by Sara V. Zook
“What I’ve done?” I asked, my legs clumsily following the short, pudgy woman as I tried not to trip over her.
“Oh, the queen,” Mrs. Anderson hissed. “Do tell her I said hello.”
Once on the main floor, Jillianne shut the door to the dungeon and clamped onto my arm again.
“Stop,” I said. “That hurts. I’m coming.”
She glared at me and pointed to a door on the side of the corridor. “There. Go.”
The room was very bare with a lush rug in the center and a small desk in the corner. Large windows from the floor to the ceiling were blocked out by wooden shutters.
“Wait here,” Jillianne instructed me. “And if you move …”
“What exactly are you threatening?” I asked, walking into the center of the room.
Jillianne huffed, turned on her heels and left the room.
I stared at the open door. Should I stay here? I was in trouble, but for what exactly? What was Atavia going to accuse me of? I rubbed my forehead and shut my eyes for a few seconds. Seeing Mrs. Anderson felt uncomfortably similar to what I had gone through when Emry was in prison. Instead of our bad luck ending on Earth, it had followed us to Evadere where again we were faced with a whole new group of people who didn’t want Emry and I to be together. I felt the frustration overwhelm me. I had to remain calm. I had to think things through. I didn’t know what I was up against. Everything was brand new. I couldn’t let them make me be out to be the bad guy. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes right in time to see Atavia and Ben Hanley rushing into the room, Jillianne trailing behind.
“What is the explanation for all of this?” Atavia asked.
“Tell her,” Jillianne said, her squeaky voice only increasing my agitation. “Go on,” she insisted. “Tell the queen what you were doing.”
I stared at them for a moment. Ben wasn’t looking at me directly. He was running his fingers along a piece of artwork on the wall. He was either distracted or bored. I couldn’t make up my mind which one.
“I was in the dungeon,” I said.
“Yes, yes she was.” Jillianne put her hands on her wide hips.
“Why were you there?” Atavia asked.
I sighed.
“Listen, I have guests to tend to,” Atavia began.
“By all means, please go back to what you were doing,” I said. “Tend to your guests.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. I saw a muscle on the side of her face twinge as she clenched her teeth together. “I knew you were going to be a pest.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped, shocked she was being so forward.
“Let me be perfectly blunt. I don’t like you.”
“Well, that’s obvious,” I said. “Because I’m a human.”
“Among other reasons,” she snapped. “You’re distracting my Emry.”
“Your Emry?”
She ignored me. “Why were you conversing with the prisoner?”
“Mrs. Anderson?”
“Witch Hanley,” Jillianne corrected me.
I glanced Ben’s way. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I didn’t even know she was down there,” I blurted out. “I was looking for Jo.”
“Jo?” Atavia asked, raising her eyebrows.
Anger zipped through me. She hadn’t even taken the time to know her name. “Yeah, you know, the Scave I brought along with me.”
Atavia and Jillianne glanced at each other, confusion on their faces.
“Why would she be down there? You know Emry released her at your request.” Atavia glared at me. She couldn’t stand the fact that Emry had an ounce of affection toward me.
“I just assumed that’s where she was.”
“She has a room upstairs, like you. I convinced her not to come to dinner,” Atavia confessed.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“This is my castle.” Her eyes grew dark in fury. “I do not have to ever explain myself to you.”
“Can barely stomach a human at the dinner table, let alone a human and a Scave,” Jillianne mumbled.
“If it wasn’t for Emry,” Atavia said. “You’d be in that dungeon right alongside Witch Hanley.”
I frowned. “There’s no surprise there, Atavia.”
“Queen Atavia!” Jillianne bellowed out.
I took a deep breath. “Can I go to my room now?”
Atavia folded her hands in front of her as she made an attempt not to flip out on me. “We need to have a little chat about the prisoner.”
“Why is she back here, anyway?” I asked.
“The less you know …” Atavia began, but Ben butted in.
“She’s my sister, Anna.” Ben turned toward me in a gentle voice. He wore tan pants and a matching shirt that made him seem less tense as I had only seen him in suits. “We have the same parents. That’s the only link. She’s a monster. She has done nothing but stir up Emry’s life. You saw what she did on Earth.”
“Where she was exiled …” I said.
He nodded. “You see, she and I are from the protector contributors. There aren’t many of us, but we have powers to protect royalty. She decided to use her powers to try black magic and all kinds of things she shouldn’t have gotten into. She was warned, and still she pursued works of evil and the death of royalty.”
“Why does she want to hurt Emry?” I asked, trusting him more than the other two.
He spun around and turned his back to me. “She’s just not right mentally. You know how people on Earth can become mentally sick?”
“Yeah …”
“Well, that’s how people here can become as well. She’s not right in the head. She is impulsive and at times, very out of control. She couldn’t be trusted, not here, so she was exiled to Earth. But then, somehow she found Emry there, too. I’m Emry’s protector, and my very own sister was creating havoc.”
“If you must know,” Atavia continued. “I decided Witch Hanley can’t be trusted no matter where she is. She just won’t give up. She’s so fixated on destroying Emry. We brought her back and she’s now … under investigation.”
“What does that mean exactly, under investigation?” I asked.
“I’m going back to the dining hall,” Atavia said, ignoring my question. She pointed at me with her jeweled finger. “Stay out of the dungeon. Stay out of my way,” she warned.
I watched her and Jillianne leave. Ben lingered in the room momentarily.
“I’m sure it’s a lot to take in, all of this,” he waved his arm, “Emry, the way things are,” he said quietly.
I took a deep breath. “What’s going to happen to Mrs. Anderson?”
“I don’t know yet …”
“Ben, she’s your sister. Isn’t there some part of you that wants to help her if she does have problems with her mind?”
“Like I said, Anna, we just have the same parents, that’s all. Do you want her to keep going after Emry?” he asked.
“Of course not,” I answered. “I just don’t get it.”
“There’s going to be a lot you don’t get,” he told me. “You’re going to have to learn to just let it be.” He headed toward the door. “A maidservant will be in to show you back to your room. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” With that, he was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
A few moments later, a woman entered the room. She had been the one I had seen upstairs scrubbing the floor. She had a look of terror on her face as our eyes met again, hers dark and weary. She looked to the floor as she stopped and stood in front of me.
“Are you the one supposed to escort me back to my room?” I asked, frowning.
She nodded.
I stared at her meek appearance. Who was she? Were there contributors made just to be servants of royalty? “Do you speak?” I asked her.
She shook her head quickly, no.
A mute? Surely not. Wouldn’t that be considered a defect … unless she still had powers. This woman provoked my interest. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of blo
nde hair pass by the room followed by a flirtatious laugh. Raleigh. She was probably on her little tour with Emry right now. After the evening I had just had, I knew I couldn’t stomach seeing them together. I needed to go back to my room and try to sleep off this horrible day.
“Okay. I’ll follow you,” I said, submitting to Atavia’s wishes.
The strange woman spun around and hurried out of the room. I took a deep breath and trailed behind her as she led me to the spiral staircase. We walked up the steps in silence, neither Raleigh, nor Emry fortunately in sight.
We made it to the top of the staircase when the woman rounded a corner instead of going straight. I didn’t remember this corner. This wasn’t the way to my room. I hesitated, watching the woman disappear. Uneasiness filled me as I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I saw her black beady eyes peer around the corner at me. She quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me toward her.
“What is it?” I asked.
She looked around for a moment and then pulled me into a dark, small room full of cleaning supplies. She glanced out in the hallway one more time before shutting the door.
“Why do you look so scared?”
She looked to the floor and then up into my eyes. “Are you a human?” she whispered.
My eyes widened at her words. “I thought you couldn’t talk,” I hissed.
She grabbed my arm harder this time and pulled me close. “Please, I need to know.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and jerked my arm back. “Yes, I am. I thought everyone already knew that.”
“I wanted to make sure. I’ve never seen a human before.”
“Well, here I am,” I said, all kinds of questions forming in my head about this strange woman.
“How did you get here?”
“Emry transported me …”
“No,” she interrupted. “I mean, how’d you get to the castle?”
“Oh.” I crossed my arms. “I’m lucky I got here alive. That world out there is a brutal one.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It is.”
I stared at her for a few seconds. “Why are you called the queen’s maidservant? Are there contributors that serve royalty?”
She swallowed and began playing with her fingers. “I have something I want to tell you, but I’m not sure if I should.”
My pulse began to race.
“I don’t know if I can trust you or not,” she added.
“Why wouldn’t you be able to?” I asked.
She examined my face. “Because you’re with Emry, and he’s her son. She’d kill me if she knew.”
“Atavia?”
She nodded.
“I promise you can trust me,” I said gently, trying to ease the information out of her.
She licked her lips and then flattened a stray gray curl back with her palm that had fallen into her face. “I’m a human, too.”
I gasped. “What?”
Fear filled her eyes once again as her secret had just been revealed. “Please,” she begged. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t. I won’t. How did you get here? How long have you been here?”
She nodded, realizing I was full of questions. “It took me a long, long time to figure out how I got here. For awhile, it was as if I just appeared here. It even took me some time to figure out this wasn’t Earth. It happened when I was young. I got hungry and wandered in a contributor group’s place of living. I got captured and taken here. Atavia thinks I’m a Scave.”
“Wow,” I muttered, considering what she was saying. “She thinks you’re a Scave, and she lets you live here?”
“Yes,” the woman continued. “Only because she saw how well kept I was. She assumes that contributors had taken care of me for years before being found out and that’s why I had such nice looking teeth, hair and clothes. I was too afraid as a girl to speak, and I didn’t understand what was happening, so the queen has always assumed I’m not able to speak at all. I think if it wasn’t for my appearance, she’d have killed me.”
“So all this time you’ve been her servant?”
“Yeah, I clean the castle in exchange for a nice room and food,” she replied.
“So someone from royalty had to have transported you here,” I said, thinking about how terrible her life must be, catering to Atavia.
She nodded. “Your name is Anna James?”
“Yeah.”
She gave a little smile and held out her hand. “I’m Cassie Banesberry.”
I extended my arm to shake her hand, but my knees felt weak. I wasn’t sure if I was going to pass out or not. My hands reached backwards, feeling for where the wall was so I could lean on it.
“Are you okay?” she asked, rushing to my side and helping to prop me up.
“Your name,” I managed to say. “You said Cassie Banesberry.”
Her eyebrows lowered. “They don’t know my name here. Like I said, I’ve never spoken …”
I shook my head as I was still depending on the wall for support. “No, no. You don’t understand,” I told her. “I know who you are.”
“What?” She took a few steps backwards. “How is that possible?”
I stared at the woman with her gray hair and remembered her as a little girl in the abandoned Banesberry house, a dusty picture of her and Lucas. “This is just amazing really. I met your family while doing research on Lucas. I know all about how they adopted him into the family after finding him. I even know that you disappeared after Lucas became angry. That must be when he transported you here.”
“By accident,” Cassie said. “It took me awhile to figure it all out. I had to piece bits of information I overhead through people here to understand what happened.”
I felt a little better and attempted standing once more successfully. “So Lucas Banesberry must’ve been royalty, and he must’ve been hiding from the Scaves, too, on Earth?”
She nodded. “He is a cousin of Emry’s. I’ve heard them speak of him. Like Emry, he didn’t know who he was though, didn’t understand his powers.” She paused for a moment, her face becoming tense. “Lucas was my very best friend and my brother. No one understood him like I did. I thought after I’d figured it all out, that he had transported me here, that someday he’d come back to find me, but he’s never come. And now Emry’s here. Lucas would be older like me by now. Why hasn’t he come?”
Tears filled my eyes as I could almost feel the pain Cassie had pinned up inside her all these years. I wondered how long it had taken her to figure out where she was, how she had gotten to Evadere. I wondered how long she’d been waiting for Lucas Banesberry to return and to take her back home. It was so sad.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she whispered.
I wiped a stray tear away from my cheek with the back of my hand. “He was locked away for awhile for being … you know, different. The day he was released, someone shot him. I’m so sorry you had to find out like this.” I stepped closer to the woman and hugged her. She wasn’t sure what to do, a hug being so very foreign to her as I was certain all affection was. Slowly she wrapped her arms around my back and hugged me, too.
After a few moments, Cassie stepped back, wiping her own tears away. “Thank you for telling me, Anna. I feel so sad that those things had to happen to him. They never spoke of him dying here, but I am relieved to know that he hadn’t come just because he had forgotten about me.”
“I’m sure he thought about you every day, Cassie.”
She pressed her lips together and forced a smile. “Did you see my parents? How are they?”
“I honestly think they didn’t do so well after you disappeared. It was hard on them not knowing what happened to you. I only saw your mother.”
“She’s pretty old now,” Cassie said.
I nodded. “She had been sleeping that day. I didn’t stay long. Like I said, I was just getting information on Lucas.”
“Atavia is mean,” Cassie whispered. She glanced around as if there were eyes on the walls. “She has plans for Emry t
o be king, her kind of king, one that she can control. Don’t let her push you around, because she’s going to try.”
“She’s already trying,” I told her. “Cassie Banesberry.” I shook my head in amazement. It was like I had found a piece to a very large, confusing puzzle. “Wow.”
“So glad to have met another human being.”
“I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through.”
Cassie huffed as if it were too awful to say aloud.
“I’m not sure how, but I’ll figure out a way to take you back home,” I promised.
Cassie’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
I chuckled. “You don’t think I’d leave you here, do you?”
She shrugged, eyeing me up again.
“I’m not Queen Atavia. I do have a heart.” I laughed, and Cassie laughed a little, too.
“Like I said, I’ll have to figure it out. We can’t expose your secret, that’s for sure.”
“She’d kill me if she found out I’ve lied all these years.” Cassie paused for a moment, listening. “It’s time we got you back to your room,” she said, hurrying to the door of the room and peering out in the hallway. “Please, come quickly.”
I rushed out of the little storage unit and saw the tail of Cassie Banesberry’s dress whip around the corner as she hurried toward my room.
Chapter 10
I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around myself. I felt refreshed. Even with a million things on my mind, I had managed to sleep very well last night. Emry hadn’t come to check on me, though. Raleigh’s beautiful face pounced in my mind. I frowned, then immediately tried to erase her face from my thoughts. I wasn’t going to allow jealousy to ruin my semi-good mood for the day.
There was a knock on my door.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Ms. James, dinner will be served in approximately an hour,” someone announced.
“Thank you!” I shouted, looking around the room for my clothes.
Dinner was a smaller group this time. I entered the room with my hair still damp but feeling as if all the sleep I had gotten dissolved the circles from underneath my eyes. I was famished and grinned as Emry hurried to greet me at the door. We embraced momentarily and he gave me a little peck on the cheek.
