A World Without You(3)

I step further into the garden—which is basically just some stubby trees and scraggly bushes—and then round the academy and head back out to the edges of the property. Not toward the ocean—not where the lanterns are fighting through the winds to float higher—but back toward the gate and the ruins on the edge of Berkshire’s grounds.

Back to the last place I last saw her.

It’s such bullshit, this memorial with its empty words and fragile lanterns. All of this mourning is totally pointless.

Because Sofía’s not dead.





CHAPTER 2




I hear her before I see her. I’m not surprised that she’s the only one who bothered to find me after the memorial service.

“Hey, Gwen,” I say, as she plops down beside me.

She gives me a sullen look. She’s pissed I left the ceremony. “You’re not the only one who misses her, you know.”

“I know.”

She glares at me, but then the fight leaves her. “This was my place first,” she says, her voice softer now. “I’m the one who showed it to Sofía.”

I didn’t know that. I’d always sort of thought of the chimney as my place on the island. I discovered it my first week here, after doing some research on Berkshire and finding out that the island held one of the oldest remaining houses built by the colonists. My eyes drift to the black-and-bronze plaque adhered to the crumbling bricks near the border of the academy’s grounds: REMAINS OF THE CEDRIC MOOREHEADE HOUSE. DESTROYED IN A FIRE IN 1775. ORIGINALLY BUILT IN SALEM IN THE 1660S, LIKE THE ISAAC GOODALE HOUSE OF IPSWICH, AND MOVED TO PEAR ISLAND IN 1692.

“Why’d you come out here?” I ask Gwen.

She flicks her fingers, a burst of flame dancing out. “I like chimneys.”

“Oh. Right.”

I like history, so of course I’d sought the ruins out, but all that was left was the chimney. Still, I like this place for what it used to be—a house built before America was a country—and for what it might have been—someone’s dream, someone’s birthplace, someone’s safe haven. Pear Island hasn’t been used for much. In the early days, settlers grazed livestock here. But at some point, a family decided that this island, with its biting flies and harsh winds and terrible weather . . . this island would make a perfect home. The chimney is all that’s left of a family. Real people who stood here centuries ago, with lives lost to time.

But Gwen doesn’t care about the history. She likes it simply for what it is now. She stares into the blackened center of the chimney, where hundreds of fires must have blazed over the years. Now there’s just green moss and a few plants trailing up the center. Gwen cups her palm, rubbing her thumb over air, and a tiny ball of fire appears in the center of her hand. She tosses it toward the grass and plants growing in the chimney, but the ground is too wet and the foliage too young for the flame to catch. A thin wisp of smoke trails up the bricks, then dies.

That’s Gwen’s power. Pyrokinesis. The ability to make and control fire.

Gwen stares at the smoke. The trees’ shadows reach toward us, and the air is damp and cool and slightly salty.

After a long stretch of silence, Gwen speaks. “Harold hates it out here,” she says. “Says there’s witches.” She rolls her eyes. “That boy is crazy. Like, he doesn’t just have problems, he is crazy-crazy.”

Harold talks to the dead. His power is probably stronger than any of ours, but it’s also the most useless and will likely drive him over the edge. The Doctor works with him often, trying to help him control his gift and filter out the voices so he can maybe glean some useful information from them.

Gwen stretches her legs in front of her, her eyes still on the chimney. There’s an ease to the silence between us. I don’t feel like I have to talk; we’re both comfortable just being together.

Before I came to Berkshire, I thought I was alone. I have these powers that no one else has. I can control time—well, control is a strong word. I can sometimes, sort of control time. And sometimes it controls me, throwing me around history until I snap back to where I’m supposed to be. When the episodes first started, I thought something was wrong with me. I didn’t know what was happening, so I was scared. Not anymore, though. Not unless I lose control.

I was fifteen the first time I lost control of my power. I was sitting in history class, and my teacher was giving a lecture about the Civil War. She was describing the Battle of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest battles ever, and she told a story about a little pond near the battlefield that turned red with all the blood from the wounded. She explained to us that the story was a myth, that it probably never really happened, but then I blinked.

And I was there.

Just like that. One minute I was in class, and the next minute I was at the Battle of Freaking Shiloh in Tennessee, and it was loud, it was so loud, and the air was thick like fog and smelled like blood. There were people shouting and guns drawn and cannons firing, and I could see it all. And then I saw the pond. It was just as my teacher described it: small and stained red with blood.

And I don’t know what happened next. I guess I just lost it. I started screaming and screaming and screaming, and then I blinked again.

And I was back in class.

Obviously I freaked everyone the hell out. The whole class was staring at me. I was gone so quick no one even noticed, so as far as they knew, I was yelling for no reason. They didn’t know that I could still smell the blood and the gunpowder and the death that hung in the air.