The girl was still babbling. “That must have been horrible. Do you know what she wanted with you?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to speak about my mom again, to lie to all of them.
“It’s so weird. We all thought Vinicola was dead,” she babbled on and I wondered if she ever stopped. “And then she made her appearance just like that. You can be so glad Tom and Fox found you. Vinicola is not someone to mess with. Shadow Casters can do serious damage to a new Caster, for some reason they think you guys can be persuaded to turn dark, which is actually silly…” she stopped in mid-sentence and looked at me who just gawked at her. “I’m sorry. I know I can be overwhelming. Believe me, it’s a curse.” She giggled at her own little joke.
I smiled, not knowing what to say and knowing it’s okay, would just give her the right to carry on, and it was the last thing I wanted her to do.
“I’ll leave you be. When you’re ready, just follow the steps, through the hall on your left and last door is the kitchen.”
A sarcastic wow was all I could think when she left the room. I did not want to know what she was like on a mission. How did they keep her mouth shut for more than five seconds?
I got dressed and followed the steps down like she said.
Three hallways were right in front of me.
For some reason I couldn’t remember which one she said I should take and no sound came from any of them, so I took the one that was right in front of me.
It was slightly dark, and had plenty of portraits of people wearing clothing from different eras.
There was even one of Marie-Antoinette. I knew it was her because we’d done an entire history lesson about the woman during the French Revolution who wanted to give her starving people cake instead of bread.
Benjamin Franklin also made his appearance.
What was royalty and a Founding Father doing amongst them?
I opened the door that was at the end of the hallway and found a huge library with plenty of books open on one of the tables.
I started to page through the first one.
It had an old smell to it, and when I lifted it up to see it’s cover, the title was barely legible.
“It’s the Book of Nightmares,” a voice said from behind me.
It didn’t belong to Elliot, but to another blonde guy that could easily be his son. He was wearing a jeans with a Metallica t-shirt and his hair was as messy as it could get.
I stopped looking through the book and folded my arms in front of me.
“Name is Max, you must be Chastity.”
“Chas is fine,” I replied. “I couldn’t remember which hallway to take, sorry.”
He chuckled. “I don’t blame you, Stacey has that ability to make you so confused that you don’t know whether you should go up or down.”
I giggled.
“You rest well?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Good. I promise you, you’re going to need all of your strength.”
He walked toward the door and the vibe he gave told me that I should follow him.
He took me straight to the kitchen and disappeared again.
Fox looked up from her plate of eggs and gave me a huge smile. “Two days, that must be a record.”
A woman with shoulder length, red hair giggled. She was slightly older than Fox and really pretty and friendly too.
“Welcome to the Compound, Chastity. I’m Ginny, come sit and have breakfast.”
I smiled at her. No need to introduce myself it seemed all of them already knew who I was.
I took the space right across from Fox.
“What happened? I told you to take a deep breath.”
“Something hit me on the head, and that was when the breath disappeared too.”
“I’m so sorry about what happened, Chas. I…”
“It’s not your fault, Fox.” Elliot had just walked into the kitchen.
“Still, she could’ve died and it would’ve been on me.”
“No, it would’ve been on Tom. They aren’t your team anymore. You need to let that go.”
She huffed and smiled. “They will always be my team Elliot, no matter what Selene says or does to punish me.”
I didn’t like the vibe that was starting to form.
“She’s just worried about you, this is not a punishment, Fox.”
“Then why does it feel like that?”
He smiled. “Maybe it’s something you can take up with her when you return to Revera.”
She sighed. “Yes, sure.” She dug into her scrambled eggs again just as Ginny put a plate of toast, eggs and bacon in front of me.
“Where is everybody?” I asked.
“Tom and Henry are training with John and Margot. Max, well he is always doing his own thing, and Stacey…” Fox shook her head which made everyone laugh including me.
“You need to get used to Stacey, Chas. She has the tendency to get extremely excited over the smallest things,” Ginny said, putting it lightly.
“She’s nice,” I replied and put a fork full of egg into my mouth.
“So how long before Chastity can go to Revera?”
“What, I have to stay here?” It slipped out and Fox gave me another guilty look.
“The Compound is also a training facility, Chas. Remember what I told you in the room.”
I nodded and kept quiet. I didn’t know who knew what and if this was going to be my new home, I didn’t want to make trouble for anybody.
To be honest, I felt like an orphan, being chucked from one foster home to the next, but I kept my mouth shut, thoughts to myself and ate my freak’n eggs.
“As long as it takes, Fox. Chas need to be ready on all levels before she can join others her age inside Revera. Otherwise…”
“Yeah, I know. She won’t make it.”
I didn’t like that at all.
Nobody but myself will decide whether I’m going to make it or not.
THE REST OF THE DAY I WANDERED AROUND THE
like a lost cat. I found the training room, if you could call it a room. It was more like a hall, where Tom, John, Henry and the girl named Margot were training.
It was hardcore stuff.
To see John and Tom in action with Henry attacking Tom’s attackers with his beak was brutal. It made me think twice about moving to Revera and I wondered if it wouldn’t be better just to off on my own.
Believe me, that thought had come up a couple of times, but when Shadow Hounds and Dark Casters entered my thoughts, not to mention the Oblivion, it disappeared.
I wasn’t ready to take all of this on by myself, and guessed I needed the help of these people if I wanted to get better with trusting my sand and developing my skills.
I watched star-struck at how Henry’s owl figure got bigger and bigger after Margot found a way to get him off her.
She turned around and got such a fright of the oversized bird that was almost her size that she stumbled backwards.
All of them laughed and Tom helped her up. “Don’t ever turn your back on an Anitule, Mar.”
“Got that,” she said without taking her gaze from Henry.
Tom blew his golden sand in Henry’s face and the owl shrunk to its normal size again, hooted once and landed on Tom’s arm.
After that, I got pretty bored. Nobody even noticed I was there so I walked through another passage and found the entrance. I looked at the couch and remembered the first night they’d brought me here. I knew it must be the couch that Ginny had ordered them to lay me down on.
The door of the Compound opened suddenly and three boys about two years younger than me walked in and started to spray graffiti on the walls.
I just stood there and gawked at them.
“Hey,” I yelled at them and wanted them to stop but they paid no attention to me whatsoever. “Hey!”
My hand moved through the one boy and touched the other’s shoulder. He jumped a couple of paces, dropped the can and ran. The other two followed them.
Ginny started to laugh behind me and I turned around.
“I don’t get it, there were…”
“That’s what makes the Compound so much fun,” she answered simply with a huge grin on her face. “They see a very old house, and not all of this. It’s the best disguise in the world for the Compound.” She looked at me with soft eyes, and her smile softened slightly. “We experience this so many times that we don’t pay attention to it anymore. Sometimes we see them, other times we don’t.” She kept staring at me and her face became slightly more serious. “What I never experienced before is what just happened with you and that boy. How did you manage to touch him, Chas?”
“What!”
“You touched one of them. Why do you think he ran?”
“I…don’t know.” It must be the shadow inside of me. Something I desperately didn’t want anybody to find out about.
“It’s the Clencing,” Elliot came out of nowhere. “I doubt that we will see them again,” he joked. “Chas’s print will stabilize and then she will be completely invisible. It’s only a matter of time, don’t worry about it.” He kissed Ginny softly on her temple and she turned around and walked away.
I didn’t like that either. It was as if she could see straight through me, knew that it was a dark trait and hoped that I would confess.
Elliot lingered for a couple of seconds more and then he smiled as if he knew my secret as well and walked away. I went to my room for the remainder of the day.
I didn’t know how I was going to stay here with people that dealt with Shadow Casters regularly. It wasn’t safe for someone like me.
At dinner we had to listen to Stacey’s babble again when a horrible alarm went off. Fox grabbed my arm without saying a word, while the others went in the opposite direction with Tom and John on their heels.
“What is going on? Why did that alarm go off?”
“Shush,” Fox said and as she shoved me inside my room and locked the door behind us.
All the windows disappeared instantly and blended in with the walls.
“Fox, what is happening?” I whispered.
“You are safe in here, Chastity. The Compound takes care of their owners.”
“That’s not what I wanted to know! Please, tell me.” Adrenaline rushed through my veins.
“What did Elliot mean this morning when he said you spoke about it in your room?”
“It doesn’t matter. If you want me to live with these people I need to know what the hell is going on.”
“Chas, it’s a Shadow Caster. The Compound is like a huge gate between Revera and the Domain. If someone enters who is not from the light, those alarms go off.”
“So Shadow Casters are trying to get into Revera?”
She nodded. “They have been for years. The only way they will succeed is if a Light Caster in the Outer allows them.”
This wasn’t good. “Are they going to fight?”
I was worried, what if it was my mother that was desperately trying to get me out of here.
“Yes,” she said and just stared at the door, or where it used to be.
I sighed. I really didn’t like this place much.
WE WAITIED FOR WHAT SEEM LIKE FOREVER WHEN the windows and door finally reappeared Fox went to the door.
“Stay here,” she said.
“Like hell I am.”
I didn’t care, I could protect myself, I knew the basics.
“Chas you don’t know what those Casters want. You were with one, they might have followed us here and are looking for you.”
“Then leaving me by myself is not the right thing to do, Fox.”
“Okay, fine, but you stay close, you hear?”
I nodded.
The first thing we heard when we opened the door was a scream filled with agony.
We both rushed to the room it came from and found Max, the boy I’d met earlier in the library, sprawled over the bed.
“Max, I’m so sorry,” Stacey babbled at his side. “I didn’t see the second one, I’m so sorry.”
“For once in your life, just shut up,” he said through clenched teeth. There was a cuss word in between that sentence and Stacey got up and ran to Ginny who folded her arms around her.
His torso had black veins running across it and Elliot’s hands lit up with bright light as he moved both hands over it.
“What happened?” I whispered to Fox without taking my eyes off Max.
He cussed, cried, and cussed some more.
“Hold him,” Elliot said as he started to squirm on the bed.
John and Tom grabbed him and pushed him down onto the bed.
I couldn’t take the screams coming from his lips anymore and went out of the room.
Stacey followed me and we sat against the wall right outside Max’s room.
Stacey hit the back of her head against the wall. “I didn’t see him, I should’ve seen him.”
“Hey, calm down okay. What happened? Was it Shadow Casters?” Duh, what else could it be.
She nodded. “It was Level Four Casters. If Tom and John hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have made it. Something’s not right.”
“What do you mean something isn’t right?”
I hated asking all these questions but I hadn’t been there and I needed to know, it was the type of person I was.
She turned her gaze toward me. “Level 4 Casters are the highest any Caster can go. They’re just below Somniums. Two of those Shadow Casters were Level Four.”
“And…”
“You don’t get it. Level Four Casters don’t waste their time with the Outer, they usually go directly for Revera.”
“Elliot said the only way…”
“It’s not the only way. Only a very high level Caster can find a way into Revera without going through the Outer.”
“Then why do Shadow Casters even waste their time with the Outer, why not go directly for Revera?”
“That is exactly my point, Chas. We know of four Level Four Casters in the Shadow World. One is Crane, who is like the Lord of Oblivion, and then there’s Elody, but she never comes here, it’s beyond her to fight, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t like to torture light Casters to get what she wants. She’s just as evil. The others are Vincent and Samual, and both of them were trying to get into the Outer.
Oh shit, they were after me, but what would Level Four Shadow Casters want with me? It really didn’t make any sense. “You think they were here for me?”
“I don’t know. They never go for a Light Caster who just discovered what she is, that’s a job for a Level Two Caster.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know…” she cut me off with a grunt.
“Oh come on, I can see it in your eyes. You do know, you just don’t want to tell me.”
She just stared at me for a short few second. “Fine, I think it has something to do with the woman that kidnapped you. Vinicola is Crane’s daughter. For years she didn’t make a single peep and then all of a sudden she shows up with you, trying to recruit.”
I gulped hard, but was glad that the hallway was slightly dark.
“So they were here for me?”
“They must have been. We have to find out why Vinicola wanted you so badly, and why she sent her brother to find you.”
I STRUGGLED TO FALL ASLEEP AND FOUND MYSELF sitting on the ledge by the window. I stared outside not knowing how long I was going to be able to see color again, and lost myself in the beauty that was before me.
The Compound soared high into the sky, funny how it didn’t feel this way, but here I was, staring on a park a couple of miles down and small buildings that made me miss home so much more.
Max’s cries eventually died and it turned out that Elliot wasn’t just a doctor, he was what Reverians would call a natural healer. You needed to be gifted for that and he drew t
he dark the Shadow Casters had left in Max’s body out with his light.
Then the thoughts that had haunted me all night emerged again.
So I have family, but not the kind anybody wanted.
I didn’t know Mom was sort of royalty in Oblivion and that the Lord of that awful place, Crane, was my grandfather.
I’d always wanted one, but I doubted that he would’ve been the old, friendly pappy that taps on his lap for you to crawl up and sit on. I used to envy the girls back at school when they complained whenever they were forced to visit their grandparents over the weekend.
I had an uncle too, whether it was Samual or Vincent I didn’t know, but I had an uncle who had a heartbeat.
Still, Mom left them for a reason, and Stacey was right, we should find out why they wanted me.
If half and half didn’t exist inside Revera then coming face to face with these people wasn’t an option. They would kill me.
This knowledge brought on more fears.
How did they know about me?
Did they have Mom?
I didn’t want to think about it, she couldn’t live in the Oblivion. Still, how they had found out about me made me worry a lot about her safety.
Then I saw it. It was as if it knew I was worried. Rays of golden sand filled the night. It flew around the buildings and went into each and every window. I smiled and knew what it was. They were dreams being casted. A huge yawn played on my mouth.
Hopping off the sill I crawled into bed and fell asleep faster than I expected to.
At first I was just sleeping, dreaming of nothing and then I was in the woods. My dreams felt so real now, something that I’d only experienced once. The day of my Initiation dream.
Orange light in the distance and the clutter of a fire made me want to go investigate. I found Leigh stoking the fire with a stick.
A jolt of happiness rushed over me as he was perfectly fine, not a scratch or a lost arm from the night of my Initiation dream. I remembered his jacket but I found him wearing it which was so weird.
He smiled as I reached him. The glasses on his face made him look extra mysterious, it made my stomach flip a couple of times.
Why was he here, again, inside my dream? I didn’t know the answer but one thing I did know, I suddenly didn’t feel as alone as I had earlier.
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