The Keeper

Viginti: Words

Whenever I’d been knocked out before, Delph was always there.

This time he wasn’t.

Instead, Astrea stared down at me.

I blinked and slowly looked around. I was in my room on the bed.

Astrea didn’t look unduly worried. “I suppose you had to try it.”

I sat up and rubbed my head. “What happened?”

“You hit the dome and the dome did not give. You did.”

I said nothing to this, both my pride and a rising anger making me mute.

I wanted to ask her again about John. And Morrigone, why she looked so different. But I had a strong feeling that my questions would go unanswered. Before I could say anything, she broke the silence.

“I understand that you talked to Archie?”

“You said we could go where we wanted,” I said testily.

“And what did he tell you?”

Ignoring her query, I said, “I feel sorry for him.”

“Why? He’s lived a good, long life.”

“He’s lived a long life. I’m not sure how good it’s been.”

She looked like I’d slapped her, which bolstered my spirits greatly.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said icily.

“Archie spoke of sacrifice. Whose sacrifice? His? Because he didn’t really have a choice, did he? Or his father? You made the decision for all of them. Just like you’re doing with us.”

“You know nothing whatever about it, Vega. You’re throwing out words that make absolutely no sense because you are ignorant of the facts.”

“Well, they’d make sense to Archie, I’m sure. I mean he’s the one who lived all this time and never really lived at all. That’s probably why he’s so bitter. And who can blame him, really?”

I wanted to make her hurt. I wanted to make her feel... something for what she was doing to us. For her taking our lives away too.

“I thought I understood you, Vega. Now I know that I don’t a’tall.”

“It’s quite simple, really. You’ve taken my life away and I’m not happy about it. I’m sure you’d feel the same.”

“For the greater good, it—”

“Please don’t try and justify it. And I won’t believe you anyway. It’s like the lie about the Battle of the Beasts. What did Archie call that? Oh, right, piffle. So that’s what your greater good is. Piffle. I’m sure Alice Adronis would have seen it the same way. She died as a warrior. Not as a mouse in a hidey-hole. So that’s what you are, Astrea, despite all your grand power. A frightened mouse in a dirty little hole.”

I never took my gaze off her as I said all this. And I said it in the maddeningly calm tone she had employed with me the whole time I’d been here.

“You are a stupid Wug,” she snapped.

“Alice didn’t think so. She gave me the Elemental. She told me that I had to survive. If you call me stupid, then you’re calling your best friend stupid as well.”

Astrea got up and left without speaking another word.

Delph immediately burst into the room with Harry Two in tow.

“You okay?” he said anxiously while Harry Two leapt up onto the bed and licked my hand.

“I’m okay. What actually happened?”

“Found you knocked out on the ground, didn’t we?”

“I tried to get through the dome. I knew it was stupid. But I... I...”

“Just wanted to get out of this place,” Delph finished for me.

I sighed and lay back against my pillow.

I gripped Delph’s hand. “We will get out of here. We will. I swear it.”

He met my eye, but I could tell he didn’t completely share my optimism.

“Course we will,” he said, tacking a smile on to the end of his words.

I sat up and hugged him and felt his warm breath on my cheek. He hugged me back. It was just us against, well, everything. But for some reason, I felt like we had a chance, a fighting chance. I’d never asked for anything more than that.

I got off the bed and shook the collywobbles from my head.

“You saw what was happening?” I asked.

“What, you mean in Wormwood? Morrigone? John?”

I nodded. “Astrea was shocked by how Morrigone looked. Something is going on. But she doesn’t know what. And it’s scaring her.”

“Well, if it’s scaring the likes of her, we ought to be terrified, I reckon.”

I could always count on Delph for spot-on observations. But terrified or not, I didn’t come into the Quag to finish my life as a prisoner. Every part of my body was burning with one desire.

To be free.

The next light, we cornered Seamus outside of the kitchen. The little hob had kept his distance from us ever since Astrea declared us to be no longer free.

“So can you leave if you want, Seamus?” I asked, as Delph and Harry Two hovered in the background.

He looked at me nervously, his huge eyes twitching.

“I don’t knowsey what yousies is talki—”

“Seamus!” I said warningly.

Harry Two gave a low, throaty growl that I could tell was making the hob very anxious.

“I can go if I want to,” he said warily. “But you can’t.”

I studied him closely. “Seamus, why do I think that meeting you in the cave was not a coincidence?”

I could tell right away from the look on his face that I was right. He blustered and denied and blustered some more, but I persisted and would not let him leave.

“Well, it might’ve not been,” he finally conceded.

“Because Astrea sent you?”

He looked around cautiously before giving a brief nod of his large head.

“And the flying creature that made me run into the cave?”

“Well, she might have sent that too.”

“And the cloud that took Delph away?” I added bitterly. “She conjured that too, didn’t she? Didn’t she!”

Seamus slowly nodded, though I had never seen him look so frightened.

Delph said, “But why?”

I glanced at him before looking back at Seamus. “Because Astrea saw us in the Seer-See. She was afraid we might make it across the Quag. She manipulated things so Seamus and I would meet. And one thing led to another and then here we are — prisoners forever.”

Seamus gave a resigned sigh. “She is very powerful, is Madame Prine.”

I leaned in closer to the hob. “Well, you know what?”

“What?” he said, his eyes as huge as supper plates.

I snarled, “I’m powerful too.”

Later, I led Delph to the library. My thought was that in some of the books, we might find things that would better explain what Archie had already told us. If there was a terrible war between our kind and the Maladons, someone had to have chronicled it somewhere.

I told Delph to start at one end and I would begin at the other. However, it was not to be.

I reached for a book and tugged. It would not come out. I tried with both hands. The same result. I looked over at Delph, who had one big foot placed against the front of the shelf as he pulled with all his might on one thick volume.

“Blimey!” he finally cried out, sounding winded and letting go of the book.

“It’s Astrea’s doing,” I said, my fury rising. “She doesn’t want us finding out anything else from the books. Which of course means that these books do explain things.”

I gazed longingly at the thick tomes. Just inches from my hand and they were of no use to me. Their pages might as well have been blank.

We went to Archie’s room. When I tried to open the door, it screamed at me, “GO AWAY!”

“Holy Steeples,” said Delph, who had jumped nearly to the ceiling, though I didn’t because I was used to this “greeting,” though not at Archie’s door.

“Well,” I said. “It seems that Astrea is certainly limiting our run of the cottage. Which is actually a good thing.”

“Why do you say that?” asked a stunned Delph.

“She’s afraid we might find something useful. Which means there’s something useful here.”

But as much thought as I had given to this, the way we would get out was one I had never even considered.