Love lines (3 page)
Authors: Diana Nixon
Her voice mail picked up
after several rings, she wasn’t answering.
“
Hello, you’ve tried Amanda Fairey. Unfortunately,
at this moment I can’t make you happy and answer, so leave a message after the
beep. I’ll be sure to call you back.”
I didn’t like it. At all.
Amanda used voice mail very rarely and, as a rule, that
meant that she didn’t want to talk to someone. In this case, that someone
seemed to be
me
.
A strange shiver ran down my spine at the thought that
something really serious could have happened to her.
My premonition never cheated. But for the lack of
opportunity to find out at the moment what all that secrecy could mean, I
started to pack my clothes and belongings again.
For hundred thousandth time I gazed into the eyes of a
girl in a photo. It was sent by Amanda, my beloved sister, who couldn’t
understand my passion to print photos.
“You're behind the age, Christian! For nearly half a
century, no one sends pictures via regular mail, everyone uses the Internet.
Have you ever heard about such a thing?!” she exclaimed every time I asked her
to send me some of her latest photos.
It’s my third year at Dever - a private, closed
university in the Cumberland Mountains. It is closed, because of the fact that
no ordinary people are allowed to study here. Students are invited to Dever
when their time comes to learn what is hidden in the depths of each of them.
I received the invitation two years ago, just after
graduating from high school, I was going to choose a University for further
education. The invitation came the day of my eighteenth birthday. As it turns
out, all the students are invited to Dever at eighteen years old. It’s believed
that at this age they are ready to know the mysteries of the world, and know
themselves.
Dever was founded many centuries ago by seven families,
whose descendants still continue their education here. And I am one of them. I
am Fairey, the descendant of one of the founding families. The same name has
one of the local faculties.
My
faculty.
They say that Fairey was the first family, who proposed
the idea of creating Dever. Now Fairey are the Keepers, in other words – those
who keep and protects the secrets of the supernatural world from the world of
humans. As for the faculty Fairey, today there are trained people who later
become the Keepers, what in itself is quite difficult. First of all, to become
a Keeper you must belong to the Fairey family. Secondly, you need to possess a
well-developed intuition, so that in future to be able to identify at a glance
the presence of unusual abilities of any human being. We treat our intuition
not like other people, and we believe that it’s a harbinger of something
supernatural, the first sign of the fact that a person has a special gift. And,
thirdly, we must be in control of one of the natural powers – fire. Air, water
and earth are peculiarities of other departments. In addition, the hallmark of
Fairey, is the ability to control the spirit.
There are six more departments in Dever. Let’s say a few
words about each of them. So, the first one is Feta - faculty for those who
read people's fates. Meridin - faculty for the oneiromancers. Ventura - for
those who can see into the future that has already been decided by someone.
This differs Venturas from Fetas, who read only fate, but a person can change
it, and this decision will be seen to any Ventura. One more department is Vero
- a place teaching those who are able to distinguish truth from falsehood.
Embry is the most popular faculty of Dever. Those who
study here have the gift to heal people. It’s popular because of the exclusion
of other faculties it can always be chosen as additional training. For another
thing, students of Embry know what herbs and other ingredients can be used in
order to make
something special
. For example, they can easily prepare a
drink of happiness (it’s difficult to say, however, how
permanent
this
happiness will be), or the elixir of beauty (which is also, in my opinion, very
questionable and risky). According to the description, I think it’s quite clear
that most students of this faculty are girls.
And last, but definitely the most mysterious faculty -
Wizardy. Its students could become only the best graduates from the previous
six departments. This is sort of the highest level of education in Dever.
Wizardy students are taught to rule over magic.
So magic is a kind of ultimate dream for every one of
us. Possessing magical powers you can heal without herbs or make a person
forget everything so carefully protected by the Keepers. Generally speaking, to
become a Wizardy means to become a master of your life.
How I wish I could already have at least some basic
magical skills to find out, finally, what the hell is going on with me lately!
And speaking of devilry, I mean something that no one here in Dever is able to
explain to me. I see strange dreams which none of Meridin could interpret. I
feel something, that I’ve never felt before - a mix of excitement,
anticipation, fear, and something else. Neither Feta no Ventura can help me to
understand these feelings. And certainly no one from Embry can make anything
suitable to free me from these endless nightmares.
And yet...
There’s one more new sensation, which appeared when I
started to look over the photos sent by Amanda. It’s weird and I’m confused. I
can’t even find the right words to describe my feelings and it scares me.
For at least an hour already, I’ve been trying to get my
sister on the phone, but there’s no answer. The line is constantly busy.
“The last attempt,” I said irritably, dialing her phone
number.
“Finally! Amanda, I called you several times, but
couldn’t get through to you!” I shouted, barely managing to restrain my anger.
“Actually, I can say the same about you, Christian!” she
shouted back. “We need to talk. Immediately! Something strange is happening to
Eileen…”
And then she just poured out on me completely incoherent
stream of sentences, which I miraculously managed to understand. She was
mumbling through her tears and I had to press my cell tighter to my ear to
catch her words.
“And it's not all,” added Amanda, still sobbing. “I see
those strange dreams too. It started last night, after all the guests had left,
and I fell on the bed completely exhausted, barely having looked at the gifts.
Thank you for the car, by the way, and yes, I read the card with the
requirement of a decade of slavery.”
“I knew you would be delighted,” I chuckled, remembering
the moment I signed that card. But now there was something more important to
discuss with her. “Amanda, have you checked the mailbox yesterday or this
morning?” I asked nervously.
“Christian, what do you think, what I was doing on my
birthday? Checking mailbox? No. I had a lot of other things to do!” she cracked
back.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head irritably.
“I wasn’t even expecting you to do that, so I asked the
delivery service to put a card directly under the windshield of my gift. But
still, could you check your mailbox now, please?” I added almost genteelly.
Almost.
“Already doing!” she snapped. “And there is...”
Amanda didn’t finish the end of the sentence, and I knew
why.
“Oh. My. God. Christian, they sent me an
invitatio
n!”
she cried almost in terror. “It’s the same as the one you got two years
ago!”
“Welcome to the club,” I said glumly, feeling my heart
falling slowly to my feet.
Frankly, I hoped till the last moment, that Amanda will
be able to get a normal education, without all the supernatural crap I still
couldn’t get used to, and enjoy her life far away from Dever. But, surely, deep
inside I knew that it was impossible. No, of course, you could refuse the
invitation, and choose some different university. But the problem was that in
other places, no one knows how to cope with prophetic dreams, or fire that may
break out of your hands, quite unexpectedly for yourself; or explain why you
see things that others don’t. In other words - there was
no
choice.
Being born Fairey, Amanda had a right to know about the
existence of Dever. So when I received the invitation, Alexis had to tell her
some words about it too. Not everything, of course. Alexis was our mentor and
head of Dever. Because the way there couldn’t be known to any stranger, every
student was personally escorted.
That’s why Alexis came to our house that day. The fact
that our parents Patrick and Amelia Fairey knew about Dever and in due time
were its students too, was quite an unexpected surprise for me and my sister.
As it turned out, my father was a real local celebrity, not only because of
being Wizardy, but also because he still was one of the teachers of our
university! Of course, this explained a lot, starting from our always fabulous
gifts and incredibly lush Christmas trees, to a brilliant talent of Amelia
Fairey to treat every known disease.
My mom was Embry.
“Uh, Christian, there’s one more thing,” Amanda said
hesitatingly. “Nora called Eileen Fairey. But her name is Clark…”
And
that
was a kind of news I’ve never expected
to hear from my sister.
Her words thundered in my head, as if it was hit by
something very heavy. I asked her twice about whether she heard Nora’s words
correctly, and told her to go immediately to Eileen’s.
Then I hung up the phone and ran to Alexis’ office.
It was so good to be back to a clean and tidy room
again! After spending the rest of Sunday packing my luggage, I could finally
afford to relax a bit and think about how to spend the last two days before
leaving for Sheffield. Maybe I would have managed to invent something
interesting, but for the doorbell. And judging by the persistent ringing, the
prospective visitor was
not
very patient.
I was right. Opening the door, I found there Amanda,
still holding her finger on the doorbell button.
“Hey, easier, my friend! This thing can still be useful
to those who will live here when we leave,” I said smiling, taking her hand off
the button.
Without even trying to bless me with the response,
Amanda rushed into the living room and sat on the couch, nervously twitching
her gorgeous tresses of dark brown hair.
“What happened to you?” I asked finally, sitting down
beside her. “So you literally leave me after the meeting with Nora, do not
answer the phone... Have you seen how many messages I’ve left?”
However, my further tirade wasn’t effective, because it
seemed that Amanda just paid no heed to everything I had said. And her face, so
familiar to me, talked about the fact that she couldn’t go as far as to tell me
something.
“Come on Amanda, just spit it out. What’s on your mind?”
I demanded, losing patience.
“Listen, Eileen, have you checked the mailbox today?” she
asked uncertainly. Something was definitely wrong with her. Her hands were
shaking visibly and her eyes were full of terror I had never seen on best
friend’s face before.
“Of course, but I didn’t find anything new there,” I
said, shrugging indifferently. “There was a postcard from Catherine and several
letters from some of my grandma’s friends I guess. Why?”
“Where are those letters?” Amanda jumped from the couch.
“Over there, on the table,” I replied, frowning. I still
didn’t get a thing of what was going on in my house. Without waiting for any
other explanation, Amanda ran down the hall. Throwing away what she thought
wasn’t necessary, she chose one letter, came back and handed it to me.
“Here, this is for you,” she said dryly.
I took a simple white envelope with no address of the
sender. Only seeing the noticeably pale face of my friend, I opened it and
began to read the letter.
“Miss Eileen Lillian Clark! We are glad to inform you
that you have been accepted to the University of Dever. Congratulations! We are
looking forward to your arrival. Everything you need can be found in the
attached instructions to the letter. Best regards. Alexis Wilde.”
Even having reread the letter several times, I couldn’t
understand what that Dever was, who was this Alexis Wilde, and most importantly
- how she came to know about
me
?
I frowned, being even more confused be the weird letter
and my friend’s stillness.
“What does it all mean, Amanda?” I asked her, wondering
if she was even able to give me some intelligible answer. I really doubted
that, actually. My friend was as white as a ghost.
“I don’t even know where to start, Eileen,” she fumbled
finally, sitting next to me.
Can you imagine that just in a few seconds your life,
all your plans for the future and all your dreams can fly away just because of
some barely legible sentences of your best friend? And this is Amanda, a person
constantly making fun of my favorite movies and books about the supernatural,
who says with a very serious face, that I’m a person with
just such
abilities
!
