by Diana Nixon
"Yes, but we are still talking about the friendship bond," I said. "If Amanda and you have been bound for a long time already, then she and I have the same bond as the two of you share. But a part of the bond you and I have is different, as our friendship was born in love. And that's why our bond is much stronger."
"I feel like an idiot," Amanda said. "I don't understand a word of what you are talking about! Why do I hear your thoughts, but you don't hear mine? And you can't read each other's minds as well!"
"It's a good question, but I think I know the answer. Do you remember those stories about the time of Dever's foundation?
"They said that Jason and Gabriella Fairey could read peoples' minds," Eileen said. "It helped them to find other families with various supernatural talents."
"But the Fairey lost that ability," Amanda added.
"They lost that ability because they started to marry humans. They created thousands of mixed families and the gift lost its original power," I explained.
"But why can't Eileen read minds? She inherited all the gifts of Medellin Wizardy's daughter!"
"The reason is the same - only one of her parents possesses super powers.”
"Amanda, can you hear someone else's thought? Besides Evan's and mine?"
"I don't know."
"Let’s check it out," I said. "Come in Christian!" I shouted, without waiting for my friend to knock on the door.
"Hey, guys! What's the gathering about?" he asked, watching us suspiciously.
"What are you thinking about now?" Amanda asked him.
"That every time I see your worried faces I get shivers up my spine," he said, scrutinizing us.
"Thank God!" Amanda sighed with relief, sitting at the edge of her bed. "I can't hear his thought."
"Did I miss something?" Christian asked.
"Actually, yes," Eileen said, being the first one to tell him the creepy story about our bond.
Oddly enough, Christian wasn't surprised to hear the news and even joked, saying that now when Amanda could read my mind, she would hate me even more. Though if I were him, I wouldn’t say that aloud, as after hearing his words Amanda said that she hated all of us.
Telling everyone else about our discovery, we realized that besides the three of us they all thought that our friend’s new ability was a real gift, a true blessing, as Patrick called it. They started asking her questions, but Amanda wasn't thrilled about their enthusiasm. She was sour-faced and definitely unhappy.
Marion said that Amanda's abilities awakened because of the bond the three of us shared. When Alexis died all the barriers were broken and the power of the bond became stronger. The only thing that was still making Amanda smile was the fact that Eileen and I were the only people whose minds she could read. Seeing his daughter's despair, Patrick promised to teach her how to control her gift and block our thoughts from coming into her head.
The only thing Eileen and I could do, considering the circumstances, was to control our thoughts and not forget that in Amanda's presence they should be all pure. I didn't like the idea. Obeying restrictions has never been my strongest point.
Chapter 20. Scafell Pike
Eileen
Almost three weeks have passed since the day Christian, Evan and I returned to Dever. Despite many changes in our life, everything was getting back to normal.
Christian and I tried to spend as much time together as possible, catching up on everything we had lost while we were apart. His memories about us were coming back little by little, though sometimes I had to tell him the details of something he couldn't remember. I liked the way our relationship was developing now. Unlike him, I never forgot about his existence. But sometimes it felt like I was falling for him again. And now everything was even better. Every kiss and every touch felt like the first time. Not every couple gets a second chance to start a relationship over from the very beginning. That's why we cherished every second of being together.
I couldn't say the same thing about my parents. Catherine and Frederick still couldn't decide what they really wanted from each other. Mom was mad at Dad for leaving her and me many years ago. And he was losing his patience and any desire to be with her again. He was still married, and Rebecca's presence in his life complicated matters significantly.
Catherine tried really hard to get used to the idea of Frederick and me being a part of the world of the supernatural. I don't want to remember the hours we wasted answering her numerous questions. She finally agreed to move to my father's apartment, though it was hard to stop her from going back to Norfield. She didn't like staying in Dever. But we didn't know anything about Walter Blake and we didn't want to risk leaving her without our protection.
Amanda was suffering from fighting her new ability. She avoided places where Evan and I could be, though we tried not to think about anything that would upset or piss her off. Well, at least I tried. And Evan, well, he was just Evan.
Marion returned to France, promising to spend Christmas at Christian parents' house in Norfield together with her daughter Elena. I couldn't believe she wasn't there with us anymore. We had become very close and I missed her every day. She taught us a lot, and the main thing we realized being with her was to never stop half-way. No matter what we were doing, we had to be strong and believe in ourselves.
I was alone in my room, enjoying the rare moments of peace and quiet. Evan wasn't guarding me day and night anymore and I could finally breathe freely without thinking about him drilling my back with his watchful gazes. Surprisingly enough, my nightmares stopped and I kept wondering if it had anything to do with Evan's magic. Now my dreams were full of colors, smiles and other pleasant moments.
There was a beautiful bouquet of orchids on my bedside table, sent yesterday by Christian. In the note attached was written the following, "Sometimes I think I would be missing you even if I'd never met you in my real life." I smiled happily rereading his words. He said just what we both felt.
That note wasn't the only one. Every day I found other notes, hidden in my closet, under my pillow, in my music box and even on my mirror, drawn in dark-purple ink. All his messages were beautiful, of course. And all of them were written in different languages. One of them was in Spanish, saying, "Abrázame y nunca me sueltes. Eres mi pasión y mi locura - Hold me and never let me go. You are my passion and my insanity." The other one was in French and said, "Je t'aime de tout mon Coeur - I love you with all my heart." The third note was in Italian, "Vuoi sapere quanto ti amo? Immagina che ogni battito del tuo cuore sia uno mio - Do you want to know how much I love you? Imagine that every beat of your heart is mine..." The writing on the mirror was in English. "Your smile is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. P.S. I love you."
Christian definitely knew how to make me happy.
It was almost noon, but today I didn't want to practice magic or have another long talk about the endless mysteries and puzzles. That's why I locked myself in my room and decided to have a day off. I took one of Amanda's books and nestled in a chair with a blanket wrapped around my legs. The book turned out to be a novel with a painfully naive plot full of passionate kisses and the tearing off of clothes. Barely getting to the eighth page, I gave up and went to find something more interesting.
Burrowing into my own books I found one that caught my attention. It was a guide of the Cumbrian Mountains. Coming back to my chair I opened the book and found the description of different mythological creatures living there. I stopped at the mentioning of dragons, who according to the book symbolized immortality. The paragraph also said that winning a victory over the dragon the person won everlasting life as well.
Dreams were an essential part of immortality. The numerous legends said that the process of becoming immortal was accompanied by a long dream, created by the dying dragon.
Dragons were also associated with snakes, and the alchemists described them as a combination of a substance, metal and physical body.
What a strange description, I thought, turning the page. Th
e next chapter was dedicated to the local mountains. The highest one was Scafell Pike - 3209 ft. or 977 meters. Seeing the last three numbers, I froze speechless.
"Nine, seven, seven," I read aloud.
The very same combination of numbers we got deciphering Eric's prompts about the Cup's location. But now we knew where the real Cup of power was, and that meant....
"Oh, God! This is impossible!" I whispered, adding up different parts of my memories. The result was shocking and I realized that all my plans about a quiet morning went to rack and ruin. Again.
I put on a jacket hurriedly and ran to find Christian and Evan. Concentrating on their images and following the traces of their energy, I found them in Patrick's office. I stopped at the door, taking a deep breath, and without asking Beatrice for permission, entered the office.
"Eric was one of the Dragons too!" I blurted out, breathing heavily. Christian, Evan and Patrick stared at me in confusion.
"Eileen, what are you talking about?" Christian asked. "We know that he was following Alexis' orders, but it doesn't mean that he belonged to the brotherhood."
"No, no no," I gibbered, opening the guidebook I was holding in my hands. "Look at these numbers. Do they ring a bell?"
"Nine, seven, seven," Evan read. "Jeez, these are the very numbers Eric was talking about before the escape! What do they mean, Eileen?"
"It's the height of the Scafell Pike, the highest mountain of the region. This book also says that the Cumbrian Mountains used to be the dragons’ place of settlement. And the dragons themselves symbolized immortality that a person could get by killing one of them. So this is the main goal of the brotherhood - the immortality!"
"Oookaaay," Evan said slowly, trying to follow my reasoning. "But what does Eric have to do with all of the above?"
"The alchemists see the dragons as a combination of a substance, metal and a physical body. Every person has a body, right? The substance is a roseroot, that helps the Dragons to recharge their life energy and the Cup is a metal, a magically created silver. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"
"Not really," Christian said, crossing his arms.
I groaned mentally and proceeded, "Only one person is able to possess the combination of three elements - the true owner of the Cup. That's why the Dragons needed Alexis. She was the one whose life they wanted to sacrifice wishing for eternal life. They associated her with the real dragon! But they didn't know that her natural powers were not enough to use the Cup. That's why she killed Nora and that's why they hired Eric. He was supposed to find me and entrap me at the top of the imaginary Scafell Pike. He wanted to get my powers to pass them to Alexis, but in reality he never cared about her. The only thing he wanted was to become immortal and for the sake of that dream he was ready to do anything. Even if anything also included killing his own sister. And Eric possessed the magic of dreams and according to this book, dream is the last stage of becoming immortal. That’s why he created an illusion, kidnapping Christian."
I wasn't sure if anyone of those present understood my rambling speech, as even I thought that it was too fast and incoherent.
"Unbelievable!" Patrick exclaimed. "Do they really think they can become immortal?"
"They do." I nodded. "Just as they do believe that they still have a chance to get what they want. No doubt they know about Alexis' death. And now they are looking for another way to use the Cup."
"Yes, but they have two small problems," Christian pointed. "First of all, they don't know where the Cup is, and secondly, they don't know how to get it back and make it work."
"The advantage is on our side," Evan summed it up. "We know where the Cup is."
"And we know the spell to kill the Dragons’ leader," Patrick added.
"I wish we could use this spell to kill all of them at once,“ Christian said.
"We have to find a way to kill them all," Patrick agreed. "We should call Marion. Has she ever mentioned the immortal goals of the brotherhood?"
"I don't think she knew about that," Evan said.
And he was right. When we called Marion and told her what we had found out about the Dragons, she was surprised too. Though she confirmed our assumptions about the Dragons’ lair, saying that there were also other places where they used to hide, but Scafell Pike had always been the main one. According to her words, the brotherhood consisted of about thirty members, including their leader.
The members were divided into two groups: those who obtained energy and those who consumed it. There were a few people willingly giving their energy to the leader and his deputy who knew everything about the organization and made sure other members were following the leader's orders. Walter Blake used to be Dominic's deputy.
There was only one way to destroy the brotherhood: we had to entrap its members in one certain place and pronouncing the binding spell, kill their leader. The death of the others was supposed to follow the death of their master. But of course, it was easier said than done, as they gathered very rarely and only a few of them knew their leader in person. That's why after the conversation with Marion, our spirits were dampened. But she promised to find out the name of the current Dragons' leader.
My day off turned into one of my regular days with headache and more problems, showing up out of nowhere every second. So I asked Christian and Evan to go down to the archives with me and try to find any information about the spell mentioned by Kevin.
"Uh, if my memory serves well, last time it was very dirty there," Evan commented gloomily, going down the stairs unwillingly. The archive Dad and I visited a few weeks ago kept only the most important sources of information, and the one we were going to now had mostly different old manuscripts, portraits of the founding families and some books about Dever's history.
"I doubt that this time it will be any different," I said, following the guys. "But we have to find the spell, so there is no time to complain about the dust, Evan. Or do you want to wait until one of the Dragons helps us find it?"
"Very funny," Evan muttered in response.
Entering the dark room of the archive, we immediately regretted coming there. The mess around us was even worse than the last time. The shelves were turned upside down as if they had been swept by a tornado. Thousands of pieces of paper were scattered all over the floor, and some of the portraits were rent.
Evan brushed away a huge spider web and smiled sarcastically, "Ladies first."
"Fine!" I said, passing by. "Let's use the finding spell my father showed me."
"Wait," Christian said. "Maybe we should use another searching method?
"Which one exactly do you suggest?" Evan asked.
"Do you remember our lectures about the energy of the lifeless objects?"
"I'm not Fairey, Christian, remember?"
"Oh, right. Anyway, I'll show you something," he said, stepping over a pile of papers.
"Okay, let's see if your method works," I agreed. "What shall we do?"
"First of all we need to separate to control the entire space of the room. Then we need to concentrate on what we want to find and try to see the objects with the lights off. As if we were looking for energy manifestation. Got it?"
Evan and I nodded, separated, turned the light off and focused our vision on magical emission. A few minutes later, Evan said, "Guys, I think I've found something!"
"I've got something too," I said, noticing a light golden halo in about a dozen steps away from me. Turning on the light with a wave of his hand, Evan came to me along with Christian.
He took the source of the energy in his hands and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "It's not a book, and not a diary."
"Looks like a map," I said.
"A very fragile map," Christian added, pointing to the torn ends of paper.
"It's a papyrus," I said, putting it carefully on the floor. "Do you know what these words mean?" I asked, reading the writing in some unknown foreign language. "It must be a very old map, as some parts of the drawing are missing."
"I
t's not a language, but a cipher made of different symbols. I saw it somewhere," Evan said thoughtfully.
"And I know where," Christian added, looking at the map. "The same symbols are drawn across the Great Hall's ceiling."
"Exactly! Someone should know their meaning. Wait, I'll show you my discovery," Evan said, going to the shelf where another source of energy appeared.
His discovery turned out to be a map too, but in his case it consisted of several pieces of the same old papyrus. There were the same symbols drawn all over his map and some of them were also missing.
"We should take these papers upstairs and watch them with a better lighting," Christian said. But it wasn't as easy as it seemed, as the moment we came out into the daylight, the drawings of our maps disappeared.
"What the hell?" Evan asked, frowning.
"They are charmed!" I guessed, rushing back to the darkness. Trying not to harm the papers, I entered the archive and sighed with relief. The symbols and the drawing showed up. Apparently, our capricious maps liked the dim light more than the natural daylight. "Oh, no!" I groaned, seeing part of the symbol vanish.
"Let's leave them here," Evan said. "But we need to copy the maps, so we wouldn't lose all the drawings."
"How about making a photo?" Christian suggested.
"No, the flashlight will destroy them," I protested. "We need to copy them manually."
"Fantastic!" Evan muttered behind my back. "The rest of the day and night is at our disposal."
"Do you have a better idea?"
"None," he said. "But I will let you know if I come up with anything."
We spent several hours among the endless piles of dusty trash and got what we needed - not a perfect copy, but still a copy of the maps. We hid the originals and came back to Patrick's office. It was empty and it was the only place we could study our discoveries freely without being disturbed.
There was a picture of the Great Hall on one of the walls. We compared the symbols from the ceiling with those from the maps.