Haven Lost Read online

  She lifted her candle, casting its meager light around her, and saw rows of mammoth bookcases, stretching from floor to ceiling along the walls on either side. The books were neatly shelved and had the look of carefully preserved and highly prized treasures.

  “It looks like a library,” Emily breathed, moving toward the shelves of books to her right and lifting her candle to illuminate their spines. The tomes were old and dusty, their bindings cracked and faded with age. They seemed to be of widely varied quality and design. She saw some bound in leather, sitting beside newer volumes in cloth. Inlaid titles of gold leaf glinted at her, while others appeared to be handwritten in plain black ink.

  She scanned the titles of those closest to her, but was unable to decipher any of them. She couldn’t even identify some of the letters, let alone the languages. What were they? Spell books?

  Behind her, Celine had moved to examine the books on the opposite wall. “So many of ’em,” she breathed in awe. “I’ve never seen so many in one place.”

  Emily worked her way down the row, searching for a title she could read more than a fragment of.

  “Do you think they’d mind if we took some up to our room?” Emily asked as she went. “It would be hard to read in here. It’s so dark.”

  She paused, peering at the title before her. She could make out the word “Rose” and what might have been the word “Energy” or “Energetic” at some time before the ink had faded to almost nothing. It was so frustrating!

  “They didn’t tell us not to,” Celine said, and though the words rang with her usual vibrato, they fell flat, and there was the distinct note of wistfulness in her voice.

  Emily turned to look at her friend across the table. Celine was little more than a black silhouette against the feeble light of the candle she held.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, straining to see.

  “Nothin’.”

  Emily made her way around the table and stood beside Celine. The girl was balancing a large book on her forearm and holding the candle up to examine its cover.

  “I could try to teach you,” Emily said quietly.

  “Teach me what?”

  “…To read…”

  “I can read,” Celine snapped. Then, after a pause, she said, “I just can’t do it very well is all.”

  “I could help.”

  “Yeh would know ’ow to read, wouldn’t yeh?” The words were tart, but there was no disguising the eagerness in Celine’s voice. Emily grinned.

  “Yeah, I would. If we can find something in here in English, I’ll use it to teach you. What have you got there?”

  She reached out for the book, and Celine handed it over. It was thick and surprisingly heavy. Dust and fine particles of fabric sloughed off of the cover and danced in the candlelight. Emily held it up and squinted at the title: “Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 9th Edition”.

  For a moment, Emily simply stared, her mind refusing to make sense of the words. How was this here? The answer was obvious, if not illuminating. It was here, the same way she was, of course—it just was.

  She flipped open the cover and let the candlelight fall upon the title page. It was yellowed and beginning to crumble with age. The copyright was 1985.

  “What’s the ma’er?” Celine asked, her voice sounding very far away. “Can’t yeh read it?”

  All this time, Emily had thought that, assuming any of this madness was real, she’d tumbled into another world, like Alice down the rabbit hole. She’d read countless stories featuring heroes or heroines who climbed into wardrobes, walked through mysterious doors, or were carried off by cyclones, only to be deposited in some fairy tale kingdom of talking lions and terrible wizards. It had seemed right somehow, if utterly insane, to assume she’d simply followed in the footsteps of all those literary companions of her girlhood. In a way, it had made all of this madness bearable. After all, wasn’t there always a “happily ever after” waiting at the end?

  But this book, with its crumbling pages and familiar words, told a different tale. It wasn’t just here the way she was—not exactly, anyway.

  She hadn’t left her world at all. She’d left her when.

  And judging by the book in her hands, she’d left it a long, long way back.

  Chapter Eight

  Sweat ran down Emily’s sides as she knelt amidst the roses at the end of her row. She yanked weeds from the soil and tossed them over her shoulder into the bucket behind her. The back of her neck stung where the skin had begun to peel from sunburn, and hair clung to the sides of her face in damp tangles. The garden was quiet, save for the occasional crunch of a trowel or scrape of a hoe in the loose soil and the ceaseless chatter of the fountain’s stream.

  Though difficult to say why exactly, the work of the garden had become increasingly arduous over the last few days, and the girls had found themselves needing to spend more and more time tending to it, often working late into the afternoons. Emily’s skin had first tanned, and then burned, from the hours spent beneath the glaring sun, and her knees seemed little more than a collection of scabs and bruises from kneeling amidst the rocks and greenery. Every muscle ached, and her head throbbed. She enjoyed physical activity, but the sun and repetition were a new kind of hell to her.

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to keep up with the constant invasions of weeds. Worse still, keeping the garden properly watered in the baking heat was proving a challenge beyond her. If she watered too much, the top layers of soil were swept away in a muddy stream across the stone paths of the garden; if she watered too little, her charges began to wither in the scorching temperatures. It was like a mad balancing act, and the constant frustration was starting to get the better of her.

  She pulled up another handful of weeds and paused, studying the rose before her. It was listing over to one side. The outer edges of some of the petals had begun to curl and tear, and its stem was withering away to a dry and brittle husk.

  She hissed in frustration, throwing down the weeds in her hands and bowing her head. She closed her eyes and clutched fistfuls of hair. She’d already lost two others. At this rate, she was unlikely to have any roses left at the end of the two weeks. And where would that land her? She was not cut out for this kind of work. She hadn’t even been able to keep the little tree alive that had been assigned to her in second grade; this was exactly the same nightmare all over again.

  Caireann’s words echoed in her mind. “How well yeh do will be factored in to her decision of whom to take on…”

  And then, “…those of us who know things…we have to watch out for one another. Those of us who weren’t taken on do, too…”

  A shadow fell over her, and she lifted her aching head to find Celine kneeling beside her, her hands on her bony knees and a faint, purple stain on her lip.

  “You’d better wipe your mouth,” Emily whispered, the corners of her own curving upward slightly. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be eating the merchandise, Cel.”

  Celine blinked, and then her face went red. She raked the back of her arm across her lips, not meeting Emily’s gaze.

  “S’ma’er?” she asked, clearly anxious to change the subject.

  Emily huffed in exasperation and gestured helplessly toward the wilting rose. Celine leaned forward.

  “You got lucky. Your vines are thriving. I don’t know anything about gardening, really.” She looked about her in desperation. “I’m never going…”

  She broke off, watching as Celine reached out to touch one of the rose petals with the tip of a finger. At first, nothing happened, and then the rose suddenly straightened like a dozing soldier coming to attention. The stem shifted from a dry brown to a glistening green, and before she had time to blink, the rose seemed perfectly healthy.

  “Looks a’right to me,” Celine said, frowning down at the rose in front of her.

  “What did you just do?”

  Celine looked at her, nonplussed. “Didn’t do nothin’. Just lookin’.�
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  Emily rubbed her eyes and peered closer at the rose. “Didn’t you see that? It was…dying…already dead maybe…and you…”

  “Weren’t dyin’. ’Tis perfectly fine.”

  “It is now!” She wondered if the heat was making her see things. “But it wasn’t. You touched it and you…”

  Celine pressed a finger to her lips and looked around. The other girls were paying no attention to them.

  “Shut up, Em. Jaisus. I’m good with growin’ things is all. I ’ad a garden once that a kind old man let me work behind ’is ’ouse. I know ’ow to wa’er ’em and all. Quit makin’ such a fuss.”

  Emily scowled at her. She had seen something that couldn’t be explained away by a green thumb and a watering can.

  “But…” she started, but Celine was already getting up and brushing the dirt off her hands with the front of her tunic.

  “C’mon,” she said. “I’ll ’elp yeh put yer stuff away.”

  They gathered up the few tools Emily had claimed from the greenhouse and headed toward where it stood at the far end of the garden.

  Emily grimaced as they entered; the little glass building’s interior was even worse than the scorching sun outside. She wanted a shower. More, she wanted the cool, soothing ice beneath her feet to escape this miserable heat. She was a winter girl, no doubt about that.

  They hung up the tools in silence, and she trudged wearily to the back of the room and unceremoniously dumped the contents of her bucket into the compost heap. As she turned away, she caught sight of Celine edging quickly toward the door.

  She dropped the bucket with a clatter and hurried to catch Celine by the shoulders. She turned her around, and the two girls looked at one another, one determined, the other defiant.

  “What was that you did out there?” Emily demanded. “Just what the hell was it?”

  Celine squirmed uncomfortably. The defiance drained from her face, and she dropped her gaze to the floor.

  “Nothin’. I didn’t do nothin’. I told yeh. Let’s go back up to the room. I want yeh to teach me more o’ them words…”

  But as she spoke, a realization had finally seeped into Emily’s sluggish and overheated mind. Damn, but the heat was making her slow.

  “That’s your talent, isn’t it?” she asked. “That’s the reason you were brought here, to Seven Skies.”

  Celine stopped talking and stared down at her feet. She looked scared.

  “It’s okay,” Emily said, but Celine was shaking her head violently and trying to pull away.

  “I don’t know what yeh’re talkin’ about. I…”

  All at once, Celine stopped protesting. Her shoulders slumped, and she bit her lip miserably.

  “You can tell me,” Emily said gently. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “She told me not to tell anyone,” Celine whispered. “She said if anyone knew, they’d all be tryin’ to get me to ’elp them in the garden, and that…” She stopped, gulped, and looked up. Emily was startled to see tears in the girl’s wide, blue eyes. They hung there, just below the surface, but Celine did not let them fall.

  “That what?” Emily prompted. She let go of Celine’s shoulders and moved to put an arm around her.

  “That my gift was particular to her, and if she’d found out I’d been usin’ it…” she paused, then spoke the next word very carefully, as if she’d memorized it from a book, “…in-ju-di-cious-ly…which means unwisely, she’d…” She stopped again and shuddered beneath Emily’s arm. “It don’t ma’er what. ’Twas awful. Please, don’t tell anyone, Em.”

  “I won’t.”

  They stood for a moment, then the door banged open and Josephine, the squat girl, came barreling in. She stopped as she caught sight of them, and a wiry dark haired girl whose name Emily didn’t know collided with her back.

  “What’re you doing in here?” Josephine sneered.

  “Nothing,” Emily said cooly. “Mind your own business.”

  Josephine raised an old iron trowel before her face, brandishing it like a sword. “You’re not suppose to help each other. You heard what Caireann said.”

  “That isn’t what she said,” Emily snapped back, as Celine shot her a terrified sideways glance.

  “Sure it was,” the second girl said as she stepped around Josephine. “Put that down, Jo. You look like an idiot.”

  Josephine’s face flushed, but she lowered the trowel and scowled at them over her friend’s shoulder.

  “You have to read between the lines with these people,” the girl went on, addressing Emily. “What she was really saying is we could help one another, but only if we’re willing to pay the price.” Her eyes drifted up and down Celine’s small and fragile form. “Frankly, I don’t think either of you can afford it.” The smug superiority in her tone set Emily’s teeth on edge, and she was forcibly reminded of number 17 from Kennedy High. God, how she’d hated that girl.

  “Funny,” Emily said, “that sounds an awful lot like advice. Last time I checked, giving advice was one way to help someone.”

  Emily guided Celine toward the door while the girl was still working out the implications of what she’d said.

  “Come on,” she said to Celine brightly, “I’ll teach you a few…” she cast a look back at the girls behind them, “…new words.”

  * * *

  …rattle…rattle…rattle…

  …thump…

  …scriiiiiich…

  She spins on her skates, wondering who it is banging on the glass like that.

  The lights are too bright. She can’t see past the brilliant reflection of them on the ice. The crowd is roaring in her ears. From here, it just sounds like a wash of white noise, the blare of static from a television tuned to snow. She moves forward, straining to see through the glare.

  She drops her stick and can’t even hear the sound of it clattering to the ice behind her. She is blinded, but the blindness is not an absence of light; it is an abundance of it.

  Where is the puck? she wonders, but the thought feels distant and utterly disconnected from her. It’s just a reflex—no—just the echo of a thought that should be, but isn’t. It belongs to someone else—someone far away.

  …rattle…rattle…scrich…

  She finds herself at the glass suddenly, as if it has just sprung up out of the ice all at once. She puts up her hands to protect her face as she thuds into it with a crash.

  …thunk…

  Such an odd sound it makes. Not like the sound she remembers. Somehow, she stays on her feet, not even scrambling for purchase on the slick ice.

  …scrich…rattle…thump…

  She stares through the glass between her hands. Her breath has made a white fog on its surface. She peers into its depths, straining to see through the mist.

  A boy with horns spiraling from either side of his head is just beyond it, his face only inches from her own. He leers at her, his long forked tongue slithering between his lips to taste the air like that of a snake.

  How did you get here? She thinks as she sees the boy’s lips form the same words even as they fill her mind.

  …thump…

  * * *

  Emily sat up in the dark, breathing hard.

  Just a dream, she thought, clutching the light sheet she’d pulled over herself in the night. Cold sweat dampened her skin, and she shivered as a breeze drifted in through the window. Just a dream.

  …thud…

  Emily gasped and twisted around in her bed, nearly tumbling to the floor.

  A bird, or at least something that was very nearly a bird, perched on the windowsill, staring balefully at her through eyes on the ends of long, pink stalks. Its feathers were a deep glistening purple, almost black, reflecting the starlight that framed it. Was it a raven? It flapped its wings, causing its grotesquely elongated talons to clatter for a moment against the stone. That was the sound that had broken into her dream.

  Emily shuddered and moved farther away from the window on her bed. The bird�
��s eyes followed her, the stalks bending and contorting as it tried to keep her in view.

  “Go away,” she hissed at it. Across the room, Celine murmured something in her sleep, and then rolled over and snored on.

  “Awrk,” the bird responded defiantly, and a long yellow tongue poked out of its beak.

  Fighting her revulsion, Emily got up, clutching her pillow, and advanced on the bird, determined to frighten it away.

  She had almost reached the window before it, with another croaking caw, took flight and soared away out over the courtyard and gardens below. One purple-black feather drifted down from the sill and came to rest soundlessly on the floor at her feet.

  Emily leaned against the side of the window, still cradling her pillow, and closed her eyes. This place seemed to have no end of horrible creatures that could give the House of Horrors a run for its money. Two-headed cats? One-eyed mules? Giant spiders?

  What had happened to the world that such monstrosities could exist? Was she even right that this still was her world at some unimaginable distant date in the future? Ever since she’d seen the dictionary in the library, the question had gnawed at her—unanswered and unanswerable. But it felt right. Certainly, it felt more possible than the idea that she’d fallen through the looking glass into Alice’s Wonderland. If nothing else, the idea had cleared her days of the dreamlike quality they had held when she’d first found herself here.

  But if this was the world—her world—what the hell had happened to it?

  As she stood there, breathing in the cool morning air and gathering her composure, the first shaft of sunlight made its way over the high stone wall across from her and warmed her face. She opened her eyes and blinked in the sudden brilliance.

  She tossed the pillow back onto the bed and stood looking out over the whole of Seven Skies. All the world was preternaturally still, as it can only be at dawn. Nothing stirred. Only the relentlessly flowing water in the fountain moved.