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"But the thing is, I think I was on Mogadore, which, by the way, is just as disgusting as I iined it would be The air was so thick it ray But, how did I get there? And how could this one huge dude on Mogadore seee?" Sae, like more than double the size of the soldiers I saenty feet tall, ent and powerful I can tell just by looking at him He was definitely a leader of some sort I’ve seen hi information relayed to him by some little peon, and it was all about us and what had happened at the school This second ti to board a ship; but before he was on it, one of the others ran up and handed hi I didn’t knohat it was at first, but just before the ship’s door closed, he turned towards me to make sure I could see exactly what it was"

"What was it?" Sam asks

I shake my head, ball up my paper towel, and burn it on the pal sun, a blaze of orange and hot pink like the Florida sunsets Henri and I watched from our elevated porch I wish he was still here to help make sense of all this now

"John? What was it? What did he have?" Six asks

I lift rab my pendant

"This These He had pendants Three of theadorians must have taken theuy, or whoever he is, he put them around his neck like Olyh so I could see Each one was glowing bright blue, and when I woke up,it’s a premonition, like you just saw your fate? Or could you have just had a weird dream because of how stressed out you are?" Saht and these are all visions And I think they’re all happening right now But the thing that scares ot on that ship, there’s a good chance he was headed this way And, if Six is right about how fast a ship can travel, it won’t be very long until he’s here"

Chapter Eleven

THE THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT COMING TO SANTA Teresa are ht would never end I re i for change, for food; re it caused I reusted looks froed names And I remember the Chest, as cumbersome as it was, that Adelina refused to part ith no matter how dire our situation became On the day we finally knocked at the door Sister Lucia answered, I re between Adelina’s feet I know she stowed it away in the shadows of so have turned up nothing, but I still keep looking

On Sunday, one week after Ella arrived, we sit together in the back pew during Mass It’s her first, and it holds her attention about as well as it holds mine: not at all Aside fro I helped her ether, eat breakfast and dinner together, say our nightly prayers together I’ve grown very attached to her, and by the way she follows rown attached to ood forty-fiveof the cave and debating whether I should bring Ella along with me today There are several probleht inside, and there’s no way Ella will be able to see through the dark in the way that I can Second, the snow has yet to h it Buther in haradorians could arrive at any moment, and Ella would be defenseless But even with these obstacles and concerns, I’ anyway I want to show her s

On Tuesday, minutes before ere to depart for school, I had found Ella hunched over on her bed Still chewing on a breakfast biscuit, I looked over her shoulder to see her furiously shading a perfect drawing of our sleeping quarters The details, the technical accuracy of each crack in the wall, her ability to capture the faintest of squares of sunrays that dropped through the s in theat a black-and-white photograph

"Ella!" I had blurted

She had flipped the paper over, trapping it against her schoolbook with her tiny sed hands She kneas me but didn’t turn around

"Where did you learn how to do that?" I’d whispered "How did you learn to draell?"

"My father," she whispered back, keeping the drawing turned over "He was an artist So was my mother"

I’d sat down on her bed "And here I thought I was a pretty good painter"

"My father was an incredible painter," she’d said plainly Before I could ask her more questions, we had been interrupted and then ushered out of the roo under my pillow It’s the best present I’ve ever received

Sitting in Mass, I think that s Surely I can find a flashlight or lantern sohts are interrupted by a fit of giggles beside me

I open my eyes and look over Ella’s found a red-and-black furry caterpillar that’s in the process of crawling up her arn of silence It stops her for a brief ins giggling again Her face turns red while trying not to laugh, but the fact that she’s trying to stifle it only makes it thatof laughs escape Every head snaps around to see what’s happening, and Father Marco stops his sermon in midsentence I snatch the caterpillar fro at us Ella stops laughing Slowly the heads turn back around and Father Marco, clearly flustered at having lost his spot, resumes his sermon

I sit withfree After a minute I opento curl into a ball Ella raises her eyebrows and cups her hands together, and I place the caterpillar in the down at it

I scan the front row I’ sternly inback to Father Marco

I lean over to Ella

"When prayer ends," I whisper into her ear, "we have to get out of here as fast as we can And keep away from Sister Dora"

Before Mass I’d fixed Ella’s hair into a tight braid; and now, gazing up at h the heavy braid is weighing her head back

"Am I in trouble?"