by Ari Harper
“Nera, you really have to calm down. If you knew half of what Bones has had to go through to get to this point, you might actually cut him some slack instead of being so obnoxious toward him.” Jasper’s voice came out sharper than it normally was with me.
“Oh great. Now you’re getting upset with me too, Jasper. This really is just too much. After what you guys have thrown at me, you expect me to keep calm. and you get upset with me. That’s just bloody ridiculous,” I yelled.
“No. What is ridiculous is the way you think that you are the one who has to give up anything here,” Jasper yelled back at me. He stood up and towered above me, his face dark and angry. I knew that I had pushed him too far this time. Me and my big mouth.
Brie and Sully moved back toward the house, looking worried. Bones had been watching from the kitchen window and came out to stand with them.
“Jasper, how can you stand up for him? You’ve seen how he talks to me,” I cried, totally confused by Jasper’s outburst. He had never raised his voice to me before.
“Bones has given up any chance of a normal life to wait for you,” Jasper said in a deathly quiet voice. His hand was shaking as he pointed at me. Not a good sign. Shit. “We have told you before, Nera, that you are the one. When are you going to accept what is and work with Bones to make the most of the situation? I really don’t understand why you have to continue to push him to the limit. This is all about you, so for once, why don’t you help instead of trying to belittle what he has done?” Jasper turned toward the house and left me standing there.
Brie and Sully quickly followed Jasper inside, taking Roman with them. Bones stared at me with a slow, lazy smile and a spark in his eyes.
“What are you staring at?” I growled at him.
He pushed himself away from the doorway he was leaning on and slowly walked closer to me then stopped less than an arm’s length away.
“You. Is that a problem?” He reached up and casually brushed his hair from his face so I could see the laughter in his eyes.
“I don’t know how you did it, but I don’t like the way you made Jasper take your side in this,” I sneered, bringing my finger up and digging it into his chest, trying to get breathing room between us.
“When are you going to understand that there are no sides between us, Nera? I realize that you are still a child, but that doesn’t give you any cause for acting like a spoiled brat.” Bones looked at the offending finger and brushed it to one side.
“Child! Spoiled brat! Why, you mongrel!” I yelled while Bones looked at me, his eyes going dark.
He brought his hand up in the air as I stepped back and let fly with shafts of flame. The smirk on his face turned to laughter as I danced around trying to miss the fire as he bounced it back at me.
“I am not a child!” I screamed at him, twirling away.
“If that is the case, why do you insist on acting like one, then?”
“How dare you! You know nothing about me, no matter what you say. I am not a spoiled brat.”
“Really? So after all of the outbursts and tears, are you saying that they are the actions of a normal adult person,” he scoffed. “Admit it, Nera. You are out of your league here. Like the other girls before you, you will probably fall to pieces at the last minute. I can see it now.” He crossed his arms and shook his head.
“I will not fall apart. I am the one, even you said so,” I retorted. “I have the power. I will beat her if it’s the last thing I do.”
“You are right on one side. It will be the last thing you do, but I seriously doubt if you will beat her. Look at you. All you can throw at me is some fire. Well done.” He turned away from me.
The next moment he was on his back. I stood by with a smile while I watched him get up and brush off.
He turned to me slowly, still looking at me, his top lip curled into a condescending sneer. “I tremble before you, child,” he bowed slightly toward me.
I clenched my fists by my side and concentrated, seeing in my mind what I wanted. The sound reached us first. Then the wind came through the trees with a mighty roar and lifted him off his feet. I sent him tumbling to the ground in front of the oak tree. He lay there for a minute, breathing heavily.
I grinned to myself, turned to walk away, and walked smack into Bones. One minute he was on the ground rubbing his head; the next he was standing beside me breathing down my neck. “Is that all you have?”
I screamed in rage. Then my mouth worked silently. The ground below Bones started to rumble and he smiled. He shifted his body slightly and spoke under his breath. The ground opened underneath us, but it was me, not Bones, who fell into the pit I had formed. The breath was knocked from my body as I landed on my back in the moist soil. Lumps of hard dirt dug into me, and I lay stunned for a moment. More surprised than hurt, I struggled to my feet.
He looked over the edge and watched me. My pride was wounded, but my body was barely bruised. Bones stood back as I tried to climb out, not offering to help. I pulled myself up and leaned in close enough to him to see the individual hairs in his eyebrows.
We were almost nose to nose when I spoke in a cold, calm voice. “ Do I have to keep attacking you, or do you just want to turn me to stone now?”
“As tempting as that may be, I feel it would only give me temporary satisfaction,” Bones replied his eyes sparkling.
“Well, you may as well. It seems my powers are not good enough to fight you.”
“Not even close to the power you will need,” he whispered, his breath gently blowing over my face. “I can already see your imminent death in my mind.”
“What do you want from me?” I cried, frustrated beyond reason.
“Some guts instead of sulking would be a good start.” He stepped back. “More thought before you acted would be advisable too. Don’t you think that if I can stop you, she might be able to as well. You may have won a couple of small rounds so far, Nera, but do you honestly think you will beat her? If you do, you are a fool.”
“Oh, just wonderful. The great Bones has decreed that I am a child, spoiled, and now a fool. You probably have a really high opinion of yourself too. You’ve had 800 years to convince yourself that you are better than anyone else. Does it feel good?” I asked, fully aware that his gaze was on my mouth.
“If you were half as good as me, you would know,” he replied, looking into my eyes again. “I doubt you ever will be, though. Less than two weeks until the summer solstice and you still can’t do much more than party tricks. If you were serious about this, Nera, you would be training day and night. Instead you make excuses to keep going home when you should be here working with me.”
“My little brother nearly died, and my mother lost her babies. Do you call those excuses, you arrogant bastard? They are my family. They come first, even before your lessons,” I said, sliding my arms across my stomach. I was stunned he would think these events would not have meaning for me.
“It is because of those things that you should have trained harder.” He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, his gaze going to the sky and then back at me. He shook his head. “You use it as an excuse to slack off. If you don’t buckle down, Nera, you will lose them anyway. You’ve been told this already. Is it worth it?”
Jasper came out from the kitchen to stand between the two of us.
“Nera, what Bones is saying is true. We were all very upset over what happened to your parents. I can’t say I blame you for staying with them after that, but he is right. You have less than two weeks left before the summer solstice. You really need to buckle down and learn all you can. Once the moon changes, well, girl dear, it will be too late.”
“But Jasper, you said I was better than you had hoped. You said I would be more powerful than any of the other girls. You’ve both told me I hold the power. Are you changing your mind now?” I asked with a biting edge to my voice, my confidence plummeting.
“No, Nera, I’m not. You are going to be very powerful. All this is inside you, as w
e have said before, but you must learn how to use it. It won’t just happen by itself. I fear that your emotions have been holding you back. Now that you have accepted what you have it will all come back to you eventually, but we don’t have the time for that. We need you to learn as much as possible in as short a time as possible. You must put yourself out and work with Bones before it is too late. And get rid of this attitude you have with him. It is only hindering the job,” he added, scolding me.
I stood dumbstruck until I felt a small hand creep into my own. I looked down into Roman’s big blue eyes..I got down and my knees and wrapped my arms around him.
He gently put his hands on either side of my head and whispered, “Look, Nera. Close your eyes and look.”
I could feel the heat behind my eyes as the images of explosions and death played through my mind like a movie reel. The scale of destruction was enormous, and the sounds of death chilled my blood. The world as I knew it was ceasing to exist as evil took over, dragging peace and mercy underground to a fiery grave.
My eyes flew open in shock. I looked up at Jasper, and he watched as my mind put the pieces together. I turned to Bones. “Are these the dreams that you keep Roman safe from?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“Would you have believed me, Nera? You can barely stand to be in the same room with me half of the time. I hardly feel that you would have accepted this without giving me a whole lot of grief.”
“Nera, listen, girl dear.” Jasper put his arm over my shoulder. “Come and have a cup of tea, and we can talk this through. Let’s go into the library where we can be a little more comfortable. Sully has something he wants to share with us all together too.” He guided us into the house. “Go through. I will be there in a minute.”
He brought the tea tray into the library where I sat with Roman close to me. Brie and Sully sat opposite, watching me carefully as if I might implode. I had filled them in on what I’d seen when Roman had shown me his dreams.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, jumping up to stand in front of the fire, trying to keep composed.
“We didn’t want to overwhelm you. We felt that if we concentrated on this battle, we could progress to the other stuff later,” Jasper said soothingly as he ran a hand over my shoulder.
“How long have you known about Roman?” I asked Jasper, looking into his face.
“Since the day he was born, Nera. Even though Bones is your protector, he has been overseeing Roman as well.”
“So what does it mean, then?”
“I’ll answer that,” Bones said, walking over to me. “His dreams are of the future as you may have guessed. He has been having premonitions for a couple of years now and has only been able to project them to others for a short time. They scare him, with him being so young, and that is why I look out for him.”
“How far into the future are they, Bones?” Sully asked.
“It’s not something that will happen overnight like the end of the world that some preach about,” he said. “It is an ongoing fight between good and evil, and as you have seen, evil is winning. The more the human race progresses, the more backward they become. Now it is a fight to see how much money you can accumulate at the detriment of others. Look at the masses killed for a little more gold or another plot of land.”
Bones paced in front of the fireplace now with his hands waving as he got more excited and into his explanation of the evil attacking us. “Millions are starving while the rich throw away enormous amounts of food, the greed of the man in the street who wants a better pair of shoes than the next guy. It is not just countries or huge corporations that are evil and causing destruction. It is also the average man who has forgotten kindness to his neighbor and breeds corruption into his family. This is the evil that demons feed on and are causing the destruction that Roman has shown you, Nera.”
“Is that it? We have to save the whole bloody world as well as the family?” I was feeling overwhelmed as I pulled on my hair. With a deep sigh, I turned my gaze to Jasper once again. “So this is just the beginning for us. Do I have that right?”
“Let’s just worry about saving this family first, shall we? Saving the world is a little bit like finding a needle in the haystack. It takes more than one person.” He turned to Sully. “I believe you have something you wanted to share Sully.”
“Yes, I do,” he replied and shifted in his seat. “Nera and I were talking about old books. You know, when you gave her the diaries to read. We wondered if there were any others out there that had anything to do with what is happening now. Well, I looked in the library and found nothing, so I went online and found a couple of things that could tie into this.”
He got up from his seat and started to walk around, pulling on his earlobe. “There are writings in several old books that refer to the Book of Tears. There are apparently no longer any copies left in existence, that’s if there ever were any. I mean, it’s all hearsay, not written in blood or anything. But it is said that The Book of Tears is a mythological book about the lives of the gods. It tells of how they interacted with humans and married into our world, via the witches. It is said to foretell our future, the death and destruction that Bones was talking about. Basically, how we are ruining our world. What struck me was the talk of a young girl who was being groomed by the gods to be the one that saves mankind.”
He looked at me. “She sounded a lot like you, Nera, especially with what is happening now with you and Roman. I put two and two together and thought I should tell you all.”
Bones looked at Jasper, his eyebrows raised.
“Give me a break, Sully, this is just getting ridiculous,” I said. “It sounds like you’ve been reading fairy tales.”
“Don’t be so mean,” Brie said. “Anyway, how do you know it’s not true? Jasper, do you know anything about the Book of Tears?”
I turned to Jasper. “Well,” he began. “I actually do know something about it.”
“See, Nera, Sully is right.” Brie gave me a condescending look. “There is a Book of Tears.”
“Hmph.”
“Jasper, have you seen it?” Sully jumped up and came to stand beside him. “Does it really exist?”
Jasper looked at Bones, and a silent conversation passed between them. “Yes, I have seen it. Long ago I had call to visit the home of Mari. She has the Book of Tears in her castle. It is locked away from prying eyes, not to be seen by those not inducted into her world. I was allowed to see it through the glass but not allowed into the room. It is kept under guard.”
“Come on, Jasper,” I scoffed. “Next you will be telling us it tells the history of the world. I don’t believe that. It’s enough I am convinced you are as old as you are, but a book that foretells the world’s history? Right.”
“You have no idea, girl dear, what that book can do. It is kept in a glass case, away from others for a reason,” Jasper snapped. “Behind locked doors, under guard.”
“Why, Jasper? Why does it need to be locked up and guarded?” Brie jumped up.
“Because it cannot be opened, not ever.” Bones looked over at me.
I shook my head and looked at them one by one, unwilling to get into a discussion about a book that seemed too much like a Pandora’s Box fairy tale. “I will admit against my better judgment that maybe and only maybe, I should be training harder, and I will if I must. But I will not go along with this Book of Tears rubbish. That is just too farfetched.”
“That’s just what we needed to hear, girl dear,” Jasper said. “Bones, why don’t you take Nera outside when you finish your tea and train with her while I stay in here with young Roman, and Brie, and Sully. We can have a chat together.”
Bones and I spent the rest of the day training and taunting each other with magic and spells. As petty as it seemed, it was this sparing on a personal level that made it bearable for the two of us to be together for more than five minutes.
Jasper found us both exhausted out
in the garden when he ventured outside later in the day. I was lying with Hugo under the oak tree, and Bones slowly walked through the gardens that graced the walled back yard. They were a mixture of flowers, herbs, and vegetables that fed the household and had done so for many centuries. I lay with my eyes closed and listened to the two of them talk.
“How did she do, dear friend?” Jasper asked.
“Not bad, considering,” he replied. “It’s probably just as well that she is so stubborn. Otherwise we would not have gotten so far. I do think we still have a good chance of winning, Jasper, even though I told her differently before.”
“I understand, Bones. She needs to be pushed to the max now. Go for it,” Jasper replied. “I will insist she stays the night. I can push Brie and Sully too. There is still the possibility that they have something. Even if they only get one thing right, that is something. I’m not sure what to do about young Roman. It might be best if he goes home tonight.”
“I’ll have a word with him before Jack gets here. He’s managed to keep silent about his sight so far. If we can keep that up for another two weeks, it would be helpful.” Bones sounded wary and tired.
***
Later that night, after another draining session of magic, I climbed into my sleeping bag beside Sully and Brie. I listened to my friends joke and tease each other about their afternoon. Soon their voices receded into the back of my mind, and I slipped into a troubled sleep.
I felt the cold before I saw him. He was leaning casually against the parapet on the roof of Jasper’s house.
“I have been waiting for you to come, Nera. What took you so long?”
“Roman. Is that you?” I walked slowly toward the handsome young man who looked so much like our father: the same eyes and strong-shaped jaw. His hair was the same color as Dad’s, just a different style. I reached up and touched his cheek and was rewarded with a smile exactly like our father’s.
“You know it is, Sis. I will tell you more after the full moon.” He chuckled at me.
“Why are you here now?” I wanted to reach out and touch him again, but I was scared that he would disappear, so I kept my hands gripped together.
