As he lowered himself toward Wayne’s small face, Finn simultaneously cleared his thoughts and pictured a dark tunnel with a pinprick of light showing far, far in the distance. He allowed that light to grow closer, allowed himself to sink not only toward the desk, but into a peaceful, blissful state. All clear.
“That is…better,” said the hologram.
Then, as Finn looked at Wayne, the face transformed, no longer a man with white hair, but suddenly the stern face of a beautiful woman. The Evil Queen’s mouth was already moving, her voice both haunting and musical.
“As soft as a whisper
No one will tell
The curse, reversed
Seen by the sister
When kissing Jezebel”
Finn’s fingers and toes tingled. With the mention of kissing Jezebel—the name Jess had gone by a few years earlier—he panicked, and he slipped out of all clear. The Evil Queen repeated her message:
“As soft as a whisper
No one will tell…”
Finn was caught in a state of partial all clear, a dangerous place—mentally alert but with tingling toes and fingers. Part mortal, he was real enough to be wounded, yet enough all clear to believe he was safe.
In this interim state, he managed to reach forward, move the mouse, and click the “back” button on his browser. The computer screen showed an Algebra 2 Web page he’d been using for homework.
The Evil Queen hologram sparkled and vanished. Finn sat back into his chair feeling…different.
The page-forward button on the browser flashed as if he’d clicked it with the mouse, which he had not. Thekingdomkeepers.com page reloaded. The Evil Queen hologram reappeared.
Someone was controlling his computer.
The Queen began reciting the verse again. Finn pulled the power plug on his computer, but the laptop, being battery-powered, continued to run. He shut the lid, and the computer went to sleep.
He focused at that space in front of his keyboard where the Evil Queen had stood. No matter how he fought against it, he could hear her.
“As soft as a whisper
No one will tell
The curse, reversed
Seen by the sister
When kissing Jezebel”
Kissing Jess? He spat on the floor before he knew what he was doing. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Jess, of course he did. But not in that way.
Why Jess? Why would the Evil Queen want him to do that? Was it simply a matter of making Amanda jealous—dividing the “sisters”? What would that accomplish?
He would have to reboot his computer in safe mode and run a virus check. There was work to do before he could attempt a chat session or e-mail. He put the machine to work, searching for the backdoor or bug that had allowed it to be controlled remotely. He knew he should have probably allowed Philby to look at the machine first, should have given Philby a chance to trace the infection back to whoever had caused it, but he had no desire to share the stupid verse with anyone. Just the mention of it could have the desired effect: anger, jealousy, confusion. He had to think this through.
He relived the incident, convincing himself he’d been all clear at the time the verse had been recited. Nothing to worry about. If it was a spell, it had not reached him. It didn’t occur to him for even a split second that such denial might be part of the spell, that by not doing anything, he was already doing something.
* * *
Stone stair-steps. At least they looked like stone stair-steps leading up to a box. Or possibly a door? Jess moved slowly, like she was trying to walk through Jell-O.
Finn was there. Practical Finn. Organized Finn. Amanda’s Finn. Jess preferred boys like Kaden Keller, more on the unpredictable side. More wild. But Amanda was crushing—no doubt about it. And Jess liked Finn a lot, so she was happy for Amanda.
So why, she wondered, was she just standing there as Finn walked up to her with that look in his eye—a look any girl knew. A look that said he was going to kiss her. And why, she wondered, was she going to allow it to happen when she knew how it would hurt Amanda? He took her by the shoulders, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to hers. And he stayed there like that. A real kiss that flooded through her like a sugar rush, lips to toes. By the time she awoke and began to sketch in her diary, she knew full well it had been only a dream. But with her dreams came a connection between now and then, between here and there, the present and the future. Only later could she ever make full sense of such a dream—a day, a week, a month. Adults had labeled it a power; Amanda called it a blessing; Jess often thought of it as a curse.
She knew some piece of the dream would happen, but not when, or why, or how it might change things. Upon seeing her sketches, the Keepers often looked for answers she didn’t have. She could see the future; she couldn’t interpret it.