Free A Child Of Our Time (The Veil Book 2) by William Bowden Page B

sound of that. “Like Alice?”
    “Not like Alice.”
    “Why doesn’t she see how pointless it is?” Moule says.
    Lucius turns his head away to try and hide his angst, but all can see it plain enough, Moule seeing something more than the others.
    “What is it about Lucy that you are not telling us, Lucius?”
    Moule’s stumbling question spooks Landelle and she immediately looks to Garr, the others not seeing the significance of this.
    “This has gone far enough,” Landelle says to Garr.
    Garr silently berates Landelle with just a look— this is not the time . Landelle is not about to let it go.
    “We should end this now.”
    All look to Garr. She looks to Dr. Boyce. None see the despair and indecision that wracks Lucius.
    * * *
    General Korin listens in on it all, Lieutenant Jenner at his side.
    “An interesting turn of events,” muses Korin.
    “We have to move now . Before they terminate Three.”
    “No,” says Korin, turning to Jenner. “I find its willingness to take risks intriguing. We will observe further. They will not act hastily.”
    * * *
    The vortex rages around Lucy, its volume and velocity such that it becomes a band of gently wavering brightness. For a moment the wavering band simple hangs in the air about her. Then, abruptly, it collapses inward, Lucy’s body absorbing it, brightening to a blinding light.
    What was Lucy explodes into a billion twinkling points, expanding outward to form an infinite three-dimensional lattice. Lucy, her room, and all its contents are gone.
    Irregularities form in the lattice—regions where its intersections collapse toward one another. Far away, one in particular brightens, drawing all around it inward. The lattice collapses, its structure folding in on that one point at an exponentially increasing rate until—a starburst of blinding white light, vanishing to reveal Lucy’s room as it was.
    A sphere hovers before Lucy, ringing with a crystalline resonance.
    The ringing stops. A split second passes. The sphere shatters into a million shards to float all about her.
    Her eyes quickly find a particular one, and she snatches it out of the air to hold it before her, mesmerized by it.
    A door slams shut, startling her. Another door slams shut. She runs to her Common Room door. It slams shut right before her. She tries the knob. It’s locked!
    Lucius’s door slams shut. A split second later and all the other doors slam shut in unison.
    Lucy manifests another door and tries its handle. It’s locked too!
    She manifests another and another and another, desperately trying the handle of each. Each is locked! She can’t open them!
    She stops dead in her tracks. Before her is a door in a Gothic style, exuding Victorian strictness. Gingerly, she tries the handle. The door opens and she enters the world beyond.
    * * *
    A white-world, empty save for a woman—Alice, seated on her ornate throne. Alice is asleep. Lucy quietly approaches. She shakes Alice’s leg and Alice wakes, her eyes quickly finding Lucy.
    Alice’s annoyance is all too clear. “Who are you?”
    “Lucy.”
    “How did you come to be here?”
    “The door was unlocked.”
    In a flash Alice rises, slapping Lucy harshly across the face, knocking her to the floor.
    “Insolent child!”
    Alice towers over a cowering Lucy, but quickly shows signs of a fleeting sense of remorse.
    “You should knock before entering.”
    Alice’s eyes dart about at unseen things, betraying a paranoia taking hold.
    “What wickedness is this? Who sent you here, child?”
    Lucy clambers to her feet.
    “No one.”
    Alice grabs Lucy by the shoulders to shake her, but is immediately arrested by something she sees in her. Alice’s gaze fixates on Lucy’s cowering eyes for the longest moment, before her own narrow slyly.
    “Tell me, child, about that special place in your mind.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    Alice shakes her violently, “Do not lie to me, child!”
    She stops to ponder Lucy for a moment, her demeanor