Secret Keeper (My Myth Trilogy - Book 2): Young Adult Fantasy Novel Page 7

  “Who’s up for a checkers tournament?” she asks Aidan and Claire.

  Aidan groans dramatically, but asks Claire if she’d care to make a wager on how quickly he’ll destroy her.

  

  Back in the guestroom, I shut the door and change out of my suffocating long-sleeved dress and into my favorite slub-knit tank and pajama shorts. Lying down on top of the bedcovers, I let my eyes flow with the dancing shadows flickering from the slanted plantation blinds across the mismatched antique furniture and the tiny undulating purple blossoms on the wallpaper. The guestroom is neat-as-a-pin like every other room in Aunt Meg’s spotless house. Solace and peace hush over me as I take a deep breath and release it, closing my eyes.

  Okay. Let’s do this.

  Nancy said a good way to start is to focus on a fixed visual stimulus while mentally reviewing your script, sort of like a pre-self-hypnosis pep talk. I was supposed to write one down and memorize it…something soothing that would help ease me into a meditative state. But I didn’t. Nothing about this concept soothes me. Besides, I don’t want a pep talk. I want—no, I need—answers, and to find that Champion. I intend to take myself back to the world of the First Realm and pick up right where I left off when I awoke in the grove, right before they took me to detox.

  I scan my body, unclenching each muscle group from head to toe, like our Phys. Ed. coach had us do at the end of yoga in Shavasana pose. Then I sink down inside myself and find the spark at the center of my chest. I float there, drawing my energy inward.

  For a moment, I’m afraid it won’t work without drugs. But then warmth spreads through my body, emanating not only from my chest but from between my shoulder blades as well. As I submerge deeper inside the comforting glow, infinite specks of light begin to radiate from me, and a final question sounds in my mind…

  What if the First Realm is real and this world, the Second, what we all think of as the real world is the true fantasy? What if I’m finally going home?

  Chapter Ten

  It’s raining. I’m lying in squelching mud, trembling. A pair of beat-up green converse queues at my periphery. Aidan. He has other shoes, he just refuses to wear them. His outstretched hand reaches for me, offering help.

  I wipe sour spit from my lips on the back of my hand, avoiding the mess of my own vomit as I latch weakly onto Aidan’s fingers. Behind me, Claire’s small hands steady my shoulders as Aidan helps me to my feet.

  A sudden high-pitched ringing drowns all other sound as I take in the gruesome scene playing out all around me in the single-cam, found-footage grit of a post-explosion tragedy: birches stripped of branches, old growth redwoods torn up by their roots. Some terrific force of nature has churned the ground that was only a moment ago covered in tender green clover and fallen redwood needles. The massive fallen log has cracked down the middle. Scorched birch leafs and cinder flitter down from a tortured gray sky.

  I’ve come back to the exact moment I left, right when I regained consciousness after my overdose, before the ambulance arrived. But where am I now? Is this my Fantasy or my Reality?

  Everything’s upside down.

  Vertigo slams into me like a wrecking ball. I experience the vertiginous sensation of falling backwards, even though I’m standing perfectly still. I squeeze my eyes shut and grab Aidan and Claire close. On the backs of my eyelids I watch what appears to be an ashen grayish 4D copy of the grove recede from around me at tremendous speed.

  The spinning slow and stops. I remain rooted in place, afraid of what I’ll discover when I open my eyes.

  “Do you need to sit down, Emma?” Claire asks.

  I peek out to a world so saturated with life, sound, and color it steals my breath. The combined scent of sodden earth, wet clothes, and ash make me think of sightless worms wriggling through underground tunnels. In this peculiar moment, the chill rain seems to pause in its descent, and I have a palpable sense that I’ve both lost and gained something important, though I can’t articulate what.

  Violent trembling racks my body. I’m freezing cold. The stupid sparkling evening gown the mean maidens dressed me in before the council clings to me like body paint, soaking up the chill rain like a sponge.

  A few paces away, a group of grime-covered Fae surrounds General Ian’s lifeless form in the mud. His work-brown skin hangs slack on his body, as if his muscles have turned to liquid. Lady Quince’s shell-shocked fingers dab a tissue at the drool sliding from the downward corner of his lopsided mouth, and Kaillen is pressing his hands around the shaft of the twisted black arrow protruding below the General’s ribcage.

  Did Drake’s army of Lost Ones launch some kind of grenade at us? Jacob said they had artillery. But no, the Lost Ones are waiting at the Doorway twenty-five miles away…

  …Oh no. It was ME. I did this when I pulled down the sky and covered myself in Darkness, hiding from Drake’s furious bolt of power. I’ve endangered everyone because I wasn’t strong enough to face Drake.

  I’m literally a walking disaster.

  Sudden panic steals my breath. Aidan and Claire are here, but where is Jacob? I crane my dizzy head around, but there’s no sign of him anywhere. No sign of Gabe, either, which makes perfect sense, because Gabe kidnapped Jacob and took him to Drake.

  I’m going to be sick again.

  Claire’s hands fumble for a better grip on my shoulders as the full consequence of my loose-limbed weight slumps ground-ward.

  “Stand up, Sister.”

  The voice is barely above a whisper, but I know it immediately, know it like the spark in my chest, the wings on my back. “This is important.”

  “Ava!” Thank God she’s here. Thank God she’s alive.

  I snap to attention, jerking upright and turning around. Too quick. Blind staggers fuzz my vision. I blink several times to reconcile what I know is true with what I see, but the image of Ava doesn’t resolve into teensy dazzling glitter. She’s full adult size—taller than me—and caked in dirt as if she’s fallen face first in mud. Tattered gossamer trails from her body in soiled shreds. Her scarlet, rain-soaked hair sticks to her head in a tangle of matted curls.

  “Pay attention, Emily.” Her voice is feeble, as pale as the thin ring of muck-free skin she’s wiped from around her eyes and mouth. “This won’t end until you complete your task.”

  My task? What task?

  In answer, my heart beats an insistent mantra loud in my ears: Follow your Purpose. Find your Champion.

  How could I have forgotten? My Purpose has always been to protect my siblings. My task is to find a Champion who will help me rescue Jacob and keep us all together.

  “Jack!” Kaillen barks. “Go get one of the vans. We have to get Ian to a hospital, NOW. We can’t wait for an ambulance.”

  “He’s got an arrow sticking out of him,” Jack protests. “We can’t take him to the hospital. What would we tell them?”

  “I don’t care what you tell them,” Kaillen’s voice breaks through the words in my head. “Make something up! Tell them we were at a Renaissance Faire and there was an accident during a show, or tell them a fucking crimbal shot him with a black arrow. For Christ’s sake, just go get the van!”

  Two elves with AR-15s part for Jack to charge through then step back in soldierly unison. A circular formation of them lines the perimeter of the grove: elves with guns interspersed with bow-and-arrow wielding maidens.

  “Jack, wait!” Marcus shouts. Jack skids to a stop in the mud, turning around. “Kaillen. The barrier’s gone. Why not just take your father to the Palace?”

  “Look around you, Marcus,” Kaillen says. “There’s nothing here! There hasn’t been for a hundred years. Have you forgotten? The Seventh Kingdom was completely destroyed.”

  The Seventh Kingdom: last of the seven under the High King Ælfwig, ruled by his youngest son, the Good King Foster and his wife, Queen Rhyannon. The people of the Seventh Kingdom had been infected by rage and madness after the Queen—who was to be tried for treason after conspiring
with the Ovate Drake—died while passing her Spark and Flame to her thirteen year-old daughter, the Princess Nissandra, during her Changing Ceremony.

  But that wasn’t all Queen Rhyannon gave Nissa before she died. She also gifted her daughter all the Blaze in her wings and the Weapons of Power. This act led to a devastating civil war, causing the High King to intervene. He banished the surviving Fae to the Second Realm and sealed the Doorway against their return in order to protect the remaining six kingdoms.

  A hundred years later I was doing my best to get by while caring for Mom—who’d lost her job and become increasingly dependent on opiates—as well as looking after Jacob, Aidan, and Claire pretty much full-time. I had no idea other Realms existed, or that I was the Ovate daughter of Drake and Princess Nissa. I was just upset that I was flunking school, and trying to make sure my siblings would do better than I was doing. The banished Fae found me when my own Changing began, alerted by my startling capacity for power. They hoped I would be the one they’d been waiting for, the one who could break the Seal so they could return home.

  And I was the one. Using the weapons and my Third Eye, torrents of white-hot power had raged within me. I broke the Seal while trying to hide from Drake, but in doing so, I also destroyed the entire barrier between the First and Second Realms.

  I wonder how much the Fae regret seeking me out right about now.

  It’s incredible how much this grove looks exactly the same in all three Realms. I’d swear it’s the same grove where the council met to discuss strategy and my training, the same place Ava taught me to open my Inner Eye, the same grove at the edge of the parking lot where I discovered an enchanted nursery in Toad’s belly.

  Of course, that’s impossible. The Third Realm was destroyed. Besides, how could we be in more than one place at a time?

  Yet, landmarks of both the First and Second Realms crowd around us, while wispy remnants of the Third snag in the branches of the redwoods.

  Down the path that would lead to the goat shed/beauty parlor in the Second Realm, a forbidding lacewing wrought iron gate stands sentinel against the leaden sky. Spires of a fairytale palace tower above the copse of birch marking the border of the Vineyard’s main house and gardens.

  On the other side of the iron gates, half-hidden beneath a century’s growth of creeping wild vines, I glimpse the remains of marble fountains lining either side of the cobblestone path leading to the palace. The glittering memory of tumbling aquamarine water from the sun-splashed afternoon of Nissa’s tenth birthday party drifts toward me on the mournful breeze.

  But something isn’t right.

  “Emma, where are you going?” Claire’s grip on my arm implores me to stay beside her as I let go of her hand, but I’m pulled toward the iron gates by a force anchored to my insides. The perimeter of Fae guarding the grove parts like magic to let me through.

  This place… What happened here? Something more than time has ravaged the Seventh Kingdom.

  Trust your instincts, Maiden.

  “Oh hello, new Voice,” I whisper to myself as unseen hands reel me down the muddy path to the gate. “Why would I assume that just because I made peace with Hannah and Margaret and set Ava free I’d be done with Voices for awhile? I’m Emily’s brain, by the way,” I introduce myself sarcastically. “Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

  I am Emily’s Heart, the Voice answers. The pleasure is mine.

  Whoa. Wisest-of-Wise-Goddess alert! Apologize, my brain commands frantically. Repeat: Apologize to the Heart Voice for being a snarky little brat.

  There’s no need for apologies, Maiden. Examine the gate. What do you See?

  Right. The gate.

  The surface of the gate is warped, as if the wrought iron has liquefied in places. Clusters of rusted bubbles corrupt the ornate pickets and rails. I can almost see sizzling around the posts’ soldered joints.

  Except, iron doesn’t bubble. Or does it?

  From a distance I’d mistaken the corrosion for delicate lacewing metalwork. Up close, it’s clear the massive curling flowers and fanciful stars are riddled with holes. The patches of iron that haven’t been completely eaten through are deeply etched by evil gouges.

  Touch the gate, Maiden. What do you feel?

  Careful not to touch any of the old ulcers, I place my hand on a single iron rod. A shock spreads up through my arms, racing through my body like a coordinated attack. A simultaneous strike hits each of my seven chakras from crown to root, blinding me for a nausea-inducing moment. My temples throb, and an acrid taste of infection bitters my mouth. I pull my stinging hand away.

  The marble fountains, Maiden. What do you See?

  Obedient, I open both my masculine Mind’s Eye and my feminine Inner Eye, layering one on top of the other to form my Third Eye, something only Ovates have. It’s a way of Seeing below the surface of things.

  Whoa.

  I may have failed out of junior year, but I always aced history. I remember slides from one World History class lecture that showed ruins from the Acropolis of Athens. The marble columns of the Parthenon and the Erechtheum were weathered from centuries of exposure to the elements, but they were in far better shape than these crumbling ruins.

  The last time I visited the First Realm, each of the five fountains on either side of the cobblestone street featured a festively painted hummingbird with wings stretched wide, suspended above the topmost marble bowl, its elongated beak curving to sip from the fresh water tumbling down to lower tiers amidst ornate renditions of brightly colored insects and lush flora.

  Now the paint is cracked and faded, completely missing in some places. But the detail forming a fist-sized rock of unease at the back of my throat is that every fountain has been smashed. Not just the exteriors, the core supporting columns as well, as though something enormous plowed through them, punching and kicking.

  What happened here? Could the Fae have done this? They did go mad after Queen Rhyannon’s death, rioting and murdering each other in the streets until the High King Ælfwig banished them.

  But rioting doesn’t corrode wrought iron. It doesn’t eat through paint.

  This is something from a horror movie…some kind of virus or chemical weapon that infects people and minerals alike.

  “The air poisons my lungs. Quick, Emily, come inside.”

  Those were Princess Nissa’s words when I first encountered her in the Third Realm. And Ava told the council that Drake poisoned the atmosphere of his hiding place with doubt, fear, and despair. What if he used physical toxins as well? What if when he created the Third Realm, he somehow contaminated the Seventh Kingdom, too?

  Taking shallow breaths I scour the air, the ground, every surface I can See with my Third Eye, searching for a trace of anything noxious. I sample the oxygen in my lungs, the CO2 I exhale. There’s nothing. Just the pounding rain. Whatever it was that chewed through the Seventh Kingdom, it has long since dissipated.

  “Emma!” Claire shouts.

  I turn to see Ava collapsing against Aidan. He can’t hold her weight, and awkwardly lowers her to the ground as gently as he can.

  “Is she breathing?” I rush to her side, kneeling in the mud. Without waiting for an answer my hand is on her sternum, the other on her wrist. Thank God. Her chest rises and falls, and her pulse is steady.

  “Claire, do we have anything to clean her face with?” I ask, unnerved by all the mud. I’ve never seen Ava be anything but pristine. “What happened to her?”

  “What happened?” Claire eyes are as big as her mouth. “I don’t know what happened, I thought you knew!” She reaches into her plaid backpack and pulls out a pair of rolled socks, which she holds up to the volatile sky. They’re soaked in seconds and she hands me one. Together we work to wipe the mud off Ava’s cheeks.

  “Emily.” Aidan fixes me with eyes that are trying hard to stay calm. “One second we were listening to Ava in the grove at the Vineyard. She was in her little crystal box on Quince’s lap telling us that Drake is really Dad an
d then BAM!—there was a huge explosion. It knocked us all on our butts. Then you materialized out of nowhere, unconscious on that log, and crimbal started shooting arrows at us from who knows where! Kaye and Lizzy practically sat on me and Claire until the shooting stopped…”

  “And Ava’s box was up in a tree,” Claire interjects.

  “But Ava was nowhere,” Aidan says.

  “Then she came stumbling out of the forest all big and naked and covered in mud,” Claire whispers in awe, ringing out her sock before continuing to wipe grime from Ava’s unresponsive face. “Some of the Fae were trying to give you CPR and she told them you just needed room to breathe.”

  “Are we in the First or Second Realm now?” Aidan asks. “Geographically, I mean. Because they’re arguing about whether to take Ian to the hospital or the palace.”

  “I’m not sure,” I admit. “I think we’re somehow in both Realms?”

  “Okay,” Aidan nods. “That actually makes sense.”

  “It does?” His certainty bewilders me. He’s so stinking smart.

  “Well, they said you obliterated the barrier when you destroyed the Third Realm. So it stands to reason if there’s nothing separating the First from the Second anymore we’d have access to both, at least in places that were established portals before they made the wall.”

  I shake my head, trying to grasp the concept of being in two Realms at once. “Wait,” I stare at my braniac little brother. “You mean they overlap…?”

  Instead of replying he points at the group of Fae huddled around Ian. “Lady Quince looks strange. What is she doing?”

  “Is Ian going to die?” Claire’s voice is full of apprehension.

  “I don’t know, Bug.” I take one of the muddy socks and hold it up to the sky until it’s soaked, then ring it out and hand it back to Claire, but most of my attention is fixed on Quince.