by Sarah Kleck
Irvin looked at me skeptically. “All right,” he finally answered. “Colin, please tell Ian to bring Ruth Hayman here. And take Gareth with you.”
CHAPTER 2
“Nimue’s heiress,” Ruth repeated, shaking her head. I’d told her everything I knew, much to the displeasure of some members of the Order. Well, almost everything. I’d kept silent about the circumstances of her mother’s death. It just wasn’t the right moment for that. But there were no other secrets—we needed to move forward.
Ruth did not appear too surprised—and this seemed to make some other members of the Order particularly nervous. I’d snorted. What did they expect? I had said no one knew more about Merlin and Nimue than Ruth. And I figured the Order should be grateful for any help, any straw to grasp, to free Jared from Morgana’s clutches. But now that Ruth was here, the High Council was split into two camps: for one faction, initiating an outsider into the secrets Legatum Merlini had closely guarded for centuries bordered on high treason. Judith McHallern and Montgomery Grey had even left the room just before Ruth arrived.
The others, the faction to which Irvin and Enid fortunately belonged—and which now held sway, since Karen had been sidelined—were giving their everything to rescue Jared. Even if that meant spilling a few secrets. Still, I was sure they would never have brought Ruth here had they seen another possibility. They had clearly tried everything.
Gareth, Ian, Colin, and a few others had followed Morgana and Jared while I was unconscious.
“We never had a chance,” Gareth told me, pulling his shirt up to show me a deep wound a damnatus had inflicted below his collarbone. Jared couldn’t bear the thought of his friends suffering injuries for his sake, Gareth told me. So he wiped out his and Morgana’s tracks with a spell to prevent the posse from pursuing them. As much as they tried—and I knew at least Colin well enough to be certain he wasn’t the kind to give up easily—they couldn’t help him. Jared had entered into a magical pact with the dark witch from which there was no escape. Jared knew. We all knew.
It was silent far too long. A mixture of nervousness and embarrassment pervaded the room. When the tension became almost unbearable, Ruth finally said: “Morgana wants to bind Jared’s magic to herself.”
Enid and Irvin nodded.
“Yes, but how? Where is he? Where did she take him?” I burst out. I was on the verge of fury—every moment we sat idle diminished our chances of finding Jared, alive!
Ruth stared into open space. Then her gaze cleared. “Do you still have the book I gave you? About Nimue?”
I hesitated. “The book? Um . . . it was—”
“It’s in Karen’s office,” Irvin interrupted me and nodded to Ian, who immediately left the room.
I looked at Irvin with raised eyebrows. Saying anything would have been superfluous. How stupid was I back then, to believe these fanatics when they told me that, of all my things, the fire in my residence room had destroyed only this one book? Serious doubt overcame me. Was I trusting the right people? But was there a choice?
Ian returned and pressed the thick green book into Ruth’s hand. She licked her index finger and hastily leafed through it.
“Aha. Here it is.” Ruth inhaled deeply, pressed down the page, and began to read:
“The blind heart tormented by longing
Readily walks into darkness so far.
Deprived of its light, deprived of its might,
Only Death watches over the wight.”
“Yes.” My voice sounded far more impatient than I intended. “The Prophecy of the Nymphs of Avalon.”
“There, you’ve got it,” Ruth said calmly, looking at me.
“What? I don’t understand.”
Colin, Enid, Irvin, Gareth, and Ian gave Ruth irritated stares.
“The nymphs know no world outside Avalon,” she explained, as if it were an obvious thing. “For them, it’s the only place that exists.”
“What are you trying to say?” Colin asked. I was relieved I wasn’t the only one who didn’t grasp it.
“Everything the nymphs, well, perceive is linked to Avalon, and that means everything this prophecy speaks of—”
“Happens in Avalon.” I completed the sentence as if in a trance.
“Do you mean to say that Morgana took Jared to Avalon?” Colin burst out in disbelief. He pulled at his hair with both hands. So far he’d held back, but now he seemed close to despair. He seemed beside himself with worry for his friend.
“But of course,” I mumbled. Though my voice was little more than a whisper, all eyes were on me. I stared into space as if under a spell, far away in thought.
Feeling, intuition, magic, or a long-forgotten truth resurfaced—I had no idea where it came from or what it was, but suddenly it all made sense. Suddenly I knew what I had to do.
It wasn’t just a premonition, an idea, or a feeling. No. I knew deep inside me, with unassailable certainty, what I needed to do. Where I had to go. Images coalesced inside my head. Things I’d never sensed before in real life but were still so . . . familiar.
Glades crossed by streams, overgrown clearings, majestic trees, singing birds.
“Where’s the entrance?” I wanted to know.
“Glastonbury Tor,” Irvin and Ruth simultaneously said, staring at me with confused expressions.
“A hill in the midst of the Summerland Meadows, with the ruin of St. Michael’s Tower on its summit,” Irvin continued. “If you wish to believe the old legends, it’s the entrance to Avalon.”
“And how do you get into it?” My voice sounded harsh.
Ruth pressed her lips together. “It’s hard to say with certainty—after all, no one ever made it in. Not even Nimue was able to return to Avalon, if you remember the story I told you.” I remembered only too well. She had lived on as a normal human, taken a husband, and given birth to a daughter named Viviane. My great-great-great—oh, I had no idea how many times great—grandmother!
“But there must be a way,” I shot back. Worry and desperation arose in my chest. My nerves were fraying.
“Well, according to my mother’s notes, if there’s any possibility at all, one can only get there in a mist. During the magical hour between night and day.”
“So at dawn?” Colin deduced from Ruth’s words.
Ruth nodded.
“Then we should leave right away.” I rose.
“I’m going with you,” said Colin, holding his hand out to me.
“That’s very courageous of you, Colin,” Ruth countered, “but I don’t think you’ll make it through the portal.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He sounded deeply offended.
“That’s the catch in this business. I’m certain that if the portal opens, it will only open for Evelyn. No one else.”
“Then I’ll go alone,” I said.
Colin dropped his hand. “And how are you going to do that?” he asked in a huff. “Do you want to take on Morgana and her accursed damnati army all by yourself?”
“Do I have a choice?” Of course I would have loved to have him by my side.
“All alone?” Colin was vacillating between anger and desperation. “That’s crazy!”
“If it works,” Ruth interrupted in a calm tone, “Evelyn will not be alone.”
“What are you trying to say?” Enid asked.
Ruth smiled. “Avalon is Evelyn’s island,” she said, extending her chin in my direction. “Every being at home there will serve her.”
“You mean the nymphs?”
“Yes, the nymphs and all the other creatures who live in Avalon.”
I swallowed. What was waiting for me there? Provided I even made it through the portal . . . “You mean the nymphs will fight for me?” It came out sounding like a stupid question.
“Fight?” Ruth reflected for a moment. “No, I wouldn’t think so. The literature describes nymphs as thoroughly peaceful creatures. Fighting isn’t in their nature. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be helpful in other ways.”
Ruth herself didn’t quite seem to know what she meant by that. There was silence for a moment while everyone stared at me as if they were weighing whether I was up to the task. To be honest, I wasn’t sure myself.
“Good,” Enid said and got up. Though she didn’t appear totally convinced, the urge to do something had taken hold of her. We had to do something, after all.
“Colin, Ian, look after Evelyn’s baggage,” Enid commanded, now all high priestess of Legatum Merlini. They nodded. “Gareth, you’re responsible for the Jeep. Get it filled up and ready for the road. Irvin, you’re coming to the library with me. Maybe we’ll find something that’ll help us.”
Enid looked at me with a tense expression. “Rest, Evelyn. You’ll need your strength. Ruth, thank you for your help.” It was clear that Enid believed Ruth knew too much.
“We’ll get going tonight,” Enid continued, addressing everyone. “It’s a hundred and twenty miles from here to Glastonbury, and we don’t want to miss the dawn.”
At my pleading, Ruth stayed and accompanied me to the headquarters’ garden. Just sitting around would have driven me crazy. I reviewed what I’d experienced one more time. I needed perspective—and maybe, just maybe, I’d find something I hadn’t considered yet. Something that might help. So far, I didn’t have the slightest inkling of a plan. I’d go—if I made it—to Avalon. Alone. That much was clear. I didn’t have a clue what would happen next. What if I dropped in on a damnatus party? Or ran straight into Morgana’s arms? What if Avalon itself attacked me? What if the beings who lived there weren’t on my side after all? Or—the worst of all scenarios—what if I arrived too late? What if Jared . . . I didn’t dare finish the thought. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Too many questions; too few answers.
While Ruth and I walked together in silence, one of our first conversations popped into my mind.
“If Nimue was such a magical and mighty creature, why did she want to live as a normal human with Merlin? What happened to her magic?” I had asked one evening at Ruth’s place.
Nimue’s magic was inseparably linked to Avalon, she’d explained. “If she hadn’t left her magic there, Avalon would have died.”
Hmm. At first I struggled with admitting my absurd thought, but it kept pressing itself further into my consciousness.
A mixture of courage and shame overcame me, but I simply had to ask. I swallowed. “You once said Nimue left her magic in Avalon,” I carefully began, slowing my pace.
Ruth nodded.
How should I say it? “Do you think it . . . it’s still there?”
She nodded again.
“You mean . . . I might . . .” I didn’t know how to finish this sentence. Was it hubris, or was it really possible?
Ruth stopped and looked into my eyes. She seemed to understand.
“If it has the choice, magic always returns to its source, its rightful owner,” she said, and her intensity gave me goose bumps.
I stared at Ruth, letting her words sink in. Then I shook my head.
“Rightful owner,” I repeated, full of self-doubt. I looked at the ground. Now that Ruth had spelled it out so clearly, this business sounded much less credible. At that moment, I didn’t feel like the rightful owner of anything.
Ruth’s firm grip on my arm surprised me. She looked at me with urgency in her eyes. “Evelyn, you’re the last of Nimue’s bloodline, the last descendant of the Lady of the Lake. You’re the heiress to Avalon. It’s nothing less than your birthright to return there. Just as it’s your birthright to claim Nimue’s magic for yourself.”
Oh, well, if that’s all there is to it, I sarcastically thought.
“And how am I supposed to accomplish that?” Discouraged, I sat down on a garden bench.
Ruth sat beside me, took the green book from her purse, and flipped through it.
“It says here,” she began, taking that respectful tone in which she read from old books, “that one should consider one’s right with light and love, then ask for entry.”
I frowned. “Aha.”
“Oh, don’t be so skeptical,” she said, arriving at the end of her patience.
“I’m just wondering how that’s supposed to work. In light and love . . .” It sounded ridiculous.
“You’ll just have to try.”
“Excellent advice. Jared only has days, maybe only a few hours, and I’m supposed to calmly ask for entry in light and love?” Desperate tears welled up in my eyes. “Damned shit!” I shouted, burying my face in my hands. To my surprise, it gave me a little relief.
Ruth gently stroked my back. “I’m so sorry, love. But that’s all we’ve got. You’ll just have to try it.”
Angry and frustrated, I wiped the tears from my face.
“Listen.” Ruth forced me to look at her. “You must never doubt yourself, do you hear me? Never! Go through the portal. Just go through the portal.”
I snorted. But Ruth was right—there was nothing left for me to do but go and try.
I got up and continued walking. She followed.
“Ruth?” I asked after a while.
“Yes?”
“You once said Morgana killed Merlin with his love for Nimue . . .”
“Hmm.”
“You said she used Nimue to blackmail Merlin. And he gave his life to rescue her.”
“Yes.” She was clearly curious to hear what I was driving at.
“But . . . how did Merlin stop Morgana from binding his magic to herself?”
After a long pause, she said, “I’m not sure. Maybe it was just . . . too much for her.”
“Too much?”
Ruth thought for a moment. “Despite her magic, Morgana’s body is a living organism made of flesh and blood.”
The image of the gaping wound on her lower arm, the warm blood—her warm blood, which she had smeared on my naked body—flashed through my mind.
“She can definitely bleed,” I said tersely.
“What do you think? How much magic can such a bleeding human body hold?”
“No idea. But both Merlin’s and Morgana’s magic in only one human body . . . that seems a bit crowded to me.” I stopped for a moment as I began to understand. “So you think she was a bit too greedy and in the end was not able to, well, how shall I say, keep any of it?”
“Yes, I think you could say it like that.” Ruth almost grinned. “As if she had to throw up—in a magical way.”
I had to smile at that thought. “Like a kid who quickly gobbles up all her Halloween candy at once.” I caught myself latching on to this idea. Even Morgana’s slightest weakness gave me new courage. Was Jared perhaps simply too powerful? Could it be that Morgana would be . . . overburdened by his magic? I really wanted to believe it.
“Well, something like that.” Ruth smiled, but then her expression turned serious again. “The problem simply is that magic is inseparably linked to the human body of its owner. Even if Merlin’s magic was too much for Morgana to handle, it cost him his life. The body itself cannot survive without magic. It seems to have been a little different with Nimue.”
“Yes, I was just thinking that. How could she leave her magic in Avalon and simply continue to live as a normal, non-magical human?”
“Hmm. My mother believed that it was different for Nimue than for other magical creatures. Most consist, in a manner of speaking, of two components: the human body and magic. One cannot function without the other—they’re a unit.” She stopped, appearing strangely affected. Then she took a deep breath. “But Nimue’s existence didn’t seem to rest on these two pillars alone but on three: her human body, magic, and Avalon. All three would survive as long as two of the three remained firmly linked.”
“Nimue’s human body could survive as long as her magic was firmly linked to Avalon?” I thought about that for a moment. “But then why did she have to leave her magic there at all when she wanted to be together with Merlin? I mean, Nimue’s body and her magic would have been firmly linked, and Avalon, as the th
ird pillar, could have continued to exist. Right? Or . . . ?”
“Yes, Avalon would have continued to exist. But all the other beings who live there . . . none of them can survive without the magic. Avalon would have continued existing as a physical place, but magical life there would have been extinguished.”
I felt sad. Would I be capable of making such a decision? Between the place and the beings one loves and one’s own life?
“Now she’s dead,” I mumbled.
Ruth lifted my chin and looked at me lovingly. “But you, Evelyn, are alive.” Her voice was imploring and determined. “You’re alive, and you will reclaim what belongs to you.”
CHAPTER 3
My mobile rang while I was on my way to our room to pick out clothes for the upcoming trip.
“Sally!” I called out in surprise when I answered. I had totally forgotten my best friend during the events of the last few days.
“Would you like to tell me why you weren’t in class today?” she asked, point-blank.
“I . . . um.” Classes were the last thing on my mind right now. It was almost as if I was leading a completely different life in which everyday things such as studies and old friends didn’t exist.
“We’ve hardly seen each other for weeks now. You only hang out with Jared, and I’m lucky if we see each other for lunch once in a while! Look, it’s been weeks, and I want an explanation.” Sally took a quick breath, and then her voice switched from angry to sad. “Now you don’t even come to classes anymore and can’t be bothered to at least tell me why.”
“Sally, I’m really sorry about how I’ve treated you lately.”
I could hear her begin to cry. “Colin isn’t calling.” She was struggling to keep composed.
“He’s been . . . we are . . .” What could I tell her?
“Yeah, yeah,” she answered, her voice heavy. “That’s what I keep hearing from him, too. This bloody stammering all the time.” Then she really got mad. “You know what? If you see him, tell him he can kiss my butt!”