City Circle was not nearly big enough to hold everyone, and the paths were soon filled, and the tree houses with balconies looking over into the Circle were packed with elves and warlocks. Even the cliff which held the waterfall boundary had creatures standing upon it, paying their respects from afar.
Hope and admiration for his sister blossomed in Luke’s chest. Look at what she had done. This was precisely what she’d wanted all along. And it was at that moment he knew exactly what he wanted to say.
“I want to thank you all for being here today,” Luke began in a magically amplified voice—thanks to the warlock, Zane, who had recovered enough to attend the funeral—his voice bouncing off the trees and soaring over the hill so that everyone could hear. “As you can see by the number and variety of magical creatures attending, Autumn managed to touch countless lives during her short time on Earth, and her even shorter time in the Underground. One of her primary goals was to unite the Underground creatures as one, despite our differences, despite our beliefs, despite our age-old feuds, the reasons for which have been twisted and changed so many times that none of us really knows what we were fighting about.
“You see, Autumn wanted this because she loved everyone. Everyone. And her main purpose in life, she felt, was to make others happy. To help them. Looking out now at this crowd of so many different Underground races, putting aside your grudges to pay Autumn the respect she deserves, I can say wholeheartedly that she accomplished this. She really did.
“If you didn’t know, Autumn was not only my sister but my twin. We used to joke about how I was born first which meant I would die first. At the time, it had been funny. At the time, we weren’t really concerned about how much time we had left. We were young. Surely, we thought, we had decades ahead of us. But unfortunately, she didn’t. Those of you who know me…you’re aware that I was always the lesser of the two of us. No. I was—” he said, as some of the Warriors shook their heads in dispute.
“I was. I complained and made worse grades, and I broke rules. I was selfish. But Autumn made me better. She always did, ever since we were little kids. I can’t tell you how many times she got in trouble on my behalf. Because she would rather sacrifice her own happiness than see anyone else suffer, whether they deserved it or not. That’s just who she was. The elves of the Underground lost the better of their two rulers yesterday. I don’t know about you, but the lights all look a lot dimmer to me today.”
A subdued susurration ran through the crowd as everyone looked up at the fay lights and nodded, as if in agreement with his statement. Luke took a breath, letting it out slowly before he finished his speech.
“But Autumn wouldn’t want us to stop living because she’s gone. She would want us to keep going. She would insist. So, let us not stop trying to carry out her wishes. Let us all strive to attain the qualities Autumn had: selflessness, love, and helpfulness. Let us see each other how Autumn saw us. As equals. As friends. As people who deserve happiness even in these darkest of times. Let her death not be a waste. Let it mean something. Because we all know that’s what Autumn would have wanted. Thank you.”
Luke stepped down from the raised platform, thankful the Warriors were there to hold him up. Otherwise he knew he would’ve collapsed when his feet hit the ground.
15
Closeted Compassion
It had been nearly a month since Autumn arrived at Alder Island, and she still hadn’t left her room. Not because she didn’t want to, but because Victor did. He continuously encouraged her to meet him in the library, in the dining room, in the sitting room, the game room, the any-room-but-this-room-room. But Autumn refused every time.
“Nah, I’m good here,” she would say indifferently.
She had filled five journals so far with her thoughts, poems, stories, sketches, and anything else her restless mind dreamt up. In the last journal, she’d even started a detailed prose about her life, starting with her parents’ deaths. She was afraid she was going to go crazy in that room and forget everything. And she didn’t want to forget. She didn’t want to forget Arbor Falls or what it felt like to be a Warrior. She didn’t want to forget her prior innocence, her naïve way of seeing the world. Before she’d killed her first Shadow. Before she’d seen death. But, most of all, she didn’t want to forget the people she’d met, the people she loved. Especially Luke, Crystal, and Avery. She didn’t imagine she ever could forget them, but she didn’t want to take the chance. So, she wrote their story.
“What’re you always writing in there?” Eris asked curiously one day when she’d brought Autumn’s tray of tea and pastries.
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
Autumn nodded, closing her ink quill inside the journal, marking her page. “To keep from going crazy.”
“Why would you go crazy?”
“Have you ever been stuck in a room for a month straight?” Autumn inquired, half-accusingly.
“Yes, actually,” Eris answered in a small voice, tucking her brown hair behind her ear, her eyes sliding down to the ground.
This brought Autumn up short. “Really?”
Eris cleared her throat, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it of unwanted thoughts. “Is there anything else I can bring you? Would you like me to light a fire? It’s getting rather chilly outside. I’ll go get some wood.”
“Wait, I—” Autumn called after her, but Eris was already rushing out the door.
It took her longer than it usually did to return, but when she entered the room with an armful of kindling, Autumn moved from the writer’s desk to help her, grasping one of the splintered logs and placing it on top of the others in the fireplace.
“What do you mean you’ve been stuck in a room before, Eris?”
The Atrum girl frowned, clearly disappointed that Autumn hadn’t forgotten their earlier exchange. “It’s nothing, Miss.”
She always reverted to calling Autumn this when she was uncomfortable.
“Eris,” Autumn said gently, placing a hand over hers. “You can talk to me.”
The timid servant looked up with wide, brown eyes. Swallowing, Eris nodded finally as she placed the last log on the fire and lit it, brushing her hands together to get the stray bits of wood and dirt off of them. The flames licked at the firewood until smoke furled upwards and patches of embers glowed on the logs. Eris moved to sit at the small table, pouring both of them a cup of tea, her hand shaking ever so slightly.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you—”
“That’s okay,” Autumn said. “Tell me as much or as little as you like.”
Eris cleared her throat. “What I meant was…I’m not a very good storyteller, but I can Show you everything.”
“Show me?”
The girl nodded, taking a sip of tea. “My Power is Memories. I can share them with people.”
At first, Autumn was surprised by this. She knew it was ignorant of her, but she’d always thought of Atrums having evil, dark Powers. But then again, Victor’s Power was Light.
“It still takes a lot out of me, so I’ll just show you the important parts,” Eris said. “May I have your hands?”
Autumn gulped, unsure of what she was going to see. But her eagerness to leave the confines of this small room, even if it was through someone else’s memories, overpowered any hesitations. Autumn offered Eris her hands and, the moment their skin connected, she was immediately transported somewhere else.
She stood in a dark, enclosed room made of rock. She couldn’t feel anything, but for some reason, she had the impression it was frigid inside. The floors, the walls, the ceiling, were all made of jagged gray stone. The size of the room was comparable to an average-sized closet. In fact, she realized it probably was a closet. It was so dark that it took Autumn’s eyes quite a while to adjust. Then she heard a sniffle and a squeak, like the sound a small injured animal might make.
Looking around, Autumn’s heart jumped into her throat. Sitting on the ground beside her, curled up into
a tight ball with her petite arms wrapped around her legs and head tucked between her knees was a small girl with long brown hair that tumbled down to her waist.
“Are you okay?” Autumn asked the girl, kneeling down as best she could in the small space and trying to place a hand on the girl’s shoulder, but her fingers went right through. But the strange thing was, the girl wasn’t the one who wasn’t solid. Looking down at her own hands, Autumn realized she was just a ghost of herself in this memory, which was clearly an event that had happened in the past, so obviously, the girl couldn’t hear her.
“Eriselle!” a voice that sounded like sandpaper spoke through the wooden door, sending an involuntary chill over Autumn’s skin. “Are you done thinking about what you said?”
The frail girl looked up, her big brown eyes wide with fear. “Yes,” she peeped.
“And? Do you still have those silly thoughts about leaving the island rattling around in your empty head?” The woman’s voice was grating. It was evident she was trying—and failing miserably—to put on the sweet-sounding voice adults used when talking to a child they thought wasn’t as smart as they actually were.
Eris’s eyes filled with tears and she bit her lip.
“WELL?” the voice demanded, dropping the tone of false sweetness.
“Yes,” Eris said through her tears. “I do.”
The door swung open then, revealing the most terrifying looking woman Autumn had ever seen—including Vyra. This woman’s peppered black hair stuck up in all directions, her teeth were rotting and begrimed, one of her eyes was completely white, and the other was looking in a different direction than it should’ve been. She looked like a vulture with her hunched shoulders and nails like talons, sharp enough to kill.
“You stupid child!” the woman screeched. “The elves will kill you if you leave this place! Don’t you understand that? They kill Atrums.”
Eris’s bottom lip trembled, but she said nothing.
“Tell me you don’t want to leave the island. SAY IT!” the woman yelled, grabbing at Eris’s long hair and tugging her upwards. Autumn put her hands to her mouth, wanting to step in, but knowing she had no power here.
“You told me not to lie to you, Momma!” Eris cried, her hands flashing up to her scalp in an attempt to lessen the pain. “You told me I wasn’t supposed to lie!”
“You stupid brat,” Eris’s mother growled, slapping her repeatedly across the face, grasping her hair tighter and shaking her like a ragdoll.
“STOP!” Autumn yelled at the horrible woman.
Clearly, they paid her no attention.
“You can stay in here for another week. Then we will see how much you want to leave the island.”
“No, Momma! Please! I’m hungry, and I need new clothes…”
Autumn realized with a horrified jolt that the young Eris was sitting in her own excrement, her clothes completely soiled.
Her mother merely laughed. “Guess you should’ve thought of that,” she sneered, slamming the door shut and locking it from the outside, ignoring her daughter’s screams and pleas.
The memory changed, and several scenes of young Eris being beaten in that closet flashed before Autumn’s horrified eyes, like clips from a movie montage. A horror movie. Then the scene shifted to when Eris was slightly older, a young teenager. She wore rags of gray clothing, her hair was knotted and matted like a poor attempt at dreadlocks, and dirt smeared her hollow face.
She was running up a rocky path that Autumn recognized as the outside of Victor’s Lair. It was clear that she was trying to remain unseen, her brown eyes wider than ever. She ducked down behind a large rock, waiting for something that wasn’t immediately clear to Autumn. Until her heart dropped into her stomach at the sight of a younger Vyra and Victor, walking up the path. This was before Victor had ever gone to Arbor Falls, Autumn realized. His face was thinner, less angular, and had no trace of scruff. The delicate skin around his eyes looked shadowed but less tired than they appeared now.
Eris leaped out in front of them, with a hand over her head in protection, sobbing.
“Please, Your Majesties,” she cried. “Please help me!”
“Ugh!” Vyra shouted in disgust. “Be gone from here, you vermin.”
Vyra pointed a finger at the girl, and Victor waved a hand at her, effectively cutting off Vyra’s Power. “What are you doing?” she growled at him.
“She isn’t worth your time or energy,” Victor said coldly, though Autumn could hear something else in his tone. “And you don’t want it getting out to the other Atrums that you electrocute their children. Remember what happened last time? We lost at least fifty followers.”
Vyra made an exaggerated pouty face. “Very well. Just get rid of her,” she said to the Atrum guards, breezing past them with her nose stuck in the air.
“Let her be,” Victor murmured darkly to them when Vyra was out of earshot. The guards nodded, clearly knowing which of the two Vauns had the most power.
“Please, Sir,” Eris sobbed again, grabbing his hand.
Victor’s face went vacant, eyes dazed for a moment, and Autumn realized that Eris must have been using her Power to show him what was happening to her at home. When she let go, Victor was looking down at her with an expression of pity and horror.
“Wait,” he said in a low voice. “I will come for you.”
“Thank you,” she sobbed. “Thank you, Sir.”
The scene shifted back to Eris’s house. Autumn could tell it was a different day because Eris had changed clothes and her tangled hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She could see through the window in the small bedroom attached to the little closet that the weather was colder outside, snow coming down in flurries. They were back in the closet with an open door. But Eris wasn’t inside…yet.
“You think you can sneak out again without me knowing?” her mother was yelling. “INTO THE THINKING BOX!”
“No, Momma! Stop!” Eris screamed. “I was just going to gather some firewood!”
“Lies!”
“Momma, I’m telling the truth—”
Her mother didn’t listen as she grabbed a handful of her daughter’s thick, matted ponytail and pulled her into the closet. Eris was sobbing now.
“Stop doing this!” she cried. “Please stop!”
“I’ll stop doing this when you start minding your mother!”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Momma—”
Her mother slapped her hard across the face, nails raking across her skin in angry red lines, striking silence into her daughter.
The scene shifted and Eris was still in the closet, wearing the same clothes. The sound of distant knocking and a door slamming open met their ears. Eris perked up, eyes going wide. The sound of her mother screaming rose through the house and Eris scrambled to her feet, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
The lock to the closet slid open, followed by the creaking door. Victor appeared on the other side, offering Eris his hand. She began to sob, but still managed to reach out and take it, stepping out of the closet.
“Your mother has been chosen as an Atrum fighter,” he said, sounding much more formal than he had before. Three guards stood behind him, looking at her with a mixture of pity and repugnance. “Because you are underage, you are not equipped to live on your own. You will work and live in Bluff Bastion indefinitely.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she said tearfully. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“You will start work first thing tomorrow. I suggest you bathe and eat to regain your strength,” Victor said in a dispassionate voice, though a spark in his eyes suggested he felt more deeply about the situation than he was letting on.
The Memories ended then, and Autumn was pulled back into the present, back to her room that didn’t feel quite so confining anymore.
“Oh, Eris,” Autumn said, her eyes filling with tears as she clutched at the girl’s shaking hands. “I don’t know what to say… I’m so sorry. You must think I’m the biggest, most sp
oiled brat you’ve ever met, complaining about being stuck in a room like this when—”
“I don’t think that,” Eris said, shaking her head and offering Autumn a benevolent smile. “I think Victor was right about you.”
Autumn’s eyebrows rose at this. “What do you mean?”
Eris’s eyes widened, and she stood up quickly, letting Autumn’s hands fall to the table. “Um, I should be going. I have a lot of work to do.”
“Eris, wait. What did you—?”
“I will be back later to bring you your dinner, Miss Autumn.”
Before Autumn could say anything else, Eris scampered out of the room. Autumn sat at the table for a long time, staring at her tea that had long since grown cold. What bothered her most weren’t the Memories that Eris had shown her, though those would certainly haunt her nightmares for weeks to come. No, the thing that was disturbing her most was Victor’s actions in Eris’s Memories. Autumn had seen the look in his eyes when Eris showed him what was happening to her.
How could someone so evil do something so kind?
16
Buzz Kill
LUKE sighed deeply as he crawled out of bed. The pain of losing someone you love doesn’t ever get easier…not even with time. It just becomes easier to manage. Easier to tuck away into the recesses of your mind. But for him, it made frequent appearances, especially at night. He blamed himself for his sister’s death. How could he not? She’d been late meeting him, and he hadn’t gone looking for her. He knew she hated to be late. He knew she’d been spending an unusual amount of time up on the precipice by the waterfall boundary. What if he’d gone to search for her there instead of waiting around for her to show up? What if he could have prevented her death? This particular question replayed over and over in his mind, driving him ever so slowly insane.
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