The Keeper's Curse

by Diana Harrison

  “NO!”

  The whole room fell silent. Emmy looked around for who had shouted, and then realized it had been her. She cleared her throat and tried again.

  “P – please.” She licked her lips. “Sh – she didn’t keep me away. I knew all along. She’s been teaching me for years.” Her brain wasn’t connecting with what her mouth was saying, she had no idea what was going on, yet she couldn’t stop. “I’ll go to school. I promise I’ll be good.”

  Circlet gazed at her pitifully, pressing her fingers to her temples. “I don’t think you quite understand how intensive our program is.”

  Emmy shook her head. “No, please, I can do it. I can take your exam. When is it?”

  “It’s whenever a child’s powers manifest, usually around age twelve or thirteen.”

  “Then please, let me take it.” She spoke as fast as her lips let her, trying to keep Circlet’s attention. “Please, if I pass, can you keep my mom out of jail?”

  Every pair of eyes in the room stared at her, not daring to speak.

  “Miss Rathers, that’s not the only issue,” she said as if speaking to a child. “You mother left the orbs, and if you know anything, you’ll know that it’s forbidden. And to create a child that’s half crafter and half human is wrong. You’ll be weaker than everybody else, but at the same time you can’t live in the real world. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” she lied. “B – but she didn’t do anything since she left, and never told anybody but my dad.” She had no idea if that were true. “And she taught us, and sent us here when we had to go. Doesn’t that count for anything? She might have broken the law, but nothing bad happened.”

  Circlet tried to run a hand through her hair before realizing it was in a bun. Everyone was staring at her, a frail hope teetering on the edge.

  “Annie, how much did you teach her?” she asked.

  “Enough,” was all she could muster.

  “Circlet please,” Vera said. “You’re Methelwood’s governor – you can do whatever you want. Please, the girl is scared out of her wits. Just let Annie off this one time.”

  Emmy silently prayed that Circlet wouldn’t ask her questions about anything. She knew nothing about where they were, how they got there, what a crafter was, what those horrible clouds were, or how she could be sucked into a glass ball.

  Circlet paced back and forth, looking at everyone in the room who in turn stared back at her. Finally she stopped.

  “You assaulted security,” she said. “I’ll have to put you in prison for that. The penalty for assault is three months.” She sighed. “Depending on your daughter’s performance at Urquhart Institute,” she paused, “will determine if you’ll be there longer. Miss Rathers, I am giving you three months to take the exam, and pass. To have both you and your brother perform just as well as any other citizen on the exam is the only way I’ll be able to make a case for your mother.”

  Everyone sighed in relief. Vera even let out a nervous laugh.

  “We’ll teach her everything she’ll need to know,” Vera said, the underlying message being “She stays here.”

  “Time to go,” Circlet said, signalling the guards to take Annalise away. She complied gracefully, but looked over her shoulder at her daughter.

  “Emmy –”

  “Don’t. Don’t speak to me.” Emmy stormed out of the room.

  She heard the bustle of everyone saying their goodbyes while she tried to get as far away from them as she could. She ended up in a crammed kitchen and, not knowing where else to go, let herself fall to the ground.

  “Give her my room,” she heard Alex saying in the next room. “I’ll sleep on the couch until we can arrange something better.”

  “Do you think we should take her to the hospital, Mom?” Jade asked.

  “Absolutely not!” Vera said. “She’s scared and exhausted, let her sleep. Alex, take her to the attic, we’ll worry about the rest later. Jade, come, let’s get the house cleaned up. Your father and Gabe should be home soon and they’re going to need an explanation.”

  Emmy was silent again. Alex carried her through the house, whispering words of comfort to her. He led her up another flight of stairs down the hallway, and stopped at the attic door above their heads. Alex pulled on the ringed latch, dragged out a wooden ladder, and led Emmy up to her new room. With the exception of dust-covered boxes, all there was in the room was a bed in the corner with an animal skin for a blanket.

  “Sleep well, okay?” He messed up her hair, and left her alone.

  She made her way across the room and collapsed into the bed.

  The last light of the day was gone now, Emmy experiencing her second sundown of the night. The weight of what she had been told and what was now expected of her pressed down on her chest until she nearly suffocated. But that wasn’t the worst part.

  She was trapped. She was trapped in this horrible place. That wasn’t the worst part either.

  The worst part also wasn’t the image of her mother alone and cold in a cell.

  The worst was that she would never see her dad or Jesse again.

  Emmy buried her face in the old pillow and cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter 3

  The Silver Raven

  Emmy left her bed three times the next day. Once to go to the bathroom, and twice to vomit up the food Vera brought her. The rest of the day consisted of her lying in a fetal position and pretending to be asleep when anyone came to visit her. The second and third days went relatively similarly.

  The fourth day she became too hungry. She scarfed the food down in front of Jade, who smiled broadly at the sight. Jade asked if she would like to see Alex, which Emmy faintly nodded yes to. The rest of the afternoon was spent making awkward conversation with her brother; they couldn’t talk about where they were because it would upset Emmy, and they couldn’t talk about home because it would upset Alex. In the end they mostly just stared at each other. The image of him as a twelve-year-old was all she had to hold on to for so long, and seeing him in a man’s body was very disconcerting to her. It was amazing what puberty did to a person.

  She had imagined so many scenarios to explain what could have possibly happened to Alex over the years that finding out he really was at school came as somewhat of a disappointment. Her parents had always insisted he was at boarding school and made up the stupidest excuses as to why he couldn’t return for holidays and summers. She had imagined him in juvenile detention, an insane asylum, military school – she had thought the worst after a while, thinking he might have been kidnapped or killed, but he sent letters regularly which gave her some relief. She had never, however, come to a conclusion like this.

  The fifth day Alex brought her breakfast and asked her if she would like to go for a walk.

  “I don’t want to be around them,” she said. “Their faces, they scare me.”

  Alex patted her head. “I know they look weird, but they’re just like us,” he said. “Mostly, anyway. Look, if you don’t want to go outside, maybe just come downstairs. Vera and Jade will be off for their lunch break soon, and you’ll see they’re really kind. The Woodworkers took me in for nothing and they treat me like I’m part of the family - they’ll do the same for you if you give them a chance.”

  Emmy shook her head. “Those black clouds – ”

  “The palewraiths,” he corrected her. “Don’t worry, I’ve told them to never use them around you. Emmy, school starts in a few days. You have to get out of this room. How are you going to go to school if you’re too scared to get out of bed?”

  Emmy buried her head in her pillow. “Why did I make that deal? I can’t possibly go through with it.”

  “Yes, you can. But you need to get out of bed. Nothing’s going to hurt you. I’ll be beside you the whole time.”

  Emmy turned over to his worried face on her. She shouldn’t have lied to that Circlet woman. She got her brother’s hopes up, and she was guaranteed to disappoint him. All she could do was maintain his hope a littl
e longer.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me take a shower.”

  He smiled as he turned away, leaving her to get ready.

  Using the little willpower she had, she threw the blanket off her and headed towards the bathroom. Only then did she realize she had left her suitcase in the lobby with all her things in it. When she was clean, she noticed an unused robe hanging on the wooden door and pulled it on. As she passed the mirror she couldn’t help but look at herself. Her pale skin had a greyish tint and she had shadows under her eyes, but that wasn’t what she concentrated on. It was the sharp edges of her face, the silver in her light hair, the solid blue eyes – she had a certain predatory look to her. She looked like them, and she had never noticed it before.

  Suddenly hating the sight of her appearance, she flung open the door and bumped straight into Jade.

  “Oh! Hi! You’re up.”

  “Yeah,” she said, backing away from her. “Um, I’m sorry to bother you, but all my stuff is gone. Do you ... have any clothes I could borrow?”

  This wasn’t what Jade had expected, but she nonetheless appeared to be thrilled Emmy was talking. “Of course you can! Come on, my room is down this way.”

  The two girls sauntered down the narrow hallway to the end bedroom which belonged to Jade. It was decorated in a typical teenage girl fashion with posters all over the walls, different groups of people that had to be bands. Emmy darted her eyes around. The band that made the most frequent appearance on the walls was a rather sullen quartet of black-haired men called “Cinder Mead”.

  Jade opened her closet, revealing a wide array of dark silks, blazers and black pants.

  “Hm, I’m not sure what’ll fit you. How tall are you?”

  “About five foot six.”

  She laughed. “Well, I’ll have to give you something I had when I was a preteen.” She took out a burgundy shirt and one of her many pairs of black pants.

  “Here. Go ahead and change in here.”

  Emmy did as she was told, although she had a difficult time fastening the shirt up with the complicated black bodice and sewn-in buttons. After about ten minutes she was able to get it on properly, and then headed downstairs. Vera, Jade, Alex, and a blonde-haired boy with wiry glasses were all sitting at the table in the kitchen, laughing and drinking hot chocolate.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  The four pairs of eyes all moved in her direction and she nearly tripped on the stairs.

  Vera was the first to smile and respond, “Hello, Evangeline! Would you like something to eat or drink?”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Woodworker, but I just had breakfast,” she said, while Alex led her to the one empty chair left.

  “Right, of course. And I forgot – you haven’t met my son yet, have you? This is Gabe. Gabe, this is Evangeline, who is, as you know, Alex’s sister.”

  The blonde boy jerked his head to the side, giving her a simple smile and nodded.

  “He doesn’t talk much,” Jade said, popping a blueberry in her mouth. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing against you. He’s more of the ‘strong and silent’ type.”

  “I’ll talk if you want me to,” Gabe said, stirring his drink without looking at anyone.

  At that moment the sound of booming footsteps bounding up the stairs came from beneath them. A few seconds later a middle-aged man with a moustache the same color as Gabe’s hair stormed in. Before he said “hello” to anyone, he held out his hand and a black cloud appeared in front of him, shaping itself into a hand, reaching out across the counter for the kettle and recoiled the hand back to him. Emmy paled profusely.

  Vera shook her head, “Sol, no! Evangeline’s down here.”

  The man jumped, looking over at Emmy and dropped the kettle. “Oh, my apologies! My, so Vera was telling the truth. I was starting to think she was keeping a wild animal up there or something.”

  Vera whacked the man playfully. “As you might have guessed, this is my husband, Sol. I’m sorry, dear, we didn’t mean to scare you again.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Thank you for letting me stay here.”

  “No problem, no problem at all,” Sol said, pulling up another chair. “You’re Annie’s girl, which practically makes you one of us.”

  Vera smiled awkwardly. “We used to be friends with her when we went to school together.”

  Emmy just nodded, not knowing what to say. Annalise had never mentioned these people before. A silence followed this announcement, everyone trying not to mention where Annalise was at the moment, so Emmy decided to go an even more uncomfortable route.

  “What are those things?” she asked. “The black smoke?”

  Everyone jumped on the opportunity to explain that one, and Jade won out. “They’re called palewraiths. Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you. They’re just spirits.” The look on Emmy’s face must have said it all, because Jade tripped over herself trying to fix the damage. “They won’t hurt you though! They can’t do anything unless we command it – we control them. You can do it too, but it’ll take some practice.”

  “I don’t think I can,” Emmy said trying not to be sick.

  “Of course you can! You did it back at your house when you destroyed your kitchen.”

  Emmy glared at Alex. “You told her? How did you even find out?”

  “I went to visit Mom in jail yesterday and she explained everything. Emmy, I know you’re disoriented right now and all, but what you did was pretty cool.”

  She groaned. “Yeah, amazing. Dad will be fixing the house up for a month.” This was not what she meant to say at all. “So, um, where do they come from?”

  “They’re everywhere, they’re just invisible unless we call on them,” Jade said. “I mean, there are more of them in the real world only because there’s more space, but there’s more than enough of them here too. They’re all around us.”

  “The ‘real world’,” she echoed. “So we’re not in the ‘real world’ then?”

  “It’s just a phrase, Em,” Alex said. “You know that glass ball in my bedroom back home? Well, it was a portal, and you’re inside the ball now, in the orb.” He took a bite of his apple. “Mom had the portal made to go into Methelwood when I was born by some pretty talented elementals. She knew we’d end up here eventually.”

  “Methelwood isn’t the only orb, either,” Jade added. “There’s over fifty of them. Alex said they’re the size of ‘provinces’, whatever that means.”

  They talked about all this so casually, the kind of talk you heard on city transit when sitting next to the homeless drunk. But she had seen it now, these strange people communing with the bizarre clouds. They didn’t seem to be harmful unless the person’s intent was to harm, but it was still creepy. And they were telling her she could control them as well.

  “You know what,” she said, standing up. “I’m tired, I think I’m going back to bed.”

  They all looked disappointed, but said their goodbyes nonetheless. She heard them whispering as she went back upstairs.

  “Nice, Jade, you never know when to quit, do you?” Alex said.

  “Oh right, and talking about Mrs. Rathers in jail and how an orb works didn’t freak her out at all? Maybe we should go get her.”

  “No, let her be,” Vera said. “Let her go at her own pace. Do you remember when Alex arrived here? He didn’t leave his room for two weeks.”

  Alex coughed loudly. “Hey, I was twelve!”

  Emmy shut the door, spending the rest of the day in her room, hating her mother, worrying about her father, and missing her own house.

  The next morning she heard an unusual amount of bustle below which meant the coffeehouse was busier than usual. Vera and Jade probably wouldn’t have time to come up today, and Alex told her after he brought her breakfast he needed to go shopping for their school supplies. After a lot of reassuring him that she would be fine by herself, he left, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

  Her mind at first went to Jesse and her dad, and what they might be doi
ng right then. Emmy and Jesse met up almost every day, and he would surely be worried by now. Was he asking her dad where she went? Her heart went out to her father who had always been a terrible liar, trying to imagine him explaining away the disappearance of Emmy and Annalise.

  She thought of her mother, probably in a cell, wondering why her daughter hadn’t come to visit her yet. Emmy didn’t feel guilty about her anger towards her in the least. Annalise had lied to her, and forced her brother and father to lie as well, over something that was apparently inevitable. She was always going to end up here.

  She thought of Monday, which was a weekend away, going to school, on her own, learning how to conjure those spirits like she had been doing it for years, and learning subjects she had probably never heard of. Everyone had been too nervous to bring it up, but she had gotten to the point where she needed to know what she was facing. This was her life now.

  Emmy sat up in her bed, raising her arm to study the glass ring around her wrist. When she had summoned the palewraiths her mother had put it on, and it stopped them instantly. Was it possible that if she took it off she would be able to summon them again?

  Her breath grew shaky but she forced herself to suck it down. The clouds wouldn’t hurt her. They seemed to be completely neutral, doing anything they were commanded to do. Except it was difficult to tell what exactly brought them on or how people controlled them. It wasn’t an oral command that brought them forth. She had set them off accidentally because she had been scared of the thief, but now that she was calm, she would have to summon them like they did. Without the fear.

  Finding the clasp, she unhooked the bracelet with a clink.

  She got out of bed, planting her feet firmly on the ground and held out her hand like she had seen her mother and Sol do. Nothing.

  Swallowing like she had a stone in her throat, she focused all her attention of them, on what she thought it would be like to summon them. Again, nothing. Letting out a shout of displeasure, she kicked the dresser, which wasn’t the smartest thing do to in bare feet. The pain made her eyes sting.