PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Is that right? Someone should tell the woman locked in my foyer. She’s under the impression that she’s very much alive.”

  “You’re lying!” I snapped. “She’s dead. I saw it happen.”

  “Did you?” he asked too lightly. “Did you actually see her die? Do you have a body?”

  He had me there. I hadn’t watched my mom die, but she had to be dead. She was in the house when it exploded. I saw as much from Owen’s memories. She couldn’t have survived that, could she?

  “Your mother is with me, Cresta. She’s hurt, but not badly, at least not yet. I didn’t kill her. I could have, but what sort of son in law would that make me?” A creaking, like the opening or closing of a door sounded on the other end of the phone. Then sounds, the clang of chains, loud thumps like wood against walls, and a woman’s scream.

  Was he telling the truth? Was it possible that my mother had survived and he was holding her hostage, torturing her? The scream came again. I listened, trying to pick up on the voice. But I had never heard my mother scream before, at least not like that; all guttural and horrific.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice.

  “Well then let me convince you,” he said. The thumping sound came again, followed by another scream. I realized with sickening clarity that it wasn’t wood that was being pounded, it was bone. “She was delirious when she was brought here Cresta. She kept repeating the same thing over and over again; See you when I see you.”

  My heart stopped thumping. In fact, it stopped altogether. How many times had my mother said those words to me? Every time I went off for school, every time I went to dinner with friends, even on the way out the night my dad died; she always told me that. But what did that prove? Wouldn’t Allister Leeman know that? He had me watched for years. It made sense that he would know something like that. The woman’s scream came through the phone again, piercing like a dagger aimed straight for my heart.

  If he was telling the truth, if there was even a chance that that screaming woman, that tortured woman was actually my mother, I had to do something.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “To prove to you that I’m on your side, my dear.”

  “No more bull!” I shouted. “Just tell me what I need to do to get my mother back.”

  “All you have to do is come and get her. It’s that easy, Cresta. There is a catch though,” he added.

  Of course there’s a catch.

  “You have to come now.”

  “They’re not going to let me out of here until after the Solstice. You know that,” I sank onto the bed, cursing the walls around me.

  “Then I suppose you’ll have to find a way out. I’m sure my little chess piece can help you out with that. If the reports I’ve been receiving are true, it doesn’t look like there’s anything he wouldn’t do for you. But don’t worry, my little sugar dove. I’m not jealous.”

  “Owen? They won’t even let me see Owen.” Another scream, louder than before, and then another came blaring into my ear. “Stop! Look, just let her go, okay. I’ll come to you. I’ll-I’ll find a way.”

  “Good. You have until midnight on the solstice. A minute after that, and I’ll send your mother to you in pieces.”

  That thought produced knives in my stomach that wrenched so violently that I thought I was going to die.

  “Just- I don’t know where you are. I don’t know how to find you.”

  “You will,” he answered flatly. “Don’t worry about that. Once I know you’re safely outside the walls of Weathersby, I’ll send you the means you need to get here. And Cresta, if you inform Echo, Dahlia, or anyone who might tell the council about this little arrangement, they will stop you from coming. They will keep you locked in that room until it’s too late, and I will make your mother suffer. Do you understand me?”

  I did. If Echo or, God forbid, Dahlia found out about this, they wouldn’t let me leave. They might send a group of Breakers to save my mom, assuming they could find her, but who’s to say what Echo would do to her if he saw an army coming for him? No. I would have to do this myself, but I wasn’t about to do it without proof.

  “I wanna talk to her. Put her on the phone and then I’ll come,” I demanded.

  “Phones are so ineffective,” he answered. “Voices can be manipulated. What you hear can be changed, and I don’t want you to harbor any doubts about whether or not I’m serious about this. Breakers use candles, Cresta. It’s the fastest way to connect with someone. Use a candle. You’ll see where she is now, and then you won’t have any doubts.”

  “No, I-“

  “As much as I’ve enjoyed our little pre-wedding chit chat, if I’m not mistaken, you’ll be getting breakfast in about thirty seconds. We can’t have any eyebrows being raised, can we? You have two days, Cresta.” The horrible noises came again. “We can’t wait to see you.” And then the line was dead.

  “Wait,” I said, but the line morphed into a busy signal and then a recording of an operator who suggested I hang up and try my call again. I just sat there, melted into my bed, dumbstruck with the phone in my hand. He was lying. Wasn’t he?

  Please God, he had to be lying. He just wants to get me out, to get me to him and-and who knows what sick games he’s got in store for me after that.

  But what was the alternative, that my mom was dead? Wouldn’t it be better if he had her somewhere, so that I might have a chance to save her? The sickening screams echoed in my memory and suddenly I wasn’t sure anymore.

  The door swung open. It was a woman with long braided hair bringing me breakfast right on cue, just like Allister said. It wasn’t Mulva. She must have had her fill of me last night and, if I hadn’t been so bowled over by what had just happened, I’m sure that would have made me happy. As it was, I hid the phone behind my back. The woman with the braids didn’t notice. She just sat the covered dish over and walked away, closing the door behind her, never looking directly at me.

  Maybe she thinks I’ll melt her with my super evil Bloodmoon stare.

  I threw the phone back on the bed, but when I heard the lock slide back into place, my mind went back to racing. I was never getting out of here, at least not in time to save my mom. Wait, I was being stupid. My mom wasn’t alive. He was lying to me. But what if he wasn’t?

  Ugh! I was driving myself crazy. I couldn’t do this. Even the tiniest of chances that my mom might be alive was enough. This might have been a trap. Hell, it probably was, but it was one I was going to walk into willingly. Assuming, I actually got out of this damn room.

  An idea came crashing into my mind. The note, the one the girl in the tower left me, the one I had thrown away; she guided me to her the first time. Maybe the mumbo jumbo that she wrote on the second one would help me out now.

  I rushed over to the waste paper basket where I tossed the note. Damn, it was empty. When did they even clean this room? I threw myself back on the bed. What was it that note said, something about a flicker?

  This was never going to work. How could I decipher the stupid fortune cookie speak if I couldn’t even remember it? And why did she have to talk like that anyway? Couldn’t she just write a note that said things straight out?

  Hey Cresta, these idiots think you’re gonna grow up and destroy the world, so you should probably get gone before the lunatic who wants to marry you, even though you’ve never met, calls and says he has your mother, who’s not really your mother, held hostage. Oh yeah, by the way, he’s probably trying to trick you into killing someone so that you can fulfill another stupid prophecy that I probably made up because I’ve been trapped in a tower for years and I’m bored as hell.

  See, that I could have figured out. I ran over to the slit of a window in my room, looking at the empty space where I knew a tower stood. Was she looking back at me now? Did she know what I was going through? Of course she did. She was a seer. That was her whole schtick. I narrowed my eyes. Maybe if I focused, I’d be able to see the towe
r like before. Maybe I’d be able to see the girl and she could tell me what to do. But it didn’t feel like before. The night the tower came into view, everything seemed to click into place. It felt natural, like pieces of me that I had always neglected were finally being put to use.

  Now though, now it felt like those pieces had never existed at all, and that no matter how hard I tried, I’d never find the clarity of mind necessary to see through the shade. It was too full now, to crammed with stressful thoughts and the screams of a woman who very well could be my mother.

  Suddenly, as though someone had pushed it, the silverware set that the braided woman had left beside my breakfast fell to the floor, clattering loudly. Of course, the first letter had come with my food. That must have been where this one was too. I raced over to the covered dish and threw off the lid, letting it clank against the wall where it hit.

  Bacon, eggs, cheese, fruit, sausages, was that green stuff Jello? There was no letter though. I lifted the plate. Nothing underneath. There was nothing here. She hadn’t sent me anything. The only time I needed it, the only time it might actually help, and she sends nothing.

  A rose of anger blossomed in my chest. I couldn’t help it; I tossed the plate against the wall. It shattered into a million loud shards of white porcelain. The food,which didn’t smell half bad, splatted everywhere. The eggs smeared against my bed. The bacon and sausage lay in chunks on the nightstand and footstool. And the green Jell-O lay against the hardwood in teardrop shaped clumps. Though, being green it looked more like a bush or a tree; some kind of plant.

  A piece of my discarded letter flashed through my mind.

  Destroy the clover.

  That’s what it was, a clover. I dove toward the Jell-O, clawing at its pieces, and then the wooden floor underneath. A plank was loose and came up easy, like it had been pried up and set back in place. Under it, a mass was wrapped in a small white cloth. It was dusty and yellowed with age. I picked it up and, unwrapping it, saw that the treasure inside the old cloth was a similarly aged key. It was golden; dull and chipped, but it was a key all the same. Looking over at the locked door keeping me here, I smiled. Looked like a perfect fit. On the old cloth, written in what I could only guess was permanent marker were the words:

  Aquarium, 5:43 P.M.

  How’s that for straightforward?

  The Girl in the Tower

  I grimaced and slid the key and cloth into my pocket.

  Chapter 15

  Swimming Upstream

  I cleaned up the mess I had made, sweeping the bacon, sausage, egg bits, and Jell-O chunks back onto the platter and covering it over. Someone, probably the braided girl or, God forbid, Mulva would be back to retrieve the platter and I didn’t want them suspicious. If anyone found out about my little outburst and, with that, that I now had a key for my room, they’d start asking questions. They’d probably send me to Echo, who would pull the truth out of me with all the finesse of a bulldozer at a wedding reception, and then I’d be screwed. They’d keep me here, make someone watch me at all times, and my mom (if she was, in fact, still alive) wouldn’t stand a chance.

  On cue, the braided girl came in, plucked up the covered tray, and left. Again, she didn’t look at me, didn’t say anything to me. She didn’t seem to notice me at all. I would have been offended, had my mind not been racing with so many other things. As it was, I was glad to see her go. Maybe I shouldn’t have been hard on her. Maybe I was being too critical of all of them. They had, after all, heard horror stories about the person I was supposedly destined to grow up and become since they themselves were kids. Didn’t it make sense that they would hate me, be afraid of me?

  No, I was thinking like them now, making excuses for them. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I wasn’t a monster, regardless of how or why I was born. And nothing they said or did was going to turn me into one. I was Cresta Karr, daughter of Adam and Julie Karr, lover of folk rock and cheesy eighties movies. If they were looking for a Bloodmoon, they were going to have to go elsewhere.

  ***

  Five forty eight came slowly, after hours of feeling like I was going to bang my head against the wall. Would anyone actually come for me if I did? Looking at the stalwart door keeping me here, I figured, probably not. The braided woman returned with lunch ( a cold chicken and avocado sandwich with a side of wheat pasta salad) and then dinner (steak smothered in mushrooms served with mashed potatoes and a side of red wine sauce). The sandwich went untouched, but my stomach was rumbling so much by the time dinner rolled around, that I grabbed a hunk of steak, dipped a dinner roll in the wine sauce, and stuffed my face.

  When the clock on the wall read five thirty, I thought about slipping the key into the door and running out, but I knew better. The girl in the tower, weird vague speak aside, was a seer. That meant she knew what was happening, what would happen, and probably what could happen given just the right series of events. So, like it or not, I was waiting until the second hand rolled around on five forty eight before I acted.

  The key slid into the lock with ease. It turned without much struggle and unlocked the door. I opened it slowly, afraid that someone might be on the other side guarding me or that the aged door would creak, giving me away to anybody walking by. Instead, I found the hallway conspicuously empty and the door completely silent. This was it, my chance. The girl in the tower had given it to me somehow.

  I darted out of my deluxe prison room and settled behind one of the large gothic columns that ran to the ceiling. It was uncanny. Peering out into the usually bustling common area, I found it to be empty as hell. What was going on?

  I scampered through the wide open common area, my eyes darting around for signs of someone who might see me and my feet falling as softly as possible on the hardwood floor, hoping not to make too much noise. It was all clear. All I needed to do was get to the aquarium, but where was it? It’s not like there was a Weathersby map hanging on the walls.

  With my eyes busily searching the area in front, it wasn’t long before I slammed into a desk. Its contents, a vase filled with roses and blue marbles, fell to the floor. I expected the vase to shatter loudly and send the Breakers, wherever they were, running back in to find me. Instead, it landed with a soft thud and stayed in one piece. Even the roses stayed in place. Everything did, with the exception of a handful of the blue marbles.

  As I bent down, picking the vase up and putting it back, the marbles started to move. They shot forward, running the length of the floor, and taking a sharp right as they moved into a separate hallway.

  Okay. I guess that makes as much sense as anything’s going to.

  I darted out after them, following as they took a left, another right, and trickled down a staircase that ran right past Echo’s office.

  When they finally came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, I found myself in an expansive room. It was squared and lit with a soft blue glow. Large glass squares filled with empty still water lined the walls. Below them, written in the native language of their country, plaques read what I assumed were the locations where each square of water came from.

  California, Deutschland, Mexico, Italia, and the like were all on display. It still rattled me that, in my new Breaker state, each language seemed as native to me as English. Standing there, staring at the tank marked Roma intently enough that you’d think something was actually in it, was Owen. He wore a tight black shirt and blue vest that, along with the soft blue light that I now saw was a reflection of the tanks, brought out the color in his eyes brilliantly. His fingers, all but the thumbs, were stuffed into his pockets. He was standing completely still, the way you only can when you’re either trying really hard or not trying at all.

  “Where are all the fish?” I asked, and stepped into view.

  “Cresta?” His eyes got wide and his face lost its expression. “I thought-How did you get out?”

  Before I could answer, he rushed me, scooped me up into his arms, and spun me around. The world was a daze; not just because I was spinn
ing, but because I was with Owen again. He was touching me, happy to see me. I could touch him, smell him, and breathe him in. He knew how I felt about him and, superhumanly perfect fiancÉs aside; I knew how he felt about me too.

  “I wanted to come and see you, you know,” he said, his face buried in my hair. “I tried to. I begged Echo, but he wouldn’t let me.”

  “I know. I asked to see you too,” I answered.

  “Are you okay?” He asked, letting me down. The soft blue in the air made his face, always one of his best features, look even more perfect somehow.

  “I am now,” I said, which brought a shy smile to his lips. His smile made me blush, and I turned away.

  “No. Don’t do that.” He took my face in his hand and turned it back to him. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen that face.” He looked down, letting his eyes flicker to the floor for the briefest of seconds before pinning them back on me. “About Merrin, she’s not-“

  “The Raven has my mother,” I cut him off, as much because I didn’t want to hear him explain the Merrin situation as because I knew we didn’t have much time to kill.

  “What?” His eyes got wide again. His hands cupped mine, squeezing them tightly.

  I explained it all to him; about the phone call, Allister Leeman, the woman’s scream, the girl in the tower’s note, the secret key, all of it. I ended my rant by telling him that I had to go, I had to chance it, and that I hoped he would understand.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said flatly.

  Looks like he understands and then some

  “I can’t let you do that,” I answered, pulling my hands from his grip. “Your life is here, with the Breakers. You’re already in God knows how much trouble with the Council of Masons. There’s a good chance that the Raven doesn’t even have my mom. I can’t let you throw away whatever chance you might have to redeem yourself by running off with me.”

  “He ruined my life, Cresta,” Owen folded his arms and looked me square in the eyes. “He manipulated me, made a fool of me. He took me away from my work; made everything I had done, every day of my life, meaningless. I want to make him pay for that.”