by Opal Edgar
He crushed the beetles under his uncomfortable looking leather shoes. The ones he had worn when he died. He had lousy taste in clothes. I hated apologising to him. But I owed him that much. We were going to get eaten by power thieves because of me. Or maybe just eaten by Elise. She needed power bad with her world building mission, and, from what I kept hearing, Merlin was just the thing. I’d royally messed up.
“If you’d been the mind and I’d been the soul locked inside, we probably wouldn’t have ended here. I’m sorry,” I said.
“Tosho, Tosho, Tosho,” Merlin said, pulling on the cord still sticking out of the mirror.
The phone banged against the glass and shattered through. I protected my eyes with my arm as it showered us with sharp sparkly shards. He didn’t care. He caught the phone and held it to his chest.
“You really have no idea what you‘ve done.”
“You knew about Elise?” I asked.
I still couldn’t wrap my head round it.
“You’re cute.” Merlin smiled. “Do you realise you just broke the curse?”
I marvelled at the bricks round us. Could it really be that simple? I grabbed the closest one. I couldn’t believe plain old bricks had been the bane of my afterlife for so long. Bricks of all things … Merlin was thrilled.
“Is that helpful? How does it change things?” I asked.
“It’s going to change everything!” Merlin exclaimed, his rat-hair jacket looking impeccable.
“Why did it always look so ratty on me?” I complained aloud.
“That’s normal, it was chosen to suit my colouring, Tosho. I’m an autumn man. You’re more of a winter.”
I squinted at him. What was he talking about?
“Do you know, by now, who put the curse on us?” he suddenly said. “Actually, I didn’t need to ask, I know you haven't got a clue.”
But he wanted me to know. My chest tightened. I let out a long painful sigh.
“Elise?” I whispered.
“Try again.”
His smile was unnerving. Why was he taunting me? I still disliked him, but at least he was what he was. No pretence of benevolence.
“I take it, it’s someone I care about.” I said.
“You’re becoming good at this,” he mocked.
“Just tell me.”
He grabbed a beetle on his shoulder and squeezed it in his hand. It popped and I looked away, thoroughly disgusted. The floor was littered with carcasses of the bugs.
“Lil’Mon. Didn’t the beetles remind you of anything? I mean, you know, Egyptians are kings of the curse. They do it left and right: you just have to set a foot in their pyramids and bam – it hits you in the face.”
It was another arrow in the chest.
Wait! That couldn’t be right. He had had so many chances to hurt me and yet he’d always done the best by me. Hadn’t he? I was so confused.
“Maybe it was an accident. You said I walked into his pyramid, maybe that’s all it takes, maybe he doesn’t control it—” I started.
“He’s a pro, Tosho. It was a beautiful curse. Luckily, I was way ahead of you. I set up a little network of spies while you flirted with Elise in the shadow corridor. And the Oracle gave me a landline. Thanks to him, I could have conversations with the outside – it was limited though.”
Merlin waved the phone under my nose and started to dial.
There. Trample my heart a little harder, will you. What was that damned organ good for anyway? Merlin could take over all that he wanted. I was done.
A beetle ran across my shoe. I thought he’d killed them all. Merlin was too focused on his phone to see. I picked it up gently. He was exactly the same as the tattoos that ran along my arms. I didn’t want Merlin to pulverise it. All the little bodies littering my subconscious made me sad. The beetle crawled to my wrist and lay down on one of the tattoos. It winked at me and then it melted into my skin. I swore.
What had I done?
The dial tone rang out in the air. Merlin turned to me. Quickly, I tucked my arm behind my back. Our eyes met. For a second I thought he would walk round me, all predator-like, pull my arm out and pluck the bug right out of my skin. I held my breath, my useless breath. Kemsit said I only kept breathing out of habit. I liked breathing, it made everything seem more normal.
Merlin hadn’t noticed a thing. He was going to monologue again about how great he was. I could see it on his face, cogs working to find the most annoying thing to say. My chest eased. I had no idea why, but knowing I had saved one beetle made me feel better. I was so messed up.
“You know what the best part is?” Merlin said. “You got it all wrong. The curse is the only thing that saved you for so long. It was built so only you could break it. Not me, not the Oracle, not Bart, not sweet Elise and not even Lil’Mon himself. Only YOU. Bricks of all things.”
He rolled his eyes.
What did he mean? Wasn’t a curse a bad thing? Then again … Merlin hadn’t been sucked into Death’s mirror, or Bartholomew’s sword, thanks to the curse. It had protected us. But that was an accidental positive side effect, wasn’t it?
I scratched my wrist thoughtfully. It felt kind of itchy and numb.
The phone was answered.
“Elise served her purpose: capture her again. You did a good job – he’s all broken. We can proceed to the last step,” Merlin said, before hanging up.
My face froze, my ears rang, my body burned, it was like being electrocuted. I took a step away from Merlin, still clutching my tattoo.
“Capture Elise?” I exclaimed. “Who are you talking to?”
“My power thief sentinel, who do you think?” His dashing smile cut deep.
Picture perfect jerk. I lowered my head and rammed him in the gut. We collided with such force I felt his ribcage go soft.
“It’s you!” I yelled. “You’ve been behind it all! My murder, Elise’s kidnapping, Varhoura! You sold Varhoura! YOU SOLD HER!”
I punctuated each word with a punch. I was frenzied. Fists rained and hammered anything they touched. Flesh bruised. Knuckles cracked. Blood pounded in my ears. Fury blinded me.
That made so much more sense. Merlin always knew where I was. I had carried my murderer within me this whole time. I’d protected him, followed his crumb trail and fallen right into his traps. Worse, I had dragged my friends down with me.
Merlin spat blood and laughed, “And my ghost is going to suck all the power right out of Elise for me. And they thought spirits have reached their peak, the fools! Oh no. You can always grow if you know how to harvest power. Bartholomew finally opened his eyes to it, but he was too late.”
Merlin was insane. He was a demon! I wanted him out of my body. There was no more holding back. My fists were metal clubs, my elbows armoured plates and he got to feel it all. He was agile though, fast and surprisingly lethal. For all the mass I had, he made up for it in speed and experience … and he was a professional troublemaker.
He whacked my wrists, kicked my gut and boxed my ears. He was always leaps ahead. When my punches connected they broke things, but they didn’t connect enough.
“Finally, the real you comes out!” he taunted. “You were always a thoughtless violent beast. That’s what you were bred for. Embrace your barbarism!”
An inarticulate howl escaped me. He was messing with my head. I was making it so easy for him. He knew all the wounds: he just kept on probing. I ran at him, arms wide. I had to catch the devil, but he was so slippery. I grabbed an arm, but already he was at my back: twisting my arm, kicking me in the back of the knees and pushing me down. Suddenly there was a floor. A brick wall pressing on my cheek.
I struggled, but he hiked my arm up and I was pinned. I looked up with hate. He winked, and with a hand swirl made the phone appear in his palm. It dialled by itself, the wheel turning without the need for fingers. I realised it didn’t have numbers but symbols printed on its rotary face. The phone’s ring was interrupted almost immediately. Whoever answered was waiting for the call.
>
“Merlin?” the Oracle said.
I struggled to get off the bricks. Merlin’s nose dripped splatters of blood on me, but he wasn’t weakened. He pushed his foot harder into my back and levered my arm higher. I yelped.
“You sound busy,” the Oracle remarked.
“Not really. What about you?” Merlin said, ready to pluck my limbs out as if I was a fly.
The Oracle hmmed. He liked sounding busy and bored and condescending. They deserved each other. I hoped they choked.
“I’m afraid Tosho won’t be very cooperative. He’s surprisingly resilient despite the horrors we pumped him with. I’ll need your help,” Merlin said.
“Your tab is running dangerously long,” the Oracle warned.
“And you’ve invested so much, it’s in your best interest I pull off my heist. You’ve already managed to wiggle a promise of a world out of Tosho, that I will have to pay, but even your brand of greed has limits. Now do your part,” Merlin replied.
The Oracle grumbled an affirmative and hung up. Things still escaped me, but my situation had obviously gone from bad to worse. My soul had killed me as soon as he could. The rock hitting my head had freed him. What had Bartholomew called it? A third eye opening onto the soul? I grimaced. And what had Merlin done? He’d contacted his acolytes, cut a deal with the Oracle and gotten power thieves to do his bloody deed. And his plan reached further than I could see, because I was pretty sure I wasn’t the end of this craziness, only a stepping stone.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“The Oracle has one very unique and highly specialised skill I’d like him to exercise on you,” Merlin said.
I couldn’t see his face. The angle I was pinned in just made it impossible, but his voice was like a block of ice along my spine. I couldn’t let him win. Not ever. Not even if it destroyed me. I had to take him down.
I horse kicked round. Come on. How could he pin me down when I was in my head? That’s right. I didn’t have a body here. This was all in my imagination. There was no brick wall or floor. I could do what I wanted. I’d collapsed the last brick wall thrown at me – I could do it again. I pushed my head against the raspy facade. My face burned from the scratches, but I felt it give a little.
That wall didn’t exist.
It was all in my head.
I fell through.
My gut rose to my throat, my innards plummeted like a cart in a crumbling mine. The bricks made way to the void. I yelled. But the brakes slammed. I got yanked backwards as the bricks hardened again. My back banged against the wall. I was on the other side. Merlin still held onto me, but apart from that I was free. In fact, the roles were reversed. His arm was trapped in the wall. It was my turn to laugh. I shook free.
“The Oracle’s power is answering questions and granting wishes to people: how’s that going to help you?” I asked, massaging my wrist: it felt weird.
“The Oracle is also capable of taking minds out of bodies, Tosho,” Merlin retorted, “and he will be there any moment to look after that, so annoying, part of you.”
I had forgotten about the golems. I turned on the spot, looking up and down at the void, and looked back at Merlin: bloodied and smiling, his arm stuck in the wall. His piercing eyes delighted in my panic. I turned my back to him. I had to get out of here. I had to wake up!
But how had Elise woken up? She’d shown me her tree-soul, and I’d seen Alpheus’s leaping cat fire, but that’s all I remembered. Had she taught me how to get out?
Merlin sat in the air, phone in his lap. He pensively taped the rotary dial with his free hand. He wasn’t worried. As soon as my mind was gone he would have free reign. He would have my body at his disposal for all the nefarious things he had planned. He was going to eat Elise.
I had to get out!
I scratched my wrist before swirling round like a whirling dervish. There had to be an exit. There was always an exit. I ran in a circle round Merlin. Maybe I could see the place the sunshine hit my retina and follow that trail of light? Or maybe there was somewhere darker I had to run to, like my deepest core to tickle it awake? Maybe there was an obvious neon sign flashing: “Exit”? Or maybe it had nothing to do with light and darkness at all.
I took a breath and stopped the headless chicken routine. There was an exit. That was the only certainty I knew. Now I just had to think. I rubbed at my wrist again. Think. Think! THINK!
I knocked my forehead a couple of times. Something had to shake loose in there, I had a brain, not the greatest but a brain nonetheless, it had to have a use.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Merlin snickered. “It’s as useless a lump of fat. A waste of good energy. You might as well sit back and be a passive cow at the slaughterhouse.”
Just the kick in the butt I needed. I had to stop putting myself down. I couldn’t let Merlin win. It was not possible. I pressed on my wrist, trying to compose myself. It was so hard to concentrate when feeling this angry ... and itchy. My skin throbbed under my thumb. I shivered. It beat again, harder, like something was under my skin.
And something was.
Apprehensively, I slid my hand off the tattoo, one finger at a time. I expected grisly horrors from the most disgusting hammer flick to look back at me. Instead, a blue thread shot out of my arm. It shimmered and danced away, tracing my path out of oblivion. A tear of relief danced down my cheek.
Merlin yelled. But I had friends out there. I had doubted Elise in the worst way – I had mistreated everyone. I deserved resentment for thinking they could be the bad guys, but they were here for me.
I grabbed the thread with both hands. It was soft and strong like I imagined silk felt. I recognised Kemsit’s touch, her ability to visualise links rendered concrete with Lil’Mon’s helping beetles, and let myself get reeled in like a fish.
“You haven’t won yet,” I yelled at Merlin as I sped away.
Chapter 28
A Spirit, a Ghost and a Soul Walk Into Tosho’s Afterlife
As soon as I opened my eyes, a handful of raw potatoes were stuffed into my mouth. We weren’t in the cottage anymore. It was even darker here, with only one spot of light no bigger than a plate. That exit was far away, to the side. To make sure it didn’t blind us with its dazzling freedom, someone had shoved a twig basket over it.
Apart from the dirt there was Elise, Baas, Kemsit and Lil’Mon hovering over me. The ceiling was very low, they had to hunch so they didn’t bash their heads on the soil above. No sign of Alpheus. I tried to spit the spuds out, but Kemsit pushed them back in. Little roots tickled my palm. They stuck out of the walls, floor and ceiling. We were in a giant rabbit’s burrow.
“’Tis possible he’s still unwitted,” Elise complained, a new pearl hanging round her neck on a silk thread. “Something happened to him. He didn’t recognise me earlier, and I got ever so angry.” She blushed.
“You do have a rotten temper,” Kemsit added unhelpfully, “and, coming from a real princess, that’s saying something.”
Elise went an even darker shade of crimson, but I was the one most ashamed. I choked on my potato but got it down. Kemsit pressed another one to my face. I dodged it, hitting my nose into Baas’s boot buckle. He frowned, as if I’d permanently soiled his shoe. Then he took as many steps backwards as needed to get the creep kissing his boots away from him. It was not very far. He hit the crumbling earth wall. He was badly suffering from the loss of his night vision.
“The Oracle is on his way to eat my mind! We have to get Alpheus and go!” I screamed, struggling to get on my knees.
I crawled towards the basket to encourage them all to get out. A potato hit the back of my head. It bounced to the floor. Kemsit crossed her arms across her chest.
“Do you realise how slow we’ll be if we have to carry you? Now stop wasting our time: get your sorry-assed-undead strength back and carry your own body to safety!”
I crawled backwards, legs wobbling under my weight. I hadn’t realised I was so weak until she’d said it. This was e
ven more embarrassing. I gulped down the potatoes as fast as I could.
“Why didn’t you escape if you could?” Baas asked Elise, as I did my best to polish off the potatoes.
He was literally scratching the wall and pulling them out with little squeaks of delight. Farming was a new high. The process was pretty smooth, Elise squinted at the roots and potatoes grew under our very eyes. Lil’Mon picked them and dropped them in the basket Baas held out, and Baas handed them to Kemsit who shoved them in my face.
“’Twas the only way to see whom this operation belonged to,” Elise said.
“It—” I started but Kemsit saw the opened mouth as an invitation and smothered me with two handfuls of spuds.
“’Tis absurd to believe you can effectively trap a person in their own creation.” Elise rolled her eyes. “But ’twas possible, I thought, if I stayed long enough, pretending to be harmless, the leader would appear.”
“Is that why I couldn’t trace you?” Kemsit asked. “I’ve never had anything like that happen before. How did you do it?”
“And don’t ever do it again, by all the petrified protozoa pulp! I was scared half out of my wits!” Baas cut in.
“’Twas not me,” Elise said. “They were prepared for your power, Miss Kemsit. They have a ghost. I’m not sure what he did. But I think he transferred my soul to my world. I looked into his deadened gaze and felt his hold on my soul. ’Twas the only time I got frightened. I thought I would vanish, but instead the trees grew again and the flowers bloomed. But I don’t have quite the same power over my world as I did. I’m not sure whether ’tis because my world is now beating with its own soul, or if the ghost is telling it how to grow. In any case, I think it cut all my links.”
Everyone shivered. Lil’Mon even stopped digging for a second.
“Elise, they did trap you. Do you realise this means you cannot step out of your world anymore? You’re some kind of land mermaid,” he said.
She shrugged.
“And they have two ghosts,” Kemsit whispered.
“Only one ghost now. I heard them say their leader consumed the other one for power.”
