Cursed Hearts (A Crossroads Novel)

by Light

  “You might be able to catch him alone in the morning. I saw him running down at the track,” he said.

  Eliza squinted at him curiously. “What are you, his stalker? Maybe you want me to distract someone else so you can go after him.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Just make sure you cross your t’s and bat your eyelashes. If you mess this up, then you still owe me,” he said, slipping away from her car.

  “Do me a favor – don’t ever say that again.”

  Eliza bent to unlock the door and he tilted his head, admiring the view for a moment before slapping her right on the ass. She jumped and he laughed before taking off towards the buses.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “…On a field trip.”

  ***

  Rome climbed off the bus, his eyes wandering up the steps of City Hall. He’d been here more times than he could count. The last thing he wanted to see was the inside of another courtroom. “Why are we here?”

  “The Witches Collective,” Aria whispered. “It’s hidden inside, along with the history museum.”

  “How many secrets does this town have?”

  “I guess you’ll just have to stick around and find out.”

  The teachers split them all off into six groups before entering the building. Rome drifted along, looking at everything with curious new eyes. The only thing that was really different about this place was the fact that he wasn’t in a set of handcuffs. The layout and the decor alluded to nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it seemed more bland than usual.

  Rome was the last one to step through the metal detector, and he sighed as he set off the alarm. He took his ring off, taking a step back and trying again. The guard looked perturbed, maybe because somehow the horrid sound seemed even louder than before. That’s when he remembered the pocket knife hidden in the side of his boot.

  “Damn it,” he muttered. He slapped it into the guard’s palm, watching as he tossed it into a box of similar looking contraband.

  He wasn’t getting that back.

  At least I have my ring, he thought, grabbing it off the belt.

  “If I asked to hold your hand, would you still say yes?” he asked.

  Ariahna looked down to see that Rome was holding out his palm, and she hesitated for only a moment before gently slipping her fingers between his. His skin was a little rough, and she wondered why she hadn’t picked up on that before. She couldn’t help but think he was too young to have hands like that.

  Rome, on the other hand, was more intrigued by the set of stairs leading them down into the sublevels of the building. He paused, brushing his fingers over a small symbol etched into the stone. He noticed the same strange marking was placed on the pillar on the other side of the staircase.

  “What are these?” he asked.

  “They’re wards. They’re put in place to dissuade anyone who doesn’t have magic from wandering into places they shouldn’t. They’re also on the first floor at Vardel.”

  Rome closed his eyes, trying to recall what was so familiar about them. “Are there different kinds of wards?” he asked.

  “There are sigils?” she said. “I suppose they’re similar. They can be used for anything, really. Why?”

  “I remember something like this carved into the porch at my old house. It was a seven pointed star. I used to stare at it sometimes; at least until my dad scratched it out.”

  “It’s called an otherkin, or faerie star. It’s used for protection, but more specifically it’s used in controlling or dismissing spirits.”

  Rome hummed in thought, lagging down the stairs after their group. “I can’t believe all of this has been right in front of my face.”

  “That’s sort of the point,” she giggled.

  He stepped into what looked like a lobby. There were several black circles outlined on the tile to the left, and hallways and stairwells branched out from the room like a maze.

  “Dr. German,” a woman called, “Lab C is ready for you.”

  Rome narrowed his eyes, watching curiously as the man stepped into one of the circles. He smoothed out his lab coat, adjusting his glasses apprehensively. What happened next made Rome stop dead in his tracks. The floor slowly turned black beneath the man’s feet, breaking away until there was nothing beneath him. He’d dropped straight through like he’d been sucked into a vacuum.

  “Trying to catch flies?” Trevor grinned.

  Rome shut his jaw with an audible clack.

  “Do I even want to know what the hell that was?”

  “You should sign up for Transference,” Aria said, leading them down another flight of stairs.

  “So is this place really underground?” Rome asked.

  Trevor spun to face them, walking backwards down the narrow hall. “Yeah,” he said. “Redwood Bay is one of the oldest settlements on the east coast. Underground structures are scattered all over, and tunnels run beneath every inch of the town. They reach out as far as the cliffs. I found one once, on the side of Blue Maiden’s Bluff. Most of them are abandoned or lost, though. My dad says that a lot of them are even caved in.”

  “Next you’re going to be telling me that crop circles are real.”

  “Nope, those are still an unconfirmed phenomenon.”

  Rome rubbed at his eyes with a sigh. Trevor was serious.

  “Aren’t you assigned to another group?” he groaned.

  Trevor dropped his gaze, turning on his heel and shuffling off after his group without so much as a word. Rome didn’t have to look to know that Aria was frowning at him.

  “You should apologize.”

  “I know,” he huffed, staring at his boots as they rounded a corner. He walked through what felt like cold water, frowning as he whipped around. The hallway was gone, and in its place stood a solid wall. It rippled lightly around his fingers as he reached out to touch it, and he could almost see people walking by on the other side.

  “What… the hell,” he breathed.

  “It’s not real,” Aria smiled. “It’s an illusion.”

  “If they have wards upstairs, what’s the point?”

  “It’s really just an extra precaution. I also think they just like showing off a little,” she said.

  Rome smirked. “I can see that.”

  He shuffled after the rest of the students, walking through a set of double doors on the far side of the room. His eyes slowly wandered up the expanse of the ceiling. It was an extremely tall dome, structured so high that if he didn’t know any better, he would have guessed it could be seen from the outside. He didn’t even want to know how they’d managed that.

  Aria and he followed after their group, listening to a few of the lectures from their tour guide as they went. The man seemed like he’d rather be shoveling horse manure.

  “Do witches really use wands?” he asked abruptly.

  “Yes,” Ariahna said. “At least, they used to. Today they’re considered more of a novelty than a necessity, though.”

  He glanced up, looking at the sign above the large, open doorway that led into the next exhibit. “The Wands of the Artisan,” he read. He was actually a little excited to see a piece of his family history – a piece of his mother’s history, to be exact. It didn’t even matter that it was something as ridiculous as a wand.

  “I thought there were six of them?” he said, looking down into the display case as they drifted closer. Four wands were cradled carefully inside matching wooden boxes.

  “The museum only has four,” she explained. “Porter, Scott, Navarro, and Hayes.”

  Rome noticed the empty areas labeled Graham and VayRenn just as the tour guide explained that those two wands had been lost over the years. He went on to say that the Graham wand had been missing for so long, that no one even remembered what it looked like anymore.

  “That sucks, I was hoping to see yours.” He watched as she played nervously with a strand of her hair, avoiding his gaze.

  “Ariahna?” he grinned.

  “Yes?”
>
  “Your family’s wand isn’t really lost, is it?”

  “What would make you say that?”

  “I can feel your pulse racing against my hand,” he smiled. “It’s okay. Your secret’s safe with me.” Rome turned to the tour guide, speaking up abruptly in the middle of his speech. “What makes these so special?” he asked. “And why does the museum have what’s technically my property locked up in some dusty old case?” He watched as the old man spared him a glare, pausing only long enough to let him know he didn’t intend to answer.

  Dick, Rome thought.

  “The Wands of the Artisan were the only wands crafted using woods from The Grove,” Aria whispered. “They were the only wands from their time period that were crafted in this manner. Most wands, at the time, were much simpler objects—just bits of wood smoothed into a natural shape. These… these are artwork. And they’re here because they were deemed too dangerous for use by The Collective.”

  “Good to know they’re just like any other government,” he mumbled, kneeling down to get a closer look through the glass.

  Three of the 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.

  “If they’re so powerful, why keep them on display?” Rome said, unable to tear his eyes away. “I’m surprised they haven’t been stolen.”

  “Not just anyone can use them. They were handcrafted specifically for each family’s bloodline. If I tried to pick up your wand, for example, it wouldn’t work. Only you can use it. I suppose if one went missing, they’d know right where to start looking.”

  “So 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 nodded, glancing at the dark fissure near the tip. His eyes kept catching on the oblong sphere in the center of the handle. 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,” Aria said. “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.”

  “Wait… Dallas’s last name is Hayes?”

  “I thought you knew that for some reason,” she mumbled. “Sorry, I suppose I didn’t really introduce you.”

  “That’s okay; don’t worry about it.”

  “How did you even know my last name?” she asked suddenly.

  “I saw it on your schedule,” he laughed.

  Rome turned his attention back to his family’s wand, pressing a hand against the glass. Seeing it helped make all of this seem so much more real. For being several centuries old, it actually didn’t look too bad, either. There were four elegant, interlocking spirals carved into the center of the wand just above the handle. The handle itself was a deep chestnut brown, with a design carved out of it that reminded him of lacy, Victorian sleeves. It seemed to be made of two different types of wood, and he noticed then that the names were etched into the lid of the hinged box. “Laurel and pear wood,” he said, nodding to himself. “I’ve never heard of those before.”

  “They’re both pretty uncommon. The handle is laurel, and the main part of the wand, along with the decorative piece on the end, are pear.”

  “You know a lot about all of this stuff, don’t you? I don’t know if I said this already, but thank you. I’d be more than a little lost without you. Without your help, I mean,” he corrected.

  “You’re welcome,” she smiled. “Most people find it annoying that I’m a bit of a know-it-all.” Ariahna shrugged like it didn’t bother her.

  “Well, I’ve been called a box of questions on more than one occasion,” Rome laughed, standing up and placing his hand back in hers. “Speaking of questions… what’s The Grove?”

  Before Aria had a chance to answer, she was startled by an old man she’d never seen before. He was just suddenly standing at her side, and it wasn’t until then that she realized the group had moved on without them. He had dark, heavily set eyes that seemed to have sunken into his face with age, and several discolored patches marred his skin. There was something particularly eerie about him that she simply couldn’t explain.

  “The Grove,” the man said roughly, “was a sacred place created by the family of the Artisan. They brought trees from all four corners of the world to bloom 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, in the earth. Stepping into The Grove was to be saturated in purity, wrapped up in magic and held safe,” he whispered, clenching bony fingers close to his chest. “It was an Eden.”

  Aria had grown up learning about The Grove; she’d like to have thought that she knew most all there was to know about it. 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 was reciting something out of a book, but as if he were seeing it. It was as though he was recalling a treasured old memory. Everything about him, from his hollow cheeks to his wild silver hair was filling her with dread. Rome’s thumb brushed soothingly over the back of her palm, and she noticed the man staring at that.

  “We should probably go catch up with our group…”

  “You talk about this place as if it’s gone,” Rome said.

  “It was destroyed,” the man groaned.

  “The tree at the center of The Grove died off, actually,” she said.

  “Is that the story now days? More’s the pity. The yew tree did not merely die. It was poisoned,” he hissed, 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,” she said skeptically.

  “I suppose you don’t know the legend of the six wands then, either?” he whispered, a thin smile playing at the curve of his lips. “The Artisan crafted the wands from those ancient, sacred trees as a show of goodwill to the five oldest, most influential magical families. The sixth… the sixth was gifted to a woman whom he loved.”

  Ariahna was gripping Rome’s hand so tightly her fingers hurt, almost pressing herself into his side. Other than the bit about the sixth wand being intended for a lover, she 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, catching Christian’s scent in the air a second later. It occurred to him then that he hadn’t smelled this guy before he appeared; he hadn’t even heard him walk up.

  “The wands, though presented as tribute, had in truth been cursed. Each held its own misfortune to be inherited by the five families. 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.”

  “Cursed?” Rome said disbelievingly. He tore his eyes away from the old man, admiring the elegant, unassuming pieces of wood. “Curses aren’t real… are they?”

  “But why would he curse them?” Aria asked.

  “Navarro,” he 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 wa
nd 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 to the Artisan that with it no longer living, he 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 confirmed, nodding. “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 breathed. “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 whispered, “…death.”

  “Death?” she breathed.

  “Their love, a cursed love, would always end. As it is told, the VayRenn’s 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.”