Lance’s knuckles whiten on the grip of his sword, but he doesn’t move. “I can’t let you take her right now. I need her.”
“Whatever for?” Irene asks.
“I need to take her to the infirmary,” he says, his voice level.
My mouth drops open, and I nearly drop Puck, who uses that opportunity to jump out of my arms and scramble away. I hadn’t pinned Lance for a caring guy, especially with regard to me, but this is proving me wrong. I throw a challenging look in Arthur’s direction; this is how a true chivalrous person ought to be. But Arthur’s pointedly avoiding my eyes.
“She’s fine,” Irene says, her voice cold.
Someone whispers in her ear, and she casts a look at Lance and Arthur, both covered in blood and soot, and she finally relents.
As we pass by the asylum, which is now but a mass of rubble, I see some of the nurses try to calm down a group of their patients as they stare and scream at the remains of what once had been their home. In the midst of them, I catch the eye of a single man, his pale skin lighter than his white hair. A heartbeat later, he turns away from me as the stench of burning flesh reaches me, making me gag.
“The Fomori,” one of my two guards says as we walk by a large bonfire. “Gotta make sure they’re completely destroyed.”
Shuddering, I accelerate my pace until we reach the great northern door and step inside the building.
The moment we walk into the medical wing, Dr. Cockleburr assails me.
“Where have you been, missy?” she calls out from her corner, where she’s placing a brace on a boy. “Do you even realize how much work there is to do around here? But you decide to skip out on me and—”
She stops when she realizes the two men next to me aren’t there just for decorative purposes. She frowns and pulls the bandage tight, making the boy wince.
“What’s going on?” she asks, hurrying over, wiping her hands on her stained apron. “Morgan, who are these people?”
“Board members, I assume,” I say, trying to ignore everyone’s stares.
“What happened to you out there?” she asks, tut-tutting. “You’re going to have to get changed before you resume your work here.”
“That’s not going to be possible,” the taller of the guards says.
“Are you injured?” Dr. Cockleburr retorts.
“No, ma’am,” says the guard.
“Then what are you doing in my clinic?” she asks, her thick eyebrows drawing down. “I’m already overcrowded as it is. Get out.”
“We can’t, ma’am,” the other guard says. “We have to keep this one under control. She may be dangerous.”
Just focus on the light fixtures, I tell myself as the too-familiar feelings of shame and humiliation burn my cheeks red.
“Morgan, dangerous?” Dr. Cockleburr asks in surprise. “That’s preposterous. She’s one of the better healers around here, a true natural!”
“And that’s why we’re here,” Lance says. “Is Jennifer still…”
The doctor motions with her head to the ward, and I find myself shuffled forward. Dumbfounded, I follow Lance’s broad back to Jennifer’s bed. One thing’s for sure, though, it’s not because of me that he’s worried, after all.
Jennifer hasn’t changed since last I saw her. If it weren’t for the tiny network of black veins that now reach her neck and the bottom of her face, she’d look like she was resting. But, from experience, I know what those black veins mean, and Jennifer shouldn’t even be alive anymore.
“Go ahead,” Lance says, pushing me gently toward the front of the bed.
“What is it you want me to do?” I ask. “Fluff her pillow?”
“Heal her.”
I snort. “Right. Let me pull out my magic wand and get right on that, sir.”
Lance doesn’t laugh. Neither do Arthur nor my guards. They all watch me like they really are expecting me to perform a miracle for them.
“This is stupid,” I say, crossing my arms. “I’m not a magician. I can’t do what you’re asking me to do. Don’t you think I’d have healed her by now if I could?”
“You saved him,” Lance says, pointing at Arthur, who’s staring at me so intently I’m the one who looks away first. “I saw it with my own eyes. His ribs mended. His skin grew back together. He’d stopped breathing, and now look at him!”
“All hail to the new Saint Lazarus,” I mutter under my breath.
“It’s true,” Arthur says. He touches his chest where the lacerations had been. “I felt your touch, right here.”
I roll my eyes. These people are impossible. And yet…yet I can’t deny that something miraculous happened on that island.
“But that was all God,” I whisper. “I prayed to Him, and He answered me…” I raise my bare arm and turn it over, exposing the long, pale scar that newly adorns it. My hands are still stained black, but all my other scratches and bruises are gone, and I hadn’t prayed to God then.
No, I healed because Puck made me drink out of that cup, which these people say is the Sangraal. Then could it be that I truly did heal Arthur? My eyes widen in consternation.
“No way,” I exclaim, despite myself.
“Could you…could you at least try?” Lance asks, a note of pleading in his voice.
I start at his question, having momentarily forgotten his and the other men’s presence. I sigh.
“OK,” I say. I raise my finger before he can thank me. “But… don’t expect anything to come of it.”
I turn back to Jennifer, observing her still body. What did I do to Arthur to mend him? Hold him in my arms, cry, and kiss his forehead. I shudder at the thought of having to kiss Jennifer.
Settling for something less drastic, I sit on her bed and lift her head to let it rest on my lap. I lay my hand on hers and lean over her until my long hair hides the four men from my sight.
Closing my eyes, I start to pray.
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Let thy kingdom come, thy will be fulfilled, as well on earth as it is in Heaven.
A light tingle spreads from my head, down my shoulders and arms, and all the way to the tips of my fingers.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
My hand feels warm on Jennifer’s. My initial reflex is to pull away, but I force myself to stand still.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Forever and ever. Amen.
“Look,” I hear someone whisper.
But I dare not open my eyes for fear of breaking my concentration, and start the Paternoster over. The words tumble out of my mouth, too low for anyone else to hear, more and more rapidly, in an endless litany.
My mind is empty of everything but the prayer and Jennifer lying in my lap. Nothing else matters. Nothing but the desperate hope that perhaps she will be saved after all, and the fear that I may fail.
I feel movement, hear a gasp.
“By all that’s holy,” someone exclaims, “she’s done it!”
Someone leans onto the bed, and I sway backward, breaking my contact with Jennifer.
“Jennifer,” Lance says.
As if in a dream, I see the boy grab the blonde girl’s hand and press it to his lips as her eyes open. Her pale face has a translucent quality to it, but gone are the lines of black that had striated her body just moments before.
A sudden wave of fatigue washes through me, leaving me with the feeling of a shipwrecked sailor who’s just spent days swimming for survival.
A pair of hands grabs me by the shoulders before I fall over on the bedspread. I want to push them away; a nap is just the thing I want right now. All I need is an hour, or a century.
“This is proof that she’s like them,” Irene says, her sharp tone cutting through my tired thoughts.
“This is proof that she’s saved not only me, but Jennifer as well,” Arthur says right next to me.
“Don’t play
with words,” Irene retorts. “Only the Fey can do that, and that means only one thing: she needs to be locked up.”
That last statement has the effect of twenty gallons of ice water being poured over me, and I bolt upright.
Irene notices my reaction and smirks. “Don’t tell me you hadn’t figured it out by now.”
“You can’t do that. She hasn’t done anything wrong,” Arthur says, staring Irene down.
“I’m afraid you have no authority on the subject,” Irene says, motioning for the guards to grab hold of me.
I’m so weak that they have to carry me between them. My feet drag on the stone floor as they head for the exit. I don’t even have the energy to protest.
“Where to?” they ask.
“The only place around here that’ll hold those of her ilk are the catacombs,” Irene replies.
“You can’t be serious,” Arthur says. He hurries over to Irene’s side.
“I am,” Irene replies with a vicious smile. “Well, at least until we figure out where her ogham is.”
Ogham. A hysterical laugh shakes my shoulders at the concept of having one of those stuck in me somewhere. Don’t they remember how long it took me to get one of the elementals to work? And now they expect me to have my own source of power?
The laughter dies when I see nobody’s finding any of this funny. “Oh, come on,” I say. “Obviously I’m not the one who healed them. Well, I did, but I didn’t.” I lick my dry lips, then clear my throat. “What I’m trying to say is that it’s because I drank from that bowl, the Sangraal, nothing more.”
I feel my guards tighten their hold on me, and one of them crosses himself.
“I grew up in a Catholic school,” I whisper to him. “Don’t you think I’d have…melted by now if I were a devil? Or at least been struck by God?”
But it’s useless. Whatever I say, these people are not going to believe me. I should be used to this behavior by now, but my naive faith in humanity always bounces back to bite me in the ass.
Eyes half closed, Irene observes me like I’m some lab monkey. “That’s exactly my point. And the proof is that your seal’s gone.”
“My seal?” I blow on a loose strand of hair that’s fallen over my eyes. Why does that ring a bell? I reach up to my shoulder where my scar used to be, where I saw it transform into a pentacle after drinking from the Sangraal—the same symbol I’ve seen on the tall monoliths protecting our school. Was that what Dean was talking about?
“What’s been keeping your abilities at bay,” Irene adds. She stalks up to me, her short skirts swaying back and forth around her narrow hips. She circles me like a vulture, then stops so close to me she’s forced to look up to stare into my eyes. “It’s what allowed you to pass for human all these years,” she hisses.
“I’m sorry,” I retort, “but I always thought that, out of the two of us, you were the monster.”
She cuffs me, the sound of the slap echoing in the now-still room. But I don’t try to make myself small this time. I won’t let this woman keep treating me like I’m unfit to even be the dirt on which she walks.
“Oh, that struck a nerve, did it?” I continue.
A muscle twitches at her temple, and she raises her hand for another strike.
“That is enough!”
Lady Vivian strides over to us, her face flushed with anger. I brace myself for another reprimand, but the head of the school turns on Irene instead.
“What is the meaning of this, Irene?” she asks.
For the first time in my life, I see my mother quail. Luther arrives, looking concerned.
“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” he says, looking back and forth between his wife and me. “Honey?”
Irene jerks away from his touch. “She’s gotten her powers back. She’s become a liability.”
Vivian casts her brown eyes down to my bare shoulder. She looks as beautiful as ever, not a single strand of hair out of place, or a speck of dust on her velvety dress; it’s as if the battle that’s just happened never reached her. Yet she seems paler, tiny lines crinkling around her eyes, over her sunken cheeks.
“So I see,” she says. “But I wouldn’t necessarily say she’s dangerous, would you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Irene spits out.
Vivian’s face turns stony. The atmosphere in the ward becomes tense, electrified, like on a stormy day.
“I don’t think it’s the power one has that makes one dangerous,” she says, her voice calm, yet carrying a dangerous edge to it, “but rather how it’s used.”
Irene looks away, obviously uncomfortable with the topic.
Vivian straightens up. “Let her go,” she says to the two men still holding me. When the guards don’t move fast enough for her taste, she adds, “Don’t forget who her father was.”
Irene blanches.
“You know who my father was?” I ask, my knees going weak.
“Of course,” Vivian says. “Everyone here does. He was a great knight, the best of his generation.”
“That doesn’t make up for her mother,” Irene cuts in.
“Not her adoptive one, that’s for sure,” Vivian retorts. “Which is why I hereby dissolve your guardianship of the Gorlois heir. All her inheritance must be relinquished, or at least what’s left of it.”
Irene squares her shoulders. “And to whom should I transfer the custodianship?” she asks.
“Well, to me, child,” Vivian says with a bright smile. “I’ll give you a week to get everything settled.”
Irene barks out a laugh. “To you? I’m not a fool, old woman. I know how far your authority goes, and in this matter, I stand firm. She’s a Halfling. She can’t go around free.”
Vivian’s violet eyes flash. “We shall see about that,” she says before striding away, her long dress flouncing behind her.
The moment Vivian’s gone, Irene rounds on me. “Don’t think you’re going to get out of this so easily,” she says. “Everyone around here now knows the truth about you, that you’re just some half-Fey bastard.” She snaps her fingers into Arthur’s face. “And you better stay away from her.”
His face pales, but Arthur remains mute.
“I don’t understand,” I say as Luther pulls Irene away for a private talk. How could Irene not be my own mother? Granted, she’s never shown much love for me, but I’d always thought…
My whole life now seems like one big fat lie.
“I don’t understand,” I repeat.
“Gorlois was once engaged to Irene,” Arthur says, “before he disappeared.”
Frowning, I lift my eyes to his concerned face. “What are you talking about?”
“When Sir Tristan, who’d gone to his search, failed to come back within the year…” He shrugs. “She married my father two years after Gorlois left.”
My breath catches in my throat. I watch Irene shake her head at her husband. “But-But…that means…”
“When Sir Tristan came back,” Arthur continues, “Gorlois was already dead. But he’d left something behind. A little baby girl…you.”
I jerk back at his words, unable to process the data. There is one thing that seems clear to me, however.
“You knew,” I breathe. “You knew all along.”
Arthur’s lips thin out, but he finally nods.
Rage wells up inside me, unchecked. I jump to my feet, but the guards hold me back. “You traitor!”
“Please, hear me out,” Arthur says.
“So you can spew more lies?”
He winces, but keeps on going. “You don’t understand,” he says. “There was a reason this was kept from you—”
“What? You were afraid that the freak would go vicious if she found out the truth?”
“Don’t say that,” Arthur whispers.
“Afraid the rest of them will learn you and your family have been hosting a demon in your house? Afraid the school will stop seeing you as a perfect person?”
Grabbing me by the shoulder
s, Arthur shakes me. “Don’t be a fool. What they think is no concern of mine. What you think about yourself, however, is.”
“Please, don’t pretend like you care now,” I say. I should’ve trusted my instincts from the start—though fairies may exist, and knights in shining armor are still around, there is no such thing as a Prince Charming. “And stop ordering me around like you own me,” I add as my guards pull me away at a sign from Irene. “You’re not even my brother!”
Shackled and closely guarded, I follow Irene and Luther back outside under the curious stares of hundreds of students. We march toward the back of the church, where small stairs lead us belowground. Luther pushes a small door open, and I’m dragged into a damp hallway, past dark, empty rooms, and down more steps.
Finally, we stop before a bolted iron door. Luther inserts a key, turns it, then pulls the screeching door open.
Without a pause, my guards shove me in. Unable to catch myself, I land with a heavy thud and smack my head on the grimy floor.
Rolling over onto my back, I see Irene smile, the light of one of the guard’s torches distending her features.
“Welcome to your new home.”
STRANGE PRANK GOES AWRY – THE AUTHORITIES ARE STUMPED
In an odd turn of events, the elaborate hoax, which started a few months ago and involved the replacement of the native cairn on Island Park with monoliths worthy of Stonehenge, has turned sour.
The police, after getting reports of explosions originating from the island, found upon arrival that the circle of standing stones had been destroyed. When called upon to comment, the chief of police refused to say a word, claiming the investigation was still under way. An eyewitness, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated that the place reeked of sulfur and that blood had been found on the premises.
Some locals are accusing Natives American tribes of being behind the vandalism.
“You saw how they was protestin’ when the stones were found first,” Mr. Ethan Pearson, owner of a small bar just north of Oshkosh, stated. “They just can’t take a joke. Those kids, or whoever they were, didn’t hurt no one, and look what they did, blowin’ the whole place up like it’s Armageddon!”
Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) Page 39
