by J. R. King
Aria looked back at him. “Is something the matter?”
He glanced around at the undisturbed room.
“No,” he said, “apparently not.”
They got a few steps further before a horde of students began pouring into the lobby. They outnumbered the teachers ten to one. Shawn approached them from the center of the confusion.
“I thought you two would be waiting out front? I got a little worried I’d made the wrong decision.”
“We were just anxious to see the museum,” Aria said.
He waved a hand. “It’s alright. I was talking to the teachers on the bus, though. One of us needs to show him around personally.”
Rome made a face at that. “Not that I’m complaining,” he said, “but are they suddenly afraid I’m going to eat the freshmen?”
Ariahna watched Shawn crack a smile, turning an appraising look from Rome to her. “I can handle it,” she said.
“Alright. If you need anything, I’ll be around.”
The groups of students had begun sifting past them already, disappearing down a narrow hall. Rome fixed Ariahna with a grin. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
She let out a breath, smiling as he followed after the others. Together they delved deeper into the heart of the Collective.
The first thing Rome noticed when they stepped into the room was the warm, inviting glow. The museum was everything he should have expected by now, having seen Vardel up close. And yet the extravagant domed ceiling and rising pillars dotted with balconies did nothing short of take his breath away. He wasn’t even sure how any of that was structurally possible, given that they were underground.
“They go all out, don’t they?” he said.
Ariahna’s smile was as bright as the room itself. “And why not? Visitors come from all over the world to see this collection. It’s truly the most complete of any in the magical community. If people are here to see it, they want to feel like they’re a part of a grander experience,” she said. “And that’s what the Collective likes to sell them.”
Rome glanced at the exhibit names. “Where should we start? I’m sure you have a favorite.”
“I would, if it weren’t nearly impossible to pick. There’s so much to see, but I think I know where to take you first. It’s the best place to get a real feel for our history.”
Several groups of students circulated the interior as they moved around them, venturing through an arched doorway into a small exhibit. The focus of the room was a large, dated document, enclosed behind glass in an alcove on the wall. As they approached, the slanted cursive started to stand out against the paper. Rome read the title aloud:
“The Missive for the Collective Good.”
Aria stopped beside him. “This was the first proclamation written by the Witches Collective. It was the very founding of the organization as we know it.” She watched his eyes race eagerly down the page, soaking it all in. “In short, it says that: We, the Collective of Witches, do so join together to fight insurrection and persecution on every corner of this earth.”
“Funny how little these words amount to,” he said.
“Be careful what you say…”
Rome stared past his own reflection in the glass. “It’s not my fault that I have the perspective to know the difference.” Before he could continue, a stately figure approached them from the outer hall. He was dressed to the hilt, and both his hair and his tie were neat.
“Ms. VayRenn. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I’m surprised to see you as well,” she said. “From what I hear you usually keep to your office whenever the students come around. I thought that you hated the field trips?”
His smile was wide and generous. “It wouldn’t do not to at least make an appearance. After all, that’s what I’m here for.”
Ariahna glanced over at Rome, noting the puzzled expression on his face. “Sorry, this is Alistair Scott, the director of the Collective.”
Rome gave him another once over, scowling at the man’s clever gaze. “You’re looking pretty good, for nearly five-hundred years old.”
Alistair’s mouth pulled into a tight smile. “You’re thinking of my predecessor, I’m afraid. I would be the third Scott to be given that name. Still, I would call it somewhat prophetic, wouldn’t you? It’s not every man that gets to sit on his ancestor’s throne.”
“Some people are just lucky I guess.”
Mr. Scott regarded him with curiosity for a moment. “You’re the newest student that was awarded a scholarship, aren’t you?” he said.
“What makes you think that?”
Alistair raised his shoulders, letting them fall with a sigh. “I’m quite good at placing people. One could almost say I have a sixth sense for these things.” He offered Ariahna a crisp smile. “Perhaps I’ll have to do a bit of fortune telling for you sometime. The future holds fascinating things for us all.”
“It was a pleasant surprise seeing you again,” Aria said. “But I think we should probably be getting on to the rest of the exhibits.”
Mr. Scott nodded gingerly, gazing down at the polished floor. “Of course,” he said. “That reminds me, though. Before you leave, why don’t you drop by my office and have a quick chat? There’s going to be an internship for someone to fill come summer, and I think you might be interested. That aside, it was lovely seeing you again, Ms. VayRenn. And I do hope you and your parents can make it to our holiday party this year.”
“I hope so too.” Aria gave him an awkward smile before slipping out of the room. She could feel his eyes on her back.
Rome stopped in front of the next exhibit. An elegantly poised quill stood upright inside of the case. Barbs of indigo poked out from finely etched silver, rounding off at the top and drawing his eyes back down to the pointed tip. “What is this,” he said, “a magic pen?”
“It’s Elimir’s Quill,” she said. “He was a storyteller, poet, and some would say prophet. He’s considered the last great seer of our age.”
A thoughtful hum escaped Rome’s lips, allowing a few moments to slip by in quiet. “I’m sorry that guy upset you.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know my social skills are a bit rusty, but even I couldn’t have stolen your content in so few words.”
Aria ran her fingers along the edge of the display, staring pointedly through the glass. Alistair was striding back towards his office (a hidden suite overlooking the entire depository).
“He’s… charismatic,” she said.
“The question is, what does he want from you?”
She shook her head. “Truthfully, I’m not really sure. He and my father have been close for a few years now. When the two of them are together, it always feels like there’s some big secret they’re keeping from me.” Aria let her hand slip away from the glass. “I don’t like the way he smiles,” she said. “All intent and knowing.”
“Let him smile. Everyone has their motivations. Yours just have to be stronger.”
They stopped inside the next room, standing quietly beneath the arched doorway. A large sign hung from the ceiling, indicating what artifacts the exhibit held. Aria turned to Rome in unrest. “Please don’t repeat what I said, about Mr. Scott. It was unseemly of me.”
He watched as a group of students milled past them, leaving only an elderly man with a mop and a slosh bucket behind. “I know people say questionable things about my character, especially when they think I can’t hear them. But I’d never do something like that,” he said. “And it wasn’t unseemly. It was just honest.”
Aria held out a hand, gesturing for them to continue on to the display. Rome ventured farther inside as she trailed behind him. She grinned when they stopped at the first of six square pedestals. “This might be my favorite exhibit,” she said.
A smile sprung to Rome’s lips. “Why are our names…?”
She gazed down at the placards, reading their surnames on two of the adjacent pillars. “Have they not gone over the six fam
ilies in your History class yet? I thought they covered that lesson fairly early on.”
“They might have, but the class ended kind of abruptly.” Rome’s eyes drifted over the other four signs, reading them quietly in his head. Other than Scott, none of the other names were familiar to him. And he found it odd that two of the six displays were empty.
“Let’s see… You know of course that the Witches Collective was formed as a response to a magical plague?” She watched him nod in acceptance. “Well aside from Mr. Scott’s family, there were a handful of others assembling to put an end to the disaster. These six families were, and in some cases still are, the most influential in our history.”
“So, what do the wands have to do with it?” he said.
“Wands were commonplace just a few centuries ago; but most were much simpler objects than these. Usually they were just bits of wood smoothed into a natural shape. They were used as conduits for a witch’s own innate power.”
Ariahna paused to stare at the empty display housed above her family name. “The Wands of the Artisan were exclusive in that they were crafted of sacred woods from the Grove. This is what made their magic so potent, and the reason why the Collective has removed them from individual ownership. They were just too powerful to be left to one person.” She looked up at him. “In the end, it was the wands that allowed these six families to forge a realm solely for other creatures. And that,” she said, “is what ended the war.”
The last thing Rome had expected to find was a piece of his family’s history. He had so many questions still, things that didn’t seem to make sense. He wondered briefly about the origins of his trait. The reality was that he had no way of knowing where he’d gotten it from, or if he’d been born with it at all. But the fact remained that his own flesh and blood had been responsible for practically eradicating his kind. He’d spent countless weeks coming to grips with what he was, but never once had he believed himself to be a danger.
The thought made his focus shift. Kaleb – nothing about that was sitting right with him. Rome knew these people. They were prejudiced. They liked order and control. There was no way they’d allow Kaleb at one of their schools knowing full well what he was. Not without a very good reason.
The shine across the wood drew Rome back to the present. For being several centuries old, they certainly didn’t look it. His family’s wand sat cradled in an old box the others seemed to be missing. There were four interlocking spirals etched into the wand’s center, just above the handle. The handle itself was a deep chestnut color, with a design carved out of it that reminded him of lacy Victorian sleeves.
The other wands were lighter in color, comprised of different hues of brown. The Scott wand, however, was almost pure black. Each had its own rather unique design – a distinct identity. But if you looked hard enough, you could see an unwritten signature, the mark of the hands that had forged them. It was something harder to define (the care given to every detail). It was a personality, almost. The touch of a person’s soul.
“I’m surprised they keep them on display,” he said.
“Not just anyone can use them. They were crafted specifically for each family’s bloodline.”
“How long have they been here?”
“They’ve been in the hands of the Collective for a few centuries, give or take. Before that, they were passed down one generation at a time. If you weren’t an only child, that meant fighting for it. See the long crack in the Hayes wand?” she said, pointing it out.
Rome glanced at the dark fissure near the tip. His eyes kept catching on the oblong sphere in the center of the handle. And as he admired the pearlescent, Celtic-themed inlay, he couldn’t help but think that these really were like works of art.
“Dallas told me that’s how that happened. Two of his family members were arguing over it. He mentioned something about a gunfight too, but I don’t know how much of that is actually fact.”
“I get that from him,” Rome said. “But now I think I have to reconsider which one of these I admire most.”
Aria hid a smile. “Dallas is the kind of person that grows on you over time. You might be surprised to know he’s more bark than bite.”
The hall behind them quieted, and Rome turned to see the gray-haired man resting his mop against the wall. He placed two stanchions in front of the entrance, turning to regard them with a smile.
“For you two,” the man said, “I’ll wait.”
Rome turned back to Aria and the displays. “We should probably be quick, but could you explain one last thing?”
“Of course.”
“What’s the Grove?”
Before she had a chance to answer, the man who’d been standing near the entrance suddenly appeared at their sides, startling them both. Ariahna gazed back at him, noting heavyset eyes that seemed to have sunken into his face with age. His lips jerked upwards in a subtle smile, and she glanced at Rome uncertainly for a moment.
“The Grove,” the man said, “was a sacred place, created by the family of that man whom you call, the Artisan. They brought trees from all four corners of the world to thrive and flower into what some would come to call the perfect garden. It was a place for gatherings, for great spells and rites to be performed. A place to celebrate life, and mourn the loss of the dead. Magic lived in the very air there, in the earth. Stepping into the Grove was to be saturated in purity, wrapped up in magic and held safe,” he whispered. “It was an Eden.”
Rome watched him pause to twist the mop back and forth, leaving trails of water on the already polished floor. He hadn’t grown up learning about these things, but the way this man was speaking… There was something in his tone, a certain wistfulness in his eyes. He spoke not as if he were reciting something out of a book, but as if he were seeing it. It was as though he were recalling a treasured old memory. “You talk about this place as if it’s gone,” Rome said.
The man hummed sadly. “It was destroyed.”
“The tree at the center of the Grove died off, actually,” Aria said. “No one really knows what happened after that.”
“Is that the story now days?” the man said. “More’s the pity. The yew tree did not merely die. It was poisoned.” He hissed the word, his voice heavy like the weight of a stone. “With the heart gone, the Grove could not live. The rest of the trees, they withered and died around it.”
“I’ve never read anywhere that it was poisoned,” Aria said.
“I suppose you don’t know the legend of the six wands then, either?” the man asked. A thin smile played at the curve of his lips. “The Artisan crafted the wands from those ancient, sacred trees as a show of good faith to the five oldest, most powerful magical families. The sixth… the sixth was gifted to a woman whom he loved.”
Other than the part about the sixth wand being intended for a lover, Ariahna had known all of that. The way he told it made it sound more like the beginnings of a ghost story than a lesson in history, though.
“…Go on,” Rome said.
“The wands, though presented as tribute, had in truth been cursed. Each held its own misfortune to be inherited by them. And to the woman who had wronged him, he sent a bitter curse of revenge. That neither she, nor her descendants, would ever again find love.”
Rome tore his eyes away from the old man, admiring the elegant, unassuming pieces of wood. “Why would he curse them?”
“Navarro,” the man said distantly. “It was a Navarro who stole away his love. He had wealth, and power, and she was drawn to them both. He captured her heart and blackened the Artisan’s. Her leaving left him bitter. Not long after, the head of the VayRenn household came to him requesting a powerful wand crafted from the trees of the Grove. He demanded a wand made largely of yew. So arrogant was he that he believed him and his family alone was deserving of possessing a piece of the yew. But the Artisan would not sacrifice the sanctity of the garden to satisfy one man’s wishes. He turned him away, insisting the tree was too significant to risk. VayRenn, displeased
with his decision, acted impulsively and without regard for consequence.
“He poisoned the yew with magic, killed it from within; and then was even so bold as to proclaim that with it no longer living, the Artisan had nothing left to protect. He thought to have won, to have taught the humble Grove keeper a lesson. The lesson, he would discover, was one that was meant for him.”
Ariahna couldn’t listen to any more of this. “Are you implying that my family killed the Grove? That’s ridiculous. And if that were the case, then why would the Artisan have done as he wished? I know for a fact that there is yew in that wand.”
“Yes,” the man said. “Two pieces of yew went into the wand; representations of the curse he laid upon it. Do you know what they say of the yew?” he whispered. “It is the sustainer of life, purveyor of death. Bringing both beginnings and ends, it is a tree of completion.
“Navarro and VayRenn,” he commiserated. “To them he bestowed the harshest of curses. The two lines were bound by dark magics. Destined to fall in love, and fated for it to end in tragedy. They were doomed to fail from the moment they met. Nothing but catastrophe awaited them. And yet, they would forever fall in love. They would struggle, and suffer, and then,” he said, “death…”
“Death?” she mumbled.
“Their love, a cursed love, would always end. As it is told, the VayRenns have been watching the descendants of the Navarro bloodline die for centuries as punishment. They will forever have something precious stolen from them, just as they took what was most precious from the Artisan—just as they took what was most precious from the whole of the world. For the yew was not just a tree. It was hope. It was a beacon of light, bathing the land in promise. And when that light went out… well, that is when the darkness came rushing in.”
“That sounds like a bunch of crap,” Rome said.
“Could be,” the man replied. He gripped the top of his mop, leaning into the handle. “I suppose you’ll find out soon enough.”
Rome glared back at the man as he escorted Ariahna out of the room. He considered knocking over one of the stanchions as they passed, but thought better of it. “Are you alright?” he asked.