
“Vision and Concealment,” I say quickly, latching onto this slim chance of finding an answer with all the strength my spent mind and body can manage.
Mr. Walters nods. “The three hallmarks of a very powerful Inquisitor. Now I believe you’ve mentioned previously that your father knew you were Cassia before he died. When did he find out?”
“About a year before his death,” I say. “A few months before my tenth birthday he started testing me, to be sure. I didn’t realize what he was doing at first because the tests were little things like him purposely throwing a ball farther than I should have been able to reach, timing me when he called me, seeing how I reacted to his emotional changes, things like that. I knew by then that I shouldn’t react in any way that would give me away, but I didn’t fool him. His Concealment probably clued him in to what I was doing. It was impossible to lie to him.”
“But even just suspecting something was up wouldn’t be enough to make him say anything, right?” Milo says. “That’s a pretty big thing to lay on a ten year old if you aren’t absolutely certain.”
“Indeed.” Mr. Walters rubs a hand up and down his neck as he thinks. “Was it his Vision that finally convinced him?”
“I think so. We were sitting on the couch one day watching TV and I leaned my head on his shoulder. His whole body went rigid. I was about to call for my mom when he grabbed my arm hard enough to leave bruises. He shook his head over and over again until it passed.” Milo glances at my arm as if expecting to find those long ago injuries. My dad had held me so tight. Remembering the fear in his eyes makes me shiver. He never did tell me what he saw, but part of me wonders if he had seen his death and knew I was the cause.
Mr. Walters is the only one who seems unfazed by my experience. It’s just another clue to him. “Given how powerful your father was, and how connected the two of you were, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that he would discover who you were. I think it’s safe to say that whatever he was trying to accomplish that night was related to your being the Destroyer.”
My mind tries to veer away from that line of logic given Milo’s skepticism of my dad’s intentions, and my old recollection of the intense pain and fear I felt that night. But if anything would drive my dad to drastic measures, it would be my dark future. He had to be trying to help me, though. He wouldn’t have tried to hurt me. He wasn’t Lance.
“But what could he have possibly been trying to accomplish other than killing her?” Milo asks. His half-apologetic frown to me stings. If he knew my dad he wouldn’t be so cynical. Dead Guardians, secrets, danger from who knows what, parents who pretend he doesn’t exist, maybe his doubt doesn’t have to do with my dad, but with his own history instead.
I force my mind off Milo’s past and back to my own when I realize Mr. Walters is speaking.
“…no way to know for sure. The talent I think we should focus on is Spiritualism. I believe we’ll have the best chance of uncovering the truth by looking into this talent.”
“But,” I interrupt, “my dad didn’t even have Spiritualism.”
“Yes, I know, but you do,” he says. “I never met your father, Libby, but I have heard from many people who did know him that he was a very kind and compassionate person. It seems likely to me that he was trying to help you in some way, but despite the power behind the talents he had, the lack of certain other talents could have caused him to make a very bad judgment about his course of action.”
I feel like we’ve been here forever. So much has happened today, and it’s all starting to catch up with me. It’s getting harder to concentrate by the second. I’m not sure what he’s trying to say to me. Forget tact. “What are you talking about?”
“You were warned, were you not? By spirits who were able to contact you because of your Spiritualism.”
“Spirits?” I ask. “It was just a dream, wasn’t it?”
“You said yourself it wasn’t a normal dream, that it felt too real. That is exactly how people usually describe their first trip to the spirit world. You weren’t having a nightmare. I’m confident you were pulled into the spirit world in order to be warned,” Mr. Wa
lters explains.
“Oh,” I say, feeling incredibly stupid for never having realized that myself. I’ve only ever dabbled in the side of Spiritualism that dealt with pushing people in the direction I want. I’ve never even tried going to the spirit world on my own. I didn’t see the point.
Mr. Walters gives me one of his long-suffering looks and continues. “For whatever reason, they knew what you father was doing was wrong and tried to prevent it from happening. If your father had had the same talent, I believe they would have warned him as well,” Mr. Walters says.
“So what are you suggesting?” I ask.
He blinks at me as if it should have been perfectly obvious by now. I stare at him blankly. He sighs, giving me the impression that his opinion of my mental capability has just dropped dramatically. If I weren’t too tired, I would set him right. Instead I simply wait for him to explain. He does so with exaggerated patience.
“I am suggesting that we go back to the only beings that seem to have any idea about what happened that night. You need to make contact with the spirits who warned you five years ago and ask them what they know. It couldn’t be simpler.”
“Simple?” I say. “Spiritualism is my weakest talent. I don’t think I could contact a single spirit, let alone find the exact ones that warned me to wake up.”
His brow crinkles. The displeasure is clear on his face. “Who is your Spiritualism teacher? Mrs. Sanchez, right? Go to her Monday and…”
“No. She won’t help me. She won’t even answer my questions in class. Like all my teachers, she just pretends I don’t exist. You’re the only one crazy enough to want to help the Destroyer gain power,” I say.
“It’s not crazy to try and help someone reach their potential,” he argues.
“It is when they’re going to destroy the world!”
“But you’re not going to destroy the world, are you? Unless your plans have changed.”
I wonder if I could blame strangling him on exhaustion and get away with it. “I’m not going to destroy anything, and you know it.”
“Libby, I told you the first day we met that if you expected to survive the next two years, and hopefully longer, that you were going to have to embrace who you are. Since you did not take me up on my original offer, I expect you to follow through with your decision. Dedicate yourself to all of your talents, not just the ones you think are the most useful. If you hadn’t been shirking your duty to develop your Spiritualism, contacting those spirits and getting the answers you need would be a very simple task.”
I feel like sticking my tongue out at him. Maybe I’ll just settle for spitting in his coffee when he isn’t looking. He’s such a smug, irritating, bizarre, know-it-all, bossy…
“What offer?” Milo asks, interrupting my internal tirade.
Oh no. I groan and close my eyes.
“What was that, Milo?” Mr. Walters asks over his shoulder from where he’s standing at a rather large bookcase.
“What offer from you did Libby turn down?”
“Oh, that,” he says with a shrug. “I offered to kill her.”
The air bristles around Milo. “You what?”
“I gave her a choice. Die or become the Destroyer. She needed to realize that those were the only two options available to her,” he says. The casual, unconcerned quality of his voice is so frustrating. But he’s not done yet. “I believe Libby made the right choice. There is more to being the Destroyer than mayhem and destruction.”
“Like what?” I ask. Anything to get us off the topic of one of my teachers offering to murder me.
Mr. Walters gives me a dry look. “That lecture is for another day. We have more important things to discuss right now.” He sets a stack of books related to Spiritualism on the coffee table and returns to his chair. He’s about to speak when Milo interrupts him.
“There’s something you’re holding back. What aren’t you telling us?”
For the first time in possibly ever, Mr. Walters looks completely caught off guard. “Excuse me?”
“Maybe you don’t know exactly what Libby’s dad was doing, but you have an idea, don’t you?” Milo accuses. “Something Libby said tipped you off. You moved on too quickly. You never leave an unanswered question that fast. What are you keeping from us?”
Milo sounds so sure. And Mr. Walters is squirming. I can’t believe it, but Milo’s right. I don’t know how he saw it, but he’s right. “Mr. Walters?” I ask.
“I’m not certain,” he says slowly, crossing his arms across his chest, “but I think…I think your father was trying to steal your talents.”
Chapter 20
Betrayal