Submerge (The Bound Ones Book 2)

by Tricia Barr

  “I have done the best I can,” Willow said. “Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about the scars. My powers only quicken the healing of wounds, they cannot undo them. I’m sorry.”

  Heather nodded. “I am simply grateful that you could take away my pain. Thank you.” Then she reached for a gown to pull over her head. She wished she had something to cover her face with as well, simply because she didn’t want her appearance to distract Willow from what she had to say.

  “Your healing powers,” Heather began, “are they the only powers you are aware that you possess?”

  Willow looked bewildered.

  “Are you skilled at gardening or farming?” Heather continued. “Have you ever noticed that you can control the growth of plants?”

  Willow gasped with shock. “How did know? I have never shown nor told a living soul.”

  “I have something to tell you about yourself, and it may be difficult to believe but you must trust me. You and I are not witches as the people of Salem would have you believe. Our powers are not magical in nature, rather they are nature itself. We are two of the four elements, imprisoned in living bodies by an ancient race of people. I am Fire.”

  In demonstration, she held out her open hand and ignited a small flame to burn in her palm. Willow jumped in her seat and Heather extinguished the flame.

  “And you are Earth. That is why you can heal people and animals, and why you can make plants grow and blossom at your whim.”

  Willow sat there, listening intently as Heather told her everything about her history, how they are doomed to be reborn again and again, and how she had spent her entire existence searching for the pieces of the stone that would put an end to all that plagued them.

  “It just so happens that the very stone I have been searching for is hanging around your neck. How did you come by it?”

  Willow looked down at the jewel dangling on her necklace, wearing the dazed and wan expression of one who’d been through a weighty ordeal and was struggling to process it.

  “My mother gave it to me,” she replied torpidly. “It’s been in my family for generations. I suppose its passing will end with me. I do not foresee children in my future.” She unclasped the chain and held the necklace, gazing blankly at it for a long moment, then she handed it to Heather.

  “You would surrender your precious heirloom to me so easily?” Heather said, oddly hesitant to accept it.

  “I believe everything you’ve told me,” Willow said. “It explains a lot of mysteries in my life. And if it is true, then what value is a family heirloom from a family that I will not know in my next life or any other following. Besides, as I have said, I have no children and no prospects of finding a husband any time soon. This stone would be buried with me if I did not give it to you, and it does no one any good in the ground.”

  Heather finally took hold of it, feeling a flutter of triumph rush through her. After millennia of aimless hunting for stone fragments, she had stumbled into one by pure happenstance. She had been nearly burned alive only for the flames that were meant to kill her to wake her up instead, and the girl sentenced to death alongside her was of her very own ilk and in possession of a stone fragment. It was all such a perfect accident. Fate works in mysterious ways.

  “Thank you so much for trusting me,” Heather said. “Would you be willing to help me hide it? We need to put it in a secure place that only we could ever have access to.”

  Willow’s face blossomed with excitement. “I would be honored to help you.”

  Phoenyx awoke from her memory and snapped back to the present, where she was still sitting across from Ayanna whose hands were on either side of her face.

  “I know where the last stone fragment is!” Phoenyx exclaimed.

  Ayanna came out of her meditation and opened her eyes eagerly. “Where is our next destination?”

  “Littleton, New Hampshire.”

  Ayanna had booked a flight for the four of them the instant Phoenyx told her where they needed to go. Phoenyx was so relieved that she knew where the final stone piece was. For the first time since this whole ordeal began, she felt like they may actually have a shot in hell to restore the dagger and use it to defeat the Four Corners once and for all.

  She understood now why she had been dreaming about burning and seeing Lily’s face. They weren’t images brought about by her fear over Lily’s current state of safety, they were flashes of memory from when they had met in a previous life nearly four hundred years ago. What a fascinating coincidence that it had been Lily who had helped her hide the final stone fragment, Lily, who they were now racing to save. If it weren’t for Lily’s help back then, they wouldn’t have any hope of saving her now.

  Phoenyx found the guys on deck and told them about her memory and their current heading.

  “Wow, I can’t believe you remembered who you were without Ayanna’s help and you met Lily and got her to help you hide the stone,” Sebastian said. “Aside from this current life, I had never encountered any of the four of us but you.”

  “I didn’t think I had either,” Phoenyx said. “Or rather, I forgot I had met her. I wonder how many times we really have all run into each other and the memories are just…lost.”

  She looked at Skylar, who was now looking out quietly and thoughtfully at the ocean. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw his jaw flex for a moment.

  “Well, at any rate, I’m so happy we know where we’re going next,” Sebastian said. “And Ayanna already booked our flight? That woman is efficient.”

  Phoenyx nodded.

  “I feel like we can finally relax a little bit,” Sebastian said. “Which is good because I am exhausted. Join me in bed?”

  “In a minute,” she said. “I think I need some fresh air after reliving that memory.”

  He smiled and planted a soft kiss on her cheek before retiring to the inside of the boat, leaving Phoenyx and Skylar alone against the rail on deck. The truth was, she wanted to talk to Skylar in private. He had been acting strange since Ayanna brought their memories back. He had been keeping himself at a distance, and she wanted to know why. Before she had come along, Skylar and Sebastian had been inseparable, closer than brothers. Heck, even after she had come along, they had still been joined at the hip. For him to suddenly be so detached was unnatural, and she felt she had to fix it. It couldn’t wait until after they were safe, because there still was no guarantee that they would survive to next week.

  “Skylar, is everything alright?” she asked. “I know that’s a stupid question, seeing as we’ve spent the last three days racing for our lives, and we only just escaped being slaughtered by a horde of bloodthirsty mermaids. But, I mean, is there something going on outside of the life-or-death situation? You’ve been so distant through this whole thing and it’s not like you.”

  Skylar was leaning up against the railing facing the ocean. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  “I knew you were going to bring it up sooner or later,” he said. “Sebastian wanted to ask about it earlier but decided to keep it to himself.”

  He shuffled his feet, looking the most vulnerable she had ever seen him.

  “To be honest,” he said, “I’m…jealous.”

  “Jealous?” she asked, completely perplexed. “Jealous of what?”

  He sighed again. “Of your history with Sebastian.”

  She cocked her head and squinted thoughtfully at him. Jealous?

  “It’s different for me than it is for the two of you, to have my memories back,” he said. “For both of you, this life is just another link in a continuous chain. But for me, it’s a punctuated incident in a mess of confusion. This life is all I know, and I have always felt so lucky to have Sebastian as my best friend, as my partner through it all. Now that I can remember every other life I’ve lived and know that I have spent every single one of them alone without ever having run into him, our relationship seems so small, so fleeting.

  “The two of you are destined to run into each other
life after life, for whatever reason. Even in lives you don’t find each other, you get to see each other in your dreams. You keep that sense of the other being linked to you all the time. I don’t have anything like that. In all the lives I can remember, I have never once met you or Sebastian or Lily. I have lived every life feeling alone and ostracized. The pain of that kind of seclusion, knowing that that is my ultimate fate, is really hard to deal with.”

  The whole time he was talking, he didn’t look at her, almost as if he was ashamed for feeling this way. He had the right to feel that way. She could understand how her relationship with Sebastian must look to an outsider, especially to one with their same curse of reincarnation. It was odd that she and Sebastian were so fated to find each other when the other two elements didn’t share that fate. She didn’t understand why, but the bond she had with Sebastian surpassed the magic that bound the four of them to human bodies, and yet it had become laced into the rules of the spell. She could see how poor, isolated Skylar could feel jealous of that.

  “Skylar, being alone is not your ultimate fate,” Phoenyx said. “I don’t know why it is that Sebastian and I are connected the way that we are while you and Lily stand apart. But once we get all the pieces of the stone and use that dagger, none of us will ever have to be alone again. I think that it’s actually quite lucky that you and Sebastian didn’t meet until this life, because this is the life that counts. The two of you got to develop a bond I’ve never seen him have with another man, and if we survive this, that bond will last forever. You’re not alone anymore, Skylar.”

  At that, she wrapped him in a hug. After what seemed a very long moment, he put his arms around her as well.

  “We have spent too long being governed by fate,” she said, her chin on his shoulder. “From now on, we control our own destiny, and I say that you are destined to be stuck with us for eternity.”

  He laughed and joked, “Oh great, what did I get myself into.”

  She laughed and released him from her embrace.

  “So, you said that you and previous Lily made a hiding place together for the stone,” Skylar said, changing the subject. “And that this was in the seventeen hundreds. What exactly is this hiding place?”

  “It’s a cave,” Phoenyx said, picturing it all in her mind. “Lily and I spent years honing in on her powers and learning their limits while trying to find the right location to construct this hiding place. We decided from the start that a cave would be best, but it would be a cave that we designed with obstacles that only we would know how to get around.”

  “Wait a minute. You two designed a cave?” Skylar asked, dumbfounded. “Are you trying to tell me that you terraformed using only Lily’s Earth powers?”

  “Yea, I guess that would be a good word for it,” Phoenyx replied. “Her powers really are incredible. We all view Lily as this fragile little flower that needs protecting, but when she knows how to use her powers, she’s the most dangerous and powerful one of us all.”

  “That’s amazing,” Skylar said, still flabbergast-

  -ted. “I can’t wait to see your creation.”

  “If I can find it,” Phoenyx interjected. “The world has changed so much since then, and with the population spreading so much and forests being cleared for logging, I just don’t know if our cave will be easy to find. I’m going to get on the internet right now and search Google Maps to make sure I’m not leading us on a wild goose chase tomorrow.”

  “That’s a good idea,” he said. “And I’d really better get some sleep. Narrowly escaping an army of mermaids only a day after single-handedly telepathically landing a small jet during a thunderstorm has me completely exhausted.”

  She smiled at him, appreciating that he could so easily make light of their recent near-death experiences.

  She bid him good night and then went to the rec room to get on a computer, of which there were plenty on this boat. She spent about two hours thoroughly scanning Google Maps for any hints of her lost cave. She found that the area where the cave was located had been sectioned as part of the White Mountain National Forest, so the likelihood of it having been found or even disturbed was slim. Finally, she located the entrance, or at least what she was fairly certain was the entrance from the overhead view, and it was about a three hour hike into the forest, but they might be able to cover most of that distance by car.

  Once she was fairly confident in her ability to locate the cave based on the map, she turned off the computer and headed to her room for a well-deserved sleep.

  As she was walking down the hall toward her and Sebastian’s room, she heard two familiar voices in conversation—Ayanna and Ralph, the pilot. She hadn’t really thought at all about Ralph today, they had all been so busy preparing for the dive and then fleeing from mermaids. She wondered what was going to become of him once they got to shore. He was Ayanna’s pilot and his primary form of transportation was rusting at the bottom of the Caribbean. Phoenyx assumed Ayanna would have him file some sort of report that the plane had crashed and he’d go off and do whatever pilots do when they’re not flying.

  She was going to just pass the room and go to bed but Ralph’s words made her stop. She stood with her back up against the wall before the open doorway to listen.

  “I’ll take care of everything with the insurance company, not to worry,” he said, confirming Phoenyx’s assumption. Then he took a subject-turning breath and said, “So, what did you find on your dive?”

  “Oh, unfortunately nothing but jagged rocks, hence the scratches,” Ayanna lied, and Phoenyx could hear fabric moving, making her picture Ayanna rolling her sleeve down to cover a band-aided arm.

  “What is it exactly you and your…students are looking for?” Ralph asked. “First Egypt, then the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida, and now you’re headed off to New Hampshire? I know you’re an archaeology professor, but I just can’t imagine what those three places could have in common historically.”

  “Actually I’m just chasing after a theory,” Ayanna said. “Something I’ve been studying for years and I’m just trying to prove it. Sorry to be so evasive, but if you want to hear the story you’ll have to wait for the publication. That is, if I ever find what I’m looking for.” She gave a self-indulgent laugh, and Phoenyx nodded in silent awe for how skilled Ayanna was at lying professionally.

  “Ah, that’s too bad,” Ralph sighed. “Now I’m going to be miserable with curiosity. You let me know when that publication comes out.”

  “Of course,” Ayanna said congenially.

  Phoenyx heard Ralph stand up off the chair and take a step towards the door. Then he halted.

  “That sure is a strange bunch of students you have with you,” he commented.

  Phoenyx knew that Ralph suspected something about the group of them; how could he not after witnessing that episode with Skylar keeping the plane from nose diving into the sea? Phoenyx stood with baited breath to hear where he was going with this.

  “Yes, well, I do the best I can with the academic stock at my disposal,” Ayanna replied flippantly, making it seem as though she took his comment as an insult to the three of them rather than a suspicion.

  He just laughed half-heartedly, and then said, “Alright, have a good night, and I’ll get with the insurance company as soon as we dock.”

  “Thanks, Ralph. Sleep well.”

  As soon as Phoenyx heard Ralph approach the doorway, she scurried to her room, making sure she wasn’t seen.

  Sebastian was already asleep. Seeing him so adorably tucked into bed made her long to be back in their dorm room with only classes and homework and essays to worry about. She just had to make it through the next three days. She slid into bed beside him and closed her eyes.

  She had a strange feeling about Ralph. Yes, he had seen them do strange things, enough to make anyone suspicious, but the way he was so quiet about it... Or perhaps that was just his way of being polite, minding his own business. Not that it mattered. We will part ways tomorrow morning and
he will be left with his curiosity, as he said. And they would be on their way to the cave where the last stone fragment was waiting for them. Just one more piece to gather, and they might have a chance at saving Lily. If they could get the dagger from the Four Corners before the Four Corners killed all of them. Here’s hoping.

  The boat docked in Miami just before dawn, and Phoenyx, Ayanna, Sebastian and Skylar wasted no time in getting off the boat and into a cab to the airport, but only after thanking the research team for their massive generosity. Phoenyx was truly grateful for their help. She couldn’t imagine where the four of them would be now if the team hadn’t come along to rescue them. We’d probably still be stranded in the middle of the Caribbean.

  Their flight was scheduled for 7:00 AM, and they made it to the airport and through security with thirty minutes to spare. The flight was to a town called Lebanon, an hour southwest of Littleton seeing as Littleton didn’t have its own airport. After consulting Google Maps, she found that this was advantageous because the White Mountain Forest was in between Lebanon and Littleton, and they would be able to drive quite close to their destination without ever having to enter Littleton.

  It would be a two hour flight, which seemed like a huge chunk of time to Phoenyx considering that their time was ticking away. Every minute seemed too precious. And she was really getting sick of flying, especially after the last plane she was in crashed into the sea. But she knew that her distaste for flying would have to be borne, because there were still plenty of plane trips in her immediate future, granted that things went as planned today.

  They were among the first to board the plane and their seats were all the way in the back, a fact that she frowned at knowing it would mean they would be the last to get off the plane when it landed. And, of course, they had to be seated right next to a family with loud children. This was going to be a long two hours.