Witch & Wizard (3 page)

And right then I felt this whooshing sensation, as if a stiff, hot wind were blowing up against me. In an instant, blood rushed to my head, my cheeks flooded with heat, and sweat seemed to leap from my skin and sizzle. There was a buzzing all around me, and then…

You won’t believe me, but it’s true. I swear.

I saw—and felt—foot-long
flames
burst out of every pore in my body.

I HEARD SCARED-SILLY SCREAMS everywhere, even from the commandos, as I stood gaping at the orange-yellow tongues of flame shooting off me.

If you think that’s weird, listen to this: after that first moment, I didn’t feel the least bit hot. And when I looked at my hands, they were still skin-colored, not red or blackened.

It was… far-out, actually.

Suddenly one of the soldiers swung Mom’s porcelain vase at me. I was drenched—and the flames were gone.

Byron Swain’s cronies were stamping out the drapes and some smoldering spots on the carpet where the soldiers had dropped me.

But then Byron himself—who’d apparently fled the house during my immolation—reappeared in the doorway, his face faintly green. He pointed a spindly, shaking finger at me. “See?! See?!
See?!
” he shouted hoarsely. “Lock her up! Shoot her if you have to. Whatever it takes!”

I was suddenly overcome by this horrible, stomach-twisting feeling that this night had been inevitable—that it was always meant to be part of my life story.

But I had no idea why I thought that, or what it meant exactly.

I HADN’T HALLUCINATED before, but when I saw Wisty burst into flame, that’s what I suspected it was—a stress-induced hallucination.

I mean, I expect even well-rested, grounded, grief-free people wouldn’t just go,
Oh, look at that, my little sister just turned herself into a human torch.
Am I right?

But pretty soon—what with the heat and the smoke and our living room drapes catching on fire—it started to dawn on me that this was really happening.

Then I thought the New Order thugs had
set
her on fire. So I guess that’s how I manage to muster enough rage to break free of their grasp. And I swear I would’ve decked the creeps if I hadn’t had to scramble madly to help put her out first.

Then utter chaos broke loose in our house.

I’ve never been in a tornado before, but that’s immediately what I thought was happening. The windows suddenly exploded, and the wind poured in with the force of an angry mountain river, hurling things—broken glass, floor lamps, side tables—around the living room.

I couldn’t hear anything over the noise, and it was raining so hard that the water itself—to say nothing of the debris it was carrying—stung like a cloud of bees getting shot through a leaf blower.

And of course I couldn’t see anything either. To open your eyes would have been asking to be permanently blinded by wood splinters, glass shards, and plaster chunks.

So my breaking free from the thugs didn’t do me a bit of good. We were all clinging to the floor, to the walls, to anything that seemed more solid than ourselves, just trying not to get sucked out a window and flung to our deaths.

I tried yelling for Wisty, but I couldn’t even hear my own voice.

And then—in an instant—everything was still and quiet.

I moved my face out of the crook of my arm… and took in a sight I won’t forget for the rest of my life.

A tall, bald, extremely imposing man was standing there in the middle of our demolished living room. Not scary, you think? Think again.

This is the dude who turns out to be evil personified.

“Hello, Allgood family,” he said in a quiet, forceful tone that made me pay very close attention to every word. “I am The One Who Is The One. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

My father spoke up. “We know who you are. We’re not afraid of you, though, and we won’t bend to your ugly rules.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to bend to any rules, Benjamin. Or you, Eliza,” he said to my mother. “Aspiring deviants like you always value freedom above all else. But it doesn’t matter whether you accept this new reality or not. It’s the youngins I’m here to see. This is a command performance, you understand. I
command,
they obey.”

Now the bald dude looked at my little sister and me, and he smiled quite congenially, even warmly.

“I will make this simple for the two of you. All you have to do is renounce your former existence—your freedoms, your way of life, and your parents in particular—and you will be spared. You will not be harmed if you obey the rules. Not a hair on your heads will be touched. I promise. Renounce your former ways and your parents. That’s all. Simple as apple pie.”

“No way!” I yelled at the guy.

“Not going to happen. Ever,” Wisty said. “We renounce
you,
Your Baldness, Your Terribleness!”

He actually chuckled at that, which totally caught me off guard.

“Whitford Allgood,” The One said, and looked deeply into my eyes. Something strange happened then—I couldn’t move or speak, only listen. It was the scariest thing yet that night.

“You’re a beautiful boy, I must say, Whitford. Tall and blond, slender yet well-muscled, perfectly proportioned. You have your mother’s eyes. I know that you were a very good boy until recently, ever since the sad and
unfortunate
disappearance of your girlfriend and soul mate, Celia.”

Frustrated rage boiled up inside me. What did he know about Celia? He’d smirked when he spoke of her disappearance. He knew something. He was taunting me.

“The question is,” he went on, “
can
you be good again? Can you learn to obey the rules?”

He threw up his hands. “Don’t know?!” he exclaimed even as my paralyzed mouth prevented me from screaming the string of choice obscenities I was trying to fling at him. Then he turned to Wisty. “Wisteria Allgood, I know all about you too. Disobedient, recalcitrant, a truant, over two weeks of detention due to be served at your high school. The question is, can you
ever
be good? Can you possibly learn to obey?”

He stared at Wisty, silent, waiting.

And in true Wisty fashion, she did the most adorable little curtsy, then proclaimed, “Of course, sir, your every waking wish is my command.”

Wisty stopped her sarcastic speech rather suddenly, and I realized that he’d paralyzed her too. Then The One Who Is The One turned to his guards. “Take them away! They shall never see their parents again. Nor shall you, Ben and Eliza, see your very special offspring until the day you all die.”

WISTY AND I WERE in a big black van that had no windows. My heart was thumping like an epileptic rabbit’s, and my vision was nearly whited-out with adrenaline. It took every shred of sanity I had left not to throw myself at the van walls. I pictured myself smashing my head against the metal, kicking open the back doors, helping Wisty out, and escaping into the night…

Only none of that happened.

As far as I knew, I was
not
a wizard, and not a superhero either. I was just a high school kid who’d been ripped out of his home.

I looked over at poor Wisty, but I was barely able to make out her profile in the dark. Her wet hair dripped onto my arm, and I realized she was shivering badly. Maybe with cold, maybe with shock, maybe with cold and shock and total freaking disbelief.

I put my arms around her bony shoulders, awkwardly because I was now handcuffed. I had to slip her head between my arms. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that, except maybe to pin her down because she’d gotten into my stuff, or when I’d caught her spying on me and… Celia.

I couldn’t think about her right now or I might completely lose it.

“You okay?” I said. Wisty appeared to be totally uncharred—no roasting-hot-dog smell or anything.

“Of course I’m not okay,” she said, leaving the usual “you idiot” off the end of her sentence. “They must have dumped something flammable on me. I’m not burned, though.”

“I didn’t see them spray anything on you,” I said. “It was like, boom—flamesicle!” I mustered a weak smile. “’Course, I always knew your hair was dangerous.” Wisty is a real carrottop—with thick, wavy bright-red hair that she hates but that I think is kind of cool.

Wisty was too freaked to take the bait about her hair—at first. “Whit, what’s going on? What does schmucky-
beyond
-schmucky Byron Swain have to do with it? What’s happening to us? And to Mom and Dad?”

“It’s got to be some kind of terrible mistake. Mom and Dad never hurt a fly.” I remembered my parents then, held fast and helpless, and I had to swallow my rage.

Just then, the van came to a lurching halt. I tensed, staring hard at the doors, primed to barrel somebody down. Even in handcuffs. Even if it was a giant, steroid-enhanced soldier.

I wasn’t going to let them hurt my sister. I wasn’t going to be a goody-goody and obey their stupid rules.

IT WAS LIKE WE’D WOKEN UP, and suddenly we were living in a totalitarian state.

The first thing I saw looming over me were dozens of flapping flags and the big black block letters N.O.

NO.
It seemed totally appropriate, even a touch poetic.
NO.

Wisty and I were outside a huge, windowless building, surrounded by a chain-link, concertina-wire-topped fence. Giant letters that read
NEW ORDER REFORMATORY
were engraved in a stone rising high above the steel entryway.

Then the doors creaked open, and I realized that barreling our way to safety probably wasn’t going to work out so great.
Ten
more guards—these in black uniforms—came out the front, joined the two drivers, and formed a semi-circle around the rear of the van.

“Okay, now watch ’em closely,” I heard one say. “You know, they’re—”

“Yeah, we know,” said another cranky voice, one of the drivers. “I got the burns to prove it.”

I didn’t even bother struggling as those brainless storm troopers hauled us forward, then dragged us through the tall barbed-wire gate.

I’m pretty big—six feet one, 190 pounds—but these guys acted like I was a sack of popcorn. Wisty and I tried to stay on our feet, but they kept yanking us off balance.

“We can walk!” Wisty yelled. “We’re still conscious!”

“We can change all that,” said one of the thug guards.

I tried, “Listen, listen, you’ve got the wrong—”

The guard next to me raised his billy club, and I shut up midsquawk. They pushed us up the concrete steps, through the heavy steel doors, and into a brightly lit foyer. It looked like a prison, with a burly guard behind a thick glass window, a locked gate, and another guard with a billy club at the ready.

I heard a loud buzz, and the gate opened.

“Don’t you guys feel kind of dumb?” I said. “I mean, a dozen giant men, just for us two kids—it’s kind of embarrassing. Wouldn’t you—
ow!
” A guard had jabbed my ribs, hard, with his wooden baton.

“Start thinking about your upcoming interrogation,” the guard said. “Talk, or die. Your choice, kiddies.”

IT WAS BEGINNING TO FEEL like this sickening nightmare was for real, and now I wasn’t even going to be allowed the small comfort of going through it in my old pink PJs. They made us change into gray-striped prison jumpsuits that looked like something out of World War II. Whit’s jumpsuit fit him—guess he was standard-prisoner size—but mine hung on me like a sail on a windless day.

My funky PJs had been my last connection to home. Without them, the only thing I had from my former life was the drumstick.

The drumstick.
Why a drumstick, Mom?
I missed her already and felt a deep anxiety creep in when I wondered what they’d done with her and Dad.

“Don’t pull her arm like that!” Whit snapped at my guard. He was right. It felt like my arm was about to pop out of its socket.

“Shut up, wizard,” growled the surly guard, dragging us through yet another electronic gate marked
PROPERTY OF THE NEW ORDER
. Then we were in an enormous hall, five stories high, surrounded on all sides by cages and barred cells.

For criminals.

And us. Me and my brother. Can you imagine? No—you probably can’t. How could anybody in their right mind imagine this?

One of the cell doors slid open, and the guards threw me inside. I fell, hitting my knees and hands hard on the cement floor.

“Wisty!”
Whit shouted as they hauled him past my door, which immediately slid shut. I pressed my face against the bars, trying to see where they were taking Whit. They shoved him in the cell next to mine.

“Wisty, you okay?” Whit called over right away.

“Sort of,” I said, examining my scraped knees. “If I’m allowed to totally change what ‘okay’ means.”

“We’ll get out of here,” he said. I could hear the braveness and anger in his voice. “This is all just a stupid mistake.”

“Au contraire, my naive amigo,” said a voice from the cell on the other side of Whit.

“What? Who are you?”
Whit asked.

I strained to hear his words.

“I’m prisoner number 450209A,” said the voice. “Trust me, there’s been no mistake. And they didn’t forget to read you your rights. And they aren’t going to give you a lawyer or a phone call. And your mama and papa aren’t coming to get you.
Ever.
And that’s a long, long time.”

“What do you know about it?” I shouted.

“Look, how old are you?” said the voice.

“I’m almost eighteen,” Whit said, “and my sister’s fifteen.”

“Well, I’m thirteen,” he offered, “so you’ll fit right in here.”

And then I looked across at all the cells on the other side of the block. I saw face after face, one scared kid after another. All wearing too-big prison jumpsuits.

It looked like this whole jail was full of
kids,
nothing but kids.