Calla's Story

Chapter 11

Eleven

I’m trapped inside my house. I try to open a doorway to get outside, to breathe fresh air, but something keeps my hand from writing the spell. Even my legs feel like they’re stuck in syrupy thickness, unable to move. The walls start sliding toward me. My chest tightens and panic sucks all the air from my lungs. I struggle to breathe as the walls come closer, closer, closer, transforming into the bars of a cage. A scream climbs up my throat but can’t seem to make its way out of my mouth. I drop to my knees and curl in on myself as the bars form a cage around me.

I’m hanging above the black water again. I remember escaping earlier after I tricked a man into opening my cage. I showed him an image of his master, the scary Unseelie prince, telling him to let me out. I ran through the other room, the round room with the papers and the table, and tricked someone else into opening the sliding stone door. But outside in the passageway, someone caught me. I was carried back in here, struggling and screaming, and thrown into my cage.

I’ll never be free. I’ll be locked in this terrifying place forever, listening to the wails of other prisoners and forgetting what it feels like to not be afraid. I hug my knees and shudder as sobs overpower me.

“Hey, it’s okay,” someone says. “Everything will be all right. They don’t want to hurt us.” I rub my eyes and see a young man in the cage next to mine. “I’m Zed,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Calla!”

The shout isn’t mine. I look around and see a lanky man with disheveled hair standing at the edge of the water. Gaius? What is he doing here? Abruptly, I become aware that I’m dreaming. I realize this is nothing more than a mixture of memories that can’t hurt me.

“Calla!” Gaius shouts again. “Please don’t wake up yet. I’m in—”

My eyelids slide apart and my blurry gaze tries to focus on my bedroom wall. I blink and rub my eyes and find my body damp with cold sweat beneath my pajamas. Only a dream, I remind myself as the fear slowly melts away and relief takes its place. That last part seemed so real, though. I push myself up and rub my eyes again. I lift my sticky hair away from my neck and try to remember the last moments of the dream, what Gaius looked like and exactly what he said. But the details that seemed so clear at first are already beginning to fade, in that way that dreams do.

I drop my head back onto my pillow, closing my eyes and telling myself that it isn’t gross to lie here in this cold, sweaty mess and that I don’t need to get up and have a bath and that the best thing to do is go back to sleep.

On Saturday afternoon I’m called into the Guild to have a ‘chat’ with Councilor Merrydale. The vague memory of my dream comes to mind, and I half expect something to hold my hand back when I try to open a doorway to the paths. Then, as I step into the darkness, I expect some kind of siren or alarm to go off. Nothing happens, though. I wonder if, somewhere inside the Guild, guards have just been alerted that a person under house arrest has left her home.

I direct my question to the guard who escorts me from the Guild entrance room up to Councilor Merrydale’s office. “Yes, an alarm goes off at one of the stations in the surveillance department if you cross the tracker spell boundary,” she tells me. “But someone will have been informed that you were told to come here, so the alarm would then be disabled. And the spell tracks your location, of course, so the person on duty can check that you’re on your way here and not running off somewhere else.”

She waits with me outside Councilor Merrydale’s office, saying nothing more. In the expanding silence, I grow more nervous as each second ticks by. When the door opens all of a sudden and Councilor Merrydale calls me in, a spike of fear makes me queasy. His message said this was a ‘chat,’ but I’m certain it’s more than that.

“Please sit, Miss Larkenwood,” he says as he returns to the other side of his oversized desk. This office is familiar to me. I came here several times during the process leading up to my admittance to the Guild. Councilor Merrydale settles into his chair and looks at me. His face lacks its usual cheerfulness, but there’s still a small smile there as he asks, “May I call you Calla?”

“Um, okay.” He’s only ever called me Miss Larkenwood, which makes me wonder why he’s being extra friendly now.

“Don’t look so nervous,” he adds. “This isn’t an interrogation. I just wanted to explain a few things and give you a chance to tell your side of the story. When something like this happens and there’s a hearing to determine whether a person is guilty or not, a Council member is appointed to assist in the defense of that person and represent him or her where necessary. I volunteered to be that representative, and Head Councilor Bouchard approved. If you also approve, then we can proceed.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I consider his offer for a moment. “I suppose my first choice would be to have my brother defend me, but I assume that won’t be allowed.”

“Unfortunately not. Family members may not represent one another.”

“Then yes, I approve.”

“Good. I’ll just need you to sign this form then.” He slides a scroll across the desk, and I try to keep my fingers from shaking as I find the blank line at the bottom of the page and sign it. I see another line for a parent to sign for those who are under the age of eighteen, but a note beside it says that those who are members of a Guild are able to give their own consent. Good. I’m feeling like enough of a child as it is. At least I don’t have to call daddy and ask him to sign a piece of paper for me. I sit up straighter, remind myself that I’ve done nothing wrong, and push the paper back across the desk. “Thank you,” Councilor Merrydale says. “So, do you want to tell me what happened last night? I assume it was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it does, unfortunately, appear rather suspicious that you were on your own in that corridor instead of in the ballroom like everyone else.”

I nod, give myself a moment to consider my words—because I’ll probably be asked to repeat this story while being compelled to tell the truth—then start with the anonymous note in my locker. When I get to the part about following Chase out of the ballroom, I carefully navigate my way through the truth. “Then I saw a friend I wasn’t expecting to see. I wanted to speak to him, but he appeared to be leaving early. I lost sight of him in the ballroom and assumed he’d left, so I went downstairs, hoping to catch up to him. I didn’t find him, though. When I went back upstairs, I saw the sign for the other lounge further down that passage, and I wondered if he’d gone that way. When I turned the corner and saw the stained glass clock, I almost turned back. But then I saw Saskia. I didn’t know it was her or that she was dead until I reached her. That’s when I screamed, and it was barely a minute after that when everyone else showed up.”

Councilor Merrydale nods as he quickly scribbles down everything I say. He looks up and asks, “Was there anyone with you who can confirm that you saw this friend and followed him out of the ballroom?”

I shake my head. “Unfortunately not. My other friends were dancing at that point.”

“And the letter you received,” he adds. “Do you still have that?”

“Yes. It’s in my training bag.” How fortunate that I kept it instead of throwing it away.

Councilor Merrydale calls a guard in—the same woman who brought me here—and sends her to my home with a note addressed to Dad, probably telling him to send my bag back with her. “While we wait for Clove to return,” he says, “there is something else you need to explain.”

I shift anxiously in my chair. “Okay.”

“The dragon-eye ring in your locker.”

My limbs go still as a chill runs through me. “What … what dragon-eye ring?”

“Your locker was searched this morning and we found a ring exactly like the one Miss Starkweather was wearing.”

“But … I don’t have a ring like that. Somebody must have put it there. It must be part of the set-up.”

Councilor Merrydale nods and makes another note on his reed paper.

“You didn’t touch it, did you? I think the ring is what made Saskia sick.”

“Oh?” He looks up. “What makes you think that?”

I suppose I’ll be compelled to answer these questions at some point, so I may as well come clean now. “When I was Underground recently, I saw those rings in a shop run by witches. Their magic is very different from ours, isn’t it? And this sickness that killed Saskia isn’t something anyone seems familiar with, so it might very well be a witch’s spell.”

“Witches,” Councilor Merrydale murmurs, a frown on his face now. “How odd. What were you doing Underground?”

I hesitate before answering. “It isn’t illegal to go Underground, is it?”

“No. Although it certainly isn’t encouraged. Where exactly is this shop?”

I explain the location as best I can, and while he writes down my instructions, the guard returns with my training bag. “That was fast,” I say to her with a smile. She nods and leaves without a word.

“Okay, let’s add this letter to the evidence we already have, and then you can return home,” Councilor Merrydale says as he rolls up the reed paper.

I unzip my bag and dig between the books and training clothes. When I don’t see the crumpled letter, I start unpacking my belongings. I remove every single item from my bag until all that remains are several bits of charred paper. Like a letter that was burned or had a self-destructing charm applied to it. I breathe out slowly through my nose as I stare at the empty bag and start to wonder just how deep this deception goes. Then I straighten, resigning myself to the fact that this piece of evidence is gone for good. “It’s not here anymore,” I say quietly, not bothering with any excuses.

Councilor Merrydale nods. “That’s unfortunate.” He leans back in his chair and sighs. “You understand that none of this looks good for you.”

I swallow, feeling sick. “But … the compulsion potion. You’ll know I’m telling the truth then.”

“Yes,” he says as he pushes his chair back and stands. “Hopefully.”

Hopefully? Hopefully? What does that mean?

“Thank you for coming in, Calla. I’ll be in touch when we’re ready to proceed with the next step in the investigation. Clove will see you home now.”