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Chapter One
MY NAME IS MARINA, AS OF THE SEA, BUT I WASN’T called that untilI was knownGarde from the planet Lorien, the fate of which was, and still is, left in our hands Those of us who aren’t lost Those of us still alive
I was six e landed When the ship jolted to a halt on Earth, even at e I sensed how much was at stake for us--nine Cêpan, nine Garde--and that our only chance waited for us here We had entered the planet’s atmosphere in the midst of a storm of our own creation, and as our feet found Earth for the very first time, I reoose bumps that coveredoutside So for us I don’t knoho he was, only that he handed each Cêpan two sets of clothes and a large envelope I still don’t knoas in it
As a group we huddled together, knoe s were given, and then we split up, as we kneein pairs in nine different directions I kept peering over my shoulder as the others receded in the distance until, very slowly, one by one, they all disappeared And then it was just Adelina and me, alone I realize now just how scared Adelinaa ship headed to some unknown destination I remember two or three different trains after that Adelina and I kept to ourselves, huddled against each other in obscure corners, away froht be around We hiked fro on doors that were quickly slary, tired, and scared I ree I reave away so ave them all away And then we found this place in Spain
A stern-looking woman I would come to know as Sister Lucia answered the heavy oak door She squinted at Adelina, taking in her desperation, the way her shoulders drooped
"Do you believe in the word of God?" the wo her eyes in scrutiny
"The word of God is my vow," Adelina replied with a solemn nod I don’t kno she knew this response--perhaps she learned it e stayed in a church baseht one Sister Lucia opened the door
We’ve been here ever since, eleven years in this stone convent with its musty rooms, drafty hallways, and hard floors like slabs of ice Aside from the few visitors, the internet is my only source to the world outside our s for some indication that the others are out there, that they’re searching, n that I’m not alone, because at this point I can’t say that Adelina still believes, that she’s still with ed somewhere over the mountains Maybe it ith the sla woht Whatever it was, Adelina see on the ence of Lorien seems to have been replaced by the faith shared by the convent’s Sisters I remember a distinct shift in Adelina’s eyes, her sudden speeches on the need for guidance and structure if ere to survive
My faith in Lorien reo, four different people witnessed a boy nificance behind the event was small at first, the boy’s abrupt disappearance shortly thereafter created an As far as I know, he hasn’t been found
A few entina who, in the wake of an earthquake, lifted a five-ton slab of concrete to save a man trapped beneath it; and when news of this heroic act spread, she disappeared Like the boy in India, she’s still
And then there’s the father-son duoall the ne in A after the two allegedly de five people in the process They left no trace behind other than mysterious heaps of ash
"It looks like a battle took place here I don’t kno else to explain it," the head investigator was quoted as saying "But et to the bottom of this, and ill find Henri Smith and his son, John"
Perhaps John Se as pushed too far But I don’t think that’s the case My heart races whenever his picture appears on ripped with a profound desperation that I can’t quite explain I can feel it in my bones that he’s one of us And I know, somehow, that I must find him
Chapter Two