by Kaleb Nation
"Like I said, when I came to Dunce I had nowhere to stay," Astara said. "I had to stay hidden until I could find someone to help me. I didn’t want to get caught and sent back to Crandon." She looked up and met his gaze. "That night I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I hid in an alley on the outskirts of town, trying to sleep between some crates to keep warm. Then the car came."
By the look that came into Astara’s eyes, Bran could see the memory still scared her.
"The car sat for a while, and I was still—no, I was trembling, but quiet." Astara said. "Then I saw your mother get out, with you in her arms. Then everything happened very quickly."
She shook her head. "Your mother put you in the trunk, and then a woman came from nowhere, so fast I hadn’t even seen her. She threw your mother to the ground, pulled the trunk open…but you were gone."
She had sent me to the bank vault, Bran realized. He bit his lip, a sudden anger going through him upon hearing how the woman had treated his mother.
Astara took a deep breath. "I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything. The woman asked your mother where she had sent you, and when your mother wouldn’t tell her, she aimed the pistol…and shot her."
Bran drew a sharp breath, almost hearing the shot ring out in the back of his mind.
She wanted me for Baslyn, he thought, almost feeling as if Baslyn was there with him in the room. The woman must have been working with Joris. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place in his mind. He realized that the woman was probably one of those who had escaped the police in Farfield.
"I thought I would scream, Bran," Astara said. "But I didn’t. I managed to hold it in. The woman left her there, and the moment I saw that it was safe, I ran to her. She was still barely alive, probably using magic to do it, but she was dying, and she didn’t want to hold on."
Bran stared at the window across the room.
"She tried to talk to me," Astara went on. "That’s when she told me about her crime."
He sat up straighter. "The Farfield Curse?"
"That’s when she said it," Astara replied. "I didn’t understand her. I might have been forced to grow up fast, but I was still very young. But her words burned into my mind so deeply I could never forget them, and now all these years later, I know what she was talking about."
Astara looked over Bran’s shoulder, behind him at the wall, remembering something from the deep recesses of her mind.
"She told me about a crime…" Astara said. "She spoke of something that she had created years ago with a man named Baslyn, something about the Farfield Curse. She said that everyone was keeping it a secret, that no one was supposed to know about it because it was so terrible. But she told me there was more to it, Bran." Astara met his eyes again. It look painful for her to say it. "She said it started in the summer, many years ago. No one knew why it happened or what caused it—this gathering of people in the desert. Nearly three thousand men, women, and children, all to one spot. They were called there, no one knew how or why, and then—" She snapped her fingers, "—they were gone. And no one has heard from them since."
"But how?" Bran stammered. "They had friends and families and jobs! How would the government have explained it?"
"Earthquake," Astara said. "They said it opened up and closed them in afterward. Some said evil spirits, or a horde of trolls. But I know the truth." She took a deep breath. "I know…because your mother told me she had done it."
The deepest part of Bran seemed to quiver thinking of it. Just imagining the magic for such a thing was incomprehensible, though he knew from where it had come…the power of the Dormaysan that Adi had spoken of.
"She told me it took her magic to do it," Astara said. "She told me it was part of a plot by a man more evil than she had anticipated."
Baslyn… Bran thought. What had he been planning?
"Was that the Farfield Curse, then?" he asked her.
"No, not all of it," Astara shook her head. "This was before it, part of it: whatever she did, whatever she was going to do…she needed those souls. She needed those lives, those people."
Bran felt terror deep inside of him, an impending doom
or premonition of something nightmarish that was going to happen.
Astara shook her head. "Like I said, I didn’t understand, but now I know why she said it all. I was the last person she could tell her secret to. That was when she gave me the necklace, and made me swear I would give it to you if I ever found you, and that I would tell you the truth." Astara paused for a moment. "After I promised…she died."
Bran couldn’t say a word. He felt angry and drained at the same time, a mixture of fear and emptiness inside his soul.
"Maybe she could have kept herself alive, Bran," Astara whispered. "But she knew her time was up. So she let it go." Fright was in Astara’s eyes, even then, as she spoke. "But I was six years old, I didn’t know what to do. So I ran off, looking for anyone who could help me." She shook her head. "There was only one store with a light on, and that was a bookstore."
"Highland’s Books?" Bran said, and she nodded.
"Mr. Highland was working late here, for some reason," she said. "I pounded on the door until he came, and took him to her. By then, the police were there because of the gunshots. They found something with her name, and since there was no one to claim the body, Mr. Highland did."
Astara took a deep breath. "When no one showed up, Mr. Highland paid for a coffin and buried her on a small piece of land he owned. He didn’t let me go but showed me where the grave was later on, and he let me have a room in the store, and when I got older, let me work in his shop."
"I guess there still are good people in the world," Bran remarked.
"I thought that too," she said. "Even when I went and told him I was a mage, and why I had run away—even after that, he still didn’t turn me in. It might have been part of the reason he began work with the Mages Underground. Afterward, I didn’t dare tell him the full story, but he got out of me that Emry had a son. He knew that if you were still alive, finding out about her death would ruin you, so one night we emptied the police file and burned the contents."
Astara slid her hand across the table, touching his arm softly.
"Bran, your mother was a good person," she said. "A good person…just caught in a bad past."
Bran pulled his arm away, feeling a strange, saddened anger with everything around him.
"I wish I was back there," he said under his breath. "I would have killed anyone who tried to hurt her."
"Bran, that woman didn’t hesitate to kill your mother," Astara said. "She wouldn’t have hesitated to kill you, either."
"She didn’t want to kill me," Bran hissed. "If I die, everything is in vain. They want me alive."
Astara didn’t seem to understand, and she brushed the hair out of her face. He didn’t turn to meet her eyes, but he could feel they were on him.
"What do you mean?" she asked him softly. Bran took a deep breath, but he knew it was already too late to keep it from her any longer.
"There is more to this than even you know," he said. "There are men right here, in Dunce, looking for me right now. That’s why all this is happening. That’s why I came into this very shop, and found that file."
He opened his eyes. "Somehow, Baslyn is still here, Astara. He is following me, day and night, in my dreams, with magic. He speaks to me, haunts me."
Bran slid his fingers through his hair. "I don’t know if I’m going mad from this or if he is there, watching me somehow with magic. If he is dead, how is it he haunts me? If he is alive, how can no one else see him?"
Astara let her hands fall to the table and sat back, and Bran stood bitterly, walking to the window and looking out. He didn’t know what else to say to her, for he had no answers on how to get out of the mess that he had fallen into.
They were both silent for a long while. He couldn’t even open his mouth to speak; he didn’t know what to say anymore. It seemed as if suddenly everything was hope
less again, and even with all she had told him, he was further into the mystery than before.
"How old are you?" he broke the silence, not turning.
"What?" she asked, confusion in her voice.
"How old are you?"
"Fourteen," she replied slowly.
"Same as me," he said. He pressed his forehead against the glass.
"Strange thing is, I can’t remember any of my past," Bran said, trying to keep himself talking. "My mother must have cleaned my memory out."
He shifted. "I can’t even remember her face."
He could feel her eyes on him, watching his reflection.
"I know that’s terrible," he said, searching for words to say. "I can’t even remember anything about this person I call my mother. Sometimes when I’m awake at night, I wonder about her. What did she look like, you know? What color were her eyes? Why’d all this happen?" He stopped. "You don’t know… or maybe you do know how it feels to lose something that’s so important to you, even when you’ve never had it, you miss it like your life is dependent on it."
Bran took a deep breath, and it felt like there was a deep, hard pressure on his chest.
"But I just can’t bring myself to hate her for everything she’s done," he said. "You know why? Because I love her, this mother I never knew, who did all these terrible things, who left me behind…and I guess…" He paused again. "I guess you might feel like I do too, because you’ve been through it all, mistreated by everyone. Maybe that’s why you care enough to do all this, and tell me the truth, and keep your promises when you very well could just forget them."
He looked at her, and he was very moved to see that there was a soft tear going down her cheek. He could see by looking into her eyes that there was something there, behind them. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like she really cared.
"I only wish I knew what was going on," Bran whispered, and he turned back to the window. He felt worse inside, knowing some of the answers but unable to piece them all together.
But even as he peered out the windows, he saw Baslyn’s face in the crowds: looking up from a newspaper, then vanishing; his reflection in a window across the street, gazing at Bran, then disappearing as soon as Bran focused on it. He felt Baslyn watching him constantly from afar, haunting him no matter which way he turned his gaze.
There was deep, dark magic, and Bran felt as if he was getting nowhere, for he hadn’t any idea what powers Baslyn had weaved over him. Everything seemed to connect with that: as long as Baslyn was there, haunting his every move, Bran felt he would never be free.
He realized that the only person who knew enough about magic to tell him any answers would be Adi. As much as he didn’t want to, he knew he had to go back to her, and if not tell her the truth, at least try to make amends with her for running out.
"I’ve got to go," Bran said. He looked up at Astara. She was still sitting there.
"Where?" she asked.
"Go figure this out," he said, turning for the door.
"Do you think you’ll be all right, Bran?" she asked him, standing.
"I don’t think that matters anymore," Bran replied. Astara stayed there as he moved for the door, leaving her behind with the soft music droning in the background. He wished almost that Astara would come, but she didn’t, and inside Bran knew it was better that way.
Chapter 25
Lopsis Volgitix
Bran Left the alley and crossed the street, knowing that Adi should be at the TBD by that time, and he could hopefully get her away, maybe to talk in the café across the street. When he opened the door, however, Sewey was sitting at Adi’s desk, spinning in circles in her chair.
"Oh," Sewey yawned, turning his neck as his chair went on spinning. "There you are. You missed breakfast." Bran ignored him and looked about, but didn’t see Adi anywhere. "Where’s Adi?"
"Humph," was all Sewey would say. Everything was very quiet in the bank except for the soft creaking of the chair as he spun around and around, kicking the floor.
"Well, where is she?" Bran insisted.
"Who do you think I am?" Sewey snorted irritably. "I’m a banker, not an information broker! Jolly rot, she called in and said she’s just going to work late this evening. Says she’s got an appointment to see her uncle in the local jail."
"Her uncle?" Bran asked, startled. "I didn’t know Adi had an uncle in Dunce." "Never met him," Sewey yawned in a bored tone. "She sees him often, though. Usually after the city catches a gnome, I’ve noticed."
Bran looked up with slight alarm.
"Probably to comfort him, that’s all," Sewey went on, oblivious. "I mean, he is in the same jail as a gnome, and those gnomes do break out so very often."
Bran nodded quickly. Sewey spun around a few more times.
"Funny thing is," Sewey said after a while, "the gnomes always seem to break out the same day Adi goes to visit her uncle. Every time."
"Maybe she’s…scaring them off," Bran said lamely.
"I suppose so," Sewey said, yawning another time.
Bran knew it was a ploy by Adi. She might even be back at her house by then, depending on how long it took her at the jail. So he told Sewey he was leaving, though Sewey was hardly paying any attention at all.
It was hard to lose that strange feeling of being watched, even as Bran took his bike and started off. He didn’t see any black vans as he pulled out, and the farther he got from Third Street, the further away the feeling felt, until it faded into nothing. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t think of that now. He was too preoccupied with finding a way to Adi’s house.
What if she asks me about last night? he wondered frantically. He knew he couldn’t tell her. Even with as much as he trusted her, he knew that telling her would only bring more danger, but he also knew he had to find some answers: answers about how Baslyn was appearing to him. If anyone had the answers, it would be Adi.
When he finally found her house, he noticed instantly that her car wasn’t parked in front. He told himself it might be in the garage, and it put his mind at rest, if only a little. He started up to the door and gave a soft knock.
The door had a sharp, deep sound to it. It was quiet for some time behind the door without any movement to be heard, and even though Bran tried to peek through the curtains on the windows, they were so thick he couldn’t see in. Suddenly he remembered that Polland couldn’t go out and he must be inside the house somewhere, so without thinking he knocked a few more times.
"Polland!" Bran said in a hoarse whisper. "It’s me, Bran. Let me in."
There was no reply from beyond for some time, then he heard a sudden shifting of the bolts. He heard another click, and another, and then the handle turned and the door swung open, revealing the inside of Adi’s house, but no one at the door to greet him.
"Step through," a muffled voice said. Bran couldn’t see where the voice was coming from.
"Now!" the voice hissed. "Before someone sees."
Bran hurriedly obeyed, and the moment he stepped inside the door slammed shut behind him. He spun around, and there was Polland, standing on a stool behind the door, with a huge revolver in one hand and a flowery watering can in the other.
"You fool!" he hissed. "What’s going through your head, coming in the middle of the day!"
"I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about it," Bran apologized.
"Of course you didn’t think!" Polland grumbled loudly, hitting his head with his fist a few times. "Because if you would have thought," he jumped off the stool, "you would have kept at home and covered your head with a pillow!"
"I’m very sorry," Bran said, and he really meant it.
"Oh, just lock the door," Polland huffed. "I was just watering my plants, and now that you’re here you might as well watch my back for me."
"So Adi really is at the jailhouse?" Bran said.
"Shush!" Polland said. "We got a report at four in the morning: Mrs. Tuskett’s husband didn’t return from his Sevvenyears sneak-in last night. The informant
said she was distraught."
"You think Adi will get them out?" Bran said.
"She already did," Polland said. "Called me earlier: luckily he’s fluent and she didn’t need me. But I doubt she’ll be coming home until later. She’s working late tonight to make up for it." His face turned grim. "She does that when she’s upset, sometimes works clear through the night and just stays until the next morning. It’s her way of dealing with things."
"Is it because of me?" Bran whispered.
Polland looked downward, and Bran didn’t need a reply. He felt terrible for all the trouble he had caused for her. Polland finally gave a shrug and kicked the stool into a closet, tossing the revolver somewhere in the back.
"It’s a toy," he told Bran. "The gun, I mean. Goodness knows I need it with all the burglars in this town, breaking in at any odd time of the day. You’re not the first strange noise at my front door."
"I hope I didn’t scare you," Bran said. "I was just coming to, you know, apologize."
Polland took a deep breath and closed the closet door. "Aye, right you are." He turned to Bran. "Adi was pretty upset, you should know. She was so worried, and the lamp in her room
was on all night. I don’t think she slept a wink, and probably won’t tonight either."
Polland’s words only made Bran feel worse. However, Polland finally shrugged.
"But when she comes home I’ll tell her you stopped by," he said. "I don’t think either of us really blames you, do we? It’s hard enough for us to hear it, and how much more so for you?"
Polland started toward the stairs with the watering can still in his fist. Bran followed him up, but instead of going for Adi’s office, Polland moved for another door on the other side.
In an instant, Bran knew the room had to be Polland’s. Hardly a square inch of it was empty of something green: from the floor to the walls, pots and pans filled with dirt and leafy things sticking in every direction. There were trays of sprouts and foliage across the bed, the floor covered with clay jars, tiny trees, and vines growing up sticks in the corners. There were many open windows that viewed the backyard and thus couldn’t be seen well from outside, with even more plants on the sills and in wire boxes. The room was filled with the smell of outside air.
