Grace knew what was coming her way. No way was she going to tell that to anyone. Her hands had suddenly turned clammy and sweaty and she was subconsciously fidgeting with her top
"Grace, I'm not sure if you're..."
"I'm OK, Michael. I...It's just that it's getting dark," Grace avoided the topic.
Her tight-lipped suppressed smile wasn't reassuring for Michael. As if she was having a thousand unfriendly thoughts inside her but was not willing to confess her discomfiture.
"Are you scared of the dark..."
"NO," Grace cleared her throat to overemphasize her negation...and looked away.
Michael understood that Grace wasn't in the mood to converse on the topic.
"And what exactly was this thing that the boy said?" Grace asked after they had started walking again.
"Kind of Oath. In Ridona."
"Ridona?"
"Geventen's code language. You say it when you meet someone for the first time, and you want the other person to be your friend."
Grace hesitated with her movements as she hid a sob.
"You didn't say it to me," Grace muttered to avoid the topic again.
Michael blushed.
"No," He looked down as if that explained everything. "We're here," he said as if to change the topic.
The calmness all around was overwhelming, and Michael knocked at the door distractedly.
No answer.
Knock... Knock!
No door clicking.
"Hello?"
Uh-huh. No answer.
"Sir Curtis?" Michael called.
Finally, the door opened.
There stood a man in a distressed, wretched-looking, black lapel coat and trouser-with-holes. He had a taut posture and his black clothes merged with the shadowy walls and semi-darkness of his room interiors. His forehead was wrinkled with tension and worries. A pointed curved nose lent his face a distinction.
"As the Warden for Geventen, Mr. Davis...your shoes are dirty," he said as bent down to pick up his fallen letter. Better take care you know...for points to be the Captain.
Michael nodded and made a careful note in his mind. "Yes...sir, I shall take care."
Grace looked beyond Mr. Curtis's head into the dark study. In the dim rays filtering in from outside, Grace could see a crock which was being stirred by a weird-looking creature (Grace was shocked).
The room occasionally got lit by bubbling flashes of bright red and black colours that were emitted from a boiling cauldron of pungent liquid. Dark fumes came out of the incessant boiling. The liquid looked viscous and dark grey as it churned, a thick, slimy and ugly mixture.
Grace felt dizzy looking at the concoction.
"Sir..." Michael started. "We have a new..."
"Yes, but I am very busy currently," Curtis cut him short.
"I know...but..."
"JK's coming today," Curtis informed.
Michael nearly choked. "JK!"
Grace was curious and wanted to know who JK was but she felt this wasn't the right moment at all.
"Yeah," Curtis said, going back to his work.
He waved his hand and flames erupted out of the crock. Then he waved again, muttering something and the flames diminished.
He covered his face with his hands. He smiled, embarrassed.
"Sorry...got a little excited," Curtis said optimistically. "Now... actually if you have a lot of time, would you mind helping me in clearing this?" He pointed at the slowly 'eroded-by-potion' table.
"Sir, I haven't mastered the cleaning enchantment yet; and so sorry, Sir, but we've got an urgent assignment to complete."
Michael rushed towards the stairs followed by Grace. They had nearly turned around the corner when Michael bumped into someone.
"Michael! How're you? And where are you?" The girl asked.
"I'm good. I'm good," Michael said.
"Anything... Michael?" Welsa said, scanning his wind-blown black hairs as if looking for a piece of hidden treasure.
"No, not really..."
"Michael! You've got grey hair!" Welsa almost shouted.
"O... Oh, oh yeah." He quickly changed his hair parting from right to left, in an attempt to hide the grey strands, but too late maybe.
"Maybe we can get you an Aproute. That'll help." She poked and picked one of his greying strands.
"I've got one here." She rummaged through the contents of her side bag, thrusting a coke bottle, lipstick and mascara into Grace's hands in the process of emptying.
"Ah ha! Gotcha!" She smiled, brushing her hair out of her face. She looked at the jelly-filled bottle in her hands. Then suddenly her expression dropped into a sad smile.
"No... this is not the one. Let me check your hair, Michael, she lunged forward once more towards Michael's head."
"Uh," Michael said, forcing her hand down and stepping clear. 'We have a new Enchantress. Maybe you can guide her till the Housery," he said as he carefully maintained his distance.
Welsa suddenly realized the presence of Grace of which she was completely oblivious till then. Grace looked closely at Welsa. She seemed to be around nineteen and she was wearing a neatly pinned uniform and had round-rimmed glasses perched on her cute nose tip. She looked at Grace through her broken glasses.
Grace, for the first time, realized how tall she was. Her eyes were tiny and had a soft look.
Despite her tight smile and confused demeanour, Welsa was the most confident of all, Michael communicated later on. Her circular glasses gave her an old-fashioned look.
"Umm...Michael, do I need to take orders from you? I'm saying 'yes' to you one last time, but not again. I'm the Captain, mind it,' Welsa said bossily with a light snort blowing away a strand of hair from her face.
"I love you, Welsa." That sibling bond was summarized in those plain three words.
Grace didn't like the idea of being left behind with a total stranger who seemed to be all set to boss Grace around.
Welsa started walking...and talking simultaneously.
"See girl... whoever you are, I want you to be disciplined. Discipline is the most important thing in Geventen. Myself Welsa Thomas, I'm the Captain for Geventen."
Grace lingered, falling behind, as she dragged her feet slowly and reluctantly, not keen on following this bossy girl. "Hi Welsa, I am ..."
"Yeah, yeah. We'll get to know in a minute who you are. Welsa impudently cut her short."
Grace scratched the back of her neck. This girl was bossy to the point of irritability.
"Watch out!" Welsa said to Grace as she quickly reached out and pulled Grace back by her arm.
The floor beneath Grace went transparent and cracked open to reveal a room where a girl was drinking juice. As Grace stumbled back, she saw the girl stand up in rage from the table and snap her fingers.
"Dessel! You idiot! Don't you see you are poking through a Housery!" The girl below shouted as her juice spilt all over the table.
"Reverso!" The girl said and at once the juice was back into the glass in the girl's hand.
"Where are you, Dessel?" The girl shouted.
"Arresto!" She said pointing to a specific point in the air and a man solidified floating in the air right before Grace.
Grace's jaw dropped.
"Hey dear..." Dessel said to Grace.
"Get lost!" The girl below shouted and the floor closed back as Dessel evaporated.
"What was that about?" Grace muttered to Welsa, putrefied at the episode unfolding before her.
"Dessel – the sudden cause of many troubles. He's a ghost... a funnel ghost to be precise."
He was a translucent figure wearing a faded shirt and trousers. His hair looked like it had never seen a comb and his face was not washed for ages.
"You'll see him quite often, so let's leave his introduction on a lower rank in our to-do list. Better you stay away from him... he can make weird things happen."
"Yeah, I can see that. Your face has burst into pimples," Grace tried her best to hide her grin.
"Reverso!" Welsa snapped her fingers and her face turned back to what it was.
"Listen, newcomer! Dessel was back and he was not... fully human." Welsa sounded troubled and spoke hurriedly.
"I'm going to call for Joshua," Welsa shouted.
"Hey Joshua, you know what, Dessel was here a few moments ago." And after detailing the annoying episode, she briefed Joshua how Dessel had made a face and merged with the ground, nonchalantly, despite her warning.
Call done, Welsa now turned towards Grace, "So...we'll get your Power identified first," Welsa said.
"My Power?"
"Yes. You'll understand once you get the slip. Now, where's that dome?" She seemed to be muttering to herself. "Right there!"
Grace followed her pointed fingers and could barely make out the dim outline of a greying mysterious-looking silhouette of a dome against a silvery sky. Within a few minutes, they reached a dim ochre-coloured dome made of dark, polished marble.
It emitted hazy blue smoke from the top. There were engravings on the dome that looked like the names of hundreds of thousands of people.
Grace felt deja vu looking at it until she was interrupted by Welsa.
"Here we come to the Dome of Power!" Welsa whispered.
"The Dome of Power was the wondrous creation of the Great Robert Anderson. It is one of the oldest surviving monuments in the world. It is said that it was built on a sacred stone, and it is the place where the 5 Gifted descended from heaven. Sir Robert built this dome upon the rock after descending. Its architecture was influenced by ideas from Carl Mckellen, another Original."
She stopped after saying this much as if Grace need not know more. "Now go in," Welsa told her, still authoritative.
"Go in?" Grace was not sure if she had heard her right.
The dome wasn't inviting at all. It was rather claustrophobic and had a size that was nearly as small as half a cupboard.
"Yes," Welsa confirmed. "You'll fit in, I suppose...unless you consider yourself an outgrown patch of pumpkin."
OK, that was rude, Grace thought and scowled.
Grace followed Welsa's instructions, nevertheless.
She bent, folded her body and ducked to avoid banging her head on the hard top of the dome, which was rather rough and irregular with uneven protrusions jutting out from here and there of the mixed colour of a rainbow.
Grace lowered her body so much so that she was nearly flattened on the floor. The floor seemed slimy and smelt of dried herbs. Inch by inch she crawled forward. She had walked into a room completely made of ice. The floor was so slippery that Grace couldn't stand up on her feet; she slipped every time she tried to get up.
There was a faint fragrance of roses. It wasn't the usual roses, something was different. It was as though the roses had decided to radiate sadness and darkness instead of happiness and brightness.
As Grace tried to figure out the weird smell, she sensed a soaring pain in her head.
Her head suddenly became heavy and throbbed with intense pain. Voices roared in her head, images flashed through her mind and her voice trembled when she tried to ask for help.
Her vision focused and unfocused and blurred...an image of a ten-year-old boy smiling at her flashed before her eyes, another memory of a person standing next to Grace dissolved and a more complex image came to her mind.
It was a group photo of many people.
Grace couldn't identify most of them except Estella, Michael...and probably that was Welsa on the side.
"What's going on?" Grace stuttered and panicked as beads of sweat trickled down her neck. She gasped for breath. She thought she would suffocate.
She gave a loud shriek which she felt no one could hear because nobody came to her rescue. No one responded. She was a closed room of pale blue ice and even the opening that she had come through had vanished.
Her voice fainted and an image of a couple danced before her eyes; then there was Nevan introducing himself and Michael's subtle smile.
"Help." Grace felt her voice drowning.
Her ears ached with a continuous buzzing sound out of nowhere in her head and she was shivering with cold.
"Help," Grace screamed," I don't want to die like this..."