A Nightingale's Tale

Chapter Nine

She stood in her window and watched the sun drift slowly across the sky. For hours, she stood there and only thought of the cruel punishments they were putting Arabella through at that moment. Since the only people that returned from reformation were neither willing, nor capable of telling them the horrors they had endured, her imagination crept from an uncomfortable state to sickening one. She knew she couldn’t stand there looking out at the sea and the mainland forever. Someone one would eventually come for her as she now had Guardian duties she couldn’t ignore.

She had made up her mind the moment she had confronted Marcus but couldn’t convince her feet to climb through the window. She knew she couldn’t find Ara by herself, but she only had Edna and Onyx to turn to. She planned what she was going to say to Onyx over and over in her mind with differing reactions from him, some angry, some excited, and some in disbelief. None of those scenarios ended with Onyx dropping everything he had going on and helping her rescue her magical friend from a magical community that she had kept from him this whole time. She kept thinking about the grimoire in his office. He could already know who she is and be willing to help. But, if he knew who she was, why hadn’t he said anything before? Either way, she was about to give him the opportunity to know and participate in her world. She took a deep breath and gathered her best spellbooks, potions, and crystals in a bag. She didn’t have much. They weren’t allowed to keep anything that wasn’t within one’s realm of profession. Everything the Guardians needed, other than their praecants, were kept locked in the Main Hall.

Her bag had few items, but it was the heaviest thing she had tried to take to the mainland by raft. She thought back to the night she almost drowned. He had saved her then would he help her find her friend now? She strapped the bag on her back and made the climb she had done so many times before, this time she had no intention of climbing back up.

Instead of pulling the raft to shore, she jumped off when the water was ankle deep and let it float out to sea. The walk through the forest to the house felt as if it was the longest journey she had taken. The bag across her back weighed her down as if she was carrying the entire island on her back. Edna was hanging sheets when she rounded the corner.

“Lydia, what are you doing here in the daytime?” she asked surprised. She dropped the clothespin she had been holding and hurried to Lydia.

“They took her,” she said exhausted. Lydia stumbled forward onto her hands and knees.

“Oh my,” Edna said bending down to help her back up, “Honey, what are talking about?”

“Edna, they took her, Arabella,” she said still on her knees. Tears bubbled in her eyes. Her body shook.

“Your friend? What do you mean they took her?” Edna asked.

“Remember how I told you that if someone breaks certain laws they’re taken to be reformed?”

Edna shuddered remembering the callous tale Lydia had told her long ago about the young boy who was taken from his family only to be brought back as a shell of his former self. Aaron was his name, he was older than Lydia at the time they took him but not by much. She didn’t even remember why they took him. When he returned his head was shaved and deep scars, old and new, covered his body. He wouldn’t answer to Aaron any longer. He wouldn’t answer anything after that. Edna could only nod.

“That’s what they’ve done with Arabella. I must find her. I need Onyx’s help.”

She stood regaining what little strength she had. She let her bag drag across the ground and hurried into the house.

“Onyx,” she yelled into the empty entryway.

“He’s not here,” Edna said following behind her.

“What? Where would he have gone?”

“He went back to New York.”

Lydia remembered their conversation suddenly, she didn’t think he would leave immediately.

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know. He never said.”

Lydia didn’t have time to wait for him. She had to come up with a plan now.

“Come here, relax. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t stay here. I have to find her. Plus, once they realize I’m gone they’ll come looking for me. This is too close to the shore for me to stay. They’ll find me here.”

“What exactly is your plan? Are you going to tell Onyx everything?”

“Yes, I have to. I also need his help once I find her. He talked about taking me to New York sometime. I’m sure he’ll let me take Ara with us.”

“Lydia, I don’t think you’ve thought this through,” Edna said as she steadied herself against the back of the couch. She looked as if she were about to faint.

Lydia rushed to her side and helped her lay down. Lydia held her hand. Edna was so weak. This amount of anxiety had taken her off her feet immediately. Lydia could only imagine what would happen to the elderly woman if a crowd of magicians stormed her house to retrieve Lydia. Edna would not survive it. Watching the frail Edna brought Lydia back down to her senses. In her anger and fear, she hadn’t thought about anything she was doing through. All she had wanted was to be as far away from Covet and Marcus as possible. No matter what, she knew she had to find Arabella. First, she had to go somewhere and come up with a plan. Somewhere not here, not where Edna could be in harm’s way. She needed to start searching for Arabella immediately. The longer she waited the worse it would be for her.

She didn’t even know where to begin her search. The only thing she knew was that Guardians took the people off the island for reformation but other than that she had no leads on where to find Arabella. She needed someone off the island that knew about magicians, guardians in particular and their rituals. Her mind darted to the camp in the woods. It was a place for refugees and if she wasn’t a refugee now what was she? Maybe someone in the camp could help her. At least it was somewhere she could go that would keep Edna safe.

“Edna, I have to find her. I’ll come back when I can,” she said helping the woman off the couch and to her bedroom in the back. Lydia made chamomile tea and heated some pumpkin soup, Edna had made the night before, and left it on her nightstand. Lydia pulled out four clear crystals from her bag and placed them in four corners of the house. They wouldn’t keep the Guardians out for long but hopefully enough to deter them from harming the old woman until she could come back. She hoped Onyx would get home before they began searching the mainland.

She kept to the forest instead of getting near the beach. Every shadow made her jump as she expected Marcus or a Guardian to be waiting behind the trees to take her back. She pushed through the knee-high water without the freedom she had experienced the first time she had walked this path. The door on the hill was a welcome sight after hours of walking. She squeezed the bottom of her dress and brown water dripped on her feet. Her bag was equally as drenched from dropping it several times in the swampy water.

“Need a towel?” a man’s voice came from a tree.

She jumped and held her chest. She hadn’t seen him sitting on a limb reading. His silver hair matched his eyes which were pronounced by his square glasses. He looked as if all the color had been scared out of him, he was so pale, but he didn’t look afraid. She couldn’t tell if he was young and had a tough life or if he was older but had a youthful face. He brought a pitch-black hand, which contrasted his white skin and hair, up to his lips to draw on his cigarette. It looked as if he reached into a fire and burned his entire hand.

“No, I need to speak with…”

“Who are you talking to?” a familiar woman came walking through the thick brush that separated the opening with the port-door and the camp. She glared at Lydia like she was a rabid dog. Sofia, the woman that had stood between Marcus, Andrew, and Killian.

“I’m not sure, Sofia. Who are you?” said the man. He seemed so uninterested in her as if strange women walked to their camp every hour.

“She’s one of the Guardians we told you about. Look, you haven’t given us any time to leave.”

“There aren’t female Guardians,” he said.

“Well, she is.”

“I’m not here because of that,” Lydia said holding her soaking bag to her chest. That was when the man in the trees spotted her praecant.

“Are you even sure they were real Guardians? I mean, they’re extinct supposedly and they definitely don’t let allow women among their elite.”

He flicked his cigarette and jumped from the tree. He seemed completely unimpressed by Lydia.

“I saw you look at this,” she said pointing to her hand, “So, I’m sure you know what that means.”

“Any old law magician can have that, it doesn’t mean you’re a Guardian. They don’t let women do that,” he said to Lydia then turned to Sofia, “Careful, Sof.” He walked past Sofia and into the bushes that separated them and the camp.

“I need to speak with Killian,” Lydia said.

Sofia tensed and wrinkled her nose, “What could you possibly want with him?”

“I…think we could help each other. I’m not here to make you leave.”

“Just go.”

“Please, I just need to speak with him for a moment. I need help.”

“I said leave.”

“I won't. Not until I speak with him.”

Sofia started walking closer to Lydia with a deranged look about her. Lydia couldn’t tell if she was trying to be menacing or if her face was always in that tight snarl. Sofia wasn’t an intimidating girl. She was petite, her dark black hair was almost as long as she was tall. She was about as terrifying as a kitten that pretended to kill a toy mouse.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m not leaving until I speak with him,” Lydia stood her ground. She was not giving up that easily. She squeezed her stone in preparation to draw her praecant. Sofia hissed like a feral cat and put her shoulders back. Lydia didn’t want to harm the small girl, it wouldn’t exactly help her with getting in with Killian.

“Sofia,” Killian said walking to them. She puffed her chest forward but turned toward him.

“Go to camp.”

“Killian, she’s one…”

“I know, I said go.”

She didn’t argue, instead she walked slowly toward him and placed a hand on his chest. Lydia released the stone and stepped forward when Sofia was out of sight. Lydia still couldn’t believe how young their leader was, but he spoke like he had many hard years of life behind him.

“They sent you to get rid of us? Are they trying to kill you?” he laughed.

“They didn’t send me. I came on my own.”

“You left them?” He said sarcastically.

“Yes.”

“Now, you’ve come here? You think I believe that. The first woman, I’ve ever heard of, being allowed the prestigious title of a Guardian for a coven that abides by ancient, barbaric laws, leaves all that progression behind.”

A raindrop landed on Lydia’s arm.

“They took a friend of mine for reformation. I’m going to get her back and I need help.”

“Ah, reformation, you being a Guardian and all, I’m sure many others have been taken in your lifetime, maybe some you’ve even taken.”

“A few in my life…one I was a part of.”

“Were they not good enough to be saved?”

The rain came lightly at first then soaked her as if she were back in the ocean, drowning. A hot tear broke through the chilled rain down her cheek.

“They weren’t my fault...she was. I’m the reason she’s gone. I just need information, I won’t be long.”

He stood looking at her for some time. The heavy rain picked up and the wind whipped her hair in all directions. She knew she deserved to stand in the freezing rain for days, even weeks, so she stood there silently waiting for help.

“Come with me,” he said.

She looked up at him, waiting to see deceit cross his eyes. She never saw that, only pity. They walked through the thick brush and she saw just how large their camp really was. Dozens of tents, of varying sizes, were spread throughout the trees. Old campfires dotted the ground and clothes hung from trees being soaked by the rain. Creatures of all shapes and sizes were pulling them down and taking them inside tents. Killian took her to a red tent at the front of the camp. It was big enough to stand upright in. There was a small table placed on the ground that had pillows surrounding it. A cot was in the corner filled with maps and papers. The walls of the tent were covered with larger maps with different colored markings on all of them.

“Here,” he threw her a towel.

“Thank you.”

“Why would we ever help you? You were with them when they threatened us.”

“This is a place for refugees, you help refugees, now I’m a refugee. I won't stay, like I said, all I need is information on how to find my friend. You’ll never see me again after that. Plus, I have some information that might be useful to you.”

He watched her as if her lies would pour out of her eyes if he stared long enough. Lydia tried to look as honorable as possible, but she knew how bad this looked. Just the day before, she had been ahead of the party that had threatened everyone there. She wouldn’t have believed herself if it were the other way around.

“Killian!” Sofia screamed from outside, which made Lydia jump.

Screams of pain fell out into the camp. Killian looked at her for one more intense moment, as if she were at fault for the screams, before running out. Lydia followed behind him. Frantic screams came from the opening where the port-door was. Lydia pushed through the crowd to see what had happened. A man was curled in on himself, shivering on the ground. He was covered in a fine red dust with visible small wounds all over his face and arms.

“We barely made it through the port-door before he collapsed. There was no one following us! I don't know what happened,” a girl sobbed to Killian. She had a black jacket on, that was much too large for her, that was also covered in the red dust. Lydia assumed the man on the floor gave it to her to protect her from whatever it was that had him in agony. Sofia crouched on the floor trying to clean his wounds, but every time fresh blood flowed he screamed again in pain. Lydia recognized the spell immediately. It was an incapacitating spell, they had learned as children and practiced on cats. She would never forget that lesson.

“Foxtail,” said Lydia.

No one even noticed she was there.

“It’s foxtail,” she said louder.

Again, no noticed or cared.

She pushed through the people that were in front of her.

“Stop,” she said taking the bloody rag from Sofia.

Sofia’s eyes shot to Lydia’s face and turned to slits with anger and disbelief.

“You’re going to kill him. You’re pushing the seeds into his body,” she said pointing to the red dust. He stopped screaming and whimpered slightly.

“Do you have potions or herbs?”

“What are you talking about?” Killian said.

“Herbs, plants! I need them now.”

She didn’t think she had the right herbs or potions for this spell in her bag. She hoped they did somewhere.

The girl in the jacket said, “Yes, this way.”

“Don’t touch him,” she yelled back at the group before running after the girl.

Lydia followed her to one of the larger white tents. Inside were rows of tables and shelves filled with books, plants, jars of herbs, and insects. Lydia realized the girl in the jacket was not a little girl at all but instead looked older than Lydia but was very small, possibly a goblin. Lydia dug through her bag and found a small sack of yellow tea leaves Arabella had made for her a while ago. She hoped everything was in alphabetical order or she would be searching for hours and he didn’t have that kind of time.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

Lydia tried not to listen to her, so she could concentrate better. Luckily, the jars were labeled and relativity in the right order, however, she didn’t know if the herb she needed had been put in one of the jars.

“J…J…J,” she whispered to herself as she scanned the shelves and bottles. A large jar with green needles like leaves and tiny white seeds caught her attention.

“Juniperus virginiana!”

She grabbed the bottle and ran to a table at the entrance of the tent. She ground up the tea, seeds, and the leaves in a grindstone and added water. She made enough green paste that would cover his body and hurried back to where he lay. Everyone was staring at her when she reentered. They had made a pathway directly to him. He was no longer groaning in pain. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. She removed his shirt to reveal more tiny cuts. She rubbed the paste over the infected area. When the others realized what she was doing they removed his pants to look for more cuts. She had made more than enough paste thankfully. After a few breathless moments, he gasped for air and opened his eyes. The small woman ran to his side and held up his head.

“You’re alive, Oh, thank you, thank you,” she sobbed.

The woman’s skin was pulsing colors lightly as if her emotions were visible on her skin. Others began to thank Lydia and gave her light taps on her shoulders and back. Sofia and Killian watched her in silence. She went back to the tent to put up the bottles. Killian followed her.

“How did you know what was happening?” Killian said.

Lydia didn’t want to tell the story of torturing cats as a child. “Spell classes and my mother was an alchemist. I spent years watching and helping her with experiments. I remember the fox potion, the red stuff. You put it at the end of a knife or sword. But with how many cuts he had I would say they poured it over a thorn bush and he walked through it. It forces the wounds open wider causing death from uncontrollable bleeding.”

“She taught you this?”

“Well, I learned mostly everyday spells from magic classes. But, the more difficult stuff like this I mainly learned from her before she died.”

Lydia tensed at the thought of her mother’s death, she hated even thinking it. She placed the jar back on the shelf where it belonged.

“I’ve heard of old law coven’s death rituals. I’m sorry,” he said.

This was a topic Lydia did not want to discuss but she could tell he was trying to make conversation with her. The image of dozens of birds flying away from the island shuddered through her mind.

“Will you help me? I saved one of your people,” she said.

“I didn’t ask you to help Simon.”

“But I did.”

He dropped his gaze from her and slowly paced around the tent, he looked at the bottles she had used.

“All I need is someone to give me any information on where they might have taken her. I can do the rest on my own.”

He turned his back to her and looked up at the small cuts in the top of the tent. Sunbeams caught particles of dust floating around the room. It was uncomfortably hot in the large tent which made Lydia’s anxiety much worse. He took in a large breath and seemed to come to a decision. When he turned back to her, she knew immediately from the look on his face he wasn’t going to help her.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t risk….”

“Killian, we need her help as much as she needs ours,” said Sofia from the entryway.

“Sofia,” he objected.

“Lyon’s the only person who knows what any of this stuff does,” she gestured to the mass array of plants and herbs, “and he’s barely ever here. She can teach us.”

“If her Coven finds out she’s here they will attack us even sooner. I can’t risk it.”

“They’re coming regardless. We’ve lost too many of us to spells and potions that could have been saved if we knew what we were doing. No one else needs to die because we don’t know what to do when Lyon isn’t here. Plus, we can't even move the injured when they do come without helping them first.”

“Earlier you said you had information,” he said, “Can it help us before your coven comes back?”

“Yes, I know when they’ll come back. I can give you a timeline of how long you have.”

“When?”

She hesitated, her knowledge was the only hand she had to play with.

“Four weeks,” she said and immediately regretted it. She could tell he didn’t want her anywhere near him or the people there.

“All right,” Killian said, “We’ll provide you with what we know to help find your friend. I can’t promise it will be any real help though. In return, help heal the sick and wounded before your coven gets here. We have four weeks.”

He extended a hand toward her, his right hand, he would be shaking her hand with her praecant. That was unbreakable, in her coven, when a promise is made and two praecants are joined. However, only she had a praecant. She shook his hand. She felt her crystal press into his palm. He looked down at it and she pulled away. She felt uncomfortable with dread if anyone else touched her praecant.

“Four weeks,” he said. He wasn’t pleased with that small amount of time, “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Lyon. Anything you need to know will come from him.”

As Killian took Lydia to find Lyon, she noticed dangling charms all around the camp in the trees. They were protection charms.

“Those protection charms, they won’t keep my coven out,” she said.

“It’s not for them, it’s for humans in case they get too close. It makes them disoriented or something, I don’t know I didn’t make them.”

She thought of Edna, “Do many humans come out here?”

“I haven’t seen any, but Sofia put them up in case.”

“Why do you think this person, Lyon, can help me?”

“He was from a coven before all the chaos in the other realm happened, a great coven. He learned a lot. If anyone here knows anything about old law coven rituals, it’s him.”

“Ok, so, where is he?” They had been walking around the camp for a while now with no luck.

“I’m not sure, I saw him a few hours ago.”

“What does he look like?”

“Silver hair, light eyes, he has a black hand from a spell…”

“I saw him! He was sitting in a tree near the entrance to your camp.”

After they had searched the entire camp, multiple times, and couldn’t find him they began asking around. The small girl that came through the port-door with Simon, Camille, told them that Lyon had gone through to the other realm right before they had passed through themselves.

“Simon had already been cut so I was just trying to get him through the port-door,” Camille motioned to a sleeping Simon, “I yelled for Lyon to help but he was too far away. He didn’t hear me.”

“He went through again?” Killian said rhetorically.

“What does that mean?” Lydia asked.

“He’s gone, and he won’t be back for a week or two. He’s hardly ever gone for longer than that.”

“A week or two?” Lydia felt ill. Patience was something she was lacking. “Where did he go?”

“He goes to the other realm looking for things we need.”

“Like what?”

“He’s making trips back to destroyed villages finding any books, plants, herbs, potions, anything he can find. All the rare books he’s found are kept in the library. He keeps almost every book he finds since his last library was burned. We have almost anything you can think but that could take a while, going through it all. It would have been beneficial to just ask him, he’s a good encyclopedia for magic.”

Lydia felt defeated again, the person that could have helped her most had been right in front of her, smoking a cigarette. She kicked herself for not blurting out why she had come here from the beginning. Her last hope, possibly her only hope, was in a completely different realm now. Two weeks, two weeks! A lot of damage can be done in two weeks to a person. Lydia felt as if she had fallen into a deep hole. Covet would come looking for her, they would find her long before Lyon returned. Arabella was lost to her and it was all her fault.