Running on empty, I dragged myself up the stairs that led to my loft, opened the door, removed my coffee-stained apron and heavy boots, then fell across my comforter without so much as attempting to change the rest of my clothing or preparing myself for bed. Sleep found me before I even had the chance.
I opened my eyes to discover that I was in a small, dark room hidden behind a wooden staircase thatwas tucked into an alcove of sorts. The space itself was fashioned of mahogany or another deep, rich wood, and the only light came from a small candle that sat near a barren altar at the front of the room. A woman’s voice caught my attention, alerting me to the fact that I was not alone. While I’d only heard her voice once before in my dreams, I recognized it immediately—it belonged to my mother.
Her utterances were spoken so low that I had to strain to hear. But it was no use. I couldn’t make out any actual words.
Finally, a man’s voice interrupted, breaking through her muttering. He was clear as glass. His decree reverberated throughout the entirety of the small structure: “She will be protected.” With those words, the man fell to the ground just within my view, and the light within and around him faded at once. I recognized the man lying lifeless on the floor as my father.
I gasped aloud, but my presence went unnoticed. My mother simply stood over his body, speaking words I again had to struggle to overhear. While I couldn’t decipher much, she repeated the words “always a choice,” her darkened expression matching the tendrils of ebony that swirled around her. The sobs that escaped my lungs became uncontrollable, and before I knew what happened, I rolled over, opened my eyes, and found myself crying into a pillow.
A cursory glance around the room told me that I was in my apartment, and, taking a deep breath, I realized that I’d been dreaming again. Without even beginning to analyze what I had just seen, I looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand and calculated that I’d slept for nearly nine hours—forgetting to set an alarm. While I changed my clothes in a rush, I decided that running late was becoming a habitual problem for me. I grabbed a fresh apron on my way out the door and braided my long hair in front of my shoulder while I flew down the stairs. I entered the café with a thousand thoughts swimming through my mind. How would this issue with Sister Mary Constance be resolved? She was likely to receive my letter that day; I wondered what her response would be, if any.
The dreams with my parents were becoming increasingly confusing. Why was my mother standing over my father’s dead body as if by her own choice? She had watched him fall and done nothing. And where was Julian? I had heard neither hide nor hair of him since I fell asleep the night I’d found out about Constance. If he was so concerned about my well-being, didn't that warrant a call? A text? A drop-in? None of it made any sense to me, and my head throbbed from all the inner turmoil.
Then I remembered the state of my cell phone.
Picking up the receiver at the café, I dialed Julian’s cell phone number. It went straight to voicemail. I felt silly leaving a message, but I did it anyway, telling him of my misadventure with my own cell and that he could call me at work should he wish to. With a sigh, I hung up and shelved my concerns, donning a smile for the customers. I quickly fell into my morning routine of filling cups and serving pastries to the usual guests. I soon learned that I had no talent for acting when the third customer questioned my worried demeanor. That theme continued throughout the day, and by the end of my shift, I was exhausted, though whether it was the work, worrying, or fielding questions about those things, I didn’t know.
I had also expected to hear from Julian by that point and had been met with uncharacteristic silence. Wiping down my last table before I clocked out, I said good-bye to Chloe and headed for the door. Completely clueless as to how I was going to spend the evening, I started up the steps to my apartment, only to be met by a darkly dressed barricade at the top of the stairs.
“Merrick.” His name came out more irritated than I had intended as I pushed past him to unlock my door. “What are you doing here?”
“There’s someplace you need to be,” he growled as he spun me around to face him. “Now.”
“What are you talking about?” I looked at his hand on my arm with a hint of alarm in my voice. “Where?”
“It's time that you see her,” he continued as though I hadn’t spoken.
“Who?” I asked frantically, attempting to get him to say more.
“Sister Mary Constance.”
For the second time, the sound of her name on his lips had undone me. Feeling as though an enormous burden had been lifted from my shoulders, I reached up and threw my arms around Merrick in a one-sided embrace that quickly became uncomfortable. His sage eyes searched mine when I released him, as if looking for an explanation, but there was no time to talk. I knew that I was supposed to be angry at Merrick for knowing about the medication and Constance and keeping everything from me, but I just didn’t care in that moment. I’d been waiting for a response from Constance or some sort of sign, and Merrick was clearly it. Constance wanted to see me that night, and I was determined to get answers from her.
Heading toward the stairs, I looked back at him.
“Are you coming?”
“I can’t,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Fine,” I replied, turning my back on him.
“Aspen,” he called out. “I’d come with you if I could. It’s complicated.”
“It’s not that complicated, Merrick,” I responded, clipping my words slightly. It gave them the hint of irritation I felt. “I’m on my own.”
19
Night was just beginning to fall around me, and I paused only a moment to absorb my surroundings before making my way up the stone steps to the convent I once called home. The echo of my footfalls in the entry sounded hollow, and although I knew most of the sisters would be gathering in the choir loft in preparation for evening chorus, I couldn't help but feel lost somehow.
I had grown up there, learned to walk, talk, and read within those very walls. That night, however, something was missing. My mind drifted, and I allowed it to run wild as I ambled down the long, deserted corridor. Images of my first game of duck, duck, goose with Sister Mary Constance and two novitiates ran through my mind with lifelike quality. I smiled to myself at the mental picture of the two younger sisters expending so much effort to ensure my victory. As I considered that memory, and most of my childhood recollections, I realized that Constance always seemed determined to play the same role―to provide a sense of normalcy and comfort to me. I desperately needed that comfort more than ever before.
My thoughts quickly abandoned me as my feet came to a stop in front of a large, half-open wooden door. While Sister Mary Constance had summoned me through Merrick, I was determined to go through the proper channels to see her.
"Reverend Mother?" I called as I stepped cautiously into her private office, my hands trembling. Mother Superior's chambers were not a place where one came to socialize. The lack of response to my call combined with the eerie silence reminded me that I hadn't spent much time in that room while I lived among the sisters. I felt utterly unwelcome there.
Glancing around her office, I noticed the Spartan decor allowed only a desk with a few papers, a shelf of ancient-looking books, and a crucifix on the wall. I was moving slowly toward the desk to get a better look at the papers when the door closed suddenly, without warning. I turned around to discover Mother Superior glaring down at me with her shrewd, stone-gray eyes.
"Aspen." She tasted my name as if it were a foul medicine, though her cold eyes danced with amusement. "What impeccable timing you have, though I was not sure you would come."
"I came to see Sister Mary Constance, Reverend Mother," I stammered in discomfort, my head bowed automatically in response to years of habit, though I couldn't help fidgeting with my fingers as I spoke. "I wanted to check in with you first, of course."
Her very presence elicited an unnatural anxiety within me that I was becoming unable to co
ntrol. My entire body quaked, and I closed my eyes for a moment in an attempt to calm myself just as she began to speak. Her tone dripped with disdain, and her every word was laced with revulsion. I staggered a step away from her with each utterance, though my eyes remained fixed on hers. She paid no heed to my words before she spoke her own.
"T’was always so difficult to believe that you would be the one to fulfill the ancient words. This creature cowering before me, the one to have such unnatural powers of the mind. To hold sway over fire and ice, yet tremble in the corner of my chamber. To possess dominion over time itself, yet wield no control over her own trivial emotions. You, who are powerless to alter your own fate, yet the fate of all humanity is yours. You are the one to whom the decision is given. Such a fine line to walk between good and evil, and that line resides in you. The Shadow awaits your decision that will seal the fate of all. You alone must make the decisive choice between the two, Aspen."
A chill ran down my spine, rendering me motionless―her words a paralytic. Echoes of all the mysterious messages given to me over the past few days reverberated uncomfortably in my mind. Amid all the chaos confined in my brain, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall elegantly into place, though the picture it created was one I wanted to turn away from.
"You're wrong," I finally managed to blurt out, trying to convince myself more than her. "I'm not the one you all think I am."
"Oh, but you are," she replied with an eerie certainty. "I've known about you for quite some time."
"This makes no sense," I said aloud to myself before repeating it to her in a weak attempt to explain. I struggled to maintain control of the thoughts that swirled wildly in my mind while my hands still shook and my heart continued to race. The truth was that it was starting to make sense and that frightened me more than anything else.
“Of course it does,” she quipped, demanding my attention with her tone. “The fact that your feeble mind can't grasp it is only further proof of my earlier point. It's unthinkable that you will be the one to determine the fate of humanity. Sad, really . . . it hardly seems fair to them.”
“Them?” I asked as the pressure within my skull grew, threatening to blow it wide open.
She smiled wickedly at me before she unraveled my whole world.
“Yes, Aspen. Them―the humans,” she replied smugly before cocking her head to the side in questioning condescension. “You still don't see, do you? You still don't know what's going on here, do you?” She moved toward me slowly―threateningly. “Let me speak plainly, then, to simplify this for you. You are going to fulfill an ancient prophecy and, in doing so, will bring about the true end to this world and everyone that inhabits it. Well, almost everyone, that is. Some of us shall remain to rejoice in the undoing.”
“Who?” I stuttered in a whisper of a demand. “Who will remain?”
“Evil, of course. Did I teach you nothing in your time here?”
"But this prophecy," I stumbled in exasperation. "How can you know that it's me? How could you possibly know that?"
"Because it takes a child born of light and dark," she confided in me conspiratorially, as though we were suddenly old friends. "And I knew your parents."
"My parents?" I breathed the question; their involvement in all the insanity was well beyond my limits of comprehension. My dreams of them wedged their way into my already too-cluttered mind, illustrating what I only then knew to be true. I was a child of light and dark―of good and evil. My father's ethereal glow contrasted my mother's cloak of ebony.
Suddenly, everything was far too clear.
"I'm going to ask you a simple question, Aspen," Mother Superior snarled, snapping me out of my impending meltdown to appraise me with her shrewd eyes. All I could do was stand in shock from all the revelations that befell me. "Shall you ever be persuaded to choose evil over good?"
I replayed her question again in my mind to be certain I hadn't misheard.
"What?" I shook my head in utter disbelief.
"You heard me correctly," she replied pompously, as if reading my mind. "Focus on the question, child."
A sense of impending doom pressed heavily upon me with her words, and escape was all I could think about. Escaping her. Escaping the truth. Escaping my destiny.
Starting across the room, I muttered, "I-I should go. A friend is expecting me."
"And if he was doing his job, I would not have to be doing it for him," she said under her breath as if she didn’t want to be heard, though I had no time to wonder about who she was referring to and exactly what his job was.
Before I could even begin to formulate a sentence, she removed an old-fashioned key from a pocket in her robe and cut me off to lock the heavy wooden door. The only way out.
My eyes widened and my skin prickled when she turned to face me again, the hard set of her lifted chin incongruous with the hint of a pretentious smile playing on her thin lips.
"What's your hurry, dear girl?" she inquired with a puzzled expression. "I thought you desired to learn more of your parents."
My gut clenched tightly at the card she played. Though escaping was my priority, tempting me with knowledge about my parents was an offer too sweet to resist. Despite the immense weight of her stare, I managed to lift my eyes to meet hers.
"I do," I replied with tears stinging my eyes. "More than anything."
"Enough to choose evil over good?" she challenged.
As she spoke, words surged in my mind, delivered by the ensemble of individuals that had been speaking enigmatically to me since I left the convent. They continually reminded me of things I wanted to ignore, not allowing me even the tiniest moment of peace to learn about my mother and father. There simply wasn't any more room in my collapsing mind.
I covered both ears with my hands in a futile attempt to block them out as they continued their attack.
“Tell me about them,” I cried, still attempting to block out any shred of noise raging in my mind.
“Choose, Aspen.” Her impatience was visible on her frightening face.
Choices . . .
And then, a single black tendril swirled across my mind. It was followed by a beam of light. I watched helplessly while that light was encircled by the ribbon of ink and choked until the glow vanished completely, snuffed out by the blackness of death. The stamp of evil. Then slowly, words, like water through a broken dam, rushed in. 'Poisoned minds,' 'choose good,' 'deceit will plague her,' 'she shall bring forth damnation,' and a deluge of others pounded my brain until I physically crumbled under the weight of it all.
"I can't handle this!" I shouted suddenly in fear and frustration while I ran both hands through my hair. "Just let me out of here. I don't believe you know anything about me or my parents!"
She stared at me for a long moment, and when she finally spoke, a slow, malevolent grin spread across her face.
"Would you like to know the last words they said before they died?" she asked with false sweetness in her voice. "After all, I was there."
"No," I gasped, shrinking in horror at what I had just heard, though I didn't have time to begin to sort through her revelation.
My attention was drawn immediately to a loud banging on the wooden door. "Reverend Mother! It's Mary Constance." I could barely discern her shouting through the thick, solid wood. "I need to speak with you immediately."
I glanced from the door over to Mother Superior, but her expression was inscrutable.
Contemplating lunging for the door, I yelled, "Constance! I'm in here."
Without a word, Mother Superior removed the ancient-looking key once more from the pocket in her robe and this time unlocked the door. Sister Mary Constance flew inside, summoning with her a cacophony of sound into the once quiet room. The wind from the opening door rustling the papers on Mother Superior's desk, Constance's heavy and labored breathing, and the sound of the nuns chanting the Alleluia liturgy echoing through the hall outside, all served as momentary distractions. Remembering myself, I moved quickly toward Cons
tance, only to have her shove me back into the corner.
"No, Aspen!" she forced out with obvious emotion as I stumbled backward.
I looked up to see Mother Superior standing behind Constance with a knife to her throat.
I stood frozen, completely unable to distinguish reality from the possibility that all of this was just a horrible nightmare. The voices . . . I had been hearing so many voices. Was seeing the impossible only inevitable?
Just as Constance opened her mouth to speak, Mother Superior pulled the sharp, silver blade across her throat. Paralyzed, I watched Constance's body fall to the floor while the last line of the liturgy chorus rang through the convent, the trilling soprano voice of a child above the rest.
And that was the moment I lost my mind.
The sound of thunder rolling across the sky overhead resounded in my ears and the voices in my head assaulted me until I could no longer fight them off. Mother Superior, who appeared unnaturally calm, dragged the sister's body toward the far wall of the room where a secret panel lay open, once hidden by a bookshelf. She began to chant in a language I didn't recognize as she hid the evidence of her crime. I stared into the empty eyes of my dead mentor while my mind raced at a pace I could never catch up to until time itself seemed to stand still.
Suddenly, Mother Superior was motionless before me.
My limbs felt foreign and restless, but the sensation was preferable to the pressure threatening to crush my skull. With Mother Superior frozen, I watched as my body moved toward her of its own accord, as though I were merely a passive observer. Through unfamiliar lenses, I saw time begin to move again as the expression on Mother Superior's face slowly transformed from complete serenity to utter exhilaration.
"Good as your father or evil as your destiny?" She breathed her earlier question while her narrowed pupils glowed with intensity. “The Shadow comes . . .”
Before my tormented mind could process my actions, my hand snatched the knife from her―the one she'd use to cut down my beloved mentor. I raised it high above me and squeezed my eyes shut as I felt my anxious arm move of its own volition repeatedly in response to her question.
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