Inquest (39 page)

“Milo, do not
raise your voice at your mother,” his dad demands. When Milo
doesn’t say anything, he continues. “We were trying to come up with
a plan that wouldn’t draw the Guardians’ attention to you. We were
working with the other Cipher families to come up with something
that would keep you safe, keep all the Ciphers safe. It isn’t an
easy thing to coordinate something like that. We weren’t ready for
you to jump on your own.”

“Looks like
you underestimated me in more ways than one,” Milo says bitterly.
“I’ve done more on my own, without you. Maybe it should stay that
way.”

“Milo, please,
we’re trying to help you,” his mom begs.

Milo opens his
mouth to say something I’m sure won’t help the situation. I motion
to Celia for help. Moving from her spot on the floor in front of
the fireplace, she comes and sits next to her brother. His arm
slips around her shoulders and pulls her close. His anger is for
the danger they put Celia in as much as their lying to him. Having
his sister safely next to him does something to take the edge off
his anger. He’s still furious at his parents, but at least it has
boiled down to more of a simmer than an inferno. I don’t know how
long he can keep it up, but he’s calmed down enough that I can take
my focus off him for a moment and risk a few questions of my
own.

I open my
mouth to speak, but Mrs. Hanover is faster. She turns to face me,
her expression pleading. “Libby, didn’t you explain about the other
Ciphers to Milo?”

“Mrs. Hanover,
I’ve never heard of Ciphers before. I can’t explain anything right
now.”

“What do you
mean you don’t know about the Ciphers? How did you know to repeat
Milo’s Inquest? Didn’t you speak to them?”

“No, I didn’t
speak to them,” I say. “I don’t even know who they are, or where
they are. I have no idea about any of this. Celia was the one who
gave me the idea to repeat the Inquest.”

“Celia?” she
asks. “So you really haven’t been in contact with the other
Ciphers?”

“No, I
haven’t.”

Milo’s parents
look at each other. The bubbling hope that was in their eyes only
moments before is starting to wane. If they start to think they’ve
made a mistake with me, they’ll run. I’ll lose Milo forever. “Mrs.
Hanover, please, can you just tell me what you know? If I need to
speak to them, if they know what I’m supposed to be doing right
now, please just tell me where they are.”

Mrs. Hanover’s
shoulders slump in defeated amazement. I suddenly fear that she has
no more idea than I do about where the Ciphers are, but when she
speaks her quiet voice is laced with laughter. “The only way you
can speak to the Ciphers is in the spirit world,” she says.

“What? You
mean they’re dead?” I ask. Milo is the only one left? When they
said there were others I assumed they were still alive somewhere.
No wonder they tried to hide Milo. And if they’re all dead, how am
I supposed to save them?

“Dead?” Mr.
Hanover asks. “Of course they’re not dead. Whatever gave you that
idea?”

“Um, the fact
that the spirit world is filled with the spirits…of the dead,” I
say tentatively.

Mr. Hanover
snorts in derision. “I can’t believe the schools are still teaching
that drivel to our children. Intentionally spreading lies to whole
generations just to hide their dirty little secret. It’s
unbelievable.”

“Dear,” Mrs.
Hanover says, putting a hand on her husband’s arm, “you can rant
about the shortcomings of public education later. Libby looks like
she’s about ready to explode if we don’t explain what we know.”

“Yes, please,”
I say.

“The spirits
in the spirit world are not from persons who have passed on. They
are from people locked there against their will. Every spirit there
still has a physical body, but they are separated from it,” she
says. “They will remain there until someone releases them. Until
you release them, Libby.”

Mr. Walters
lied to me when he said he didn’t know or care what the spirits
were or where they came from. Being a Seeker, he had to know about
what the other Guardians were doing. Plus, he already knew Milo was
a Cipher. He lied right to my face. That wild haired lunatic is
going to get some not very happy words from me the next time I see
him. Pushing away my irritation, I turn my attention back to Milo’s
parents.

“How can they
be kept there?” I ask.

Mrs. Hanover
frowns deeply. “They are captured by the Guardians and taken to
what is basically a prison. Except these prisoners aren’t monitored
by Corrections Officers. These unfortunate prisoners are monitored
by powerful Spiritualists. The Spiritualists they employ are
powerful enough that they can reach into a person’s spirit and tear
it away. Not completely, of course, or they would die, but far
enough away, locked in the spirit world. Because these prisoners
have no talents of their own to use, they are incapable of
escaping. The Spiritualists stay linked with them and monitor them
every second of the day.”

“How long do
they keep them there?” I ask quietly.

“Until their
physical body dies. It’s a death sentence.”

I sink into
the couch in despair. No wonder even thinking about it makes her so
sad. That could have been Milo.

“How do you
know about them?” I ask.

“A man named
Marcus Riley came to me one day at my counseling practice and tried
to recruit me. He was the Warden of the Cipher prison in Akron. I
hadn’t even known there was a Cipher prison, or Ciphers, then. He
offered me an exorbitant amount of money, but once he explained
what I would be doing, I turned him down flat.” She shivers at the
memory. “And then a year later my own son was named a Cipher. I
could never let him be taken to one of those places.”

“But why are
they holding them?” I ask. “What threat could a person with no
talents possibly be?”

Mr. Hanover
leans forward, his fingertips pressing together in front of him.
“We wondered that as well. It didn’t make sense. Even before Milo’s
Inquest we questioned the true purpose of these prisons. I started
researching them, but found very little. The only reference I found
to Ciphers was a passage in an old political book that mentioned
the need for the prisons to protect the populace from what they
might become. Become. That word piqued my interest. If the Ciphers
could become something then they weren’t really what we thought,
talentless. Only, the Inquisitors apparently could do nothing to
find these talents.”

“And after
watching Milo grow up so strong, fast, intuitive, and generally
talented, I knew there had to be something more than what I was
told,” Mrs. Hanover adds, “but if a Inquisitor can’t unlock the
Ciphers’ talents, who could? I decided to ask. It took a great many
difficult trips to the spirit world before I was able to coax any
of the spirits there into talking with me about it. Travelling to
the spirit world is not my strongest area, but eventually I found
one willing spirit, a young woman named Lacy. She was afraid to
tell me too much because the Spiritualists were monitoring them
very closely, but she said she overhead the Guardians who captured
her talking about the Destroyer. She said they had to keep her
locked up just in case the Destroyer ever actually appeared.”

Mrs. Hanover
takes my hands gently in hers. “After that, I knew all we could do
was hide and wait for you to find us. You are the only one who can
set those people free. You’ve already saved Milo, which is more
than we ever hoped would happen, but your work isn’t done yet,
Libby.”

Thoughts race,
crawl, jump, and bash through my mind. They run into one another
and explode into entirely new ideas and problems. No matter how
hard I try to organize them, or sort them out, they just keep
multiplying. How can this be true? Is it really possible that there
is a whole layer of lore and actual practice in our society that
the general population is completely ignorant of? With social
networking and texting, blogs and gossip columns all over the
internet, how has this never slipped out before now? What about the
families of these Ciphers? Did they really never tell anyone? Or
fight to get their sons and daughters back? Mr. and Mrs. Hanover
can’t possibly be the first ones to ever resist. What kind of
threats did the Guardians level at them to keep them from exposing
them? It’s absolutely sickening to entertain that possibility. Even
more sickening is thinking about the lives I’m sure have been taken
in order to keep this secret.

Suddenly
everything in my mind comes to a screaming halt.

“What if the
Guardians find out what I’ve done to Milo?” I ask. “Won’t they
expect me to try and rescue the other Ciphers? What if they try to
stop that from happening? What if they kill them all?”

I can’t be
responsible for the deaths of hundreds or thousands of innocent
people. I just can’t. My chest constricts painfully. Something
tried to warn me not to tell Braden what I had done, but it was the
only way to save Milo. He would have taken Milo if I hadn’t told
him something. I had to save Milo. I had to save him.

“Libby, dear.
Please calm down, Libby. You haven’t done anything wrong,” Mrs.
Hanover says. “The Guardians in charge of the prisons were alerted
to your presence at the same time everyone else was.”

“But I’ve been
trying to convince everyone I’m not the Destroyer up until now.
After tonight, no one is going to believe I’m harmless. The only
way I could get the Guardian strike leader to leave Milo alone was
to show him that Milo isn’t a Cipher. He’s going to tell his
superiors. They’ll know I can save the Ciphers. What if the
Guardians murder every one of the Ciphers to keep me from rescuing
them?”

“No,” she says
shaking her head, “no, they won’t do that. They can’t. All of those
Spiritualists keeping the Ciphers locked in the spirit world are
linked to the Ciphers. Killing the Ciphers will kill the
Spiritualists too. They won’t kill thousands of the most talented
Spiritualists in the world.”

“Not even to
keep me from saving the Ciphers? I’m supposed to destroy the world,
Mrs. Hanover. A few thousand lives to keep that from happening, I
don’t see why they wouldn’t just do it.” It’s a cold assessment,
but a logical one. A few thousand lives to protect billions, even
the most soft-hearted person in the world would have a hard time
turning down such an option.

Mrs. Hanover’s
fingers tighten painfully, her fingernails digging into my skin.
“Libby, there are worse things in this world than destruction.
Murdering the Ciphers while their spirits are locked away, it would
be worse than anything you might do. Something terrible happens to
a spirit if it is separated from its body permanently. I won’t
discuss it in front of Celia, but trust me when I say the Guardians
will not kill the Ciphers.”

The twisted,
horrified quality of her features makes me pull back. Everyone in
the room seems to be holding their breath. I have no idea what
she’s talking about, but she already knows more about this whole
situation than I do. And I have witnessed Celia waking from a
terrified nightmare of Guardians ripping her from her bed. I won’t
be the one to usher in new nightmares if I can help it. I will
definitely come back to this topic later, though.

“I was wrong
before, when I said I’d never contacted the Ciphers,” I say.

Everyone’s
countenance perks up. Milo and Celia nod as they realize what I am
talking about. Lance notices this and frowns. Lance’s expression
changes from confused, to angry, and finally to hurt as I quickly
relate the bitter details of my dad’s death. Lance held me as I
cried for hours in the days after my dad died. He and Jen both did
everything they could to help me cope and eventually accept his
death. And I never spoke a word of what happened to either of
them.

Part of me
feels guilty about that now, but the memory of his knife on my
throat screams that I was right not to trust him. Was it really an
act of pure conditioning, leaping at me like that? He’s here now,
though. When he kissed me in the hallway, when he made the Guardian
Oath, he believed my lies about not being the Destroyer, but he
knows the truth now and he still stayed. The honest pain in his
aura that I never told him the truth about my dad pushes back on
me. Before that night, what did he ever do to earn my distrust? He
was thoughtless at times, obsessed with becoming a Guardian, and a
dozen other minor faults, but he never once let me down. Any time I
needed him, he was there.

Distracted by
my guilt, Mrs. Hanover has to repeat her question several times
before I finally hear her. “Libby? You haven’t been able to contact
the Ciphers since?”

“No,” I say
shaking myself.

“Hasn’t your
Spiritualism instructor been teaching you anything?”

My whole face
scowls at the thought of that class. “Mrs. Sanchez prefers to
pretend I don’t exist. She helps the other students all the time,
but she’s yet to answer a single one of my questions. I listen to
her lectures on theory and stuff like that, but it’s just not
helping.”

“Well, of
course it isn’t. Spiritualism isn’t something you can learn on your
own. It is unique among the other talents because you
must
have a guide to show you the way. It’s not as simple as accessing
latent strength in your muscles or pushing your thoughts into
someone’s mind. Everyone does that on some level naturally. Finding
your way out of this world and into another is a journey that takes
much more than simple directions.” Mrs. Hanover’s shoulders
straighten seriously. “If your teacher at school won’t guide you
like she should, then I will. I won’t let prejudice and
incompetence keep you from saving the other Ciphers.”

Someone who
has a clue about what I should be doing with my Spiritualism
helping me get over the walls I keep running into? I suddenly feel
too giddy to even say anything. I feel light for a moment, as if
the strings binding me to this earth are finally starting to lose
their strength. The strain of failing so consistently was wearing
on me fast. The possibility of finally being able to use all of my
talents brings back a serious dose of energy to my body, but there
is still something I don’t understand.