Empath

by Evans, S. Usher

  "Yeah, but we're gonna be. How about tomorrow? Just real quick, have Siors do the ceremony, then we can—"

  "What is the matter with you?" Cefin asked again. "And don't say it's nothing, because you've barely let me breathe since you showed up at the watcher's post."

  The tone of his words stung and she shrugged, loosening her grip on his hand.

  "I just don't want to talk about it, okay?"

  "You never want to talk about it," Cefin said, dropping her hand entirely. "You didn't want me to tell Aerona about the stone. You didn't even tell them that we're getting married, and now you want to marry me tomorrow?"

  "I just…" Lauren shook her head. "It's just difficult and—"

  "It's not difficult," Cefin snapped, for the first time sounding angry at her. "I let you see the darkest parts of my life, and you can't even be honest with me."

  "I…" Lauren's eyes welled with tears at the way he was looking at her. If he was angry now, what would happen if she told him the truth? She couldn't risk it.

  "Lauren,"—he took her hands gently and kissed them—"what are you so afraid of?"

  "THERE SHE IS!"

  Lauren's heart stopped.

  Twim Probert and a hoard of the king's soldiers were waiting on the edge of Rhianu.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They had surrounded the village, a group of fifty knights in their full garb huddled in the small village. The gaggle of knights had drawn a crowd and Lauren did not think they looked too friendly towards her.

  "Lauren, get back," Cefin growled, throwing a protective arm in front of her. She felt only a little relieved; maybe they could just run away now. Maybe she could close her eyes and this would all disappear.

  But that knowing voice in her mind knew her chickens had come home to roost. Just as the Anghenfil appeared in Traegaron, she had known that this was coming. And she knew how it was going to end.

  "Stand aside, son," Probert ordered. "We will be taking the empath back with us!"

  "She no longer has her stone," Cefin hissed. "She is of no use to you."

  "Matters not if she has her witch powers or not! She must pay for her crimes."

  "Crimes?" Siors called, breaking through the crowd. Lauren felt no relief at the sight of him. His concern for her was about to disappear as soon as he discovered the truth. "She has committed no crime, Brother Probert—"

  "Yes, she has," Probert continued, his beady little eyes trained on Lauren. "She is responsible for the destruction of Traegaron."

  "The Anghenfil did that," Cefin exclaimed as Lauren's began to feel lightheaded. "I was there."

  "And who brought the Anghenfil to Traegaron?" Probert hissed, sending Lauren's panic to an all-time high as every eye in the village turned to her.

  "And what proof do you have?" Siors asked.

  "We have not seen the beast in Traegaron for fifty years, not since the last empath was in our castle," Probert announced to the murmuring crowd. "And then when we have another empath, it suddenly reappears!"

  Lauren wished she could deny it all, as she had done for weeks and weeks, but she suddenly couldn't make a noise. Her throat felt like it had closed up, the same way she felt when she was buried under the rubble when she first arrived. She swayed and clung tighter to Cefin.

  "That is preposterous!" Siors faced his scholar-brother. "She has been in this village for weeks, and the beast has not come for her. Why would it take her from Traegaron?"

  "Because she controls it," Probert said. "The same way she controls the tyllwyllwch that infects this land."

  Lauren closed her eyes. This was nothing but a dream. A big, terrible nightmare that she would wake up from. But when she opened her eyes again, all she could see was accusation and disbelief, and it stung her to her core.

  "Lauren?" Cefin now sounded apprehensive, and her heart thudded in her ribcage.

  "I don't! I swear!" Lauren stammered looking wildly between Cefin and Siors. "That thing is evil and I don't want to hear it in my head!"

  She immediately knew she had said the absolutely wrong thing.

  "In your head?" Cefin exclaimed, stepping away from her.

  "YOU SEE?" Probert barked wildly. "The empath admits that she hears the beast in her head. It came for the one before her, and it came for her in the castle of Traegaron!"

  "No, I didn't mean to call it—" Lauren replied, gasping as the villagers began to talk amongst themselves.

  "And I suppose you would like us all to think that the beast doesn't come to you on command?" Probert continued, his eyes wide. "Then tell us: how did you arrive in our land if not by the Anghenfil's magic?"

  Lauren's mouth fell open as she struggled to find an answer that would placate the crowd.

  "Am I lying?" he asked.

  "I…I …" she whimpered, searching for a friendly face. Siors was horrified. Aerona had two hands firmly on Eddy's shoulders. And Cefin…even Cefin looked disgusted with her.

  "You said you didn't know how you got here, and you wanted to go back up to the cave," Cefin gasped. "I nearly died, and you can control that beast?"

  "Cefin, I just wanted to go home! I can't control it, it just appears in my mind—" Lauren gasped.

  "SO YOU ADMIT IT!" Probert screamed. "You admit that you and it have a connection!"

  "Yes!" Lauren cried, tears spilling down her face. "I don't want it. It's terrifying and I'm afraid of it and…" She fell to her knees and began sobbing.

  "Take the empath and put her in the cage," Probert ordered. "She will no longer be able to hurt anyone else."

  "N-No!" she screamed as the soldiers closed in around her. "Aerona! Siors! Cefin, somebody…please!"

  "We take her back to Traegaron," Probert sneered. "She dies in two days."

  ***

  Lauren wrapped her arms tighter around herself, sobbing softly. Probert and the king's soldiers had made themselves comfortable in Rhianu for the night, leaving her locked in this iron-barred carriage. The soldier assigned to keep watch over her had long since disappeared, though it didn't really matter. None of the villagers wanted anything to do with her now.

  Lauren kept asking herself what would have happened if she'd just told everyone outright about the monster, if that would have stemmed their anger. She saw the hurt in their eyes, the fear, and the betrayal. Especially Cefin.

  She felt lower than the day she and Josh broke up. She couldn't believe she'd convinced herself that she could just bury all of the things swimming beneath the surface, all of her worries about the Anghenfil, about what she really was. Yet again she had ignored her own intuition. She was going to die here without ever being able to see home again. She sobbed harder, letting the tears fall onto her dress without wiping them away.

  Where was the Anghenfil now? She would be a perfect meal for it.

  She heard a noise outside of the cage and looked up, wondering if her life was going to be made shorter by a wild animal. Instead, she saw the wild, frizzy hair of Owena emerging from a nearby bush.

  Owena looked as crazy as ever, muttering to herself as she walked over to the carriage. She grasped something in her hand as she glanced around, first at the village in the distance and then back to Lauren.

  "Hey," Lauren whispered, coming to the bars of her cage. "What are you doing here?"

  Owena grumbled something, looking around and up at the sky.

  "Can you get me out of here?" Lauren said, hoping that she could get past Owena's insanity.

  The old woman shook her head and pointed at Lauren.

  "You," she mumbled.

  "Me?" Lauren tossed another furtive look around her. "Can you get me out of here?"

  "You," Owena repeated, thrusting her hands into the cage. She opened her palm, and Lauren's breath caught in her throat.

  It was a ruby necklace.

  Except instead of bright red, the stone was dark—as dark as Lauren's when she threw it away. But it wasn't Lauren's ruby. Something about it was different, and yet similar.

 
"Where did you get this?" Lauren gasped.

  "No time. Touch." Owena shook the amulet in her hand.

  Lauren hesitated. She was already on edge; reading this crazy woman's thoughts might be enough to send her over. Not only that, but if anyone saw her with the ruby, she'd be forced to wear it, forced to endure taking their emotions. It may stay the execution, but at what cost?

  Owena jiggled the necklace again, her wrinkled face serious.

  Whimpering, Lauren closed her eyes and covered the woman's hand with her own, wincing as foreign memories washed over her.

  ***

  She was in a small, dark room, the walls plastered with posters of heavy metal bands. A little light streamed in from the windows, illuminating her hands as they stared at the little orange bottle in her hands. The name on the bottle was familiar, but it wasn't hers. The prescription was for oxycodone, prescribed for her father's bad back, but never taken. He said his side of the family had a problem with addiction and he never wanted to test the waters.

  But things…they were bad. Ever since the divorce, everything had gone to shit. She couldn't concentrate, so her grades were slipping. Her mom didn't seem to understand. She was more interested in her new boyfriend, the one she'd been screwing when she walked out on her husband. He was coming over that night for dinner, or maybe he just lived there; she wasn't sure which was reality.

  With trembling hands, she cracked open the top and looked at the pills inside.

  She'd only meant to get high once, to dull the pain of failing a science test and having to suffer through her father's disappointment. But the draw was seductive, and she had refilled her father's prescription twice already.

  She swallowed the first pill, closing her eyes and hoping it would hit her bloodstream before she was called downstairs. She just couldn't take the show her mother put on for everyone. Like they were one big happy family, when she was drowning inside.

  She looked at the bottle and considered taking two, just to make sure she wouldn't remember anything.

  She looked at the bottle again and counted the rest of the pills in the bottle. Fifteen, maybe more. She could take this entire bottle and end it completely.

  She pushed the bottle away, that thought sending chills down her spine. She'd been keeping that thought at bay for months now, just dulling the pain instead of getting rid of it.

  "I can take your pain…"

  She heard a voice, but didn't react. She'd heard it almost every time she took one of these pills. At first, she'd thought she was imagining things, but it was now a familiar sound. Once the pills got her high, it would promise sweet release, if she'd just take another one.

  The bottle was now a few inches from her hand. The temptation was so alluring, the idea that she could just stop all of the ridiculousness in her life. Let them deal with their problems, she could be free.

  "Let me help you, let me take you away from all of this."

  Her heart pounded and her fingers encircled the bottle. Tears splashed down her face. She wanted to throw the bottle across the room, but her body wouldn't listen. She was so afraid of what was going to happen.

  "It will be all right. Let me take you away…"

  She opened her mouth and swallowed the rest of the bottle.

  ***

  "An empath?" She was standing in the castle at Traegaron. A man wearing purple robes stood in front of her, a smile on his face. He was young, perhaps in his early twenties, and he looked pleased to have her there.

  She had been in this strange land for a month, with odd powers that she didn't understand. She couldn't touch another person without getting a mindful of their problems and feeling like she had to fix every one of them. It was infuriating, and she wanted no part of it.

  But then she was summoned by the king, and for a little while, things were better. She was special here; these empath powers turned her into a celebrity. She was given a huge room in the castle and paraded around by the king as his new toy.

  But then the king's scholar began taking advantage of her. He would bring her down to his office and force himself on her, pushing a storm of hateful emotions into her already fragile mind. She was overcome with pain, worse than she'd felt sitting in her bedroom. It became a voice, a hateful echo in the space of her heart, whispering the truth that she'd been trying hard to bury.

  The scholar did his little experiments once a day, not caring that he left her curled into a ball or that she'd lost enough weight to see her own ribcage in the month that she'd been there. No one—not even the king—was willing to help her. She was just an empath; this was what she was expected to do.

  Because nobody cared.

  She grasped at her ruby necklace at her throat, a birthday present from her grandmother. It was the only thing that connected her back to her world, the only thing that reminded her that she was real and that this world, and all of the pain inside of it was not. The necklace was the one thing that kept her here, kept her from snapping.

  She lay on the cold stone ground of the scholar's office, watching the tears drip off the edge of her nose, and prayed that someone—anyone—would come take her away from this.

  But she had no one on her side, just as she had no one back in her world to run to.

  She screamed in anger, her voice echoing off of the stone walls.

  "I can take your pain away…"

  She'd heard the voice for weeks now, when she was alone crying in her room. It was the same one that she'd heard in her bedroom. But she'd resisted for so long, hoping that things would get better before she had to give in to the temptation.

  But she slipped into the darkness.

  "Take it," she whispered.

  ***

  The Anghenfil had come for her, and she thought it terribly amusing to see the destruction of that horrifying castle as they flew away. It cradled her gently in its giant tail, passing over the lands and the fields with ease. She felt better now, like all of her problems were going to disappear.

  "Will it hurt?" she asked.

  "No more than you hurt today…"

  It watched her with ruby red eyes, the same color her ruby necklace had been when she received it. But weeks of slipping farther and farther into despair had darkened it.

  The monster was waiting for her permission, and she was scared of what it would do to her. But she was drowning, and the monster promised her a hand.

  "Do it."

  The stone at her chest grew darker and darker until it blackened completely, a dark stone that shone no more. The chain made no sound as it broke, and the pendant fell to the ground. Her chest grew cold, like it was filling with tyllwyllwch. Her heart beat out of her chest in fear—

  No, it was actually beating out of her chest.

  The Anghenfil's tail wrapped around her, the tip sliding inside of her chest. It hurt but only for a second. She watched in horror as it pulled her heart from her chest. But it was the heart itself that shocked her; it pulsed with darkness, as if covered in tyllwyllwch. The tail unwound itself and returned to the Anghenfil with her heart in tow, and the monster tossed it into its mouth, swallowing her heart in one gulp.

  Its belly, already burning a bright orange, warmed with the addition of her pain, her fear, and her misery, and her mind went blank.

  ***

  Lauren gasped as she broke away from Owena, still holding onto the necklace.

  "C-Cassidy," she whispered, staring into the old eyes of the woman before her. The vacant response was now even more terrifying, knowing the depths of pain and emotion her eyes had once held. And knowing how close Lauren herself had come to that same fate.

  The Anghenfil was a truly evil creature, preying on those already on the edge of the abyss. And in the sweet promise of release, all it brought was more pain and more anger until there was nothing left.

  That's when it devoured its prize and sought out another.

  Lauren became furious at herself, but it was a different kind of fury than she'd ever felt before. She was
angry with herself for allowing the monster to take advantage of her. She thought she was smarter than this, more aware than this. She thought she had a better handle on her problems. But now, in the cold light of day, she began to see reality.

  Every time she "buried" something in the back of her mind, she was trying to avoid dealing with it. She was afraid to think so many things that she couldn't keep them all at bay, constantly living in fear. And she thought, stupidly, that if she ignored her problems, they would magically disappear.

  Except she was the one who magically disappeared.

  And yet, her problems remained. She continued to pretend that she was fine when she was obviously not, continued to dive into mind-numbing activities rather than live in the present moment, even here in Rhianu. The more she ran and the deeper she sank into her own misery, the more appetizing she was to the Anghenfil. It was content to let her spiral out of control, like fattening up a turkey for slaughter.

  Lauren looked at Cassidy and was struck by similarities.

  Cassidy was drowning in her loneliness, feeling like there was no one to turn to. But Cassidy was actually drowning, whereas Lauren was captive only by her fear. Lauren didn't have…

  She stopped that thought, but not because she was afraid to think it, but because she realized how damaging that train of thought had been. She'd been downplaying her own misery, and yet, Lauren had felt as much sadness and as hopeless as Cassidy. Lauren may have only been afraid of things inside her head, but the fear was real. The anxiety, the panic, all of it was just as pronounced as Cassidy's. But Lauren was afraid to admit how far she had fallen into her own darkness.

  Because admitting it would make it real.

  She stared at the black stone in her hand and realized that fear had been the backbone of every decision she'd ever made. It had clouded her judgement, even making her fear her own thoughts because she never stood up and faced the very thing haunting her.

  But not anymore.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A noise startled them both, and Lauren hissed at Owena (or should she call her Cassidy now) to disappear. The old woman seemed to have lost all of her lucidity again, humming to herself as she strolled away from the carriage.