A Circuit of Time: Book Two of Spark (A MPHFPC Fanfiction)

Chapter Eight

Mountains and plains and cities flashed across the glass window, but Emma did not want to pay them much attention. The flashing scenery, the newspaper on Olive's lap, the rhythmic noises of metal wheels scraping the rails. They were all too familiar.

Sophie placed an old-worn notebook on the table. "After Miss Kestrel and the early ymbrynes established the peculiar society in the Britian, she went on an expedition to uncover the origins of peculiarity. She went with a man called Conan and another that remained unnamed in legends. But three years later, Miss Kestrel returned alone."

Life can barely be seen outside the window, neither human, nor animals. That's what war does to a place.

The headline of the news Olive just finished reading was about the dire economic situation in Germany after four years of war and a peace treaty that costs more than any nation can afford. A peace that, in hindsight, will start another far more brutal war.

Well, it wasn't too different from what we are dealing right now, Emma thought.

"After she returned to the ymbryne council, Miss Kestrel refused to speak of what happened on her journey. She claimed her two companions died of some mysterious disease during the expedition and insisted that they had found nothing worthy of mentioning."

Normals persecuted peculiars for centuries, and now the wights enslaved them in the name of peculiar justice. Maybe after a century or so, when Caul's empire is finally brought down, normals would take control of the world again, and return all the suffering and persecution they experienced under Caul back to peculiars.

"For centuries, peculiar scholars never stopped trying to uncover what exactly happened to Miss Kestrel's expedition, but most attempts came out empty. Until 1884, when Miss Bulbul found out the potential location Miss Kestrel's two companion was buried, we finally have a rough idea of what scared one of the founders of our very society away from her pursuit for knowledge."

People say the history always repeats, and maybe they are right. Maybe the cycle of oppression and violence simply cannot end. Emma remembered what she told Olive a few days ago, about focusing on fighting for a better future to break this endless cycle of suffering. But now she wondered whether it really matters. Maybe the world's conflict won't ever come to an end, just like how she can never stop seeing Jacob's ghostly shadows around her whenever she broad a train.

"What Miss Kestrel discovered was the existence of ancient giants with souls that holds power beyond anyone's imagination at the time. And she wisely chose to keep it a secret since that's what caused the War of Abaton centuries later."

"Emma! Are you alright?" Olive woke her from her thoughts.

"Are we there yet?" Emma asked and Olive nodded in reply.

"Miss Bulbul believed one of the most powerful ancient giants Miss Kestrel found has the ability to manipulate time, and that is the target of this mission." Sophie concluded, "We are going to find its soul before Caul's people do, and we are going to use it against him."

*

Olive understood Emma's reaction when they were boarding the train. This particular form of transportation held too much memory about the family they had lost. But she had grown numb of it over the years. In the last ten years, trains had become merely another way to deliver her team to whatever target they were assigned to eliminate or rescue. This time shouldn't be any different.

Emma had told her about her team members' uncertainty about their mission earlier. So, while they were still on the ship crossing the Atlantic, Olive asked Sophie to give them a brief explanation on their plan. She hoped Sophie's words would be enough satisfy them, if just for a while. Olive wondered how her teammates thought about this mission. She was so used to committing all kinds of horrible deeds in the name of the rebellion, poisoning, spying, sabotage, assassination, all in the name of a better future. Whenever she and her team walk away from something terrible, she told herself it was for a just cause.