“Sometimes you will be,” she teased. “When the mood strikes.”
Dear Lord.
“Now, come on. I want to dump you with your class.” She huffed. “Recruiting cramps my style. I’ve got shit to do.”
I had no idea what she meant but I was getting used to that.
As we stepped toward the front door, it opened and a man appeared. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and covered in drawings. I stared at him, wondering what the drawings were. Were they permanent? I gaped at the image of a skull covered in flowers with a snake protruding from the eye sockets and wondered why he’d want that on his body.
When he caught me looking, he smirked. “They’re called tattoos.” Then he cut Merinda a glance. “You weren’t kidding.”
She grumbled, “When do I kid around? She belongs on the Mayflower. She doesn’t know what anything is or what anything means.”
That had the man frowning. “Is she slow?”
“No, just backward,” Merinda retorted with another grumble. “But she’s smart and advanced. She helped me sing.”
I had?
My eyes widened because that was news to me.
“How many did you knock out?”
“A couple of hundred.”
“Three hundred and sixty-four to be precise,” I told them both softly.
The man whistled. “New record for you, Merry.”
“Hardly. She helped. A lot.” Merinda shook her head, and something shifted in her voice again. “A lot, Damon.”
His eyes darkened with something I couldn’t discern. “That’s unusual.”
“She’s seventeen.”
Damon grunted, but whatever had darkened his eyes lessened, and with it, my chest stopped feeling like it was seizing up. Had he been angry with me? What had that look been in his eyes? I’d borne the brunt of rage before, but it had never been like that. His eyes had…
No. They couldn’t have glowed red beneath the dark brown, could they?
“We’re a few years late,” he commented, breaking my train of thought and making me blink as I saw his eyes were normal again.
“Yeah. But she has good control. No one knew. Everyone I spoke to had no idea what she is.”
“Fuck, really?”
“Really.” Merry’s tone turned grim as though that was a bad thing when it was the only reason I was still breathing. “We can’t dump her in the first year. She’s too advanced. Second or third year would be best for PT, with her picking up the slack from the other classes with tutoring. No regular classes until she’s up to speed. I’ll help out. She might be a Lorelei with that voice of hers. I’m the closest to her age with a similar power level so that would help her.”
Damon’s brows rose as he leaned against the door. I couldn’t help but notice the play of his muscles under the white shirt he wore, and his legs were thick like tree trunks in the smart pants that covered his lower body. With his muscles, the drawings, and the spiky hair on his head, he was like no other male I’d ever seen in my life.
His words were droll, however, when he teased, “You’re willing to help someone other than yourself? How novel, Merry.”
Merry squinted at him then she raised her hand, lowered her index, ring, and pinkie to leave her middle finger standing. I stared at it, wondering why Damon snorted at the sight. When he shot me another look, and read my confusion, he shook his head. “She’s an innocent.”
“They’re going to eat you alive, kiddo,” Merry noted again. She’d already given me that warning four times so far this past hour.
It was growing wearisome.
“I don’t think I’d be very tasty,” was all I said.
In a world where people could eat things like those fries I’d had, I doubted anyone would eat someone as boring as me. Alive or not.
Even though it was evidently a threat, I knew I was in no danger, so I wasn’t sure why she kept saying it. But it wasn’t like I could do anything anyway.
Merinda had called the New Order a cult and had explained what that meant. What a cult truly was. Caelum, with its promise of truth, couldn’t be as dangerous as what I considered ‘home,’ could it?
“Was that a joke?” Merry asked, nudging me in the side with her elbow. “Good for you, kid.” Then, to Damon, she inquired, “You going to let me in, or are we going to stand out here all day?”
The muscles in his arm bunched as he straightened up and stopped leaning into the doorway, saying, “Nicholas will want to see her.”
“Of course. I knew that. Not my first rodeo, dude,” she grumbled, grabbing my arm again and dragging me down a foyer that had me gaping at the myriad items in the space.
There were hundreds of chairs lining the walls, and above them were thousands of paintings that soared toward the ceiling, which was at least twenty feet above me and made of glass—another patchwork quilt of color that I wanted to see the sun shining through. Along the walls, there were more colors to be found in the dozens of paintings adorning them. There were images that belonged in nightmares, then others of handsome men and beautiful women who were obviously important to the Academy’s history.
We moved down another corridor that was intermittently decorated with clothes made of metal. They stood there like silent warriors, somehow different than the stone monsters on the edifice itself. A different kind of watcher. But, as I studied the metal suits, I wondered if people wore these once? Goodness, talk about uncomfortable.
I wasn’t sure if someone was inside the outfits, but they were scary as well as old. Some had horns and others had carvings engraved into the metal that made their chest plates look like dancing flames.
Merinda didn’t let me pause to discover the joys of each new room, instead she dragged me through more of them, tens of them, until we finally reached one that was paneled in a dark wood, had a large circular rug on the ground in a color that reminded me of cherries, and was topped with a table that had a vase of the most beautiful flowers adorning it.
I wanted to reach out to touch the petals, but Merry apparently didn’t have time for that. She headed toward the set of over wide double doors, rapped on it, and then headed inside without waiting for an invitation.
Back home, she’d have been slapped for just going in, but the man on the other side of the desk didn’t appear agitated at her appearance. If anything, he just sighed and placed a thin box on the desk.
“I was in the middle of a call,” he groused.
“Nicholas, I want you to meet Eve.”
Merry cut me an expectant look and unsure of what to do, I dipped down into a curtsey. She grabbed me and dragged me up again—she had a habit of doing that. I knew I’d have bruises on my arms later. “I didn’t mean to greet him like he was royalty,” she complained. “You really need to stop doing that, kiddo.”
“Oh.” I blinked at her. “What did you want me to do then?”
“Say hello?” She rolled her eyes.
Clearing my throat, I shot the older man a wary smile. “Hello.”
Merry grunted, but Nicholas cocked a brow at me and I felt him scan my body. It wasn’t like Father Bryan’s stare, though, so I only stiffened up for a second. “What are you wearing?” he asked, surprising me with the question.
“They were all wearing that.” Merry’s tone was back to being grim. “It was as we expected.”
He sighed then pinched the bridge of his nose. “We were lucky to get the intel on her before it was too late.”
“She’s seventeen, Nick.”
“Shit.”
Why did they keep saying that like it was a bad thing?
I’d prayed for my eighteenth year for so long, and the way they made it sound, seventeen was the worst year imaginable.
Even though I wanted to ask, I didn’t. Interrupting my Elders was worthy of a slap, and I didn’t fancy being on the end of Merry’s true temper.
“She’s strong too.” Merry left me hovering in the doorway and headed to one of the two chairs in front of the desk.
She slumped into it, then when I remained standing, shot me a glower. “Come on then. Sit down.”
I followed her impatient orders, perching on the edge of the seat, and tucking one foot behind my other ankle. Resting my hands on my lap, I sat as straight as I could.
At home, I would have lowered my gaze also, but I was too curious about what was happening. The way I sat drew both Merry and Nicholas’s attention, making me wish I could sit like Merry—her back touched the armchair and she’d crossed her legs in a way that made her already short skirt ride up. I’d seen Nicholas’s eyes drop there too, and wondered if the skirt was for her or for him.
Perhaps men in general.
How strange.
Damon had looked at Merry’s legs as well, whereas at the compound, we all wore long dresses that hid our more intimate selves from sight.
“She has to learn how to live in the real world in more ways than one,” Merinda told him sadly, as though the way I was sitting was something to pity. As though I wasn’t even in the room.
In the short time I’d come to know her, I was used to being confused, so I just let it wash over me, focusing instead on Nicholas. To be dragged to this office, which was beyond grand with furniture so richly opulent, I felt as though I was in some kind of den of inequity, I recognized that he had to be powerful.
The luster on the desk alone was like silk, and if I peered into the grain, I knew I’d see my reflection. In contrast to the grim cabin where I’d lived all my life, the desk alone spoke of untold luxuries.
Even though I’d told myself I’d be quiet, the desk, this room, and the air of wealth in this place had curiosity prompting me to ask, “Are you the equivalent of Father Bryan?”
“Yeah, Nick, are you like that old pervert?”
Nicholas grunted at Merinda’s amusement. “In the sense that I am the head of the Academy, yes. I’m the leader.”
“Will I have to marry you?”
Merry chuckled at that, but Nicholas’s eyes turned stormy. “No. Marriage isn’t required to be instructed here.”
That had me relaxing and my smile deepened with relief.
“I know Merinda has told you the basics, but now that you’re here I wish to explain your situation more.”
“I’m grateful for that. I don’t really understand everything Merinda says.”
“That’s because she talks like Jane Austen,” the woman complained.
I had no idea who Jane Austen was. “If you say so.”
Nicholas’s lips curved before he flattened them into a thin line. It was interesting how the move hardened his face.
He was older, in his forties, I thought, and even as I wondered what relationship Merry had with him to be so at ease in his presence, he began to explain, “Most of the children who come here are already at a disadvantage. But it’s different than your situation. You are of this world but also not of this world. Everyone speaks like Merry. It’s the common vernacular. We’re not formal, and although we have rules we have to follow, you won’t be beaten if you break them.
“You won’t be married off at eighteen. You won’t be confined to your room or to this island once you’re of age. You’re here for your safety, and while I’m certain Father Bryan told you something similar, that the outside of your compound was filled with dangers, you’re here by choice. You know that you’re different, and those things that make you different are why you need to be here.”
Because he was right about what Father Bryan said, I believed him more. “I’m here by choice,” I told him softly. “I need help. Merinda says I have great control but that it won’t last forever.”
“It won’t.” His jaw clenched. “You need help, and we’re here for that.”
“What disadvantages do other children have who come here?” I questioned, ashamed that I felt relief to know they were strange too.
“They believe they have something called schizophrenia.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a mental disorder.”
Merry clucked her tongue in disgust. “Until we’re eleven, we’re pretty normal. Then it hits us. All of a sudden, we start acting out and hearing voices in our head. Making decisions becomes hard. We experience blackouts. If we were sociable before, we become unsociable. It’s like a switch. One day we’re normal, the next, we’re not.”
Because I remembered those times clearly—the memories were enough to make me want to scurry away and hide—I understood. “Schizophrenia is bad?”
Nicholas hesitated. “Not bad, but it’s a disorder. Most don’t understand it, and some even fear it. It can cloud people’s opinions of you.” Hello judgment, my old friend, I thought sadly. “Children with the disorder take medication—it’s a substance that helps heal us, or in this instance, makes us appear more normal—and for a time, it works on us until it just stops.
“We don’t have schizophrenia, we just appear to have it. That isn’t to say it doesn’t exist. It does. But in humans. We’re not like them.
“After a while, the meds that lulled us into some semblance of normality, do nothing more than exacerbate what they were supposed to control. That’s when our parents truly begin to fear us.” He reached up and tugged at his bottom lip, and I knew that even though this had all happened to him a long time ago, the memories were as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. “The voices in our head, Eve, aren’t just hallucinations, they’re souls.”
My eyes widened at that. “Souls?” I rasped, my voice breaking as I recalled the New Order’s teachings.
His smile was lopsided. “Not like the ones you know of. There are seven of them inside us, Eve. Until we are twenty-one, those seven fight it out amongst themselves until a single, dominant one takes control. Until that happens, we teach and guide you. Help your souls discern which is the strongest so that you can fulfill your true potential.”
Mouth gaping, I stared at Merry, and when she nodded, the gesture one of encouragement, I swallowed and shut my mouth. They didn’t bombard me with more words, just allowed me to come to terms with everything he’d said. When I didn’t feel like I was about to go insane, I whispered, “So, the things I hear—”
“They’re real.”
Along the journey, Merry had only told me that I wasn’t crazy, that I had nothing to fear, and that the Academy would help me get myself under control. She’d said nothing about souls. I think I’d have remembered that.
“I’m surprised you’re not having a panic attack,” Merinda joked, her lips curving in a mocking smile. It infuriated me, but then I realized she was being blasé on purpose. There was concern in her eyes.
As well as fear.
I blinked at her, wondering why she’d be scared of me. Or was that for me? I wasn’t sure I’d ever know.
Swallowing, I whispered, “Just let me catch my breath and I might.” Her fear tumbled away at my statement, and it was replaced with her apparent enjoyment of the situation. Annoyed again, I mumbled, “I at least like to be halfway entertaining.”
Merinda’s grin didn’t surprise me even if her words did. “You’ve got fire. Maybe they won’t eat you alive.”
Dear Lord. I refrained, barely, from rolling my eyes. Warning number five.
My voice was husky as I directed my next question at Nicholas. “You said there are seven souls.”
“There are. We have seven breeds.”
“I-I would have said eight.”
Nicholas cocked a brow, but he shook his head. “No. There are seven. If you experience eight, then it’s a repeat of one of the others.” He beamed a smile at me, and I could sense his relief even if I didn’t understand it myself. “That’s your dominant soul. It’s not a surprise. You’re old enough for one to be stronger than the others. Even if it’s only a little.”
Reaching up to rub my temple, I asked, “The aim here is to have a dominant soul, correct?”
“Yes. We must all have one dominant soul by the time we hit twenty-one.”
There was a warning
in his words, a warning in his expression too if I were being honest. The handsome man who wore an outfit that appeared tailored to his frame had exuded power before, but now? It seemed to pollute the air around me.
“And that’s normal? There aren’t people who have, say, two?” I argued.
He shook his head, and for the first time, Merinda appeared serious, and she too shook her head.
“No. One. If there is not one, singular dominant soul, you won’t be allowed to leave the Academy.” Before my heart could start to race, he murmured, “It would be far too dangerous for the humans.”
Though I understood his meaning, I wasn’t a fool. All my life, I’d been reading between the lines to save myself from a worse fate in the compound. I’d known that if the barest hint of my condition had slipped into the congregation’s awareness, they’d have worked up ways to ‘free me’ from my situation. Like little Sister Jessica who’d been in a prayer circle and had been bitten by a rattlesnake to purge her of her evil ways.
The only purging that had happened had been the soil in the cemetery where she’d been buried after an agonizing passing.
Though the promise of death was a whisper at the compound, here, it was an all-out roar.
I could see it in both Nicholas and Merinda’s faces.
The only trouble was—and I wasn’t about to highlight this salient point considering they were wrong—perhaps they had seven souls, but I didn’t.
I had eight.
❖
Stefan
“Who’s the new girl?”
“You saw her too?” Nestor asked, shooting Eren a glance.
“How could I not?” he countered drily. “She was impossible not to hear.”
I winced because he wasn’t wrong. The girl had screamed as though she was being torn apart. “I’m sure it didn’t hurt as badly when I walked through the gates.”
Nestor shrugged. “We each experience something different. You know that, Stefan.”
“True.” I sank down onto the cool tiles, appreciating the chilling effect against my body. Even though we were cold-blooded by nature, we often ran hot depending on our activities, say if we worked out, for example. Pretty much like humans except our base temperature would have most doctors running for the hills.
Seven Wishes: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part ONE Page 3
