Oculus

by S. E. Akers

  I sat there staring at the key cover, waiting for it to slam like the snap of a mousetrap. Oh he’d caught me all right, except his lure wasn’t cheese.

  I exhaled a breath. “I know what you’re doing.”

  Tanner kept on strategically pressing keys, never pausing to confirm a thing. Every time one of the hammers struck, it ended up hitting my strings. He wasn’t giving up on his latest memory-pulling attempt, and I finally conceded — partly because I found his craftiness amusing, but mostly because I wanted to finally achieve something monumental. Plus, I would probably jump through a ring of diamond-dusted iron barbs just to ensure things were right as rain between us.

  My mentor stopped playing as soon as I laid my right thumb on middle C and then turned to me with the smoothest of glides. Whether it was the passion fueling his hover or the way his breaths tickled my lobes when he leaned closer, I felt something in that moment seeking to dip into my soul.

  “I want you to shut everything out of your head and only listen to my voice,” Tanner rustled. “Don’t think about any monsters, or weapons, or lessons . . . Your mind needs to be completely open, Shiloh. You’re exactly where you are meant to be . . . where fate has intended. Every attempt you make is merely a lesson to guide you. Every second is a chance for you to experience and feel more. I know you miss her. I do too. But you’re so fortunate. You can see her anytime you like. You can feel what she felt and know all the private thoughts she carried throughout her life. All you need is to drop that guard you’ve placed around your heart and let your mind take control. It will guide you to what you seek. Let your desire take you there. It’s been waiting for you. It always has been. All you need is an unclouded starting point.”

  I eyed the keys nervously, just like I was staring at Padimae’s deck of tarot cards — unsure of which to choose but hopeful that some force would serve as my guide. The tip of my finger hovered over one of the white bars for a moment. With a leap of faith, my finger yielded a single fall, pressing down all on its own. The note’s high pitch vibrated the air, but most assuredly, it ignited something hidden deep inside me. The longer the building feeling burned, the more I felt Beatrix’s essence growing. But it wasn’t like when I called upon her former stone. This sensation was unmistakably pure. The softness of her hands… The scent of lavender that lingered behind her steps… The warmth from the rosy glow her aura radiated day and night… It was an unobstructed connection with her soul, like she was right here and well aware of what lay at my fingertips. Cautiously my fingers worked their way onto a few more notes and then wandered towards several more. Before I knew it, they had rolled into a steady trilling melody. I quivered a smile when I ascended the familiar scale that I knew led straight into the song I’d heard whispering through her walls time and time again.

  My tempo gradually increased, guided by the clearer images of Bea’s precise hand movements. However that was the only visual my mind conjured. All I sensed were her emotions, but every one of them revolved around love. The passionate feelings intensified the further I traveled into the song. Tender. Confident. Everlasting. I’d never been so swept away by a sensation more powerful in my life. Now I completely understood why she’d played this melody over and over. The feeling the song elicited was inescapably intoxicating.

  I was approaching its end when from out of nowhere the face of a striking male emerged. His skin was the hue of melted caramels, and his dark brown hair gleamed like spun silk under the brightest of lights. The color of the man’s eyes remained a mystery, shrouded by the close of his lids as he slept. Suddenly my heart soared into a wild flutter when I realized who the man was. It was Ganhji lying on the ground, Beatrix’s love. An empty ache ripped through my chest abruptly, slicing a cold and wretched path. Then a harrowing memory thrashed in my head. I was unable to pull away from it until a painful realization had struck, hitting me like a knife piercing my own heart. He wasn’t asleep. He was dead.

  A tear shot down my cheek as I pressed my feet against the pedals. Although the haunting melody had come to the humming lull of its last note, I was using the sustaining levers as a brace, not unlike any other passenger would thinking they had control of the driver’s wheel and pretending to slam an imaginary brake. All of Beatrix’s most fervent emotions and memories had engulfed me all at once. Love… Fear… Grief… Hate… I actually had a vivid flash of the exact moment when Helaine had taken her sight and then emotional snippets of the long months of torture that followed at her sister’s heinous hands. The darkness imprisoning her made every unforeseen blow to her flesh all the more horrifying. I pulled away from the foot pedals in a flinch after witnessing the lashes she’d inflicted with her scourge, almost as if it was tearing into my own back right now.

  Tanner placed his hand on my shoulder. “Shiloh?”

  I looked down at my hands. My knuckles were almost as white as the keys. I lifted my head as I placed them on my lap. “I saw Ganhji,” I muttered dazedly, “but he was . . . dead.”

  “What you conjured was the only time Beatrix ever saw the man she loved,” he revealed. “The first and the last.”

  Confusion snapped me to my senses. I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “Helaine was always jealous of Beatrix,” Tanner began somberly. “She knew The Guardians were about to bestow Beatrix her stone. Helaine couldn’t stand the thought of her sharing in any of The Veil’s glory, so she robbed Beatrix of her sight and then locked her away in a tomb. She warded it so The Guardians wouldn’t find out where Beatrix was. Helaine was Ganhji’s mentor. Somehow she tricked him into believing that Beatrix was a demon and . . . ” His words halted as a flash of anger struck his eyes. “Helaine had him torture Beatrix every day . . . in various ways.”

  My hand flew up to my mouth as I looked away, knowing I’d felt precisely how hellish her sister’s wrath had been.

  “But,” Tanner continued, “Helaine didn’t count on Ganhji falling in love with Beatrix. As soon as he discovered she wasn’t a demon and why Helaine had him do such unspeakable acts, he took Beatrix away and hid her out of sight. He promised to return for her the next day — once he had killed Helaine. It wasn’t long after he’d left her there that Erion finally found Beatrix hiding in the cave. She claimed her golden topaz and then left with him immediately. Erion tried to restore her vision, but just like The Veil wouldn’t let Nerina reverse Arica and Lorelei’s bargain, it wouldn’t afford him the power to change a thing. So naturally he called out to Helaine. But she refused to give back her sight, despite his wishes and Beatrix’s newly-granted powers. Erion was furious and sent Solomon after Helaine.” Tanner lowered his head, staring at the piano keys intensely. “Now knowing about Helaine and Solomon’s relationship, I have no doubt that he had a hand in Ganhji taking his life,” he surmised. “No one knows what happened in that cave. No one’s been able to know until now.”

  I stared into Tanner’s eyes. I knew what he wanted to know…and I wanted to know it too.

  With a focused hush, I called out to the lapis lazuli. This was the first time I’d done it so fearlessly, now given a new mystical doorbell to push that wasn’t connected to Lazarus. The tingly vibe turned ice-cold when a chill coursed through my body. It wasn’t but a few seconds after I’d felt Ganhji’s essence that the pieces of the puzzle began locking into place, united through his eyes. He had arrived at the cave to find his love missing. A wave of uncontrollable panic rushed through me, feeling the extreme worst of his fears. Suddenly a man entered the cave and walked a commanding path towards him. The stranger’s presence exuded a profound degree of boldness, almost to an obscene point of arrogance. The inky hue drenching his shoulder-length locks rivaled the feathers of a crow and the way his royal blue eyes honed their stare could have hammered even the bravest of souls with horrors so unfathomable they would fall to their knees crippled like frightened children. I knew it was Solomon from Ganhji’s memories, though after remembering how evil Tanner had claimed he was, the reflective visual aid
wasn’t necessary. You could tell by the way his nostrils flared to his cheeks like the stretched wings of a bird that the Sapphire Talisman drank in unneeded breaths strictly to rob others of air for sheer sport. Without a doubt, “black-hearted” and “vain” fit him just fine.

  Solomon told Ganhji that he was too late, that Helaine had found Beatrix hiding there, and she’d killed her. Ganhji didn’t have a single reason to doubt such a trusted member of The Guild. He didn’t know that Helaine was in cahoots with him because they had kept their relationship a secret. The guilt and regret raging from Ganhji felt like serrated razor blades circling his soul like a shark, carving their jagged teeth deeper with every turn. He eventually took out his blade and stabbed himself in the heart, right in front of Solomon, for all the pain he’d inflicted on his love. He couldn’t go on without her here on earth, and all his heart longed for was to be reunited with hers across The Veil…for eternity.

  I repeated everything I’d seen to Tanner once Ganhji’s heartbeat had dwindled away. The emptiness that consumed me after experiencing his death was just as tragic as the actual deception he’d fallen victim too.

  I didn’t want to reconnect with Bea’s essence, not until all the chafe of Ganhji’s emotions had left me. “What happened next?” I murmured.

  “Erion discovered Ganhji’s lifeless body when they returned to the cave,” Tanner continued. “He guided Beatrix over to her fallen love’s corpse and then she remained there, lying on the ground and crying for him long after Erion had gone. She refused to leave. She couldn’t. That’s how her golden topaz came about granting her that third-eye,” he revealed. “Beatrix couldn’t fathom not ever seeing Ganhji’s face. She actually willed it to appear, with the help of her stone . . . Her love for him was just that strong. Only the fiercest desire has the ability to create something as powerful as that.” Tanner placed his hand over mine tenderly. “Proof enough that you can manifest miracles when it comes to anything your mind seeks to achieve . . . Your heart simply has to want it bad enough.”

  My stare drifted down to the cold black bars scoring the white keys. “I should have killed Helaine the other day. Drawn my blade and drove it straight into her chest on sight.” And I meant it this time, wholeheartedly.

  Tanner remained quiet, though I knew he had to be pleased — literally music to his ears. His strategy to help me tap into Beatrix’s memories had proved to be a success and as a bonus, he didn’t have to worry about me wimping out from any guilt down the road when it came to Helaine. I wanted her dead. I did. I’d never experienced a person so twisted and relentlessly brutal. Between my emotions, Beatrix’s, and now Ganhji’s, that heartless bitch was going down the next time I laid eyes on her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what Helaine had done to her the other day?”

  “Because you needed to see it for yourself,” he insisted. “You needed to feel what Beatrix felt.”

  “Oh, I did,” I grimaced. I was so angry right now I couldn’t turn off any emotions — no matter where they were coming from.

  “How do you do it?” I sighed. “You feel every ounce of someone else’s pain all the time. It’s not like feeling your own. The emotions are more raw and uncontrollable.” My brow furrowed. “How do you stand it?”

  “Pain is just one emotion, Shiloh . . . There are plenty of others. Some that feel better and some that are even worse,” he insisted. “But it’s different for me. I can filter them out. You can’t. You have to experience them every time you pull a memory, all the happiness along with all the heartache.”

  “I thought the cosmos had strapped enough troubles on my back,” I said, giving my eyes a bitter roll. “It seems I’ve increased my load.”

  “Regarding anything in particular?” Tanner inquired cautiously. “Aside from your training?”

  The exactness of his tone was more than a hint. My shoulders caved and then a surrendering sigh shot my stare up to the coffered ceiling. “I’ve been having bad dreams,” I muttered, “The diamond kind.” I leveled my gaze to his. “But you already know that.”

  Tanner nodded. “Where is it taking you?”

  “To The Darklands,” I sighed.

  “I can’t say I’m not surprised,” he stated, unsmiling. “The Guardians sent Adamas there to learn how to fight these creatures. He didn’t have a dungeon to train in. It was either here within this realm or across The Veil and into The Darklands.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered, “but he didn’t need any layria bark for any of his battles.”

  “No. All he had were his powers and his sword — the same as you,” he reminded.

  My gaze drifted back up to the ceiling, despite the weighty burden of my thoughts. Now I really felt inferior, knowing I had a heck of a lot more stones in my arsenal and still hadn’t banished a damn one of them.

  “Are the tourmalines working?” he questioned.

  “Yes,” I replied. “And thank you, by the way.”

  “I won’t pretend I’m not relieved that this is out in the open — finally,” he confessed. “You didn’t put near as many on as you needed from the beginning.”

  My eyes narrowed. “How long have you known?”

  “Since you fell asleep during my Godfather marathon,” he admitted. “I noticed the dreamcatcher when I tucked you in bed.”

  I sat there shaking my head.

  “The claws were a nice touch,” he added with a grin.

  “I can’t believe you never said a word,” I remarked aloud. That was even more stunning than Silas not running his mouth.

  “And you said I have issues with control,” he bragged. “I figured you would tell me when the time was right.”

  My mouth cracked open. “You loaded the web with over twenty black tourmalines,” I argued. “Whether the time was right or not, it was coming out. I wouldn’t call that self-control.”

  “We all have reasons that prompt our actions,” he assured. “Ones that are highly justified during dire times. I think that’s something we can both agree on.”

  His remark made me revisit the diamonds. “But your good intentions never leave potholes the size of craters on your road,” I assessed dryly and then straightened my back. “How can you possibly trust me?” I posed. “Selling those diamonds? Not telling you about the diamond’s visions? The chimera? The faeries? I can keep going if you’d like, but I think that’s more than enough evidence for a conviction.”

  Tanner stared at me, puzzled. “You think I’ve lost all my trust in you?”

  “Yes,” I confessed, nodding briskly, “ . . . and any faith in my abilities. I can’t read your mind or sense what you’re really feeling. All I have to go on are your words.”

  “You don’t think I’m being truthful?” he questioned, with a laugh-like gasp. “You?”

  I deserved that one. “I think you’re shooting for encouraging and kind in light of all the disasters I’ve amassed over the past several weeks,” I countered.

  Tanner tapped his fingers on the edge of the piano. “So what do you suggest, since patience and understanding can’t seem to register past your guilt?”

  “I don’t know,” I defended. “I feel horrible. Horrible people don’t plead guilty to their crimes and then get showered with millions of dollars two seconds later. It doesn’t seem very fitting or fair.”

  My mentor’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “All right,” he said and then rose from the bench. His assertive swagger carried him towards the doorway. “Wait here,” he instructed. The Amethyst Talisman returned a couple of minutes later, holding something behind his back. That didn’t concern me as much as the proud air he was sporting, which went hand-in-hand with his grin.

  Careful what you wish for, I pondered uneasily.

  “I have something for you,” he announced.

  I aimed a glance around his back. “Is it a roll of tin?”

  “No,” Tanner grunted. “Though I see a day coming where you might find yourself tied up in some.”

  I smiled, appreci
ating that he was at least attempting to fuss. “So, what is it?” I asked.

  “It’s actually two things,” Tanner insisted and then cleared a slight lump from his throat. “A punishment fitting for your crimes and something that will serve as indisputable proof of my trust.” He immediately pulled his hand from behind his back and lifted a necklace in the air. Though I’d never seen this particular one before, the familiarity of the stone dangling on its end struck a chord. The ghostly layers forming the crystal were hauntingly indisputable. After all, I’d crossed paths with one just like it once before.

  “Is this a phantom crystal?” I blurted. “Your phantom crystal?” Other than Damiec’s, I’d only seen the empty and clear “unused” one Beatrix had saved for me. But this one held the same flowing core that let me know a piece of his soul was resting safely within the stone’s walls.

  I wasn’t sure if he was impressed that I knew what it was or more curious as to how I did, but something lifted the corners of his lips into a subtle smile. “That’s correct,” Tanner replied. “It’s mine, and I’m entrusting it to you . . . to keep it safe.”

  The meaning of his gesture popped my eyes open in a thoughtful blink. “Why?” I asked. This wasn’t just any ole magical stone. Whoever was in possession of his phantom crystal could manipulate him—right down to every single thought, feeling, and action—all because it held a small piece of his soul. This thing could save his life or end it just as quick.