Descending

by C E Dimond

  I hadn’t given much thought to the holidays since leaving California. Thanksgiving was quickly approaching, and Christmas would be there before I even knew it. So many months had gone by since the day I’d started school. So much time had passed without a word, or even a hint from my mother. She was still missing, and I still had no answers.

  All of this, all my efforts to stop the prophecy Cormac had planned for me, had taken precedence to the real issues. Mom and Tyler both still needed my help and somewhere in the mix, I’d forgotten about what was truly important to me.

  Was this what superheroes felt like when the lives of their loved ones hung in the balance? The fate of the world as we knew it, or my Mother and best friend? It didn’t seem like a fair choice, but then I was finally understanding in a whole new way, that life wasn’t fair.

  If Cormac was truly here, like my dream had implied, then I could only hope it meant that he also had my Mom with him.

  Maybe, this journey could also serve as my chance of finding her. Because no matter what I had to do, I had promised myself that I would find her.

  2

  Eamon

  A kick stirred me from my sleep. Opening my Green eyes in protest I lifted my hand to my face, rubbing the sleep from the corners of my eyes, before trying to allow them to focus. My neck hurt, the muscles felt tense, and like well, I’d slept against a wall.

  “Hey, watchdog.” Caine’s voice first thing in the morning, was not precisely what I wanted to hear at that moment. I finally focused on gaze on him, and saw Neely was standing next to him. They both stood in the hall looking down at me with a questioning gaze.

  “Mind if we check in?”

  I turned my attention to the door beside me, but something didn’t feel right. Pushing myself up to standing, I rested my hand on the door for balance.

  Then it hit me.

  Pressing my palm flat against the wood I concentrated my energy, before turning back to face the others. The already limited color I had, paled from my face as the realization kicked in.

  “She’s gone.” I knew it, I could feel it. Whatever energy she had been radiating in her time with us, was gone. Her signature wasn’t here any longer.

  “What?” Caine asked, and in true Caine fashion, he pushed past me, barging through the bedroom door.

  I followed him inside, and Neely came after. My eyes scanned the room for some small sign of her. There was nothing left to be found.

  “She’s gone,” Neely confirmed. His words somehow resonated more than mine had and I nodded.

  “Shit,” he said next.

  My sentiments exactly.

  “She can’t be gone!” Caine argued.

  I watched as he began to look through things. Or rather, began to throw things around. He opened drawers, closet doors, turned over quilts.

  “She’s not hiding under the bed Caine,” Neely chimed in and I could feel my throat tightening.

  She was gone, and hadn’t left behind a single trace.

  “Well hell, how do we find her?” He questioned next.

  It was a fair question. I glanced at my watch, it was 9 A.M. I tried to pull back my memories, to recall when I had fallen asleep, sometime before Midnight. If I knew Finn as well as I liked to think I did, she had a nine-hour head start on us. Then again, I hadn’t known her well enough to predict she would run away. So maybe I needed to accept that I was way off base.

  “She doesn’t drive,” Caine piped up. “So she can’t have gotten that far! We need a grab a map of the city and see if we can scry for her.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but something in the pit of my stomach told me that finding her was not going to be that simple.

  “There might be one in the house,” I finally said. “You should go check.” It was a weak, if not effective excuse to get him out of the room. I knew this wasn’t technically Finn’s room, but I still didn’t like him disturbing the space. Who knew what we would be able to find if we only knew how to look.

  I waited until the sounds of his footsteps hit the ground floor. Then, I began straightening what he’d torn apart. Behind me, Neely let out a slow, low whistle.

  “Well, I knew she was mad but,” he hesitated then, making his way around the room, doing his own inspection, “I hadn’t thought that she was this mad. Not mad enough to leave.”

  I nodded in agreement. None of us had predicted that she would leave. What did that say about our instincts?

  “I mean I guess there is one version of her that I could envision capable.” He continued, before taking a seat on the edge of her bed staring up at me.

  “Which version?” I muttered, before ushering him off the bed. “crazy, or angry?”

  “Both?”

  I might have laughed, but I didn’t feel even the slightest hint of amusement now. A laugh couldn’t seem to find its way out, not even a fake one. I couldn’t help but agree that she must have been a little bit insane to take off on her own. We were in a strange city, and she had a target on her back. After everything that had already happened, it just wasn’t the right move.

  Maybe I was giving her too much credit. I had assumed she was smart enough to know that her best chance of survival was with us, as a group. Against my better judgment, I could feel my fingers curling into tight fists at my side. Now, it was my turn to be angry. You didn’t just walk out on your Coven when things got difficult. It was immature, it was cowardly, it was-

  “Eamon,” Neely’s voice cut through my concentration and I turned to look at him. “Calm down,” he warned.

  It was ironic, everyone had walked away from Finn the moment she had shown the slightest lack of control over her abilities, but when I got upset over it? They just told me to calm down.

  Trust, everything came down to trust. They had known me, studied with, and worked with me for seventeen years. Sometimes I thought the others knew me better than I knew myself, and because of that, they trusted me. Finn was still on the outside of the trust circle. It was nothing more than a joke to pretend otherwise. We had dragged her in and assumed she would click, but it was hard to trust someone you didn’t know.

  “I’m calm,” I assured him, making an effort to uncurl my fists. I took a slow breath in before the situation really started to sink in. “This is my fault,” I muttered.

  “How do you figure?”

  “If I hadn’t tried to piss Caine off, she never would have gotten angry,” for one thing. Even if we pushed that fact aside, we had been keeping her in the dark about a lot of things.

  “Hah,” Neely said. “You have some ego on you.” His tone was almost teasing and I raised a brow in question. “Eamon come on, you starting a fight was hardly the breaking point. Her Mom’s missing, her Dad’s a psycho, she’s having her dreams invaded, and being accosted by faerie people. I don’t think any of this is your fault. Teenage boy drama is the very least of her problems right now.”

  “Then why did she go?” A voice cut in.

  I hadn’t notice Declan in the room until he spoke. The pained look on his face was devastating. He looked like he’d just watched someone kill his puppy. It was moments like this, when he had that crushed look, with sad, wide eyes, that it was easy to forgot he wasn’t still the kid of the group. Sure he was the youngest, but he was nearly sixteen, which meant his training was almost complete. Looking at him now, I could have sworn he was about ten.

  Declan was the closest thing any of us had to a little brother. As the youngest, he had sort of inherited that role against his will. I sighed, lowering my eyes to the ground, trying to search my head for an answer. I had none, I couldn’t put into words why she left. I didn’t even know why she would have.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but she did. She also left nothing behind. So I’m not even sure we could Scry for her. We don’t have anything that belonged to her!”

  “My Dad might have something,“ Neely said then.

  My face twisted in confusion. Why would Owen have something that belonged to Finn?
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  “I could call him and see if he could do it for us. Location is location, it doesn’t matter who finds her on paper, so long as we know where to start looking.”

  “No!” I said suddenly having a realization. “Don’t call, that’s a bad idea!”

  “What are you talking about? Right now it’s the only idea!”

  “What if, she’s not gone!” I offered.

  Declan looked back and forth between us, before he settled his gaze back on me.

  “But, she is gone,” he voiced, the confusion clear in his tone.

  “Sure. I mean she’s obviously not here… but we don’t know that she’s gone. Maybe she went for coffee, or a walk!”

  “And took everything she had with her? Come on Eamon, she’s gone. It’s our responsibility to report it to our Elders. You better than anyone should know that. I never thought that I’d see the day where Eamon O’Neill wanted to break the rules.”

  “Neely’s right,” Declan admitted, “We have to tell them.”

  “Whoa,” Neely said in awe. “Eamon’s breaking the rules and I’m right?! Somebody call the Coast Guard! “

  “Why would we-“ I didn’t even bother going through with correcting him instead, I just shook my head. “Please, just give me twenty-four hours if she’s not back or we haven’t found her by then, you can call whoever the hell you want.”

  I watched for their reactions and the silence told me they were considering it. After a few exchanged glances and some grumbling we all seemed to come to a consensus.

  Caine had reappeared, and was leaning against the door frame, seemingly listening to the last few minutes of conversation.

  “Fine,” Caine grumbled. “But I’m not taking the heat for this when it goes sideways so you better find her.”

  I nodded. It was understood, if things went badly I was the one who had made the call. The only trouble was, as much as I voiced my denial, I was pretty sure she was gone, and I didn’t even know where to start looking for her.

  3

  Finn

  Dublin was so much bigger than I could have imagined. From just looking at it on the map, it had seemed as though getting around would be pretty comprehensive. Now I was beginning to have my doubts. Even just observing it through the windows of the Taxi, the city had already made its grand impression.

  It was strange to think of something as ‘big’ when I’d come from a country so large in land mass. In comparison, the drive was no distance at all. But, even after driving clear across my own country, this city outshone Port Moyle and Broadhaven in sheer quantity; of buildings, people. Not to mention, there were crowds of tourists everywhere. For a girl that was used to a quiet, small town existence, this was the beginnings of culture shock.

  When the Taxi pulled up outside the National Archives of Ireland building, I was both underwhelmed and intimidated. The building was large, at least six stories and it was grey, bleak, and ordinary. There was nothing special to see on the surface. It was hard to imagine that such an ordinary building could house such extraordinary things.

  After departing the Taxi and paying for the ride, I made my way inside the building. I should have known from my research, that it was going to be a day full of protocol. I spent the majority of the afternoon there finding out exactly what I needed to get a Reader’s Ticket. I needed it for submission to the reader’s room, and access to the documents I was so desperate to read.

  It was going to be harder than I thought. I had a passport sure, which proved my identity, but I had no proof of a permanent address. After all, I didn’t live in this country. I had only just arrived and learning that I needed this added documentation, made it yet another thing I needed to handle. It was hard to refrain from cursing under my breath when my entire plan was in limbo due to the lack of one tiny piece of mail. I’d have to come up with something, but what that was, I had yet to figure out.

  So, I left feeling slightly defeated. But it wasn’t an insurmountable challenge. I just needed to get a little more creative with my magic. Again.

  After departing the archives, I figured my next piece of business was to find somewhere to stay. After asking around, and then getting directions, I had finally found a youth hostel to take me in the Dublin International Hostel on Mountjoy street.

  Approaching, it was nothing like I had expected. The grey stone of the main floor, the black iron fencing and purple double-door made it look like a grand home. The rest of the building was done up in intricate brown brick and it appeared to be connected to two additions. One was an extension of more, brown brick behind the iron fencing and at the very end was a red brick building with beautifully crafted stained glass. At the very top of the main entrance, was a stone cross and beneath it, a statue. From the distance, I couldn’t quite tell who the statute was of, besides I wasn’t exactly Religious. From context, I figured it was some type of saint. Then my eyes drifted lower, to the carved stone sign above the door. It read St. Joseph’s Convent School. Looked like the statue in question was St. Joseph.

  It appeared that the now youth hostel, had once been a school and additionally a convent. That explained the cross and the attached building that I now guessed was a church.

  I wondered how old the building was and old was probably the best, perhaps the only proper word to describe the place. The outside had looked almost pristine, but the inside was something a bit different. When I first walked into the building, there was a damp scent of must and a general coolness that settled under my skin.

  I checked into a female dorm room and then followed their instructions to get there. That cool, damp feeling only settled in further as I made my way through the rest of the building. Aside from the chill, it was fine. Besides it was cheap, and I needed a place to sleep.

  By the time I’d found my bunk, it was late afternoon Dublin time. Placing my single backpack into a locker I took the weight off my feet and settled into the bed. I took in a few deep breaths, trying to pour over the day’s events in my mind. Despite my best effort to concentrate, I fell asleep the first moment I allowed my eyes to close.

  If anyone had come and gone from the room while I slept, I hadn’t noticed. I never even stirred in the slightest. It was arguably the deepest sleep I’d had in months. My eyes didn’t open until the very next morning.

  The deep sleep had worked in my favor, fighting off the worry about having to shake the Jet lag. When my eyes did finally open, I rolled over in my bunk. Stretching my hands out about my head, I found that my joints were stiffer than usual. I felt that familiar and satisfying crack as they clicked back into place and I rested back into the mattress.

  Once I took a few minutes to let myself fully wake, I carefully sat up. Sliding my legs over the edge of the bunk, I placed my feet down on the cold ground.

  My eyes lowered to the jeans I was still wearing I shifted uncomfortably. I hadn’t even managed to change before passing out. I brushed my messed hair out of my face and let out a single yawn that told me that my body could have used a bit more sleep. My eyes shifted away from my clothes and started to glance around the room. I was no longer alone.

  I saw there were other girls three now, my new roommates. They appeared to be getting themselves ready for the day, something I probably should have joined in on. I waited, in silence, letting my wakefulness catch up to me before I forced myself to stand up and head to the showers.

  After taking a quick shower, I was a bit more awake. Alert and now changed into fresh clothes, I decided to make my way down for breakfast. The room that the food was eaten in looked like a mix between what used to be the main place of worship and some sort of classic dining hall. We were eating in the middle of a church.

  A church that had been decorated with various flags from around the world. People and plates were lined up at a long wooden table. At the end of my sightline, the early morning light streamed through the stained-glass windows. It was something of beauty as beams of the coloured light reflected and illuminated the space.

>   After much internal debate, I took a seat with the two girls I vaguely recognized from my room. I offered a shy, uncertain smile and soon, introductions began. The first, sitting across from me and to my left was Katie; a petite, blue-eyed, blonde, Canadian exchange student. She had had recently finished her study program at Université de La Rochelle in France. She explained to us how she had then decided, instead heading straight home, to take a backpacking trip. She only had a few days left in the city before she moved on.

  Then she moved to make the next introduction. During her stay, she had run into another Canadian, the girl sitting to her left, Keilan. My eyes turned to the second girl. I offered a smile and gentle nod to the stranger. She was the polar opposite of the petite blonde in nearly every way. Her thick chocolate brown hair sat upon her shoulders in long wild curls. Her naturally fair skin, was tanned to the perfect shade of gold that had me suspecting that Ireland hadn’t been her first travel stop. We chatted for a bit and she explained that she was in Ireland for a few months. She was making a stop in Dublin with her boyfriend before the two moved on to explore the countryside.

  Her boyfriend, however, was nowhere to be found and she explained he was probably still sound asleep.

  When she stood to clear her plates, I was surprised to find she was tall. I mean really tall, nearly six feet in height. She had a sturdy build. She looked like she had more strength in her little finger than I probably possessed in my entire body, even after all my training.

  For a brief moment, I was wrecked with envy, desperate to trade my lanky limbs for that sort of power and strength. Yet when she laughed, it was easy to forget these thoughts as her soulful brown eyes sparkled with sense of mischief.

  We were quick friends. Though, I held onto an overwhelming sense of guilt over the fact that I couldn’t be honest with either of them about the reason for my trip.