The Keeper's Curse (9 page)

They
halted in front of the orb, taking the sight of it in. Little
Methelwood. Stupid, naive little Methelwood. After four years of
vilification against it, there was a part of him that wished he
could go anywhere else but there. But of course, he
obeyed.

It was so
easy – one touch and he would be gone. The way to get back would be
much more complicated, but he would worry about that
later.

“
Ready?” Cyrus asked.

“
Ready.”

He
squeezed Brynn with his left hand, and cupped Methelwood in his
right.

Chapter 6

The
Fall

“
You’re hearing voices in your head?
”
Alex demanded.

“
Calm down, I’m not even sure if they’re real or not,” Emmy
mumbled on their way to school.

“
That isn’t making me feel any better.”

“
What if it’s just an unusual craft?”

“
None of them can make you hear voices in their head, Emmy.
Crafts involve doing physical things, not mental things. I’ve told
you.”

“
Maybe it’s not a voice, maybe it’s a real person.”

“
Yeah, that’s better.” He narrowed his eyes down the road.
Jade was skipping ahead of them, her fiery red hair a dot in the
distance. Emmy wondered if he knew Jade liked him, and whether or
not he liked her back. Emmy knew she should probably tell him as a
sisterly duty, but she knew there was a possibility Jade might get
angry. She figured girls didn’t do those sorts of things to each
other.

“
Do you want to visit a school counsellor?” Alex
said.

“
No Alex,” she said firmly. “I’m fine.”

“
Do you want to go talk to Mom about it?”

“
No
.” Alex had been trying for days
convince Emmy to visit Annalise, but Emmy hadn’t budged yet. The
thought of her mother still made her shake with fury.

“
Fine, leave me to deal with Mom by myself. All she talks
about is you, anyway.” Before Emmy could respond to his harsh tone,
Alex said, “I’m not trying to insult you, okay? How about this – if
you hear the voice again today, go. If you don’t, don’t go. Trust
me, if you let them know they’ll let you skip class.”

“
Any class?”

“
Any class.”

Emmy
grinned. She had a premonition she would fall ill right before her
peacekeeping lesson.

***

Not
surprisingly, she was right.

Ms.
Spillet was reordering a cluster of forms when Emmy requested to
visit a counsellor. In a frantic pace the receptionist exited her
desk and rushed to the back to find someone for Emmy to speak with.
Emmy tried not to blush, hating that everyone knew her problems,
but knowing all the while she had to get over it since there was
nothing she could do to change it.

Ms.
Spillet came back with a woman with waist-length silver hair
dressed similarly to Vera, with flowered sheer material that looked
like it was made from a curtain. Also like Vera, she had a warm
smile, lessening the feeling in Emmy’s stomach of being trapped in
the lion’s cage that was Methelwood.

“
Hello, Evangeline! My name is Willow Starling. I’ll be your
counsellor for this afternoon.”

“
Nice to meet you.” Willow led her through the waiting room to
the far back where her office was. It was decorated for comfort,
with warm-coloured paintings on the wall, two comfortable plush
chairs, and a window with a lovely view. Crystal flasks of all
shapes and sizes filled the racks around the room.

The two
of them started chatting on safe topics, like how she was coping
with all the new information and her feelings towards her mother.
Emmy knew the drill. She had been reading on how to question
someone in this manner for years, as unsettling as it was for her
to be on the opposite end of it. But as interesting as it would be
to talk about her reckless streak, or why her body liked to roam
for hours in search of something nonexistent:

“
That’s actually not why I’m here,” Emmy finally said.
“Something happened yesterday. Twice. I heard a voice in my head.
It was only for a few seconds, both times, but it was definitely
inside my head.”

Willow
narrowed her eyes, not writing any notes down. She was trying not
to look too concerned, but instead curious. “Has this ever happened
before?”

“
No.”

“
Never? You’ve never heard voices in your head
before?”

Emmy
shook her head for a moment when suddenly it hit her. There was one
other time, a very long time ago. An incident she hadn’t thought
about in ages.

“
Actually,” she said slowly. “Yes. There was this one time ...
it was on my birthday, when I turned eleven.”

Willow
began sketching notes. “Did you ever find out why this happened to
you?”

“
No. I was with my friends, and everyone insisted it wasn’t
real.” She leaned back in her chair. “But this is different. I
could clearly hear the voice. That other time was unclear. Plus, it
was incredibly painful and ...” she closed her eyes, knowing she
would regret saying this. “... That time there was visions,
too.”

Willow
had no choice but to appear concerned now.

Emmy was
stupefied. Why had she not thought of this before? That day had
always been a brief, weird memory she hardly thought about anymore.
She had never been able to explain it, but learning that magic
existed was an explanation. It had to be related to this world,
with these powers she had.

“
It’s not what you think,” Emmy blurted out. “It wasn’t a
hallucination. It happened one time, and hasn’t happened since.
Schizophrenia usually develops in early adulthood and it happened
when I was eleven. Plus, I’m pretty sure my dopamine and serotonin
levels are normal, and I have no history of psychosis in my family
–”

“
Calm down, calm down,” Willow said. “I wasn’t suggesting you
are mentally ill. My goodness, I don’t know what dopamine and
serotonin levels are, but I’m interested in this memory of
yours.”

“
I don’t remember it at all. I don’t think I ever
did.”

The
counsellor chewed on her pen thoughtfully. “Do you ever dream about
this experience?”

This
caught her off guard; she had never considered it before. “I have
no idea.” She tapped her foot, trying to remember. She kept a dream
journal, finding amusement in trying to interpret her dreams but
never finding much logic in the discipline. “I might’ve written it
down somewhere. You want me to try and remember my
dream?”

“
If the dream exists, I may be able to find it for
you.”

“
Like hypnosis?”

“
Not quite.” She smiled and took the pen out of her mouth.
“There is a method we use that I don’t believe humans utilize. We
call it dream downloading.”

Emmy
raised her eyebrows. “No, we definitely don’t have that
yet.”

“
With your permission, I’ll try to find this moment in your
life for you and we can watch it together. This may help clear up
some of this confusion. It must be in a dream, somewhere. We
haven’t perfected thought downloading yet, unfortunately – there is
such a vast amount of information there.”

“
I have dream journals, but my things were confiscated when I
got here. I’ll do my best to try and get them back.”

“
Wonderful,” she said. “I will have to check you for mental
disorders, but don’t fret yet. I believe these two instances are
connected, although I haven’t the slightest idea what could have
caused it.”

“
But why do you need proof?”

“
I need something to look for in your head. You dream every
night, and I hardly have time to sift through thousands of dreams.
If you have even a fragment of what had happened however, it
narrows the search down significantly. If something unusual did
happen to you that day, I would be willing to bet it would be
stored in your subconscious, even if you never clearly saw
it.”

Emmy
leaned her head to the side, looking out the window, seeing
teenagers laughing and running all over the grounds. She wanted
that. She wanted to be normal, and she never would be if she
continued hearing these voices. “Okay.”

“
Good, good. I will have the downloader set up in a few days.
I’ll send you a note when I can book the next session.” She looked
at the golden clock ticking away. “We still have twenty minutes. Is
there anything else you would like to talk about?”

Emmy
grinned, wide and toothy. “Yeah, what’s it like being a
counsellor?”

***

When she
completed her session, she found Teddy waiting for her on the front
grounds, still in his peacekeeping uniform. His cheeks were flushed
and his eyes clear, waving at her as she came down the
steps.

“
Hi?” she said. “Do you need something?”

“
Yeah, remember? I was going to take you flying
today.”

“
Right.” She rubbed her hands together and breathed hot air
onto them. She had forgotten how cold it was. “But not for too
long.”

His
friendly composure made her feel almost as good as Jade had. Emmy
had spent her morning classes with Jade again, as well as
Persephone and Teddy, now that they weren’t late. He had taken
extra consideration to include her and she wished with all her
heart she could repay him in some way.

The two
of them headed towards the forest, Emmy falling into silence while
Teddy began chatting with her, adding dramatic pantomime with
nearly every verb he said. He was incredibly easy to like, Emmy
thought. He reminded her of her mischievous but benevolent best
friend back home.

Before
her mood could turn sour over the thought, Teddy had, while Emmy
hadn’t been paying attention, led her through a part of the forest
and into a little circular clearing behind the school. A couple
dozen other teenagers were practicing their flying as well, a few
of them walking on air while holding onto what appeared to be a
pair of floating gold rings. Teddy pulled out a pair of them from
his pocket and waggled his eyebrows.

“
Now, since I have no idea if you’re capable of flying or not,
I’m going to get you to use these. Don’t let go of them, or they’ll
float away on you. They’ll hold your body weight up. These are
solators, otherwise known as your best friend.”

Emmy took
hold of them; they stung her palms with cold. Her heart nearly beat
out of her chest. She was suddenly a little kid again, whose
greatest wish was to be able to fly.

Teddy
moved in front of her, and with one foot he kicked off the ground
and into the air. Emmy jerked her head up towards the sky, her eyes
following him, seeing a palewraith stretch out of his back and take
the form of wings, keeping him levitated.

“
Would you like to try, or do you want me to carry you
up?”

“
No, I’ll try it,” she called. Mimicking him, she kicked off
with one foot, gripping the gold rings until her fingers were
sweaty. She glided upward a few feet, her legs wobbling in mid
air.

Teddy
dipped down and floated beside her. “Perfect. How do you
feel?”

“
Like my organs fell out.”

“
Nice. Do you want to keep going on your own, or would you
like some help?”

She
looked down, a sense of vertigo making her feel faint, and then
looked above at the other students who were several feet
overhead.

“
I’d like to go up a bit more.” Either Alex was going to kill
her or Jade was going to kill Teddy. Or both.

Without
another word he flashed a devilish look, darted behind her and gave
her a push. She flew upwards, feet first, not being able to contain
a bloody-curdling scream along with a streak of her favourite
French swearwords. As she should have guessed, Teddy was a few feet
away, laughing and clutching his stomach in midair.

When she
swung back into a position of head first, her body was swinging
back and forth like a pendulum. She should have been embarrassed,
but she was just furious.

“
You could have killed me!” she shouted over his
laughter.

“
I wouldn’t have let you fall! Relax, Rookie. Okay, now that
we’re so high up, how about something a little easier?”

Emmy
tried to flash him a rude gesture, but her hands were too
preoccupied with the solators.

“
Like what?”

“
How about you just take a few steps towards me?” he
suggested, floating away from her. He made a “come hither” motion.
Emmy could not believe she was actually letting herself be
manipulated by this dimwit. It had always been a weakness of hers,
letting herself to be goaded by boys daring her into doing stupid,
dangerous things. She had once climbed into a sewer and nearly
froze to death, trapped for several hours, all because Joey had
said she was too scared to do it.