Beyond the Crimson (The Crimson Cycle) (36 page)

“Are you so foolish to think you can control me, sorceress?” he said, standing as he pulled his sword from the sheath. Her smile dropped as she stepped back surprised, anger swelling inside of her. “I will never tell you where the sword is,” he grinned at her, which only enraged her more. 

She took a few steps backwards into the open field, filled with fury at his defiance and arrogance. How dare he turn on her? He was a measly knight, a pathetic Pendragon, no not even that, he was a Beaumont, and she was a powerful sorceress.

“I am dark like you,” he whispered. “I do not fear you and I will have your head for trying to trick me.”

She continued to step bac
k, looking at his arrogant half-smile and fearless taunting eyes; he was dark, but he was not like her. His heart was veiled behind hardened coal, but it was not yet lost; she could change that. She would get that sword.

She
saw what he feared most: not death, but entrapment. She knew just what she would do; he would not escape until it was hers and then he would understand and even fear her power, and his fear would bring control. She smiled and goaded him to come forward, and like the pawn he was… he charged….

I finally stopped, cheek pressed against something cold and hard...

I was in the museum. 

I jumped, scrambling to my knees searching desperately for him, but I was alone and in my hand was the emerald.

I would have thought it was all a dream, or a nightmare de
pending on how you looked at it. I was back in my jeans and tank top with the backpack on my back and the stone bracelet snugly on my wrist. Everything in the museum was in place, untouched let alone destroyed. Nothing had changed. The only thing that kept my sanity was that the large picture frame was now face down on the ground and when I tilted it up in place of the beautiful knight was a bleak portrait of the stone that held the power of the broken Black Sword. One would have to look carefully to really see the blade still thrust into the rock.

I clutched my stomach and cried, uncontrollably sobbing, and missing him more than I had thought imaginable. I was broken, destroyed from the inside out, and there I lay in a fit of tears until I slipped from consciousness.

“Oh my God!”
I heard a voice pierce through the room, but I was too weak to open my eyes. “Mr. Riley! Call 9-1-1!” she screeched. It was Stacey.

I groaned and forced my puffy eye
s open. “No, I’m fine,” I muttered, pathetically picking myself up off the floor. She rushed over to me, gently pushing me back down.

“Don’t move Kate. You might have a head injury!”

If I had been in a better mood, I might have laughed because it wasn’t my head that was injured, it was my heart, and I was certain it would never be repaired. 

Mr. Riley ran in. “O
h my! Katarina! What happened?” His face was filled with concern and anguish.

“Nothing, I’m fine.” I sat up again. Mr. Riley looked at the portrait and I expected him to freak out that it had changed, but he looked at it as if it was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Did this fall on you?” he asked gently.

I looked at him wide-eyed. “No,
but Mr. Riley, that is the portrait of Brendelon.”

“Brendelon?” he questioned, as he glanced up to Stacey, with an uh-oh look in his eyes. She grabbed her cell phone and quickly dialed in a three digit number.

“No Stacey, I’m fine!” but she ignored me and walked a few feet away, I could hear her talking to the operator. “Mr. Riley, you were right about the picture,” I said quickly before Stacey returned. “He is real and I freed him! Look he is gone!” I motioned towards the frame, but he stared at me with his kind blue-eyes far too wide and looking at me if I was insane.

“Just lay back, dear,” he said gently.

“No, look.” I flung the backpack off my shoulders and pulled out the album, leafing through the snapshots I took, finding the one of the frame but then I froze. It was just the desolate stone; where was Brendelon? I felt my heart drop, and Mr. Riley looked at me with pity.

“Please, be still Katarina, you must have hit your head harder than you thought.”

I closed my mouth, if even Mr. Riley—the man who believed in magic—didn’t believe me then nobody would. They would have me locked away. The two worlds were coinciding; that’s what Merlin had said, so if he wasn’t in the picture of course the castle scholar wouldn’t have written about it. Brendelon died in an early battle before Arthur was even king; that’s why Mr. Riley didn’t know about him. His story was tragic but no longer a mystery, clearly not important enough for scholars to write about. The thought sent a new set of sharpened knives through the center of my heart. 

The paramedics arrived quickly and examined my head and body but there weren’t any bumps, cuts, or bruises. My eyes weren’t dilated, my speech wasn’t slurred, and I was able to correctly answer every question they threw at me. Despite Stacey demanding that I go to the hospital, they decided that I was okay and didn’t need any medical attention and though I had been certain I could not feel any emotion besides misery, I was becoming increasingly embarrassed.

I brought up the importance of our final presentation and though she refused to let me drive, the lure of a passing grade finally swayed her to drop the hospital talk. We made it to the tail-end of class and Stacey explained that a large portrait had knocked me unconscious. Though embarrassment reared its ugly head once more, Dr. Bradley was more than understanding of our situation. I trudged through the presentation, riding on Stacey’s peppy and bubbly personality, feeling hollow and lifeless. It was nothing short of a miracle that I had made it through the last two days of school, but I could only assume it was because I was still numb to the shock of it all.

My world sank into a desolate gray where all the colors of happiness faded into a dark black void rooted inside me so deep that not even in my dreams could I find a drop of sunshine. It wasn’t true that time healed all wounds because the pain never lessened; I only learned how to function with it. In the beginning I was too inexperienced to handle the hurt so I stopped living and only existed. I blamed it on missing my grandfather, but that had only put Stacey at bay for a few days because as it got worse, she knew it was something else. After being relentlessly hassled, I finally forced myself to get up, even if it was only to dodge her at all costs, and though I wouldn’t have called it functioning yet, at least I was moving.

I drove up to remote areas in the high hills were the city lights couldn’t touch, trying to find the small cluster he had shown me. There I would pretend I was with him because if people really could earn a place in the stars, he certainly would have made it. But those moments only brought infinitesimal amount of relief because the dark hole quickly sucked them in, reminding me he was gone.

I had gotten lucky for a few weeks when Stacey took her annual Bahamas trip with her family because then I was free to sink into a dispirited nothingness, too physically drained from bawling hysterically to focus on the emptiness in me. By the time she got back I was arid and though it still hurt, I was done crying and I was done feeling sorry for myself; it was time to function again. I picked up as many shifts as I could to keep myself distracted but without classes I had too much free time. I needed a hobby, so I found a local archery range and there I found liberation with every arrow released from my fingers. The determination to be better and improve my accuracy slowly began to build a narrow bridge over the gap inside me, keeping me from falling, and so I found a way to live with it. I had even mastered the art of plastering fake smiles and feigning bubbly talks and though I am certain Stacey never did quite believe nothing happened, we eventually got on to being how we use to.

I thought of him constantly, I could still feel the sensation of his touch, and the luminous eyes and crooked smile stood out bright against a dull canvas but the adventure became an echo, fading slightly with each replay, feeling more and more like a dream with only the ache to remind me of the reality. I knew he was with me, living on in my heart
, but once I was gone he would be too and nobody else would ever speak his name or know of his story. He would fade out as though he never existed and the thought made the hole grow, becoming too wide for the bridge I had built to stay intact… but I knew how to fix it. I would write of it. The work might never be published and even if it was, it would only be seen as a fictional tale or that I had simply lost my mind but still his name would be read, his story would be told, and he would be remembered by someone. He deserved that.

The madness of it consumed me and my free time became spent at the computer desk typing away. The story was easy to tell
, but there would never be words bright enough to paint him; it would only be a shadow of what he really was but shade or not, there in my writing he existed once again, and I felt myself being swept back into it almost as if I had crawled right back through the portal.

I spooned a bite of strawberry yogurt into my mouth
, patiently waiting for my computer to power up, hands itching to get on the keyboard, inspired by the sermon at church. I clicked open my document and began, words flowing through me as my fingers rapidly moved across the keyboard trying to keep up, but at that same moment a dark etching caught my eye. I glanced at my bracelet then rubbed my eyes. Either the computer screen had impaired my vision or insanity had truly taken me because not only did it seem that my bracelet was changing texture, going from smooth to rough, but I could have sworn I saw a small inscription being etched into it. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before I opened them once more but when I did the etching was still magically happening before me:
Ego vobiscum sum
… I am with you. The Latin inscription! My heart was exploding, filling the void and the pressure stopped me from moving as I stared mesmerized at the inscription. Could it really be him? But I had seen him at his last breath. This was cruel, it was sick, I was just finally becoming somewhat normal and here it was taking me back to the edge of lunacy, but then at the end of the inscription there was a drawing: a bird.

No… a raven.

I jumped up and flung open my closet door to the backpack that I hadn’t touched since my final and dug through the pictures finding the one of the frame
, but it was still empty. It was still a blank picture of a stone with a hilt-less sword.

Nothing had changed.

I sighed sinking to the floor, but I felt a strange magnetic pull—a calling—and I knew I had lost my mind; I knew Mr. Riley would have me committed, but I had to go. I just had to. The pull was too strong. I threw the burgundy dress into the backpack, grabbed the emerald that lay safe and untouched in my jewelry box, and I bolted out of my room.

“Where are you going?” Stacey called, panic-stricken from the couch as she sat up immediately.

“On a hot date,” I called, grinning to myself as I ran out the door, down the three flights of stairs, and through the parking lot to my car.

*****

I pushed open the museum doors, thankful Mr. Riley wasn’t at the front and that it was Melissa. She looked at me oddly, and I flashed my best fake grin.

“Hi Melissa
,” I said as sweetly as I could. “Mr. Riley said I could have another look in the storage units. He said to just go back there.”             

She looked at me; twisting
her mouth to the side. “Mr. Riley doesn’t want anyone back there…” she started.

“No, he
said it was fine,” I pushed. “He has some things that belong to my grandfather.” She shrugged her shoulders, and I was either a much better actress than I thought or she was far too lazy to care enough to even question it. I went with the later.

I rushed down to the familiar aisle B4, my heart thumping painfully in my chest sending tremors to every part of my body
, and I saw the tattered red curtain. I pulled it back, revealing the same scene from my photograph; the empty field with a large boulder and just like before my bracelet began to glow wonderful swirls of green and purple. My heart soared, this was happening; it was finally time. I took a deep breath and opened the backpack, grasping the small cool emerald tightly between my fingers. Slowly I looked up… 

And it was opening.

The beautiful young girl dressed in strange garments lay motionless on the grass. Slowly her conscious mind caught up to her body, as her big blue eyes fluttered open. She lithely jumped to her feet, face exhilarated and full of joy, as she glanced around the open field.

She called out the raven’s name…

…but it wasn’t him who answered…