Enigma of the Soul - Book 1 - Pieces (13 page)

Jack is sitting down with Devan eating dinner and talking about magic. Devan tells him about some of the easy spells just to test him.

“Can you teach me some of the easier spells so I may practice them? I wish to be as good as you are,” Jack breaks some bread in two and hands half to Devan.

“We will start with the easiest one first: how to find someone anywhere on earth. This spell was the first one that I learned when I was an apprentice.”

Devan takes a couple more bits of his food. Some of the juices run down the side of his cheek. Jack laughs a little. Devan stares at Jack for a couple of seconds then laughs out loud.

After dinner, Jack and Devan go to the backyard to practice this old spell. Devan draws a symbol into the dirt and tells Jack to imitate what he has done. Jack does so with ease. Devan slices his hand open to allows some blood to drip on the symbol. The symbol begins to glow red. Jack follows suit. His symbol also begins to glow.

“Repeat after me.” Devan speaks in Latin, “Show me the person that I am seeking.”

Devan speaks in English, “And then their name.” Devan speaks in Latin. “Show me the king.”

Jack does the same thing but asks for his real mother. He gets the shock of his life. Standing there in disbelief, Jack realizes that he has been lied to all of his life. He decides to confront her about it and other matters at hand. Jack decides to get some more information out of Devan about more spells.

“Once you find them then what?” Jack asks.

“Then you can teleport and kill them.”

“How do you do that?”

“Another spell that I cannot teach you right now.”

“Come on, Devan, didn't you see how easy I did this,” Jack points to the symbol on the ground. Devan nods his head in agreement.

“Okay, last one for tonight. First you have to modify this symbol like this,” Devan erases lines on the outer sections to put different circles and waves to complete it. “Next, stand on top and picture where you wish to go, and then you are there. However, it is a one-way ride. You must make another symbol on the other side to come back.”

“Just think of where I want to be and I am there. You make it sound easy,” Jack smiles at Devan.

“It is just that easy. Now, with that, I am going to bed,” Devan walks to the house. Just as he steps onto the first step, a flash of light bounces off the room's exterior.

“Good luck, kid.”

Jack arrives in the castle of his aunt. He knows this castle inside and out because he always played there before he ran away from his home. This time was different. He was different. This time he knew the truth. For
years, he knew something was not right, but he had no proof. Now he will confront his real mother and ask who is his real father, for the last time.

Causally, Jack makes his way up to the queen's private room. He remembers playing in there when he was just two years old. The queen would shoo her hired help away and tell the guards not to let anybody through the chamber door. They would play for hours upon hours, only the queen and him. Everything changed when he became three and a half years old. The queen announced that she was pregnant and she would need more time to herself. Jack was slowly pushed to the side as the months passed. One month before the queen was to give birth, she sent for Jack, and he came. This would be the last time that Jack would see the queen's face. That day still burnt in his mind. The queen was bedridden and all he wanted to do was play. Instead of playing, she read stories to him all day long until she fell asleep with him in her arms. They would lie there until a servant woke them. When Jack was leaving, he turned around to say good-bye. A single tear ran down his cheek as he watched a tear run down the queen's cheek. As the door closed behind him, Jack heard the queen break out in tears. The queen cried herself to sleep due to the decision that she had to make.

Jack remembers the secret passage to enter the queen's room from the dead end hallway. A large painting hangs in front of the hidden door. Reaching up for the candlestick holder, Jack hears something or someone coming down the hallway. Quickly, he turns the candlestick holder to reveal the hidden passageway. Swiftly closing the door behind him, Jack stands in silence, listening for a couple of minutes. Then he presses onward up the stairs into the queen's room.

At the top of the stairs, Jack stands in front of the door and shakes with fear. Jack questions himself for what he is about to do. Then the voice inside of his head that always talks to him when he feels scared speaks up.

‘You have come this far. Do not turn back now. Now is not the time to have second thoughts; now is the time to act for what you know is the truth. If you turn back now, you will not sleep a night again. You must do this.’

Jack opens the secret passage to find the queen's room empty. He sees the queen's bed and a smaller bed several feet away from it. There are two large chairs sitting in front of the fireplace. Jack remembers lying on the rug that the chairs set on listening to the queen tell him stories. Now the chairs are facing the opposite way, into the room instead of the fireplace.

‘Move them back Jack,’ the little voice in Jack's head says.

Jack turns the chairs around he looks at the fireplace.

‘Light a fire, Jack,’

Jacks toss a couple of logs into the fireplace, put some twigs under the logs, and proceeds to light a fire. As the fire begins to get larger, Jack sits down in the chair that has its back facing the main entrance to the room.

Thousands of thoughts are racing through Jack's head as he stares at the fire. A couple of hours go by, and no one enters the room. Jack begins to wonder if he has done the right thing. Not long after that feeling, Jack hears someone come up to the door. The door opens, and a young lady comes into the room. She does not notice Jack sitting in the chair, watching every move that she makes. Then the queen enters the room, notices the chairs are turned and that there is a fire going.

The queen turns to the young lady, “Please leave the room and shut the door behind you.”

The young lady bows to the queen and leaves the room closing the door behind her. The queen sits down in the empty chair and stares at Jack.

“I have been waiting for this day for a very long time now. You ran away too soon, and I never got to tell you something,” the queen holds back the tears.

“I already know that you are my mother,” Jack can see his reflection in his mother's eyes, but all he can feel is torment tearing at his soul. “You lied to me all those years. You told me that you where my aunt. But you treated me like a son that you never had. All those years that I slept in a bed, in another house, and you made me think that those two people were my parents for all those years, you dirty person. You are not a mother.”

“Look here, young man. I had to choose. The king made me choose between you and the crown. I chose the crown because I had a better chance to take care of you. If I had the crown, then I still had power. Power to change people's minds. Power to change the laws of this great land. Power to...”

“Power to leave your child behind.”

“I didn't forget you.” The queen looks away, “I had a new baby that is your half brother.”

“You never once sent for me after that day. I remember the last day that we had together. You just tossed me to the side for a new child, that is now a prince you spoil rotten every day.” Jack pauses for a couple of seconds, “Damn you. Damn you and the king.”

“Jack, dear, you never let me finish. I came by five days after you ran away, but by then, it was too late. I told the people that were taking care of you, to send you immediately to the castle to talk with me because I talked to the king about…”

“Who is my father?”

“And …” the queen got silent. “Jack, your father is dead.”

“You lie! All you ever do is lie!”

“I am extremely sorry, honey, but your father is dead.”

Jack stands up and walks over to stand in front of his mother. Their eyes meet. The queen sees the same look on Jack's face as she saw on Devan's face the night he beat her just before she left him.

“He is dead,” the queen replies, as she knows that something bad is about to happen.

Jack grabs the fireplace poker, heats up the pointed end in the fireplace and jams it into the queen's shoulder. She lets out a scream from the pain.

“He is dead.”

A flash of light and pain blinds the queen and memories flood her head about Devan beating her until she could cry no more. He would grab whatever was close to him. It did not matter what object it was, just as long as the object would hurt her badly. One beating always stuck in her head and never wanted to let go. This beating would be her last one from Devan because she would come to know the monster that slept within. She does not remember what was said, only that it made Devan angry. It was just the two of them in Devan’s study when it happened. After four bruised ribs, a black eye, and scars all over her body; she left that night to escape Devan’s wrath. With the power and connections of her father, she escaped to her new home, this home.

Jack thrusts the hot poker into her other shoulder.

“He is dead!”

“Who is he?” Jack screams and hits her repeatedly.

“It is the king!”

“Liar! Stop lying to me!”

Each hit accelerates the violence. Then the Queen screams out his father's name.

“Devan! Devan is your father!”

The queen screams but Jack is swinging his arms too fast to stop. The final blow, delivered to the queen’s head, and a cracking sound brings the room to a stand still.

Jack backs away as he looks in horror at what he has done. Taking the secret passageway to get out of the castle, Jack pays a large price to learn the secret of his real father.

Now he has no mother once more.

On top of Mountain Segreto Degli Dei, which translates from Italian as Secret Mountain of the Gods, David sits in the cold snow with Alfonzo resting on his shoulder. For once, David feels cold on his face. Thunderous winds blow around them, but like the mountain, David and Alfonzo are secure to that one spot.

Alfonzo falls asleep on David's shoulder after the long flight. David's mind races with thoughts of loneliness, entrapment, regret, misery,
self-doubt, and above all, hatred for everything and everyone in his past that has done him wrong. Feeling as though there is nothing that he can or could do right, David just sits rocking slowly back and forth. Trying not to cry, he sits there thinking about all of his family that he has lost; first his parents, then Sara, next Gale, shortly after that Dale, and lastly, Joanne.

'Why could this happen to a person like him? What god would allow all this violence to happen to one person's family?'

David reaches down and scoops some snow up into his hand. He holds it in front of his face to watch his breath melt it slowly. Knowing that a fire still burns deep down inside of him, David takes a mouthful of snow. The cool wetness slides down his throat, sending a chill up his spine. Alfonzo shakes a little bit then goes back to sleep.

Everyone that David ever knew died or got hurt because of him. Thinking back to the past, David realizes that he almost forgot about his lost brother, Markus, and sister, Wendi. He wishes that he knew where they where so he could give them a large hug and tell them that he loves them. David puts his arms around himself, giving himself a huge hug.

'Wherever you are Markus and Wendi, that was for both of you.'

David picks up Alfonzo, lies down in the snow, and falls asleep lying with Alfonzo in his arms. The next morning David wakes up with Alfonzo laying across his chest in a deep sleep. Aching pains cover his body.

'That is the last time that I sleep on top of a mountain.' David sits up while holding Alfonzo in his arms.

He realizes that the view is breath taking.

'I am looking at heaven.'

Realizing that his family will never experience the wonders that he will get too, tears fall off David’s cheeks, and become freeze to his clothing. A couple of drops falls on Alfonzo and melts instantly.

Coming awake from a deep sleep Alfonzo asks, “Are we still on top of that mountain?”

“Yes, we are, and it is breathtaking,” David says as he holds Alfonzo in his arms.

“Good, wake me up when you feel like leaving.”

“I would like to talk, if that is okay with you? I need to talk to someone even if they don't talk back.”

“Then talk away,” Alfonzo tries to get comfortable but without much luck. Alfonzo settles down, and David begins to speak.

“When I was a little boy I used to make believe that I was able to fly, swim underwater without breathing, and jump as high as a building. Now that I can do all these things, I don't want to. I just want my family back because the pain that burns in my chest is an empty hole that grows with every death I experience. I am all-powerful now, but I can't stop a loved one from dying. These powers are useless if I cannot stop a bad person from hurting good people. I should find a cave to live in and disappear off of this earth.”

The more that David talks, the further that he falls into a deep dark depression. His world closes in on him making David feel alone.

Alfonzo wakes up and looks up at David staring deep into his eyes.

“Would you like me to take you to a place to grieve over your family?”

“Yes, that would be nice,” David replies letting Alfonzo go.

Alfonzo soars above David's head and begins to grow. David watches Alfonzo grow ten times her usual size.

“I am going to do some ancient magic now. Please don't be scared.”

“I am not scared. Only sadden by the thoughts of my family,” David blinks and everything melts into black and white with a contrasting gray scale.

David thinks, 'Why me? Why now? Why ever?’

Alfonzo lands on David's shoulders and absorbs him. David's body and soul now reside within Alfonzo. Alfonzo flies towards a place that few people ever seen. No human has entered it’s walls in more than ten thousand years. Alfonzo flies straight towards the Garden of Eden.