Harbinger

by Sara Etienne

  Dinner only made things worse. Kel kept trying to catch my eye from across the table. I felt his hand in my hair, his lips against mine. And then I was racing through the woods again. Chasing myself down.

  I shut my eyes, trying to block it all out.

  Nami squeezed my arm under the table. Had Kel told the Family what had happened? Was Nami keeping secrets too? My face flushed in embarrassment and terror, but I made myself meet her eyes. They were clear and concerned. She’d dropped the usual bravado and all that I saw was Nami. A girl who was trying hard to be herself. That’s what we’re all doing.

  I took a deep breath, letting the pressure of her hand steady me. Fear is an illusion. I’m in control of my own reality. I tried to give her a smile. But it wouldn’t come.

  What had happened to Nami, to the rest of the Family, the rest of the school, today? From the way Damion was staring at Nami, with a surprised, open look, they’d gotten their moment alone and made it back without being caught.

  Most tables had at least one person missing, and in the middle of the room, a whole family was gone, their table bare. Everyone’s eyes were glued to their food, not daring to look around.

  And Kel? Had he made it back to the group without being noticed? I simultaneously wished that he’d gotten caught and that he’d gotten away. My eyes met his and he stared at me, pleading.

  Maybe there was a reason for what I saw. Maybe he can explain it all away.

  But how could he explain knowing where I’d gone at night, what I’d done, and never telling me? And even if he did explain, how could I believe him? I’d been inside his thoughts. My heart had raced with the same anticipation.

  Almost. I almost have her.

  Nothing Kel could say would change what I’d seen for myself. I glared at him and he dropped his eyes.

  After dinner, as the Taker led us back through the twisting halls of the Compass Rose, I remembered M. H.’s diary and the tarot cards. Were they still up in the turret? I stared at the secret door as we passed by the sitting room. I was sure it held the answers, if I could just get back up there.

  I felt eyes on me. From three people behind me, Kel was watching. From the anxious way he followed my gaze, I knew he hadn’t had time to go back for the diary. I just hoped I could find a way to get there first.

  21

  I SHOULDN’T HAVE WORRIED. When I woke up the next morning, I was hugging the diary to my chest.

  I had no idea how it got there. Or why I had a tarot card clutched in my other hand. I crawled over to the window to see it better in the gray dawn light. In the center of the card was a person wearing a blindfold and a robe. His arms were crossed over his chest, gripping a sword in each hand. The ocean spread out behind him, islands scattered across the waves. And above it all hung a full moon.

  But something wasn’t right. The vermilion color of the moon stood out against the rest of the card. I scratched at it and paint flaked away, uncovering a yellow fingernail moon beneath. Why had M. H. changed it? She’d also titled the card, her slanted letters marching across the bottom: “The Harbinger.”

  The word rang out in my head but without meaning. I turned the card over, reading the same sort of ramblings I’d seen on the back of the other cards.

  fully for the ded from the glare ill know them ill carry onely places will smother the sick wash this world.

  Was it written in some archaic form of English, like Shakespeare, with ded instead of dead and onely instead of only? Even if it was, it still didn’t make sense.

  Maybe it was a code and there was a key written in the diary. Reaching for the book, I noticed another picture had been painted on the floor. And the design was even more complicated this time. The drawing spread halfway across the room now. Two days ago, there had been one crudely drawn person, with an arrow symbol instead of a face. Today there were six of them. Arranged with their heads pointing inward, so they made a circle.

  Music pounded in my head and I saw a flash of hands, clawing through the dirt, looking for something. Then I saw myself through Kel’s eyes again, kneeling in the middle of the Screamers, digging. But for what? What was I looking for? And what about the others?

  Where was Maya? Chest tight, I jumped up and hurried across the room, blurring the red strokes of the picture as I went.

  There she was, sleeping in the corner, behind the bed. As if the painting had pushed her off to the side.

  She was shivering, despite the stuffiness of our room, and I wondered what all this was doing to her. And the others. Suddenly, the weight of so many questions collapsed in on me. I was just so tired.

  Tired of worrying. Tired of these vague hints. Tired of never getting answers.

  Not anymore. Walking back to the window, I picked up the diary and paged through it, looking for the next marked entry. It didn’t take me long to hit another tarot card. This one showed a person startled out of sleep. Like he was waking from a nightmare. He’d flung out his arms, shielding himself from a barrage of swords piercing the air above his bed. M. H. had labeled this one too: “The Vision.”

  February 4, 1912

  I can’t have any more of those nightmares. Ever since I found that metal doll, I’ve been plagued with hallucinations, memories of things that never happened.

  A stone knife dripping with blood. The stink of wet bonfires. The unbearable thump of bodies hitting the ground.

  Last week, when Father came home from surveying his newest paper mill, I overheard Mother speaking to him about me.

  “She’s waking up the whole household with her screaming. Two maids quit last week, jibbering about demons.”

  I stood very still, at the top of the stairs, listening for his reply.

  Father was quiet for a long time, and then he said, “Perhaps it’s time? I hoped she would get better while I was gone, but she’s more sullen than ever. Simply staring out the window with those morose eyes . . . like she’s waiting for something. If she doesn’t improve soon, I’ll take her to the Augusta Asylum myself.”

  So, I’ve taken to reading at night. It doesn’t matter what. The solid, square letters calm my nerves and keep the dreams from coming. I started with Mother’s romances, simply because they were easier to lay my hands on. But they were so full of weeping countesses and mustachioed villains that I moved on to Father’s scientific texts. Anything to keep me awake.

  They will never lock me away. I will die first. Or kill.

  I haven’t had the dream in weeks, but I’ve barely slept either. And now, these phantasms have begun to haunt me by day. I’ll be eating supper or tediously embroidering with Mother or doing any number of mundane tasks throughout the day and I’ll hear them. In the distance, the thump-thump-thump of drumbeats and the hungry roar of waves.

  My hands tremored with the familiarity of her words. The childhood nightmares. Then the hallucinations flooding over me even when I was awake. Sitting here, holding the diary, I heard that same rumble in the air. What had happened to M. H.? What was happening to me?

  I hurried through the pages, finding another card. This one had a picture of an ominous crowned figure with a sword in one hand and a set of scales in the other. He stood, towering in front of the Earth, the sun and moon hovering in the background. It was a disturbing picture, this omnipotent figure hidden beneath robes and an inhuman mask. At the bottom the word “Justice” had been marked out and replaced with “The Path.”

  August 21, 1913

  I received Professor Warren’s reply today. I perused it twice to make sure I’d read it correctly, then flung it into the sea.

  How dare he.

  Despite the fact I’d told him about the iron person I found. Despite the fact I’d informed him that the marking precisely matched his photograph in Father’s book, he dismissed my theory.

  “I do not expect a young girl such as yourself, with little book learning, to comprehend the subtleties of archaeology. No, my dear, you have not found an ancient talisman. Your enclosed sketch looks like nothing mo
re than a rusty toy.”

  Pompous idiot! He wouldn’t know a talisman if it materialized out of the ether and hit him on the head.

  It is very well I didn’t add my wilder theories. The ones that scare me. How I am linked to this thing. How it holds some greater truth. There is something I am meant to do, some purpose to these mad hallucinations and dreams.

  Damn Professor Warren’s hubris. I’d hoped he might hold the answer. Now I must make my own.

  And there are obstacles I must clear away before I give in to this insanity that is creeping upon me. I must carve the mark upon this world. So much to do before I can follow The Path.

  I turned to the next page, but it was blank. So was the page after that. And the one after that.

  Tarot cards were stuck here and there, but there were no more entries. No more answers.

  A lump formed in my throat, making it hard to swallow. What did you expect, Faye?

  M. H. was obviously crazy. Even her parents, even she, thought so. Though, using that logic, what did that make me? Maybe M. H. deserved the benefit of the doubt. I flipped through the blank pages again, sure I was missing something, until the fluorescent light buzzed to life.

  Maya groaned from the corner. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around the book. Hiding it.

  Two nights ago, I’d hidden my brush pen on the ledge running under the window. Peering outside, I watched Takers crowd into the courtyard, waiting to escort us to breakfast. The window was already open a crack, and I stuck my hand out, feeling around. My pen was still there.

  I imagined throwing the worthless diary out the window. But the last lines echoed in my head, and I grudgingly shoved it out onto the ledge. And there are obstacles I must clear away before I give in to this insanity that is creeping upon me. I must carve the mark upon this world.

  I thought about the arrows gouged into the secret hallway. Had M. H. made those? What else had her nightmares and visions made her do? I looked at my red-stained hands and the diary that’d somehow ended up in my room. What are my visions making me do?

  “Another masterpiece.” Maya crawled out from behind the bed.

  We stood together looking down at the six outlines on the floor. The roughly shaped people reminded me of the metal figurine Kel and I had found with the diary. What had M. H. called it? A talisman?

  “It’s not over, is it? It’s getting worse. I mean, even the crap on the floor is getting bigger.”

  My throat was raw and I had no idea what to say. So I nodded.

  “I know you’ve been trying to figure out what these pictures mean, but maybe one of the others knows something.” Maya’s voice was gentle, but I wondered if she suspected I was the one drawing them. She shrugged. “We should ask. It’s worth a shot.”

  This time, it was me who couldn’t look her in the eye. Her whole life, she’d been betrayed and manipulated. Didn’t I promise to tell her if I knew anything?

  My eyes flicked to the window. I could show her the diary. Tell her what I’d found.

  ’Cause that worked out so well with Kel.

  I made myself meet Maya’s worried eyes. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.”

  Then I turned my back on her and walked out of the room.

  The same anxious tension pulled tight across the breakfast table. The whole Family had dark rings around their eyes, and their fingernails were ragged and tinged with red. They all looked stretched thin, and soon, something or someone was going to snap. I just hoped I’d have something real to tell them before that happened.

  I refused to look at Kel, afraid of what I’d see in his eyes. Or what he’d see in mine.

  Does he know I have the book and the cards? Has he told any of the others about them?

  My chest squeezed as I watched the rest of the Family head off to art class. I should’ve told Maya about the diary and Kel stalking me. Now he had all morning to feed the others whatever kind of story he wanted. And then why would they believe me, a person hiding secret diaries and drawing cryptic pictures, instead of him? Sweat broke out on my palms, the only place on my body that wasn’t already sweating.

  Dragon escorted me back to the dorms. She handed me a mop, a bucket, steel wool, and rubber gloves. Oatmeal sat like a bowling ball in my stomach as I looked around the first-floor shower room in the boys’ wing. All I could see was the blindfolded picture of the Harbinger, burned on my retinas.

  “Get scrubbing.” The Taker’s bark echoed off the ceramic tiles, and she pointed to a jug of industrial cleaner. Red letters shouted their warning from the top of the label. USE ONLY IN WELL-VENTILATED AREAS.

  The humid air of the shower room pressed against my skin. I wondered if one tiny window near the ceiling and a mildewy drain in the middle of the floor counted as ventilation.

  I filled my bucket and started mopping. The stained tiles didn’t look any better once I’d cleaned them. The astringent fumes of the cleaner made my head spin a little, but at least it drove Dragon out of the room.

  For a while she lingered at the door, watching me scrub the walls with steel wool. “I expect that grout to sparkle!” she warned. “Put your back into it.”

  She’d obviously seen one too many army movies. I continued with my pointless scrubbing, sweat dripping down my nose and mixing with the bubbles. The heady pine-stink stung my eyes, and I thought about the rest of my Family. Were they outside right now, painting another realistic landscape? I imagined a paintbrush in my hand. With the finger of my rubber glove, I sketched the arrow symbol in the soapy film. The lines dripped into each other as I drew the outline of M. H.’s iron talisman around it. What the hell did it mean?

  Using the mop, I obliterated the design. My thoughts tired of running in circles.

  The smell must have gotten to Dragon. When we got to the second-floor boys’ shower room, she guarded me from out in the hall, occasionally peering in. And by the time we got to the girls’ showers, she was pacing. On my hands and knees, I listened to the Taker’s shoes clunking up and down the hallway as I tried to make a dent in years and years of mildew.

  Making giant soapy circles on the tile, I tried again to put it all together. The stained hands. Pictures on the floor. Dr. Mordoch’s files. The music. Kel chasing me through the forest. The diary. The tarot cards—

  Maybe I did miss something.

  By the time I’d cleaned the last shower in my section of the dorm, Dragon had disappeared completely. I dumped the filthy water out of the bucket and carried it to the high window. Standing on top of the overturned bucket, I peeked out into the courtyard. Down below, Dragon puffed on a cigarette on the other side of the lawn.

  Yanking off my gloves, I hurried to my room. This time, I was grateful that the bolts were on the outside of the door. I grabbed the diary from the windowsill. With one eye on Dragon in the courtyard and the other on the diary, I turned it upside down and shook it out. A shower of tarot cards tumbled to the ground.

  22

  THERE WERE NINE CARDS IN ALL.

  Some had names printed down at the bottom: Death, The Lovers, The Sun, and The Moon. On other cards, the names had been crossed out and changed, like The Path and The Circle. Still others hadn’t originally had any names at all, but M. H. had added them anyway. The Vision. The Ritual. The Harbinger.

  But all of them had words scribbled on the back. I read and reread them, but I couldn’t get “ill carry pain” or “an of blood” to mean anything to me. Then one card tugged at my memory. It read:

  nant moon with

  Autumn will be born

  Death will be Autumn’s

  ill cradle the Earth

  I flipped over all the cards, my eyes flitting across their backs. Searching for what had to be there. Yes! There it is.

  Another card had the words “ark of the preg.” I lined that card next to the first one and was struck by how simple it’d been.

  Putting the cards together had lined up other phrases too. And now I had

  ark of the pregnant moon with
<
br />   as midwife Autumn will be born

  an of blood Death will be Autumn’s

  its mercy will cradle the Earth

  Remembering those words from the diary, I found the card that had “In the d,” which seemed to complete the phrase. It was hard to tell, since there was no punctuation, and I tried out a few of the other cards just to make sure. None of them worked.

  But these three cards, put together, made sense. Well, not sense, but at least I could read what they said.

  In the dark of the pregnant moon with

  the sun as midwife Autumn will be born

  in an ocean of blood Death will be Autumn’s

  twin and its mercy will cradle the Earth

  I didn’t understand and read it again, out loud this time. The words had weight, each one falling heavy on my ears. Like the beating of a drum. Now, instead of ramblings, they sounded like a prophecy.

  Hand shaking, I turned over the cards.

  The Moon. Walking a path across the Earth. Its yellow face frowning.

  The Sun. Glowering at the city below it.

  Death. The grim reaper pausing by an open grave.

  Not good.

  I grabbed the pen off the ledge, checking that Dragon was still smoking across the yard. Then I scribbled the words down on a blank diary page.

  My heart was thudding. There had to be more. Now that I knew what I was looking for, the words fell into place as I rearranged the other cards. The next message was another set of three cards. I spoke the words cautiously, fearing and yearning for them at the same time.