by K M Charron
“You have come this far. You cannot fix what you do not know is broken. It cannot be undone,” the mixture of male and female voices spoke in unison.
Sometimes it was a single voice; at other times, it sounded like a choir calling out to her. Had they known what was inside, or was this another of the whisperings’ games?
Refocusing on the door, Sydney ignored them and braced herself, praying nothing rushed out at her this time. Her heart pulsated in her ears. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and pushed the heavy wooden door open. When no breeze, fog, or mist ruffled her hair or touched her face, she opened her eyes and took a breath—no putrid smell.
A light hit her square in the eyes, and her arm flew up to block it. “What the hell?” she screamed, her heart hammering even harder in her chest.
“You scared the shit out of me,” a voice said.
The light lowered, revealing a panting Ainsley.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. What the hell are you doing here?”
Sydney shone her light at Ainsley, who was also still in the Ashcroft uniform. Now it was Ainsley’s turn to hold her arm up to block the beam. “I could ask you the same thing. Did you follow me?” Ainsley asked indignantly. “Are you stalking me now?”
Syd exhaled through gritted teeth. “Of course I didn’t follow you, you freak! What the hell are you doing back here?”
“Same as you, I imagine. Lower your light, Sydney.”
Sydney huffed, loudly, but dropped the beam slightly.
They eyed each other in a stand-off.
Ainsley broke the tension. “You were the one who said this place was an old relic, that it meant nothing. Yet here you are.”
Sydney did her best to keep her expression neutral.
“You acted too weird when we found this place. You know more than you're letting on. What’s the deal? Spill it,” Ainsley demanded.
She backed up, not appreciating Ainsley’s forcefulness. “I don’t know anything, but I can’t say the same about you. I can see it all over your smug little face,” Sydney lied, hoping to get an admission of something. “There’s a reason you came back here. You spill.”
The available light in the cavern, although weak, was enough to show Ainsley’s face. She did know something. Who was this girl?
Ainsley pursed her lips and averted her gaze. “I might’ve researched some of the symbols in a really old book about the occult that I found in the library.”
Sydney’s heart fluttered with alarm. “Oh really, and what did your magic book say?” she said in a mocking tone, hoping to make Ainsley feel stupid enough to drop it.
“I’ll tell if you do. Because I know you have info, too.” Ainsley crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “You think you’re so shrewd; give me a break.”
Syd knew Ainsley wasn’t going to budge. Her instincts were right. Whatever Ainsley had uncovered was important. If she was going to find out what Ainsley knew, she had to agree. She’d tell so Ainsley would return the favor, and then she’d erase her memory.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” Ainsley said, but then she remained quiet, her foot tapping the dirt floor.
“I guess I’ll go first.” Sydney kept her sights on the middling, watching for any recognition in her face. “I did some research too, on the symbol carved into the door. It’s an enchantment used to bind. Whoever used it wanted to keep the person inside trapped, as in never ever getting out, which would explain the bones.”
Ainsley was doing her best poker face, but Sydney could see the flicker in her eyes.
“That’s interesting,” she replied. “I found that symbol.” She turned and shone her light on the far wall, illuminating a two-foot by two-foot carving in the center—a single eye, in the middle of an upside-down triangle, inside a circle, edged with linked chains and knots. “It’s a variation of the Evil Eye. It’s used to curse the recipient with bad luck, bad health, and even death,” Ainsley said in a flat tone.
“Duh, I know what it means.” The words were out before she realized it. “I mean, everyone around here has heard of that.”
Ainsley seemed to consider this. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. This is all bullshit.”
Sydney maintained her poker face. “Totally, this is ridiculous. Let’s get out of here.”
The less Ainsley knew, the better. If Syd had any hope of figuring out what had happened here, and how long ago, she couldn’t do it with a middling standing, literally, in the center of it. If this magic was as old as she believed, it could be archaic. It could be unknown to the Wildes, even to her mother. If she could introduce her mother to new magic, she’d prove her value and get out from behind her brother Gerald’s shadow.
But first, she needed Ainsley to get out of here and make her forget she’d ever seen this place. The only way to do that was with an enchantment, specifically, the forgetting spell. She’d performed it a few times on middlings, when she’d used them as personal assistants but didn’t want them to remember afterward. It had always been a success. But to perform it, she needed to look directly into Ainsley’s eyes.
“Could you come out here with me for a second, there’s something I want to show you.”
Ainsley arched her eyebrows but relented, following Sydney outside into the daylight.
Sydney stood in front of Ainsley, calming herself and focusing her mind. She fixed her gaze on the girl’s eyes and stared into them. They were ice blue—the color of water close to freezing. Sydney had the brief thought that they were too beautiful to be a part of someone so brutally ordinary.
She felt her energy manifest, bubbling within. Quickly and without warning, Sydney held her palms out in front of her, projecting her intention into Ainsley. “You will leave here and never remember this place or any of its symbols. You will forget reading about the Evil Eye. You will forget that we were ever here. Go back to Ashcroft campus now. Quia verba mea non memini obliviscaris verborum quae viderunt et memorias sunt novae.”
She breathed out a slow breath and released the rest of the energy, dropping her arms back down to her sides. A warm, frenetic wave of energy flowed up and over Sydney. Strange. That had never happened to her after a spell before.
Ainsley stared directly at her. Blankly. Until the corners of her mouth turned up, leading to the widest of grins. “What the holy hell was that? Are you high or something? Did you take hypnosis as an elective? That was hysterical. Ooooh.” She broke into caucus laughter. “Trying to intimidate me. I don’t know why you’re so intent on keeping me away from this, but I’m all in now!”
Sydney nearly collapsed right where she stood. Her lungs tightened as she gasped, and she ended up in a choking fit. What was happening? She’d performed the spell perfectly. How could it not work? Not being able to read Ainsley or move the girl’s hand from across a room was one thing, but this? What was it about Ainsley that rejected every magical attempt she made? Sydney couldn’t process this.
“You look like you’re going to faint again. You better sit down. You know, for someone who tries to come across so scary, you're pretty fragile,” Ainsley said with glee. “There’s obviously something you’re protecting in there, and since you want me to leave and forget everything so badly, I think I’ll go find out what it is.” Ainsley pushed past her into the dark, earthen room without looking back.
Chapter 3
Ainsley
Ainsley stormed back into the room, leaving Sydney at the hole’s entrance. Did she really think she could spook Ainsley into leaving? And what was all that bizarreness at the end of her commands? So she took Latin. Big deal, half the school did. Was this little antic supposed to scare her?
Harper’s words, “…they always get their way. That or they have tapped into some divine well of power,” echoed in her mind. Was there any truth to this lunacy?
The rational voice in her head was growing less certain with each second. Ainsley’s stomach began to knit itself with anxiety. She wasn’t afraid of Sydney, but Sydney’s
weird behavior, when they were knee-deep in occult witchcraft—albeit fake occult witchcraft, she emphasized to herself—left her nervous.
Sydney seemed to be more of a believer than she was letting on, why else would she tell her to leave and forget?
Could there be some stock in Harper’s warnings? The odd occurrences, Sydney and her group getting everything they wanted, and that girl—Emmie, who seemed to go mental after allegedly pissing Sydney off. Was it possible that Sydney was involved with the missing girls? Her blood ran cold. Something made Sydney Lockwood act so powerful and untouchable.
Sydney barged back into the room, stopping within feet of Ainsley, a petulant expression on her face. Ainsley gasped, backing up. She had no idea what lunacy Sydney was capable of.
“Okay, if you insist on staying, then I want you to help me figure out who those bones belong to and how old they are,” Syd demanded.
Ainsley kept her in her sight and swallowed to clear her dry throat. This fear was ridiculous. Syd was a first-rate bitch, but that didn’t make her a kidnapper or a murderer. She was a sophomore for crying out loud. She shook her thoughts loose, reminding herself that Sydney hadn’t put her under a spell despite her play-acting.
“And how do you presume we do that? Watching reruns of CSI hasn’t exactly prepared me for this,” Ainsley said, pointing to the skeleton.
“If the room remained sealed, then no UV rays, water, or wind would’ve gotten to them. Well, maybe a little moisture from groundwater and possibly some effect from the land freezing and thawing with the seasons,” Sydney stated.
Determined not to show that she was impressed by this line of reasoning, Ainsley averted her gaze. “What about bugs and the body decomposing? The goo had to go somewhere.
“My guess is most of the fluids soaked into the ground.”
Ainsley pulled a flashlight out of her backpack. “Utility closet,” she explained before Sydney could ask. She’d also thought ahead. Between the beams from their phones, the flashlight, and some sunlight streaming in from outside, they could see the bones better than before.
“There are no clothes.” Ainsley did her best to have the same confidence in her delivery. “There’s no material here, so the body was either naked or it’s been a hell of a long time, and the clothes have disintegrated.”
She and her dad had loved documentaries and had talked some about what happens to bodies after death. The documentary about Ancient Egypt and its burial tombs seemed particularly handy at the moment. “It’s hard to tell how long it’s been here since moist environments cause decay to happen more rapidly than cool, dry ones.” She thought about Daphne. Nine months felt like a long time, but it wasn’t nearly long enough to leave nothing but dry bones behind. Maybe it was one of the other missing girls? Poor Darren. She couldn’t tell him about this, not until she could prove it wasn’t Daphne. It would only break his heart all over again.
“Okay, what about the smell when we first opened the door?” Sydney looked back toward the pile on the ground.
“I don’t know.” The pressure inside Ainsley’s chest intensified. She stepped back outside, scanning the hole. She needed to see it with her father’s eyes. The straight, even walls must’ve taken weeks to shovel out by hand. “Look at the way the ferns and ivy have grown up there. Some of the foliage is cascading down into the edges of the hole. Someone dug this place a long time ago.”
Sydney followed her out and glanced around as if considering this. “I guess. But if it’s that old, then we don’t have to worry about a crazed killer or weird cult on the loose.”
“Do you have an explanation for why the door was tied with all those ropes? You don’t think that’s creepy and cult-related?” Ainsley huffed, “Doesn’t seem like something any normal person would do.” She waved her hands around her. “None. Of. This. Is. Normal.”
“It’s clearly old. It was probably an ancient place the villagers who lived here centuries ago used. They were all superstitious. Maybe this was the site for some ritual they did for their dead. I think we should close it back up and forget we ever found it.” Sydney made a brisk move toward the door.
Ainsley scrambled around so she could observe Sydney’s face for any trace of deception or bullshit. The tightness in her chest loosened when she failed to read anything distinctive. The niggling in her stomach didn’t ease though. Her instincts screamed that Sydney Lockwood, a practiced manipulator, couldn’t be trusted.
Ainsley didn’t want Sydney to know she was on to her. If she was going to figure out her dad’s connection to this place, she didn’t want this girl hanging around.
Straightening, Ainsley said, “You’re right. I guess this is kind of disrespectful. We should go.” She wasn’t surprised to see Sydney’s shoulders fall and a slight sigh escape her pink, pouty lips.
Why so relieved if you have nothing to hide, Sydney?
“Wow, common sense after all. Who knew,” Sydney quipped and pulled the door closed, making sure it sealed.
Ainsley noticed the sun dropping. How long had they been inside? She looked at her phone. “Wow, it’s already after five.”
Syd’s mouth turned into a grimace, her eyebrows furrowing. “Oh shit! I’ve got to go… study. I have a study group. So, we agree? This is nothing, and we won’t tell anyone else, right?”
Ainsley cocked her head, eyeing her. “I agree if you agree.” Maybe she was playing with fire, but she had to add, “Just curious, though. Why do you care if we keep it a secret or tell everyone? It’s just a tomb, a bit of history. Shouldn’t archeologists study it?”
Syd’s shoulders tightened. A wrinkle popped up between her brows. “You’re new here, so let me make things perfectly clear. Headmistress Chambers hates publicity that isn’t strictly controlled by her. She doesn’t welcome attention brought here unless she’s invited it personally. If people find out about this place, the media will come and create upheaval. People will want to dig it all up, excavate this whole place, disturbing the school and tearing the forest apart, leaving it a wreck. She’ll have your head.” Hand on her hip, Syd didn’t smile.
Ainsley saw a spark of real fear in Sydney’s eyes. She was telling the truth.
Not to mention that Ainsley had already experienced how intimidating Chambers could be, and she needed to remain off the headmistress’s radar with her investigation underway. “Fine. We take it to our graves.” She held a hand out.
Glancing down at Ainsley’s gesture, Sydney snorted and moved past her toward the wall where they’d climbed down. She grabbed a rope and started to pull herself out, squeezing her feet into small crevices in the dirt. “You can use this to climb up,” Sydney called back.
Ainsley clenched her jaw. She hated taking any help from Sydney. She’d probably tell her she owed her one. “I’m fine.” She dug her nails into the rocky soil and attempted to climb out alongside her. Why hadn’t she been smart enough to think of bringing a rope?
Sydney pulled herself over the edge, stood, and brushed herself off before glancing down. She flung the rope toward her. “Just take it.”
There is no way in hell. “I can do it.”
Sydney cackled. “You’re doing a bang-up job so far. I should leave your ass here. Just grab it before you tear your uniform. We both know you can’t afford a new one.”
After her foot slipped for the third time, Ainsley gave in and grasped the hanging rope.
“You’re welcome,” Sydney snapped when Ainsley remained quiet after breaching the top.
“Thank you for not untying it and throwing me back down, which is what I fully expected.” She stood and smoothed the flyaways from her sweaty face.
Sydney smiled cruelly. “Oh, I thought about it.”
Ainsley ran her hands over her legs and the bottom of her skirt, wiping away the loose dirt. “We should get back to campus.” She didn’t look up from her boots, which were no worse for wear since she’d beaten the hell out of them over the last year.
“Um, I’m not walking ba
ck with you. I’ll go first. Leave after me, but wait a few minutes so that I can put enough space between us.” It was a command, not a request.
“Just when I think you can’t get any bitchier.”
Without some much as another glance in Ainsley’s direction, Sydney took off, speeding down the trail.
Chapter 4
Sydney
Sydney ran behind a tree and barfed so hard she wondered if her eyeballs were full of broken blood vessels. The Repercussion was getting worse every time she used magic on Ainsley. She’d used these harmless spells on other middlings, and nothing had ever happened before. She had no idea what was causing it, but it seemed to have something to do with the fact that Syd’s magic didn’t affect Ainsley. Maybe Ainsley's immunity was what made Sydney so sick afterward.
She spat on the ground. The sour taste in her mouth made her want to retch again. Syd straightened up, kicked a few leaves over the vomit, and checked the time. Ugh, she was going to be late for practice with Langston. Tonight they were working on potion-making—a prep class for the upcoming testing. During the upcoming test, each apprentice would receive twice the number of ingredients needed. They would have to decide which to use, which to abandon, and how much of each for whichever potion the Master assigned to them.
While Sydney wasn’t great at Potions, she was better than Langston, and she’d promised to help him go over which herbs and organic elements did what. A pang formed in Sydney's chest as she pictured Langston waiting for her. He’d begun making comments about how she barely made time for him these days.
Normally, she would’ve jogged to save time, but she still felt woozy.