Reflection- Thorn of the White Rose

by Rachel R. Smith

  “Now, you tell me what we are supposed to do next,” Barr said in a tone Nerissa recognized well. It was the same one Tao used during lessons.

  “I’m supposed to move on to the next pillar, working in a clockwise motion. Then we count down from five so that mother and I touch the crystals to the pillars at the same time,” the boy answered.

  “Very good,” Barr praised. “And why is it important that the crystals touch at the same time?”

  “So that the energy flowing between the two pillars remains synchronized,” the boy recited.

  “Correct,” Barr said, and he began to count down. When he reached the end, Zada pressed the cluster of crystals against the pillar in front of her and held it there, just as she had done before.

  “I’m surprised you allowed them to stay overnight,” Zada said, turning to look back at Barr over her shoulder as she spoke. Her face was hidden so deeply in the depths of her cloak that only the tip of her nose was visible.

  Barr tapped the end of his cane on the ground. “Although I would prefer for them to leave as soon as possible, part of my duty is to help Caeneus fulfill the prophecy. I don’t know exactly what it says, but I do know fulfilling it is necessary for the good of Renatus in the long term—and that is worth any amount of short-term discomfort. Still, it’s dangerous for them to get close to this place, and it has nothing to do with the prophecy. I want to be rid of them before they have a chance to snoop around this garden again.”

  Too late for that, Nerissa thought.

  “I know that I will be relieved when they leave. Even though they wear their hair differently, my heart nearly burst from my chest when I first saw their long hair and swords. When I left my husband, I was convinced that he was too caught up in his pursuit of power to bother looking for us, but the sight of those men shook my confidence. I thought the Senka had discovered our hiding place after all these years.”

  Nerissa’s ears immediately perked up at Zada’s mention of the Senka. She heard Rian inhale sharply, and there was a soft crackling on either side of her as both he and Raysel eased forward.

  Barr shuffled over to Zada and laid one hand on her arm. “You are safe here. You left Nils twenty years ago when Matin was an infant. If he were going to send a search party for you, he would have done it long before now. And, even if he did send some of his men to seek you out, they would be looking for a middle-aged woman and a twenty-year-old man, not a young woman and her five-year-old son.”

  Nerissa snapped her mouth shut, afraid a bug would fly in if she left it hanging open for long. Matin was supposed to be twenty years old? That meant they were the same age. First Barr seemed to be unnaturally old, and now Zada and Matin were older than they appeared too. A line from the fourth section of the prophecy echoed in her mind. Could this be the place where time stands still?

  Nerissa couldn’t see Zada’s expression, but when she spoke again, there was less tension in her voice. “I remember those days like they were yesterday. By the time I got here, I was out of money and almost out of food. Those ‘friendly’ villagers didn’t look kindly on a young woman traveling alone with a child. I assume they suspected some sort of scandal.” She stopped and laughed scornfully. “I visited each house looking for work until someone finally suggested I check here. Looking back on it, it must have been their idea of a joke, but I didn’t know any better at the time. All I cared about was finding a place remote enough that we would be out of the Senka’s reach in case Nils did come looking for us. It was the hand of fate that guided me here, and I am as grateful as ever that you were willing to take us in.”

  Barr looked away and coughed awkwardly into his fist. “Don’t get overly sentimental on me. You know this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. After my wife and son took ill, there was no one left to carry on my work. Now you and Matin will inherit the care of this estate.”

  Barr turned slightly, just far enough for Nerissa to see that he was holding another, smaller cluster of twinned crystals. Five points protruded from its center, and two of them were glowing. As she watched, a third one flickered with light and then went dark again. It seemed to be a measuring device of some sort. Barr looked down at the device and frowned.

  “Something is wrong,” he said.

  Alarm filled Zada’s voice. “Something’s wrong with the shield? The prisoner isn’t going to escape from the suspension, is she?”

  Suspension? That’s the second time I’ve come across that word recently—and it’s not a commonly used term, Nerissa thought. There was no time now to dwell on the significance though.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have any way to check the integrity of the suspension directly,” Barr answered calmly. He turned his attention to Matin. “Matin, how are things going for you?”

  “My fourth point is lit up. It’s nearly done,” the boy replied, hidden from sight by the pillar.

  “Is this one of the geodes they touched yesterday?” Zada asked, alarm rising in her voice.

  “No, and there were no irregularities when we reset the shield yesterday.” Barr’s brow furrowed. “If Matin’s pillar is behaving normally, there must be something near here that is drawing energy away.”

  “Another crystal? Maybe Raysel or Caeneus dropped one when they fainted.”

  Barr looked toward the entrance where the door hung open. Then his eyes shifted, raking over the dense foliage within the garden. “It could be another crystal, but more likely it’s being caused by someone rather than something. This shield is attuned to those with the talent, so their abilities can interfere with it even when they aren’t actively attempting to manipulate the flow of energy.”

  “But you said as long as they stayed outside the garden wall, it should be safe.”

  “Yes. That holds true as long as our well-meaning trespassers stay out.” He lifted his cane and began using it to probe the bushes nearest him.

  “Move it,” Rian hissed.

  “Watch out,” Raysel said, but he was too late. Rian was already on his hands and knees crawling away when Barr’s cane poked through the leaves. It connected with the tender part of his back, and he couldn’t hold back a painful exclamation.

  “I knew it!” Barr called out triumphantly from the other side of the greenery. “I don’t care which one of you I found, just get out of the garden—now!”

  A grumbling Rian crawled out first, followed shortly after by Nerissa and Raysel.

  “All three of you?” Barr barked. “How long have you been here?”

  “Long enough,” Nerissa said, keeping her answer deliberately vague.

  “I do not appreciate being spied on.” Barr lifted his cane again, jabbing in toward Nerissa’s chest with each word.

  Nerissa grabbed the end of Barr’s cane and gently pushed it away. “It isn’t our preferred method to gather information either,” she said. “But it might be a good thing that we did.”

  Barr harrumphed. “We’ll see about that. Wait for me outside the garden. I’ll be out when our task is finished.”

  Chapter 16

  Suspension

  Nerissa

  Nerissa huddled against the garden wall between Raysel and Rian in silence, watching faint puffs of breath gather in front of her in the chilly air. Now that she was no longer shielded from the steady drizzle by the canopy of leaves, the rain slowly seeped into her clothes, soaking her to the skin. Why hadn’t she thought to grab her cloak before leaving the dining room? She sighed, resigning herself to the dampness. There was no point in dwelling on it now. Regret wouldn’t keep her dry.

  “Did you hear what that woman said? She’s one of the Senka,” Rian hissed even though no one was around to hear them.

  “She used to be one of the Senka,” Raysel countered. “She’s been hiding from them for twenty years.”

  “Still, don’t you think we could get valuable information from her?”

  Raysel shook his head. “I think we’re already pressing the limits of Barr’s cooperation. He’s as protecti
ve of Zada as she is of him. If we start prying into her past, he’s likely to send us away without answering the rest of our questions. I’d rather we focus on learning more about those crystal pillars than attempt to glean twenty-year-old information from a Senka defector.”

  His teeth clicked together abruptly as the humming sound returned. The sound resonated in Nerissa’s ears, seeming even louder after the brief period of silence. She balled her hands into fists to focus on ignoring its pull.

  Rian took one look at their faces and said, “The sound is back, isn’t it?”

  Nerissa responded with a tense nod, and Raysel muttered yes through clenched teeth. After that, Rian watched the two of them warily, as if he were afraid they would start climbing over the wall at any moment. If Barr kept them waiting too long, Nerissa feared she just might.

  A few minutes later, Zada emerged from the garden, casting a scornful look at the trio over her shoulder as she passed. Matin, who followed closely on his mother’s heels, echoed her sentiments in his own childish way by wrinkling his nose and sticking out his tongue. Nerissa studied his retreating form with a renewed feeling of astonishment. He might be twenty years old, but there was no indication of it in his behavior or appearance.

  Barr locked the gate and then stormed over to the three of them with more pent up fury than a storm cloud, despite his reliance on his cane. “Do you have any idea of the trouble you could have caused?” He stomped one foot in frustration and answered his own question without giving them a chance to respond. “No, that’s a foolish question—of course you don’t. Let me rephrase that. Why did you follow us into the garden after we explicitly told you to stay away?”

  Nerissa lifted her chin and chose her words carefully. She wasn’t going to apologize, but she didn’t want to say anything that would further provoke his ire. “We followed you because we believe that ring of geodes is related to the prophecy. I will show you the passage that proves it.”

  The rain picked up in intensity, pelting Barr’s umbrella before rolling off the back in streaming beads. “I very much doubt that, but I will give you the opportunity to explain.” He turned his back to them and shambled along the gravel path toward the house. “First go dry yourselves off. Those books didn’t survive the passage of hundreds of years just to have you drip on them and smear their ink.”

  When they returned to the kitchen, Barr was already waiting for them at the table. Nerissa was glad he had chosen to have their discussion here since it was the warmest room in the house. Although she had changed out of her wet clothes, the dampness still clung to her hair and shoes. She took a seat beside Barr while Rian and Raysel brought out the books and placed them on the table, ready to be used as evidence.

  Barr remained silent, eyeing the three of them irritably as Zada placed a bowl of oatmeal in front of him. She took bowls for Matin and herself and left the room without offering any to the others.

  Nerissa took Barr’s silence as a sign she should be the one to begin. “I would be lying if I said curiosity played no part in our motivation to follow you, but it wasn’t the primary reason. Raysel and I both hear a humming sound coming from the ring of geodes in the garden. That was what lured us there in the first place. You said yourself that we both have the talent. We are also the only two people who can hear the humming. Based on those two facts, we surmised that our ability to hear the sound is connected to the talent. Since we already established that the talent is related to the prophecy, it seemed logical to conclude that the source of the sound is likewise related to the prophecy.”

  Barr harrumphed as he stirred his oatmeal. “That is a rather flimsy justification, in my opinion.”

  “Perhaps this will convince you,” Nerissa said. Rian opened Alden’s book and pushed it across the table to her. If her theory was right, this line of the prophecy explained the mysteries surrounding this house and the people living in it.

  She read the line out loud. “ ‘They will journey through the ruins in the mountains to the place where time stands still.’ The crystal pillars in the garden make time stand still, don’t they? We overheard you talking with Zada, so we know Matin was an infant when the two of them came here twenty years ago. How is it possible for Zada and Matin to age no more than a handful of years when they have lived here for twenty?” She rushed on without giving Barr an opportunity to answer. “We have also heard rumors from several sources that you are over three hundred years old. I never gave the tales any credence until this morning, but after hearing your conversation, I now know otherwise.”

  Barr continued stirring his oatmeal in silence, and for a moment, Nerissa was afraid he would refuse to answer. Then he said, “Yes, the ring of geodes does make time stand still, though you’ve reached the correct conclusion for the wrong reasons. There is a discrepancy between our physical and chronological ages because the pillars slow the passage of time for everything within the immediate area. As soon as you stepped within the outer wall at the perimeter of the property, the three of you began to age more slowly too.”

  “How is that possible?” Nerissa asked.

  “The crystal pillars you touched in the garden alter the flow of time, making it flow at one-fourth its normal speed. The effect radiates outward, influencing everything—and everyone—in the surrounding area.”

  “So that’s why the leaves haven’t changed,” Nerissa concluded, and Barr nodded in confirmation.

  “We’ve been here for almost a day,” she said. “Does that mean four days have passed elsewhere?”

  “No, the ring only affects a limited area. The sun still rises and sets here every twenty-four hours.”

  “You are truly fortunate to have lived such a long life,” Raysel said, speaking up for the first time since entering the kitchen.

  Barr laughed, though it sounded more like a harsh wheeze. “I’ll admit, I thoroughly enjoyed being young and spry four times longer than normal. But I am paying for that now by being gray and achy four times longer than normal as well. I am lucky to have Zada and Matin with me. I began to have difficulties caring for myself long ago.”

  Nerissa’s head tilted to the side thoughtfully. “Earlier, you said you knew about the prophecy and the machine diagrams because one of your ancestors was a member of the group that created the books. Were you actually the one who was a member of the group?”

  The creases on Barr’s forehead deepened, and he snorted. “Those books date from the time of King Gared, more than six hundred years ago. I told you that I’m four hundred years old. You should be intelligent enough to do the math before asking such a silly question.”

  Nerissa bristled at the insult. Though she longed to voice her displeasure, she knew doing so would be counterproductive. Instead, she swallowed her feelings and pressed her lips together into a thin smile, telling herself that he didn’t mean to be as insulting as he sounded.

  Rian opened his mouth to respond in disbelief, but Raysel elbowed him in the side so that a soft “oof” was the only sound that came out.

  Barr continued, oblivious—or indifferent—to her discontent. “My father, my grandfather, and all of my ancestors spent most of their lives on this estate so they also led unnaturally long lives. It was my grandfather who was a member of the group that created the books. In fact, he was the engineer who made the machine diagrams and programmed the crystals to glow in response to your touch.”

  Nerissa stared silently at Barr as his explanation soaked in. “If your grandfather created the diagrams, did he teach you what he knew about the machine? Would you be able to start rebuilding it?”

  “I’m afraid not, on both accounts. While we have enough food and supplies to be self-sustaining, we don’t have access to the materials needed to fabricate the parts. Even if we did have the materials, a certain amount of physical dexterity is necessary to assemble the machine.” Barr held out one trembling hand to emphasize his point.

  Nerissa knew she shouldn’t feel so disheartened by the fact that he was unable to recre
ate the machine. Right now, finding the remaining books was her top priority.

  “There’s still something that’s bothering me,” Raysel said, changing the subject. “The prophecy says this is the place where time stands still, not where it slows down. It’s a subtle difference but potentially a significant one.”

  Barr pointed a shaky finger at the next line of the prophecy. “You already heard us talking about it, so there’s no reason to hide the answer from you at this point. The explanation is in the very next sentence. ‘Here, the lost suspension technique is still remembered.’ ”

  Raysel pushed a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “And how exactly is that related to the pillars?”

  “Nowadays, when someone is guilty of committing the vilest of crimes, the punishment administered is death,” Barr said, his expression turning solemn. “Before the Fall of Civilization, capital punishment was considered barbaric—even if it was deserved—so the criminal was ‘suspended’ instead. Inside the ring, where the prisoner is held, the flow of time truly does stand still. The slowing of time outside the ring is merely a side effect.”

  A thought occurred to Nerissa. “Are there other rings of geodes like this one? If their shields aren’t being maintained, can the prisoners escape?” She shuddered at the thought of such criminals walking free among her people. Could they be the walking dead the prophecy referred to?

  The chair creaked as Barr leaned back wearily. “I have no doubt many others were imprisoned in this fashion. People in the past were no more or less likely to commit crimes than they are today. But there are no other rings of geodes, and there is no risk of those prisoners escaping. At least, not as far as I know.”

  “Why is this prison different?” Raysel asked.

  “A permanent suspension is created when six with the talent manipulate the flow of energy through six identical spirit crystals. The flow of time becomes distorted in the area around the prisoner. When this woman was suspended, an incident occurred, and one of the six involved was unable to complete the process, resulting in the prison being imperfectly sealed. The geodes were put in place to stabilize and reinforce the flawed flow of energy, while the shield protects them from being interfered with by others—accidentally or otherwise.”