But then Master George said something, and even though Tick heard it only from a distance, as though it had been spoken through a thick wall, the words sliced through his concentration. The flame of Chi’karda, small to begin with, went out completely.

Tick opened his eyes and looked at Master George. “What did you say?” he asked, practically shouting to be heard over the thrumming of the tree.

The old man hung his head sadly. “It’s true, I’m afraid. I believe Sato, Mothball, and Rutger are in the Fifth Reality even as we speak.”

Chapter 22

Lightning and Flame

Terror. Panic. Fear.

Those were words Lisa associated with disaster movies and scary books. News stories of dangerous lands thousands of miles away. History lessons of wars past. In her sixteen-and-a-half years of life, she’d never considered that one day those words might describe part of her own life, her own experience. Though she tried to be brave for her sister, she couldn’t keep herself from crying every few minutes. Kayla’s tears were a constant.

They’d been in the small room for at least a full day, maybe longer. Sparsely decorated, it held only two hard wooden chairs and a small bed with a table and lamp next to it. Drab wallpaper covered the walls, and ugly brown carpet covered the floor. There were no windows.

She had no idea how they’d gotten there. She’d been sleeping in her bed, dreaming about something icy crawling down her back, and then she woke up in this room, lying on the floor with Kayla right next to her. Since then, food had been brought to them by cruel ladies who refused to answer any of her questions and who glared at the two girls as if she and Kayla were hardened criminals.

Kidnapped, imprisoned, hated for no reason. It was all terrifying. The worst part was not knowing anything. She and Kayla mostly huddled together on the bed, hugging and consoling, sharing their tears. Lisa had no idea how many times she’d said the words, “It’ll be okay,” but it had to be at least one hundred.

She knew this had something to do with her brother. No one had told Lisa anything directly, but she knew about the Realitants and how Tick was special to them, helping them in some way. And somehow it had all led to this.

Come save us, Tick, she thought. I know you got us into this mess. Now come get us out!

Someone knocked hard on the door, just once, then opened it. Lisa had already started scooting as far away from the door as possible, dragging Kayla with her to the other side of the bed.

It was the older of the two ladies, her gray hair pulled into a tight bun, her pale face full of hard-lined wrinkles. “Might wanna see this,” she said gruffly. Then she opened the door wider and stepped to the side, nodding toward the hallway.

“See what?” Lisa asked warily. “You want us to come out there?”

The old woman let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes. Come on, I’m trying to be nice, you little ingrate. Such a historic moment—wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

Lisa squeezed Kayla’s arms, then moved to get up from the bed.

“No!” Kayla shouted.

“It’ll be okay,” Lisa said softly, taking her sister by the hand. She hated saying those words again. “Come on.”

Kayla looked up at her with moist eyes, then slowly slid off the bed and followed Lisa, their hands still clasped. They walked to the doorway and into the hall. From there, the woman led them down a set of stairs and into a living room that was as ugly as the rest of the house, all dull colors and boring furniture. Several other ladies were sitting on chairs and a worn-out sofa. Every pair of eyes was glued to a television set on a small table.

When Lisa saw and heard what was coming from the TV, she almost forgot how terrified she’d been just moments earlier. It was a news program, a man’s tight voice narrating as the view switched from one scene of destruction to the next.

Fires. People trapped under cement, bloody and crying. Sirens. Shaky film of a large building, the horrendous crashing sounds booming from the television speakers when the structure crumbled to the ground. A massive car wreck. Smoke everywhere.

At first, Lisa was too shocked to read the words flashing across the bottom of the screen or hear exactly what the reporter was saying. But then she focused. The scrolling words accompanying the images made it clear the disasters were happening in different parts of the world. Paris. London. Berlin. Moscow.

Wait, she thought. Those cities were all in Europe and spread apart by hundreds and hundreds of miles. What could possibly be happening?

“The earthquakes are still rumbling as we speak,” the reporter was saying. “They’ve already shattered all known records in terms of length of time, and they still continue, as you can tell from the shaky video footage. All of Europe and Asia seem to be affected by these quakes. Mass panic is spreading out of control.”

Lisa felt an entirely new fear grip her. It made what she’d been feeling back in that prison of a room seem silly. That fear had been about just her and Kayla, trapped in a room, but otherwise safe and sound. This was something else. And whatever it was that was happening, Lisa knew the world would never be the same.

“What’s going on?” Kayla asked, her small voice breaking Lisa’s heart.

“I don’t know, sweetie. I don’t know.”

The last word had barely left her mouth when the lights suddenly went out. The TV made a popping sound as the screen went black. Kayla screamed, and the ladies in the room started bustling about in the darkness, each of them calling out things that jumbled into a chorus of panicked nonsense.

The room started to vibrate.

The floor trembled.

And then the house shook like someone had picked it up and thrown it.

Tick couldn’t take it anymore. He had to do something.

As the black tree hummed and throbbed its pulses of energy, as people ran about adjusting computers, as Mistress Jane stood completely still, her expressionless mask pointed at the tree, as Paul and Sofia and Master George fidgeted in their chairs, Tick leaned forward, closed his eyes, and searched once again for the flame of his Chi’karda.

With mental hands, he probed and picked and prodded.

There it was—a puff of heat.

He found it much more quickly this time. Encouraged, he threw all his thought and concentration into the warmth, grasping it, tensing his body as he imagined himself enveloped in the heat, consumed by it. Once again, he had no real clue what he was doing, but he did it anyway. Somehow, with his mind and heart, he became one with the Chi’karda. He felt it spread through his organs and veins and skin. Felt himself burn.