Wraithsong

by E. J. Squires

Chapter 30

  I wake up abruptly to someone brushing my nose with something that smells god-awful. I try to reach for my nose to push the smell away, but my arms are bound to a flat surface below me. In fact, my whole body is bound. Shaking my head to try to get away from the stinging odor, I open my eyes. Bright lights that shine from several angles around me blind me.

  “Hello Sonia,” a woman says in a deep, pacifying voice. “Welcome to Wraithsong Island.”

  I don’t recognize the woman working on me. She’s tall and slender with short red hair, similar to the hair of a 1920’s flapper, and her eyes are a light green. I remember what happened before I lost consciousness and I’m surprised that I’m still alive and feel no pain in my body. Surely, falling from the hotel window must have caused some damage?

  “Maureen will be here shortly. I apologize for the restrictive braces. We’ll be releasing you momentarily,” the woman says.

  “Where’s my mom?” I yell.

  “Don’t concern yourself with that right now.” The woman disappears behind the blaring lights.

  The lights turn off, and I can barely see anything. When my eyes finally adjust to the dimness in the room, I see that I’m in a large cave with a built-in computer system. To the right is some sort of a white shabby-chic sitting area and a garage-type door is to the left. Footsteps approach and I know by the heavy perfume that suddenly fills the air that it’s Maureen.

  “Welcome, Sonia. I apologize for the bumpy ride you had to go through to get here,” Maureen says. “How are you feeling, dear?”

  I do a double take because Maureen’s hair isn’t at all the same as it was the first time I met her at her house. Now it’s blonde and wavy and almost reaches to her waist, making her look about five years younger.

  “Seriously?” I say. “I almost get killed, my mom’s life is on the line and I’m imprisoned by a crazy Huldra. How do you think I feel?” The fear I feel inside is feeding my rage, but I’m not going to let Maureen know how afraid and weak I am, so I feign strength.

  “I see that you’re fully awake. Our intention isn’t to harm you or imprison you, but to educate you,” Maureen says, her voice as cool and calm as a rainy winter day in Sarasota.

  “I don’t care what your intentions are. Why am I strapped to this table?” I flex my muscles and try to break free, but trying to escape is useless.

  “You’re on the table because we implanted a tracking device in your body. The device acts as a type of insurance for you—and for me.” She hovers over me as if trying to read my mind and my body. Being in her presence makes my skin crawl. “If you leave the island, the device will let us know where you are at all times,” she says.

  “How dare you meddle with my body?” I fume, feeling completely violated.

  “Enough of the questions—I’m tired of wasting time.” Her lips rise upward at the edges, but her smile is far from friendly. “Let’s get down to business. I’m going to give you two choices, Sonia, and I’m going to make the choice very simple, so even a new Huldra can understand. The first choice is to let us educate you as a Huldra, teach you the genuine ways of the Ancient Huldra Dynasty and the way Huldras were supposed to be educated. The alternative choice is death by lethal injection.”

  The two choices are ridiculous and I don’t want to choose either of them. “Why would you want to educate me? I would just use what I’ve learned against you.”

  “I’m a very patient person, as you will find, Sonia, but even I have my limits so please stop stalling and just answer the question.” Maureen’s eyes search mine.

  “I don’t see that there’s really a choice here,” I say. “So I choose life and to be educated by you.”

  “What a smart little Huldra girl you are. I shall send Layla in to release you and take you to your room. Please refrain from doing anything stupid, or it will be so much worse for you.” Maureen exits through a copper door beyond the sitting area.

  “Help!” I yell, even though I know it’s a complete waste of my energy. If I’m on Wraithsong Island, inside a cave, who will look for me here? No one except for Anthony and the Lightálfars, but even Anthony admitted to not knowing where the island was located. I want to cry, but instead curse myself for not listening to Anthony and Ross. They knew the truth and I didn’t listen. I felt so confident that I could tell my mom apart from a crazy shape-shifting Darkálfar, or whatever that being was, but apparently I was wrong.

  As quietly as a cat, Layla comes to my bedside. “I’m going to partially paralyze your limbs,” she says with a smile. “It won’t hurt too much. Just an initial shock, and then you’ll feel just like your usual self again. Ready?” She holds up two metal objects that resemble defibrillators.

  “Don’t you dare!” I say, but then the shock comes without another warning, a hundred bolts of lightning radiate through my body at once. I let out a shriek as my body arches in pain, my muscles involuntarily tensing up and shaking. Calmness, then numbness overcomes me, and everything feels pain-free again. Layla unbuckles the white leather straps that fasten me to the metal tabletop, and though I try to lift my arms, I can’t move them at all.

  “Up with you,” Layla says, pulling me to a sitting position. Sitting up, I notice that I feel extremely congested. “Now don’t fall over.” She stabilizes me for a moment. “Are you good?” She leaves me for a second to pick something up off the gray concrete floor.

  I don’t respond—I can’t respond.

  Layla edges back to my side, takes my arm and wraps it around her neck. Then she lifts me to a standing position and steadies me with her other arm. “Ready to walk?” She seems so unaffected by my suffering, as if this is something she does on a daily basis to make the time go by.

  “I can’t…move…my legs,” I say with a drugged voice.

  “Come on, put one foot in front of the other. The numbness will go away in a few minutes.” Layla kicks my legs forward. “Maybe I overdid it a little.”

  I think I hear her laugh at me, but I can’t be sure because everything sounds muffled and distorted. The room spins and I have to close my eyes to keep from falling over. Finally my eyes start working again and I open them.

  When we arrive at the same door Maureen just exited, I see that a gargoyle’s face protrudes from the center of it, and that vine and leaf designs cover the door’s shiny surface. Then we take a right into a medieval-looking hallway. Flat, but slightly irregular rocks pave the floor and the walls, and the rounded ceiling has heavy oak beams below the arches every ten feet or so. Clear glass cylinder-shaped lamps hang down from the ceiling. The doors are made of the same copper material and have the same gargoyle design as the first one.

  Some strength creeps back into my limbs now, but I still need Layla’s support to walk. I wonder if I have the strength in the arm wrapped around Layla’s shoulder to put her in a headlock and strangle her. I don’t.

  “This is your room,” Layla says. It’s about four times as large as my room at home. A queen-size bed with green linen sheets and a white and black floral blanket dress the bed and an ancient-looking desk with a modern office chair stands at the far end of the room in front of the barred-in window. On the walls hang paintings of forests and valleys, which are clearly visible this time of night because of the four wall lamps that shine brightly, illuminating the otherwise dark gray room. Layla helps me to get on the bed.

  “Hey, sorry again about the abrupt fall from the hotel. We just needed to get you here pronto before those delinquents could do any more damage to your impressionable mind.”

  “That was you?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says.

  “But, you don’t look like…” Then I remember that Darkálfars can shape-shift. “Why are you apologizing to me? You’re keeping me here against my will and are forcing me to give up my—” I think fifth Huldra gift, but don’t say it out loud, figuring I should keep as much information to myself as possible. I’m thoroughly confused—something I’ve been a lot lately, I
realize.

  “Sonia, you need to know the truth and the truth is that Anthony is not who he says he is and neither are Ross or Skuld or Mani. They are the Darkálfars and we are the Lightálfars, and Maureen just wants you to be free,” she says.

  Does she really think I’m going to believe that load of lies? “You’re lying! Why did you shape-shift to my mom then and kidnap me?”

  “I thought it was the only way I could get you to come with me without a fight. I hadn’t anticipated that you’d actually want to stay with Anthony.”

  I don’t care about her explanations. “Why do you have my mom imprisoned then? And me?” I ask.

  “We don’t have your mom; Anthony has your mom and he’s the one who wants you to believe that we have your mom. Really, think about it. Do you have any proof that Anthony is who he says he is? He’s the only one you have had contact with in the past week and I’m afraid he’s done a great job brainwashing you.” Layla sits down on the bed next to me. She tucks her short, red hair behind her ears. “He was supposed to bring you to us, but instead, he made up his own plans.”

  “Then why are you using a taser on me, and implanting objects into my body?” I ask.

  “We’re keeping you here for your own safety, and the tracking device is so that if Anthony or any of the other Darkálfars get hold of you again, we can find you more quickly,” Layla says.

  “I don’t need protection from Anthony because he was helping me find my mom,” I say. “He’s my…friend.” I’m not going to let her in on the fact that we are more than just friends.

  Layla pauses, studying my face. “Oh, no, I recognize that look. You have fallen for him, haven’t you?”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “You can’t fool me. I’ve seen it a hundred times. He didn’t seduce you—did he?” She makes a face like it’s the worst thing that I could have done.

  “What?” I’m outraged.

  “Let me put it more bluntly. Did you sleep with Anthony?” Layla asks, her full lips frowning. Then her lips pinch together and she gets a look in her face just like my mom does when she’s angry with me.

  “That’s none of your business,” I say.

  “Listen up, spring chick. If Anthony didn’t sleep with you, I can guarantee you that he’s not interested in you, so there’s no need to defend him or stay loyal to him. He has had so many lovers that it’s ridiculous and if he had any feelings for you at all, he would definitely have had his way with you already. That’s why I’m asking,” Layla says.

  “Anthony’s not like that, and besides, how would you know anything about him anyway?” I ask.

  “Because I’ve been working with him for a long time and I know how he rolls. First, you fall for his intense blue eyes, then his, ‘I think you are special’ comments. Then he tells you that you are the most beautiful being he had ever seen, and that he couldn’t imagine ever losing one of the most beautiful creatures that ever walked the earth.”

  “No, I don’t believe you.” I refuse to even consider her ridiculous claims, though Layla’s comments do sound almost exactly like something Anthony said to me.

  “I can prove it to you. We need to get hold of your mom and then she will tell you that it was Anthony who kidnapped her, not Maureen,” Layla says.

  “Well, you’re forgetting one important detail here. I was with Anthony when my mom went missing. How do you explain that?” I say.

  Layla places her hand onto the bed and leans forward. “So he set it up that way. He has people working for him. He wasn’t born yesterday, you know, and in fact, he’s thousands of years old.”

  “No, you’re lying!” I know Layla isn’t telling the truth—she can’t be. She’s just messing with my mind.

  “Then why do you think Anthony’s trying so hard to capture your heart? That’s what Darkálfars do to unsuspecting young girls,” Layla says.

  “Yeah, but I’m a Huldra, so how do you explain my attraction to him then?” I say.

  Layla scoffs as though her information is clearly self-evident. “A Darkálfar can dance a very seductive dance around a Huldra because his god-like sensuality works on Huldras just as well as Huldras’ sensualities works on humans. Did he tell you something contrary?”

  I think about another comeback. “What about the phone call when I heard Maureen and him talk on the phone?”

  “A Darkálfar can make stuff up and actually get you to think that you’re experiencing it. It’s called illusionary control.” She pauses and thinks for a minute. “It’s really a shame you haven’t been to the Academy, Sonia, but then again, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise since we’ll be able to train you the correct way—the way of the undefiled Huldra, the way a Huldra was supposed to be—fearless, all powerful and seductive.”

  I don’t want her lies to start taking root in my mind, but I can’t deny that I do want power. It’s a desire that’s innately part of me now. I do want to be fearless, and I do, strangely enough, want to be seductive, but I don’t want those things Maureen’s way. “He showed me the Book of Huldras, and what he was teaching me lined up with the book exactly,” I say. “I doubt that your way is any better than his.”

  “Did you read through the whole book?” Layla asks.

  “Most of it.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t a fake copy?” Layla huffs. “Well, think about what I’ve said some more. In the end, the decision is yours.”

  “Hardly,” I mumble.

  “Your physical strength should be returning completely in a few minutes. I’ll send in some breakfast.” She leaves the room, locking the door behind her.

  Still weakened by the shock, I remain lying down a bit longer. Anthony—a Darkálfar? And thousands of years old? No way, I don’t believe it for a second. I search my body from top to bottom for an incision where they implanted the tracking device, but I can’t find it anywhere. How does Layla know about so many of Anthony’s comments? Is it possible that his affection was a façade to make me trust him? No! I’m not going to let them screw with my mind.

  Thinking that I’m strong enough, I wobble over to the door and twist the doorknob, but of course it’s locked. Grabbing it with both hands, I shake it in hopes that it might open. I kick the door as hard as I can, which isn’t really hard at the moment since I still feel weakened by the electric shock. Leaning my back against the door, I slide down to the floor into a sitting position. I’m trapped and I’m in the hands of my enemies. A single sob escapes my lips and I bring my hand up to my mouth to prevent more from coming. I need to stay strong and I need to keep my head on straight. Despite this thought, I can’t help but let hopelessness take over. I break down completely and weep.