Chapter twenty-six-Visions
Matt showed up after study five or six hard hours of studying. He greeted Alhazred and Rowan, and then ported me back to my tent. Unfortunately, Sierra wasn’t there yet.
“Sorry Mary, you’ll just have to wait a while.” Matt grimaced. I wonder if he was told to be overprotective.
“I can take care of myself, Matt.” I grumbled. He nodded, then turned and disappeared in the flash of porting.
I turned around and whisked into my tent. Everything was as it was this morning- clothes neatly in piles, books on the beds, Sierra’s mirror on her suitcase, and a newspaper.
Actually, a newspaper was kind of odd. I didn’t know we got news around here, and it was especially strange that it was on my cot. I walked over and picked up the newspaper as if it was very fragile. There was nothing much on the headlines, just something about a woman being jinxed badly by leprechaun. I flipped through the pages, and yet nothing caught my attention. Until I saw my name.
It was a small article, but big enough to see it:
Mary Drake- Another Malistaire or Sylvia?
Mary Drake, a poor, petty girl, or a girl with a good-looking destiny? Let’s see what the readers have to say about this “One-of-a-kind” confused subject.
“She’s a liar, and she’s going to all bring us to our deaths one day.” Speaks Helga Nightborn. “Never trusted Malistaire, and its terrible that the Fates bared us another little clone of his. Somebody needs to have her dealt with, that’s what I say.”
A liar for what, you say? Well, it seems to be that this “special girl” is working for Malistaire herself. What else would she be doing, disappearing to some world or two? Robert Seaglade speaks his opinion:
“I bet she’s killing off babies.” Tells Robert Seaglade. “She’s not to be trusted. Its total stupidity that the Headmaster gives her a chance. We’ll regret giving her chances after she kills our children!”
Its all true, my friends. The people have spoken- but are they all the same opinions? Let’s hear from Laura Lionwhisper (90 years old):
“I think everybody is forgetting that she is just a little girl, only 16 of age. Her own father killed her mother and sister for the Fate’s sake- why would she join the murderer of her family?”
“She hasn’t even learned any dark magic yet.” Speaks Celtic Mayflower. “I don’t understand how she could be evil. That sort of thing doesn’t come in genetics.”
Well, we will all learn once and for all. Is Mary Drake a liar, or innocent entertainment? We will all know soon, folks!
-Sarah Lifewinder, Journalist
I winced. First, there was the fact that they called me Mary Drake. Then, they had called me a liar, a killer, a traitor, and innocent entertainment?
I watched as a tear slid off my cheek and hit the paper, and I screamed and threw the newspaper on the floor. “Who the hell would leave that there?”
Why do people keep badgering me? Why do people keep underestimating or overestimating me? Why can’t I be normal?
Why should I be tormented daily defeated by people I don’t even know, just when I thought I’d reached the bottom of a bully’s fire.
In a way, I felt like I was dying all over again. I put my head in my hands, trying to figure things out. I just feel like I keep falling, and falling, and falling until I realize there is no way to break out. Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies like in some big pot, then spilling it in my mind so I don’t know whats real and whats not.
I didn’t want to do this anymore, but it was against my limits to stop. I have no choice. If I stopped now, then my sisters would die and my family will never be avenged.
Avenged? What does that word even mean? I don’t want to follow the path of revenge. I want to follow the path of peace and clarity… So why is fighting the only choice? Why can’t my father just listen?
“By the Fates, I can’t even trust myself anymore.” I murmured. “Oh mother, please help me… I don’t know what to do with the Seraphina-Alleyen. I don’t know how to find them.” Suddenly, I heard a rustle outside the tent door. I jolted, realizing somebody could have heard what I just said.
I rushed outside of the tent, and saw a flicker of fiery red hair. I suddenly thought of Rowan, but the hair was too bright, like a flame, to be her. “Whose there?”
Nobody answered. There were no footsteps, no nothing. Perhaps it was only somebody passing by- I’m sure nobody heard me.
I walked back into the tent, exhausted. I fell onto my cot, and pulled my blanket over my head. Slowly, quietly, I fell asleep.
The sky was a large mass of swirling red wind, as demons flew in circles around a scepter as cursed as hell.
A chorus of darkness sprang around a room of onyx marble. Shadows ran like wolves around a man whose shed blood of love.
“O’ bewitching of life, in Magic’s name I do call thee forth, cast thy blessing; I do ask, upon the magic that shall be worked here!” Spirits, demons, the man in black, sung the spell of dark certainty, like a never ending chorus.
“O’ fine lies, in Magic’s name I do call thee forth, bringer of happy nightmares and power of flawless perfection, I ask its aid in the curse I do here work.” They sung this, raising higher and higher, making shadows of wolves, arrows, beasts, and wind.
The man turned, and Malistaire’s black eyes glittered in joy. He had my smile, full and stubborn.
“O’ torrents of evil, in Magic’s name I do call thee forth. Join me with your everlasting strength in performing this most powerful of lies!” Red, the color of blood, ran deep through the walls like cracks of lava. A black smoke began to form around his ankles. Power seared through Malistaire’s veins, glowing red and black under his skin.
“O’ fairytale, deep and lovely, in evil’s name I do call the forth, that I may feel the power itself move in the roar of enchantment to disguise- which doth come to kill thy enemies-!” The shadows moved as fast as lightning towards the Malistaire, his grin bloody and horrid.
Suddenly, the scene changed, to a dark oasis. In front of the Krokotopian Library. Stars sprung in the sky in beauty, and that little pond, so small and weak, suddenly became gorgeous in the moonlight.
Then there was a woman, whom looked 17 years of age. She was staring at the moon, illuminating the colors of her eyes- blues with a shimmer of mixed bright colors. She had hair the color of flames, pouring down her back and shoulders. She is pale as snow, with deep pink in her lips. She was absolutely beautiful.
Suddenly, a red mist began to surround her. Pooling around her knees, she looked around in shock. It seemed that she couldn’t move. I could see fear in her eyes, so similar to mine, until the red mist covered her whole. The red mist seemed to go inside of her, and she collapsed. Asleep, dead, I could not know.
Somehow, I knew deep inside that she was not the only one to fall…
I woke in the morning, hot and sweating from the heat. Sierra was reading the newspaper that I had threw on the floor.
My heart was pounding, but there was something else hot and pulsing on my chest. I looked down to see my necklace glowing. I stuffed it under my shirt, so that Sierra wouldn’t see. The hot amulet burned my skin, but I didn’t wince.
“Hey, Sierra?” I breathed out cautiously. She looked up in response. “Did you for any chance leave that newspaper on my bed last night?”
She shook her head and frowned. “No, why?”
I showed her a fake smile, to pretend everything was fine. “Nothing.”
If she hadn’t put that newspaper on my bed, then who did? Was it the same person I saw with the red hair? The woman in my dream?
I shuddered. There was something strange about these dreams; I just couldn’t put my finger on it. The fact that they are happening in real life scares me; considering that I just saw a woman die or something.
Who was that woman? I had never seen anybody like her in my entire life. I recognized her eyes, not unlike mine, and had seen Malistaire saying this kind of spell.
O’ fairytale, deep and lovely,
What was he saying?
Which doth come to kill thy enemies?
What the hell did that mean? Is that woman dead, or in some kind of sleep? Perhaps it has something to do with old fairytales.
Snow white! I remember she had skin as pale as snow, and how she collapsed in the red mist, a color of a red apple. However, such an inference couldn’t be true. I needed more proof-
No. I needed to step up, try harder. I haven’t even found one of my sister’s yet. I sighed.
After many hours, I still couldn’t get that woman out of my head. She was connected with something, and I felt like a magnet to her. Could she possibly be a Seraphina-Alleyen? I thought about this while studying in the Order. Not completely lost in hieroglyphics, books, artifacts, and history; it was difficult to perceive everything at once.
Alhazred used his clever comments all throughout the day. I was starting to wonder if that is the only way he knows how to speak. It seemed the more I stayed there, the more I wanted to learn what exactly this Order was. Why it was so secret, and why it was so important. Maybe it was something to do with Malistaire.
I was piecing everything together, and yet I had no answers. Maybe those words that I’m looking for aren’t the ones to make it better. If only I knew how to pull myself apart, I could get some answers.
The night came along once again, and I retreated back to my tent with Sierra. There, I studied the book Matt gave me, and Sierra was resting on her cot. I sighed, and an idea sprang into my mind.
What if I write to Abby? I sat up and grabbed a piece of parchment, a quill, and some ink. I had written “Dear Abby” when shouts began happening outside.
“By the Fates, it’s too dark out for people to be going chaotic!” Sierra exclaimed furiously. She sat up and rushed to the door. She stood there, looking out at the Oasis. I noticed her white skin go a shade paler.
“Sierra, what is it?” I put the quill down, sudden chills going down my spine. My citrine amulet was searing in heat.
“Mary, stay here.” I got up and tried to walk past her, but she pushed me aside and walked outside. Stubbornly, I followed.
I gasped in horror at what I saw. There were crowds of people, surrounding a small part of the pond. However, in the middle, was the woman with the fire hair and colorful eyes. Sprawled in the sand, pale as snow, eyes glued shut. Her lush, pink lips were now pale and sullen, and she looked almost thinner than in the dream. This had actually happened.
I rushed over, despite Sierra’s protest. I pushed past people, and some of them barked at me with annoyance.
I knelt over the girl. She looked about my age, sixteen or seventeen. I put two fingers under her jaw, and felt her pulse. It was slow, but still beating.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be touching her. Get away from her, you idiotic moron!”
I felt anger flash in my eyes when somebody harshly touched my shoulder. I stood up and whipped around, my lips pursed and face flushed. “Don’t tell me what to do, or you will regret it.”
The man, scared at my identity, walked away very fast. It didn’t seem that he was in the mood for arguing with “Mary Drake.”
Then I looked at the rest of the small crowd, whispering and gawking. I seemed to be the only one who knows what happened. I glared all of them in the eye. “I mean all of you. Leave us.”
They glanced at each other, and left silently. I never noticed how much seriousness and power was in my voice, until then. Sierra walked slowly towards me, shaken, and also felt the girl’s pulse on her wrist. “She’s still alive.”
“We need to take her to the Order.”
Sierra stared at me strangely. I wondered if she knew what I was up to. “Why?”
“Because, this girl is not who she seems. We need to take her to the Order now.”
“I can help with that.” A voice sprang out of nowhere, and Sierra and I turned to see a small, petite girl with reddish-brown hair and green eyes; she stood with the moonlight glowing on her skin, and half her body covered in the darkness of shadows.
“Rowan.” Sierra whispered with a smile.
