[Lorien Legacies 04.3] Eight's Origin

  1

  i’ve reached the point where i don’t know

  how long I’ve been alone anymore. I should have beenkeeping track all this time, I guess, marking off days,noting as the weeks and months passed. Or has italready been a year by now? Maybe, maybe not. I reallyhave no idea. I do know that it has been longer than aseason and shorter than a lifetime.I’m definitely taller than I used to be. My hair nowfalls almost to my shoulders and my arms have grownthick and ropy with muscle.But there’s no one to ask how much I’ve grown orwhat else about me may have changed. There’s no onewho remembers what I looked like before. The onlyone who really knew me was Reynolds, and he’s gone.Here, now, there is only me—me and the mountainsand the sky and the animals. Sometimes I wonder where

  2

  I stop and the rest of it begins. Sometimes I think there isno difference at all.It might drive some people crazy, living like this, but the quiet keeps me company. I spend my daysswimming in the lakes and running through themountains. I have no name, and I like it that way because when I’m myself, not trying on some new,different identity, my memories return. I try to lingeronly on the ones that make me happy and skip overthe ones that are painful, but sometimes it’s hard toknow which are which. Sometimes they are one andthe same.I’ve learned that some memories surprise you andreveal a sharp edge just when you least expect it. I could be wandering through the woods, stumbling downrocky mountain paths in search of dinner and thinkingabout a happy time with Reynolds—the two of us wandering through the markets of New Delhi, me suckingon a juicy mango as he tells me a story about the lifehe left behind on our faraway planet, his face at a cer-tain angle where the light catches his laughing eyes, hissmile tilted up at the corner just so. Then, suddenly, thescene will shift and I’ll see those same laughing eyes,that same tilted smile, but they’ll be for Lola. And justlike that, the memory becomes darker, terrible. And I’ll be taken back to the time she betrayed us.

  3

  I never cry with these memories. But sometimes Iscream.I should have been able to save him.I blame myself.Reynolds had been training me for that moment eversince we arrived on Earth, first teaching me to be fastand strong and then, when I was older, teaching me tomaster my abilities—my Legacies—for the day I wouldconfront my enemies, the ones who drove me fromLorien to this distant planet.When I discovered that I could move objects withmy mind, Reynolds taught me how to exercise my brain like a muscle, until I could go from lifting asmall pebble to lifting almost anything. And then,when I disappeared one day on a crowded street onlyto find myself a block away from where I’d started, hetaught me to control my teleportation power so that Icould do it whenever I wanted, as easily as blinkingmy eyes.And he taught me about who I really am. Who

  we

  are: that there are others like me out there somewhere.In the beginning there were nine of us. We arecalled the Garde. I know from the scars on my anklethat there are only six of us left. Three are dead. I alsoknow that someday, somehow, I will rejoin the others.I am Number Eight.

  4

  But without Reynolds, I have no idea how to findthem. I don’t know what they look like; I don’t knowtheir names. My Chest—the only physical tie I still hadto my planet, Lorien—is also gone and I’m vulnerablewithout it. But coming together again is part of our des-tiny. I believe that as much as I believe in Lorien. So Ican only hope that one of the others has a plan. Thatthey know more about the rest than I do. That the otherGarde find each other, and then find me, before theMogadorians return again.Because even though Reynolds had been helping medevelop my Legacies, training me for the day when Iwould come face-to-face with the Mogadorians and beable to defeat them, I wasn’t ready. Alone, I couldn’tstop them. Because of the Charm, I did not become justanother scar on the ankles of the rest of the Garde. Sothey killed Reynolds instead.After Reynolds was killed, I stayed up here in themountains by myself. I didn’t know where else to go.For a while, I thought I might die up here, alone, forgot-ten by the others.Then, one day, I woke up from a long sleep to see asmall black rabbit sitting right next to me. He was juststaring at me.“Hey, Rabbit,” I said. They were the first words I’dspoken aloud in ages. The rabbit tilted his head butdidn’t run away, even when I sat up.

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  “Boo!” I said. He still wasn’t scared. It almostseemed like he felt sorry for me—like he didn’t wantme to be alone.We just looked at each other for a while. It made mefeel good to have company, and then I pretended he wasa real person who could understand me and told himfirst one joke and then another. It was obvious from theway his nose twitched that I was really cracking himup. For a few minutes, I felt like my old self.And then I was a black rabbit too. I didn’t evennotice it happen at first—I just knew that the worldseemed different. Everything was bigger but also easierto understand. Smells and sounds took on their ownform and shape; paths appeared where they hadn’t been before. My memories gave way to instincts.The rabbit and I began chasing each other throughthe bushes, jumping over rocks, darting behind trees. Just having some good, old-fashioned rabbit-style fun.Then I heard a noise behind me. It was nothing—justa rock falling—but before I knew it, I’d been frightened back into my own body. The other rabbit was gone.I never saw him again, but he’d reminded me that Ihad a job to do, that I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and start having some fun again. He’d also showed memy newest Legacy—the power to change shape.I wonder if I would have been able to save Reynolds if I’d had this shape-changing Legacy when Lola betrayed

  6

  us. Late at night, when I can’t sleep and Reynolds’s finalmoments are flashing through my mind, I imagine howI might have done it. I picture myself turning into a lionand ripping the Mogadorians to shreds. Or becominga dragon and breathing flames and destruction downon them.But these are still only fantasies. Because evennow, even though I’ve had this Legacy for a while andhave been practicing as often as I can, I can’t become adragon or a lion. And I don’t know what good the abilityto become a bunny is going to do against an alien army.I’ve tried—have spent hours in my cave makingmyself angry, trying to summon a lion’s fierceness andstrength and pride. It never works. I can only become asmall black rabbit.This morning I wake up and crawl out from under theoutcropping of rocks where I have made my home andlook up at the sky. Just like always. I know that I can’tstay here forever, but I also know that I’m not ready toleave yet. I stretch and yawn and try to be grateful thatI’m still alive.It’s not until I take on my rabbit form to go forage forfood that I realize something’s different. I can smell it:There’s someone nearby. I am not alone on this mountain anymore

  7

  I should be frightened, but I’m not. Not yet, anyway.I’m mostly curious.Without thinking about the danger, I bound throughdirt and grass and rocks toward this smell that I don’tunderstand but that I know is out there.When a hawk swoops down at me from the sky, myheart begins to pound and I move faster, leaping into athick green bush where I will be safe from his preda-tory eye. The hawk screeches in frustration at losingsight of his tasty meal and soars back into the sky. He’llhave to find his lunch somewhere else. I hear you canget a mean samosa not too far away.I wait a few moments, cautiously sniffing the air, before I creep out again and continue on my path.I finally find what I’ve been seeking near the lake.A man sitting against the rocks with his eyes closed.He’s wearing a peaceful smile.Although he is old and gray and wrinkled, he hasa strength about him too, a quiet confidence that hassomething to do with the way he’s smiling. I suspectthat he’s more than he seems, though I don’t know whyI think that. Or what that could even mean.Reynolds’s death taught me never to trust anyone.If Reynolds hadn’t trusted Lola—hadn’t fallen in lovewith her—he never would have told her our secrets.Then she never would hav
e been able to betray us to

  pittacus lore

  8

  the Mogadorians. And Reynolds would still be alive.Trust is dangerous. But as much as I resist it, I can’thelp trusting this man.I watch him from a distance for a while. In my rabbitform, I can instinctively understand what another crea-ture is going to do next from just the tiniest gesturesand signals. There’s something about this man’s steady breathing, the way his eyes are moving lazily behindhis eyelids and the way his ears are pricked, that tellsme he knows I’m here watching him. But I also knowthat he’s not going to approach me. He’s just going to sitthere. I could stay or go. It’s up to me. Finally he laughsand opens his eyes.Then, before I even realize what I’m doing, I havehopped into the bushes, shed my rabbit skin, andteleported behind a line of trees in the oppositedirection. When I step out from behind a tree, I amstanding before this strange man in my human form.Number Eight.His eyes land on me. “Hello,” he says.“Hi,” I say. I decide to use the name I’d taken on whenReynolds and I moved here to India. “I’m Naveen.”“I am Devdan,” he says. “I am happy you havefound me. You have much power, but you have muchmore to learn.” He reaches into a leather pouch andpulls out a green, fresh leaf. “But first, would you like

  eight’s origin

  9

  a piece of lettuce?” he says, and offers it to me. I stareat him, confused.“I’m sorry I don’t have any carrots,” he says with asly grin. “But rabbits like lettuce too, don’t they?”A smile spreads across my face. For some reason,I feel like I’ve known this man all my life. I feel likehe has known me forever too. Like he would knowme in any form. The weight of regret and lonelinessand despair that I have been carrying with me for somany months lifts from my shoulders, and suddenlyI’m laughing.The man looks at me curiously for a moment, andthen he begins to laugh too. It’s like someone has justtold us each the world’s funniest joke.Somehow I know that this man will teach memore than I ever believed was possible. Perhaps morethan even Reynolds could. He can teach me aboutthis shape-changing power. He can teach me thatit’s one thing to become a bunny but that to becomesomething powerful—something that can defeat theMogadorians—takes much more than fear or anger.It takes strength.It takes knowledge and focus and trust.More than anything, it takes faith.But for now, I am just a rabbit. And a boy known as Number Eight.

 

 

  Pittacus Lore, [Lorien Legacies 04.3] Eight's Origin

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