AFTER THE DOOR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TOWER creaks open, I hear footsteps. I hear echoed breathing. Whoever it is, it’ll be impossible to hide a drugged Adelina, a cat, and a Chest stuffed with alien weapons and artifacts. I slowly set the branch back into the Chest and close the lid. Legacy creeps to the edge of the belfry floor and then sits and stares down into the darkness. We’re all silent, but then Adelina rolls out a long, droning snore.
The footsteps in the circular stairway speed up. I give Adelina a few shakes to wake her up. She falls onto her side.
What do I do? I mouth to Legacy. The cat jumps on top of the Chest and then jumps back off again only to purr around my feet. It isn’t an answer, but it does give me an idea. I lean down and set Legacy on top of the Chest and then scramble up into one of the two windows where the cool air penetrates my pajamas and instantly causes my teeth to chatter. The footsteps are getting closer.
With my mind, I raise the Chest high in the air, and Legacy’s claws scrape at the lid for a safe footing. I have to duck as I float the Chest up and over me and out the window. Immediately after I set the Chest quietly on the frosty lawn ten stories below, Legacy jumps off and runs into the darkness. I then float Adelina up and over me, her nightgown brushing the top of my head, and carefully I set her down next to the Chest.
The footsteps are loud now. I swing my legs over the edge of the window. Using whatever concentration I can still muster, I am able to levitate myself a few centimeters above the cold stone. I push out into the swirling wind. Before I lower myself away from the tower, I see the mustached Mogadorian from the café round the last turn of the stairway and stomp into the belfry.
My concentration buckles and then snaps into a million little pieces. I go into a wild free-fall until the last moment, when I press my hands in front of my chest and set my mind on floating like a feather. My right knee lands a hair from Adelina’s shivering body.
I panic. I either have to try to get the Chest and Adelina down into the village for hiding—but it is the middle of the night and we are in our nightclothes and I can only see a few lonely windows lit in town—or I have to quickly find a place to hide us within the orphanage. It will take the Mogadorian less time to descend the tower than it did for him to race up it, but he still has a long hallway to travel and another flight of stairs to run down to make it to the first floor. I stick my head through the double doors, and once I see the coast is clear, I drape Adelina over the Chest and float them into the nave. My strength is waning immensely, but I am somehow able to summon just enough power to get the Chest, Adelina and me tucked away up into the farthest recess of the drafty, cold and damp nook where the Chest had originally been hidden.
I am beginning to think I led the Mogadorian right to me by opening the Chest. Perhaps the red pulse of the crystal I dropped is some kind of transmitter. Adelina will know what it is, what to do. To combat the fear that an evil alien race is coming directly for me, to somehow apologize to Adelina for drugging her, and to gather a little warmth, I rest my head on Adelina’s chest and wrap my arms around her waist.
Hours later, I hear Adelina grunt and shuffle her legs underneath mine.
“Adelina?” I whisper. “Are you awake?”
“Who is that? Marina?”
I whisper, “Adelina, you have to be really, really quiet.”
“Why?” she whispers. “And where are we?”
“We’re in the nave where you hid the Chest. But please listen to me. They’re here. The Mogadorians came for me last night after I opened the Chest, and I had to hide us.”
“How did you open up the Chest by yourself? It doesn’t work that way.”
“You told me how to do it. You were sleep-talking,” I lie. I could tell her I drugged her, but I’m not ready for that argument.
Her confusion is evident in her voice. “I don’t remember. . . . I, I remember getting out of bed and then . . . I guess that’s about it. You opened up the Chest? What was inside?”
“A lot of things, Adelina. So much. There are all these stones and all these jewels, and one of them lit up in my hand and started flashing, and I think that’s why the Mogadorian showed up.”
“What Mogadorian? What happened?” Adelina tries to sit up, but I stop her before she hits her head on the low ceiling.
I whisper, “I saw a man in the café a few days ago who had a book about Pittacus, and he kept staring at me. He had this hat on and this big mustache, and I could just tell he was from Mogadore. And then last night after I opened the Chest in the north belfry, he showed up.”
“How did we escape?”
“I used my telekinesis to float us out the window and into the yard, and then I used it to get us up here.”
“We have to get out of here,” she whispers. “We have to leave Santa Teresa immediately.”
My excitement is immediate. I hug her in the dark, and to my surprise she hugs me back. Adelina crawls to the lip of the nook and I follow her with the Chest hovering behind me. When the nave appears empty, Adelina asks me to lower her to the floor. Then I carefully drop the Chest over the lip and set it silently next to Adelina’s bare feet. I’m about to levitate down when Sister Dora appears at the back of the nave and marches towards Adelina.
“Where have you been?” she barks. “You left your post all night. How could you do such a thing? And what is this luggage doing in here?”
“I had to get some fresh air, Sister Dora,” Adelina says softly. “I’m sorry I left my post.”
I can see Sister Dora’s eyes narrow. “With Marina?”
“What?”
“I had four girls wake me up in the middle of the night saying that Marina snuck out last night and that you left with her.”
Adelina starts to speak, but Ella suddenly appears behind Sister Dora and tugs on her dress.
“Sister Dora? I just saw Marina,” she lies.
“Where?”
“In the bedroom, sleeping.”
Sister Dora bends down and snatches Ella by the arm, and the terrified look on Ella’s face causes something to shift inside me. “You’re a little liar! I just came from the sleeping quarters, and no one is in there. You’re making up excuses for her.”
“Sister Dora, that’s enough,” Adelina says.
But Sister Dora begins dragging Ella away so forcefully that her feet hardly touch the ground. “We’re going up to the office, and you’re going to learn that you don’t lie here.”
Tears stream down Ella’s cheeks. From the nook’s opening, I stare at Sister Dora’s hand and pry her fingers away from Ella’s bicep. Sister Dora yells in pain, and then peers down at Ella with surprise and confusion. She grabs Ella again.
Adelina jogs over to them, and before I can send Sister Dora all the way down the main aisle on her back, Adelina grabs her wrist.
Sister Dora rips her arm away. My heart jumps into my throat with Adelina’s newfound alliance to me and my friend.
“Don’t you ever touch me again,” Sister Dora challenges her. “You don’t even belong here, Adelina. And neither does that juvenile demon you brought with you.”
Adelina smiles calmly. “You’re right, Sister Dora. Perhaps Marina and I don’t belong here, and perhaps we will leave this very morning. But would you please be so kind as to let go of Ella first?” Her voice, while cordial and patient, contains a hint of venom.
“How dare you!” Sister Dora scoffs. “Why, you’re no more than an orphan yourself. We took you in when no one else wanted you!”
“We’re all the same in the Lord’s eyes. Surely you acknowledge as much?”
Sister Dora moves to take another step, but Adelina again grabs her arm. The two women stare into each other’s eyes.
“I will be talking about this with Sister Lucia. You will be thrown out of here so fast you won’t have a chance to pray for forgiveness.”
“I already said I’d be leaving this morning. And I will always have the chance to pray for forgiveness.” Adelina reaches her hand out to Ella, and she takes it. Sister Dora hesitates before reluctantly letting go of Ella’s arm. “I’ll not only pray that Marina forgives me for being such a terrible guardian, but I’ll also pray that God forgives you for forgetting your purpose here.”
They continue to stare into each other’s eyes for a few more seconds before Sister Dora pivots and huffs out of the nave. Once she’s out of sight and Ella has her back to me, I float to the ground.
“Hi, Ella,” I say.
“Marina!” She lets go of Adelina’s hand, runs and hugs me. “Where were you?”
“Adelina and I had to talk alone,” I say, pulling away from her. I look up at Adelina. “We had to talk about our future.”
Adelina squints, then looks down at her dirty nightgown and becomes embarrassed. “Marina, go pack your things and put that Chest somewhere safe. We’re leaving very soon.”
When Adelina walks away, Ella grabs my hand and squeezes it. “The bad men were here last night, Marina.”
“I know, I saw him. That’s why we’re leaving.” As soon as I say it I know I will ask Adelina if we can take Ella with us.
“I saw all three of them,” Ella whispers.
I gasp. “There’s three of them?”
“They were at the window last night, looking at your bed.”
A shiver runs up my spine. I float the Chest back up into the nook and run to the sleeping quarters, dodging huddles of girls in the hallway whispering to each other about something that happened in the village.
“They were right there,” she says, pointing at the window.
“Three of them, you’re sure?”
She nods her head. “Yes, and they saw me at the window watching them. Then they ran away.”
“What did they look like?” I ask.
“They were tall and had really long hair. And their jackets went almost to their shoes,” she says.
“With mustaches, right? They had mustaches?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t remember mustaches,” she says.
I’m confused, but I know I don’t have much time before Adelina shows up with a bag of the belongings she’s collected over the past eleven years. I’m about to race into the shower when Analee, another girl, stops me in my tracks.
“School is canceled today. That girl Miranda Marquez was found strangled inside the school this morning.”
I sit down on my bed, shocked. Miranda Marquez is a dark-haired girl who lives in the village and sits beside me in Spanish history class. Our teacher, Maestra Muñoz, often confuses us for each other because Miranda is skinny and tall like me, and her hair is the same length as mine. It takes me a second to realize that whoever killed Miranda might have mistaken her for me. Someone might have tried to kill me last night.
“This is really . . . this is bad,” I whisper.
Analee says, “Plus, I heard one of the Sisters say that some villagers saw people flying through the air last night and now there are all these news vans out there doing a report on it.”
This is all happening so fast. The Mogadorians have found me. They found my cave. I was being reckless with my Legacies and witnesses saw me and Adelina leave the belfry window. A girl from my school might be dead because of me, and Adelina and I are leaving the orphanage in the middle of winter without a place to stay.
I take the fastest hot shower of my life and wait for Adelina.