The Scroll 37

In this episode, Leslie confronts Goldeyre.

*          *          *

            Leslie dreamed about her mother’s death again, but this time Gray was there with Professor Brown standing next to him.  Professor Brown wore his pinstriped suit and fedora, and he held his cane in one hand.  As Leslie’s mother toppled over the edge, Gray desperately tried to stop her.  Professor Brown grabbed his wrist, stopping him.  Gray fought back, kicking and punching, but none of his hits connected and Professor Brown kept hold of him by just his wrist.  Leslie tried to run towards them, but it was like running through molasses.  Everyone moved at normal speed except for her.

            Suddenly another person was there—or had he been there all along?  Nameless, faceless, this shadowy figure, dark despite the California sun, was Gray’s father.  Professor Brown looked at him, and the man said, “Use him as you wish.  I give him to you.”

            Professor Brown nodded.  He smiled the smile of an evil Cheshire cat and pushed Gray over the edge of the sea cliff.  Leslie screamed—a silent scream, a dream scream, but somehow Professor Brown heard her.  “Might as well get rid of this one too.”

            He reached out to grab her, and Leslie woke up in her own bed, drenched in sweat.

            Leslie got ready for school silently.  She tried not to think about what would happen that afternoon, but it was impossible.  If something went wrong, she could very well be found broken and lying in a ditch.  Savannah as well.

            Mr. Matheson was in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal when Leslie entered to grab some breakfast.  His face was a little worn—Savannah had told Leslie that he blamed himself for Gray’s disappearance—but he still looked whole.  If she disappeared she doubted he’d ever be whole again.

            Mr. Matheson looked up and smiled.  Guilt flooded over Leslie, and she rushed around the table and hugged her dad tight.  He hugged her back, and she clung tighter.

            “Leslie, are you okay?”

            Leslie pulled back enough to smile up at Mr. Matheson.  “I’m okay.”  She buried her face in his shoulder again.  “I love you, Daddy.”

            “I love you too,” said Mr. Matheson.  He stroked her hair.  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

            Leslie nodded wordlessly.  She kissed him on the cheek, grabbed an apple, and rushed out of the house to her car.  She couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye.

            School went excruciatingly slow.  Leslie couldn’t concentrate on anything, and she fidgeted in her seat.  Her teachers gave her disapproving looks.  Usually, when she didn’t pay attention at least she didn’t distract others. 

After classes ended Leslie stayed at the school.  The plan wouldn’t take place or another hour, but she couldn’t bring herself to go home.

Finally, Leslie drove over to the sewage plant.  Savannah would be ready on her bike when the time came.  Leslie handed Ember her keys and climbed into the passenger seat.

            “Are you sure you want to do this?” asked Ember as she drove.

            Leslie nodded.  “He’ll be sure to suspect anyone else.  He might not suspect me.”

            “And you don’t want me to be the one to retrieve the scroll?”

            Leslie shook her head.  “Only I can touch the scroll.”

            Leslie wasn’t completely sure she trusted Ember.  Trust had blinded her to Professor Brown in the first place.  She wanted to make sure the scroll stayed in either her or Savannah’s possession.  For that reason, she’d only shared the complete plan with Savannah.  It was sure to put Savannah in danger, but Leslie hoped she’d draw the danger towards herself instead.

            Ember stopped the car a couple blocks from Professor Brown’s house.  “Fifteen minutes?”

            “Twenty,” said Leslie.  “I have to walk there first.”  If she hadn’t found the scroll in twenty minutes, she probably never would.

            She put her hand on the door handle, but stopped.  She said, “You said Goldeyre’s shifting was bound.”

            Ember nodded.  “Yes, that’s what the histories say.  But that was fifty years ago, and I’m not sure if the binding would hold that long, if it was ever performed.”

            “What’s his shifted form?” Leslie asked.

            “They say it was a wolf of monstrous proportions.”

            Leslie shivered.  How was she supposed to defend herself against a wolf?  She imagined Gray’s answer.  Run and stay away from its teeth.  She tightened her grip on the door handle.  “Thank you.”

            The door popped open, and Leslie stepped out of the car.  “Twenty minutes,” she said and closed the door.

            Every step Leslie took felt like a step further down a death march.  Half of her wanted to run away and not look back, but she couldn’t.  Gray wouldn’t, not if there was a chance that what Ember said was true.  She had to get the scroll back.

            Professor Brown’s house looked dark despite the clear sky.  The sun dipped in the west, and it seemed the windows were the only things that caught the sun’s beams as they reflected them back towards Leslie.  She shivered, pulling her jacket close.

            Leslie debated knocking on the door.  If she did, she could claim that she’d lost her phone and that the only place she hadn’t checked was at Professor Brown’s house.  But if she knocked, Professor Brown—no, Goldeyre, Leslie thought firmly—might follow her, and she’d never have a chance to search for the scroll.

            Finally, Leslie decided to test the doorknob.  If the door was locked, she’d knock.  If it was unlocked, she’d open the door and hope Goldeyre wasn’t standing on the other side.

            Leslie tried the doorknob.  It turned, and Leslie gently pushed the door open and peeked inside.  The house was quiet.  Barely breathing, Leslie tiptoed inside.  She left the door open a crack—she didn’t want to make a sound when the door closed.

            Leslie’s mind flashed to the night that Savannah snuck in Leslie’s bedroom window.  I’m a ninja, she’d replied when Leslie asked how she’d gotten there.

            If ever I needed a ninja, I need one now, Leslie thought.  As quietly as possible, Leslie snuck from room to room, rifling through drawers and under couches.  She found nothing downstairs and headed for the stairs.

            Leslie was halfway up the stairs when voices made her stop.  She froze, straining her ears to listen.  Goldeyre and Ravenstorm’s voices drifted down the stairs.  So silently that Leslie could hear her bones creak, Leslie crept up the stairs.  They were in the second room—the one that Doctor Monroe had used as a laboratory.  Leslie pressed against the wall outside the room to listen.

            “I don’t sense anything coming from the scroll,” said Ravenstorm.  “Are you sure the spell is here?  Perhaps you activated—”

            “I did not activate the spell!” Goldeyre snapped.  There was the sound of breaking glass, and Leslie shrunk back.  “I’ve read the scroll out loud forwards, backwards, I’ve skipped words, I’ve performed rituals.  The only thing I haven’t done is tear the scroll in half.  Perhaps that’s what it means to part the scroll.  Don’t tell me I’ve activated the spell.”

            “Are you sure?” asked Ravenstorm.  “The endowment of Power does not need to feel like a rush, or anything extraordinary.  It could feel as small as a tiny jolt of electricity.”

            Leslie gasped.  A shock.  A small electric shock.  Like static electricity.  Realizing she’d made a sound, she clapped her hands over her mouth.  She hoped they hadn’t heard her. 

            Ravenstorm and Goldeyre went silent, and Leslie tried to get her legs to move.  Move, her mind screamed.  Run away.  But she couldn’t.

            “Would you like to come in?” Goldeyre said in a deceptively calm voice.

            Leslie’s hands shook over her mouth.  She forced her hands down and balled them into fists.  Taking a deep breath, she stood tall and walked into the room.  Goldeyre and Ravenstorm faced her, and she spotted the scroll just out of reach on the desk.  Its pages curled up on each other.

            “Well, this is a surprise,” said Goldeyre with a gentle smile that didn’t fool Leslie for a second.  “What are you doing here, Leslie?”

            It was too late to claim she was looking for her phone—far too late.  After a moment’s hesitation she said, “I know who you are.”

            “Oh?” said Goldeyre.  His smile widened, revealing a sinister glint in his eye.  “And who do you think I am?”

            Don’t say everything, Leslie thought.  She tightened her fists until her fingernails bit into her palms.  She said, “You’re a shifter.”

            “Very good,” said Goldeyre, nodding.  Ravenstorm fingered the lip of his glove.  “And who told you that, or did you figure it out on your own?”

            “I figured it out,” said Leslie.  She thought frantically.  Savannah was the one who could come up with convincing elaborate lies on the spot, not her.  “You and Ravenstorm are close—a lot closer than you and Doctor Monroe.  And—and you read the scroll so quickly, and you didn’t seem interested in how shifting works, and you weren’t surprised when Gray shifted—Doctor Monroe was.”

            Goldeyre didn’t respond, and in her nervousness Leslie couldn’t stop talking.  “And I think you’re collaborating with whoever sent the scroll, and you knew exactly what was going on with Gray.  What did you do to Gray?”

            As she talked, Leslie gradually stepped further into the room.  If she got close enough she might be able to grab the scroll and get out of there once the signal came.  Come on, she thought.  Where are they?

            Goldeyre leaned close.  “I made him better,” he whispered.  “I made him more than he was.”

            Leslie stopped.  “What do you mean?”

            Goldeyre motioned to Ravenstorm, and the young man stepped forward.  “Haven’t you wondered why Ravenstorm wears gloves?”

            Leslie stood still.  She couldn’t tell where this was going.  “Is it because he’s a Spell Weaver?”

            Goldeyre shook his head.  “Show her, Ravenstorm.”

            Slowly, like a magician revealing his grand trick, Ravenstorm pulled off his gloves and held up his hands with the backs facing Leslie.  They were covered in tiny grey-and-white feathers.  A black gem was embedded in one of his wrists.  Then he turned around and lifted his shirt over his head.  Glossy black and silver feathers as long as Leslie’s hand started at his shoulders and went halfway down his back.  He pulled his shirt down and turned to face her again.  He lifted one pant leg.  Half-formed scales peppered his calf.  “I was born half-shifted,” he said, letting the pant leg fall back in place.

            “Which gives him interesting abilities,” said Goldeyre.  “Abilities my colleagues and I have been trying to duplicate.  I was surprised when Gray half-shifted like he did.  Yes, experiments are going on in his village, but he was supposed to be clean.  After all, what use is a messenger if he dies along the way?  He must have found a piece of inoculated food lying around and eaten it before he left his village.  But finding him so advanced in Stage One was advantageous—we could more easily find that ‘cure’ he kept babbling on about and start him on Stage Two.  It should be well advanced by the time he gets home.”

            “Stage two of what?” Leslie forced herself to ask.

            “Of evolution,” Goldeyre said in a stage whisper.  “Evolution of a sort you non-shifter would never understand.  And once enough shifters have evolved, and with the power of the scroll you so kindly delivered to me, I’ll—”

            Outside the screech of tires on pavement broke the late afternoon stillness, followed by a crash.  Ravenstorm and Goldeyre turned and walked towards the window.  “What the blazes was that?” exclaimed Goldeyre.

            Leslie didn’t bother to look; she knew what was there—Ember had slammed Leslie’s car into the light pole outside, and Savannah was playing “hurt bicyclist”—possibly complete with fake theater blood.

            Leslie took advantage of the distraction and leaped forward.  She grabbed all the papers from the scroll and rolled them up tight.  The scroll’s original container was on the desk; Leslie snatched it up and stuffed the scroll inside it.  She turned to run, but slammed into the doorjamb on the way out.  She spun around, caught a glimpse of Goldeyre’s and Ravenstorm’s faces as they turned towards her, and dashed down the hall.

            “Get her!” she heard Goldeyre yell as she sprinted down the stairs two at a time.

            Ravenstorm has feathers, Leslie thought frantically.  A bird!  She shrugged out of her jacket and spun around.

            There was a flurry of wingbeats, and a peregrine falcon swooped down the stairwell.  At the last moment Leslie flung her jacket up, and through an extraordinary stroke of luck the falcon flew straight into the jacket and was tangled up in it.  She wrapped the jacket around the falcon’s head and beating wings.  It shrieked and tried to claw at her arms, and she thrust the bird under a table near the stairs.  Without looking to see if Ravenstorm would get free, Leslie dashed to the front door.  She flung it open and ran outside.

            Ember and Savannah were gone, as was Savannah’s bike, and a crowd of people huddled around Leslie’s wrecked car.  Leslie gave her faithful transportation no more than a passing glance before racing down the street.  She cut across streets and through yards, heading towards a clump of trees nestled in a ravine.  A park followed the path of a creek as it made its way to the ocean.  If she made it to the park she could lose herself in the densely packed trees.  And hopefully Savannah would be waiting there.

            Please be at the rendezvous point, Leslie thought frantically.

            As Leslie approached the last row of houses, an enormous dog jumped in Leslie’s path.  Leslie skidded to a stop, and she realized the dog was a wolf—the biggest wolf she had ever seen.  Its shoulder was as high as Leslie’s waist, and its shaggy grey coat gleamed in the sunlight.  Golden eyes gazed into Leslie’s hazel eyes.  Goldeyre had found her.

            Leslie spun to run away, but the wolf nimbly ran around and cut her off.  She spun away again and ran.  The wolf leaped forward and grabbed Leslie’s pant leg in its jaws.  She fell to the ground, skinning her elbows.  Frantically, Leslie twisted around and kicked the wolf in the face.  It let go of her pant leg, and she scrambled to her feet.

            The wolf spoke, a low grumble that set every nerve in Leslie’s body on edge.  “Don’t think you can get away from me, Leslie.  I’m one of the Ancients.”  Then the wolf began to grow.