by Amy B. Nixon
Monika rose, breathed in, then caught my shoulders. I felt a soft sort of warmth in my guts. The sensation slowly spilled over the rest of my body, easing my anxiety with every passing second. It was almost like I had drank a cup of hot milk before bed after a long and exhausting day, and its warmth was sending calming waves into my brain’s nerve endings.
It took me a while to understand what was happening.
“You’re a Sentinel!”
“Yes, I am, and no, you didn’t zombify the bird.”
She sat back on her bed, licked her lips and stared at me with the same frightened expression the others had earlier. Like I had terrorized a human being for the kicks of doing so right in front of her.
On the other hand, I wasn’t sure what I should have been afraid of – her emotion-warping magic or my own crazy magic.
“We call them Draugar, but every nation has a different term. I’ve heard German necromancers here use the word seelenlos and the Slavs call them nezhivoy.”
“Yeah, and in the US we just call them zombies.”
“Draugar aren’t zombies, smartass,” she corrected me, lurching forward. “They’re dead creatures whose bodies have been brought back to life without their soul; and there’s a magical barrier, which prevents the soul from returning ever again. It’s not a zombie, and it wasn’t trying to eat that boy’s brain like zombies do in movies.”
“It wasn’t? Then what do Draugar eat? Flesh?”
“They don’t eat. They are living corpses with no biological or social needs except for the one to serve their master.”
Serve their master? As in, I was its master and it was trying to do whatever I wanted it to? Wound some innocent person? “Monika, that’s bullshit! I didn’t fucking tell a cute little swallow to attack anyone!”
“You were too scared and confused. It just sensed that and tried to protect you.”
“This place is insane!”
With a loud groan she lied down, closing her eyes.
“If others can’t make a Draug, how did I make one? And why do you have a siren for it?”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“Why is it dangerous? Why did everyone look worried and scared?”
“Because it’s bad, Learyn! It’s a very dark and advanced form of death magic. Bringing a body back to life without its soul is one thing. Creating that magical barrier and transforming the corpse into a Draug is something different. Nothing can restore a Draug’s soul. Sure, you did it accidentally, but bottom line is, it still happened. Don’t you understand? It was a bird today. It can be one of us tomorrow.”
My brain hamster finally spun on its wheel. I didn’t know anything about this world, yet I had already managed to screw up on an epic level. In front of way too many people.
“How much trouble am I in?”
“Only Hallvard Nordstrøm can tell. He’s the acting Head of this place and consults with a Council of other casters. Oh, crap! I was supposed to watch over you, help you ease into our world, and I’ve failed!”
“But why?” I asked, regarding everything.
“Why is the Council in trouble? Because they have to deal with the fact that an island resident, one who was brought up like a human, can make a Draug. Why am I in trouble? Because I failed! Again! I’m failing at everything this year!”
All of a sudden, I wasn’t so apprehensive about my own mess. Monika and her brother had been so kind to me. Now, judging by her fidgeting fingers and trembling voice, she looked on the verge of a breakdown after something I had done.
I sat next to her, hoping her Sentinel powers hadn’t backfired after she used them on me.
“Hey, I don’t know if you’ve failed at something else, but when it comes to me, I don’t make it easy for others. I get myself into trouble all the time.”
She stared at the ceiling for a while, as if contemplating her response.
“You don’t get it, Learyn. I fail at everything. Max is the one who exceeds at whatever he does. His powers broke out a year before mine did, and he’s younger than me by eight freaking minutes! He’s already an instructor here, he’s traveled the world to see all sorts of magical places, he’s the best! Meanwhile, I turn everything I touch to ruin!”
“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad! We’re necromancers. We can bring people back from the dead, so you practically can’t turn everything you touch to ruin. Get it?”
She shook her head, clearly unamused by my cynical irony.
“I should have told you all of it. Instead, I left you alone and clueless on your first day.”
“Monika, my aunt fed me coldhearted lies my entire life. Trust me, you can’t feed me twenty years’ worth of information over several hours. As for the Council – they can suck it. If they think you can teach me all about being a necromancer overnight, then they need to find replacements with more realistic thinking. Preferably someone who’s also willing to change that sexist family motto and their creepy emblem.”
She half-scoffed, half-laughed. “Thanks.”
“Can I ask why you were supposed to watch over me? The Administration lady told the guards to bring me to your room on Hallvard Nordstrøm‘s orders.”
“You’re a Dustrikke. What’s more, you’re a direct descendant of one of the first necromancers the goddess Freya created, Linnea Dustrikke. Didn’t your aunt tell you at least that?”
No. Fucking. Way!
“Hmm, let’s see. She told me my name was Leah Dust instead of Learyn Dustrikke. She also told me I came from a long line of San Franciscan humans instead of Norwegian necromancers. But she never bothered going as far as the ninth century.”
“Oh, boy! You read how we came to be, right? In those books? So, the first three necromancers married into human families – Aia’s Nordstrøm, Linnea’s Dustrikke and Minora’s Veland. Today there are no more descendants of the Veland family, only Nordstrøm and Dustrikke ones have survived. Not all of them are direct descendants of Aia and Linnea. Some are humans or other supernatural beings, who have married into the original families. Now do you see why they couldn’t leave you on your own without having at least a roommate who wasn’t raised in the human world?”
“I see, I understand, and it’s still insane!”
Accepting the existence of the supernatural world was one thing. But me being a direct descendant of one of the first three necromancers in the world? This was a brand-new level of batshit crazy.
“Can we go eat? What’s left of my brain cells need nourishment if I’m going to learn more family secrets.”
“Um, after making a Draug in front of everyone, I think it’s best if you don’t show your face in the Dining Hall this evening. I’ll go grab us something to eat.”
She ran off with an uneasy face, stained by more traces of the same anxiety. I got up, eyed my suitcase, and decided to unpack.
Less than twenty-four hours since my arrival in a new country, I had already gotten myself in knee-deep shit. This was a new record, even for me.
Murder, Martyr And Blight
It wasn’t hard to guess I was the hot topic for the next few days. People stared at me everywhere I went – in the library, down the corridors, in the castle’s courtyards, in the Dining Hall during lunch and dinner… Good thing I didn’t eat breakfast and spent my days reading magical books, otherwise I would have lost it if I had to constantly endure the staring.
Older and younger necromancers alike weren’t throwing me glances of pleasant recognition. All I saw in their eyes was fear. Some tried to hide it and looked away, others literally distanced themselves from me.
Four days passed this way. I hadn’t received as much as a text message, let alone a phone call from my aunt, so the reason I came here was still a guessing game.
I was killing time by trying to learn more about magic from books. The library’s entire left side, holding Section L1 to Section L9, was filled with volumes on lore and mythology, non-magical books on world history and arts, and four levels with res
tricted access, called Warded Sections.
The latter took up the top four floors, and the Larsen siblings both shrugged when I asked what sorts of books were hidden there. Maksim had let me in on a local joke about a book with binding made of human flesh. Not that I believed him, but I was overtaken by unhealthy curiosity to see what volumes were stored in the Warded Sections. When I tried to check them out, an invisible wall cut me off at the spiraled staircase only a step away from Section L6.
I had taken a bunch of books on supernatural creatures from RB1 and L1 to my room to avoid spending time around people. Tonight’s topic was Askafroa – one of the many different types of tree guardians. In a nutshell, Askafroa were malicious dryad-like creatures, merciless in their rigorous protection of ash forests. Female guardians, residing in the ash trees, waiting to strike down travelers who dared to approach their dwellings.
My reading was cut short in the middle of the night by a nasty scraping sound coming from behind me.
Turning, I saw Monika, who was sleeping in her bed. Shaking my head, I focused back on the book. There it was again, the same noise. Someone was scraping on a solid surface right behind me. The window? I jumped out of bed, flung the long blackout curtains to the side, then froze in my spot.
What I initially thought to be a tree branch hitting the window, turned out to be something far less natural. A small bird was grating its beak against the glass. Its forked tail was spread out, as were its wings, but they weren’t fluttering. Everything apart from the bobbing head stood statuesquely. And that wasn’t the only eerie element in the bird’s appearance. The swallow was a translucent figure, made of pearly highlights and a see-through body.
My heart skipped a beat. The bird scraped its beak along the window. A nauseating whirlwind spun in my stomach. That thing out there wasn’t alive. And judging by the transparent hollows of its eyes, the ghost was fixated on me.
I clasped a hand over my mouth, suppressing the urge to vomit. The apparition attacked the glass once again, then floated – not flew, but floated – away into the night. I quickly closed the curtains and curled in my bed, hugging my knees to my chest.
You’re not seeing ghosts. This is fucking insane. You’re not being haunted by that Draug monster’s spirit. If it was really a ghost, it wouldn’t have stopped at the window.
Another screech followed, rising above the voice of my common sense.
You’re imagining shit. Get it together. If there was a ghost, it would have gone through the window, not paused to politely knock on it.
As if the apparition had heard me, it produced two short knocking sounds.
My heartbeat sped up, abusing my eardrums. The knocking repeated, then switched back to horrendous scraping. I bolted for the bathroom and threw up the fruity Swedish pancakes I ate at dinner. A few hours ago, I’d thought the combination of red lingonberries, amber Norwegian cloudberries and indigo blueberries looked cute. Now, I regretted it. I wasn’t vomiting rainbows, and the sight of my partially processed food nearly made me puke again.
After brushing my teeth and washing my face with icy water, I returned to bed with the idea of ditching the creepy Askafroa tales and going to sleep. Only problem was, my imagination wasn’t playing tricks on me. There was indeed a ghost outside, and judging by those gravelly scratching sounds, I was being haunted.
Slowly parting the curtains again, I faced the swallow’s translucent form.
“What is it?” I whispered with bated breath. “What do you want? Are you trying to tell me something?”
The bird’s beak scraped the glass again. I braved my necrophobia-like symptoms, filled my lungs’ capacity, and opened the window. But instead of coming inside, the apparition hit an invisible wall. I glanced at Monika, who was still sleeping, and decided to deal with my problem the way I dealt with everything – alone.
Two minutes later, I was standing outside the castle’s main gates.
“Miss Dustrikke?”
A man in a black guard’s uniform appeared out of the blue, sending waves of cold air my way. He was either hiding his fear well, or he was among the handful of people who weren’t afraid of me.
“I’m… Ugh, this is gonna sound stupid. I’m looking for a ghost. It tried to get in my bedroom, but couldn’t. Have you seen it? It looks like a swallow.”
“Ghosts can’t enter the castle.”
So, that’s why the bird hit a wall earlier. Before I could ask the guard if he’d seen a ghost again, the swallow appeared in my peripheral vision. As eerily translucent as before, it shot itself at us.
“Wait, no, don’t hurt–”
My words were outshouted by my own scream. I thought the bird would attack the guard, much like the Draug had done with that guy. But instead of going for my companion, the apparition aimed for my chest.
It felt as though someone had stuck a sharp icicle in my ribcage and twisted it, making its way towards my back. The pain didn’t ease down, and when the bird reversed its trajectory, piercing me backwards, the frostbite spread into every inch of my flesh.
“Stop!” I yelled, squeezing my eyes as they filled with tears. “Please!”
The ghost slammed its freezing force into my chest again. I fell to my knees, incapable of withstanding the icy tremors running under my skin. Every cell in my body stung in an excruciating way.
“Gjenferd!”
My eyes opened at the sound of someone else’s yell. Through the prism of my tears, I saw a man running to me, murky and blurry, illuminated by something emerald, which seemed to be coming from behind me.
Whimpering from the agony every movement brought, I looked around, only to realize the green light was coming from me. Threads and crewels of vivid emeralds unraveled from my skin, spanning in every direction like crooked tree branches.
I gasped, taking in another horrifying sight. Behind me, the guard I was talking to earlier was lying on the ground with a wide-eyed look of shock frozen on his features. The swallow hung lifelessly in the air, no longer fixated on attacking. But the wintry agony kept tearing me from the inside out, as if the apparition was still piercing my body.
“W-what’s… happening?” I asked the other man, who had yelled. One look at him made me cry out, partially from the pain, partially from what I saw. He was also lying petrified on the ground.
I screamed, giving voice to my fear.
“Calm yourself, Miss Dustrikke,” a male voice outshouted my screams.
“S-stay back,” I spoke out the words through sobs, trying to focus my vision on the blurry figure coming from the bridge.
He lifted a hand and drew a circle in the air, then approached as if he couldn’t see the evidence why doing so was a bad idea.
“Please,” I whimpered as he kept moving towards me. “I don’t want to hurt you too.”
“Everything is going to be all right.”
I tried to crawl away from him, but the pain was too much.
My limbs were nailed to the ground, pierced in so many places, that all I could feel was overwhelming agony. The man came closer, reaching my emerald threads’ scope, but they didn’t strike him. An ethereal force pushed them back towards my body. They bent up, aiming for the skies like vultures of blazing emerald lights.
The man caught my shoulder. My frenzied emotions – fear, worry and pain – syphoned through me, as if they were chased by an invisible predator. I sensed a strange alleviation. My chest contracted with a heavy sigh, I sucked in a deep breath, and realized he was a Sentinel. The bright lights dispersed into the night, disappearing as unexpectedly as they had manifested in the first place. Just like those green threads, the swallow’s apparition vanished from sight.
“I’m going to let go of you and revive my colleagues. Can you stay calm in the meantime?”
“R-rev-vive?” I hiccupped.
They were dead? How was it possible?
The guy spread his arms to the side, each palm facing the deceased, and streams of emerald haze flew from his hands, illumina
ting the night. When his magic touched the guards, they rose like marionette dolls. I shuddered, incapable of producing a sound.
One of the guards walked up to us. “Marcus! Where’s that wretched spirit?”
“Banished. Go back to your posts. I’ll take Miss Dustrikke to the Council.”
Council? That group of casters Monika had mentioned? The ones who ran this place alongside Hallvard Nordstrøm? FML! I had managed to get myself in deep waters. Again! And I had spent less than a week here!
“What does Gjenferd mean?” I asked Marcus while he guided me through the castle’s corridors. “One of those guards shouted it. And how were they dead? Did I really… Could I…”
“Gjenferd are malicious spirits; and yes, you killed the guards.”
I gasped for air, coming to a halt. The man caught me by the elbow, putting me at ease through his Sentinel powers before I could start hyperventilating over what killed meant.
We entered Administration’s office, where an unfamiliar woman was sitting behind Raisa Kuoppala’s desk.
“We need a Council meeting tonight.”
“Hallvard Nordstrøm is away, as is Johanna Larsen. The earliest they’ll be available is Saturday.”
“It’s a matter of urgency, which can’t wait until Saturday.”
The woman squinted at me. “I’ll call for Dann Nordstrøm. He’s the only Council member currently on the island.”
Shit! If he had let my comments on his family’s motto and my Draug incident slide, he was most definitely not going to let me off the hook for murder. Like clockwork, my gag reflex woke up. The nausea passed in less than an instant, courtesy of the Sentinel guard’s grip.
A few minutes later, we were standing in an auditorium, with amphitheatrically positioned tables and a large podium on the bottom. The latter held a big desk. As if the other tables on the steps weren’t enough to give off the impression of being back in university, the whiteboard behind the podium solidified my theory. This had to be a lecture hall.
“I didn’t mean to hurt them!” I squealed as soon as the creeper walked in. “I don’t even know how it happened! There were some green things, and a ghost, and the men–”
