Savior

by Laury Falter

  “Yes, I’ve seen a few bloodied faces.”

  I cringed, but didn’t hesitate. “Jameson, I’ll see you later?”

  “I’ll go with you,” he offered without pausing to consider it.

  He was sensing some element of danger. I could see it in his eyes. Mr. Caldwell, however, didn’t pick up on it.

  “You’re needed here, Jameson.”

  Jameson’s jaw clenched in opposition as he considered what to do.

  “I’m in the village, encircled by Dissenters. If I can’t be safe here, then I won’t be safe anywhere.”

  This seemed to appeal to his rational side, although the anxious emotion didn’t fade from his eyes.

  “I’ll be all right,” I insisted, noting how he refused to turn away from me as I walked away. “Go, Jameson. Go.”

  It was obvious that moving in the opposite direction from me was in conflict with his better judgment, but he did it anyway. Just as he had explained to me before, I was one of the few people who accepted when duty called him, and this was one of those times.

  We didn’t see each other again until the evening, although he had Theleo stay with me. Throughout the day, I caught sight of several men peeking through the open door and side windows, and I knew Jameson had sent them to check on me. I thought this was overkill and couldn’t figure out his sudden case of nerves. It wasn’t until I left for dinner, and my last patient was picked up in a canoe by a family of new arrivals, that I presumed what Jameson had already.

  If all these people could find their way here, so could The Sevens.

  From that point on, I was mindful of my surroundings, noticing movements deep in the trees. In fact, when Charlotte was sent to retrieve me, I saw her from several planks away, her scowl evident even in the lantern lights.

  “Jameson needs you,” she said quickly, before returning in the direction from which she came.

  “Where?” I called out. Considering how fast she was walking, there was a good chance we might fall behind.

  She shouted over her shoulder, not bothering to mask her contempt at my question. “Dillon and Spencer’s shack.”

  Still, I didn’t back down. “Do you know what for?”

  “Yes,” she replied flatly, without offering any further details.

  “What?”

  She sighed heavily and shook her head. I was almost certain she was rolling her eyes at me, too. But she refused to fill us in.

  Theleo and I managed to match her pace until he decided to simply levitate and deposit us at their door.

  This was the first time I had ever been inside Dillon’s shack, and I was astounded. A circle and star were drawn on top of each other across the floorboards while stacked books served as tables. Rows of shelves lined the walls where jars of all sizes, shapes, and colors were stored. All the shelves were immaculately kept. The glass jars were dusted; their sides were labeled; and the lids were perfectly screwed on – nothing was getting in or out. That was good, because I saw that he was keeping poisonous spiders, South American bat guano, and an assortment of bones stripped clean of the meat that had once been attached to them.

  Spencer and Dillon, the most notoriously studious ones within our families, really did have a fascination with the grotesque.

  Seeing both of our families, our housekeepers, and Theleo were here too, I wondered if they noticed it also.

  “Are you sure?” Jameson was demanding as we entered. His back was to us so it wasn’t immediately clear who he was talking to until Dillon began nodding his head, excitedly.

  “Yes,” said Dillon, emphatically. “We can do it.”

  “Nonetheless, no one is to say a word about it,” Jameson instructed. “We can’t risk getting hopes up and then….”

  “We won’t fail,” declared Spencer, aware of what Jameson was implying with his statement. “We have found a way to break the curse."

  “Curse?” I repeated, curiously, and Jameson swung around at the sound of my voice.

  His body visibly relaxed at the sight of me; his eyes softened, and he took a slow, deep breath – probably the first one since I’d left him on the dock. I had never seen him so relieved.

  “The one over the penal colonies,” he explained. “The one preventing us from using our abilities…our mystical talents."

  Ah, now I understood Charlotte’s haste.

  “Just a second," Jameson’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at Dillon and Spencer. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, eyeing a book sprawled open on top of one of the precarious stacks in front of them and became noticeably uncomfortable. “Why aren’t you more excited?” Jameson asked, warily. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

  “No,” they said together, which seemed too ill-prepared.

  Dillon and Spencer exchanged a look of caution and then both began to speak.

  “There is a…,” said Spencer.

  “We’ve found…,” said Dillon, who then deferred his explanation by nodding to my cousin.

  “There is an ancient, and I truly mean ancient, evasion cast we discovered in the annals Miss Celia and Miss Mabelle collected for us.” He motioned toward the open book. “What the Vires have done,” he exhaled, releasing his pent up dread, “is to essentially make the cast so complex it would be impossible for anyone to break it.”

  “Anyone and anything can be bound,” stated Mrs. Caldwell, refusing to give in so easily.

  I tried to hold back my grin, but Jameson saw it.

  “What are you seeing that I’m not?” he whispered to me.

  “Your mother has a little rebelliousness in her. Now I know where you get it from.”

  “Ahh.” He chuckled and returned to the discussion with a nearly imperceptible grin.

  Dillon began shaking his head. “We’re not talking about binding, Mother. We’re talking evasion.”

  “I really don’t see the diff-”

  Spencer cut her off, something she didn’t take well to. “There is a difference, and it’s significant enough to keep us from ever….” He groaned against the reality of it. “…from ever successfully completing the cast.”

  Mrs. Caldwell attempted to speak, but foreseeing an argument developing, Jameson interjected. “What would it take? Why is the cast so complex?”

  Spencer showed his true frustration then, answering harshly, though not intending to. “We need a living creature from every penal colony that we want included in the cast.”

  “The problem is,” Dillon went on. “That creature will lose its life in the process.”

  His revelation garnered silence from everyone. That disturbing fact meant one thing: Someone was going to need to give up their life for the greater good.

  As if the news couldn’t get any worse, Dillon added, “And that’s not the only hurdle. We need…we need a strand of hair from each one of The Sevens.”

  The tension in the room became almost palpable; Shoulders grew taut and breathing ceased.

  “Apparently, the cast calls for the hair of whomever conjured up the idea, and we don’t know which one that is. But it doesn’t matter anyway…finding or collecting strands of hair from a Seven is highly improbable, much less a strand from each one.”

  It took only a second for me to determine that I should speak up.

  “I can supply the hair,” I blurted and, instantly, I had everyone's attention. The benefits of disclosing what I had kept hidden since receiving it far outweighed the dangers of confessing that I owned it.

  Miss Mabelle, Jameson and my mother were the only ones in the room who knew, but they offered no support. Their expressions remained blank, conveying that this decision was entirely mine.

  “The Sevens' hair…?” prompted Charlotte.

  “Yes.”

  “All Seven…”

  “That’s right.”

  She threw her hands up in exasperation, folding them across her chest. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, believe it," replied Jameson, steadily.

  To v
alidate my claim, I unlatched a pouch on my belt, withdrawing my proof and holding it up for everyone to see.

  “The Rope of The Sevens,” I announced.

  Gasps resounded and those who had never seen it shuffled to get a better view. There was a mysteriously orange light coming from inside Dillon and Spencer’s shack, making the ancient blonde strands seem redder.

  “Is that…,” Charlotte swallowed back her disgust, “…skin?”

  “Yes,” I said, unbothered. I’d gotten over the sight of The Sevens' dried skin the second time I’d handled it. “It’s wrapped with seven sections.”

  “A sliver from each one of them,” deduced Spencer.

  “Exactly.”

  Several others in the room shuddered. “Ugh,” Vinnia moaned. “Having it here…it almost feels like they’ve invaded.”

  “How long have you had it?” Dillon asked, deeply intrigued.

  I looked to Jameson for confirmation. “A little over a year, right?”

  “Yes…fourteen months.”

  “Wait,” called out Charlotte. “You knew? You knew she had it?”

  “I was there when it was given to her.”

  Charlotte looked shocked. “You knew all along…and didn’t tell any of us?”

  “It wasn’t for me to tell,” replied Jameson.

  Thankfully, no one else in the room seemed upset, which I assumed was because they had already conceded to the realization that Jameson would do everything he could to protect me.

  Spencer slowly sat forward, captivated. “Just how did you obtain it?”

  “Through Mr. Thibodeaux.”

  At the mention of that name, everyone in the room appeared to relax. If a Thibodeaux sold it, they could be assured the item wasn’t a hoax or a deception designed to swindle the buyer out of their money. Having a long-standing reputation of trustworthy sellers, the buyer knew the Thibodeauxes would only trade authentic artifacts.

  I had no doubt that the book Spencer and Dillon had used to find their cast came from one of the Thibodeauxes various warehouses.

  “I wonder how they found it,” muttered Spencer, absentmindedly rubbing his chin.

  Even though I was certain my mother – who had bought the rope for me – could answer, she chose not to, instead leaning back into a shadowy corner.

  I strolled across the room and laid it on the book in front of Spencer and Dillon. They gawked at it, but shied away with due respect. “It won’t jump up and bite you,” I promised.

  “You never know. It came from The Sevens,” Dillon replied. He made good point.

  “Either way, it’s yours now.”

  The wonder and apprehension remained on their faces, as Jameson changed the course of the discussion.

  “So,” he said, “that leaves the issue of living creatures giving up their lives. Know any volunteers?” he added, understatedly.

  I would have bet The Rope of the Sevens that none of us in the room expected to hear a reply. But we did…It came from the doorway, in the direction of Theleo.

  “Yes.”

  Everyone shifted for a better view of him.

  “We need them to actually have lived in the prison,” clarified Spencer.

  “They have,” he reassured.

  Realization swept over me, tilting my head as I understood what Theleo was referring to; my action made him grin, the first one I'd ever seen on him, and it fit him well.

  As I recalled witnessing him pick up various insects at the penal colonies, he crossed the room.

  “What are you talking about?” Vinnia shrugged, prompting others to nod in consensus.

  Theleo opened his cloak and, one by one, placed the insects on the book of casts.

  As the scene unfolded in front of us, a spider sprinted in Charlotte's direction. She began frantically waving her hands, fending it off and shouting, “Enough! Enough! We get it.”

  Theleo grinned to himself and began returning them to his cloak. “They bring good luck,” he explained.

  Spencer laughed through his nose. “Good luck, in this case, would be an understatement.”

  “I’m not sure if it’ll work," confessed Theleo.

  “We can try,” Dillon offered, before catching Spencer’s gaze and nodding agreement.

  “Do you need anything else?” asked Jameson.

  Dillon surveyed the people standing around him. “Space.”

  “Room for the cast,” clarified Spencer.

  “All right,” said Jameson and Mr. Caldwell in unison, as they began corralling everyone toward the door. “Everyone out.”

  I waited outside as the rest of our families and our housekeepers strolled off in small groups, quietly continuing the discussion on their own.

  “Think it’ll work?” I asked, as Jameson closed the door behind him.

  “If anyone can do it, it’s those two,” he said confidently, looking back at the window where Dillon was closing the shack’s purple curtains for additional privacy.

  It was peculiar to note the irony of Estelle’s fashion sense being present inside a shack holding poisonous spiders.

  “You know, as much as we are a mismatch of abilities, we really do get along well,” I pondered.

  Jameson returned his focus to me, studying me closely.

  “That’s nice to hear,” he observed.

  “What is?”

  “Your laugh….”

  “I didn’t know I had,” I said, demurely.

  He replied tenderly, “You did.”

  This was the first moment since our birthday that Jameson and I were alone, and would be for several hours. It seemed like we came to that conclusion together as a heated passion rose between us. His chest expanded as he took in a deep enough breath to steady his growing excitement.

  “Do you think we’ll make it to the platform?” he asked through an exhale, which I knew was an attempt to control his emotions.

  “Not even close to it.”

  He laughed coyly, not nervously but light enough that only I could hear it. It was meant explicitly for me, a private reaction that was somehow intensely seductive. “I was thinking the same thing,” he admitted. “What should we do about that?”

  I responded with a slight turn of my head toward his shack, which was enough to give him an answer.

  He took my hand and led me to his boat, never releasing his firm grip until we reached his dock. After tying the boat to a post, he tenderly lifted me up onto the planks, and led me to his door, pausing to place his hand flat against it. He was ready to move inside but hesitated.

  “Jocelyn,” he said, “When we were separated today there was something I couldn’t tell you… something I needed to tell you.”

  Again, I felt his urgency, as if we didn’t have much time left together.

  “I’m here now,” I said, encouragingly.

  “I need you to know that my love for you will never stop.”

  I felt my chest tighten; although, it wasn’t because of his endearing declaration. It was because of the dread in his tone, reminding me of his worries from earlier today. “You don’t need to tell me. I already know.”

  “I do,” he insisted.

  Lending more weight to his words, he tucked his head and stared back at me from beneath the strands of hair falling over his forehead.

  “My soul could be gutted from me and still I would love you. If I became a shell of a man, my love for you would live on. If somehow The Sevens detained me and turned me, and I was no longer the person who I am now…my love for you would not end.”

  I no longer wanted to hear about the idea of The Sevens getting to him. It upset me. Lifting my fingers to his lips, I halted his confession. The feel of them took my breath away. They were tender and yielding, parted just enough for the warmth of his breath to escape across my fingertips.

  “We are in control of our destiny, remember?”

  His nodded and his breathing became staggered, filled with passion.

  Bringing his hand up, he took hold of
mine and lowered it to our side while he rested his other hand on the small of my back. Gently, he firmly commanded my body to surrender to him.

  I did, curving into him. As I lifted my face toward him, his breath and his heady scent, caressed my skin, seducing a moan from me, reminding me that I was entirely his.

  He looked relieved…content in knowing that I was.

  Releasing me just long enough to open the door to his shack, we stepped inside, where we would finish what we had started on the platform far too long ago. I felt like I was walking through a dream that began then and was continuing now, a good one, the kind that you don’t want to wake from. But then the dream disintegrated as we became surrounded by a group of waiting Vires.

  18 ABDUCTION

  They had come in with the influx, a small enough group – five in all - not to be noticed among the new arrivals, infiltrators who had donned black cloaks to blend in. And they had been successful.

  Their silhouettes stood like black posts, an unexpected fence in the middle of Jameson’s shack. The ones behind us slid to the side and closed the circle, their feet making the only sound inside the shack as they scraped across the uneven floorboards.

  Despite the cracks in the walls, the commotion outside was muted. Voices were muffled. The rumble of boat motors was subdued. Except for the quaking of the dock caused by the hasty passing of new arrivals outside the door, almost nothing permeated the shack.

  My first assumption was that they were part of Commander Fiolka’s group, but that didn’t explain why they were here…in Jameson’s shack…waiting for us.

  Regardless, I sensed danger. Jameson had, too, extending his arms behind him in a V-shape and leaving them there.

  We could shout, I considered. Someone might hear.

  But then anyone who came to our help would be in jeopardy, and I didn’t want to be the cause of it.

  Instead, my sarcasm surfaced. “Well, isn’t this cozy.”

  The Vires didn’t move or utter a sound, appearing like statues with shoulders back and limbs positioned for defense.

  A chuckle came from the darkest part of the room, from behind the Vires. I realized it was near the bed that Jameson and I had been heading for.