“You took my words quite literally,” Ethan said behind me, making me jump. The chains next to my feet scraped as I shifted away.
“You told me to explore so I did,” I said. “Though, I can’t say I expected to find this.”
“It’s surprising how useful having a room like this is, especially in this forest.” Ethan leant against the doorframe as Ric crept in behind him. “We’d be quite lost without it, in fact.”
“Considering the amount of blood on the shackles I assume this place is never empty long enough to gather dust.”
“It has its uses,” Ric said. His expression was curious as he touched his wrist absentmindedly.
My eyes moved from his hand to his face and I tried capturing some inkling of explanation, but he refused to look at me. Instead I turned to Ethan as he leant casually against the doorframe, and tried to swallow the thousand questions that were aching to burst out.
“Perhaps these chains could hold a monster like the one you killed the other night,” I said.
He shifted. “What?” He clearly hadn’t expected that.
“I came across an interesting book yesterday in that hidden library of yours, and I learnt a few things I really wish I hadn’t,” I started. “There’s a humble blessing to being ignorant of things we don’t understand. I believed what my parents said to me when they reassured me about the monsters in people’s stories. ‘They’re not real’, they’d say to me when I woke trembling in the night. But I guess I always knew that wasn’t true.”
“I think you’ve been reading one too many bedtime stories,” he covered poorly.
“I saw them a lot when I was younger, you know. Up here,” I tapped my head, “and in the corners of my eyes; I would see them move and disappear. It was around the time I saw my grandfather that my father changed his attitude toward me.”
“How is that anything to go by?” Ethan scoffed.
“Grandfather died when my father was a boy.” Their faces went pale. “I could describe exactly what he was wearing the day he died but when my father asked what colour his eyes were, I started to cry. He shook me, demanding that I tell him so I did. I said, ‘I don’t know – he doesn’t have a head’.” I dared to look up at them. Not even Roan had known that about me. I cursed myself for choosing now to be the time to be truthful. Ava; forever the oddity. I felt my eyes sting. “So you don’t tell me what’s real and what isn’t, because I’ve never seen things the way normal people do.” I blinked the tears away before they had a chance to fall. I was angry.
“Ava-”
“Don’t!” I stopped him. “Just don’t. In case you haven’t noticed I don’t produce smoke and fire with my bare hands. Nor do I heal before I’m physically able to.” I strode to the door and reached for his hand, setting it down above my heart as my free hand lay upon his beating chest. We stood silently before I spoke again. “We’re different. You can try to talk your way out of it but you can’t hide things from me.” My heart thumped faster than usual but the steady beat of Ethan’s was undoubtedly slower and more powerful. “We look similar.” I dropped his hand and stepped away. “But we’re not the same.”
A silence lingered. Nobody moved or spoke.
“It would have been so much easier if you’d just closed your eyes like I told you to.” Ethan slid down the doorframe and sat back on his heels. Ric patted him on the shoulder and crouched beside him.
“Perhaps it’s time to give in,” he said. “Who knows how long she’ll be here for?”
“It won’t be the same,” Ethan muttered. “It’ll isolate her further from her own people.” He pressed his fingers into his temple.
“From what I saw the night of the Equinox she’s already done that by herself,” Ric whispered back. I nodded in general agreement; fair point. Ethan was silent again. “She deserves to know what’s preventing her from going home. In the end it’s her choice, not ours, to make.”
Ethan looked at his friend carefully, considering his words, before turning back to me. “You realise that once you hear what we have to tell you, you’ll be carrying a burden that no one else will understand. The knowledge will also put you in extraordinary danger once you leave here.” His eyes were hard and cold as he voiced the information like it was a court hearing.
“I have to know,” I said simply.
“Oh – Gehn – fine, on your own head be it, you difficult-” Ethan’s droning faded as he turned his heel and walked back down the corridor.
“This world isn’t like the one you’ve heard, or read, about. It’s a far darker place,” Ric said, nudging me out of the cell.
“It’s as you said,” Ethan said loudly from the other end of the corridor, “being ignorant is a blessing. But I suppose in cases like yours it’s a bit damning when you insist on going out and finding trouble.”
“Cases like mine?” I scoffed.
“People who don’t do what they’re told when it’s for their own bloody good.” He motioned me up the stairs. “And those who cannot go a day without sticking their nose in someone else’s business.”
“I can go-”
“What he means is your curiosity is dangerous. For example: all you need to do is curiously stumble over a Gurgunh hole once and-.” Ric sliced at the air by his throat.
“Gurgunh?” I stopped, looking back at him.
“Oh.” He stilled for a moment. “Good, you don’t have them where you’re from. Be grateful,” he said, brushing past me. “They’re stumpy things that bury themselves in the ground. Their jaws are a good arm’s width with teeth like broken glass. Though, anyone who’s ever gotten close enough to measure the specifics hasn’t come back again,” he laughed. I shuddered. How would you even see something like that?
As we reached the top of the stairs Ric stopped us, listening carefully. “Where did you say everyone was?”
“Lavender and Willow are making their visits in town, and Daniel was supposed to be running the borders with Alistair,” Ethan said, pushing the lounge door open.
Ric followed after us but paused again in the doorway. “Alistair’s coming.” He turned back toward us and eyed the back door. “If we’re going to tell her, it can’t be here.”
Ethan thought for a second, looking to me and back before replying, “You know where to go. I’ll meet you there.” He jogged over to the back door and whistled sharply as Ric walked out past him. “How are you with horses?” he asked me.
“I had a Shire on the farm-”
“Good enough.” He planted a hand on my shoulder and steered me outside as a large, black stallion ground to a halt in front of us. I jumped back a little at the speed of the animal but didn’t have time to be nervous as Ethan boosted me onto it.
“Wait, I’ve never ridden something like this-,” I started. Ethan pulled himself into the saddle in front of me and I gripped the side of it.
“Just hang on to me,” Ethan said with a slanted smile, “and try not to fall off.”