by E. E. Holmes
“That’s fine. It’s up to you, I just thought I’d offer.”
“Thanks, Jess,” Hannah said, “but you can’t answer the questions I really want the answers to, so the rest of it just seems…unimportant.”
“Okay. Well, the offer stands.” I tried to shrug it off, but a little voice inside me wanted to tell her that nothing about our mother was unimportant. She was a person worth knowing, as screwed-up and troubled as she was. Between the binges and the evictions and the frantic cross-country moves, there was laughter and spontaneity and music. Then I wondered if knowing those things might only make it worse.
I looked back at my sketch, then at the castle profile. A cloud had swept swiftly in while we talked, and the shadows I’d been hoping to incorporate had faded to nothing. With a sigh, I thumbed through the pages, looking for another sketch to work on.
“Who is that over there?” Hannah asked suddenly, her voice still not quite steady.
I followed her gaze. At first I could not understand who she was talking about, but then a tiny movement, lower to the ground than I’d expected, caught my eye. At the edge of a nearby copse of trees, a small figure peered out from behind a trunk. I recognized her at once.
“Hey, that’s her! It’s that little girl again!” I said.
“What little girl?”
“The one who sort of attacked me on the first day.”
“That’s her?” Hannah asked, squinting into the trees. The bright sunlight, while brightening everything else, seemed to make the girl dimmer, more difficult to see.
“Yeah! I saw her yesterday, too, in the hallway after I met with Fiona.”
“You saw her again? You never told me that.”
“I forgot. Fiona sort of made the rest of my day dull by comparison.” Hannah rose up onto her haunches to get a better look. “She didn’t attack you again, did she?”
“No, no, not like the first time. But she did really want to talk to me,” I said. I waved tentatively at the girl. She did not wave back.
“I wonder why she’s so shy all of a sudden,” Hannah said. “She had no problem asserting herself before.”
“I don’t know.” I gestured for her to come nearer. She shook her head, but continued to stare at me.
Hannah shivered and took out our new textbook. “She gives me the creeps.”
I looked at her in surprise. “Really? I’d have thought you’d seen plenty of creepier things than her.”
“I’d have thought so, too,” Hannah said. “It’s not how she looks, it’s just…something about her.”
I found a fresh page in my sketchpad and began to draw the girl. If she knew what I was doing, she raised no objections. In fact, she stood so motionless that she might have been posing for me.
“There’s definitely something wrong with her,” I said.
“How do you mean?” Hannah asked.
“I mean she really can’t communicate with me no matter how hard she tries. It’s bizarre. I can tell that she’s shouting as loudly as she can, but nothing. Have you ever met a ghost like that?”
“No,” Hannah said, “but there are an awful lot of things about ghosts we haven’t learned yet. Maybe you could ask Fiona about it.”
“And get a paint can chucked at my head? I think I’ll ask Celeste instead. Or, you know, basically anybody else in the entire world other than Fiona.”
The girl continued to watch me as I drew her. She never ventured a single step closer, but kept darting back behind her tree whenever someone else would walk by. Her eyes were so sad, even from this far away. I wished I could dive into them, to read whatever story of sorrow was within them, to understand what it was she so desperately needed to say.
“Why are you drawing her like that?”
“Huh?” I looked up at Hannah, who was frowning at my sketchpad.
“Like what?”
“Like that!” she said, pointing.
I looked down into the little penciled face. She stared back at me, looking pretty much exactly as she did over in the trees.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “That’s just what she looks like. Well, I mean, it’s not perfect, but I can’t see her that well from here, so —”
“No, look! Look at the rest of the drawing!” Hannah cried, her voice unnaturally high. She snatched the pad out of my hands and held the drawing up. This time I focused not on the girl’s face, but on the entire image.
“What the hell?”
She stood surrounded, not by trees, but by a forest of flames, leaping, licking, and smoking around her like a hellish inferno, ready to swallow her whole.
“I…I didn’t mean to draw that!” I said “What does that mean?” Hannah asked. “How do you draw something without meaning to? Couldn’t you see what you were doing?”
I took the pad from her with a trembling hand, taking in each flame, each plume of billowing smoke. “I was concentrating on her face, just trying to understand what she couldn’t tell me, and… ”
“And this is what you drew? Without thinking about it?”
I nodded.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?”
“No. Well, actually yes, but not really like this. It was just a ghost’s face, one I’d never actually seen before,” I said. “It’s why they assigned me to Fiona. It’s called psychic drawing.”
Hannah stared transfixed at the drawing. “What does it mean?”
“I have no idea,” I said. I looked back into the grove. The girl in the trees, the girl in the flames, was gone.
§
That afternoon we all met in one of the side courtyards for our first Meditation and Bonding class. Our instructor, Keira, gestured toward a number of small circles that had been chalked onto the cobblestones. She gave us no further instruction though, so we all just meandered pointlessly for a few minutes before finding a random circle and settling uncertainly onto the ground inside of it. At the very moment the bells clanged two o’clock, the Caomhnóir filed in with military precision. They stood in two rows, dominos that no amount of poking and prodding could topple.
“Aren’t there going to be…you know…chairs?” Hannah asked. She shifted and winced on the uneven stones.
“Nah, not in Keira’s class. We’ll spend most of the time on the grounds, I expect, until the weather gets too bad,” Mackie said, tucking a sweater under herself in the next circle. “And even then, we’ll hardly ever see a regular classroom.”
“Does your ass need to be numb to bond and meditate?” I asked, but Keira was clearing her throat, and all chatter was dissolving into an expectant silence. Keira had one of those faces that could render a class mute with a single unpleasant twist of the lips.
“Good afternoon to you all, and welcome to Bonding and Meditation,” Keira said, though her tone did not make me feel particularly welcome. The courtyard, or at least the part of it in which she stood, at once amplified and scattered her voice; the words were alternatingly loud and difficult to hear. “Each teacher you have this year will tell you that her subject is the most important in your journey to mastering your gifts. I am here to tell you the same thing, the difference being that, in this case, what I tell you is true.”
She paused and gazed combatively around, as though daring each of us, individually, to contradict her. No one did, of course.
“Your castings, your knowledge of history, your pronunciation of incantations, none of it will matter at all if you cannot connect and communicate effectively with the spirit world. This is the class in which you will hone these most important of skills.”
I shifted on the cobblestone, which already felt unbearably jagged beneath me.
“These skills shall require that you all open yourselves up to a variety of unknown entities. Theory will be of little help in this class; only real connection and interaction with spirits will teach you what you need to know, and that means that protection may, at times, be needed. That is why the Caomhnóir will share this cl
ass with you. Although you will be working on different skill sets —the Durupinen to engage, the Caomhnóir to interpret and repel —the melding of these skill sets will be crucial to your future success. Thus, your cooperation during our sessions will be expected, and I do not foresee the need to remind you of this in the future.”
Not one of the Caomhnóir betrayed even a hint of reaction to this pronouncement of their role within the class. Keira took their complete lack of emotion as assent, however, because she nodded with satisfaction and went on.
“Very well. Novitiates, when I call your name, please join your assigned Gateway. There will be no need to talk until I deem it proper.”
As Keira extracted a sheet of paper from a folder, a murmur rolled through the Apprentices like a ripple in the water after a pebble broke the surface. Did this mean that the Novitiates had already been assigned? Were we about to discover which of the stony-faced young men would scowl at us, aloof and stoic, for the rest of our lives? One whispered question to Mackie confirmed this.
“They could still swap people if an issue arises, but yes, most likely these will be the permanent assignments. I didn’t realize we’d be getting them so soon,” Mackie mumbled. Even she had lost her confident air and looked, for once, just as nervous as the rest of us.
Somehow, I had avoided thinking very much about this aspect of my future, probably because I found the idea so repugnant that I simply repressed it. I mean, seriously, a man assigned for my protection? Some gorilla with a culturally-ingrained superhero complex, intent on protecting me? Even in a theoretical sense it was archaic and infuriating. My internal feminist rant was interrupted by Keira’s roll call.
“Isaac Brown, please join MacKenzie and Brenna Miller here.”
A cube of a guy with a face like a bulldog swaggered self-importantly from the line of Novitiates and planted himself beside Mackie’s circle. Other than a swift glance exchanged with her sister, she did not betray any reaction to her Caomhnóir assignment. One by one the Novitiates wordlessly joined their assigned circles, and the Apprentices watched them just as wordlessly. If anyone had any sort of opinion about who they were paired with, they didn’t let on. Until Keira got to us, that is.
“Finn Carey, please join Hannah and Jessica Ballard over there.”
My mouth dropped open. Peyton gasped, looking back and forth between her cousin and us, and then at Keira. I half expected her to insist that Keira had made a mistake. Finn closed his eyes and took a deep breath, like he was fighting to hold something terrible at bay, and then set his face and stalked over to our circle, where he stood with his back to us, devoid of even basic acknowledgment.
Come on. Come on. I’d had direct interaction with exactly one of these guys. Why? Why did it have to be him? And, even worse, why did he have to appear as horrified about it as I was?
The last Novitiate, a stringy, pallid boy named Bertie, took his position beside Savvy and Phoebe’s circle. Savvy gave him one disgusted look and then gazed longingly around at some of the handsomer, more muscular Novitiates standing guardian over other circles. It couldn’t have been plainer she was hoping this would yield a dating opportunity. Bertie, absently picking at a scab on his chin, was clearly not her type. To be honest, I don’t think he was anyone’s type, poor kid.
“We are going to begin with basic relaxation exercises today,” Keira told us, handing each of us a battered leather-bound book and a tall white candle in a protective glass container. “Many spirits will force their company upon you. They will seek your council and find many different ways to make themselves known to you. But many spirits will lurk in the shadows, afraid or unwilling to show themselves. They are unsure of what they want, or else they fear the pull of the Gateway. These are the spirits that you must seek out and coax into communication. These are the spirits that you must draw to you, so that you can discover what they need and how to help them. This type of communication can only be achieved through complete mental focus and true relaxation of the body. You sit now in what we refer to as a communication circle.”
Everyone looked around them. The circles were drawn in chalk. I noticed, for the first time, a small black velvet bag, closed with a drawstring. I opened it and saw that it was full of pieces of white chalk, and also a strange collection of polished stones.
“Today, I have drawn the circles for you. From now on, you will be expected to do it yourselves. Instructions on how to do so can be found in the first chapter of your books. I have provided you the necessary materials for future use. The circles afford you with a basic level of protection from unwanted spirit contact. It establishes a boundary, but does not prevent the spirit from crossing it. Think of it as a warning —a proverbial line drawn in the sand; the spirit is free to decide whether to cross it or not unless you establish further rules of engagement.”
I looked again at the dusty, jagged circle. I could not imagine it stopping even the least insistent of spirits, whatever Keira said.
“Most of your castings will require that you first draw, or in some other way create, such a circle. Once you have done so, the circle is given its more specific purpose through the use of runes. How many of you are familiar with runes?”
Every hand went up, except for mine, Hannah’s, Savvy’s and Phoebe’s.
Several Apprentices were smirking at us, but Keira just nodded firmly, as though she had anticipated this, but did not resent it, and went on in her same businesslike tone. “Runes are characters that exist in many ancient alphabets, including our own. They will look like symbols to you, and indeed many of you have encountered them already without even knowing what they are. The wards upon your own bedroom doors, for instance, have been created with runes.”
I glimpsed in my mind’s eye the strange symbol on our door that looked like an eye, and then the red paint over it, dripping like tears of blood. I shivered for some reason.
“Learning and creating accurate runes will allow you not only to designate a purpose for your circle, but to protect yourself and create a set of rules for spirits to interact with you. If you want a spirit to be seen and not heard, you can do it with a rune. If you want to hear them without ever seeing who you’re talking to, you can do that as well. A few strokes of chalk, and a spirit can approach no closer than I am to you now. Another stroke, and he can inhabit your body and walk you through his own memories.”
The class was utterly still. The little velvet bag clutched in my hand suddenly seemed to weigh a ton. I put it down and wiped my hand on my jeans.
Keira’s expression was all grim approval. She had us captivated and she knew it. “Today, we require no runes to invite a spirit in, because we are not attempting contact. However, this does not mean that contact could not be initiated on the part of a spirit who is drawn to one or more of you. Apprentices, should this happen, you must alert your Caomhnóir at once. Caomhnóir, should this happen, it will present you with your first opportunity to practice your expulsion skills in a real setting. However, you should alert Braxton so that he can oversee your attempt.”
The Caomhnóir who had led the Novitiates into the courtyard detached himself from the shadows of the cloisters for the first time and nodded his head sharply in acknowledgment. He then resumed his half-hidden position.
“Now Novitiates, I understand that you have all had the opportunity to work on creating guardian circles. Each of you will now please create one at your assigned place.”
All around us, the Novitiates pulled their own small black bags out of their pockets and set to work. I watched Finn, who still had not so much as looked at us. He unraveled a long leather cord attached to a piece of white chalk and dropped to one knee. Using the cord as a kind of compass, he drew a large circle around himself. Where his circle met ours he continued through into our space and out again, so that the circles intersected and created a rough sort of Venn diagram. All the while he muttered under his breath a steady stream of words in some sort of ancient Celtic tongue, and I realized that Caomhnóir
were required to learn castings, too. When the circle was complete, he drew a rune in the space where the two circles overlapped, a sort of arrow pointing outward with three wavy lines below it. Then he stood up, stowed his chalk back in his pocket, and took his place standing at attention again in his own circle.
“Very well, then,” Keira said. “Apprentices, please notice the runes that your Caomhnóir have drawn in the guardian circle. This rune will stop a spirit from entering beyond the guardian circle, so that you have the opportunity to concentrate and relax without unwanted spirit contact. Any questions?” She glanced cursorily around the courtyard. “Good. We begin. Apprentices, close your eyes and focus your attention, as fully as you are able, on the beating of your own heart.”
I was completely caught off-guard by the sudden commencement of the exercise, and found myself watching everyone else closing her eyes before I remembered to do it myself. The afternoon sun was low now, attempting stubbornly to penetrate my eyelids. I turned my head slightly to avoid the worst of it.
“Listen to your own heartbeat; that will tell you everything you need to know about your state of relaxation. Breathe slowly and deeply —see what this does to your heart rate.”
All around me, the Apprentices sucked on the air. I hastened to do the same, and then told myself to calm down before I got dizzy, passed out and caused a scene.
“Now I want each of you to begin with your toes and relax each individual part of your body all the way up to the top of your head. I do not expect that it will take all of you the same amount of time to do this, so continue at your own pace until you feel that your entire body is relaxed. Continue to breathe, and also to keep you senses alert to the possibility of spirit contact.”
What followed for the next twenty minutes was a long, drawn-out, fairly painful silence, punctuated by Keira’s soothing instructions. I did my best to relax my body, but all I could think about was how horribly uncomfortable I was. My buttocks were alternatingly tingling, numb, and throbbing with pain. Sweat was trickling down my back as though the individual droplets were racing each other to the ground. My hair was sticking to my neck, itching incessantly. How the hell was anyone supposed to relax like this?