Magisterium (18 page)

Glenn nodded and, shivering a little, stepped into the water.

Together they swam out to the center of the lake and, once there, they eased over onto their backs, paddling gently to stay afloat. The water lapped at their ears so one moment they could hear the night birds and the thin sounds of the city that drifted in over the treetops, and the next there was the deep echoey silence far below the water’s surface. At first Glenn was terrified that she’d sink into the depths, but her mother’s hand was always there at the small of her back, holding her up.

Above were the few stars that escaped the glare of the city lights.

The way they were reflected in the glassy black water that surrounded Glenn and her mom, it seemed like there were stars above and below and all around them. Glenn and her mother floated in their pale light and in the emptiness that filled the spaces between.

“Pretty,” her mom said, her voice a hush spreading over the surface of the water. “Isn’t it, Glenny?”

“Did you go to the beach like this when you were little?”

“No,” she said. “My parents were always too busy to take me.”

“Why?”

“They were very important people.”

“How?”

Her mother flipped over and swam grandly around Glenn in a

circle. “Together they ruled a vast kingdom.”

Glenn splashed at her. “Mom! They did not!”

“How do you know?”

“Because there aren’t kingdoms anymore,” Glenn instructed.

“Those are just in stories.”

Glenn’s mom went quiet, only her head and shoulders bobbing out of the water, then with two clean strokes, she returned to Glenn’s side and rose up onto her back again. The water stilled and it was quiet except for the faint clap of the tide meeting the beach far away. Glenn felt a rising pressure below her palm and then there was her mother’s hand easing into hers, locking them together.

“You’re right,” she said. “Just in stories.”

Glenn stood with the warmth of that memory wrapped around her like a cloak. She tried to wish away everything that Opal had said, but as much as Glenn wanted to she couldn’t tolerate such a comforting lie.

Too many pieces had fallen into place over the last few days to deny the picture they created. Aamon hadn’t come across the border and stumbled onto their property. He had come to find the Magistra and bring her back. As soon as Aamon was well again it was time for her to return. That was the moment Glenn had seen out beyond the border the night her mother disappeared. It was no dream.

Now she knew why her mother had always avoided talk of her

past and her family. Why she looked out across the border like she was terrified of what lay on the other side. The cruelty of her abandonment, which had once seemed inexplicable, was now so clear. It was simply the first time Glenn had seen her mother for what she truly was.

A monster.

The word churned inside of her. How could she reconcile it with the woman who held her hand while they floated in that lake? Which was the lie?

Glenn eased a finger in between the skin of her wrist and the flat underneath of the bracelet. The world went quiet. Even her heart seemed to cease its beating. As the bracelet slid away, tendrils of the other world began to appear, reaching for her and then dancing away.

Glenn could feel the power mounting outside the edge of the bracelet’s bubble, ready to fill her again. A rush of emotions churned within her, a small newfound hope mixing with a decade of grief and rage.

What would I say if I saw her? What would I do? What does she
deserve?

“Glenn?”

She turned with a start, slipping the bracelet back onto her wrist.

Kevin stood in the doorway behind her.

“What are you doing?”

“I was just … I was getting some air.”

Kevin stepped out past the flagstones and joined her, looking up into the trees.

“It’s different, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“The air. I don’t know. It feels … fuller somehow.” Kevin turned to Glenn. “Where were you? Opal left panicked and then you two were talking. Is everything —”

“It was nothing.”

Kevin was standing between her and the house, hands stuffed in the pockets of his heavy Magisterium coat, waiting. He knew her too well to believe her when she said it was nothing. The truth rose to Glenn’s lips — what had happened when she took off the bracelet, the truth about her mother — but the enormity of it stopped her. How could she explain?

“It’s … I’m tired,” Glenn told him. “That’s all. We leave early tomorrow. We should try to get some rest.”

Glenn hurried up the slate path. Her shaking hand found the door handle and began to pull.

“I’m not going back.”

Glenn turned. Kevin stood with the bare trees swaying behind him.

“What are you talking about?”

“When all of this is over. Whatever happens. I’m not going

back.”

“Why?”

Kevin shrugged. “Nothing to go back for.”

There was a twist in her chest as she saw falling snow and felt Kevin’s hand on her back. She remembered stumbling through the dark beside him, laughing herself breathless.

“What about —” Glenn began.

“What?”

There was no sound but the faint rush of the river out in the dark.

Glenn stood at Opal’s door, her fingertips frozen on the handle. She wanted to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.

The way Kevin stood in the moon’s half-light, motionless, his eyes like cinders, he didn’t feel like Kevin at all. Something foreign sat just beneath his quiet stillness. Just like that first moment he was caught in Opal’s web, it was as if Kevin’s body was nothing more than a mask. Was this the shadow of Cort Whitley inside him? Was Kevin lost to her now too?

“Nothing,” Glenn said.

Kevin’s penetrating stare didn’t falter. Finally Glenn had to look away, wondering if he felt some sliver of her mother lurking inside her, just like she saw Cort within him.

Before Glenn knew it, he was standing right beside her. She took in a quick breath and held it. Their shoulders nearly touched as his hand disappeared behind her and took the door handle from her.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”

Kevin threw open the door. As he stepped inside, he dropped one hand so the back of it swept alongside hers, a warm brush of skin, and the door closed with a
bang
.

Glenn snapped awake hours later and sat up in the small bed. The house was dead quiet — no sounds of breathing or the house settling.

No movement inside or out. Something was wrong. Glenn was sure of it. It was like a thin, tight wire at the core of her had been plucked and was sending tremors throughout her body.

Glenn’s bare feet slipped off the mattress and touched the floor.

She dressed, crouching in the dark, then peered out her open door.

Nothing in the hallway. She crept forward, keeping low until she could just see outside.

The front of the house was lit with the barest thread of moonlight coming in from the window, but it was enough to tell that no one was there. To her left was a short hall that led to Opal’s room and the room where Kevin had been sleeping.

A fiery orange glow seeped from Kevin’s room and spread along the walls. Glenn took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway, one palm flat against the rough-hewn wall as she stole down its length.

Glenn edged up to the side of the doorway and flattened herself to it.

She could hear faint whispers from inside the room. The muscles in Glenn’s neck went rigid as she leaned forward. In the middle of the room stood a girl a little older than Glenn with a sharp, angular jaw and dark hair. She was dressed in a long black cloak with a hood lying back across her shoulders.

The room was illuminated by a single flame that flickered,

suspended, above her open palm.

Kevin, Opal, and Aamon stood perfectly still before her, their arms straight at their sides. Their eyes were lifeless. The girl in the cloak kept up the stream of whispering, and every so often Kevin or Opal would slowly nod their heads.

Glenn leaned back into the hallway. The flame hovering in her palm. The way the others were frozen. Affinity.

Opal had said that because of the bracelet she saw Kevin in her mind but not Glenn. This girl must have sensed the other three as she came through the forest, but to her Glenn was an empty space, a nothing. She had no idea Glenn was there.

Glenn slipped up to the front of the house, hunting for anything that might help her. The kitchen contained little more than some plates and cups and jars of herbs.

The moonlight coming in through the window struck a bit of

metal hanging from the mantel. A locket on a silver chain. What had Opal said about it? Something about that dark thing on the boat.

“It’s bound to the owner of that charm….”

Glenn glanced out the window. The yard was empty. The path

down to the water was clear. She thought for a moment, then snatched the charm off the mantel and took the iron poker from beside the fireplace. Crossing the kitchen, she forced back a gulp of air, then swung the poker as hard as she could at the collection of ceramic plates and glass jars sitting on the table. Glass shattered and plates went flying, smashing on the hardwood floors with a terrible crash. Glenn turned and sprinted out the door and down the stone lane.

It was brighter down by the water, the wide gash in the trees letting the moonlight and starlight pour in and reflect off the slowly moving river. Glenn stopped cold when she saw the boat and the awful thing that stood motionless in the back of it. Even in the low light she could see the undulating forms buried in its cloak.

Glenn held up the charm with a shaking hand, feeling foolish.

Would this even work? Would the bracelet cancel out the locket?

“Hey!” Glenn shouted. “You!”

The hooded thing turned slowly to face her. Glenn’s throat was full of rust. What was she supposed to tell it? What did she want it to do?

Footsteps clattered on the stone walkway behind her. Glenn

turned. The girl in the cloak was racing toward her. Without a word, she thrust her hand at Glenn and the bit of flame in her palm burst into a geyser of yellow-orange fire and roared through the air. Glenn wheeled backward, waiting to feel the flames tear into her, but nothing happened. When Glenn opened her eyes again she saw that the flames had split around her, like a flow of water striking a dam. In the place where the streams diverged, Glenn could just make out an inch-thick border between the flames and her body. The red jewel in the bracelet glowed brightly.

The girl pulled the fire back. First she stared at her own hands but then she fixed her eyes on the bracelet. Glenn saw her chance. She whipped around to the dark boatman and raised the locket over her head.

“Take her away!”

The creature didn’t make a sound as it leapt from the boat and into the air. It seemed to elongate as it came, its arms stretching into tattered, batlike wings with sharpened tree limbs for claws. Its hood split to reveal a misshapen beak. The girl stood her ground. Fire shot from her hands and tore through the creature, but its body was amorphous, shifting as it flew so that it would part and then re-form, unharmed. The girl tried to run but the creature was too fast. It overcame her and together they crashed into the forest. Her screams were high and awful … until they were strangled away to nothing.

Glenn forced herself up the path to the house at a run. She made it through the door just as Kevin and Opal appeared from the hallway.

“Glenn!” Kevin shouted, rushing toward her.

“I’m fine,” Glenn said, backing away from him. “What happened?

Who was that?”

“Abbe Daniel,” Opal said. “The Magistra’s handmaiden. She

isn’t alone, either. Soldiers are approaching now. I can have my woods slow them down but you have to leave. Take the boat.” Opal turned to Kevin. “I have supplies gathered in the back. Aamon will help you.”

Kevin ran back into the hallway. When Glenn went to follow, Opal took her by the wrist.

“There’s still time,” Opal whispered. “Your mother is powerful but slow to rouse. She’ll leave things to servants like Abbe and Garen Tom as long as she can, but if she wakes, it will be too late. Don’t destroy the bracelet. Use it.”

Opal drew Glenn closer. The red glow of the bracelet spread across the lines of her face.

“You can’t trust Aamon Marta,” she said in a hush. “When tens of thousands struggled for their freedom from the Magisterium, he led the armies that cut them down. Men, women, and children were slaughtered like animals. And when it looked like they might prevail, Aamon brought the blight of your mother upon us. If you think that sort of evil is something that can be walked away from, then you’re a fool.

He is an instrument of the Magistra and always has been.”

“Glenn.”

She turned with a start. Aamon filled the hallway behind them, his massive body looming in the dark.

It was him
, Glenn thought.
That thing in the woods the night my
mother left. Why hadn’t he said anything? Why did he keep it from me?