The Keeper's Curse

by Diana Harrison

  “ – But to kill us all? We mostly agree being kept away in the orbs is punishment enough. Anyway, that’s why he wants to kill Breckin. Breckin represents crafters as a whole. Plus, he’s terrified that Breckin will do exactly what Romulus Mallet did – who was the Eldoir who tried to rid the world of non-crafters entirely. He nearly exposed our secret life.”

  Emmy remembered Alex telling her a bit about this. “A few hundred years ago ... was this the reason the elemental crafters created the orbs?”

  “Yeah. The Eldoir nearly had us kill millions of people. Plus, we always had to live away from civilization because we were always so out of control. It was the best solution to just stay away from people altogether.”

  Emmy shuddered at how calm Jade said all this. She wouldn’t be surprised if this was the most basic story of crafter history, the one her teacher always seemed to refer to offhandedly.

  “It’s ridiculous of course,” Jade said, breaking the silence. “If you know anything about Breckin, you’d laugh at the idea of him trying to hurt humans. It doesn’t matter to Thoreoux, though. He’ll spend the rest of his life trying to kill Breckin. Trying to kill us all, really.”

  “Where is he?”

  “No one has any idea. People suspect he’s built his own orb, for him and his followers.”

  “People follow this lunatic?”

  “Other radicals, yes, who think we’re bad and should be exterminated.” Emmy must have been wearing a look of sheer horror because Jade placed a hand on her shoulder. “He’ll never do it, okay? He hasn’t made a move for years, now. Most people think he’s just full of it.”

  “Still, that’s pretty scary. Someone who has all the powers of an Eldoir but with no intention of serving his people? Who wants to kill them?”

  “I know. Trust me, most people just avoid the subject. Breckin especially, so please don’t mention it around him.”

  Emmy shook her head. “No, of course I won’t.”

  Jade returned to a mask of composure, as if all they had been talking about was homework. “Look, I’ve really got to get back to work –”

  “Go ahead.”

  Jade patted her shoulder and scampered back off to work. Emmy stood in the backroom for a while, soaking up what she had just been told. She wished she had waited until Jade was done her shift so she could answer more questions. Whatever she had expected her to tell her about Breckin, that was not it.

  When Emmy had finally calmed down enough to even consider doing homework, she made her way up the stairs, thinking of Breckin, not knowing whether to be scared of him or scared for him.

  ***

  Emmy was on tenterhooks the whole next morning, tapping her foot throughout her classes and watching the clock every minute. She couldn’t wait until lunchtime for her session with Willow.

  At long last the time came.

  She bolted out of her Anatomy class with an abrupt goodbye to Jade, Persephone, and Teddy. She had to stop herself from running through the tapestry-clad corridors to the front office, and barely managed. Ms. Spillet gave her a slight nod indicating she could go through the back to which she did. She was right on the minute, but Willow was already seated in her plush chair, reading one of Emmy’s journals.

  Once she saw Emmy, she placed it on a mahogany stand beside the chair. “You certainly gave me quite a bit of reading. I barely got through the last three.”

  Emmy flung her bag to the side of her chair and plopped down. “You read them all? I thought we were going to go through them together.”

  “I thought I would save us the time. I highlighted the more unusual dreams, but I have to admit, that doesn’t give us a lot to go on, as dreams are in themselves unusual. That being the case, all I can do is search for patterns and themes, and then find a break in them. Most of these breaks are farther back in your eleventh year or so.”

  “That makes sense. Most of what I wrote back then was pretty much just jot notes immediately after I woke up. If I did dream about what I saw, it would be in the earlier ones.”

  Willow nodded. “Yes, and that was what I wanted to talk to you about.” She reached over to the side of her chair where all of Emmy’s journals were, stacked in a small tower. Willow took the one on top, a tattered little ringed notebook that must have been one of her oldest ones. There were coloured tabs sticking out of several pages; Willow flipped to the first one.

  “Alright, so, despite your jot note method, I’ve noticed most of your entries are fairly coherent and your writing is legible. Once in a while though, you’ll have an almost frantic entry and I can barely make out what you’re writing, despite there only being a few sparse words.” She handed Emmy the journal to the page that was marked.

  Emmy narrowed her eyes to read, and she could see Willow’s point.

  In a dark room. Blood on the floor and walls.

  Some light – a candle?

  The face. Staring at me.

  “I’ve also noticed, despite the handwriting and tone, the subject seems to be different,” Willow said. “Most of your dreams are like anyone’s, just random events in your life jumbled together, but it always seems to be the same dream. Turn to my next marker.”

  Emmy obeyed.

  I’m in a cold room made out of stone

  Shapes on the wall – red – probably blood

  Screaming in the background

  “Now, I don’t know you, Emmy, but this does seem slightly troubling. Did you read scary books when you were a child?”

  “No, not really.”

  “You were never hurt by anybody?”

  “No,” she said firmly. Emmy found herself squirming in her seat; she could see how Willow could be drawing those conclusions, but she had lived a very normal childhood.

  The counsellor sat back in her seat, her eyes still fixed on her. “All of the entries I read in this fashion are similar. There always seems to be a dark room, candles, blood on the walls, and a face staring at you. You have no idea where you could have gotten these thoughts?”

  She shook her head, trying to appear as convincing as possible. “Trust me, nothing’s ringing a bell. I don’t think about stuff like this. From the sounds of it, it seems like what I was seeing was some sort of ritual.”

  “That’s funny, because that’s exactly what I was thinking. There are rituals like this that exist in the crafter world, but how could you have possibly known that since you knew nothing about crafters until a few weeks ago? And besides, how could you have witnessed it if you weren’t present?”

  These were questions Emmy was obviously not expected to answer, but she shrugged anyway. The counsellor pressed her lips into a thin line.

  “If you would like, I can put you to sleep, and we can attempt to resurface these thoughts and download the dream. This isn’t a lot to go on, but maybe your inner mind has it buried, and I can attempt to bring it out. Would you like to try?”

  “If you could,” Emmy said. She didn’t want to wait another two weeks before seeing her again.

  “All right then,” Willow said, rising from her chair. “I will be right back with a sleeping draft.”

  Her billowing clothing dragged across the floor as she left, closing the door and leaving Emmy by herself. She took the few minutes alone to eat her lunch, but found her stomach had no interest in food. As desperately as she hoped this bizarre method would work, she couldn’t see how it would. Even worse, she couldn’t see how any of this had to do with Breckin talking in her head, which was something she was much more interested in.

  Willow returned with a small vial, a cord with a small suction, thick cream paper, and a pen. Emmy was thoroughly confused.

  “What are you using to download my dream?”

  Willow dumped the contents in her hands on the stand. “I write it, and then play it on a special wall – the palewraiths will show us.”

  Without explanation, Willow headed over the wall behind Emmy, where she noticed for the first time a thick, canary-yellow curtain hung. Willo
w pulled it back, and Emmy gasped.

  A glass wall was behind the curtain, filled with a bluish liquid. This was not the weirdest part – floating through the liquid were palewraiths, gliding with leisured grace, flashing their light against the glass causing beams to lance across the rooms at certain angles, like edges of a diamond. The sight reminded Emmy of a fish tank full of eels.

  “How do you get them to stay in there?”

  “The glass is frenum. There’s also a little bit of powdered frenum inside the tank, just enough to keep them languid.”

  “But how will they know what to do with a written account of a dream?”

  Willow smiled. “When I put on the suction cup, and connect myself to the souls, I will go into a state. I’ll begin writing in the palewraith language. It’s the only way for them to understand words.”

  Emmy wondered if she was ever going to catch up with everyone else in Methelwood. “There’s a palewraith language?”

  “The language of the dead. We don’t understand it, really, because every word in every context has different signs – there isn’t such a thing as twenty six letters. On top of that, it isn’t just the words said, but motions and rituals that go along with it that help us communicate with them. There are several spell books in the palewraith language that would explain how to communicate with them; however, they are lost to us.”

  Emmy recalled Jade just yesterday talking about a spell performed on Eldoirs – could that have possibly been from a spell book?

  “But that’s a conversation for another time.” She handed Emmy a vial filled to the brim with a greenish liquid. A sleeping draft. “You may want to go lay down,” Willow added, holding out her arm to the flowered couch off to the side.

  She did as she was told, making herself comfortable as Willow pulled up a chair near her head. Emmy looked over at the woman, someone she barely knew, trusting her with so much, so quickly. She hesitated for a moment, before the fierce stubbornness in her returned; she remembered she had to fix herself.

  “Ready?”

  Emmy didn’t answer. She swallowed the vial instead, the sweet, cool taste tingling her taste buds. She was asleep before the drink reached her stomach.

  She was cold.

  “A cold, stone room.”

  Cold and uncomfortable.

  “Emmy, listen now – you’re in a cold, stone room. There are signs on the walls drawn in blood.”

  She tried to roll over.

  “Pay attention. You’re in a cold, stone room with signs on the wall. Do you understand?”

  She tried to raise her head, but it was so heavy. Where was she?

  “In a cold, stone room with signs on the walls. You’re on the ground. You look around, and there you see signs on the walls, that are written in –”

  Blood. Where was she?

  “Some of these signs are circles, with stars in them. What are they made out of?”

  Blood. She opened her eyes now, trying to take in her surroundings. It was hard to see, because it was so dark, but she knew she was cold. The ground was hard like stone, and just as cold.

  “Excellent. Now, you will see a bit of light. These are candles. Do you see the candles?”

  Light was coming from somewhere. Where was it coming from?

  “Candles. It’s the only light in the room, Emmy. Find them. Find them and decipher the blood messages on the wall.”

  She groaned, rolling around on the floor, looking for where the light was coming from. It was so dark and cold – she needed some light. Her body however, refused to cooperate. It was useless, as if she had no control over herself. And then she began to hear whispering.

  “Whispering – what is the whispering saying, Emmy?”

  It was quiet at first. Soft, and off in the distance. She could barely make it out, just enough to know it was a woman.

  “What woman?”

  She didn’t know. The voice wasn’t familiar. Or was it? No, she had heard this woman. Once before ... but where –

  CRASH

  Emmy sat up, the suction cup on the side of her head snapping off. She saw Willow bending over, mid-writing, her face twisted in shock. The suction cup that connected the two of them trailed onwards toward the glass wall full of palewraiths, plugged in. Except there was no more glass. The tank had exploded, the liquid pouring out in waves, destroying Willow’s office. The palewraiths floated out, disappearing into nothing within seconds.

  “W – what the hell –”

  “We should get you out of here,” Willow interrupted her. She grabbed her arm, dragging Emmy through the liquid.

  Ms. Spillet nearly had a seizure when she saw what happened, the liquid oozing through the office, destroying the carpet and furniture. Willow waved it off with some ridiculous story of a student throwing a rock through her window, breaking the glass.

  Ms. Spillet rushed off to get the caretaker, leaving Emmy and her counsellor alone.

  “What happened?” Emmy whispered loudly.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Willow whimpered. “In my thirty years of studying brainwork this has never happened before. I didn’t even know a dream could break a downloader. What on earth is in that head of yours?”

  Emmy felt all her hopes come crashing down around her.

  “Trust me, whatever’s wrong, I have never heard of it. Here,” Willow said, handing her the paper she had written on. Emmy held it up to the light. From the looks of it, the writing appeared to be a cross between Chinese and Arabic, but even that wasn’t quite correct. It seemed to be a language entirely composed of swirls. “This is all I can give you. It seems to be me writing the dream down that broke the downloader, but here it is.”

  “Is there another downloader in the area?”

  “Unfortunately no. Oh, it’ll take me forever to fix this.”

  “Can I use it again? When you fix it?”

  At this Willow shifted uncomfortably in her wet clothes. “I would prefer you didn’t.”

  Emmy was taken aback. “But it’s written down now! All I would need to do is play it.”

  Willow stared at the front door, refusing to look at her. “Yes, but what is in your head may not be built for a dream downloader. If I were you, I would let this go.”

  “I can’t let it go!” Emmy wailed. “You’re my counsellor and I need your help.” She wanted to tell her about Breckin as well but she had a feeling it would only unsettle Willow even further. “Are you afraid of what’s in my head?”

  “That’s beside the point,” Willow replied, sidestepping her question. “If anyone finds out about this you could be taken away to the House of Troubled and Disturbed in Ministrial. I’m not risking my career or your future over this.”

  So that was it. Breckin would drive her crazy, she would fail her exam, and her mother would be stuck in prison, possibly for the rest of her life.

  Emmy glanced back down at the swirly language. Unless. Unless she snuck in to use the downloader.

  ***

  She was lucky she had yoga for her next lesson, which required very little thinking power, as she was slowly unravelling into a frayed mess.

  Unfortunately she had also forgotten that today was their first marked grade in her peacekeeping class.

  Jade must have misinterpreted her expression as she wrapped her arm around Emmy and gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, I told you – Persy, Teddy and I have your back. We’ll get you at least a pass, okay?”

  “Um, yeah, about that,” Persephone said. “I just found out that we don’t get to pick the teams today. We’re fighting with the eleventh graders. They get to pick teams.”

  After everything that had happened, Emmy didn’t have enough energy to care anymore. She would try her best of course, but if she failed, she failed.

  “Do you want me to try and get us to sway Flin into making sure the two of us are together?” Jade asked.

  “Thanks, but it’s okay.”

  The throng of students was much larger due
to the double class. Emmy could tell who the older kids were instantly, from the smug, almost sadistic expressions on their faces. This was nothing but target practice for them.

  After a few minutes Babbage and Flin stood in front of the students, silencing the nervous chatter.

  “There’ll be five teams today, but the marks will be individual,” Babbage begun. “I’m going to call up the five students in eleventh grade who improved the most in the past month. They will pick who they want.” He held out a small piece of paper, and read the names aloud, “Siobhan Barrett, Raphael Thorne, Cyrus Crow, Addison Nightingale and Alexander Rathers.”

  Emmy could have jumped for joy. Even from a distance, she saw Alex’s expression brighten. Alex would protect her.

  The three boys and two girls headed to the front, a fair distance apart, in the order they had been called. Siobhan, without falter, shouted out Breckin’s name. Without volition, Emmy’s ears perked up, and she watched him make his way through the crowd to stand at Siobhan’s side, without any surprise on his face. Emmy had a feeling he was always picked first in these situations.

  She, however, was slightly surprised she hadn’t heard Breckin’s voice or felt his presence, and only when she focused did she realize she had. She had just been too nervous about the test to notice. It was almost as if ... she was getting used to him.

  Raphael went next, picking a boy Emmy didn’t recognize that she figured was his friend.

  Cyrus Crow was up next.

  He smirked and shouted out, “I want the rookie.”

  Jade stiffened beside Emmy, validating what she feared. He couldn’t possibly mean her, could he? She glanced at Alex, who looked confused as well. Why would anyone pick her? She was terrible.

  Apparently she hesitated too long because Babbage shouted, “Rathers, he means you. Go.”

  She made her way through to the front in rigid steps, not bothering to glance at Jade or Alex, who would be giving her pitiful looks. She stood beside Cyrus Crow, who gave her what should have been a smile, but it held nothing friendly in it. Knowing if she looked too long at him her anger would show, she turned jerked her head to the left, her gaze drawn to Breckin.