The Marked Girl (15 page)

T
he campus of UC San Diego was much bigger than Liv had anticipated. It took them at least a half hour before they were able to track down the history building, a squat, brick structure with patches of old vines clinging to its front wall.

Inside, Liv was surprised by how quiet it was, its halls nearly empty. She looked at a wall clock and saw it was nearly seven p.m.

“The website said that his office hours end at seven. We have to hurry.” Liv's voice sounded smaller than usual to her own ears. She felt hollowed out and raw, having spilled her guts to Cedric. Why had she shared that story with him? The lull of the car on the highway, the heat of the sun, the gentle way he'd asked her questions—everything had just flowed out of her. After she'd finished talking, it had felt like waking up from a dream. Was it too late to take those words back? What could he possibly think of her now that he knew what she'd done?

To have her deepest secret spoken aloud in the world instead of held tight and safe inside of her was unthinkable, as wrong as
wearing her very nerves outside of her skin.

But still, Liv pushed forward, through the university building's hallway to Professor Billings's office. Maybe she could will the conversation away by never thinking of it or acknowledging it again.

At the professor's office door, Liv gave one last look to Cedric. He nodded and reached up to knock.

“Come in,” a voice called out.

The room was small and warm and cluttered with books. Four bookshelves of various sizes and designs lined the walls, and each was overflowing with large, leather-bound tomes, reference books, paperbacks with cracked spines. They spilled out of their shelves and onto the floor. They covered the cushions of a small love seat and curled around the legs of a worn desk.

Professor Billings sat at the desk, looking slightly older than the picture on the UC San Diego website. His hair was whiter and his skin more lined, but his dark eyes were bright and vibrant. He carefully placed a bookmark between the pages of his book and set it aside as Liv and Cedric approached his desk.

“I was beginning to think no one would take advantage of my office hours today,” he said with a smile. He looked them over more carefully and gestured for them to take the two seats in front of his desk. “Sorry, I can't seem to place you. Are you in my eleven a.m. class?”

“No,” Cedric said as he sat. “We are not pupils.”

Liv shot him a quick look. “Well, we are pupils—I mean, students,” she continued for him. “Just not in your class.”

Professor Billings raised one eyebrow, but said nothing.

“We're actually here hoping you could shed some light on a subject we're interested in learning more about,” Liv added, then cleared her throat, unsure how to begin. “Well, we read that you know a lot about a . . . mythical land called Caelum.”

“And a set of scrolls that lead there,” Cedric added. He sounded a little too eager, so Liv kicked him gently under the desk.

“Well,” Professor Billings said with a chuckle. “This is a surprise. I haven't taught that particular lore in years. It's fairly obscure, you know.”

“But you wrote your dissertation on it?”

Professor Billings's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You certainly have done your research.”

Liv smiled and gave a half-shrug.

“Can I ask what brought about your interest? Most students who come see me are here to bargain up their grades, not to hear more about my dissertation subject. And you look . . . very young. Are you freshmen?”

Cedric shifted in his seat, and Liv shot him a quick side glance.

“When I said students, I meant . . . high school students, from LA. We're . . . writing a research paper on ancient myths, and we happened across Caelum online and were really interested in it. But there's so little information out there, so we thought we'd come straight to the source. . . .” Liv's voice trailed off, and she wondered if she'd just blown their chances. Why would a college professor care about a stupid high school project?

Professor Billings studied Liv's face for a moment, and she squirmed under his gaze. But then his expression cleared and he
smiled an easy smile once again.

“Well, it's nice to see high school students so interested in the lesser-known historical myths,” he said warmly. “What in particular would you like to know about?”

“The scrolls,” Cedric cut in.

Professor Billings nodded. “Well, to understand about the scrolls, you really need a background of the legend. Written accounts of Caelum can be traced back to the early thirteenth century, although its oral history began before that time. It was at its most pervasive around the same era as the Knights of the Round Table and all of that business, sort of medieval Britain's latent response to . . . sorry, is this boring you?”

“No,” Cedric said quickly.

“Well, let me know if I get too dry. I tend to go on sometimes,” he said, smiling and leaning back in his chair. “Anyhow, the legend begins with the once widely held belief that devils roamed the Earth, spreading terror and destruction. Mostly ruining crops and taking firstborn babies, that kind of thing. Some cultures referred to them as evil spirits, or sprites, or wraths.”

Cedric sat up straighter, and Liv wished she could tell him to chill out. The professor didn't seem to notice, however.

“According to this particular lore, these creatures have been on this planet in some form or another since its creation. In response to their growing numbers, a group of men banded together and mixed their bloodlines with those of the wraths, in order to incorporate some of their otherworldly strength for the purpose of fighting them—”

“That's not true!” Cedric burst out, jumping out of his seat. He bumped against the desk and disrupted some nearby papers as well as a small bronze figurine. The trinket swayed on its stand, coming perilously close to toppling before the professor reached over and steadied it. He looked at Cedric, a bit discomfited.

“Well, obviously none of it is really
true
, son.”

“Sorry,” Liv interrupted. “He gets really excited about . . . ancient myths.” She made a motion for Cedric to sit down, and he reluctantly did.

“I can understand that, I suppose. After all, these ancient stories are nothing but metaphors for how we live our lives. In this instance, it's a metaphor for how good men must necessarily become corrupted in some way in order to be strong enough to protect their people. To fight devils, man must become part devil himself. . . . Quite fascinating, really . . .”

Liv did her best to look fascinated while the professor continued.

“So with their tainted blood, these mythical men had the strength necessary to fight off the scores of wraths. At first, they acted in secret, but over the centuries, other groups of men joined in the fight against the wraths. Scholars and religious sects, mostly. They wanted to find a way to not only fight the wraths off, but to expel them from this world for good. And then, according to legend, they did. They found a way to send the wraths somewhere . . . else.”

“Caelum,” Cedric whispered. His tone was hushed, almost reverential.

Professor Billings nodded. “That's right. You know the story?”

“We'd still like to hear it from you, if that's okay,” Liv said after Cedric didn't respond. “For our assignment.”

The professor nodded again and continued. “One particular sect was known as the Knights of Valere, and they were believed to have true mystics in their midst. Sorcerers, you know.”

“Sorcerers?” Liv asked. “You mean, as in wizards and magic and all that?”

“You could say that. Myths of sorcerers certainly abounded during that time. Just look at Merlin!”

“But Merlin's fictional,” Liv said without thinking. “I mean, I guess all this stuff is fictional . . .” she added, trailing off. But really, she wondered how many other “fictional” things actually fell in the nonfiction category. After everything she'd seen the last two days, anything was possible. For all she knew, the North Pole was real and Santa Claus was up there right now, making presents for all the nice children of Los Angeles. Or holding on to a set of mythical scrolls.

The professor leaned forward, his words picking up the pace as he continued. “We know that now, but at one time, people really believed these legends were true. The documented accounts of wraths and the superpowered men—who were referred to as Guardians—tapered off around the same time that stories of magic drifted into the stuff of legend. Most historians agree that advancing technology allowed human beings to become more rational, more able to explain the phenomena around us and less likely to write it off as magic.”

Liv nodded, trying to follow along.

“There is another theory, however,” the professor continued.
“Put forth by, I'll admit, mostly discredited historians, who believe that magic does exist—that it has existed in some form on Earth since the beginning of time. These historians believe that, centuries ago, around the time the Guardians left Earth, the planet became overwhelmed by magic and developed a negative reaction to it. So it went into a sort of survival mode, you see, by hiding magic or expelling magic when necessary. A type of evolutionary response. It's called the Quelling Theory. Similar to the way different species evolve and adapt in order to survive, the Earth evolved to get rid of its magic when it became too powerful and too dangerous. The Quelling Theory might explain why the Knights of Valere were able to banish the wraths and Guardians from Earth when they did—the wraths posed a threat to the planet's existence and had to be expelled. So, when the Knights went looking for the means to banish the wraths, the planet supplied it. They were able to craft a series of scrolls that opened up a portal to another world. And they used that portal to push all the wraths through.”

“Just pushed through? Like some sort of mystical trash chute?”

“A trash chute!” Professor Billings chortled. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Liv, almost wonderingly. “Yes, that's perfect. Mind if I write it down?”

Liv shrugged and ignored the angry glare Cedric was aiming in her direction. The professor's story was shaking out a little differently than the one Cedric had shared with her about his people finding the portal and leaving the hell dimension of Earth behind.

“Anyway,” the professor continued, “the portal also had an
unintended effect. Instead of just drawing out all wraths, it drew out all living things with wrath energy, or wrath blood. The earth's protective, magic-quelling instincts went into overdrive, so to speak. And thus the Guardians disappeared forever too. Along with much of Earth's magic, of course.”

For a moment, the room was silent. Professor Billings seemed lost in thought, staring down at his folded hands.

It was Cedric who eventually spoke up, his voice strained. “What about the scrolls? What happened to them?”

Professor Billings threw up his hands and shrugged. “The same as what happened to the Holy Grail, I'd expect. They're lost to time, if they ever existed at all.” The professor put one finger into the air. “But!” He turned around in his seat and started to rummage through a filing cabinet behind his desk. He opened and flipped through drawer after drawer, finally letting out an exclamation and pulling up a manila folder.

“You might find this of interest for your report,” he said, putting the folder down on the desk. Liv almost asked him what report he meant before she remembered their bogus cover story.

“What is it?”

“I bought it at an auction some years back, but have never been able to authenticate it. It's a document connected to the Knights of Valere, rumored to be a partial copy of the scrolls in question.”

Liv's eyebrows furrowed. “I thought you said they were just legend.”

“Mystical scrolls that can open a portal to another world? Those are legend. But the Knights of Valere were a real sect, and they left real artifacts behind. Whether or not we can read them
is another matter . . .”

Cedric leaned forward eagerly, just barely stopping himself from bumping against the desk edge again. “Can I see it?” he asked, gazing down at the manila folder with an eager expression.

“Of course.”

Liv braced herself. She didn't even notice that she was holding her own breath as Professor Billings flipped over the front of the manila folder with a flourish. Although she didn't know what she had been expecting, the plain sheaf of slightly yellowed copy paper was a bit of a letdown.

At first, she could only make out faint, scribbled lines in an unknown language. But then they came together to form a sort of pattern. An eerily recognizable pattern. At the bottom of the page, one line of text caught her eyes. She had no idea what it meant, and yet it was as familiar to her as her own skin.

Her skin.

Liv rocked back in her chair as black dots swam in front of her eyes. The professor droned on about an authentication process, but it seemed as if his words were coming from another room, from another place entirely.

The marks at the bottom of the paper—she'd seen them before.

Unconsciously, Liv reached a trembling hand up over her shoulder and under her thin hoodie, barely touching it against the hollow between her shoulder blades. She rubbed her fingers there lightly, over the place where she knew her tattoo to be. The tattoo that bore the exact same foreign marks, in the exact same order, as the ones printed on the yellow papers below.

L
iv heard blood rushing in her ears.

She understood with a dim sort of awareness that Cedric and Professor Billings were still talking, but their words didn't penetrate the cloud that had fallen over her.

It didn't make any sense. It couldn't be true.

And yet it was. The figures on the paper in front of her were an exact replica of the tattoo she'd had for years—the one she never talked about. Because no matter what Shannon might think, the tattoo wasn't a symbol of her hidden “wild child” nature. Instead, it represented what she hated most about being a foster kid and having such little control over her own life—even her own body.

“Are you all right?” Cedric's voice cut through the fog. She looked over at him and saw concern flicker across his blue eyes.

“Yeah, it's just . . .” Liv looked over at the professor, who also seemed concerned. His hands spread across the replica of the scrolls on the desk. Was it possible that she had found the one man who could finally explain what the symbols of her tattoo
meant? And if it was somehow connected to Caelum . . . she had to take this chance. “I have to show you something.”

Before she could lose her nerve, Liv twisted around in her seat and drew her jacket off. She pushed the straps of her tank top down, giving Cedric and the professor the best view of her shoulder blades.

She heard Cedric make a sound behind her, sort of a quick exhalation of breath, but didn't turn around to face him.

“Oh . . . my . . . ,” the professor murmured.

She heard the rustling of paper and knew that one of them was lifting up the copy of the scrolls, comparing it to her back . . . but she didn't need to look at it again. She'd long ago memorized the strange slashes and swooping lines that crawled just over her shoulder blades in a straight line.

“Young lady, where did you get that?” the professor asked.

“I don't remember physically getting it, I just remember what happened afterward. I was so young, and it was right after my parents . . . died. My memories from then are hazy. All I know is my first foster parents were these religious nuts. They're the ones who gave me the tattoo. As soon as my caseworker found out about it, he pulled me out of there . . .”

Liv trailed off, thinking of the few memories she had from that time. She had been so young, and so deep in grief over her parents. But she remembered Mrs. Hannigan, in her tight bun and floor-length skirts. Mr. Hannigan with the thick Bible he read from every night. She remembered scouring the floors in her bedroom because cleanliness was next to godliness. She remembered the way they used to look at her, like she was
something . . . dirty. And she remembered the day Joe came and got in a huge fight with the Hannigans, screaming at them about the tattoo before picking her up and swooping her out of there forever. In the years since, she'd asked Joe about it, but all he'd told her was that the Hannigans wouldn't ever hurt her again. She'd been saving up money to get the tattoo removed as soon as she turned eighteen.

Cedric was silent. Liv suddenly felt self-conscious and pulled her tank top strap back up. She sneaked a look at Cedric, but his expression was hard to read.

“It's quite . . . unusual,” Professor Billings whispered.

That, Liv knew. She'd heard it said so many times in her life, mostly from foster parents who thought it was strange that so young a child had a tattoo. Many of them were creeped out by it, and Liv had always secretly thought that it was one of the reasons she'd never been asked to stay in any one family for very long.

Shannon teased her about it, of course. Some other classmates had asked her about it as well, passing acquaintances and boys she'd gone out with for small stretches at a time. They saw it and they always asked her the same question—what did it mean? And she'd smile in what she hoped was a mysterious way, and shrug.
It's a secret.

And it was a secret, from everyone and from her, too. Only the nutbag Hannigans knew what the tattoo meant, and she certainly never planned to track them down and ask them. She'd always assumed it was some weird religious thing.

“Is this why you came to see me?” the professor asked.

“No,” Liv whispered, head spinning. “I know it sounds crazy, but I've never seen anything like my tattoo until just now. I've never even known what it means.”

The professor's eyebrows raised. “Quite a coincidence,” he murmured.

“Yes. It is,” Cedric said. His eyes weren't on Liv, but were focused on the floor, as though he was thinking hard.

“How did you say you heard about the legend of Caelum again?” the professor asked.

Liv felt stuck. She couldn't tell the professor the real reason they'd come to visit him without making Cedric look crazy, and she couldn't convince Cedric that she'd had no idea her tattoo was in any way connected to his home realm with the professor sitting right there. She had to think quickly.

“I saw it online,” Liv said. She avoided looking over at Cedric, but hoped he would go along with the story. “It just . . . sounded really interesting.”

The professor still looked skeptical.

“Maybe reading about it kind of reminded me of my first foster parents in some way,” Liv lied. “Because the legend's so crazy, and they were so crazy . . .”

Then something occurred to her. She sat up straighter. “They were really into random Bible passages and weird stuff. . . . Do you think maybe they believed in that group? The Knights of . . . whatever . . . the ones who wrote that?” She gestured to the marked piece of paper on the professor's desk. “Maybe that's why they put this thing on me?”

The professor looked at her with sympathy. “Hmm. It's
possible, though the legend of Caelum isn't associated with any modern religion. And I certainly don't know how it would compel them to mark a child in that way.”

Liv could feel the answers slipping away, and realized with a sharp pang how much she wanted them.

“And you don't know what exactly it means? The tattoo?”

He drew in a breath. “That's part of the reason this copy hasn't been able to be authenticated, see, because it matches no complete written language that scholars can find. Snatches of these symbols have been found here and there, but nothing to really cling to. It's a language out of time.”

The professor sighed and moved the papers closer, shaking his head a little as he looked down at them.

“I have an associate,” the professor said, looking off and scratching his chin. “He also has a minor archive of documents related to the scrolls and the legend . . . I could give him a call, maybe see if he could provide any additional information?”

Liv's heart jumped with hope again. “That would be great.”

The professor stood, and, numbly, Liv followed. Cedric rose too, scraping his chair back against the floor.

“I'll call him tonight. Maybe you could drop by tomorrow morning? My first class is at ten a.m., so anytime before then.”

Liv and Cedric exchanged a quick glance, but there was no need for discussion. They both nodded.

“We'll come back,” Cedric said.

The professor shook Cedric's hand, and then Liv's. He pressed his hand against hers for an extra beat, looking right into her eyes. “It really was nice to meet you.” When he smiled,
his eyes crinkled in the corners.

“You too,” Liv said, trying to manage a smile as well.

She and Cedric stepped out of the office, and the professor shut the door behind them. They stood alone in the hallway, which seemed emptier and darker than before. A fluorescent light flickered overhead. Without saying a word, Cedric moved toward the exit, and Liv followed.

Liv figured it would be much easier for them to find a cheap motel in San Diego than to try and drive all the way home only to turn around and drive the two and a half hours back the next morning. She didn't want to admit it to Cedric, but she was pretty sure the professor was only being nice and really wouldn't have any more information to share with them the next day. If anything, he was probably just as weirded out as she was. But heading home now without making absolutely sure was
not
an option.

They drove around for about twenty minutes until they were able to find a motel off the highway that was small and seedy enough to not ask for a driver's license or credit card information. Not only was Liv under eighteen, but she knew there was a possibility Joe had put a watch on her debit card to try and track her down.

Liv used the rest of her cash to pay for the room and scrounge up a dinner from the motel's vending machines. She and Cedric sat on one edge of one of the room's twin beds, facing the only window, and silently divvied up the food between them.

They hadn't spoken much since leaving the professor's office,
which had been fine as long as they were in a car that could be filled with radio music. But once they were alone in the small room with its dingy walls, the quiet fell heavily around them.

“Do you think the others will worry when we don't come back tonight?” Liv asked as she opened up a bag of pretzels.

Cedric's brows knitted together for an instant, but then relaxed. “They might, but Kat will know to stay put until I return. I only wish I knew how she was faring on her mission.”

Liv nodded. “We should probably get everyone disposable cell phones. Cheap, but they work.”

“I am not sure we would know what to do with them.”

“I could show you.”

Cedric nodded absently and chewed slowly on an Oreo. After a moment, he put the cookie down and turned to Liv. His normally bright eyes looked dark in the dim light of the room.

“Tell me just one more time. About your . . . back.”

Liv sighed. “I told you everything I know. And trust me, it's not much.”

“You never thought it strange, that this family would brand you in that way?”

Liv pushed the bag of pretzels away from her, suddenly not hungry anymore. “Of course it's strange. But it's just one strange thing in the long list of strange things that is my life.”

“I am sorry . . . I did not mean to offend.”

Liv's eyes dropped to the remaining junk food wrappers that rested between them. “I know you didn't.”

“But I really must ask you . . . for so long, all we have been trying to do here is to find the scrolls so we can get home. And
we have hit nothing but dead ends. Then I discover the first person we saw upon entering this realm just happens to have text from the scrolls printed on her back, and . . .”

Liv crossed her arm protectively across her chest, suddenly wanting to look away. “Spit it out. Ask what you want to ask.”

He took a big breath before continuing. “Are you sure you have never heard of us before, or of the scrolls or Caelum? I only ask because . . . how is it possible?”

That same question had been running through Liv's head since they'd stepped out of the professor's office. How was it that her tattoo was a copy of the very scrolls Cedric was looking for? How much of a coincidence was it that they'd met? Because if it wasn't a coincidence, but something larger at work . . . the thought was too terrifying. Liv couldn't stand the idea that she had even less control over her life than she'd thought.

“I don't know how it's possible,” Liv said, her voice shaky. “But I've never even heard the word
Caelum
until a few days ago.”

Cedric nodded, though he didn't seem especially reassured. “But you were drawn to the very museum where we were staying.”

“No, I had an
appointment
at the museum. Because I wanted to get rid of the sword
you
left behind. I wouldn't have even seen you that day, except . . .”

Liv thought about the day at the museum, the moment before she'd followed Cedric down into the tunnels. She'd been wandering and was drawn into the languages exhibit. . . .

She turned to Cedric. “In the museum, I was lost, and I found this symbol—” Liv broke off and grabbed the complimentary
pad of paper lying on the motel's nightstand. She tore off the cap of the cheap pen next to it and started drawing the symbol on the pad. She remembered it clearly—the circle, the two dagger-like extensions that reached from its bottom half. “I didn't know what it meant. I still have no idea. But it looked . . . familiar somehow. I was curious and couldn't shake it . . .”

Cedric reached over for the pad of paper, his hand brushing slightly against Liv's. His eyes widened in recognition.

“Yes, this is one of our ancient symbols, in Caelum. I saw it at the museum as well. It is why I thought we were on the right track to finding the scrolls. Although, aside from this one symbol and a single piece of paper containing a few others, I couldn't find anything else related to Caelum or my people at the museum.”

“What does it mean?”

“Knowledge,” Cedric said. He traced the edge of the symbol with his finger.

“That's not one of the symbols on my tattoo. I'm pretty sure I've never even seen it before. So why did it feel so familiar?”

Cedric shook his head. “I do not know, but maybe you saw it somewhere else? Possibly with those . . . people who marked you?”

“Maybe?”

Cedric looked as though he was on the verge of figuring out a mystery. His eyes bore into Liv's, and his knee edged closer to hers on the bed. She was suddenly aware that he was just inches away, and she felt a flush creeping up the back of her neck.

“Once you had seen the symbol in the museum, what
happened next? Try to remember everything.”

“Um . . . I followed you.”

“Why? Do not leave anything out.”

Liv raised an eyebrow. “You think I would?”

“You did fail to mention the markings on your back.”

“I didn't exactly know they were relevant.”