Secret Worlds (427 page)

“I expect no less from anyone else. Why do you think you should be any different?” He reached inside a drawer and pulled out a pipe.

“I respect those who have earned it.”

His stare turned deadly. At the same time, my throat constricted as if I were being choked. I coughed a few times, trying to get air into my lungs.

“Then let me earn it,” my grandfather said in a calm voice. He lit his pipe and inhaled deeply. He watched as I struggled to remove the invisible grip from around my neck. Stars burst into my mind in sprays of blues and purples.

“Do you respect me now?” he asked.

I was barely conscience enough to nod my head. The grip from my neck relaxed, and I sucked in as much air as my lungs could handle.

“I’m sure Anne told you why we brought you here,” he began.

I nodded again, weakly.

“I need an heir. You were never an option before, but I’ve been informed otherwise, thanks to Boaz.”

“Boaz has nothing to do with this.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” he said, puffing a wide ring of smoke.

In the corner of the room, a shadow shifted. Boaz or a trick of the light? I continued to stare, but nothing moved again.

“I have staged a simple test for my granddaughters,” he said. “Whoever wins, their family will inherit all that I have.”

“And when the test is over?”

“You will be free to leave.” Smoke spilled from his mouth.

“When do we begin?”

“Tonight.”

Good. The sooner the better. Just sitting near the old man unnerved me. No wonder my parents were always at odds after visiting him. It was like being near a hungry tiger with amazing self-control—you could see the aggression in his eyes, but he remained as still as a boulder. I left my grandfather to his pipe and thoughts and found Anne standing just outside of my room with a full glass of wine.

“What did he say?” she asked and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

I walked past her into the room. “He said the twins are going to lose, and I’m going to win.”

After showering, I returned to my room to find a stylish red dress lying on the bed. It had a blood-red sash around its waist and was made from the same silky material as my other dresses. I quickly pulled it on, feeling somewhat better.

A knock at my door startled me. I said nothing, but moved to the window seat, warm sunlight spilling in through the glass, and sat down to wait for whomever it was to simply come in. They did just that. Helen walked in first followed by Harriet.

“Do you two do everything together?” I asked.

“Two is better than one,” Helen said.

“Much better,” agreed Harriet. They stood next to each other, shoulders touching.

“Do you two date much?” I asked.

Simultaneously, a smile spread across their faces.

“We have had our fun,” Helen said.

“Boaz was wonderful,” said Harriet.

I raised my eyebrows. “Really? And what exactly did you do with Boaz?”

They looked at each other conspiratorially. Helen giggled. “Only the birds know.”

“And the worms.” Harriet giggled harder.

Realizing this was not a conversation I wanted to have, I asked, “Did you two like growing up here?”

“We didn’t grow up here.”

“Our home was in Burlington.”

“Why did you move here?” I asked.

“There was a fire.”

“It destroyed everything.”

“What caused it?”

Both of them flinched as if someone had just shoved lemons into their mouths.

“Magic,” they said together.

“Whose magic?”

“It was an accident,” Helen said.

“We were learning,” added Harriet.

I stood up, surprised by their confession. “Was anyone hurt?”

Swallowing hard, they said, “Father. He died.”

“That’s horrible. How old were you?”

“We were young.”

“Ten.”

“Did you like your father?” I asked. If my father had died, I wouldn’t have cared, and I hoped it was the same for the twins.

It took them a moment to answer. “We loved father.”

“He was different. Not like them.”

I knew exactly
whom
they were talking about. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

They said nothing, but I noticed their pupils were moving back and forth, just barely, the same way a pendulum clock swings.

“Listen, cousins,” I said, feeling suddenly sympathetic toward them. “This whole inheritance thing is silly, don’t you agree?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“Are you saying you want to fight?”

“We do what we are told,” Helen said.

“We do not have a choice,” added Harriet.

I snorted. “Of course you have a choice.”

“You do not know grandfather.”

“We must obey him.”

“You don’t have to. All three of us can run away. I can get us out of here, I promise. And once we’re free, Boaz will move us somewhere safe.”

Their eyebrows drew together, confused. “Boaz will not help.”

“This is what he wants.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Without warning, the lamp on the nightstand crashed to the floor, breaking into several pieces. All three of us turned to it in surprise.

“I wonder how that happened?” I asked.

“We will get the maid to clean it up,” said Helen.

“Right away,” added Harriet.

They turned to leave.

“Wait!” I cried, but they were already out the door.

I stooped low and picked up a large shard of the broken lamp, frustrated by its suspicious timing. After inspecting it, I walked around the room, searching all the shadows, convinced I’d find Boaz hiding among them. It had to have been him.

When the maid showed up, I gave up and left the room. I wanted to find the twins to finish our earlier conversation and hopefully convince them not to participate in our grandfather’s idiotic competition.

Passing by a bedroom window, a red-bricked building some distance from the house caught my eye. It was at least two stories high with no windows. I wondered how it was possible that I hadn’t seen it from the woods earlier that morning.

A shadow crossed over behind the building. Maybe it was one of the twins. I escaped out a back door and followed a worn path to the strange building that looked a lot like a factory. When I was within sight of the only door, it opened as if it had been expecting me. Hesitantly, I stepped over the threshold. The door closed behind me, and several lights turned on automatically.

“Hello?” I asked.

Silence.

The room was incredibly long with high ceilings. In the middle was a narrow banquet table that looked as if it could seat at least a hundred people. All along the sides of the walls were hand-carved curio cabinets filled with beautiful, antique-looking china. I would’ve considered the room quite grand if it would not have been for all the weapons and what looked like torture devices hanging above the shelves. I recognized some of them from my father’s collection. The room turned suddenly cold, and visible breath puffed from my mouth.

“You should not be in here,” a voice from above said.

I glanced up to a balcony jutting out into the massive room. Two ornate chairs rested upon them as if they were made for a king and queen. In one of them, Anne sat clenching a bottle of wine. She had finally changed her clothing into a tight blue dress.

“What is this room?” I asked. I searched for a way up there but found no stairs.

“It depends on the time of year.”

“And what would it be this time of year?” I asked.

“It’s our training room. When I was younger, I learned to use magic in something similar.”

I moved about the room, examining the different kinds of china and weapons. Many of them were etched in gold and silver and several had jewels adorning their fronts. There seemed to be no difference from the china they ate off and the weapons they killed with. “It’s interesting, to say the least.”

“It’s repulsive,” Anne spat.

I looked up, surprised.

“Just look at it all. This room is filled with beautiful and expensive
things
, giving the illusion that greatness happens here. But great things require windows so the world might know of them, but there are no windows. Only dark secrets that remain forever hidden.” She took a drink from the bottle; some of it trickled down her chin and onto her dress.

I remained still. Staring. Wondering.

After swallowing, Anne tilted her head and squinted her left eye. “You look like her.”

“Like who?”

“Eve.”

“That’s because I am Eve,” I said. The alcohol was clearly getting to her.

“No, you’re not. You are an imposter. My brother should never have given you that name.”

“If I’m an imposter, then who is the real Eve?”

“Our younger sister,” Anne said, looking away as if remembering another time. “She was so different from the rest of us.”

I was named after my aunt? I’d always wondered why my parents had given me a name that seemed to go against all they believed in. “Where is she?”

“Eve died when I was sixteen. She was fourteen.”

“What was she like?”

Anne chuckled. “Stubborn, brave. She defied our father constantly, refusing to do what he asked despite the torture he put her through. She had this remarkable ability to tune it all out. It was as if she were somewhere else.”

My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe it! It sounded as if my aunt had the same ability as me.

Anne continued, “My father was embarrassed by her. He thought she was a regular human,
but little did he know that she was more powerful than both Erik and I combined.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw her once. In the woods. She thought she was alone, but Erik and I spied on her. We watched as she somehow managed to reroute a whole section of a stream, creating her own personal swimming pool. When we told our father she could use magic, he vowed to make her use it in front of him. He tried everything, torturing her mercilessly. But she just laid there with a calm expression on her face as if she were sitting on a beach somewhere and not enduring a hot stake through her palm.” Anne sipped from the bottle again. “She had that same expression on her face when his torture finally killed her. After she died, he walked away, not glancing back once. He hasn’t mentioned her since.”

“He killed her?”

“Does that surprise you? His son raised you. Didn’t Erik try to kill you, too?”

I didn’t answer.

Anne crossed her legs and slumped farther into the chair. “The Segurs have always been about money and power. You can’t be in our family if you feel differently.”

I spoke, my voice low. “The twins said your husband was killed in an accident.”

“There are no such things as accidents in our world.”

“But the twins were too young! They couldn’t have killed their own father.”

Anne chuckled. “Of course not, but imagine the guilt they’d feel for
thinking
they had. Whatever humanity they had was destroyed the moment they believed they killed him. They stopped caring about anything else and finally became moldable.”

“All for money and power,” I whispered.

“Is there anything else?” She moved the bottle in a circular motion, watching the last of the liquid slosh around. “The twins will beat you tonight.”

“How can you be sure?”

“There is still hope in you, small as it may be. It makes you weak.”

I smirked. “I might surprise you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Win or lose, you will be destroyed tonight.”

I sat alone in my room, staring out the window. The last of the sunlight was chased back by the darkness covering the night sky. I craned my neck, searching for the moon, but there was none. It, too, had abandoned me.

I slumped against the wall. I hadn’t been nervous about tonight until my conversation with Anne. An ominous feeling had grown steadily ever since, and I was unable to shake it. I needed Boaz.

Quietly, I unlocked the window and pulled it open. “Boaz!” I whispered into the night. The wind carried my small voice to the woods beyond. Within moments, a black mist glided across the lawn toward me. I stepped away from the window when the darkness poured over the windowsill and into my room.

“I can’t do this, Boaz.”

His darkness swirled at my legs, rising higher. The coolness of his presence ignited every part of my body, and then it turned electric, shocking new life into me. I’d never felt this much power from him before, and it overwhelmed me.

“Do not be afraid,” Boaz’s voice said in my mind. His icy touch brushed against my neck, sending chills down my spine. “They are weaker than you.”

My body lifted when his mist engulfed me, trapping me inside a wispy cocoon. Every part of him pressed into my skin, shaping and molding, creating something dark and beautiful. I breathed him in, enjoying the intoxicating power as he moved inside me.

“You will destroy them,” he said one last time, but I barely registered his words.

In the distance, a bell rang out, shattering the climactic moment. Boaz lowered me to the ground.

“Go!” his voice commanded.

In a daze, I obeyed.

***

“Welcome, Eve,” my grandfather said from the balcony in the training room. His hands rested on each armrest of his king-like throne. He wore a three-piece suit as if he were attending the theater, a play that would never make it to Broadway.

Anne was sitting next to him. She gave me a questioning look, and I wondered if somehow she could sense the new power within me.

Across the room, on the other side of the long dining table, Helen and Harriet sat statue-like upon two chairs. Hanging above them on the wall was a silver shield that had not been there before. A circular piece at its center was missing.

“Have a seat,” Anne said, motioning to a lone chair, opposite the twins. Above it was another identical shield with the center piece also missing.

I moved to the chair and sat down. “Musical chairs? Isn’t this a little first grade?”

No one said a word, so I exhaled loudly. Did they all have to be so damned serious? I didn’t think it was written anywhere that one couldn’t have both power and a sense of humor.