“Is that what we’re doing?” I asked. “Fighting a war?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “But I’m beginning to think so.”
“Then breakfast sounds wonderful.” I followed him into the kitchen, where we made scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and coffee.
It was quiet and pleasant, and I did my best to not think about the people on the outskirts of town who had died in the storm last night. It was hard to reconcile that with the feelings of awe and power from my dream the night before. How could they be connected? What was the Board really?
After we finished eating, Tom put our dishes in the sink to soak, and then sat down. “Better?” he asked.
I smiled. “As good as I’m likely to get anyway.” I sipped my coffee. “Have you decided yet?”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“If you believe me?”
“To be honest, I don’t want to believe you, Jenna,” he said. “But I do. You aren’t the lying kind, and there’s nothing else to explain what’s going on. What do they call it when the most simple explanation is the best one?”
I thought about it for a moment, then snapped my fingers. “Occam’s Razor,” I said. “Essentially, when multiple explanations for a phenomenon are possible, the simplest one is usually correct.” Then I shook my head. “Nothing very simple about this.”
“No,” he admitted, “but there are also far too many coincidences for them to not be connected. You find a strange board called the Board of Winds, then you start having weird dreams and visions, then strange people show up and the weather goes crazy, and so on. It’s all too close together. It must be connected somehow.”
“So, what do I do now?”
“Do you want it back? The Board, I mean,” he said.
I thought about it. I would like to say no, to tell him the same thing I’d told Simon the night before, but the truth was … “Yes,” I said simply. “More than anything I’ve ever wanted. It’s a part of me, I guess. I’m not sure how or why, but there it is.”
Tom nodded. “That’s what I thought. So we have to figure out how to get it back from Burke.”
“If he still has it and hasn’t sold it already,” I said. “Remember, he thinks I’m dead.”
Tom was about to reply when someone knocked on his door. Three solid raps. “Hold that thought,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He got up and went into the living room, and I heard him pause briefly. He must have been looking out the peephole to see who it was. Almost a full minute passed and whoever had knocked got impatient and tried again. Tom grumbled something under his breath and then I heard him unlock the door.
“I suppose you better come in,” he said.
“Thank you,” I heard a familiar voice reply.
Sagging, I waited for what I knew was coming. Tom entered the kitchen with his guest right behind.
We stared at each other, not saying anything for several heartbeats and then Tom broke the silence. “You must be Simon,” he said.
“Yes, I am,” Simon said. He extended a hand. “Simon Monk.”
“A cruel name,” Tom said, shaking his hand. “I’m Tom.” He arched an eyebrow at Simon. “How’d you get stuck with that particular name combination?”
“I was abandoned,” Simon replied, once more touching the coin around his neck, “and grew up in a Catholic orphanage. They didn’t know my real name, so they gave me one.”
I resolved to ask him more about his strange piece of jewelry one day, but just then wasn’t the time.
“An interesting choice,” Tom said. “No doubt you know the history of that name?”
“Indeed,” Simon said. “He was a revolutionary of sorts, longing for faith and yet fascinated by science.”
“A-hem!” I said. “Hello?”
“Sorry,” they both said at once.
“Good morning, Jenna,” Simon said. “Rough night?”
“You could say that,” I said. “But, please, don’t let me interrupt this fascinating discussion on the history of the name Simon. My problems can wait.”
“Jenna, there’s no need to be rude,” Tom said.
“What? What?” I stammered. “No need to be rude? He left me to almost freeze to death in the river! He let me walk home in the rain! All of this may be his fault, for all I know. And you’re worried about my manners?”
Tom grinned. “No, I’m not worried about your manners, but I think we may need his help.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Think about it,” he said. “So far, Simon is the only person—other than me—that’s even tried to help you. He may have the social graces of a yak, but he’s still trying to help.”
“Thanks,” Simon said. “I think.”
“That doesn’t explain why you almost let Jenna die,” Tom said. “Maybe that’s a good place to start.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” I said. “Why did you almost let me die?”
“I didn’t,” Simon said, holding up his hands. “Not exactly.”
“What part of letting me sink to the bottom of the river and then almost freeze to death was the ‘not exactly’ part?” I asked.
“The part where I don’t know how to swim,” Simon said.
The room went utterly silent. “Ummm …” I said “You don’t?”
“Not a stroke,” he said.
“Well why didn’t you say that last night!”
“I didn’t get a chance,” Simon said. “You took off before I could tell you much of anything, if you’ll recall.”
“And then you let me go off down the road by myself!” I shouted. “I could have frozen to death.”
“That girl picked you up,” Simon said. “I wasn’t that far behind her, and when I saw you get in the car, I followed until you got here and went inside.”
“Oh, you two were absolutely made for each other,” Tom said, laughing. “Can’t you tell?”
“NO!” we both said together.
Tom continued laughing, leaving us glaring at each other.
After we had all calmed down, I said, “Okay, Simon, you’ve got my attention and if Tom says I should hear you out, I will. If I don’t figure out what’s going on soon, I’m going to have myself committed.” I was trying to make a joke out of it, but from the looks on Simon’s and Tom’s faces, it fell flat.
“It will be worse than that,” Simon said, his tone deep and serious. “If I can’t get you to accept what’s going on, the Board will destroy Miller’s Crossing and many more people will die. Worse still, you may be killed yourself. There are forces involved in this that you simply don’t understand yet.”
All of us were silent as Simon’s words sank in. I leaned back in my chair and sipped my coffee, wrapping my hands around the warm mug to keep them from trembling.
“All right, Simon,” I said. “Sit down and help me understand what I need to know.”
Simon sat down and Tom followed suit. After everyone was comfortable, Simon continued, “I don’t know everything about the Boards, but I’ve been able to pick up quite a bit by doing a lot of research. The records in the Vatican go back for thousands of years, and they also have the largest collection of occult knowledge in the world.”
“Why?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it does,” Tom said. “Know your enemy, right?”
“That’s exactly right,” Simon replied. “From its earliest days, the Church has kept records of occult movements and artifacts, gathering them for safekeeping whenever possible, destroying them when it wasn’t.”
“And that’s what you do for them?” I asked.
Simon shrugged. “Sort of,” he said. “But let’s not get off track. We need to start with the most important thing for you to know.”
“What’s that?” I asked, leaning forward.
“Those storms last night?” Simon said.
“Yes?”
“You created them, Jenna,” he said softly. “And if you don’t get
control of the Board soon, even more people will die.”
11
“The good news is that we’ve located the girl, my Lord. The bad news is that she’s with Simon. And they’re talking.”
“More Vatican nonsense, no doubt. The more time she spends away from the Board, the more she’ll need it. We’ll let her dangle for a bit, then make the young lady an offer she won’t dare refuse.”
“My Lord?”
“Go pick up our bait.”
I just sat there for a moment, struggling to comprehend Simon’s words. How could I have been responsible for last night’s destruction? “What do you mean, ‘more people will die’?”
“Just what I said, Jenna,” Simon said. “When you used the Board, you awakened its powers. That’s why the winds have been so out of control in this area.”
“So why can’t she just … I don’t know … tell it to stop?” Tom asked
“Let me guess, I need the Board to do that, I think,” I said. “Right?”
Simon nodded. “I believe so, yes.”
“Hold on a minute,” I said. “Can we please just start at the beginning? You’re jumping around too much.”
“Sorry,” Simon said, sighing. “I’ve been researching this subject for years, and I forget that you haven’t been told much.”
“I haven’t been told anything!” I said.
“Not for my lack of trying, however.”
At the look on my face, he held up his hand. “But fair enough, I suppose.” He took another sip of coffee and grimaced. “Not as good as yours,” he said.
Tom and I grinned at each other. Making the best coffee was a long-running dispute between us. “You win,” he said.
“I know.”
We both chuckled, enjoying the shared moment of normality before plunging back into chaos. “So let’s have it, Simon,” Tom said.
He nodded. “We are short on time, but I’ll give you the condensed version of what I’ve learned, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“The Boards are magical artifacts,” he began, but before he could finish his sentence Tom interrupted.
“Whoa!” he said. “Stop right there. You said ‘boards’—plural. There’s more than one of these things?”
“Yes,” Simon said. “Originally, there were thirteen Boards, though there were only nine creators. All master sorcerers of some kind. Some of the texts mention a ‘master Board,’ so my surmise is that there are at least nine Boards—three sets of three each—and each set can be somehow combined into a fourth, separate board.”
“And all of these are still around?” I asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Simon said. “It’s possible, maybe even probable. The one thing I’m fairly certain of from all my research is that they can’t be destroyed by any conventional means.”
Tom started to ask another question, but Simon stopped him with a look. “Are you going to let me tell you what I know or keep asking me questions all morning?”
“Probably both,” Tom admitted, “but I’ll let you talk first.”
“Thank you,” Simon said.
I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or sarcastic.
“Before you go on, I have a question,” I said.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“So if there are that many Boards, how many—what did you call me—Keepers are there?”
Simon’s shoulders sagged. “That was something I was hoping you wouldn’t ask,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because unless I’m mistaken there’s only ever been one.”
“For all of them?!” I asked, trying not to shout and failing miserably.
“It’s complicated,” Simon said. “If you both will please let me continue?”
Tom and I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Either way, a certain number of the Boards were originally created. How many of them still exist is uncertain, but as I said, it’s very likely that all of them do. Where the others are, I cannot say for sure, though there are some clues about their last known locations around.”
“If my Board is the Board of the Winds, what are the others?” I asked.
“The first set of Boards are called the Boards of the Elements—I have read that there is one Board for each of the elements—Air, Water, Fire, and Earth, though which is the master Board, I don’t know for sure.”
“And the others?” Tom asked.
Simon shrugged. “The information is a bit—sketchier on the others. I’ve only found scattered fragments about the rest of them. According to one of the texts—Sumerian, as I recall, the powers of the Boards stack, going higher from control of the basic elements to animals to … humanity it self.”
I can’t believe I’m buying this, but what choice do I have? If this is true, what horrific things those sorcerers made. I shuddered.
“From what I’ve been able to find out, Jenna,” Simon continued, “the line of Solitaire women goes back in a single, straight line for generations. I don’t know for sure how many, but your lineage goes back to at least the Crusades, maybe longer. The Board of the Winds has been passed down from mother to daughter until you came along. Since your mother and your grandmother died, you were never told about your special legacy.”
“Good for me,” I said.
“No, not good,” he replied. “Had your mother or grandmother lived, they could have told you that you should never attempt to use the Board. It’s too late now, however. What’s done is done. If my information is accurate, the next Board will soon begin responding to the magical call of the Board of the Winds.”
“You make them sound like they’re alive,” Tom said. “How can that be? They’re just made of wood.”
“Not just wood,” I said, startling everyone, including myself. “That Board—there’s something else about it—like something trapped inside it. I can’t explain it, but I felt it when I tried to use it that night.” I thought of the voice that whispered in my mind whenever I had held it or when I’d been in danger. “It’s alive.”
“That sounds about right—each Keeper is attuned to the Boards themselves,” Simon said. “I don’t understand it myself, but I’ve been told that the Boards are … aware in some strange way and that they call to each other in turn. They want to be found and used.”
“Why?” I asked. “And who told you?”
“That’s a long bit of history,” Simon said. “To summarize, there once lived a man named Jacques de Molay, a Templar Knight whose illegitimate daughter was a Solitaire. He tried to protect her, and was executed for demon worship during the Crusades. She disappeared shortly thereafter, and the records at the time made it sound like she drowned.” He smiled briefly at me. “As you now know, that’s not possible for someone who possesses the Board.”
“The Templar Knights?” Tom said. “We read something about them online.”
“Yes,” Simon said. “After that, they split into at least two factions, maybe more. At least one of them still exists today in the form of a secret society that has dedicated itself to the study and recovery of magical artifacts like the Boards. Much of the information I’ve discovered has come from them.” He paused and seemed about to say more, but then stopped.
“And what is the Keeper’s role?” Tom asked.
“Historically, it’s been to protect the Board of the Winds. The specifics of why are lost to history, perhaps to ensure that the rest of the Boards aren’t located or used. Given last night’s storms, I’m beginning to see why. Now, though, with the Board awakened—”
“What?” I asked.
“There is a legend, an ancient prophecy really, that the last Keeper would be the one to master all of the Boards. All thirteen of them. And that she would somehow protect the world from some great catastrophe,” Simon said. “What that great catastrophe would be, however, is unclear.”
“What’s to say that Jenna is the last Keeper?” Tom asked. “Some day, she could have a daughter and the cycle
could go on for who knows how long.”
I dropped my gaze to the tabletop and shook my head. “I’m the last,” I said quietly. “I know that much anyway.”
Simon’s eyes widened. “How?”
“I … I can’t have children,” I said. “Not ever.”
“What? Why?” Tom said.
“A birth defect,” I said, shrugging.
“Good Lord,” Simon said. “So Armand’s suspicions were correct.”
“Who is Armand?” I asked.
“Armand Legard. He leads the secret sect of the Templar Knights,” Simon explained. “It was his information that lead me here and to you. He thought you might be the last.”
“How did he find me?” I asked.
“He didn’t say,” Simon admitted. “But I’m glad he did. If he hadn’t … who knows what might have happened.”
“My life would have gone on normally?” I guessed. “College, a career, maybe a husband?”
“Your sarcasm is amusing,” Simon said. “But not very helpful. You have a decision to make, Jenna.”
“What’s that?” Tom asked. “She gets a choice?”
“Sure she does,” Simon said. “Free will is a covenant from God. We all get to choose.”
“So what’s mine?” I asked, wanting to cut to the chase.
“You can accept your destiny as the Keeper of the Boards, get the Board of the Winds back, and go after the others … or not, and pray that someone or something doesn’t get the Boards and use them for evil first. That the prophecy is wrong and there is no great catastrophe about to befall the Earth. That you are not the last Keeper.”
“That’s a lousy choice,” Tom complained.
“That’s life,” Simon countered without looking at him. “Most choices like this are … lousy.” He regarded me intently. “What do you say, Jenna? Will you accept your role as the Keeper, your destiny? Or will you just walk away from it all and leave the world to the chaos you created by accident?”
The kitchen was silent for long minutes as I sat quietly and thought about everything that had happened over the last few days. I thought about my grandfather and the family I had never known and never would. I thought about my visions and dreams. About those dead people killed by the tornadoes conjured somehow by the Board—and perhaps, even conjured somehow by me. I thought about my name and how no one had even known the history of it or where it had come from.
Keeper of the Winds Page 12
