Eternity (13 page)

“Maybe you
should call for Isadora,” I said, half joking. “She’ll show up and
then you’ll be as convinced as I am that we’re two different
people.”

Heather rolled
her eyes. “That wouldn’t work. Hey, maybe we should call Amun
ourselves! Then we would know the truth.”

“Heather,” I
said, getting frustrated. “I’m not Isadora.”

“You really
could be, and I want to know the truth. I’m not giving up, and I’m
still going to listen in to find out what the teachers are
saying.”

“Don’t get your
hopes up, Heather. I really don’t see what could come of all
this.”

“Well, we’ll
find the truth, one way or the other.”

Chapter
17

Classes started
up again early in January. I wasn’t too upset by that. I actually
kind of missed some of my classes over the break, since they were
pretty interesting. Ms. Coleman, as usual, did not disappoint on
our first day back.

“Today I’d like
to discuss some important places with you. Has anyone here ever
been to Asantis or Nevali?”

A small dark
girl in the back of the classroom raised her hand, but she was the
only one.

“I’m
surprised,” Ms. Coleman said. “Most people have never been to
either, except the people who live there. Perhaps you’d like to
describe your experience, Ms. Ali?”

The girl stood
up and looked around shyly. She cleared her throat quietly before
starting to speak. “I went to Nevali with my mother when I was
fourteen. She had been born there, but she moved when she was
little, and she wanted to take me there to see it. We had to
journey across the desert on camels for two days to get there, but
it was worth it. It was the most amazing city I’d ever seen. It
looks like a mountain from a distance, but when you get closer you
see that it’s really a bunch of buildings on many levels, like the
tiers of a cake. The palace is at the very top, but few people go
there. I’ve never seen a city so full of happy people before. The
streets were always filled with music and dancing.”

“That does
sound quite a bit like what I’ve read of the place. Thank you for
sharing,” Ms. Coleman said. “Nevali and Asantis are the sanctuaries
of the gods. Only those who are lucky can even find them, since
they are both well hidden from the world. If they were not, I’m
sure they would be the most popular destinations in the world.

“Nevali was
created four thousand years ago by Amun. It is said to be located
somewhere in the Saharan desert, but there’s no way to prove that
scientifically because of the magic that protects it. It’s a tiered
city, as Ms. Ali said, and it’s occupied by a few hundred people
who are very well taken care of. I doubt that there is a more
serene place to live than in the city of a god.

“Asantis is
Isadora’s sanctuary, and it’s designed a bit differently than
Nevali. It isn’t a city, but an island. It is said to be located
somewhere in the South Pacific, but it’s also well protected.
There’s a castle on one part of the island, and three different
cities on the other part. Their names are Luma, Terra, and Morta.
All three cities are said to be quite small, but very beautiful.
Some say that Luma is the most spiritual place on Earth, since
there is a temple there in which one can communicate with their own
soul. Morta also holds special significance because it is the only
place on the planet where people can communicate with the dead,
since they do not walk the earth, as some people think. I believe
Terra is a farming community that supplies food to the other
cities. I know little about the castle, but I’ve read that it’s
quite large and almost like a maze because there are so many rooms,
some of which hold special significance.

“Both of these
places were created by the gods, so they’re both very special. They
are not, however, the only places that they have created. I should
explain something before I tell you about the next place.

“The gods have
unlimited power, so they can do anything they wish. Even though
they have so much power, they don’t like to interfere too much with
the world and its people. When they were quite young, they
developed three main rules related to what they should never do.
The rules were that they would not kill, turn back time, or bring
anyone back from the dead. I can’t say these rules have never been
broken, but they were all made with good reason.

“The gods
wanted to protect the world from bad people, but because of the
rules and their own moral standards, they refused to kill any of
them. Instead, Amun created a place to keep prisoners who were a
danger to other people. No one is sure where it is exactly, but
it’s inside of a mountain. The world’s worst people are kept there,
but it isn’t a big place, so there are still many bad people who
are free or in other prisons. Not much is known of the place except
what was in Amun’s own writings, since no one who has gone in there
has ever come out, except the gods themselves.

“The next place
I would like to tell you about is somewhere I’ve actually been.
It’s a temple located somewhere in the middle of a forest in
France. There’s an old woman who lives in a cottage at the edge of
the forest, and she leads people to the temple. I’m not sure which
of the gods created it, or if they made it together, but it’s an
interesting place. It’s in classical Greek style, surrounded by
pillars. It isn’t very tall, and it’s rectangular. When you go in
through the door the first things you see are the statues, which
are in the middle of the room. They are life-sized statues of the
gods, made of white marble. The walls are covered with writing, but
in a language that no one knows, so no one knows what it says. When
I was there the floor around the statues was covered in flowers,
lain by people coming to ask for help. It is said that almost any
wish will be granted if you make it standing in the temple. Indeed,
when I asked, my own wish was granted.”

Heather raised
her hand. “If you’ve seen the statue of Isadora, does that mean you
know what she looks like?” she asked.

Ms. Coleman
chuckled. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “Her statue wears a veil, so
all you can see is her forehead and a faint outline of her nose and
lips. It isn’t nearly enough to be able to recognize her, though
I’m sure she’s very beautiful. She doesn’t live out in the open as
Amun does in his own way, so I don’t think she wants to be
recognized.”

“Oh,” Heather
said, clearly disappointed.

Ms. Coleman
continued to talk about the places for the rest of the class, and I
listened closely with interest. I had a hard time imagining cities
built by gods, but they sounded like magnificent places. There was
also something about what she said that weighed heavily on my
mind.

When class
ended most people left immediately to get to their next classes on
time, but I lingered at my desk until everyone else had gone,
telling Heather I would catch up to her. Ms. Coleman looked
surprised when she realized that I was still there.

“Can I help you
with something, Juliet?” she asked.

“I hope you
can,” I replied. I walked up to her desk and lifted the chain from
around my neck. I set the keys in front of her on her desk, and she
gasped when she saw them. She reached out reverently to touch them.
She gently took them in her hand and stroked the smooth black key
with her thumb.

“Where did you
get these?” she asked.

“They were
given to me on Christmas,” I explained. “The note that came with
them didn’t have the sender’s name on it. Do you think that these
keys have something to do with the three cities of Asantis?”

“Undoubtedly.
I’ve heard of these keys. Isadora kept them with her. They unlock
the doors between the underground passages of the castle and the
three cities. I didn’t think I’d ever actually get to see them.
This is the closest I’ve ever been to anything of hers.”

“You really
think I’m her, don’t you,” I commented.

Ms. Coleman
looked surprised again. “How did you know about that?”

“It doesn’t
matter. I don’t think it’s true anyway.”

“I don’t expect
you to believe it. You wouldn’t have made it so easy for yourself.
I do wonder who gave you these keys. Perhaps you left them in
someone else’s safekeeping, and that person realized that you were
beginning to question yourself so they gave them back to you. It
could have been Amun himself.”

I shook my head
and gathered my keys to put them safely around my neck. “It’s just
a theory,” I said. I hurried off to my next class before she could
argue with me.

Chapter
18

That day in
Skills Development I paired up with Melissa so that we could work
on our abilities together for the first time. She was getting a lot
better at controlling her fire, so I figured it would be fairly
safe. She was more eager to test my ability than I was, since being
close to fire still made me a little nervous.

When we were
both ready, with a fire extinguisher nearby at my request, Melissa
lit a fire and held it carefully in her palms. She told me to hold
my hands out over the desk, so I did. I started to get nervous when
she slowly started to bring her hands under mine. I panicked and
pulled my hands away before she got too close.

“Jules, we’ll
never be able to see if you can handle this if you won’t even try,”
she complained.

“Sorry. It just
seems a little crazy to let someone try to burn me. It goes a
little against nature, don’t you think?”

“All of us are
freaks of nature. Get used to it, and hold out your hands.”

I sighed and
held out my hands, but I closed my eyes. I knew I would move my
hands away again if I saw the fire coming.

“Hey look, it’s
working!” I heard Melissa say. I couldn’t feel anything, but I
opened my eyes and had to fight the urge to pull my hands back.
Melissa’s hands were a mere inch underneath my own, and the fire in
her hands licked harmlessly at my fingers. I couldn’t help but
grin.

“Nice work,
ladies,” Mr. Ramirez said as he walked by.

“This is kind
of awesome,” I said. “I wonder if I could do it with my whole
body.”

“It might be
better to try that in a safer environment with a change of
clothes,” Melissa said. “Still, it would be pretty awesome.” She
sounded wistful.

“We should do
it. We’re both resistant to fire, so we could do it together. We
just need to find a place.”

“We could do it
out by the lake. That way we’ll be out of sight, away from the
trees, and close to a water source.”

“Sounds
perfect. Let’s do it tonight, after bed time.”

“What if we get
caught?”

“Just blame it
on me,” I said. Melissa laughed, and she agreed.

We switched
partners halfway through the class, and I ended up with Rhea. I had
never seen her use her ability before, so I was a little excited. I
brought out some paper to work on a drawing, but I didn’t end up
drawing anything. I was too interested in what Rhea was doing.

She had a
simple dark blue coffee mug on her desk. She picked it up and held
it with one hand, and she ran a finger of her other hand over its
surface in a pattern. I watched as gold streaks appeared where her
finger touched the mug. She drew a flower, and looked pleased with
herself until she looked inside the mug.

“Darn,” she
said.

“What?” I
asked. “That was amazing!”

“I was trying
to only put the pattern on the outside, but it went all the way
through,” she explained. She tilted the mug so I could see inside.
The pattern was there as well.

“Still, that’s
awesome. You must be rich,” I said. Rhea just laughed, shaking her
head at me.

Melissa and I
snuck out that night as planned. Heather decided to come with us
after Melissa told her what we were going to do. I didn’t think it
was a good idea, but I couldn’t convince her to stay no matter how
hard I tried. Rhea, thankfully, was asleep when we left. I didn’t
want to risk getting her in trouble too, though I doubted she would
have come even if we asked. She seemed to have a little more sense
than the rest of us.

Somehow we
managed to get out of the school unnoticed. It was a little harder
getting across the open yard, especially with teachers patrolling
the grounds. We had to take a longer route so we would have more
tree cover to keep us hidden.

When we got to
the lake Adrian was there. I wasn’t expecting to see him, but it
was probably one of those places in which he spent most of his
time, away from the rest of the school. He was in wolf form, but
luckily he could tell who we were because he saw us coming from a
distance and didn’t attack us. The other girls freaked out for a
second before I told them it was a werewolf, not a wolf, though
they weren’t too comfortable with that either. He sat by the water
and watched us intently, since he didn’t know what we were up
to.

Melissa and I
had both worn our oldest and ugliest clothes because they weren’t
expected to survive. We each had a change of clothes that Heather
was in charge of holding. She sat on the dock to watch us, and kept
at a distance from Adrian. Melissa and I spent a few minutes
gathering dry sticks from the woods to keep at our feet. They
weren’t actually necessary considering that Melissa could create
and maintain fire with no fuel, but she said it was easier to have
it anyway. When we had enough we went back to the edge of the
lake.

“Ready?”
Melissa asked. She couldn’t help but smile widely with
excitement.

“Definitely,” I
answered. “It’s time to light up!”

Melissa started
the fire in her hands like she usually did, and then she bent over
and held the flame to the wood at her feet. Adrian watched with
wide eyes as the wood caught on fire. When Melissa lit the wood at
my feet he turned human, ignoring his naked state as usual.