The Council

by Phoenix Willow

  Not wanting to linger at the table in the white section any longer, Jewel walked over to the table in the gray and found the label, ‘lives ruined by Gertrude’s actions’. Jewel’s jaw dropped. There were at least a thousand notecards with names and descriptions written out, detailing how Gertrude had ruined their life. Jewel read through a dozen or so and could feel her anger building. It was one thing to know how evil Gertrude was, but another entirely to see firsthand just how many individuals she had hurt in some way. Shaking her head, Jewel made her way to the third and final table that was in the black painted section. Jewel’s emotions were all over the place. She felt disgusted by the woman who had ‘raised’ her, angry that Gertrude had been able to get away with so much for so long, saddened for the individuals who had either lost their life, a loved one, their freedom, or had been irrevocably changed through the hurt and pain Gertrude had caused them.

  The table in the black painted section of the room was different than the first two. This one didn’t have dozens, hundreds, or thousands of notecards. Instead it had one simple envelope that was addressed to her. Jewel picked up the envelope tentatively, turned it over, and broke the wax seal. Taking a deep breath, she took the contents, eyes widening as she read over it.

  “Holey buckets, what have I gotten myself into?” Jewel asked herself as she flipped the letter over only to find nothing else was written on the back. “I’ve got to be missing something here. Okay, Jewel, think.” She said to herself as she began to read the contents of the letter out loud, hoping to puzzle the whole thing together. “Alright, let’s start at the beginning again. Here goes nothing-” She said, taking a deep breath. “-Gertrude has done heinous things, it’s true. So I ask you to decide just what you would do. If given the choice, which one would you choose? To forgive and move on is one choice to make or would Gertrude’s life you’d elect to take? Not much time to decide which one but choose wisely because the choice cannot be undone. Now, be truthful and choose, if you lie you will lose.”

  Jewel slammed the note on the table, frustration bubbling to the forefront. “Great. Just great. More cryptic messages. More riddles to try and work through.” Looking up at the ceiling, Jewel began to yell. “You know, if you wanted to just have a conversation about how evil Gertrude is that would have been okay. No need to go to all these lengths for little old me. I mean, come on. What kind of ridiculous stuff is this anyway? Who am I to choose one way or the other on someone else’s life?” She stomped her foot and folded her arms across her chest.

  “You are the one from the prophecy, and you are either the future unifier or destroyer of worlds.” A disembodied voice with a slight unrecognizable accent stated. Jewel jumped a bit as she hadn’t actually been expecting to hear anything back from her rant.

  “Uh…..o-kay. And who exactly are you?” Jewel asked as she looked around the room, to the ceiling, and back around the room again. “And where exactly am I in relation to where you are?”

  A deep chuckle emerged. “I am one of your judges for all intents and purposes. I am one in a group that will either pass or fail you in these three tasks before you. This is the first, and unfortunately, this will be the only one that I am able to assist you with. You need only verbally give your answer or choice. But heed the message well because we will know if you are being honest. Good luck Sovereign. I for one am rooting for you to pass.”

  Jewel ran her hand through her dark locks. “Well, that definitely didn’t answer all of my questions.” She picked up the note again and furrowed her brow. “Which one will I choose? That’s the question of the hour. Which one?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Council

  After what seemed like hours, Jewel was still in limbo as to which choice she should make. Based on the cryptic message, Jewel knew that there was a time limit on this choice she had to make and Jewel knew she couldn’t let it expire- whatever the time limit might be- but she also knew she couldn’t rush the decision. She paced back and forth, revisiting the two tables with the notecards and the names of individuals that Gertrude had either killed or hurt. There were so many, and Jewel couldn’t help but feel that the world or worlds would be better off if Gertrude wasn’t in the picture. But on the flip side of that, was that the right choice or Jewel’s own personal experience clouding her judgement?

  “Decisions, decisions…….” Jewel muttered to herself. “O-kay, let’s figure out the pros and cons to each scenario because I can’t stay in this tri-colored room forever. If I forgive Gertrude, how does that help render justice to all the families and individuals that she’s hurt? I can’t bring back the dead and I can’t heal injuries. I certainly can’t help to make their lives better when my own is in shambles, so what does forgiving really do? But I also can’t allow bitterness and anger to rule my decision making either or I’ll be no better than Gertrude.” She reasoned, thinking back on how Gertrude had allowed her own anger to create the monster she was today. “But if I took her out of the picture, if she was dead, she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else ever again. She wouldn’t be able to add to the already obscenely long list of names on these tables. So, pro for killing Gertrude would be protecting anyone she might hurt or kill in the future. But at what cost to me? Would it make me no better than her, because again, who am I to choose whether she should live or die. And if I forgive her then it releases me of my anger but does very little else to rectify the emotional and physical wounds she has caused.”

  Jewel was stuck in a perpetual philosophical debate with herself. There were valid points and arguments for both decisions, but there were also flaws with both. One did nothing to prevent Gertrude from hurting anyone else, and the other just seemed excessive and wrong. It wasn’t as though Jewel hadn’t thought about killing Gertrude before, and she had used her pain manipulation powers on her, but this was different. This wasn’t in the moment and try as she might to block any sympathy for the woman out, Jewel couldn’t help but remember watching Gertrude’s heart be broken and hardened with Shade’s betrayal and lies.

  Taking a deep breath, Jewel knew what she had to do. She hoped that whoever these judges were, that they would listen to her reasoning and that, like the room she was standing in, would be open to the area of gray.

  “I’m ready to choose now.” Jewel began, pausing for a moment. “But I don’t choose either of these options. If I forgive her and do nothing else, it’s an injustice for the wrongs that Gertrude has committed. She must be held accountable for her actions. And if I kill her, how will she be able to pay for what she’s done? She’s hurt me in ways no one could imagine, but she did so out of her own hurt, so doesn’t she deserve some sort of mercy and understanding? If not, how could I be any better than the monster she’s become?”

  Jewel stopped pacing. “So, this is my decision. If given the choice and opportunity for what to do with Gertrude, I would strip her of her powers, have her listen to every account of wrongs she’s done so the one’s she’s hurt can gain some sort of closure, and then find somewhere to lock her up so that she can’t hurt anyone ever again. Now, I realize that there is always the possibility that she could escape, but I just don’t feel right in saying she has to die. Whether that makes me crazy or a fool, I don’t know, and before I saw the deepest, darkest secrets of her mind, I might have chosen the killing option. But now, now, I can’t bring myself to do it. So, that’s my choice and my reasoning behind it.”

  Jewel waited in anticipation to see what would happen. Minutes passed by and the anxiety of not knowing was starting to overwhelm Jewel, so she breathed a sigh of relief when a new disembodied voice said, “Pass”.

  A door that hadn’t been in the room previously appeared in the gray painted wall and opened ever so slightly. Jewel took that as a sign that she was supposed to see what was behind it and that was fine with her because the tri-tone paint job had her wanting nothing more than a splash of color- any color.

  But that desire changed the very instant she stepped through th
e door, and then all Jewel wanted was to turn back around and run in the opposite direction. Chaos had overrun whatever reality this was that Jewel was now stuck in, and it was chock full of destruction and madness. There was a broken sign that read Weatheropolis, but what Jewel saw before her was nothing like she remembered. There were no trees, no grass, the buildings were dilapidated, and the businesses were all shut down. The weather itself was gray and dismal which matched the expressions of everyone rushing by. There were no smiles, no laughter, just absolute despair. Jewel’s empath abilities were in overdrive as she took upon the feelings of everyone around her. There was fear, anger, depression, and an overall sense of hopelessness as entire groups passed by. More than once, she attempted to talk to those around her and see what had happened, but it was as if they couldn’t see her. Almost like Jewel didn’t exist.

  Jewel roamed around for a while, watching as more and more groups appeared to be trying to get away from something. And the further she walked- the more chaos ensued. Fireballs erupted, tornados formed, and the very earth quaked and split in multiple areas. Everyone was screaming and running for their lives at this point, only Jewel was running in the opposite direction, running towards some unknown danger so that she could try and help.

  Jewel’s dual reality was getting more skewed by the moment. In the deep recesses of her mind, she knew this was just another test, but that didn’t amount to a hill of beans to her at this point. Her senses were telling her that everyone around her was real. It all felt too real. The further in to Weatheropolis Jewel went, the more she realized that she was in a warzone. Dead bodies of the citizens of this once beautiful city began showing up sparsely, but the closer she got to the center of the melee, the more she saw the fighting and death first-hand. She wanted to use her powers to help, but Alani had made it clear that all she could use were her empath powers, which weren’t very helpful when it came to a fight against the Elements.

  And then just as she reached the thick of things, everything around her froze. Jewel glanced around not understanding what had happened when she was clearly not the one using her Keeper of Tempus powers. She didn’t see anyone who could have been responsible, but that was probably because none of what she was seeing was actually real, or maybe it was because everything was fading to black. Everything except a path that was now illuminated and that reminded Jewel of a walkway at a movie theatre.

  Jewel walked down the path until she reached an open door. As soon as she stepped inside, lights came on and her heart all but stopped. There were two cages. On her left was a cage filled with at least a dozen children, and on her right was a cage that held someone she cared about deeply.

  “How…how are you here? You’re supposed to be safe. You’re supposed to be back in Faeville!” Jewel sputtered, her mind not able to comprehend the fact that Frost was there.

  Frost said nothing back, but his gunmetal eyes showed a sadness and a sense of acceptance over his fate. Jewel tried desperately to yank open the cage door, but it wasn’t budging. She tried kicking it, tried picking the lock, and wound up punching at the cage, purely out of frustration.

  Some of the children in the next cage had begun to cry, and Jewel felt her heart being pulled apart. She had to get Frost out, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that the children needed to escape too.

  Looking back at Frost, Jewel yelled, “Snap out of it, Snowman. I need your help. Is there a key or anything to help get you out of here? My powers are a no-go so I need you to help me. Can you use yours?”

  Frost shook his head, but grabbed Jewel’s hand at the same time, using his thumb to caress it before intertwining his fingers with hers. He lifted her hand up to his lips and gave it a tender kiss before letting her hand go and nodding towards the table at the back of the room that Jewel hadn’t noticed. Jewel went to the table and found another envelope addressed to her. Same as the last time in the tri-toned painted room.

  She wasted no time opening it, hoping to find a key, but instead she found yet another message containing a choice she had to make. “Free one or several, no time to waste, you can’t save all, so please make haste.” Jewel reread the note, making sure she hadn’t missed anything before balling the paper up and hurling it in frustration. “I can’t choose between Snowman and the children. They are all innocent. Whoever’s set up this whole thing is insane, because this choice is no choice at all. I have to try and save everyone.” She said to herself, hurrying back to both cages and trying anything and everything she could to make them open. The children were begging her to save them, and then there was Snowman who watched with such an air of acceptance that Jewel was finding more and more infuriating by the moment.

  “Don’t you dare give up, Snowman. Or should I use Rain’s nickname for you and call you Snowball or Snowflake, because the Snowman I know would be doing everything he could to get out.” Jewel shouted, hoping to gain some sort of response from him, but she got nothing of the sort.

  “You can’t save everyone, Gem.” Frost said softly. “You’ll never be able to save us all and that is something you will have to come to terms with sooner or later. You will be forced to choose who to save at some point. What will you do?” He asked, cocking his head to the side. “Will you choose to save me and leave all those kids to die in that cage, or will you save the kids and give them a chance at life? Here’s the question you must ask yourself……is one life worth more than a dozen? I think you know the answer already, Gem. But you can’t let anger and resentment eat away at you either after it’s all said and done. You have to be okay with not being able to save everyone and you have to be able to rejoice when you are.” He stated.

  “But I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you.” Jewel cried. “How can I choose to leave you behind when a piece of my heart will be left too?” She sniffed, knowing what the right thing to do was but having a really hard time accepting it. “I don’t want to choose. I don’t want to be the one who has to make choices like this.”

  “But you are, and you must choose now.” Frost said simply. “And I stand behind you with your decision, and my feelings for you won’t ever change.” He said, giving a sad smile.

  “I’m so sorry.” Jewel said, tears running down her face. She closed her eyes, her heart shattering despite the whole scenario merely being a test. She let out a guttural cry before opening her eyes and screaming through the tears, “I choose to free the kids.”

  “Pass.” A disembodied voice said in monotone.

  Jewel felt the anger building up within her, but it was replaced by surprise and fear as the floor beneath her feet dropped and she along with it. She began to free-fall as a new scene formed in front of her. She was back in the desert-like world of Jinnia, only this time there was someone crying out for help in the distance. Jewel ran towards the voice, climbing up and over a dune only to find a familiar woman with golden locks and light brown eyes covered with blood and bite marks.

  “Jewel. Jewel. I’m so sorry about Winter. I didn’t mean to. Please help me. Please, Jewel.” Ella pleaded.

  Jewel felt her heart hardening as she looked upon the one responsible for Winter’s death. Jewel took an involuntary step backwards, and Ella reached out with her arm.

  “Please, Jewel. I know I can’t ever undo what I did, but please don’t leave me to die. There’s water over there, barely a cup, and it’s all the water that’s left in Jinnia. But please, it will help save me. I’ll die if I don’t drink it, but I can’t move. Please help me Jewel. Please.” Ella begged, her light brown eyes watery with her unshed tears.

  Jewel walked over and gingerly took the water and held it. Ella had said this was the last water in Jinnia, and it was one of the ingredients she needed in order to make the potion to save her Dad. Jewel looked at Ella, the woman that had killed the only mother-like figure Jewel had ever known, and she thought of her Dad and the possibility of finally getting to know him.

  Again, Jewel’s emotions were all over the place and her heart was breaking. It wasn�
�t fair that she was having to make the choice. It wasn’t fair that she was always having to put other’s ahead of her own wants and desires, but as Ella’s eyes began to roll back in her head and her body began to twitch, Jewel knew she couldn’t wait. Rushing over she poured the life-saving water into Ella’s mouth, making sure that she swallowed every drop.

  Once all the water was out of the cup, Jewel threw it aside, looked up at the sky, and let out a guttural cry. She was mentally spent and felt like her heart had taken too much of a beating within the last two scenarios.

  “Pass.” The same disembodied voice stated in an almost bored tone, but Jewel couldn’t bring herself to care. Her emotions were all over the place and her mind was reeling.

  It didn’t matter that everything she had gone through had just been a test. It didn’t matter that in real life, Frost was back in Faeville safe and sound. All that mattered in that moment was that Jewel had been put through Hell. Absolute Hell, and Jewel had every intention of bringing some of that same Hell to whoever it was that had devised the tests to begin with.