“…when the time comes…,” Orsay said.

“When?” Cigar sobbed.

“She dreams that you will be with her soon…. She dreams…just three days, she knows it, she is sure of it….” Orsay’s voice had taken on an almost ecstatic tone. Giddy. “She’s seen others do it.”

“What?” Francis demanded.

“…the others who have reappeared,” Orsay said, dreamy now herself, as if she was falling asleep. “She saw them on TV. The twins, the two girls Anna and Emma…she saw them…. They give interviews and tell…”

Orsay yanked her hand back from the FAYZ wall as if she had just noticed the pain.

Sam had still not been seen. He hesitated. He should find out what this was about. But he felt strange, like he was intruding on someone else’s sacred moment. Like he would be barging into a church service.

He sank back toward the cliff’s deepest shadows, careful not to be heard over the soft shush…shush…shush of the water.

“That’s all for tonight,” Orsay said, and hung her head.

“But I want to know about my dad,” D-Con urged. “You said you could do me tonight. It’s my turn!”

“She’s tired,” Orsay’s helper said firmly. “Don’t you know how hard this is for her?”

“My dad is probably out there trying to talk to me,” D-Con wailed, pointing at a specific place on the FAYZ barrier, as if he could picture his father right there, trying to peer through frosted glass. “He’s probably right outside the wall. He’s probably…” He choked up, unable to continue, and now Nerezza gathered him to her as she had Cigar, comforting him.

“They’re all waiting,” Orsay said. “All of them out there. Just beyond the wall. So many…so many…”

“The Prophetess will try again tomorrow,” the helper said. She raised D-Con to his feet. “Go now, all of you. Go. Go!”

The group rose reluctantly, and Sam realized that they would soon be heading straight for him. The bonfire collapsed, sending up a shower of sparks.

He stepped back into a crevice. There wasn’t a square inch of this beach and this cliff that he didn’t know. He waited and watched as Francis, Cigar, D-Con, and the others climbed up the trail and away into the night.

An obviously exhausted Orsay climbed down from the rock. As they passed, arm in arm, the helper bearing Orsay’s weight, Orsay stopped. She looked straight at Sam, though he knew he could not be visible.

“I dreamed her, Sam,” Orsay said. “I dreamed her.”

Sam’s mouth was dry. He swallowed hard. He didn’t want to ask. But he couldn’t stop himself.

“My mom?”

“She dreams of you…and she says…she says…” Orsay sagged, almost fell to her knees, and her helper caught her.

“She says…let them go, Sam. Let them go when their time comes.”

“What?”

“Sam, there comes a time when the world no longer needs heroes. And then the true hero knows to walk away.”

TWO

66 HOURS, 47 MINUTES

Hushaby, don’t you cry,

go to sleep little baby.

When you wake, you shall have

All the pretty little ponies…

IT WAS PROBABLY always a beautiful lullaby, Derek thought. Probably even when normal people sang it, it was beautiful. Maybe even brought tears to people’s eyes.

But Derek’s sister, Jill, was not a normal person.

Beautiful songs could sometimes take a person out of themselves and carry them away to a place of magic. But when Jill sang, it was not about the song, really. She could sing the phone book. She could sing a shopping list. Whatever she sang, whatever the words or the tune, it was so beautiful, so achingly lovely, that no one could listen and be untouched.

He wanted to go to sleep.

He wanted to have all the pretty little ponies.

While she sang, that was all he wanted. All he had ever wanted.

Derek had made sure the windows were shut. Because when Jill sang, every person within hearing came to listen. They couldn’t help it.

At first neither of them had understood what was happening. Jill was just nine years old, not a trained singer or anything. But one day, about a week ago, she’d started singing. Something stupid, Derek recalled. The theme song to The Fairly OddParents.

Derek had stopped dead in his tracks. He’d been unable to move. Unable to stop listening. Grinning at the rapid-fire list of Timmy’s wishes, wanting each of those things himself. Wanting his own fairy godparents. And when at last Jill had fallen silent, it was like he was waking up from the most perfect dream to find himself in a gray and awful reality.

It took only a day or so before Derek figured out that this was no ordinary talent. He’d had to face the fact that his little sister was a freak.

It was a terrifying discovery. Derek was a normal. The freaks—people like Dekka, Brianna, Orc, and especially Sam Temple—scared him. Their powers meant they could do whatever they wanted. No one could stop them.

Mostly the freaks acted okay. Mostly they used their powers to do things that needed doing. But Derek had seen Sam Temple in the middle of a fight. Sam against that other mega-freak, Caine Soren. They had destroyed a big part of the town plaza trying to kill each other. Derek had curled up in a ball and hidden as best he could while that battle raged.

Everyone knew the freaks thought they were special. Everyone knew they got the best food. You never saw a freak reduced to eating rat meat. You never saw a freak eating bugs. A few weeks earlier, when the hunger was at its worst, Derek and Jill had done that. They’d caught and eaten some grass-hoppers.