“You think that what you have is some kind of magical power…” he’d said to her, and he’d been right, of course. She had believed that then, and now she knew. Perhaps that was why she was here, in this world of swords and sorcery, instead of Minneapolis, with its department stores and burger joints. Maybe this was where she was supposed to be. Maybe she could fit into this world in a way that would never have been possible there. Maybe…and maybe…and maybe…
He had understood her mind, but there were still many things that Coach Anders hadn’t known. Something that almost no one knew, save Casey, perhaps, but even Casey had never suspected the whole of it. Emily had accomplished all she had despite the hell she faced at home at the end of every game. The knowing had helped, but perhaps the truly remarkable thing had been her ability to keep going day after insufferable day. Somehow, with the space of these last two weeks between her old life and this strange new one, it was easier to objectively look back at all she’d been through. She wondered how she’d managed coping for so long. More, she wondered why. Going to someone for help seemed like the obvious thing she should have done, though at the time the mere thought of pulling back the curtain on that part of her life for anyone else to see had seemed unbearable.
She shuffled to the next and final page in the folder. It was a mostly blank sheet of computer paper with a blurry photograph centered on it. She and Casey stood foremost in the team portrait, and all the other girls, clutching their sticks and grinning, were clustered around them on the ice. Emily and Casey were both laughing, and the shot had clearly been taken in a candid moment. Beneath it, in Coach Anders’s thin scrawl, were written three words:
“Remember your friends”.
A shadow fell across the page, and Celine’s hand reached out and touched the photo below Emily’s laughing face.
“Is that yeh?” she asked softly. “It is, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.”
They both examined the photograph in silence.
“It’s a strange place yeh come from.”
Emily supposed it was. She looked again at the handwritten caption beneath the photo. What exactly had the coach meant by that? Had he known things weren’t quite right at home despite Emily’s careful efforts to keep that part of her life separate from school? Now she wondered… Had he been able to see through the laughter and fierce competitiveness all the time? Had he suspected there was darkness waiting for her every time she hung up her skates and headed home after practice?
Celine sank down on the bed beside her, and Emily closed the folder and looked at her. Celine’s face was pale and drawn. Her eyes were wide and serious.
“I’m scared, Em,” she said. “Tomorrow’s our meetin’s with Marianne…and I’m scared. I don’t think I was none before today, but what she did to that poor man…” A tear trickled from the corner of one eye, and Celine slapped it away.
Remember your friends.
Emily studied her friend, thinking. The two short weeks had wrought a remarkable change in the girl. She looked healthier and stronger than she had when she’d remained in the cabin of the boat, trying to wake Emily when all the other girls would’ve left her behind. She no longer boasted only a filthy sheet as her entire wardrobe, and her face and hair were clean. Seven Skies had been good to her. It still might be.
But if Emily did what she was thinking of doing, life would be hard for her. If Celine came with her, she’d be taking her away from the first real home she’d ever had and back into a life of uncertainty—and likely, danger.
Remember your friends.
She looked into Celine’s face and reached out to take her hand.
“Do you still think the boy beneath Marianne’s tower deserves to be there?” she asked, watching Celine’s expression. Celine stared back for a moment, then shook her head.
“I doubt it.”
Emily stood up and ran a hand through her hair.
“Listen,” she said, turning and looking down at Celine. “If I tell you something, will you promise me you won’t say anything, even if you don’t like it?”
Celine nodded without any hesitation. Emily began pacing the short space between their beds, trying to work off some of the nervous energy that roiled inside her.
“I’m leaving Seven Skies,” she said at last. “I’ve seen enough. I’m going to try to get the boy out with me if I can. If I can’t, I’ll try to find someone,” she waved in the general direction of the city, “who can help me get him out.”
She expected Celine to tell her she was crazy and that she had no chance in hell of getting out of Seven Skies, let alone with the boy. She braced herself for an onslaught of practical, rational, and vehement arguments as to why she shouldn’t go on with the insane idea.
Instead, she saw a glimmer of hope dawn in Celine’s eyes. There was doubt there still, but it was tempered by excitement.
She frowned and leaned forward toward Emily. “So yeh’re goin’ to get the boy out and somehow get out of Seven Skies…” she paused, “…and then what are yeh goin’ to do? Where are yeh goin’ to go? How much money ’ave yeh got on yeh, Em?”
Emily had her savings in her backpack, but of course that was all so much green ink smeared across paper here. Worthless. She had the one gold holder that Marcom had given her, the one she hadn’t thrown into the fountain, but she doubted it would get her far, if anywhere.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I don’t know enough about the city, or really much of anything else in this place, to make any plans. But it’s not like I’m going to learn anything that would help cooped up here. I’ll have to wing it.”
Celine gave her a look.
“Improvise?” Emily tried.
Celine shook her head.
“Figure out what I’m doing along the way.”
Celine grinned. “Yeah, I know. It’s just fun makin’ yeh explain things.”
The mischievous glint in Celine’s eyes surprised a laugh out of Emily, and she dropped back down onto the bed.
“So, let me make sure I got this straight. Yeh’re goin’ to rescue the boy, sneak out of Seven Skies, an’ then try to keep from gettin’ caught by the guard when Marianne surely sends them after yeh by wingin’ it. Is that about right?”
Put like that, it sounded like the worst idea in the history of the universe. Emily shifted uncomfortably and looked at her hands.
“It’s the only plan I’ve got,” she said. She didn’t say the rest of what was on her mind. She was tired of letting herself be carried along by events, merely reacting to those around her. She wanted to do something. She wanted control of the puck.
“Well, fortunately, it ain’t the only one I got.”
Emily looked up. Celine was still grinning.
“What do you mean?”
“I think it’s a lot smarter to ’ave someone with yeh who is used to makin’ do. I’ve been doin’ that my whole life, ain’t I? I’m goin’ with yeh…and we’re goin’ tonight.”
“Are you crazy?” Emily asked. “We can’t leave tonight. We need time to plan…”
“Ain’t no time for plannin’. If we’re goin’, we have to go before Marianne’s ’ad a chance to cast a spell on me or somethin’. Who’s to say what she’ll do at those meetin’s tomorrow?”
Emily bit her lip and watched as Celine’s excitement only grew, fueled by apparent relief. It made her uneasy. She thought she had a responsibility to make sure Celine understood all she would be leaving behind.
“Are you sure you want to do that, Cel?” She searched her friend’s face. “I mean, you could have a life here…maybe a good one…”
Celine was shaking her head before Emily finished her thought. “It don’t ma’er, Em. I’ve seen a lot of people do a lot of terrible things, but nothin’ like what we saw out there. There’s enough evil in the world to be gettin’ on with. I’m not gonna add to it none. A few bowls of porridge and some clean clothes ain’t worth that. Nothin’s worth that.”
Celine sat
up straighter and squared her shoulders. A fierceness shone in her eyes that Emily had not seen there before.
“So,” she said, “We’ve only got a few hours then. ’Ow do we start?”
Emily couldn’t help it; staring into her friend’s determined face, gleaming with such loyalty, she smiled.
Remember your friends.
Part Five: Offside
“An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.”
—Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son
“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.”
—Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Chapter Fifteen
The garden was gilded with moonlight as Emily and Celine followed its winding paths toward Marianne’s tower. The silence was total, save for the chatter of the fountain. Nothing stirred. The air was cool and redolent of the sea.
The chink of Emily’s armor seemed thunderous in the deserted courtyard. Her sword hung at her side, and her pack hung easily from her shoulders. Celine had offered to take it, but Emily wanted the other girl to be able to run without the added weight, should the need arise. Sweat ran down her sides in streams that cooled quickly in the night air.
Celine looked much as she did every day. The only change in her appearance was the addition of a pair of daggers stuffed into her belt. They were the ones Matthew had given Emily, and Celine had taken them only reluctantly. Emily was more comfortable with her sword, and she wanted Celine to have something with which to defend herself.
Some far off night bird let out a long and plaintive cry in the darkness. Both girls stopped, glanced at one another uneasily, then carried on. Emily’s heart thudded so loudly in her ears that she feared it could be heard throughout the whole of Seven Skies. This was insanity. What the hell were they doing?
They reached the top of the steps and stood before the doors. Wind whispered between the towers overhead, rustling the leaves in the trees. In the shadowy alcove within which the doors were set, they could see nothing but blackness. Emily swallowed hard.
Bracing herself, she took one last glance at Celine, who nodded, then stepped forward and placed her palm on the metal plate with its inscribed insignia.
There was a click, a whir, and then…
Nothing.
She tried again. The soft sounds repeated, but still the doors did not slide open.
“Mayhap it only opens for certain people,” Celine whispered. “Or yeh need a key or somethin’.”
That made sense, and Emily cursed herself for thinking this would be that easy. Given time, she supposed, she’d be able to open the various doors in and around Seven Skies, just like the others of the guard and Caireann could. But she didn’t have the luxury of time. Now what?
An idea came to her then. She spun away from the doors and hurried back down the steps, trailing Celine in her wake. Beside the fountain, she turned to face her friend.
“Listen,” she said in a low voice. “Wait here by the fountain. I’ll be back. I have an idea.”
Before Celine could argue or ask questions, Emily had already started moving quickly across the garden and into the grove of trees. Leaves rustled over her head; boughs creaked; the wind voiced its displeasure to the night.
Emily headed for the only one of the three guard towers she’d yet to visit. It was the smallest and western most and must be where the sleeping quarters were.
As she approached the entrance, she prayed that she’d be able to open this door, it belonging to the guard and she being a member. Could the fortress possibly know or understand that? Or was there some sort of technology, rather than magic, that powered the doors? Only one way to find out.
Her foot had hardly touched the first step when there was a low whirring noise from above. Someone was coming.
As the doors slid open, she flung herself into the deep shadows that pooled between the stairs and the base of the tower. She crouched down and listened as a pair of boots thumped down the steps and started away through the grove.
Move faster, she wished. The seconds ticked by, feeling like hours.
She heard the click of the doors’ mechanism again as it prepared to close. Hoping that she’d waited long enough to remain unobserved, she sprang from her hiding place and darted up the stairs, drawing her sword as she did.
She reached them just before they slid shut and thrust the blade of her sword through the narrow space that remained. The doors stopped moving, and there was an angry grinding sound of straining gears as they attempted to finish the journey along their tracks.
She twisted her sword, trying to widen the gap, but the mechanism was immensely strong. She caught a glimpse of the guard’s emblem of the sword being broken in two over the boulder and grimaced, imagining her own snapping between these doors. Wouldn’t that just be fine.
She heard another loud click from the mechanism inside the walls. The doors began to slide apart again, and Emily ducked inside with a sigh of relief.
She found herself in an antechamber almost identical to the one at the base of the apprentices’ tower. A single candle hung in the air before her. It dipped slightly as she came to a stop, and the doors slid closed with a soft thud behind her.
She stepped forward into the candlelight. Three corridors branched off before her. Which one to take? Damn. She had no idea where to go.
She glanced over at the candle where it hovered patiently beside her shoulder. She thought of the ones that had led her and Celine to the library. It was Mr. Boddy, in the library, with the candlestick, she thought wildly and had to press the heel of her hand against her lips to stifle a laugh. This time, it’s Emily, in the guard tower, with the sword! Her heart pounded in her ears and her nerves jangled. Get a grip, Em, she told herself.
Feeling ridiculous, she addressed the candle in a whisper: “Matthew? Can you take me to Matthew?”
The candle dipped again and headed down the lefthand corridor. Emily let out a sigh of relief and followed.
It led her past a series of alcoves set into the walls on either side of the passage. They looked almost like prison cells without the barred doors. In each, illuminated by the candle- or moonlight filtering in from outside, were cots with sleeping men. The sound of gentle snoring reverberated from several.
As she passed the fourth set, she saw the occupant of the cot on her left stir. Emily froze, her heart in her throat, but the man simply rolled over in his sleep away from the candlelight.
She let out the breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and followed the candle a dozen more steps.
It stopped before the alcove on her right, and she saw Matthew’s stocky frame hidden beneath a sheet, sleeping peacefully inside.
Emily looked around. The alcove across from Matthew’s was empty, but all the rest of the nearby cells were occupied. From one, the sound of the beefy resident’s snoring was prodigious, but the others were utterly silent.
Sending out another silent prayer that Matthew’s neighbor’s snores would mask the sound of what she was going to do next, she slipped quietly past the candle and into Matthew’s area.
She steeled herself, dropped to her knees beside his cot, and laid her hand across his mouth.
Matthew’s eyes snapped open, and his hand whipped out from beneath his sheet. He grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm, yanking her hand away from his face.
His mouth opened, a shout of alarm on his lips, but then his eyes widened as they caught sight of her face, and his mouth snapped shut. His cheeks turned a shade darker in the flickering light, and he let go of her quickly, sitting up and pulling the sheet around his shoulders.
“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack!” He thumped his chest for emphasis.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “I needed to find someone who could help me. You seemed like the logical choice.”
Matthew’s face flushed again with pleasure, and Emily felt a pang of guilt about what she was doing.
“What do you need?”
“I was ordered to make a report to the mistress, about…a secret assignment the captain gave me…only Mar…I mean, he forgot to make it so I could open the door to go inside.”
The lie sounded ridiculous to her own ears, but Matthew was already getting off his cot and slipping his feet into his boots.
“Yeah,” he smirked, “that’s happened before. When Jared joined the guard, the captain forgot to give him access in here,” he gestured around them, “and he had to sleep outside on the steps. That’s why we call him Dog. Come on.”
Hardly able to breathe, Emily followed him back through the tower and out into the courtyard.
As they made their way through the garden, Celine left the edge of the fountain and fell into step beside them. Matthew paused halfway up the steps to Marianne’s tower and frowned at her.
“What’s she doing here?” he whispered.
“She was…uh…helping me. You know, with the mission.”
Please…just open the damn door, she thought.
Matthew climbed the rest of the steps and stopped again at the top. He stared at the doors in the moonlight, then turned to face Emily.
“This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me,” he whispered. “I mean, I could get into a lot of trouble for letting you in without orders.”
Emily climbed the last few steps to stand beside him. She leaned in close and gave him a sweet smile.
“Could be worse if you don’t. I have information the mistress needs about the Dragon’s Brood, and if she finds out that you’re the only reason I wasn’t able to deliver it to her on time…” She let the thought hang, unspoken, in the air between them.
Matthew looked nervously down at his feet, then to the door, and finally back at Emily.
“Okay, okay. But don’t tell anyone I let you in, all right?”
Haven Lost Page 17