She found herself bumping into a hard, masculine, bare chest while forcing herself to think realistically. Midnight was coming — and not in the form of a rose.
Fell’s Church needed all the help it could get and here she was staring at flowers.
Abruptly, Sage swung her off her feet and said, “What a temptation, especially for a lover of la beauté like you, belle madame. What a foolish rule to keep you from taking just a bud! But there is something even higher and more pure than beauty, Elena. You, you are named for it. In old Greek, Elena means ‘light’! The darkness is coming fast — the Last, Everlasting Midnight! Beauty will not hold it back; it is a bagatelle, a trinket, useless in times of disaster. But light, Elena, light will conquer the darkness! I believe this as I believe in your courage, your honesty, and your gentle, loving heart.”
With that, he kissed her on the forehead and set her down.
Elena was dazed. Of all the things she knew, she knew best that she could not defeat the darkness that was coming — not alone.
“But you’re not alone,” Stefan whispered, and she realized that he was right beside her, and that she must be wide open, projecting her thoughts as clearly as if she were speaking.
“We’re all here with you,” Bonnie said in a voice twice her size. “We’re not afraid of the dark.”
There was a pause while everyone tried not to look at Damon. At last he said, “Somehow I got talked into this insanity — I’m still wondering how it happened. But I’ve come this far and I’m not going to turn around now.”
Sage turned toward the final door and it brightened. Not by much, however. It looked like the shady underside of a very large tree. What was odd, though, was that there was nothing at all growing under it. No ferns or bushes or seedlings, not even the normally ever-present creepers and weeds. There were a few dead leaves on the ground, but otherwise it was just dirt.
Sage said, “A planet with only one corporeal form of life upon it. The Great Tree that covers an entire world. The crown covers all but the natural freshwater lakes it needs to survive.”
Elena looked into the heart of the twilit world. “We’ve come so far, and maybe together — maybe we can find the star ball that will save our town.”
“This is the door you pick?” asked Sage.
Elena looked at the rest of the group. They all seemed to be waiting for her confirmation. “Yes — and right now. We have to hurry.” She made a motion as if to put her cup down and it disappeared. She smiled thanks at Sage.
“Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t give you any help,” he said. “But if you have a compass…”
Elena had one. It was always dangling from her backpack because she was always trying to read it.
Sage took the compass in his hand and lightly traced a line on it. He gave the compass back to Elena and she found that the needle no longer pointed to the north, but at an angle northeast. “Follow the arrow,” he said. “It will take you to the trunk of the Great Tree. If I had to guess at where to find the largest star ball, I would go this way. But be wary! Others have tried this path. Their bodies have nourished the Great Tree — as fertilizer.”
Elena scarcely heard the words. She had been terrified at the thought of searching an entire planet for a star ball. Of course, it might be a very small world, like…like…
Like the little diamond moon you saw over the Nether World?
The voice in Elena’s mind was both familiar and not. She glanced at Sage, who smiled. Then she looked around the room. Everyone seemed to be waiting for her to take the first step.
She took it.
“You’ve been fed and taken care of as best as we can manage,” Meredith said, looking at all the taut, frightened young faces turned toward her in the basement.
“And now there’s just one thing I want to ask of you in return.” She made an effort and steadied her voice. “I want to know if anybody knows of a mobile phone that connects to the Internet, or a computer that is still working. Please, please — if you even think you know where one might be, tell me.”
The tension was like a thick rubber cord, dragging Meredith toward each of the pale, strained faces, dragging them to her.
It was just as well that Meredith was essentially well-balanced. About twelve hands went up immediately, and their lone five-year-old whispered, “My mommy has one. And my daddy.”
There was a pause before Meredith could say, “Does anybody know this kid?”
and an older girl spoke up before she could.
“She just means they had them before the Burning Man.”
“Is the Burning Man called Shinichi?” Meredith asked.
“’Course. Sometimes he would make the red parts of his hair burn up way over his head.”
Meredith filed that little fact away under Things I do not want to see, honest, cross my heart, ever.
Then she shook herself free from the image.
“You guys and girls, please, please think. I only need one, one mobile phone with Internet access that still has power right now. One laptop or computer that is still working now, maybe because of a generator still making electricity. Just one family with a home generator still working. Anybody?”
The hands were down now. A boy she thought she recognized as being one of the Loring siblings, maybe age ten or eleven, said, “The Burning Man told us that mobile phones and computers were bad. That was why my brother got in a fistfight with my dad. He threw all the mobiles at home in the toilet.”
“Okay. Okay, thanks. But anybody who’s seen a working mobile or computer? Or a home generator—”
“Why, yes, my dear, I’ve got one.” The voice came from the top of the stairs.
Mrs. Flowers was standing there, dressed in a fresh sweat suit. Strangely, she had her voluminous purse in her hand.
“You had — have a generator?” Meredith asked, her heart sinking. What a waste!
And if disaster came all because she, Meredith, hadn’t finished reading over her own research! The minutes were ticking away, and if everyone in Fell’s Church died, it would be her fault. Her fault. She didn’t think she could live with that.
Meredith had tried, all her life, to reach the state of calm, concentration, and balance that was the other side of the coin from the fighting skills her various disciplines had taught her. And she had become good at it, a good observer, a good daughter, even a good student for all that she was in Elena’s fast-paced, high-flying clique. The four of them: Elena, Meredith, Caroline, and Bonnie had fit together like four pieces of a puzzle, and Meredith still sometimes missed the old days and their daring, dominating pseudo-sophisticated capers that never really hurt anyone — except the silly boys who had milled around them like ants at a picnic.
But now, looking at herself, she was puzzled. Who was she? A Hispanic girl named for her mother’s Welsh best friend in college. A hunter-slayer of vampires who had kitten canines, a vampire twin, and whose group of friends included Stefan, a vampire; Elena, an ex-vampire — and possibly another vampire, although she was extremely hesitant to call Damon a “friend.”
What did that all add up to?
A girl trying to do her best to keep her balance and concentration, in a world that had gone insane. A girl still reeling from what she’d learned about her own family, and now tottering from the need to confirm a dreadful suspicion.
Stop thinking. Stop! You have to tell Mrs. Flowers that her boardinghouse has been destroyed.
“Mrs. Flowers — about the boardinghouse — I have to talk to you…”
“Why don’t you use my BlackBerry first?” Mrs. Flowers came down the basement stairs carefully, watching her feet, and then the children parted before her like waves on the Red Sea.
“Your…?” Meredith stared, choked up. Mrs. Flowers had opened her enormous purse and was now proffering a rather thick all-black object to her.
“It still has power,” the old lady explained as Meredith took the thing in two shaking hands, as if receiving a holy object. “I just turned it on and it was working.
And now I’m on the Internet!”—proudly.
Meredith’s world had been swallowed up by the small, grayish, antiquated screen.