creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge (32 page)

A healer looks in and says, “Ryn, is your father still around?”

“No, he went back to work. Is everything okay?”

“It’s better than okay,” she says with a wide smile. “His wife just woke up.”

PART IV

CHAPTER

THIRTY

I remain hidden in Vi’s room chewing impatiently on my fingernails while Ryn checks out what’s happening with Mom. He comes back to report that the healers going in and out of her room keep shooing him away. I pace around, my brain repeating,
She’s awake, she’s awake, she’s finally
awake
!
Nerves shoot through me. There’s so much I have to ask her. So much she needs to explain.

Dad arrives. I want to rush into Mom’s room with him, but Ryn holds me back, telling me to give them a little bit of time alone. “He needs to explain all the things that have happened while she’s been asleep. The fact that we know about her being a Seer, and how she was abducted, and then your expulsion from the Guild. Just give her a few minutes for things to sink in before you go rushing in there. And while you’re waiting, make sure you’re still focused enough to conceal yourself. You don’t want to ruin everything now and wind up in a detainment cell downstairs.”

“I hate it when you’re so sensible,” I mumble.

He pats me on the shoulder. “I know.”

Eventually, after about the fourth time Ryn disappears to see what’s happening, he returns to tell me I can go through to Mom’s cubicle. I take another moment to be certain I’m concealing myself properly. Ryn says, “Perfect. You’re completely invisible. I’ll come with you so I can stop anyone who tries to enter while you’re in there.”

My heart flutters on anxious wings as I walk past all the floating curtains to the ones behind which Mom has been sleeping for the past six weeks. As we step between the curtains, Ryn sweeps his hand through the air. “Sound shield,” he murmurs.

I stop just inside the curtain. Mom is sitting up, dwarfed by the oversized healing institute pajamas. Her wispy hair, white blonde and yellow, is tangled, but someone’s made an effort to tame it since she woke up. “Calla.” She smiles and reaches her hand out to me. Dad sits on one side of the bed, so I rush to the other side and take hold of her hand. My words tumble from my mouth. “Are you okay? How do you feel? Is it confusing to wake up after so long?”

She places her other hand over mine. “I hardly feel any different than I would after waking from a normal sleep. A little bit confused at first, but otherwise normal. That’s the sign of a high-quality sleeping potion,” she adds, lowering her gaze as her expression turns to one of guilt. She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry I did this to you. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. I couldn’t let him know what I’d …” She trails off, then grasps my hand tighter and looks up. “Is it safe for you to be here? What if someone sees you?”

“Ryn’s standing close enough to the curtain to intercept anyone who tries to walk in. That’ll give me time to conceal myself. I can do it quickly now. I’ve been practicing a lot lately.”

She nods. “I know why. I’m so sorry. You know I didn’t really want you to be a guardian, but I never wanted it to end this way for you. Never.”

“That’s not important now. Yeah, it sucks, but …” I push away the ache that resurfaces every time I’m reminded of my expulsion. “I’m just so glad you’re awake. I was really mad at you at first, but then …” I squeeze her hand as I feel tears threatening. “Why didn’t you tell me, Mom? About being a Seer. I wish I had known. It would have helped me to understand you better.”

“It’s …” She shakes her head and looks away. “It isn’t a gift, it’s a curse. I’ve Seen so many horrible things. And it’s so disorienting, so … upsetting. I hate it. I’ve always longed to be rid of it. I just wanted to be normal, so I did my best to pretend that I was.”

“But now that I know,” I say, looking down at our joined hands, “will you explain everything? The vision you had that made you run away, and why someone came after you for it, and why there are two other Seers involved in all of this? Please?”

“I’ll have to tell the Guild anyway,” she says quietly, “so I should get used to talking about it. And you deserve an explanation, since you were abducted and almost killed because of me.” When she manages to meet my eyes, I see tears and the enormous weight of responsibility in her gaze.

I give her a brave smile. “It really wasn’t that bad.” I don’t know how much Dad has told her, but she doesn’t need to know how truly horrifying that experience was.

“Well then,” she says. “I should probably start at the beginning. I was born a Seer. I hated my visions the moment they first began. My parents understood and they only ever wanted me to be happy, but they were aware that any respectable faerie born with the Seeing ability should be trained to support the guardian system. So they sent me to the Estra Guild.

“It wasn’t all that bad. I had friends. Tamaria and Elayna and I did everything together. Near the end of first year, we were in the library one afternoon when all three of us were struck by a vision at the same time. Different, but all related to the same event. The head librarian was there. Amon. He saw us collapse. He must have heard whatever we said while we were experiencing the visions.

“When we woke, Amon rushed off to call one of our instructors. The three of us sat together, trembling, and we shared what we’d seen. We used to carry little hand mirrors around with us so we could practice transferring visions if we had them. So we did that, and we watched the horror of our future. Then I told Tamaria and Elayna that we couldn’t let anyone at the Guild see these visions. After all, they were the ones who were going to make this future come about.

“I don’t know if they agreed with me. I don’t know what they planned to tell the Guild. But I took those three little mirrors and I ran. Guardians came to our house, of course, but I refused to tell them what I’d Seen. They tried to threaten me, but my father made them leave. When we were alone, I showed him and my mother the three visions. Then he understood. He packed up all our things and we were gone before the next morning.

“Years later, he revealed to me that he had never destroyed those mirrors. I thought he was crazy to have kept them, but he said, ‘What if this future comes to pass one day, and the only way to fix it is from the scraps of information within these three visions? You will always know yours, but what if you need to be reminded of the other two? Don’t destroy them.’ I didn’t want to listen to him, but as scared as I was, I recognized that he was probably right.”

Mom pulls her hands away from mine and slips her wedding ring off her finger. “I hid the mirrors away. I never even told your father I still have them.” She takes hold of the diamond on top of her ring and twists it. She twists until the diamond comes away from the ring. “I’m sorry,” she says, looking at Dad now. “I’m sure you never meant for this ring to be used for such a purpose.”

“Uh …” Dad stares at the two parts of the ring, looking perplexed. “No.”

Mom rubs her finger in circles over the diamond until it loses it sparkle and its shape. It melts away to reveal three tiny discs piled on top of each other. As she recites an enlargement spell, the discs expand. Within seconds, three small round mirrors—the non-reflective Seer kind—sit on her palm. “Still quite small,” she says. “Let me make them a little bigger.” She applies another enlargement spell, then lifts one of the mirrors so I can see it better. “This was Elayna’s vision,” she says as Dad’s quick strides carry him around the bed to stand beside me. She touches the mirror’s surface and the first of the three visions comes into view.

A full moon hangs in a starry sky. A night creature chirps, and two sprites flit across the scene. Without warning, a jagged lightning bolt splits the sky in half, bringing with it a horrendous ripping sound that shatters the quiet of the night. When the bright light has subsided, I see a great tear in the fabric of the sky. The tear grows wider, and beyond it is … a different world. A different realm. The scene darkens and a shadowy figure appears. All I can see of his face is the green light glowing in his eyes. His quiet voice sends a chill along my skin: “The veil has fallen.”

The mirror returns to its silvery non-reflective state. “The veil,” I repeat softly as I stare at its blank surface. “Meaning … the one between our realm and the human one?”

Silently, Mom nods. She picks up the second mirror. “This is what I Saw.” Once again the scene is a night sky, but in the foreground is a stone statue of a trident pointing upward. The trident appears to be rising out of rough ocean waves also carved from stone, which in turn are mounted atop a wide cylindrical base with patterns carved into it. As I watch, a man walks to the statue and easily climbs up onto the stone waves. He stands beside the trident and wraps one hand around it as he gazes up at the sky. I can’t see the detail on his face, but I can just make out the green glow where his eyes are.

Two men walk up to the statue carrying a woman between them. They lay her on top of the stone waves. Another two men carry a second woman and lay her beside the first. They’re still alive, but they seem to be barely conscious. The four men stand guard, two on either side of the statue. When they train their weapons on the women, I realize with a jolt that these men are guardians. Into the view of the mirror steps a witch hefting an axe in her hands. She nods first to the men on the right and then to the men on the left. “We thank the Guilds for their assistance. You have helped to make this possible.” She walks to the statue, looks down at the women, and then up at the trident. The man holding onto it appears to go rigid. The trident glows. The witch calls out, “From the magic of the depths to the magic of the heights, with blood from one side and blood from the other. Together with the greatest power nature can harness, we shall tear this veil asunder.” Then with a barbaric cry, she swings the axe down onto the first woman’s neck. I gasp and clap a hand over my mouth as blood gushes down the side of the statue. The witch moves to the second woman. As she cries out and brings her axe down again, I clench my hand in a fist over my mouth. Then bright white light obliterates everything.

The vision is over.

“That … that was horrible,” I whisper. “And those guardians just
watched
.”

Mom swallows. “And this,” she says, picking up the third mirror, “is what Tamaria Saw.” The vision begins with a view of the outside of a tower, but it quickly zooms in, flies through a narrow window, and focuses downward. On the round floor of the tunnel is a writhing mass of bodies. Hundreds of people, all tied up and screaming. The vision rushes down, flitting past people, focusing on individual faces. “Not that one,” a voice says, and a person is pulled free. “Not that one either. Didn’t I tell you not to use the special ones?” A man is pulled free, and then a boy with tattoos on his face, and a crying woman, and a girl with—gold hair? My heart leaps into my throat as the vision pulls back and up, and I watch as a great boulder roughly the same shape and diameter as the inside of the tower falls with blinding speed and crushes the mass of screaming people. In a flash of light, everything turns white and disappears.

I breathe out slowly. “That … that was me. As a child. And that man with the glowing eyes. Was that Draven?”

“Yes,” Ryn answers from near the curtain.

“So this was all supposed to happen during Draven’s time, but it didn’t.”

“No, it didn’t,” Mom says. “Something must have changed. Or perhaps many things changed. But if Ryn hadn’t rescued you from the Unseelie Prince, you might have ended up with all those people at the bottom of that tower. And if Draven hadn’t been killed, then this vision might have become reality.”

“But it didn’t, so what use are these visions to Amon?”

Mom lowers the mirror onto the bed. “I think he believes that this could still happen. He probably thinks that if he can bring all the right elements together the way they are in this vision, then he can bring down the veil at any time. There’s nothing to indicate that it was restricted to that specific time in history.”