Within Darkness

by C J M Naylor

  “What are you doing down here?”

  I turned and saw the woman who had assisted Aldridge in bringing me here. She ran down the steps and turned to me.

  “You shouldn’t be down here.”

  She looked at the door, and at Melanie, who was looking out through the little window.

  “Go back into your corner,” the woman said. “Now. I can’t shut the window until you are back into your corner.”

  Melanie smiled at the woman, then turned and gave me a wink. She disappeared into the shadows once more. Aldridge’s assistant leaned on her tiptoes to try and see over the window. When she was satisfied Melanie was out of the way, she stepped forward and reached out to close the window. And then Melanie’s arm shot out of the little window, grabbing the woman by her hair and pulling her up against the door. The woman screamed, trying to break free, but the window was big enough that Melanie was able to tear a bit of the woman’s flesh away from her ear.

  I screamed in horror and ran forward, trying to help the woman.

  “Let go of her,” I shouted. “Please, let go of her.”

  Melanie finally let go of the woman’s hair and she fell backward on top of me. I pushed her over to the side and leaned over her to assess the damage. She was bleeding profusely from the ear. I put pressure to the wound and looked back at the stairs I’d come down.

  “Someone help!” I shouted. “Please!”

  Behind me, I heard cackling. Melanie was laughing at the top of her lungs. It was a hideous laugh. A cold laugh. And then I realized, that feeling I had had as soon as I entered the hospital. The feeling of cold, death, anger, hatred. That had come from her. This girl, my sister, was evil.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  At some point, other nurses had come to assist me. But for whatever reason, they assumed I had caused the damage and I was rewarded with another stick in the neck. I awoke later, tied to a chair, in what I could only assume was Melanie’s room. There was more light in the room now, and as I looked around, I could see there were more books then I had previously thought. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled to the brim with books. I wondered what it would be like, to be held here against your will, but to be fed, taken care of, and given books to entertain you.

  Directly in front of me, Melanie was seated, cross-legged, on her bed. Her head was slightly cocked to the side as she observed me. She looked exactly like me, with the exception that her hair was much longer. It fell all the way down her back whereas mine only came to just below my shoulders.

  “What was it like?” she asked me.

  I looked at her in confusion. What was what like? Furthermore, why was I tied to a chair in her bedroom? Why had they put me unconscious with another drug?

  “What are you talking about?” I asked her.

  She took a deep breath before speaking. “I mean, what’s it like to grow up out there?” She gestured toward the wall, as if there were a window there that led to the outside world, but there wasn’t.

  “Have you grown up here?” I asked not answering her question. I needed to know. “How long have you been here?”

  But before she answered, I remembered what Ian had said that day in the library. He had not only called me Melanie, he had asked what I was doing out. He had told me then. She had always been locked up somewhere.

  “No,” Melanie replied. “I’ve been moved from place to place. But it’s always been pretty similar to this. Now, what’s it like, out there?”

  “I don’t really know how to describe it,” I answered. “I really haven’t lived a different way, so I can’t compare it to anything else.”

  She moved off her bed and stood, walking toward me. She was barefoot and the only thing she wore was a long, white hospital gown that fell to the floor. I realized, to my horror, that she carried a knife with her. What kind of hospital was this?

  “I just find it a little unfair,” she said, stopping in front of me and falling to her knees, “that you got to live out there these eighteen, almost nineteen, years, whereas I had to stay cooped up inside. Not always here, of course, but in other places.”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said. “I honestly don’t know why it happened. I didn’t even know you existed until very recently.”

  “You need to be punished,” Melanie answered.

  And then she stabbed her knife into my leg. I let out a howling scream of pain, biting my lip so hard as I did that I cut it open as well.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted at her.

  Melanie gripped the knife hard and pulled it out just as the door to the room opened. I looked up to see Ian walking in, along with Dr. Aldridge and Dr. Waters. Just as I had suspected, Dr. Aldridge was involved. And Waters too, apparently.

  “That’s enough, Melanie,” Dr. Waters said, closing the door behind her and locking it with a key.

  Melanie took one look at Dr. Waters and ran back to her bed. She was scared of her. I could tell just by looking into her eyes.

  Dr. Waters walked toward me, her heels clicking against the floor.

  “What are we going to do with you, Miss Jordan?” Dr. Waters asked. “I thought having you in this hospital would keep you contained enough, but you are still persistent in putting your nose in places it does not belong.”

  “Technically,” I responded, “you did say I could go anywhere in the hospital.”

  Dr. Waters smiled at that.

  “You’re just as cheeky as your mother,” she responded.

  “You knew my mother?”

  Dr. Waters began laughing at that. She cackled and looked to Ian and Dr. Aldridge.

  “What do you say, gentlemen?” she asked them. “Shall we lay all the cards on the table?”

  Dr. Waters turned to me, studying me.

  “Of course, I knew your mother,” she said. “I did give birth to her after all.”

  And then the conversation I had with Elijah only the day before yesterday came back to me.

  “Our mother, she is the exact opposite of what a mother should be,” he had said. “And I know she is behind this. She knows that you exist, and she will stop at nothing.”

  This woman, Dr. Waters, was my grandmother. But she couldn’t be. She didn’t look any older than maybe forty. And my own mother, she would be around that age.

  “That’s not possible,” I said.

  Dr. Waters smiled again. “Oh, it is very much possible. You see with the forbidden powers, I can live forever.”

  The forbidden powers. I had not given much thought to them over the last several months. I hadn’t felt the need to. My training had told me no one possessed them, but then I learned that wasn’t true when Bessie gained the powers the night she died. Now it seemed like everything I had been taught was a lie.

  “But my father, Mathias, he said very few people have gained the powers. And now you, and Bessie before you.”

  Dr. Waters cackled again. “Please, Abigail. You are part of a plan that has been in place since the beginning of our history, of our people. I, along with my associates, have taken great care in making sure our plans have been conducted in secret. We’ve carefully spent time infiltrating the Council to ensure our plans will come to fruition. It’s easy for our society to say no one has ever achieved such a thing as those powers, but in all honesty, who would come forward to say that they have achieved them? They are forbidden after all.

  “Regardless, you are the key to fulfilling the prophecy. The prophecy states that two Timekeeping twins will be born into the original family to rule over the Timekeeping world. They will bring darkness into our world and move the Timekeepers into a new age. But, unfortunately, you haven’t been very compliant, even with the drugs we have been using on you. So, what could we possibly do to make sure that you won’t be a problem in the future?”

  She looked over to Dr. Aldridge and he stepped forward, speaking up.

  “We have a number of sedatives on hand here at the hospital,” he suggested. “We probably should have used them
from the beginning. We can take her upstairs and keep her heavily sedated until the time comes.”

  The time comes. I had no idea what that meant, but I didn’t want to find out.

  Dr. Waters nodded. “That will work. Dr. Aldridge, please prep Miss Jordan.”

  With that, Dr. Waters, my grandmother, turned on her heel and left the room, leaving me with Ian, Aldridge, and my sister. Aldridge took a syringe from his pocket and stuck it in the side of my neck. And once again, I returned to the darkness.

  When I awoke I was tied to a bed. The only thing I could see was the ceiling above me and I was conscious of the fact that the bed was moving. I guessed I was on a gurney, being led to the room where they would heavily sedate me. I still couldn’t speak. I was barely aware of what was going on.

  Finally, the gurney was pushed through a set of double doors into what looked like a room where a surgery would be performed.

  “Abigail,” a man said. “Can you hear me?”

  I turned my head slightly and saw an older man looking down at me.

  “My name is Dr. Jonas,” the man said. “I will be administering your medications.”

  “Frauds,” I managed to say. “Dr. Waters and Aldridge are frauds. I don’t need this.”

  “Abigail,” Dr. Jonas said, “listen to me very carefully. We are going to make you better. These drugs will help you not be suspicious of everyone around you anymore. Won’t that be great? It will just be you again.” The doctor looked up at someone else and then said, “if you will.”

  I shook my head, but he wasn’t listening and I was still tied to the table. And then the strangest thing happened. Elijah was suddenly leaning over me. Was this part of the drug they had given me? Or was he truly here now? I knew he was there when he reached up to his mouth with just one finger, signaling for me to not say a word. And that’s what I did.

  Elijah put a mask over my face, but I didn’t feel anything come out of it. Dr. Jonas turned back to me to see if I was under and then Elijah was behind him and then Dr. Jonas was gone. A few moments passed until the mask was lifted off of my face and Elijah was undoing the restraints that held me down to the table. As soon as the restraints were off, I sat up.

  “You found me,” I said to him.

  Elijah nodded. “Your friend, Bridget Ward, grew suspicious and contacted Thomas at his work location. I had already had a premonition about you and I contacted him immediately to tell him I would take care of it. It was surprisingly easy to impersonate a doctor’s assistant in this place. But anyway, that’s a story for later. We need to get you out of here. Now. Unfortunately, I’m going to need you to lay back down and pretend to be dead. That will be the fastest way to get you out of here.”

  I nodded and lay back on the table. Elijah covered his face with a surgical mask and found a sheet, but before placing it over me, he looked down at me. “Abigail, I need you to trust me, no matter what happens. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He laid the sheet over my face and then the gurney began to move again. I felt the gurney being pushed through the double doors of the procedure room again and we were traveling down a hall. I waited underneath the sheet, completely still, trying not to make a sound.

  “Excuse me,” a woman said, “what happened?”

  “Dead,” I heard Elijah say.

  “Unfortunate.”

  Elijah agreed and then the gurney kept moving. We turned several corners before stopping.

  “You’re doing great,” Elijah said. “We are in the lift, going down.”

  As soon as the doors opened again and Elijah pushed the gurney out, there was shouting.

  “There was an attack in the procedure room,” I heard someone saying.

  “A doctor’s been attacked,” someone else said.

  “There’s an imposter in the hospital,” a third voice said.

  I tried to stifle a laugh at that last statement. There was more than one imposter in this hospital. The gurney began to travel faster and I could tell Elijah was getting nervous. We turned several more corners and then finally went through another set of doors and I felt cold air against my skin. We were outside. Elijah pulled the sheet off of me and I sat up.

  “Follow me,” he said. “Now.”

  I looked to my right to see a row of cars. I assumed this was some sort of parking lot for hospital employees. I followed Elijah to an old Cadillac and stood by the passenger side door while he leaned across the seat and unlocked the door.

  “Stop them!”

  I looked up and saw Dr. Waters running out of the back entrance, her heels clicking against the pavement as she ran. Everything was happening so fast. She started to raise her hand, perhaps to use her powers, but in broad daylight?

  The door pushed open.

  “Get in!”

  I got in the car and before I even had the door pulled shut, it was skidding backward. Elijah clearly didn’t care if he ran over his mother. And then we were speeding forward, out of the employee parking lot, and on to the streets of San Francisco flying at the highest speed possible toward what I assumed would be the closest entrance to the San Francisco Headquarters.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Elijah successfully got me back to the Headquarters. While it was inevitably better than staying at St. Ignatius’s, I was still constantly reminded I was in hiding. I had to stay away from Ian. Thomas was doing his best to keep Ian out, but he couldn’t exactly go to the Council with the issue considering Dr. Waters had people of her own on there. While staying at the Headquarters was the safest option for me right now, it didn’t really matter. If Ian wanted to come here and get me, he would. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about Bridget. After she had grown concerned and contacted Thomas, he made plans for her to move into the American Headquarters where she would be safe from Ian as well. I hadn’t seen her since I’d been back, but I could only imagine how she was handling this realization about him.

  My biological mother had done even more for me than I had previously thought. She had been trying to protect me from this prophecy, from me meeting my sister, as well as my grandmother. And she had succeeded, until I ran into Ian at that library. It had all been coincidental, entirely coincidental. If I had not been there that day, I wondered if life would have turned out differently. I wondered if my parents would still be here, if Phillip would still be here.

  I sat on the couch in Thomas’ study. Elijah had just brought me into the room, and Thomas was sitting next to me, his arm around me.

  “We should go talk,” Elijah said to Thomas.

  I looked up at Elijah. “Whatever you need to say, you can say it here in front of me. Now is the time to start explaining.”

  Elijah sighed. “You’re right.” He pulled the armchair near the couch directly in front of me and sat down.

  “By now, you probably know the woman you met at that hospital is my mother.”

  I nodded. “Dr. Karen Waters.”

  Elijah shook his head. “That isn’t her real name. The real Dr. Karen Waters died a few years ago and spent her life working at a mental institution in New York. My mother has been impersonating her, and using her credentials to gain access here in San Francisco. Her real name is Lucinda Callaghan.

  “I’ve been tracking my mother for some time, attempting to find out her true intentions. I’m still in the dark about this prophecy, but I can tell you, based on what I observed at the hospital, keeping you alive is one of the key components of it. If you died, well, it sounds like there wouldn’t be a prophecy anymore. I can also assume it has to do with having twins, identical twins to be exact. As I told you before, my mother has always hated me, and now I know why. She was hoping to fulfill this prophecy with her children, and when she birthed two girls, I’m sure she was over the moon about it. My nana, really the woman who raised me and protected me from my mother, said my mother was furious when a third baby was delivered that day. It all makes sense now. And I believe she has infiltrated the Timekeeping Council and h
as been doing so for quite some time.”

  “Headrick,” I said. “She has to be behind this. She was the sole reason I was brought to San Francisco, where this Lucinda, my grandmother, would be conveniently located. My transfer shouldn’t have even involved Headrick, yet it did.”

  “Be that as it may,” Thomas said, “we still don’t have any proof. We can’t make allegations against Headrick, the woman holding the highest position in our world, without first having proof.”

  “If the Council is infiltrated though,” I said, “then that would explain the death of Winston. We still don’t know who did it and it couldn’t have been Bessie. Even in the end, she still didn’t know how to get into the London Headquarters. It makes sense it could have been Ian, but what if it wasn’t?”

  “That might be a possibility,” Elijah continued, “but give me some time. Let me see what I can find out. But for now, be safe.”

  Elijah smiled at me and then stood up and exited the room. Thomas and I sat in silence for a few moments until he finally spoke.

  “Abby, I was so scared when they took you. Ian wouldn’t give me any information about what happened. If Elijah hadn’t found you, I don’t know what would have happened. Can I be honest with you about something?”

  I didn’t respond. I only nodded.

  “The way that I feel about you right now,” he said, “I’ve never felt that way about anyone.”

  I looked at him. This man, this man who only months ago I had assumed treated women like objects to be had, rather than human beings to be loved, cared for, and respected, was telling me he had changed. And he was telling me that he had changed for me. He could have been lying, but I believed him. And I knew that I reciprocated the feelings, but I had been trying to push them away out of respect for Phillip. Even though Phillip wanted me to go on with life.