by Sharon Sant
‘She has no love for that world. She is more powerful than Ioh and she has no ties to anyone on Earth. Her heart is as cold as a stone beneath a mountain stream. She will make a perfect Watcher.’
Karo sighed. ‘I do not see that we have a choice.’
When he did not receive a reply, he turned around. The room was empty.
Now that nobody could deny what they had seen, it had been decided to remove as many fixtures and fittings as they could from the spare bedroom and move Jacob in there. Phil had secured the glass in the window by sticking tape all across the panes so that if it broke, the tape would hold the pieces. When they were done, the room vaguely resembled something from the Blitz. The space was cramped when they were all in there together, but at least Jacob would be relatively safe from falling objects.
Now glass free and clean, Jacob lay on the spare bed. Maggie was wiping another thin sheen of sweat away from his brow.
‘I don’t know whether we ought to be worried about this,’ she said, rinsing the cloth in a bowl of warm water.
‘He seems peaceful enough,’ Phil observed. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing.’
‘We can only hope,’ Maggie returned doubtfully.
‘I’d better get back,’ Luca said, checking his watch. ‘Do you need anything else before I go?’
Maggie shook her head. ‘No thanks. You’ve been a star, you know.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘Probably got myself a hernia, though. He needs to go on a diet.’ From anybody else, the joke might have been considered poor taste, but Maggie let it go. He turned to Ellen. ‘You need me to walk you home?’
‘That’d be good.’ She went to grab her jacket from the balustrade where she had hung it. ‘I’ll come over first thing,’ she said to Maggie as she came back putting it on.
Maggie took her to one side for a moment. ‘Try to remember what I said. Don’t spread yourself too thin, you’ll burn out. Why don’t you take a day for yourself tomorrow?’
Ellen shrugged. ‘And do what?’
‘Exactly,’ Maggie pressed. ‘It’s been so long since you’ve had a day that’s just yours you don’t even know what to do with one when it’s offered.’
‘I don’t need one. Tom and Alfie are at school tomorrow. I’d rather come and sit with Jacob.’
‘Well, if I don’t see you tomorrow then I’ll know why.’
Ellen gave her a quick hug. ‘I want to be here when he wakes, if I can.’
Luca exchanged a quick glance with Phil, both of them silently sharing the same thought. What if these new developments signalled the end, rather than the beginning?
Ellen arrived shortly after ten the following morning to find Phil at work and Maggie close to sleeping on her feet.
‘Haven’t you been to bed?’ Ellen asked as she followed her upstairs to the spare room.
Maggie opened the door to reveal why. The glass in the window was almost ground to powder - still held in place by the tape it resembled damp packets of sugar. Loose strips of wallpaper trailed from the walls and there were large scorch marks on the bare plaster beneath. The stench of burnt nylon reached Ellen’s nostrils and she noticed black stains on the carpet that looked suspiciously like fire damage. Jacob lay in bed, still unconscious but now shivering uncontrollably, his hair and clothes wet and sweat glistening on his face.
Ellen clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Why didn’t you phone me?’
‘There was no point.’ Maggie took a seat and began cleaning him with a bowl of fresh water.
‘So you’ve sat here all night?’
Maggie nodded wearily. ‘I didn’t dare leave him alone. The whole house could have gone up. Phil was shattered when he left this morning, but I made him go. To be honest, he’s better off there than here. This is tearing him up more than when Jacob was just lying there doing nothing.’
Ellen ran a finger over one of the marks on the wall. ‘How did this happen?’
‘I’m not sure, exactly. They looked like little balls of lightning.’
Ellen’s eyes widened. ‘Lightning? You must have been terrified!’
‘I was when it first started.’
‘Where did they come from?’ Ellen asked, eyeing Jacob warily.
‘They just sort of appeared, from thin air.’
‘And how long did it last?’
‘Not long, about an hour. That was after the window had blown in and the wallpaper had just stripped away from the walls for no reason. After the lightning stopped he began to shake like he is now.’
Ellen took the bowl from her. ‘You look worn out. Why don’t you go to bed for an hour?’
‘I couldn’t leave you here with him like this…’
‘I’m not scared. Besides, it seems quiet now.’
Maggie tried to take the bowl back but Ellen lifted it from her reach.
‘No, I’ll do it. If you don’t go to bed, at least go and get a drink and a break.’
Maggie opened her mouth to argue but then nodded. ‘Wake me in an hour. Or sooner if he decides to blow up the house.’
Ellen smiled thinly. ‘I will.’
Maggie shuffled away and left Ellen in the silent room. She rinsed the cloth and wiped it gently around Jacob’s face. ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, Jake, can you hurry up and do it before we all go loopy?’ she said in a low voice.
She put the bowl down and watched as he trembled, wondering whether pulling the covers up beneath his chin would make it better or worse. His eyes were moving rapidly beneath their lids and where she had just wiped his face was now bathed in sweat again. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he looked like a bomb ready to go off. And there was something breaking in on her consciousness now, only an echo, a signal buried too deep to decipher, but one that hadn’t been there before.
She glanced up at the window, hoping for a small distraction, but was disappointed to be reminded that the window was now out of action. The room was almost entirely empty apart from the essentials, and the décor, what was left of it, was dull and functional by her standards.
With nothing to look but Jacob’s shivering form, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small sketch pad and pencil. Tucking her hair behind an ear, she bent over it, the pencil working in fluid lines to sketch out a copy of Jacob’s features. Her eyes flicked back and forth from paper to subject, stopping every now and again to concentrate on some small detail. In some periphery of her mind, it seemed a little morbid to be sketching him this way, like she was creating a death mask, but she continued, the creativity bringing her peace and contentment.
She had been absorbed in her drawing for some time when what sounded like thunder outside brought her back to her surroundings. She laid down her pad and went to the hallway window. The sky outside was a swirling mass of dark clouds and the air whipped into a tempest. Ellen frowned. Only an hour before she had walked to Jacob’s house in clear skies and there had been no storms forecast that she could recall. The slats of the garden fence began to rattle with an unnerving violence as the wind steadily gathered pace.
Ellen went downstairs and switched on the TV to check the weather. All she could get was a picture of static on every channel. The radio in the kitchen was no better - white noise on every station.
She went back to the window. The hanging basket outside the front door swung crazily and an empty watering can skittered across the lawn. The branches of Maggie’s sprawling rhododendron whipped and snapped. Ominous looking clouds, like a cyclone that Ellen had once seen in a geography lesson, gathered in the sky.
With a sudden dread, she bolted to the room where Jacob lay. His shivering seemed more brutal than before.
‘You have to stop this.’ She leaned close to his ear. ‘You have to stop this now before someone gets hurt.’
She drew back but the trembling continued, only now it was accompanied by twitching fingers. Instinct took over. She marshalled her thoughts, dug deep into the recesses of her mind and cried out.
Ioh, stop
it!
Immediately, Jacob seemed to calm, and the sounds of the storm outside abated. Ellen stood listening hard for a moment. She was sure that the silence meant she had reached him, somehow. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Nine: Karo’s Promise
Trego blinked back the weariness that threatened to close his eyes and shuffled the parchments. He began to re-read the notes he had made about the prophecy scrolls. Karo had persuaded the Council to give him only until the next meeting to present a definitive translation, something that they could pin their hopes on. It was an impossible task to produce something so complex so quickly and Karo knew this. It didn’t help that Trego’s junior position meant his access to the Great Archive was limited and he no longer had Kaleb, or even Ioh himself, to go in there for him. If only he could make some small progress. Failing that, if he could just get through to Ioh and get him safely back to Astrae, then maybe he wouldn’t have to do this at all.
A firm rap at the door interrupted his study. He rose to answer it and found Karo outside.
‘I apologise for the lateness of the hour,’ Karo said briskly, with not a hint of apology in his gravelled tones. ‘May I come in?’
Trego opened the door to allow him entry, doubt in his features. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I will be frank.’ Karo swept into the room and stood at the centre, a massive, domineering presence that Trego felt himself shrink from. ‘If you continue in this foolish course of action, your life will be in danger.’
‘I don’t know what you mean…’ Trego began.
‘Of course you do. When Kaleb uncovered the second half of the prophecy, why do you think he hid it and did not show it to you straight away?’
‘How do you –’
‘It matters not how I know. He was aware of the danger of knowing too much and sought to protect your life. He only gave it to you for safekeeping when he felt that his own end was approaching and he had no other choice. Even then, he did not tell you what it was.’
Trego’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you telling me this now? You have already ensured that I do not have enough time to present a translation to the Council tomorrow. What is the point of this warning?’
Karo took a step towards him. ‘Because I know that you will not rest until you decipher it, even if the Council order you to do otherwise.’
‘I should be flattered that you have taken enough interest in me to notice such character traits,’ Trego replied, a hint of sarcasm now creeping into his voice.
‘Do you think this situation amusing?’
‘Of course not. But I think I owe it to the Watcher to save him if I can.’
‘The Watcher? What debt do you owe him?’
‘Not a debt as you would understand it. But Ioh is my friend and I will not abandon him.’
‘Friendship has no place in these affairs.’
‘I used to think that, but Ioh showed me a new way. Even though I am a junior member of the Council, he showed me as much respect as he did anyone else. He would search me out and we talked about things that mattered to me, not to him, or to the Council. He did not judge me and he valued my opinions. He is not like Dae was and I believed in the new ways that he preached.’
‘And these things are worth risking your life for?’ Trego nodded shortly. ‘If this is so,’ Karo continued, ‘why did you not inform Ioh of the second part of the prophecy?’
‘You know I was forbidden to contact him. I wish I had defied that order now.’ Trego’s expression hardened. ‘I presume the Council told him of the first part because they wanted him back on Astrae by whatever means possible. If they had revealed the second part, Ioh would not have returned because he would have known what it meant.’
Karo began to pace, deep in thought. ‘You have said that you think the second part pertains to a being not of our world…’
‘I am sure of it,’ Trego replied.
‘Someone from Earth, perhaps?’
Trego nodded.
‘Then you must know that even if you decipher the prophecy and this turns out to be the true meaning, the Council will shy away from involving another human in this affair. They would see him die before they did this.’
‘They would have no choice, the only other candidate for Watcher is Kya and with her would come Makash. I don’t believe anybody wants to see him with that kind of power.’
‘Perhaps Kya will be strong enough to lead in her own way.’
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Trego. ‘But I don’t think you really believe that. After all the evil he has done, do you actually think that any Watcher with him at their side could be good for us?’
‘If he gets what he wants, there need be no more bloodshed.’
Trego’s brown eyes widened. ‘He will not be content with anything less than absolute power. Surely you can see that.’
‘He can also, with Kya’s aid, bring us back from the brink of chaos.’
Trego exhaled loudly. ‘This talk of chaos is exaggerated. We need only get Ioh back from his current state and things will return to normal.’
‘Ioh broke the oldest law. Things cannot be returned from there, whether he recovers or not,’ Karo exclaimed, his voice rising in harsh accusation. ‘Besides, little progress has been made on that front.’
‘It is true that none can reach him, even me. The only thing we can do is decipher the scrolls and hope that whatever wisdom they contain will help us.’
‘You are wrong. Even if Ioh returns to us, he will never truly be one of us. It would only be a matter of time before he did something foolish again. The best course of action is to install Kya as Watcher.’ Karo clenched his fists as he crossed the room to leave. ‘And I will ensure that it happens.’
Ten: The Spark
Ellen twitched violently and opened her eyes. Yet again, her bedclothes were drenched in sweat. It took a moment to focus on the grainy contours of her furniture in the darkness as she tried to pull herself back to reality. It was the same dream as every night for the past few days, the one that she could never quite recall the details of. This time, she remembered the presence of a girl, one who could only be Alex.
Yawning, she hauled herself out of bed and began to strip the sheets. At least Tommy wasn’t sleeping in there tonight. She had arrived home to find her mum surprisingly lucid, for once, and that the boys had been bathed and put to bed. Ellen had toyed with the idea of spending some time with her mum; she so desperately needed someone to share the burden of her confused emotions, someone who had no connection with either party. And the things she needed to air were not the sort of things she imagined discussing with her few acquaintances from college. In the end, she had shied away from the opportunity. She had spent so long caring for her mum she didn’t know how to receive care back from her anymore.
Her thoughts returned to the dream. It was becoming more vivid every time. It was a warning, she was sure. She just wished she could figure out what it was trying to warn her about.
With her bed clean Ellen climbed back under the sheets, now too cold and wired to sleep. She reached over to the bedside table for her sketchpad and turned to the page that contained the drawing of Jacob she had done that day. Her hand ran across the paper, caressing every subtle indent of every pencil mark as she studied it carefully. He would wake soon; she felt it more certainly than she had ever done before. But what if his waking only brought more pain?
Alex paced the sandy floor of her chambers. She had recently turned them into a sort of indoor beach, a small reminder of home that had caused her uncle to fly into a near paroxysm of rage. It had made him so angry that she decided to keep it. But woken from the same dream again, the joke suddenly didn’t seem so funny. She ran a hand through her hair, noting absently that it had grown significantly since she had left Earth. It wouldn’t take much effort to cut it short again, but part of her just couldn’t see the point when there was no one but her uncle there to see her.
Her mind returned to the dream. She had
n’t been able to kill him again. What did it mean? He represented the ghosts of her past, everything that had been wrong in her life. Killing him was the only way to exorcise the spectre of abandonment that haunted her daily. Perhaps, she reasoned, it was her brain working out some psychological deal before the big event and by the time it came, she’d have got it out of her system. Because, as often as her uncle had goaded her to finish Ioh from afar, she knew that it would not happen, and that the meeting of her dream on the stormy cliff top would come. Part of her craved it, felt the need to face him once more and demand his blood in recompense for her misery. And when that day arrived, she had to be ready to do it.
She clambered onto her bed and crossed her long legs to sit. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep now. Closing her eyes, she focused, drawing deep breaths, and reached into the centre of her power. Her mind wandered the world of all that she knew. She detected her old friend, Martina, and her ex-boyfriend, Troy, back in LA. An ex-boyfriend only by default, she supposed, as they hadn’t split up, exactly, only parted with the certainty that they would never be reunited. Alex sensed Martina’s passion for Troy, her complete dependence on him and his contempt for it. When she left, Alex had known they would end up together. The notion made her sad, but she also scorned Martina’s weakness. Whatever she felt, their lives had quickly moved on without her. It made her realise just how insignificant her life on Earth had been, how little she had meant to anyone.
For Jacob, things had been so different. There was the adopted mother and father - Jacob had literally moved heaven and earth to bring them back from the dead more than once. And the ordinary girl that he would give up every grain of his power to be with. Kya had seen these things in the instant that Ioh had let her into his head, and the ferocity of his love had overwhelmed her. There was even something of it for her. The idea made her strangely melancholy.
She shook away any thought of compassion. Nothing could be allowed to soften her towards him. Her mind went back to the girl. Perhaps she wasn’t so ordinary. There had been some sort of profound connection between her and Jacob and, recently, Alex felt it too. She wasn’t sure if the girl was aware of it or not. She turned her attention to that connection now, trying to work out what it meant.
