by Sophia Sharp
The big man finally picked up a cup in one hand and brought it to us. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “Your names? I don’t even know who you are!” He chuckled, as if he had told some great joke, but it seemed to me to be an anxious type of laughter.
“My name is Elizabeth,” Liz said politely, as she took her cup. “Thank you for the tea.”
“Oh. Yes, well. Pleased to meet you, too,” Arthur senior said. He turned to retrieve the rest of our drinks. The same kind of exchange went on between each of us and the elderly professor, until everyone had a cup of tea in hand. It was only when he gave me mine that I realized his hands were shaking.
“Oh. Hmm. Well, what do they want to know, then, Arthur?” he asked, settling across from us on a vacant couch. His son came and took a seat beside him.
“You can talk to them yourself, dad,” he gently reminded him.
“Oh. Yes, of course. But, um, they must be tired from the journey here.” He turned his head to look at us. “No? I cannot imagine the trek would have been easy.”
“We are fine, thank you,” I said politely.
“Well. Yes, as my son said. You have questions? What is it, um, you would like to know?” It was strange to see a man with such a deep, powerful voice bumble so much as he talked.
“Everything!” Madison exclaimed. Liz tsked beside her, but Madison did not heed the warning. “You were the first to discover the crystals. We found them too, but we barely know anything about them!”
“Dad,” the younger Arthur said, “remember the red crystal you gave me when you left?”
“Oh? Hmm, yes. What about it?”
“Well, one of these girls was able to use it. Like you said!”
The older man blinked. “Hmm. Yes, I would expect that, if they’re telling the truth. No reason to doubt that.” He did not seem to share his son’s excitement. “I think I would like to see that. Which one?”
“Me,” I said, and my voice wavered just a little.
Arthur senior bobbed his head up and down. “Can you show me? I think I would like to see. But not now. No, not now. You all must be tired. You need rest. It was a long hike here. We’ll drink our tea, and talk in the morn.”
I looked wonderingly at the big man. Even though he was sitting here with us, he seemed just so… uncomfortable… talking about the crystals. I wondered why. He set down his tea cup, and started to get up. “I will go arrange your beds. You must be tired. In the morning, we can talk.”
“Father, please,” the younger Arthur said, tugging him back down. “These girls came a long way to see you. You mustn’t be rude!”
“Rude?” he mumbled. “No, not rude. As I said, we will continue in the morning.”
“They’re all eager to find out more,” Arthur pressed. “I’m eager to find out more. You spoke with such excitement about your research with me before! But now, when I bring you people who have direct experience with it, you run away!”
“Hmm? No, of course not. There’s no rush. No rush at all. Things like this have to be taken up slowly, son. Carefully. The crystals harness a great power, as you know.”
“Power?” I asked. Obviously, we knew about it, but I hoped it might draw the elderly man back into conversation. “What kind of power?”
“Hmm?” He regarded me strangely, like a bear might regard a squirrel that was trying to steal his food. “Oh. Well, you must know. The crystals bring energy from within. They draw it from your surroundings.” He nodded, and turned to leave again.
“Please, father,” Arthur said, “stay for just a few more minutes. The girls have pressing questions they want answered.”
The older man sighed. “Yes, maybe I should do that.” He sat back down heavily. He appeared… distinctly uneasy. “What would you like to know, then?”
“Are the crystals… dangerous?” Ashley asked.
“Dangerous? Yes, of course. Anything we don’t know might be dangerous. If used improperly, of course.”
“Improperly in what way?” I asked.
“Too much, or too often,” he said. “Anything I know is based on theoretical research I did years ago, you must understand. If any of you… all of you… can actually use the crystals, you surely know more than I.”
“But you know some things,” Ashley pressed. “Why is it that only females can use them?”
“Females? Hmm… That is just the way of things, I suppose. But I do not have the expertise you seek.” Again, he looked ready to leave.
“Father!” Arthur exclaimed admonishingly. “Please. You must know some things you can share with us!”
“In the morning, son,” he said. “In the morning, once I get my head straight. I need to consult my notes. I still have them saved, you see,” he told us. “There are things that I may have forgotten in the many years that passed. I will look at them, and we’ll resume this conversation in the morning. I would not like to give you any false information. Or anything that might mislead you.” With a final nod, he stood up and started for the door.
“This is ridiculous!” Eve hissed under her breath. “Can you tell us one thing before you go, at least?” she called out after him. “How did your group discover the crystals?”
The older man stopped, and turned around. He regarded her curiously. “You mean my son did not tell you?”
“I do not know, father,” Arthur said. “You never shared that with me.”
“Oh!” For the first time this evening, the elder Arthur’s eyes lit up. “Now, that is a tale worth expounding upon.” He came back to the couch, sat down, and cleared his throat. When he spoke this time, there was none of the uncertainty from before.
“The discovery of the crystals,” he began, “occurred during my undergraduate years at Harvard. I had a professor who invited me to take a trip with him one summer. He had gotten word of a fascinating group of women, isolated from the rest of the world, living in a tiny village near the southern reaches of the Appalachian Mountains. Apparently, they had made their settlement there when the first pilgrims came to North American from Europe. They were among the first settlers of this continent, but they cut themselves off from the world. My professor was doing research in anthropology, so of course this fascinated him.
“He recruited a group of students, myself included, and we made the trip there. It took many days of travel just to arrive in the area, and many months of searching before we stumbled upon their village. It was a revelation when we found it! We were nearing the end of our supplies. Our money was running out. After the long, hard months, it felt like we were chasing a fairy tale. But we found the village nestled safely in the woods. Coming upon it felt like stepping back in time. It was a peaceful settlement. Young boys and girls were running around freely, unconcerned and blissfully unaware of anything that existed outside their home. The village itself was run by a circle of women. They called themselves the Village Council. But I heard some of the locals refer to them as the Seekers…”
“The Seekers?” I whispered to Liz. “Isn’t that what you called yourselves? The crystal seekers?”
“Just a coincidence,” she muttered. “It must be.”
“The peculiar thing about it all,” Arthur senior continued, “was that we could see no boys over the age of fifteen. There were no men in the village, except those frail with age. Young children, mothers, but there were no boys. There must have been fifty villagers there, no more.
“They lived a simple life, reminiscent of the 1600s. It was peaceful. They did not know technology, and it did not bother them. They grew their own crops, dug for their own water, and had their own medicine. This was the most fascinating thing for us. One of my colleagues fell sick in the days before we found the village. He scraped his leg against something in the woods, and the wound got infected. We thought we’d have to amputate his limb! The Village Council took him in, and a day later he emerged completely healed. It was a miraculous recovery. A full recovery. We couldn’t believe our eyes! He had been on the edge of death when we arrived. A
nd these people, who had no access to modern medicine, no knowledge of the outside world, had managed to heal him.
“Of course we had to know more. Our curiosity would not be abated. We ended up spending six months in this village, living among them. We showed them things that we knew, and we gained their trust. The peculiar thing, though, was that they regarded us as… children. They did not dismiss what we told them, but rather took it in with a knowing smirk, a deliberate simper. The Village Council was intelligent, and of course, they knew more than they shared. We gave them our knowledge, and they took what they wanted. Nothing we said seemed to bother or surprise them.
“Finally, the day arrived when we were set to leave. That was when the Village Council came to us with a revelation. They had come to trust us, and had a secret to share. They did not want the secret to die. What a secret it was! They revealed to us how they healed our injured companion. They had used… these peculiar rocks, of all things. These crystalline formations that they said unlocked some extra power of the mind. We were fascinated, of course, and asked them a hundred questions. We itched to find out more. But they were mum after that point. As a parting gift, they gave us one of these special rocks. And they told us, quite astutely indeed, that it would help on our journey to understanding.”
“So that’s how you discovered the crystals!” I said in awe. There were others who knew about them! Others who could use them, like us! Others who had experience with them! We had to meet these women.
“Yes, yes,” the elder Arthur chuckled. “And… if I’m going to be honest with you… I will say that all the keys to what we found about the crystals came from the women. I’ve… I’ve never shared this with anyone. Most of the discoveries our research group made in the later years came from our parting conversation with the Village Council. No – not most. All. The truth is, we struggled to figure out anything ourselves, aside from speculating on the theoretical. That speculation makes up the bulk of the paper you girls discovered.”
“So, the crystals came from someone else?” Liz asked.
Arthur senior nodded. “Yes. Quite. It was not our own discovery. Once we returned to Harvard, we began to study it… and, well, you know how the story goes.”
“These women,” Ashley said, “they had a group? A circle? Do you know where they are?”
“Aye, but that is information they made us swear not to reveal. They did not want outsiders coming and troubling them. But… many years have passed since then. They have their secrets, I know, but they might be willing to speak with you.”
“Will they?” I said eagerly. These women were the ones who originally used the crystals! Surely they knew so much more than we did about them. And they were women, which clearly meant they could use them!
“Yes, but that is a topic for later. Now, I must prepare your beds for you. All of you look tired, and a cup of this tea always puts me in a sleepy mood. Come now,” he encouraged us. “Follow me. I’ll make space for you upstairs.” He turned and left the room.
I looked around at the others before following. “I warned you he’s eccentric,” Arthur shrugged. As the older man departed, I felt an odd tension following him. Like he was, despite what he shared, uncomfortable with having us here. Something about the way he acted, and the way he spoke, just felt… off.
Chapter Eighteen – Forbidden Knowledge
“Did you notice how uncomfortable he seemed?” I asked Ashley as I climbed into bed. She and I were in a small room on the second floor of the cabin. Arthur Eliot senior had prepared all our beds methodically, mumbling to himself the entire time. When he was done, he nodded in satisfaction and rumbled down the stairs without another word. I almost felt like an intruder at that point. Despite Arthur senior’s assurances, he definitely was not happy to have us here.
“I think we should give him a break,” Ashley told me. “He’s been out here for what, more than ten years? He’s clearly unaccustomed to having people around. It must have been quite a shock to find so many visitors at once. It’s a wonder he had enough blankets for all of us!” The “beds” that Arthur senior made were little more than tiny cots of blankets rolled on the floor. “We should be thankful he didn’t kick us out the second we came in.”
“But he didn’t,” I said, and sighed. “I guess that counts for something. I just thought he’d be… more amenable to meeting us. Remember how Arthur said he used to talk about the crystals all the time? And yet, when he found out that we could actually use them, it just seemed like he became… I don’t know… scared? He wasn’t comfortable with it. To me, it almost felt like he was trying to hide something.”
“Remember the other thing Arthur said,” Ashley cautioned, “about the breakup of the research group, and about the government clamp down on what they did. All traces of the research were destroyed. And he is the lone surviving member of that research group, apparently. Maybe there is some danger we aren’t aware of. In fact, I’m certain of it.”
“I hope not,” I remarked.
“Well, that’s the reality of things,” Ashley said, pragmatically.
“I guess we’ll find out in the morning,” I responded.
“I think so. Plus, he said part of the reason he didn’t want to talk tonight was that he wanted to consult his old notes. Does that sound like somebody trying to hide something? He’s probably just being cautious, and rightfully so. I don’t think he wants to give us any misleading information. He knows how dangerous the crystals can be. Besides, he was kind enough to set up our room and let us spend the night, which was never a guarantee. Especially not from someone who withdrew himself from human contact for more than a decade.”
“I wonder what caused that,” I mused.
Ashley shrugged, and stifled a yawn. “I don’t know. But I am getting pretty sleepy. Let’s go to bed, and we can talk about things more in the morning.”
I tried to take her advice, but my mind was still racing. Did Arthur senior leave academia because of something he knew? Was there some danger that came with the crystals that we didn’t know about? And what about those women he met? I couldn’t keep quiet. “How much do you think the Village Council members know about the crystals?”
“A lot more than any of us,” Ashley said, sleepily. “We can ask him more about them in the morning. Although, it seemed like he told us everything he knew about them.”
“Except where they are,” I noted.
“Right, except that.” Ashley yawned again. “But I just think he’s being cautious. Wouldn’t you, if nine strangers showed up in your home asking about something you were forbidden from sharing with anyone?”
“I guess,” I said. “But we don’t know the full story about that.”
“Just go to sleep,” Ashley mumbled. “We’ll have an entire day to talk to him tomorrow. I seriously doubt anyone can find us out here, so we’ll have time on our side for once. Maybe by then he’ll be more agreeable to sharing things with us.”
“I hope so,” I said. I rolled over to the side, and tried to get to sleep.
***
My eyes shot open in the dark. Something was wrong.
I held my breath, straining to hear. The only sound that broke the silence was Ashley’s slumbered breathing. My entire body was tense; there were knots in all my muscles. I tried to move, and found, to my dismay, that I could not. My mind was awake, but my body was asleep. My eyes grew wide. Desperately, I tried to look around the room. Nothing. Nothing there but darkness.
I relaxed slightly. Suddenly, my body became my own again. I scrambled up into a seated position. Nothing but a night terror. And a little bit of sleep paralysis. I’ve heard of that, but never experienced it before.
I looked around the room once more, just to be sure there was nothing there. My imagination was playing all sorts of cruel tricks on me, making monsters out of regular shadows. For a second, I thought I saw my attacker, the silent man in black, crouched in the corner. My eyes adjusted some more to the darkness, though, and I realize
d it was nothing more than a sitting chair.
I shook my head in disbelief. Jumping at shadows was something little girls did. I was in a safe place right now. I settled back under my blanket and tried to sleep.
But sleep would not come. A nagging sort of feeling at the back of my head kept telling me something was wrong. I tossed and turned, trying to find a more comfortable position to sleep in, but my mind was fully alert. Another few minutes of tossing in the dark, and I stood up to tip-toe out of the room.
The hallway outside was empty, of course. All the doors to the other rooms were closed. A bit of moonlight shone through the window at the end of the hall, chasing away just enough darkness for me to see. I didn’t really know what I was doing up, but knew that I wouldn’t fall asleep again for a long time. Maybe another cup of that tea would help.
I eased my way down the stairs, careful not to let them creak under me. The cabin was completely silent. Uncannily so, even. I guess I had become so used to the modern noises that typically sounded in the night – the hum of a furnace, the buzz of electronics – that finding all those sounds missing was simply… unusual.
I came into the kitchen, and felt my way along the wall for the light switch. Finding it, I flipped it on. For a moment, I had to shield my eyes against the brightness. When the pain receded, I walked to the stove and turned the kettle on. The cups we used had been placed neatly on the counter, though they were still unwashed. I picked mine out from the group, quickly rinsed it out in the sink, and placed a new teabag inside.
While I waited for the kettle to boil, my thoughts turned to Rob. I was extremely pleased with how things had turned out. So pleased, in fact, that I found myself humming quietly just thinking of him. I looked up at the ceiling, at the approximate spot where John and Arthur shared a room. I hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him since we kissed, and I wondered what he made of all this. I didn’t think he would ever have expected to find himself in a cabin like this, quite literally in the middle of the woods, when he left Oliver Academy. I smiled to myself, remembering the kiss again. It was quite special. I could recall every part of it as if it happened just minutes ago. In fact, I did not think I would forget that until I died.
