by Cora May
Just as she thought the last bit, Creggor looked over at her and grinned. That was the only confirmation she needed. She did her best to shut down her train of thought, to shield her mind from him. If that was how it worked.
“I need proximity to get into people’s heads, and even closer proximity to pick something up by accident. When all those seniors graduated in the past, I’ve never thought to get in their minds again. Why would I, if they’re gone… right?” He looked at Brin. “For quite a while, I thought the same thing you did. I didn’t understand any better. But when I started hearing them by accident, I tried to hear them on purpose. I’m not entirely sure where they are, but I know this castle is big… and I know that we have seen less than half of it, no matter how long we’ve been here. There are restricted areas, or areas that are simply not in use. There are areas hidden behind these walls. Those graduated students go somewhere, alright, but they don’t leave.”
“You want me to believe that Prisanni traps us all here forever,” Brin stated. She had no amusement in her voice, but there was a biting twinge of sarcasm that held on to every word.
“Oh, no,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “None of them are forced to be here. They all have special plans, special missions, special jobs here. I have never been able to do a roll call, since I never bothered to keep track of who was supposed to graduate and cross-reference it with the voices I’ve heard through the walls, so it’s very probable still that you’re right about some of the students. Some of them probably went off to college, and others probably have normal nine to five jobs out in the real world. That’s wholly realistic, but there are many, many alumni that still walk among us… Somewhere.”
“Why would they stay?”
“Because this is war,” he told her. “And you don’t jump ship in the middle of a war.”
“War?” Chanta finally interjected. “Prisanni wants to take us to war?”
“You misunderstand,” Creggor said. “Prisanni isn’t taking us anywhere—the war has already begun.”
“What war?”
“The war between the Realm of Darkness and the Realm of the Light,” he answered, as if it were the most obvious thing about this conversation. “The human world has already been dragged into it, as Chanta’s family would surely be able to tell you.”
“Excuse me?” Chanta said this time, her face demanding an answer.
That answer didn’t come, though. Creggor only gave her a lopsided grin and moved on to his next point.
“Not only has the Reaper’s scythe been shattered and dispersed, but with it, there have been several more abilities dispersed. One of them,” he said, locking eyes with Chanta, “is your true stone. Which, coincidentally, I’m going to give to you tonight.”
“There’s only supposed to be seven.”
“I told you to question everything, remember?” he asked. “Don’t lose that childlike wonder just yet. It’s true, the school only trains on seven stones. However, that’s because they don’t know what’s out there.”
He took a pause and began to pace back and forth once more. He was trying to put together his next words. He didn’t do this as often as he led on, Chanta realized.
“The eighth stone,” Creggor began, finally choosing somewhere to begin, “your stone, isn’t really a Blessing at all.”
Something inside of her released. She felt like she could have collapsed. That was something she had said, wasn’t it? Her “Blessing” was not a blessing at all. It was a curse. And finally, she had someone who agreed with her. Someone who was leveling with her and giving her- well—the truth, as she saw it. Little did he know that was all she needed. Now she would listen to whatever he had to say and consider it like he wanted her to.
She tried to will strength back into her knees, though. No matter what she had decided for herself, she didn’t need him to know that. Let him still believe he had to prove himself to her.
“It’s more like an inheritance,” he continued. “For a Blessing to be a Blessing, it must be bestowed upon someone by an Anam Solas, by a loved one who had passed on to the Province of the Dead. You’ve had this power since you were born, whether you’ve realized it or not. It’s in your DNA. It doesn’t always manifest so early, because it’s not ever your decision on when and where and how it’s being used.”
“Whose decision is it?”
“Your father’s,” he said. He stopped pacing to look her directly in the eyes as he said it, but the answer itself came without any hesitation whatsoever. “And Dimonis’ above that.”
Chanta didn’t know how to process that piece of information. The thought that her father had any say in her life today made her stomach turn. She didn’t even know who he was. She had never been mad at him, though—all of her anger had gone to her mother and stepfather. She hadn’t had much luck with parental figures at all, though, and now she was being told that there was a third one that she still had to look out for?
A third one, she might add, that was potentially in Hell if he was with Dimonis.
Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe it was an inheritance she had that connected her to the darker world, like she always suspected.
“To be honest, I can’t really tell you how the world beyond ours works,” he continued, picking his pacing back up again. “I can only tell you where you got your Blessing from, and who might be in control. It’s a lot of speculation on my part, you see.”
“But that’s not what you’ve really pulled me down here to tell me,” she pointed out. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Of course,” he told her. “I wouldn’t leave you empty-handed. Drag you out of bed just to tell you scary stories? That’s not my style. Call me paranoid, but I don’t think this school is right for any of us. I think they hold us back. They make us all swear an oath, you recall, that we won’t ever let the stones touch our blood. Have you signed that yet?”
Chanta sucked in her lip. She didn’t owe him that answer, and she wasn’t about to give it to him.
He grinned at her.
“Of course, you’ll have to. That’s the only way you can continue on at this school. But, as I told your friend Addelai, that is how our true power is unlocked. The stones yearn for contact with our blood, not just proximity with our skin. They call out for something deeper, a more meaningful connection.”
“You told her,” Brin began softly, a realization sinking in for her, “to put a stone in her blood. Didn’t you?”
Chanta cringed at the way the words came out of her mouth. Soft, smooth, and with a smoldering sense of hatred and accusation behind them. She could only see the back of her roommate’s head, and she was eternally grateful for that. She didn’t think she would feel comfortable seeing the other end of that glare.
Creggor seemed to handle it pretty well, though. He only smiled at her for a moment.
“What I have spoken to Addelai about,” he began, “and, consequently, what I am speaking to Chanta about, are neither your business nor your decisions. I have taken it upon myself to have these conversations with specific students who show the yearning more than others. A lot of the times, those students are not sold on the lies we’ve been fed, not quite to the degree you are.”
Chanta could hear Brin’s teeth grind. She wondered if she would be giving Addy an earful later. It seemed that she didn’t have the guts to stand up to Creggor like she wanted to.
“Your stone,” Creggor turned back to face Chanta fully, “calls out to you even now, from George’s pocket. I can feel it. Can you?”
Chanta searched for the power surge but ultimately realized that she had felt it all along. It was the reason she had agreed to come down to the basement with Brin. It was the reason nothing bad had happened to anyone, despite her fear. She wanted it. Whatever was inside of her wanted it. It was the yearning, or whatever, and that’s how she knew it was down here to begin with.
Creggor smiled at her now.
“I must warn you, there is very l
ittle that is known about your stone. There have been very few students that have actually received it themselves, and it has never turned out so well. They go crazy, suicidal, or, as some believe, homicidal. I’m telling you this in hopes that you might be better prepared for your true power.”
Her thoughts, as well as her eyes, drifted toward Douglass with warning. Perhaps it was his very own stone that drove him crazy, forcing the faculty to lock him up in the basement permanently. And here Creggor stood, practically telling her that she might end the very same way. She should walk away now, go back upstairs and tuck herself in and forget everything.
That’s not what she wanted to do, though.
Her eyes left the closed door that she knew led to Douglass and fell on George instead. That’s what Creggor had called him; George. He had her stone. She fought her body’s will to step forward, to get closer and closer to him. She should go back upstairs, but the only movement her body would make, should she let it, was to go after him, to fight him for that stone.
“What if she’s not ready for it?” Brin broke in. “She’s been here for two days.”
“She’s been here for much longer than you think,” he argued with her. “And I’ve seen it in her mind for quite some time now. She wants to understand, more than anything. Isn’t that all she needs to be ready? I told you both, I’m here to help.”
“Why?” Chanta asked against her own will. She had to force the word out of her mouth. She even had to force the suspicion to leak into her mind, because all her body would do was concentrate on that stone now. She didn’t care about either of the boys, really. She didn’t care if they were there to hurt or to help, or if they were even real or figments of her imagination. Maybe she was already crazy. None of it mattered to her, not really. Something inside her, though, was a little worried. She had to focus on that part, because that part felt more like her than any of the rest of it did.
“I told you,” he said simply. “This school is full of lies, and I’m not about all that. You see, I’m able to get into people’s minds. I know that’s scary to everyone, I get that. But it lets me see the truth. It lets me hear what the rest of you fall short of seeing. It helps me realize what’s right and what’s wrong.”
“And my stone is right,” she said, her eyes drifting against toward George. “I want it.”
The suspicion melted right off. She couldn’t hold it in place long enough to ask any more questions.
Brin threw her a sharp glance. It seemed her suspicion was still there, still ready to fight this whole meeting some more. It wasn’t hers to fight, though, and she knew it as well as anyone else in that basement did. She could only stand up for Chanta and protect her as much as Chanta would allow. She was backing off now.
It was a good thing, too, because there was something inside of Chanta, in the pit of her stomach, that was stirring up. It had been building since she was in the halls, she realized, and escalating every step she got closer to the basement. Now it was like something wild thrashing inside of her, fighting against the confines of her body to get to George. If Brin continued to fight against it for much longer, if she prevented Chanta from obtaining that stone, she wouldn’t be able to contain that feeling inside of her. She knew Brin would get hurt then. Creggor and George might have ended up hurt, too, just because they were in the way.
Maybe Creggor felt the same energy from inside her. He suddenly waved George forward. George came to stand at his side.
“I told you to wear that Celestite stone around your neck at all times,” he repeated.
Chanta shook her head once, trying to clear away the energy that was taking over her thoughts so that she could focus on him. She tried to tell that energy, too, that it needed to focus on his words. It didn’t seem to matter, though. The energy was now like a drooling dog. The minute it found out where the stone was, that was the only thing that mattered anymore, words be damned. Yet, Chanta knew in her own mind that the words were important to heed.
“Yes,” she said. “To make them believe that the Celestite is where my power is coming from. So that… So that they won’t know? That I have my real stone, I mean.”
She felt like she was piecing together her thoughts into words like a Frankenstein monster. Nothing seemed to flow quite right out of her mouth, like each word was borrowed from a different thought.
“Precisely,” Creggor affirmed, seeming not to notice her Frankenstein words. “They must not realize, because they are afraid of your real stone. They are trying to keep you away from it. Once they know you have it, they will lock you up. It’s easier to deal with you if you are kept stupid or behind a locked door. Which would you prefer?”
It took Chanta more than a heartbeat to answer.
“Stupid,” was all she managed to mutter.
“Exactly,” Creggor said. “Wise choice. Many of us have chosen the same thing, though we are far from stupid. You won’t be kept stupid much longer, but you have to pretend, just like the rest of us.”
“None of them know you’re a mind reader,” Brin stated, thinking through his statement.
Creggor flashed her a smile. Chanta almost didn’t see it, almost didn’t hear any of their words. She had to fight the drooling dog to stay focused in the conversation.
“They think I’m a regular old Gypsy. I don’t flaunt it, unlike the Warriors… They tend to attract too much attention to themselves.”
He knew something, and it was clear. Brin was about to ask, but he waved her off dismissively. And Chanta could hardly bring herself to care enough to notice, much less ask questions.
“George, why don’t you show her what it looks like?”
George stepped forward again, closer to Chanta. He pulled a closed fist out of his pocket and stretched his arm toward her as he came closer. From her peripheral view, she could see Brin trying to stretch her head around to get a good look from where she stood. She was trying to look like she didn’t care enough to step any closer, but it was obvious to everyone in the room.
Chanta herself felt like she was drooling as much as the energy inside of her was now. She wanted it. And it was coming closer.
But not close enough.
George stopped a few feet short of where his closed first would actually meet Chanta. He continued to hold his hand out to her, palm facing downward, fist remaining tightly closed.
Chanta felt a growl, a low, guttural, animalistic sound, escape her throat.
“You should understand the gravity of the situation first,” Creggor told her. Her lip lifted in a snarl as she peeled her eyes away from George’s fist and looked at him. “Well, the gravity of my situation, really. What we do for students is forbidden. Not only should I not know about your stone, but I should not be giving it to you, much less telling you about it. So you have to understand that this meeting needs to be kept a secret.”
“Fine,” she said.
Her eyes went straight back to that fist, eagerness glowing beneath their twinkle.
“You have to understand,” Creggor continued, “that we have to protect ourselves, too. If you want your stone… If you want the power we’re about to give you… Then you must have it implanted.”
“That will get her kicked out,” Brin argued immediately, almost before he finished speaking. She must have had that argument ready to go from the beginning.
“She technically hasn’t even signed the oath yet,” Creggor said smugly. “So she’s not breaking any promises.”
“Okay,” Chanta said simply.
She struggled to keep her tone neutral. She wanted to sound bored, perhaps nothing more than a little curious. But it was clear that the drooling dog inside of her was famished, and the stone was the only thing that would satisfy her. She would have done anything he told her to, and Creggor was well aware of that fact.
Brin, on the other hand, was flabbergasted.
“Chanta, you can’t,” she fought.
Chanta ignored her.
“Where do we do this?” s
he asked Creggor, her eyes remaining on the stone behind the fist. She could feel it warming already, calling out to her. George’s own fist had begun to sweat, the heat becoming so unbearable he had already loosened his grip to allow for some cold air to circulate through. “When do we do it?”
“Here and now,” Creggor said.
He pulled out a small metal object from his pocket. Brin gasped, a sound that caught enough of Chanta’s attention that she spared a glance over at the item. It was a pocketknife. Chanta’s eyes drifted back to the fist, unfazed. She was glad, actually, that he had come prepared. She had waited long enough for this moment; she wasn’t willing to put it off any longer.
Creggor continued to speak.
“Your stone is a powerful one,” he told her. “I’m not sure what exactly it does, just as Prisanni and all the other professors are unsure. That makes it very dangerous. I can’t promise you won’t regret having it implanted, and I won’t take it out for you. I won’t see you around the school anymore, I won’t offer you any more help. This,” he said, waving a hand to encompass their meeting, “and that stone, it’s the only help I’m offering you. Don’t seek me out, and don’t come crying when it’s too much power for you. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said, no hesitation in her answer.
Creggor contemplated for a moment before he allowed one slow, solemn nod, accepting her promise.
“George, show her.”
George finally opened his fist.
Laying in his meaty, sweaty palm was a small, flat oval. It had been shaped flat on purpose, not a natural cut. The stone was a beautiful, solid black. It twinkled in the dim light of the candle that had been lit since they came down there. It seemed to glow warmer than a hundred candles, though, like it was smiling up at Chanta as she was now smiling at it.
Brin gasped somewhere in the room, presumably having finally taken a peek at the stone. Chanta could barely hear her, though, could barely even register where the sound came from, though she was sure that Brin hadn’t taken one step anywhere since the meeting began. She was too focused on the stone in George’s hand. She longed to reach out to it, to steal it away, to caress it—anything. But she knew, somehow, that it was the wrong move to make. She knew that George would snap it away from her and the boys would leave.
