by David James
“Well, your curse could just be about the prophecy, or the binding spell the Order put on you. But you really think you were someone else?” She paused. “Like, when do you think you were this other person?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think the voice does. I feel like it knows me, or knows who I was. This voice keeps telling me to give in and become who I’m supposed to be. I don’t know what it means, but it’s not going away, and the more I think about it, everything the voice has told me feels like warnings.”
“For what?”
I breathed through my nose. “I don’t know. I thought it was just me going crazy at first, but then the Bloodletter happened and here you are calling me the Dreamer and the Destroyer, and I wonder if the voice has something to do with that. Like maybe it’s someone trying to help.”
Kate’s eyes glazed over with anger. “You think it’s the Devil trying to send you messages?”
“No, Kate,” I said, matching her tone. “I don’t think it’s anyone bad. I think it’s actually someone trying to help me become good. Help me break away from the bad.”
“Destroy the Devil inside?”
I was quiet. Then, “Yes.”
“You know, Calum,” Kate said as we both got to our feet. I stepped beside her as we walked. “You can’t change your past, but you can control your future. I still don’t know how good it is that you’re hearing voices, but maybe you should talk to Marcus about it.” She paused. “He’s been something of a dream weaver since I can remember. He’s how I found out my sisters are still alive. Next time you’re in a dream, just give in. My guess is that you’ve been holding back a lot. You can’t fight something unless you’re willing to look it in the eye.”
I thought of Hell. Of falling down, down, down. “But what if I don’t have a choice? What if I’m damned from the beginning and don’t have any choice in who I want to be?”
“There’s always a choice,” Kate said but didn’t meet my eyes. Her nails dug into my arm as she pulled me along. “But sometimes you have to fight for what you want, who you want. Don’t for one second believe life gets better when you just sit there. You’ll always wonder what could have been.”
And then, her voice so quiet it was almost lost in the maze of angel tears falling down, “Who could have been.”
-Kate-
He could have been.
I had imagined what would
should
could have been so many times, the pictured memories felt real.
I wanted them to be real.
But they weren’t and it killed me.
Every single time it killed me, because all I wanted was this:
Adam whispered, “Hi.”
I smiled. “Hi.”
Our hands seemed stuck together, one. I wouldn’t have been able to tell which were his fingers and which were mine, except for the fact that his hands covered mine completely.
He lay on top of me, the tall grass closing us in a different world, a secret world only ours, and this close, his body crushing me, I felt complete. He covered me until I disappeared beneath. I should have felt like nothing as I faded away under the weight of him, but instead, as I looked into his soft blue eyes, I felt as though I could do anything.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, brushing my hair behind my ear.
“What makes you think I’m thinking anything?”
He laughed, loud and sharp. “You’re always thinking something! But right now I can see it in your eyes. Those wild, fearless purple eyes. Tell me. Since tomorrow’s my fourteenth birthday, it can be your present to me.”
I just grinned and shook my head.
He laughed and growled and buried his head in my neck and-
I felt my heart shatter and storm through my veins until it was all I could feel and everything I was - until I shivered so hard my breath stopped and he-
kissed me there. “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”
“Okay!” I laughed, almost crying. “I’ll tell you!”
He moved his head so it was all I could see. The smile that played on his face was luminous and made him look younger than he really was. He moved his eyebrows up and down, and his nose fell so it touched mine.
I felt Adam’s sweet, warm breath still chilled with the sting of ice cream explode around me, felt his eyelashes bat against my cheek as he whispered in a voice so low it made my chest hurt, “Tell me.”
I said, “I’m thinking I love you.”
I felt him breathe, felt his chest expand and crush me hard. Felt him sink deeper against me.
Felt him whisper to my lips, “I love you, too.”
~
Adam could have been.
All I wanted was that life, what could have been after almost a year of opening my heart. I wondered if I could have been that girl who loved, or if I was always meant to be this girl that couldn’t.
Calum broke away from me as we stepped under a curtain of water falling off the rocks above. “What is this place?”
I ignored him and brushed beads of water from my shirt and hair.
Calum’s shoulders fell forward and he let out a breath as though it were his last. Drops of water dripped down his face like tears. He said, “I’m tired of you holding things back when I know you have things to say. So, what is this place? Kate?” Then sighing, “Just tell me.”
Adam.
“Tell me.”
I love you.
I said, “When I first came to the Order, just before I turned thirteen, I would wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares so bad I thought they were real even after they ended. Everything was all blood and darkness and fire... So one night after a nightmare, I just ran. It was the first time I left my room alone, but I ran until I couldn’t breathe or care, and I found myself here.” I turned to Calum. “Since then, whenever I have a nightmare I come here to think about those things that used to be. To be alone. No one but Marcus really knows my story, and I’ve never seen anyone inside this place except me.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said.
I stood in the middle of the cavern as he circled, both of us taking in the quiet of the place where things came back.
The rocks here crossed and twisted, crawling up in jagged angles so the ceiling was black and pointed and dripping with dew. We would have been in darkness if not for the light seeping in through the curtain of water falling from the edges where the ceiling curved down, circling us in shades of light reflecting the angel tears outside: Blues, purples, reds, greens. And, though the inside of the cave was nothing but rock, in the walls of water I could see the shadowed, wavy shapes of water and earth enchanters shaping waves and flowers. See distorted blushes of pink and bursts of yellow seep through the falls.
The way the light faded and the sounds quieted inside this place, I felt as though I was in a different world entirely.
“Who are those people outside?” Calum asked, sitting on the floor beside me hugging his knees to his chest. His wet hair twisted like the rocks and, when he rested his head on his knees, fell just over his eyes so they were hidden by shadow.
Just like that the brilliant blue was gone-
light killed by shadow.
Soon, I thought, I will kill, too.
Soon the blue will be gone forever.
“Everyone is accountable for something,” I said, ignoring the way my breath was catching in my throat as though a spider was weaving a web of lies inside. “Here we have different rules we follow and different responsibilities to uphold. You remember how I said all the Elder Council members control a certain element?”
“No,” Calum snorted. “No, I completely forgot about the group of superheroes about to decide whether I live or die. Must have slipped my mind.”
“You are a little on the slow side sometimes.”
A smile touched the edges of his mouth, but didn’t stay. “Yes, I remember.”
“Well, each Elder is in charge of a faction of Order members that control their same element. B
ecause the Elders and the Warriors are the only ones that fight the Orieno directly, the other Order members use their abilities to help the natural balance of life where they live.”
“Uh, remember that time I was slow?”
I rolled my eyes. “There are five natural elements: Fire, light, earth, water, and spirit. Each Order faction is represented by the color of their element: Red, yellow, green, blue, and white. The Warriors are in gray uniforms. That’s why we saw the members in different colored shirts when we first came in. I should have changed already, but I have to babysit someone before his trial. Anyway, those factions do things to help their specific element in the world around us. Those in the earth faction, for example, travel around the nearby cities to help grow trees and plants. The light faction helps control the sun and the moon and their respective rotations. And,” I pointed beyond the waterfall, “you can see that the water faction helps out with the falls and the lake and all the water in between.”
“That makes the Order seem like a charity organization. Like there’s actually some good in this place.”
“I keep telling you, Calum,” I said, “the Order is good. We do good things for people. We haven’t been able to do much recently because the Orieno attacks brought our numbers down, but we’re trying to fix the bad things that have happened in the past decade. Without us the oceans would rise and flood the world, global warming would become catastrophic, and the spirit of the human race would turn dark and evil. It’d be an apocalypse. So we try. I don’t know why you think we’re so bad.”
“Really? You seriously don’t?”
“We’re not all bad. Not even the Elders. I mean Gae, the Elder that controls the earth faction, used to play games with me all the time when I was younger, especially when I first came to the Order to help me train. She was one of the first people besides Marcus who gave me hope. She used to enchant thousands of tiny flowers to make a path for me to follow to Ashfall and back. She would time me to see how fast I could run from here to there and back again, to see if I could beat her enchantments as they disappeared before me. Gae helped me so much with my training. I promise, Calum, the Order is good.”
“Sometimes one bad thing ruins it all.”
“The Elders might not decide you have to die.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Even if I don’t die today,” Calum said, “what about this curse? What about the Bloodletter? What about my friends?”
“They might be safe,” I lied.
“You know that’s a lie. I can see it in your eyes.”
I turned away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Calum.”
“I’m beginning to think you don’t either, Kate.”
“I know where I stand,” I said. “I know what I want.”
He breathed, “Do you?”
I said, “Yes.”
Still, the spider spun lie after lie between us:
You and I are more than this.
I know what you are.
I believe everything will be okay.
It is safe here.
Everything will be betterin time.
I don’t want to be with you or against you.
I am happy alone.
I am me.
I am not afraid of endings.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” he said. “I feel like I should listen to this voice in my head, give in. I want to be someone more than this, but I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I don’t think I ever have.”
“Sometimes you don’t have a choice between what’s right or wrong,” I said. “Sometimes that choice is made for you, and if it’s not, you do what is best for the most people. Protect those weaker than you. I don’t know, Calum, maybe you need to listen to what the Elder Council, especially Gae, has to say before you decide what you should do. It might help to hear another person’s thoughts after they’ve heard yours.”
He frowned. “I thought you said I should fight for what I want and not just sit around waiting?”
“You can’t win if you don’t know what you’re fighting for,” I said. “If I were you, I’d figure that out fast. Listen to the Council and maybe in an hour you’ll know what’s right and wrong.”
“What if I don’t want to win? What if I just want to survive?”
I almost laughed. “This is a different kind of fight, Calum. In this world you do everything you can to win, because if you lose, you die.”
“You’re fighting for your sisters?” he asked.
I said, “Until I find them and know they’re safe.”
“They’re the only ones you want? Is there anyone else you’re fighting for?”
A water worker ran her hand over the waterfall in front of us, causing a ripple to run the circle in lines of shadow and light. Then, stronger than before, the water poured down in waves of blue so dark it looked green.
“Kate?” Calum turned to look at me and, when I found his eyes again, he asked, “What are you thinking?”
Adam.
“Shut up, Calum. We need to go. Follow me. You don’t want to know what will happen if you’re late to your trial.”
I turned and ran and didn’t look back.
-Calum-
The hour was dead-
gone as if it never had been-
and I wondered if I would soon follow.
Beyond the largest waterfall, the world bent and broke in two; nothing but the pounding sound of the falls behind us, and a double door before. Nothing else but me and Kate, two souls facing a door with two sides.
We stood side by side, the space between us feeling heavy as though it were not as vast as it should have been. As though we were more than this. This close, I could almost feel her breathing, almost feel the angry rift between us break.
Almost.
I stepped closer.
Kate, her voice steady and low, said, “It’s been said that everyone sees something different when they look upon the Doors of Judgment. Different, but always the same. Always the one thing that defines them the most. The Doors show us the one thing that tips the scales and defines who we were, are, and will be.”
I felt further away.
Carved in the stone of the cave wall, the Doors were the only smooth things in a world of jagged madness. There were no lines to distinguish them from the cave, except for swirls and patterns of intricately carved designs that faded like rays of light into the stone; a shape just barely there.
“They say magic runs deep and wild in the lines carved in the Doors,” Kate said. “They were carved by the first enchanter, Myrddin Lailoken. He was a seer, a prophet, and the one who saw the Legend of the Dreamer. It is said that Myrddin traveled to this mountain from Britain around 500 AD in search of his lost sister, Gwendydd, but instead of finding her he found an evil witch who trapped him in the forest for decades. He went mad, lost his mind completely, and eventually fell in love with the witch.”
“You’re telling me he loved this witch even though she basically kidnapped him against his will? That’s crazy,” I said. “But I guess it doesn’t matter who you love, just that you do.”
Kate only shook her head back and forth before she continued, “On the day they were supposed to be married, Myrddin went to the highest peak of this mountain to ask for a blessing from the gods he believed in. Instead, a single bolt of lightning blasted down from the sky and struck him with a vision, the Legend of the Dreamer. Instantly, he evolved into something more. The lightning marked him as a prophetic enchanter and gave him control over all five elements.”
“Is that how the Order was started?”
“That’s what we believe. After seeing the prophecy, Myrddin killed the witch and traveled back to Britain where he gave four of his closest companions a different power over an element, keeping spirit for himself. Together, in hopes of warding off evil and keeping the prophecy protected, they formed the Order. Each of them then traveled to a different part o
f the world to recruit members and give them a part of the power Myrddin bestowed upon them. Over time the Order grew to have thousands of members worldwide.”
“So, how do the Doors of Judgment come into play?”
“After creating the Order, Myrddin spent years trying to find his sister. She was his twin and the only person alive that shared his blood. He searched the world but never found Gwendydd. So he came back to this forest where it all began. He went back to the peak where he first was shown the prophecy and waited for lightning to strike with an answer once more. It’s said that Myrddin waited for ten years, until he was nothing more than a ghost of his spirit. After waiting for so long, he knew his time was coming to an end, so he crawled to this cave to die. With his last bit of power, he used his spirit energy to carve these doors so that all who stood before them would see the truth within themselves; they would be judged by the spirit of the enchanter who started it all. When the doors were finished, Myrddin went to Lake Iris, swam to the center, and let the last of his spirit dissipate into the water as he died. Even today, some Warriors believe that the lake has healing powers, and it’s how we get initiated as Warriors. We are blessed with the water of Myrddin as part of the final test before we receive our levitis and become full Warriors.”
“Did he ever find his sister?” I asked.
Kate shook her head. “No. He didn’t.” She blinked and swallowed. “He died before he found his sister.”
I said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” she snapped.
I turned away. “Nothing.”
Focusing on the Doors, I let my eyes wander until they were all I could see. Until they were everything, the only light in the darkness. The carved lines twisted and turned as if alive, weaving around an inlaid circle broken in four. Light seemed to be ebbing in and out of the carving, as though the angel tears had gotten trapped inside.
“It’s a dream catcher,” I realized.
“Kind of,” Kate agreed. “It’s the symbol of the Order that, according to our history, was based on Myrddin’s idea that dreams were the gods showing us our fate. He believed we all had the ability to be prophets if we focused enough on what our dreams were saying.” She turned to me. “What do you see?”
