Protagonist Bound

by Geanna Culbertson

  I was also stricken with concern when I discovered that something else of value was missing from our room. Something of mine. But I decided not mention this just yet as it would only make SJ even more worried.

  SJ sat on the edge of her bed and started to hyperventilate. “What . . . am I going . . . to do?”

  “I don’t know, but there go our plans,” Blue replied.

  SJ took a few deep breaths and swallowed hard before continuing. “Well, actually the potions I was making are almost complete and I sort of memorized the instructions a long time ago anyways.”

  “That’s great!”

  “But Madame Alexanders is going to expel me when she finds out I lost the book!”

  “Maybe not,” I thought aloud. “SJ, just how many of the potions in that book have you memorized in the last month?”

  “Um . . . all of them, I believe,” she said, confirming my suspicion.

  Blue rolled her eyes. “Ugh, you really need to broaden the scope of how you spend your free time.”

  “Hush, Blue, I’m going somewhere with this,” I interceded. “SJ, if we can’t find your book then we’ll copy all of the potions down in a new book from your memory.”

  “But Madame Alexanders will know it is not the same one,” she objected.

  “I doubt it; books around here all look the same. Fancy, leather-bound, tinted parchment paper—trust me, it won’t be that hard to get the right replacement. Heck, we’ll probably find a suitable one in the Lady Agnue’s student store.”

  “But the potions book was really old and worn,” SJ objected again.

  “Then we’ll beat the crud out of the new one until it looks that way,” Blue piped in. “Don’t worry, girl. It’ll be okay. For real.”

  After some more comforting that she was not doomed, SJ eventually calmed down. And with the help of some of her animal friends outside we were able to put the room back in order within the hour.

  Still a little shaken from the trauma, SJ decided to go down to the potions lab when we were done, to finish her work and get her mind off the situation. Blue and I offered to go with her, but she said she’d rather be alone. We didn’t object and she departed without us just as the last of the squirrels was dusting off her desk.

  The moment she’d gone, as luck would have it, the squirrel in question brushed his tail against one of her glass figurines (the Pegasus one). It fell off the desk and would’ve plummeted to its destruction had I not been standing there. I was thankfully able to catch the thing in mid air before it hit the floor and broke into a million pieces.

  After such a rough morning the last thing SJ needed was to come home and discover one of her beloved collectibles smashed to bits.

  It wasn’t the squirrel’s fault really; SJ shouldn’t have kept the shiny knickknack in a place where it could fall so easily. Nevertheless, Blue chased the fluffy woodland creature out of the room as if he were fully to blame. She slammed the balcony doors shut behind him—letting out an aggravated grunt as she did so and ignoring the creature’s angry squeaks.

  Meanwhile, I drifted back to my own desk and mourned the other object I hadn’t been able to locate during our search of the room. Noticing my melancholy, Blue asked me what was wrong and, reluctantly, I told her. One of my pumpkin earrings was missing.

  It was the strangest thing. I left the pair on my nightstand every night before going to sleep and one had simply vanished without a trace.

  Blue reasoned that maybe it had fallen behind my bed, or was stuck in my clothes from the previous day, or (more likely) one of SJ’s dang birds had eaten it. But she reassured me above all else that we would find it. I sighed and tried to believe her as she punched me in the arm affectionately and then marched back toward her bed.

  “After all that, you’re still going back to sleep?” I asked.

  “It’s Saturday,” she huffed as she buried herself beneath the covers. “And it’s before noon.”

  “Fair enough.” I shrugged.

  With that, I suppressed the strange unease this morning’s disappearances were causing me, cuddled up back in my own bed, and fell asleep to the sounds of the embittered squirrel raging at us from outside.

  By seven o’clock the following night, SJ had finally finished preparations for the potions, and for our break-in.

  Earlier that day the three of us had also successfully recreated Madame Alexanders’s potions book, so our friend was no longer in panic mode and instead was now delighted to be showing off her newest innovation. At first glance it appeared to be a normal glass marble. However, upon further—extremely close—examination, you could see a kind of colorful gas swirling around inside its translucent shell.

  “What is it?” I asked, handing the delicate object back to SJ.

  “It is my own creation,” she responded. “I call it the Portable Potion.”

  Blue scratched her head. “Yeah, I’m gonna need a little more than that.”

  “I have had the idea for some time,” SJ explained. “And I started fiddling around with base formulas for it over the summer, which I have now perfected.”

  SJ held the glass sphere up to the light as she continued. “You see, I brew a normal potion and then make a separate potion that crystallizes it into this form. The original potion is thereby concealed inside of this miniature, easy-to-transport package that will only release its contents upon impact.”

  “Dang,” Blue said as she looked over the tiny orb. “That’s brilliant.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Completely brilliant. So what potion is in this one?”

  “Phase two of our plan for this evening,” SJ answered. “Now, as per your instructions, Crisa, I have requested that a few finches outside wake us up at two o’clock in the morning. And since we are all ready for tonight, I suggest that we try and get at least a couple good hours of sleep until then.”

  Yeah, like that’s gonna happen, I thought to myself as I rolled my eyes.

  Have you ever been in a room that just made you feel uneasy and on your guard?

  Maybe it was a dark hallway, a musty basement, an abandoned shed, or an unintentionally creepy puppet store?

  That’s how I felt when I was in that room.

  Well, I should clarify that I was not technically in the ominous room I was referring to; I was asleep and my nightmares had transported my subconscious there.

  But I assure you, even in all its blurry dreaminess, this unknown part of Book my spirit presently found itself in felt very, very real.

  My dream self was currently following a girl in a richly colored purple cloak. Her entire form and face were hidden beneath it, so the only other thing about her I was able to make out was the fact that she was wearing glittering, black pumps with four-inch, silver-sequined heels.

  Hmm, not the footwear I would’ve chosen for a midnight adventure. But that’s just me.

  The unidentifiable girl and I were in a grand place with marble floors as black as tar that matched the seemingly infinite number of shelves coiling around the room. These shelves stretched up to the high ceiling, which was being propped up by regal white columns every two-dozen feet.

  It was a fairly impressive, intimidating setting. Nonetheless, my attention was captured by something far more intriguing. In the center of the ceiling was a chandelier. This was no ordinary chandelier, though. It looked to be constructed of cerulean glass bottles, and emanated a sapphire blue light that was both beautiful and inexplicably troubling.

  The glow was strong and bright—illuminating the whole room with shades of indigo. Although despite the power of its luminescence, it appeared soft somehow. Like instead of pulsating with light as the sun did, the chandelier’s glow was more an amalgamation of a thousand delicate threads of blue energy that happened to be conjoined together by a single base.

  My subconscious form was yanked away from the entrancing image as the girl in the cloak kept moving.

  I guess if you’re not the main character in your dreams, you don’t really
have a say in where you get to spend your time whilst inside them. Bummer.

  The girl driving my vision led us to an adjacent room. It was smaller in size, but almost identical to the previous one—aside from not having one of those weird chandeliers, that is.

  This new space also had two things that the other did not. On the left side of the entry archway there was a silver statue of a knight holding a black sword. And on the right there was a shining stone statue of a dragon, approximately thirty to forty feet in length.

  I watched as the mysterious girl grabbed the black sword out of the knight’s hand and proceeded to walk over to the dragon.

  What, is she going to try and slay it or something? Uh, news flash, honey, I think it’s already dead.

  Contrary to my expectations, the cloaked girl went on to do the most peculiar thing. She shoved the sword into the dragon’s mouth and turned it clockwise. I heard a clicking sound somewhere in the distance. Then, across the room a bookshelf abruptly made a wheezing sound and swung itself off the wall and to the side—revealing a passageway.

  What the what?!

  I definitely did not want to go wherever that ominous entrance led. Unfortunately, what I wanted was never a relevant factor in my dreams, so my metaphysical self was, of course, inevitably forced to go through it.

  The girl and I travelled down a dusty staircase. As we descended, my already fuzzy dream began to blur even further. Colors began to blend around me and the light was dimming more and more with each step forward. I would be waking up soon . . .

  By this point my escort and I had gone through another door, I supposed, because I now found myself standing in an even creepier place than before. It had the musk of a war bunker and a cold, uncomfortable interior design that would’ve served as an appropriate setting for a cult meeting or a fight club.

  This room was packed with people of various dress. The girl in the cloak pushed her way past them in order to reach a group gathered at the front. I squinted to see the hazy image more clearly, but to no avail. By the time she joined her friends or whatever, she had been reduced to a big, purple blob in my eyes.

  The audio of the dream was not much better. Cloaked girl was having some sort of heated conversation with one of the group members but, hard as I focused, I only caught the end traces of what they were saying.

  “So they believed it?” the black-haired boy she was talking to asked.

  “Completely,” cloaked girl replied. “No one suspects there was a switch, and our allies have already taken her original one.”

  “It’s not enough that she doesn’t know. This one’s different than the others. The boss insists that the threat has to be neutralized completely.”

  Cloaked girl nodded. “I understand. And I already have a plan underway. It will require a few more days to be seen through, but shall allow for a quiet, and unforeseeable elimination.”

  “It had better,” the boy responded. “And by the way, I am still waiting for you to bring me the items you were supposed to acquire in your last assignment; I’ll be needing them soon and can’t afford a delay.”

  “I know, and I have them, but I have to wait a bit before taking them off the grounds. The school is already in a panic since their disappearance, so for now I have to play it carefully. Trust me though; I will deliver on that task shortly, just as I will take great pleasure in delivering on this new one. I promise you, Arian, by week’s end you will have your treasures and the girl will be but a memory.”

  Their words were inaudible after that. They, like the room itself, were transforming into an indiscernible blur as the dream grew foggier and foggier. Nearly everything had become a part of this big, murky mess by then. That is, except one thing. On the far back wall of the room there was a map of Book. And on it, there were all of these colorful Xs . . .

  If metaphysical dream forms could feel nauseous, mine definitely did. Although I was asleep, my subconscious instantly registered that it had seen those Xs before.

  I tried to get closer to them, to the map, but suddenly it was like I was being yanked in the other direction. I struggled to resist, but couldn’t. Even more disconcertingly, as I was being dragged away I noticed that one of the Xs had actually lifted itself off the map. It was a black one—the only black one—and as I was being pulled away it started to pursue me. Fast.

  It was now the only thing left in my dream that was not completely blurred over. Meanwhile, my heart pounding loudly in my chest was the only sound to be heard as it approached. Well, that and the sound of a bird chirping for some reason.

  I shut my eyes hard to try and escape. Thankfully, it actually worked. When I opened them again, I was back in our suite.

  Immediately I noticed that a little yellow bird was perched on my pillow singing the soft song that had apparently woken me from the confines of my nightmare. The tiny thing blinked at me with curiosity and I patted him on the head. He chirped happily in response and then soared back through our open balcony doors, his job completed.

  “I thought I was going to have to wake you myself.”

  I turned to see SJ sitting on her bed putting on her shoes. She met my gaze in the darkness. “What were you dreaming about?” she asked coolly.

  I shrugged. “Oh, you know, typical princess stuff—rainbows, princes, glitter.”

  “Uh-huh”

  I broke eye contact and glanced over at Blue’s bed. She was still snoring loudly and there was a plump finch sitting on her forehead.

  “Should we—” I started to ask, but SJ smiled and held up a finger, signaling me to wait. A moment later the rotund finch opened his brown beak and sang an off-key, surprisingly baritone note.

  Blue’s eyes snapped open and she growled and swatted angrily at the bird as he flew back outside. SJ and I laughed as quietly as we could while Blue proceeded to stomp into the bathroom. She was clearly not a 2:00 a.m. type of gal.

  A couple of minutes later we were ready. Blue had her knife in its sheath. I’d shoved my wand into my boot for lighter travel. And SJ, with a bag over her shoulder, had begun to walk to the edge of our balcony.

  When she reached the railing she cleared her throat and started to sing very quietly. It was a soft, hypnotic lullaby that almost put me back to sleep. But after a few beats, some very alert owls flew over to answer the call (looking so attentive you’d think they’d have just responded to the trumpet sound of a military reveille). SJ—the ever-impressive animal charmer—proceeded to give them their orders. Then without question the owls flew back into the night as we made our way to the door.

  Swiftly we exited the room, made our way down the six flights of stairs, and stopped behind the shadow of a pillar when we reached the foyer—sandwiching ourselves within the small gap between it, the wall, and one of the window’s flowing magenta drapes.

  SJ had instructed the five owls to be individually positioned on trees outside the windows surrounding the school. They were to be our lookouts—monitoring the main hallways that led from here to the Treasure Archives.

  We were all well aware that different guards passed through the halls every nine minutes like clockwork, but we couldn’t risk the chance that one might’ve been running slightly late or a bit early. Thus, the nocturnal birds were a necessary precaution. And as it happened, they did not mind, let alone hesitate, to take the opportunity to assist SJ.

  Geez, it must be really nice to have animals want to jump through hoops like that for you just because you can sing. I wish I could get a piece of that action; I’d never have to make my bed again.

  Silence and shadows everywhere around us, we waited in our hiding place. Soon enough the sound of clanking metal began to echo off the floor tiles as one of the guards went by. A few seconds later came a discernible “Hoot, hoot” as the owl outside let us know that the adjacent corridor was clear. We emerged from behind the pillar and scurried forward.

  The three of us travelled that way for the remainder of our trek across the school—concealing ourselves ea
ch time we came to another corner and waiting for the owls’ reassuring calls before continuing on our way.

  Eventually we came to the grand hall intersection containing the Treasure Archives. The area felt more spooky than usual and the three of us exchanged looks before we hesitantly approached the cases. Moonlight was streaming through the windows, illuminating the whole area and reflecting off the many trinkets displayed there.

  Blue cracked her knuckles confidently and stepped forward to set our plan in motion.

  We only had nine minutes to get in and get out before the next guard came by, so she and I immediately removed a set of bobby pins from our pockets. SJ, meanwhile, retrieved two things from her bag. The first was the small portable potion she’d shown us earlier. The second was the slingshot Jason had made her.

  Oh, so this is what that was for.

  SJ had said the portable potion would need to impact on something in order to deploy the enchantment condensed inside it. So, I supposed a slingshot was the optimum way to fire such a thing while allowing for accurate aim of its distribution.

  “It will last five minutes,” she whispered to us, breaking the thick silence. “So we must move quickly.”

  Blue and I readied ourselves as SJ loaded the fragile object into her slingshot. After a brief exhale, she released it and the portable potion shot across the room. It made a direct hit against the school crest engraved at the top of the center case.

  Upon impact, a large cloud of cobalt smoke was released and began spreading over the area where the cases stood. However, the cloud didn’t stop there; it kept growing. It speedily made its way toward us and consumed our group and then the entire, massive room within its hazy entity.

  “SJ,” Blue coughed as lightly as she could. “What’s going on?”

  “I must have made the dosage too strong,” she whispered back. “But do not worry; it should not make much of a difference. For the next five minutes or so we will just not be able to—”

  SJ went silent then. Not from shock or anything dramatic like that. It was what she was trying to tell us. You see, the potion she had brewed for this occasion was a silence potion.