The Affliction

by Wendy E. Marsh

  I didn’t have a phone or watch to check the time but I could tell the hour was late. The house was still and all the lights were turned off.

  “I should probably go to bed,” I said, as we ascended the stairs and paused at the top, where I should have turned right to go to my suite and he left to his.

  “Please,” he whispered, “There’s something else I want to tell you,” he said hesitantly, as though he was unsure if he wanted to or not.

  I nodded and he grabbed my hand and led me back to his room where we sat on his bed facing the wall with the picture of the girl in the field. He hadn’t said anything about this wall when he told me the story of his family, so I expected whatever he wanted to say had something to do with the mysterious girl.

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but I waited until he was ready. Finally he said, “You know how earlier you said you’ve wished for an out because you didn’t want to feel the pain anymore?”

  “Yeah?” I said tentatively.

  He nodded. “I figured as much,” he said, still staring at that wall. I didn’t understand yet so I followed his gaze and looked into his art.

  “She’s reaching for death,” I said suddenly, and he didn’t answer. “Hey, wait…” I stood up and walked to the picture of the blonde girl and touched my hand to her back. A streak of yellow light flashed across my eyes, and when I blinked the girl in the painting turned her head to look back at me and I gasped when I saw her face. My face. I blinked again, but the picture had returned to normal. I staggered backward away from it and Gabriel. “How is that possible?” I asked, my voice weaker than I would have thought. He didn’t say anything.

  “Answer me!” I shrieked. “Why am I painted on your wall?”

  “Okay, okay, there’s a part of the story I left out, but I’m scared of how you’ll react.” I just glared at him until he continued. “The Sage that killed my family, the one that hunted us down, was your dad, Aubrie. It was Jonah. I heard them talking when I was lying on the beach. Talking about you. They said Jonah’s daughter was alive and she had to be part of Chapter C, but in the years since his slip up with an outsider, they’d heard nothing about her joining the Mystic. They wanted her dead, and that whole night, all I could think about was how I had to get to that chapter and save her so she didn’t end up dead like my family.”

  I knew it shouldn’t have bothered me so much, but I couldn’t help it. “Wait, so the only reason you’re pulled to me, why you didn’t let me die, why you’ve told me your life story, everything is because I’m Jonah’s daughter you wanted to save once upon a time?” I started backing away towards the door. I had told him everything and it had exploded in my face just like I always expected it would. How could I have been so stupid as to think he liked me, that we were pushed together for some reason like fate? I had let my feelings persuade me into believing we had the Draw, just like Eleanor and Tobias. No, of course, that wasn’t the case. He only showed interest in me because he had fixated on me as a kid when he hadn’t even known me.

  “Aubrie, don’t go,” he pleaded. “You kept me alive that night. I’ve known from the time I was eight years old that I wanted to protect you, and it devastated me when I finally found my way to the chapter they had mentioned and you weren’t here.”

  I didn’t know why I panicked so much, but I did. I felt betrayal and chagrin course through my veins. How could I have been so stupid? “I can’t do this,” I said, and I ran out the door.

  Chapter 18

  At almost noon the next day I could feel the elders calling to me. They had arrived in the early morning, while I sat by the window once again, pondering the effects of the disaster that had just occurred. I felt like Gabriel had betrayed me, but also as though my own brain had let me down as well. I had promised myself I would never open up like that to anyone, yet I had let him in. The instant turnaround time in which I received the consequences for my actions unnerved me.

  Another thing bothered me too; something I didn’t tell Gabriel. In his story he reported the Shadows on the beach had said they didn’t know anything about me; if I existed or possessed any talents. But I knew otherwise. I knew Jonah was the man I saw that day at my mom’s house when I was a child. So why did he lie to the other Shadows when he knew I was alive and had seen me demonstrating exceptional motor skills? And he had let me live…

  I hardly slept that night but I knew I had to pull myself together for the meeting with the elders. They would determine my suitability to join the society or the alternatives of death or prison. I was only partially nervous, though, despite the definite possibility of an undesirable sentence, because I intuited that the elders would at least give me a chance.

  A butterfly the exact shade of my own eyes fluttered in through my open window and landed on my outstretched finger, and I knew I had nothing to fear. Once I knew what I was, I found it easier to embrace my abilities, and they had already grown stronger, seemingly by the hour.

  I thought I would wait until someone called on me to meet with the elders, to show me where they were, but I couldn’t. Isaac had also shown me a part of Headquarters that better represented the title compared with the residential portion I had spent all of my time in, so I made my way downstairs unescorted.

  A pair of sturdy wooden doors opened off the far side of the dining room into an expansive, windowless hall with plain white walls and floors. The vestibule served as the entrance to the training center, where members practiced and honed their various skills. The pair of cool metal doors on the opposite side guarded the dead end of a sterile hallway with more steel doors lining both sides. They led to private training rooms specialized with equipment for different callings and offices where records were kept and missions were assigned, monitored, and evaluated.

  I walked automatically through the strange monochrome room towards the filled row of high-backed chairs lined at the opposite end. All the wizened faces stared at me; some with disgusted frowns, others with mild curiosity. Only one at the end looked at me with a pleasant smile but I walked towards the speculating man in the middle anyway. He radiated towards me an air of holding the most influence.

  They all wore the same floor length garnet robes girt with golden cords, the splayed tassels reaching for the floor. This struck me as odd, and strongly intimidating, as none of the other Mystics I had met wore anything so archaic.

  The elders weren’t the only people in the room; Mystics stood immediately around them, Guardians, and then others along the walls. I recognized Nathaniel, whose face puckered in obvious revulsion, no doubt disturbed that Gabriel had proved my hereditary traits and therefore had not been reprimanded. I also received vibes that the elders reproached Nathaniel for leaving me for dead at the hospital.

  Although the elders were not overly ecstatic about my existence, they disagreed with Nathaniel’s decision to desert me.

  I noticed the Exterminator, Cyrus, hulking back in the corner, and Eleanor leaning against a beefy man with a dark lumberjack beard, who I knew must be her Sage husband, Tobias. I hadn’t seen him until the trial, but the contrast to Eleanor’s elegance surprised me. He seemed wearier than the rest, and at first, I thought it must be his age, though I thought him to be between forty-five and fifty and he looked worse for wear than the much older elders. With a jolt, I realized that it might be his calling, my calling. It can’t be easy when you have to contend with the future as well as the present.

  At least those three smiled back at me with confidence, as did Adam, who stood close to the elders. Finally, I stopped about ten feet from them, at the end of a seemingly long, very self-conscious walk. That’s when I started feeling…wrong. I didn’t know what caused the sensation, but I knew it wasn’t directly related to the elders. I ignored the feeling. It’s just the nerves, I lied to myself.

  “Hello, Aubrie, my name is Norman,” said the middle man with a British accent. Norman sported a horseshoe of short cropped white hair, a pleasant expression worn into the paunchy face of
a brilliant man. “I’m sure you know a bit about us and what we are here for.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “You aren’t sure what to do with me, since I’m somewhat of a unique case, and you don’t know if I will be successful, even with training, since I’m so old. You’re also worried because my father and sister are both Shadows, and are afraid that I will betray you, especially since I have not been brought up here. Some of you think I should be kept under strict control in your prison, a couple of you think I should just start training like any other member, one thinks I will complete my training just fine and be like the rest of you, and one of you even suggested killing me right now. I think that’s all but the obvious.”

  Wow. That was bold, I thought. I took a deep breath to steady myself. I had not planned on revealing everything I intuited about the elders’ thoughts and I hadn’t known any of it until right before the information slipped out of my mouth. Yet I was confident as I spoke the words and hadn’t stopped until I had covered everything, even though I thought it sounded rude. I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I didn’t particularly regret saying anything, a feeling that deepened when I watched their reactions.

  A tiny woman with a halo of steel wool hair and skin too big for her bones looked shocked, most merely looked impressed, with varying degrees of disgust or admiration, but Norman just laughed and said, “Well you definitely have the gift, Aubrie. And it is just as you say. Fortunately Phineas here, Sage as he is,” he pointed to the only smiling man on the end, “already thought you worthy of training and is the one who believes you will succeed with it. Most of us were inclined to believe him, though we still had our reservations about the situation.

  “Now that I have seen you myself, however, and I think we all agree, I believe full heartedly that you will be just fine to go on with your training here, supervised by one of our Sage instructors, Moraine. You will begin your training tomorrow. We aren’t sure how long this will take, but you must start immediately.”

  I felt relieved then, knowing I impressed them. They at least were confident enough that I would not become a monster and flip over to the other side or just fail out of the “program” and waste the instructors’ time on me. But I still noticed that wrong feeling, which now burned inside me. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.

  Then Phineas spoke for the first time in a shaky voice. “You’re wondering about your friend, but it is a needless worry. She is no longer in any danger. And as for your friendship, distance cannot undo the bond between you.”

  His words were short, but they conveyed what I needed to hear. Although Cara was somewhere far away, we would still somehow maintain our friendship. I knew he had gone against his better judgment in telling me, that it might even seem out of line to the other elders. But only he knew how much it meant to me and I wanted him to know how thankful I was. “Thank you, Phineas, I am truly grateful for this information. Thank you all for your consideration.” Then I swept my eyes sincerely across all of them, wishing them to know I was also grateful they had allowed me to jump into training so late and with such loose restrictions.

  Norman nodded once to me and I had just turned to leave when suddenly I thought I would burst into flame, and Gabriel walked past to stand in front of the elders himself. I knew I should excuse myself, my business with the elders complete, but I also suddenly knew what that wrongness had been about. Gabriel.

  I stood wide eyed as I looked at him in hopes he was not about to do what I thought and willed him to look at me to see the pleading in my eyes. It didn’t matter because he didn’t so much as steal a glance in my direction. He stood unnervingly still, unnaturally determined, looking only straight ahead.

  “And you wish to switch to another chapter. Are you sure this is what you want?” Norman asked him. They weren’t paying any attention to me anymore and I was struck frozen waiting to hear the words that would pierce me to my core. Just the night before I had wished I didn’t have to deal with Gabriel anymore, but now I felt entirely different, scared at the thought of losing him.

  “Yes,” Gabriel replied in a strained voice. “I need to leave as soon as possible.”

  My chest exploded and my head felt as though it were on the same destructive path, but amazingly I stood as statuesque as ever, not collapsing to the floor like I felt I should have. Fainting seemed appropriate at the moment, but I didn’t lose consciousness. My knees didn’t even buckle. How odd, that I was able to keep myself composed on the outside when a volcano eruption brooded inside. Phineas looked at me worriedly. Of course, he would have intuited the pain I went through. I glanced quickly at Tobias, and his face was one of horror mixed with confusion as his eyes switched back and forth between Gabriel and myself.

  “Well then,” Norman continued, as though this switch was of no consequence to anyone, “Adam is coming back with us to the Capital, where his outsider will be living. He is leaving with us after this meeting. You may journey with us and join our chapter, on the condition that you agree to be her Guardian.”

  “Yes, of course, I will,” he quickly agreed.

  I couldn’t take any more. He wouldn’t look at me and I didn’t even understand my own emotions. My departure from the meeting was overdue anyway. I turned and walked back across the hall without looking at anyone, without looking back.

  I returned silently, alone, to my bedroom and locked the door behind me. I didn’t want any visitors, not even Eleanor. I didn’t want lunch either and knew that I would miss dinner, too. I just lay face down on my bed, all but smothering myself in the pillows, which for half a second seemed not such a bad idea. And then I had plenty of time to think.

  I knew I had made a mess of things, but even I didn’t foresee Gabriel leaving. Maybe he realized he didn’t actually like me, just the idea of me. That fit in with what I had suspected. And then another thought occurred to me. Maybe he was disappointed in me after waiting to meet me all those years. I probably didn’t live up to his expectations as the damsel in distress he had pictured while he listened to my father talk about killing me. He had finally met me and was ready to move on from this chapter.

  Why does he suddenly want to guard Cara anyway? I thought angrily. Does that mean he’s going to spend all his time around her? And I had to admit it to myself, I was jealous of Cara, not for the first time in my life, not even close. She was always so damn lucky.

  I suddenly felt extremely temperamental, uncontrolled. I could have screamed, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop, that I would just keep shrieking until my lungs burst and my trachea ripped open, until I killed the neurons in my brain, until I went crazy. It took me a second to realize I was crying, which cut my breath short and calmed me down a little. I continued to run through thoughts better left alone.

  I had felt like I could trust Gabriel, know that even though I lost Cara and was about to begin training in this new atmosphere, he would be there to Guard me and entertain me with his invisibility stunts. Wrong, apparently. Not surprising, really, as my life was a trail of let-downs, broken promises, and plenty of reason to disbelieve in trust.

  My blood felt like it boiled under the surface of my skin. My emotions changed from one minute to the next…sad, angry, confused, betrayed, hurt, embarrassed; all spiraling out of control. And as I felt each of these sentiments and the reasons behind them, splashes of my intuition intruded on my musings and overwhelmed me. Apparently, my gift was temperamental as well. Spectacular.

  Feeling two emotions at once was rough, specifically negative ones. Enduring one emotion, which quickly switched to another, all the while receiving bits of information from seemingly nowhere, which contradicted my mood and current emotion, was unbearable. I’d never felt anything quite like it, and I didn’t know how to make it stop once it started.

  I had to move, there was so much energy, where did it come from? But I couldn’t get up; the pressure in my head was too heavy and weighed me down. My body jerked spasmodically, and I clawed at myself, digging my fing
ernails into my soft arms, leaving trails of accordion skin and blossoming blood. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t make my body quit twisting me into unnatural positions. I couldn’t catch my breath between the sobs…God, I was sobbing so loud, couldn’t anyone hear me?

  I want visitors now, someone make it stop!

  And I barely thought that when I heard my door bang open and then sturdy hands, two sets of strong hands restrained me, laying me flat out on the bed. I couldn’t move, though my body still twitched and the sobs continued. Through blurry eyes, I saw Tobias pinning down my arms at the wrists and Cyrus doing the same at my ankles. They spoke to me but for some reason, I couldn’t understand the words. I wanted them to make it stop, but my body had other ideas.

  I flailed, trying to break free, but at the same time attempting to calm down, trying to even remember the reason for it all…not such a good idea.

  Cara, gone. Me, never going back to normal. My home, gone. Gabriel, gone. Training, a few years. It might not work. It might be too late, what then? Michael, gone, DEAD. All gone. My dad, a traitor. Dahlia, evil sister. Will I become a monster too? Can I make it, can I be strong enough?

  “NO. I can’t do it!” Were the first cognizant words out of my mouth. “I can’t do this, I can’t!” Then I screamed a maddening, piercing sound that wrenched even my own heart open. And then I knew someone else entered the room and I turned my sweaty head to see Marielle staring with interest five feet away. She wasn’t scared, more…upset. Her brow furrowed, causing lines to crease her perfect angel’s skin.

  I didn’t scream anymore and the tears just flowed silently from my eyes. I didn’t want to see her upset, and certainly not because of me. A child should never look so distressed. I was the cause of this scene; in the midst of my personal anxiety attack, I had managed to cause more trouble. My body continued to flop beneath the human fetters holding me down, but it eased considerably. The bursts of intuition slowed now, played at normal speed instead of fast forward. I had come to ignore the images, as I couldn’t make sense of them before the feeling passed and the next began. It gave me a headache and made me feel nauseous.