My vision now beginning to cloud, I closed my eyes. I felt a tingling sensation in my head, like the feel of blood trickling beneath my skin. And then my present mind was no more as I was transported to the past.
Chapter 30: Mona
It was the beginning of a bright summer’s day, the best kind of weather The Sanctuary had to offer.
I sat up in bed, yawning and rubbing my eyes. I swung my feet off the mattress and padded over to the mirror in the corner of the room. I reached for my brush and began combing my long hair—as I had promised my mother that I would do first thing each morning if she allowed me to grow it this long. Then I walked into my bathroom and took a shower. I had to hurry. I was expecting my best friend, Rhys, to knock at my door early. He always did on the weekends, when we had no classes to attend.
Sure enough, I had barely slipped into my clothes and tied my hair up in a ponytail when there was a banging on the front door. I shot out of my room and whisked down the stairs before my parents or my siblings could answer the door. I always liked to be the first to answer the door to Rhys, because my parents made it no secret that they didn’t like me hanging around with him.
Rhys was standing on my doorstep, wearing a black shirt and shorts. He was barefoot. A mischievous grin lit up his face. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” I said, slipping out of the door and closing it as softly as I could behind me. We raced down the front steps, across the yard and out into the street behind the front gate.
“You should have been there last night,” Rhys said as we jogged along.
“Yeah, well, I think I’ll prefer it during the daytime.”
After picking up two of our friends along the way, we finally reached the graveyard. The main gates were still locked, so—still being young and not yet having mastered the ability to disappear and reappear in a different location—we climbed over them and leapt down to the ground behind it. Then we all set off running again, racing to see who could reach the back of the graveyard first. Rhys won, as he usually did. He was the fastest runner among us.
“Hey!” an angry voice called as we reached the back of the graveyard. “You don’t have permission to go there!”
I groaned internally. Shamus, the caretaker. The elderly warlock draped in a black cloak manifested himself in front of us. He blocked our way, waving a finger.
“We’re just looking around,” I said.
Before Shamus could react, Rhys darted between his legs and dove into a cluster of bushes. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to get in trouble, but I also didn’t want to be left out of Rhys’ game.
I tried to follow after Rhys, but the warlock held me and my other two friends back, pinning us to the ground with his magic.
Rhys’ taunt filled the early-morning air from the other side of the bushes. “Come and get me.”
My eyelids fluttered as I came to consciousness for a few seconds. The first memory subsided. I sank under again…
The graveyard was pouring with rain, the skies overhead gray and cloudy. Crowds of witches and warlocks piled in through the gates. A new tomb was being installed here today—that of my friend’s grandmother, Hetia. Children were allowed to the front of the ceremony so they could watch what was happening, so my parents allowed me to push through the crowds without them. I joined my friends at the front and we all watched as a long black coffin was lowered into the ground. By the time respects had been paid, the rain was falling so heavily that the grave had become a pool of muddy water. Hetia’s family had to dry it out before they covered it over with a tombstone. Then they bent over the grave and began etching letters into the stone—ancient characters that I couldn’t understand at my young age.
I barely surfaced even for a second this time before another seemingly random memory took hold of me.
I was on my knees, a scrubbing brush in my hand, a bucket of soapy water set beside me on the ground. I looked around at the sea of tombstones surrounding me. I hated this job. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t misbehave in class again or do anything to deserve this punishment. It irked me that my other classmates had been misbehaving too. I had been unlucky to get caught.
I heaved a sigh, brushing my hair, sticky with sweat, away from my forehead as I continued scrubbing the Ancients’ tombstones. Some of them were so covered with grime, I was sure that nobody ever cleaned these things. Perhaps they kept them so dirty purposefully, so as to keep them as a worthy punishment for troublemaking children.
At least it was daytime. Although the sun beating down on me was making me feel nauseous, I was glad at least that I didn’t have to come here at night. This part of the graveyard, right at the back, always felt more haunted than other parts when the sun went down…
Now a fourth memory began playing in my mind’s eye.
I was drowning in a pool of rancid liquid. The more I tried to swim to the surface, the thicker the liquid seemed. Just as I reached the surface and gasped for air, something sharp and bony closed around my ankle and dragged me downward. I was pulled further and further into the depths of the black pool. My lungs close to bursting, I felt like I was seconds from death. But then I was met with an unexpected reprieve. My head was raised out of the liquid and I was able to breathe. Choking and spluttering, I tried to get rid of the vile taste in my mouth. Still in darkness, I reached my hands all around me, feeling stone.
I tried to push against the low ceiling, but it wouldn’t budge. Then there was a crack. A gap formed above me. I pushed against the ceiling once again, discovering that this was no ceiling. It was a lid. It slid right off, allowing me view of a clear night sky overhead. I heaved myself out of the liquid and found myself rolling onto grass. Looking around me, still shaking, I realized that I had just climbed out of a grave. I was surrounded by tombstones. I stood up and realized that I was in The Sanctuary’s graveyard.