Oculus

by S. E. Akers

  Tanner’s faith in my combat abilities had to be waning, though he never said a word to the contrary. But what else was I to think? He adamantly refused to let me fight the chimera, and I still didn’t know what was behind Door Number Five. How bad could it be? I saw that fancy-schmancy spread Silas had toted in there. It drank tea for Pete’s sakes — probably with its daggone pinky up! It had to be human-ish in some way. Maybe a vampire? Werewolf? Shape-shifter? I simply couldn’t say. Though I did notice that Tanner never got closer than twenty feet from the door, which was curious. Oh, I’d counted off the distance with the length of my shoe. He stopped shy of the same stone paver every time we were down there and never took a step closer. That alone had me a little fearful of the day he rolled out the red carpet on that one. Silas, on the other hand, breezed in and out of its cell serving its scheduled three meals every day. So what had Tanner so on guard when the “humbly-human” house steward didn’t seem to have a care in the world?

  That’s what my inquiring mind wanted to know.

  The repartee between the house steward and I hadn’t improved a bit. Silas kept riding me like a mad bull with his taunts, mostly about my emotional state. For someone who claimed they were so concerned about my mental well-being, he sure didn’t give dialing back on his cracks a sympathetic second-thought. In fact, the prick from his spurs felt sharper than ever. The pristine wall of iron I punched daily was still without its first ding and each of the diamond-dusted implements my coach hurled all received proper bloody christenings. Though after weighing all the nasty cuts and bangs against everything else, I actually found them to be the most tolerable thing I faced throughout the week — mentally, that is. I knew what to expect every time I walked into that torture chamber, but greeting Tanner in the mornings was another story. I remember thinking yesterday on my way up to breakfast, “If this is my fourth week, what will the rest of them be like? Worse? Better? Insufferable? I did find it highly ironic that the guy I’d wanted all the attention in the world from was giving it to me—and then some—but it wasn’t how I’d pictured. Even that hopeful horizon seemed pretty damn bleak. My eyes were still seeing stars all right, just too many of the wrong kind.

  Conversations with Katie helped (when she was available). However I never let on how down in the dumps I was. She seemed happier than she had been in months, but I knew how much she truly missed her parents. I couldn’t risk a crappy sob-story dredging up any of her own wounds. My constant guilt over the amethyst was enough to deal with. I didn’t need that weighing on my heart too.

  Desperate for more “normal” distractions, I tried reaching out to a few more people. Naomi and I were still playing a never-ending game of phone tag, so the only comfort I got there was listening to her messages. I did get to chat with Samuel a couple of times, though I didn’t breathe a word about my swiftly decaying soul to him either. He was back working at the mine again, but only part-time. The rest of his days were being spent wade-fishing over at Hinton Dam. At least someone was getting a little fun and recreation out of their summer. The calls I’d made to Charlotte went straight to voicemail and the texts I’d sent Chloe went unanswered as well, which drove me straight to cyber stalking them one afternoon.

  Silas had no sooner left the room after my Latin lesson when I logged on to my Facebook. I was surprised cobwebs didn’t pop up on the screen I hadn’t used it in so long. Fortunately the terrible-twosome hadn’t unfriended me yet, probably because they knew I hardly ever checked my account anymore. From what I’d gathered, Chloe was dating someone named, Shane Michaels, a junior from Big Creek and Charlotte seemed to be flirting with the entire world (as usual). They had just returned home from a week at Myrtle Beach. I saw a picture they’d posted that featured the perfect mother-daughter pair all Coppertone tanned and lounging in the sand, smiling like they didn’t have a care in the word. I couldn’t remember what that was like. The closest I’d come to “catching any surf” was when Lorelei had smacked me with that wave and “relaxing breaks” were limited to my nightly trips to Snoozeville, that is, when the diamond wasn’t screwing with my sleep. I had to quickly remind myself that even if I were back home, they wouldn’t have invited me on their vacation anyway. So unfortunately instead of cheering me up, that realization ended up ticking me off even more.

  Then my curiosity sent my fingers clicking in the direction of a few of my former classmates. Mike and his mother were traveling throughout Europe for the next month. They were in Paris right now, headed for Italy in the morning, and then onto Greece sometime next week. As much 411 as what he’d posted about their schedule, surely his mother would rip him a new asshole if their house were to get robbed while they were gone. Idiot. I checked on Kara next. With Mike out of the country, I figured she was probably pining away and feeling just as glum. I couldn’t have been more off-base on that one. Kara was at West Virginia University attending a summer cheerleading camp, hoping to earn a spot on their squad. Bless her heart. She’d even uploaded a snapshot of her college acceptance letter as proof. I posted my congratulations on her timeline. She immediately shot me back an invitation to visit her in Morgantown for some encouragement. I knew what she was really wanting — for me to “encourage” the selection committee with a few little covert recommendations. Bless her little scheming heart twice on that one. Of course I was a little envious. I wished all it took to earn a few hallowed stripes around here were backflips, endless rounds of spirited claps, and successfully mounting the top of a pyramid. I’d cartwheel a path straight through Monster Manor if a hearty dose of “pep” was all it took to paint at least one of them on my daggone arm.

  Then I moved on to my next target — Ty. He was spending his summer in Welch, working as a lifeguard at the Linkous Park pool. Scrolling through his pictures left me a little stunned. Every single one of them had been tagged with something about “Harvard”. Now there was one Southerner ready to jump the Mason-Dixon line itching to switch sides. I happened to glance at his list of friends when an oddly out-of-place name popped out at me — Elizabeth Connley.

  Seeing Katie’s cousin’s “birth name” parked there under a much older picture was strange enough, but knowing she had another account that listed her as Bethesda—the witch-name she’d assumed when joining her coven—was downright curious as hell. I sent “Elizabeth” a friend request, which was immediately accepted. I was guessing that she’d clicked “yes” without even noticing who’d sent it. I’d mashed the daggone Caps-Lock key so hard I thought I’d cracked it before I got the chance to shoot off my first shouty letter, busting my BFF’s ass. It took her awhile, but she finally messaged me back an “Ooops”. That was it. No “I’m so sorry” whatsoever.

  That was the exact moment I realized how volatile Katie’s impulses truly were. So now I had that whirling in the back of my mind right along with keeping her under wraps, getting her butt into a dorm ASAP, and figuring out how I was going to diffuse the situation with her parents once we did finally get that amethyst back. And I really didn’t want to think about how much witch-crap she’d been dabbling in over at Bethesda’s. Her living arrangements had seemed like the best temporary choice at the time. But what’s done was done. The only thing left now was uncovering how much destruction Hurricane Katie had left in her wake. A carefree weekend visit with my BFF started sounding more and more like damage control. Her head was up her butt for some reason. I only hoped its ejection wasn’t hindered because her ass was straddling a daggone broomstick.

  Bedtime offered me no comfort whatsoever. The diamond had guided my dreams every night this past week and in each of the visions I watched the masterful Adamas annihilating beast after savage beast. And since my only job was to sit like a spectator on the sidelines, I finally figured out why it was dragging me off to The Darklands. The diamond wanted me to witness in-person how fierce and formidable of an opponent its former-owner was JUST TO RUB IT IN MY FACE. Adamas was everything I wasn’t. Highly intelligent… Strong and powerful… Cunning and resou
rceful… The contrast of our abilities couldn’t be more evident. My stone was utterly disappointed in me. At least that’s how I felt. I served no purpose there other than an observer. All I was missing was one of those obnoxious foam #1 fingers to wave. I wasn’t physically fighting anything. Nothing had grabbed or even grazed me since that hooded-figure Saturday night. I’m sure maybe somewhere down the road I might run into some of these creatures, but they weren’t the ones I needed help with down in the dungeon. As low as I felt about my skills right now, seeing him kicking all that butt so effortlessly made me feel even worse — possibly even a little jealous as well. And yes, there may have been more than just one instance where I found myself sitting all puckered up with the sound of Jan Brady’s voice huffing his name in my head three times. After all, I was still part-human.

  Another wicked bolt streaked through the clouds above, ripping me from my thoughts and commanding my eyes like a spotlight. The turbulent flare mirrored the char of confusion and frustration I felt scorching my insides to a crisp. And aside from all of my obvious failures, I knew a good bit of its fire had been tendered courtesy of the Amethyst Talisman himself — in particular, his whole out of the blue and bizarre behavior. It was almost like an invisible countdown-clock had been hanging over his head all week, pressing him for better results and pushing me harder with each and every tick. I knew my time was limited and we still had a lot to cover on top of banishing the monsters, but I was starting to feel extremely overwhelmed. Surely something other than time had to be fueling the heat of his hurry. The possibility of that ringing true really sent me into fret-mode, which did nothing but make it harder for me to focus on my lessons and screwed with my physical efforts that much more. Working under pressure was one thing, but feeling like someone was standing there with a flamethrower ready to roast my rear was quite another story. He’d been the epitome of patient the first few weeks, so something had to have brought about this change. I had to know, so I finally just flat-out asked him. My cool & collected mentor assured that he was strictly keeping to a tight schedule and vowed he wasn’t keeping a thing from me. He sounded convincing enough, but his explanation didn’t stop my bullshit-bells from going off all around. I still remembered the volume of their loud, disbelieving “dings”. They could have easily drowned out a swarm of bell ringing Salvation Army volunteers in December they were so fervent and loud. Something was definitely up.

  Questioning Tanner’s motives inadvertently kicked up something else — more of his secretive-side. He was still sneaking off every night, but his time downstairs lasted much longer than it had before. The little alarm in my head went off every time he left and every time he returned. I remembered one occasion where he’d stayed down there all night but looked suspiciously well rested in the morning. The not knowing what he was doing or if there was someone he was off doing whatever with was nagging enough, but hearing that damn bell go off in my head was about to snap my last straw. I vowed I would never spell an alarm as irritating as that one again — at least not until I learned how to unspell it first!

  Then there were quite a few occasions where his behavior had me scratching more than my head and every last one of them revolved around a GEMSTONE — of all things! The level of tourmalines kept dwindling day by day, without any experiments to account for their disappearance. I finally summoned the nerve to make a random comment about their depleting numbers only for him to look me square in the eye and suavely say, “I think you’re mistaken”. I stared at him like he had two heads, mouth cracked and eyes bugging. I knew one of them was lying. The drop in that jar was so obvious that I’d taken a ruler to them for the past several days. Those stones were down a full FOUR INCHES! Really? My gut urged me to leave that one well enough alone. I’d regrettably told enough fibs to know that the probability of hearing an ear-tickling reason sliding off his tongue was slim to none — but it still bugged the crap out of me.

  And I couldn’t forget his guarded handling of those three royal-blue sapphires. Out of all the numerous times he’d pulled one out of their locked case (and there were plenty), HE NEVER LET ME PHYSICALLY HOLD ONE. Not one single, solitary, itty-bitty, freaking-time. Yes, they were rare. I got that. But their scarcity didn’t justify not letting me at least touch the daggone things like an all-thumbs toddler. How careless or clumsy did he think I was? If anyone was being heedless to their “irreplaceable status” it was HIM — not me. He was the one playfully tossing them in the air like a kid with a fox-like grin stretching from ear-to-ear. I kept waiting for him to drop one. Part of me was pulling for it, hoping it would accidently teleport his butt somewhere far away so I could score a decent study-break other than my nightly-allotted Z’s.

  My fingers had blisters they were crossed so tightly on that one.

  And then just this morning, I witnessed yet another one of his peculiar performances. This time it was during my stone lessons in the totem room. We were about to start on the M’s when it suddenly dawned on me that he’d missed one of the L’s — the larimar. I turned back to the beginning of the section and combed through each page carefully. I found myself staring at the M’s again without finding the first entry chronicling the mystical lagoon-blue stone. There had to be something about it. It existed. Tanner had one.

  I gave my finger a purposeful lick. Maybe the pages are stuck together?

  Tanner noticed me flipping through the volume. “Do you have a question?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “The larimar . . . There’s nothing about it in here.”

  He remained oddly quiet, simply locking his arms at his waist.

  I started back at the labradorite and then slowly began turning each of the parchment pages. I even noted all the stone entries with conscientious finger-points until I had arrived at the section-ending lyonsite again.

  I handed him the book and threw him a firm nod. “See for yourself,” I urged. Tanner leafed through the pages rather quickly. Any faster and I would swear he was shuffling a deck of cards.

  “Hmmm,” he mumbled. “That’s strange.”

  His response struck me as passively indifferent, especially knowing how indispensible and comprehensive he’d deemed all these journals to be.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It is.”

  “I’ll go downstairs and see if I can find it,” he said, sounding as hurried as his turn.

  “That’s okay,” I assured, white-smile blazing. “Why do I need a written entry when I have you?”

  The walking encyclopedia’s feet came to a swift halt. “You’re absolutely right.” He turned around and headed up the line of stones. “What would you like to know?”

  Brow arched, I hopped up and prepared my barrage of questions. “Is it actively claimed?”

  He pointed to its glowing totem. “Yes. The original Talisman still holds the stone.”

  “What’s their name?” I asked.

  Tanner paused for a moment. “Arabella.”

  I eyed the bewitching misty blue-green hues dancing fluidly within the totem. The Talisman’s name sounded as charming as his hesitation was puzzling. Without a doubt, that poor little kitty had spent its ninth-life.

  “Female?” I posed as innocently as I could. Oh, I already knew.

  His gaze stiffened. “Yes.”

  I continued, matching his tone with the same amount of clip. “What element?”

  “Water,” he answered.

  Suddenly I got the impression that my innocent inquiry was turning into a lightning-round on a game show. Short answers aside, the rigid lock on his frame alone made him look like an announcer shading his stack of answer cards.

  “What can a larimar do?”

  My mentor’s next suspect pause was uncomfortably pensive. I truly loved when a person had an evident tell, and that tiny artery pulsing on his neck was like a treasure chest spilling gold doubloons.

  “Well, physically it attunes the senses,” he finally revealed. “It sharpens a person’s sight, though it can’t restore blindness
… Heightens hearing, except for those who are deaf… Enhances your taste buds… Magnifies the nose’s sense of smell… And it intensifies tactile sensations. Basically everything you absorb feels a hundred times stronger.”

  “Oh,” I muttered. My head tipped towards the floor, weighted from my whirling thoughts. I’d kind of expected something more jaw-dropping, but I supposed augmenting your senses under the right circumstances could offer an animalistic advantage when dealing with an enemy. Possibly? I just couldn’t see Tanner relying on something like that. His skills were naturally tight.