by E. E. Holmes
Hannah gave my hand a squeeze. “It will feel better to be doing something productive, I promise.”
“If you say so,” I said through a mouthful of muffin.
I pulled on my shoes and sweatshirt, and we set off together through the castle and out onto the grounds. The fresh air seemed to clear a film from the inside of my head as I breathed it deeply in. We met no one along the way, which was fortunate, though Hannah had thought up a cover story that no one would dare to punish us for.
“If anyone catches us, we are going to say that we were performing a ritual of remembrance for Dr. Pierce,” she said with an apologetic squeeze of the arm. “I read about it in the library, and it also needs to be done at night and on sacred ground.”
“Good idea,” I said quietly.
“There is one more thing we have to tell you though, Jess,” Hannah went on, as we set off down the darkened interior of the cloisters. I could tell from her delicate tone that I wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was. “What? What is it?”
“We had to invite Finn.”
The sausage I was now eating turned to gravel in my mouth. I forced myself to swallow before saying, “Why?”
“It’s the only way to protect ourselves,” Mackie said. “If we Uncage her and she turns out to be violent, we might not be able to Cage her quickly enough to stop her from hurting someone. We need to have a Caomhnóir there just in case.”
“So, why don’t you bring Isaac?” I asked.
Mackie shook her head. “He’s got rocks for brains, that one. We need someone who can think on his feet.”
I groaned.
Savvy smiled at me. “I notice you haven’t asked why we didn’t bring Bertie.”
“I think we all know why you didn’t ask Bertie,” I said. The memorial yard was in the furthest corner of the east garden, surrounded by a low stone wall and planted with dozens of flowering trees. From the drooping, blossomy branches hung hundreds of glass lanterns, ready to be lit in honor or remembrance of one of the hundreds and hundreds of names etched into the smooth white stones of the winding pathway.
I looked down at the carvings. Many of the names had faded into obscurity. Others, more recent or better protected from the elements, could still be read.
Hannah seemed to read my mind. “She’s not here. Elizabeth. I looked while we were setting up.”
I shrugged. I was too spent to dredge up a feeling about this omission.
“Over here,” Mackie called, waving us over to the circle they had already cast. It was actually five circles, a large one at the center with four smaller ones crossing into its orbit at the four points of the compass. My eyes widened. There were at least twenty different runes carefully drawn all around the perimeter of the circles and several more inside their borders. The runes were all different colors, created, I knew, from the dust of ten different minerals and stones, including the lapis lazuli I’d taken from Fiona’s office. Hannah must have found it in our room. Scattered bunches of herbs and sticks of incense smoked gently, sending their heady vapors to mingle with the sweet perfume of the trees. I shook my head at the complexity of it all. It must have taken them hours.
Without announcing himself, Finn slunk up beside us, making me jump.
“You were able to do everything, then?” he asked Hannah, nodding toward the circle.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”
Finn didn’t grunt or scowl, or give any of his typically churlish responses. Instead, quite to my surprise, he gave a short bow toward her. “No need to thank me. I agree with you. This is obviously something that needs to be done, and I’m glad to assist you in doing it.”
I stared unflatteringly at him until he caught my eye and I looked hastily away.
Mackie took charge then, in classic head girl style, directing us all to our positions in the circles, and handing each of us a different color candle.
“Jess, you’re the one who’s going to establish communication, so you need to light this spirit candle last,” she told me, thrusting the white candle into my hand. “Start in the north circle, and then, when I tell you, light the spirit candle and place it in the center circle, right inside the blue rune.”
“Okay,” I said, starting to feel nervous. “What do I need to say?”
“Nothing. Just focus on her like we do in Keira’s class. If all goes well, she will appear in the center circle, but she will be trapped there.”
“Why are we trapping her?” I asked. “The whole point is to free her.”
“Yes, but we’ve got to have a way to keep her in one place until the casting is complete, or it won’t work. When she is Uncaged, she will be able to move freely out of the circle. That’s when you’ll need to be ready,” Mackie added to Finn.
“I will be,” Finn said.
“Okay, then,” Mackie said, puffing out her cheeks in a nervous sigh. “Are we all ready? No turning back once we start.”
No one spoke. We were all too nervous.
“Right,” Mackie said. “Here goes nothing.”
Mackie spoke the incantation, since she had the most experience with the pronunciation. As she nodded to each of us, we lit our candles and placed them in the centers of our respective circles. Finally she pointed to me, and then to the center circle.
I lit the spirit candle, placed it in the center circle, heart pounding. Then I crept back to my circle and closed my eyes. I felt around out in the darkness, searching for her, urging her to me.
Come on, Silent Child. Where are you? We’re here to help you.
A bright, red light filtered through my eyelids. To my left, Hannah gasped. I knew she was there before I even opened my eyes.
The Silent Child burned like a candle, hovering four feet above the ground in the center of the circle. Her eyes, too, were burning, but with intensity as she looked at me. There was an accusation in her look. She darted for the edges of the circle, but was repeatedly thrown back into the middle. She tried to shout at me, but her words were lost in the usual mire of echoes.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’re here to help you.”
She pointed frantically to the others, still shouting incoherently.
“I know. I know you don’t want to talk to anyone but me. But it’s going to take all of us to free you. Please, let us help.”
She dropped her hand to her side.
Mackie continued to chant, waving a bunch of smoldering sage over her head. The Silent Child’s light grew brighter and steadier. She held her own hands up in front of her face, as though she’d never really seen them before.
“Alright, girls, on the count of three, blow out your candles. Leave the spirit one lit. Finn, when the flames go out, she will be Uncaged, so be on the alert.
The Silent Child was now so bright, I needed to shield my eyes from her. A light breeze was rising around us into a harsh wind, whipping our hair and threatening the dancing candle flames.
Mackie’s voice rose over the gale. “One, two, three!”
We all blew out our candles. A wave of energy billowed out from the center of the circle knocking us all off our feet. I looked down in panic, afraid I’d been thrown from the circle, but I was still safely within its boundary. The wind had died, and the light emanating from the Silent Child was now just a dull pulsing glow. She crouched upon the ground, hands thrown protectively over her head.
No one moved. I opened my mouth to speak to the girl, but faltered, unsure of what to say. Luckily, she chose that moment to lift her head and look at me.
“Can you hear me?” she asked, and jumped at the clear sound of her own voice.
“Yes!” I breathed.
The girl’s shoulders relaxed, and she gawked at me. “I’m free.”
“Yes, you are,” I said.
“Blimey,” Savvy murmured.
“You’ve been Caged,” I said. “Someone didn’t want you to communicate with anyone.”
The girl nodded solemnly and her expression of wonder dar
kened at once. “I know.”
“What have you wanted to tell me?”
She shook her head violently. “I will speak to you alone.”
“But they all want to help you. No one here will hurt you.”
She shook her head again. “I cannot trust them. I cannot trust anyone here.”
“Why?” I asked.
The Silent Child began to shake with emotion. She pulled at her hair and clawed at her own skin.
Hannah’s voice rang out, full of alarm. “Mackie! What’s wrong with Mackie?”
I tore my eyes from the Silent Child and looked over at Mackie. She was shuddering and gasping, clutching at her own arms and hair. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“Mackie?” I called to her. She did not seem to hear me at all.
“What should we do?” Hannah cried in a shaky voice.
“I don’t know,” I said. I turned back to the Silent Child. “What are you doing to her?”
The Silent Child continued tear at herself. “I will not trust them! Too much pain for too long!”
“It’s because she’s an Empath!” Finn said suddenly. “She is feeling the Silent Child’s pain, experiencing it along with her.”
As though his words had opened some sort of floodgate, Mackie began to writhe and scream, clearly in unendurable agony.
“What do we do?” Savvy asked. “Cage her again?”
“No!” I said. “She’s not doing it on purpose. Mackie’s just too sensitive to it.”
“We can’t anyway,” Hannah said. “We can’t do it without Mackie.”
Mackie’s screams rose. She fell back on the ground, her back arching.
“Do something!” I cried. “Expel her, Finn!”
But Finn was already muttering. He thrust his hands toward the center of the circle, and the Silent Child sailed backward into the air, looking like a strange white bird in the darkness. She landed soundlessly on all fours, like a cat.
We converged on Mackie whose body had relaxed the moment the Silent Child had broken the barrier of the circle. She lay panting and sobbing in her circle.
“Mackie? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she gasped, wiping cold sweat from her face. “I…can’t believe the pain she’s been in. It was…unbearable.”
“Can you guys stay with her?” I asked, craning my neck. The Silent Child was beckoning from the edge of the garden. “I’m going to follow her. She’s waited long enough to tell me what she wants me to know.”
Hannah looked like she was going to protest but Mackie spoke up first. “Go. I’m fine. We’ll clear up here and meet you back in the room.” Her face was so pale under her freckles that I faltered. “Are you sure?”
“Yes! That’s why we did all this! Go!” Mackie said, with a touch of her usual authority.
I smiled at her, squeezed her hand, and took off in the darkness.
“Please be careful!” Hannah called after me.
I followed the Silent Child back into the castle, tracking her tiny flickering form down several flights of stairs. She led me all the way down into the dungeons, beyond the displays of the Necromancer artifacts, which held a burgeoning horror for me as I ran quickly past them. When I arrived in the next chamber, she was nowhere in sight.
“Are you here?”
My voice, a careful whisper, exploded into echoes in the darkness.
“I came alone, like you said. There’s no one here to be afraid of.”
As my candle cast a guttering light into the corners of the chamber, a tiny shadow seemed to come alive, shivered and detached itself from the wall. It glided along the floor and nestled into the niche in the wall before it resolved into the crouching form of the Silent Child, scabby knees tucked up under her chin.
“What is your name?”
She thought long and hard about this before she remembered the answer. “Mary.”
She cocked her head to one side, and her curtain of hair swung across her face like a veil. It was my move, and I knew it. I hesitated to demand any more information, in case she saw it as a threat.
“How…how are you?”
She narrowed her eyes, as though the question made little sense to her.
“I do not understand you.”
I swallowed. “I mean, before we Uncaged you, you seemed to be in such pain. Are you…better?”
She raised her grubby hands from the floor, where she had been clutching tensely at the stone, and wrapped them around her knees. “Yes. I am free now.”
“Good. I’m really glad. We all hated to see you suffer like that.”
Her eyes narrowed and her hair crackled with that same strange electricity that had nearly ended our attempt to free her. “Many watched me suffer for a long time. Not one of them tried to help me.”
“I can’t speak for all of them, but I’m sure that many of them just didn’t understand what had happened to you. We certainly didn’t, at first.” As I spoke, I shuffled slowly forward, watching for signs of skittishness or fear. Then, when only about ten feet separated us, I lowered myself carefully to the floor and sat, placing the candle like some kind of offering between us. Her wide eyes watched my progress without blinking.
I sat in silence for a few moments, letting her adjust to our proximity. Her eyes fell upon the candle, and she watched the flame bob and dance in the drafts that whispered across the floor. As she did, her body relaxed by degrees; her knees drifted and then fell to one side, so that I could finally see her entire face. Her pointed chin was trembling, the corners of her mouth pinched in misery.
“You aren’t in pain anymore,” I ventured, “but you’re still not at rest.”
Mary wrenched her eyes reluctantly from the flame. “I cannot rest,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because you must know. You must know what they did to me, for we are the same.”
My heart began to race. “What who did to you?”
“Them.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling as though she could see right through it.
“You…do you mean the Durupinen?”
She nodded solemnly, eyes still fixed above us.
“Did they do more than just Cage you?”
She nodded again.
“Did…” I swallowed hard. “Did they…kill you?”
The words had barely parted company with my lips and she was there, so close to me that I was staring at my own terrified reflection in her eyes. Her finger hovered between us, silencing me. I could feel the chill of it upon my lips.
“I could not be allowed to live, when they discovered what I was. I was an abomination. I was a terrible, terrible mistake,” she whispered.
I couldn’t ask aloud — the words wouldn’t come. My question echoed inside my own head and her voice joined it there.
What do you mean, a mistake?
I should never have been. I was too dangerous.
Dangerous how?
They had been warned. For many hundreds of years they had been warned, but my mother did not listen. She was one of them.
One of the Durupinen?
Yes. She knew it was forbidden, but she could not help herself. She loved him so.
She loved who?
My father. They were forbidden but they did not care. They loved each other, and so I was born in secret.
Their relationship was forbidden? Was…was he a Caomhnóir?”
Yes. The Guardian and the Gatekeeper must never be as one. It was their greatest fear. I was their greatest fear.”
But why? You were just a child. What could they have to fear from you?
The prophecy. They feared the prophecy would come to pass.
What prophecy?
She was gone, pressed once again into the shadows of the furthest corner of the room, hands pulling desperately at her wildly tangled hair. Her voice continued to echo in my head as though she were crouching on my shoulder, a tiny angel of death muttering in my ear.
They do not speak of it, for their fear
keeps them silent. But I must show you. I must warn you, for if I do not, you will surely meet my fate.
But why? Why me? Why would anyone want to kill me?
We are the same.
I was breathing so hard and fast now that I cupped my hand over the candle for fear my frantic breath would blow it out and plunge us both into complete darkness.
How? How are we the same?
We are the same. And if they discover it, you both will surely die. The prophecy cannot come to pass. They will never allow it to be.
But what do you mean, Mary? How are we the same?
But I knew. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. The greatest question mark in my life whispered away by a child ghost in the darkness. My father.
But if you and I are the same, that must mean that Hannah is, too. Why did you choose me, and not Hannah to speak to?
The Caller is too dangerous. She is always surrounded by whispers. She is never alone. It would never be safe to speak to her, with so many of the dead around to listen.
Okay, but you still haven’t told me. I need you to say it. How are we the same?
We are both forbidden. We are both an abomination. We must be ripped from the world lest we destroy them all. The prophecy must never come to pass.
But what is it? What is the prophecy? Show it to me!
You cannot unsee it.
Show it to me now! Mary, I have to know.
She cocked her head to the side like a curious little bird. She seemed to be deciding. As she did her eyes filled with the ghosts of the tears she had cried in life. She nodded once.
Be it so. Mercy upon you.
And before I could draw another breath, she flew at me, flew into me. There was a flash of light, a rush of screaming sound, and everything went dark.
19
THE PROPHECY
THE ACRID SCENT OF ANCIENT WOOL BURNED IN MY NOSTRILS, and its fibers were like sandpaper against my cheek. Aches coursed through my body like they were racing against each other to reach my fingertips.
My eyes opened, but only a blurred vision revealed itself, like trying to see the world through a window as rain beat mercilessly against it. Why the hell couldn’t I see? And where was that terrible sound coming from — that horrid, wailing keening? I swallowed convulsively to dampen my bone-dry mouth and the wailing became muffled and then cut off. It was me. I was making that wretched sound. And it was tears that had clouded my vision. I was crying uncontrollably and I had no idea why. I blinked furiously to dislodge the tears from my eyes and tried to master my ragged breathing as they coursed in silent rivers down my cheeks.
