Hope in Ruins Book III: The Fountain and the City of Salt

Chapter 30: Waking Up the Ghosts

ANDA

Anda came to but couldn't open her eyes. Her ears rang with a single tone, high and clear, like a bell in the dark. A cold breeze blew over her, wrapping her in strong icy arms and snatching at her breath. She tried to remember where she was and what had happened, but all she could remember was Peter.

Ben and Mica had been there, in her memories, as she'd relived that da. The day she'd been trying to forget. Had Ben found the memory buried deep inside her mind?

"What... what have you done... what have you done to us?" a voice asked.

Anda opened her eyes. She lay on the cold, stone floor staring up at the curved ceiling of the Eternals' Palace. The bronzed women holding the lights at the far end of the hall shivered, and their lights trembled as if someone had set them swinging through the air. Dust fell from their carved hands. Anda sat up. The windows around them, the colored and intricate glass, had shattered and blown about the room, leaving glittering splashes like water and ice. She brushed dust and glass from herself and looked for the voice.

Mica scrambled past her, backward on her hands like a crab. She stared at something behind Anda, her mouth just slightly open. Anda turned, her belly clenching with fear. Ben stood, his back to her, staring down at Loraine and Rufus. They writhed on the floor, clutching their heads.

"What have you done to us?" Loraine shrieked. Her eyes pulsed color, shimmering and shifting and glowing.

"Too many... too many—get out, get out, get out!" Rufus screamed.

Anda got to her feet and staggered to Ben. She put a hand on his arm, and he did not move. "Ben, what's happening?" she asked.

But Loraine screamed and seized.

"All those people they kept locked away in their minds," Ben said. His face drained of color. "I think we just opened the door. We let them out."

The colors, their eyes flared and spun with colors. Blue-green like water, pinky-purple like splashed wine, gold like sunshine and honey. Loraine and Rufus convulsed, turning and shuddering on the ground. They gave a final piercing shriek and then lay still. Everything went quiet. That ringing in her ears quieted and then stopped, leaving a void of sound in its wake. Ben took a step towards Loraine and Rufus.

"Are they..." Anda asked.

Ben knelt beside Loraine and pressed his fingers to her neck.

"She's still—" but he cried out and fell back as Loraine gasped and sat bolt upright, and Rufus did the same. They sat breathing deeply. Loraine put a trembling hand to her chest.

"Ben..." Anda tensed, ready to run.

"Wait, just... wait." Ben crept forward on his hands and knees to Loraine. "Hey. Hey, look here. Look at me," he said, snapping his fingers at her.

She turned and looked at him. And then she sighed, her mouth breaking into a wide and soft smile and her eyes crinkling at the edges and filling with tears. "Thank you," she said. And her voice was not the harsh and scraping voice of Loraine. It was someone else's voice. "Thank you," she said again.

Rufus pulled his knees up to his chest and cried.

"What's going on?"

Anda jumped at the voice beside her. Mica had gotten herself up and stood so close beside her.

The man no longer Rufus said and looked up. "I awoke, came to be, surrounded by souls. They told me my body was not my own and that someone else had taken control of me. But they also said that Perseus was going to free us all. They told me so many things in the dark. We... we have been returned. We are ourselves now. Thank you."