Legend

Twenty

TWENTY

I’D FINALLY FIGURED OUT WHAT THE NUMBERS MEANT!

Pass=49-51-305-307-128.

I flipped to the page marked as 49. The title said: Levitation. One of the talents I’d heard of. It read: Levitation takes a lot of focus to do. You must find a way to think very hard of an object to move it where you want it to move…

‘You must find’ was underlined. I looked through the page; nothing else was underlined. I took out a slip paper and wrote it down.

To page 51: Interesting facts: The first failed Hope ever remembered had wanted this power. Her heart was good, her intentions were good and she was a shining bright, great example, but yet she did not succeed.

I wondered how the person who wrote this knew it. Whoever that was. There was ‘wanted’. The magic word, underlined heavily. I wrote the underlined word down, highlighting ‘wanted’. I scanned through page 305, looking for underlined words: Ultimate strength is rare, and must be trained to be used against evil especially because people with such a power are likely to… And to page 307:  Emergencies…: If Strength talent people go evil, try to remind them of their best memories, all people must have one flaw in their hearts. A person’s heart cannot be totally started anew, no matter how tattered or in any way affected they are, because there is always something that cannot be taken from them. A heart cannot be started totally anew and fresh, cannot be totally taken from a person, cannot just disappear, cannot be consumed or removed totally in any way. There always something in any person to turn them back, to turn them away from evil, but you must find it…

Reaching page 128, I read: Psychic-Telepathic talents allow a person to read minds and pasts of people when you see them. Usually, when you read the pasts of people, you see the memory that means the most to them, the one that made the biggest mark in the heart, like you’re looking at and finding the most secret vault of the heart. You can also touch an object and see visions involving it…

So the underlined words written on my piece of paper were: You must find, the first failed Hope, (wanted), her heart, shining bright, be used against evil, a heart, cannot be consumed, in any way, looking at and finding, vault of the heart.

I looked at it. So I tried to understand it: you must find the first failed Hope wanted her heart, which is shining bright. And you must use it against evil. A heart cannot be consumed in any way. Looking and finding the vault of the heart.

It pretty much made sense, but then I didn’t get the “first failed Hope wanted her heart”. How would I find the first failed Hope’s want for her heart?

Then I remembered that ‘wanted’ was underlined differently, it was underlined more heavily. So, deciding it was something different from this message, I removed it.

So it became: you must find the first failed Hope’s heart, that shines bright, and use it against evil. A heart cannot be consumed in any way. Find the vault of the heart.

That made sense. But I had many questions about this: why isn’t the first Hope’s heart rotten by now? Does it really mean a ‘heart’ or is it figurative language? Where would I find this shining heart? In the vault of the heart, I guess, but where would that be? How would I use it against evil? If a heart cannot be consumed in any way, then what does Atala do with the hearts of those souls? Keep them in the vault?

I would need to talk to Viola about this. I had skipped training that day, since I thought I didn’t, and wouldn’t, figure anything out. Friday, there was no training. It was Saturday afternoon. I didn’t go on doing the rest of the code; it was late and I didn’t want my mom to come home and find me not asleep. When she did, I had some consequences I … well, wouldn’t like. I had talked to her many times about it – I’m fourteen, why do have to sleep at like eight? – But she had refused.