Redemption (7 page)

“The visions were too clear to be discarded,” Lita said.

I looked between Monroe and Lita, my eyes narrowing.

“I asked her to sit in on the scrying,” Monroe clarified.

I grew pale. What was this?

“What did you see?” I whispered.

Conor’s arm tightened around me. Maybe he thought I needed the support. Monroe bowed her head.

“Blood.”

Her voice was so low I almost missed it. Blood? Jacin’s face grew pale. I assumed this was the first time he had heard this too. I’m sure my face mirrored his.

“There were figures, blood, a chain . . .” Lita explained, her voice trailing off as she watched my expression.

I could hear my own breathing in my ears. Silence filled the room. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. Terror filled me.

“What does that mean?” I asked, choking on the words as I did.

Monroe moved to sit on the opposite side of me. She made me look her in the eye.

“Day, I think you need to find a way to leave the Abbey. I couldn’t give you an accurate reading because I’m honestly not sure what any of it means, but I do know there’s danger ahead. It has me terrified,” Monroe pleaded.

I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. Lita moved to sit on an ottoman closer to the three of us.

“Blood can mean death, rebirth . . . anything. The figures are completely unknown to us. No meaning seems linked. The chain can mean connection or imprisonment,” Lita told me.

I nodded at her gratefully. Her words frightened me more, but I had wanted to know. I looked at Monroe again.

“I can’t leave the Abbey, Roe, especially after last year. And the vision you saw might not have anything to do with the Abbey. Besides, my sister is there."

This was too much for me! Monroe’s hand found mine and gripped it unmercifully.

“Whatever it is, I don’t think there’s much time, Day."

  I looked around at the four of them. The room was tense. This was stupid. One vision while sleeping over and suddenly my life was in danger? I had lived at the Abbey since I was ten. Nothing happened there. It was the most emotionless, suffocating, boring place on earth. Right?

 I pointedly ignored the feelings I'd shared with Monroe Saturday night. I didn’t trust my instincts not to be influenced by my dreams or fantasies. I had a powerful imagination. The Abbey was only a prison in my head, its talking, closed-in walls a product of my mind.

“Scrying isn’t accurate. You’ve told me that before, Roe. We were pretty scared Saturday night. Couldn’t the visions be affected by that?” I asked.

Monroe didn’t answer, just looked away. The gesture made me feel a little less afraid.

“It doesn’t matter, Day. I’d rather take the chance I was wrong than risk your life."

 I agreed with her, but there were few options left open to me. I wouldn’t run. The vision hadn’t been of the Abbey. The group seemed to recognize this because everyone moved away from me except Conor. Monroe watched me warily as she took a seat on the sofa. I didn’t blame her. If the roles were reversed, I’d be terrified for her too. But I just didn’t understand the fear. I lived in an Abbey surrounded by nuns. How much safer could you get? Conor leaned down, grabbed the half-eaten dumdum I was holding in my hand, and stuffed it in his mouth.

“You should listen to her,” Conor whispered in my ear.

I shivered. Maybe I should. But I couldn’t. The room around us began buzzing with conversation. Lita began picking on Jacin and Conor followed suit, his gaze drifting every so often to Monroe. They would let the subject drop because that’s what I wanted, but they wouldn’t quit watching me.  I sat back and watched them chat, my body there but my mind gone. At some point, I felt Conor massage my shoulder and point to my cell phone. It had been a birthday present from the Jacobs. Monroe’s mother had given it to me and told me not to worry about the bill. I owed a lot to the Jacobs. I glanced at it quickly and noticed the time.

“I’ve got to go,” I said immediately, jumping up to grab my stuff.

Monroe followed me to the door. I waved at Lita, Jacin, and Conor. They waved back.

“See you tomorrow, Red,” Conor said. I smiled half-heartedly and nodded.

“Be careful. Please, Dayton,” Monroe pleaded. “You need me, call me.”

I nodded and hugged her hard.

“See you tomorrow."

 I moved outside and climbed into my car, laying my head briefly against my steering wheel. Images plagued me.
Figures, blood, a chain . . .
that wasn’t my life.

***

I drove down the lane to the Abbey, taking in my surroundings with a trepidation I hadn’t felt before. Everything looked eerie. Things seemed to leap out of the shadows. I was so jumpy, I almost ran off the road when a squirrel bounded out in front of my car. This wouldn’t do!

“Just breathe, Day."

There was a reason I didn’t watch horror movies. I got scared too easily. This was my life, not some Michael Meyers film. I took in a few deep breaths and my heart rate slowed.

“That’s better,” I mumbled as I climbed out of the car.

The Abbey loomed upward behind me. It looked like a gothic mansion from a Bronte novel. This didn’t comfort me. The wind blew my hair as I walked across the lawn, and I entered the Abbey just as the first sprinkles of rain began to fall.

“You’re late,” a voice said from behind me, and I fell into the door.

My heart rate increased again, blood rushed into my ears. Aunt Kyra. She stood just inside the dark foyer, her arms crossed. I righted myself slowly. Her black robes took on a sinister cast, judgmental and cruel.

“I’m sorry,” I said. No excuse would do.

“Dayton—” she began.

 I stood waiting.

“How long have you been lying to me?”

I just looked at her. Her face was shadowed, but the half that wasn’t was solemn and angry. I knew suddenly that she’d discovered I wasn’t doing community service. My fault, considering I hadn’t kept a watch on the time. She had probably called looking for me. I sighed. I hadn’t lied really. I just hadn’t kept her informed.

“Two months."

There was no arguing with my aunt. She didn’t move, just stared at me. Her gaze raked my figure slowly. Her eyes were blazing.

“Go to your room, Dayton."

 I began to walk by her quickly, but she stopped me when I came up on her, her hand taking my arm.

“I’ve done all I know to do” she said almost sadly. I didn’t look at her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

This time I did look, startled. Her face was hard.

“Ma'am?”

She didn’t answer, just pointed to the stairs. What did she have to be sorry for? I stood there a moment before finally walking away. I was almost to the top of the stairs when I heard the laughter. It was faint and it was male, but when I glanced down the stairwell, it was empty. Even Aunt Kyra was gone.

Chapter 5

There are no laws among the Cursed. They live recklessly, indulging in every whim whether murder or lust. Their conscience is clouded by poor judgments. There can be little hope of redemption.

~Bezaliel~

The week didn’t get any better for me. On Tuesday, Mr. James decided the class needed to write an essay on Camus, his life and philosophy. I was still angry about his treatment of me in class. Add that to my utter dislike of Camus’ philosophy, and the paper ended up being fairly passionate. I spent two hours writing it. Mr. James’ face as he graded papers in class Wednesday said the two hours I had spent was wasted on him. The paper was just the beginning.

I got a sense that some unspoken protection agreement had been put in place by my friends, and it had my nerves frazzled well beyond their already twisted state. Monroe seemed more troubled with each passing day though she played it off well. I wondered briefly if she was still scrying. Conor was still flirtatious but quiet. His mood seemed decided by Monroe’s. And Lita and Jacin seemed determined to shadow me in between classes. I was becoming good at dodging them. James Bond had nothing on me. Besides, letting them bodyguard me around school meant I had to admit I was afraid. And I was determined not to go that route. The first moment I gave into the fear, I’d be consumed by it. So I did what I did best. I let moments and images pass me by. The week became a jumbled mess of mental pictures.

Then there was the Abbey. It had become eerily tomb-like. The Sisters avoided me, sometimes pointedly, and Aunt Kyra was mysteriously absent during meals. While this was a relief, it was also odd and disconcerting. I was becoming depressed. The worst part was the fact that my seventeenth birthday was that upcoming Saturday. I was not looking forward to it.

“Amber?” I asked that Thursday morning.

She looked up from clearing the table in the refectory. I avoided her gaze, moving to finish sweeping the part of the floor I’d been working on.

“Yeah?” she asked.

I moved a few chairs away from the wooden dining table, swept under that particular section, and pushed the chairs back in flush with the wood. Leaning against the back of one of the intricately carved chairs, I looked Amber directly in the eye.

“What do you think of me?”

She froze, her expression troubled.

“What?” 

“What do you think of me?” I asked again, louder this time.

Amber perused me a moment in silence.

“What brought this on?” she asked me finally, her chore forgotten as she pulled out a chair and sat down. I moved down a chair.

“Nothing. I just want to know."

She played with the rag in her hand. For a moment, I thought she wouldn’t answer.

“I don’t know, Day. You’re . . . brash, I guess,” she said cautiously.

I looked down at the floor. Brash? Okay.

“That’s it?”

Amber blew a loose strand of hair out of her face and rolled her eyes.

“What is this, Day?” she asked, her cheeks flushing slightly. Her skin was pale enough it showed, and I watched her curiously. She was hiding something.

“Is there a reason for this?” she insisted.

I moved even closer to her and nodded.

“I want to know where I fit in here at the Abbey, Amber. What I’m even doing here?”

This seemed to startle her.

“What?”

“Where do I fit in, Amber? It’s a simple question,” I said reasonably.

Amber looked conflicted. I felt a momentary flash of guilt at my interrogation, but thoughts had been eating away at me for days. Memories I hadn’t let myself dwell on before swamped me. I saw myself at eleven being reprimanded for telling stories to those who came to the Abbey, I saw myself at thirteen being punished for drawing pictures on a dry erase board my aunt used to write down lessons she wanted remembered, I saw myself at fifteen being told that my soul was in danger of being corrupted. Punishment, reprimands, corruption . . . my memories were engulfed with lectures. At sixteen, the punishments stopped. The Sisters quit their lectures, and my aunt retreated into the Abbey’s darkness.

And then there were the memories of my sister. There were memories of Amber at eleven being taught to master the organ, Amber at twelve being told that my stories were damning to the soul because they were full of fantastical creatures that did not belong in truth, Amber at fourteen deep in discussion with the Sisters, Amber at seventeen withdrawing into the Abbey’s Order. The most disturbing of all, however, was the silence. It had been separating Amber and me since our move to the Abbey. And it still remained.  I missed my sister.

“Something has changed here, Amber. You don’t feel it?”

Amber’s cheeks grew redder. This encouraged me.

“We quit talking about things after mom and dad died—”

 Amber jumped up, her eyes frantic. Her gaze moved everywhere.

“Dayton, don’t go there!” Amber warned.

But I did. I very much went there. I was tired of the space between us. I missed the little girls who used to share stories beneath a thin sheet.

“What happened to us, Amber? What is this place? Really?”

Amber leaned over the table.

“What are you trying to do, Dayton?”

 I just stared at her.

“Me? What am
I
trying to do? Is this really what our life has come down to?” I cried. “Us being left here to be raised by an aunt who has hardly any contact with us, surrounded by women we barely know, our lives monitored but lonely? What does that accomplish, Amber? We used to be so much more colorful. Now we live our lives in shades of black and gray walking on egg shells. We don’t talk and when we do, we look over our shoulders. Why do we do that?”

Amber was in a panic now, watching the room as if the walls were about to collapse in on us both. We weren’t normal teenagers. Teenagers gossiped and even ragged on their parents occasionally. We seemed to have a mythical straight jacket around us waiting to be tightened. When in the past seven years had that happened?