(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: anxiety, children in peril)
**Isabelle**
When the Time Rift fizzled out and Ranya turned and stumbled upstairs, I simply stood there.
"Lotus?" I called again, though as I had assumed, I didn't get a response. My heart continued to pound; what had they wanted to warn me about this time?
Tooth put a hand on my shoulder. "Who was that?"
I told the Guardians about Lotus, what they had told me this morning.
Bunny narrowed his eyes. "Can you even trust them? Who are they, and why do they care about warning you?"
"They seem nice so far," said Tooth.
"But how did they know what was happening? Are they working with Pitch? People can't warn others in the past like that. I made sure of that years ago." Bunny's gaze darted to the dining room window, and his eyes widened. "What's wrong with the Moon?"
"It just appears that way in Windshallow," said Mom, rising from her chair. She set Zachary on the ground. "The mist, the shimmering air, the disappearing objects, the dilapidated school buildings, the people knowing things they've never seen, the purple water and Moon—all part of Windshallow. People consider Isabelle one of its mysteries as well."
Golden symbols glittered and flitted above Sandy's head.
"Sandy says Windshallow has a powerful aura," North translated.
My heart pounded. "Is that bad?"
More symbols fluttered above Sandy.
"It's too early to tell," North said. "We would need more information, and we don't have time for that now. We need to plan." He said more words, but all sound slipped from the world like water down a drain. I could no longer feel the floor beneath me. My heart pounded harder as my sight darkened, beginning in the corners and encroaching inward. What always happened before a vision.
The first thing that came to me was the smell of smoke spilling in from everywhere. Then the ground under my feet, not so solid as crumbly. Hot, sharp edges dug into my bare soles.
The world sprawled in front of me. Not a house, building, or beam remained standing; they were all debris and split chunks of white and blue stone. Fires shot into the sky in the distance, black ash spilling from their spires.
What was most prominent, however, was the screaming.
With my usual enhanced senses in my vision, I could hear that it come from exactly 258 people, varying pitches and lengths and fiercenesses, figures scattered about the landscape. Some were children, and those screams were cut short. I could barely make out their figures in the distance, but when their screams stopped in their throats, their bodies elongated into shadows with gaping holes for eyes. They streaked into the air like curls of ink. Fearlings, Pitch's minions from the books. My heart pounded to the point where each rapid beat would shake me if I could've moved. I couldn't move in visions. I tried to desperately force myself back to the present, think of my dining room: the wooden floor dull under the light, chairs scraping against it as they were shoved back.
One figure formed in the center of the vision's wreckage. He wore a uniform of rich black fabric wrapped around him and gold buttons running down the front. His skin was an ashen gray, as if he were a ghost. His black hair was slicked away from his face, and his eyes reminded me of a solar eclipse—yellow flaring out around a black center. Pitch. I could see each individual pore on his skin. I tried to scream, but my mouth wouldn't move. I tried to think harder of home, the smooth glass table reflecting light in sparks and the stiff pink chairs, the worn carpet in the living room that tickled my feet—
Pitch smirked so wide it nearly stretched across his whole face. He laughed a smooth, echoing laugh as he raised his hand and inky darkness bloomed from it, gushing over the planet. I tried to scream again, a more raw feeling than before. All the audible screams stopped. Then my senses went black.
When they returned, I stood on a path made of stones. Brick houses with many windows lined the path. Warm air moaned around me, hardly blowing back the dark clouds that covered the Moon and stars. The darkness felt palpable, alive, malevolent here.
Friendly chatter emanated quietly from the houses, but still my heart pounded. Something wasn't right.
The shadow in the middle of the road grew darker for a moment, and then he appeared. His gold and black armor looked as if it were made from unnaturally smooth wrought-iron gates bent and twisted together. His thick black cloak shrouded most of his body, however, and I only saw him from the back, the armor visible in flickers of the cloak. Was this the Watcher? My heart beat as hard as it ever had, and my ears rang. He gripped a long needle-like staff in his fist. I tried to push away from the vision; Sandy's warm, golden body; Bunny's soft fur, Mom's silver pendant necklace...
The chatter in the houses stopped as the Watcher strode forward, his movements strong and jagged. Someone screamed. I tried. He pointed his staff at the nearest house, and a thick, rancid darkness shot through the window. It smelled sharp, like blood. The shrieks were short-lived.
But then more screams echoed around the street, and the Watcher pointed his staff toward the sky. Darkness bloomed from its tip and struck into the houses in a moment. Dull thuds echoed from inside.
Footsteps pounded in the distance. Hundreds of men from behind the street. The Watcher straightened as what looked like an army came into view over the hill cloaked with dense evergreen trees, their branches reaching out. The men wore thick dark blue coats over pants and carried rifles. With hard but shiny expressions on their faces, they pointed their weapons toward the Watcher and fired. I tried to duck, but still couldn't move.
A dark circular shield bursting with crystals shot from the Watcher's staff to cover his front. Then he raised his staff to the sky again, and the black, rancid darkness bloomed and rushed through the army. Their footsteps were immediately replaced with hard, wet thuds. When the darkness lifted, withered dead piled the hill, their skin tight against their bones.
I was sucked back to my standing position in the light of the dining room, trembling, taking deep gulps of air. The Guardians were staring at me, and I had never been so glad to see anyone.
"I had a vision," I breathed.
"Your father told us you likely were," said North, and asked in a gentle tone, "What happened?"
"I saw Pitch and I think the Watcher killing people," I said. "The first vision was perhaps when Pitch wiped out planets? And the Watcher... I don't know. It looked like Earth, but in the past."
Ranya fell down the stairs with a crash. "I'm okay!" We all watched her pull herself up with the sharp, swirly wooden railing. "What's going on down here?"
I explained my visions to her.
"That does sound like the Watcher..." she mumbled when I'd finished. "And I should ask you guys—what happened between the books and the movie with Pitch? I know the books happened before the movie, but there were two more of you in the books—Katherine and Ombric. Or did the books get that wrong...?" Her voice faded as the Guardians' expressions fell.
"Pitch," North said in a soft voice. "We thought we had killed him at the end of what the books cover, but somehow he came back to life and struck us when we least expected it. We don't know how he rose from the dead. Katherine and Ombric were killed, and we barely defeated him a second time."
Silence enveloped the room. The rest of us slowly looked away from the Guardians. "I'm sorry," Ranya mumbled. "I shouldn't have asked."
"That must be hard," I said, though my thoughts were far from grief. My trembling had calmed a little, but now my adrenaline spiked. Pitch had killed the Guardians Katherine and Ombric. He could kill me, too.
My mind scoured for a way out of the danger. I couldn't hide. Fighting dangerous supernatural beings was the scariest thing in the world, and I wouldn't win. Getting close enough to Pitch to tell him I would never help the Guardians would be too scary and dangerous. So how could I prove... My chest ached. My powers; I couldn't fight him without those. I needed to get rid of my powers.
My mind flashed through all the ways I had used them. I'd saved Ranya and myself from lightning, rescued the pale boy at recess, stopped a bully from punching Dahlia in the face, and learned helpful things in my visions. Having powers was cool. But I had to protect myself.
I glanced over at Ranya on the stairs. She knew the most about both Windshallow and the Watcher and Pitch. Perhaps she would have an idea.
"Ranya? Can I please talk to you alone?" I asked. The Guardians would likely try to stop me from getting rid of my powers.
Ranya furrowed her eyebrows. "Sure." She motioned for me to follow her, and we went upstairs.
We soon entered the green forest of her room. Ranya stumbled over to her desk chair, then sat in it backward as she faced me.
"What is it?" she asked.
I would've hesitated, but my fear was too great. "I want to get rid of my powers. If I take away what could help me defeat Pitch and the Watcher, perhaps they'll leave me alone. Will you please help?"
Ranya's eyes widened before she shook her head hard. "I'm gonna take your place as the Guardian. Become the danger to Pitch. I have a plan."
"Really?"
"Yeah. You don't have to get rid of your powers."
"What if you fail, though? I have to do this just in case. I ...I think my powers have something to do with Windshallow." It was something I'd entertained before, but since Sandy said Windshallow had a powerful aura... "You know the most about this town out of everyone. Do you know how I could have gotten powers?"
Ranya crossed her arms and leaned back against her desk. "I still don't think you should do this. I can protect you."
"Please. It's not like I need my powers for anything. You don't have any, and you're fine."
"Yeah, sure. People would actually like me if I had powers."
"I like you! And if people only like you because of your powers, you don't want them as friends.
"Please help me. I have friends who don't care about powers."
"You'll regret it down the line."
I unconsciously clutched my hands to my chest. "Ranya, I'm terrified that Pitch is gonna come kill me. I want to feel safe!"
"I'll keep you safe."
"But the Watcher may make you go away. I don't even do much with my powers." I said this more for myself than her. "I use them perhaps once a month. And that time I saved our lives from the lightning was because my Guardian Angel had warned me about it." I couldn't stop tears from burning my eyes at my words, at the resurfacing memories, as my heart ached. I had never really mourned him. He'd done so much for me.
Ranya saw my tears, and her hands fell to her sides. "Okay, fine. I'll help you." Her voice didn't have much conviction, though. "If you want to find their source, we'll have to do research. But I don't know of any other human who's had powers, so I don't know where we're gonna begin. I've never succeeded in figuring out the mysteries of Windshallow. I just have journals of patterns I've noticed, like when the mist usually vanishes by."
"Who else would know about this town?" I wove my fingers tightly together.
"Hmm... Well, our parents don't know anything about it that I don't... They would've told me if they did."
"What about the Windshallow Library?"
"Checked there."
"The schools?"
"Also checked."
"Do you know any non-Guardian spirits who may help us?" I asked. "We shouldn't tell the Guardians what I'm doing."
"Not any who would keep track of this sort of thing..."
Then I gasped. "The past never disappears."
I perched on the chair at my hard white desk and began drawing a summer-themed butterfly. It was formed from golden sand with green ponds deep inside the wings and pink plastic sunglasses over its head. And I focused my hardest on my powers' origins. Why didn't my siblings have powers? When had Windshallow begun to bestow them? Had some other people had some? If so, where were they now? Had something happened to them? Had Pitch killed them? What if he killed me tonight?
My skin tingled as my heart continued to pound. I could tell from the lack of light coming from the closed blinds that the sky was completely dark, and that was the first step of my nightly terror's coming.
I tried to resume focus on my drawing and focusing. Drawing could help me focus. My powers, my powers. Did they really come from Windshallow? What else could be their source? If it was generational, why didn't either of my parents have any? Had my ancestors tried to get rid of them, only for them to resurface? Were they a beacon for dark beings and creatures, and that was why Pitch and the Watcher could track me?
Eventually I began coloring my drawing, which left more room in my head for thoughts. I focused harder, though my mind kept recycling the same worries.
When had my powers begun? When had Pitch become aware of me? Would he or demons or his... Fear Angels attack tonight? What were those?
Soon, I realized logically that I had too much fear to succeed right then, but I kept going until my eyelids grew too heavy to force open. I noticed a flash of something silvery white on my palm as I fell, unwillingly, to sleep.
(A/N: I'd love it if you voted, commented, and followed!)