Eight Years to Go

**Eight Years to Go** is the third chapter of *The Power (Novel)*.

## Plot

(An illustration depicts a glove that’s dated to be around 1,000 years old that’s designed to conduct electricity from the hands.)

#### Allie

A 14-year-old girl named Luanne has arrived at the convent three months ago who has been unwell since her powers awoke. When she gets scared or exited, she starts to convulse. Tonight, there is a lightning storm, followed by an altercation that sets off her convulsions. With tensions running high, Allie offers to try to heal her, though others are dubious that she can.

As they all watch, Allie reaches out to Luanne and uses her power to target the areas in her that she senses are blocked off. Luanne is instantly better, and Allie has performed her first miracle.

Soon, they start bringing Allie other girls in need of healing. Allie is able to be precise enough with her powers to send a “needle” of electricity to the exact spot to relieve headaches and other types of pain. Savannah, one the the girls there, comments that Allie has the power to heal, just “like we read in Scripture”.

Allie instructs the girls to go to the ocean with her at dawn one morning, saying that it’s what She (the Holy Mother) wants. As they gather in a circle in the water, Allie calls upon the Holy Mother to baptize them, and then she uses her power to bring the girls to their knees. When they return, they all talk about the miracle the experienced together. The ten girls she brought out there soon become leaders among the other five dozen girls at the convent.

Allie/Eve tells the girls that God is both a man and a woman, but she refers to Her as a She because it’s they side of her face that they’ve “ignored for too long”. She also instructs them to refer to God as “Mother”. The girls then ask who Allie/Eve is in all of this, and she says that she is simply a “messenger of the Mother”. The girls start referring to her as “Mother Eve”.

The nuns at the convent argue about how concerned they should be about the current situation and whether it is heresy. Sister Veronica believes they should lock all the girls in their rooms and burn them to death. One of the girls overhears this and reports back to Allie. By the next morning, Sister Veronica has died of what appears to be a heart attack, and she’s found in a prayer position in the chapel. The figure on the cross in the chapel now appears to be carved with etched fern-like lines, and it it deemed to be another miracle.

More girls want to be baptized under the Holy Mother, and the girls begin to take over the convent, shooting jolts at nuns who attempt to stop them. That night, Allie/Eve addresses her congregation as the girls record her message to be spread online. She dictates that now women shall rule “over man as Mary guided her infant son, with kindness and with love”. In Jacksonville, someone watches her speech and recognizes her.

#### Margot

Elsewhere, Margot goes on a morning television show with her daughter Jocelyn to discuss the use of powers. They bring up how Jocelyn ended up hurting a boy, Laurie Vincens, after she realized she had her powers. Jocelyn attributes this happening to her lack of control over her powers at the time.

Margot then advocates for creating safe spaces where girls can learn to use and, crucially, to control their powers. She recommends finding girls who have good control to help teach the other ones. Then, she says that they can have a zero-tolerance policy for usage of powers outside of these zones.

One of the interviewers, Tom, sounds skeptical and fearful of this suggestion, but Margot says she thinks it’ll be safer if the girls know to control their powers, especially since there appears to be no cure so far.

Back at the office, Daniel is horrified at Margot’s suggestion on TV. But by the end of the week, Margot has received around a million and a half dollars in donations for her to start her training camps, and before long she’s located a few possible venues like shut-down schools with large gymnasiums.

After a few months, there start to be suggestions that perhaps Margot Cleary should be running for a higher office.

#### Tunde

In rural Moldova, a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of the man who drives the bread truck, brings stale bread to women locked in a basement. These women are sex-trafficking victims who are being confined there to work against their will.

Today, the 13-year-old girl awakens the power in one of the women who marvel at it, and the power is passed along to each of the other women. When one of the guards come for one of the women, they attack him, unshackle themselves, kill every man in the house and hunger for more.

Tunde goes to Moldova because it is the sex-trafficking capital of the world, and he files reports as he interviews people in these border towns that have seen intense fighting. The women trust him because he shows them the reporting he has done already, and he lets the women tell their stories. He starts working a book.

Five days before the government falls, Tunde interviews the Moldovan president, Viktor Moskalev. However, Moskalev is non-chalant about the fighting, saying that he’ll bomb the whole country if he needs to in order to “quash these rebels”. Afterwards, Moskalev’s wife, Tatiana Moskalev, seem to want to talk to Tunde. She shows him that she has the power, too. She also tells him that Awadi-Atif, the exiled King of Saudi Arabia, has been supplying Viktor with arms and money.

Five days after that interview, Viktor Moskalev dies of what appears to be a heart attack in his sleep (something that could be accomplished with a skillful electrical attack). Tatiana is appointed as interim leader. In her first public appearance afterwards, she wears a brooch with an eye symbol, which was a nod to the power of the “Goddess”.

In response, there is a military coup which ousts the interim government. Shortly thereafter, Tatiana and a small army move into a castle near the border of Moldova, and they establish the country of Bessapara.

#### Roxy

After the killing of Primrose, they kill off the rest of the gang. Then, Bernie gets Roxy out of the country since he knows they’re trying to track her down. They ask Roxy where she wants to go, and Roxy says she wants to find Mother Eve in South Carolina who she’s heard about through videos online.

Roxy makes her way to the convent where she shows off the strength of her power by boiling the water in the ocean. At the convent, the others tell Allie/Eve about her. Allie comes down to talk to Roxy, and Allie is surprised to learn that she has a British accent. Allie also senses how powerful Roxy is and remembers how the voice inside her had told her that “a soldier will come.”

Roxy talks about how she thinks these powers are going to change everything, and she came to Allie since it looks like she wants to be a part of that change. Roxy still thinks there’s a place for men and a role for them to play, but Allie sees things a little differently. Still, Allie invites Roxy in knowing that Roxy might be one of the strongest she’s encountered.

They get to the convent just as dinner is being served, and Roxy is welcomed warmly by the girls. Mother Eve recites scripture, picking and choosing the parts that she likes. She tells the story of Ruth and explains that it’s a story about friendship and loyalty.

Later, Allie and Roxy talk. Allie says that people keep trying to give them money, but she has no bank account and implies that she’s unable to set one up. Roxy offers to help her out.

At 7 AM the next morning, a man show up named Einar, who Roxy knows from before. He has with him a new laptop as well as seven sets of passports, social security cards and drivers licenses for Allie/Eve. Einar warns not to make deposits over 100K into the account for the first six weeks without clearing it him first since there are security measures placed on the accounts initially.

As the days pass, Allie notices that the voices in head have quieted down with Roxy here, and she tells Roxy about growing up in a group home. As they talk, they both admit to having killed someone. Roxy tells Allie about how one time she had a piano teacher who molested her, and she told her father who beat the guy up and partially castrated him.

When a group of 12 officers show up to take them down, Allie uses her powers to get them to drop their guns, and Roxy uses her powers to cause them to all collapse. They record the interaction, and Allie records a message to go with the video, beckoning any women and girls of any race or religion to join them.

The humiliation of the police force at the convent causes them to be become even more militant elsewhere. Soon, a 12-year-old girl named Mez shows up one day saying that she was hassled by officers when she and her mother were walking back from the grocery store. When her mother told them to leave her alone, seven officers beat her mother up severely and took her to the police station instead of to a hosptial. Hearing the story, Allie and Roxy are both determined to go to the station and rescue Mez’s mother, Rachel Latif.

They bring everyone at the convent, and sixty of them in total head to the police station, with additional women planning to join them. There, Allie demands that they release Rachel — who is barely conscious with her head cracked open — and let her go to a hospital. Seeing that they are overpowered, the officers release Rachel to a hospital nearby.

Eventually, Allie’s organization outgrows the convent, needing a larger facility and outposts of the convent are springing up everywhere. By now, Allie truly believes she has been sent by God and that it’s her duty to deliver Her message. Meanwhile, Roxy tells Allie that it’s time to go home because she misses her family. Allie insists that Roxy can’t trust men, but Roxy disagrees.

## Trivia

*(e.g. observations, cross-references, 'useless knowledge')*