Escaping Her Curse—Completed

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lauren weaved through the city, following the path she had taken to get to the house. Once she was sure that Simon hadn’t followed her, she snuck back through the hole that led through the sewers and back into the Undergrowth. The place was eerily quiet, and though she knew it was late into the night, the Undergrowth was never silent. The stillness clung to the air, like a dying man clinging to his last breath. Carefully navigating back to the grubby little house she was staying at, she slipped into it and was about to sneak back into the small bedroom when she heard a cough behind her.

Someone lit a candle, which illuminated the Bossman’s face. He wore a stern expression with anger flaring from his eyes. There was a woman standing next to him, who she did not recognize. Burt was nowhere to be found. The lady was slim and had a firm layer of grime covering her face that obscured her features. Lauren squinted briefly at the woman, trying to discern her facial attributes, but was interrupted by Bossman’s voice.

“Is this how ya intend to repay our kindness, Lauren?” he asked coldly.

She turned to fully face him, crossing her arms in an attempt to give herself courage. “Whadda mean?”

“Don’t play with me, child,” he spat. “Why’d ya leave? Who’d ya see? What secrets is Lydia hidin’ from me? Can ya even perform magic?”

Lauren took a breath to steady herself. “I can. And I can prove it.”

At this, the Bossman’s eyebrows rose in unimpressed shock. “Show me.”

She then closed her eyes, envisioned the room, and looked for the manaforce in everything around her. Once she was able to clearly picture this in her mind, she then opened her eyes and saw the most beautiful and brilliant blue/purple light all around her. Her eyes lit up and she couldn’t help but smile. She saw the manaforce in the two people; the woman had significantly more than Bossman. It was more than doubled. Looking down at herself, she was shocked to see her entire body covered in the swaying light. She had never thought much about her own manaforce. However, she didn’t have time to dwell on herself. Instead, she focused on the table in front of her and manipulated it with one hand to rise into the air.

She noticed both of their eyes widened significantly. Pushing herself, she then used her other hand to grip the manaforce of the chairs next to them and raised them as well. She twirled them playfully in her hands for a moment before letting everything drop to the ground. She felt her body grow weak from exerting herself, but she attempted to keep her composure. Lauren did not want either of them to know that she had just spent all her energy on what she had just done. She knew she’d need to raise her magical stamina if she was going to prove herself to the Undergrowth.

“Just earlier ya couldn’t do nothin’,” Bossman breathed in wonder. “Were ya hidin’ it?”

Lauren just shrugged. “It finally clicked for me. That’s all. I was workin’ on it. I only stepped outta bit for some air. Burt’s snores were gettin’ on my nerves,” she added, hoping to sell her story.

Bossman pursed his lips and studied her for a brief moment before finally nodding. “Fine. But no more slippin’ out without tellin’ someone.”

He then paused to give her a thorough once over. His lips then turned into a sickening smile as he said, “Our star has finally come to us. I’m not gonna let ya slip through my fingers. I have big plans for ya. Rest up tonight, ya gonna move into my quarters tomorra.”

Lauren felt her body freeze. It felt more like a threat than an offer. He gave her a wink before telling the woman to stay with her to “ensure her safety” until the next day, when he could get her proper guards. Suddenly, Lauren wasn’t so sure that she should have shown him what she could do. There was something sinister lurking behind his eyes, and though the Undergrowth had provided protection from the palace for her, she wondered if she had fled one hell and fallen into another.

As the door closed, leaving the two women alone, she watched the other plop down at the table. She then took out a deck of cards and began shuffling them absently. Lauren was slightly surprised, since cards were strictly forbidden in the kingdom. It was thought that they led to a life of gambling and paganism, though she knew that the royal family wasn’t even that religious. Playing cards were relics of the past, and held the connotation of speaking with spirits and the dead. Magic was already taboo, and darker magics that dealt with the dead were even more strictly monitored. Cards were seen as having the ability to hold the souls of the undead, and with each card painted carefully, it wasn’t a far off conclusion for the church to make.

Lauren eyed the other lady suspiciously then, wondering if any of the myths about decks of cards were true. Since she had gained her education from the Church and royal tutors, she had no other reason to believe otherwise.

“Calm down, would ya?” she said, her voice deeper than Lauren expected. “These aren’t taro cards or nuthin’. These are gen-u-wine sailor’s cards. Straight off them boats. No dead souls here.”

“How can I be sure?” she questioned back.

The woman c****d an eyebrow at her before beckoning her closer. She then began laying the cards out on the table in a pattern Lauren didn’t recognize. After shuffling, the woman placed one card, which was numbered, faced up and six more in a straight line faced down. She then placed a second card on the second pile faced up, and five more faced down. She continued the pattern until the seventh pile had six cards face down and the seventh card face up. All the cards she’d seen had numbers and other symbols.

“This iz whut they’d call Sol-i-tare. It’s old. Real old. Ancients used ta play it. But ya try ta put the numbers in numerical order from smallest to biggest.”

“What’s the smallest?”

“This one,” she pointed to a card that looked like it had the letter ‘A’ on it. “Cuz it’s the Ace. Then it’s two through ten, followed by Jack, Queen, King. Eazy.”

Lauren watched the woman play a round, curious about the game. She won, or so the lady said, before she picked up all the cards and began shuffling again.

“I’m Rosy.”

“Lauren.”

Rosy nodded, giving her a small smile. “I know. I’m ya new guard, since Burt’s a disgrace. I doubt ya’ll miss em, eh? Right?”

Lauren frowned. “What happened to him?”

Rosy shrugged. “Reassigned.”

Catching the drift from the other woman, Lauren dropped it. She couldn’t say that she would miss the disgusting pig all that much. She then left the woman, who had begun playing her card game again, and sat heavily on the lumpy bed. Sleep did not come to her though, and she tossed and turned throughout the entire night. Her emotions were everywhere, from being on cloud nine with Simon, to worrying about the Bossman’s intentions. He clearly had an agenda that he wanted to use her for, and she wondered what it would be. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, and was frightened by what might be asked of her. Her life had just taken a drastic turn. Again.

Finally, after listening to Rosy shuffle her cards repeatedly, her droopy eyelids closed and she fell into a deep sleep.

“Time ta git up,” Rosy said, shaking her awake.

Lauren groaned, but didn’t complain. She had already learned the hard way from Burt two days prior what it meant to disregard orders from Bossman. Though she doubted that Rosy would physically assault her, she had a hunch that there were other threats the woman could make. Lauren had already seen that Bossman only had people useful to him in one way or another around.

Once Lauren dressed in her simple but grungy outfit, she followed Rosy through the city, which had significantly livened up, until they reached the compound. Lights were placed around the entrance, which was not only blocked by two burly men, but there were also huge planks of rough wood forming a wall that reached higher than her eyes could follow.

Part of what made the Undergrowth unique was the changes in elevation. Some sections of the underground city were low, where people had continued to dig deeper and deeper into the earth, while other sections were relatively close to the surface.

Once Lauren was ushered into the compound, she realized just how large the Undergrowth must be. She walked into a huge cavern with two-story buildings on either side of a road leading to a mansion. The road was well lit with a blue-tinted flame that she quickly recognized as noblemens’ fire. It was often used as the main light source in noble circles because it was warm, non-flammable, and most importantly, gave off a large radius of light. She wondered how Bossman had gotten so much of it into the Undergrowth.

Her eyes grew wider as the sheer size of the mansion filled her vision the closer she walked towards it. Rosy didn’t even bat an eye at the place, which told her how familiar she was with the place. She was surprised to be greeted by Bossman at the door, which led into the mansion.

“Greetings,” he said cheerily. “Let me show ya my humble abode.”