by Hanna Peach
“If I knew, do you think I’d be asking you?” the Mapmaker growled.
“Why would the thief go through the trouble of stealing your globe only to make you go on a treasure hunt?”
“How the hell should I know,” grumbled the Mapmaker. “Get me my globe back and I’ll give you your map.”
* * *
Israel and Alyx stood on the sidewalk after the Mapmaker had kicked them out of his store, claiming his need to start tidying up. He scanned the street for the men who had pursued them earlier but it was empty. There were no sounds of footsteps in the distance. They must have lost them.
Slung over Alyx’s shoulder was the drawstring canvas bag given to them by the Mapmaker to carry back the globe. She also held the papyrus scroll in her hand, muttering the riddle under her breath. “Don’t you think this is strange?” Alyx asked quietly. “Why would someone break into his store and steal something just to play a game of treasure hunt?”
“This whole place is strange. But it doesn’t matter why the thief did what he did. We just need to figure out the riddle and get that globe.”
“If the globe is even where this riddle says it should be.”
“It will be.” He lifted his eyes up to the top of the mountain peeking up above the roofline beyond. “It has to be.”
Alyx stared at the scroll again. “What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.” His mind ran over the lines of the riddle…
In a place of memories old,
Of distant lands and lessons told…
“Lessons told… Could it be…a school?”
Alyx ran her finger across the scroll. “And stiff spines and arms fold’d are the students. But which school? Saint Joseph has several.”
“Perhaps memories of old is an indication of the age of the school. Saint Paul’s Public School? I know where that is. I went there.”
Saint Paul’s was a large, rambling gray stone building. It used to be a large hospital before the first World War and was now a state run public school.
Alyx pursed her lips. She didn’t look convinced. “When was Saint Paul’s founded?”
“In the 1800s as a hospital, I think. God, my memory’s rusty.”
“It could be Saint Catherine’s Private School for Girls. It was founded in 1348. By an old wealthy sea captain and his Indian wife.” Alyx gasped. “That’s where the distant lands comes in.”
Israel nodded. “Okay then. Let’s go to Saint Catherine’s.”
Alyx led Israel through the streets, eyes peeled for any signs of their chasers. She was met with several dead ends, forcing her to recalculate her route. The quicker they retrieved this globe, the quicker they could get their map in exchange and be on their way out of this eerie city.
It was so strange to walk these silent streets. It was like she and Israel were the only two people in the whole world. She glanced over to him and found he was already looking at her.
“So,” he cleared his throat, “who’s waiting for you outside? A boyfriend?”
She had forgotten all about Daniel. What would he say if he knew that she had barely thought of him at all in here?
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said. I have a fiancé. She opened her mouth to clarify this but nothing came out. She snapped her mouth shut then cringed internally. She didn’t want Israel to know that she was engaged to another man. Why?
“Parents?” Israel asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. It was too late to say anything now about Daniel. Right?
“My parents are dead.”
Israel flinched. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Alyx tried to ignore the echoes of sorrow whispering in her. It had been years since her parents passed away but she still felt their absence like an unmendable hole in her soul.
“What do you remember most about them?”
She never spoke about them. She’d barely told Daniel about them. So perhaps it was the soft, earnest way Israel asked. Perhaps there was a part of her that was so desperate to be heard, to be known, and it clung onto the sound of Israel’s voice and cried, “Yes, tell him. He deserves to hear it”. She found herself speaking before she even knew what she was doing.
“My father was a carpenter and my mother was an artist. They spotted each other through the crowded el Souq marketplace one day and they both knew. Well, my father knew.” She let out a soft laugh. “My mother took some convincing but she eventually came around. They were young and penniless when they had me but that didn’t matter. They loved each other and me so much, and that was enough. They died in a car crash when I was fourteen…” and I was never the same again.
What would they say if they knew she was marrying Daniel instead of moving to Prague and following her dream? Her mother with her artist’s soul and father with his dreamer’s heart would lament her choices.
They never should have died. If they wanted her to make different choices, they never should have left, should they? Daniel was reliable, consistent. With him she would have stability and security, something she never felt through those years after her parents passed away and she was left to tread in this murky world alone. She would never have to waver too far out of comfort from a narrow band of existence. It’s not safe to stray too far, to dream too big, to want too much.
No, she would not apologize for her decisions. Not to them. Not to Israel. Or anyone.
“Did you ever go away together as a family?” he asked.
A memory burrowed its way up to the surface like a pearl among dark sand. “We never had that much money. But one Christmas we took a train up to Prague. It was glorious; the lights twinkling off the Vltava, the statues on the Charles Bridge frosted in snow, the castle looming up in the distance. We walked through the Christmas markets in the Old Town Square.” The scene appeared before her mind’s eye. The stalls had been trimmed with lights, displaying wooden toys and scented candles and knitted gloves, the towering Christmas tree swathed in a blazing dress of lights against the dark gothic buildings, the air thick with the smell of salty grilling sausages, the caramelized sugar of the trdelník pastries and the spicy hot wine. “My father bought a cup of medovina for him and Mama to share. They bought me a hot chocolate.” She could still remember her tiny hands around the large mug, the sweet steam rising up into her nose, the warmth of her parents on either side of her, laughing and making eyes at each other over her head and passing their honey liquor between them.
“That’s better,” Israel said.
“What’s better?”
“When you smile. You look beautiful when you smile.”
Her cheeks heated, matching the glow in her chest. She turned her face away before Israel could see how much his words had affected her. On one of the second floor balconies that they passed, a sunflower unfurled its petals.
Minutes later, Alyx stared through the iron bars at Saint Catherine’s Private School for Girls, a slight tang of rust reaching her nose along with the smell of damp earth. The real Saint Catherine’s had a well-manicured lawn that stretched from the gates to the imposing stone school buildings, regularly cleaned so they remained a polished light gray. But in her “dream” the lawn was overgrown, weeds pushing their way through the cracks in the driveway. The buildings were blackened from moss and age and loomed like large crouching dragons with their spires and scales, dark windows like glassy eyes. Along the other side of the wide gravel driveway that ran along the lawn was a bushy overgrowth that turned into thick trees, trees that continued in a messy jumble along the east wing of the school, even coming so close as to scratch at the windows like grabbing hands.
She hadn’t always gone to this school. Her parents couldn’t afford a private school. She went to the local district school of West End until…
Back then her life was simple. She always relied on a few things: spring always followed winter, the sun would rise every morning, and her parents loved her and would always be there.
The me
mory of the day everything changed flooded her mind, drowning her all over again. The day they told her that her parents were dead. Her world had shattered like a glass orb, nothing reflecting as it should anymore, and she had slipped into the dark cracks between the pieces. Spring might always follow winter, but her sun had never come up again.
Her knuckles went white as she gripped the gates.
“What’s wrong?” Israel asked.
“This place.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
She could sense Israel’s eyes on her. “You don’t have to go in there if you don’t want to. I could go in and get the globe while you wait here.”
The kindness of his offer dislodged more stupid feelings and the backs of her eyes prickled. She shook her head, trying to stamp all these cursed emotions down. “No. I’m fine. I just…” She sucked in a breath and raised her eyes to the monstrous stone building and the memories waiting for her beyond these gates. She would not let them win. “Let’s go.”
She let go of the bars and was startled when the gates swung open with a low creak as if invisible hands were moving it.
As they walked the long silent driveway she found something inside her loosening. She had never told anyone about her experiences at this place after she’d left. Not even Elysia who had remained her friend at the public school, only seeing each other when she snuck off of school grounds.
“After my parents died, I was left to my uncle’s care, my mother’s older brother. He didn’t know how to raise a child.” It was obvious that he preferred the steady logic of business and numbers rather than the maddening chaos of a family, especially one thrust upon him. “After the funeral he sent me here where I lived as a boarder. I don’t blame him. Well, I did,” she admitted. “But I know now it had been the best he could do.”
“Were the students horrible?”
She shrugged. “It was like any high school, I guess. The popular clique, the bullies, but most of them were okay. The teachers were worse.”
“The teachers?”
“Ms. Bezebel. She was my English teacher and my boarding mistress.” She shivered at the image of a stern-faced matron with deep scowl lines and a stern, boyish haircut, hovering over her. “She told me once that my parents died because God was punishing them for some sin they must have transgressed.”
Israel made a rude noise in his throat. “What a bi— I mean, what a horrible cow. I hope karma got her.”
Alyx sent a sly smile over to him. “I poured glue over her chair. She was stuck to it for hours.”
He let out a laugh. “You didn’t!”
“I did.”
“I would have liked to have seen that.”
“She was determined to see me expelled. Constantly hovering over me and searching my bags for illegal books whenever she got the chance.”
“Illegal books?”
She nodded. “Somewhere in the school’s history someone had decreed that all stories and fiction were a waste of time. That children were better off learning than getting lost in books about magic and adventure. So stories were contraband. We had a tiny library containing only textbooks and non-fiction.”
“What a horrible place,” he said, echoing the sentiment in her heart.
“I still read them though.” It had been her only form of rebellion. Mr. Brown’s face appeared in her mind; ruddy cheeks and earthy eyes. “Mr. Brown, one of the librarians, smuggled books to me. After he’d finished reading them.” Books on faraway places where demons existed and magic ruled the lands and warrior-like angels fought against evil. Books that had been the only reason she survived these dark years.
“How did you not get caught?”
She couldn’t help the tiniest of smiles. “I sowed a secret pocket into the bottom of my school bag. I kept any illegal books in there.”
She stared up at the building looming up above her as they neared, the familiar feelings crushing down on her. Here she had learned to swallow everything down. All the pain, all her loneliness, and the feeling of being adrift, of having no one left in this world to hold on to. She had fought against every instinct inside her to stand up against the school’s outdated rules and dictatorial style of teaching. Instead she withdrew, she become invisible, she stopped speaking up. Somewhere along the way, it seemed she had swallowed her own voice.
Israel covered her hand with his and she was startled out of her thoughts. He gave her fingers a quick squeeze. It’s okay. I’m here, his gesture seemed to say. Relief flooded through her and the vice around her chest and shoulders released. She was older now. She had moved on from school. This place, her past, didn’t have to own her.
She glanced over to him. He smiled at her and she found herself giving him a small smile back. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He let out a wistful sigh. “I am kinda amazing.”
She snorted. “Cocky much?”
He raised a suggestive eyebrow.
Her cheeks flamed as she realized what she had said and what it had sounded like and the way he was looking at her like she had been thinking about his c— “Oh God, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Oh yes you did.”
Her attention was caught by something so odd she forgot her embarrassment. “That was never there when I went to school.”
There was a wooden structure nestled in the trees. She pushed her way through the bushes to it, Israel behind her.
The floor of the structure was a flat platform made entirely out of wood, the ground layered in thick brown mats, spongy under her shoes. Its wooden roof was held up by four pillars, and thick vines with tiny violet flowers curled around the structure as if they were part of it. From some of the beams hung large boxing bags the color of dried meat.
“What do you think this is?” Israel asked.
Alyx traced a finger across the glass shielding a case filled with weapons—real-looking weapons. She peered closer, her nose almost to the glass. There were blades, swords and knives in there that seemed to shimmer. She had never seen weapons like these before, in her studies, at work, or otherwise. “It looks like some kind of…training area…”
“Concentrate, Alyx.”
Underneath the darkness of her blindfold, Alyx held on to her swords and waited. She placed the position of four warriors around her by their breathing and the way the material of their clothes rustled when they shifted.
She felt the shift of air on the back of her neck. She ducked as something whistled past her head and twirled around, her sword an extension of her arm, and smacked her attacker aside. In the same breath she kicked out and slammed her foot into the stomach of another.
She blinked and the memory was gone. What the hell was that?
“Alyx…what do you think that is for?”
She spun and found Israel pointing up to the roof. She lifted her gaze up. Across the entire ceiling was a chaotic web of silk ropes.
“It looks to be some kind of obstacle course,” she said. “But why would it be up there?” She let out a nervous laugh as something tickled the ends of her memory. “You could only use it if you could…” fly.
An arena, a voice inside her whispered. My favorite.
She shook her head and cleared her throat. This place was unnerving her. Something rustled in the nearby bushes, snapping her attention to it. “Did you hear that?” she whispered, her eyes scanning the area for signs of an ambush.
Israel nodded. “We should keep moving.”
With their swords out, they pushed through the bushes and back to the driveway before running to the front entrance, a giant wooden door with black iron studs and a wooden mermaid figurehead sticking out from the top of the frame like on the prow of a ship. Under the iron door handle there was a brass key dulled from age just sitting there in the lock. Israel stood back to back with her, keeping an eye out as she turned the key, unlocking it with a loud click.
Inside the main school building the lobby was an open atrium spanning up the three stories, branching out into
several hallways and winding staircases. In the ceiling above them was a mosaic stained glass skylight that let in hues of red, yellow and orange, which always reminded Alyx of a setting sun.
“This looks like a big place. Where do you think the globe is?” Israel asked.
Alyx ran over the riddle again. “In a place of memories old, of distant lands and lessons told… The history classroom.”
He nodded. “Lead the way.”
She led him up the stairs to the third floor and down a corridor, all the while expecting her memories to step out in the flesh, lashing out with old taunts, reopening old wounds. But everything remained silent except for the clack of their boots and her heart thudding in her ears. It was just an empty school with empty rooms and empty halls.
Finally she stopped in front of a classroom door, one that she knew well. History had been her favorite class. She turned the door handle, pushed open the door and stepped—
“Wait!” Israel grabbed her and pulled her back.
Her stomach dropped when she looked down at where she’d been about to place her foot. Gnarled tree branches had smashed through the floors and the classroom gaped open, dropping down all three levels into what looked like a forest floor below. The carpet hung like rags over the edges where the floor had broken away. Only a few students’ tables and chairs remained perched on sections of the remaining floor. It was as if two worlds had crashed together. “What the hell?”
Israel pointed to the head of the class. “Look.”
There, upon the remaining teacher’s desk was an antique world globe in a stand of brass. A world within a globe.
“That’s our globe.” Alyx glanced around at the room. “I think I can see a way to climb around to get to the table.”
She made to move but Israel placed a hand on her arm, stopping her. “I’ll go.”
She pulled out of his grasp, tension growing between her brows. “I’ll have you know I am very good at climbing trees.”
“I’m sure you are. But that’s not why I’m offering.”
“Then why—?”
“If I fall, I wake up in the real world, if you fall…” His face screwed up. “I couldn’t live with myself if you fell. Let me go.”
