As I always did when I was alone, I closed myself in my room and began reading through the journal entries. By now, I was moving quickly through the fourth journal. The entries were fairly detailed, but the interest I had in them was large. I couldn't exactly put the journal down unless I had to. The stories and information were getting good, running quickly through my seventeenth year.
The entries about Xenophil were becoming plentiful too.
August 4th, 2009
My time as Xenophil's apprentice has become a little harder. He showed me something important today; a trusted secret. He showed me where he keeps his most valuable alchemy books. Its kept under the house, but I won't write the location down. I will express how proud I am of myself. Xenophil said that he could trust me, a thing that he is not well known for.
For a single second, I felt a pull of hope towards the answer I needed. It was short lived though. There was nothing else on the location of those books. The simple clue didn't help either, as the whole place was apparently searched by the council. If they searched the house, they would have most defiantly searched any kind of basement or cellar, too.
I read on, finding some more details about my past life in this kingdom. Just like the previous entries, I was still expressing concerns about a lot of Mathew problems. But then I came across an entry that both intrigued me and irritated me when I read the word Zacarias.
August 12th, 2009
There's a new person walking around the order. I saw him a few days ago when I went to speak to my parents before school started. They were talking to him in the council auditorium when I arrived. He looked odd and sounded foreign, but he was wearing the privateer's black coat, so I didn't find it too disturbing.
I didn't really think much about him until today, because of the rumors. Everyone avoids him, like they don't want to be anywhere near him. During eating times, he would sit alone and brood over his food.
I kind of got the chance to meet him for myself today. I went to the beach after school, to look out over the lagoon. The docks were kind of empty by the looks of the view. While I was walking along the beach, he happened to be standing there, walking around by the rocks. He was fiddling with something,; an oyster? Maybe it was a clam.
When I was close enough, he said that he found it odd that I was there at the same time he was. Most people avoid the areas he goes to. I told him that I didn't really get why people were avoiding him.
"Have ye' no' heard the rumors?" he asked.
"I don't exactly listen to the news in the village," I said.
When I told him I found the news to always be boring or full of nonsense, he then said it doesn't really matter. I'll hear it from somewhere sooner or later.
He threw the oyster back among the rocks and then washed his hand in one of the tide pools. He then stepped up to me and held out his hand towards me. When I reached out he dropped a pearl onto my palm.
His exact words, "A bonny pearl for a bonny lass."
I'll admit, that was kind of cute.
I still can't fathom why he gave it to me. A pearl like this one goes for a lot at the local jeweler. When I told him that, he said that he's got no use for it. He then introduced himself as Zacarias. When I asked him how old he was, he said twenty. So he's an initiate in the order.
I breathed in deeply and then lay back on the bed. So that's how I met Zacarias?
The next few entries were rather short and simple. Some note on work from Xenophil and go on about school homework and projects. Several of these short entries later, another one about Zacarias arrived.
August 17th, 2009.
I found out why people aren't fond of Zacarias today. During my afternoon stroll along the docks, I came across him. Like the last time, he seemed surprised that I'd come near him. I on the other hand was still surprised that everyone avoided him in the first place. So I asked him about it. What better way to get the news than from the source itself. Plus I don't trust gossip to be facts.
So we sat on the docks and he told me why people avoided him. It's a little disturbing.
Zacarias is new in the kingdom; obviously speaking as I've never seen him anywhere in the kingdom before today. The way he got here wasn't exactly pleasant. It turns out his father was a pirate and Zacarias was living on the ship among his father and a pirate crew for a while, working in the kitchens and cleaning the brig. They sailed this way and attacked one of our privateer yachts. Needless to say, the pirates got their arses kicked and were imprisoned in the kingdom.
Zacarias was imprisoned too. He said that his father died inside the jail of blood poisoning and that he knew he wasn't going to make it. His father had ignored all the signs until it was too late. As for the rest of the crew, they are still in the prison.
Zacarias said that the council made a deal with him, because he wasn't guilty of piracy; but of associating with pirates. He would be cleared of all charges and spared if he served in the council as a privateer on behalf of the kingdom. He accepted and now here he was.
I get it now. Pirates are not something we take likely in this kingdom and even though he is in the order now, trusting and accepting him as one of our own was difficult.
Needless to say, I'm a little freaked by the reason now that I know it, but it seems kind of unfair to treat him like scum. He said he hated his father for what he and those pirates put him through, but he had nowhere else to go.
Poor guy. I feel sorry for him. Sorry enough to not avoid him. The best thing anyone could do was be nice to him. He didn't seem all that bad. I mean, he gave me a pearl the other day and called me pretty. Well, he said something like "bonny". That's something, right?
*
I pursed my lips when I felt a little bit guilty for calling him a pirate. I understood now why he didn't like to be called a pirate. The word was poison to him for disturbing reasons.
That was the last entry in the fourth journal.
I closed it up and got off the bed. I put the journal back into the shelf and immediately took out the next one in the sequence. As I opened the journal and began reading, I walked over to the bed and lay down again.
The first few entries were about love and issues, once again continuing towards the end of Mathew's and my love story. To be honest, I was actually getting bored of it, going on and on about the same pressing problems with Mathew. At this point, he seemed like a bit of a jerk in comparison to the picture of a noble and kind soul.
To my relief, there was another entry that was not detailed about those problems. No, it was about none other than my apparent nemesis, Eustace.
The entry went on about a golden trophy for weaponry use, one that I won at a school award ceremony, which Eustace had also been aiming for and didn't win. So, in a fit of rage, he declares "Game on." Whatever that meant.
The next day, which was another new entry, he challenged me to a sparring match in gym class. As the entry expressed so widely, I put him on his arse and in another fit of rage, he punched me in the face and knocked me out. The entry said I woke up ten minutes after that when people were trying to move me to the infirmary. Eustace got into trouble with the instructors, but he tried to play it off as his werewolf temper that took over. However, I knew that was total bullshit. He was making an excuse to pass off foul play as an accident.
When I had started reading this entry, I actually felt bad for Eustace, always coming in second. Even I had to admit that would make a person bitter after a while. However, now that I read that he had punched me for no real reason; those feeling went right out the window. I didn't feel one more shred of guilt over it. He deserved his humiliation.
My cell phone rang from inside my pocket.
I put the journal down and slipped my phone out. As I looked at the screen, my heart began to beat frantically. It was the principle of the school I worked at back in Pretoria.
Damn it. I didn't have an excuse to give him yet.
I pressed the red icon and silenced the call. When the phone shut off, the screen lit up again as the number presented itself for a second time. Again, I pressed the red icon and silenced the second call.
Desperate to keep myself hidden from them, I turned my cell phone off and put it on the bedside table. I made the mental note to turn it back on after an hour or so.
I lay back on the bed and sighed.
Man, this was a messed up situation. People were looking for me and I couldn't help them. I couldn't even begin to think about going back to Pretoria now. Sure, this place was odd and it freaked the hell out of me, but I couldn't leave now after everything that's happened.
My life in Pretoria was so beyond me that it felt like it was almost an entire lifetime ago.