The WishKeeper (The Paragonia Chronicles) (11 page)

The chamber echoed with his sudden outburst and snapped Avery from her entangled stare. They both looked at Erebus, confused, surprised to say the least.

“I’m sorry, your majesty, I just -,” Elanor tried.

“Please,” Erebus said, a bit calmer. “I respect your wishes to get back to work, please respect mine to do the same.”

Elanor blinked through the confusion and followed orders. She bowed, and slowly gave up the wish. Avery accepted the little Purity with loving arms, and when Elanor connected eyes with her, she couldn’t help but blush again and look away.

“Now then, I expect you have work to do. Thank you, Elanor, and I apologize for my outburst,” Erebus said with a deep breath.

Avery backed away, cradling the Purity, and even though Elanor had plenty to add and questions to ask, she felt it prudent to leave them be and floated through the chamber doors. Love-struck, Avery looked at the open chamber doors, secretly wishing Elanor would come back. She didn’t understand these feelings - this sudden rush of excitement. It felt as right as anything she’d felt before, though something on the surface told her to ignore it. Few things in life are truly impossible, and Avery had just discovered one of them - ignoring a sudden crush.

“Avery,” Erebus, again, snapped her from her paralyzing thoughts. “Bring me the wish, please.”

She did as she was told and floated to her king. As she flew closer to him, her newfound crush for Elanor slowly dissipated, and the strangeness of the situation came to the forefront. Never had she handed a wish to her king before, and truly, there was never a reason to. A WishingKing never handled the wishes, physically. There was the monthly inspection of the Nursery, of course, but more for the inspection of treatment and cleanliness of the stables than the actual wrangling of the wishes. That was a Keeper’s job.

Pausing at his bedside, she hesitated as the old king reached out his palm. His eyes were bloodshot, wide and what Avery could only define as desperate. She couldn’t help but pull back as he reached his palm a bit further.

“Please, my Avery. You wish for your king to be well again, don’t you?” the king’s tone was filled with guilt, but not of the personal kind. He meant for her to feel it.

She nodded her head and an uncontrollable feeling came over her - the opposite of what she had just felt while looking at Elanor. She wanted it to stop; almost silently begging for it to end, but it was too strong. Unconsciously, she placed the little wish into the king’s clammy palm and quickly floated backwards. There was something wrong about his hand. The cracking of blissful naïveté can be a painful process and Avery had never felt it before, but it was fear. For the first time in her life, fear overcame her.

Erebus sat up in bed, leaning forward over his cupped hands. They covered the Purity and while it looked like he was being delicate, Avery knew this was wrong. This shouldn’t be happening. The room filled with a darkness that had nothing to do with how bright or dark it could be, but more so an emotion. A feeling spread throughout the room and nothing about this feeling was good.

Avery couldn’t fly backward any further as she bumped into the stained glass window, rain crashing into it. The sound of the raindrops filled the room to a deafening hum and Avery watched her king consume the wish. A black flash of shadow stretched from his hands, and with a quick crack of thunder, the darkness pulsed through him like a filthy wave.

A deep breath from Erebus released the tension in the room, but not the moment from Avery’s wide eyes. What just happened? What did her king just do? He breathed deeply again, and moved his thick wool blanket away. He climbed out of bed, still cupping the wish in his hand, and stood. Erebus looked at little Avery, shaking, pushing herself against the foreign comfort of the cold stained glass, and opened his hands. The once smiling, happy little Purity was nothing but a grey, lifeless ball of dust. He tilted his palm and the ashes of the wish fell unceremoniously to the floor; just something else for Avery to sweep up later.

“Your WishingKing feels much better now,” Erebus said, staring bright eyed at the scared little Keeper. “You must promise me something, Avery. No one can ever know about this. It will be our little secret. Something only you get to share with your WishingKing.”

He leaned in close. Avery’s breath was quick, labored and all she wanted to do was rush to Elanor and tell her how sorry she was. To tell her…just to tell her. She had never cried before, but Avery felt what must have been a tear trickle down her face. Little did she know, she would grow accustomed to them like a torturer does to pain.

“Speaking of secrets, I have discovered one. Have you and the Keepers been keeping something from your WishingKing?”

Avery shook her head, sincerely not understanding what her king was referencing. What secret? She would never keep anything from her king.

“The sixth,” Erebus said, demented and eager.

Her desperate little head was suddenly filled with scrambled thoughts. Not the sixth. He couldn’t mean…she shook her head again, more to erase the possibility that this is what he meant than to actually answer him.

“I chose you as my Regent, Avery, because I love your dedication to the truth. Lies do not fit you, my Avery,” he continued, staring at her with wide anxious eyes. “You will tell me where they keep the Death Wishes.”

Creeping out from under his cloak, a black fog enveloped Avery, wrapping her up in its thick, wet smoke. Panic swept through her. Why would my king do this? Why would my beloved WishMaker make me tell him such a thing?

Her eyes crackled with a black shadow and her head perked up, looking intently at her king. “Behind the Point, there is a cave,” she said, as if in a dream. “All wishes of Death forever will be saved.” The fog rushed away from her, retreating back under his cloak. Erebus stood upright, smiling as Avery’s black eyes continued to stare.

“And you will retrieve for me, such a wish,” Erebus said.

*       *       *       *

As the months continued, all of the Keepers noticed a difference in their happy little Regent. A darkness fell over Avery, and her famous smile became more and more rare. She was a prisoner to her own devotion to ignorance and every time Erebus requested another Death Wish, she felt the one-time joy and love in her heart disappear a little more. Eventually, she became almost robotic and while the other Keepers assumed it was simply a matter of a heavy workload and busy schedule, Elanor was the first to notice a real change. The dark circles under Avery’s eyes were one thing, but there was something within them that worried Elanor. She and Beren took her in, inviting her to supper, tea and the occasional party. For Avery, the only time a true remembering of emotion or love crept back in was when she spent time with Elanor and her family, and yet Elanor continued to witness the slow decay of the happy little soul firsthand, and true worry began to sink in.

It was the night of Wishing Eve when Avery came to Elanor, unexpected. She and Beren were readying their packs for the busy night and Shea was pleading with her parents to let her cross over with them, pouting and throwing a fit each time they said no.

Despite how quiet and introverted Avery was, Beren and Elanor felt that she was a part of their family, even only after a short two months’ time. The pink-haired Regent stood in their living room, thin and frail enough for a slight breeze to knock her over. After appeasing their tantrum-throwing child, allowing Shea to cross over if she agreed to go to her room and stop complaining, they sat Avery on the couch and listened to her confession.

Avery told them Erebus’ plan and how he had been using Death Wishes to grow in strength and power, but what truly frightened them was her admission that she was the one retrieving them for him. Too exhausted to cry, Avery sat and stared, silently thankful to finally be rid of her secret. The only thing is, she didn’t tell them the whole story. She didn’t tell them that Erebus was planning to capture a True Love Wish and combine it with a Death Wish.

Why didn’t Avery tell them that night? Did she assume they were smart enough to protect a True Love Wish if one was made anyway? She assumed correct, of course, but as she sat in their living room awaiting disaster, a smile of relief slightly spread across her cheeks. She couldn’t do it anymore and her burden was finally released.

Elanor and Beren argued over their next move while Avery watched, barely listening. Grayson and Miranda were ‘ripe’, as they called it. Ripe for what everyone was hoping for, a True Love Wish. It’s impossible to predict when such a wish will be made, but like trying to predict the weather, it was at least possible to track. Because it was Wishing Eve and wishes are always a bit stronger on such a night, Beren and Elanor agreed that it was very possible their WishMakers could make one that night.

They planned every precaution possible. After Avery explained to them that Erebus didn’t have a new Death Wish - he hadn’t given her the order yet - they agreed that positioning guards at the entrance of the Death Wish cave was necessary, and that Erebus needed to be removed.

“He’s gone,” Avery said, in a monotone voice. She was listening to their plan, though barely awake.

“Gone? What do you mean?” Elanor asked.

“I went to his chambers tonight, checked The Point, the Nursery, everywhere. He’s gone,” she said, sure of herself.

“I’ll order the guards, but we have to go, Ellie. It’s getting late and my troops are waiting,” Beren said, grabbing his bags. “We don’t have time to search for him. Avery, I want you to stay here tonight. Shea is coming with us, so you’ll have a little peace and quiet. Just relax and we’ll take care of this.” A look of worry washed over Elanor’s face. There was nothing more to say, and they had a busy night ahead of them. Grayson and Miranda were about to make a True Love Wish. Snatching their things, they left Avery in the darkness of the General’s Quarters.

Outside the F.I.A., after Beren prepped his WishKeepers for the cross-over and detailed everything, including Erebus’ plans, he pulled a WishSentinel aside. Charlie was a new Sentinel, just added to the ranks. He was an eager, young soldier and because he hadn’t had much training with the WishPanels yet, Beren gave him peculiar orders that had nothing to do with headquarters. Though Charlie didn’t understand why he needed to stand an armed post outside of his General’s own home, he followed orders and gave a quick salute. He was off with a flash, excited to be a part of his first official Wishing Eve as a soldier.

Beren confirmed Elanor’s worry, sharing a glance. They had to take every precaution, regardless of how much they trusted their friend, Avery.

When Elanor huddled within the surrounding storm the night she destroyed the True Love Wish, Avery saw it all. She didn’t stay where she was told that night. Instead, she hid within a tall fir tree at the end of the cul-du-sac and watched, stone-faced, as the monster Erebus grabbed Beren. She watched as Shea screamed for her mother not to destroy the wish. She watched Elanor’s wand charge up and destroy it. She watched as Shea’s wings ripped from her back.

Avery didn’t hear Elanor tell Beren that she loved him, but she knew. She knew that Elanor didn’t love her the way she wished she would, and she knew, the moment that wish of true love was destroyed, her own love was as well.

Feeling the force of the explosion dissipate, Avery crouched, unmoving within the fir. Her Erebus was gone. Her Elanor was gone. And so was her ability to cry.

17

The Street Lamp

Rarely does the end of a thing happen in an instant. More often than not, glimpses of such an end flash, sparkle and twinkle in a multitude of ways. They are hardly enough to cause alarm, or change, or even any kind of action. For Grayson and Miranda, it was a slow evolution of a feeling that rolled into rising anxiety, but their lifelong friendship glossed and rounded the sharp edges of what was actually happening. Their true love was dying. It took almost six years for either of them to finally take notice, mostly due to their inner need to ignore such a horrible thing. Little did they know, it had been six years since their True Love Wish was destroyed.

There was an unfamiliar fear growing inside of Grayson. Every time he looked at her, he could feel that something was missing. Like a memory that if remembered it would be a surprise that such a recognizable glimpse from the past was ever forgotten. There had been a disappearance of something so familiar that looking in the place it was last seen felt like common sense, but that place was missing too. How could something so familiar, so every-day, be forgotten? How could it not return without the least amount of effort?

Miranda looked at Grayson as he sketched in his notebook. A lefty, she watched his hand scribble a chalk sketch of a maple whose leaves had all but fallen. It was late autumn and the golden brown leaves of the park covered the dying grass. There was a hint of winter in the November air, but the humid, moist smell of the slumbering leaves helped hold on to the last few days of a comfortable fall. Grayson’s wedding ring reflected the overcast sun and Miranda couldn’t stop staring at it.

“I love him. Right?” she quietly asked herself. It was suddenly strange to see the ring. She’d never really examined it with much thought. Looking at her own ring, she lightly caressed it hoping that it would bring back the heart-filled happiness it once represented. Nothing moved within her as she stared at it. A silence of a soul that she remembered once shouted with love. “Where did it go?” she thought.

“It’s getting a little cold. You can head back if you want,” Grayson said while still scribbling in his notebook.

His comment broke her from her thoughtful gaze. She didn’t want to stop staring at her ring, as if there was a chance of ending the silence within her if she continued to stare. She looked at Grayson - something inside wanted to smile, but her mouth didn’t seem to want to follow orders.