Magic Rising by Jennifer Cloud Page A

hard and she had to drive slowly. Several times rocks hit the underneath of her car, digging loudly or scraping.
    Ahead she saw the stone archway marking the true entrance to the compound. Vines grew along the round river rock, some sliding into the grooves and appearing next to another section. The concrete lip and the top remained intact. That was where the sharp shooters watched, waiting for a target to cross their path. She shivered, wondering if ghosts still lurked there, marching to and fro on guard.
    “May the powers that be protect and shield.”
    It was a silly saying she had learned here but it made her feel better as she drove beneath the archway. It marked the entrance to a different world, one no government had breached, no child services had ventured far into, and where nothing from the outside was permitted to stay for long.
    The old gardens were to the right. A few grapes remained, gnarled-looking vines running from what was left of their support and onto the ground. The rest were weeds surrounded by remaining blackberry bushes.
    As a child, she had worked many hours there. Children were the main labor behind the food crops. It was supposed to build their bodies and endurance. There weren’t many children here when she was young. Most hadn’t survived the training and a few had escaped.
    Ahead were the stables or what was left of them. No horses lived there now. She’d set them free before leaving and hoped none had died. It had been her last act of defiance because they never let her care for the horses. No contact beyond basic tending was allowed.
    She drove by two dormitories. Most of the adults stayed there, lodged like college students, unless a leader suspected them of treason. The children and leaders were housed in the main building. It was a control tactic. As long as children were kept separate from their parents, the parents couldn’t sneak away with them in the middle of the night.
    Staring at those old buildings brought an odd shiver. They seemed smaller now, but she supposed everything looks larger to a kid. The structures weren’t as menacing anymore either. They were just old buildings, stale places where people were housed a half a mile from the main structure.
    She almost passed the men’s facility when movement in the front window caught her eye. At first, she thought she’d imagined it then someone looked out of the dirty glass. This place wasn’t unoccupied after all.
    Deirdre pulled over, stopping halfway in the road. She had to find out who stayed in that house. If it was him…no…couldn’t be. He died. She watched him die and spat in his face as blood drained from his body while the outer wall collapsed. He’d killed her mother, but Mercury was dead.
    Her heart pounded too fast as she went to the front door of the old dormitory. She couldn’t control it. In normal circumstances, she would knock, but this wasn’t normal. Whatever, whoever stayed here had to be malevolent. Nothing else would survive on this evil soil.
    She stepped onto the wooden porch, hearing a long creaking sound. The diamond cuts were still in the glass, the paint was peeling, and bits of rot clung to the surrounding wood.
    Going through the front door would be too dangerous, the same with the back. Either could have a shooter, waiting for someone to access the home. The safest entrance would be through the second floor.
    Deirdre stood on the rail and pulled herself to the roof of the porch. She wrapped her legs around the post and shimmied up. From there, she crawled to a second floor bedroom window. The glass was cracked and dirty, but she could see the room and it was empty. She tried lifting the frame, pressing her palms against the glass. It moved enough to let her know it wasn’t locked and gave her the smallest finger hold. Unfortunately, the swollen wood was difficult to lift. She pushed, straining the glass before the wood slid up enough for her to get inside the building.
    The smell of must