Forged by Greed

by Angela Orlowski-Peart

  “Listen,” Penelope said to Erik with her mind, her mental guard up. “What’s going on with Jatred?”

  “Meaning?” He clearly didn’t want to elaborate.

  “When I saw him with Savannah today, I told him that he must talk with Jasmira. That it wasn’t her fault. Amber tricked her. She made Jasmira take that Amulet. Jasmira would never hurt Jatred. She really had no clue what she was doing.”

  “And? What did he say?”

  “That he doesn’t remember her at all.”

  Erik didn’t answer for a moment, frowning.

  “Don’t you think that’s weird?” Penelope asked.

  “After that fight with the Garhanan in Winter Realm, Crystal removed all the memories about Jasmira from Jatred’s mind. Bogdan and his folks met up with Jatred and his uncle this morning and brainstormed over how this was even possible.”

  “But he remembers everyone else?” Penelope arched her brows in surprise.

  “Yeah. He actually does. But the whole things is so messed up—now he also knows some stuff that he’s never heard before. Bogdan’s folks say this is called mind transposition.”

  “What?” Penelope shrieked with her mind.

  “I know, it’s super freaky. They say, when Crystal erased these memories, she left some information about the ten-thousand-year mark or something like that. By accident—”

  “Wait, Jasmira told me about this stuff. You guys really need to see her. This is all super weird, trust me. At first I thought she was making it all up. But no, it’s true. It’s… geez. Maybe we all can figure things out together.”

  “I don’t think Jatred’ll come.” Erik shot her a quick glance. “There is no talking to him. We tried—”

  “I’ll talk to him,” she interrupted, picking up speed to catch up to Jatred and Bogdan.

  Erik grabbed her arm and said, “No, wait. When we get to Subway and sit down, you can try to talk to him. Not now. I don’t want him to get pissed and storm off. He’s been acting weird since that fight in the Realm.”

  Penelope frowned and nodded in agreement.

  “It must be weird to have your brain ransacked.” Erik said, his face solemn. He put his arm around Penelope and managed a half smile. “You’re soaking wet.”

  “So are you. Haven’t you noticed it’s raining?” She leaned close to him.

  CHAPTER 33

  Human World, November 17, late afternoon.

  “No. Look, we all tried to convince him, but he won’t come.” Penelope said in a hushed voice, holding a cell phone to her ear. “No, sorry, we—” Her hand flew up, fingers splayed, her jaw clenching and unclenching. She slapped her thigh in frustration, listening to Jasmira’s voice on the phone, and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Erik stood a few feet away, pretending not to listen. He glanced at Penelope and shuffled his feet. She motioned to him to get closer.

  “You can ask Erik. He’s right here with me.” She paused, listening to Jasmira.

  Erik looked at her expectantly, but she only shook her head, sighed deeply, and said to the phone, “Okay. I will see you soon.”

  She put the phone in her pocket and looked at Erik. “Come on. Let’s go back to the table to finish our sandwiches. I’m starving.”

  They walked inside the small Subway shop. The rest of the Winter kids sat at the far table in the corner, talking and laughing. Each of them bought two foot-long sandwiches stuffed with meat and vegetables. Most had already devoured the first sub, getting ready to start on the second.

  Georgeta talked animatedly about something, everyone’s eyes on her. They all burst out laughing, and Lusia covered her mouth, coughing. Bogdan patted her on the back. Jatred smiled, but it was clear his mood wasn’t as care-free as his friends’. He looked up and saw Erik and Penelope walking to the table. His smile disappeared. He put his sandwich down and looked out the window. It was already dark. The heavy rain that drenched everything in sight before had become an annoying drizzle.

  Penelope watched Jatred. She sat down across from him and picked up half of her sandwich. Bits of shredded lettuce and tomato slid from it to the wrapper spread on the table. Jatred returned her glance, his eyes troubled. Penelope managed a half-smile and turned to Georgeta.

  “What did you get?” she asked.

  “Chicken teriyaki with a bunch of onions and stuff,” Georgeta said through mouthful of food. “Oh, and the egg and bacon one. You?”

  “I got chicken teriyaki too. It’s the best. And I got Big Philly. But I’m not sure I can eat it all. I’m not so hungry.”

  “Take it to go then. You’ll be hungry later. I always am.” Georgeta laughed. She held a plastic tumbler with water in her hand.

  “She eats as much as I do. And that says something.” Erik grinned, his eyes on his sister.

  “Liar. Nobody eats as much as you.”

  “What was that?” Lusia shrieked, pushing her chair back. A few human customers looked up in alarm.

  Penelope glared at Lusia and tsked impatiently. They all felt it at once—the ground under their feet rolled. The lamps hanging from the ceiling swayed and flickered. A tower of plastic cups fell from the counter and landed on the floor. The cups rolled in all directions. Everyone rushed outside, the chairs scraping the floor, food abandoned on the tables. People yelled and gasped, trying to get through the door. Erik put his arm protectively around Penelope, dragging her with him. He turned back to find Georgeta. She followed closely behind with the rest of the Winter kids. The last to exit were the store employees. Their faces were distorted with horror.

  When they got outside, the shaking stopped, but everyone stood motionless, waiting for the aftershocks.

  “Earthquake? Was that a real earthquake?” Lusia gasped, holding onto Bogdan’s arm.

  “Looks like it was,” he said.

  “Did you hear about the other earthquakes on the news? In Alaska and in Mexico they just had a really big one.” A short heavy-set woman in her late thirties stood next to them, clutching a red purse in her arms.

  The kids looked at her. Some shook their heads. One of the store employees—a lanky teenager with a bad case of acne said, “They say we’re due an earthquake. It’s been a while and, you know, this is Seattle… we get earthquakes sometimes.”

  “Let’s go home.” Lusia looked at Bogdan, pleading.

  “Yeah, we should—” he started to say, but his cell phone shrilling interrupted him.

  Georgeta’s cell phone rang too, followed by Penelope’s. Each of the teens got their phones out. Lusia’s phone was next. She squealed, startled, and took it out of her purse. Everyone started talking on their phones, calming down their worried parents. Erik noticed Penelope was shaking. He wrapped his arms around her and said, “Where is your jacket? Let’s get out of here.”

  “Guys, listen.” Georgeta waved madly at everyone, her phone pressed to her ear. “Dad says Kilimanjaro erupted too. It’s all over the news.”

  “It’s a dormant volcano! It has never erupted before.” Lusia whispered incredulously.

  “Erik, I want to go home now.” Georgeta looked at her brother, her lips trembling.

  “This is not a coincidence. It’s starting to happen,” Jatred whispered to no one in particular. His eyes narrowed.

  “Bro, what’s starting to happen?” Bogdan asked.

  Jatred looked at his friend. “Do you remember what your parents said about mind transposition?”

  “Yeah…” Bogdan said slowly.

  “This just popped into my head, just like the stuff before. The ten-thousand-year mark is when crazy things happen, like the volcanoes, even the dormant ones, erupt. And a bunch of earthquakes and floods—”

  Lusia shrieked, “You’re freaking me out. You sound like some kind of a nutcase prophet.”

  “Lusia, calm down. He’s right. That’s what my folks said this morning. I’ll tell you more later,” said Bogdan.

  “I’m getting my jacket.” Penelope turned around.

  “Stay here
with Erik, I’ll get it.” Jatred stopped her and walked toward the Subway door.

  “Jatred,” Penelope called after him. “You don’t remember this, but you were crazy about her. Try to think about it. Don’t just dismiss it only because it’s not in your memories. Just sayin’.”

  He looked hard at her. “We all need to go home now.”

  ***

  “Andy! Come here.” Bogdan’s mother’s voice carried a note of panic. “Look at this.”

  Andy crossed the room in a few long strides and stood behind Ivona. She sat in an armchair. He put his hands on her shoulders, his eyes on the TV screen.

  A young handsome announcer stood in front of the camera. A massive smoking mountain was visible on the horizon behind him. His stylish black Armani coat was covered in gray ash, and so was his hair. He pointed with his hand toward the volcano, holding the microphone in his other hand. Without taking his eyes of the camera, he spoke in fast Italian. The translation on the screen appeared right below his image. It read, “Although considered an active volcano, Mount Vesuvius hasn’t erupted since March 1944. The volcano has been in a quiescent stage until today. The scientists are puzzled over today’s eruption since there was no indication of any major activity. As you can see,” he gestured around, “there is a lot of ash even here, over thirty kilometers away. The evacuation plan is being executed…”

  “First the earthquake here, then Kilimanjaro, and now this?” Andy muttered.

  Ivona put her hands over his and said, “Plus those two major earthquakes today, in Alaska, and the other in Mexico. Much bigger than what we had in Seattle. It’s the ten-thousand-year mark, isn’t it? There will be more. Much more.”

  Andy sighed heavily. He kept his eyes on the TV screen. When she looked up, he met her gaze and nodded. “I’m afraid so. There are all kinds of natural disasters happening almost daily all over the planet, but never in such concentration. Not all at once, all over the world. This must be the ten-thousand-year mark. It just started earlier than we have always anticipated.”

  They heard the front door open and close.

  “Mom, Dad, I’m home.” Bogdan yelled. He walked into the family room.

  “Oh good, you’re here. We were so worried. Look, Mount Vesuvius erupted,” his mother said.

  “What? Mount Vesuvius?” Bogdan sat on the floor close to Ivona’s armchair. She leaned forward and put her hand on his head, gently caressing his hair.

  “Mom, stop.” Bogdan jerked his head away, and moved closer to the TV. He sat on his heels, his damp t-shirt stretched over his upper back and shoulders.

  A local anchor of King 5 News station—a young blond woman in her late twenties—cautiously smiled at the camera. She talked about the earthquakes in Seattle, Alaska and near Acapulco, Mexico, elaborating on these unexpected occurrences. She paused, pressing her hand to an earpiece in her ear, and the smile disappeared from her face. The woman nodded and frowned, her eyes moving rapidly as if searching for something on the table in front of her. Finally, she looked at the camera and said, “We have just received another important broadcast, this time from China. We will interrupt our news to give you these updates.”

  The camera showed a middle-aged man in thick glasses, with receding dark curly hair. He clutched a large microphone with the King 5 News station logo on in one hand, and a big black umbrella in his other hand. Strong wind tugged on his coat and the umbrella.

  Nervously clearing his throat, the man said, “At least twenty-two hundred people were killed, and more than four thousand were injured by a series of extremely strong tornados and a severe hailstorm that swept over Hainan Province today. Thousands of homes are destroyed, and the torrential rain has continued for the last several hours.”

  The reporter squinted and continued, “We are waiting for some feedback from the meteorologists about this unusual and unpredicted turn in the weather conditions. Until then, back to you, Amy.”

  The phone rang and Ivona sighed. “It’s been like this for the last hour. Everyone’s calling here, thinking we know what’s going on.” She stood up to pick it up.

  Andy glanced at Bogdan, who sat on the floor. His eyes never left the TV screen. “I assume we will see much more of this strange weather, and maybe even more volcano eruptions. I hope humans won’t start to panic as some of these events are not easily explained.”

  “Is this gonna continue? I mean, every day like this?” Bogdan asked.

  “Nobody knows, but let’s hope things will get back to normal soon—at least for a while.” Andy shook his head. “We have no idea what to expect since, obviously, there are no records of the previous ten-thousand-year mark in either of the Races’ archives. But I know from a various sources that every one thousand years, when the Amulet has passed from the Summer to the Winter or back, weird things have happened in nature. But eventually everything quieted down within a few days.”

  Bogdan looked at his father in silence.

  “Jatred’s coronation is in only two weeks. Flying to Alaska might be a challenge. But I think most of us will try anyway.” Andy sighed.

  “What if the flights get cancelled?” Bogdan’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

  “We just have to wait and see. But, as I said, things might just settle down by then.”

  “This is freaky. Just all messed up.” Bogdan shook his head, getting up to his feet. “I’ll be in my room.”

  Both parents exchanged a quick glance then regarded him silently. Ivona ended the phone call and motioned to Andy to sit next to her. Keeping her mental shield up, she said with her mind, “I’m scared.”

  Andy put his arm around her shoulders. He sensed her gaze on him and managed a half-smile, trying to cover up his worries. “It’s only natural to feel this way. I’m scared too, but we need to be strong for Bogdan’s sake.”

  The phone shrilled again, and they both sighed.

  “I’ll get it,” Andy said and heaved himself up from the sofa. “I wonder who’s calling this time.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Human World, November 17, late afternoon.

  Savannah turned off the vacuum cleaner and stuffed it into a tiny closet.

  “Mom, I’m done. There is no more broken glass on the floor,” she said. “We need two new picture frames to replace the ones that fell off the wall.”

  Her mother sat motionlessly by the window, looking outside. She held a glass of Scotch in her hand. When she didn’t comment, Savannah gave her a worried look, shook her head, and went to the kitchen to turn the faucet on. “I can’t believe we actually had an earthquake,” she muttered to herself.

  A muffled cell phone shrill came from Savannah’s backpack. She wiped her hands on a towel and got the phone out.

  “Hello.” Her face lit up in a genuine smile. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Where are you? What? You’re breaking up.”

  She looked at the phone and saw a “lost signal” message displayed on the screen. She put the phone on the counter, crossed her arms over her chest, and waited. After less than a minute, she heard the familiar sound and picked the phone up.

  “Jatred, the connection broke. Are you okay?”

  Her mother turned her head away from the window to stare at Savannah. Her expression didn’t change. She looked passive, almost bored. She took a mouthful from her glass, swallowed, and coughed.

  “No, I’m not sure about tomorrow either. Something weird is going on with all those disasters striking all over the world at once.” Savannah said into the phone, turning away and walking out of the kitchen, out of her mother’s earshot. “I’m kinda scared. I don’t know what to think. What? No, stay home. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you tomorrow though.”

  After ending the call Savannah walked into the tiny room, sat by her mother, and picked up the remote control to turn the TV on. “How is your headache? You shouldn’t drink when you take Ibuprofen,” she said. Her mom didn’t answer.

  Savannah rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. The woman didn’t mov
e, her eyes fixed on the TV screen. A middle-aged anchor in a bright-red business suit nodded vigorously while her co-host, a man with thick eyebrows, talked about the recent earthquake activity in Seattle.

  “All the news stations are reporting the same thing. Nobody knows why we had an earthquake, why all these volcanoes erupted today, why there are tornadoes coming from nowhere. The scientists and weather people can usually predict these things. But now they are helpless. No one has a clue what’s going on.” Savannah said angrily.

  “It’s just all blah, blah, blah,” her mother said in a low, lifeless voice.

  Savannah shot her a sideways glance and asked, “Mom, are you okay? You’re not acting like yourself. Maybe you should go to bed and rest?”

  The woman didn’t respond. Her unblinking eyes stared straight ahead. Savannah stood and put her arms around her mom, helping her up. They walked through the kitchen to a small bedroom. Her mother didn’t protest or say anything. She just shuffled her feet, as if in a dream. Savannah turned a small lamp on, pulled a thin cover off the bed, and helped her mom climb onto the mattress. The woman lay down on her side, her eyes wide open.

  “Holler if you need anything, Mom.” Savannah kissed her on the cheek. Even this didn’t cause any reaction.

  She closed the bedroom door and went back to watch TV. Her cell phone rang again. She grabbed it from the kitchen counter, and then flopped down on the old tattered sofa.

  “Logan?” she asked quietly. Her voice was filled with disbelief. “We’re fine. Thanks for checking on us, that’s so nice of you.” She paused, listening, and then said, “No, I didn’t get it. I was about to check my text messages, but my mom seems strange, so I got sidetracked. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s… she’s just… like if someone hit her over the head. Like a zombie or something.”

  Savannah glanced at the TV screen, and said in a rush, “Wait a minute. Are you watching the news? Oh my god!” A satellite image of the thick white swirling clouds filled the screen. An almost perfectly round eye in the middle hovered between the words HONDURAS and NICARAGUA. Several lines of text and the NOAA logo in the corner of the picture almost escaped Savannah’s attention, until she noticed, and said, “There is a hurricane over Central America.” She turned the volume up. “This is a brand new hurricane. They don’t even have a name for it yet. How is this possible, Logan? How come meteorologists don’t know what’s coming at us? Don’t they normally see a hurricane slowly building up somewhere over one of the oceans before it even hits the land? This one happened so quickly. They didn’t even have a chance to name it.”