Savior (24 page)

“This hea’ my responsibility,” she snapped. “Back off!”

I peeked out the makeshift hospital shack to find Miss Mabelle heading away from me, in the direction where the Caldwell and Weatherford homes could be found.

I shouted out her name. She jerked her head around, discovering me standing on the dock, and turned her boat toward me. She didn’t bother to get out, though.

“Got school work for you.”

“Terrific,” I said, allowing the sarcasm in my tone to be evident.

“Don’t ya go sassin’ me,” she chastised. “You my responsibility. Can’t have no stupid Relicuum runnin’ things.”

“I’m not stupid,” I reminded her.

“But ya will be if ya don’t study,” she warned. “Now get in the boat.”

I followed her command, noticing how the boat tipped to Miss Mabelle’s side, sending Miss Celia sliding into her. To balance it out, I took a seat on the opposite end, but it didn’t help much.

“Where Jameson be?” asked Miss Celia, whose voice was always softer but just as stern.

“We’ll need to find him.”

Miss Mabelle sighed irritably and pushed the boat off the dock with the tip of her cane before launching into a mumbling rant. Catching things like, “ridiculous”, “always needing to”, and “nothing but a delivery service” made me think she wasn’t happy about it.

To our relief, we came across him just around the bend, as he stood outside a shack surrounded by my mother, her sources, and Uncle Lester.

“Yes, we hold weekly meetings to update everyone on the progress being made,” he was in the midst of saying before he saw us coming. “I’ll make sure to include you.”

They disbanded as Jameson met us at the edge of the water, his eyes shifting curiously between me, our housekeepers and the books they had stacked at their feet.

“Don’t ya go lookin’ like that,” Miss Mabelle admonished. “N’ don’t ya go thinkin’ just cause you The Nobilis you goin’ ta get outta doin’ yer school work neither.”

“Actually, Miss Mabelle, I was wondering if our Wednesday night class work is in there, too.”

My eyes darted to the books as I realized what he was referring to. Wednesdays were reserved for Ms. Veilleux’s evening classes, the ones in which we practice witchcraft. If school was in session during the day, then Ms. Veilleux’s classes would have started also, which was yet another one of our customs outside the village that I’d forgotten. Oddly, while I never really liked school, it depressed me to know that life was moving on without us.

“She ain’t gotten them to us yet,” said Miss Mabelle, snapping me out of my thoughts. “‘Sides we here to talk ‘bout somethin’ else.” She hauled herself out of the boat and up the ladder to the dock. With her weight removed, the boat immediately righted itself, throwing Miss Celia and me to the side and forcing us to brace ourselves. Jameson jumped forward to guide us to the dock, which Miss Celia appreciated with a soft tap to his shoulder.

“You gettin’ stronger,” she commented and ambled over to Miss Mabelle, which brought a smile to Jameson.

Once we were all standing again and the books they’d brought were unloaded next to the ladder, Miss Mabelle huffed in open annoyance.

“We gettin’ a flood of requests now and we ain’t even askin’. They findin’ us. Want ta meet The Nobilis n’ Relicuum.”

Miss Celia included, “N’ there’s some we think ya need ta visit.”

“And you think this because…?” Jameson pressed.

“’Cause they the wealthier ones in yer world. Have some influence, some power.”

“N’ some ignorance,” added Miss Celia, which interested Jameson.

“Ignorant? Of what?”

“What you doin’ here,” said Miss Mabelle, slightly aggravated. “Why they in just as much jeopardy as you.”

“You think they don’t know?” I asked, astounded.

“They wealth shelters them,” explained Miss Celia. “They’s…,” She clucked her tongue in pity. “They’s ignorant. Don’t have a clue what’s comin’.”

“Ya need ta make ‘em understand,” insisted Miss Mabelle.

“Well, that’s been my plan,” Jameson confirmed. “I was waiting for the right time to approach them, but if they’re asking to meet with us….”

“Now’s that time,” concluded Miss Celia.

Jameson shrugged, awaiting my reaction.

“Let’s do it,” I urged.

Miss Mabelle nodded a sharp, single tip of her head. “We be back at sundown.”

“We’ll let Theleo know,” Jameson confirmed.

“Yeah, best do that,” Miss Mabelle commented. “He a good transporter. He don’t interrupt, and he don’t say too much.”

True to their word, our housekeepers arrived just as the last of the light faded from the evening horizon. Dressed in their typical colorful, ankle-length dresses, they appeared just as ready to attend a dinner party as to shuck corn. Jameson, Theleo, Eli, the other defectors, and I wore our black cloaks, which were becoming the village’s standard fashion, thanks to Estelle’s masterful sewing ability.

“Why
they
here?” demanded Miss Mabelle, lifting her chin toward the defectors.

Jameson bowed his head, clearly frustrated, before assuring her, “They won’t be coming to dinner.”

“Certainly won’t!”

Apparently, Theleo wanted to end her tirade before it started because he blasted us into the night sky before she could get another word out. Still, she managed to interject.

“We goin’ ta Chicago…,” she yelled, and to make sure she was heard, repeated it. “CHICAGO!”

We arrived in minutes, which I attested either to Theleo’s increasingly powerful ability to levitate, or his urgency to liberate himself from Miss Mabelle. Either way, he dropped us quickly but cautiously to the ground on an expansive lawn outside the city. Across the manicured grounds sat a building that resembled the size and grace of Monticello. I imagine it would have made Thomas Jefferson nostalgic if he were to have seen it.

It was lit inside on both floors and from every room, casting a soft radiance across the lawn as we crossed it.

“Who exactly are these people?” I wondered out loud as I passed a large, green topiary in the shape of a bull.

Miss Celia answered without bothering to look back at us. “The Chatterley’s.”

“Wealthiest family in this province,” added Miss Mabelle. “Have some influence, too. Yu’ll be needin’ to be on yer best behavior.”

“Aren’t we always, Miss Mabelle?” teased Jameson.

Her response was an abrupt blow of air across her lips which meant…no.

“Shouldn’t we knock on the front door?” I asked, since it seemed our housekeepers were guiding us toward the rear portico.

Miss Celia didn’t respond and Miss Mabelle only snickered, prompting Jameson and me to glance at each other suspiciously. They knew something we didn’t and weren’t about to share it. Regardless, we figured out what it was soon enough.

It wouldn’t have mattered if we’d knocked or not. They knew we’d arrived.

Despite the crisp, fall air, the doors leading into the house were open, and people were lined along both sides of the room, dressed in ball gowns and tuxedos, with their family stones polished to a high sheen.

It felt as if we had entered a bizarre dream.

“Somehow I got the impression we were only meeting a single family,” Jameson muttered as we stood at the open door surveying the glowing, bashful smiles around the room.

“You are,” said a woman whose hair was wound with jewels in a boastful style over her head. She headed toward us, holding her arms open to greet us. One hand landed on Jameson’s forearm and the other on mine. “I hope you don’t mind we offered the invitation to extended family. We don’t know when we’ll have the chance to meet The Relicuum and Nobilis in the future.” She lowered her voice to a hushed whisper. “Or to host a pair of prominent, fugitive lovers….”

Without waiting for a reply, she ushered us forward, into the center of the harshly white room, where our black cloaks stood out like mud on a freshly-mopped floor.

“Family,” she announced, bowing her head regally. “Our guests have arrived. I am proud,
so very proud
, to introduce…The Relicuum and The Nobilis!”

With that, the family flowed forward, directly at us, and I braced myself. Luckily, I didn't need to, because they stopped a few feet away, as if they thought we were untouchable.

“My name is Rebecca…”

“…Trevor…”

“Stephany…”

“…Aunt Rita and this is Uncle Walt…”

I became dizzy listening to them rattle off their names. A glimpse at Jameson, on the other hand, told me that he was taking it all in at a good pace and with a cordial grin. He truly was destined for this sort of thing. I, however, was not, and was incredibly grateful when the woman with the large hair clapped her hands.

“Dinner is being served. Follow me.”

The crowd parted and Jameson and I were given a clear path to walk directly behind our hosts, with the rest of the family trailing us. Our housekeepers had mysteriously disappeared and didn’t arrive in the blinding-white dining room with the rest of us.

As we lined the table - one that sat over a hundred people and was elaborately decorated with bone china and silk napkins - I noticed no one sitting and stayed on my feet.

Jameson and I were assigned seats in the middle, allowing everyone the best vantage point to stare at us, which they did, timidly. I scanned the crowd searching in vain for the only two familiar faces that might be here.

“Your housekeepers are in the kitchen,” whispered an astute, teenage girl with braces seated down the table from me. “Mother said they requested it.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, still in a daze. “Thank you….”

“This evening is all about you,” added a woman whose neck and arms were weighed down with every type of gemstone imaginable. She drew in an excited breath and sighed, “The Relicuum and The Nobilis…!”

I gave her the most appreciative smile I could muster, but it was a struggle. As I surveyed the room with its intricately-carved beams and the luxuriously-appointed table, my only thoughts were of those back in the village. While we hadn’t been struggling to survive, we knew what it meant to live sparsely. We had given up luxury for the prospect of freedom. It was the impact of what was coming toward these people that concerned me. Just as Miss Mabelle and Miss Celia had forewarned, they were sheltered. I identified with them because I shared this fate at one time too. But soon they would discover the posh safety of this world they had been living in was all a farce.

As they openly displayed their abilities – levitating forks of caramelized quail to their mouths or stirring the decadent butternut squash soup in their bowls without touching any of the flatware – I wondered if they were ready to accept it.

Jameson must have had the same mindset because throughout the seven course dinner, as questions were tossed at us, he always seemed to find a way to hint at the truth beyond this haven they had created.

“…and I was completely unaware of the devastation the innocents within the penal colonies have suffered…”

“…no, my feelings for Jocelyn couldn’t be brought into the open at that time. The Sevens’ iron-tight grip over us prevented it.”

When we seemed to have given every minute detail of our lives to date, the conversation transitioned. “Now, tell us honestly if the rumors are true,” said an older gentleman dressed in an entirely white tuxedo. Being seated at the end of the table, I suspected he was the head of the household. “Were you, Nobilis, in any way involved with the attack on the ministry?”

Every head - all one hundred of them - wrenched around in our direction, eagerly anticipating his response.

“No, Thomas,” said Jameson, who had an incredible knack for remembering their names. “We cannot take credit for it.”

The man appeared disappointed, until he beckoned one of the many servers lining the walls. He whispered briefly in the man’s ear, and then, he rested back into his seat.

“I was going to ask how you were able to concoct this…,” said Thomas, as the server returned carrying a flat silver tray. It displayed a single feather, which he proudly held up.

The whole room seemed to gasp and I could see why. What Thomas displayed to us was not an ordinary feather from a standard fowl. It was large enough to stretch over both sides of the tray by at least a foot. The thickness of it was also surprising, substantial enough to be visible from our seats down the table.

He laid it carefully back on the tray and instructed the server to carry it to us.

Jameson and I never took our eyes off it, even when it was extended to us for observation.

Close up, the feather was even more remarkable, thick, without imperfection, and entirely white.

“Where did you find it?” asked Jameson, picking it up for further analysis.

“It was left behind during the attack,” said Thomas, the conceit of ownership blatant in his tone.

“And you took possession?”

“When a confidant of mine arrived at the ministry after the attack, he seized it and was willing to sell it for a good sum of money.”

Jameson nodded and returned it to the tray, where it was hastily carried away to what we could be sure was a secure spot. He didn’t divulge any information, although I sensed that Thomas, and the rest of those in the room, would have eagerly listened. Instead, Jameson took the opportunity to use it as a catalyst to highlight the vulnerabilities of those in our world.

“Thomas, the feather indicates more than an attack on the ministry. It shows that those who would go against the ministry and The Sevens are not alone. We, Thomas, are not alone. And we are not alone because we are not the only ones who have witnessed the heinous crimes The Sevens have inflicted on us…us, the innocents of our world.” He paused, sighing to release his frustration over having to proclaim any of this…even while knowing it was still necessary. “Thomas, you have heading for you an ordeal of the most serious kind. Everything of importance – your lives, your wealth, your comfort – is in jeopardy. You can fight for it or you can wait for it to be taken. We…,” he said, taking a lingering glance at me, “…are choosing to fight.

Thomas shrugged, both curious and perplexed. “What are you saying? What are your intentions?”