Air was the only safest—and easiest—trial. All I did was sit in a small clearing in the woods and just…wait. But no matter how hard I concentrated, or how long I sat (long enough until my butt went numb, that’s for sure), there was no spark. No nothing.
Dove had said that every alchemist’s element is something they can feel inside of them, but me being close to the elements, I hadn’t felt a thing. Sure, a small little shove every now and then, but I think that was just my heart telling me to stop before it burst.
So I pondered about if there was any chance that my special core fell outside of the four basics—kind of like Dove’s Blood Alchemy.
I thought back to when she and Leon were fighting in the woods so long ago, and how she created her weapon—a crimson red weapon made out of hardened blood—that everything just made perfect sense. The tattoos on her arms (“Runes,” she had explained, “Most alchemist have Runes marked somewhere on their bodies or on an object to make transmuting their alchemy easier.” Just like my own tattoo. Did that mean my alchemy came from my heart?), were like her gateway to controlling her alchemy.
When I asked her, however, she wasn’t exactly in the mood to be chatty. Though she was polite and patient during these “trials” of mine, tonight, Dove happened to be a little bit on edge. It could have been the biting cold or the fact that it had been at least two months since we began training. And had gotten nowhere.
“Don’t worry about it,” she huffed, “We’re just going to focusing on the basic elements now. Besides, I highly doubt that your core would posses some unnatural power, seeing as how you aren’t a Blood Borne or a Self Taught alchemist to begin with.”
“‘Blood Borne’?” I had heard the term before in the book I had borrowed and returned from Dove, but I didn’t think it was too important to remember. My legs began to tingle underneath me, and I fidgeted from my seat on the cold ground, glancing at the tall, ethereal-like girl leaning against the surface of old oak.
“A Blood Borne is an alchemist who is born from a long generation of other Blood Borne's,” Dove explained. “You could think of it as hereditary; if both of your parents, as well as your grandparents all had blue eyes; you would also have blue eyes, right? Blood Borne alchemists are those who are borne from ‘pure’ alchemists.
Here, she paused, lifting her arms to shove the sleeves of her black sweater. “You see these Runes?”
I nodded, entranced by how beautiful the blood-colored swirls on her arms seem to look in the pale glows of the moon.
“A Blood Borne alchemist will always, in some shape or way, have their Runes etched on their own skin. In some cases, it can be there since birth. But in others—like myself, for example—they appear gradually over time; depending on how well your training is going. I got these when I was only eight years old.
“A Self Taught alchemist is one who isn’t born from a lineage of alchemist, but is more acutely aware of their alchemic core. But because they aren’t Blood Borne, they have to work just as hard to unlock their core; at times, it could take them years to just master it.” Here, Dove paused, tilting her head just slightly so that the light blonde wisps of hair framed her face like a picture. “That may be why you haven’t progressed any at all these past few months. Perhaps we should try creating some Runes for you…if only we knew which element you connected with the most!”
Unconsciously, I placed a fist over my heart, feeling the gently thrumming of my fake heart swell beneath my breast bone. I wanted to open my mouth and ask Dove all these questions that had just piled up, but something stopped me. If I was a Blood Borne like her…did that make my Dad—
No. No way. He wasn’t an alchemist. For one, I would have totally known if there were Runes on his body. I mean, when I was a kid we always went to the public pool together, so I knew for a fact he didn’t have any special Runes on his arms like Dove had. Thinking about my Mom was definitely out of the question. If she couldn’t handle being part of a family, I thought acidly, she couldn’t handle being some alchemist.
I held my tongue. There would be other times I could tell Dove about the yellow Rune over my heart. Maybe.
◊◊◊◊◊
After the 43rd unsuccessful night, I hiked back to the dorms, sweaty, dirty, and disappointed. It was pitch black out, save for the small circle of light from my flashlight as I reached the back doors. The spare key to the back door (a key every girl was issued that worked for the front and back doors—doors that were locked up tight right at ten every night by the “House Mother” of our dorm) felt cold against my sweaty hands and I almost dropped it trying to fit it into the lock. With a soft click I entered, embracing the cool air.
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed four low rings—it was already 4 in the morning. It wasn’t too often I stayed out so late (the normal time was 1-2 am), but tonight I had been unusually stubborn, refusing to give up on learning “air alchemy” that I had lost track of time. This was going to affect my studies so badly.
Not a soul was around as I padded up the stairs as quietly as I could. Except for a slim ray of light shining under one of the closed doors (probably someone studying, or they just fell asleep with the lights on), no one seemed awake except for me.
It was a little too early, but I might as well grab this rare moment of utter peace all to myself. I made my way back to my room, shed off my dirty jacket, kicked off my mud caked shoes and grabbed my small plastic bin with my soaps, shampoos and toiletries.
Even though the large bathrooms in the basement had lockers where we could put our stuff, I never chanced leaving my things there—with the exception of a bathrobe and a spare change of clothes, because the lockers didn’t come with locks (insane, right?). The lockers were the one place all the girls stored their jewelries and iPods and iPhones when they showered, and there had been a number of occasions where stuff went missing. I figured nobody would want my scratchy old bathrobe from home and the clothes I had stored in there.
The bathrooms were empty and spacious as I flicked on the lights. The bright lights nearly blinded me as I stumbled towards the locker and undressed.
But in mere minutes it was like all of the stress and worries were being washed away as the hot spray of the showerhead ran over my aching body. All of those angry thoughts went spiraling down the drain as I scrubbed hard at my dirt matted hair, lathering it with my favorite grapefruit scented shampoo.
Everything had been so unfair. A whiny, immature way to put the situation, but it was true. If I hadn’t stupidly gone into the woods the first day of orientation, I wouldn’t have been killed. I wouldn’t have been saved with alchemy (which I was still grateful for, but then it all went back to my first point). I wouldn’t have a stupid fake heart that could break at any minute. And I wouldn’t have to train to become an alchemist when, quite frankly, it wasn’t turning out so well at all.
I should be doing normal, teenage girl stuff, like putting all of my attention into my studies (which were not doing well at all. I could feel my perfect A average sliding down to a B), making friends with people like Karin and going to sporting events and flirting with Jack.
Normal, safe and boring stuff.
A heavy sigh escaped my lips. Normal. It just suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t “normal” anymore. I was just some girl who snuck out every night to practice some ancient magic with a stranger who has been nothing but short and snappy with me. I was practically a loner at school, save for the people in Humanities Club. I kept to myself in class, just too tired to try and converse with anybody. I headed straight to the library after school to try and catch up on the mountains of homework, and when I headed back to the dorm I kept myself in my room and did more studying. I don’t think any of the girls here really knew I existed. And it didn’t help that every night felt like a torturous, endless workout that, to be honest, I just didn’t need.
Just thinking about Dove’s attitude earlier that night sent a flash of hot anger over my body. It wasn’t my fault
that I had no idea what I was doing! How do you just tell someone to “create alchemy” with the snap of your fingers and expect someone to just go along with it like it’s a piece of cake?
Maybe it was the fact I was getting seriously frustrated (with myself and this stupid situation), or maybe it was some inner part of me that didn’t like to lose. But just thinking about all of these nights with zero success in finding my alchemy, I was getting ticked. And upset. And afraid.
What if I couldn’t find my own alchemy element before my fake heart stopped? What if all of those wasted hours and hard work had been for nothing? Are we even any closer to finding the Elixir? It seemed like every time I tried to ask Dove about it, she would always cut the conversation short, or change it.
Had Dove already given up on me? Just thinking about it made my insides turn cold; the hot spray of the shower did little to help to soothe the pain. Dove always seemed like she was shouldering some heavy burden when we were around, refusing to answer my questions or avoid topics.
But even so…there were moments when she did seem to care. Like, every time I started to overexert myself she would stop me before I collapsed. Sometimes when we took breaks from training she would give little tidbits about her life with Guinevere, and the places she traveled. I saw the way her eyes lit up when she talked about her mentor. It was nice and sort of nostalgic.
There had to be a reason Dove wasn’t telling me anything. I was sure of it.
So as I stood underneath the soothing, steady stream of hot water until the tips of my fingers started to prune and the entire bathrooms were filled with steam, I was determined to try harder.
But more importantly, I was determined to get the answers I needed. I was tired of being left in the dark. There had to be a way where I could pry the answers out of Dove without hurting her.
I didn’t just want us to be mentor and pupil, or some pity project.
I wanted to be friends.
I twisted the metal knob of the shower until the pouring drizzled down and grabbed one of the white cotton towels on the rack, rubbing my locks furiously so they would dry quicker. I shimmied into my old bathrobe (thinking I should purchase another one—this one was two sizes too small for my frame) and padded towards the sinks.
Steam clouded the large wall to wall mirror and I wiped it away, feeling the drips of condensation slide down my arm only to be absorbed by the robe’s thick material. I wiped until I could see everything—my stringy, wet hair that was surely going to frizz up beyond my control in the morning (because, to be honest, I didn’t want to waste the time blow drying it), my green eyes that were the only thing that reminded me of my father, and a clean face reflected with a hint of determination on my red cheeks.
I could even see the yellow-ish tattoo on my chest peaking from beneath the robe, an eternal reminder of this battle I needed to win and—
—a shadowy figure standing behind me.
CHAPTER 13
I whirled around, the wet ends of my hair slapping my face as my eyes scanned the supposedly empty bathroom. The steam was thick, and the only sounds were my heavy breathing and…somebody’s footsteps walking away.
My breath hitched, and I suddenly felt goose bumps litter the surface of my exposed skin. If this was just someone in the dorm getting an early morning shower, they wouldn’t sneak around, would they? Unless they were painfully shy.
Or some sort of trespasser.
I reached for my plastic bin and emptied the contents on the porcelain sink, raising it to my side like a weapon. It wasn’t much, but it’ll do. I held my breath as the footsteps darted from the exit to the other side of the bathrooms, and I suddenly remembered the small lounge near the sides of the lockers when I had explored the dorms the first week I had arrived. I nearly forgot about them—since I never really ventured into the small lounge area, just hop in to shower and brush my teeth and hop back out before the seniors made their way in.
The lounge had windows that were up high by the ceilings, sort of like the ones in the libraries archives; ones that took a great effort to really reach them. I followed after, making sure my own footsteps didn’t make a sound as I darted between the lockers. Finally, I made it to the edge of the lounge and peered out, raising the bin so that one of the corners stuck out.
I saw the back of whoever had snuck in—someone of heavy build, my height…possibly taller?—was heading towards one of the windows with such light footsteps you would have thought he was a ghost. He gave the closest one a heave, but it didn’t budge open. I almost snickered out loud as he growled in annoyance.
But when his face turned to the side, my heart dropped into my stomach. I was about to scream and charge until he turned swiftly, crossed his arms out in front of him and slammed through the window. I saw a flash of something white clutched in his hands just seconds before the impact.
I gave out a shriek, taking cover behind the wall as shards of glass flew about. A few pieces landed near my bare feet, but I couldn’t move.
After counting down the minutes (a very hard thing to do when your heart was hammering ninety miles an hour and you had to physically talk yourself into calming down), I peered out. The damage was bad, but fixable—large shards of the window lay carelessly on the ground, and there were jagged, crooked edges from where the windowpane had been.
But there was something red on the tips of them, and I narrowed my eyes, too scared to take a step forward.
Blood. Whoever was just in here had got cut up pretty bad. Good. I thought they shouldn’t have been in the girl’s locker-room in the first place!
But even though I tried to play this off as some silly school prank or some sort of frat boy thing, even I knew that if a guy had snuck into the girl’s bathroom, he wouldn’t have risked jumping through a window just to escape. Unless he was desperate, but I had a feeling this was something more than some stupid childish prank.
The trespasser had turned just so briefly, his head blocking the early rays of the morning light and casts a heavy shadow over his face. In other words, I had no idea what he looked like, but for a split moment I felt his eyes stare me down—right into my very heart—before he raced off.
“Omigod!” someone cried out from the other side of the baths. A small wave of irritation fell over me as I jumped, and my skin crawled. It didn’t take a genius to know whose heavy accent that belonged to, “Oh my god, you guys! Come look! Somebody freaking smashed up one of the windows!” But what was even more irritable was the fact that—I was so relieved that there was somebody else in the bathrooms.
Even if said person shrilling on like some lost banshee was Mallory Wells.
From my crouched position I saw Mallory and two of her friends (what were their names?) trail behind her as she made her way over to the entrance. The shortest one with dark skin like cocoa look at me and her eyes instantly went cold.
“Huh?” the strawberry blonde said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as her wide baby blue eyes stared at me, “Isn’t that the girl that Jack always hangs out with? Emily something…”
“How should I know?” the other one said, “What the hell is she doing in the showers this early in the morning anyway?”
I could have shot that exact question back at her pretty face, but it didn’t matter anyway because she continued on as if she couldn’t see me having a panic attack on the floor, “God! I kept telling Jack that she is such a weird girl,” Mallory cried out, already turning her back to me; talking to her other friends. The dark-skinned Tyra Banks-like beauty seemed completely enthralled with Mallory’s every word, while the girl with the pretty strawberry blonde curls shot a hesitant look back and forth between Mallory and me. Other than that, it was like I wasn’t even in the room. What a typical Drama Queen. Mallory kept on, “Sneaking out every night and doing God knows what in the forest. And now she’s damaged school property! Twice! Can you believe that?”
The damaged fence was no newsflash—it became the school’s number one gossip
the very first day of classes, although how Mallory pinpointed me to being near the scene of the crime had me baffled. Did Jack somehow mention that? If so, that really…hurt. I sequenced the disappointment in my chest. For one thing, I could easily prove that I didn’t break the window (or how anybody would believe me is an entirely different story), but what made my blood run cold was her first retort. How did she even know about me sneaking out? I made sure that I was never seen, or if someone had spotted me sneaking down the stairs, I always made some lame excuse like going for a quick run or meeting with club (curfew for students wasn’t until 10 pm anyway. And besides, it’s not like everyone stops at my door to be all buddy-buddy with me).
Mallory smirked at my shocked expression, and for a short moment I was scared. She seemed like a giant from my view. Her thin legs seemed to stretch on and her too tight shirt showed how well off she was in that department. She had a black and red skimpy looking outfit draped over her arm, and now it made sense why she and her group was in the showers so early: they were preparing for early morning cheerleading practice. Guess they were ready to get primped for their early morning workout. How long had I been in the showers? It couldn’t have been over an hour…
I slowly stood up, feeling my knees quake from a mixture of fear and exhilaration, “Is that what you’re going on about?” I hissed, feeling hot and sweaty all over. So this is what it was about, huh? Jack. I’ve barely said two words to the guy since our last meeting at the library, even though we’ve had passing glances and the occasional greeting. “You think I’m messing around in the woods every night? Fine. It’s not my damn business what you think or what you say. But don’t think you can act like such a brat and assume things about me. I know the real reason why you’re trying to rile me up. It’s all about Jack, isn’t it? Your jealousy is written all over your face.”
I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have just grabbed my stuff and ran, but her attitude and possessiveness just pissed me off to no end. I should have expected some sort of strange rumor to float about if people saw me sneaking out every night (and honestly, if I saw someone do that I would have assumed the worst too). But to say it like she knew for a fact that I was getting it on in the woods, when everything was this damn life or death situation?! How dare she?
The Fake Heart (Time Alchemist Series) Page 9
