Inked (The Ink Keepers Book 1)

by N. I. Rojas

  “You have much to explain, un-aging boy!” –Incantatrix demanded.

  Chapter 25: Not close to freedom

  Broken-hearted, Kyra asked again and again how she was supposed to continue. She had done the unexpected, disappointing herself a thousand times in less than a week. How on earth she came to confess her feelings to this guy? It was hard for Kyra to understand how a boy like Mackenzie, ignorant, misbehaved, foul-mouthed, not romantic, uneducated, completely different from her, was the one to destroy her naïve heart into at least a zillion pieces. The stars in the sky were few compared to the sections of her shattered heart. She never expected to suffer such disappointment, it had been the first, and certainly would be the last. For a heart that had been so mistreated in such a short time will never exist a single word of comfort. The strongest action would never make her feel satisfaction. No poem would be intense enough to make her smile; no flower would be pure enough to bring a sweet memory; and no love letter would never be sincere enough to serve as glue to her sore, broken heart.

  Trying to wear a mask to disguise her true emotions with a bravery she didn’t really had, Kyra started walking until reaching Rouge and the boys.

  “I’ll teach you to use the axe, don’t worry. He’s going to pay every tear of grief.” -Giving her a pat on the back, Rouge encouraged Kyra.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I should have known. Guys like him have the word "problem" engraved in the forehead with red ink.” -Kyra answered back with a slightly happy tone, but she was not fooling herself.

  “We can always write something to make him suffer.” -The Graphylux offered after being like asleep for a few hours. - “You just have to write what you want. The more mistakes… the better. I’ll do the rest.”

  Kyra couldn’t help but laugh at the pen’s witticisms.

  “We do love you.” -Smarty Pants stated.

  “Yes!” -The younger kid certified.

  “And our leader does too. He was so worried when we burnt those books in the maze; he said you’ll be so mad at him for letting that happen. And then he turned all strawberry colors when I told him about you being his girlfriend. Something bigger must be happening for him to leave us. I’ll trust he’s doing something to protect us all… especially you, Fairy Girl!” -The older boy was growing fast. He didn’t belong in Alter Land either. Although his wise words, Kyra didn’t feel better. He was talking like a mini Mackenzie. Did he just call her Fairy Girl?

  “Really?” -Asked Kyra, a mix of surprise and angriness fighting inside. - “Is it necessary that you and your insane, irresponsible leader, continue calling me Fairy Girl? I think it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that I’m a witch, according to the natives of this story. And not just any witch, but a powerful one. Aren’t you afraid of me turning the three of you into clones of your leader?” -She threatened.

  “That. Would. Be. Awesome!” -The Lost Boys celebrated in unison. Kyra sped up, trying to leave them behind, but they had promised to be her shadow, her three musketeers, her three pains… Until freedom set them apart. - “Look. The fog.”

  The boys were pointing to a fine line of smoke between the dense mist covering the forest. Looking to every side, Kyra noticed that the trees had some peculiar shapes, like suffering people or creatures.

  Oh, fantasy was just a mess Kyra couldn’t keep along with. She was so happy, so normal, so… so herself a few days ago with her books and her reality. Giving permission for a little fantasy to enter her life had been just chaos. Kyra knew just one thing. She was mad. As mad as she had never been before, not even when her stepsister mocked her in school, calling her offensive names.

  Kyra’s rage was beyond normal. Usually Mackenzie brought out the worst of her, a gush of impulses impossible to control, but this time it had been worse. He had been as bad as she could handle, and beyond. And now the Lost Boys were complaining, telling that Mackenzie would certainly know what to do if he were still the one leading the group.

  Tired of Mackenzie’s bad manners and everything bad that came along with him, Kyra took out the Graphylux. This artifact was right about something. Kyra could teach this un-aging boy a few couple of lessons.

  She despised his words, every single one of them. And his tone of voice… She despised him completely.

  “The un-aging boy, Mackenzie,” -Without regrets, without second thoughts, she started to write in the palm of her hand, unaware of the consequences, every pore of her body claiming for revenge. Vengeance she would have. And it would be right away. - “ became mute until growing like a normal boy. ”

  The Graphylux laughed insanely. Its sinister chuckles echoed everywhere. Magic flew by in a constant flow until suddenly the Graphylux stood still.

  “Oh, this is weird.” -Declared the Graphylux, his insane laughs fading away.

  “What’s weird?” -Kyra asked.

  “Oh, nothing, dear Keeper. Just nothing.” -The Graphylux lied. - “Listen! Can you hear that?”

  They all focused their attention to what the Graphylux said. It was a song at the distance. Following that male-like voice singing an undetermined verse wasn’t of great help. Now closer, the voice was high, and the verse was understandable. Kyra and her company could recognize the words the man kept singing. He was repeating the same paragraph over and over.

  “The boy… he must die.

  The witch must die as well.

  To renew all the life

  that’s the cost of their spell.”

  Rouge watched Kyra with sadness, comprehending to perfection the meaning of those words. Kyra, on the other hand, has ignored it all from the beginning to the end, focusing only on the happiness she felt for having found her father, and thinking hard on how she was going to bring him down from such unusual trees.

  The dentist was jailed in an inky black cage hanging from two trees bent and tied together in the center. Prowling the area several times, Kyra discovered carnivore grass dancing under the weird cage. Taking out the Graphylux, Kyra wrote a sentence to cut off that grass, but nothing happened. She kept trying until her hands were fully covered in black ink, without results.

  “I’m sorry.” -The Graphylux apologized, though it wasn’t clear if he really meant it. - “I’m just a pen after all. My magic has no power over these enchantments. You need to find another way to rescue your father, or a way to break my spell, thus I’ll be powerful enough to follow your single commands.”

  “But I don’t know how.” -Kyra confessed. - “I checked and double-checked this useless book for an indication, but nothing. I don’t know what to do.”

  Tired and feet hurting, The Lost Boys sat on the ground accompanied by Rouge. Playing with her axe, Rouge couldn’t stop thinking on going back to her story… back to her wolf. Minutes went flying fast, although time in Alter Land was passing by painfully slow as a nightmare.

  “Give me this!” -Kyra said while snatching the axe from Rouge’s hands without previous warning. Unskilled, Kyra started hitting the carnivore grass trying to mow it. - “Dad, I’ll rescue you.”

  Kyra started yelling. She yelled harder with every ax blow she gave. Thinking only on rescuing her father, Kyra kept hitting the grass with the axe. She had no mercy, but had no strength to cut the magical plants, though she wasn’t going to give up. Her father stopped singing when heard his daughter calling his name, but he didn’t talk.

  “Stop!” -Rouge rushed to Kyra’s side, taking away the axe from Kyra’s hands. - “You’re making it worse. Look!”

  Rouge was right. The carnivore grass was now almost as tall as she was. The tips of the grass licked the bottom of the dentist’s cage, swinging it to make him fall into the spell again.

  “We need to get help.” -The Graphylux said. - “Walking deeper into the forest we can find Incantatrix. She’ll help with your father without hesitation.”

  “Why are you so sure? She said that we’ll be unprotected during the night.” -Kyra asked confused.

  “I’m sure she’ll find a way. If it�
��s the good dentist’s life… She’ll know what to do.”

  Kyra’s father started singing again, the same verse of death coming out of his mouth, scraping its way from between his lips. Kyra recognized that the tuning was similar to the hum she heard in the maze. The mermaid was the one who put her father under the spell.

  “Can I write something?” -Kyra asked, unsure of what she would write, but hoping to help her father faster, or perhaps harm the mermaid for what she had done.

  “I’m afraid not, darling. The closer we get to the Wizard, the weaker I turn. If my spell is not broken soon… I fear I won’t be your company for long. Maybe you can try, but I won’t trust myself to cast a good spell.”

  Willing to try, Kyra thought of a good sentence to write but the Graphylux warning ricocheted across her brain. Maybe writing a spell wasn’t the right thing to do considering the weak powers of the Graphylux. Maybe her father could end up hurt instead of free. Like it or not, Incantatrix seemed to be her only option. They started walking after yelling her father to hold on, to wait for them.

  During the path, Kyra was thinking of a way to free the Graphylux from the spell, when suddenly, everything ahead turned darker, cloaked with ghosts and shadows playing under the moonlight. The mist was dense, making difficult to see beyond their own faces. Shadows danced with deathly grace, silencing the noises of the animals around. The trees seemed to take life, leaves growing instantly from the branches, roots snaking through the soil, searching for nutrients and life. The bark of the trees, earlier stained with dark spots, now were bright colored, with a luminosity never seen before. And eyes… There were eyes everywhere. Eyes following every step they gave. Creeper plants held them by their feet, taking them by surprise.

  Rouge fell to the floor in an attempt to break free, but she yelled when huge trees moved in their direction, waving their long, thin branches as whips. Kyra tried to run away but she was imprisoned by the trees. Hands and legs tied, Kyra ended up suspended midair, her extremities being pulled in opposite directions, forcing her body to stretch and ache. She cried hard, fearing her skin would tear apart, feeling like melted mozzarella cheese. She felt a dislocated shoulder, and the pain started fading away, replaced by cramps and cold. A few tears ran from her eyes, and while she tried to keep a brave face for the kids’ sake, she wasn’t succeeding.

  The pain, the cramps, everything ended as fast as it began. The branches released Kyra, painfully dropping her on her knees on the rocky ground. She stood there, trying to recover her strength to continue walking. The trees had stopped moving and Rouge took advantage to come closer to Kyra, helping her stand up.

  “Oh, now this is interesting, my dears!” –The Graphylux whispered. A herd of deer jumped cheerfully around them, moving in lazy formation. The head of the herd stood inches away from Kyra’s face. As tiny as a mouse Kyra felt while looked upwards to see the animal’s face. It bowed to Kyra and the rest of the herd did the same. The huge horns of the leader deer amazed the boys, but neither of them was brave enough to stretch the hand and caress the animal.

  The shadows started revealing themselves, showing Kyra and the others their black humanlike figures. The Lost Boys, the three at the same time, bent down to pick pieces of wood from the ground.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” -Rouge told the Lost Boys, while her axe was resting over her shoulder, not carefree, but ready. The three boys ignored Rouge, holding their woods as baseball bats in front of their faces.

  “Listen to the girl. She’s clever and desperate to go home.” -Incantatrix was making her way between the shadows, commanding the Enchanted Forest to obey her and release the kids. Dozens of creatures followed her. Creatures Kyra had never considered that existed. For the first time, Kyra felt happy to be accompanied, happy she was found.

  Incantatrix’s mysterious aura was nothing but refreshing air to Rouge. She wasn’t used to trust in many people, but if this witch was thinking on getting rid of them, she had already had plenty of opportunities. Kyra made a brief summary as soon as she pulled herself together, and the pain in her body eased. Her shoulder was fine, just sore and still burning like fire, but every joint was still well placed.

  “What are those?” -Kyra asked Incantatrix, discreetly pointing to the figures that moved in the shadows of the dried trees. She was sure someone was watching them from among the forest.

  “Those are the people from the trees.”- Incantatrix said, vowing at those shadows, letting them know the Whisperer had seen them. - “Some are the Leavers, the kind ones. The Druids, the warriors. And the Dvasias, the tree spirits, and the most dangerous of them all, even more dangerous than the Wizard or the animal with him.”

  The eyes that they thought they saw during all the walk were real after all, reason why Incantatrix warned them to keep their own eyes wide open. Not every pair of eyes, not every creature following them, was a friend. Many had their obedience committed to the bad Wizard, as those who had imprisoned Incantatrix.

  “Some of them are just waiting for the Keeper, as the story says. Their future depends on you. Everything depends on you. Even me. When the boy came from human’s land and the word was spread, I was taken prisoner by some of the creatures. They are not evil, but ignorant, waiting for a change, hoping, dreaming, wishing to live. The boy was just nothing to this story, he didn’t mean anything but someone placed here to gain some time, until the truly Keeper, the one who can command every book with just the fingers, comes to restore it all. I couldn’t help you in the castle… I was helpless by then. But when you entered there and your magic was seen by eyes others could trust, well, let's say the Keeper’s whereabouts were confirmed. The Inklings came to my rescue, and here I am, ready to help you again.”

  “It’s good to know, because I need your help right now. My father was taken prisoner. The mermaid has him under a spell. Can you do something?” -Kyra asked holding Incantatrix by the hand. This one was startled by the touch, as if someone had awakened her after having been submerged in an eternal sleep. Her eyes had been opened again after remaining in darkness and hopeless for an eternity. The trunk of her memories had been found at last and the padlock that kept every one of her life's mementos away from her had just disintegrated.

  She wasn’t sure of the images drawn in her mind. What was real and what was fantasy? Everything was a mixture of words, faces, ideas. A hodgepodge impossible to discern, impossible to separate the true from the false, the facts from the dubious.

  Everything but her face.

  A face she had dreamed with her entire life with sorrow and longing. The beauty carved just by hands stained with ink, molded with words and dreams and the splendor living in the imagination of a naughty child. Because we must be child twice in life and thus it had to be. But not the Keeper. She should be child only once, and would never see old age, never would suffer the signs of age or fatigue, because it was written that way.

  “Can you help my father?” -Kyra was more anxious now. At the distance she could hear the howling of the giant wolf searching for them, tracking their smells, hoping to eat them soon.

  “I hope I can.” -Incantatrix answered, but her mind was busy trying to bring memories back; things she had forgotten. And love. She was sure she had it at some point in her life but fails recalling it.

  Walking at fast pace, Kyra and her huge companion, reached her father quicker. Still singing the same verse, the dentist looked like a poor bird asking for attention.

  “Your father…!” -Incantatrix said surprised, as if finally she had remembered everything. - “He is… You are… We…”

  Without finding ways to pronounce the words, afraid to say it out loud, not daring to confess all that she knew by then, Incantatrix just gathered together all those feelings, turning them into a powerful spell.

  “Can we save him?” -Kyra interrupted, wishing to have a very powerful magic wand to revert everything and going two weeks back in time. If she was able to do so, she would ask her father to tell h
er more fantasy tales and would encourage him go exploring on dark nights to count the stars. She’ll hug him often, kiss him good night, and go to his medical office just to be with him a little more than what they usually do. - “Dad! I’m back. Answer me, daddy!”

  “Step aside.” -Incantatrix ordered when she was finally ready, after putting her emotions in place. Everybody obeyed without hesitation, excepting Kyra who stood beside her a little longer. - “You too, Whisperer.” -Incantatrix’s eyes were emanating a bright light, intense as the sun; a soft murmur escaped her lips with unintelligible words. Kyra was sure Incantatrix was casting a spell.

  Soon enough, the trees around started shaking, writhing in pain, fighting against giving up. The carnivore grass struggled with agony, trying to reach the dentist before it was too late. The tree people moved away, taking the shadows with them and opening a hole to let the moonlight filter through the withered, leafless branches. A loud rumble was the only warning before thunders and lightning came out of Incantatrix, and explosions ended not just with the grass and the cage, but with most of the decayed trees as well. The energy generated by the explosion threw them all, except Incantatrix, to the ground.