Harley Merlin 19: Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere

by Bella Forrest

  I leapt from my chair. “You can’t do that! They haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t understand why you’re not looking into human culprits. How many in this place would know exactly where to hide seven people? You’ve seen the pixies with your own eyes, Victoria. They can’t have done this. You’re sentencing innocent creatures to death!”

  My protective streak kicked in with a vengeance, and so did my certainty that my creations hadn’t hurt anyone. Seven people was unfathomable. Pixies liked milk and fruit, and a bit of destructive mischief. They weren’t coldhearted kidnappers. But I could see in Victoria’s stony eyes that I wasn’t going to get through to her. She’d already given the order; this was nothing more than a courtesy call to let me know that my Purge beasts had been sentenced.

  “You are biased, Persie. You might not be able to see it, but magicals can often forge a connection to their Purge beasts. You aren’t immune to that, and ordinarily there’s no harm in it, but this is different.” Victoria kept her voice steady. “Xanthippe disappeared after you Purged. We know that because she was accounted for during the time you said your Purge occurred, and for a couple of hours after. Come morning, she was gone. That’s the sort of coincidence I can’t ignore. Had there been a longer gap, I might’ve had a different theory. Maybe I’d have agreed that it was a human act, and said human had used your Purge as a diversion. But nobody knew about it until after Xanthippe went missing. So, if it looks like a dog, and barks like a dog, it has to be a dog… Do you understand?”

  I scrunched my hands into fists. “Not when the dog is six inches tall and hasn’t got any history to suggest it’s malicious!” I jabbed a raging finger at the door. “You posted hunters in the hallway, but somehow, they weren’t there after I Purged. What if they heard me? What if they saw the pixies and took their shot to kidnap Xanthippe? That’s more logical than blaming a bunch of tiny beasts for seven people vanishing into thin air!”

  Victoria’s expression tightened. “The hunters were dismissed because you seemed to be faring better, and I thought you’d prefer not being under constant watch. I hoped the direct line to me would be enough. No one was in your hallway from five o’clock on that evening. They couldn’t have seen you Purge, or what you Purged.”

  I fell silent, tears threatening. I had nothing left to convince her. It had been a hopeless endeavor from the get-go. She was hell-bent on making these pixies pay, and, maybe, if I were in her position, I’d think the same thing. And without a better explanation, I didn’t have a leg to stand on. She thought I’d gone soft on my Purges, and she was right. I did have an affection for them, but so what? Santana carried her Purge beast around on her shoulders most of the time, and nobody batted an eyelid. It wasn’t a weakness.

  “I think it best that you stay here for the duration.” Victoria broke the tense silence. “I want to trust you, Persie, but your ability is still beyond your control. And you have clearly been compromised, which is nothing to be ashamed of—I’ve been fond of a few of my Purges. However, it does mean your involvement in the pixie hunt ends here. And I mean it this time.”

  “Please, Victoria…” I had nothing left to say.

  She smiled sadly. “Once this is over, we can continue our work in helping you control your ability. You’ve shown great promise by catching those five pixies tonight, and I do thank you for that, but it isn’t the right time.” She moved away from me. “For now, I need to get seven people back from wherever they were taken. So, please, don’t make me come back here. Follow the rules, for everyone’s sake.”

  As she went to the door and opened it, one last idea exploded in my head. “At least talk to my mom about this. Please. She’s dealing with missing magicals, too. It could be related!”

  “We are concerned with pixies, not what your mother is investigating.” Victoria looked back. “Indeed, if I know the US and its magical secrecy, you shouldn’t even have told me that.”

  She walked out without another word. The door closed behind her with a damning click followed by the subtle thrum of hexes kicking back into action, and tears began to trickle down my cheeks.

  O’Halloran had cast me out of my own home, I had dreams of the people I loved putting me in a box, my parents were on the other side of an ocean, I’d been marched out of the engineering lab like a traitor while everyone gossiped and whispered about me, and yet this was the moment where I felt more helpless and alone than I ever had before.

  To add insult to injury, the loudspeaker kicked in fifteen minutes later, and Victoria’s warning went out to the Institute, loud and bitterly clear: “We are now on code red lockdown. Hunters, this is now a matter of life and death. Lethal force may be used on the enemy. Everyone else, remain in your rooms until you are otherwise instructed. Do not be alarmed that comms have been blocked in and out of the Institute. It is necessary to avoid interference with hunting devices and will resume function when it is safe to do so. Internal calls can still be made, if you feel isolated and need to speak someone. Any disobedience will result in hexed imprisonment for the duration. We are in this together. Have courage. We will not fail, as long as everyone does their part.”

  I’m sorry, pixies. I tried…

  Nineteen

  Genie

  No need for burning invisibility spells when I had razor-sharp reflexes. I’d slunk through the North Wing like a cat burglar. Now, I liked to think I had a decent grasp of surface-world lingo, but I’d never fully understood that term. Did they steal cats? Were they catfooted? That was another weird one. Humans didn’t have foot pads to soften every step. I supposed it didn’t matter. Basically, I was being super stealthy, avoiding hunters like a boss.

  But still no friggin’ pixies. It was getting stupid now. I hadn’t even caught a glimpse of one, and I’d been searching for a good hour. At least I had some nice things to think about, to pass the time between non-sightings.

  I wondered if Nathan was having better luck. I pictured him James Bonding around the East and West Wings with his specterglass. He still didn’t strike me as the hunting type, but he had to have some skills or he wouldn’t be here. Unless he’d gotten in purely on intellectual merit. I supposed that wasn’t impossible.

  It still felt pointless to dwell on him in a romantic sense, but I couldn’t resist. He’d seemed so different. More relaxed, despite my haunting attempt. And he hadn’t been as nervous or shy around me this time. It felt like we were slowly getting to know each other’s idiosyncrasies. You know, like when you introduced a new pet to the old one, and they needed a bit of time to settle into the idea. Plus, I’d been told I made an intimidating first impression. My sense of humor wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but maybe he was learning to like it.

  Such nice eyes. I grinned, envisioning the way they crinkled up when he smiled. The smile suited him better than bumbling confusion, although the bumbling confusion wasn’t without its charms. Man, I sounded like such a cheesy romantic. Was that even how I thought of him? I’d enjoyed our talk. I liked his company. Did that spell romance? Not necessarily. It could just as easily be the start of a friendship. Then I remembered the gray T-shirt and the sound of his laughter, and my heart did a weird clench. If I wasn’t careful, butterflies would be freed from their cage. And that signaled the rise of awkward, tongue-tied Genie—a rare creature who hadn’t been seen for many, many years.

  “He’s not even my type,” I told the statue of a unicorn. But did types really matter? All my crushes on men who were “my type” hadn’t ended well, so maybe not. And change was a good thing, right?

  I leaned on the unicorn and wrapped an arm around its neck. “Who am I kidding? It’s not like it could go anywhere, so what’s the use?”

  It didn’t matter who the guy was, my dad would never agree to it. He’d laid down the law on that front. I could have my pick of stuffy Atlanteans, but no regular magicals. And while a secret romance sounded exciting in theory, in reality it required a lot of exhausting logistics. I wasn’t denying there were some absolu
te peaches in Atlantis, but an arranged anything didn’t float my proverbial boat. Romance and love shouldn’t be forced. It needed to be organic, or it would always feel like it was lacking. I believed this as someone who had no idea about love or marriage or any of it, of course, but my heart told me that was how it was meant to be.

  “He did a hula dance. Can you believe it?” I asked the unicorn. A guy who could be silly was attractive as heck. Perhaps it was because he was slightly older and didn’t take himself as seriously as younger guys. Whatever it was, it had reeled me in—hook, line… but not quite sinker. Not yet.

  Strolling away from the unicorn, I realized I’d somehow circled back to the Repository. It was technically part of the center, not belonging to a particular wing. And it felt rude not to investigate further up the hallway. I’d always stopped beside the Repository instead of pressing on to the new wing. I guessed none of us had mentioned searching there.

  “Might as well cover all our bases, eh?” I winked at a dragon statue and continued down the hall. I followed the route Charlotte had taken us on during orientation, and it wasn’t long before I reached the building site.

  Approaching with caution, I flattened myself against the stained-glass entrance and peered around the corner to check the situation ahead. The workers who’d been putting together the bones of this place had probably clocked off ages ago, and they’d taken their lights with them. I doubted they’d be back anytime soon, with the Institute on lockdown. Impenetrable shadow shrouded the foyer of the new wing, eerie and unsettling, like someone was watching me from the darkness. The flap of a tarp did nothing to ease my discomfort. It sounded like enormous wings, snapping violently.

  I pulled out my dead phone and cursed under my breath. “I’m going to have to go in there alone, aren’t I?” With no one around and plenty of shadows to melt into, it was the perfect hideout for errant pixies. Usually, I wasn’t bothered by the dark, but there was something about this place that freaked me out. Namely, the huge black dome at the far end that I knew lay unseen. The current Repository had a welcoming feel to it, but this new one… not so much. A definite case of style over substance. Seriously, it looked like something out of a horror sci-fi.

  Putting the useless phone back in my pocket, I conjured a big ball of Fire to light my way. A woman-made torch, to chase off any nasties that might be lurking.

  Tentatively, I stepped into the foyer of the new wing. It might’ve been the light flickering off me, or just my imagination, but the shadows seemed to swarm closer. They danced across the glowing pool of light my Fire cast around me, moving like sentient creatures with thin tendrils that reminded me of clawed fingers and globs of black that looked like skulls. I shuddered, the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.

  “You’d better be here, pixies,” I muttered. Glancing over my shoulder, I couldn’t see the hallway anymore. The shadows had swept in and drowned out the light. An optical illusion, probably. My eyes just hadn’t adjusted to the Fire, that was all.

  Get a grip, Genie! I’d told Nathan I was a big bad Atlantean, and I needed to start acting like one. I had six abilities at my beck and call, for Ganymede’s sake; there weren’t many things in this world that could take me down. Not without a decent fight, anyhow.

  Feeling less jittery, I swished my ball of Fire to the left and right, shining it on all the construction. Sacks of raw materials, half-built walls, nearly finished stained-glass masterpieces. But no pixies.

  I shone my light over a doorway. It didn’t have an actual door installed yet, but I saw a hallway beyond it. I tried to remember what Charlotte had said about this place. Something about how they were building rooms for visiting guests and more research facilities. This would probably lead to those, once it was finished, but in its current state the hallway seemed to drop off sharply into nothingness.

  I’d just stepped closer to investigate when a sound made me freeze. It was a strange, melodic song, drifting through the foyer. It tingled up my spine, sweet and soaring, like fairies dancing on my vertebrae. A weird mental image, but nonetheless true. I turned to find the source. My feet followed, eager to hear more, desperate to get closer to that beautiful song. I didn’t understand the words, but it didn’t matter. The tune struck deeper than lyrics. Like a perfect symphony, tugging at my heartstrings, speaking to my very soul.

  Whispers fluttered around my head, soft and inviting, saying, “Come to us. Be with us. Feel our warmth.”

  I giggled, which I almost never did. “I can’t see you.”

  “We are here. Follow us. Follow our song,” the whimsical, feminine voices urged. They spoke with a hint of melodic laughter that made me smile. All of my anxiety melted away as the song penetrated further into the fiber of my being. It lilted in my cells, turning my blood to pure magic. I wanted more. I wanted to be nearer to that sweet sound until I was part of it. Thoughts of the outside world disappeared. There was only me, and the song, and nothing else.

  I looked upward as a different light dispersed the crackle of my Fire. No… lights, plural, glowing and hypnotic, floating merrily in the air. They moved effortlessly, flowing to the gentle current of the music. Dancing. And I wanted to dance with them. In the back of my mind, I recognized the trailing orbs. But those memories didn’t mean anything anymore. Now, I understood why the glowing lights had appeared when Persie was having a panic attack. They’d wanted me to come to them, to hear this secret song. I had missed out. But I wouldn’t miss out again. They were calling to me, and I had every intention of answering.

  “Do you see us?” the voices susurrated.

  I nodded. “I see you.”

  “Then come. We are waiting.” The twinkling lights with their colorful comet-tails flitted away, toward the black sphere that I’d feared so much: the skeleton of the new Repository. I went after them, no longer afraid. I had nothing to be scared of, not with these lights leading me. They were pure radiance. Pure goodness. It resonated inside of me, filling me with giddiness. I felt like I could take flight.

  The lights paused now and again, checking to see that I was following. It made me smile. They cared. They’d been waiting for me, and I couldn’t let them down. All the while, their song urged me to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I didn’t even flinch when I stepped out onto the rickety walkway that led into the center of the eerie black sphere. If anything, the percussion of my shoes on the metal added to the melody, punctuating it perfectly.

  “Don’t go without me,” I pleaded, suddenly afraid they might vanish.

  The orbs twisted in a spiral, playful and hypnotic. “We would not. We have been waiting. We want you to be where we are.”

  At the end of the walkway, the orbs dove downward and disappeared into the darkness below. Frantic that I might lose them, I didn’t hesitate. I jumped. Sure enough, I spotted the twinkling lights dancing beneath me and smiled. I’m coming to you. Moments before I hit the bottom curve of the sphere, a hazy instinct encouraged me to release a blast of Air to cushion my fall.

  “You are wonderful,” the glowing lights cooed. “You will be welcomed.”

  I dispersed the Air and stood tall, bathing in their radiance. I’d never felt so alive. Their song continued and my lips moved along, as though I’d finally learned the haunting lyrics. Then the twinkling orbs swooshed around my head in a circle before zipping forward. My eyes trailed them longingly as they evaporated through a door. Some small, distant part of me knew the door shouldn’t exist, but it didn’t perturb me. It seemed to be standing on its own, with no walls to support it, floating an inch or so above the curve of the sphere. It thrummed with energy and light.

  “Wait for me!” I called, walking toward the door.

  “We are here. We are waiting,” they replied from behind it.

  I reached for the handle and swung the door wide. Waves of light rushed out in a blissful torrent, warm and inviting, like the gates to heaven itself. All I had to do was step forward, and I could join the twinkly lights in thei
r joy and hear that beautiful song again. I didn’t even need to think about it. Smiling in the ocean of warming illumination, I did just that.

  And I disappeared into the light, just like the orbs before me.

  Twenty

  Persie

  Morning came, the bright sunlight mocking me with its yellow cheer as it slid through my pale beige curtains. I’d tried to sleep because there was nothing else to do, but it hadn’t come. I’d showered at around three in the morning, but that hadn’t helped, either. The cracks in the mirror and the decimated soap just reminded me of my failure with the pixies. My wet hair soaking the pillow, I’d tossed and turned, checking my phone every five minutes for news from Genie. But her radio silence continued, and the hexed room prevented me from going to find her.

  Checking the clock and wincing at the harsh blue light, I saw that it was 6:03. After dialing Genie’s number for the billionth time, I held the phone to my ear, willing it to go through… only to get the same voicemail recording: “Sorry, I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks, bye!”

  Her chipper tone made me all the more desperate to reach her. Worst-case scenarios tumbled through my head. What if Victoria had hexed her into her room, too? What if she was hiding out, unable to get in touch? What if the person responsible for these kidnappings had taken her? I couldn’t stomach that last one. As bitter ironies went, that would have been the cruel icing on top of this rancid cake.

  I tapped the phone against my chin, trying to come up with something. Anything. I thought about calling Nathan, but I didn’t have his number. Even in this modern age of technology, I had no way of getting in touch with anyone outside this door. I could’ve called my mom, but that would’ve left me with a lot of explaining to do, and frankly, I didn’t want to cross Victoria again. It would guarantee me a ticket out of there for sure if I went against her wishes a third time. Oh, and there was the big fat fact that it wouldn’t have worked, even if I’d wanted to do that, since she’d blocked outside calls from coming in or going out. She clearly wanted to keep this inside the Institute, to avoid an external scandal.