by Elena Monroe
He wasn't here or helping, so I became a dictator, the queen he let me be. Crown, but no throne.
It felt like hours later, when the sun was sitting higher in the sky and beaming down on the wood even harder. I pushed myself inch by inch closer to the warmth, craving it after all the gloomy weather I had experienced so far here.
The laughter of males nearby caught my attention quickly. I was looking for any excuse to stop studying these old books for a project I didn't want to do to begin with. It was a welcome distraction, until I lined up faces with the laughter: Bolton and Nyx.
They breezed through the library, disregarding the quiet signs and even the librarian eyeing them. They ran this school, and everyone knew it.
King and the baron, with the good looks and abhorrent personality.
I didn't know what Luna saw in him. He barely spoke, and when he did, it was threatening. I was shocked he even knew how to laugh; it had to be at someone’s expense. Those two didn't enjoy anything but aches and pains—the kind that turned souls black and hearts to stone.
I dipped my head down into my book, hoping not to be seen. Maybe they were here for some quick errand, and I could be spared. Bolton’s fingers tugged down my book, as he leaned over, waiting for our eyes to meet.
Great, my king had found my hiding spot. Here came the torture.
But, we didn’t become queens by sipping tea and keeping our gloves white. The snarky tone in my voice was saturated to the highest limit possible: “Can I help you, Bolton?”
I didn't let my eyes find his; instead, I kept them low and stuck to the pages of my new favorite book. Rosalia was a queen in disguise, and I was committed to finding out what happened to her, once the unnamed coven showed up at Arcadia.
Bolton grabbed the entire book from the table and thumbed the pages without any delicacy in his touch.
He was rough and cruel, even down to his fingertips. “What's this? Some light reading?”
I didn't even have a chance to speak before Luna’s tone shifted from sweet and innocent to annoyed and pissed off. “She found it on the shelf, which is weird, because I thought those books were removed.”
What was her problem with this damn book?
It's an old book; none of the people were alive; and the jibber jabber of an old man wasn’t relevant now.
Bolton sat on top of the table, instead in one of the twelve chairs surrounding the table, and kicked his feet up on an empty chair with his back toward me. He completely cut me out of the conversation, and I was sure it was an uncalculated move.
I would leave, but now I wanted to know what the fuss was with this stupid book. No, I had to know now.
“I put it there.” His deep voice was smooth with no lumps of rudeness to be seen. He was simply factual.
Why did he have this book? Why would he hide it in plain sight?
Luna’s pissed off switch just blew, and she tossed all of her colorful pens and the rest of her supplies in her bag, before she stopped between the boys.
“You're playing with fire.”
Coming from Luna, her words were more ominous and threatening. Whatever this was really about had her panties twisted, causing a type of seriously uncomfortable chub rub.
Nyx went after her; I'm sure all this was a great opening for him to comfort her without revealing how much he felt for her.
I didn't understand their relationship at all. It was clear to the deaf and blind that they had this magnetism that couldn’t conceal how much love was really there.
I couldn't help wondering if they tried and it didn't work, or if maybe something else happened that kept them from trying.
Bolton swiveled around, facing me with one leg on the table with him now. “And…? Still think I'm crazy?”
It wasn't until he asked me that I was forced to analyze my thoughts and take inventory of my sanity after last night. Thankfully, it was still holding up.
The book wasn't a legend or myth. The unknown cover was the marked ones; the town was terrified of the sociopathic rage that came after a declaration like that; and I was the girl that the Devil had his sight set on.
Damn it, if I only got to read further. I might know my aligning fate with Rosalia.
“You still sound crazy. I have a project to do. Are we done here?”
My phone buzzed against the mahogany table with so much force the librarian leaned over her desk’s edge just to shush me with eye contact and a curt, “No cell phones.” I picked it up off the table, quickly reading the response from Bolton’s enemy right in front of him without him knowing it.
I was plotting his downfall right in my hands, and his unknowingness was what I was going to drop my new crown in.
Opening my direct messages I read Caellum’s response: I got it now, foot fetish? What school do you go to?
The green active icon attached to his profile photo made replying right away easy. I quickly typed Arcadia into the box and hit send.
I was just hoping that didn't deem me untouchable, but a warning sign he could just ignore if it meant giving Bolton a taste of his own medicine.
Bolton grew irritated with waiting his turn, while my whole attention was clearly elsewhere. He snatched my phone from my hands. He read the messages and clenched his fist around my phone in an alarming way, before he brought it to his mouth in a silent scream.
He was exactly the kind of angry I envisioned—the same kind he made me feel between kisses. “Why are you messaging Caellum? You don't know him.”
“Exactly, he hates you, so he has no reason to lie.”
He stood up, dropping my phone with a thud against wood, before drilling his closed fists into the tabletop. “I put that book there so you'd put shit together yourself, not run for help. He can't be trusted.”
I felt like challenging for no reason other than I could. “Why can't he be trusted? He had a mark, just like you said.”
His expression was pinched everywhere that he had a sharp feature: eyes, lips, nose, even his jaw. All were tight with anger and getting more severe with every word I spoke.
“He's not part of the circle anymore.”
He paused, standing up straighter and making every intention of walking away, when he pivoted towards one last time. “For someone smart enough to take me as your throne, you're not thinking like a royal. Instead, you wanna sleep with the enemy.”
He walked away with a look of disgust, and I swiped the book back, pulling it close to me and keeping its legacy safe.
I opened to the page with a drawing of Rosalia and continued my reading where I had left off.
Henry Jon
He demanded her as a sacrifice, but promised to not hurt her if he could prove she was the one. His words were a snake in the tall grass, unseen and venomous. The Devil explained how sure he was that our innocent Rosalia was the essence of his lover from his world.
His world… he described it with so much beauty that I wondered if Hell was meant to draw us in and betray us after death with fiery pits.
He needed to sacrifice her human body, so his unknown cover could return home. Her essence would live on with him, and her human form would die in its place, as an offering for desire.
Rosalia was my sweet daughter, my youngest and most able bodied. She was bright in a way the other village young envied her and followed her everywhere. She was a leader, cursed with the female anatomy. She would never be able to take my place, and it brought so much sorrow that I almost believed death was a better fate.
I focused on every detail of Rosalia's portrait on the adjacent page. She was young, maybe fifteen at the most, but her age wasn't yet disclosed.
Her skin was flawless, and her eyes were much wider than average with an almond shape to them. The curls she wore almost made a crown, like she knew her purpose all along. She was beautiful and strong.
I read more of the book before I pulled up Google on my computer to search a combination of her name, Arcadia, and key words like sacrifice. There were millions of r
esults, and I didn't have time to search them all.
I knew just by the lack of sun that the library was most likely closing soon. I let myself get lost down the deep, dark hole of internet searching until the librarian pranced over and lifted an eyebrow at my things still sprawled on the table.
“We are closing in ten minutes, Arianna.”
Why did adults do that?
Say your name like you needed to be reminded? We both knew my name without it being mentioned.
I rolled my eyes without noticing, until the sigh left my mouth, volunteering my dedication to this story and validating its highlights.
I was coming off full bookworm, and it seemed like a gateway drug to a long reading list.
I threw all my stuff in my bag, including the book Bolton hid in plain sight, and now determined that ownership was transferred to me.
Arianna
The sky was a watercolor painting: oranges, reds, and even some purple. The sky was as undecided as I was about everything.
Unlike me, eventually the clouds and stars would let a dark haze blur out the color landing on a nightshade.
I wasn't going to land anywhere. There was too much still unknown, and that feeling of sinking wasn't going away.
I walked by the faculty building to not see a single light on, except for one small window behind a bush was illuminated.
Why would someone be in the basement? What was in the basement?
I mocked the torturous king when I made him question my loyalty. I betrayed him by reaching out to his enemy and plotting his overflowing anger. Now, he pushed me right into some modern version of Nancy-fucking-Drew.
It's official: You can hate someone so much it changes you into someone you don't even recognize anymore.
I stalked the perimeter of the building, keeping a distance, while collecting clues. Is that what she did? Collect clues? I couldn't remember how Nancy Drew ever solved any mysteries, only that they always had some happy ending.
“What do you think you're doing?” Kate’s dumb blonde impression was perfect, minus the blonde locks. She scared the shit out of me, though.
Nearly jumping out of my Doc Martens, I slowly turned around to see her in a pink jogger set, with her arms folded against her and one foot pushed out, even though it wasn't tapping. I searched for a reply that kept me innocent.
“I got lost…?”
Her still popped hip and eyebrow didn't melt into believing me.
I was caught.
“Sure, New Girl, whatever you say. This building is off limits.”
I watched her slowly climb the stairs to the front door as she spoke—a contradiction wrapped in pink and bitch. She stopped to look over her shoulder; she knew I didn't care about mundane rules like “off limits” or “don't touch.”
That was where I lived, my happy place: the danger zone.
“Seriously, Bolton would kill me and not, like, metaphorically. Like real dead, gone, cease to exist.”
I tried not to smile at her attempt at severe threats. I bet she was molten chocolate underneath, hot and sticky.
“I know what ‘off limits’ means, Kate.”
She rolled her eyes and climbed the stairs again, disappearing behind the heavy door. I kicked some rocks, hoping she'd take pity on me and piss off Bolton, but no one came or went for the few minutes I waited. I finally gave up and went back to my room.
When Luna wasn't there, I was able to piece it all together more and more. I had the book open, my notepad full of scribbles, and my laptop open to Google. I was still Nancy Drew even in the solitude of my bedroom.
The passages were long winded, but it basically boiled down to Henry Jon, Rosalia’s dad, ended up giving her as sacrifice to spare the lives of Arcadia’s residents.
He went mad searching for her and even put a bell next to her coffin in case she woke. He met the demands. I guess he had never heard of the saying, “We don't negotiate with terrorists.”
Rosalia died, and there was no way of knowing if anything the unbanned coven said was true. There was no evidence other than this damn book.
Did Bolton think that was enough to convince me? Was I missing something?
I tore out the pages in the front where Henry Jon drew a map and labeled everything down to details, like how many steps were between fixtures on the map. He wasn't playing around, and neither was I.
I grabbed my phone and swapped out my jean jacket for a hoodie, since the chill was almost unbearable after 8 PM. I headed outside in search of the forest, where he had met the coven and where the sacrifice had happened in hopes that there would be something more to find on the walk there.
I was desperate and grasping for clues.
The ground crunched under my Doc Martens with every step—small and calculated, big and reckless.
There was no way to be quiet in these words. I used my flashlight to illuminate where I stepped, and that's about all it illuminated. Everything looked like a carbon copy of each other; every tree was similar and no real defining factors to help me keep my direction certain.
I came across the clearing after counting my steps carefully, like Henry Jon did when they blind folded him and escorted him out to their altar. He may have lost his mind after her death, but he was sharp as a whip before.
I was focused on looking down when I tripped over something against the tree trunk. I fell right on my ass and slammed my fists down against the dirt, dropping the map and my phone in the fall.
I patted the ground around me for the map without any kind of light, which was the most important part, if I wanted to make it back alive.
I found my phone and sent a quick text to Luna: I'm in the woods following a hunch. If I'm not back by midnight, then panic.
After it sent it, I tucked my phone between my chin and shoulder pointing it in the direction of what I had tripped over. There rested a small box, and slowly, I opened it. I stopped inhaling just in case something was dead in there. I even pushed myself back, unsure of what was inside and protecting my face from the possibilities.
Raising the lid, I laughed to myself at the random items inside. There was nothing scary or threatening. It was a memory box; it was just more creepy because it was abandoned in the woods behind the school.
I fingered the items: a lighter, a hair tie, a photo clipped from a yearbook, a ring, a fake eyelash strip, lipstick, a pin, a fortune cookie fortune, a bookmark, dice, and car keys.
It was a random assortment of items that didn't fit into the image I was building in my head.
I closed the box with the items carefully tucked inside and turned around to inspect the rest of the clearing. There was a stump filled with candles melted down into each other. I let my fingers smooth over the hard wax that tears rolled down the length of once. I looked at the items surrounding the candles, like the items were praising the candles standing above them. Feathers, a mason jar of dirty water, seashells, and a small pot of dirt, making up all four elements.
None of this looked old enough to be from when Henry Jon visited this clearing. Everything seemed an untouched kind of new.
I jumped out of my skin when I heard an ominous voice from behind me. “What do you think you're doing?”
I clasped my phone to my chest and tried to grasp my breath, when I saw the figure still draped in shadows. “Who's there?”
Oh my god… what a basic-ass reply that practically splattered from my mouth.
“I'm hurt. You don't know my voice by now?”
Instinctually, I rolled my eyes, realizing it was none other than my torturous king, Bolton, himself. “What do you want?”
He laughed, moving around in the dark, like it was second nature to him. The flashlight on my phone had a hard time keeping up with his crass movements.
“A little bird told me you were out here snooping around.”
“Seems like your court is infested with rats.”
His fingers smoothed the exterior of the candles before standing in front of me, jarring
my stoic expression. “Don't confuse loyalty for treachery.”
I didn't flinch when his warm breath licked my skin. I was committed to staying still and being the type of queen who didn't tear her eyes away from bloodshed. And there was going to be bloodshed if he thought I was going to back down.
“1600’s called and wants their vocab back.”
He took another step closer to me, “Seems like you didn't learn anything from Henry Jon today.”
The hand holding my flashlight dropped to my waist and naturally a hip popped, adding to my like armor sass.
“If you want me to know something, then just spit it out, Bolton. Team Edward or Jacob?”
I could see his casualty turn into my own personal casualty as his features got tight and fists curled. “This isn't a game. I'm telling you so I can protect you.”
I backed away, finally breaking the tension growing between us. I stepped back slowly and carefully, but only enough to breathe fresh air instead of the oxygen only exchanged between us. “From who? Protect me from who? Everyone in that book is dead!”
He kneeled down, level with the stump, producing a lighter and giving the candles a job to do.
The glow was soft and yellow, but at least I could see more beyond the flashlight on my phone. He stood tall, less angry, but still tense, like I pissed him off.
“Not everyone, Arianna.”
I didn't speak. There was no use. There was nothing I could say that was going to fill the gaps or ask the right questions to get the answers I wanted.
“I'm still alive... That book took me a long time to find. I'm the only one who remembers before here.”
Convenient, is what I call that. No one to validate your parking in a lying zone.
“So you're telling me you’re the one with the Devil mark who sacrificed Rosalia? Halloween is in two weeks...”
He pulled his phone out, disrupting my amazing jab, deflected by a damn phone. “I gotta go. Do you know your way back?”
Within a few long strides, he disappeared into the darkness, leaving me there holding my makeshift flashlight and still wondering how to piece the puzzle together. I was just as confused as before, if not more so now.
