“Kaylin, how are you?” My mother’s soft voice calmed me down.
“What happened?” I swallowed, unsure if I wanted to know the answer to my question.
She dabbed the wet cloth on my tattooed arm. I stared at each letter waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. That had never happened to anyone in
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my family before; at least I don’t think so. It was only me. Only, me.
“You were hot. Like really hot. Do you not remember?” She asked.
“No I know that. But after I was out, what happened?”
She sighed as she handed me the wet cloth, “Put this on your head.”
I nodded without complaint as she continued to dab the cloth on my arm.
“You were shivering uncontrollably. I thought maybe you were cold but when I went to touch you, I got burned, which is impossible. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
I debated whether or not I should tell her about the voices I’d been hearing, but I didn’t want her to worry any more than she already was. Especially because I didn’t want to say it out loud, you know, sound even crazier than I appear to already be.
“I have things under control.”
She laughed sarcastically and rolled her eyes, “Clearly not.” She pulled away the cloth from my arm and threw it back into the pot. “Is this what happened to you the other night? When you didn’t wake up?”
I thought about that stinging wind. It wasn’t my arm, it was something else. Something weirder, darker even. Maybe it was time that I told her about the voices. Maybe she could help me? I just wanted to handle something for once, without her. I have everything under control. At least I really thought I did.
“I’m fine, believe me.”
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I watched the blood rush to her cheeks and I heard the sound of sparks in her hand begin to sizzle. Now despite her anger, it was somewhat entertaining.
“No, you aren’t fine.” She raged. “You are definitely not fine. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on, and I know there’s something.”
Don’t…
Are you kidding me? Right at this moment in time when I was arguing with my mother? Even the voice was back, it felt distant. It came and went with the winds. Just like that. Shake it off, just shake it off Kaylin.
“If there was something wrong, I would tell you. I don’t need help, mom.” I stood up holding my arm.
“You’re telling me this is normal?” She asked, irritated.
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. She shut her eyes and moved away from me, placing all the pots to one side. I felt bad for lying, but I honestly just didn’t want to get anyone else involved. I didn’t know what I was dealing with and if anyone in my family got hurt because of me, I wouldn’t know what to do. I already lost my father, I wasn’t about to lose someone else.
And to be fair, I was just as confused as my mother was. I wanted to apologize to her, to talk to her but I could tell that my mom wanted me to leave her alone. She was just trying to help and I knew that, but I had already pissed her off.
Besides, a thought kept creeping in my mind, nagging me over and over again. Who was Nate? It just didn’t add up. In seventeen years, no one had ever come to our sector to give us an offering. I forced myself to my
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feet, sitting down in my confusion would get me nowhere. I walked past the fire to look for Devon and heard knives clanging together as he got dressed behind the passageway.
“You clothed?” I asked as I approached the corner.
Devon came out from the shadows in full gear; knife belt, black boots, black pants and a ripped long sleeve.
“You’re alive.” He replied, fiddling with the four knives in his belt.
“You’re hunting?” I questioned.
He tightened the black leather strap around his waist and turned to face me, irritated. “Start worrying about yourself, Kaylin. Mom was the only one worried at first, but you bet your ass you got me worried too. Sure, I tease you and all, but I’ll never be fine knowing you aren’t.” He paused for a brief moment and let out a breath. “You sure you’re okay?”
I looked down and scratched my arm. He was right. I wasn’t doing anyone good by acting like I knew what was going on, because I didn’t. I was confused, nervous, anxious, curious, any possible feeling out there. Like I said, I just want to keep as many people out of this as possible. I didn’t know what this even was, so maybe it was nothing. Always telling yourself bullshit Kaylin.
“Actually, don’t answer that. I know you aren’t.” He turned his back to me.
“Can I go hunting with you?” I asked knowing the answer.
His eyes widened, exposing a shimmery golden glow from within his pupils. “You’re kidding, right?”
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I shook my head. I don’t exactly know why I asked to go with him, but I did love hunting. I haven’t been since three days prior to this madness and I needed a distraction. “I don’t see why I can’t go with you, Devon. I always go with you.”
“Yeah, when you were actually sane and not... well...this,” he pointed to my arm. “You’re not coming, not today.” He moved towards the end of the passageway that led to the Grean Forest.
I decided that it was time to be honest about my true intentions and tell him what I really wanted. Maybe this wasn’t the time, but I needed to know. I needed to find Nate. Gathering up any sort of confidence that remained, I opened my mouth. “I don’t want to hunt.” I admitted.
His eyes squinted with confusion, “Then why do you want to come?”
I inhaled deeply. “I want to see Nate.”
His eyes grew wider than I had ever seen before and his cheeks flushed red. Here we go. I could already read his thoughts. He was speechless for a few minutes, trying to find the right words to curse me with before closing his mouth again.
“No.” He finally said. That’s it? I’m impressed.
He pushed through the hanging vines that separated our sector from the forest and proceeded through the passageway. I tried to protest and follow him but he shot back instantly. “Don’t even think about following me. Tell mom I’ll be back soon.”
And just like that, he was gone.
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I made my way back to the sector carrying a mixture of heavy emotions. I was disappointed, yes, but also pretty surprised. Devon doesn’t even like going hunting alone, so I don’t really understand what made him so tense.
Find, Clans…
Violently, I whipped around to face the passageway. The voice seemed to whisper in my ear over and over again the exact same thing. The chills that ran down my spine as it said these things were unexplainable; I just wanted it to stop. Whatever this was, it wanted something that I couldn’t provide, no matter how much I wanted to. I truly myself didn’t know what I could do to stop it. I didn’t know what it wanted and even if I wanted to find out, I couldn’t. The voice was invisible.
I found my mother sewing a blanket with Annabelle and Mable by her side. Had to bring it up that her son abandoned me and she let it happen.
“Devon wanted me to tell you he’s coming back soon.” I said, picking up a pair of sticks and throwing them in the fire.
She looked up, puzzled. “Coming back soon? He went somewhere?”
I faced her with confusion. Did Devon not tell her he was going hunting? What? Okay, I must not be the only one going insane. If there was one thing mom burned in our brains it was to never leave without her permission. We could be 78 and that will always be the rule of thumb. Hm, that wasn’t like him. “Yeah, he’s out hunting?”
She stood up, dropping the sticks and fabric in her hand. “He didn’t tell me. I should go looking for him. I’ll be back.”
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I grabbed hold of my mom’s wrist before she entered the passageway to exit our sector. As I extended it, I noticed my arm starting to twitch. The same heat emanated from my arm and began to burn.
“Mom, he’ll be all right. He’s been hunting a million times before.”
“Can you stop saying everything is all right Kaylin. I’ve had enough with your fines and all rights. Some things aren’t just all right.”
I let her go and stepped back. I knew the boundaries that I crossed and that was not something I was about to overstep. She held her gaze on me for a few seconds before turning around to grab her gear. A rustling from the passageway interrupted her movement as Devon emerged from the vines with a squirrel. That was the quickest hunting trip I think he had ever been on. He had only been gone around three minutes. Unless time stood still, I don’t think he had ever been that fast.
“You.” My mother pointed her bony index finger at Devon, setting aside the fact that if I hadn’t told her Devon left she probably would’ve never known.“You can’t just go off without my permission, Devon.”
My mother began yelling at Devon frantically, as if he had just murdered an innocent child. Everything looked like a fast pace vision of her throwing sparks everywhere while he just stood and watched, saying nothing. I was trying my best to listen, or even chime in to these insults before my head started to hurt, and everything became hazy grey.
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Clans, find…
I sucked in the breath I was holding and didn’t release it for any moment. Every breath felt precious, reminding me that I was still alive and this voice hasn’t come out to attack me yet. I just wanted to yell at the top of my lungs. WHAT DO YOU WANT?
The skin caging the bones in my arm started to burn again. When would this end. I tried to control it, to control the pain. Closing my eyes, I bit hard on my bottom lip. How do I escape you?
I’ll stop when you start…
At this point, I didn’t need to look at a reflection of myself. I knew I went pale. It was as though it had heard what I was thinking, like it was connected to my thoughts. I collapsed behind the tree stump, listening to my mother yelling frantically at Devon. I threw my head back and tried to gather all of my thoughts. I was exhausted and done, done trying to figure this out.
These voices made no sense to me. I can admit that I was slightly afraid now, but for the most part, curious. I just wanted to know why the hell it wouldn’t leave me alone. Let’s lay out the facts: Fire burned me, which is downright impossible. A mysterious Nate came to our sector to give us a what? A peace offering? Could these two things be connected?
I tuned every sound out as the sky started to fade into dark purple. I couldn’t live like this, I really couldn’t. I needed to start somewhere; these voices wouldn’t stop until I did, and that I was sure of. I would kill myself if I had to live with constant arm burns for the rest of my life. My first plan of action was to find Nate. I was determined. I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t help the voices and I
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didn’t know what was wrong with my arm, so I had to investigate this mystery. The only thing that I could take complete control of was finding Nate. Still sitting behind the tree, I turned around to look at Devon handing out pots of freshly boiled squirrel to my family. I swallowed once as he focused on me, carrying a plate of meat towards where I was sitting.
“Hey,” he smiled at me. “Sorry for being rude earlier.”
“It’s fine.” I took the pot of meat, and invited him to sit down beside me, planning out every word I was about to say.
“You know, mom wants you to come eat with her. To check on you I’m guessing.” He took bites of squirrel as he turned to look back at our family.
“Mom and I haven’t been on the best of terms,” I let out.
“And whose fault is that.” He smirked sarcastically.
“Shut up, Devon.” I took another bite of the squirrel and relaxed my muscles. “I’ve just been stressed I guess.”
“You know I’m joking.” We were both silent for a few moments before he broke the silence again, “How come you asked to find Nate?”
I placed the pot of meat to my side and turned my body to face him, thinking that maybe we were finally getting somewhere considering he asked about Nate. I wanted to play it easy before I blurted it all out. “I just found it weird that he randomly showed up here, you know? I just want to see what’s going on.”
“I see.” He placed his pot aside.
“Did he say anything?”
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“Yeah, he said, here’s some seasoning.” Funny. He started to laugh before he realized I really wasn’t amused, even though I sort of was.
“I’m serious.” I said.
He pulled out a small beige cloth and handed it to me. “He gave me this. I didn’t understand it. Good luck trying to figure it out.” He took the pot in his hands and began to eat again.
I scrunched my eyebrows and unravelled the folded cloth, scanning the piece of fabric. There were words written in black ink. They were messy, but readable.
Impossible Maybe not
Huh, that’s weird. That gave me absolutely nothing. But... maybe it did.
Impossible maybe not. What could he have been referring to? There were only a few possibilities: A way to kill us despite our strong threshold? Possible. A way to see us without triggering us to kill? Possible. Or.
A way out of the Labyrinth.
All these were very irrational guesses, but my mind drifted to that one. An escape. It was the only thing I could think of that made actual sense, but then again, not a lot of things did make sense. If it was anything else, I would have no clue. But this situation, there was more to it. I needed to try and find him, I couldn’t not know what was going on. This was a hint, a clue that maybe the voice was just trying to lead me to. Although, that voice was pretty stupid for having given this hint to Devon.
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“Did you even try to decode this?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing the entire day?” He replied with a mouthful of meat.
An unforced grin formed ear to ear on my face and I knew I had to say it. It was time. “Let’s go look for him.”
I watched his eyes narrow down at me, “I already told you Kaylin, no. Way too dangerous. In all honesty, I’m surprised he even had the guts to come in our sector.”
“You’re just afraid of mom.”
“That,” he rolled his eyes, “And dying.”
“Perfect.” I stood up ignoring his sarcasm, “Let’s leave when everyone’s asleep.”
He didn’t speak.
“Come on, Devon. This could actually mean something.” I waved the cloth in his face. As much as I wanted to do this alone, I knew I couldn’t. It would be a suicide mission. Hey, maybe I should do it alone. Don’t be stupid Kaylin, be selfish for once.
“What’s with you? We could die, don’t you realize that? Plus, an Enchanted can pick up even the slightest bit of noise remember? We wouldn’t even make it to the passageway without waking up mom.”
So there was logic behind his excuse. He did have a point. Not only was there mom, but Annabelle and Mable. Yet, I had an idea and I knew that it would work, and that was for certain. There was a spell that we use to use to sneak away from the sector when we were younger. It sort of inflicted some type of heavy heat wave that made everyone unconscious. “We could use a spell?” I asked.
He shook his head, moving away as he got up. “No way in hell that’s happening.”
Seriously.
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“We’ve done it before.”
I could tell that he was thinking about it because he just looked at me without saying a word. I didn’t know what else I could do if Devon didn’t agree to go with me. There was a reason Nate came here, and a reason why he gave Devon this note. There was always a reason for everything.
He let out a long, exasperated sigh, “So let’s just say we get past mom. We don’t even know where the Coperton clan is.”
“We could use the spell t
o-,”
He stopped me. “It won’t work on their ground. We’re weak there, and they’re strong. Plus, I’m not about to look at another Enchanted. It’ll be too hard. It’s a risk neither of us are taking.”
He started to walk away from me, dusting off the dirt on his leg. I couldn’t just live like this, I couldn’t. Sure it affected me more than anyone else, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I didn’t do something now, something bad would follow. I thought about the voices and my arm. This wasn’t the life I wanted for myself and I knew that I would go on my own if I had to. I grabbed at his shoulder and pulled him back.
“Do you really want to be stuck in The Labyrinth? This could be a way out, Devon, an opportunity for something different. I can tell you what’s going on with me, but, just trust me.”
His eyebrows flew up but he stood there in silence, soaking in all the blackmail I was about to ensue.
“We can use the spell around the premises, right? It’s not considered their ground yet. It’ll work. We can sneak through, find Nate, and take him back.” I said.
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I knew Devon thought about it, he knew it would work. I learned the fire spell from Devon; it was practically his own to teach me.
He shook his head and opened his mouth, “I’m really going to regret this.” He shot me a dirty look, “Don’t look at the clan’s faces. We get in, grab Nate, and get out.”
All the imaginary people in my head shot up with joy. I wanted to scream in happiness, knowing I actually got somewhere. I shot Devon a huge smile and pulled his body in for a hug.
“We’ll leave when they’re asleep. I’ll do the spell and wake you up. Got it?” He asked firmly.
Enchanted: The Labyrinth Page 3
