Chapter Sixty Any Portal In A Storm
Iscream his name as I dive after him, but my mother grabs me around the waist as all three versions of Uncle Christopher quickly follow Jude into the portal.
“Let me go!” I tell her as I struggle against her.
But my mother has manticore strength, and she uses every bit of it to hold me tight as she orders, “Calm down, Clementine! You’ll see him soon enough.”
“He’ll be at the warehouse?”
“Honestly, where else would he be?” She eyes me impatiently.
“I don’t know,” I answer slowly. “I just thought, people are…”
I trail off because I don’t want to say it. I’m not sure I even can say it.
“Dead?” My mother doesn’t shy away from the truth. “Not saying it doesn’t make it not true, Clementine. Just like not saying it doesn’t make it not Jude’s fault. There will be consequences for this—severe consequences. But did you really think I would banish him for one mistake? This school doesn’t work like that, and you should know that. Besides, there’s nowhere else for him to go. We are the last resort.”
The words the Aethereum dance on the edge of my tongue—it’s where I’ve been terrified they would send him from the moment he told me what happened, just like they sent Carolina—but if my mother hasn’t thought of it, I’m certainly not going to bring it up right now. Or ever.
“Now, can you please help me with this?” She thrusts her tablet with its waterproof cover at me. “Christopher was marking people off as we send them through the portal, but now you can do that. And let’s move, shall we? The sooner we get everyone through, the sooner we can go through, too.”
I take the tablet from my mother, and as I do, there’s a strange flicker—half beside her, half on top of her—and then I’m staring at a younger woman who looks a lot like her, but also doesn’t.
At first, I think it’s just her past self, but that doesn’t make any sense. Because her past self is on her other side, right next to her future self. There can’t be four versions of my mother, can there?
Except, when I look closer, I realize the flicker is the same woman that’s been haunting me—same brown hair, same floral nightdress, same pregnant belly.
I try to ignore her as she stares straight at me with big blue eyes the same color as my mother’s—and mine. That’s when I realize that she’s in color. Like full, actual color. Not just her nightdress now, but all of her. Dark brown hair, soft blush lips, freckled ivory skin, nightdress in varying shades of pink.
She reaches for me, her long, skeletal hand flying for my wrist as, instinctively, I flinch away. She cries out then, a long, low wail that turns into a scream just as she morphs into the wild-haired, desperate sunken creature that’s been haunting me since this storm began.
Her fingers wrap around my wrist in an iron grip, and the moment they start to squeeze, pain radiates through me. Sharp, visceral, overwhelming.
Visions engulf me, slamming into me like wild, storm-tossed waves against the shore, before dragging me down into an abyss.
A man—a fae with the same orange eyes as Jean-Luc.
My mother, grabbing onto a wrist stacked with multicolored friendship bands.
Carolina, struggling to free her wrist as tears pour down her face.
My mother looks so angry, Carolina so scared.
Fear swells inside of me, blends with the wild confusion whipping through my mind. But for the first time since these visions began, the fear is nearly drowned by rage.
“Clementine!” My mother’s voice—sharp and impatient—cuts through the fear. “Will you please pull yourself together and help me?”
I blink, and the creature vanishes like mist, though the emotions it invoked take longer to fade.
“Clementine! Are you listening?” my mother demands.
“Yes!” I wave the tablet as I force myself to pay attention to what’s happening right in front of me in the real, corporeal present. “What do I need to do?”
“I just went through the whole thing,” she tells me. “Were you not listening at all?”
I duck my head and mumble, “Sorry.”
She gestures to the tablet. “We’ve got the students divided alphabetically into groups of twenty. Each group is with a teacher that will accompany them through the portal. We mark each student off as they enter the portal, and your aunt Carmen marks them off as soon as they get to the warehouse on the other side of the portal. We are not taking any chances with leaving even one student behind, so you have to do this right. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yeah, of course.” I stare down at the list on the tablet in front of me. Juniors with last names A through C.
“We’ve already got the freshmen and sophomores over, so let’s get the juniors and seniors over now. Then we can finally get out of this hellish storm.”
As if to reinforce her words, the wind chooses that moment to let loose with a long, low, animalistic yowl. It slams into me with the force of a wrecking ball, almost knocking me off my feet.
My mother steadies me, and her face is even more grim, though I didn’t know that was possible. “Let’s get this done,” she tells me.
“Why did we choose to do the portal out here?” I ask, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind and the sea.
“The security witches said this was our best bet to build a portal this complex that would allow us to transfer several students at the same time,” my mother answers with an annoyed wave of her hand. “Something about the meeting of three powerful elements being much stronger than two not-so-powerful ones.”
I can’t help glancing back at the ocean. Yeah, there’s definitely power there. Too much power, at the moment, if you ask me.
We start the first group through, and I mark each of them off as they step into the portal. “Are all portals like that?” I ask my mom as the sky shimmers and vibrates above us. I can’t actually see any defined walls for the portal, but there’s definitely something there because everything kicked up by the wind keeps slamming into something as it flies through the sky.
“Secure ones are,” she answers. “We have a very specific protocol in place in order to keep these students safe and their powers locked down. That shimmer you see is part of it.”
I’m not sure what about this screams safety to her, but I don’t say anything else as we start on students with the last names D through F. Then again, how else could we safely evacuate people in the middle of all this? There’s no way any traditional modes of transportation would get through this mess.
So, as the storm rages around us, I concentrate on doing my job as quickly and efficiently as I can—as does my mom. We’re all the way up to the junior class Ts through Zs when another bout of lightning fills the sky.
Again, there’s that weird shimmer in the sky that doesn’t seem quite right to me. I blink and rub a hand across my soaking-wet eyes and look again. And scream as I watch dozens of students suddenly fall through the air.
“Clementine!” My mother turns to me wild-eyed. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean what’s wrong?” I point at the disaster unfolding in front of me. “Can’t you see?”
“See what?” she asks.
I blink and the scene disappears as quickly as it came. “I don’t understand,” I whisper. “I saw—”
“What?” my mother demands. “What did you see?”
“I don’t know. There were students falling through the sky. It didn’t make any sense to me.”
She studies me for a few seconds, her eyes moving over every inch of my face as if she’s looking for something. I don’t know what. And then she turns and walks several feet to Ms. Picadilly and Mr. Abdullah—the two most powerful witches on campus—who, I now realize, have been casting the portal this whole time.
“Is everything okay?” she asks them. “Any problems holding the portal?”
“No,” Ms. Picadilly shouts to be heard over the storm. “Everything’s perfect. It’s going like clockwork.”
“Abe?” my mother asks, turning to Mr. Abdullah. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s fine, Camilla,” he says. “Why? Do you think something’s wrong?”
She ignores the question. “There are no fluctuations? The lightning isn’t bothering it?”
Now he just looks baffled. “No. Why?”
She shakes her head. “No reason.”
“We’ve got this, Camilla. I’ve done it a thousand times before, and this feels just like every other time.”
She studies him—and Ms. Picadilly—for a moment, her gaze shifting back and forth between them. Then she seems to make a decision. “Okay, then. Keep up the good work.”
She hustles back to the opening of the portal. “Let’s get this done, Clementine.”
“Of course.” I’m still shocked that she took what I said seriously when I don’t even know if she should have. What I saw only lasted for a split second before it vanished. Unlike everything—and everyone—else around here, all of which are sticking around in triplicate.
She calls for the first group of seniors—in reverse alphabetical order this time—and I start checking them off just as another gust of wind rips across the beach. Seconds later, lightning flashes while thunder rumbles at the exact same second.
“Get in there,” my mom orders Izzy, who has been patiently waiting her turn. “Now.”
Izzy shoots her a very unimpressed look, but she does what my mom asks, disappearing into the portal just as giant, cantaloupe-size hail starts falling from the sky.
One slams into the ground inches from my feet, and I jump back, horrified.
All around us students start yelling and running for cover. But there is no cover out here. The dorm is too far away, and there’s nothing else. We’re sitting ducks.
“Mom, we have to—”
I break off as another huge hailstone slams down right in front of my mom, so close that it catches the toe of her boot.
She jumps back with a startled scream.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, bending to check her foot.
“Get in the portal,” she tells me urgently.
“What?”
“Get in the portal, Clementine.” She raises the megaphone to her lips. “Everyone, get in the portal, now!”
Pandemonium ensues as everyone left on the beach stampedes for the portal all at once—except for Ms. Picadilly and Mr. Abdullah, who stay exactly where they are so they can hold the portal open.
“Go, go, go,” my mom shouts, rushing students in three and four at a time.
Behind us someone screams, and I turn to see one of the senior witches on the ground, her head cracked open and blood slowly leaking out.
“Come on,” my mother yells into the microphone as Ms. Picadilly and Mr. Abdullah widen the opening of the portal. “Everyone in!”
She turns to me. “Get in there, Clementine!”
“I’m waiting for you!”
She doesn’t bother to answer me. Instead, she just puts a hand on the center of my back and shoves me into the portal as hard as she can.
I’m not expecting it, and I fall forward just enough that the portal grabs me.
And then I’m falling, falling, falling.