“Gemma, dear, what happened? That was real fire, not something to play with,” Mr. Cuthbertson said. He looked worried.
“Ash, can you take her down to the nurse’s room?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“She’s going to need a Silvadene wrap. The nurse wil give her some cream to cool the burning. Just be sure to tel her it was a flame burn, not chemical.”
The other students looked at me with a mix of confusion and disgust. One girl looked sympathetic, but the rest, they just looked at me like I was crazy.
Ash didn’t say anything as we moved down the halway. I let him lead the way, one arm around my middle, his other arm holding my wrist and hand out in front of us. I kept my head back, nose pinched. I was beginning to realy hate the taste of blood running down the back of my throat.
I could hear only the little shade’s voice in my head. Miss Gemma…the mean one…she won’t let us go through.
Once in the office, the nurse moved quickly. Ash gave her the lowdown on what he thought happened, and I didn’t bother to correct him. No, I didn’t accidentally burn myself. A ghost shoved my hand into the open flame. That would’ve gone over like a turd in a punchbowl.
“You gonna be okay? You want me to stay with you?” Ash said.
“No, I’m good. Can you grab my bag for me? I left in the room.”
“Yeah, I’l bring it.” He cupped my cheek in his hand before he left, and for the first time in days, his eyes showed genuine concerned. My old Ash.
The nurse swabbed a thick white cream onto the skin of my fingers. It burned at first but then cooled, eliminating the sting. She folowed up with a loose wrapping of a silvery gauze and tried to convince me I should go home and see a doctor.
“No, I’m good. I need to finish the day.”
“Wel, you should sit in here for a few minutes, at least through lunch. Are you okay to take ibuprofen or acetaminophen? Any alergies to those?” She stood and moved to a locked medicine cabinet.
“Either is fine,” I said. She opened a red and white bottle and tapped two pils into a tiny paper cup. She then handed me some bottled water and the pils.
“Bottom’s up!” she said, smiling. I swalowed the Tylenol like a good patient, and sat back against the pilows on the cot. “You rest here for a bit, okay? Are you sure you don’t want me to cal home for you?”
“No, realy. I’l be fine. It’s not that bad. Thanks, though.” She smiled and left me alone.
I kept my eyes closed, afraid to open them and see the shades standing next to the cot. The ferocity of his grip around my wrist…
that was worse than the burn. The mean one…she won’t let us go through. Who was the mean one? And what did any of this have to do with me?
My cel phone buzzed in my pocket.
Ur hurt. I saw something. I can’t come 2 u. So so sorry. She won’t let me leave. Plz B careful. Wil come as soon as I can. xo—
HD
Henry. He knew.
:32:
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
—Socrates
I managed to nod off, and the nurse let me sleep through lunch and fifth period. I only woke up when my cel buzzed again. I hoped it would be Henry, but it wasn’t. It was Junie, maniacaly texting to make sure I wasn’t dead.
I made it to sixth period philosophy, though why I didn’t just stay hidden in the nurse’s room…especialy when I walked into the classroom and saw Summer Day sitting in the desk right next to mine.
“Hey, Gemma. How’s your hand? Ash said you burned yourself?”
“It’s…fine,” I said, looking at my gauze-wrapped fingers. News traveled fast. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I transferred in. Last-minute shift of my schedule. I dropped math because it was lame. Besides, Mr. Poole is a pedo.” I turned in my seat so as not to invite further conversation. The discussion for the day was shaping up to be a total bloodbath, anyway. Mr. Harbourne—Ben, as Lucian had caled him—seemed more excited than ever to talk about La Una, and the students, Summer included, were lapping up what Harbourne was pouring out. Between the throbbing in my hand and the discomfort in my head, I felt like I might throw up.
The first part of La Una spoke about the lies pushed on legions of people throughout history, people who had been “mistakenly” taught that natural remedies and spiritual guidance and universal oneness were solid methods for building communities. But the writer’s position—what I knew was Lucian’s position—asserted that people who believed in promoting good in society through peaceful measures were weak, misguided, and lazy. Instead, men should look to themselves, ignore their felow citizens, promote their own brand of success and self-sufficiency. Instigate war, if necessary, if the means supported the end.
“The early chapters in La Una, I think the writer had a grudge he was trying to work through. The content must’ve been of more significance when the book first circulated. Beyond the writer’s obvious disgust for healers and the use of magic in medicine—
whatever. But it’s relevance in a modern context suggests an ideology that belief in anything outside tangible science should be disregarded, even shunned, if men—and women—are to fortify themselves, make themselves into machines of commerce, to make their countries into superpowers.
“Look what’s happened to so many third world countries who can’t fend for themselves. Disease—AIDS, malaria—are rampant.
Citizens look to witch doctors to heal their families, save their dying children, when realy, a condom or a mosquito net would do what their beads and bird bones can’t.” A few students chuckled. It infuriated me; there was nothing funny about children dying from malaria or the orphan epidemic spawned by the AIDS crisis.
“These societies don’t understand progress. They don’t see that wishing on a magic stone or sacrificing a goat isn’t going to save their failing crops. They resist progress. They can’t build infrastructures or support their own populations. So after years and years of aid funneled in from wealthier nations, they’re dependent, like addicts, on the relief efforts of the US, England, Canada, Australia, and other industrialized countries. If we teach people to always have their hands out, they wil always be looking for a handout, right? But if people learn how to be mindful of their own lots, to tend their own gardens, how can that not be a good thing?
“And what about closer to home? Our tax dolars go to support welfare, public health care programs for people who can’t afford it, things like that. While I don’t mind paying my portion and contributing to society, for whatever it’s worth, I’m not excited about the fact that if my neighbor just doesn’t want to work, he can go down and get welfare and then go to the acupuncturist to treat his sore toe.” The class laughed.
“If I have to pay for another homeless person to go to a chiropractor or a natural healer or whatever…wel, it doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem like a proper appropriation of public funds.
And I pay the taxes that make those things happen. Your parents pay those taxes, too. A single mom of three needs to take her kids to the dentist or eye doctor? Fine. But a magic-wand healer or Chinese medicine practitioner to treat a cold? No, thank you. I’l keep my tax dolars in my pocket, thank you very much.” He repeated his earlier sentiment, to drive the point home: “If we teach people to always have their hands out, they wil always be looking for a handout.” I was totaly confused by his logic. Were we talking about the evils of social programs or the problems of alternative medical therapies?
Whatever his point, I didn’t think Ben Harbourne had any clue about who—or what—Lucian Dmitri was. Magician and philanthropist. Ancient author of La Una. Lucian had spent years supporting the economy of Eaglefern, investing in social programs, building schools and hospitals. Hel, he was supporting the Cinzio Traveling Players.
And then it dawned on me: it was the perfect ruse. Lucian was using Harbourne, and God only knew how many other obtuse teachers across the country, to sp
read La Una. The wheels were in motion.
“But this, just like everything else in this course—I leave it to you to take your own position, develop your own philosophies. Use this as a foundation if you want, but feel free to disagree with it. That’s the beauty of living in a free, democratic society.” Shel-shocked, I wandered back to my locker, in no huge hurry to squeeze through the deafening crowd at the front turnaround.
Marlene would wait for me.
My sore fingers made life more interesting as I tried to get my books in and out of my locker one-handed. I tossed La Una onto the top shelf—I’d had enough bigotry and hatred for one day. As I shut the door, I yelped; the shades were back, al three of them.
“The mean one. She’s there,” the littlest one said, pointing, arm outstretched. I stared at my closed locker. The temperature of the air around me plunged. I shivered. My teeth chattered.
“Please go away. I can’t help you,” I whispered.
“Yes, you can help us. The witch—she’s here. Look at the mean one,” the brother said. I felt his hand on me again, this time on the top of my scalp as he twisted my whole head around. The force of his grip rooted me in place, just as he’d done with my hand over the Bunsen burner.
Whatever he wanted me to look at—whomever this “mean one” was—the only people I saw were down the hal, in front of another bank of lockers.
Ash, his back to me, bent over in an embrace, the face of a girl leering over his shoulder, her arms tight around him.
Summer Day.
“The witch. You see her now?” the biggest shade said.
Summer stared back at me, the cold, black of her eyes visible even from the distance between us.
“The mean one, Miss Gemma,” the little girl whimpered.
Summer didn’t just smile at me, as she stood wrapped around my best friend.
She bared her teeth, and growled.
:33:
Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.
—Aldous Huxley
As expected, Marlene spazzed when she saw me climb into the car with gauze wrapped around my left hand.
“It’s just a burn, Auntie. I’m fine.”
“Gemma, honey! How did you do it?”
“Just a thing…in chemistry. I got too close to the flame.” I wanted to tel her the truth, but I was afraid. That shade had grabbed my arm and forced it over the open burner. And then the carnage with crazy Mr. Harbourne…and the shades at my locker.
And what was that with Summer Day? If I told Marlene any of this, she’d lock me in my trailer. I was exhausted. And I desperately missed Henry.
The murmurings of company members around the property buzzed into my ears, but no shades, friendly or otherwise, awaited to greet me upon arriving home. Then again, I’d kept my head down, eyes on the ground ahead of each step. If the shades were there, I didn’t want to know. I’d had enough shade drama for one day.
Determined to plow through last week’s late assignments and in great need of quiet, I holed up in the trailer to tackle the work I’d missed when absent. As much as I didn’t want to think any more about Harbourne and his dangerous, shortsighted alegiance to La Una, I had to pass his class. And thus I needed to do the homework.
I had to do a current event analysis, so I found an article online about the recent spat of attacks on old-fashioned apothecaries and natural-treatment clinics across the US. Seemed the general population was turning its colective back on the idea of natural remedies and herbal cures. This was right up Mr. Harbourne’s aley. The article detailed the recent decline of natural-health occupations and the decision by several major insurance companies to stop paying for midwives and chiropractors. And people were being beaten, even shot, their houses and businesses burned to the ground. The world was losing its mind, and so much of what was happening was eerily aligned with La Una. A new sense of dread settled over me.
Marlene popped in around 4 pm with a snack. She didn’t linger to talk, to nag about my latest injury or ask about last night, or why Henry had left so abruptly. She must’ve sensed that he was under a Lucian-imposed gag order. At dinner, Henry hadn’t been his normal effusive self, and I know I couldn’t have been the only person to take note. Until the moment in the trailer bathroom, he’d been cold and distant. And right before the scuffle with Ash, he’d told me that Alicia was gone.
He had to be feeling totaly lost. He knew about the chemistry incident minutes after it happened and said he wanted to come to me, but couldn’t. How did he know about it if Alicia was gone?
God, I wished I could just talk to him!
An hour into my quiet study time, someone knocked, puling me from the screen of my computer, from my random wanderings on the Internet. I threw my pencil down, praying that when I opened the door, somehow, by some miracle, it would be Henry standing on the steps.
Instead, huddled in the midst of yet another drenching shower stood Marku Dmitri.
“Helo, Gemma,” he said. “Am I disturbing you?”
“Uh, not at al,” I stammered, unsure of what to do. He nodded toward the interior. “Please, come in.” I waved my arm to invite him into the trailer. Fear tickled the back of my throat, but the kindness in Marku’s eyes overruled my hesitation.
“I know this must seem odd for me to be visiting you, but Henry, he is at home with Lilith,” he said, his accent thick and European, almost Draculean. “She wil not let him out of the house. Told her I wanted to go for a drive, get some fresh air in this beautiful countryside you live in.” He laughed a little under his breath.
“Won’t she suspect you?”
“No,” he sniffed. “She is too busy with her plans to worry about an old man like me getting in the way.” Around his neck hung a camera, a boxy, old-school rangefinder, the kind that used real film.
“Pictures. I like to take pictures.” He gave the camera a little wiggle in his hand.
“I’m taking a photography class at school,” I said, shoving aside my books so he could sit down.
“You take after me, then. An eye for simple beauty,” he chuckled to himself as he sat down at the table. “Is Theodore here?”
“Uh, yeah…yes. He’s in the big top working, I think. Should I get him?”
“No. I came to see you, my dear.” A pause. “Is that okay?” I nodded, my guts tight with an uncertain anticipation.
“I want to tel you a story,” he said. “Many new things have come to you in recent days, yes?”
“You could say that.” I catalogued al the bizarre new components of my reality in my head. But Marku Dmitri, Lucian’s father, was here at the fairgrounds, alone, in the middle of the afternoon, to tel me a story?
Marku puled off his overcoat and made himself comfortable at the table. I offered him coffee or tea, but he declined. Said he’d been doing nothing but sitting home drinking tea. I laughed when he asked if I had anything stronger.
“Ted has whiskey, and vodka, I think,” I said.
“Good man, that Ted.” When Marku smiled, it wasn’t just his lips but his whole face that curled into a grin. The light danced in his moist eyes, which looked like little sunshines cresting over the horizon, bright in the center. My unease vanished.
He wasted no more time on smal talk and instead launched into a story about when he was a boy named Balashi, living on the shores of the Euphrates River, his father a farmer and his mother a healer, a powerful woman sought by the families and politicians of their vilage. She fixed their wounds, cast away their demons, welcomed their new babies and sent their dead away to the afterlife with a few kind words. He talked about how his mother groomed him to take over and taught him the ways of her craft, how he met a young man named Nutesh, and the two of them formed a lasting bond that stretched from adolescence and beyond, into the time that they were ready to find wives and venture out on their own. He talked about the birth of the AVRAKEDAVRA, how five others besides him and Nutesh came together to build a practice
of healing and envisioned themselves as keepers, the protectors, of humanity.
“The book, it was meant for good. It was born in peace, written with courage, and handled with respect. We loved our people, al people, and within our smal group, we were granted a divinity that could not be put asunder, not in the face of wars, famine, drought, or political strife. We moved around as we had to, the seven of us with our new families, doing what we could to deliver the word of peace, of community.” He wiped at his eyes with a cloth handkerchief drawn from his pocket, eyes remembering a very long journey, during which he had witnessed events that changed the course of humankind.
Marku detailed the discovery that the people within their select group did not age as the population around them did, that the book somehow afforded them protection against the ils of aging and disease. It was upon this discovery that the Seven made the decision to break ranks, to spread out across the continent and do what they could to save men from themselves. The birth of Christendom, the fal of the Roman Empire, the birth and death of other empires and dynasties, the rise and fal of religions throughout Europe and Asia—the aggregate of man’s pursuit of God and power. With each new path emblazoned, another would fal. Lives were lost, histories of peoples were forgotten and left to crumble and decay in neglected lands.
But the AVRA-K and its believers sustained themselves. Against al odds, they managed to avoid the corrosive effects of time, survived through witch hunts that should’ve sealed their fates, changed their identities and occupations as required but always maintained their commitment to the Book. The Original Seven and their families survived, and flourished, through history, their essence drawn from the magic contained inside the pages of seven smal texts. Their people were learned, able to read in multiple languages, and studied the scrols and books found at Alexandria, Pergamum, Herculaneum, Ephesus, Constantinople, and Yunju before the respective ends that brought the world’s greatest libraries to their crippled knees.
But one man amongst them began to promote his own agenda, seeking audiences around Europe and Asia to spread his own beliefs on the power of self-fulfilment. It wasn’t enough to til the fields or forge weapons. It wasn’t honor in the eyes of God to simply have children for the sake of future generations if those generations had no cause to further their own greatness. This man wrote a book and paid huge sums of money for it to be printed and sent on every outgoing vessel, with every caravan moving its way across vast expanses of geography. He was the first writer to promote his own work beyond the shelves of the world’s most esteemed bibliographic colections.
Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K Page 23