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“I wasn’t born like most people. I do have a father, of sorts, but he didn’t give me a name. Any name will do. Pick one.”
“Agatha,” I say. “That name fits you.”
“Then Agatha it is. Please, follow me.”
Agatha walks away from the entrance giving us no other choice but to follow her.
Jack grabs me by the shoulders. “Be careful in there. I have no idea what game she’s playing, but it makes me uneasy. Something about her is off.”
“I sense that too. Don’t worry. Margaret has my back.”
“I most certainly do,” Margaret says without an ounce of doubt.
Jack leans in to whisper in my ear. “Remember what I said about the trials. You can’t interfere.”
I nod to let him know I do remember that part.
As Margaret and I cross the threshold of the ship door, I instantly feel scared. Not so much for myself, but for those I travel with. Humanity is being placed on trial and I have no say in the matter. I can’t even help, which is the aggravating part.
As we walk down a gloomy hallway made of a gray metal that covers the floor and walls, Agatha remains quiet. Is she silently leading us to our doom or to our friends?
The hallway ends at a glass door. Agatha stops and turns her head to look at us over her shoulder.
“Your friends are in here,” she says before pressing her hand on a panel to the right of the door. The panel lights up green and the door slides open.
When we walk into the next room, we see the wolves of Dawn pacing restlessly in a cell that has a red grid made of light energy in the large opening. Boris howls at us from behind the grid but makes no effort to cross over.
“What is that?” I ask Agatha, pointing to the red, semi-transparent grid.
“It’s a force field to make sure they stay put for the time being. I can’t exactly have a bunch of wolves running around my ship.”
The room we’re in is completely empty. The metal walls surrounding us feel cold, sterile. There are no pictures on the walls or cozy furniture to make the space homier. It’s completely devoid of character, much like our host.
“We will need to wait for the twilight hour,” Agatha says. “Then we will begin.”
She presses her hands together as if in prayer, closes her eyes, bows her head, and seems to fall into a state of deep meditation.
Taking advantage of this, Margaret and I go to the force field trying to find a way to shut it off and let our people out.
“Do you know how to turn it off?” I whisper to Boris through the grid.
He turns his head to the right and whines. When I search the right wall for a button to push or a lever to pull, all I find is another one of those hand panels like the one Agatha used to open the glass door. I place my hand on the panel, but nothing happens. Crestfallen, I know there will be no escaping this place without Agatha’s help.
“On the bright side,” Margaret says, “if she wanted to kill us, she would have by now.”
“Not exactly reassuring.”
“Maybe not,” she says, bending down in front of the force field, “but it’s the best I can come up with.”
Margaret begins to have a one-sided conversation with Boris, reminding me that their love affair is a strange one. Dawn and Midnighters never marry. It’s hard to build a life with someone if you can only spend two hours a day in your human form with them. I wonder if Margaret will get tired of that arrangement and end things with Boris because of it. Or will he be the one who walks away.
I sit down against one of the cold metal walls to wait out the hour.
It ends up being the longest hour of my life.
When Agatha lifts her head, I assume it’s time to begin the trial.
Since we’re all still alive, I wholeheartedly believe Damon succeeded in whatever trial he was given. I only hope this group of humans do as well.
