by Talis Jones
She waited outdoors for him to catch up and eventually he did. Disapproval colored his face but words had still not found their way to his tongue.
“It is not yours to deal with. It was mine and now I've dealt with it. There is no room for the burden of a child on our quest even if I wanted it. I chose a German name so as to blend in with the other children in the orphanage rather than be bullied as an outsider and this way it can never try and hunt me down and demand anything that isn't owed. A fruitless search anyhow since I shall be in a land unreachable.” She straightened her jacket. “Now, let's go. I hope you've had a chance to deal with Liam's body?”
“He,” he whispered so softly she almost missed it.
“Sorry?”
“He. Him,” he emphasized. “Not it.”
Cassandra stepped closer, intimate only in its promise of death. “This world is a cruel place, but goodness hides in its pockets. I have no such secrets to offer. Do you truly think I would ever make a good mother? No. I would not. I would offer only disappointment and detachment. So what may seem cruel to you is in truth the closest thing to kindness I could offer it.” With that she turned on her heel and began to head to the train station. To think of the baby as a person would be the first step towards attachment and she could not allow that.
Mikael matched her stride and after a long minute chose a different question. “Who was the man in your room? Why did he want to kill you? Was it Borya?”
“He was my brother,” Cassandra explained. “He wanted me dead because once upon a time I'd wanted the same for him. He was likely sent by Borya to find me, but I doubt he had to be forced into the task.”
“His body remains in our room,” Mikael admitted.
Cassandra shrugged. “No matter. He will prove a message to Borya as good as a letter and we will not be near for the police to find. Now hurry.” She pushed them faster and they elbowed through the early morning crowd as they neared the station.
Tickets purchased they settled into third class seats on a train bound for Austria. No bags, no supplies, no time. They travelled with only their identifying documents, money, and compass weighing their pockets. Only when the train tugged out of the station and its familiar rhythm jostled their car did they loose a sigh and settle against the backs of their seats.
The steady chug of the train nearly rocked Cassandra back into sleep when Mikael broke the silence.
“You are not devoid of goodness,” he murmured. “You may not be its definition, but you are not empty of it either.”
Cassandra didn't bother opening her eyes. “A fool's errand to try and love a devil.”
“You hand out coin and candy to the starving children on the street when you think no one is watching,” he smirked. “Not very devilish.”
“Then you do not know the devil very well.” No one can sneak about unseen as well as children raised on the street. It's bred into their bones. As is the lure of sweets for favors.
Mikael let out a sigh and dropped the topic for which she was grateful. With a rough bounce on the tracks her drowsy head fell onto his shoulder and after a moment she felt him take her hand. There was nothing romantic between them, but just as with Kenshin he too tried to soften her darkness into alluring shadows. Perhaps such treatment might inspire her to change if she felt anything back. But she did not. She liked them well enough, but ultimately they remained a means to an end and if they refused to accept that then that was their burden to battle blindly. So long as it didn't get in her way.
Chapter 27
Austria
A beautiful woman with golden-white hair and eyes the color of a sunlit forest arrived at the camp. She walked with grace and confidence as the commandant of this hellhole greeted her. A young boy merely fourteen years old stared captivated through the chain link fence, pressing his face until lines would mark his cheek as he strained to watch her until finally disappearing inside and out of view. He was supposed to be working and he knew he would be punished if caught, but his feet seemed to have melted into the ground rooting him there.
His little sister, only seven, tugged on his tattered shirt to get his attention trying to get him to move, but he couldn’t. Suddenly the woman stepped back outside and with a sharp gaze she turned, her eyes locking onto his before sliding down to his sister’s. His blood turned to ice as she said something to the commandant, never looking away from him. The officer saw them and barked out orders. Unrooted at last he tried to run but a guard had already seized hold of him by the scruff of his neck. He screamed for his sister to run but she merely tripped over her little feet too frightened to move and he watched in horror as a guard stalked her slowly reaching for his whip. Run? What a foolish thought. They were already caught and penned. Where could they possibly run to? But the sight of his terrified sister urged him to fight.
Eli struggled fiercely and in a moment of desperation suddenly fell faint. Catching the soldier by surprise, Eli took advantage of his loosened grip and tore free. Running to his sister he shoved her out of the way just as the whip cracked down slicing him across his face. The pain was too much. Too much. Too much.
Everything turned dark.
With no sense of how much time may have passed, Eli awakened to find two beautiful emeralds watching him from above as gentle fingers stroked his hair. The kind touch froze him in place, afraid if he moved she'd stop. He blinked. It was the same woman from before, the mystery that caught his attention so unnaturally. In a wheeze of panic he tried to bolt out of bed but she pushed him back with more strength than he'd have guessed.
“Peace.”
“Miriam!”
“Peace! I am not here to hurt you,” she promised.
He stopped struggling, more from the sudden wave of dizziness and throb of his wound than any true belief in her words. After a few steadying breaths he pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Who are you?” he demanded, secretly terrified.
The woman sat back in her chair and smiled, causing the boy’s heart to skip a beat. “My name is Cassandra. What is yours?”
Although she asked he had an unsettling feeling that she somehow already knew. “Eli,” he answered, his tongue dry in his mouth and his voice hardly a whisper. Snatching a fleeting wisp of courage he asked again, “Who are you? You are not from here.”
She surrendered a light tinkling laugh like little silver bells. It did not belong in this place. “No, I most certainly am not from here.” She paused as if contemplating something then, “I want you to help me, Eli.”
The nausea from before had subsided enough for his memory to catch up and ignite an anger inside of his heart. “Why would I help you? You tried to hurt my sister! Where is she? Where is Miriam?” he growled even while his mind begged him to be careful and stay silent. In a final suicidal shove off the cliff he already raced towards with his words he punctuated his death by spitting on her shiny clean shoes.
A flash of anger streaked across her face and a deep terror stabbed his chest, his stomach, his head. Before he could decide whether to beg forgiveness or close his eyes to the blow sure to come, her face returned to that smile of hers, a smile both enchanting and warm. He felt like an insect desperately crawling towards the light when faced by that smile.
“It was not my intention to hurt her, but it worked out quite nicely. An impromptu test, if you will. Demonstrated the truth in your heart. One has to have an eye for opportunity and know when to seize it.” She stared him square in the eye as she uttered every word and he did not know whether to spit again or write them down like school notes to study later. “She is fine,” Cassandra continued. “For now. It really depends on you, Eli, for I was not lying when I said I need your help.”
Suspicion furrowed his brow. “Why on earth would you need my help?”
“I do not know why you specifically,” she confessed, frustration clear in her tone. “All I know is that when searching for a way home, your name raised its hand. I do hope I’m right about you because I’ve been
searching for too long now and I have really grown quite impatient. This war has really made things annoyingly difficult to sort through. Then again, the records were meticulous, simply difficult to gain access to...” She huffed, a tiny smile on her lips. “What do they call them? Silver linings?”
Eli fought the urge to crawl away from this woman before him. She said everything and nothing, she both held his heart in his throat with fear and called to him like an ancient song, she was friends with the enemy yet called herself friend to him. “I’m sorry, I still don’t understand what you are trying to say. What is it you want me to do exactly? I don't know you. How could I possibly help you return home?” His voice broke as the crushing weight of his reality swelled in his chest. “I am no one.”
“I am offering you an adventure, Eli.” His name sounded like warm velvet when she said it causing his spine to straighten up and his ears to drink in her every word. “I am not from this world but a land beyond the sea called the Island of Oneiroi.” The name caused his nape to tingle, he did not recognize it yet he could almost swear somehow...he did. “To return home I require a child, one who still dreams of the Island, one to unlock the enchantments and allow my return.”
Eli realized he'd been subconsciously leaning towards her with every word and sat back quickly. “How do you know if I dream of this place? I promise I don't know it.”
She tilted her head, her eyes full of pity. “Do you think the guards do not listen? Do not keep track of who cries in the night, who plots, and who sleeps as if tucked safely in bed at home with no war on their mind despite the ink in their arm proclaiming otherwise?” Cassandra leaned towards him, her eyes searching his as if mining for his deepest secrets. “You are the only one who sleeps soundly at night. While everyone else tosses and turns, plagued by nightmares and fear, you sleep in peace calling Oneiroi to surface and rescue you in your dreams. Each time I mention the Island recognition flickers in your eyes even if your mind cloaks it from you.”
Eli sat impossibly still, his chest barely rising with his forgotten breaths.
“I need a decision, Eli. You will be well fed, given new clothes, your own room, you won’t even have a curfew or any eyes scrutinizing your every step. Freedom, Eli. I am offering you freedom. Will you come with me?”
A few silent minutes crept by not empty of tension or fear. Freedom? He wanted to laugh. If he agreed to this woman's offer he would never be free. Not from her. Whether by force or by choice it wouldn't matter. She had a force within her that called to him and he would follow wherever it led.
“I do not think it wise to trust you,” he confessed at last in a whisper.
“Good,” she replied unoffended. “Makes you smarter than I'd hoped. I had figured you’d be dancing and singing for a chance to escape Hell, but you do not trust me. And why would you? Inconvenient for me, but eagerness would have proved you a fool.” She paused. “Different from the foolishness of chivalry you displayed earlier anyway.” With a sigh she sat back, her chair creaking with the movement. “Tell me. I am short on time and need your decision with haste. I promise you freedom. Why do you hesitate?”
He looked her in the eye with more seriousness and age than any boy of fourteen should ever possess. “Because I am not alone here.”
Cassandra took a slow inhale and released it with just as much control. “I cannot release the whole camp. I cannot save everyone,” she gazed at him intently, teetering on the edge of a decision. “I can, however, arrange for the release of your family.”
“My sister,” he corrected. “Miriam.”
“What about your parents?”
“They are in a far lovelier place than Earth. But my sister, she is still here. She is all I have,” he murmured with a broken heart.
“Fine, I will relocate your sister,” Cassandra clapped her hands on her knees and stood. Decision made.
“Can't she come with us?” he asked, panic fluttering in his chest.
Sorrow seemed to glisten in her eyes, open for him to witness the emotion beneath her determined words. “No, there is only room for one and it must be you, Eli.” Desperation tugged her forwards and she held his hand firmly between both of her own. “Please, Eli. Let me save you. Let me save your sister. Only death awaits you in this place. At least apart you both have a chance to live.”
Devastation cracked his heart. How could he abandon his sister? Miriam was his responsibility, his last tie to family. Although half his age her pure heart kept his own humbled and true. He needed her. And yet this angel in the night spoke true and he knew that no matter how painful it might be, he had to be brave and leave his sister behind. She'll be alone, but alive, he reassured himself. It was not truly a choice. This was where their paths diverged. Not inevitable death, but glorious adventure.
“Stay with her here if that is your choice,” Cassandra hurried him as she glanced at her watch causing Eli's throat to tighten with a deadline he did not wish to face. He had no idea how long she'd been alone with him and surely guards or a nurse would come soon. Fixated on the ticking watch he nearly leapt to his feet. Cassandra was anxious to depart. Eli, however, was not done.
“No. I don’t know what you mean by ‘relocate’ but what I demand in exchange for my help is that she is free from here and from these people. That she is sent somewhere free and where she will be loved and cared for in every way un-until I return and forever more even if I do not.”
A ghost of a smile danced across her lips and she held out her hand. “Deal. I will have her taken to my château in Switzerland where she will be clothed, loved, fed, educated, and cared for as if she were my own sister.” The boy hesitated briefly before nodding in agreement. “Now rise. We have a long journey ahead of us and it will not be easy.”
The boy stood, shivering a bit in his thin ragged clothes. “Where exactly are we going, Cassandra?”
A sly smile crossed her face and the adrenaline of excitement danced in her eyes. “Home. The very Island of Oneiroi where children visit in their dreams and live when they die. But only those who believe. Now tell me, what is your name?”
The boy’s eyes glinted once more with recognition of a place that haunted his sleep and the first tingle of excitement in years hummed through his body as he answered, “Elijah Lieberman.” The sound of the name his parents gave him drowned his pulse with a steadfastness, a reassurance he sought as he repeated his name to himself throughout every horror he'd survived in his short life.
“And tell me, Elijah Lieberman. Do you believe?”
He did not hesitate. “Yes.”
Chapter 28
Waves crashed against the wooden prow and salt-thick wind screamed through Cassandra's hair as she watched the horizon fierce as a figurehead carved to face the sea gods should they turn their wrath towards their journey. If the Whispers had any true inkling of the force they faced then she would expect nothing less to meet her return, but as it were she doubted they even questioned such a thing as a possibility. A smile hooked her mouth at the thought.
By ritual her mind cleared allowing only visions of her next steps to occupy her thoughts. She began to do just that when a shout jolted her senses. Elijah ran up to her side, a spot he was oft to be found, and nearly toppled forwards over the railing he strained forward so desperately at the view rising up from the once empty ocean surface. Grabbing the back of his jacket she yanked him onto his feet.
“Settle yourself,” she chastised with an amused snort.
Elijah grinned unabashed. “Is that it? Is it really?”
Cassandra arched a brow. “I thought you believed?”
“Can you blame our moments of doubt?” Mikael cut in as he joined their vigil, his own eyes bright with wonder at the Island still little more than a shapeless rock in the distance.
“It just...appeared,” Elijah whispered in awe.
Mikael turned towards Cassandra at last. “I assure you, any doubts that may have lingered were wiped out the moment that island revealed itself as i
f by magic.”
She grinned, eagerness in its every line. “Of course it is magic.” Her fingers flexed and curled, yearning and testing, but her magic did not yet obey her summons.
Noticing her slight frown, Eli asked, “What's wrong?”
Tossing her hair she answered simply, “Nothing.” Turning suddenly she held Elijah's face between her hands. “Thank you, Elijah,” she murmured whole-heartedly. “You brought me home.” Then she pulled Mikael tight towards her, his arms holding her just as tightly. “Thank you, Mikael. You did not leave me even when I know you very much wished you could.”
As Cassandra returned her gaze to the quickly growing island before them, Elijah and Mikael exchanged looks. Cassandra was hardly what one would call affectionate, yet her spirit held an innate energy within that called to them. For her to so openly admit her affection caused them both to stumble and blush and secretly beg for more. It had taken another year to gather a ship, supplies, and fearless crew to carry them to Oneiroi. With the war it had been difficult to arrange their journey, but it also softened the sell to the sailors who sought to merely escape the brewing Hell of home. And now they'd arrived.
The closer they sailed the keener Mikael's senses became, tingling with something unfamiliar in the air, something that reminded him of Cassandra...perhaps it was magic. Only adventure lay before him, home left far behind, and he danced at the promise it held.
Stalking towards the captain, Cassandra aligned her compass. Checking its direction she reached over and adjusted the wheel.
“Land has been spotted, miss,” the captain pointed out needlessly. “Do we still need your compass to guide us?”
