by G S Eli
“I tried to notice the locals and their faces as they passed, but for some reason they seemed distant and in a hurry. I didn’t mind, I was enjoying myself and happy to be exploring the city and this beautiful market, sandy cobblestone streets and all.”
“So, what was frightening?” Mila asked.
“I heard a mob off in the distance. They were gathered around this man…” she trailed off, a look of sheer terror on her beautiful face.
“And?” Mila encouraged her.
“They were throwing stones at him. I couldn’t see his face … when I moved closer, the man was on his knees, and in front of him stood a young soldier, he looked like a Roman soldier, he was handsome, but he had the cruelest blue eyes. He kept hitting the poor man again and again. Then a woman grabbed my hand and pulled me out of there. We were both running away from the crowd that was now chasing us. ‘Don’t look back,’ the woman said. ‘Run away, we need to run away. Faster! Faster! Run with me to the light!’”
“To the light?” Mila asked. “Did you recognize the woman?”
Casey tried to remember. “Yeah, the light! The woman, she was petite. Small, but strong. She kind of reminded me of you,” she said. “We were running toward a bright, bright light. She kept telling me, ‘Don’t look back.’ As we got closer to the light, I heard Jack’s voice calling my name. I turned and looked back, and then the soldier threw a stone. It hit me in my eye. My eyes began to burn. I let go of the woman’s hand and fell on the sand. Everything went blurry, and I thought of my mother. And I was afraid I was going blind, just like she did.”
“Your mother is blind?”
“Yes,” Casey admitted.
“You should tell me more about her. When there is something personal like that in a dream, it can change the meaning,” Mila explained.
Casey took a deep breath, averting her eyes from Mila as she gathered her thoughts.
“My mom’s been blind my whole life. I was always afraid that I would lose my sight, the same as she did. Of course, I hope and pray she’ll get better. I wish for it every birthday, every shooting star, every time I throw a coin in a fountain. But there’s a lot wrong with my mom.”
Casey took a deep breath before she went on. Mila reached out and took her hand and she was grateful for it. “She went blind when I was little, probably from drugs. She got herself under control for a while, but when my aunt died it all went to hell. She’s in a high-end assisted living facility now. My uncle John takes care of both of us.”
Mila swallowed, and his grip on Casey’s hand tightened. “What about your dad?” he asked.
“On her good days, Mom used to claim he was some sort of heroic doctor who disappeared, but who the hell knows if it’s true,” Casey replied sadly.
“You know, what you fear the most, you will not escape,” Mila said thoughtfully.
“So, what does that mean? I’m going to be blind?” she demanded.
“It means fear is evil, and the more fear you have, the easier the evil will come to you. A wise woman told me that. And she used to teach me about my dreams…”
“Who was that woman—your mother?”
“So then what happened?” he said, changing the subject.
“When my sight came back Jack was there, sitting right next to me. He wanted me to read something—he said it would heal my eyes. The woman was calling back to me, and now she had reached the light. She was wearing a long chain of gold around her neck. She was yelling that there was evil and that the words are evil …”
“Gold around her neck? Like a necklace made of coins?” Mila questioned her, then gave her a knowing look.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he told her.
She looked at him skeptically, but continued.
“Jack said ‘Read this.’ He pointed to a short sentence on an ancient, yellowing piece of parchment. I said, ‘What language is that? I don’t understand a word of it,’ and he said, ‘You don’t need to understand it, just read it. Trust me.’ All the while the woman called to me from the light.
“I looked at the ancient scroll. I couldn’t seem to focus on a line. Then Jack took my hand. ‘Say it with me,’ he said. And together we began to speak the words, as if we’d always known them,” Casey paused and closed her eyes remembering the strange incantation, “Kon godi phenel kako svato chi merel hai chi avel jevindi; Vigoris!”
“That’s Romani…You were speaking Romani,” Mila observed.
“We began to chant in unison, and then a bright light appeared from the sky. It was as if the sun was moving closer to the earth, and the whole world was getting hotter by the second. The cobblestone streets were transformed into hot desert sands. I was suddenly struck by the blistering heat and fell flat on the ground. The heat covered my skin, and my insides started to boil.
“I closed my eyes and protected them with my hands. It was the only part of my body I wanted to protect. I began to scream. Just when it seemed like I couldn’t bear it any longer, the pain and burning disappeared. I hesitated, then gently put my hands down. I opened my eyes and found myself at the hospital,” she concluded.
They both paused for a moment. The green countryside passed by like a movie through the window beside them.
“What were the words that I said?” Casey asked, not really wanting to know.
“Basically, it means ‘whoever says this will never die and never live.’ That last word ‘Vigoris’ isn’t Romani, it might be Latin,” Mila explained. “It sounds like a spell or something.”
“But what does that mean? Never die and never live? It makes no sense,” Casey said growing increasingly distraught.
Casey looked at her wound again, and they both realized that the wound was completely gone. There was not even a scar.
“Oh my God, Mila. What’s happening to me?” she asked tearfully.
She began to cry. Mila pulled her close. She rested her head on his white T-shirt and began to silently weep.
“What do you think the dream means?” Casey asked.
“It’s funny, just a few days ago I believed that dreams meant nothing. I didn’t care about their interpretations. But I know this dream and what it means. The woman you saw was my Aunt Nasta. She was trying to stop you from reading the braille. She told me when she was alive that the nail can heal your body,” Mila responded.
“But why wouldn’t she want me to read it if it can heal me?” Casey asked through her tears.
“I think she was trying to save all of our souls. I can feel her around me now.”
“My mom believes in dreams,” Casey said. “She says it’s the only way she can see nowadays. My uncle says she throws money away on witch doctors and mystics. She paid all kinds of money to charlatans all over the world, trying to return her sight until my uncle put her away and cut off her allowance.”
“You mentioned your uncle before. Is he like your guardian?” Mila asked, intrigued.
“It’s complicated,” Casey answered.
Mila looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. “I think we have moved past complicated, Casey.”
“You’re right. It’s just so hard, Mila. My uncle, he’s super paranoid. He’s always worried I am going to be kidnapped. Or, worse for him, that I will do something to embarrass my late aunt’s estate. He’s been keeping me in a virtual prison for years and donated millions of dollars to Charlton Prep so they keep who I am a secret.”
“Who are you?” Mila asked, even more intrigued.
“Me? I’m nobody. I’ve never told anybody before, not even Jack, but my aunt was Zoe Rich,” Casey finally revealed.
“Wait a minute,” Mila said, “The Zoe Rich?”
But Casey didn’t answer. The swaying motion of the train had made her drift off to sleep.
XIX
God Knows Where
“Darf ich hier sitzen?”
“Huh?” Jack responded, still half asleep.
He opened his eyes and looked up to see an old woman standing in the aisle.
“Sprichst du Deutsch?”
“Huh, what?”
“Sprichst du Deutsch?” she repeated with a deep accent.
“Um, no … English,” he responded, stretching away his slumber.
“May I sit here?” she repeated in English.
The woman was asking about the aisle seat next to him. Finishing his huge stretch and wiping the sleep from his eyes, a sense of fear took over Jack. A knot formed in his stomach as he remembered the dire situation he was in. He was on the train to God knows where in search of God knows what. Doing his best to hide his dismay, Jack motioned to the lady to take the seat next to him. The old woman in the flowered sundress and matching oversize bag wearing a headscarf tied behind her hair pulled her flower-embroidered bag up in her lap and took her seat next to him. The lady smiled, and Jack forced a smile back. Somehow, it made him feel a little safer.
After watching the lady squeeze into her seat, his thoughts drifted back to the dream he was having. It was a wonderful dream about him and Casey back home at school, and soon it would be true, he mused. He and Casey were hitting it off amazingly, and he wanted it to continue back home, among his family and friends. A quick glance outside the window brought him back to reality, and the knot in his stomach returned. He glanced at the woman next to him; she politely smiled back. Unfortunately, her smile did not calm him like before. He grabbed the stolen iPhone and turned it back on.
When Jack first took his seat in Berlin, he used the stolen iPhone’s Internet browser, realizing that he had a mini laptop in the palm of his hands, he did a quick Google search then switched the browser to English then typed in “Wewelsburg Castle,” hoping to get some idea of what they could expect when they got there. After a few minutes he was shocked to learn how much he didn’t know about Nazis. There it all was, and the top hit on Google. He began to read: “Wewelsburg Castle was the center of the Nazi secret organization called the Thule Society.”
“Interesting,” he whispered to himself. He hit the related link on the Thule Society and continued:
“Thule Society: A secret organization who believed there was a pure Aryan race. This pure race originated from a lost landmass located between Greenland and Iceland. Thule mystics during the early twentieth century believed that this race was descended from Greek and Norse gods and they themselves had superhuman powers on Earth, resulting in their true name…”
“Nordic gods!” he shouted in shock, startling the woman next to him as well as the young couple that was sitting a few seats behind him. “Entschuldigung,” he apologized in German. “This is nuts,” he murmured to himself.
He left that page by hitting other related links, where he learned about the fascination the Nazis and Adolf Hitler had with all biblical artifacts:
“Nazi soldiers and SS Agents traveled the world over in search of anything related to Jesus’ life and death,” he read.
It was like something from a bat-shit crazy blogger’s conspiracy site. But these stories cited U.S. Government Archives and Oxford historians. He read on, and his research revealed that the Nazis really did launch archeological expeditions in search of relics like the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant, as well as the Spear of Destiny and a holy scepter that would create a new order king. Jack had always assumed that was something Hollywood dreamed up for the Indiana Jones movies.
As he read on, he learned about the Nazis’s famous symbol, the swastika. It was a symbol of peace that originated from the east, and some believed that it was part of a mystical order. However, the Germans inverted it to create a symbol of war and conquest. The Thule Society used this as a symbol of Aryan supremacy. Beneath the main tower of Wewelsburg castle, the Nazis had a giant swastika carved into the floor. In each quadrant was a small pit meant to house four artifacts. The function of these relics seemed to be a subject of debate. Some believed that these safeguards were the home of the biblical relics of Christ.
“This is completely insane!” he mumbled. He could not believe what he was reading. Why isn’t anyone speaking or teaching about this shit? he wondered.
One name kept coming up in Jack’s search about the Thule Society: Professor Solomon Hermann. Apparently, he was curator of the Wewelsburg Castle and one of the foremost experts on Nazi occult practices. He’d written several books on the subject.
“This is who we need!” he said loudly with a bit of relief, startling the woman and the couple again. He glanced back at them and repeated “sorry” in English. The couple nodded to him, then clutched each other tightly as if they were commuting next to a crazy person.
As he quietly returned to reading, what intrigued Jack was that among various academic honors the professor also had an illustrious fencing career. Well, at least we have that in common, he thought, trying to figure out a way to befriend the professor.
Jack pulled up a picture and a biography. According to the bio, Hermann was in his sixties, but he looked much younger. As he scrolled down the bio, it revealed many sites boasting that he was half Romani. That gave Jack some hope. He has to help us now, he figured. He’d seen how Rom stick together. Simon was willing to help Mila, even after everything that had happened in the subway station. Maybe Hermann would be the same way. I’m sure there’s some kind of Gypsy solidarity, he assumed. I’ve read enough. I’ve got to tell Casey and Mila about all this.
He first glanced over to Casey across from him, then to Mila at the end of the train. Both were fast asleep. He knew they were tired, and he was, as well. It was at least two more hours before they would arrive at the castle. He noticed the ten percent battery charge on the iPhone and realized it would be dead soon. He decided to let everyone sleep before he revealed the crazy things he’d just learned. Besides, I should preserve this battery power, he figured. He turned off the phone and closed his eyes for a much-needed break. Just for a few moments, he promised himself.
When he awoke, he again turned on the iPhone and it booted itself back to life. He figured he must have been asleep for at least ten minutes. But, to his surprise, the iPhone revealed he had been sleeping for more than an hour and they were getting very close to their station. To make matters worse, the charge only read two percent. “What the hell?” he said, frustrated.
The old lady looked over to him. “Is there a problem, young man?” she asked with concern.
“No, ma’am. It’s just this new iPhone, the battery power doesn’t last long,” he answered.
“Oh, well, I see how that can be a problem,” she replied.
I better check how far the train station is from the castle before the phone dies, Jack thought.
Quickly Jack searched back through the browser, hoping to get detailed directions from the train station. As he flipped through the pages, he reached the page with the address. “Perfect,” he said to himself. Scanning the text for the address, he noticed a hyperlink on the word Gypsies next to the description of professor Herman on the website.
Knowing he was running low on power, he debated if he should click the link or head straight to maps. Struggling through his worries, he clicked the link. Suddenly, a page appeared with all kinds of Gypsy sites and information on the culture. As he scrolled down to see if there was anything on the artifact or legend, he realized it was just a bunch of information on the Roma people with some random links to Gypsy cabs and moths. As he was about to leave, he noticed a small photo in one of the links of a girl that looked like Casey; it read “Kidnapped.”
“Oh no!” Jack yelled.
He hit the link. It led to a video from British Voice News. He turned up the volume to watch, a feeling of great anticipation flowing through him. The iPhone now read 1%. Ignoring the low battery, he let the video play. “Casey Richards kidnapped by gang of Gypsies,” the well-dresse
d British journalist said. “From this smashed window, they abducted Ms. Richards.” He was reporting from outside the hospital room they had escaped from just yesterday.
“An American student was kidnapped yesterday from a hospital by a Romanian Gypsy gang,” he said in his proper British accent. “It’s been reported that Ms. Richards is being held for ransom. There is no word on what the kidnappers are demanding, but authorities say they’re expecting the kidnappers to ask for a large sum, since it has been rumored that Ms. Richards is the sole heir to the late Zoe Rich.”
“Holy shit!” Jack whispered to himself before returning to watch the video. It showed a video montage highlighting Zoe Rich’s short life.
“Debbie Richards changed her name to Zoe Rich at the advice of a music producer she met at the age of 17. The singer went from country Western overalls to designer dresses that complemented her enchanting wide blue eyes. It has been reported that the producer loved the unique shade of blue in her eyes so much that she went through 3 color corrections to match the exact shade of violet that donned the cover of her first album, simply titled ‘Zoe Gets Rich.’ The album was released in the summer of 1983 and spawned an additional 8 albums, which sold over 150 million copies worldwide, including 13 number one hits, 8 films, 11 Grammys, and 2 Academy Awards. But all that success did not match the incredible success of the Zoe Rich makeup and perfume lines. The talented entertainer was worth an estimated $666 Million before a tragic car accident in Istanbul took her life while she was escaping paparazzi. There has been no word on the whereabouts of …” At that, the phone’s battery died.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Jack said. “Zoe Rich,” he whispered to himself still in shock. He placed the phone on the seat.
I better tell Casey and Mila what I found, Jack thought. He looked across the aisle to where Casey was previously sitting, but she was not there. Where has she gone? He began to worry that something had happened. He took a look back at the seats behind him. There were about a dozen or so passengers throughout the railcar, including the young couple, but no sign of Casey.
