Such A Secret Place (Stolen Tears Book 1)

by Cortney Pearson

  Gwynn pushes herself up with more dexterity this time. Her limp is gone. Energy roils from her while she dithers back and forth between me and the wall, clearly wanting to leave, but not wanting to make me feel bad.

  “How does it feel?” I ask, antsy. I pull out a clean shirt from my dresser and hand it to her. She quickly changes and makes her way to my window. “Do you…feel different?”

  “I’m—” She runs hands up her arms and to her face. “Yeah, I think so. I feel—I’m happy.” It almost sounds like a question, like she’s never heard of the concept.

  Happy. Have the tears given her permanent feelings after all? I’m a little stunned they only healed her cut. She doesn’t really appear any different, aside from the new gleam in her hazel eyes, but that’s been there this whole evening since she had her dream.

  “I’m okay,” she says, still chafing her hands across herself as if checking for flaws. “And they’re telling me that. Not me.”

  The tears are telling her she’s okay? Hands resting on her cheeks, she looks right into my eyes. That look speaks what I don’t want to hear her say. I shake my head.

  “No,” I say, eyes smarting.

  “I’ve got to go.” It sounds like an apology.

  I’m still not ready for her to leave. But I can’t make her stay.

  After a moment of hesitation, she throws her arms around me in one last hug. Despair swells up like a bubble in my throat. This is it.

  “See you later, Ambry.” She chews her lip, readjusts her purse. “I’m not sure where I’ll go. I thought about going to Ren’s in Jienke, but Clark might look there. I’ll try to keep in touch. But he—” She chugs an unsteady breath. “He can’t ever know where I—”

  I squeeze her arm softly. “He’ll never know.”

  I sigh and scrape a fist at my tired eyes. I’m happy for Gwynn, I guess. But that doesn’t eliminate the problem of how I’ll get through school without my best friend. Or homework. Or boys, should they ever pay attention to me.

  As if on cue, that guy’s focused expression emerges in my mind, and I shake off a desire to see his eyes again. Because I never will.

  Gwynn can’t be gone forever, though. I’ll see her again. I have to.

  With a gigantic yawn I free the tears from my pocket and set them on the dresser. The blue glow is a tiny nightlight illuminating the back corner of my room.

  I kick off my shoes and shuck my shirt, padding my usual route to the shower. A grimy layer of smoke covers my skin, making me feel gritty. I can’t wait to get it off. But each step I take makes my heart droop, tugging me in the direction of my room.

  I pause for a few seconds, trying to figure it out. It’s not Gwynn’s leaving bothering me now. Not Ren either, even though I am going to ask him about this gatekeeper business. The feeling nags, as if I’m guilty of something but I don’t quite know what.

  Regardless, I continue to the bathroom. A droning takes over the back of my neck as I strip down the rest of the way. It’s like a tiny, vocal hammer. I try to ignore it, to swat at it, but it won’t go away.

  I can’t enjoy the steamy water or the smell of my lavender soap—I can’t even wonder where Gwynn will go, how I’ll manage to contact Ren, or why Green Eyes was so secretive. My mind is fully dedicated to figuring out the tapping hum at the top of my spine.

  I wonder if it could possibly be some of the poison from that blade. Green Eyes thought he removed it all, but he could have missed some. I clutch my heart with a choking gasp. Am I dying?

  In a panic I dart to my dresser to get a clean bra and underwear. If I’m dying, I don’t want them to find me naked and dead. Dead is bad enough.

  My steps to the dresser have a soothing effect. The ticking hum lessens every time my foot meets the carpet and brings me another several inches forward. Maybe I’m imagining things. It’s not poison after all—I’m probably just too tired. Imagining things. Wait—I already said that. Ugh. Definitely too bushed to try and figure this out now.

  I dress and crawl into bed, but the humming revs up again like a painless yet annoying headache at the back of my skull. I shift to my right side, then left. Flop to my back, then stomach, none of which provide any soothing effect whatsoever. With a huge huff I bolt up and slap my hands against my shins.

  Then I catch sight of the tears. Their eerie blue glow.

  My toes touch the wood flooring.

  I step toward the dresser, and the heaviness and humming lessens. And when my hand lifts to the twisted jar, the humming almost stops altogether.

  Are the tears causing this? Calling to me somehow? They did the same thing at Black Vault, but I thought they just wanted me to pick them. I don’t understand why they’re doing it now.

  I hesitate. My hand lowers, the humming pounds harder, and I can swear the tears say my name, a sort of woozy voice in the form of a feeling piercing straight into my chest. When my fingers close over the warm jar, peace washes over me. The heaviness, the headache. Gone.

  “What are you?” I whisper to the glowing liquid. It sloshes in the jar as if in answer. Tears. That’s what they are. I’m half tempted to smash them against the wall, but something keeps me back.

  If Gwynn’s healed her cuts and her limp, perhaps these will heal my defect. These could give me magic! My mouth waters, and I reach for the cork. Only one way to find out.

  But the jar turns scalding hot, burning my hands. I squeal and drop it, watch as it thunks to the floor.

  By the angels. “What is your deal?” I ask them. Gwynn’s didn’t burn her hands when she drank them. So what’s wrong with these?

  Questions flood in, one on top of the other, too fast for me to gather any answers.

  I wonder who shed these. Was it a human? A nymph or a Feihrian? I wish I could tell if they will help me, or if they’ll just make me worse. Sprout horns, grow a disease, turn into a man. Freak stuff like that has been known to happen.

  What I really want to know is why they called to me just now. It was like some telepathic intuition, where I felt my name more than heard it. And even before now, they called for me to take them. To risk my life for them.

  That’s what I did, after all. That kid told me to hold still. I was so stupid. And for what? This dumb little jar that won’t let me rest until it’s in my hands?

  I grip it tighter. “I don’t have time for this,” I tell them with a yawn. “Looks like you’re sleeping in bed with me.”

  School is going to be hard enough without Gwynn there, let alone how tired I’ll be from staying up half the night.

  ***

  I wake to something dripping on my forehead.

  “Get up, durp,” says a low voice.

  I groan. Ren bends over me, wringing a wet washcloth above my face. Drip. Drip.

  “Get out of here,” I say, barely registering the bruise near his eye. And then it clicks. He’s here. And he’s okay. For a moment I consider telling him about Gwynn, but no doubt she’s already told him where she’s heading. But he’s here. And that’s all that matters.

  I bolt upright. “I thought you didn’t want Mom and Dad to know! What are you doing here?”

  “Will you shut it?”

  He chuckles and lowers the washcloth. Under my covers, something jabs into my hip. The jar.

  “What happened last night?” I ask as he perches on the edge of my bed. He doesn’t look half as tired as I feel, and his two tufts of hair are extra spiky.

  “They found us,” he says, his head lowered. “They knew.”

  Guilt rises in my throat, acrid and stale. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dropped my ID.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Anyway, I decided to say hi before I leave later today. Mom and Dad think I’m here on some kind of field trip. Mom sent me to wake you. You’re going to be late.” He slathers the wet cloth on my face before stalking out.

  I fling the rag from where it landed on my pillow, use my hands to pat dry the moisture on my face, and sit up. Ren said it wasn’t my fault, b
ut how else did the Arcs find Black Vault last night?

  I free the jar from the blankets. The tears still glow in the soft sunlight pouring in my window. On a whim, I reach for the cork again. The glass heats under my touch.

  “Fine,” I say. “I won’t drink you.” Stupid things.

  I head to the bathroom, and the humming starts. The heaviness in my chest settles in with each step distancing myself from the bed. I groan and spin back to the jar still snuggled in my blankets. “You’re just going to have to deal, you dumb things. I’ve gotta pee.”

  “Are you up?” Mom calls over clanking pans and the screened voices of news anchors from downstairs. She always blasts the news in the morning.

  “Yeah, I’m up!”

  Please don’t let her check on me. Now Mom is going to think I’m delusional. I should never have gone to Black Vault. I can’t even drink the tears I’ve gotten. If only I knew where Gwynn was. If she made it okay.

  I dress distractedly, as if someone else is controlling my actions, and then zip up my backpack. I didn’t do a speck of homework yesterday.

  I want to go to school today about as badly as a person wants to get impaled by a dull stick of wood. It’s like I have a rock for brains and scratches for eyes, but I have a test and I can’t use magic on it the way everyone else can. Ms. Hopkins allows me extra time for that reason.

  I run a hand through my honey-brown hair. I never do much of anything to it. It has enough natural wave that it flips however it wants, giving the impression that I slave away to get the curl to fall just so.

  The news anchor’s voice floats up the stairs.

  “In most studies of these dreams, heart rate and perspiration increase, as do rasping noises. What causes them to break through? Why do tears occasionally accompany the dreamer who wakes?”

  The tears. For the first time, I wonder what made mine break through. And if they’re this bossy now, who knows what they’ll be like once I actually drink them?

  I eyeball the jar now haunting my bedside table. I’ve got to go, but no doubt they’re going to annoy me all day if I don’t bring them with me. On the other hand, bringing them would be as smart as wearing a shirt that says I WENT TO BLACK VAULT LAST NIGHT.

  Maybe I can trick them. What if I just leave, sneaky-like?

  I dash over, shove them in a drawer, and thunder down the stairs. Grab a pastry and yell, “Bye, Mom!”

  Mom doesn’t reply over the news anchor saying, “The search continues. Where is Solomus Straylark buried? The wizard who brought the infliction in the first place vanished and is presumed dead. Has someone found Xavienke at last? More to come after these messages.”

  I’m halfway down the street, energy surging at the thought of my clever escape. This is so great. The tears must not have noticed. My steps slow, however, and the elation deflates, replaced by the humming at the base of my skull.

  “Vrecking, whiney things!” I turn and run straight home, dash up the stairs, snatch the idiot jar, cram it in my pocket and head back out, not giving Mom a chance to ask what’s going on.

  What do you think it feels like? To cry?

  I can’t get Gwynn’s question out of my head, or the way her voice sounded, her exact intonations and the emptiness she spoke into. But I can’t come up with an answer, either.

  I’ve seen it on old films, people crying. Their mouths hanging open or all mashed up in embarrassing ways. Wet tears magically appearing in the corners of their eyes, trailing down their faces, the slobbering sounds accompanying the dripping.

  It must feel weird to have water come out of your eyes. Unless it’s just a natural thing. I wonder if you can control it at all. Anger simmers in my chest. I want to know. And I probably never will.

  My mom cried once. Her sister died, and Mom’s face went into a sort of screwed up shock. The blue tears welled in the rims of her eyes as if her eyes were too full and couldn’t hold them. I shuddered when Dad caught one with his fingertip and kissed it.

  “Miss Csille?”

  “Huh?”

  None of my classmates in Valadian History look at me—they all stare straight ahead as if comatose, like usual. I’m glad to be in here, though, after first period Procedures. It’s refreshing to be around kids my own age.

  I don’t know why the staff insists I continue taking it every year. Maybe they hope one of these times my magic will break free, Torrent like it should have. Mom works at the Cadeht Hospital and has examined me countless times. We’ve gone to other healers as well. None of them has ever been able to discern where my flaw lies.

  “The attack on Feihria?” Mr. Moulton says.

  It’s our customary, semester-required lecture. The reminder of Arcaian control. The last word I heard was about the Arc’s final conquest, the way Moulton’s forced to emanate a pride he can’t feel. It happened right here in Cadehtraen, at Guerra Square.

  “What about it?” Even if the majority of Itharians could feel, no one would be that proud it happened. Especially not here.

  “The date, Miss Csille,” Moulton says with patience. A peninsula of hair circles around his bald head. “When did it happen?”

  “Eleven years ago.” An automatic response. At least this is a class I can participate in instead of just being a bystander.

  Moulton squints his eyes at me as if he doesn’t expect me to know the answer, though his response doesn’t make sense. Of course I know the date. They ram this lecture down our throats every semester.

  “Many thought the Arcaians were foolish,” Moulton goes on. “They were driven easily out of the country of Feihria by the born warriors, and many thought the Arcaians had given up. But after a mere two years, the Arcaians came back and attacked stronger than ever. They rippled through Itharia, and the Itharian races congregated right here in Cadehtraen—”

  The guy recites like it’s a memorized speech. But then, that’s how most of my classes are. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s talking about the step that led to the utter loss of our freedom and the demise of our country.

  “It was the final rung of their conquest after they invaded Valadir fifty years before. After they killed wizards and took their magic.”

  We were free before when wizards ruled—not that I was alive at the time or anything. But now, after their final victory eleven years ago here in my hometown, we’re under total Arcaian tyranny.

  Moulton glosses over the torture they put our local law enforcers through and the people who fought against them and were killed for it. The raids on our homes. In his defense, he’ll probably get jumped after school if he doesn’t tell it the way the Arcs want. What is history to someone who can’t feel? Nothing more than a meaningless series of names and dates.

  I remember some of the last battle. I was only five at the time, but I remember the screams outside while we hid in our basement. That was the first time I realized I was different. I quivered and sweated against my mother’s tranquil, composed posture.

  I peer behind me to give Gwynn a glance, but her seat is empty. No pink backpack slumping against her legs. No vague expression.

  “No one has seen Solomus Straylark, the great wizard, since,” Moulton continues. “Some claim to have seen him, but—”

  A crackling sound comes from the intercom. Moulton sets down the chalk in his hand.

  “Attention, students and faculty,” says our principal’s voice. “Please convene in the gymnasium immediately. Once again, all students and staff, convene in the gymnasium immediately.”

  Mr. Moulton smacks his lips. “That is unexpected,” he says.

  I follow him and the others out and down the hall. No one says a word.

  The last time we had one of these emergency assemblies was when Melinda Brown committed suicide. The dream Melinda had must have been seriously scary or overwhelming to make her take her own life. The thought alone sends chills down my spine.

  As we take our seats, the sound of my heels thumping against the echo-y wooden bleachers is thunderous, and
my fingers tap each other. I move more than anyone else around me. They all just sit there, though a small number glance around.

  Again, I think of Gwynn. If she hadn’t left she’d probably be sitting here with me, responsive for once. I wonder if Lieutenant Hawkes reported her disappearance.

  Principal Yarne clacks her way to the center of the gym floor, a mic in her hand. Her clapping steps ring through the wide space. I wonder what took her so long. She probably had problems with the Prone. Wouldn’t want that to go wrong, especially not during an assembly.

  Sweat varnishes Yarne’s face, and the mic shakes in her grip. It doesn’t usually take two hands to hold the thing to her mouth.

  “Students, we’ve had a…uh…” Her unusually breathy voice teeters; her hand wobbles as she tips it to her sweaty forehead. “An unexpected visit during the Arcaian inspection and uh…”

  An inspection? Here?

  The door to her left squeaks open.

  “Enough of this,” comes a booming voice.

  The minute the voice shrouds the room—and more particularly the purple-handed, brown-uniformed man who owns it—every molecule of attention turns toward him.

  Oh no. As seen on screen, the man himself.

  Tyrus Blinnsdale, the Office of the Arcaians. He never goes anywhere unless it’s dire. I’m not going to have any skin left on my lips, I’m biting them so hard.

  He swaggers, keeping his broad chest forward and stalwart. A bushy black mustache dominates his upper lip, and it twitches when he jerks the mic from Yarne and roars into it.

  “Last night we apprehended an illegal group of citizens in Cadehtraen, and rumor has it, a few of your student body were there. As leaders of this nation, we have made it clear that certain things are acceptable for purchase while others have been banned. You will be found. And you will be found guilty.”

  All the air is purged from the gym, and my heart races to the tempo of a drum roll. Black Vault. Why else has the leader of the Arcs come to my dinky pre-col?

  You will be found. And you will be found guilty. My palms begin to sweat. I can’t keep my feet still, and prickly bugs are crawling along my legs. He knows. He knows I was there, and I’m going to get busted. He’s going to claw a Xian to my leg and kill me while trying to suck out my non-existent magic.