by Andra Leigh
“What’s the point of two doors?” Eliscity asked when a lull occurred in the hammering.
“We find it more effective,” Faust said as he sorted through a container of nails.
“More effective for what?”
“Full moon tonight,” Forrest said, like this answered something.
“That’s great,” she said blankly, wondering if they were about to announce a family viewing on the roof, then she stilled. “Wait. Is there a Wolf here?”
“Two,” replied Fletcher simply.
“Two!” she shrieked.
“Two,” Jinx confirmed, testing the strength of the panel he’d just attached. “Casamir and Neith.”
“Wha – I – Shouldn’t we...” Eliscity was making wild hand gestures toward all the exits the antechamber offered.
“What’s wrong?” Jinx frowned.
“What’s wrong? Oh, I dunno, maybe I’m just not really keen on having two – count that, two – Wolves set loose in the Manor, where I am the newest – and thus, most likely to be eaten – member. What’s so funny?”
The Triplets were laughing at her, while Jinx lined up the next panel to be nailed onto the door, unable to quite hide the smile that twitched at his lips. Casting a glance back at her, he said, “It’s true, they didn’t let you play with the others at the Clinic.”
“Yes, my doctors weren’t big on playdates,” she sneered.
“What about Juliette. She was Blooded a Wolf, right?”
“Yes,” she said slowly
“And did you ever experience a time in which she tried to eat you?”
“No…”
“So why would our Wolves try to do so?”
“Well…” Eliscity shifted from foot to foot. “It’s a bit different. Isn’t it? Juliette was Born and Blooded. The Wolf blood made her weak, not strong, especially at the height of the moon. So, you know, there was never any claws or teeth or – what?” she demanded, as the Triplets continued to snicker.
“There’s never been a complete metamorphosis, has there.” Faust balanced a nail on the panel ready for Jinx to hit.
Fletcher nodded enthusiastically. “Not in the Blooded, or the Born.”
“None?”
“None,” Forrest shrugged.
“So…” Eliscity raised her voice over the hammering. “No shift to a Wolf, even during a full moon?”
“Yup,” chorused the Triplets.
“Oh, that definitely explains why you’re down here fixing the first of two doors to the cellar.” She nodded sarcastically.
“Actually it’s a graveyard.”
“Excuse me?” She blinked at Fletcher.
Jinx dusted his hands and stood up, letting the Triplets take over the door repairs. Immediately the three brothers struggled over who got the hammer.
“Just because they don’t shift doesn’t mean changes don’t happen,” he explained. “The moon influences their blood like a tide. On a full moon that tide comes in.”
Eliscity took in the broken panels and metal second door. “So you lock them up.”
“The doors are just for Casamir,” Faust said proudly, brandishing the hammer he had wrestled off his brothers like a trophy.
“Why?” Sure Neith was a lot older and clearly less frightening than Casamir, but did that make him harmless?
“No, you hold the panel. Neith was Blooded a Wolf,” Forrest said, fighting Fletcher for the right to balance the nail for Faust.
Fletcher shoved at both his reflections and tried to negotiate the panel straight while saying, “Casamir is a Born.”
“Oh yeah.” Eliscity looked away from the Triplets who were preparing for their first hit. “Is there really that much of a difference between the two?” she asked Jinx, who was surveying the Triplets with a grimace. He waited for the inevitable scream from Forrest as Faust missed the nail and split his thumb open, before ushering them out of the antechamber and into the Playground. Closing the door behind them muffled their yells, though didn’t drown them out completely.
“Yeah. For a Born like Casamir the tidal wave of the full moon brings raw power. But for the Blooded…”
“The opposite,” Eliscity helped.
Jinx nodded. “Just like your friend, Juliette. They can help each other, though.” He moved back to the door, picking the hammer up. “Well, Neith helps Casamir. Even at the height of the moon Casamir’s blood can recognise the Wolf blood in Neith and knows not to attack him. Or something like that. Cyan explains it better.”
“With bigger words,” Eliscity guessed.
Jinx smiled. “Much bigger words,” he agreed.
“So they can be there for each other. That’s nice. And lucky,” Eliscity muttered, mainly to herself. Based on the condition of the door panels they had removed, it was a good thing there was someone who could be with Casamir and remain safe.
Jinx snorted. “No, what’s lucky is that when Casamir was saved from the Clinic, Neith automatically knew how to handle the full moon with him.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “I think he’s got past experience with Born Wolves or something. Who cares, are you going to help or just stand there?”
●
Casamir and Neith were locked into their Wolf prison at dusk. Eliscity didn’t like the clammy look of Neith’s face as he disappeared behind the patchwork door, followed by the clang of the metal door. As Jinx slid the bolt into the lock she wondered if he really would be okay trapped in there with Casamir. She had been wary of him all day. He hadn’t looked his normal self either; the thick hair that grew over his arms and chest bristled; his veins protruded and muscles rippled all over his body. He seemed to quiver with tension like he was attempting to stop himself from exploding.
On edge, Eliscity looked over to Laleita, hoping she would agree to another regression. She had woken up with Drae on her mind. Drae. The thought of him caused an eruption of butterflies through her stomach. She strangely liked them. They made her feel nervous and slightly nauseous, but also giddy. He made her feel giddy. It didn’t matter that she barely remembered him, every moment she spent thinking about him he seemed to grow more familiar.
The seer hadn’t been part of the group that waved the Wolves off, sitting solemnly away from the rest of the Family. Eliscity tried to think whether or not she had been in good spirits at all today, but couldn’t recall. Eliscity cursed herself for being so caught up in keeping an eye on Casamir and replaying the memory of her and Drae under the stars. Thinking of the way Casamir and Laleita were together, she wondered if the seer had also been distracted with the thoughts of the Wolf.
Maybe she would challenge the Triplets to a game of blade throwing to pass the time, rather than bother Laleita. As she thought this, Laleita stood.
“I’d appreciate the distraction,” she smiled at Eliscity.
Twenty minutes later Eliscity was reclining on the sofa in the library.
“Why aren’t you and Casamir together?”
Laleita paused, sadness sinking in the depths of her pale eyes for a moment. “Love is anything but simple.”
“You love him?” Eliscity gasped. She’d suspected Casamir might have felt that for her, though had been unsure about the returning of the feelings.
Laleita settled at her head but rather than let her place her hands on her temples, Eliscity sat up. A hitched sigh escaped from the normally composed woman and Eliscity had her answer.
“So why aren’t you together?” she asked again, kinder this time. “How can two people who love each other not be simple?”
Laleita considered Eliscity for a moment. “Because life is not simple.”
“No, it’s not. But that doesn’t mean we should complicate it further by complicating love,” Eliscity argued.
Laleita responded with a sad smile. “Have you ever been in love, Eliscity.”
Eliscity didn’t know what the extent of her feelings for Drae had been. But the one memory she had relived gave her the confidence to say, “I mig
ht have been.”
“And are you still in love?”
Eliscity frowned. “I… don’t know.”
“Why?” Laleita asked gently.
“Because…” Because why, she thought to herself. Because the Clinic had taken her. Because she had forgotten her past. She had been made to forget Drae. “Because life is not simple,” she conceded, as Laleita gave her hand an understanding squeeze.
But the Clinic hadn’t taken Laleita and Casamir away from one another, it had brought them together. They hadn’t been made to forget each other. They were here, together. Nothing was holding them apart. Eliscity wanted to jump up and point this out – loudly – but refrained, reminding herself it wasn’t her place.
Laleita removed her hand. “I’ll take it this new belief about your past means the regression went well?”
Eliscity gave a nod. “I’m not mad.”
“I expected you to look happier about this.”
Trying to soothe the frown creeping onto her face, Eliscity voiced her thoughts. “I thought maybe Born and Blooded – it’s too much for the mind. But I’m not mad. But Juliette… She wasn’t like me, she remembered her past. In fact she seemed quite ordinary when she talked about it. Then she’d talk about something that might happen… Suddenly she wouldn’t be so ordinary. The Blooding sickness may have killed her, but her own lineage made her mad, didn’t it? That’s not fair. Of all the things the Clinic did, to have the part of her that belongs in her turn on her mind… Is that what knowing the future does? That’s why you’re not mad, isn’t it? You see the past. The past is meant to be known. It’s fact, not… changing fate, I guess.”
Hot tears were prickling at her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. That was not what she came here for. Desperate to get back on track, she returned to lying on the sofa, looking up at Laleita.
“Shall we?” Eliscity muttered.
Taking the cue, Laleita placed her fingers on her temples.
As Eliscity slipped seamlessly into her mind she was not greeted with the wall of trees. She stood in an unfamiliar part of the garden in her imagination. She had been dropped in the middle of a dirt pathway, roots breaking the ground at her feet. Glad she wouldn’t have to choose for herself which direction to take, she didn’t hesitate in continuing forward. She kept expecting to find something out of place before her but no hearth or any other part of her family house blocked her path, this time. As she walked her speed increased naturally until she found herself jogging. Then running.
As she ran she felt her head spin, then the ground tilted beneath her feet. She didn’t stop running. The shrubbery and flora of her imagination grew backwards, receding into the earth only to sprout tall thin trees in close quarters, all around her. As the world ceased twisting under her, she felt her body take control of itself and knew immediately that she had entered a memory.
She let her memory take over without panic this time, though it was somewhat uncomfortable to find herself hurtling through the woods without any way of choosing where to go. Luckily her past self appeared quite competent. In fact she seemed to be enjoying herself. Laughter surrounded her as she scrambled and dashed across the woods floor. Her hair swung around her shoulders as she looked behind her. She could just make out Drae, a few yards back, following her path and gaining on her quickly. Squealing, she felt a new burst of speed be added to her venture. After a minute of running she spotted a break in the woods ahead and dashed for it. Bursting out of the close knit trees she found herself in a beautiful clearing. A small lake sparkled to her right, reflecting the high sun.
But none of this seemed to matter to her past self. Her focus was on a lone tree in the middle of the clearing. It was an old oak tree with sweeping branches. From the corner of her memories eye Eliscity realised she had seen its glossy green leaves and snaking branches before. They were the same ones that had made up the wall of trees she had encountered during her first regression.
She, trapped within herself, felt a sense of safety radiate around her mind at the sight of it. The old oak tree felt like home. There was nothing magical about it. It didn’t blossom with Nymph Shade or stand on Bloodied ground. It was nothing but an ordinary oak tree. Yet there was something about it that sung to her. It was ancient. Most likely predating the War, Eliscity thought to herself as her body rushed toward it, Drae on her heels. Aging long after immortality had failed itself. Its years had made it king of the forest. Beyond the oak more of the trees she had just left started to pepper the clearing before erupting into the thick woods line. They gave the oak a wide berth, bowing their knotted branches toward it in supplication. It felt permanent. Safe. Like it would protect her.
While Eliscity didn’t find it strange that a solitary tree in the middle of nowhere could feel more like home to her than her abandoned rooms with roaches for pets, she did feel sad that she couldn’t imagine Vance Manor being her home.
Would the only sense of home she would ever have come from her memories?
Eliscity thought all this in the sprint from the woods to the oak. When she was close enough to see the grooves in the bark she finally slowed, a sigh emanating from her chest. She watched as her hand reached out in front of her, brushing her fingertips against the oak’s bark a second before Drae’s did the same.
“Ha!” she shouted in triumph between heavy breaths. “I win.”
“Thanks to the head start I gave you,” Drae laughed, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder.
She watched the grass below her bend to Drae’s feet as she bobbed along. “And because I’m better at dodging trees than you.”
His shoulders shook with amusement as he said, “They jump out in front of me. I’m certain of it.”
“It’s a conspiracy,” she managed to say just before there was a sudden heave and her body was thrown free of Drae. She soared through the air for a moment before plunging into water. Luckily her memory knew what to except and she held her breath. She broke the water’s surface in time to see Drae, bare-chested, throw himself in after her. The water rippled out from his body, quickly smoothing into a crystal clear surface as it reached the far side of the lake. Half the lake’s edge opened into the clearing she had just come from, while the other half was bordered by the woods, a small stream breaking through the tree line to feed water into the lake.
The water broke in front of her and Drae emerged, pulling her into his arms as they trod water. He kept her afloat easily, letting her relax into him. Burying her face in the crook of his neck she breathed in the sweet scent of nature that clung to his skin. Leaves fluttered and birds chattered as Drae’s warm breath tickled her neck.
“Let’s just stay here for the rest of our lives,” he sighed.
They were the words from her last hallucination. The sentence that she had heard so clearly while submerged in the water of the bath.
“I could grow old here quite easily,” her past self replied and Eliscity found herself agreeing.
They swam in silence for a few minutes, listening to creaking woods and twittering animals.
As her skirts tangled around her kicking legs in the water, she heard herself groan, “Why must you always throw me in fully clothed?”
“I like giving you a reason to hold on to me,” he chuckled. “And I think undressing you first may take the surprise out of throwing you in.”
As she laughed against his neck Eliscity wondered where Drae was now. Was he still living in the same town? Swimming in the small lake and hunting rabbits with Chief. Was he happy?
Or did the Clinic have him?
Had she left him behind the day she and Juliette had escaped? The thought sent a bolt of panic through her consciousness.
Together they waded to the shallows and fell against the flat boulders, letting the sun dry their clothes and skin.
“I ran into Arisha at the market yesterday,” Drae said. “We’re not a week out of school and she’s planning her return to the education system.”
The glare of th
e sun left her eyes as she slung her arm across her face and squinted at Drae.
“Huh, back to school?”
“University.”
“What?” she gaped in disbelief. “How is that possible?”
“Her family ceded their land to the Realm.”
Air hissed between her teeth as she drew in a fast breath. “How many lifetimes of debt is that?”
“More lifetimes than they have to give at this point, I’d imagine.”
“Did she say what she’d be learning?”
“Something in mathematics or the like, I think. I didn’t talk with her for long.”
Shifting slightly to look at him better she felt herself smile. “If you could, what would you learn?”
After a moment of thought he flipped over to his stomach and said, “Maybe animal medicine. Something useful like that, that isn’t necessarily a natural skill.”
“You’d be good at it,” she said, readjusting her skirts to fan out with the wettest patches facing upwards.
“What about you? What would you learn if it didn’t involve your entire family selling themselves to the Realm?”
Eliscity instantly thought of all the reading she had been doing on the Bloods lately and knew that given the life she lived now, that would be her answer. But her past self said instead, “Linguistics or plant apothecary or dance. There’s too much I’d want to learn more of. Just, oddly enough, not mathematics.”
Drae’s deep laugh filled the Oaks clearing. “Everyone in our year but Arisha feels the same way.”
“Maybe years from now she’ll return and take over –” but Eliscity didn’t find out what Arisha would take over as there was a pressure on her shoulder and she knew immediately what was next. As Jinx, once more, pulled her out of the memory and brought her back to Vance Manor, Drae’s laughter still rung through her mind echoing like a familiar song.
●
