by Platt, Sean
Caleb was about to turn and run.
But Hank stepped behind him, stone-faced, hand gripping a black blade.
Oomar looked at Caleb. “Now, now, let’s not turn a lovely reunion into an ugly event.”
“Reunion?” Caleb repeated, confused.
Oomar was no longer looking at him, his eyes fixed behind Caleb.
Caleb turned to see Jacob standing there, dressed in all black, smiling.
“Well, hello, Brother.”
Thirty-Six
Abigail
The man with the sword was large and old, with a big, bushy gray beard. He was wearing drab gray clothing with thick padding, and a wide belt with a sheath dangling from it.
“Who are yu?” He stared at them cautiously, looking as if he were on his way somewhere when the portal opened and the three girls suddenly appeared.
Judith stepped in front of Abigail and Talani.
“My name is Judith. We have come at the request of Cassandra Rollusulo. We came with her brother, Solomon. She is expecting us.”
The man looked at them for a moment, and in a thick accent asked, “Where’s ’er brothu?”
“He died trying to get us here. Attacked by bandits.”
“Hand over yur weapons,” the man said, “drop ’em on the floor. Then I shall take yu to Cassandra.”
Abigail and Talani looked at Judith for guidance. She nodded, removing the sword from her sheath.
They laid down their weapons, though Abigail slid the blade Mother had given her deeper into her sleeve. She wasn’t about to surrender her only protection against Judith.
“Come along, then.” The man sighed then led them down the hall, leaving their weapons on the floor.
They walked in silence for about ten minutes, navigating underground tunnels, wide-open chambers with makeshift shops, and passersby — some human-looking like them, and many others looking very different, though not nearly as different as the things in the Sacred Woods.
Abigail wanted to ask questions, but the old man didn’t seem all that talkative. So she kept her mouth shut, thinking instead about what she saw in the In-Between — how Judith had been a wicked person, capturing Talani and her sister only to sell them. She was a monster, just like Abigail’s uncle, and she wanted to deliver the same justice she’d dealt to him.
Why had Talani begged her not to kill Judith? How could she protect the woman who destroyed Talani and her sister’s, lives?
It didn’t make any sense.
Abigail had once read about something called Stockholm Syndrome, where kidnapping victims fell under the spell of their captors. Sometimes the people were broken down over time; other times it was an odd natural reaction. But Abigail couldn’t imagine ever feeling that way about the man who had kept her in his closet and raped her repeatedly. There was never a day she didn’t want Randy Webster dead. Nor a day she didn’t pray for him to die. There might have been days where she changed the prayer, asking for her own death instead, thinking that might be easier on God. But never did she fall under the demon’s spell.
She looked at the back of Talani’s head, and the side of her face, as she walked beside Judith.
Why isn’t she walking with me?
Is she mad at me?
Abigail wondered if Talani was somehow bewitched by Judith. Or was there some other reason to defend the woman? She considered sending a message but was afraid to do so right next to Judith.
Talani had said Judith couldn’t hear them so long as they blocked her out, as Talani had taught her. But what if she’d been lying? What if it was something that Judith had told Talani to tell Abigail?
Abigail also couldn’t stop thinking about the offer — to accept Judith as her Master. Not only would she be saved from whatever might happen to her being far away from John for so long, but Judith could make Abigail appear older.
As much as Abigail wanted to be older — perhaps in her early twenties — she wouldn’t let Judith be her Master.
No way, no how.
Of course that led Abigail to her conversation with Talani, about how a vampire separated from its Master would eventually get sick and start to die.
Abigail felt fine now, but what would happen once she fell ill? If they couldn’t return to Earth, then she’d never see John again. Even if she managed to get home, what if she couldn’t find him? He hadn’t heard her calls before, and that’s when he knew she was living with Larry. If they’d moved on from that house, she might not even be able to find John. Then she’d have to make a choice: die or allow Judith to be her Master.
Then Abigail thought of a reason that might make sense. Maybe Talani was defending Judith because she was the only person Talani knew who could become Abigail’s Master. Maybe Talani didn’t know how to do it, or couldn’t. Maybe she was only keeping Judith alive to protect Abigail.
Abigail felt a crushing sorrow at the thought.
She also felt even more lost from John and Larry than ever before.
As they followed the old man through the subterranean labyrinth, Abigail felt a sudden horrible certainty that she was going to die in this place.
She looked at Talani, walking to Judith’s right, and felt awful for whatever was happening between them.
She wanted to apologize, though she wasn’t sorry for wanting to stick up for Talani. But she wanted to say sorry all the same.
Maybe she’s not mad. Maybe she’s weirded out because she saw that I wanted her to kiss me.
Oh God, I hope she doesn’t hate me.
Abigail already felt alone. If she upset Talani, too, she couldn’t see a reason to keep living.
She’d be alone, in a strange world, a monster that could never grow up, never have friends, and never know real love.
If Talani told her they couldn’t be friends, Abigail might just step out into the sun and end it all.
She hastened her pace and fell in step to Talani’s right.
Talani looked down at Abigail, eyes red as if she’d been crying.
Abigail reached out for Talani’s hand.
Talani smiled; their fingers braided.
Abigail felt a smile spread across her lips.
Everything felt right again, if only for the moment.
Then they came to a blue door in a wall. It read Madame Cassandra, Seer of All.
The old man knocked. “Cassandra, I’ve got someone that says yu was waitin’ for ’em.”
The door opened almost at once.
In the doorway stood a woman who looked to be in her early forties, with long jet-black hair, in an all-black dress. Her eyes were red and puffy.
Judith spoke: “Hello, Cassandra. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.”
“I already know,” Cassandra said, wiping a cloth against her nose and blowing. “Please, come in.”
Thirty-Seven
Hope
They arrived at the Town of Jonah just before noon. The prisoner carriage pulled into a stable, the doors opened, then Hope, John, and Larry disembarked.
Her uncle, Gerald, thankfully now dressed, said, “Welcome to the Town of Jonah, second-best city in The Realms.”
“Second?” asked Hope. “What’s the first?”
“Under Harbor, of course. The town beneath the town. That’s where all the interesting people reside.”
He walked them through a secret doorway in the back of the stable, then down a rock stairway into the underground city, explaining the town’s origins and how it was home to exiles from both the religious Golden Cove and The Forgotten Kingdom — King Zol’s city of criminals and monsters.
“But this is a peaceful place,” he said as they passed a tavern where six people were fighting, breaking glasses and cursing. “Well,” Gerald said with a grin, “more peaceful than Zol’s city, anyway.”
Hope stared at the man, still unable to reconcile that he had been the giant wolf who attacked them. “Uncle Gerald, can I ask you something?”
“Anything you want, sweetie.”
; “How did you become a werewolf?”
He laughed. Then, with obvious pride he said, “The right way — was born into it.”
Hope suddenly had an awful thought. “My mother … Was she a werewolf?”
“Gods no. The curse didn’t touch her.”
“And me? I’m not a werewolf, am I?”
Gerald laughed so hard he fell into a fit of coughing. “Don’t ya think you’d know if you was a werewolf?”
“I don’t remember anything before going to Earth. And even then, I’m not exactly sure what’s what.”
Gerald turned and shot John and Larry both dirty looks. “These two men have anything to do with that?”
“No,” Hope said, both annoyed at the man’s persistent need to attack John, and also somewhat touched that she had family here so willing to stick up for her. “I lost my memories before I went over. How old was I the last time you saw me?”
“I dunno. Still quite young, not yet a woman.”
“How did you recognize me?”
“We always recognize our kin. Plus, you look just like yer mum.”
They continued walking for some time, Hope marveling at the underground city’s interesting architecture — halls and rooms carved into the ground, without looking like subterranean hovels. Instead, many of the places they passed had wood flooring, running water, and even gardens somehow growing underground without daylight. Perhaps the most surprising part of all was how bright the place was. Lanterns were everywhere, but most were lit by something that didn’t look like lamp oil, but rather glowing rocks and, in some cases, tiny floating glowing things that might have been Otherworldly fireflies giving off far more illumination than their Earthly counterparts.
Along the way to her mother’s, they passed all sorts of odd-looking people with every manner of clothing. She saw blue people like that man who had captured them, she saw a pink woman who was walking around naked with no obvious genitalia, and she saw all sorts of people who resembled humans, many looking savage, as though they’d cut you to get whatever scraps you might have on you.
They finally came to a hallway with three doors on either side, each painted a different color, stopping in front of a blue one. Gerald knocked.
“Who is it?” said a woman’s voice.
“It’s me, Abalena. I’ve got her. I’ve got Esmee.”
The door opened, and the woman appeared.
Just as Gerald had said, Abalena did look like Hope, just slightly taller and older.
She was wearing a long blue dress with an intricately woven flower design, azure threads woven through her hair, and a cornflower pinned where the threads began.
Her eyes were green, the whites of them tinged with red, as if she’d been crying.
Hope absorbed all of this in the split second before the woman threw her arms open and sobbed, pulling Hope into a hug.
Hope collapsed into her embrace, though missing memories prevented her own flood of emotions. Hope’s mom, the one she remembered from her childhood, was a fifty-six-year-old woman named Mary, living in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Thank The Seven Gods. You’re home!”
Her hug was strong. Her scent, sweet like flowers and something else, maybe perfume.
Abalena pulled away, holding Hope’s face in her hands, staring deeply into her eyes. “I can’t believe it. Oh, how you’ve grown into such a beautiful young lady!”
She kissed her on both cheeks, then hugged her again.
They stood that way until the moment yawned into something awkward. Finally, Gerald broke it up.
“Ya gonna let us in, or we just gonna stand here in the doorway all bleeding day?”
Hope laughed, small and honest.
Abalena ushered them into her home, a small, cozy place with wood-carved knickknacks on every shelf, and paintings on every wall.
She led them to chairs and a large leather couch in the living room, then asked if anyone wanted drinks.
They all said yes.
As her mother entered an adjoining kitchen, Hope kept staring at the paintings, all of them brushed in a similar style, and seemingly by the same person.
She paints. Just like me!
Hope followed the paintings along the home’s far wall leading into a hallway and two other rooms. The paintings in the hall were all of a little girl — one on horseback, one in a field of flowers, and another floating in water.
The one with water had the word Esmee painted into the ripples, and beneath it the shape of a heart.
Hope felt something break inside her, thinking of the agony her mother must have gone through after she vanished so long ago. Though Hope had no memory of the woman, or their relationship, and had never had a child of her own, she could still imagine the pain of losing a daughter, of not knowing all these years whether she was dead or just stolen.
Tears welled in her eyes as she continued down the hall.
Then she saw a painting that nearly stopped her heart.
A painting she knew all too well because she had painted it, or one just like it, more than a decade ago in Saint Augustine.
A painting of John, nude, hovering against a dark violet background of churning storm clouds, hands outstretched with red rings of light swirling around them, suspended by two large white angel’s wings.
She reached out to touch the painting, to dispel the sudden feeling that this was only her imagination.
It wasn’t. The painting was as real as the wall that held it.
“Mother,” she called out, the word feeling foreign on her tongue.
“Yes?” Abalena said, stepping into the hall.
“Did you paint this?”
“Yes. I painted them all. Why?”
Hope grabbed her mother’s hand, led her back into the living room, and pointed to John.
“You painted him.”
Abalena stared, then nodded. “You’re right.”
She smiled as if this was something that happened all the time. That it wasn’t weird to paint a man she’d never met, a man from another world that her daughter had fallen in love with.
Hope said, “I painted him too. Painted the exact same painting more than ten years ago.”
Abalena smiled. “You’re a painter?”
“Don’t you find it the least bit odd that we painted the same exact thing even though we hadn’t seen each other in forever, and you’d never met him before?”
“We have the gift,” Abalena said, as if Hope should understand what that meant.
“What gift?”
“We can see things that others can’t. It’s why that wizard took a shining to you, hoping to develop your skills.”
“Wizard? What wizard?”
“VVessolff. Back when we lived under King Zol’s rule. He had taken you as an apprentice of sorts, even though you were only a stable girl.”
John stood and approached them. “She was an apprentice to The Last Great Wizard?”
“Yes, though I wish I’d never agreed to let her train. Had I know he’d vanish, and take you with him, I never would’ve let him near you. What happened, Esmee? Did he take you to Earth? Or was it that vulgar Prince Jacob?”
“It’s a long story,” Hope said. “I think I’ll need that drink.”
Hope sat between Larry and John on one couch while Gerald and Abalena sat in chairs opposite them, everyone sipping a warm beverage with heavy, aromatic spices, but not unpleasant, as she told her story — how she’d been a vessel for the wizard who had helped King Zol’s two other sons escape, then hiding his soul inside six crystals buried in people he trusted whom he sent to Earth where the King could never reach them.
She then told them everything else, ending with why they were here — to retrieve the crystals.
Abalena shook her head. “No, it’s too dangerous. If they have all the crystals, as you say, then they’re unstoppable. There are no magick users left with a tenth of VVessolff’s power. The Hand either killed or imprisoned them all.”
John i
nterrupted, “Imprisoned? Who?”
“There was a man here until late last year named Morloth. He lived in Under Harbor for some time after The Great War was over, Jonah hiding him from both The North and The Hand when they were cracking down on magick. They purged anyone with true powers. But Morloth managed to hide among us for a while. Until one day The Hand sent its Covenant here to capture him. I don’t know if Jonah had betrayed him or if someone else sold him out to collect a bounty, but either way, he’s gone.”
“How powerful was he?” John asked. “Could he fight the Valkoer?”
“If anyone could, I suppose it would be him, but I don’t know how he could be found.”
“We’ll figure that part out,” John said, his wheels obviously turning.
“Please, Esmee, stay here,” Abalena said. “We have so much to catch up on, so many years stolen. Everyone thought you were dead, but I never gave up believing.”
John asked, “Can you get me a meeting with Jonah?”
Gerald nodded. “I was gonna ask you to come meet him, anyway. You need to tell him what you told us about the prince and the crystals. If it’s true, this might be the first place King Zol strikes seeing how Jonah is housing exiled enemies of the King.”
John looked at Hope and Larry. “Can you two wait here?”
Larry looked momentarily disappointed not to be going along. But then he nodded. Hope figured that John must’ve sent him some telepathic message to stay behind and look after her.
John gave Hope a weak smile and said, “I love you,” before following Gerald out of Abalena’s home.
Hope returned to getting to know the mom she never knew she had.
Thirty-Eight
Abigail
Cassandra had turned out to be quite nice. She worked as a seer, which Abigail guessed was like a psychic, though she had never believed in clairvoyants before, at least the kind she saw on TV that could tell the future. Cassandra had, however, claimed to have seen her brother die in a vision.
Cassandra said that she could set them up with a shop and a place to stay — if they didn’t mind working on an underground farm.
