ARC: The Seers (25 page)

CHAPTER 24

“The Iris? Hmm…” Bastian mused, as he and I sat in his room later that evening, waiting on everyone else to arrive for the shew experiment. “We probably should have considered that.”

“Probably, yeah,” I agreed.

“I’m just glad you’re still here,” he said with remnants of shocked fear in his voice. “You scared the life out of me!”

“Scared
you
? What about me?”

“You may have been surprised, but at least you ended up somewhere you were familiar with. For all I knew,” he threw his hand up, “you’d ported yourself to China! I damn near panicked!”

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” I fluttered my eyelashes. “You’d miss me.”

“Yes,” he laughed, “that’s it. I’d thought it was because I didn’t want to be the one who
lost
the daughter of
Bronntanas
, but sure, I’d miss you, we’ll go with that.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, acknowledging his joke with a sneer. “I’m just glad Jocelyn didn’t decide to lock me in my room for the remainder of the trip.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much actually. Once he caught his breath, I just explained generally what we’d done, and left.”

“That’s good, yes.”

“Sure.” If not a bit unsettling. “Though the image of him in pajamas is one I could have done without.”

He chuckled, the sound somewhat evil. “You should be grateful,” he glanced sideways at me, “after all, it could have been worse…”

“
Agh!
” I squeezed my eyes closed, as he laughed, “
Seriously?
What is
wrong
with you? Not cool. Not. Cool!”

Before Bastian could disturb me further, there was a knock at the door, and I ran to answer it.

“Thank God,” I said, knowing it was Alex before the door was even fully open. “You’re just in time.”

Alex looked confused as I pulled him the room. “Did I miss something?”

“Welcome, Mr Bray,” Bastian said, still laughing quietly. “We were just discussing Becca’s luck.”

“Not cool,” I repeated, glaring at him.

“OK,” Alex said, as I wondered why there was a sudden odd tension in the room. “Anyway, Jocelyn wanted me to tell you that we are to start without him and Cormac. Jocelyn thinks he found a lead on our mystery Mentalist, and he and Cormac went to check it out, but he said that one or both of them should be here shortly.”

“What did they find?” I asked.

“He didn’t say, just that time was of the essence.”

“That’s interesting,” Bastian said, standing and walking over to a box I hadn’t noticed before, sitting on the floor beside the couch. “Well, if they are delayed, we might as well have a look then.” As he reached inside the box, Alex and I took a seat on the couch and watched as he carefully withdrew what looked to be a heavy object that was wrapped in a wrinkled black satin cloth. Shifting it in his hands until it was right-side up, he set it down on the coffee table in front of us and pulled off the satin cover to reveal what looked to be a large glass ball, sitting on a silver three-legged stand that had intricate patterns of Celtic knots and design work carved into the metal.

“This is it?” I asked, more than a little surprised. “It looks like something a fortune teller at a carnival would use.”

“And who do you think the first fortune tellers were?” Bastian asked, tossing the satin aside and sitting next to me on the empty side of the couch.

“Oh,” I said, leaning in for a close look, “right.” I admired the carvings and tiny details for a moment, waiting for someone to make a suggestion, but no one seemed to know what to do next. The craftsmanship on this thing was amazing; too bad it didn’t come with instructions. Unable to wait anymore, I broke the silence. “So, what exactly are we supposed to do here?”

“I suppose we start by doing as the prophecy says, and see what happens,” Bastian suggested.

“Look into the shew and find the origin that will pierce the shroud of my sight,”
Alex recited.

“OK,” I sighed, “then we’ll look. But what are we looking for?” I wondered aloud.

“The origin,” Bastian said, though I could tell he was being smart.

“Gee thanks,” I squinted at him. “I meant, what does that mean? What’s an origin?”

“Could be any number of things,” Alex said. “I guess we’ll know when we find it.”

“Should we take turns?” I asked with a shrug.

“We should,” Bastian said, “though in the interest of time, I think you should go first.”

“Why me?”

“Because, I think we all know that if anyone is liable to see something in that thing, it is going to be you.”

“But no pressure or anything, right?” I added sarcastically.

“Of course not,” he said, though the sound was oddly sincere. I looked over at him to see him looking back with nothing but casual confidence. “If you see something you see something. If you don’t you don’t. Either way, we will deal with it.”

As unexpected as his words were, they brought me a welcome rush of calm and I turned back to the shew with a reassured breath, ready to give it my all.

“What do I do?” I asked, shifting forward in my seat a bit. “I mean, I know I look at it, but I’m looking at it now, and I’ve got nothing. Did you ever see Ciaran use it?” I asked Bastian. “Did he do anything special?”

Bastian blew out a long breath as he thought back. “The only times I actually saw him use it, he was in a trance, but I’m pretty sure he could use it out of trance as well.”

“OK… that doesn’t really help…”

“Can you sense it at all?” Alex asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. “The way you sense abilities?”

“The stone? No. It’s just a thing, like any other thing as far as I can tell.”

“Just take your time and concentrate,” Alex said.

“Exactly,” Bastian nodded, “draw from…” he gestured vaguely to my head, “whatever you have going on up there, and see what you come up with.”

I still had a ton of questions, but as I knew that no one had any answers, I also knew that any further questioning was really just me trying to stall. Realizing it was now or never, I took a deep breath and leaned forward, focusing all my energy and attention onto the melon sized globe in front of me.

I looked at it for a moment, then adjusted my eyes, relaxing them so that I was almost looking through it, focusing deep down on the center of the orb. As I stared, I got the feeling that maybe there was something to what Alex had said about sensing it. My ability still wasn’t picking anything up, but maybe I could get something if I treated the stone itself as an ability. I honed my power, directing it at the ball in my sights, channeling everything I had toward it, hoping to see a flicker, or a flash, or anything else that would let me know I was on the right track. I continued to push my ability outward, pouring it into the stone, feeding it, surrounding us both in power and energy until the air around me hummed. I pushed my eyes further into the stone, diving down into the heart of the rock itself, watching the way the curve of the crystal bent the light and warped the reflections and images of the room around us. With one final push, I fixed my gaze on the pinpoint in the center of the form that was untouched by the waves and curves of bent light surrounding it. I forced the last of my strength into the perfectly circular, perfectly clear spot and saw…

Nothing.

With an exhausted huff, I closed my eyes, retraced my ability, and collapsed backwards on the couch, out of breath and discouraged. But a glance around showed that drained as I felt, it was possible I hadn’t gotten the worst of it. Both Alex and Bastian were bent forward in their seats, their shoulders hunched as they gasped for air. Alex was rubbing his temples while Bastian had one hand on his forehead and the other braced against the coffee table like he’d been about to fall.

“Holy Mother of God…” Bastian mumbled as he sat up slowly, his eyes far too wide.

Alex looked over at him, and the two exchanged a glance. “You too?” Alex asked between breaths.

“What happened?” I stuttered, my head flying back and forth between them. “Are you all right?”

“We’re fine,” Alex assured me, though his hand was still shaking slightly.

“Yes,” Bastian agreed quickly, “fine.”

“Clearly you’re not fine, now what happened?” I asked again, panic that I’d hurt them bubbling up in my throat.

“We’re OK, Becca, really,” Alex said, “it was just a bit… intense for a second there.”

Suddenly, I realized what I had done and my heart clenched like a cramp. Why hadn’t I thought about what I was doing? I’d been so concerned about doing everything I could to see something in the stone, that I hadn’t considered that there were two other Holders in the room who could be affected by me filling the air around us with the full force of my ability.

“You’re too powerful, you’re going to hurt people…”
the shadow in my mind whispered, rearing up yet again.

“I’m so sorry,” I gasped, my chest heaving now not for air, but from fear. “I didn’t realize… I didn’t think… I’m so sorry!”

“Hey, hey,” Bastian said, smiling down at me, “calm down, no harm done.”

“Everything’s fine,” Alex said, placing a hand on my back.

I let the fear slowly subside as I looked up at the reassuring smiles on their faces, both of which seemed to be back to normal.

“You’re sure?” I double checked, knowing that no matter what they said I was never going to do that again.

“Absolutely,” Bastian winked.

“What about you,” Alex asked. “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” I told him. “It took a lot out of me, but I’m better now.”

“Good,” Alex breathed, the concern lifting from his eyes.

“Yeah,” I huffed with a frown. “Too bad it didn’t get us anywhere. I did everything I could think of, and still there was nothing to see.”

“All right, well at least we gave it a shot,” Bastian said, taking it far better than me.

“A blind shot in the dark, maybe,” I mumbled, reaching forward and picking up the stone and holding it in my lap.

“You said the Iris gives you more control, do you think having it would help?” Bastian asked.

“I doubt it,” I answered, slowly turning the stone around in my hands and looking at the pattern on the stand. “If the stone had something to focus my ability on, then maybe, but there is nothing. Like I said, it is just a thing.”

“All Holder artifacts are just things to anyone other than the person they are intended for,” Alex mused.

“True,” Bastian said, “but maybe that’s the answer. Maybe we could find a way to trick the stone into thinking you’re Ciaran.”

“The only way to even try to do that would be to have me assume his ability, and even if I were willing to go and rob what little energy is left from his grave – which I am not – there is no way there would be enough for me to work with. And even then, I would still have no idea what to do.”

The boys continued to spitball, while I kept looking over the shew, seeing if there was anything we might have missed. But there was nothing. The only marks it had on it at all was a three digit number etched into the center of the underside of the stone. It was in the dead center of the circle made by the open middle of the stand, and was only visible when the entire thing was turned upside down, almost like a serial number or limited edition notation.

“Hey,” I said, interrupting a conversation I’d not heard as an idea came to me. “We are supposed to find an origin, right? What if that means the origin of the shew itself?”

“What do you mean?” Bastian asked.

“It looks like there is a serial number on here: 812. Maybe if we can find out where this came from, the answer will be there?”

“That’s a bit short for a serial number,” Alex pointed out.

“Not to mention impossible,” Bastian said, leaning over to see for himself. “That stone was custom made for Ciaran hundreds of years ago, long before the creation of the serial number.” He took the stone from me and held it up for a closer look, confusion wrinkling his forehead when he saw what was there.

“I know,” I said, annoyed at how literally they were taking me. “I don’t mean like a serial number from a factory, I’m just saying that the number might be able to tell us where it came from, or maybe who made it, I don’t know.”

“The number,” Bastian said, looking hard at me as though for confirmation.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“812?”

“Yes,” I stressed, getting annoyed.

He looked over at Alex, tipping the bottom of the stone toward him so that he could see. Alex stared at it for a moment, then he and Bastian exchanged yet another private glance, this one far more serious.

“Where is the number again?” Alex asked as they both turned to me.

“Right there,” I pointed to each digit, “8, 1, 2” but I stopped when I realized they were looking at me strangely. “You…” I glanced between them, “you don’t see it?”

The chilling silence was all the answer I needed. I looked back down at the stone and the three numerals etched onto its surface – numerals that I could see plain as day – and knew this had to be it.

“Well,” Bastian sighed, apparently drawing the same conclusion I had, “it seems as though we’ve found our ‘origin in the shew.’”

“But, how is that an origin?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around the idea. “It’s just a number, how are we supposed to figure out what it means?”

Bastian folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. “A number that’s an origin? Sound to me like it would be a date.”

“A date! Yes,” I said, growing excited, “812… 8-12! August twelfth! What happened on August twelfth? Something with Ciaran maybe?” But I stopped speculating when I saw Bastian shake his head.

“812 would only be August twelfth in the US. Here, the day comes before the month.”

Everything in me ground to a halt as his words rang through me. “Day first…” I whispered as my stomach rolled.

“Right, so it wouldn’t be August twelfth, it would be – “

“December eighth,” I finished, staring down at the tell-tale etching in the stone. “My birthday.”

“It is a cloaking charm,” Min’s voice called through the speaker phone in Jocelyn’s room. “I would wager anything on it. And if the prophecy is as you have read it to me, then it is more than likely that the charm on the shew that is keeping the date hidden, is the same charm that is on Ciaran’s notebook keeping the writing hidden.”