Jamyria: The Entering (The Jamyria Series Book 1) (5 page)

The crooked man reaches down to give Margo’s hand a yank. Apparently, she still isn’t going fast enough. He takes a sharp left around the street corner weaving through the crowd.

They stop abruptly in front of the third house on the left. ‘Jamyria Welcome Center, Number 12’ reads the sign. The building is small. There’s nothing that makes it any more special than the other graying, dilapidated buildings she’s seen.

But she can’t study it for long. He steps up behind her and gives her a push toward Number 12.

“Hurry,” he fusses.

Margo climbs the rickety stairs and opens the door. He shoves her into the dark room, and the door slams shut behind her. There is hardly room inside. Bookshelves line all four walls containing stacks of papers along with other odds and ends—a clock, a telescope, a few framed drawings, a skull. The room is lit mostly by the high windows that peek over the tops of shelves and a few lit candlesticks.

In the room’s center sits a woman at a small desk, smiling wide. Compared to the townspeople of this dirty place, she is clean-cut. A sleek, chocolate ponytail coils around her shoulder. On her perfectly curved nose rests a pair of trendy red glasses. Even sitting down, it is obvious that this woman is tall and slender. Her presence is misplaced in this town.

“Welcome to Jamyria,” she says, smile still in place. She rises to greet Margo, extending a soft, well-manicured hand, which Margo shakes reluctantly, embarrassed by the roughness of her own against this lady’s delicate palm. But the woman doesn’t seem to notice — at least, she does not say. In fact, her warm spirit
is
welcoming.

“Jamyria?” Margo asks a beat too late.

“Oh, sweetie, I know it’s difficult to understand…or to take it all in at first, but you’ll soon know everything.” Her face is strained as she speaks, almost sympathetic. “We’ll help you get settled in.”

“Miss Saunders.” The gruff voice comes from behind Margo. She hadn’t realized the hunched-back man was still there. He shuffles his way over to the lady to whisper something in her lowered ear. Her warm smile shifts to something harsher. They both glance up at Margo at the same time.

“Impossible.” It is nothing more than a whisper, but the intensity of the single word is not fitting for such a sweet face. Margo wishes to look away from the woman ferocious glare. And then, her expression relaxes and her voice calms. “Well, that
is
an interesting theory, Dawson, but we will have to investigate this further.”

She looks down upon Margo sternly. The man is still glaring, too, which makes Margo feel very uncomfortable once again. The stench from the poncho suddenly returns causing her to gulp back bile.

“Dawson,” the lady continues, softening up her face a bit. “I shouldn’t have used the word ‘impossible.’ It’s just…unheard of. Thank you for bringing her to me.”

And with that, the little man nods and scoots his way out the door.

“Tell me,” says the woman stepping closer, arms folded across her chest. “What happened to you arms?”

Margo takes a step back realizing what they’re after now. Her wounds.

“Let me see,” the lady says pulling at the hem of the poncho. Though her stomach clenches, Margo obeys and removes the smelly garment.

Mouth dropping open, the woman studies the rows of cuts that run the length of Margo’s arms. The blood has thickened and scabbed over into jagged marks. She turns her face away, not wanting to see the injuries she sustained without a conscious realization.

“There’s so much,” whispers the lady. “So many…”

Her eyes follow the lines on Margo’s inner arms, truly studying it as if it is some encryption she understands.

“There was a light,” Margo says quietly, unsure of what else to say to answer her earlier question. “It exploded, and I think…it cut me…”

Margo flushes with embarrassment. Why should this woman believe her? Hearing the words spoken aloud shames her. She would label herself as a lunatic had their roles been reversed.

Except, from the knowing look on the woman’s face, she just might believe her story.

“And my neck,” she continues with a little more enthusiasm, lifting her hair to share the other cuts with this stranger.

“More?” the lady asks, though she is already lightly tracing her fingers around the cuts. Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt, like areas are desensitized. “So it
is
possible.”

Margo is unsure whether she is asking a question or simply stating a fact, so she remains silent.

“You’re going to have to come with me.”

Margo nods. She doesn’t have many options to choose from. Besides, she has never been on her own before, and this lady is the most decent person she’s yet to encounter.

She dons her bag from under her desk and hands Margo back the poncho. “Put this back on, honey.”

Without hesitation, Margo pulls the smelly thing back on and holds her breath again. She understands her reasoning for the cover-up, though; the wounds seem to attract a lot of attention.

They step out onto the small porch of the Welcome Center. Margo attempts to look inconspicuous in the middle of this strange town — Jamyria. The people scurry by on the streets. A variety of emotions pass her ranging from anger to sadness, depending on the person, but Margo notices that nobody looks happy. Except one.

The lady turns to lock up the building, and meets Margo’s gaze with her blazing smile. “I’m Janie Saunders, by the way.”

“Margo Grisby,” she returns, nodding once.

“Margo,” repeats Janie. She holds her hand out toward the street, a cue to start walking. “The town isn’t much to look at, but we’ve done the best we can.”

Margo doesn’t reply, but instead hopes for further explanation which does not come. Janie leads the way around the opposite corner that Margo had been brought in on. This time she isn’t instructed to keep her head down, so she tries to absorb as much of the town as possible. The daunting shadows from the cliffs cause it to feel darker than it is.

The walk is short, only about a block from the corner. Janie stops in front of a building that looks more like a cottage rather than a cabin. Instead of wood, it is made of stone similar to the surrounding wall. ‘The First Mark, Number 1’ reads the signage overhead, the most ornate sign in the village. The letters are painted in gold bordered in winding green ivy, and it’s attached to the house with scrolling tendrils of iron.

Janie walks up to the door with her arm around Margo’s shoulder and knocks. Minutes pass before the shouts start on the other side of the door.

“What do you want? Come to bother me some more? To question an old man?” he shouts. “I’ll blast you all to hell if I have to, I will! Blast you all —”

“Nick, it’s me,” Janie laughs.

The door swings open. A tall, lanky man leans out with his eyes wide and full of excitement behind his dark-rimmed spectacles. He looks in his late fifties with glossy blue eyes and short gray hair sticking out in several directions.

“Janie!” he shouts pulling her into his embrace, bouncing a bit. “It’s been so long.”

“It’s been no more than two days, Nick! Honestly, you make me feel like I never visit when you talk like that.”

Margo’s hunches over in the corner of the porch awkwardly as they exchange their brief conversation. She wishes to escape their pleasantries. How can they act so happy amidst such a drab town? How can they pretend the ice had never occurred? She wishes to disappear.

“So, what is it that brings you this way?” he asks, still clinging to Janie’s arm in excitement.

“Well,” she says bringing his attention over to their guest. “I have someone I think you’d be interested in meeting.” Her smile beams on as she gives him a wink.

His face suddenly goes slack as he takes Margo in. “Has it really been fifty years?” he whispers.

“So it seems. Time flies around here, eh?”

“It certainly does,” he muses. He can’t take his eyes off Margo, and she now knows why.

It takes him a moment to snap out of his gaze, giving his head a shake. “Well, come in,” he waves. “We have much to discuss. Janie, start some tea. I’ll heat up the stew. Come in, come in.” He tugs Margo inside. A slight annoyance creeps through her after being pulled around again, but she enters without a fight.

His home is polar opposite from the Welcome Center. The walls are the same stone as the outside decked in a variety of sketches and paintings (Margo wonders if he provided Janie with the sketches she spotted in the Welcome Center). The honey wood furniture warms and invites. She follows them into the small kitchen — which is even smaller than her parents’, if that’s possible. Gray stone continues throughout the room, hollowed out in some places to create storage crevices, and is topped with an ancient, honey-colored wooden countertop. In the center wall is a stone fireplace with a fire roaring and licking at the iron pot he places in the flames.

“Have a seat,” Nick offers, pulling out a chair.

Margo glances down at the chair and recognizes the warmth in her cheeks. For the first time this afternoon she truly feels safe. It is in the arms of these two strangers she takes comfort, and she is gracious to happen upon them.

Just as she is about to accept his seat, her smile quickly fades. Before she hadn’t noticed that his right hand is completely covered in dark scars very similar to her own cuts. A vine-like pattern scrolls across the back of his hand.

What she also hadn’t noticed is that half of his hand is missing. He lacks his ring finger, pinky, and the outer half of his palm. A chunk has been sliced clean off.

Margo feels her mouth fall slightly open, and snaps it shut, feeling rude.

“As I said before,” Nick says darkly, “we have much to discuss.”

Chapter Five: The First Man

Margo’s eyes are incapable of leaving his hand. The brown cluster of scars screams for her attention. She feels a strong connection to this stranger, certain she is not alone in her suffering.

“Well,” he says after a moment or two. “First of all, I’m Nick Thomas.” He waits, but when Margo does not reply prompts, “And you are?”

“Margo Grisby,” she blurts, breaking her gaze from his hand. “What happened to your–” She stops herself, flushed in embarrassment by her audacity.

“We’ll get to that,” he promises. “But first, tell me what happened to you. What can you remember?” He leans forward, eyes intense, and crosses his arms so he can tuck his partial hand into his side.

Margo thinks this over for a minute. “Well, the last normal thing I remember was walking home from school.” Had that walk down the dirt road been merely a few hours ago?

“Yes, good! What next?” He asks it as if he already knows how the story will unfold, which Margo is certain he does.

“There was a bright bird, as bright as fire. I followed it through the woods.”

He and Janie turn to one another in confusion, as if thrown by something she’d said.

“A fiery bird?”

“It led me to where it was guarding a globe.” Margo’s eyes dart to Janie just in time to see her spilling hot water onto the counter as it overflows from her cup.

“Guarding it? As in keeping you away from it?” asks Nick.

“More like it was trying to bring me to it. Like it wanted me to…” Her voice trails off as the flash of a memory stirs her. Touching the globe, all the pain in that instant. The icy splinters under her skin. Muscles so strained they could have peeled from her bones.

“Well,” says Janie. “That certainly is…different.”

“Different, indeed.” Nick’s face twists up in concentration. He paces back and forth in the tiny kitchen. It only takes him two steps to reach each side, and he nearly knocks Janie out of the way in each passing.

“Is something wrong?” Margo asks nervously. The weird parts are yet to come, and she is surprised to find that this part of the story has set their minds turning.

“It’s just that I’ve never heard of one of this world’s creatures crossing over to the Real World. It’s quite strange.”

Janie is silent in the background keeping her eyes on the floor. Both are in deep thought. Margo almost dreads telling them the rest of the story. Almost.

Then his words hit her a little harder.

“I’m sorry,” she says too harshly, tensing her back. “Did you just say that we’re in a
different world
?”

Nick chokes, turning slightly green. “Oh, dear… Janie I thought you’d already gotten that far.”

“No, I —”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Margo says quietly, placing a hand over her heart. “I was afraid I was losing it.”

The tension lifts. Nick chuckles. “I’m impressed, actually. You seem to be adapting pretty well. And fast. Most new enterers have trouble accepting even pieces of what’s happening, but you seem to really have a knack for this.” He smiles crookedly to himself.

Janie shoots him a nasty look.

“I’m serious,” he goes on. “She hasn’t once asked when she gets to go home or anything. Like she already knows why she’s —”

“
Nick
,” Janie says firmly.

He clears his throat and is back to business. “So after you saw the bird guarding the globe, what happened?”

“Well, I felt funny. Like I couldn’t escape from it. Something felt very wrong, but I had to shake it.” She skips over where her memory clouds. “Then everything grew bright, and I woke up in the snow.

“Then, there was this huge cat.” They exchange another nervous glance. “It was all white and tried to attack me. I couldn’t outrun it. I thought I was going to die but… There was an icicle in my hand — I don’t know how it got there — but I… I killed it.”

To Margo’s surprise, Nick bursts out into a hysterical laugh. She grimaces.

“Well, that’s something we didn’t see coming,” Nick belts out.

Janie nods back, joining his laughter.

“Sorry, but you lost me again.” She fails to mask her irritation.

“We’ll explain it all, I promise. Now, please continue.”

She sighs, and continues to tell them the rest. Without any more interruptions, she tells them of the nagging cold and spotting the village from above the valley. How the circle of light cast down upon her and somehow cut her arms and neck. They listen intently to every word and even after Margo has finished they wait patiently in silence for more. “So then I just came down here to find help after the ice was gone.”

Nick’s pacing finally stops, his face still scrunched up in concentration. “Can I see them? Your marks?”

She nods while removing the filthy poncho once again. Janie silently darts over to her side to help and then backs out of the way with the poncho draped over her arm. Margo hopes she incinerates the thing.

Nick steps forward with his partial hand holding his chin and begins studying the marks as Janie had — as if there is meaning beneath the strange characters. She stretches her arms out into the shape of a
U
for him to have a proper look at her inner arms.

Margo, too, gives them a scrutinized look-over. There are four rows of patterns that hide neatly in her side when her arms are down. Each row contains a single line of sharp, jagged characters running from her elbow all the way to the joint where her arm meets her shoulder. Studying them even closer, she sees that there are etchings within each tiny character. She is curious to see the one on her neck.

What’s strange is that even though she received these cuts merely hours ago, they are completely healed. The skin isn’t pink as an ordinary scar would be but has healed a shade or two darker than the tone of her skin, leaving them brownish.

Nick traces the scars with his two fingers, carefully examining them.

“I just don’t think I understand what happened to me,” Margo finally says, interrupting his studying. She can feel her eyes widening in fright, although she is trying her hardest to keep her emotions under control.

“There’s just so much to tell. Where to begin, where to begin?” He sighs, looking down at Margo with troubled eyes, and she knows then that something greater than all that had happened today is coming. “Alright, Janie. You start, I’ll finish.”

He gently glides Margo’s arms back to her side and offers the same chair he’d pulled out a moment ago. This time she sits without question. Janie places a cup of steaming tea in front of her.

“Well, this is Jamyria,” says Janie as she grabs the other two cups and hands one to Nick. They both sit down across from Margo, settling in for a long discussion. “Jamyria is a world that was created by someone with great power. We’ve learned as much as we can about this place over the years, but we were brought in here just as unexpectedly as you.”

Only one word sticks out to Margo, and it isn’t the obvious. She should be terrified that someone created an entire world with their ‘power.’ Or that everyone here was brought against their will. But that isn’t what scares her.

“Years?” It can’t be possible for them to have been here for that long. Surely they have families looking for them, detectives and police searching for answers.

“Years,” Janie repeats, her smile vanishing. “Some for centuries even.”

“Centuries?” For a moment, Margo can’t even form another sentence. “How is that even possible? Unless… Oh, you mean they’ve died here….” She bites her tongue.

Janie’s lip twitch slightly. “No. You see, when you enter Jamyria, the Queen — that is, the creator of this land — sets a curse on you so that you can only age to a certain degree, and then you stop. This allows children to grow to their fullest potential, their most powerful stage. You become temporarily immortal, meaning once she finished with you, you’ll continue to age until you pass.”

Margo processes this. It all sounds so bizarre and unreal, but why stop believing at this point?

“As you can imagine, we all want to get out of here.” Janie takes a sip of her tea between sentences. “In a way, we’re all prisoners. Slaves to contributing energy to her source of power.” Margo isn’t sure what that means, but Janie speaks too quickly to ask. “Sure, we do what we can with what we’ve got, but who wants to live their entire life that way? Who wants to be told that the only freedom they have is within this little box?” She air-draws a square with her thin fingers. “And even still, we have limitations of what we can do and where we can go within our box. It’s miserable, Margo.”

Her chocolate eyes plead. For a moment, Margo empathizes. Until she remembers that this hell is her reality, too. Janie searches Margo’s face for something, like she desperately has something to ask.

“But we’ve done our best,” she finally says. “We built this town from the ground up, starting with this very cottage. Nick built it himself.” She smiles at him, though it does not touch her eyes.

“You built this alone?” Margo asks, amazed.

“From the ground up,” Nick repeats proudly.

“Margo, I honestly feel like you’re missing the major points here. Your questions seem to be avoiding the facts, so let me reiterate.” Janie takes in a deep breath and slowly releases it through her tightly rounded lips. “
You are in a different world.
And we are
all
stuck here.”

Margo is somewhat miffed that she’s spelled it out so simply. Of course she heard what Janie had said, but somewhere inside of her, Margo had already sensed that.

“I understand, really,” she defends dumbly. “But to be honest, I feel like you’re not telling me something.” Margo’s voice is even, eyes dead on Janie and unwavering. At last, she sees what she needs: Janie’s gaze nervously flickers to Nick and back.

“Perceptive, eh?” says Nick, the wrinkles around his eyes more dominant as he grins. “My turn, Janie. Thanks for the intro.” He rearranges his posture and intertwines his two fingers with his good hand. “Well, Margo, it’s time to talk about your marks.”

This she is not surprised to hear.

“When someone enters Jamyria, normally they simply fall into the snow and wait for warmth to come. After about an hour or so, the sun will come out, and as soon as the light spreads, the cold vanishes melting the snow and ice away instantaneously. But every fifty years, someone will enter who has more meaning than just being captured by the Queen.” He leans in on the table, his eyes wide. “They’re
destined
to enter.”

Margo’s eyes narrow, still unsure where this is leading.

“Those destined are brought here just as unknowingly as any other person and have what’s already growing inside of them revealed. These marks. These,” he taps the scars on his right hand lightly, smiling crookedly, “are marks of power.”

Margo’s own scars come into focus.
What exactly is he saying? That these marks have power in them…?

“Yes, Margo. You, too, have that power in you. And you have a lot of power, I might add. Look at all those markings!”

“Don’t forget the ones on her neck,” Janie adds.

“It’s remarkable! Unheard of.”

She stares at him blankly.

“You’re confused,” he points out. “Several unique things have happened here; two very significant unique things. One, there’s never been a marked woman.” Margo raises her eyebrow skeptically, knowing that he just mentioned a queen having power to create this world. “Let me rephrase that. There
are
marked women, but a woman as the
New
Mark, now that’s unheard of...

“The second thing is that I’ve never seen so much power wrapped into a single body.” He absentmindedly traces the etchings on his hand again. “The more detailed the patterns are, the more power that person contains. And yours are so big! But, at the same time, intricate.”

“New Mark?” Margo sighs. “I really am trying, but it’s hard to keep up.”

“Once someone has been given this power,” Janie says softly, “and once they know what they’re doing with it, they can pass it along to someone else. There are plenty of women that have marks here, but we’ve never come across a woman that has received a New Mark, as we call it. That is, their mark is original...freshly created and unique. Do you understand, sweetie?”

“What about this queen?” Margo asks.

“She got hers from her father,” Nick answers before Janie can. “That happened long before anyone was in Jamyria, though. Long before it was even created.”

“You said this happens every fifty years.” Margo went back over their conversation. She glances at Nick’s marks. “Does that mean you’ve been in here for fifty years?”

“Wish I had,” Nick says darkly. “I’ve been here for over a hundred.”

The room falls silent. Margo isn’t sure how to respond to that. That’s a lifetime, or more. And to spend it all here… There’s a small part within Margo that cannot help but worry that that will be her fate, too.

“We’ve gotten a little sidetracked again,” Nick finally says. “So, after I entered Jamyria, I received my power, my markings.” He holds up his partial hand, and Margo can’t help but wince. “My whole hand was covered then.” He keeps his eyes on his hand, reminiscing.