Evacuation
I didn’t know exactly what was happening at the time, but since I learned later, I will tell it now:
The Soul Vortex, as its name implied, was consuming human souls.
It was a cluster of the undead energies that powered the motor functions and hunger of the Dementors. Darkanoss had come to intimately understand these energies through his connection with the Limbo that they came from. He had instructed them to merge with one another, to give their life force to create a monstrosity of godlike proportions – the Soul Vortex, a tornado made of Limbo Mist. The spell he had cast made it so that the vortex would only kill those who were not Death Eaters. The Soul Vortex touched down at the site where the wizards and witches of Salem were fighting against the attacking Death Eater force. It instantly killed all of them. It dragged out their souls, sucking them into the Limbo. It was Darkanoss’s ultimate weapon, an unstoppable masterpiece of the Dark Arts.
The Soul Vortex hammered home the importance of evacuating the city before it was too late. It dragged slowly north across the fields south of town, but it wouldn’t be long before it passed over densely populated areas. Thousands of people would die. Knowing this, Asher and the other adults did everything in their power to spread word across the city for the residents to evacuate along the road to St. Isadora. Within half an hour, that road was filled with hundreds of people, traveling on foot. The local police aided the wizard resistance by directing traffic, but the mass panic from the Soul Vortex made it very difficult to keep people under control. They were terrified, and I honestly couldn’t blame them.
Early during the evacuations, Asher gathered all of the Reborn kids he could in a group and spoke to us. “You may be children, but you are more powerful than any of us. That is why we need your help to defend your families, and the families of your neighbors and friends.”
The kids looked frightened. Asher was talking to us like we were soldiers, and at that point, we might as well have been. The other adults had usually tried to keep us away from battle, or had at least sugarcoated what we needed to do, but Asher made it very clear: we had officially been conscripted into the resistance.
I’ve heard condemnation of Asher in the years since then. People say that he was using innocent kids as child soldiers. Some even blamed him for the deaths that would follow. But I’ve never once held it against him. Whether Asher told us to or not, we would have been forced to fight and put our lives on the line. If we didn’t help the resistance, it wouldn’t have made us any safer from the Death Eaters. If anything, if we hadn’t fought, hundreds more people would have died that day.
Asher divided us into groups and instructed us to defend different portions of the road to St. Isadora. Even though we were Reborn, we were kept near the northwest of the road, away from where the adults thought most of the fighting would take place. Peter and Silas were in a group a bit further east than mine, while I was positioned with Jared, Dirk, Liam, and Rosemary at the threshold of the Limbo cloud. A restless crowd of people had gathered a few meters away from the edge, held back by a flank of police officers. There were hundreds of them, of all colors and shapes and sizes, from senior citizens to little babies, kindergarteners to college students. Every race, every occupation, every manner of dress and speech. The crowd trailed off down the road for miles, a huge river of people waiting to escape the valley.
Asher led a large group of adult wizards right up to the edge of the mist, and they all raised their wands.
“Expecto Patronum!” Asher yelled.
A tremendous lion erupted from his wand and rose high above the crowd of people. The muggles gasped and stared in awe at the spirit guardian as it snarled and roared, baring its fanged teeth. Seconds later, the other wizards next to Asher also cast their Patronuses, which joined the lion above the crowd of people. Soon there were dozens of Patronuses circling around in the air, a whole zoo of glowing animals. It was a mesmerizing sight, like the sight of a perfect starry sky, or the glistening surface of a lake in the moonlight. As they danced along the backdrop of the pitch-black clouds, I almost forgot that we were running for our lives from a soul-eating tornado. I could feel the joy radiating from them all.
One by one, the Patronuses swam through the air and flew directly at the cloud. When Asher’s lion pierced the veil, the clouds moved back, like there was an invisible bubble around the lion. The other Patronuses dove in as well, pushing the clouds further back. Their light seemed to grow brighter as they acted in unison. The clouds were much thicker than I thought, but the Patronuses kept going deeper and deeper. Soon, they had formed a tunnel about three hundred meters long. I could faintly see afternoon sunlight on the other side, and snow covered-pine trees flanking the sides of the road leading to St. Isadora.
Asher lowered his wand and pointed down the road, looking at the crowd. “Go!”
As though Asher’s voice was the gunfire signaling the start of a marathon, the people hurried into the tunnel toward the other side. The police tried to maintain order, but people were trampling over one another just to get away. Their instinct to survive made me feel a little sick, but I couldn’t hold it against them. These people were desperate to save their lives and families.
Asher looked at the other adult wizards. “You three, make sure the tunnel stays open. The rest of you, defend the back of the line.”
The adults nodded, and the majority of them disapparated. Asher then looked at me and the other Reborn. “You all head to the intersection of the highway and the northern road. That flank is undefended. Keep the muggle families safe.”
We all nodded obediently, trying not to let our fear show. Asher disapparated too. His lion and the other Patronuses remained, keeping the clouds at bay as the civilians crossed through the tunnel. I looked at Liam, and then the other kids, and we all took off down the side of the road in the opposite direction from the panicking crowd.
I wasn’t sure where my parents were at this time. They later told me that they had entrusted Clea to a fellow witch, who was one of the first people to cross through the threshold. She was safe on the other side. Mom and Dad must have been fighting somewhere closer to the city, where most of the other adults wizards and witches were concentrated. The Soul Vortex loomed ever closer, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we would be able to evacuate everyone before it subsumed the population of the city.
The intersection that Asher directed us to was where the larger east-west freeway ran perpendicular to the smaller country road that led to St. Isadora. Police officers were stationed there, and directed the crowds down a sloped exit. There were several police cars parked there. Not knowing exactly where to go, my friends and I took position on a low bridge past the exit, staring at the raging Soul Vortex from afar. I glanced a few times at the crowd, idly people-watching. I wondered if everyone else was safe.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” Dirk seemed to be in a state of hysterics. “Dammit, dammit, this is really happening...”
I wanted to tell him to stop panicking, but I didn’t have it in me. That was Silas’s forte, not mine. I wished that he were here, or Peter. Liam was good company, but he was the only one of these people I was really comfortable with. The others just made it more difficult to focus.
Rosemary placed a comforting hand on Dirk’s shoulder. Jared paced restlessly back and forth across the freeway. Every once in a while he looked over at the tunnel in the distance, and then resumed pacing.
“What’s your deal?” Dirk asked him, as if annoyed by his movements.
Jared glared at him. “Asher sent Zoe further back than me! Does he want her to get killed?!”
“Calm down, Jared,” I said. “She’ll be fine.”
Without warning, Jared got right up in my face. He was a lot shorter than me, but he had a fiery attitude. “Oh really, Alan? How do you know that, exactly?”
Liam pushed him away and gave him a look. “Hey, back off, man. He’s just trying to be nice.”
Jared grimaced at Liam, but relented. Dirk, however, was not so easily quelled.
“This is bull!” he screamed. Rosemary tried to comfort him again, but he angrily slapped her hand away. “They’re gonna kill all of us! This is hopeless! We’re all dead!”
“No we’re not, Dirk!” Rosemary insisted. “Please calm down...”
“Don’t tell me when to calm down!” he barked back at her.
“Would you lay off?” Jared remarked. “You’re just freaking all of us out.”
Dirk reared forward as if preparing to punch Jared, but I stood between them. “Knock it off!”
“Oh, yeah, go ahead and tell us what to do. You’re just so special, aren’t you, Alan? The big shot who defeated Darkanoss? Looks like you didn’t do a very good job!”
I glared at Dirk. I wanted to argue with him, and every fiber in my body was ready to hit his stupid face, but I held myself back. Jared’s following remark didn’t help, though. “You can’t tell us what to do just because you fought in the first battle, Alan.”
“Would you people just shut up?” said Liam angrily. “Alan is right. We have a job to do here, remember? We’re supposed to protect the civilians.”
Jared rolled his eyes, and Dirk shook his head. “Screw that. I’m gonna get out of here while I still can.”
“And where exactly are you gonna go?” I yelled. I pointed across the valley at the Soul Vortex. “You think you can run from that thing? Like it or not, you’re stuck here with the rest of us!”
Dirk looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but Rosemary suddenly hugged him. With their height difference, she only went up to his chest. “Dirk. Please. It’s okay. It’s not like your dad. We’ll get you out of here, safe and sound.”
The remark about Dirk’s dad disquieted me. Rosemary didn’t elaborate, but a look of reluctant understanding appeared on Dirk’s face. He hugged Rosemary tightly, pushing his face into her hair. Rosemary smiled, and blushed. I could tell she liked him, even if he didn’t feel the same way. But regardless, the two of them were best friends, and seeing them caring for each other was a little heartwarming.
Dirk’s father had died during the first battle. I didn’t know that then. He never told me.
We waited quietly while the crowd continued to evacuate, heads ebbing and flowing with the rhythm of frightened voices. I caught fragments of their conversations every once in a while, but it was mostly indistinct. Someone blamed the wizarding world for what was happening. Others expressed worries about the whereabouts of their friends and relatives. Some were sobbing. The further the crowd flowed along, the more people I saw who looked injured or otherwise fazed. I surmised that there was probably something going on farther down the line, where Peter and Silas and the others were. I hoped that they were alright. I believed Peter and Silas could take care of themselves, but that didn’t stop me from worrying. I was even more worried about my parents.
Liam glanced past me down the road leading west, and suddenly screamed. “Get down!”
He pushed me aside and held out his wand. A spell collided with it, but he blocked it just in time, the impact shaking the whole bridge. The crowd was stirred, and a few screams pierced the cold air. When Liam lowered his wand, I saw a Death Eater standing down the road from us. It was Miles Argo, one of Nick’s henchmen. The sight of him only reminded me of the impossible fact that I had spent the whole afternoon trying to process: the Death Eaters weren’t dead. They’d come back to life.
“For deliverance!” Miles cried.
Dozens of Death Eaters apparated all around us. Most of them were adults, but I spotted Rodney Vosburgh among their ranks as well. They began firing spells at the crowd indiscriminately. A few of them hit before my friends and I were aware enough of the situation to fight back. The crowd collectively screamed and scattered off the side of the road, their voices collecting into one incoherent din. The police officers fired, but the Death Eaters effortlessly disarmed them, followed by spells that left them unconscious or dead. One particularly gruesome curse hit an officer in the face and caused him to start bleeding profusely from his ears and nose, before collapsing to the ground and violently convulsing.
I immediately rushed at Miles and engaged in a duel. Miles blocked my first two spells and then fired one back at me, and we were soon in a tense standoff. The other Reborn kids preoccupied themselves with the Death Eaters firing on the civilians. One of them was standing on an elevated hill, shooting Killing Curses at civilians like shooting fish in a barrel. Jared flung an unexpectedly powerful spell at him that sent him tumbling down the hill. A second later, Jared was flanked by two female Death Eaters who began fighting him from either side. Dirk and Rosemary kept their backs to each other, and seemed more preoccupied with defending themselves than the crowd. Liam, meanwhile, tried his best to keep the civilians safe, projecting large Shield Charms around them in hopes of blocking the Death Eater onslaught.
Miles deflected one of my shots and glared at me. “I heard what you did to Nick. I’ll make you pay!”
He tried to hit me with a Stunning Spell, but I froze it and deflected it to the left, where it hit a Death Eater in the shoulder. “Why are you doing this, Miles?! Your parents are muggles!”
“You think I don’t know that?!” Miles blocked a Freezing Spell from my wand. “They never treated me as one of their own. I was always a freak to them. They got what they deserved!”
My heart sank. “You didn’t...”
Miles shot three offensive spells at me. “They’re dead. The New Dark Lord helped me kill them. He promised me a real home, a place where I would be welcome. That’s what we’re trying to create here! We want Salem to be a city for wizardkind!”
I couldn’t believe that Miles would go as far as to kill his own parents. “Miles, Darkanoss is lying to you! All he wants is power!”
“No!” Miles screeched. His spells were getting sloppy, perhaps because he was distracted, or getting emotional. “He is my real father! He is a father to all of us! He chose Nick as the Master Reborn... and that is why I serve him! We’re family!”
It was only then that I truly understood the depth of Darkanoss’s indoctrination of the Reborn Death Eaters. I had wondered how he had managed to turn them against the muggle world, when so many of them had muggle relatives or even muggle parents. He had appealed to their sense of isolation, the feeling that they were outsiders in a world that didn’t understand them. It was no wonder his rhetoric appealed so much to middle school kids. For the first time, I felt genuinely sorry for Miles, and the other children whom Darkanoss had taken under their wing. Deep down, they were all unhappy, searching for some greater meaning and sense of belonging in their lives. Darkanoss had played to their weaknesses, and turned them all against a common enemy: the muggle world.
“The Death Eaters are noble and graceful!” Miles insisted, stepping forward as he fired a constant stream of aggressive curses at me. “We have transcended death itself! That’s why none of this matters... none of it! Because we are wizards, and wizards will always be...”
Miles left his right flank open, and I took my chance. I hurled a Stunning Spell at him, and when he moved to block it, I pointed my wand above his head.
“Supra Volant!”
A reddish-pink light rocketed out of my wand and spun around wildly in the air. Miles struggled to see where it was coming from, but just as he thought it would hit him from the right, it whirled around and smashed into his left. The force of the impact blasted him off his feet, and he tumbled roughly across the asphalt. His face was streaked with blood. He was incapacitated. A second later, I saw red flames erupt around his body, and he slowly burned away the same way he had five months ago in my driveway. Within moments, he was nothing but a pile of ash.
I felt sick from what I’d done. I stared at the ashes of Miles’s body for a long time. That turned out to be my biggest mistake. While my back was turned, Rodney Vosburgh apparated out of nowhere and raised his wand, pointing it at the unsuspecting duo of Rosemary and Dirk. When I saw what was about to happen, my heart froze. I tried to cast a Disarming Charm, but it was too late.
“Avada Kedavra!”
The green light hit Rosemary squarely in the back. She didn’t make a single sound as she fell to the ground behind Dirk. Dirk disarmed the Death Eater in front of him, but when he noticed what had happened, his jaw slowly fell open. I could see him trying to process it, but the shock was too much. It churned slowly in his brain, and then hit him all at once.
“NOOOOOOOOO!”
Rodney smirked. Dirk looked up at him with fire in his eyes, unbridled rage coursing through his body. Rodney thought he still had the upper hand, but at that moment, I flicked my wand at him and yelled “Expelliarmus!”
Rodney’s wand flew out of his hand and rolled down the street. Rodney stared at me in shock, and the slow realization came upon him that his fate was sealed. He looked back at Dirk just as a huge fireball erupted from his wand, shooting directly at Rodney with the force of a meteorite.
Rodney’s body erupted in flames. He flew back soundlessly, collapsing like a ragdoll on the other side of the freeway, flailing briefly before going completely still. Dirk had killed him without mercy. A few moments later, the orange flames turned red, and Rodney turned to ashes too.
“Avada Kedavra.”
I whirled around just in time to see another bright green light erupt from where Rosemary’s body had fallen. Dirk stood motionlessly, a shocked look on his face. Like his strings were being cut, he dropped on top of Rosemary’s corpse, the green light fading from where it had hit his back. Directly behind where he’d been standing, Nick Varennikov held his wand forward like a knife he’d stabbed into Dirk’s back.
“DIRK! NO!” I screamed.
Nick reared up a spell and launched it at my face. Liam apparated at that moment and grabbed me, and disapparated both of us a few dozen meters away. Jared, who had witnessed all of this, also apparated over to us. By this time, the crowd was thinning, perhaps indicating that most of the people in town had already made it through the tunnel – or if they had not, then the ones left behind would not make it. I saw other adult wizards appearing on the highway, pursued by what appeared to be an army of Death Eaters. The Soul Vortex was much closer now, and seemed to have changed trajectory to intersect the evacuating civilians before they could get away.
“What do we do?” Jared asked in a panicked tone.
“We need to get out of here,” was all I could say. The sight of Rosemary and Dirk’s bodies was burned into my mind. I wanted to cry, or scream, or vomit, but all of my feelings were on mute. All that was left was fear, and the urge to escape as soon as we could before the vortex engulfed us.
We ran alongside the crowd in the direction of the tunnel. The last few civilians were a few meters ahead of us, and now we were surrounded by other resistance members. They dropped like flies as the Death Eaters behind us advanced en masse. I could no longer tell if Nick was among them. All I saw were the marks that they wore, like some demented masquerade parade. The Soul Vortex was directly behind them. It kicked up dirt and snow everywhere. Our hair whipped chaotically as the monstrosity grew closer. Its glowing blue tendrils seemed to be reaching out toward us.
I saw a bright green spell flying toward me, but it was blocked by an adult witch standing nearby. She covered me and my friends as we hurried into the crowd of retreating resistance members. I caught sight of Mom and Dad, but they were several meters ahead of me. At the back of the line was Asher, and unlike the rest of us, he walked slowly backwards, blocking spells from hundreds of Death Eaters as they advanced on us. His expression never changed. He fought with unwavering bravery.
By the time we reached the tunnel, it was difficult to move. So much dirt was being hurled around by the Soul Vortex that we had to shield our eyes to keep from going blind. All I could see was the pavement below me as I ran forward. I could feel the Soul Vortex pulling me back. It wasn’t just the wind. There was some force inside of it, something I recognized from when I had fought Dementors during the first battle last summer. It was a feeling of despair, a toxic feeling that crept into my mind, urging me to give up, to give in, to let the storm consume me.
Someone grabbed me by the arm. I don’t remember who. Before I knew it, I was running through a long tunnel of clouds. They shimmered gold as we passed through. The Patronuses were still there, standing at the sides of the tunnel and keeping the clouds at bay. I could see Liam and Jared nearby, running as fast as they could. It felt like miles to the tiny hole at the end of the tunnel, but I kept running through the fatigue and exhaustion, all of my adrenaline concentrating in my feet. There was a low screeching sound coming from behind us, but I dared not wonder what it was. I prayed that what I was hearing weren’t the screams of human souls as the vortex sucked them away.
Just as I was about to pass through the other side, I looked back. Asher was still standing there, blocking spell after spell as the Death Eaters rushed to keep up with us. When the last fleeing resistance members crossed the exit, Asher stepped back and swished his wand to the left. The Patronuses vanished all at once, and the clouds quickly flooded in, filling the tunnel and closing the wall.