by E. E. Holmes
I looked at Hannah. She was visibly trembling, and her hands were clenching and unclenching at her sides. I could feel my own palms sweating. The very sight of Lucida had sent my heart leaping into my throat. It now felt like it had lodged itself there, restricting my airway with every frantic beat.
And yet, within that fear was something else. Something made of fire. If I were to find myself in the same room as that woman, I may very well beat the ever-loving crap out of her.
In a weird way, the violent thoughts calmed me. I knew I wouldn’t fall to pieces at the sight of Lucida. The fact that I could summon anger in the face of fear and traumatic memories made me feel stronger, somehow. Then again, I wasn’t really the one I was worried about.
“I’m leaving this entirely up to you,” I said to Hannah, taking both of her hands in mine and forcing her to look me in the eyes. “We won’t go if you don’t want to. The Council can kiss my ass. Or yours.”
“Or mine!” Milo piped up.
I winked at him. “Someone’s ass will be kissed. But seriously, Hannah. What do you want to do? Don’t be brave. Be honest.”
As I spoke, some of the blind animal panic faded from Hannah’s eyes. When she answered me, her voice was surprisingly steady. “I’ll go, because the Council might need a Caller. But I won’t speak to Lucida. Not even while Eleanora is using her, I will not speak to her. I will not compromise on that.”
I squeezed her hands, swelling with pride. “Good for you. And don’t worry about talking. If anything needs to be said, my mouth is big enough for the both of us.”
“I know,” Hannah said, and actually smiled.
“You don’t have to agree with everything I say,” I said, pretending to pout.
Hannah shrugged.
I laughed at her, and then turned to Finn. “Hannah, and my big mouth agree to come to the hospital wing,” I told him.
If he appreciated my attempts at humor, he didn’t let on, although Seamus was standing right in the doorway, so I couldn’t blame him for keeping a determinedly straight face.
“Very well,” he said. “It is your decision. After you, then,” he said, gesturing out into the hallway.
§
One fact was abundantly obvious upon entering the hospital ward: there was nothing to be feared from Lucida in her current state. She sat propped like a child’s doll, back to back with the other Hosts, utterly incapable of independent thought or movement. She was much thinner and frailer than the last time we’d seen her; her tightly curled hair was now shot through with gray and her face looked pinched and haggard. The sight of her so vulnerable was comforting; in fact, Hannah very nearly smiled when she laid eyes upon Lucida in such a state. Her hand certainly relaxed in mine for the first time since I’d taken it, and I finally felt safe to release it from my protective grasp. Milo continued to send calming soothing energy washing over us, but I could see from his expression that he, too, felt that Hannah was in control of herself.
Fiona came and stood next to us. She said nothing at all, but I knew exactly what she was doing; she was determined to support us in some way, even if all she could manage was her physical presence side by side with ours. If Celeste and Savvy hadn’t been trapped in the Circle before us, I knew that they would have stood firmly by our sides as well, and even that knowledge bolstered me.
Keira began speaking the words of the Casting immediately upon our return to the room. Maybe she was afraid we would change our minds when we saw Lucida up close, or else perhaps she simply wanted to end this catastrophe as soon as humanly possible. Either way, she launched into the Casting before the door had properly shut behind us, and a relieved sort of murmur rippled through the rest of the Council as she started.
The energy in the room was already roiling and churning like a stormy sea; the motion of it actually made me feel dizzy. I turned to Hannah, the question on my face, and she answered it without a word. Lucida really had been the last missing piece. All of the Shards were now present, and aching to be reunited. Even as I watched her nod her head, my own head began to nod in unison. I could feel it: the familiar, if damaged, energy of a whole disembodied soul.
Seamus stood beside Keira, ready and waiting to expel the Shards at the precise moment of the Naming. The moment Eleanora’s name fell from Keira’s lips, Seamus muttered his Casting and thrust his arms forward as though physically pushing the Shards from the Hosts’ bodies. In response to his gesture, the Hosts threw their heads back and opened their mouths. But instead of the piercing screams of pain they’d issued during the first attempt at the Casting, they all gave a long, deep sigh. And on the tide of that collective expulsion of breath, the Shards were borne up into the air above the Hosts.
I wish I had looked away, for there was nothing I had experienced yet in the spirit world that could match the heartbreaking sight of a Shard. Each one was made of the same ephemeral, gently luminescent substance that all spirits were made of, but they appeared unstable. Their energy pulsed and swirled with constant attempts to mold itself into a recognizable mental and physical shape, but they simply morphed from one twisted, partially-formed shape to the next, all the while exuding an oppressive sense of confusion and despair.
I knew I was not the only person in the room to feel the overwhelming sadness of it. All around the Circle, Durupinen faces were rapt with anguish, eyes glistening with tears. We watched, transfixed, as the Shards writhed and contorted themselves, sometimes achieving an almost human physicality before shivering back down into serpentine forms. All the while, a sound halfway between moaning and music rose from them, a chorus of anguish, that vibrated inside my bones and tore at my heart. Hannah gave a shuddering sob beside me. Across the Circle, Fiona had dropped her eyes to the floor, her shoulders shaking.
“Keira. The rest of the Casting. Finish it,” Seamus said gently. Keira shook her head and dragged her sleeve across her face, stifling a sob.
“The Casting. Yes. I…” she fumbled with the book in her hand, swiping at her eyes again when the tears obscured her view of the page. She could barely keep her voice steady as she spoke the rest of the words in a mixture of Gaelic and old Britannic. I recognized just a single word of it: “ceangail,” the Irish Gaelic word for “bind,” which I had come across in my reading about the Binding my mother had used to block spirit contact when I was growing up.
The word seemed to act as a trigger, for as soon as Keira uttered it, the Shards began to spin very fast over the Heads of the Hosts like a luminous halo. They spun so fast, that is became impossible to distinguish one from the other; they were simply a blur. Then, with a force like an explosion, they merged.
The force of the event blew out across the room, knocking everyone off their feet. The energy that blasted past us felt like a tidal wave, and my breath caught in my throat as it rushed over me like a powerful ocean current, threatening to drown me in a sea of negative emotion.
And then it was gone. And only Eleanora remained.
She hovered in the space above the Hosts, blinking down at them in surprise and then concern, as though she could not possibly comprehend what any of them were doing there. She appeared just as she had in my sketches; her thick dark hair was swept up into an elegant mass of curls, delicate tendrils framing her face. An elaborate formal dress fanned out beneath her, swaying slightly, so that she might have been dancing on a breeze. She looked beyond the Hosts to the Circle, and then at the space around her, trying to understand where she was.
I scrambled to my feet and walked forward to the edge of the Circle just as the others in the room were beginning to stir. I did not wait for instructions. I did not care.
“Eleanora?” I asked softly.
Eleanora looked around and spotted me. Recognition broke across her bewildered expression.
“You,” she said. “You are the Muse.” Her voice was an echo, a distant song that I struggled to recognize the tune of.
I nodded. “Don’t be afraid. Do you know where you are?”
&nb
sp; Eleanora looked around the room again. “I know this place. My sister died in this room.”
“That’s right. You’re at Fairhaven Hall.”
The other Durupinen were assembling around the Circle again, but no one made any movements to stop me from speaking with Eleanora. In the corner, I heard the Scribe’s pen scribbling across paper, recording the content of our conversation.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” I told her, for at the mention of the name “Fairhaven,” terror had spasmed across Eleanora’s face. “No one here wants to harm you. The Prophecy they once feared has come to pass. You were not to blame for it. They have no reason to fear you anymore.”
Eleanora covered her face with her hands, trying to compose herself. “Oh, thank God. Thank you dear, sweet God,” she whispered. Then she looked up at me. “How do you know about that?”
“I found your little book,” I said. “I read it. I know all about what happened to you.”
“How? How did you find it?” Eleanora asked.
“You led me to it,” I said. “Don’t you remember?”
Eleanora shook her head. “No… I… I don’t think I… what happened to me? How did I get here?”
I looked over at Mrs. Mistlemoore for guidance. “The Shattering was very disorienting. She likely remembers or understands very little of it,” she whispered.
“Take me back to the last things you do remember,” I prompted. “You were in the príosún on the Isle of Skye, right?”
Eleanora nodded. “I have been trapped there for well over a century now. I was first brought there to await examination as a Caller, an examination that never came. They locked me away under every Casting they could conjure up that would prevent me from Calling. It seemed I would languish there forever, and then a new High Priestess came into power. She was more sympathetic to my plight, less prone to allow fear to guide her decisions. My clan petitioned her on my behalf, and I was hopeful that I might soon be free. But then, three days before my petition was to be heard, a great fire came.”
Her face contracted as she said it, and she nearly flickered out of sight, as though the trauma of the memory sapped her energy.
“It swept through the príosún in the dead of night. I cannot believe it was an accident. A strong smell of oil was the first thing to wake me up. The guard that was usually posted at the end of my corridor was inexplicably absent. I screamed and screamed from my cell for help, but no one… no one ever came.” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, as though the gesture could prevent her from falling to actual pieces. “Dozens of us perished, but though the príosún crumbled, the Castings that held us there remained intact. We could not make ourselves heard. We could not flee the ruins, even as spirits, could not roam in search of help or even for a Gateway to Cross us. We were forgotten.”
I couldn’t help but glare at the Council members, even though they had not been alive when Eleanora’s sentence had been handed down, and obviously weren’t responsible for it. Every one of them looked utterly horrified, which gave me a modicum of satisfaction.
“When the príosún was rebuilt, it was simply built over us. No one searched for us, or made any attempt to strip old Castings away. I cannot say for sure if this was purposeful, but if not, it was an inexcusable oversight. And so, I continued to languish there, until the other Caller arrived.”
At that, every Council member perked up, looking from Eleanora, to Hannah, and to Lucida, now slumped unconscious on the floor. But I would not allow their suspicions to persist a moment longer.
“Who was the Caller that you met?” I prompted, knowing, of course, what her answer would be.
Eleanora looked below her and pointed to Lucida’s motionless form. “There.”
I wanted to be very, very sure. “And she is the only other Caller you’ve ever met?”
Eleanora nodded again. “I would have given anything to meet others, to know that I was not alone in my gift that was far more curse than blessing. Alas, I never had that chance.”
I looked back at Hannah, who smiled gratefully at me. It was what I wanted to know above all else, but there were other questions still to be answered, and although I was growing more and more positive that my theory was correct, I knew we all must have concrete answers to them.
“What happened when you met Lucida?” I prompted.
Eleanora shook her head ruefully. “We sensed each other by our gifts. She was so sympathetic, so understanding of all I had been through. She pressed me for every detail, and told me in depth of her own mistreatment by the Durupinen. I thought I had found an ally at last. She promised to find a way to undo the Castings upon me, so that I could finally seek rest.”
“Did she keep her promise?” I asked.
“She did,” Eleanora confirmed. “I do not know how she did it. Perhaps she found someone to help her. I cannot say. But at last, she kept her word. I was free.”
“And what did you want to do with that freedom?” I asked.
“All I wished for was to Cross. I was so very weary, so ready to see my sister and my family again. Most spirits are left behind because they want to stay, but imagine the unendurable agony of wanting to go and being forced to remain behind. It was torture of the cruelest kind for more than a century.”
I swallowed an urge to cry, and pressed on. “What did Lucida think of that?”
Eleanora looked down upon Lucida, examining her face with a long, sad look. “She wanted me to seek revenge. She kept trying to convince me, over and over again, that I must come to Fairhaven and make the Council pay for what they had done to me, and to all the Callers who had the audacity to simply exist since the Isherwood Prophecy had been foretold. I admit I was tempted. I argued with myself. Surely, I owed it to the many victims of injustice to seek an explanation? But in the end, I knew that my desire for peace was far greater than my desire for revenge.”
“So, you refused?”
“Yes. I refused. She was clearly angry with me. I thought perhaps she might then refuse in turn to set me free, but she surprised me. After a few moments of silence, she apologized to me. She said she applauded my integrity, and she would not deny me the rest and peace I so deserved. She promised to free me anyway. And at last, she did.”
“How?” I asked. “How did she do it?” I asked in a whisper.
“I do not know how she broke through the Castings,” Eleanora said. “She had no Casting bag, nor any accomplices that I could discover. Suddenly, one night, I felt them lift. It was like great chains had been removed from my form. I could leave my cell. For a brief moment, I could have gone anywhere, done anything; but then she Called me.”
Hannah stifled a sob behind me. I knew how painful it must be for her, hearing another of Lucida’s victims tell her story.
Eleanora went on, “Her Call was so powerful. I never knew what it felt like for a spirit to be Called, only what it felt like to do the Calling. It was intense, hypnotic. It was as though she opened me up and thrust purpose into me, a purpose that I could not ignore. I could only think of one thing: to Cross through the Caller as soon as possible.
“I threw caution and knowledge to the wind; they held no sway over me. I only knew that I could feel the pull of the Gateway, and that I must answer it. ‘Come to me,’ she was saying, drawing me ever nearer. ‘Come to me, and find your rest. Cross here, right now.’” Eleanora wrung her hands, her eyes filling with spectral tears. “I ought to have known that I could not, but her Call and my desperate desire overwhelmed me. I saw the glimmer of it ahead, nestled in the Caller, and I could not stop myself. And then…” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture, then crumpled in on herself.
“You Shattered,” I said.
She nodded, shaking with sobs. “I remember little after that, but scattered, blurred moments I can barely piece together. These faces…” she gestured to the slumping mass of Hosts below her. “I was searching. I was lost and scattered. I remember you,” she said, pointing a shaking finger at me. �
�I remember recognizing myself, and… and wandering in the snow to find Hattie…” She dissolved into sobs again.
“So, Lucida knew,” Hannah said, realization dawning in her tone. “She knew that there was a chance that Eleanora would Shatter, and that the Shattering could break right through to her connection with Catriona.”
I looked down at Lucida, crumpled on the floor, and nodded. “She tried to use Eleanora for revenge on the Council, but when Eleanora refused to go, Lucida decided to Shatter her instead. She knew there was a chance that the Shattering would disrupt the Airechtas and wreak havoc on Fairhaven.”
“My God,” Fiona said from the far side of the Circle. “This wasn’t an accident? This was an attack?”
I nodded, repressing an urge to walk right over to Lucida’s motionless body and kick it. “A calculated attack. One betrayed Caller used another to wage her revenge. And it worked.”
“She couldn’t have really thought it would work!” Keira said incredulously. “Shatterings are incredibly rare. There was no way to predict if the Shards would break through to the other half of the Gateway!”
“She didn’t need to predict it,” I said. “It was a desperate last attempt. She had nothing to lose if it failed, but if it succeeded, she could wreak havoc on the Airechtas from afar. How would anyone ever have known it was her that caused all of this?”
No one answered. They didn’t need to. We all knew the damage that could have been caused if we hadn’t been able to trace the Shattering to its source. Savvy, Celeste, Catriona, and every other Host, trapped forever in bodies they couldn’t control.
“It’s okay now, Eleanora,” I said softly. “Everything will be okay now.” I turned to Keira and the other Council members. “Haven’t we had enough of this? She’s suffered terribly. She’s told you what she can. Please. Please let her go now.”
I expected resistance. I expected a lecture about procedure and votes and the proper way in which things must be done. I expected the kind of compassionless “justice” Catriona had shown to Irina just a couple of months prior.