Call Spirits in Your Past **Book Two**

Chapter 52 (Monday afternoon)

Ana despised meetings. How ironic, then, that Alura called this thing to "decide on a course of action," yet the most action-y thing that happened was...she wracked her brain. What exactly?

Which proved her point.

"The events over the weekend were..." Alura grimaced from the head of the table. "Unideal."

"Yes, Paz's injury was a wake up call of sorts," Xander nodded from his chair.

"It was never you kids we should have worried about," Ximena gripped her brother's shoulder. "We should have kept Ghost watched, rather than asked him to watch Sorano."

"Did you prepare that speech as an apology?" Sorano raised an eyebrow.

Ella leaned over and whispered in Ana's ear, "I didn't hear anyone say sorry."

Ana held back a snort.

"The past is past," Ximena nodded.

Sorano leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms.

"We were only trying to protect our kids," Alura said soberly. "We didn't want Paz injured. We should have been more...attentive."

"Hey, so what about you basically mind controlling us?" Ryn asked, across the table. "Do we get an apology for that?"

Ximena turned to her, frowning. "Yes. Uh," she swallowed, "I'm--sorry."

Xander leaned forward. "We were doing what we thought was best at the time."

Ximena nodded.

"Right," Sorano said briskly, clasping her hands on the wooden table. "Enough of...that."

Alura nodded. "Yes. It is time for us to set aside our differences and put up a united defense. With Ghost and...and Asha having torn down the barriers, we must assume we will be discovered soon."

"Precisely," Ximena nodded, then launched into a drawling speech about their need to reinstall the defenses.

Ana sighed.

Xander reminded the room that they didn't even know where Ghost had moved the mainframe too, and Ximena shot back that maybe they should figure that out, shouldn't they? Sorano just remained tight-lipped and silent, and Xander started waving his hands around, saying something important.

Ana's gaze blurred at the war room's tabletop. It was a pretty boring table. Some kind of wood, all the grooves focused into a central spiral. Although, if she really stretched, all the lines spiraling towards one big thing reminded her of what was supposed to be happening--real apologies and working together because disagreements between them shouldn't put more kids at risk.

"Ana?"

"Huh?" she blinked up at Alura.

"Is that you doing..." she motioned in front of her.

Ana glanced down and blushed. She'd subconsciously made an illusion on the table, making all the lines actually spiral in a never ending whirlpool of wood. "Sorry," she made it disappear.

"Actually, Ana," Sorano smiled fleetingly, "could you do that again? But make a miniature map of the town?"

She bit her lip. "I don't know," but she focused, trying to recall the layout of the ghost town and creating an illusion over the table.

Alura, Ximena and Xander titled their heads, studying it. In the seat over, Ella nudged Ana, giving her a thumbs up.

"The fields aren't that big," Xander pointed. "Could you make those smaller?"