Authors: Diana Nixon
Chapter 22. Hidden
photograph (
Eileen)
“Did Christian manage to find out anything new?” Amanda
asked as soon as I crossed the threshold of the room.
“Nothing new. But we both concluded that Nora really had
lied to us. Those plants that Anna gave me today had a very powerful effect on
my palm.”
“Really? Do you think they can reverse Nora’s spell?”
“No, unfortunately. As a matter of fact they make it
even worse. Oh, and one more thing - I described Nora’s appearance to Christian
and he thinks she may belong to the Wizardy family.”
“Due to her eye color, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“I started thinking about it today, when you were
talking to Darcy about her. I really hadn’t paid any attention to the details
before that.”
“That is why we are only freshmen here. A real Keeper
would have noticed it in the first place,” I said.
“You're right. Let's hope that one day we will become
Keepers too,” Amanda said, smiling. “By the way, Darcy stopped by to ask you to
help her with some preparations for the Festival. She thought you could help
since you have nothing else to do besides your classes with Evan.”
“Of course. No problem. I don’t think we would have time
to look for anything, since everybody will be practicing for the show. Tomorrow
Evan and I have to dig in dusty portraits of the founding families’ descendants
just to try to find Nora among them.”
“It could help,” sleepily said Amanda, suppressing a
yawn.
“Get some sleep now, otherwise I won’t be able to wake
you up tomorrow morning,” I said, laughing.
“What about you?”
“I’m going to bed too. I really need to get a good
night’s rest.”
“Sweet dreams then.”
“Sleep tight, sweetie.”
The next morning began with someone brazenly pulling a
blanket off me.
“Wake up, sleepyhead! We have a lot to do today,” I
heard the cheerful voice of Evan.
“What are you doing here?” pulling back the blanket, I
asked.
“Since my student failed to attend her morning class, I
decided to see if she had completely forgotten about me,” he said, leaning over
the windowsill by my bed.
“What? What time is it?” in horror I asked.
“Calm down, I was joking. It's only half past seven,”
laughing replied Evan.
“Then what the hell...”
“Do not swear!” he warned. “Don’t tell me you forgot we
have digging to do today. I thought it would be better if we went to the
archive earlier, so we didn’t attract too much attention.”
“Evan, someday I will kill you for your jokes,” I said,
getting up, finally. “Do I have at least some time to take a shower?”
“Two minutes,” he said.
“Uh, thanks for nothing!” I snapped.
“I'll wait for you downstairs. Hurry up!” added Evan
before leaving.
So, I had to set a new record, taking a shower, drying
my hair and dressing all in ten minutes. Despite the fact that my brain was
still sleeping, my thoughts fuzzy and my movements too slow, I succeeded and
managed to bring my shaking body to the lobby without smashing the walls and
people passing by.
“What took you so long?” asked Evan indignantly, when he
saw me coming.
“Do you even have a conscience?” I replied as
indignantly.
“Just kidding, just kidding.”
“Evan, if you are going to get on my nerves all the day
round, I’d better go back to my room and get some more sleep.”
“Without even trying to find out who Nora is?”
“If you don’t stop riding me, I will leave you to dig in
the achieves by yourself.”
“Come on, I just woke up today in an unusually good
mood,” he said, showing me his happy smile.
“Good for you. At least someone is in a good mood.
Seriously, do you think we'll find her portrait?”
“I don’t know. Personally, I can’t remember anyone with
the description you provided. Yes, gray hair is a rarity for Wizardy. I don’t
know how it works, but we rarely actually lose the natural color of our hair.
I’ve never seen that before. Even my grandmother, and she is almost one hundred
years old, is still a natural brunette.”
“Are you saying that even when you are over eighty, you
will still look like the relentless conqueror of female hearts?”
“Oh, no! I hope that by that time, there will be some
pretty blond or brunette that will have captured my heart and knocked me upside
the head to rid me of my ego.”
I just shook my head, smiling. In fact, I sincerely
wished Evan happiness. He was a wonderful person, and deserved to be with
someone who would really appreciate him.
“Hey, when we met with Tara, you said you had already
met someone special who you wouldn’t refuse to stay with. Who is she?”
Evan smiled ruefully.
“To my great regret, her heart belongs to someone else.”
For some reason I thought that he was talking about
Amanda.
“Do I know her?”
“Better than anyone else,” said Evan, looking straight
into my eyes.
“Oh, no, Evan you're not...”
“Forget it, Eileen. I love life, love to enjoy every
moment of it, and I really want to be happy. So I still hope that someday I
will meet someone I can share these moments of happiness with. But not now. Now
we have better things to do, right?”
I just nodded in response. Now I understand that when he
said I knew her
better than anyone else
, he was referring to me. I had
often noticed his strange, pensive gazes. But then I decided I must have been
wrong since he had accepted my relationship with Christian so easily...
Turns out it wasn’t that simple. And yet, I didn’t want
any misunderstanding to be between us.
“Evan, I just want you to know that I’m really happy
that fate has been so generous by providing me with a friend like you,” I said,
taking his hand.
“Oh, God! Is this the gentle hinting of
“we can only
be friends”
thing?” smiling, he said. “You are breaking my heart, Eileen!”
“You know what I'm talking about. It feels so easy being
friends with you. It’s comfortable with you, but...”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” gently
squeezing my palm, he said. “I can see it all myself. I’m glad that you
understand me. And besides, Tara said that I would finally find
her
. She
said it in future content, so I haven’t lost hope.”
“Since we're talking about the future. Do you see Amanda
there?” I decided to ask.
“Christian also asked me that, but at this point I don’t
know the answer to your questions, guys. I like her, of course, but whether or
not there will be something more… only time will tell.”
A few minutes later we approached the Administration.
“Archives are on the ground floor,” Evan said, opening
the door for me. “Usually, access there is open, since all students and
teachers of Dever have every right to use them. Although, a tidy library and
fast internet connection are preferred over the dungeon that holds the
archives. You’ll understand why in a moment.”
We went down to the ground floor corridor. It was lit
with only a few dim bulbs. At the end of it there was only a single door.
“This is the archive,” said Evan.
From the inside
the archive
was even darker than
the hallway. Evan lit a few lamps, placing them directly on the floor along one
of the walls. The room itself wasn’t large, maybe even twice as small as the
one in front of Alexis’s office, where we found Camilla’s diary.
“Why aren’t all these materials stored in the same room
as historical records of Dever?” I asked.
“Well, the fact is that there’s nothing valuable here.
The only stuff in here are the portraits and biographies of the descendants. So
the more valuable sources of information are kept upstairs.”
“Wow! You were right. It seems like no one ever comes
here,” I said, brushing away a thick layer of dust on a bookshelf.
“So, let's see, if my memory doesn’t fail me, the
portraits have to be somewhere here,” said Evan, squeezing between the shelves.
“Eileen, can you bring me one of the lamps, please. I see absolutely nothing.
Damn it!”
“Are you okay?” I asked hearing his curse.
“Yes, bring a lamp, or I will crush everything here.”
“Good lord, there are hundreds of portraits here!” I
exclaimed, coming to the place where Evan’s voice came.
“Why, on Earth, have I agreed to help you?” he mused.
“I’ll have to spend the rest of the day in the bathroom, trying to wash off all
this dust.”
“Don’t worry about it. Thank God, soap was invented a
long time ago,” I replied.
“Thank you, dear, for your opinion!”
“Evan, stop your belly aching, please! We need to find
Nora's portrait. So I'll check these shelves, and you – do the ones over on the
table. Look for someone similar to my description, if you find anything, call
me.”
And so it started - tons of mud, mixed with old
documents and portraits. After an hour of unsuccessful searching, I couldn’t
stand it in here any longer. My eyes were aching an itchy from the dust, and my
nose stuffed up so it was hard to breathe.
“Are you still alive there?” Evan asked, coming up
behind me.
“I guess so,” I said, trying to take a look at another
enormous portrait of some stranger.
“I found nothing there, only saw the ones that I already
knew about.”
“I haven’t found anyone familiar either. Can you hand me
those from the top shelves?” I asked, pointing to a few portraits I couldn’t
get to.
“Thankfully these are the last ones!” Evan said,
removing the remaining portraits on the floor. “So, who do we have here? Aha!
Jacqueline Meridin. She is one of the most talented oneiromancers. What she
likes most to decipher are the dreams that people are having during the day.
She thinks that nighttime dreams are dull and uninteresting, but the day ones,
in her opinion, hold a lot more useful information.”
“And this girl reminds of Nora,” I said, looking at
another portrait. “Only the features are much younger and sharper.”
“There’s no signature here,” Evan said disappointed.
“No, there’s not. I would say that there is a good
chance that they could be relatives. Does she seem familiar to you?”
“No, I’ve never seen her before.”
“Are there any more pictures of these people? Maybe
somewhere in the books?” I suggested.
“There you can find only those who played a significant
role in the history of Dever, and these portraits were painted many years ago,
just as a tribute to those who possessed extraordinary abilities.”
“So how shall we find her? Is it possible that she had
nothing to do with Dever at all? It could explain the absence of her portrait
here.”
“It is possible, of course, though quite weird. Keepers
usually find these people. Even if she wasn’t a student of Dever, there should
be some information about her here, at least, about her ability.”
“Then let's get out of here, I can’t breathe. Let's try
to look elsewhere,” I said, taking a lamp, and heading for the exit. “Darcy
asked me to help with the preparations for the Festival. It's usually held on
the eastern border, right?”
“Yes, I'll take you there and see what the Council of
prefects came up with this year. Each year its members create an arena for the
Festival in a new shape. Last year it was a ship. And the final show was the
performance of Embry students, who lifted into the air with huge white sails of
that ship. It turned out to be pretty spectacular. Although, of course, that's
what the Festival is set aside for. Only those, for whom it’s a final exam as
well, take it more seriously. For everyone else, this is a great opportunity to
show to others their skills.”
“Well, the student’s of Wizardy must always be the best,
right?”
“Not true. No one in Dever ever thought that magic was
the best of all abilities. Yes, it's certainly a great honor to become a
student of Wizardy, but you have already seen the talents of other gifted
students.”
“Speaking of talents, I haven’t seen your performance
yet,” I noted.
“You will see it at the festival just like everyone else
and, besides, it is a surprise.”
“That's not fair! I’ve seen even Christian’s show! Why
don’t you want to show me yours?”
“I’ve already told you - it will be a surprise.”
“Just for me or for everyone else as well?” I didn’t
want to give up.
“For you and for everyone else. Eileen, have a little
patience. In only a week you get to see everything with your own eyes.”