The Others 03 Vision in Silver Read Online Free PDF

uneasy?”
    “What’s really shaking up our whole community is the five
cassandra sangue
girls you brought out of the Midwest,” Steve said. “We thought they were adjusting to living here. At least, they seemed to be doing all right during the first few days. But now one or more of them is having some kind of emotional breakdown every day or falls into a catatonic state that lasts anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. We don’t know why this is happening. We don’t know how to help them. We do know we need to move them out of the bed-and-breakfast and make other living arrangements for them, but what kind? And where? We tried to take them to our medical center for a basic checkup. Three of them messed themselves, and the other two ran away in a blind panic and came close to being hit by vehicles. Remember I told you about Jerry Sledgeman’s family, how his niece had started cutting herself, then jumped into the river and drowned? You can imagine what seeing five young girls breaking down like this is doing to his whole family.”
    “You want us to take the girls away?” Henry asked.
    Steve shook his head, a vehement movement. “The Intuits gave someone else the care of girls like these once before, and it’s a shameful part of our history. We won’t willingly do that again. But it’s not just our community.
Every
Intuit village who took in some of the girls from that compound is having problems. I’m getting e-mails every day from village leaders begging for any information that might help. We don’t want these girls to die, and we’re all afraid they’re going to.”
    “What about Jean?” Simon asked. “What does she say?”
    Steve sighed. “Jean is . . . haunted . . . and barely able to function. She keeps saying Meg knows, Meg can help.”
    When Simon had rescued Jean, she had told him Meg was the Pathfinder, the Trailblazer. At the time, he’d liked the sound of those words. Now they sounded like big stones someone wanted to tie around Meg’s neck before throwing her in the river to see if she could survive. But the girls he, along with Lieutenant Montgomery and Dr. Lorenzo, had brought out of the Controller’s compound were between eight and eleven years old. Still puppies who depended on the adults inthe pack for their survival. And Jean, who was an adult and very damaged from what had been done to her, was Meg’s friend.
    “I’ll talk to Meg,” Simon said, not happy about making that choice but pretty sure Meg would be more unhappy if some of the other blood prophets got hurt.
    “Something that will help now,” Henry said. “Your bodywalkers—doctors—should not wear the white coats around the girls. Their captors wore white uniforms and white coats. Meg is disturbed by those things. It is likely the other girls are disturbed by them too.”
    “That’s something,” Steve said. “I’ll give everyone that information. Thanks.”
    “The
terra indigene
are willing to extend the village’s land to build a new den for these girls,” Ming said. “But first we need to know what to build.”
    Quite a concession,
Simon thought. But it brought something else to mind. “That abandoned industrial complex and cluster of houses just off River Road. I know the land lease wasn’t renewed because the businesses put too much badness in the land and water, but I wondered if there are any humans still living in those houses and which group of
terra indigene
controls the land now.”
    “The girls would be vulnerable there,” Steve said immediately. “Access to the island is controlled; that’s why they’re here.”
    “Not for the girls,” Simon agreed. “But I don’t want any humans who manage to escape from Talulah Falls denning in those houses. I don’t want a potential pack of enemies staking a claim on land between Lakeside and Great Island.”
    Steve looked at Ming before he said, “There were people still living in a couple of the houses a few months ago, but this past