12

She didn't know she could feel beating hearts until she slowly regained awareness of her existence. She didn't know oxygen had a smell until she started to wake up. She didn't know light made a sound and colours had a taste until she fully regained consciousness. When she opened her eyes she could see time. It was like a highway. She sensed her past life behind her. She could briefly behold the outskirts of her future in the distance, coming towards her at an unholy pace.

Marith tried to focus on the now and looked straight into the eyes of Oracle again… or not? She zoomed out. This woman was Oracle and, at the same time, a different person altogether. A different being. Marith’s own thoughts started to confuse her. She didn’t make any sense to herself.

She felt as if she had been reduced to a cloud of atoms and was put back together later again. Now she was lying in a hospital bed, trying to identify her body parts. Her brain was clearly not working in the same fashion as before. She was afraid it made creaking noises as it attempted to reboot.

“This is really weird…” Marith groaned.

“We have met several times before,” dr. Sybling said in a calming, but amused matter.

Marith now realized the psychiatrist looked through her and not at her. Dull and foggy she closed her eyes again and noticed another heartrate close to that of dr. Sybling. Both hearts were pulsing in sync at around 60 beats per minute. She guessed the second beating heart didn’t belong to a human, since it didn’t have a human entity attached to it.

“Remind me again… what’s all this for?”

“You are returning and recovering from you Rebirth.”

Marith swallowed and nodded. She faintly remembered.

“What day is it?”

“The day after,” dr. Sybling whispered patiently. “You have made a subtle lapse in time, which is nothing to worry about,” she confirmed. “Perfectly natural following the Push.”

“Is that what you call it?” Marith didn’t know if that definition of what had happened in the past few hours of her life was a shocking euphemism or a hilarious understatement.

The Prophet at her bedside ignored that comment. “How do you feel, Marith?”

“How do I look?”

“I wouldn’t know. Iris can’t see you from this angle.”

“I am so sorry!” Marith exclaimed, wide-eyed and now fully awake. She had been dazed and amazed up until the point she had become unintentionally and unnecessary discourteous.

“Judging by your voice, you have retrieved consciousness entirely.” A wily smile played with the muscles around dr. Sybling’s mouth.

With a smooth, but unexpected movement Iris jumped up and landed her front legs on the railing of the hospital bed. Her flaming yellow eyes burned fierce, while taking Marith’s face in.

“You look fine,” her father’s psychiatrist added.

“Thanks,” Marith breathed hastily and apologetic.

“For now there is not much more I can do for you.”

Iris removed herself from the bed and Marith heard her front paws land on the floor again.

“Do I just go home now?” She shook her head a little, mostly at her own confusion.

“Vanessa is on her way to pick you up. All the information you need to go from here will cross your path, one way or another,” dr. Sybling shared, before continuing her day, with Iris in her wake.

“I have heard that before,” Marith muttered.

After a few minutes of mindlessly staring at an unstained ceiling she lifted herself up, took off her heavy coat and traded the bed for the adjacent bathroom.

The lights automatically flicked on as soon as she stepped over the threshold. She closed the metallic sliding door behind her. The bathroom seemed to be cast from a single mould, like on a ship, which, Marith figured, was for cleaning purposes. The light shade of pink fit perfectly into the other pastel colours the modern clinic was made up of, even though it was slightly starting to fall out of fashion already.

She splashed some water onto her face in an attempt to freshen up and straightened her stiff back to stare at herself in the mirror. With a proportionate shock she noticed how her appearance had changed. She put her glasses back on to touch her face in amazement.

Immediately, she took her glasses off to look at herself again and frowned. She put them on once more and then yanked them off for the last time. She seemed to be seeing herself better without it. Not just better, she could see perfectly now.

The worried crease in her forehead, that had grown more importunate by the day, had smoothed out completely. The faint lines around her mouth, that had appeared way too early in life, were missing. Her hair was as wavy and shiny as Lieke’s and her lashes, that were chronically lacking mascara, where thick, long and curled resolutely up. The green hues in her eyes had grown deeper and the golden thread that was woven through her irises was now on fire. To her own surprise, she looked… sort of good.

Marith couldn’t remember the last time she had looked in the mirror and considered herself decent looking. Adequate, maybe, but nothing near pretty.

As a streak of marvel shot through her mind she pulled down the collar of her sweater, almost tearing the fabric, to peak at her modest chest. Her boobs seemed to have the same droplet shape, but they were definitely fuller. They had gained at least half a cup Marith established elated.

She pulled up her jeans. They had been descending from her hips, since she had left the bed. It seemed she had lost weight too, around her lower abdomen. The ever so slightly and inexplicably growing muffin top now seemed to be residing on her chest and Marith had no problem with that.

Like most young women, Marith had always wondered what she would look like at full potential. Apparently, this was her without any negative influences holding her back?

She grabbed her coat off the bed and hastily left the room behind her. Quite unsurprising at that point she found herself in the corridors of the psychiatric ward. Still hazy, she stood wobbling, as in a dreamlike state. She caught herself wondering if this wasn’t an elaborate dream after all. She had been through the most insane and unspeakable visions, while being both intensely asleep and fully awake, as a child. Could this whole experience be one of those episodes?

Looking at the curious people that permanently adorned the hallways of the clinic she repeated what she had done with her glasses in the bathroom. A man with some missing teeth laughed at her.

“You won’t need them anymore!” It was like the words were pelted at her with great force.

Marith blinked away her annoyance and smiled at him, trying to hide what sound did to her over-sensitive ears. “So it seems,” she answered quietly.

She shoved the glasses into one of the pockets of the coat she carried over her arm, instantly reminded of the clockworks that were also still in there. Dream, hallucination or reality, it didn’t matter. She had to get through it anyway.

She continued down the hallway. Not taking visiting hours into consideration she marched over to her father’s room. It was only a few doors away from where she had woken up.

“Dad?” She knocked as she simultaneously snuck in, hoping he was decent.

“Marith!” He looked up from a book and welcomed her, surprised, but not too surprised.

Gene was sitting up straight on his bed, still wearing his blue pin-striped pyjama’s, which got Marith to wonder about the time.

She glided over to her father and took a seat on the matrass straight across from him.

He took her in with reverence. “So… how are you?”

“Ablaze,” Marith burst out. “I-if that’s the right word.”

“It is if you say so.” He smiled at her. She saw his crow’s feet laughing along with him, which told her the smile was genuine.

“How are you?” Marith asked.

“Pretty good,” he answered.

“You seem tan?” Her surprise made it sound like a question.

“If the weather allows I have lunch outside with some of the other patients,” he told.

“You are making friends then?”

Gene nodded. “Yes, I am.”

“Good,” Marith concluded.

“Well, let’s see it. What did they give you?” He scanned the pockets of her outfit and then her coat, as her pants appeared too tight to carry any belongings.

Marith briefly considered playing dumb, but decided not to and find out what would happen next. She fished the new clockwork out of her coat and handed it to Gene, who inspected it clearheaded and with much attention.

In fact, Marith joined him on his investigation, since she hadn’t been able to give it much attention before. She hadn’t even opened it yet. With trembling fingers she pushed a nail under the lid and popped it open, like the hood of a car.

A myriad of colours and movements was beaming at her fingertips. Marith couldn’t believe it. Hers was finally as amazing as Vanessa’s. Different, but equally cool.

Through the half-opened slats warm rays of sunlight entered the room. They illuminated their hands and the face of the shiny clockwork. The lowest level of the timepiece was made out of grey, turquoise and blueish mother of pearl. Twelve tiny diamonds indicated the hours of the day. The slender clock-hands pointing at them were barely visible under the ostentatious components integrated above them.

The face of the clock was followed by a layer with all sorts of gold wheels and trundles that were rotating and swivelling to keep the silvery, purple and blue haze hovering and swirling above the opened hunter-case.

The last and final level of the mechanical work of art contained of floating orbs, made out of gemstones, like the orreries Marith had repeatedly come across in the previous weeks. They seemed to move and probably carried a meaning or a message Marith wasn’t aware of yet.

“It’s like some astronomical watch,” her father commented.

“Yeah,” was all Marith had to say as she stared at it, like a magpie at a mirror.

“Do you know what it all means?” Gene inquired, flabbergasted.

“Not yet, but I can feel it, somehow. Like we have a connection.”

To her surprise her father nodded. “I bet Vanessa can tell you more about it.”

“Dad,” Marith let a brief silence linger between them, “how much do you know? About all this?”

“More than Vanessa knows I know,” he gave her a wry smile. “I am sick, not stupid.”

“I’ve never thought you were stupid. I just didn’t want to burden you with all that was happening outside the clinic and I think Vanessa decided the same thing.”

He nodded. “I know, but I want you to feel free to share these things with me.”

“I will do that more often, from now on,” Marith promised, half-heartedly.

She knew that in reality she could only share the bare minimum, which basically encompassed the slivers of information he already had. Any human that wasn’t a Pupil would be an easy target for their enemy to suck energy, life-force and vital intelligence from.

Some rumblings on the other side of the door made her close the case of the clockwork abruptly. The coloured clouds disappeared as the latch clicked.

“It’s probably just the breakfast cart,” her father eased her mind.

“What time is it?”

“Breakfast arrives around eight thirty on the weekends.”

“Dr. Sybling said Vanessa would pick me up,” Marith informed. “I guess I should get going.”

“Don’t you want something to eat?” Gene asked, gesturing at the caregiver that had appearing in the doorway.

“Oh, I am sorry,” the hefty lady started. “I can only hand out breakfast to admitted patients.”

Marith figured she technically was an admitted patient that morning, but she couldn’t possibly prove it and she wasn’t that hungry anyway.

“It’s okay. I’ll eat at Nick’s.” She hoped Vanessa could help her come up with a credible excuse for why she hadn’t spent the night in her bedroom at the mansion.

She said goodbye to her father, before he ordered his breakfast of choice and found herself in the sterile white and mint green corridors again. They were deserted this time. Likely, because everybody was eating.

A sense of curiosity and responsibility pulled her to the other side of the hallway, where the wallpaper with multi-coloured bears, unicorns and rainbows started. She followed it until she arrived at the place she had formerly met Etienne. The same brownish parchment paper that had only covered the mirror during her previous visits was now applied to the banner of wallpaper that depicted the kid-friendly images as well.

Marith rounded the corner and stood in the doorway of Etienne’s room. Sophie sat on a tiny chair at a lowered table, with her knees practically behind her ears and her back to the door opening. She was holding a bowl of what seemed like yoghurt and cereal.

Etienne looked over her shoulder at Marith and Sophie turned around holding a spoon mid-air.

“Good morning,” Sophie welcomed her, warm and cheerful. She seemed happy to see another adult.

“Hi,” Marith answered, standing awkwardly in the doorway, wondering what she was doing there again.

“He was halfway on a drawing and now he doesn’t want to eat,” Sophie excused herself for spoon-feeding a six year old.

“I see,” Marith responded, gazing around the room with Etienne’s dark, intense eyes on her.

The windows were still eclipsed. Marith noticed the mirror was dismantled from the opposite wall. The drawing of the Birdman on the parchment paper was naturally gone, but the sole drawings on sheets of paper were hanging in the same places as before. More drawings of perished birds had been added to the vacuum the mirror had left.

Inside the room the banner of wallpaper was taped off as well.

“What’s with the covered wallpaper?”

“I’ll show you.” Sophie got up, stretched with a sigh and peeled some tape, with parchment paper attached to it, back. Marith staggered, even though she didn’t know why this stuff still startled her. It might have been the juxtaposition of the yellow eyes and black bodies next to the rainbows.

“How could he even reach that high?”

“He pulled a chair to the wall. He seemed… possessed.” She clearly felt guilty even thinking that about the child. “He used crayons and markers,” Sophie continued.

“Yeah, I got that.” Marith continued to look around the room until her gaze rested on his desk, where he had stopped mid-drawing. Her eyes widened as the half-finished subject on the crayon filled paper dawned on her.

“You are with the others now, I reckon?”

“Yes, I guess,” Marith answered hesitant.

The nurse gave her a meaningful look that Marith barely registered as she kept staring at the desk.

“Doesn’t he have parents?” Marith suddenly wondered. The clinic would either have to hide this from them or had to find a way to explain it.

“No, social services brought him in. Dr. Sybling has somewhat of a reputation when it comes to the heavier cases.”

“What did she think about this?” She vaguely gestured at the creations of Etienne.

“That we need to hide it.”

Marith nodded, going back to staring at the metamorphosis of the wallpaper. It used to depict bears and the unicorns. The yellow eyes and black, fuzzy bodies Etienne had scratched over them had an odd attraction, as soon as the initial shock wore off.

With a lump in her stomach Marith realized Etienne may have never suffered from Spectrophobia. He hadn’t been afraid to see himself in reflecting surfaces, because that wasn’t what he saw in the first place.

“I need to continue my morning rounds,” Sophie shared. Since Marith was mentally absent and Etienne wouldn’t eat there wasn’t much left for her to do there.

“Have a nice weekend,” Marith maundered, as the nurse took the half-emptied saucer and used cutlery. She left the room, but not before she re-attached the tape to the wall on her way out.

Marith was relieved she was finally alone and scurried to the desk. She picked up the piece of paper. It was unmistakably a white, mute swan on a grey background.

“Is this his latest…?” She swallowed as she couldn’t finish the question. How could she discuss this with a six year old?

“You talk funny!” For the second time Etienne spoke at her directly. Marith smiled at him, slightly amused. Of course she couldn’t hear herself speak, but the kid was probably right about her having an accent.

She put the drawing back and turned around to face him. “I come from the Netherlands,” she started. “Do you know where that is?”

“No,” he shook his head. Marith understood she had Etienne’s attention, since he had never been this engaged with her before.

“Let me show you then.”

She walked over to his made up bed, sat on the edge and fished her smartphone out of an inside pocket. She was relieved to learn the phone was unscathed after several interdimensional free falls.

Etienne trotted eagerly across the room on his miss-matched striped socks, to join her. Above them he was wearing brown pants and a deep red, long sleeved polo shirt.

After perching next to her on the bed he brushed his mid-length black hair out of his face, so he had a clear visual on the screen. With a few practiced swipes Marith entered the satellite app. The clinic appeared to have Wi-Fi and her phone had made a connection with it.

“We are here,” she started, pointing at the pushpin that landed in the Northern regions of the Cascades in Oregon. She zoomed out for perspective.

“And…” she stroked across the screen to move the globe in such a way they crossed the United States and the Atlantic Ocean until Europe appeared. “…I used to live all the way down there.” Marith zoomed in on the Netherlands, an over-crowded patch of land, below sea-level, between Germany and the Nord Sea. She sort of missed it. Especially when she tried to grasp how much her life had changed in only a matter of weeks. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

“Wow,” Etienne brought out, poking at the screen.

“Do they have bears where you come from?”

“No,” Marith giggled. She showed him Scandinavia and Russia, where ‘they’ had bears.

“And do they have unicorns in the Neverlands?”

Marith wondered why she had never liked kids before. This one seemed alright.

“I am afraid not,” she chuckled.

“And do you have the bird-eater?” He asked in a less than ardent tone of voice.

“No, I don’t think so,” Marith tried to answer in a compassionate way.

She glanced at him and knew she couldn’t just leave him there, unprotected, with his unkempt hair falling over his sweet, sensitive face and his feet dangling innocently over the bedside.

“Can you see him? The Birdman?”

Etienne nodded demure and Marith thought she recognized the start of a pout.

“He’s looking for me,” Etienne spoke softly.

Goosebumps crawled over her arms as she heard him utter those words.

“Can he see you?”

He shrugged and sighed. He didn’t know.

Marith locked her phone and put it back in the inside pocket of her coat. As she lifted the heavy, dark blue garment two lumps clanked against the side of the bed.

She reached for the smallest instrument. Of course it had stopped running again. As she touched the cold, lifeless casing she realized it had returned to its dormant state, but she also knew it could do its job just fine.

“Here, this might keep you safe.”

He grabbed the clockwork greedily and, Marith didn’t forsake to notice, intuitively.

Outside the watery rays of sunlight informed her about the inbound winter as they didn’t carry any warmth. She hurriedly closed her coat and slipped on some gloves that she had borrowed from Lieke, while stomping over to Vanessa.

The tall, mysterious beauty had her back turned to the entrance of the building and stood facing the sun, breathing little puffs of mist.

“You said it was going to be like being baptised… mostly ceremonial!” Marith spewed, coming up behind her, observing a distinct lack of heaving lungs. Inadvertently she stopped dead in her tracks. Vanessa turned around with a shrewd smile.

She came to the peculiar discovery that everything around her send out stimuli, almost like electricity. The clean air she breathed, the forest floor below her feet, the ferns and the trees, just patiently standing there for almost-eternity.

Especially the animals carried an unmistakable energetic signature. Birds, deer, a fox. She could sense their presence too, even from a larger distance. It was as if she was having one of her rare lucid dreams.

The dampness of the forest connected her to their surroundings. She could take it in, all at once, if she tried. Was this what Brad had told her about, on their trip to the shore?

Reunited with nature it dawned on her that it was in fact all real. She could feel it, everywhere, and it was the most glorious feeling she’d even had. Resisting the urge to spread her arms and cock her head heavenward, like a drugged up hippy, her gaze returned to the silhouette that belonged to Vanessa.

“You can feel it, can’t you? I remember what it was like after my own Rebirth. The forest on this side of the lake is filled with life.”

Marith gave her a blank stare as her newly acquired senses marched all over the original ones. Vibrating cello strings linked the core of her consciousness to the elements and she wasn’t able to ignore it. A deer, slightly ruffling some ferns, on its way to lower terrain. Shards of mistletoe, getting separated from the canopy, whirling to the needle filled forest floor. A squirrel nibbling on an acorn, before deciding to bury it. She could easily catch details most people would only notice if they were pointed out in a nature documentary.

“Yes, I lied to you about your Rebirth,” Vanessa continued, not at all apologetic. “Would you have preferred the details about the Push up front?”

Marith heard what she said and she had a point, but she couldn’t possibly tear her mind away from the heartbeats. Big ones, small ones, slow ones, fast ones, all moving around blissfully, all living their lives as close to nature as the Web allowed in this dimension.

“And no, you won’t be informing Jonathan about what awaits him on top of that cliff this Thursday,” Vanessa finished warningly.

At that announcement Marith cut off the electrical pulses, connected to her brain by invisible cords, and turned to face who was clearly the ring leader of their Chain. Vanessa stood waiting for a response with her hands in the pockets of her leopard print fake fur coat and an expectant glare in her big brown eyes. The dark curling locks that cascaded down her shoulders framed her fierce face perfectly.

“This Thursday?” Marith repeated, taken aback.

“Yeah, Oracle wants us to crank up the Rebirth rate. I guess it can’t hurt to be ready for the Kid.”

“How will you do that then?”

“What?”

“Well, give him the Push. I foresee some issues regarding the execution of that. Jonathan is quite big... and strong.”

“Juliette has reserved the back room in the Drunken Den. It’s his birthday and his parents are… you know…”

“Yes, I know.” Marith nodded, glancing back at the clinic.

“So we organize a little get-together for him and then later on the evening we mix the Mist in one of his drinks to get him dizzy and drag him to the cliff.”

“Oh, that’s bad… and on his birthday too. Of all days! Wait… did I drink that Mist?”

Vanessa smirked conspiring. “Juliette mixed it into your glüh wine.”

“Unbelievable,” muttered Marith, shaking her head, even though she could believe it very well.

They went on their way, back to the other side of the lake. Meanwhile, Marith marvelled over the perfect sense of direction and orientation that she had acquired overnight. Vanessa shared some of her own insights and experiences regarding her Rebirth and the things she had learned afterwards.

Despite her earlier animosity Vanessa had come to feel like a friend, which was new, undiscovered terrain for Marith. She had never had much friends. Fleeting contacts and distant acquaintances had been her main source of human interaction in the past few years.

The bond she was cultivating with Vanessa felt warm and confidential, but the novelty of it made her feel like she was learning how to ice skate for the first time. She was cautious and considerate, because every wrong movement could make her slip and break some bones. The recovery of a mistake would last a lifetime.

They chattered some more, while Marith cherished their amity more with each uttered phrase, until they passed a sign informing them about various hiking options. A quick glance across the board taught Marith they were almost at the intersection at which several trails would come together and one trail would lead them up the cliff.

“That’s fast. Really fast.” Marith frowned. “Have you been slowing all those other trips down for me?”

“What other option had I?”

“I honestly can’t believe the difference.”

“You’ll get used to it. The Runners are even faster.”

Marith looked up at the path that led to the cliff. She thought about the rocky plateau she had been dragged across the previous night. There wasn’t much she remembered about the way up there, but some flashes of the meteor shower returned. Curiosity made her halt.

“Don’t even think of it,” Vanessa started.

“What?”

“You will only end up in Oracle’s dimension after that jump once. When you’re still human... That Mailbox is designed for mortals, before their Rebirth, with the right clockwork. There are rules…”

“Yeah, Oracle and Anica explained.”

“Anica?” Vanessa’s eyes flashed with surprise and Marith noticed how her heart skipped a beat.

“Yes, Oracle’s successor.”

“She was there?”

“Yup.”

“That is very good news, but let’s not spread this accidental victory around,” she said after some internal deliberation.

“What happens if one of us jumps after a Rebirth?” Marith wondered, as Vanessa was pondering the implications of having the next Oracle safe and sound in another dimension.

“Vanessa?”

“Huh?”

“What happens if I would take that jump after having had my Rebirth?”

“You end up in this dimension,” she started, an evil smile playing around her lips, “depending on the settings of your clockwork you either travel to another Hotspot or you simply hit the water.”

Marith contemplated that for a moment and decided that ending up on another continent after jumping was a very fast and cheap way to travel, although disturbing and possibly painful, if not harmful, to the body. Which led her to question how strong, or breakable, her body had become.

“What are we after our Rebirths? Oracle and Watchmaker are pretty clear constructs to me now, but what are we?”

“Good question. I don’t think anybody has ever bothered to name us, apart from the term Pupil. There are so very few of us on this planet. We have the current Chains, sometimes completed, often not, and then the remaining Elders, of course.”

“We are not immortal then?”

“Far from it. It’s harder to die for us and we die slower, but we CAN die, so don’t go putting your life at risk… not for things that aren’t worth it.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Marith chuckled nervously, as they continued.

Before she knew it, they had reached the part of the trail that arched around her family’s property at the lakeside. They looked down at the colourful and abandoned house, staring lonely at the grey lake.

An extended gaze informed them about low hanging mist that reached from the forest floor to the treetops. It covered the centre of town as well, like a thick, heavy blanket.

When they covered more ground the icy, dense fog turned their faces into pincushions, as the dampness prickled and crackled with electrical charge. Their hair turned humid, their clothes soggy and their hands clamp.

“How can it be so misty here and not on the other side of the lake?”

“I don’t know…” Vanessa attempted to peer through it and wasn’t successful. “It wasn’t this bad when I left the Bellevue earlier.”

She fished her clockwork out of the damp fur of her coat and flipped it open. Marith followed her lead. The mystical, twirling clouds that had eluded her timepiece in the clinic now constricted restless and erratic above the face of the clock. The swirl appeared pale and lacklustre. It was nothing like the playful hovering it had demonstrated before.

“What is yours doing?” Marith inquired, as if she knew what she was looking at.

“The same,” Vanessa answered, peaking at the machinery in Marith’s hands.

“The clouds behave different, compared to before. What does that indicate?” She found herself struggling to word what she tried to ask.

“The nebula has to do with the elements from the asteroid that are used in the clockworks. It is connected to the Web and tells us something about the state of the Web…” Vanessa’s voice trailed off, peering deep into her clockwork and turning it around to study the insides.

Marith did the same with her timepiece. The discs, wheels and gears had tiny markings on them, which had escaped her attention earlier, due to the density and colours the clouds had elicited. What she also hadn’t consciously noticed before was that the inside world appeared deeper than was possible when taking the flat, circular shape of the clockwork into account. The little universe within, that was made up by the layers of moving parts, would have made a non-magical clock bigger and heavier, more like the size of a mantle clock.

“Do you think it’s the Birdman again?” Marith whispered, closing her majestic piece of horological trickery.

“No,” Vanessa shook her head firmly. “This… is something bigger. It’s something that has happened. Something traumatic. I can feel it. It was animalistic, but not by an animal, or a human.”

After taking in that incoherent babbling with a frown Marith was at a loss for words and decided not to force a senseless sentence. She just stood there, trying to connect to their environment, despite the fact that the increasing mists blocked her view.

It wasn’t long before the vibrating strings searched the shoreline, the forests and even the outskirts of the town like tentacles. Vanessa had been right. Nature on this side of the lake was dead. She did sense some heartbeats further on with a human entity attached to them, and even some pets, but that was it.

Marith exhaled as she disconnected herself. “You’re right. I can’t sense anything big, so I guess the Birdman isn’t paying us a visit.”

“Let’s just go.” Vanessa sighed. “It’s only getting worse,” she referred peevish to the fog. She felt vulnerable and naked without the input of a Prophet or the protection of a Runner.

Their shrouded surroundings eluded muffled sounds, mostly distant traffic from town. The stones crunching under their feet had the effect of a fanfare on their eardrums, although the reach of the sound was likely limited to them.

“What do the markings on the little sprockets mean?” Marith asked soft-spoken, not to add to the noise they were already making.

“You’ve probably noticed already that we all have slightly different clockworks.”

“Yes.”

“It depends on the role we play, what our specific clockworks can do. The biggest differences are between the pieces the Mages, Runners and Prophets carry. The symbols on the gears indicate when it’s time for a group meeting or when there’s a Prophet or a Runner headed towards you with a message for instance. It can also inform about immediate danger or harm done to a Chain member. For the Runners the symbols that lock into each other can point out the status or location of the Prophet or Mage they need to visit.”

“So basically a very old fashioned smartphone?”

“Yeah,” Vanessa smiled. “I have never thought of them like that before. I guess they are fancy smartphones… but nobody can break into our communications when we use them. They are not a part of the Web, like the internet is.”

“I remember that from our very first assembly,” Marith reminisced. “Can it tell time, like an ordinary clock?”

“Yes, it can. Especially the Elders use it mainly as a timepiece. They check in on us and on each other occasionally of course, but apart from that they aren’t that actively involved anymore.”

Vanessa fell quiet as Marith digested all the new things she was learning.

“Who controls what we see?”

“Oracle decides and Watchmaker puts the messages through. And, as I said, the nebula responds to the Web. It vibrates according to the condition it’s in at that moment and in that place.”

Marith nodded. It sounded logical. More so, preventing the Kid from ever gaining control over their devices was an important and plausible goal.

The faint outline of the jetty came into view. Banks of mist rolled from the elevated woods right into the lake. An eerie chill creeped up on Marith’s spine.

“Does this one shield me from the Kid and the Birdman as well?”

“Yes, but given the fact that the Kid organized a train accident in an attempt to eliminate you, I suspect he knows who you are anyway,” Vanessa chuckled softly. “But we are harder to track, carrying these clockworks around.”

Marith nodded as they carried on. Although she felt ill at ease she tried to appreciate nature as it presented itself that day, the dark silhouettes of the massive pine trees, protruding from the restless fog, and the calm water, that sloshed gently against the stones on the shore, had a sinister beauty to it.

She saw it when they strolled past the jetty. Etienne had predicted it. He had seen it happen, probably. At least he’d had the decency to draw the swan in all its glory. In reality there were only blood stained rocks and scattered feathers left.

Marith had never given much thought to the amount of blood a big bird, like a swan, could carry. Why would she? In what situation was that relevant information?

“What a massacre,” Vanessa shared breathless and superfluous.

“Yeah,” Marith mouthed, barely audible to the average human ear. “Did you come past here? Was he dead before?”

“No, I went straight from the Bellevue to the clinic, through town. I don’t often come by this jetty.”

“This is Will’s swan…” Marith mumbled, still in shock.

“What?”

“When Will comes here to fish he feeds him… fed him.” She closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t have to take it in anymore, but then a protrusive, rusty smell started to plague her.

Marith rubbed her nostrils feverishly and tried to swallow it away.

Vanessa glanced at her. “It’s hard to oppress, this quick after your Rebirth.”

Blood, a black, sham-like paw and feathers were the only evidence the lone swan had ever lived. Marith pinched her nose and gave in to her morbid urge to grab one of the lesser blood stained feathers. She tucked it in the one inside pocket her coat had, next to her phone.

As so often in life, several things happened at the same time. While they took a moment of silence for the fallen bird someone came looking for them.

Frozen in a stage of fright that consisted of fast emerging goose bumps, flexed muscles and horror stricken eyes they peaked through the icy, white clouds, to no avail.

Vanessa grabbed Marith’s arm, bared her wrist and made immediate contact. It went faster and smoother than before and their brains synchronized instantly.

The Birdman? Vanessa asked in a tight state of mind.

No. Marith answered resolutely. The heartrate is very low, but it has a human entity… and it’s a woman.

Marith took a step towards the fast approaching heartrate and they lost contact. Obsessed with her new senses she tried to obtain more details of the speeding human.

“How do you…?” Vanessa started.

“It must be one of us,” she mumbled, almost lost in the search. It was during those moments that Marith learned that she was able to do something the others couldn’t.

Before Vanessa could start another dumbstruck question a bulky figure came into view, jogging towards them through the thick shards of fog. She didn’t seem to be hindered by the irregular pebbles on the shore. The Runner also didn’t produce the same crunching noises they had.

“I am one of you!” Juliette came to an effortless halt, right in front of the Mages. She was wearing aubergine coloured sweatpants, black sneakers and a non-matching coat, that seemed too thin for the current weather conditions. Her round face was flushed and the two big braids that traced her head seemed soaked as well.

“What were you guys looking at?” She asked directly, not at all out of breath.

“A shredded swan,” Vanessa shared dryly.

Juliette nodded, as if this news was in her line of expectations, and followed their gaze to the bloody remains of the slaughtered bird.

“Who are you running to?” Vanessa inquired in turn.

“Well, the two of you, actually.”

“Do tell.”

“Something has happened,” Juliette shared, in a different tone of voice.

Marith felt her unease and what had happened wasn’t great, far from it. She felt like she had swallowed an avocado pit and now her stomach was cramping and constricting around it.

“You need to come with me, to the mansion.”

“Does this have to do with the swan?” Marith asked, on an intuitive hunch. Her brainwaves had entered some kind of flow that could even process bits of knowledge that she hadn’t consciously noticed yet. This must be what researchers meant when they spoke of animalistic instinct.

Vanessa took in Juliette’s concerned demeanour and bared one of her own wrists. Marith hurriedly followed her example. Juliette grabbed both, with burning fingertips, and shot an overload of impulses through their central nervous systems.

Marith ran for the first time since her Rebirth, or since she hadn’t been forced to, so that would be since the train accident. As they took off, the air and the patches of fog around them turned into a blueish grey haze. The sensation was almost like flying, sitting on the back seat of a motor cycle, or diving off a ski slope, without taking possible obstacles into consideration.

Her asthma had definitely been abandoned on top of that cliff the previous night. She felt light and fast, even though Juliette was faster. Their speed turned the mist into shards of ice, cutting her face, but she ignored it. Something had happened to her sister, her own flesh and blood.

In a run that seemed to bend time and space they sped up the elevated terrains the mansion was built on. Ignoring the laws of nature and the limits of the human body they jumped over rocks and tree trunks, dove away for low hanging branches and navigated effortlessly through the shrouded world.

As they entered the thick forest on the outskirts of Nick’s property the roots were growing towards one another, like the trees felt the need to hold onto each other for support. Marith closed the ranks. She ran uninterrupted, with newly acquired and discovered agility. The possibility of slipping or tripping at this speed didn’t dare to cross her mind.

The shards of mist diminished as they ascended to the higher grounds. Irregular patches of fog rolled rapidly down the rocks that were scattered on the steep route.

The bright colours of the ambulance and the police car were visible at once. They were abandoned and stood patiently waiting for their chauffeurs on the gravel, in front of the terrace. The three Pupils sped past them, into the white mansion.

Even though she wasn’t aware, the cuts on Marith’s face were healed by the time they burst through the half opened front door. As soon as her boots hit the marble floor she noticed Brad, in full uniform. He had been expecting them and awaited them in, the otherwise empty, hallway, that seemed bigger every time Marith entered the house.

The three women halted abruptly, as Brad made a soothing gesture with his hands. “The paramedics are still with her. Apart from the mild hypothermia when she was found she seems to be alright.”

“Where is she now?” Marith looked at the stairs, that arched up behind him.

“On the couch in the living room… that one,” he clarified, pointing to his right.

Marith was already on her way. Vanessa and Juliette stayed behind. She could hear them talking about how Brad had gotten a call about a teenager found on the shore at the end of his nightshift and how he had called for Juliette as soon as Lieke was treated by the paramedics.

“We found her amidst the remnants of a carnage, covered in blood and feathers.”

Focussing on the living area, adjacent to the kitchen, Marith could discern four people. When she entered the dark, musky passage she could see a paramedic bend over the couch, performing some final check-ups, his co-worker packing up a bag and Nick sauntering around, looking helpless with his arms crossed over his torso for support.

As soon as he noticed Marith he hurried over to her. She allowed a quick hug, before taking pity on Lieke.

Her sister looked pale and haggard, laying halfway up on one of the smooth Chesterfield couches, wrapped in several blankets. The bottommost blanket seemed to be a Mylar blanket – that reflects the body temperature back to the patient – since the silvery material was still wrapped around her shoulders. Somebody, probably Nick, had thrown the dark brown fake fur that usually adorned the sofa over that one.

“What on Earth happened?” Marith informed taking place on the coffee table, still wearing her heavy coat, shoving some magazines aside.

Lieke started to speak, with difficulty. Marith wasn’t sure whether it was due to mental trauma or physical pain, but it was hard to listen to.

She explained with trembling hand gestures, often pausing and swallowing, recalling everything that had occurred in the previous twelve hours or so. Nick complemented the story when necessary. The paramedics mucked around a little longer, as she tried to make sense of everything. Apparently, they only knew the tail end of the story.

Brad, Vanessa and Juliette had entered the living room as well, keeping a respectful distance from the patient, but curious to see how she was and what she had to say. They stood in the shadows of the dimly lit interior, their hands buried deep in the pockets of their coats, taking in every little detail. Marith noticed from the corner or her eyes that Brad did make some notes on a little notepad, in the most inconspicuous way possible. She was curious what reality-twisting story he would come up with this time, to soothe his superiors.

Nick had taken Lieke home after the meteor shower – when Marith was having an adventure of her own – and they had gone almost straight to bed after checking on Olive.

“I don’t remember what time it was, but I woke up, hearing a voice.”

“What kind of voice?” Brad interrupted.

Lieke shrugged. “A male voice is all I know.”

“Young? Old?” Brad insisted, nervously playing with his pen.

“Your age, I guess.”

Marith nodded, encouraging her to go on. Lieke was quiet for a few moments, staring at the beige dog at her wrapped feet.

“What did the voice say?”

“Well, not much… it was a mental voice. Actually…” she breathed in, glancing slyly at the medics, “it was one voice that used several voices at the same time. They spoke simultaneously, but they came from the same person. I have no other way to explain it.” She sighed. “I don’t remember what it said, but it knew how to force me, how to make me understand what it wanted me to do… it wasn’t with words.”

Lieke had made and eerie trip down the stairs, through the front doors, descending the terrains around the mansion to the lake, aware of everything that was happening, unable to restrain herself.

“It was so sooo cold.” She almost sobbed, recalling being completely overpowered. Marith noticed Lieke was still wearing a pink pyjama, covered in white unicorns.

“I remember standing at the waterfront… and I just walked in. I had no control over it. As soon as the water reached my chest I couldn’t breathe anymore.” She inhaled strongly for the following part. “The only thing I remember after that,” she said, frowned and shook her head, trying to get the details right, “is being carried out, by an old man. I was in his arms. We were both completely soaked… and frozen… and then he just left me there.”

Chills creeped up Marith’s spine, the minuscule hairs on the back of her neck had a riot and her blood cells hadn’t determined the right course of action yet. To curdle or not to curdle?

“What makes you think he was old?” Brad informed.

“He had a beard, a very long one, and he was wearing some sort of dress. I guess it was a nightgown of some sort.”

“I have to go,” Juliette whispered to Vanessa and Brad. She had to run.

“Any other details? The colour of his eyes maybe?”

Lieke shook her head.

She then looked at the others for a possible explanation or maybe some shared outrage about the neglectful actions of this mysterious man.

“So the guy that saved you, also left you?” One of the paramedics questioned.

Lieke nodded ferociously at that. The ambulance workers clearly couldn’t wrap their minds around the sinister events.

“Maybe he did stay with you, but you can’t remember, because you were in and out of consciousness. Not being alert can warp your sense of time,” one of them suggested.

Brad closed his notepad, put it back in one of his pockets and wisely kept his mouth shut. Vanessa impatiently hopped from one leg to the other and Nick took in every word the medics uttered, nodding and asking more questions, trying to gain information to prevent this a second time.

“This was an extreme case of sleepwalking. The stress of finding yourself drowning might have altered your memories somewhat,” the other one - that had been standing around with the packed medical kit - acclaimed.

It became apparent to Marith they mostly tried to explain the whole ordeal to themselves, so they could leave the ghastly morning behind and move on with their shift.

“I don’t think it’s fair to blame this all on stress,” Lieke muttered, staring at Olive, who pointed her ears at anyone that spoke.

Marith felt for her. Her own mental issues had always been blamed on stress. Later she had found out it had just been a way for her mother and even the family doctor to not give it any more care or attention. It was indeed a poor explanation, but one that often made bystanders feel better.

When Nick let the first responders out and Lieke figured Vanessa and Brad were out of earshot she grabbed Marith’s wrists in a cold, clamp clutch.

Marith was met with wild, wide eyes.

“Marith,” her disturbed sister whispered, boring her stone cold fingertips in her sisters underarms, “there was something else.”

“Sure, what was it?” She asked compassionately, while trying to regain her arms.

Lieke shook her head and let Marith go to rub her face. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it… It was some kind of… monster. He sat on the jetty. It was like he had been waiting for that old man.”

She slid from English to Dutch and vice versa, but some of the more telling Dutch words had an overlap with the English language, so there was barely any point to switching language.

Marith peeked over the back of the couch to make sure Nick or any of the medics hadn’t heard. They would have her committed to the clinic or, at the very least, have her put on antipsychotic drugs.

“What kind of monster? What did you see?”

“Like a black dragon… without a neck or a snout… it had huge wings and yellow eyes. I walked past it when I entered the water. It just looked at me and I couldn’t run.” She shivered. Tears came streaming down her face.

Marith stared at her with a horror-stricken look. She didn’t want this for her little sister. Lieke had to be kept out of this dangerous, parallel world that dwelled in Sweet Lake.

“You think I am crazy,” Lieke cried.

“No, no, not at all,” Marith hushed, shaking her head. “Maybe you were hallucinating?” Marith suggested it half-heartedly and soon learned that that wasn’t going to be enough for Lieke to drop it.

“I know what I saw!” Her little sister sounded wronged.

“I believe you. Absolutely! No doubt.” Marith started rambling in an attempt to shake her sisters beliefs about the occurrence. “I believe that you saw it, but maybe it was a combination of coincidences. You were sleepwalking, having nightmares, somebody saved you from the lake, then people pulled their cars over, when they saw you lying at the shore. Brad came, an ambulance was called. It was probably chaos. Your mind just tossed it all together, like it happened simultaneously, even though it didn’t. I understand it’s confusing, but don’t you think what the medics suggested is a possibility? You have been under a lot of stress lately. Leaving Norway, moving to Oregon, you’re about to start at a new school, where you’re going to graduate...” Marith let her voice trail off, so her explanation of Lieke’s experiences could sink in.

Lieke shrugged and nodded faintly. “I guess it’s possible,” she answered, having to admit to herself it was all too strange to be real.

She fiddled with the furry blanket that covered the heat blanket and looked at her hands, while doing so.

“Did they leave together?” Marith suddenly wondered.

“The monster and the man? I don’t know. I think so. I wasn’t completely awake for that part. I can’t really explain it. It was like they were connected, but I don’t know how I know…” her lungs made an unhealthy wheezing sound, as she breathed in and out. “They just left me there, Marith. I could have died.”

“I know,” Marith whispered, patting her legs through the blankets she was under. “Why don’t I draw a bath for you? You need to get out of this pyjama and catch some sleep.”

Lieke nodded reluctant and pulled the blanket up, over her chest, as Marith arose from the coffee table and proceeded to the hallway. When she looked back she noticed a bloody feather sticking to the collar of her pink nightwear. She reached back to pluck it off. Lieke didn’t notice.

Vanessa and Brad stood waiting around the corner, like Marith had predicted. Nick seemed to be outside, presumably picking the men’s brains some more.

“It seems that evil has been unleashed.”

“We will make that abomination sorry to ever crawl out of that hellhole,” Marith spat with a fire that didn’t just surprise Vanessa and Brad, but also herself.

“What now?”

“Juliette is informing the others about the awakening. This was the Kid, there is no other way.”

“What will they do next? What should we do next?”

“The Chain is not complete yet. So, technically, there is no ‘we’,” Brad carefully reported.

“We wait for Oracle and Watchmaker to put a message through. Trust me, they are fully aware of the situation by now,” Vanessa assured.

“How do we keep our loved ones safe in the meantime?” Marith asked, defeated and powerless.

“The Kid cannot be that strong at this point. Besides, it’s not his goal to break us. He wants to find the successor of Watchmaker.”

“And Oracle,” Brad added.

Vanessa threw him her shrewd, signature smile. “According to this one she is already up there,” she said, nodding at Marith.

“That is very good news.” Brad nodded to himself, as he let that sink in. “I will keep an extra eye on Jonathan, until Thursday,” he decided.

“I’ll tell Juliette to do the same,” Vanessa answered.

It dawned on Marith how important it had become to finish the Chain as soon as possible.

“You think he would make a move on Jonathan again?”

“Judging by what he did last night he seems to enjoy toying with us. Killing one of us is counter-productive. That won’t serve him, right now.”

Vanessa and Marith nodded. The three Pupils fell silent as Nick re-emerged in the hallway. Brad’s radio crackled with a call-up. The tension being broke like that made them stagger.

“Speaking of serving,” he said, “duty calls. It seems that the mists have caused some accidents.”

Marith sighed. Deep down an old part of her was hit by a bottomless feeling of despair of what had happened to her sister. It was a hopeless and familiar sensation. Most big life events had felt irrelevant during her depressed years, but the part that was shaken this morning was a fraction of what could have been. The sadness that had hung over her like an apathetic cloud made place for a sense of purpose and a hunger for revenge. She didn’t feel frail or vulnerable anymore. Like she would stand a chance in an impingement now. Like she actually had a shot at belonging.

“I need to show you something that will deflect your attention somewhat,” Vanessa carefully started when they found themselves alone again, after examining the myriad of Marith’s facial expressions.

She made Marith pull out her new clockwork again. Since Nick had departed to the kitchen to produce some hot beverages she did as she was told. The magical machinery felt cool and heavy in her hands.

Vanessa showed her a roll of parchment that could be pulled out of the clockwork and that would shoot back into the side again if one let go of it. It was a manual that explained the markings and the combinations of symbols the sprockets could make by trundling into each other and staying put to convey a message. In other words, Marith had homework to do.

Nick wasn’t especially interested in why she hadn’t spent the night of the meteor shower in her bedroom at his place, but Marith came up with a courtesy excuse anyway. She wasn’t sure it was the stress she was under that sharpened her mind or if her Rebirth had made her more quick-witted, but the lie came fairly easy to her.

She had spent the night on Vanessa’s couch, because she hadn’t taken her copy of the key to his front door with her. He had driven them to town for the meteor party, after all. Losing herself in the crowd it had gotten later and later and she didn’t want to disturb Nick or Lieke by ramming the door knocker in the middle of the night.

He ate it up like a honey bun, warm from the oven, mostly concerned with Lieke and how it made him look that he hadn’t been able to prevent the whole ordeal. The most frequently uttered phrases that Sunday were: “Let’s not tell Gene”, “I think it’s best to keep your father out of this” and “This probably won’t happen again. Right?”

Marith did feel sorry for him, but she noticed she could now push that hindering emotion to the background fairly easily. She occupied herself with deciphering the coding on the discs, dials, wheels and gears of her clockwork, in her bed, while taking a bath and any other place she found herself alone.